a steep assignment indeed

my intention upon returning to korea this semester was to set aside significant chunks of time twice a week to follow a portion of the meditation practice schedule that i had experienced on the spirit rock retreat in california this winter. it consisted of sitting meditation, walking meditation, sitting and walking, then yoga. well, needless to say, things do not always go as planned. i woke up one morning about a week or so after being back in korea and it was like everything i thought i knew was thrown into an abyss of uncertainty, and the things i'd been struggling with went further up in flames. anything i thought i had a handle on was flung a million miles out of reach. for about a month, i felt as though i was feeling my way along in pitch black darkness. i found it to be one of the most anxiety producing experiences of my life. suddenly no direction, everything completely unknown, a cloud of confusion and depression mixed with occasional frenzy settling down around me like a heavy, wet, and sometimes electric, blanket. i discovered that the only way to get through each day was to live, literally, minute to minute. to think about the next day or even the next hour would send me into anxiety.

i found that i could not meditate. i could not listen to the dharma talks given by teachers that i'd taken refuge in so many times before. i couldn't even do much yoga without breaking down into tears or feeling like my nerves were going haywire. i was shocked to not find solace in my aloneness or in the practices that had come to support me so well. i didn't have an appetite for the first couple of weeks and woke with diarrhea every morning (sorry!! i'm from the midwest and we talk openly about our bodily processes!!). this all seemed like a serious wake up call. my body desperately trying to tell me something.

the only things that seemed to alleviate some of the anxiety were to take myself to the gym, to spend time with other people (i'm so thankful that i was part of "the vagina monologues" theater production during this time), receive massage at the yoga center, and to bake! so, just about every day i put on my running shoes and went to ride the stationery bike, sometimes for over and hour...i imagined i was pedaling to africa while watching anderson cooper on CNN. i reached out to family and friends both here and far more than usual. i made way too much banana bread! i booked a massage for every thursday afternoon. shine (my massage therapist) told me several weeks ago that my spirit was always bright but she wondered lately if i felt lonely. i told her i felt a heaviness in my heart these days and that sometimes it felt like loneliness, but that i knew it wasn't about someone else making it better. she understood and said something about mother love. i said, yeah...we have to learn to be that for ourselves, don't we? her mother died when she was seventeen, so she knew what i was talking about in a way that i can't even understand.

i had a couple of intense dreams during this time.

about 10 days after returning to korea i dreamed...
i am walking down a path in a jungle that i walk every day to get where i need to go. on this path, i have to walk past a vendor with tables covered in blue tarp who also has snakes. the snakes slither to and fro across the path, so every time i pass by i am alert not to step on their slithery bodies. i feel some fear but it is so routine now that i don't think much of it. on one particular day i walk past the man, his snakes and his vending tables, and for some reason i turn around to look behind me after i've turned the corner and made it safely by. there is an unusually large snake with a big, red head over by the tables. as i look, the snake approaches me quickly. when it reaches me it levitates its entire body in the air and comes straight at my solar plexus, biting me right in the gut. i wake up filled with a rush of adrenaline and fear. i say to myself, "holy sh*t - what was THAT?!" i lay in bed awake for quite some time, wondering what on earth is going on.

i had a second dream, two weeks later...
i am in an airplane on my way back to san francisco from korea. there is sudden turbulence. i grip my seat feeling terribly afraid, but the turbulence subsides and i relax again. then suddenly the plane starts nose-diving, plummeting downward out of control. i am certain i am going to die. horrendous fear fills every cell in my body, it is totally somatic. i brace myself in preparation for the physical pain i imagine i will feel upon crashing and dying. it feels like i'm in this space of free falling, feeling as though i'm going to die with the plane diving downward for hours and hours. there is a point where i realize that maybe i will die instantly upon impact and won't feel a thing. upon this realization, i start to focus on my breathing and it calms me somewhat. suddenly we hit ocean water (i'd forgotten we were flying over the pacific) and we are all still alive. water starts gushing into the plane and we have to hurry to get out. i turn and see that the woman sitting next to me is someone i went to grad school with. she is a strong, sturdy, no nonsense woman. she gets out of the plane without grabbing her bag from the overhead compartment. i hesitate, unsure of whether or not i should leave my backpack. i decide to grab it and then i crawl quickly out of the plane onto a dock that just happens to be in the middle of the ocean!

