Fifty shades of a dizzy blonde…

I just had the most peculiar thought. I thought that I will miss myself the day I die. When I think about death I normally think about a plunge into the unknown, with the irrational fear that I might actually die. That the soul is not immortal. This thought is irrational, not because it may not be true, but because if it was I would not know. I would as a matter of fact, be dead.

This thought was peculiar because I have never before thought it. I was looking at my Facebook profile and my name looked back at me as well as a pair of big, blue eyes and I thought to myself that I will rather miss Maria Montgomery. If it is so that my soul travels on, which I tend to believe it does in one way or another, I will, presumably, lose my identity. I have never heard of anyone speak of being themselves in past lives. In fact many appeared rather different from their current identity.

The thought was also peculiar because I have spent so many years doing my utmost to get rid of the demons my early childhood created and my goal has sort of been to rid myself of identity and step as closely as possible into my heart and live from that space. Be a living expression of my heart. And I kind of believe that it is this heart we carry forth to the next lifetime, however different our circumstance may be as we are learning new lessons, facing our own karma and what have you…but I presume, that in my next incarnation, if such will occur, that I will not be a sex joke cracking maniac with a blog, who travels the world like a mad hatter. And I quite enjoy that sex joke cracking maniac and her gypsy/travelling entertainer lifestyle.

There are many things in life I don’t understand. I myself am a contradiction in many ways…I can see the “mitote” they speak of in native Indian practices (the thoughts you have, that are really reflections of what everyone else have told you and hence a reflection of their opinions rather than reality and often contradictory in nature…it is what they call “the dream”). And yet, I have a feeling that there is something underneath all that which is crystal clear and whenever I get closer to it, it feels real. Like a revelation.

It makes sense that one should die to lose one’s identity, as otherwise one would be too prejudice to move closer to that realness. There are far too many people stagnated in their beliefs when you look around. Just look at the US election – are they really serving the country, or their own beliefs? And by making out with Barack Obama in my dreams the other night, I was clearly serving mine…

I guess I realised how little time I have, in this incarnation, not just with everyone else, but also with myself. So even though as late as this morning I discovered a part of my identity I didn’t  agree with in the least I can just acknowledge that and act in spite of it whilst I keep enjoying the rather curious parts of my identity that continue to please me. I’m thankful. I’m thankful to be me.

My gran always told me to be proud of my legs and why not indulge in your own body whilst you can? And chocolate…definitively chocolate!

A love story…

I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for this. Chapter two of my love story. I wrote the first chapter two years ago and I have, erm, been thinking about writing the next one for two years. I just never found the time and the inspiration at the same time (I made an attempt once that didn’t turn out too well, bloody awful if I remember it right). I find it truly marvellous how a story can live in your mind for two years. I can’t really believe it was two years ago though, but it was. It was around Easter and there were flowers in the Canyon, I was doing yoga there in the mornings…my darling LA…well, this story is from my heart, not from the city…but then, that city too, is in my heart…

The Journey, Chapter II

He played her like a violin. Soft, penetrating notes echoing in the first light of morning. Like dew they were crystal clear, the notes, as they flew through the skies, the echo softly fading into eternity. She could feel him. As he moved something moved within her.

He wasn’t there. He was away in travels. He hadn’t been there since they met. That first whirlwind couple of weeks when they got to know each other. He had already known her, as she had known him, as souls know each other, recognize each other, but they had to get to know each other on a day-to-day basis. He found out what hours during the morning she ground her spices. She found out what hours of day he spent rehearsing tricks for his shows. He watched her as she came up with recipes, baked…tasted new tastes as she created them. She watched him as he learnt to make something disappear only to reappear unexpectedly, or six juggling balls fly in endless patterns across the skies.

It was funny she thought, how she felt she knew him, without knowing a single thing about him. He kept surprising her with the small things he did. Whether he suddenly showed up with the perfect present at the most unexpected hour, or told a funny story to a stranger, there was always this element of surprise – of making things appear out of thin air (which he was very good at quite literally). Still, even if he told someone a story she had never heard before, or suddenly showed up with all the neighbors for a spur of the moment picnic, which no one in the town had thought to do for the last 100 years or so, she was certain that she knew him. Her soul knew his soul, as his soul knew hers. Whether they recognized each other because of centuries past, or because they were made of the same stuff…she didn’t know. It was as if their essence was the same, or completely complimentary. Yet, there was nothing complimentary about him loving coriander and she loving mint, him traveling and she having a bakery, him staying out late to perform and she waking early to bake, but it felt right. As if they shouldn’t be copies of each other. As if they were different, yet the same. Complimentary, she thought. They fit without having to fit.

