beavertail cactus bloom

inspiring

wrist

2 more photos: 

- wrist and barrel cactus compare nails- i am still taking care of wrist post-surgery, fingers 3 and 4 still have lack of sensation- nerve damage, absolutely

- nerve damage or not, i stand happily atop ryan mountain in northern joshua tree national park, back in a place i love and call home, and preparing to fly somewhere new and again make a new home

desert tortoise

 

back to USA!

"don't you need to stamp my passport?" i ask. 

"welcome home," says the guy checking my passport with a smile, "you don't need a stamp to enter your own country." 

my own country! 

Flying home from home

I twist my life into this complicated mess of beautiful threads. I don't know who I am really, nor where I am going. I operate on intuition and heart feeling. Each time I try to ground myself and get practical, really practical, I change my mind yet again, wholeheartedly yet halfheartedly so, and move on. Again and again. Flying from home to home. Constantly moving, changing, exciting, heartbreaking. Deliciously and painfully so. What a life. What. A. Trip.

Journey of a lifetime. That's what this is. That's what this all is. This is all the journey of a lifetime. Nothing I do will ever  truly be repeated ever again. Every moment is precious. Every glance I engage in, every heart and heartbeat I surrender to, every laugh I send out into the Universe to be echoed and bounced around for eternity. It's all precious. It's all reflected. It's all a gift. Thread by thread, we weave this journey of a lifetime, this dream we call reality, this painfully gorgeous completely transient experience of… something magnificent and really, beyond words.

Maybe I should just shut up and stop writing right here.

But language is all I've got to share with, like this at least. So, I'll keep writing.

I'm leaving Taiwan. Every so often, I look around in disbelief. I gaze into Larry's eyes, into the faces of all the people passing me by on the streets. I'm leaving here. This home. This reality. I'm returning to the USA, back to where I grew up, back to that home, that reality, where people have different skin colors, different thought patterns, different life habits.

I thought I was coming to Taiwan to get to know my roots. I realize now that my roots are not just here in Taiwan. I root deeply into the USA as well. I can also happily root into India and Thailand. If I chose to, I could root into right about anywhere. I'm that kind of weed. I'm that kind of hardy indestructible root, like comfrey, where the more you chop the root up, the happier it grows. The worse the environment, the more powerfully it thrives, and makes amazing medicine. Well, just chop me up and throw me around like a comfrey salad then. No thank you!

I don't belong here, there, or anywhere. I belong everywhere. It's a choice. And, it's a risk I am willing to live with in my life right now: not being grounded to one place, one reality, one thought-speech-body pattern. Constant change, infinite possibility, endless insecurity. My root chakra is floating like one of those clouds that you can't see in the sky because it's just that ephemeral.

I've wanted to get grounded for the past four years. I fall in love with men who are about as earthy as mother Earth herself, genius men of great heart, wisdom, and sexual prowess. But then, I keep moving away. Time for a new kind of romance, an even deeper romance. Let's call it a marriage.

This year, I am getting married. It's been a long time coming, and I am so happy, excited, and a little bit nervous to marry… the plant nation! Enough of Earthy men, time for Earthy Earth! This year, I am apprenticing with 7song of the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine in Ithaca, NY. I am committed to staying there from April until December, and possibly for longer. I will be studying clinical herbal medicine from a traditional Western perspective. I understand that I am hopping from ancient Eastern to traditional Western perspectives. I aim to integrate East and West into an elegant, effective, and holistic understanding and practice of healing.

After herb school, maybe massage school and/or graduate school for somatic psychology. But, my path is getting more clear, yes? I don't have a super sharp image of how my goals manifest just yet, but all comes more into clarity with each solid step I take. One day, I hope to open my own practice and share all these journeys, joys, jumpings, landings with many beauties in a sweet community I call home.

And for now, and for always, home is here! I am home.

Who are you? Where do you come from? Where are you going?

I am me. You can call me Jiling, but you can't really define me. I come from Earth, and I'm going to Earth. I am here. Thanks for seeing me. 

rebirth

welcome, transformation 

Lantern Festival

I will start writing and sharing more again through my blog. My goal is to write at least one meaningful blog post per week. I write in my journal everyday, and record my dreams. It's an essential part of my day. I end up spending quite a bit of time processing and reflecting. It's time to start sharing this with everyone again. Please give me feedback! (I probably won't edit what I write too much. Please forgive me--- and, enjoy!) 

