Awakening the God(dess) Within

Help me win trip to Bali, Indonesia: PLEASE VOTE!!

2012-01-03T18:16:00.000-08:00

FamiliaGreetings and happy 2012! I took a leap of faith and entered myself in an online contest to try to win a trip to Bali, Indonesia to work on my Yoga Certification. The trip covers 30 days in Bali, and a 200 hour Yoga Certification (amazing, right?). The entry with the most votes wins...I am currently between 1st and 2nd place (there is another sister who is at a close 2nd). I really need your help to fulfill one of my dreams of becoming a certified Yoga instructor. All you have to do is click on the following link:http://www.pranashama.com/entries.php scroll down to my entry name MIGUELUZ and click on the PINK HEARTS that appear right under my entry. You have have to give the site a few seconds to load. If once you click on the hearts the numbers do not change you may have to reload the page and try again. My apologies for this but the site has been acting up lately, but I ask that you be patient and keep trying!We can vote from computers, smartphones and iPads. From smartphones and iPads you have to click on the link, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and click on VIEW FULL SITE! The site with the pink hearts should appear. We can vote once per day per device, so please get your hands on as many computers, smartphones and/or iPads as you can. We have until February 1st to vote.Spread the word via FB, Twitter, email, word of mouth but please: help me win!!!THANK YOU IN ADVANCE DARLINGS! Namaste!

Devoted devotee

2011-10-04T04:58:00.000-07:00

Good morning familia. Happy Tuesday! Thank you for taking the time to read my words, my soul. May it speak to you as it's speaking to me while I write.

My saturn's return is in FULL effect. On a metaphysical level the time between our 28-32 birthdays is very auspicious. The changes brought about by Saturn and her power can be extremely scary, lonely, guilty, shameful and you may undoubtedly feel defeated. All the 'stuff' in your life just starts to come up from what seems nowhere and it has the ability to knock you down on yo a##. Relationships will be tested, jobs will be placed on the line for you to decide if you are really happy doing what you do; plans you had in the past but never got to will come knocking at your door yet again; YOU will be tested, but just like with anything in life that if you are fearful of- you can either allow these circumstances to keep you a prisoner in your own life or you can use them to catapult you forward into the next, bigger, greater, brighter chapter(stuff I've written over and over and you already know anyway) ;). I've been 30 for almost 2 months and I can already tell you it's been a HUMBLING experience. I thought I was layers into my 'onion' in order to get to my true essence but lord: I've only cracked off that dry crust that comes off mad easy anyway. It is only now that I'm getting to the second layer and you know what...that's perfectly OK! I will be patient with myself and take my time and strip down to get to the perfect, whole, god given soul.

Devotion is a word I've been meditating on for quite a while now, and on what it means to me. It's a word I am no stranger to. In terms of 'faith' I consider myself a pretty devoted devotee =). I have woken up hours before the cold has even started to form in the eyes of our beloved morning birds in order to pray or meditate for hours and hours in silence, with chants, with bells or 7day candles (velones for my Catolicos). I attend spiritual centers, churches and ashrams in order to solidify my faith. I have given up eating deelish sweets that I just adore, drinking one sip of alcohol or one drop of soda in order to learn discipline and garner more faith. I have fasted for mornings, afternoons and even DAYS. Drinking potents and syrups and juicing in order to detoxify all the impurities I've allowed in. I even have an altar decorated with blue and yellow silk, with pearls, peacock feathers and mirrors for Ochun, a small San Miguel statue, pictures of my ancestors who have passed and spiritual books I read daily affirmations out of. Speaking of books, if you want some great life-altering books to read holla at me I can list about 25 on the spot and have read and own them all. This is All great devotion but at 30 I'm realizing it's just not enough, faith without action just isn't really faith at all. I have done all of these great things in the name of making myself a better person, making the world a better place, but I haven't put much action into this work. One of my mantras is "Step out in Faith" but the verb in that phrase has eluded me. I must STEP out in all of that faith I have cultivated. Put one foot in front of the other and just walk, one step at a time. But I haven't allowed that to come easy into my life =/.

