The special face of Hong Kong

It is so easy to socialize through technology and with machines in Hong Kong. In a way, I feel this option of virtual socializing, has made it more comfortable with a lot of people, than having true communication with real people here in this amazing city.

Personally, I have been “spoken to” in the same house with family through texts and emails rather than through speaking. Most significant expressions within my family have been conducted to me through whatsapp, rather than face to face.

Is this truly what communication has come to, or rather, not come to?

Have socializing through a virtual platform made it easier for people to avoid rather than commit to true communications? Where every “uncomfortable” topic or detail they feel can be made more comfortable by expressing it through a way that does not require us to see or have eye contact with the people we wish to communicate to, and perhaps then words expressed do not bear as much responsibility?

We all have to express. Expression is everything.  Everyone knows when expression is repressed, how much stress and strain we put our physical, emotional and other bodies under. But what is true expression? And have we taken an advancement in technology to perpetuate something which has the immense potential to connect people, and abused it in a way that is actually separative rather than unifying?

Texting apps available on smart phones as well as meeting through social platforms can definitely create a more convenient type of communication, where people can be brought together even when they are miles apart and in different time zones; or even within the same time zones, when the physical limitation of not being able to be at more than one place at a time (yet), we can multitask such as holding a meeting through skype while at the same time purchasing groceries for a dinner party. More than any time, we are now in a world where boundaries are no longer solid, family, work and life have the possibility of becoming one and unifying rather than completely separate ideas.

Hong Kong has a special flair of embracing technology. Here technology is welcomed rather than shunned because of fear. Everywhere in the city, people are seen serenading their hand-held machines. No fret, when we have no real socializing going on, there is always our friend, the machine, who can comfort us with a feel-good movie or excite us in a video game. Could it be that we have already felt sufficient that an inanimate object can ease our loneliness, with the added benefit that it does not come with all the messiness of relating and intimacy with people?

It may “work”, for a time. What I mean here is, untrue and unreal relating may distract us from the emptiness and the yearning to truly relate most of us feel.  But in what expense does this distraction brings?  And, what about the long term consequences? Personally, I have experienced an almost complete reliance on technology to even “see” another human being (apart from my child) during one year of my life, and that is even not regular or reception is never reliable. Honestly, how can reception through these unreal intimacies ever be smooth, when it is exactly a true intimacy that we fear? If I was not even willing to let people in who are physically close to me, how do I expect to nurture a true relationship that is miles apart? Geographic proximity is not the key, my choice to love out as well as loving in, is.

In a city where high rises decorate the skyline, it may be sad, but necessary to acknowledge that we are not a city that is built in true love. To maximize space for the highest financial return could not be a choice that is made out of true love. Yet, we are all loving human beings in the city, every single one of us. True, it may be harder for us to realize this for ourselves, with the circumstance and environment that is conditioning and running through us (if we do not choose otherwise for ourselves) every moment, but that does not refute the fact that, we are all love.

Everyone who allows themselves to truly feel, will know the essence of every single human being in this planet is unequivocally the same, and equal.

When technology is used not with the intention of true love, very easily it can become a tool for us to perpetuate lovelessness whether we are aware of it or not. Is loveless relating better than no relating? Is relating that is not out of true love, even relating at all? Perhaps it should be called separating, instead.

In the depths of our hearts, we all know the importance of true intimacy and true relating. We all feel our emptiness from time to time, even here in this sleepless “Pearl of the Orient”. Emptiness simply cannot be filled by more lovelessness. In-truth, our own emptiness cannot even be relieved by another person, or by our numbing or avoidance tactics. True intimacy and true relating have to first begin with ourselves. Emptiness can only be truly filled when we remember and consistently connect to and live our own love. With true relating with oneself, there will be the possibility of true relating with another, and another, and eventually, with the world.

In this present day, we seem to confine “intimacy” and “relationship” to only physical and romantic ones. Every single relationship, whether romantic or not, begins with the relationship to ourselves. True intimacy between a couple, does not magically happen with closing the bedroom door, but with each and every moment, both parties choosing to connect with themselves that extend to the sharing of this connection within the bedroom. Similarly, every other relationship that is not romantic, happens in the same way (just without the bedroom part).

Hong Kong, the magic is not out there . All the love, the beauty, the connection, the joy, the glory, the harmony are all right there, inside your heart.  You are so special Hong Kong, truly, in SO much more than you realize.

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Let life be our art

A child can see and hear multitudinous more than a grown up, sometimes.  For we are all born with eyes and ears, nose, limbs and tongue, inside our hearts.