It was a splendid dawn today, just as the day three months ago when he had entered her little cafe well before the rest of the town had stirred. When the air was still fresh and clean – desires, agonies, pains, hopes and passions, still sleeping. It was the purest hour of the day. It felt much the same as the tones of the violin – clear cutting and raw, beautiful and light, yet forceful and demanding.

He had entered at dawn. It was his colours, his aura, the feel of him…a man who was wide awake, making things happen. A man who preferred to rise whilst the rest of the world was still sleeping. Yet, he was a man of the night; an entertainer. As everyone know – people like to be entertained at night, when they have time for such indulgent pleasures and their minds let lose and their hearts play. He could sneak in the shadows and appear in the light, he was filled with contradictions like that.

As any good entertainer, he could make anyone feel at ease instantly. People were drawn to him and she imagined the women in his life must have been plenty, yet he was a loner. He was always there, present in the moment with people, open, warm…still she could see he didn’t feel connected to everyone. He was present to them, they touched him inside, as he touched them, but he wasn’t connected to them on every level. As if they were different from him. Few people could get to the core that she had imagined she had touched.

His exterior was so light, always jesting, but underneath was something else. He could spend hours thinking up a story, coming up with the deeper meaning, the sublime messages….then hiding them in word plays, tricks and jokes. He appeared light, but he had a depth she’d rarely seen before. He was a man who knew the truth and conveyed it in jest. He saw far beyond what eyes can see. He saw into people’s hearts and minds and slightly altered them during his performances. A true jester, an alchemist at heart. She knew that was the path of jesters in ancient history. Apparently some lived on.

It was hard to pin him down. Just as he could see through the facades of most men, straight into their hearts, it was hard to see straight into his. From all the people he had met he seemed to have picked something up…it was as if he was everyone, yet, he was so distinctively himself. And when he let go, when he wasn’t entertaining, or analyzing, when he was just him, without doing anything, he was beautiful.

She remembered one day….the sun just starting to move from the very top of the skies towards the horizon, his voice – that soft, deep melodic tone – floating effortlessly into the air around him, a smile covering his face. A small group of people had gathered around him, like colorful dots, as he stood on his red mat.

Given his audience that day was filled with children, he told them a fairy tale. The woman smiled, as she remembered the story – it had been about an Easter egg hunt.

He had told the children that in one town, a small town much like their own, only instead of always basking in sunlight, it was placed on the mist swept hillsides in what appeared to be a magical place, the tradition was that every year on Easter Sunday the adults would go out early in the morning to hide beautiful eggs for the children who turned ten that year. The eggs were large, made out of wood and beautifully painted in bright colors, gold and silver. Intricate patterns, sometimes even images making up stories, covered the eggs. They said the tradition was as old as the town itself and in fact you could buy these eggs all year round to bring with you back to your own town. The eggs were very expensive, the accomplishment of a long tradition of craftmanship. For the children though, the eggs were free and filled with wonderful toys and fantastical sweets and every child longed to turn ten, just so they could be the ones participating in the Easter egg hunt that year.

According to tales from the town it was said that if someone really needed something the spirit of Oestre, of dawn and new beginnings, would bring it as a gift and hide it within the egg. Most people didn’t believe in this tale though, as it was old and filled with superstition, but as tales go it was still told over and over again. It was as much part of the town as the cobblestones themselves.

One year during the traditional Easter egg hunt, a girl found an egg that was much smaller and uglier than all the other eggs and when she opened it inside was a small bag of seeds, a needle and one piece of chocolate. Nothing like the endless amount of sweets, toy trains, games and other beautiful toys the other children found.

The girl who had found the ugly egg felt very disappointed at first. This was something she had been looking forward to for years and something her friends had talked about for weeks now. Even the adults looked at her funnily as everyone swore that the egg hadn’t been placed by them and there was another egg, one like the ones the other kids had, that had gone missing. They believed someone was playing a trick on them, but they thought it must be a stranger as everyone in town at the time got along really well. As there was no other egg – every egg in town had been sold before Easter – the little girl had to make do with the one she found.

As all the other boys and girls were gathering around to show each other their eggs and eat their sweets the little girl felt angry, thinking it unfair she couldn’t do the same. The other children offered her sweets but it didn’t feel as nice eating them when she couldn’t offer any in return, or swap around for favorites, like the others did. Nor could she play with her new toys, as she didn’t have any. After sulking for a while, she gave up, simply because it was too boring to sit and be miserable and decided to go home. After all she thought, maybe there was something special with her egg? Maybe it was a magical somehow? She would have a closer look at it when she got home.

