Category: True Nature - Wisdom in Waves

No Part Left Out

8/9/2025

Your lunar phases are a mystery--
parts of you hidden in shadows,
parts of you unafraid of exposure.

Which one is the real you?
Which one is the real me?

I long to embody
your messy vulnerability
and courageous beauty
in a compassionate circle
of luminescent creativity
for dark times.

And for now--
this waxing and waning
towards wholeness,
this loving desire
for more beyonds,
this fullness of intention--
is enough.

There are many ways to heal. Western medicine pathologizes the problem and seeks to fix it. Eastern philosophy encourages balance and restoration to wholeness. Working in an allopathic setting with osteopathic training, Eastern roots, and a contemplative spirit, I find myself trying to define healing in a particular way that resonates with this body and the bodies of those I meet.

Some days, the path of wellbeing for myself, a patient, or loved one is so clear and effortless, that I cling to the possibility of a one size fits all approach. Why am I wasting time engaging in multiple modalities of learning when THIS IS IT?

At other times, the path feels long and arduous, a labyrinth spiraling into an answer only to lead me circumferentially further away from the center of knowing. Overwhelmed by fear and doubt, nothing seems to fit or make sense.

I’m starting to realize that there is no perfect answer or single cure for every ailment. Life is often perceived through a lens of dualities – ill or well, good or bad, imperfect or perfect, all or none. It’s more like the moon, waxing and waning towards wholeness.

As I continue to practice medicine, embracing East, West, and everything in between, may all phases of the moon, all parts of me be held in shadow and light. May I learn to embrace all aspects of you with this fullness of intention, knowing that messy vulnerability and courageous beauty are part of the process.

I used to think that enlightenment was this transcendental, out of body experience with the goal of rising above suffering. Now, the only thing I wish to rise above is the delusion that healing and wholeness reside at some other address – another clinic, another body, some foreign paradise in some other person’s life with an expertise that does not include this heart-mind-body-spirit exactly as it is in this moment.

Only by embracing the whole self can the self ever truly be free.

A Third Possibility

8/1/2025

A Third Possibility

There is this ideal version
of me that I long for-
the unconditionally accepting healer,
the gracious hostess,
the one who dreams of sacred worlds.
Instead, the one who shows up
is this impatient, judgmental doctor,
one who is afraid to let others in
because of comparing mind,
one who dreams in shapes
of fear, overwhelm, and confusion.

Tenderly embraced by my figure of love,
the real and ideal me’s are held
in a tension of opposites,
superimposed in a circle of love,
making space for a third possibility.

Her Many Faces

7/7/2025

Face covered in pock marks, acne,
or a facelift gone bad, she hides
in the corner of the women’s
bathroom at Los Cabos airport.

Dressed in uniform, I wonder if she
is a custodian reduced to menial work
because of appearance, circumstance,
or a misunderstanding.

Who are you under that face,
beneath the ugliness of a world
that perceives beauty
only in one dimension?

I want to bow to you,
to a story that feels unfinished,
a painting that is but one
in a series of Her Many Faces.

Exiting the bathroom stall
to wash my hands,
I look into the mirror
and turn to where you stand.

Were you a projection
of my insecurities,
or an unfathomable mystery
in the space you left behind?

The Three D's

6/5/2025

There are some people I like,
and some I dislike,
some people I understand,
and others, I misunderstand.
Maybe they have mixed
feelings about me, too.
Let me sense your divinity,
your dimensionality,
the design of your heart,
and discover that we
are not that different.

The Journey of Belonging

5/5/2025

What if the unintelligible
language of the wind
is a poem
spoken just for you?
Would you whisper it
to the next being you meet
with the same devotion?
The birds trill
with merriment and mystery
of a morning that welcomes
you into the womb of the forest.
Here, you are a walking tree
rooted in an underground network
of connection and belonging.
Trust your heart’s superpowers,
inhabiting the temple of your body
with joy and compassion.
Emerging from the forest,
delivered by newborn hope,
you belong to all beings.
Just like you, they all want
to be happy, safe, and free.

Faith

3/31/2025

As I sit in meditation, there is eagerness to interpret the dream, to make meaning of it.

SMD whispers, “Not yet my love. Stay close to yourself. Do you have your energy body? Emotional body?”

Trusting this voice, I become meek, cultivating patience and reverence for the process by systematically sensing earth, space, the flow of metta, fire for image.

The dream is strange. I see many fish enclosed in a large space by a fence or cage. At first they are all still, but then they are flapping around. One by one they pop out of the cage and become young children dancing a melancholy dance.

“May I be free,” one child sings.

I feel the child within inspired to voice her own desires.
“May I be seen and heard.”
“May I love and be loved.”

I think of all the undocumented immigrants, the students protesting in the US who are being deported.

The heart center becomes a gray, swirling storm, aching for the light of the Brahmaviharas to shine through.

*****

Hiking in the rain, I imagine the rain as Kwan Yin’s tears. The pitter-pattering sound against my raincoat becomes the sound of thousands of hearts beating fervently in prayer.

“May there be more sanctuaries of love than sanctuaries of hate.”

