Shiva Shiva Shiva Shambho

Embarking on a new adventure

Well, tomorrow marks my last day in NYC [for now, anyway]...

I'm getting all nostalgic just thinking about it (but oh so excited!). My time here has been inspiring, intimidating, scary, exciting, educational, heartfelt, painful, chaotic, colorful, eye-opening, textured, etc etc. So many things! I can hardly believe it's been two years.

It's time for me to go though, this much I know. Sometimes you just feel what your next move must be. And for me, it's a farming adventure in Europe! I am so eager to turn the page and begin the next chapter, but first, a little reflection upon NYC and my time spent here.

It's true what people say...New York is a city that truly has it's own personality. I feel not so much like I am leaving a place, but more like I am bidding farewell to a collage of stories, songs, emotions, and energy. NYC holds a special place in the hearts of countless people, and now it does in mine too.

I landed what seemed to be my "dream job", right out of college and moved here eager to dig into this city, this stranger. I was laid off 6 months later, got another great job soon after, made friends, lost friends, went to museums, took classes, listened to myself, listened to others, went to concerts, shows, BBQs, rooftop parties, parks, etc etc. NYC has tossed me all over the emotional spectrum and it has shared with me a unique beauty everyday.

But my time with NYC has come to a close and it feels quite perfect. This city has urged me to self-reflect and to become the best version of myself. For me, that means exploring, doing the things I've imagines doing, and taking leaps...even if I don't know where I'll land. And that's what I'm doing now, I am leaping. And I cannot wait to see where it takes me!


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Top things I will miss about NYC:

1/ my friends!
2// mud coffee
3/// MOMA
4//// bikes bikes bikes, all around the city
5///// sidewalk culture
6////// being able to walk everywhere
7/////// the street art
8//////// central park
9///////// laundry service (she sheepishly admits)
10////////// the easy spontaneity of social gatherings


Things I, eh, won't miss so much:

1/ the subway
2// general lack of nature
3/// the effort it takes to be alone in a place other than your apartment
4//// sirens
5///// trash heaps on the sidewalk
6////// slow people on sidewalk and general congestion on sidewalks
7/////// rent
8//////// NYC grocery shopping
9///////// the endless array of weird smells
10////////// constant street and building construction

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On another note, I think this is cool:





Lena Goldsteiner came up with a beehive for your balcony, backyard or rooftop garden. Who said that living in the city means you can’t keep bees?

As a beekeeper, you are direct observer of the symbiosis of animal, plants and human. Inspired by Richard Buckminster Fullers theory of Synergetics and Albert Einstein direct and simple conclusion:


“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe the man would only have 4 years of life left.

NO MORE BEES
NO MORE POLLINATION
NO MORE PLANTS
NO MORE ANIMALS
NO MORE MAN.”

- Albert Einstein

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Will write more soon, really!



<3

I dream this life, walk this world

Roanoke Pastorale

by David Huddle



Cardinal, goldfinch, titmouse, turkey buzzard—

dear companions of my afternoons—

above this field, high clouds dream of blizzards



to snow me in till spring ends my solitude.

Sober’s my binge now, nature my saloon.

Wren, mourning dove, house finch, turkey buzzard—



for your entertainment, I sing the words

of old fifties songs, use baby talk, croon

as I walk the field beneath great blizzard-



dreaming clouds. You gaudy pretties, sweet birds

of my senior years—my later’s my soon.

Catbirds flit through cedars in the graveyard,



turkey buzzards swirl their patterns overhead,

across the mountainside sunlight bows a tune

rising to blue eternity but heard



by the heron fishing the creek, wizard

of stillness, creature designed by the moon.

Bluebird, jay, chipping sparrow, turkey buzzard,

clouds, and field—I dream this life, walk this world.




[Congrats to Professor Huddle! Amazing poem...]

Daily insight: impermanence

I just discovered that Yoga Journal online has a nice little "Daily Insight" column. Nice! I surely won't say no to a little insight. Here's today's:

As the Buddha said, impermanence is the nature of the human condition. This is a truth we know in our minds but tend to resist in our hearts. Change happens all around us, all the time, yet we long for the predictable, the consistent. We want the reassurance that comes from things remaining the same. Yoga philosophy offers an alternative to these tendencies. It is to embrace the powerful truth: the power of living in the unchanging, eternal present.

We can even look to our yoga mat to watch the attachment pattern play itself out. We often find ourselves attached to a never-ending process of "improvement" in our asanas. They do improve quickly at first—in the beginning, we are on a honeymoon of discovery; we grow by leaps and bounds in ability and understanding. After a couple of decades, however, our poses change much less. Oftentimes, we can no longer practice certain poses because of age or injury, yet we feel agitated because we assume that the poses of our youth should be the poses of our middle and old age.

