Poems of Springtime

I have been living in Leavenworth, Washington since December and after living in the snow for the fist three months, my eyes now delight to see what has been hiding beneath the snow for the first time.  Being a California girl, it is fascinating to see the seasons change so quickly hear and bear witness to the excitement of a sunny day.  I have never seen so many people comment on how lovely and wonderful the sun is when it is out.  Sometimes it takes not having something to feel it's value I suppose.

Here are some of the poems I have written lately.  Enjoy and peace be with you.

The Rebirth of a Rose

This Rose.

It has waited.

Frozen

Drinking in melted life through veins

Hidden by thorns of warning.

The sun speaks to her waiting petals.

“Open my beauty, it is time to wake.

I have risen for you and I long to see your face.”

She feels the vibrations course into her veins.  

Tingling her body, her neck, her brains.

The warmth of the promise

echoes through her soul.

She moves,

and is moved as a creature upon a wave.

Observing how the sun unwinds her fears

she arches and opens

releasing her tears.

She surrenders to the sun

while ice and cold draw back from her feet.

Her new life has begun as her petals unfold.

Relaxing in the joy and warmth of her rebirth.

Here

Now

Her fibers pulse with life.

A Dialogue with the Universe

Tell me- Where my soul will go when it leaves this space?

It will return to where it was when it entered this place.  

Pure and whole, joyful and new

It finds the love it had when it grew.

I am scared it will vanish, that it won’t find that place.

How can it loose what was never erased?

It was never alone and never will be.

Changing and resurrecting through the roots of the tree.

Turn to the sky, the soil, the earth.

Life needs love for it to give birth.

The soul will drink in this love

though the mind may reject it as pain.

The cycle goes on again and again.

So have comfort my child

Though you fear loss.

The soul is as alive as the seed

lying beneath the frost.

The Spell of a Magician's Mind

Loyalty and Love in the Nepali Context

Loyalty is abiding by the laws of the self, other, or spiritual entity.  Sometimes the mind can be led towards loyalty to an idea that it doesn’t necessarily believe in itself.  People and places and voices and words can seduce the mind into change.  Whether that voice wants peace, love and harmony, or war, hate and violence;  such forces can be very strong and can pull the malleable mind into it’s vacuum.  The force of war, hate and violence is unfortunately a vein that many Americans get sucked into because we Americans are prideful of our accomplishments, money, social stature, etc.  Unable to let go of attachments to possessions, people lash out in fear.  They are loyal to the self and the pursuit of the sparkly diamond and cast away, or make the others who question them appear foolish.  Out of fear, desperation, and greed they use distraction and avoidance techniques to take attention off their malaise.  The magician can manipulate the whole environment around them into making another person look jealous/greedy/disloyal/whatever it is that they need in order to disguise that quality within themselves and direct attention outward.  They are only powered by those who are easily manipulated.

In Nepal, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by magicians of a different sort.  These magicians understood the need for love, affection, and a sense of belonging.  It is hard for people age 14-30 to find romantic love and affection within a dating relationship because they pretty much doesn’t exist.  Pre-marital relationships aren’t typically encouraged unless the community is trying to set up a love marriage.  For male Peace Corps Volunteers, this meant lots of proposals for marriage and lots of “no thank yous”.  My friend got proposed to at least once a day.  For females, it pretty much meant avoiding the whole scene, or going undercover.

The beautiful coping strategy that people invent to deal with coming of age, but not being ready for marriage, is to spread their love everywhere and literally love friends as family.  In some ways, it seemed immature and juvenile, but it works.  Boys would love each other, hold hands, and show affection publicly.  Girls share time together and become friends with each other very fast.  Boys don’t attach to girls and girls don’t attach to boys as a rule of thumb.  I never went to a co-ed middle school, but in some ways I imagine that the environments would be very similar.  Adult male sexual tension was diffused by simply being available for love regardless of the sex and having a strong love of the self.  

If there was an individual that seems to need love and affection, the community will accept and keep private whatever that individual needs to do to receive that love.  If that person has a loving energy, they are received with open doors in pretty much any household.  People are very intuitive and can gauge whether someone is just out to take, or is willing to work and happy with just having a meal, friendship, and shared time.  Those who have money give without reservation because that is their need.  Those who receive don’t complain about their role in life and find the joy in their work and those with whom they share time.  If someone trips, they usually make light of the situation and let that person try to stand, but if that person is really extremely lonely, or sad about their situation- it’s just an opportunity for someone to help pick them up and create good karma.

We must be loyal to this law of love no matter our cultural or religious backgrounds.  If we aren’t, we are only fighting ourselves and sucking others into our own internal conflict.