In an efforts to 'be a better person' I'll sit in meditation for hours than go do yoga and bend my body and my soul in contorted ways to help me 'find' peace but on my commute back home from the studio I'll snap at someone on the train for some relatively random/minor act. I will get home and instead of putting my faith and action into my dissertation work and BELIEVE and affirm that I can do this degree,I'll find 1 million other things to do like nap or laligag on facebook for way too long. My mother suddenly transforms from the tiny docile amazing chef she is to (according to my ego) the most annoying, impatient, rude, boundary-stepping lady who ever walked this earth...where is my faith? I allow the fears and pain from my past to dictate what I am going to think, feel and inevitably how I am going to act. My faith tells me that I should not be a prisoner to cirucmstance, that I need to let go of the past and just STEP but I don't believe this, something inside of me doesn't feel worthy of being ALLOWED to let go of what so and so did to me, 'did you hear how she spoke to me?', 'do you know how much I gave him and he didn't give me the same back in return'...now I may be alone on this one so forgive me if it's not resonating with anyone on this site ;) it's just my truth for the moment.

Now the beautiful irony with the way faith works is that you can be that devoted devotee mentioned above. You can stand up from your half-lotus or kneeling position, slowly drift back from your meditative state, finish the last page of that amazing book and expect your life to be all Zen and for everything to fall into it's divine 'perfect' place (again, this just may be). But that's usually not how it works. You prayed for clarity and happiness and joy and God sends it to you but it may not look the way you want it to look. You have to do some spring cleaning before anything happens, you have to ACT. It seems that right after you have a beautiful spiritual moment in whatever fashion, life just says 'Here Miguelina, you have done all of this necessary work now you can handle all of this STUFF'...and the universe will send you some S T U F F! People, events, circumstances that have the potential to put you on yo you know what. You can easily fall into the victim role and cry out 'Why me God? I did all this work I deserve peace and quiet. I've asked for you to come into my life: Where are you?!'. But the thing we forget is that IS God, that is God making you stronger and better and more at peace. There is just some 'stuff' that you need to clean and sort out and the only way to get that done is to see it, to feel it. But we confuse this with punishment, or think that our faith isn't working so we don't put that necessary action into it. So we go back and start from square one, either doing the same things to build up our faith again or starting with new rituals, prayers or mantras. We go in circles instead of sitting still for a moment and then going forward, stepping out in a straight line. Or if you are anything like me you allow fear to stop you in your own tracks. We may be reluctant to step forward because maybe we are afraid. I'm sorry IIII am reluctant because I am afraid ;), I am afraid that I may not be able to complete that task, to finish that project, to Love myself enough to believe I can do whatever it is I put my mind towards, I am afraid to be hurt again. We expend energy fighting these inner battles with our fears when the battle isn't ours to fight, it's our creator's. Whoever he, she, it or they are, it is theirs. Hand it over to them in your prayers, in your devotion. Let them know that you cannot do this on your own and you need divine intervention (thanks Gri!) All of that energy that we no longer need to fight our inner battle can now be put towards something better: cleaning up the STUFF that was surfaced through our devotion.

The clean up process will look different for everyone. It can be being a bit more patient and nicer to the teenagers on the L train in the morning, it may be that class you've always wanted to take but were always making excuses (no time, no money,etc). You may need to make the painful decision of walking away from a relationship (romantic or not) that is not bringing you joy or peace OR you may need to let go of your 'perceived' fears and surrender to someone you love and loves you back. Maybe it's time to really sit with yourself and admit that you HATE your job and you need to leave and than you do just that...LEAVE! And that's where FAITH comes back in, your faith will allow you to take that necessary step knowing that God got yo back. Your faith doesn't let anything stop you from doing you, fulfilling your dreams and getting what is your God-given right: SUSTAINABLE peace and happiness. So it's a beautiful cycle of faith, action, faith again than more action...and it just keeps going and raising you up higher and higher to a lighter happier place where you belong. Not vibrating at the bottom of the barrel of life with the lower emotions, but up in the sky with the higher ones, mainly with LOVE. Love of self being the primordial one.

