moon song

haeundae train stationi spent all day saturday on haeundae beach...looking out over the east sea. the sun shined so warm with cool breezes coming off of the ocean. medicine for body and soul.couple shirts!?!! emerging from each having thrown the other into the water!not uncommon korean beach attire! three guys kicking a ball around in their dress clothes! i would be sweating like mad.
kiwi apple and strawberry banana smoothies (served with complimentary white toast and whipped cream!)....in a juice cafe with swings!
what a contrast, eh!? from peaceful seaside rest and sipping fruit juice in a swing to crowded, flashing neon soup.my first time smoking a hookah (at a turkish restaurant)! chad ordered cherry mint flavor for us all to try after a huge feast of a meal. i was skeptical as cherry mint sounds like a very strange combo, but he swore by it, and it was actually really nice...very cooling. being a nonsmoker though, my lungs and throat could only handle a few inhalations. it was fun to try as i've wondered what it might be like every time i've seen hookahs in restaurants around berkeley.something shocking was said at our table, right in the middle of my turn! choking and coughing up a storm followed!gwanganlee beach, with the gorgeous bridge lit up in the distance....a group of older korean men singing songs together as they watched their fireworks (in a tube - sold by vendors up and down the beach) go off against the night sky!
after dinner we sat on the beach for a while under the light of a full scorpio moon (often called "the buddha moon").

"It is said that Buddha was born, died, and received enlightenment on the Full Moon is Scorpio. Every year this great being returns to the earth plane to assist humanity towards enlightenment. The Buddha Full Moon or Wesak Moon is one of the most powerful Full Moons; in fact, many consider this the highest spiritual day of the year."

-from the May 2009 newsletter written by astrologer, Virginia Bell


-patty griffin "moon song"....sad, sad, sad...but so beautiful...the emotionality in her voice is exquisite.

one of the most important books i've read

tonight, i curled up on the couch and finished this book. i feel infinitely grateful that this stunning read crossed my path. this book has blown open my understanding of human intimacy (both in general and my own particular strands of experience). it's written by three doctors from the university of california san francisco. the synopsis reads:
"'the heart has its reasons whereof reason knows nothing.'
in this fascinating account of the psychobiology of love, the authors uncover proof of pascal's famous statement. drawing on new scientific discoveries about the human brain, they describe the workings of our ancient, pivotal urge for intimacy, revealing that our nervous systems are not self-contained: from earliest childhood our brains actually link with those of the people close to us in a silent rhythm that makes up the life force of the body. these wordless ties determine our mood, stabilize and maintain our health, and change the structure of our brains, so that, in a very real sense, who we are and who we become depend on whom we love..."

the authors explain how our limbic systems are open-looped, meaning we are not totally self-contained or self-sufficient. the western ideal of the rugged individualist is nothing but a daydream here in limbic reality. we are conditioned to think we can make it on our own, as independent beings. our limbic brains beg to differ.
it is encouraged in the west for parents not to allow their babies to sleep with them in the same bed (move infants towards independence right at the get go), however just about everywhere else in the world children sleep with their parents for the first few years. here in korea, entire families sometimes sleep together on the floor in the same room. it is almost completely unheard of for a baby to sleep apart from his/her parents (i've been asking around!). "a general theory of love" goes into detail about the crucial limbic rhythms and regulation that develop when babies/young children sleep next to their parents. i think we in the west forget that most of the world lives more communally than we do. we mistake our way for normal...for superior.

just a little background: the limbic brain evolved after the reptilian brain. it brought forth a fresh neural structure that allowed mammals to care for one other, to form close-knit, mutually nurturing groups (families/communities), and to experience feelings/emotions.
the neo-cortex is the most recently evolved and is the largest of the three brains in humans. it rules the intellect.