going down in a plane has been a recurring dream for years now. i have always woken before crashing. this was the first time where the plane completed its descent. upon waking, i felt amazed and euphoric that i didn't die in the dream! i'd felt so sure that i would. in the past i've always woken filled with the rush of fear, thinking i'm going to die. but with this particular dream, i went through that feeling in the dreamstate and came out the other side, waking in awe and amazement that it had not turned out as i'd so deeply feared it would. this dream had an enormous impact on me, and i've felt in days since that it has given me access to a source of strength and courage inside that i hadn't been aware of before.

this morning, out of the blue, i decided to try meditating again. it's been almost a month and a half of not sitting. i chose to do a guided meditation led by jack kornfield, and then listened to debra chamberlain taylor's dharma talk titled "letting go into the golden wind." there is a part i'd like to share that particularly hit home...

the buddha taught, "nothing whatsoever is to be clung to as "i" or "mine." if anyone has heard this, they have heard the whole dharma. anyone who realizes this one teaching realizes the whole dharma."

debra goes on to say, "steep assignment!! why? because we cling all the time to everything, don't we?! sitting in meditation we can notice...i cling to my stories, i cling to my emotions, even when they are painful. i cling to plans, opinions, judgments..."

debra explains how the buddha did not say that we are sinful or bad for clinging so much, he simply compassionately pointed out, "my dear friends, the cause of your suffering is this clinging and the possibility of your peace and freedom is in your opening and letting go. it is the whole of the dharma."

in the tibetan buddhist teachings, it is said that "the state of enlightenment is the ultimate relaxation." imagine that....feeling completely relaxed in the body and mind, no holding or gripping, no bracing or anxious tension. just soft, languid openness...muscles fully let go, bones surrendered to gravity, mind quiet, not concerned with the clouds of thought that inevitably pass through.

one thing has emerged from this free fall into uncertainty and that is that i want to travel to kripalu in massachusetts this summer for a month-long yoga teacher training retreat. most of all, it is for the deepening of this journey of learning to let go in the body/mind...from the inside out. taking part in this in-depth training feels like the next authentic movement that wants to happen in my life. the rest still remains a mystery.

a dated news flash from gumi

one day last semester, while craig (a.k.a. santa claus) and i were teaching at samsung in gumi, some folks with big cameras came into our classrooms for a few minutes and we made the nightly news! the sound is terrible, so you can't hear what is being said, but hopefully you'll enjoy watching anyway! after the clip of me sitting in a circle with my students, you will see professor chae being interviewed - he is the one i go on all of my adventures with in gumi. tomorrow we plan to head back to the movies...either "benjamin button" or "slumdog millionaire" with free popcorn in hand thanks to our samsung ID cards!

here we go stanford here we go!

rock on, STANFORD! the gals are headed to the NCAA final four!
jayne appel had outscored iowa state BY HERSELF at half time. the team brought home the win 74-53. jaynie walked away with 46 points at the final buzzer, her career high! amazing game!

"THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES" in daegu, south korea!!

that's about as radical as it gets! it was an enormous honor to be part of this show. below, i have included some excerpts from the script. there is some intense material, so (grandma and grandpa in particular!!) read on with that in mind. for those of you who read this who are not familiar with "the vagina monologues," it is a play written by eve ensler, based on over 200 interviews with women around the world. the show consists of monologues, women telling stories in celebration of female sexuality as well as painful, heartbreaking stories of sexual violence and shame. this play is performed in over 75 countries now every year, usually in the spring, to raise awareness about the violence against women that is happening every day worldwide. here in korea, one would never say the korean word for "vagina" out loud in public. EVER. so, to debut a play with the word "vagina" in the title - wow! big, big stuff. both shows over the weekend were sold out to overflowing. we are talking about taking it on the road!

