It is pain that has set me free. In my life, I find that when I allow myself to feel the emotion within me, everything becomes clearer. It is as if within the pain itself is an endless sense of joy, the joy that comes from feeling and being alive.

These days are wonderous. I am sleeping for the first time in years. I don't remember the last time I've slept so deeply or so long. At around midnight I feel my eyes dropping, which hasn't happened since I dont know when. And I go to bed and I wake up the next day at noon, the sun shining through my window, and there is no sense of stress or anxiety about the day. There may be a the feeling of emptiness from unfulfilled dreams the night before, but nothing unpleasant.

I am content despite the fact in the eyes of society, I don't amount to very much. I have no job; I have no concrete goals for the future; I've forfeited my "greatest" achievement to date. These things used to matter to me, but now they are but a faint memory that occasionally arises when my path becomes unclear. Because, you see, I have so much more than most people in this world. I have a mother and brother who love me more than anything. I have friends who understand and believe in me and because I have these thing I have developed a profound sense of faith in myself.

What people don't realize is that they really can make a significant difference in the world. They don't see the capabilities and gifts within themselves and so they resort to unfulfilling jobs and shallow relationships - they've convinced themselves that they don't deserve any better. I mean, you make a difference every day by how you choose to treat perfect strangers, how you choose to react to different situations when they arise. Within each person you interact with is a chance for deep understanding and love.

Twice now I've been followed by a car while walking home in Edmonton. Both times the men in the cars were looking for sex, nothing deep or meaningful. On the first occasion, I convinced the man to get out of his car and take a walk with me. By the end of that walk, he ended up spilling his heart about how he felt about himself and the world and it was so beautiful, his pain and torment, but also his hope at the end. He had immigrated to Canada from India when he was in high school and for the sake of his family, he said he would never allow himself to love a man. I told him that one day he would, that he was beautiful and that he deserved the greatest love in the world. And I hugged him and I left, knowing that a seed had been planted. One day he would be free.

The second time, I was walking home from a movie by myself, and I noticed that a black sedan was passing by me over and over again. I wanted to ignore it, but everytime I decided to keep walking, the wind blew harder. I'm a believer in omens and signs, so i listened. I walked to the edge of the sidewalk and got in when the car stopped. The first thing I told him was that I hadn't gotten in for the reason he thought. The second thing I said was "do you believe in god?" He said yes and then I asked him if he believed in coincidence and he said yes again. I told him that it was coincidence that had brought us together and that there was a reason for it. I told him he was unhappy and asked what was missing in his life. And from that moment began an 8 hour conversation about the nature of life and what truly matters. He took me home at 4 in the morning. A fresh blanket of snow had fallen, a new beginning.

Those were some of the most fulfulling and magical moments in my life. I realized the power that I had within myself, the power that all of us hold, to change a situation devoid of hope to something that proves that there is something truly beautiful about being human. Things like that happen every day if you choose it to be. And that is how we are going to make this world a paradise.

Storybooks

The world of books
Of movies
Of stories that are not ours.
We yearn for these worlds that seem
to transcend our smallness;
We dream to be someone else.
Someone extraordinary.

But if only our dreams would turn in on themselves,
And see the world within -
The world of books
Of movies
Of stories that are ours and only ours -
We would see the magic that threads its way through the quilt of our lives.

And how beautiful this quilt,
How absolutely extraordinary

That books have been written
And movies have been made
And stories told through the hours;
The years;
And the moments
that piece together this enchanted reality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4

The praciticalities of this world has been getting to me. It's frustrating sometimes when living requires so much complexity. Money, jobs, bills...impersonal and mechanical operations of the system we have created. How did it ever get to be this way? Or has it always been this way?

Why are we so afraid of each other that we need to result to becoming robots, ants when dealing with each other? What is the point of living then? What is the point in making more money, buying a bigger house, having monetary and social security when we don't feel safe spiritually and emotionally with each other?

To tell the truth I havent' been able to feel spiritually or emotionally safe with anyone for a long time. Perhaps I let go, for brief moments, during my first relationship, but those moments were few and far between. I guess that I could explain why that even though I have monetary security at this point in my life, things still feel unfulfilled. It's the emotional and spiritual aspects of my life that are lacking, as is with most people in this world. Thus the continuous drive to make more, buy more, eat more, drink more and to sedate ourselves more.

The only thing that truly heals and fulfills in this world is love. When a person has love, things make perfect sense, it is as if the meaning of life has been imparted to them. Love makes you invincible.