*****

“And what would that give you?” the voice asks. Is it the voice of SMD, Kwan Yin, Mother Earth? Does it matter?

Then I would trust in a universal benevolence, more powerful than greed, hatred, and delusion. I would trust citta as a meaningful extension of it.

*****

Down by the lake, its surface generously receives the raindrops, the tears, the prayers, swallows them whole into its murky beyonds.

The eye of a weak sun peaks through the gray above. Someone is watching, eternally watching.

And my bones know, there is more than this.

Embodied Love

2/15/2025

Essence of Sun and Earth by Vijali Hamilton

What would it mean to be a statue
placed on the altar of my own longing,
to be an embodied devi
balancing the four elements,
love radiating in all directions
with the power to heal?
Ma, make me an instrument of the divine,
holding others to wholeness,
loving the whole spectrum of epic
stories from pleasure to pain--
sitting-standing-walking-lying-
hiking- dancing- writing-singing-
healing-always connected
to your ineffable, infinite love.

Unentangled Knowing

6/8/2023

Spirit of Flight by Josephine Wall

The knowing that I’ve lived by has always been entangled - burdened by guilt or worry, conditioned to believe things would improve based on commercial ideas of happiness.

It’s exhausting, and it takes a toll on one’s physical, mental, and spiritual health. IFS (internal family systems) therapy is teaching me to love all parts that arise in reaction to other people’s parts, in defense against perceived dangers. Awareness and emptiness meditation practice support the understanding of a moment-to-moment spacious loving presence over a lifetime of misunderstanding.

This path is not simple and straightforward. A does not lead to B, then to C and D linearly. It’s more of a circular and tangled journey, with moments of unentangled knowing. The more moments of unentangled knowing, the more trust. The more trust, the more capacity for a peaceful joy beyond any commercial ideas of happiness.

I can fly beyond the boundaries of what no longer serves me. She trusts me wholeheartedly. We are forever connected, creative, and free.

Bowing to the Altar of My Life

4/24/2023

Caste in bronze resin sitting on top of a ferocious lion, she commands attention at center stage. Endowed with power from multiple male deities to defeat the demon Mahishasura, she wields the weapons of a chakra, conch, bow, arrow, sword, javelin, trishula, shield, and a noose to clear all obstacles. Bejeweled in crimson and green ornaments adorning her crown, ears, neck, and waist, she embodies the cycle of death and rebirth, endings and beginnings necessary for all human experience.

My mothers never prayed to her. I wonder if paying attention to her now will strengthen and heal the maternal line.

To her right sits a smaller being caste is the same bronze resin. He was known to wear simple saffron robes and walk barefoot for miles in search of suitable space for long periods of meditation.

I still don’t understand how he abandoned his wife, Yasodhara or his son, Rahula in search of enlightenment. Can enlightenment still be found as a householder? As I try to reconcile this paradox in heart and mind, I am still grateful for the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the numerous lists as treasure maps to freedom. Maybe he didn’t abandon his family, but sacrificed the comforts of a safe, opulent life for something far more valuable.

To his and her left is another small being cast in the same bronze resin. She hears the cries of the world and stays till there is ease. Her demeanor is relaxed, yet ready to spring into action and alleviate suffering at a moment’s notice. She is the embodiment of the most caring 911 system I have ever seen. I’m still exploring hidden caves of compassion inside her world.

Above them all hovers a spirit in flight wearing colorful feathers in solidarity with the winged friends surrounding her. Trapped in 2D and a mahogany frame, she yearns to gather momentum and fly on wings of creative intuition, to leave the limitations of 8.5. X 11“ flat space in favor of more dimensionality without rules. She embodies the wisdom of stillness and movement, the space needed for meaningful transformation to occur in divine time. She understands that the wonders of the world were not created overnight.

Each day I light a candle, bowing in humble reverence to each of these beings, to their symbolism and the qualities they inspire in me.

I still feel this heart encased in layers of misunderstanding, a hidden gem polished by years of devotion.

One day there will be a dissolving of all separation. One day, I will be free to love as I was meant to.

There is no doubt.

Soulmaking Dharma meets Insight Meditation as Open Trust

10/17/2022

Photo by Diana Polekhina

Dear One,

You wake up each morning and fill the blank page with characters and a plot supporting ideas of permanence and becoming.

How’s that working out for you? It must be disappointing, even exhausting when things don’t turn out the way you imagined.

What if you crumpled up the page, shredded it, recycled it, gently let it go to begin again? Inscriptions on the heart are not so easily forgotten.

You will forget, fill the blank page again with fixed views, and wonder how you keep picking up the same pen.

Look around you. Others experience this, too. Marinate in the warmth of self-compassion, and then remember those inscriptions on the heart of ease, beauty, loving connection, sacred freedom.

As you meditate, feel the support of the Earth, breath and silence giving space to all stories of suffering. Listen to the heart’s whispers and sense the flame of divinity within.

You are more capable than you know.

This is how you can mirror the divinity in all beings, and remind them of their birthright to begin again.

With Tenderness,

Open Trust