Bloom where you’re planted…

I remember my mother saying to me, years ago, how she was moved by a sermon at her church that one should ‘bloom where you are planted.’ Those words keep surfacing in my mind these past days, after returning to my lush home in Kerala, arriving to the beginning of gusty, green monsoons, returning home from my adventures in south India.

After Yoko weaned herself around fifteen months, I felt ready to take off to east India to visit the eclectic and creative community of Auroville. There I met the curious Aurovillian people while studying Liquid Flow, a water therapy combination of Watsu and Aqua Wellness. (Check out http://www.waba.edu/ ) Those two weeks were the hottest in Varkala and luckily I missed them, spending eight or ten hours a day in a pool of water floating people effortlessly and gently stretching their body. The feeling is extraordinary, like being in the womb again, surrendering to the flow of water. I recommend everyone gets at least one session in their life!

After coming home, Leon , Yoko and I went off to Kodaikanal to visit Nevil on his organic Karuna farm (see http://www.karunafarm.org/) where, although it was breathtaking, we all got sick, Yoko was endlessly bored, calling out her little friend’s name in a feverish dream state. ‘Papu…Papu…’ Well, we cut that trip short but did enjoy the incredible ride back from Kodai, through the gorgeous green Western ghats or mountains of Kerala. They are covered in tea plantations and spice gardens, rolling for miles in misty beauty. We arrived back and I headed to Sivananda for a few days to stretch my body and reclaim some Yoga which I have been neglecting in the wake of Life with Baby.

Somehow, on these journeys, I was trying out previous held dreams, letting go of plans, experiencing new ideas and reforming my dreams. I had an excellent season this past year, one of magick and abundance, joy and learning and I feel so strongly to more fully embrace living here and allow the future to unfold as it may. I truly enjoyed teaching Reiki and adding the ten-day chakra workshop to my classes which was a journey in itself. I love watching Yoko learn at an extraordinary rate, now walking and running, playing and dancing, speaking both English and Malayalam.

I met two remarkable teachers this year as well. Aisha Rose, the shaman from England taught shamanic journeying and tracking on the roof of Rubybleu House as well as doing some personal work with me. (Check out her website at http://www.11-11.org.uk/) My personal reading and subsequent soul retrieval culminated in a painting I did called “Soul Retrieval and the Bear-Cat” (see left) which illuminates the story of my adventure into my subconscious. During the soul retrieval process, Aisha journeyed to my past, a piece connected with Rubybleu and blew it back into me. It was very intense and highly visual and I did indeed feel changed, felt my power returning to me. I feel I am able to more deeply share my power with love.

The other teacher I met, Swami Isa, is heading up a school in Trivandrum that promotes wholeness within children including yoga and mediation in their daily activities. He is an incredibly clear and bright being, with an intense vision. He works extensively with practices that help to illuminate how one’s external world reflects the internal. I feel blessed to have met him and exchanged words with him about the world and spirituality. (His website is http://www.isalayam.com/ … yes, even Swamis have websites these days!)


I also met some amazing women who have some wondrous visions to help others. We have posted the work of Dr. Lodon (check out www.rubybleu.org/projects.html) and more projects will be up this summer including school sponsorship for children to continue higher education and work with autistic children. We will be having a fundraiser for rubybleu foundation in Oakland, California on August 12th called Art in the Alley so we look forward to seeing friends there, old and new.

Even though we’re off to adventures in Thailand and the States, we will be returning for more years to come in Kerala. Thus, ‘bloom where you’re planted’ feels like an appropriate message for me now. Allowing myself to grow in the midst of the beauty that I live in instead of consistently dreaming of far away worlds has become imperative for living in a peaceful state. This is inevitable for all of us, to dream and plan different futures, but I am coming into more awareness about how unnecessary this activity is. Instead, I am bring more consciousness into the Now and not caring so much if the house is messy, if paintings are left undone, if my Slade novel takes another two, three or even ten years to finish. To simply allow the magickal matrix of life to spin its effervescent web through my days, to catch hold of strands which harbor different essences that connect me to my body, my thoughts, my emotions, the people and things and activities of my life, ever witnessing them, but no longer reigning them in.

Gary Snyder says the best way to help the environment is to stay put and learn the local bio-region. The more time we spend here, the more intricately involved I become with our natural environment. I gaze at the lush trees of mangoes, jackfruit, banana, coconut, papaya, the almond and cashew trees, the local moringa whose leaves I ate while breastfeeding, the tulsi or sacred Basil bush used to aid coughs. In our garden the local coriander and chilies grow alongside Leon’s intensely lush tropical plants that burst forth with brilliant flowers which Yoko and I pick as flower offerings in the mornings. Watching the year turn in tropical India, the windy kite season that gives way to the heavy hot days of April and May just before the pounding, ultra-green months of monsoons, that wash the land anew. Then cooler days of October come around with their brilliant sunsets and the short monsoon that blows in prior to our high season of fresh breezes, warm sun and an incredible beach that draws people from all over the world. As I eat the plants from this land, drink the water from the sacred Shiva spring that pours out of the red cliffs, I feel an intense joy in my connection to this part of the world and realize that, truly, I am able to bloom where I am planted, that indeed, I am Home.