As a child I can feel so much going on, is not it.  It is not truth.  Simply because it does not feel right within my heart.  Yet, as a child, having such natural feelings can overwhelm, not so much because of feeling them, but more so how to communicate these feelings to a world, and be understood, when the world does not communicate in this way.  From very young, I have made up my mind, that no one would understand.

Yet, feeling I continued.

Growing up, my ears could hear so much more than what was spoken, all the honesty unexpressed, but niceties wrapped up in sugar and honey was how we communicated.  So I stopped speaking.  Because I do not know how to not speak truth–the truth of the reality that moment, and the truth which is absolute in my heart.

For many years I felt distraught, but never did I give up on the truth that my heart knows, although sometimes I chose to not heed it.  Not knowing how to otherwise, I began exploring this in art, (without studying it–my degree is in chinese studies) where possibilities are endless.  Art is an arena where beyond that of “reality” can be expressed freely, although, I was actually only wishing to express the reality that most have forgotten to be true.

I began taking pictures, from a second hand automatic camera.  I wrote and wrote and wrote to allow all the conflicts that I felt but have not expressed throughout the years to flow.  No coincidence that I got myself a job with no experience in photography or journalism, in a magazine publication.

I did not want to “create”.  I am not interested in making up something that I feel may be better.  I know there is a better.  And this better simply begins with being loving to every single being. I only wanted to express this in all ways possible with this vehicle.

And thus, life, has become my art and my medicine.

Speak with Love

Before we open our mouths to express love, what comes forth is already in the heart, when it is called for, our lips and tongue move so love takes shape and form in words and sounds in expression.

Love in expression does not always mean sweetness, and it never is the kind of sweetness that attaches like silly putty and does not come off.  But love in expression is always gentle and non-imposing.  Never is love something that is spoken in judgement.  Simply, expression in love is just stating what it truly is.

Sometimes love is a consistent firmness, not in resistance, but repetitively conveying in livingness of who we are, with words and beyond that of words.  We may have to repeatedly express, what is simple, perhaps sometimes too simple, for the mind to comprehend.

Recently, speaking with love is my learning, with family, with co-workers, with strangers.  Not shying from what wishes to truthfully express from the heart, is my first commitment in speaking with love.  Love speaks, not what society wishes to be pandered to, but how it truly is.

And it is amazing, how when love is spoken, it is unlike how poetry portrays it to be throughout the ages, that hearts are swooned and the senses are mesmerized; rather, to many, love sometimes stuns, and it becomes our choice to either feel in depth with self-honesty, or distract from it through a myriad of ways.

Love, though, is very patient.

I am a little boy with little boy feelings

From the very beginning, I had a knowingness that there was a path waiting for me to carve out that goes beyond what we recognize as our confined roles in life.  The “roles” in life appeared fluid to me rather than strictly inclusive.

You could say this was a chicken and egg story.  I became a single mom and so balancing family together with career as well as with one’s inner growth is an every single day exploration.  Being a parent as well as a friend was also a delicate endeavor.

This path of fluidity is not forged with force or the feelings of insufficiency.  Rather it has  been walked with joy and anticipation, most of the time.  It was all an exploration, but mostly, deep within I know the spherical nature of an exploration is much more natural to me than a box constructed with straight lines and impenetrable walls.  It was like seeing life with the eyes of a child, nothing is impossible, everything is an adventure.  And as I approached life with a wide-eyed wonder, life greets me back with many miracles.

As the boundaries blended within my life, such as, work is not just work, it was also work with parenting; and self growth was almost always done in tandem with my child, my child and I are always learning in each moment, how to balance our own roles.  If I am to be honest and gentle to myself, there was no way I can be a parent who always uphold an invincible shield.  There are times when I am fragile and these moments had to be honored too.

Therefore feeling my own fragility and that of my child also, recognizing them in full and accepting these are a part of life, that no matter what, will keep happening.  When I am too focused on a certain role, my boy would remind me in a myriad of ways to come back to harmony.

Yesterday, he did that by saying “Mommy, I am a little boy with little boy feelings.”  This simple statement had so much gentleness but also immense power in it, that I stopped completely, then and there.  This reflection was so poignant–that whatever I have been doing, I have not been gentle enough.  And so I was reminded to be more gentle, to the both of us.  But what touched me most, is the willingness of my little boy, who is now in the tender stage of growing up into a pre-adolescent, to express the fragility that he is feeling.  No matter how much he wants to mask this tenderness in many of the circumstances in life recently, his continued opening to acknowledging these feelings to someone he trusts, is truly beauty-full.

And it is with continued honesty to myself through the impulses in the heart, as well as the clear reflections from all around,  that renews every single day, my commitment to life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just a woman

What is a woman to do after feeling the intensity of unadulterated feelings of the cosmic heart in the physical reality? Pure feelings from the heart, untampered by emotions.