in the authors' own words:
"evolution has given mammals a shimmering conduit, and they use it to tinker with one another's physiology, to adjust and fortify one another's fragile neural rhythms in the collaborative dance of love...we call this mutually synchronizing exchange limbic regulation...
because human physiology is (at least in part) an open-loop arrangement, an individual does not direct all of his/her own functions. a second person transmits regulatory information that can alter hormone levels, cardiovascular function, sleep rhythms, immune function and more - inside the body of the first...
even after a peak parenting experience, children never transition to a fully self-tuning physiology. adults remain social animals; they continue to require a source of stabilization outside themselves. that open-loop design means that in some important ways, people cannot be stable on their own - not should or shouldn't be, but can't be... stability means finding people who regulate you well and staying near them...
this necessary intermingling of physiologies makes relatedness and communal living the center of human life. we recognize instinctively that healthy human beings are not loners. of his famous retreat to walden pond, thoreau wrote, 'i went to the woods because i wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life,' but he did not front them alone. his nearest neighbor was but a mile distant, and the city of concord two miles; thoreau depended on both liberally, and dined frequently with friends."

a bit more...
"because limbic resonance and regulation join human minds together in a continuous exchange of influential signals, every brain is part of a local network that shares information... all of us, when we engage in relatedness, fall under the gravitational influence of another's emotional world, at the same time we are bending his/her emotional mind with ours. each relationship is a binary star, a burning flux of exchanged force fields, the deep and ancient influences emanating and felt, felt and emanating.
the limbic transmissions render personal identity partially malleable - the specific people to whom we are attached provoke a portion of our everyday neural activity. in the vistas of imagination, the self is a proud ship of state - subject to the winds and tides of circumstance, certainly, but bristling with masts and spars and beams, fairly bursting with solidity. we would scarcely imagine that identity could be as fluid as the seas that supposed self rides upon."

enough for me

"The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead. A snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery, even if mixed with fear, that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty. It is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude. In this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. Enough for me, the mystery of the eternity of life and the inkling of the marvelous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavor to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature."

From: "The World As I See It" by Albert Einstein, published in 1956.

early morning enthusiasm

i'm writing from the samsung factory in gumi, during my 7 hour break between classes. the sunlight is streaming in the window as i eat a bowl of organic strawberries with my chopsticks and sip lemon verbena iced tea. i've learned to bring my own snacks to gumi as the cafeteria here leaves me feeling a little unsettled more often than not.

the sky is unusually blue, the air unusually fresh. it's one of those rare, pristine days in korea, the spring perfume of lilacs in the air.

this morning i took the train to gumi, as the professor i normally carpool with cancelled his classes this week. i passed out hard during the 7am, 50-minute train ride, but luckily set my cell phone alarm to wake me upon arrival to gumi, otherwise i surely would have ended up in seoul. i caught a cab at the train station, and to my good fortune happened upon the most out-of-this-world, hilarious driver. first of all, he had some hard core rap music playing "from the dirty, dirty south." (quote from one of the songs) he was wearing enormous, brown-tinted sunglasses with gold rims and his hair smoothly slicked back, totally gettin' down to the music! singing, tapping his hands all over the steering wheel and wiggling around like crazy in his seat! did i mention that he looked to be in his 70's or 80's? yes...he was an elderly gentleman who had an astounding amount of vitality and spice for life! i found myself unable to stop smiling...refreshed by his uniqueness, his flamboyance, and his enthusiasm so very early in the morning! by the time we made it to samsung, he had changed the station to a traditional korean song that i've heard a million times and was singing as if his life depended on it!

thought for the day:
"look at you, you madman, screaming you are thirsty and are dying in a desert when all around you there is nothing but water!"

-- kabir

up to the mountain (MLK song)

"I went up to the mountain
Because you asked me to
Up over the clouds
To where the sky was blue
I could see all around me
Everywhere
I could see all around me
Everywhere



Sometimes I feel like
I've never been nothing but tired
And I'll be walking
Till the day I expire
Sometimes I lay down
No more can I do
But then I go on again
Because you ask me to

Some days I look down
Afraid I will fall
And though the sun shines
I see nothing at all
Then I hear your sweet voice, oh
Oh, come and then go, come and then go
Telling me softly
You love me so

The peaceful valley
Just over the mountain
The peaceful valley
Few come to know
I may never get there
Ever in this lifetime
But sooner or later
It's there I will go
Sooner or later
It's there I will go"

-Patty Griffin

To listen...

