tipsy temple day

today taeok and i left mid-morning for a day at unmunsa, the nuns temple in nearby cheong-do. we stopped off for lunch at a traditional korean restaurant in the countryside. the rustic, log cabin ambiance was very cozy. the fluorescent lights were shaded by lanterns...blessed relief! we ordered pa-chan, which is a leek pancake with squid and oysters; kalguksu, which is a mild noodle soup with seaweed and sesame seeds; acorn jelly salad, and dong dong ju. i can't say i've ever downed dong dong ju in the middle of the day before! this particular rice wine has about a 20% alcohol content and it is served in a BIG bowl, filled to the brim. we drank it all. it goes without saying, my trip to unmunsa was quite a unique experience, like no other i've ever had at a temple!! i felt like i was floating along on a soft cloud...more giggly and enchanted by everything than usual! it was nice... on the car ride home i fell into a deep sleep! poor taeok, i think she wanted to have more riveting conversation...alas, i was out like a light.
taeok and a whoppin' serving of acorn jelly saladunmunsa
scoopin' up some holy waterembrace

the land of not quite right dining experiences

yesterday chris and i met for lunch at a fabulous oasis in this concrete jungle we call home. cafe myunga. there's even an outdoor patio that seems a world away from city streets and noise....surrounded with REAL plants and open to the sky...it took me a little while to wrap my mind around the fact that i was still in korea.
we split a bagel sandwich for lunch and cheesecake for dessert along with superb iced coffees. it's so funny because i've come to know that at every "western" meal there will be SOMETHING that is not quite right! for example - the cheesecake had the texture and flavor of vanilla mousse, not at all what we expected. and the bagel sandwich, which was on its way to being as gourmet as a bagel sandwich can possibly be, with thinly sliced apple, muenster cheese, and various veggies, had SPAM on it. yeah, they put two slices of SPAM on there. nasty. anyway, we just roll with the punches over here and feel grateful for the things that do go right! like my iced mocha...talk about a divine taste of heaven.
chris stopped to give this giant teddy bear a hug before leaving.later yesterday evening, a bunch of us met up at a mexican restaurant in siji (a nearby yuppi suburb of daegu) to celebrate jen's birthday. it was so good to catch up with everyone and relax with good company, tacos, and beer. i won't go into the "not quite right" aspects of that meal! it was good enough, considering mexican food is almost impossible to come by in these parts.

yes!!

michelle obama has planted an organic veggie and herb garden, along with a bunch of local elementary school kids who came out to help. it's the first vegetable garden at the white house since eleanor roosevelt planted a "victory garden" during WWII. if this isn't true progress, i don't know what is... every day i say a prayer of thanks that the obamas are in the white house...every day, no matter how i'm feeling, i do a dance of joy.

"One minute youre waiting for the sky to fall
The next youre dazzled by the beauty of it all...

These fragile bodies of touch and taste
This fragrant skin this hair like lace
Spirits open to the thrust of grace
Never a breath you can afford to waste..."

-from "lovers in a dangerous time" written and originally performed by bruce cockburn

here's the barenaked ladies version...have a listen:

	Barenaked Ladies - Lovers In A Dangerous Time
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

so apropos...forever ago

just discovered this group....bon iver doing a spontaneous a capella version of their song "for emma" in a paris hallway before a house concert. from the album "for emma, forever ago."

ps. HOORAY IOWA!! ROCK ON VERMONT!! come on california....let's go minnesota!

here

lost

by: david wagoner

"stand still. the trees ahead and bushes beside you
are not lost. wherever you are is called here,
and you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
must ask permission to know it and be known.
the forest breathes. listen. it answers,
i have made this place around you.
if you leave it, you may come back again, saying here.
no two trees are the same to raven.
no two branches are the same to wren.
if what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
you are surely lost. stand still. the forest knows
where you are. you must let it find you."


-from his book: "traveling light: collected and new poems"

"A Ritual to Read to Each Other"

By: William Safford

"If you don't know the kind of person I am

and I don't know the kind of person you are

a pattern that others made may prevail in the world

and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.



For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,

a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break

sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood

storming out to play through the broken dyke.



And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,

but if one wanders the circus won't find the park.

I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty

to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.



And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,

a remote important region in all who talk:

though we could fool each other, we should consider-

lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.



For it is important that awake people be awake,

or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;

the signals we give-yes or no, or maybe-

should be clear: the darkness around us is deep."

spring time again

i held class outside today. the weather is warm now and the sweet scent of cherry blossoms fills the air. one of my students brought her camera to class and wanted a picture together. her english nickname is "spring!"
it's my second year of experiencing korea in full bloom...this last weekend the big cherry blossom festivals took place all over the country. people flocked in droves to the festivals to enjoy the fleeting beauty of the flowers. by next weekend they will have all fallen like pink snow to the ground replaced by sprouting green leaves.

magnolia blooms



welcome to couple-dom. spring time in korea is hyper-couple time. there are couples strolling dreamily about in their couple t-shirts, talking on their couple phones, wearing their couple rings, or riding their couple bicycles with their couple pencil cases in tote! you also find couples engaged in fire and ice couple arguments around corners of buildings or in the university halls....trouble in paradise is never too far behind the dreamy professions of spring time love.

i took the long way home today and stopped for awhile to sit on this lonesome bench under the blossoms.
fields of green...

this is it.

"always we hope

someone else has the answer.

some other place will be better,

some other time it will all turn out.



this is it.

no one else has the answer.

no other place will be better,

and it has already turned out.



at the center of your being

you have the answer;

you know who you are

and you know what you want.



there is no need

to run outside

for better seeing.



nor to peer from a window.



rather abide at the center of your being;

for the more you leave it, the less you learn.



search your heart

and see

the way to do

is to be."


--lao tzu

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