What is she to do when the physical reality shifts as hastily as which it has slowly nurtured with care?

What can a woman do when the love she has grown and given to herself, seem to disappear like quicksand sucking in anything that it has touched?

What is a woman to do when the feelings of divine love expressed, is no longer encouraged to express, yet they continue to flow through her pores, her smiles, her tears, her fingers, her whispers, softly, no longer certain?

What is she to do when these feelings are magnified immensely within her heart with the moon lulling, pushing, pulling, far and near; closest and farthest from the sun, and the expression implodes?

She is just a woman.

It is natural to feel and honor her feelings.  Her feelings run mad and become emotions.  And all she could do was to honor them too.

And then and only then, the woman discovers there is much to learn and the feeling of failure and rejection is not here to be against her.

She knows that realities can change both ways, if a possibility is opened; but she is disinterested in creating or manifesting if it is not of love anymore.

She remembers the deep love that flowed through her, on that one day, reciprocated and felt in the human existence, in full intensity of co-creation; so she knows, she has already experienced what she has come here to.  It does exist.

And she knows another experience, is in-truth, another reminder and continued livingness to discover that the only medicine for humanity is to be truly who we are, in every moment, within any reflection.

She is thankful that every step forward, has brought her closer to the truth of who she is.  Her pledge is to be true in each breath, breathing deeply in honesty, every fragility, every realization.

She is just a woman, who cannot but be love.

And even if she has to walk alone, she cannot but be she.

I still believe in flowers

This is where I am at.

Speaking about what I have always felt unable to speak about.

The inability was not because of lack of words or feelings, but because I was feeling another prior and in a greater extent to myself.  I had felt the situation did not permit me to speak about what I needed to, because it would be in disrespect to the other party if I did.  And thus, for years and lifetimes, I have been dishonoring myself.

I had swallowed words and sucked in tears which should naturally be allowed to flow; instead of expression, everything imploded and began to suffocate the light.

I know who I am.  I have come in harmony.  From the very first day, I have expressed that I bear full responsibility of my life.  I have come in honor of my heart, and also in honor of your heart.  I have come in trust of the universe.  And thus, all that you have reflected back to me, I receive gently and love preciously, whether in joy or in pain.  I have come and left in incompletion, without full expression and livingness of myself, I have dishonored myself firstly, and you, thereafter; because I had felt your distance.  But what I see is only my responsibility and I am bearing it in full.

There is a family amongst me, whom I felt love and care.  And yet I could not open up to most of them, because of the huge responsibility I felt to preserve harmony.  I am inflicting cruelty on myself because of my attachment to my tribe, I am choosing to love others over the love for myself.

And so, I have come back to where I am at.

I could only honor that.

I still believe in flowers.

Service

I may be silly to be fully transparent in a public forum space, where it is mostly used to market businesses or to experiment with constructed personas.

I may be naïve to continue to trust that human nature is pure and have things stolen repeatedly.

I may be mad to choose a life that is so close to the edge, that sometimes I cannot tell which reality I am in, because I am not only in one.

I may be crazy to be speechless for days, except with the eagles and my son.

Or care to talk about things which cannot be responded to.

I may be weird to find it important to fully feel all my hurts, without any comforting distractions.

I may be impossible to be working and mothering and cooking and walking over mountains four times a day, and still travel when the heart or a place calls.

Or more impossible to have no time for physical relating at all.

I may be unbelievable to feel satiating gratitude for a venemous snake bite when seven months pregnant.

I may be a fool to not know where my next step will be.

I may be all of the above.

But none of them can deter me from the Fire within my heart and, from service.

Tonight

It is a cool night.

Light rain washing away the heated impatience of many.

And bringing a sense of muted restlessness for me.

I do not know what to feel on rainy nights.

Longing, desire, aloneness, nostalgia, and more longing all mixed into one big cloud

Soon to rain torrential into my heart.

Tonight

I wish for my family. I wish to be able to hold hands when I stretch them out.

I wish I could laugh with someone. I long to reach out and touch your heart.

I am feeling every small sensation in my body tonight.

Every muscle, every grief.

 

Do the Gods know the feeling of having to be apart when the souls are one?

Do they really wish to feel this through the human race?

Can they feel me on this rainy night

As I feel the longing of infinite hearts?

I know, Mother, I know the encompassing of your heart.

I am learning, Mother, from you the moon, the earth, the sea, the wind.

Only tonight

I wish to dissolve in restlessness and dance naked in my longing.

I have dissolved and become maddening wildness

Swallowing and birthing all that is love.