Bohemian Fantasies

A Gypsies Tale

Give me the strength to plant these seeds 

and when I must leave, that I will not grieve.

For I may not see them sprout and grow

These seeds, these seeds that I sew.

I wander the world and give my love.

Let there be no push and shove.

For I walk my path as others look on

Tempting, tempting me to attach upon.

Upon a dream, a promise, a hope

Tying me with their leather and rope.

The seeds were never mine, but yours.

Can’t you see?

They never belonged to me.

I cannot wait, I cannot pause.

There are rules.

There are laws.

Laws of money and sense and pain

What’s to loose, when you have that to gain?

I am sorry my seeds, but do not die

Upon my friends you now rely.

So drink in their love and soak in their rain.

Hold with you this truth and your life will sustain.

Freedom Beauty Truth Love

Are all these things worth dying for?

The current of the underworld is stronger than your greed.

Because you will never understand that money cannot feed

The passion that burns in the hearts of our breed.

Only by plunging into this fire can you be relieved

Of your small mind and your blacks and your whites.

The flare of bombs your only lights.

When a whisper turns to a scream

It will hit you like a beam.

So go and cry that your piggy bank is broke

We have other ways to cope.

Truth

Truth is meant to be found, not told.  Most of my life has been steered by people telling me what I don’t want, or what I’m not good at.  It took me a long time to realize that was a good thing.  Being a person born with lots of confidence, and being raised in the states where people tell you that you are good at things when sometimes you’re just not, I think I grew up in my teen years and twenties jumping at every opportunity to try anything.  I had to learn that I didn’t like drugs.  I had to learn that I needed time to myself to reflect and regenerate.  I had to learn that just because I failed at something didn’t mean I was a failure.  There is always a silver lining.  Money in my pocket, knowledge in my head, a warm place inside my bed.  I always seemed to be led to something better.  Call me crazy, but believe I have angels to thank for that.  The biggest thing I wasn’t taught was how to manage the universe and complexities of the soul.  Maybe there isn’t a way to teach that though.  Maybe it can’t be told.

In Nepal there are few “type A” personalities.  Those born with competitive, outgoing, ambitious, impatient and/or aggressiveness are labeled Type A.  If people are born with that spirit, they are encouraged and rewarded for it, sometimes despite the consequences.  Typically these leaders are male, but when parents were open minded enough to respect their daughters as fully functional, intelligent, capable human beings, they were also women.  These women were people like my younger sister Neera.  She led with quiet strength, but relenting commitment to her faith and family.  She encouraged me to learn Nepali culture no matter how much I complained that I didn’t want to wash all my clothes and laundry on the 4th day of my period.  She worked for an NGO fighting for HIV Aids awareness at a time when it is becoming a serious threat in the Far West of Nepal.  She fought for women’s rights, for the rights of all who refuse to be victimized.  

I am a “type B”.  I admit that.  My older sister growing up was the boss.  I was more daring than her, but she pointed me in the direction of my dreams.  She was the first to live in a third world country.  She lead by example.  It wasn’t until going to Nepal that I learned the strength of the Type B.  The Type B leads another to truth gently.  They assist their people in learning their own truth. Its having the strength to say:

“How can I help you?  What do you want me to do?”  

and honestly mean it because doing that opens the door for the other person to achieve their dreams.  Usually, in a collective society where the end goal isn’t money/fame/ego the dream is best for everyone.  

The only person you have to believe is yourself, and sometimes you need people to help you do that.  You need people to let you make mistakes, fall on your face, wallow in the muck and then help you to stand.  We need to learn NOT to believe what we are told, and to NOT trust the “truths”, the “words”, the “system”.  The answer and truth is within you.  If you are deceived, you deceive the whole world and everyone you encounter.  We walk in a confused fog of promises to each other and dangling carrots in front of donkeys when we don’t even have a map of what we want in life.  

You don’t have to try hard to find that.  Please, don’t.  Maybe you think it’s something you like doing.  STOP doing that.  I dare you.  STOP doing anything that brings you happiness as the loss of that thing, that person, that activity, that life can only lead to one thing…sadness.  

So what then do you DO-You motivated, skilled, intelligent, bored, driven, creative mind?  Listen.  Listen to the wind.  Listen to the birds.  Listen to your soul.  The truth is there and it will lead you with no effort whatsoever.  You can have a playground without toys.  Just close your eyes and be it.

It Was Time to Go...To Goa

I came here to Goa one month ago knowing I needed to do internal work to strengthen my mind and shed myself of the collective ego portion of my brain.  I will always hold Nepal in my heart, but I can’t hold the longing for what is past and I can’t grieve forever.