The first full moon of the new Snake year is tomorrow. It's a Chinese festival called the Yuan Xiao Festival (元宵節). I looked it up on wiki, and in English it's called the Lantern Festival. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lantern_Festival

I've been substitute teaching English this week during the mornings. I finish teaching right in time for lunch. I bring a packed lunch with me, and find a nice place to sit somewhere new everyday, between the school and my university. Two days ago, I sat on a bench in front of a small pub to watch fireworks. During New Years, there have been so many fireworks! Fireworks are lighted to banish negative energy, and welcome positive energy. It starts things off with a BANG! All of the employees are involved in the ritual. It's especially interesting and delightful for me to see very modern places, like banks, with formally dressed people all standing outside of the building, and a pile of food offerings on the table, with candles, incense, and fireworks. My grandparents offer food to our ancestors and the spirits of the house every new moon and full moon. Grandma Ahma eats a vegetarian diet on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar calendar, which means the new moon and full moon. I wonder who the bankers and other stores are offering their altars to? Who are they praying to? I will ask them, next time I see them lining the streets. 

I arrived home in time today to see Grandpa Ahgong slowly moving around the living room, with the big red metal container next to the door, a pot filled with water, and food in front of the altar. For Chinese New Year, I hung out with my entire Taiwanese family. I spent several hours at my Grandma Nainai's house, trying to engage her in friendly conversation, helping with small things such as moving food between the kitchen and the living room altar, etc. After we finished our relatively elaborate living room altar set up, we went to the back of the house. There are many plants growing in hangers here. I come here every time I visit to check and see if any flowers have bloomed. These flowers and plants were my deceased Grandpa Yeye's pride and joy. He has grown them since before I was born. To my surprise, Nainai brought a small plate of chicken and tiny cup of wine to the back of the house, where the plants grow. In the furthest back corner of the hallway, there was a tiny old table that I had never noticed before. She placed the chicken and wine on that table. We lit some incense. "Pray," she directed, gesturing towards some small red stickers on the wall in front of the small table, around shin-height. "What's this for?" I asked, curious. "This is for the spirit of the house," Nainai explained. I exclaimed that she treats the spirit very well! Nainai replies that the spirit has taken really good care of her as well, and it's only appropriate for her to offer the spirit some nice food and wine. 

My Nainai considers herself an atheist. She has no strong religious or spiritual belief system, which is a striking contrast to my other Grandma Ahma, whose spiritual belief system is the foundation of her life, the axis around which all of her days revolve. 

Today, I sat under some old banyan trees next to an "experimental elementary school." I saw big red lanterns hung here for many days, and was curious. To my delight, many people were holding a small ceremony here, including several young ruffian-looking teenage boys walking around in traditional costume with their faces fully painted, slouched over, holding a traditional weapon in one hand, a cigarette in the other hand. It's surprising for me to see these young teen boys participating in these ancient rites. I wonder if they are joining in only because they grew up with it? Or, are they actually spiritually, mentally, and emotionally concerned with and committed to these happenings? How about the bankers? How about my atheist Nainai? 

What's your belief system? What do you do out of cultural conditioning? 

Burning the fake money for the ancestors in front of our home building today with my Ahgong, I watched the offerings writhing and disappearing into the flames. "Burn away my fears," I prayed to the sacred fire, "Burn away all I don't need, all that no longer serves me, the clothes that fit me no longer." Wind blows rain drops onto my face. "Bring me that which I need right now," I pray again to the fire, "Bless me, my family, our world." 

I noticed the small pagoda in front of our building, the banyan trees (especially the huge ancient one with the red ribbon wrapped around it's belly and uncountable years of incense and prayers at its base), red lanterns. I noticed the small snub-nosed Taiwanese trucks, the endless stream of scooters and motorcycles, the tiled rain-proof buildings. 

There is a lot that I take for granted, a lot that I have gotten used to. What small beauties, tiny miracles, can I notice, appreciate, celebrate? 

This Lantern Festival, the first full moon of the Snake Year, may you enjoy time with your family and loved ones. May you enjoy the beauty of the full moon this month and every month thereafter, with all of your senses awake and delighting. May you NOTICE small beauties, BE as a question, GIVE gratitude, and OPEN your heart and mind moment by moment! 

my beautiful parents

One of my yeye (grandpa on dad's side)'s greatest passions was photography. Through his lifetime, he created and collected thousands of photographs. I flipped thru many dusty albums today, with delight. Photo after photo of important life moments, moments of beauty captured on film, small snippets of life, huge life events. I watched my parents and grandparents, even images of myself, going from crawling babies to radiant children, to proudly graduating from various schools, happily getting married, getting older and older... until death (the death piece has only happened to yeye thus far, but awaits all of us). Life moves so quickly. What mark am I leaving on in this world of such transient beauty?