Once at home she opened the egg again and sat steering at the contents for a while, waiting for something to happen – magic is supposed to make things fly, or play music out of nothing, isn’t it? Nothing did happen though, so she decided to put the contents of the egg to use – there wasn’t much else she could do. She took the seeds and planted them in their garden and once she was done she sat down and had the piece of chocolate she had been given. The chocolate was truly delicious and as it was the only piece she got, she took her time and ate it very slowly, enjoying every bite. She thought the other children probably didn’t enjoy their sweets as much, because they ate so many in one go. When she got sweets in the future, she would take her time to enjoy each one. Once she had finished her chocolate she hurried inside to try the last thing in the egg – the needle. As she sat down with a piece of fabric, needle and thread in hand she immediately managed to prick herself with the needle. Not a great start to an enjoyable gift she thought, but she realized she didn’t actually know how to saw very well, so she took the needle and walked over to her neighbor, who happened to be a seamstress.

As it turned out the little girl really enjoyed sewing once she got the hang of it. It took hard work and a lot of patience, but as she started enjoying what she was doing she learnt fast and soon she was making dresses for her dolls and shortly thereafter clothes for both herself and her family.

That summer her father got very ill for a couple of months and as the family didn’t have much money the girl made some extra money from her sewing and was delighted to find that she now had a garden filled with vegetables they could eat. Later in life she became a very accomplished seamstress and made dresses that created happiness for all that wore them. So the little girl who got the smallest egg, after all got the largest treasure. And she learnt that things that are valuable continue to generate joy for years and magic truly is a gift you have to make happen yourself.

After ending the tale the jester magically pulled out an egg from various places to each one of the children, each egg containing her homemade sweets and a gift that could be used for many years to come, something that needed to be used to create something else. That way, he explained later, they would carry the magic with them. She had asked him how he knew what gift to give to each child, whether a set of paints, or a mini-carpenting kit. He had smiled when she asked him this. “I know a little bit,” he said, “but I do not know everything. I was hoping chance would play it to my favor. I prayed each gift I chose would be the right one, using my intuition if you so like, but life after all will happen as it chooses and we all have to deal with what comes. Sometimes a gift today can seem worthless, that in years to come becomes precious. Just as in the story I told.”

He smiled again as his mind seemed to wander. “My granddad had a flute, which he had never played for more than an hour in total his entire life. It had been a gift to him from his father in law, who, as an established musician, hoped that his new son would learn to play and carry the traditions of the family forward. As it were grandpa never really got used to producing his own music – he preferred listening to others, like his beautiful wife, whom used to sing to him. So the flute gathered dust in a corner of their house, until some 35 years later I found it and learned to play. Much thanks to grandma. To this day, that’s the flute I play. It’s made of some incredibly hard wood and seems to never wear out. Magical, really. It’s my favorite toy, my most precious belonging. Apart from you, of course.” He laughed and winked at her. “I don’t belong to you,” she objected. She could never get used to people talking about each other as belongings. She was a free spirit, not jailed to anyone, or anything. “No, but you are part of me. Sort of the same, don’t you think?”

She didn’t, but she knew what he meant. It was what she had been trying to explain to herself for the last couple of days as she felt him much stronger than before. As if the notes of his flute were playing within her, opening her to the sudden feeling that he was present in the room. She wondered if she was insane as at the same time as she knew she wasn’t. It was the same as she feeling exactly what someone needed to eat to alter their state of mind. It was knowing something that travelled through you, without you knowing exactly how, or why. It was a feeling, an impression – something as tangible as it was inexplicable.

She thought about the flute. Notes, playing her, caressing her…maybe life is like that she thought? Like a million melodies playing at the same time, some harmonizing with each other. Those where the people you felt you belonged to, were part of. Maybe the whole universe was made up of sounds, of notes echoing out into eternity, never really disappearing, just reappearing in another melody. And when you met melodies you harmonized with, you felt stronger, as two voices sing louder than one. You felt at home, understood – as if the spices finally matched up, creating the perfect harmony, the perfect cake. And maybe, just maybe, you heard the melody before it entered? You were drawn, as if by magic, to the people and the places that would harmonize with you?

She felt a wind swirling in from underneath the doors and the spices twirled up into her face. His spices. She looked up in wonder.

The doors opened. “Hi,” he said.

Some melodies enter our life for a little while. They belong to one verse. Others stay forever as they are part of our refrain, if not every verse. They suit a part of us, as we suit a part of them. We play together, sing together to find strength. Together we move mountains. Others are part of our entire melody, whether they play near you, or far away. As their notes echo out into eternity, they touch you, caress you, alert you, warn you, love you…they are always there for you. Their music grows stronger when they are closer in their minds and hearts, but the music never stops. As one, you will always play together, whether you know it or not. You are in this life together. Without each other you wouldn’t be. Yet, you may never meet each other. Your hands may never touch, your smiles never be recognized, but should you, you will know. On some level or another you will always hear the music.

THE END (…of Chapter II…)

To the notes I play with, the winds I fly with. You are me, my life and every verse of it.

Magic…

About that kind of sex you like…

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.

