Space of Pure Love

Written in: Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Date: July, 2009

Reflection on reflection
Desire on desire
Travelling
In places of the mind
In its infinite spaces

Spaces of the heart manifesting
Heart of the soul digesting
Its own contemplative,
Embrace

Soul full of memories
Heart full of love
Mind floating
In its love spaces
With its many faces
In its many phases
And more.

Tibetan flags, airborne... just like love

Written: December 2008

Location: Banff, Canada

Photo Credit: Joao Paulo Barbosa

The memories of what we had still touch me
Although the warmth of your touch is long forgotten
Only distant flashes remain now
It seems unreal, almost like a made-up story

When I look at your photos
I can’t help but be inspired
The sensitivity of your eyes
The beauty of the world you have seen

The places we have been
The way you capture it
The way you smile at life
Even though you don’t fully understand it,
But merely desire it

The way the mountain face is unravelled
With the bright, morning sun
And the way it is lit by the stars in the darkness
The same way my eyes brighten
When I look at the photos, our photos
Tibetan flags flying

... in the cold Himalayan breeze

When I look at the world
Waiting there, being there
Living, breathing, existing
Even now,
Without seeing all its beauty
I can feel all the love

required to receive it...

The love of the universal mother
The earth.

Our life force.

Can love for you be transformed into love for her, the mother?
I desire to give my heart to her
Not to you, or to you, or to you, or to you...
But to her
The sustaining energy
The force which carrries not drowns
The force which revitalizes and not consumes
The force which makes the eyes open and not permanently shut to life

And now thoughts go back to you
The love I loved with all my heart
The love I believed to be my last
The love of all loves
The love which secured
And protected
And softly huged, but not suffocated
The love which sweetly whispered, and not shouted
The love which was wisdom
And not one filled with obligation and tensed moments
The love I was looking for.

Unreal. Imagined even. In my mind.

This love, will I always carry it with me and never find in anyone else?
Is it anyone’s to give? Is it mine to receive?
Love just is... (?)
Accepting
And unassuming
And beautiful in all its appearances.
Love is now.

In each moment.

A Map

Written in: Stockholm, Sweden
Date: February 28, 2009

A map on the wall in an old buidling somewhere in Old Town, Warsaw.

My finger gently touches the surface, exactly where India is located.

With my finger, I go from Leh in the North to the South-Eastern reaches of Kolkata. I imagine the colours, the heat, the sounds, the smells. I imagine chaos, which is mysteriously organized. I hear hundreds of cars and rickshaws honking. I see disfigured people. I smell the warm and moist, almost wet, smells of human excreta. I feel my skin burning from heat; my body like a human inferno. I open my eyes wide while staring at the map, but vividly seeing myself on the street in Old Delhi asking, ‘what am I doing here?’.

I see women with babies wrapped in cloth on their backs. Mother warriors. Rocking their babies to the rhythm of their quick, hurried, steps. Babies learning the motion of movement, resting. Who am I here? A silent observer? An amazed traveler? A tourist? A wanderer? A nomad by choice? Certainly not a warrior; life is easy for me. I have choices. Mother warriors fight each day to survive.

Million of thoughts rushing. I feel squeezed by their weight. Certain despair arises. I have an impulse to do something, to help, to be a friend here, to understand this reality, to... I allowed myself to stand still. And in the midst of this emotional turbulence I recognize that I need to remain still for a while. Clarity comes to those who relax, who can see all without judgment. Flowing with reality, rejecting nothing. Only then mindful and meaningful action may arise.

I stood there, in silence, in front of the map.

I placed the palm of my hand in the heart of India.

I stood for a while longer.

I turned around and walked away, filled with hope.

No Butterflies and No Tortoise

Narrated by: Iwona Roman

Please sit down for a while. Prepare a cup of warm tea. Put a heavy, warm blanket on your body. Relax. Enjoy this 4 minute exceprt from Amos Oz's book The Same Sea.

Shifting Perception

Written in: Stockholm, Sweden
Date: February 19, 2009
Photo Credit: I. Roman

When I look,
through this window
above the street level,
people look like ants,
cars like toys,
concrete structures like playfull installations.
The huge billboard signs
look small enough to put in my bag.
Like a book.

Life observed
in constant motion.
While I sit still.
Unnerved.
Looking from above
to the outside.

