we were instructed to bring nothing with us. no cameras, no valuables. just ourselves. it was the first, and only, time in india that i didn't have the option to capture images. not on the horse-drawn rickshaws that took us from the hotel to the other end of town, past the lake, the expressions, the tones and dream-like wisps that taunted and enticed me. the surreality of it all, the blending of time and space and history and present was whirling on my senses. all i could do was look, let it wash through me, and be present. 

the rickshaws dropped us off at the top of a cobbled road, where we were to walk another couple of blocks to the gates of the dargah. a dargah is  a Sufi shrine that is built over the grave of a revered saint. we arrived on a sacred day, one that drew more visitors than usual. it was back to belly as we removed our shoes and handed them over to the gatekeeper who bundled them tightly to one another, tagged them and gave the ticket to our guide. barefoot and empty handed, scarf covering all but my face, i  passed through the questionable metal detector and into the walls of the dargah bazaar. 

immediately, there was music and silence, chaos and stillness. more instructions: stick together, buddy up. keep head covered, wash feet, show respect. in briefly met glances, i see sparks of fear and faith in the eyes of others in our group.

we line up to enter the inner sanctum of the shrine. offerings of flowers and food are piled high on the heads of the devoted. prayers are sung and chanted through reverberating speakers. as we get closer, an urgency is mounting and i feel the tightrope of fear and surrender. there is no choice but to trust when we are pressed up against one another. when humanity is over and under and above. when the urgent breath of the faithful is swirling in your ears and the promise of redemption is a hand on your back and an elbow in your face. i lost awareness of where i ended and another began. just one sweating, tangled mass of hope and curiosity clawing the way to the doorway. flowers falling as the offering baskets are crushed and dropped. the sacrifice of reaching the sacred destination. 

i trip over the threshold as i am forced inside. it is such a small space and there is a hum, an echo of mortality colliding with spiritual burning. all i see are fragments of people, of ornament, of light and consciousness. we are so close, no part of me is untouched. i close my eyes for an eternal second, yielding any grip of control, knowing joy. then, a moment of reckoning. fear and the illusion of safety beckons. i see the hand of my friend and grab on tightly. she pulls me toward the exit. we funnel sideways, ducking under a rope and through another portal. as quickly as we entered, we are outside. there is room to breath, and speak, again. the whole thing lasted maybe a minute. and i am already longing to go back through.

afterward, we are given the red thread to hold in our hands as we silently release our prayers. i close my eyes and pray to know the feeling of this experience. again. to fear and to say yes anyway. to love, deeply, and to be met with unbound  love. no matter the illusion of risk. to be struck dumb by awe as often as possible. to be of service. to be free. always my prayer: to be free.

i knew nothing of the Sufi saint Hazrat Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti the day we arrived in ajmer to visit the dargah built in his honor hundreds of years ago; the place of pilgrimage for Muslims that is second only to Mecca and Medina. i still don't know much in the way of his story or precise teachings. only that he is said to be a living spirit of peace and harmony. but i do know what i felt there. as deep and true and sure as blood and bone and the pulse of living. and i left my prayers bound up in red thread tied to the shrine walls because i trusted they were safe there. as do all who come.

the other half of the thread i tied around my neck. it is traditional to tie them to the wrist– so i did that, too. but something about having it closer to my heart, to my voice, felt important. i left it on for as long as it lasted, until i was a month home and it felt listless and done and out of place. 

today, i woke up and brought my hand up to touch the soft part just above where the clavicles meet. where i feel vulnerability and separation; and where i get stuck. i wished that the red thread was still there to twist through my fingers. to remind me of where i have been and where i will go. to give me strength to stay in gratitude and to reside in the hum of that sanctum. the hum that is creation and all things true. the place were i don't end and you don't begin. where we hungrily push forward to let go and lay down our offerings. where we are all one being on a pilgrimage to be free. 