- Rumi

I think this is so important I decided to dedicate a whole blog to it. What is that field? Where is it? I don’t know.

I believe in a sense that there is a right and wrong, as we all have our own interpretation of reality based on what we have been through and how our biological make-up looks. We like different smells, tastes, sounds and what have you. What feels right to you, may feel wrong to me. Does that make it right or wrong though or is there an ultimate truth beyond our senses? I believe in an ultimate truth, or I think I do…but I also appreciate individual experiences. An apple is an apple, but we experience it differently through our senses.

I once at a rather young age had the epiphany that what I had been taught looks like blue may not look like blue to others as we don’t know what it looks like to them. I know it’s blue because that’s what I’ve been told and all the blues are the same nuance, but for all that I know to you they may look like what I see when I see the color green (this may not scientifically be true as we may be able to know this somehow, but there might still be a slight difference in how we perceive colors). I.e. our senses may vary (the thing itself doesn’t vary…but maybe it does according to quantum physics???) and my epiphany wasn’t really about just the color blue, it was about all things perceived through our senses. If you think about it – many things to us are very different to what other animals perceive them as. Animals with good hearing can hear sounds that sound like silence to you.

I also believe there are some things that are wrong in the sense that they inflict harm on others. At the same time I believe there is no right and wrong for the same reason as we are individuals with a different sense of perceiving the world. Whereas I think it wrong to kill a man, a wolf will consider a man food and see it as right to kill the man, just as the hunter consider it right to kill a wolf.

And then, beyond all that, I think there is love and if you live attuned to that, that’s a place where all is allowed as all actions will spring from love and thereby serve the world at large. A place where there is no judgment, as all is good. Where the neighbors will not pick on what colors you choose to paint your walls in, or how you live your life in general, because that’s of no importance. The only thing of importance is you living in love. I believe it is this field that sprung to mind when I read the words – a society free of judgment of things that are of no importance. For me societal pressure, or “judgment,” has bugged me many times and still does. A society that I myself judge as many times being “wrong.”He who hath notsinned cast the first stone…

I guess for me, freedom would be to act in accordance with my heart and having everyone else act in accordance with their hearts, without judging each other.

When I hear the words by Rumi I simply imagine myself next to someone, on a field, exploring life. Where there is no right, or wrong, only truth, life, love and exploration…maybe even naked exploration…

Why I love sinners…

Behind each negative pattern, is a frightened child...

I don’t know about you, but it was a while since I lost my virginity….and then there were a few other things… Have you ever sinned? Have you ever cheated on anyone? Stolen something? Beaten someone? Wanted to commit suicide? Let someone down? Been a drug addict? Had abusive relationships? Been a tad anorexic? Had sex with half the world, by accident rather than by design? Then, you’ve probably seen some darkness.

Most people fear the dark, because it’s not pleasant not knowing what’s going on around you. When you “sin” you are in the dark, because you have no fucking clue of why you can’t stop yourself from doing what you are doing. You don’t want to do it, yet your desire to do it is stronger than your want not to.

Why we do “bad” things is individual. Some people were molested as children, have a guilt complex around sex and end up having “guilty” sex. They dislike themselves for it and to prove their own dislike, their own self-hatred true, they keep repeating it. They buy into the idea that that’s who they are, whereas really, that’s a learned behavior, a learned pattern – a set of emotions that get triggered and then acted out. Nothing to do with their heart, if in their heart they disagree.

For many people the idea that you can’t stop yourself from having sex with someone is absurd, yet they can’t stop themselves from something as simple as eating a chocolate bar. Of course, the chocolate bar appears more normal than having sex with people you don’t want to have sex with, unless your weight skyrockets to the point where it isn’t healthy at all. Yet, the person who frowns upon the yes sayers to sex may take into account that the reason they are eating a chocolate bar came from some mild habit, whereas the person that can’t say no to sex may have been under much greater formative influences, such as rape.

Whatever made you end up in a negative circle of “sins” was probably not your choice. I doubt you chose to be molested, have an abusive parent or a parent who wasn’t a good role model, making you think you were doomed to one day become like them, told you were worthless, get bullied, or beaten. I doubt you made a conscious decision to become a wife beater, or a drug addict, but you bought into the ideas the “mirror” (people and events) in your past showed you. And once it happens, once you take too many drugs, hit your girlfriend, obsessively steal other people’s belongings, eat till you are about to burst, or allow yourself to have sex with people you don’t like, you think that’s you, even if you don’t really feel comfortable about it. Well, good news is – if you feel uncomfortable about it, it isn’t you. You are just under a spell where you can’t say no to doing whatever it is you are doing. You do have a choice though – it just takes practice, determination and potentially help to hold you accountable. Listen to your heart – what is it telling you? Follow that voice. And if you can’t make yourself follow it – find someone who can help you do that.