As I write I feel like I meditate and sit through a therapy session all at once; it helps me flesh out some STUFF in my life =) and makes things a bit clearer for me. I let my pieces morph into whatever the universe wants them to morph into. I almost never title my work until I'm almost done, this one not being an exception. The title, just like most of the material in this piece just comes to me and I share it with you all. What came to me as I wrote today is that despite all I wrote about working on our faith and developing it, we don't NEED to do all of that work to be good people or have peace enter our lives. It's wonderful, beautiful and someone in the universe is appreciative of all of your sacrifices and offerings but we don't need to perform any rituals or say any prayers in order to do or be good, it's just who we are, inherently GOOD, we just forgot. Faith is just there to remind us of who we are but more importantly WHOSE we are.
Ache
Peace
Om...
Migueluz

Un peso en el bolsillo?...A dollar in your pocket?

2011-05-06T13:20:00.000-07:00

two+ months and i've just mustered the courage to click SUBMIT…

Friday, May 6th 4:20pm. I've decided to write this entry on a subject that is near to me more than many others: Friendship. It's a subject that I've been tested on numerous occasions during this short 2011, more than I would like to count.
It just feels like one thing after the other after the other with certain 'friends' in my life. As Dominicans eloquently put it: Cuando no estoy presa me andan buscando (When I ain't in jail, I'm a fugitive they're looking for). God really has a sense of humor because I've been sent test after test with certain 'friends' in my life. From situations that had been festering and rotting for years, to some that were relatively sudden. some with womyn i didn't even consider friends, they were dam near sistahs (all heart wrenching regardless of their 'expiration dates').
But something happened one morning, I woke up and decided that I would CHOOSE to be victorious and not victimized. I would take these situations as learning experiences; experiences for growth and love instead of balling up into a corner and crying about it (as I had been doing for days, months and weeks..too long!). I would stop being so angry and cold. I wouldn't ask "WHY ME God?" I wouldn't commit that disservice to myself.
What I did was I took that magnifying glass i had been using to scrutinize these individuals and turn it into a mirror to help me see what God was trying to show me via these experiences.

No longer just glancing, I now took a serious look at myself in the mirror of my soul and placed Miguelina smack dab in the middle of all of these situations and tried to decipher the role that I play in all of this. Yes, the other womyn in each situation are still guilty for doing or not doing, or saying or not saying certain things, but they are no longer my concern. you see,using a mirror as opposed to a magnifying lense (that form of alchemy is called FORGIVENESS) doesn't mean i no longer hold these individuals responsible, or that i 'let them off the hook'; what this simply means is that i stopped carrying all of this deadweight around and wasting so much energy on these situations and decided to expend my energy on much more productive things, things like GROWING!I do all this because i KNOW there is no coincidence that I'm in different situations regarding the same matter. I took the high road, the lonely, cold GPS-less road, but I hear it's the most rewarding.

Now I'm not complaining and getting worked up about other people….well not as as much at least(i'm still a work in progress ya'll), i'm trying to do much more productive (and harder) things with this situation (and ignoring it isn't one of them). I've had to sit with myself and do something that I never thought I would ever have to: re-evaluate my friendships, the role I play in their lives and the ones they play in mine. I had to weigh the pros with the cons and evaluate whether certain people were assets or debts in my life. I felt cold, 'corporate', as if I was having an outer body experience. I'm learning that this sense of alienation is normal, it happens when you do something new. I HAD to. I learned that if you are doing the same thing and obtaining the same results (results that you are not happy with) than you have to start doing something new. And at times this can be uncomfy and hard, but needed.

As I thought about friends and 'foes' and prayed and cried and pretended not to care, than I cared too much, all I thought of was my mother and her age-old saying "Un amigo es un peso en el bolsillo" (A friend is a dollar in your pocket). My mother was never fond of this notion of 'friends'. She felt that a friend was a mother, a sister (especially a twin one like I had), but not a 'stranger' never! My mother is not an ignorant, 'dumb' sistah, she was coming from a place of experience, she was just trying to protect her cubs. She was coming from a place where she was born in the 40's in a rural (SUPER rural) town in the DR where she was the youngest of 10. Where she never needed friends because between her siblings and her cousins she didn't need them (and the same goes for the other Dominican sistas I've spoken to about this same topic). She is coming from a communal society, not an individualist one with the nuclear family (mom, dad, dog and 2.5 kids: your dog is considered family before a 3rd cousin or a great-aunt. no offense to my dog lovers/owners). My mom and her generation from the DR (not all, but most) just feel that friends are unnecessary, lead you astray and will only end up hurting you (or taking yo man…that's for a later entry) in the long run.