What I can do is share my story.  When I came from Nepal my ego was full of voices.  Monkeys/noise/purpose/plans/pride…you name it.  I also left with a HUGE feeling of loss.  Loss of never having again what was honestly the best 2 years of my adult life.  I knew having to transition from that was going to be difficult.  I was not focused.  I was distracted, but I’m realizing now at the end of the program that my mind, body and soul is so much stronger, healthier and focused than I was when I left for Peace Corps.  I say focused but I don’t mean on a goal.  Focused on being peaceful; of just being who I am and loving that.

Who I was in Nepal was “Anjali”.  Although I love the name “Sarah” because my parents gave it to me, I have always disliked the fact that I was always one of many many “Sarahs” in any social situation.  The name “Sarah” is a combination of my mom’s initials “SA” (Sally Anderson) and my dad’s initials “RA” (Richard Anderson) and it will always be my given name, but because my experience was so positive in Nepal, I am more proud of and attached to the name “Anjali” now.  I have even considered changing my name officially.  It was given to me by the first Nepali family I lived with and means “hands full”.  

I sobbed during the 1st or second ending of the meditation when we were told to chant our names while walking.  I chose to chant “Anjali”.  As I walked, I could feel my body fight to say the name through the tears.  As I heard myself chanting the name, it felt like an out of body experience.  It was as if I was in the body of every family and friend I had met in Nepal and was trying to call to myself, but unable to because I had left Nepal and was unsure of when I would ever return.  As I was calling to myself, I felt myself disconnecting farther and farther from them.  Luckily, I had the perfect guru/coach to encourage me to let it out.  He was sympathetic and respectful of my situation.  He kept saying “Let them come out.  Let them speak.”  By the 5th day, I was singing my name and getting bored of the drill.  

My heart and mind had strengthened.

Owning my new sense of closure, I threw my mind into the philosophy and meditation classes.  To understand the pronunciation of the Hindi and Sanscrit words better, I was asking the instructor to check my devanagari script handwriting.  Something in my subconscious was telling me I didn’t want to forget the language.  Better yet, I wanted to learn Hindi.  

Hindi is very similar to Nepali, and pretty much all of the youth age 3-20 speak it.  Funny how now as a 32 year old, I consider a 20 year old to be “youth”, but that’s beside the point.   The only way I’ve heard of people learning Hindi is from TV.  Not liking any of the Hindi TV shows that I have seen so far, and having a somewhat deeply rooted anger against India for bullying Nepal after the earthquake by refusing to provide petrol, I proudly admitted to people that 

“No, I don’t speak Hindi.”  

However, being here in in the South of India, and spending time with people who speak not only Hindi, but the local language Konkani, I’ve enjoyed picking up on words here and there that I understand.  I have been spending my evenings at a local restaurant on the beach called the “Mariposa” (Spanish for Butterfly) and have been enjoying listening to Hindi as well as speaking Nepali with the staff.  There are many staff who come here from Nepal to work.  All guys.  Makes me miss my Nepali girlfriends, but hey…guys are funny and entertaining.

I have also discovered that my own entertaining skills have come to very good use.  About a week ago, I was walking by the Mariposa restaurant with my friend and the manager asked if we wanted drinks.  My friend wanted juice and they didn’t have that, but I asked him if I could fire dance that night for a free meal.  He was more than happy to allow me to do that and I enjoyed a cup of tea, studied for my yoga course exam, then enjoyed a fancy table for one with my feet in the sand.  The live music was fun to listen to and I got up and fire danced both before and after my meal of calimari and king prawn.  So delicious.  I had so much fun that I invited some friends from the yoga course to join me later that week on Thanksgiving day for another show.  The manager really enjoys having me around and part of me wishes I didn’t have to leave.

However, the winds of change are calling me home.  I look forward to the holidays and spending time in the arms of my mom and dad once again.  It has been one year and 3 months since seeing my family which is the longest time I think I have ever been away.  I will miss Goa, but something tells me it’s not my last time here.  The spirit of relaxation, combined with a growing yoga culture makes it tempting to return and teach some day.  For now, I am thankful to be returning home with a 200 hour yoga teacher training certificate, a clear mind, open heart, and cast iron soul.

How to climb a tree in Goa...with a harness and metal stand that you inch up the tree.

The food was very similar to what I ate in Nepal every day.

Me practicing by teaching the teacher

My guru Jagjeet Sing

The Words that Come When I Have Nowhere to Run

This Little Light of Mine

The mind that believes the truth is blind
Open your soul and you will feel the sublime.
Take in the sights and smells and breeze.
The world can feel like one big tease.
If you are aware of the past, but can stay in the now.
You'll realize that truth lies below the brow.
Below the thoughts and words and sights.
Let it come out
The world needs to see your lights.

