love freely, give wisely.

love freely, give wisely.

perhaps that it has taken me two weeks to write the post in my head perfectly illustrates one of the sentiments i mean to convey here: if any time is the time to put on your oxygen mask first, it is now.

i am now realizing that i used the ‘oxygen mask’ phrase in my post from exactly a month ago. overlapping concepts between then and now, infinite vantage points. i don’t think it’s a mistake that we return to such spaces.

you are not less for being unable and/or unwilling to give right now. you are managing a lot— yes, you. don’t compare. personal challenges are relative to each individual. remember that giving includes giving to yourself. a healthy you is an even more meaningful service to society right now.

while caring for others during crisis can sometimes require personal sacrifice in some way, be mindful of your healthy boundaries when making this calculus. individual capacity, how we give, when we give, if we give— is entirely different for everyone for countless reasons and that’s okay. you don’t owe anyone your reasons, by the way.

giving until or while you are totally spent is not love. giving when you’re out of alignment is not love. giving indiscriminately is not love. giving out of guilt or obligation is not love. giving because you want to be “good” is not love. giving because you think you’re the only one who can save the day is not love. giving with the intention to “fix” somebody is not love. giving to others because you don’t know how to give to yourself is not love.

your love for all beings can be abundant, infinite even, while simultaneously disciplined in its active expression. you feel me?

please, let’s give up our conditioning of piling expectations onto ourselves and others. our ability to love is endless when we have healthy boundaries. practicing discernment in giving is not selfish— it is a wise, boundaried practice. you deserve your own energy. you can genuinely *be* in love with all of creation at all times without always needing to expend.

fill your cup. that, too, is a gift. <3

on detachment

i remember standing in my college dorm room staring blankly atop the dresser. there was only one earring left. and i was slowly allowing the admission to sink in that i’d lost its companion. by some arbitrary form of cruel magic, it had seemingly fallen off my ear.

the earrings were not a family heirloom, not costly, not precious by any traditional measure-- i probably got them at an urban outfitters. yet i felt the frustration coursing through my body: total defeat and helplessness.

i didn’t treasure many material possessions; why did one of the few things that i leaned on to warm my daily experience have to leave me like that? as my heart sank, i held a piercingly clear recognition that i was amidst a heartbreaking turning point in my life.

devastating disappointments with family and friends taught me to always be skeptical about people on a level. close my heart off. by extension, i recognized the transient nature of any and everything as the only absolute and trained myself to be excessively detached in general. i’d become expert at cutting people off the moment i sensed any unease threatening future pain.

and this fucking earring had just owned me. staring at the dresser that day, i made the decision that i wouldn’t care about the loss of a personal possession ever again; i dressed up the declaration in zen to ease the blow but i knew that i’d just killed off another piece of my heart. almost as a test, i soon lost the majority of my few other beloved items. in cool observation, i internally recited my new mantra: “nothing ever stays anyway.”

something like 15 years later, i am still contending with this conditioning. it’s coming undone slowly.

honor the incremental re-opening of your heart. this, too, is love. <3

unconditional love is a mirrored room.

unconditional love is

a mirrored room;

reflecting outward

only to

reveal inward

a remembrance of self.

in fully, wholeheartedly loving others without condition or pretense, everything begins to collapse into itself and just is. there is an opening, and in it is a reflection back to the beholder of their true nature and essential self; there is no self, there is just one.

synchronicity in artistic thought

i texted the above phrase to my new friend joel about a week ago. days later, he retweeted his year old tweet with the exact same words. what a gift to so precisely share a wavelength with someone. joel concurred.

creativity is an interesting thing. i think because it can feel so personal, emotional, and intimate, we sometimes presume a rather rigid ownership over our works by believing that we have singularly created them.

though my creativity manifests via many paths, i've found that much of my short-form writing comes from ideas, thoughts, or phrases just “popping” into my head. over the last few years, it’s got me thinking about musicians who say that the music ‘just comes through them.’ i get it now and recognize these phenomena as a channeling of sorts;

whether consciously or not, i believe we are channeling from our interweb of mass consciousness, which i believe to ultimately be a single, unitary thing. in this way, i’m understanding that when we really get down to it, creative works don’t really belong to anyone; if anything, they belong to all of us. creativity, i believe, is the process of going into our collective psyche and materially illuminating truths that already exist inside our shared energetic body.