i'm still working on figuring out how to post the longer video clips that friends of mine captured during the show, including my part as vagina #3!! i was part of a group of 3 women who performed "if your vagina got dressed, what would it wear?" and "if your vagina could talk, what would it say?" let's just say, we provided the audience with a bit of comic relief! here we are, skot, chloe, and me: the women of "say and wear!"
i would have chosen a different image for the poster, below, as it does not even begin to capture the essence of what the show is about....alas, i was not in charge!!jo!
whitney and bin nary ready to ROCK!
mj and jinjeong - the two women who performed the comfort women monologue
chloe and emmamj and melast minute make-up!right before the show on the last night, we circled round and did the hokey pokey! "you put your vagina in, you put your vagina out, you put your vagina in and you shake it all about! you do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around - that's what it's ALL about! YEAH!"
the intro to the show...with the entire cast
"i bet you're worried."
"we were worried."
"we were worried about vaginas."
"we were worried what we think about vaginas, and even more worried that we don't think about them."
"we were worried about our own vaginas. they needed a context of other vaginas, a community, a culture of vaginas."
"there's so much darkness and secrecy surrounding them, like the bermuda triangle. nobody ever reports back from there...."
kate performing "the flood."

intro to "the flood":"a group of women between the ages of 65 and 75 were interviewed. these interviews were the most poignant. possibly because many of these women had never had a vagina interview before. one woman who was 72 had never even seen her vagina. she washed herself in the shower and bath, but never with conscious intention. she had never had an orgasm. at 72 she went into therapy, as we do in new york, and with the help of her therapist, she went home one afternoon by herself, lit some candles, took a bath, played some music, and she got down with herself. she said it took her over an hour, because she was arthritic, but when she finally found her clitoris, she said, she cried. this monologue is for her."

"the vagina workshop" monologue

"my vagina is a shell, a round pink tender shell opening and closing, closing and opening. my vagina is a flower, an eccentric tulip, the center acute and deep, the scent delicate, the petals gentle but sturdy.
i didn't always know this. i learned this in the vagina workshop. i learned this from a woman who runs the vagina workshop, a woman who believes in vaginas, who really sees vaginas, who helps other women see their own vaginas..."

"little coochi snorcher" performed by louise hillsburg...with a deep, southern accent.

"memory: december 1965, five years old

my mama tells me in a scary, loud, life-threatening voice to stop scratching my coochi snorcher. i become terrified that i've scratched it off down there. i do not touch myself again, even in the bath. i am afraid of the water getting in and filling me up so i explode. i put band-aids over my coochi snorcher to cover the hole, but they fall off in the water. i imagine a stopper, a bathtub plug up there to prevent things from entering me. i sleep with three pairs of happy heart-patterned cotton underpants underneath my snap-up pajamas...

memory: seven years old

edgar montane, who is ten, gets angry at me and punches me with all his might between my legs. it feels like he breaks my entire self. i limp home. i can't pee. my mama asks me what's wrong with my coochi snorcher, and when i tell her what edgar did to me she yells at me and says never to let anyone touch me down there again. i try to explain that he didn't touch it, mama, he punched it.

memory: nine years old

i play on the bed, bouncing and falling, and impale my coochi snorcher on the bedpost. i make high-pitched screamy noises that come straight from my coochi snorcher's mouth. i get taken to the hospital and they sew it up down there from where it's been torn apart.

memory: ten years old

i'm at my father's house and he's having a party upstairs. everyone's drinking. i'm playing alone in the basement and i'm trying on my new cotton white bra and panties that my father's girlfriend gave me. suddenly my father's best friend, this big man alfred, comes up from behind and pulls my new underpants down and sticks his big hard penis into my coochi snorcher. i scream. i kick. i try to fight him off, but he already gets it in. my father's there then and he has a gun and there's a loud horrible noise and then there's blood all over alfred and me, lots of blood. i'm sure my coochi snorcher is finally falling out. alfred is paralyzed for life and my mama doesn't let me see my father for seven years.

memory: thirteen years old

my coochi snorcher is a very bad place, a place of pain, nastiness, punching, invasion and blood. it's a site for mishaps. it's a bad-luck-zone. i imagine a freeway between my legs and i am traveling, going far away from here.

