venus

five rhythms: flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical, stillness

each a single dance, together a circle 

five seasons, including the transitions between the seasons 

a time of great movement and resting 

five elements: water births wood, births fire, births earth, births metal, 

and then back to the source again, around and around 

and it's all connected

each a single dance, and together another circle 

circles within circles and intersecting circles 

chinese traditional dances and movement meditations in circles

western tradition moving in lines and angles 

five tastes, five emotions, five yin organs, six yang organs

correspondences moving and moving in on and on circles 

and i wonder how on earth does an alien who wants to be an earthling again manage to move back into the circle 

how does one summon up bravery to say, YO! i wanna be part of your circle 

and I'M NOT AFRAID to love and live and laugh

and cry so hard that all the neighbors poke their heads out the windows far enough for all the alien (who are not alien) plants and sky and other friends all SEE 

and smile 

been coughing now for a full month 

lungs/ chest area is connected with metal element

and time of autumn transition 

and too much internal fire 

and emotion of sadness 

everytime i see venus in the sky at night 

(she shines so brightly especially in the mountains, but even under the vegas-style nonstop city lights) 

i remember every place and all the people i know and love 

and i feel the love 

but i also feel sad 

it's one thing to say "i don't miss you... i love you know. and i know you know the difference." 

and it's another thing to feel like 

time passes by so quickly 

and i wonder when/ if i will ever see you again 

in the key of WEEE

eyes that see

每個禮拜如風而飛過去。 風飛過去， 會留著這兒一片移動的葉子， 那兒幾滴小水珠。 風是控制不了的。 

I spend about half my week in the 平地 areas, and the other half of my week 在此山中。 （half my week easy to find in the city... somewhere zooming around via bike, fast little turbo legs, or subway... teaching or being taught... reading or writing... eating or sleeping... and the other half of my week allowing myself to be "nobody" again and absolutely 沒用的木頭會活得最久 in the midst of so much family and forest in the mountains) 

it is the type of balance that makes the two months I've already been in Taiwan feel like... I've crammed a lot into one week. It feels like one week. 

我的媽媽要回來台灣了！ 

是第一次我媽媽跑來看我！

usually I'm in more remote/ difficult to find/ difficult to understand places. This time, I'm in Taipei,Taiwan. My parents grew up here, and then left for school. This is no longer Home-home... but it's still a home. Coming here is no big deal... just about a 15 hour flight across the Ocean to the other side of the planet, where everyone looks completely different than your usual American white bread, and we all speak a different language here. 

And, I LOVE it!!!

I love it. 

And, I'm gonna see my mama again, after a year! 

Already a year away from America. 

I miss people and I miss places... and I wonder when I will return. 

If I return. 

今天想到很多時間上的問題。 

（live your questions. be your answer.) 

在針灸課， 我們剛剛談到眼。。。 eye-diagnosis (Chinese medicine diagnoses= 1. 把脈/ pulse diagnosis 2. tongue diagnosis 3. eye diagnosis 4. sensory diagnosis: evaluating the patients' smell, how they look, how they sound 5. questioning: asking about the patients' environmental, personal, emotional, and other elements of life that all come together to quite super duper holistically manifest themselves in their health and general well-being)

not as complicated as it sounds, and absolutely fascinating 

learning about eye-diagnosis, I look into the mirror and see that I have accumulated way too many late-nights in my life... and my eyes record all these late nights as far too many blood vessels popped and squeezed to the edges of my entire eyeball

our body as a microcosm of the macrocosm 

my body, my Universe

this Universe, oh how I want to take the best care of you! 

前天晚上， 老師幫我下眼針。。。 我怕針， 我怕痛！ 

現在， 要少帶眼鏡， go to sleep between 11-12 at night, eat more C (橘子， 獅子， 柚子， 木瓜， 紅蘿蔔， 白蘿蔔， 番薯。。。）

a fight ensues on the metro

never seen this before 

young woman yelling at old man yelling at young woman

they spit at each other 

why don't you just punch each other, roll around, get it over with 

but, i am glad you are yelling 

i want to yell too, but i will wait until i get back into the mountains 

the city is too small and tight for such passionate energy 

everyone's got it all bottled up 

not me

off for another mountain weekend 

see you in the trees

toilet humor

I walk by the bathroom

"hello teacher Osha!" a kid declares with pants around ankles

a bathroom stall opens

"Teacher Osha!!!" the kid inside sticks his head out, "I am shitting!"

kindergardener kids always make me smile, no matter how tired I get!

wonder? want?