	Patty Griffin - Up to the Mountain
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

isn't she lovely?!

my new bike!!

raindrops, tea leaves and kraze burgers - happy birthday buddha!

kate, chris and i spent a drizzly buddha's birthday at the largest tea shop in korea, which just so happens to be downtown daegu. we sat and sipped korean green tea followed by a rare oolong from taiwan...as well as a banana smoothie on the house! strange, but actually quite satisfying combo! i visited this tea house once last semester and made friends with one of the guys who works there. he speaks english fluently and gives amazing deals on teaware. he was very happy to see that i'd returned and brought my friends with me, so he was even more generous with my purchases this time. i could easily spend all of my hard earned money in that place. you should see some of the high end, hand crafted pieces. works of art. absolutely gorgeous.
after leaving the tea house, we wandered through the herbal medicine market...
chris and kate awaiting an truly american meal at KRAZE BURGER
the kraze burger photo tree
kate bissell: kraze burger's latest and greatest windswept, lusty-eyed model from the prairies of saskatchewan!

a trip to the big city for my first haircut in korea!

it's taken me over a year and a half to take the plunge of getting my hair chopped in korea! i always get it cut the day before leaving california, from octavia, the hairdresser extraordinaire, and then i end up back in california 4 months later looking like a yellow-haired raggedy ann. well, this semester i reached the point where i didn't want to start looking like a scruff ball, so i embarked upon a daring mission to seoul. i spent the day in itaewon, which is a neighborhood that caters to foreigners...a variety of international restaurants and grocery markets, english bookstores, english speaking hairdressers, etc... i had lunch with a friend at "chakra," a delicious indian restaurant situated down a cozy little alleyway. then we went to "what the book," a fantastic resource for those of us who are limited to reading books written in english. i could bask in that shop for days. k and i perused for a couple of hours, then moseyed on to an indian food market, which was a little slice of heaven for someone who lives in country-bumpkin gyeongsan, where a packet of instant, korean-style indian curry is the best one can find in any of the supermarkets. and let me just say, it's a far cry from authentic indian food. so i filled my backpack full of tasty spices, papadi, lentils, chickpeas, dried apricots, raisins...! k and i said our goodbyes and i headed up to michel's hair shop, which k highly recommended. turns out the shop was closed because it was monday. UGH! i'd been gearing myself up ALL day! alas. so, i found a coffee shop instead and relaxed with a piece of biscotti, a latte and read my newly purchased book.

that evening i met my dear friend, jungmyung, for dinner and tea at a traditional teahouse. i originally met jungmyung several years ago while living in california. she was in the process of attaining her phd. she helped me to find a job in korea, and now she has moved back to seoul in hopes of opening a women's wellness center. she's doing radical work in a very conservative, resistant culture.
we both ordered the steaming hot jujube tea...very medicinal on a cold, rainy korean night.after an evening of catching up, we hopped into a taxi and went to jungmyung's house up in the hills of seoul. this is a view of her living room and front window, looking out onto beautiful trees and the city off in the distance. our beautiful breakfast that she prepared ready and waiting on the table... her home is a sanctuary. i feel so lucky to be able to go and visit her often.
i returned to michel's the next day before heading back home. here we are, post-haircut!
michel was an absolute hoot. he spent several years doing hair in vancouver, but said there were way too many white people, so he came back to korea and set up a salon in itaewon where foreigners frequent but many koreans come as well. i could understand where he was coming from. he gave me a quick shampoo and then sat me down in the chair. my heart was pounding, as the point of no return had arrived. i explained what i wanted him to do and he seemed to approve. after cutting some of the length off, he proceeded to twirl chunks of my hair and then vigorously cut at each twisted up chunk, up and down in sporadic, sawing motions with one of those scissors that looks like it's going to cut all the way through but only cuts partially to give the hair texture. before i realized it was a partially cutting pair of scissors, i exclaimed, "what are you doing, michel?!" he casually said, "oh, this is just a little technique a created! it will keep you from getting split ends." "right." after that, i decided i just had to surrender to the experience. he was moving way to fast and furiously for me to have any foresight or control over what he was going to do next. and it all turned out ok in the end.
now that i've had a few days to absorb my first haircut experience in korea, i think i'd do it again! it took me a few days to figure out exactly what he'd done to my hair and how to style it, but i think i've got it now. and he gave me some pretty wicked korean hair wax that works like aveda could only dream of.

eve ensler on security

caledonia

"i don't know if you can see
the changes that have come over me
in these last few days I've been afraid
that i might drift away
so i've been telling old stories, singing songs
that make me think about where i came from
and that's the reason why i seem
so far away today..."