Slave to the Self

The slave of another can be free in the mind.
They are not wanting, or needing.
They can have freedom of focus and peace.
But sometimes it takes a little elbow grease.
Who is the master?
Show me the woman/man
who walks their path with an open plan.
Open to change; they do not attach upon.
Absent of the ego; the mind is calm.
Above all it's known there is always something going on
In the mind, or body, or earth, or space.
For this there is a time
For that there is a place.
I hope we can walk together in this snail race
Because I want to leap, I want to skip, but without you
I loose my grip.
On what it is to be human
and...
me?
Of this, I feel, we all agree.

What the Heart Hides

200 hours to love
200 hours to heal the heart
A bandaid was not enough
It had to be broken, then torn apart
To really find out what was hidden inside
Underneath layers of ego and pain
Was a seed of passion I could not tame
Passion for adventure, knowledge and the new
I planted that seed, and watched as it grew
Growing as a flower stretches toward the sun
My life burst forth
It had nowhere to run.
I am home now inside this heart
And of this I know...
I am always at the start.

Midnight Dreams

Nothingness can be scary.  The idea of being alone.  Of not fitting in.  Of isolation.  The mind thinks it needs “noise”.  If someone comes from a family where they always had people around, the emptiness can be unsettling.  Emptiness of the mind.  Emptiness of the physical luxuries.  If isolated in the jungle, some lash out and destroy the harmless ants, animals, trees, and humans around them because they don’t trust the earth.  

They 

are 

vulnerable.  

People don’t believe that vulnerability is a strength.  Some predators take advantage of vulnerability.  In our day and age, men are conditioned to be predators.  To take if they think the person wants to be taken.  Sharing a cup of tea that was never offered.  What they don’t know is that it harms themselves in the end.  They are the fearful ones.  The scared, the one who is too weak to deal with internal demons alone.  

In a loving environment, a baby bird fallen from the tree gets saved.  The plant with no water gets rain.  The mother with no children gives birth.  Life is created and people aren’t afraid of death.  Death is just change.  Rebirth.  What in our subconscious helps that change be realized?  Hope.  Hope dies with layers of noise.  Layers of people and mazes and puzzles saying:

“That’s not possible.  That’s not what the scientist, doctor, God, mother, father wants;  therefore it is wrong.”

That scientist/doctor/God/mother/father needs validation.  Whether it be money, prayers, devotion.  You feel guilty and shamed not giving them that.  If you don’t, then everything you knew is wrong.  Flipped.  Questioned.  

Vulnerable. 

But what if that chain of doubt and fear is reversed?  What if we saved that baby bird?  Gave that tree/bird/child/mother/father/people/country hope?  The present moment is the death of the past and the beginning of a new.  Resurrect your dreams, share the tea…but do it in peace and love.  Do it without reservation.  Do it with strength.  It’s your choice. 

The Waves of Transition

The Transition

As I stand on the shore of a new chapter in my life, I have been reflecting, lamenting, and visioning my past life in Nepal and the new path I will walk.  It has been a truly eye opening journey the past few weeks here in Goa, India on the shores of the beautiful Agonda beach.  I have had the privilege of time to see my life's dreams clearly and what I see I am liking more and more.  

Here are some poems that I have been writing here:

The Temples We Seek

We all seek to follow rules and are fearful of the breaking
Our temples made of walls create a safe place to be absolved of sin.
When the bubble breaks and our temple falls we feel sad.
Do not mourn the image of perfection.
The perfection exists in rebirth and change.

Youthful Dance of Love


Paradise is something you think in your head.Maybe brought to you by a book you read?
As a child, you danced and set that dream free.
Joyfully believing that someday it would just be.
Then people and places and noise from the ground came rushing to your toes.
You dance around them and try to stay calm.
Your life you hold in the center of your palm.
Look at your palm and see the love it receives.
You know, you know and everyone agrees...
That love is not love unless it is shared.
Choose wisely my friend and do not be scared.


The Sound of My Heart Upon the Shore

Our bodies crash with the beat of our heart like waves upon the shore

Coliding, combining, evermore… evermore

My soul is dry as sand without your wave to beat my heart

Crash and beat… then fall apart

The day my heart is set free the waters are calm

No pain of the beat, your wave rushed upon

my shore with her shells and her stars and her trash

Please let my heart beat like a shore with no crash

You think you are helping the beat of my life

But I want calm waters 

With little to no strife

So lay yourself down upon this heart I uphold

Lie over me softly; my life I unfold