I turn my head
inside.
And everything is back.
To proportion.
Strange, these
shifts in perception.

A man staring at me
from across the table.
I, looking down.
Unmoved.
Now, shifting perception
away from the gaze.
To something else.

Balance and Harmony

Photo Credit: I. Roman

Natural Beauty

Photo Credit: I. Roman

Humanness

Written in: Stockholm, Sweden

Date: February 16, 2009

Photo Credit: JP Barbosa

I am always so pleased to read about pieces of humanness in all of us. We can always relate to each others human nature, especially our states of nostalgia, sacred memories, and longing. Although a cliche, sometimes I do feel like a trapped bird in a cage. Trapped in this life of responsibility and process. The process I love because it is the journey that matters in life the most, and not the destination. However, I wish that sometimes my 'process' was a bit more exciting, a bit more alive, a bit more of... something else. Fire perhaps. Passion. Craziness and spontaneity. Adventure. Complete freedom.

The endless questions, the desire to make more predictible what isn't. The constant desire and dreams to be with a man that will love me for life. The desire to be nomadic and not to worry about money, or job, or destination. To be able to be with my parents and take care of them when they need me. To be able to express this immense gratitude to them for raising me and teaching me the way that they have. All of these fleeting moments of thought are so precious, and so enjoyable. What wonder is our imagination! Sometimes I feel like I can have my own secret world in my head of dreams. Beautiful dreams, some of which have become real.

Perhaps it is true that it all starts with a dream. That it is possible to turn something seemingly impossible into reality. It is important to believe, but not to believe blindly. I often wish I will some day tap into my most sacred intelligence. Intelligence, where I can find my genius. I don't believe that people 'are' geniuses, but rather that people 'have' genius. These moments, or years, of extraordinary brilliance are never ours to hold. It is so delicate and illusory that if we try to keep it, we lose it. An author, Elizabeth Gilbert had a great talk about this on TED (http://www.ted.com/). She is such a special woman: funny, beautiful, intelligent, humble, and just lovely. Her talk really inspired me to believe in whatever I do, since often, when things get really hard, I want to run. I want someone to open the cage and let me go. Over the years I realized that in moments like this it is so important to just keep going, to keep writing that paper that I think is just THE WORST in the whole world. To just keep going on keeping going, because the moment, perhaps even a flash, of brilliance will return and it will colour the work with colours unimaginable. So what plays a role here, patience or perserverance, or focus, or all? Does it even matter?

Perhaps what is most important in this is having the heart. It is feeling the love in all that one does. I often feel so much love, so much of this sacred inner energy-- and often I feel it dies somehow without being properly released. I mean, released with a purpose. There is a lot of creative power in this. I just have to find the right channel to tap into it. Perhaps I just have to see it. Simple.

Mistaking Memories for Love

Written in: Stockholm

Date: January, 2009

Photo Credit: Iwona Roman

Is my life a mirror to yours?

I keep thinking of you.

Imagining you are thinking of me.

Am I a fool?

Everyone keeps telling me,

'move on' and 'forget'.

But I keep holding on.

Trusting my instinct

that you are with me

Am I believing illusions?

Are my memories displaced?

Or am I following

the essence of the love,

once so familiar and warm.

Are you there,

also thinking like me?

Everyday filled with memories

of our confused hearts,

erected

on a pedestal.

Krishnamurti says that

missing someone is not love.

I believe him.

Missing you is an illusion, an image.

A blind alley.

A waste of time.

Perhaps,

all of the memories we made

are not worth remembering.

Perhaps,

all my hopes are not worth having.

After all, you are not here.

You are not even trying.

Where is this road taking me?

Photo Credit: JP Barbosa

"The fact is there is nothing that you can trust; and that is a terrible fact, whether you like it or not. Psychologically there is nothing in the world, that you can put your faith, your trust, or your belief in. Neither your gods, nor your science can save you, can bring you psychological certainty; and you have to accept that you can trust in absolutely nothing"

-Krishnamurti (1895-1986)

When this is profoundly understood, through living life as it is, one can start trusting absolutely everything. Life becomes easeful and requires no effort. Life becomes itself. Then, we experience the essence of life- its natural beautiful flow.