But I worked HARD to break that thought process. I worked my lil butt off to show my mom that there were many exceptions to her rule. I helped her realize that she had raised us with enough integrity and values that helped us become womyn who would become loyal friends and that I wouldn't like it if my friend's moms were comparing me and my friendship to a dollar bill in someone's pocket.
Gris and I worked hard and prayed for and attracted some exceptional womyn into our lives, friends we've had since we were 8 years old (smile!!) to ones that we made during our graduate careers, but all AMIGAS! My mom slowly began to let her guard down to the point where now she is asking for those of you she hasn't seen or heard about in months or years. She LOVES each of you who consider her child a friend. She may not know your name or your language but via some adjectives, physical attributes or country of origin she knows who you are.
So after working hard to convince my mother to give friendships a shot and to trust her daughters the roles have now reversed. I am the one waving the dollar bill and shoving it into my pocket, I am the one feeling a certain way because there is a slight possibility that mami was right, wasn't she?

But although I am hurt, I'm not bitter, I'm not angry, I am just growing. As already mentioned, I've decided to take the long road, to actually let my heart grow and love and nurture those relationships I do have left. I've realized that the whole 'Reason, Season, Lifetime' mantra we all know so well is actually true, I am not immune to it- I'm simply human. I am learning that God ain't never give me nothing I can't bear. And if I'm here it's because the most high knows I am equipped to handle the situation and to soar from it, not wither and die.

I am learning who I am as a 'friend'. I am learning that having a twin sister in relation to friendship with other womyn has been a gift and a 'curse'. The gift is that it's made me a very self-less person; someone who is not only willing but eager to share many things with friends: from my feelings, my corny long-winded jokes, my fashion-tips (ericka my first real client!), my family, my other friends...myself!! But on the flip side having a twin sister has made it so that I think that I can have the same relationship with friends that I've had with Gris. One where we used to beat each other up physically, verbally, mentally and 5 minutes later invite the other to play super nintendo and pick up as if nothing had happened. One where I am comfortable enough to tell her how I feel about her--straight gully! No hair on my tounge and know that she knows it's coming from a place of love and it will only make us stronger as a unit. Not everyone has the same conditioning and may not have that tough skin that having siblings offers you, especially those of the same sex. Some people are not ready to hear the 'truth' or what I think is the 'truth' about them. I've learned that not everything that comes to my mind needs to be said, especially if it's said with the sassy, sharp tounge that I am oh so famous for =/.
What has also been revealed to me is that because of those dynamics mentioned above I can easily allow people to walk all over me; I can easily make up with anyone because that is how I learned to love my first and only best friend, Gris. It can lead me to stick around long after a friendship's role has been fulfilled. These are all painful and shocking revelations but simultaneously liberating.

Expectations are a mother...they are what lead to a relationships' demise. We expect people to love us the way we want to be loved, instead of letting them love us the way they know how to love. We say: 'well i did this and this and I expect the same from so and so' and when so and so doesn't meet those expectations (usually unrealistic ones) she automatically becomes questionable and unloyal.