Habits can be hard to detect at times. Sometimes there’s just some discomfort at the back of our mind, or a feeling in our gut, but we don’t stop to listen as life is happening and what we see in front of us gets our attention. Besides, we get used to ourselves – if you are used to feeling fearful before a date, you probably don’t even notice it anymore because it’s circumstance. It’s normal to you, so you don’t question it. Still, there’s nothing normal about being fearful for a date. A bit nervous, yes, but fearful – no. Why would you be fearful? Probably because you fear other’s opinions of you, not trusting that your own opinion should out rule theirs and that your opinion should be that you are nice. You love yourself. If that’s your opinion, you will act from that place, so you will be nice and loving. The thing is – if you are scared of people, your perceived idea about them is negative and that’s the place you are acting from, even if your heart disagrees.

I’ve had negative patterns with people, with food, with men, with health, with depression, with hurt, with love…I mean we all do – we all have patterns, whether good or bad. To me some of my negative patterns were so pronounced that I had to stop, I had to do something about it. I was messed up from my childhood. Yet, as I always say – thanks to the immense pain I went through, I woke up. Some people never do, because the pain never reaches that level, but I decided to change. I didn’t feel like I was a gray mouse in the corner who hated myself and wanted to destroy myself. I felt like I was a playful, naughty little thing with a sense of humor and a huge love of life and love. So I decided to become that woman. I had to set myself free. One thinking pattern at a time. And doing so I discovered thinking patterns I didn’t even know I had – I acted them out all the time, but I wasn’t thinking about what I was thinking about to make me behave like I did. Only when I stopped to listen did I realize what thoughts caused my behavior, where they came from and that they weren’t real. There was a me before that behavior ever started. A me that never agreed with those thoughts, those behaviors. A me that hadn’t yet interpreted events to color my view of myself.

If we love ourselves it will become impossible to hurt ourselves and therefore others. I have never met a person who hurt others unless because they were hurting. Ever. When you love yourself, even if people provoke you, you won’t get mad. You won’t resort to anger, to hurting others. You know they are deluded. You don’t have to suffer because of it.

People are quick to judge others on their patterns, after all, it takes time to get someone to open up and share their heart. And even if they do, they may not be ready to give up their learned behaviors. Their self love may not have reached those levels.

People have sometimes pointed out to me that someone has issues and usually they are right – most people have issues. Some more visible than others. Some more harmful to other people than others. You can still love those people though, of course you can. If you have seen more than their issues, if you have glimpsed their soul, you probably do love them. And if they love you, they won’t want to hurt you, but they may still do. For example, I believe, unlike some women, a man can love one woman and have sex with the entire world, still loving just one woman, but as he doesn’t love himself enough to respect himself, as he thinks he is bad, he acts badly towards her, he fulfills his prophecy, she is hurt, gets angry, kicks him out and all is the same as it always was – he thinks he’s bad, she thinks men can’t be trusted. (Then there is the idea that love is for all and we should all have open relationships allowing ourselves to love whomever we want. That’s another scenario.)

I don’t recommend you get involved with a cheater unless you are OK with open relationships, until the cheater has become a non-cheater. Nor do I recommend you withdraw your love from them just because they are a cheater. Love them. Just don’t put yourself in a position where you will feel abused. And the same goes for everyone who is involved in any way with someone who is, as yet, helpless to their negative behavior patterns.

The good thing about sinners is that they have seen the darkness and therefore, hopefully, have an extreme wish to see the light. They will see it more clearly and with more appreciation than those that have never seen the dark. And those that live in the gray zones may never question them, because it never gets to the point of do or die. Those that hit the darkness know. They know it’s do or die, because the pain, the guilt, the sadness, or whatever it is, becomes unbearable. They have to do something about it. Some sadly don’t have the tools, the support, or the love to do so though. They fail.

I hope in this life that I will never again abuse myself so much that I allow myself to put myself in a situation where I abuse others, or feel abused by others. I hope I will be strong. When my own “self-hatred” slips in, I hope that I remember love and rather than feeding my self-hatred by self-sabotage, or hurting others/putting myself in a situation where I allow others to hurt me, I will choose the love and act from that place.

What’s more, I hope that in this life I will never give up on loving sinners. I believe that somewhere in there is a heart. A heart that may even love you.

Brave heart…

It’s easy to be wise – it’s harder to convince your emotions just how wise you are. It takes years of practice not to run with every ridiculous impulse you have and yet years to learn to run with the true impulses, those that come from your spirit, your heart. It take year of practice to learn to listen to your thoughts; to really hear what’s going on within and be able to disregard the thoughts that count not and listen to the ones that do. To make a decision to act from the place you truly want to act from, rather than acting from a place of fear, of over the top excitement, of disappointment, or grief. It takes pratice to be true to you.

