eastbaypoetics.com

my writings this summer are unpredictable and scattered. some days the pen never touches paper. it seems i won’t write as long as i have money to distract myself from the writing. it’s leo–a social four weeks–and i’d rather be kickin it, making love, perfecting my bengali recipes, designing and creating jewelry, reading psychology of the erotic, researching astrological data, and indulging my body in movement. all the years of work and study nonstop have brought me to this moment, full of space and time in which to fit all my competing desires. leaving the old habits and impulses behind me. redesigning my home to accommodate a new lounge area and home office. belly dance and salsa–my hips are waking up to the truth of joy as they separate, isolate, undulate. open. new beats against which to mold myself. falling in love with hip hop again. i’ve written a flow or two, a joke or two, a hundred short poems i won’t show anyone yet. i read ten novels this summer and started wheels of life, continuing the chakra work i started who knows when, concentrating on the orange of sexual desire and the green of cultivating heart consciousness. learning (again) that romance and sex aren’t just part of a high-pressure love affair but can exist outside of convention, like anything else. moving toward my true desire and adjusting my entire universe to accommodate this new knowledge. wisdom wasn’t enough until there was this release, this acceptance of my limits, this departure from outdated norms. how long has it been since my last onstage performance? a showcase of my work in san francisco next month and minimal preparation so far. time to call up the grounded rhythms that drive my writings. the subtle heft of my words, the gravity and comedy of my message. mantras and curses and songs in praise of all the workings of the universe. an unexpected manifestation of lust threw me off for a moment but then i let it in. to see where it could take me. leaving all fear behind to welcome the ecstasy for which i’m destined. sleeping in each morning and giving thanks for the rest of these summer months. showing gratitude for the emotional intensity, intellectual fire, and devotion to my spiritual path for making this arrival possible. embracing the realities of saturn as i near my 28th year of life. i walk into this test of my strength, flexibility, and consciousness with eyes open, palms facing upward, beckoning the serpentine waves of kundalini through my bones and toward the sky. i feel her power penetrating my roots, deepening my vision into ancestry, into history and the continuity between every moment before and after this one. i’ve recognized my teaching career as an exercise into demonstrating the interconnectedness of everything, even as i find i must remove the veil of illusion over and over to uncover the myth of separateness between things. between people. between one place and another. one era and another. reconciliation is a state of being. transparency. communication. divinity and the thousand facets that reflect each living thing. and next? the leaden adventure of reality. an inner revision of sorts. an evolution of the spirit through the toil of growth. continuing the slow journey toward myself. the book. the show. the music.

© 2008 tahminah zaman