It has been recently that I've began to let my heart go again. I'm opening myself up in ways I haven't done before. I find that it's not so hard at all. When you let yourself go without the expectation of anything else, it's an easy thing to do. One has to realize that the love you give and feel is yours and only yours. It' s not affected if the other person doesn't love you back or tries to hurt you. That can be disappointing if you let it be, but if you transcend yourself, and realize that the reason the other person has hurt you is because of his inability to love, his pain and his complexes, then it's not disappointing at all. You can love them more for it, and have faith that they will one day heal and love you back the way you love them.

Bump'n'Grind Cafe

Art, Music, Coffee

I moved into my new place yesterday. I'd applied for it about a week ago and the landlord had originally offered it to someone else first. I was on the beach with my roomate Steve on Thursday and I met a guy named Mathias whose doing post-doctorate research in philosophy and a total hippy. After making small talk for a few minutes he told me that I belonged on Commercial Drive. 30 minutes later while watching the sun set over the Pacific, Steve recieves a phone call while sitting beside me and 10 minutes after that we had a new home 10 meters in from the drive. Funny how life works like that.

I quite like my new home. It's a two bedroom suite in the semi-basement of a lawyer's home. The lawyer's name is Zool, born in East Africa, divorced and trying to make the best of what he has. I see a great void in him. I think he is very depressed and the reason I think so is because he's always trying to appear really cheerful and happy. I've met 3 people like him before, wierdly all through my ex-boyfriend, and all three of them were clinically depressed. I think there's a reason I'm renting a place from him. I think we have lessons to teach each other. I hope by the end of my tenancy here that we'll be good friends.

But ugh, my mom just called me to help her with a form that's due tomorrow and it's too wierd trying to help her in this internet cafe/convienience store. Plus my writing rhythm has been broken. I'll post more later.

Funny how life happens...

Water is the element that rules over the subconscious and emotional realms and I am surrounded by water. Twice now I've watched the sun set over the waves of the Pacific. Its light shimmers soft on the azure blue creating a trail along the vastness. A gateway perhaps, into the deepest realms of the soul.

What is this emotion within me?

What am I standing at the edge of?

I don't know how quite to explain it, but I feel as though I am close to something very very big. I feel as though I have been waiting for this my entire life. On a dark night in February of this past spring, the universe poured into me. It was as if God slipped into my being and showed me the entirety of all that is and all that will be. I saw humanity's suffering and the great change that is about to come. Tears poured down my face as I kneeled on the floor, my mother beside me. In that moment, I felt humanity's pain because it was my pain. It was the pain none of us let ourselves feel; the pain of passing by a soul on the street and not acknowledging each other's existence. The pain of feeling the the suffering on continents far away. We may not be conscious of it, but I know we feel it.

The world needs to change. The world must change.

In every moment we are all given a choice, a choice between life and oblivion. For all of the history that we remember, we could not decide. From authoratarianism, to war, to famine, to disease to violence to television to addiction to consumerism - an endless obsession with ways to fill our lives with meaning devoid of meaning.

But the time of hiding is over. The universe will no longer allow us to ignore the beauty of our true selves. The power of those once in control wanes. The old world fades away.

Come with me on this journey. Help me return to paradise.

Well, by tomorrow night it will have been a week since my arrival here. The first week has been pretty rough, but I find that the roller coaster of life's emotions is a lot more bearable these days, beautiful even. I am happy tonight, and I was happy last night as well. It's all about letting go, and pushing away the things that you can't control. I think that people feel so powerless that they try to control everything, planning ther futures so that their entire life is an endless string of expectations. How can one ever be happy that way? It's life's adventure that brings light to the darkness. It's the possiblity of a happy ending, the possibility of meeting someone to share love with, the possibility that tomorrow something totally unexpected can happen and set you on a new path that makes life worth living.

I am waking now. I am waking up from the daydream I put myself into so that I wouldn't have to face up to my dreams. All I could think about this last week was how possibily I would come to and leave this place unchanged and without having moved forward. But I see now how impossible that is. Life has a way of making sure that you grow, and if you resist it, it finds a way to force you to open your eyes. Like most people in this world, I have resisted growing, afraid of the pain and confusion it brings.

Now my entire life spreads out in front of me and I see now that I have to stop trying to control the future, stop worrying about what might happen and what might not. The moment creates the future, and I have to start living in the moment in able to manifest what I truly desire. I feel like I am ready for that.

"To see life for what it is, to live life for what it is, is the light of every human being."

Stopping the Rose

We travel great distances, longing
for something to give us goosebumps
stir the hair on the back of our necks
to make us quiver and weep.