It takes bravery to follow your passions – to dare to lose that which you desire the most. To dare to give up what you do not desire at all and some things you really like, so as to reach what you truly love. We can’t have it all, but we can have this moment. It is within it we need to live and choose, choose every step of our journey now. It is in the now we practice to be whom we must to reach to where we want and at the same time be here, be now. Live. Breathe. Fully explore our hearts. Listen. Feel. Really be present to who we are; what we need. Fully enjoy the miracle of life in all its pain and pleasure.

And may I ask you this: if you had no fear, what would you do now? If you relaxed and instead of trying to do something, just did it, how would life feel? If you followed your heart, where would you end up? Those are the questions I ask myself and patiently await an answer…

I love you…in all your naked gorgeousness… (in fact: I love you the most naked…)

Hey darling, let's do striptease...!!!

I was dating someone a little while ago and I realized I have changed. I was no longer the little girl who falls for cuddles and sweet talk. All that is nice, but that’s kind of the icing of the cake. The cake is the person you are with. (N.B. I am not saying any of this is related to the person, I’m just saying these were thoughts I was having about relationships in general….dating someone always brings up thoughts.)

Many things dawned on me in those few weeks I was dating this guy. For one it became obvious that I cannot be in a relationship with someone I do not want as they are. What I mean is that sometimes we date people we like, or even love, but we want something inside of them to shift so that they become more this, that or the other. I remember being with my ex and him saying I really shouldn’t be like that, or should be like this and it was horrific (I’m sure I told him the same…). To be in a relationship with someone whom you can’t fully embrace as they are, whom you hope will change…it’s not right. You are not their coach, you are their lover.

We are all on journeys. We may meet someone who is in one place and wants to be in another and we can for sure be their support and appreciate their journey (which springs from/is created because of their values and beliefs), but our place is as the lover. We love them. As they are. We aren’t sitting hoping they will become someone else, or if they don’t reach their desired destination, we will fuck off. Then we aren’t loving them: we are loving an image created by our imagination. And I don’t know about you, but as a friend, or lover, I know I will be someone’s support through the rough times and their greatest applauder during the cool times…and that’s an honor!!! It’s an honor that someone let’s you share their journey! And be around someone whom you really truly respect, from the bottom of your heart because of the place they come from; because of their heart; their desire to live according to certain values.

Sometimes we meet a person and we love them 100%, but we may realize that they don’t love themselves and they have habits that wouldn’t be good for us. It’s tricky – we love them in this instance, but we still want them to change, or we know the relationship won’t serve us. I wouldn’t say that’s conditional love. You love them unconditionally, but you wouldn’t love them in a relationship unconditionally (correction: you would love THEM, not the relationship). Again, I wouldn’t enter into it. It would take all my strength not to do it if they desired to be with me, but I wouldn’t. I would wait and if I see they are ready, then I would do it. Because if we enter into something we know isn’t right…it may ruin our relationship with someone altogehter, even if we will love them forever.

This is not to say that we don’t all come together a litle bit like a square peg in a round hole…we all have our differences that we have to work on to create an amazing life together. We all have habits that need to merge, desires that we want fulfilled, ways we understand love…all that takes a bit of work; loving work. (OK darling, so you want to live on Mars, and I on Pluto…now if we meet on Earth…then we go to Pluto and Mars for vacation, yes???) We will have to sort out our relationship a little bit (or rather: create an amazing relationship together), but not our love for one another – that should be there from day one till the end.

Secondly, it became obvious to me that there is a huge difference between someone who thinks it’s nice to be around me and someone who loves me. There’s a difference between enjoying someone’s company and truly being struck by someone’s personality to the extent where you want to be as close to them as is humanly possible; where you value their time, you value their thoughts, their body, their well-being and will support them through thick and thin. And it takes time to find out what you think about someone; to truly get to know them.

So many times I have fallen for people without knowing them, which means I have fallen for one tenth of their personality. Now…now I can’t do that. I can get the butterflies and what have you, I can date them and cuddle them and so on…but I can’t enter into a relationship with someone unless I know I love them and they love me. I want to know them in all their naked glory, underneath all their layers of protection, cool attitude, what have you. I want to know their heart.

A relationship isn’t an easy thing. It’s a great, wonderful, amazing journey with the right person, but it’s someone you will share every aspect of your life with. Someone who is next to you when you stand at the top of one mountain and when you fall down another mountain…someone you can trust will love you through thick and thin. Someone you can trust values you and the relationship as much as they value every other important aspect of life. (I always say a relationship is like a business venture: you love it, it will be an incredible journey, but there will be challenges along the way that need to be resolved with creativity, curiosity, laughter, determination, LOVE, playfulness, a sense of adventure and joy!)