God has taught me that I must let go and let her/him/them lead my path. that i cannot fathom god's capacity to handle our situations, capacities that lead to solutions that our heart and minds aren't capable of conjuring up. i've learned to sit still and stop trying. trying just ends up hurting me more, making me almost jaded and i do not want that.

one month away from being 30 i'm learning that if you don't love yourself you really truly cannot love someone else. and loving yourself doesn't mean you are 'successful' (especially in the western form: an education, job, a partner, a fancy car, a house and money). loving yourself doesn't only mean you pamper yourself, and get manis and pedis and buy yourself the latest gear. loving yourself doens't even mean you visit church on a regular.
loving yourself means taking a look at yourself in that mirror in your soul, at ALLLL of your perfect imperfections and being OK with yourself exactly where you are in life. it doesn't mean you manipulate situations, ideas and even people to get your way. lieing won't get you any closer to that true love, only the WHOLE TRUTH will.
life has taught me that if you cannot accept yourself as you are and if you are lying to yourself about where you are and doing ugly things to get to where you think you should be, could've been, would've been… than that only means you will never accept me and my imperfections.

what i am working through right now is : do i accept someone KNOWING who they really are because they have been my 'friend' (especially those who have been my friend for so long?) or do i gracefully bow out and take the lessons with me? The word that comes to mind as i ponder all of this is: loyalty? where is mine? but at the same time i am thinking of another 'ty' word…SANITY? and mine is priceless

in my meantime, as i work through this and grow, the mantra radiating from the depths of my first chakra via my 5th one is...
TO THY OWN-SELF BE TRUE!!

dar a luz (give light)...

2011-02-24T20:53:00.000-08:00

Paz.
Out of ALL the things I had been brainstorming about, abortion was not even a thought in my heart nor in my mind when trying to come up with new blog entries for this new year we were blessed with. but the billboard that was plastered up on soho and all the chatter and back and forth that came along with it led me to write about such a sensitive subject (one that i seldom opinionate on,for many reasons...until now).

my gods, guides and angels have protected me thus far and i haven't had to even consider the thought of an abortion, thank you most high. i don't know if it was the boring a#% sex-ed course i took in the 11th grade, the fact that i kept my virginity until a relatively later age than most sistahs around my way or the sheer fear that dominga torres and fransico rodriguez would strike in my heart every time they would attempt to have 'the' talk with gris and i. (btw: that talk consisted of my mom or my dad reminding us that if we decided to open our legs to any little boy that we would have to come home and pack our ish and move in with him because they weren't about to be raising no 'women' in their house. This was only about having sex, they didn't even tell us what they'd do to us if we came out pregnant while living at home) no talk about condoms, birth control pills just abstinence (old school dominican campo abstinence). but whatever it was, it 'worked'.
or maybe i was just 'lucky' - and given the stats I'm feeling that way right about now:

41% of New York babies are aborted, with the percentage even higher in the Bronx and among African-Americans.
When you break this down by race for 2010:
Blacks have a 59.8% abortion rate.

Hispanics have a 41.3% abortion rate.

Asians have a 22.7% abortion rate.

And non-Hispanic Whites have a 20.4% abortion rate.

These numbers are alarming, my womb hurts just from reading them.

But...although these numbers are disturbing, they still do not lead me to caste any judgment of my sistahs who are opting to have an abortion. the situation is complicated and multifaceted, simply saying you are PRO CHOICE or PRO LIFE is not that easy and judging sistahs will not make these numbers disappear, it won't even make them decrease.

I am not saying I am PRO CHOICE. At the end of the day you are killing a being, period. I will not try to sugar coat it, nor will I try to minimize the fetus to a sheer 'thing' when I know it has a soul and had a whole other life (or lives) prior to this one that is about to be taken away.

But...I am not PRO LIFE. I am not about to be up in no one's face telling them they are 'wrong' for aborting their fetus, or that they shouldn't. Personally, some PRO LIFEers have a lot of nerve ESPECIALLY when most of these folk do not have wombs and will never carry a child: MEN!!

There is one thing to try to educate our folk or to try to get to the bottom of those numbers listed above (something NO ONE is doing at this point). But when you are pointing fingers, even if done so subtly, or plastering an offensive, insensitive, racist, sexist and CRUEL billboard in white-ass SOHO, than I just have to start 'caring' enough to speak up on abortion.

As I reiterated on my FB post: I know there is trouble in our communities, these numbers do NOT lie. I am a social science researcher and I understand that numbers speak volumes. We are in trouble and we need to get ourselves out of this situation, not point fingers and worry about who is doing what with their placenta: that is step B, we aren't even focusing on step A.