"Perfection in faith is evident by three things: (i) Fear, (ii) Hope, and (iii) Love" ~ Hazrat Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti

   daughter of female peer-educator with vatsalya's health clinic for commercial sex workers.

 ajmer, india, september 2009. 

my facebook status yesterday read, "sometimes i feel like i am digging a tunnel with a teaspoon." that pretty much sums it up. except, i'm not really putting a value judgment behind this experience, it's simply the truth. progress feels slow. each step i am taking toward creating a real sustainable business for myself to continue to do the kind of work i was able to do in india, comes with it an entire universe of details that are new and foreign and smacked with growing pains. i am also learning how to work circular. as much as it might make sense to complete one task and then move onto another, i'm finding that my best productivity lie in utilizing the pause of one step to glance over and inch-along another. it sometimes feels like no one thing is ever going to see completion, but, somehow, i know i am moving closer.

honestly, it'd be pretty boring to go more into the details, but i am here to share today that progress is, indeed, happening. one of my biggest fears is being someone who blows a lot of hot air and doesn't deliver. who dreams but doesn't manifest. who promises and doesn't follow through. and sometimes i feel like i do put out the wishes and the wants before i really know how i'm going to make it so. that's all part of the saying "yes" thing. at times, this committing-before-knowing-how plan creates some stress for me. fears come up as i begin to doubt the inner-knowing that said yes in the first place. and when the fears come up, the productivity, the flow, is halted. that's when i begin to stare at walls and everything gets big and blurry. i know you know what i am talking about.

what is different now from any other time in my life, is that the "yes" is coming entirely from me. from passion and fervor. and so, even when the wall-staring cloud is cast over me, something deep and sure inside rises up to greet it. sometimes it takes a while. sometimes it's a little timid. but it comes. (thank god)

i am learning that the productivity of passion has it's own pace. and that pace is not always what i think it's going to be. there are bursts and flurries and there are big open fields of emptiness that, somehow, eventually, yield something tangible. the measurement of progress, i am constantly reminded, is as much about the products (the edited photos, the giclee prints, the movie, the etsy shop, the cards, the business license, the project proposal, the website….) as it is about those things that cannot be measured and held. 

and the immeasurable is why i am here, digging away with my teaspoon. to gaze into the eyes of another, like the entrancing little girl above, and to see myself.  to love more and be happy. to travel, connect, and experience beauty. to open doors to greater freedom in my life and the lives of others who may not be able to on their own. and, hopefully, inspire you to do the same. 

(it is good to repeat intention)

(there is sometimes value in stating the obvious so that it becomes, well, obvious)

(yesterday, when my daughter asked me what i wanted for christmas, i immediately started to cry. all i really want is this. to do this work. to have the means to continue on my path. and, yeah, a canon 5d with two lenses)

(why that first paragraph is formatting wonky is beyond me. i have tried to fix it for way too long. time to let go. and move on. another lesson in productivity. sometimes good enough is ok.) 

(and for those of you who are thinking i've lost it because the paragraph looks fine, yet another lesson is that sometimes it is good to ask for help. my husband fixed the wonky paragraph in the html code in about 10 seconds.)

(these are random after-thoughts that seemed important. if they weren't stated, i might stare at more walls while wishing they had been.)

(onward)

he is ten today. my baby. my little guy. the one who teaches me daily what it is to be patient. what it is to really listen to your soul and to filter out what doesn't serve us, especially what is coming from within. 

when i was pregnant with him, it felt suddenly urgent to name my own beliefs and to know who i was in the world (clearly, this was foreshadowing). he and i spent many hours on the therapist's couch together. sorting through past and present, untangling, and making space. i was deeply aware that his gestation was as much about forming his baby being as it was about maturing myself into the woman i was to become. so much of my first pregnancy, with my daughter, was about birthing myself into motherhood. this time, it was as much about my son as it was about birthing myself, whole in all dimensions. 

i knew he was a boy–intuitively, not by ultrasound. and i knew he was a tender one. still, i said a few prayers that, being a boy,  if he had to pick an end of the traditional masculinity spectrum that he'd choose artist or hairdresser over football player or frat-boy. honestly, that was fear asking. thankfully, this sweet, soulful dude is golden-hearted to the core. he's a guitar playing magician who is as much sporty as he is arty. he's a thrill-ride daredevil and an awesome body surfer. he sees beauty, notices details, and gives the best foot massages. he gets wry, sophisticated humor, loves the beatles and monty python, and can scooter with the best of 'em.  he is gentleness and intelligence, soul and silly. 