Falling in love is fun, exciting, exhilarating, titilating…it’s nice to experience it with someone you truly love…

Naked men can just like, sod off…

I had a very interesting dream tonight. I dreamt I was out having tea with a bunch of friends….but not people I know today. I was in a new place. As I left the tea party, or whatever, (we were out in nature, there were stunning mountains were people were snowboarding and stuff, but it was still hot where we were…probably my childhood dream of moving to exotic places…bring on the khaki colored safari hats and all that…) a friend of mine ran up to me to tell me something. He told me that another friend of mine had told him the answer about love. Now what he told him was that: “As a man you can stand in front of a naked Victoria’s Secret model and watch her walk away from you. You may be pulled towards her by sex drive, but you have enough control of yourself to watch her leave. On the other hand, you can’t stand in front of the woman you love (fully clothed I might add…) and see her walk away from you without running after her.”

Then I woke up…I mean I had the answer, right?!! LOL.

I know I probably dreamt this dream because I blogged about how I would know I love someone yesterday and a friend of mine has been asking me for over a year “How do you know it’s the one?” Well, maybe this is one way. Who knows? It made me giggle…and it was just a dream…

Right Mister, don’t think that six pack, or those charms can lure me into running after you…no more frog kissing, you hear me???!!!!

He has a hot butt…it’s a sign…

It’s happened to all of us. The guy walks by. You check him out. He has it all. Down to the shoelaces…he’s perfect. You have everything in common. Everything. The good, the bad, the ugly…the amazing. And you wonder, what the fuck does it all mean? That you should be together? That you shouldn’t be together? That you should break up with someone else? What, what, fucking what?

I was out walking yesterday and I was feeling a bit tired because of various reasons. My resources were a bit depleted. As I was walking I was thinking about the good things that have happened in my life lately: the house we now live in, our gorgeous neighbors, my biz venture moving forward (now this is so cool I almost fall off the armchair from excitement just typing it…lol!) and some really cool people I have met. I was also looking around at nature, adoring the sight. California is beautiful. I was then contemplating the not so nice events that have happened to me here….or maybe not events so much as realizing what this town can be about. I used to always shrug my shoulders about it because I thought it laughable, but when you see what it has done to some people…it’s not so funny anymore. Also, financially things didn’t work out as I thought they would; the jobs I had simply didn’t pay off the way I thought, so I have to rethink that whole situation and fast at that. You see my visa is a bit limiting to what I work with, but they seem fairly flexible so I have to broaden my horizons with the whole thing as well. It’s easy to get frustrated because there is a town full of work and you can only apply to so many positions due to a friggin card, right?! And then you sigh and think “Fuck it, in Europe I can do ANYTHING.” But do I want to do anything? No. I want to work in film. Do I want to survive though? Yeah, that would be grand.

The thing is…you can read the events that have happened as signs one way or another. Then it hit me that wherever I go there I am and it’s not about the town, it’s about me. I think that’s what I believe more than anything. And sometimes, when we are pulled out of our comfort zone, it’s time to start thinking and taking action to get the results we truly want.

So you know, just because someone walks by with the perfect ass as you are sitting having dinner with your partner…and you later end up at the same party with them and they seem utterly nice and your partner was a bit of an ass that week because they were tired…it doesn’t necessarily mean you should break up. Maybe it does. It depends on what your heart says. You may be dealt difficulties and opportunities, but by the end of the day it’s up to you how you deal with them. The answers lie in your heart, not in…uh…someone’s ass…

Lay lady, lay…

Bob & Joan

Maybe my life is like an old Bob Dylan song – gnawing, scorching, yet beautifully etched into a vinyl record. The book of life.

As thoughts get mingled together, in some sort of recipe I don’t always understand, I seek for meaning, for answers, for completion. Yet, this dance has carried me so far away from home, far away from both my physical home and the home inside my heart. The home where beauty lives. Where all what I treasure lives. I forget who I am. I live like a machine. A programmed machine. I eat, I sleep and I work. I stress. I still can’t manage it. I am trying to learn to value myself. To actually live, not just speak about it. It’s hard, it’s harder than I ever thought. Yet, as soon as I remember who I am, in my heart, it becomes easy. It becomes a dance again. A proper dance. One that makes me fly; soar like an eagle. I like that. I like flying.

The last few weeks haven’t been easy. Maybe because I have faced some of my most prominent fears. My fear of failure. My fear of loneliness. My fear of trust. My fear of illness. The fears I’ve lived with for so long. The fears that aren’t real, I’d just like to think that they are. The medicine is simple: get out. Get out of my own mind and into the real world. The physical world. The world I can actually touch. A world where I get an insight into other people’s lives, where I see them, feel them, interact with them. A world in which I am happy.

