i am so grateful for the souls
who swim upstream of time
learn from disease and silence
love from the heart of darkness.

who walk into my days
like a pitcher pouring summer,
quietly determined
like water shaping rock

who build sanctuaries (…)

the city feels different

now you’ve left.

i walk past your empty nest

feeling like the leaves touched by crimson light,

the last ones at the top of the tree

that catch the day’s flaring red tail.

happy birthday, love.

i take you away to paris
and become royalty in my home turf,
cause when all is said and done
paris is for lovers…

these guys! making my dreams come true.

i dreamt of landing a community house in berlin. one that’s turned towards the mysterious magic of the greater being that exists in the centre of any group.

how do we bring the profound beauty of co-existing, out of the festival grounds, the trainings, the short-term experiments.

how to we come every morning with the same depth and commitment to showing up with curiosity, with our limping parts, to put into the cauldron of a group heart?

ISTA Level 1 awaits you in Sweden in August - with some of the most spectacular people I have ever met.

Shakti is a raw force of nature, a whirlwind of humor and fierce mother love, bone-deep in her connection to the subtle worlds. She walks in, and doors open that were never even imaginable before.

I’m hangover, often
when I return
From your garden

I Gaze star-scattered out a window
While my inner clock
Stays firmly on

Eternity

“bless me. i’m going i don’t know where”.
(maiden asks her father as she leaves the house for ever).

welcome to her world - you’ve officially left the centre.

“her stories are great - but where are the ones where she’s not just the hinge - she’s the central character? “

no such thing. keep your eyes on the periphery, and your patience moist.

my hunter tends to be alert
but she covers her tracks
even in my thoughts,
i forget the dates,
scramble every week to comb out a story
from the dizzying tangle
that had such a different shape last time i looked

the women gazed at the flames
and realized
“right now
my job
is loving”

attend the courting dance
of this raven, frog, bear

whoever the ball of thread led me to
and day after day

see the prince in the plumage

i’m so grateful for the stories we’ve been imbibing. their lessons in humility. in helplessness.

there’s a moment when all will be lost, and all you can do is lie down and cry yourself to sleep.

best advice i’ve had for hard times. stay down.

grab the guitar and throw a towel in the backseat babe
let’s chase another sunset
round the corner,
the side of the island
where the day
stretches, still golden
to where rocks gleam green and purple,
flamingoes pad on black sand

and here’s to not settling

here’s to fighting it to the bitter end
in big and small ways
unsung routines and inner hymns
that keep us warm at night
and nimble in dark corners

i gave a quick intro to tantric massage to my household couple days ago... it was so beautiful... one small bedroom filled with attentive faces while the miracle unfolds, inevitable, majestic, simple as rain. i am ringing with quiet gratitude.

and there is
nothing but love here,
aphrodite’s dove
waves her branch
over the bed packed with eager students

my spine is in the grass,

your weight on my hipbones

pushes me deeper

into the cooling ground.

i am suddenly

in service to no one.

stripped of stone and schedule

like climbing out of

a flying tin can’s seat

ISTA called to me like a lighthouse in a storm.

as soon as i entered the room, i knew a momentous chapter of my life had opened. there was something hanging around the facilitators, that lit them up. a halo of quiet power, lightness of being, and vast heart. they exuded competence and generosity.

by the end of the week, i was surrounded by radiant, glowing faces. it’s a feeling of awe that i find at the end of every container i’ve taken part in.

i’m about to hit publish, but … i can’t.

i’m in love. i’m elated and feeling vast and calm as sunrise and i can’t think straight anymore and i’m writing poems. they’re good too.

so what to do? i’m an artist. i don’t fix broken bones, i don’t build houses. all i got is my guts splashed across the page. that’s my job. to be naked in a public way.