my son was born at home, underwater, after a fast and furious labor. three hours from start to finish. to the tune of "baby, i love you" by aretha franklin, he emerged face-up and arms outstretched, looking up through the water into the eyes of our midwife. he was born from my body and directly  into my own two hands. I lifted him up to my chest, kissed his wet velvet head, and have been heartbreakingly in love ever since. 

people often comment that he is wise beyond his years. perceptive and deep. as an infant, he had a gaze that made more than one person speak to the notion that this wasn't his first time around.  i know sometimes it is  hard for him to be that permeable, to feel so much. thankfully, we share this path. i get it. he, growing ten full years into himself. me, still birthing myself into a new level of wholeness. 

parenting is one hell of a doorway to ourselves. we walk through and we learn more about what we're made of than we could ever anticipate. the beauty is that we get to find our way alongside our children. and, when there is love and transparency, when we are courageous enough to admit our  flaws and reveal our heart's intent, we find our way to freedom, together. 

happy birthday, beautiful boy. 

wishes of love. wishes of true. wishes of free.

photos in this post by the incomparable denise andrade

contacting denise to schedule a photo session last spring was another thing on my saying "yes" spree that began around the same time. i had recently found her blog, had seen her images there and elsewhere, and something inside me, something young and uncensored and wanting, craved the chance to see myself in her dreamy hued intimacy. an impulsive email was sent. a brief story told. a session scheduled and rescheduled. and, in august of this year, these images were taken.

i didn't anticipate the layers i would shed in this process. that i am still shedding as i revisit these images. 

the truth is, the times in my life where i have favored my outer image have been few. i am not sure i really see in my current reflection what is there today, what is revealed in this moment of my appearance, because, for me ,the mirror is clouded by all the images, and emotional undercurrents, of my past. from the young girl who was told her belly was too big for the rainbow striped bikini, or the teen who spent long hours in front of the mirror imagining if only the bump in her nose wasn't there. from the twenty-five year old mother with stretch marks from breast to hip, to the thirty-something who wonders when that last five or ten pounds will finally slip her consciousness. 

there is this image that my mind thinks i need to project in the outer life that i am creating for myself. world-traveler. photographer. writer. savvy. strong. cool. insightful. confident. compassionate. intelligent. brave.

i wondered if denise, as a "photographer of artists" would question my qualifications. 

as it was, the one outfit that i had chosen to project this image, the hip pin-striped pants, the modern, solid high-heels, the red necklace, was "accidentally" left at home. (and i packed carefully)

instead, i had only soft things to wear. dresses of indian cotton and silk. 

nothing edgy to hide behind. 

and there was no hiding in the meadow that day.

slowly, gently, some comfort in my skin was coaxed out of me, by the sweet, reassuring voice of a new friend. the quiet that only early morning can hold. the solid ground beneath and the vast sky above. 

what i see in these photos is a naked vulnerability. a shyness.  the truth. that i wasn't totally believing i deserved to be seen this way. that i wished i was a little more relaxed in my body and with my smile. that i wanted to have the guts to skip and dance and show more of the inner-freedom that was waking up in me.

that's not to say i don't think these photos are beautiful. because i do. very much so. but, for me, the beauty i see in these images is as much about the magic of denise's photography, and even of  my outer appearance that day, as it is about what she captured, underneath it all, for me.

in the moment these photos were taken, i was seen and revealed exactly as i was on that morning. in them, i see the hesitancy, the longing, the readiness to shed  the layers that were ready to go. the yearnings and the doubts. 

and i see  hope. the emergence of trust–in myself and other. the experience of same. of homecoming in a kindred friend. 

i see the woman who said yes.

during this photo session, i allowed my gaze to be  held longer by a lens than ever before. sharing these photos here, now, calls up the same raw vulnerability that denise captured in them; which is why  i think i've waited a while to share more of them.  

while i would be lying to say that i am totally comfortable with posting them today, i woke this morning knowing it was time. time to shed another layer, reveal and be seen. 

(if you are the one person left on the planet who does not read denise's blog, you can-and must-find it here)