While there it is, right in our squinting eyes
sunsets melt across the sky, echoes inside
and we would do anything to make it last
stop the world here, this year
this day, this hour, this instant
this place and no other.

-Jackie Bell

I think it's time that I become absolutley honest with myself.

The years have passed so why do I still hold on to them? Why do I refuse to let go of the pain that no longer needs to be? Even as I write this, a deep heaviness draws over me. I feel old and used and fragile.

I think one of my greatest weaknesses is refusing to admit to myself that I have any. Every time an issue comes up in my memory, I always tell myself that I'll get past it. A few tears fall, and that's it, I rebury the confusion, the sharpness in my chest.

Now it seems that I have an oppurtunity to let the past go. Being in this new place has drawn a lot to the surface.

Most of the time I either don't like myself or I feel neutral to who I am, indifferent, sterile and loveless.

I want to dream and realize my dreams, but first I need to move on, move on from Edmonton and Saskatoon. I don't mean the cities themselves or the people in them. I mean what happened in these places. I mean the darkness I haven't quite made it out of.

In the worst of times I used to fantasize about killing people. Torturing them, tearing them apart. I now realize it wasn't other people I wanted to destroy, it was myself.

There have been many sleepless nights. I remember lying awake in my room in Saskatoon. It was old and decrepid. The roof used to leak when it rained. The lightbulb would always short out, flickering and flickering until it gave up all together. One wall had a piece of wood nailed to it, about 3 feet long and 1 foot wide. We never knew why it was there, but I always thought it was hiding something.

In my parent's walk-in-closet were old mattresses the landlord hadn't gotten rid of. On summer days I would dig into those mattresses for my dad's porn collection. I remember reading Hustler, wierdly excited and extremely confused.

Snippets, fragments, like broken glass on the ground.

I remember my first night in Canada. I must've peed about 10 times that night, waking up on the hour to pee in a vase in my dad's bachelor room. I didn't want to go out into the open basement, it was too creepy. I remember I peed on the wall accidently; I never told my parents about that. Even then I knew something was wrong. I think when I was young, I always knew exactly what was going on. I never talked much, always observing but making sure no one knew I was watching.

I was eight when I first gave up on life. Too scared of my dad's return, I stood in the kitchen with a knife in my hand.

I can't really remember when the abuse started, but it must've been shortly after my arrival in Canada. I don't remember most of it. Or rather everything is pretty vague, it all just flows into each other. I wonder where my mother was then. In her own world I guess. In her own world where I barely existed.

I remember my separation from her. I could feel her drifting away and I was scared but powerless to do anything. And then i just let her go.

I had no one in my life for a long long time. It was just in my own world. It wasn't a bad place, it was safe at least. And it was beautiful, really beautiful. I lived with the world, the soul of the world. In the grass and the trees and the insects and birds I grew. I fell in love with the earth.

For a time it was good, I learned to separte parts of my life. Darkness from light, the grey from the passion.

Then the anger came. How ruthless an emotion. It consumes you, it eats away at you until you're nothing left but a shell. And then the anger turns to hatred. First it's hatred to those who wronged you, but it doesnt stop there, it infects, it infiltrates every part of your life.

I stopped caring for anything. I convinced myself that nothing mattered, but it seemed that destroying myself was no longer enough. I had to destroy everything else as well before I was satisfied. The person I turned on the hardest was my mom. But she destroyed herself before I did it to her. That came as a shock. But it wasn't a surprise. The world was going to fall apart and it did, I knew something was coming before it came. Just as I knew this night would come, when all these things would begin to come to surface. It's why I'm here.

I still hate my dad I guess, some part of me enjoys watching him fall apart. I can feel him day to day, I can feel his confusion and his torment and a part of me loves it. I am angry at him, but I don't let myself feel the anger, it's such an useless emotion. i won't waste my time on that.

Now begins the season of looking within. These are the moments of discernment, of truth. I think it's time. I think it's time to be absolutley honest with myself.

But loss is a precious stone to me, a nectar distilled in time, that preaches the truth of winter to the fallen heart that never ceases to fall.

Vancouver can be a city of dreams, or it can be a city of banality. I sit in the kitchen of my friends' apartment. It seems that they have brought Edmonton with them to this place. An old stagnant energy resides here, devoid of excitement and devoid of hope. I haven't met many dreamers this world; sometimes its eye-opening to be with people who fail to dream. It seems that at some point long ago they gave up on life and accepted ordinariness as the way things are. In my heart I ask them, if you have lost the magic of childlike innocence, why are you still here?