obviously, this act of channeling, expressing, and materializing is still a labor and an immeasurable service to our society. artists should still be paid well and credited for their work, boundaries should be respected. and while there is certainly exploitation and intentional plagiarism, all this does make me wonder about our often automatic insistence that duplicate works must imply an intentional “copying” and a necessary villain.

that two or more people can come to similar ideas or even the exact same one, for me, goes beyond a shared inspiration or someone's subconscious drawing from previous exposure; i believe people can independently come to the exact same point simply and purely because we are drawing from the same place that we all equally “own” and all equally are— our collective consciousness.

i’ll continue percolating on what i think this means for the creative industry. until then, i think we could be nicer to each other sometimes.

so— open hearts, y’all? <3

you.

there is no one like you in the world. not everyone will understand you. sometimes, you won’t understand yourself. you will be loved. you will be left. you will feel despair. and hope. sometimes simultaneously. you will beat your fists against the wall and hear nothing. you will lie there sometimes, lifeless. you will rise and begin on a path unknown. you will meet travelers. some will betray you. others will show you your light. you are not alone but you do inhabit this body alone. do you love it? how does it make you feel? remember that you’re all it’s got.

love is

being in love is a fractional concept; a limited attempt to grasp and express love’s infinity.

there is constriction in its selectivity, its specificity. an innocent cloudiness in the bliss. we think we’ve found home. in a way, we have.

being in love feels more like a stepping stone, a window. the vibration of another resonates with a matching counterpart within us— we vibrate. this feeling: a taste of all-permeating divine oneness. we are in recognition, remembrance of our true nature. to love and to be loved is a mirroring.

our loves are not “the ones,” exceptional unicorns uniquely deserving of our bright eyes. our loves are guides and messengers of the truth of what and who we all are. the truth of all beings: that we are love and our fabric is a single shared universal consciousness.

experiencing love is an awakening. it is an expansion that will always live with us should we choose to accept this gift. the loss of a body or a relationship can never destroy or negate the opening that was created.

being brave for love in all forms at every opportunity, without stifling it by qualification; our hearts flower open more each time, breath becomes easier. life becomes more of a being and a knowing than a doing. there is freedom.

i find myself leaning towards the softness and sweetness of simply being unconditional love; where we are deeply “in love” with all beings, all at once, at all times, without exception. i think it’s the secret to all things.

<3

accepting others as they are

photo // CC0

in the past year, i experienced one of the most profound pains of my life; through it, i came away with many gems. i've been grateful for one in particular lately: 

a newfound ability to truly receive, love, and accept people as they are.

i find myself disappointed less, and when disappointment does creep up, i'm much better equipped to reframe;

what is actuality? what are my projections, my expectations, my ego? who would i be without these expectations — who would we be?

i've been especially in awe of my ability to let go without apathy, disdain, or spite — or at least much less of it; a subconscious shift that recognizes the subtle difference between releasing and detaching.

to let go yet still sustain connection, care.

related and bizarre is a willing acknowledgment and acceptance that anyone and everyone has the capacity to surprise me, let me down, stray from course, and to deeply hurt me — i don't hope for it but i yield to a certain inevitability now; it's just not personal anymore.

at one point, i would have considered accepting this reality lonely; instead, i find an odd comfort in knowing that i can no longer be side-swept by a hopeful ignorance that my loved ones won't one day go out and be extra human. lifting the veil has also empowered me to renew my commitment to myself as my own greatest ally; now that i know that for real for real 'all i have is me,' i find solace in also happening to be the one thing that i do have control over.

though i've only just begun to cultivate and strengthen these shifts, i'm already moved by the felt peace, openness, warmth, and lightness they've inspired in myself and those around me; in many ways, i feel new — and so do my relationships and my life.