What gives life its juice is the ability to mourn anything fully and simultaneously know it doesn't ultimately matter. In other words, we can live to the fullest when we recognize that our suffering is based not on the fact of impermanence but rather on our reaction to that impermanence.

Trust Yourself

...how about....yourself!


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I know, I know. I have been slacking with the posts lately. Been quite a busy bee...all good stuff and I promise to tell you all about it!

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Let Us Go Then
by Ciaran Carson

through the trip
wired minefield

hand in hand
eyes for nothing

but ourselves
alone

undaunted by
the traps & pits

of wasted land
until

you stoop
& pluck

a stem
of eyebright

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The Vanishing of the Bees



Honeybees have been mysteriously disappearing across the planet, literally vanishing from their hives. Known as Colony Collapse Disorder, this phenomen has brought beekepers to crisis in an industry responsible for producing apples, broccoli, watermelon, onions, cherries and hundred of other fruits and vegetables. Commercial honeybee operations pollinate crops that make up one out of every three bites of food on our tables.

Vanishing of the Bees follows commercial beekeepers David Hackenberg and Dave Mendes as they strive to keep their bees healthy and fulfill pollination contracts across the U.S. The film explores the struggles they face as the two friends plead their case on Capital Hill and travel across the Pacific Ocean in the quest to protect their honeybees.

Here’s how you can take action:

Brighten up your garden with some bee-friendly flower seeds. Plant wildflower seeds in your garden, patio pots or window boxes to provide essential nutrition for bees.

vanishingbees.com

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...don't be such a gas-hole.

Topos Graphics together with friend Sarah Riegelmann designed this “Gashole magnet”, as part of a personal anti-SUV guerilla campaign.

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Kolelinia is a concept for riding bikes on a new type of bicycle-lanes, based on steel wires. I'd definitely give it a try!

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!

Happy Monday, indeed

Hey, [your name here]... It's OK. Everything is fine. You've always been guided. Even now you are watched, and held, and adored. You've made great stuff happen, and you will make more great stuff happen. You've changed lives. You've changed your own. You've moved mountains and done the impossible. You've been scared and you overcame. You've been knocked down and you rose. And you've been lost, or so you thought, only to discover it was just the calm before another storm of creativity, love, and fun.

Humbled like the rest of 'em,

The Universe




<3

The sound of sawing in the woods

...this morning I walked downstairs to find a pleasant surprise! Instead of a massive pile of recycling cluttering the ground floor, there was one lovely red rose in the recycling box. Pretty great. Had to take a picture. Little things like this make me smile.



*******************
...

How many times we threw off our shoes
and danced together,
the cool ground under our soles.
And the mud! churned by feet, and horses,
ox-carts and cows.
The open throats
and closed eyes,
that red ringing
inside my heart.

...

...in fragments or in one coiling brightness

Orange Girl Suite [excerpt]
by Simone Muench

1:
Young women carrying baskets of oranges used to stand near the stage in London theatres and sell oranges at sixpence apiece and themselves for little more

between dresses we came.
between naked and nothing
we slipped into the delirious
coils of perfected ears,

pear dust on our skin
sarsparilla sounding our
fizzied song in sailor mouths.

we were translated by churchwomen
who placed umlauts over our words.

when we recovered, we were sold
in beautiful clothes, sent sailing into the gulf
where the moon pitched
its lemon-lateness over the celluloid

slickness of sea. we were movie stars
who never entered the frame.
we were green and gone

lisping "o" words in the air:
ode, odalisque, obituary.


2:
The rynde of the orrendge is hot, and the meate within it is cold

there are only two ways
to peel an orange
in fragments or in one
coiling brightness.
let us rewind and revel
in the orangeade of sun-
decked eyes. turn me spinning
in a carousel-sweet dress
ear marked by radio teeth
red leaf breath.
your arm is on fire
as we ride in a dark
car to the carnival.
the constant clink
of seatbelt to belt buckle.
the sky's cotton candy
melting in a girl's cold mouth.

New Adventure! C'est Vrai, mes amis, c'est vrai

It's true, it's true! I am traveling around Europe this summer as a volunteer for various organic farms!

Still in the midst of planning, but we're (my friend LS and I) starting in Italy, then to Switzerland or Ireland, then to Greece, Portugal, France or Turkey. Will keep you posted and tell you all about it soon!

...has anyone ever been to these places? If so, put in your two cents!

Tic clocks toc don't make a toctic different

9.
by E. E. Cummings


there are so many tictoc
clocks everywhere telling people
what toctic time it is for
tictic instance five toc minutes toc
past six tic

Spring is not regulated and does
not get out of order nor do
its hands a little jerking move
over numbers slowly

we do not
wind it up it has no weights
springs wheels inside of
its slender self no indeed dear
nothing of the kind.

(So,when kiss Spring comes
we'll kiss each kiss other on kiss the kiss
lips because tic clocks toc don't make
a toctic difference
to kisskiss you and to
kiss me)