Home

Thinking about home and homes away from home today. And I'm thinking about time and traveling.  I just booked my ticket for the holidays and re-orienting myself towards leaving O'ahu for a while and getting perspective about my life path from a different place.

As soon as they got my itinerary, my brother and sister invited me to join their virtual hang-out on google+. Before I knew it, we were all joined on the computer screen, each in our respective little windows, side by side, to sing an early happy birthday to our mom.  Google+ provided the on-screen birthday hats, the virtual cake, and the applause and drum-roll.

Super cool and quite a trip to have us in one space like that, especially as our pamilya grows with added grandkids.  Couldn't stop laughing, hearing my brother remind my dad about the post-election bet he had won.  Apparently, not everyone had been  convinced about how the electoral map would favor blue.  The prize? Two lechon (roasted pig), extra crispy.  And of course, a second term for Obama. Yay!

I'm looking  forward to being in real time with them soon and being in the nation's Capitol during this time of turning.

Also, looking forward to a return to a place that allows me a vantage point of my past. DC being the politically charged city that it is, I also feel, is a place that requires a great deal of equanimity and personal practice to stay balanced.  I didn't have the skills in my twenties-just too much pull on the ego. So I left before I crashed and burned. But my infrequent returns, allows a certain kind of testing and allows me to see triggers and my choice points more clearly.   I figure if I can hold center here, I can be in stillness, moving mindfully into any place, space, anywhere.

The last time I was in DC, it was the summer 2011 when fellow cancerian, Dali Lama was celebrating his birthday and offering a Kalachakra initiation.  It was the summer I turned 40 and it was just merely coincidence that I happened to be there.  I volunteered backstage during much of the ceremony over the 12 days, witnessing his holiness in his comings and goings and preparing ritual items for mass distribution to a stadium full of people.

Looking back,  I really didn't understand the deep profoundness of the Kalachakra itself and it's link to liberation and timeless time. But it was enough, to be there as a witness, trusting that such a ritual somehow was a significant release of collective intention for peace and universal love that would somehow make a difference.

I still am profoundly human, grasping, still efforting...and the world is still the world, with its repression and oppression despite numerous valiant and heroic attempts on the part of many.  It amazes me still,  despite this, cycle of action/re-action, that we undertake the earnest practice of cultivating bodhicitta and loving kindness. And I trust, more than ever, that the moment to moment choice of compassion and loving kindness is the only thing that saves. In the words of one beloved kasama,  "Nothing left to do, but love."

Though this past year and a half, as we move through 2012, like you, I have begun to experience a certain quickening of time and personal urgency to release attachment and come into alignment. Many signs have been coming my way. And even more so, as I look forward to the Nov. 13 super new moon and solar eclipse, I realize the power of Kalachakra and it's assurance that all will revealed in good time.  On this day, I will be setting intentions and charging my prayers.

 "Nothing left to do, but love."