My dance teacher won't come up the mountain with me for body therapy. He has an old hurt shoulder. My Chinese medicine teacher isn't certified, so my dance teacher is afraid. But, he says that once I finish learning these things, he will trust me to help him with his shoulder. Sometimes, you need to meet people first to trust them? But can't I say "If you would trust me... won't you trust my teacher?" But, no.

 

I carry my book of meridians with me everywhere. My Chinese is improving. The weight of the book in my bag gives me a strong back. This morning, I stuck three large body-meridian-human pictures onto my wall, across from my bed, in my small room. It's the first thing I see when I wake up, besides the loving sweet light of yet another day filtering in through the windows. I love waking up in the mornings.

 

So much to learn. So much to help. So many ways to help.

 

Me first, before anyone else.

Can help myself and simultaneously help others.

Sometimes feel completely overwhelmed by all I want to learn... feel like I cannot learn fast enough.

My dance teacher has hurt shoulder.

My other dance teacher has hurt knees.

My own knees hurt.

I still have trauma from the mountain, that we will discuss with the whole class, next class.

I want to climb endless mountains.

I want to play outside all day, and dance until I can dance no more.

I want to make music and make love until sun comes up and keep on doing it until my eyes are bloodshot and weary, and I die from exhaustion.

I want to sleep forever and just rest so fully in some hot spring right next to the coldest stream on earth in the most remote and gorgeous mountains unknown by human eyes.

My friend has difficulty falling asleep and wakes up feeling like something is not quite right in her life... something not quite fulfilled.

I can talk with her, but how to push her over the edge, how to help her get going. Because that's what we both agree she needs... to get going with what is unfulfilling, and move it forward in her life.

Another friend just got booted off his under-the-table job, and now has no money to pay for debts.

I wonder if I too should go to grad school and accumulate debt and learn a lot and then enter the world with yet another degree and even less money than I have now.

I wonder

I want

 

Today, we learned about manipulation and locomotion in dance class.

I am beginning to feel restless and desire to locomote again,

while at the same time feeling so deeply grateful to be here surrounded by all these amazing friends, teachers, and family family family of all colors and varieties, and am contemplating challenging myself by staying here for a year, like I stayed in Connecticut for a year.

 

I wonder

 

I want?

oh, Love

For some reason, there's all this love that comes with blood relations. And with that love, there comes so much pain and suffering, too. And honesty, in all its graceful and awkward bright beauty and frightening hideousness. 

What if I feel more connection with my non-blood family than with my blood family? What if there are few points of clear connection with those that perhaps love me most... but just can't understand me? And then, I find other family that I can connect with on so many more levels than just love and blood... but I keep on leaving each new family I create for myself? 

Dearest Yin and Yang, guess I just need to (keep on with the keep on) find that elusive (yet so blatantly obvious) point of BALANCE. 

什麼都要平和與和平。 

深呼吸， 吧。。。 

and then? 

感恩

感恩

全部的宇宙

美麗的計劃

送我今日

這個身體

這個空氣

這些老師， 家人， 朋友們

心中充滿了感恩， 歡喜， 大愛

friday

For the first time since returning to Taiwan, I spent the whole day at home yesterday

cooked fabulous colorful healthful barely-cooked simply delicious meals 

savored them slowly 

painted lewd completely nude pictures in blatant black and white 

walked, danced, skipped, crawled, ran around with skin in direct contact with air 

read about breath, body, and meridian matters on a nice brown and soft bed of squishy cotton and even squishier belly

dreamed about lands, plants, and people more distant--- and more near--- than i could ever imagine 

reveled all day in my small abode in the middle of this huge taipei city 

and then packed my bags and headed back up into the mountains for another mountain weekend