memory: sixteen years old

there's this gorgeous 24-year-woman in our neighborhood and i stare at her all the time. one day she invites me into her car. she asks me if i like to kiss boys, and i tell her i do not like that. then she says she wants to show me something, and she leans over and kisses me so softly on the lips with her lips and then puts her tongue in my mouth. wow. she asks me if i want to come over to her house, and then she kisses me again and tells me to relax, to feel it, to let our tongues feel it. she asks my mama if I can spend the night and my mother's delighted that such a beautiful, successful woman has taken an interest in me. i'm scared and i can't wait. her apartment's fantastic. she's got it hooked up. it's the seventies, the beads, the fluffy pillows, the mood lights. i decide right there that i want to be a secretary like her when i grow up. she makes a vodka for herself and then she asks what i want to drink. i say the same as she's drinking and she says she doesn't think my mama would like me drinking vodka. i say she probably wouldn't like me kissing girls either, and the pretty lady makes me a drink. then she changes into this chocolate satin teddy. she's so beautiful. i always thought bulldaggers were ugly. i say "you look great," and she says "so do you." i say "but I only have this white cotton bra and underpants." then she dresses me, slowly, in another satin teddy. it's lavender like the first soft days of spring... there's a picture over her bed of a naked black woman with a huge afro. she gently and slowly lays me out on the bed... then she does everything to me and my coochi cnorcher that i always thought was nasty before, and wow. i'm so hot, so wild. she says, "your vagina, untouched by a man, smells so nice, so fresh, wish i could keep it that way forever." i get crazy wild and then the phone rings and of course it's my mama. i'm sure she knows; she catches me at everything. i'm breathing so heavy and i try to act normal when i get on the phone and she asks me, "what's wrong with you, have you been running?" i say "no, mama, exercising." then she tells the beautiful secretary to make sure i'm not around boys and the lady tells her, "trust me, there's no boys around here." afterwards the gorgeous lady teaches me everything about my coochi snorcher...she teaches me all the different ways to give myself pleasure. she's very thorough. she tells me to always know how to give myself pleasure so i'll never need to rely on a man. in the morning i am worried that i've become a butch because i'm so in love with her. she laughs, but i never see her again. i realize later she was my surprising, unexpected and politically-incorrect salvation. she transformed my sorry-ass coochi snorcher and raised it into some kind of heaven."

"memory of her face" monologue - spoken from the perspectives of an iraqi woman scarred from bombing, an abducted illegal immigrant, and a victim of domestic violence whose husband poured acid on her face. all three suffer survivor guilt and the constant reminder of that one moment each time they look into the mirror.

"my angry vagina" monologue

"my vagina's angry. it's pissed off. my vagina's furious and it needs to talk...all this sh*t they're constantly trying to shove up us, clean us up - stuff up us, make it go away. well, my vagina's not going anywhere. it's pissed off and it's staying right here. like tampons - what the hell is that? a wad of dry cotton stuffed up there. as soon as my vagina sees it, it goes into shock. it says forget it! it closes up. you need to work with the vagina, introduce it to things, prepare the way. you've got to convince my vagina, engage my vagina's trust. you can't do that with a wad of dry f*cking cotton."


kristin, the director of our show, performing the "reclaiming cunt" monologue

bae jinjeong and mj performing "say it" - the monologue about the korean comfort women and girls (some as young as 10 years old) who were forced into sexual slavery by the japanese government during WWII. some were forced to have sex with up to fifty men a day. it is estimated that 200,000-400,000 women were in the system and 80% of them were believed to have come from korea, which was a colony of japan from 1910-1945. it is estimated that only 25% of the women survived the ordeal. today there are less than 100 survivors who are still living in south korea. every wednesday since january 8, 1992, comfort women survivors have gathered to sit outside of the japanese embassy in seoul demanding acknowledgment for the suffering and injustice that the japanese inflicted upon them. they are still waiting. there is yet to be an apology.

the proceeds from our production are going to women in the congo who are still to this day forced to undergo genital mutilation. female genital mutilation has been inflicted upon approximately 130 MILLION girls and young women. it is practiced in 28 countries, mostly in africa.
the proceeds will also go to the korean comfort women. two weeks ago there was a ground breaking ceremony for the construction of the comfort women memorial museum in seoul that is being built as we speak to honor the stories and lives of those women who suffered immeasurably at the hand of the japanese soldiers.

the cast at the end of the show...
taeok, mr. lee and inhui with me. inhui has long been an activist on behalf of the comfort women. she is now writing her phd dissertation on that very topic. she brought information packets regarding the herstory of the comfort women and passed them out to everyone who attended the show. many thanks to inhui and her warrior spirit.

life was the ocean

"Remember how we chased it like shadows
Life was the ocean; we wanted to swim
Looking back now, it’s just how the path goes
They tell you it’s over; you never begin