Being the Moment

Written at: Arlanda Airport, Sweden, just before taking off to India
Date: June 9, 2008
Photo Credit: I. Roman

My journey begins on this beautiful sunny morning of June 9, 2008. A journey where time is travel and travel is time. Where all the spacious gaps are filled with inquisition and self reflection. Where dull moments are momentous, and where boredom turns into curiosity. A time, where love and pure joy can move to tears.

Months passing by timelessly. Days colourful, curious, adventurous. To enter this new dimension of nomadic existence, means to completely open to the freedom of movement. Living only for the sake of living. Should there ever be any other purpose? Shouldn’t life bring joy purely because it is life and it is living us?

Yes, life is living us beautifully.

I am watching all the faces. Some tired faces, some happy ones. Many look indifferent, some coloured by the look of excitement, perhaps even escapism. What is contained with us? Within our heads with never-ending space? Heads with physically defined parameters, but endless abyss of information, secrets, pain, happiness, love, enjoyment, memories, concepts, ideas, stress, aspirations, inspiration, desires, wants.

Someone talking on the mobile beside me, at 530am. What could possibly be so important? Why can’t we give ourselves space even in the quiet hours of the morning? Why are many afraid of self-intimate moments? Why are many running away from the simplicity of being with oneself? Instead, moments seem to be filled with ‘doing’ as though space always needs filling. As though moments of complete mystery need to be blocked, killed, muted, and made predictable, safe, and comfortable. Why do we often invent moments, rather than just be the moments?

Heart of a Nomad

Written in: Luang Prabang, Laos

Date: August, 2008

Photo Credit: I. Roman

"Nomads are closer to the created world of God and removed from the blameworthy customs that have infected the hearts of settlers"

- Ibn Khaldun in Anatomy of Restlessness by Bruce Chatwin

The movement is slowing down, and as a result, the Heart is shrinking, hurting, suffering. It feels caged and locked in its own movement, in its own dynamic of beating. The Heart sounds its song, tu-tum, tu-tum, tu-tum, resonating its unique strength with the passage of time. It keeps on living its internal motion, unaffected. Isn't it obvious? It will never stop moving.

Movements of a Nomad

Written in: Luang Prabang, Laos
Date: August, 2008

A Nomad,
creates life

through

the purity of

movement.

With each move,

in each moment.

Photo Credit: JP Barbosa

Un-emoted Love

Written in: Stockholm, Sweden

Date: January, 2009

Muted dreams.

Empty displays of Love.

Unspoken desire to leave.

Unaffectionate gazes

covered by sweet words,

or not.

Erase all.

Let all go,

from memory.

Photo Credit: I. Roman

Travel-Motions

Written in: Stockholm, Sweden
Date: October, 2008

To move
is to cherish,
to take enjoyment
in what is
seen.
To see the
unseen.
To see the
world as it
appears
and
then
disappears.

Loving the Stranger

Written in: Bhuntar, India
Date: July, 2008

Each morning she wakes up with the same thought, 'I want to leave'. Each morning she brushes away this thought like persistant mosquitos. The thought never leaves her now. It is always there lurking in the cupboards of her mind. She hopes the cupboards won't open, but they always seem to burst out with some forgotten mementos.

The man sleeping beside her could be a Stranger. A Stranger not holding her in a tight embrace. Not whisphering sweet-nothings to her in the morning, at midday, at night. The Stranger sleeps, with his back to her, dreaming his Stranger dreams. The Stranger does not talk, he merely exists. Exists to exist. To spend time. To pass time. She often wonders about his thoughts, since for her, two lovers share thoughts. But not them. They are not even lovers. They are reduced to 'she' and 'the Stranger'. In the same bed.

She often looks at him and sees a rather vacant smile. Not the broad, relaxed smile he has for those he loves. Is he real with her or with the others? She wonders.

She is tired of thinking about these things. Things, which haunt and torment her from within. She does not say much. The reality she creates is often different from The Truth. The Truth, which is perceived the same way by two or more people at the same time. She prefers to see Her Truth. Beautiful and illuminated.

She feels isolated. Isolated and alone. She is secretely planning and vividly imagining- almost living it- her excape route. The relief. The feeling of burden lifted. The feeling of freedom from torment. The feeling of not needing to wonder, to dissect thoughts like little ants.

She wants Peace with a partner. But with this Stranger? Perhaps she is the Stranger.