Now some of us sistahs need to sit back and reflect on some of the decisions we make in our lives. Some are using abortions as a contraceptive, like "Oops, I effed up, gotta 'take care' of this" and that is not the way it should be used. I know that a few of us (I was going to say MOST but I'm trying to be sensitive and P.C. here) know sistahs who have had multiple abortions (and multiple don't have to mean 5, TWO is multiple, TWO too many-and if you are younger than 21, that TWO feels like 22). Some of ya wanted the child but the daddy refused to take care of it, so you 'took care of it' and made a decision with your mind not your heart. Some are in a place in their lives where an extra mouth to feed would be detrimental not only to you and the rest of your family, but to that child that will suffer in your hands. Some just simply are not 'ready' for a child in their lives. and i KNOW they should've thought about that before making the decision to have sex(IF it was consented sex, that's a whole different entry), we need to worry about the cause and not place 100% of our attention on the effect.

In my personal experience with Dominga and her version of the 'birds and the bees' I can see how I could have been led by fear to abort my child. Fear that I would be adorned with the burning "A" on my chest forever. Fear that I would be disowned by my loved ones. My mother is using a sex education framework that is not only outdated but it's out of context. Not only is my mother from a different generation but she is from a different country, lifestyle, set of values, etc. Here she is with the 'simple' campo mentality in a world that promotes sex, where some children are taught about their bodies at a young age, something my mom thought was absurd and would only lead to sex.
Let me give you a prime example of how 'deep' this issue runs:
In the 6th grade the girls in our grade were taken down to the auditorium and shown a quick video on menstruating. They showed us how our reproductive organs and the menstrual cycle worked, at approximately what age we should expect it and how to care for yourself when you do get your 'friend'. I was blushing and a bit embarrassed because my family never really spoke to me about my 'friend'. I don't know how I knew about it, but I knew what menstruating was, what I did know was that I hadn't learned it from my family and that you don't speak about it in public. But there were my ovaries and fallopian tubes plastered on a huge screen at P.S. 81.
As if I wasn't red enough, the lady pulls out a shiny blue box and delicately places it in my hands: tampons! I wanted to die. I don't know exactly why the embarrassment but I do know why the fear in my racing heart. I knew that if I got home with these Dominga would kick my ass. I remember hiding them for months and fearing that I would come home from school one day and find Dominga with the blue box in one hand and the plastic Dominican chancleta in the other, ready to whoop my behind. At that age, I want my daughters to feel like they can speak to me about what they just heard (not 'learned' because I would have hopefully spoken to them by that age) and that we can sit and have a conversation (not a lecture) about menstruating, and tampons vs. kotex. But I didn't feel like I had any rapport with my mom in terms of ANY 'sex' education, not even menstruating.
That lil story goes to show how deeply rooted this lack of sex education is. My family felt it was 'taboo' to discuss menstruating to their 11 year old daughters who would inevitably begin their cycle, let alone discuss condoms or birth control.

I say all this not to caste any responsibility away from anyone, nor to minimize the fact that abortions suck. But to hopefully get you all to think about ALL the parties involved in this situation, not just the fetus.

Those of us who have never had to go through an abortion cannot even fathom how hard it must be for that mother to go through with this process. The physical, psychological and emotional scars must run deep. What about the father's who do care enough to stick around? Those who suffer the emotional and psychological effects along with the mother?

Family, I honestly do not know where I'm going with this entry, I am truly writing from my heart. Very little editing, just typing. Again, I am not one to opinionate much about this topic but today my guides led me to sit and share my story, a story (hopefully a 'neutral' one) with you all who care to read it.
Or maybe it was because at the age of 40 an illegal immigrant in this country with very little family here never fathomed that she could get pregnant at the age of 40, but she did. this was in the 80s and to be pregnant at 40 was almost unheard of. She was lost confused and the only way she thought she could get out of that situation was by aborting her fetuSES...thank god the babies father and the sistah's heavenly father were there to help her remember that she was strong enough to go through with this and trust me, Gris and I are happy that my mom did.

I completely understand why my mom was thinking about it, I really do... but I'm glad she decided to dar a luz (give light) to this dark world...