-dougie maclean

a pasture for gazelles

"my heart holds within it every form,
it contains a pasture for gazelles,
a monastery for christian monks,
there's a temple for idol-worshippers,
a holy shrine for pilgrims;
there is the table of torah,
and the book of the koran.
i follow the religion of love
and go whichever way its camel leads me.
this is the true faith,
this is the true religion."

-ibn arabi (sufi mystic and philosopher, born july 28, 1165)

pain in the heart

"our grief shows us how we are 'attached.' but it also shows us the glorious part of our attachment - that we are woven into the fabric of the world, that we are linked to everything that is."
-anne cushman
"whenever suffering comes, i will find a form to meet it.
how can i not be there?
pain will always open your eyes to see me."
-suzanne ironbiter, "the goddess's promise"

coming back to our senses

from the temple grounds, overlooking a sea of concrete...in kate's words, "it's just so wrong." i find myself becoming a bit desensitized as the weeks go by, which comes with living in that sea of concrete, 10 floors above the earth. thank goodness, as soon as i step foot on the mountainside, i return to my senses. i return to my bones and flesh, earth and trees, to temples and soft breezes, pine needles and clouds. i fall madly in love all over again with nature, with what is real; it all comes flooding back into my body, into my heart.
when i leave korea, i think one monumental thing this experience of living in a concrete jungle with forever flashing neon lights and the constant sound of music blaring, announcements over a loud speaker or south korean fighter jets flying overhead, is that a simple, quiet life lived near the earth is one of immeasurable value. and that it is one i want to live.resting from the humid heati seldom see bugs or insects of any kind in korea, but here is a whoppin' hornets' nest. i guess they feel safe at the temple...kate trying to get the best possible angle on that wickedly huge nestbeautiful...kateonly in korea would there be a near-full length mirror half way up the mountain hanging from a log! you must remember, it is commonplace to see women hiking these mountains in heels, dressed in their sunday's best. men too! well, not heels, they wear their business suits with shiny loafers. i can barely make it up there in my hiking boots. there's something i must be missing.

shine on

my dear friends, nicole and quang, made vows of partnership this weekend.
i wish so much i could have been there as i have been witness to their lives over the last almost 7 years...
a few months ago, they asked me to write a union blessing for their ceremony.
so, from my heart to theirs...my deepest wishes for their partnership:

in the words of the vietnamese buddhist monk, thich nhat hanh:
"the flower, the sky, and your loved one -- you can only meet in the present moment."

dearest nicole and quang:

may your bond of love be rooted in true presence.
every moment seeing each other anew.
creating space for the river of change that naturally flows through all of life.
may a vast, open heart of understanding and compassion flower at the center of your beings.
may you hold one another gently, with a fierce grace and ease.
by cultivating well being and peace inside of yourselves, may you love in such a way that both of you feel a deep sense of freedom in your hearts.
the dance of playfulness and pure joy that you have been perfecting over the years together, may it shine on like a sparkling jewel, spreading delight, as ripples across the water, to all whose lives you touch.
and may the beauty you create as partners in your daily life fill your hearts with wonderment and gratitude for the experience of being alive.
may your devotion to truth and reverence of the great mystery guide your moments from a deep, centered place within.
and may you always, always know how deeply you are loved.

the sufi poet, hafiz, writes:

"even after all this time
the sun never says to the earth,
'you owe me'
look what happens with a love like that,
it lights the whole sky."


MWAH!! i send you both so much love...a candle has been burning brightly in korea in honor of you on this day.

sometimes, this is all we need...