We don’t give ourselves time - the way that we used to
To watch it all happen, unfolding in sighs
You’d think we were blind, the things we can see through
The things we look past when emboldened inside

But it’s alright now, it’s alright
The ghosts of our glories are gray-bearded guides
The sound of our sorrows has stirred us inside
But I think maybe I’ve never felt more alive

I asked you just once if you thought we could be found
You never did tell me; but I think I know now
Whatever ship comes, by dark sea or gray cloud
As long as the well’s deep, we make it somehow

I don’t know how to make peace or find it
We’re most of us stories we’re scared to explain
But what if there’s sound, somewhere caught behind this
A song we can sing while we’re lying awake"

"It's Alright" - a beautiful song by Ellery

old partner

the gumi adventures have resumed, however, "the dream team" has been dismantled. it's just professor chae and i that remain. professor woo goes to gumi on a different day now and professor sahn is on sabbatical. it's sad but we live on and continue to seek adventure during our 7 hour break between classes. so, today with spring warmth and the fragrance of cherry blossoms wafting on the breeze, professor chae and i walked to the gumi cinema to see "old partner," a south korean documentary film about an elderly couple and their age-old cow. it's a raw and touching glimpse into very traditional korean life in the countryside. it's the first ever south korean film to compete at the sundance film festival.
the film moves at a snail's pace, but that is actually the whole point of the movie. when we walked out of the theater we both noted how incredibly slowed down we felt in our bodies and in our minds.

the husband and wife...both in their late seventies and still planting and harvesting rice by hand...with the help of the 40 year old cow who has been diagnosed with cancer and has one year to live.
carrying sticks home for the winter fires
plowing the rice field
heading home
here's choi alone...after the cow's death...in the background the rice field that he will never plow again with his old partner.
won-nang-so-ri (meaning: the sound of the cow's bell)

dear ones

several of my sweet, sweet students from last semester came over for dinner last night. they walked in the door with gifts overflowing...wine, strawberries, cherry tomatoes, and "white day" candy! "white day" is like valentine's day here in korea. i bustled around in my apron making spaghetti, garlic toast and salad. they hung out in the kitchen taking pictures of me and catching me up on their lives while i cooked! it was so nice to have their joyful, bright energy in my home!

no bright orange body bag for me, thank you

junghwa, mijeong, myself and elena...waiting outside for the 4am bus to arrive to take us to the mountains for a sunday of skiing the slopes!

kate, elena and i...all dressed and ready to go!

kate and i...off to practice on the bump of a bunny hill while the others head off to snowboard down the mountain!
mijeong and kate

mijeong
riding up the mountain
elena


kate: master skier!
hey! elena's sweatshirt matches her kimchi chigae! that soup looks like it's on fire. i've stopped eating spicy korean food, so since there was nothing else available at the chalet i resorted to a snickers bar and some kimbap! it wasn't the most nutritious day, but at least my insides weren't up in flames with red hot pepper.

totally diggin' this dude's ski suit!

it was my first time skiing in korea and kate's first time skiing, period! korean skiing habits are much like korean driving habits. anything goes. it was more than a little hectic. being that i had very little control over my own speed and direction, i thought i could rely on the skills of others, but it soon became apparent that that wasn't going to be the case at all. i was almost run over about 50 times. and i myself took a little kid down. at least i was going at a snail's pace, but still...i felt terrible.
every 15 minutes or so, we saw an emergency ski patrol snowmobile bringing an injured body down the mountain. the scene was very dramatic, as the body was seated on a sled type thing on the back of the snowmobile, wrapped up in a bright orange body bag, with only the person's feet danging limp out the end. the first time i thought they were bringing a dead body down the hill. i stopped cold in my tracks, stunned. kate and i just looked at each other with wide eyes and jaws dropped to the icy ground.
after lunch and one more run down the mountain, i decided to call it a day. i had seen one too many of those bright orange body bags filled with injury, and there was no way i was going to end up in a korean hospital in the middle of god only knows where. so, kate and i both decided to just relax outside at a picnic table until the rest of the gals were finished. we boarded the bus at 4:30pm and began the four hour journey back to daegu. it was invigorating and wonderful to be out in nature breathing in the fresh air for a day. i can't say i'll go skiing again in korea though, unless it's a monday and i have the mountain to myself!