It’s so simple – it’s just to do what you know you must. Why I stick with old patterns baffles me. Now more than ever I see the futility of it all. How it can harm me in ways that are bad. Severely bad. Maybe that’s what I needed? A wake-up call? A call back from my heart, to my heart.

You have to value yourself. You have to put yourself first, or you will slip. You will slip down a long muddy hill which at first seems not too bad, but once you get further along, once you pick up speed, you will fall faster than you thought and the climb back up again will be that much longer. Therefore, catch yourself before you fall. Put yourself first. Give yourself what you would like for others to give to you. Now, in this moment. Just do it. Or you will be forever falling.

Stop and breathe. Breathe in the new day, the new possibilities. Feel yourself awakening, opening up to the sun, like a flower bud in June. Feel life. Feel yourself getting high on the force of life, the life force. Feel your own strength, your own tenderness. Slowly, step-by-step allow yourself to walk the path in wonder. Marvel. Marvel at the sights you see and the sounds and smells surrounding you. Feel. Feel life.

My favorite song of all time…

A succulent delight…

Do you remember how you thought as a kid? Do you remember your dreams? What you thought life could be like when you grew up? I do. Sometimes.

At times it helps me to go back to some old TV show, or book I used to read as a kid. It brings back memories of the emotions those things used to trigger; the dreams I had built around them. The ideas of what life could be like, would be like when you were set free; allowed to live as you pleased.

I had big dreams as a kid. I was a firm believer that life could be good, should be good. And I kept fighting for my dreams. I never really stopped, but I know I got lost somewhere when I kept having to deal with things I did not understand. Everything takes practice. It’s all very well, for example, to dream up a beautiful, romantic relationship with someone. To actually have it though, takes quite something. You have to buy/pick the flowers, plan the presents, the naughty surprises, the weekend getaways… You can’t just think about it. When you first start, it ain’t gonna be easy. You are bound to buy the wrong presents, book the wrong trips and do naughty surprises that end up as dismal failures. To make something seem as effortless as in your dreams…it will take a while. Besides, no matter how good you get at something, it still takes up time. You need both time and energy to execute your grand ideas. The house ain’t going to re-decorate itself, the smooth running schedule for the week ain’t going to create itself, the food ain’t going to cook itself and your hair ain’t going to blow-dry itself into that perfect style. Practice, organization, patience for it all to become effortless is crucial. So is taking it step-by-step.

What’s more, we will all hit hurdles. We may not marry the first Prince or Princess we meet. We have to learn, that how we see that too, is a choice. You can either fuel your thoughts with how perfect that person is/was, or you can simply decide that it wasn’t meant to be and the best is yet to come. This goes for all your dreams also. Learn from your mistakes, but remember where you keep your focus every day shouldn’t be in the past, or the future, but rather in the moment. In the here and now.

We all have ideas of how we would like to live. I don’t think anyone should give up on them. I think one should learn to live that way, somehow. I’m not talking about earning the big bucks here, I mean how you live your everyday life. How you treasure yourself every day by living your potential. How you make the most of every minute, instead of letting laziness getting the most of you. It took me years to start living the life I dreamt of, simply because in reality it requires effort. A lot of effort. A lot of learning. A lot of rearranging. A lot of getting over old patterns, fears, confusion…  Once you get there though, once you sit down to eat a homemade meal instead of grabbing whatever you got your hands on, it’s worth it. It tastes better. It gives life the zest you always dreamt of it having.

I used to put everything on hold for tomorrow, because I thought it was more important to work. I was never able to justify anything else, because how could I? How could I relax when I was not earning money? When I was not doing what I love to earn even a dime? Yet, it was exactly that which brought me down – too much work. When you stare at something for too long you do not see clearly. When you don’t get all your other needs satisfied you get restless. You become miserable after long enough. AND even if your circumstances aren’t ideal in all areas of life, you can’t let the others go with them. You have to keep treating each area of your life as a masterpiece. I feel better when I exercise. When I make the skin lotion I intended to make. When I bake a new cake a week. When I decorate my house with the care that makes it stunning. When I eat healthy. When I live as I always wanted to live. Yes, it would all be that much simpler with a million, or two in the bank, but I don’t have it. Life is NOT tomorrow. It’s today. Right here and right now.

If you want to live in a castle, rather than wait until the day you can afford buying one, you better turn your home into a castle right now. If you one day get the castle, that’s fabulous, but for now, don’t waste time living in a pigsty – your life right now counts. In fact, it’s the only life you have. Tomorrow is not a given.

Now, here, today, is the future I dreamt of as a kid. Now, here, today is when I have to live that future as I intended to. Now, here, today is when I turn every area of my life into a masterpiece, into an indulgent, succulent piece of cake. With whipped cream.

Some of my creations and the strawberry one was my dad’s…although he cheated…