Think                        smile Breathe                      smile Ease the heart           smile Relax the belly           smile Be                                smile   Within this radiance your needs are met Open up to this shower of golden honey.   I lived in the sphere of sadness for years. Worrying about what wasn’t here.   A moment, a movement, a spark of awareness. Smile from the inside. We are here. Continue reading Smile

Mercurio ~ La Danza del Sole (Foto: Mariani) I have been dwelling in the space between thinking/doing and feeling/being. How do I harmonize them? Is one more prevalent than the other? How do they cross and intertwine? Or are they separate? The New Moon in Gemini this Thursday is about rebirth after death. The Full Moon in Scorpio took me down into the pits, to see … Continue reading New Moon in Gemini

Life’s blows can knock you off your feet. No doubt. You may be isolated in your family, community, and society, and can’t find a way to get out. It’s hell. When we feel vulnerable, it’s important to remember that we are not alone. A few years ago, I lived with a Costa Rican tarantula in Kingston, NY. The tarantula was in a terrarium. It’s a long story, … Continue reading Revolutions

SONIC MANIFESTATIONS I am sitting in a cafe on Fullerton. The radio is playing “You give love a bad name” by Bon Jovi. I was really into this band when I was 12 years-old. I used to listen to their music in the countryside of Siena, learn the lyrics by heart, then imagine I was in the U.S. I even got a perm. No comments, … Continue reading SONIC MANIFESTATIONS

Receive by letting go, not by grasping. So it is with breath, body, emotions and mind. Relax around the edges of focus, and stay relaxed. Prepare and persevere, for when the moment comes, you will be ready to hit the target. Continue reading Letting Go

Tonight, watching an episode of Vice News, I learned about the expression “slants.” In a section of the program, they were talking about an Asian-American band, The Slants, who has been fighting with the Supreme Court to have a right to their band’s name. The court says that it cannot legitimize a racist pejorative term. However, the band says, this term is used and who better … Continue reading The Slants

A few days ago I flew from Florence to Frankfurt. It was a 7.20am flight and I was assigned a window seat. The plane left Florence on time. We flew over the Alps as the Sun began to rise. When you witness a sunrise or a sunset from a plane, once you are over the clouds, you can see all the colors of the spectrum over the … Continue reading Levels of Thought

When you mess up, stop and sit yourself down. I mean this literally. Sit yourself down, and learn to dwell in the uneasiness of the confusion of the moment. I find myself running, physically and mentally, from place to place, from action to action. Often this is not due to a busy schedule, but to the fear of sitting down and feeling what’s happening in … Continue reading FORGIVENESS

It is not easy to explain energy. Energy travels through multiple dimensions and in subtle channels. Yet one can witness energy. It’s palpable. Energy is both objective and subjective and, because of this, everyone will have a different experience of its movements. Energy is what keeps us alive. While it is complex to explain energy, one can learn to cultivate its flows with fairly simple exercises and observations. Moods … Continue reading Explaining Energy

In the English language, the Sanskrit term “yoga” has been limited to function as a noun, like… Pilates, or Zumba, so one can say: “I am doing yoga,” or “I am going to yoga class.” When I studied yoga in India, in the paramparai (lineage) of Dr. Swami Gitananda Giri Guru Maharaj, I learned that “yoga is a way of life.” Indeed. It is not only a form … Continue reading Yoga (why thinking of “yoga” as a noun is limiting)