I have many dreams for Vancouver - big big dreams - and I truly believe that they can come true. I want to find great love here. I want to find a man to discover life with. I want to find my hearts true passion in my work. I want to find the magic that underlies all things. I know I can do it here, I know all my dreams can come true. And I know that once I find what I am looking for, there is no going back to a life of ordinariness. When one says yes to the universe, there is no turning back.

Just the last few hours with my friends from Edmonton has really opened my eyes. It has shown me the life that I definitley don't want to live. It has shown me that part of myself that I wish to leave behind forever.

Travelling is always a healing journey. This morning I awoke to deep pain. Memories from the past few years surfaced as I laid in my hostel bed, staring outside at a beautiful Saturday morning.

Funny how the past can creep up on you unawares.

What came up this morning was how I felt after my mother's attempted suicide a few years ago. Those were the most painful moments of my life. I remember the room in the emergency psych ward - sterile, cold and grey. I remember my mother's doctor. He was a beautiful, friendly man. In my mind I would say to him "if you asked me to go away with you, someplace far away, I would say yes."

Life was painful then, but also unbelievably clear. Suddenly it seemed the world faded away, the stress of school and my fear of the future. Only the moment mattered. In the evenings I would take my brother, then 4 years old to the movie store. I would rent him a movie, and rent myself one. One night in particular stood out for me. The sun had set, and a deep blue had settled over the early summer evening. My brother held my hand as we walked toward home. We stop and I look into his eyes. "Jimmy, i will never abandon you ok?" I told him. Ok, he answered.

I remember thinking at that moment that if I had to leave my life behind and raise Jimmy, I would do it in a heartbeat. It was at that time that the pain I was feeling somehow made me transcend myself. I changed then. In a way towards the better and in another towards the worse. I was not as selfish as I used to be, but I also loved myself less.

It would not be until a couple years later, after experiencing much emotional abuse in my first relationship, that I regained my sense of self-worth.

But that's another story for another time.

Now, evening draws upon Vancouver. The sky has clouded over again and rain will fall tonight and my dream continues.

On this second morning of my new dream, I sit thinking about myself, about who I am and who I want to be. What is this fear that holds me down? What is this sinking feeling in my chest restraining me from going out into the world and manifesting my deepest desires? Why do I hold myself back with fear and doubt when going out there and trying would be so much easier than to not try at all? It's a paradox really, being a human being. It is like our fear is failing in our attemps, but yet we fear succeeding even more.

People have always said that the biggest obstacle in their lives is themselves; I understand that statement more than ever these days. I look back upon my life and look at all the times I was afraid of continuing in something I had started for fear of failure. I always persisted through, no matter how scary, and by the end of it, I would always look back and see how useless those feelings of inadequacy were. I had made it in the end, not only that I had always done well. So stop being afraid. Stop kidding yourself that you don't deserve the best in this world becuase you do, you really do. So got out there and grab hold of the oppurtunities and go for your deepest desires, because if you want it bad enough, it will come true. Believe in that.

It is an unremarkable thursday in the city of Vancouver, but then again, perhaps it is remarkable because everyday is a miracle. To be alive in this moment in time, to breathe, to be.

It is 5 o'clock in the afternoon and I am sitting in the lounge of Vancouver Central Hostel. The sky has clouded over and a quiet mood has settled over the people inside. Something stirs inside of me, I can feel it drawing close, ready to be born into the person who I am. I sit pensively before the computer screen glow, contemplating what type of dream I have created for myself. It's like standing before a vast ocean of possibility, unsure of whether to jump in or to retreat back into myself. I wonder what I am doing here.

I know I'm looking for something, or perhaps I'm looking for everything. the 7 years in Edmonton were tough. I think it took me that long to get over the depression that began in my childhood. Looking into the future now, I am not afraid of what lies ahead, because when I look behind me, I know I have within me the strength to overcome anything. If life is about conquering the demons within ourselves, then Edmonton gave me the ability to conquer my pain.

So what exactly am I looking for now? What are my new dreams?

I think above everything, my heart desires a home. This is my 5th time moving in a year and a half and a certain feeling of impermanence and homelessness has been with me a lot longer than that. I believe it began when I moved to Edmonton. On the verge of puberty, I no longer felt safe with my family, my friends, or even with myself. After so many years of that, I feel pretty tired. For whatever length of time, I really think it's time to settle myself down for a bit, and for once believe that things aren't going to fall apart. I want to believe in life again, I want to believe in people and that there is something magical about being here.

The dream of Edmonton has ended and the dream of this beautiful seaside city begins. Wish me luck.