Dharma Traveler

The california ocean is shocking in the late summer. I was covered in goose bumps as I came out from the water.  On shore, I realized a handful of women were looking down the beach at my dog, Bisous.  He was playing- jumping around a black bird with a long neck.  Earlier, the bird floated like a duck in the ocean close to shore.  Now, it was stationary on land, pecking in Bisous's direction.  Kensi, Nathan and I  started calling, “Bisous!”  He paused mid play-pounce and Nathan ran toward him.  When he got there, he motioned for us.  Something was wrong with the bird.   “He’s hurt?” Kensi asked as we approached.   “Something’s definitely wrong with him,” Nathan replied. The bird was wobbling like a drunk. Nathan squatted and leaned in for a closer look.  This scared the little guy and, trying to back up, he toppled forward, beak stuck in the sand, waves lapping onto his face.  I reached down and tried to sit h...

My favorite area in Koh Panang , Thailand is home, temporary or permanent, to some of the brightest beings I’ve met.   Last week, while there, I was reminded of another shining soul that Kyle, Kensi and I met on our road trip last summer when we were visiting our grandma . After a few days with her, feeling stifled by the Louisiana heat, we sought respite in bayou waters. It was there we met Howard. Deeply tanned, the man sank into the water with a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon held high. I guessed he was anywhere from 40 to 60 years old.  Behind a goofy smile, he had three grey teeth, triumphantly hanging onto red gums. Scraggly, dirty blonde hair fell past his shoulders, held out of his face with a pink bandanna tied across his forehead. Sending ripples our way, he moved toward us. As he joined our circle, knee-deep in the murky water, I nodded at his upper arm and asked, "You a dead head?” The band’s skull logo and the words, "Greatful Dead," were inked there...

"Pay more attention to the silence than to the sounds.  Paying attention to outer silence creates inner silence: the mind becomes still... Every sound is born out of silence, dies back into silence, and during its life span is surrounded by silence.  Silence enables the sound to be.  It is an intrinsic but unmanifested part of every sound, every musical note, every song, every word.  The  Unmanifested is present in this world as silence.  This is why it has been said that nothing in this world is so like God as silence.  All you have to do it pay attention to it." -Eckhart Tolle Silence. As the harmonium fades to a whisper and voices cease to be, all I hear in this great hall is... Nothing.  A profound silence echoes so loudly in my soul that I finally understand the meaning of, "The silence is deafening."  No, it's not that there's an awkward pause in a conversation between acquaintances. Nor is it two lovers at a rift w...

  Love. It was a sunny, warm, sea-salty air kinda day on the cool California coast in Montecito.  My sister and I tried yoga on surfboards and dips in the sea before setting off on a walk with Mom and Dad.  Here, you can walk along the seaside about an hour to Santa Barbara, where Dad was ready to grab some food.  It was a gorgeous walk in the golden air, hopping from rock to rock and dodging waves.  Along the way, we met a bird.  This little fella, about the size of a seagull, was painted grey and speckled black. He was on the shore, snuggled amidst some stones getting lightly tossed by waves, not moving much at all besides this.  My mom and Kensi were quick to act, finding the number of a local animal rescue group.  The Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network told us we could bring the bird in, thirty minutes by car in the opposite direction we had been walking in. By this time, Dad had walked on and was almost to Santa Barbara, eye on t...

  Peace is your natural state. It is the mind that obstructs the natural state.  ~~Ramana Maharshi Tinkling, bubbling water tickles at my eardrums, lightly playing with my subtle sound sense.  It dances in my eyes with slips and slides, drips and drops cascading down nature's mossy steps toward the mass of ocean I know is just beyond the thick of trees, a cliff's drop away.  Bugs move nervously in spasmodic short spurts over my arm hairs and toes.  The wind's cool licks caress my neck, a goddess blowing lightly on my skin.  So much movement.  Nonetheless, there is a sense of stillness here where the redwoods tower perfectly erect. Making no efforts to minimize there grandiose nature, they poise  ever-present with a dignified air of dominance that can only come from being utterly peaceful, balanced, and centered. The redwood is the tallest tree in the world and I am a dwarf in a forest of them.  Along with spirits, foxes, bears and the ...

In New Orleans , you get jazz.  It's a sexy, silky, sultry soul rubdown.  Upright basses thump and singers croon to make you wish you owned a tube of killer red lipstick just to fit in. There's a woman who looks like Lisa Loeb circa '99, only she's wearing polka dots.  It's 2 in the morning but she's got a TV dinner stand set up on the sidewalk cling clang clanging away at her first novel on a vintage typewriter.  She strikes and resets her stream of thought on that ancient machine in rhythm with the guitar player making his living by offering chord progressions to passersby, willing you to drop a coin in his open, orange-crush-velvet lined case.  The doorman at the joint you're flipping your hair in to the beats that built this very city for centuries, slinks off to the dark alley just there and beckons you with a flip of his hand to come near.  You do and you feel your souls connect like two Tetris pieces, a perfect fit in a crowd of ot...