The world isn't so 'black and white' nor 'Pro THIS and Pro THAT'...member that.

LUZ!

an inspiration to many

2010-07-23T10:49:00.000-07:00

an inspiration to many, but a 'failure' to one. so many look up to me while i frown upon myself. i'm never good enough for myself while my advice is good enough to get folks up and out of their seat, the irony huh?
the optimism i offer most seems to hide from shame when I need a little bit of it for myself.

but where did this all come from? why won't it go away? when will i be 'ready' to accept ALL of my good?...

limbo has become second nature to me but no matter how much i pray , cry and affirm, i always seem to come back right here, to a cozy corner in the living room of life with my cozy armchair, my fuzzy socks and my warm blanket, too afraid to brave the cold that awaits us all in the world.

maybe one day i'll garner up enough courage to start and finish my proposal, or take that one last set of exams. or maybe i'll even be brave enough to stand in front of a class, not an academic one, but a yoga one, and TEACH! who knows if i can even surrender and accept ALL of the love i receive from my mami, sister, friends and my partner. but for now i'll keep 'fighting' and worrying and reminding myself that it's never enough, i'm lazy and will not meet the deadline. i'll stay in fuzzy socks, even if it's 99 degrees out, who cares? =p

from my soul to yours
ache

2010-04-04T19:38:00.000-07:00

it's 10:40pm, easter sunday and I'm still up. although i have a HUGE day mañana: my 'closer' by goapele alarm tune will go off at exactly 6:40- i'm still up...why do you ask? because my extremely dominican neighbors felt as if christ's resurrection was way more than enough reason to celebrate and blast their sound system until 10:41pm on a sunday evening. between the acordian, güira, and tambor miguelina grits her teeth, exhales (in that passive aggressive kinda way) and rolls her eyes. why?!?! why do WE insist on listening to our music wayyy past the healthy level? past the respectful one as well? and it's not only dominicans- my trini neighbors across the way, my former african-american neighbors in new lots as well...why? not only is it dangerous for our hearing but it's also kinda rude if you ask me. who told you i want to listen to your güiri güiri or your bunké bunké (the sounds my family makes whenever they mock 'english' music)? it's 10:44pm, sunday evening and a 'special' one at that, it's the sunday evening before a lot of folks go back to work after a week-long vaca. 'smart' folks try to be in bed by now, so that the wrestling match between your body and the covers tomorrow morning doesn't leave you feeling like rick flair and rowdy rowdy piper layed a 'the rock' smack down on you (d.c. '09) ;)...
but does this make me bougie in any way? does the fact that el torito, machel montana, or biggie's voices breaking in through my window, sitting on my bed like an uninvited (annoying) guest makes me wanna beat somebody's ass make me less dominican, or caribbean or from bk?
am i not dominican enough because i don't believe that a baby's birthday party should involve a 6-speaker sound system, contracted dj, 3 gallons of johnnie and a reception that starts at 8pm? or because i refuse to scream across the table during a mother's day dinner because my cousin's husband decided he wanted to show off his brand new sound system (which is almost always more tweeter than anything else)?

my tolerance for this type of s#$# is just slowly eroding. maybe it's my educational level, my travel's around the world or the slight increase in income...or maybe my behind is just getting old..not sure, but it's 10:56pm and tito swing is slowly breaking in through my window, lemme call the cops on this m$#$#@#$@#!!!

just being honest mi gente...

Am I A Poet?

2010-03-22T08:14:00.000-07:00

Am I a poet?
I wear dark, pin-stripped pants to work in my flourescent-lit office.
I prepare PowerPoint presentations to present at scholarly conferences and not literary competitions.
I'm surrounded by professors and research analyst and not novelist nor thespians.
My writing doesn't rhyme, I've never written a haiku and it's not even short,so I definitely can't be a poet.
Although my left nostril is pierced, I don't adorn any tattoos (I'm not one of those 'free spirited' poets, I'm wayyy too picky and I get tired of looking at the same thing all day). My hair is curly but it's not as 'strong' as that of poets who lock their passion in every strand of hair and refer to those words when they get a very unusual case of writer's block, which I swear I'm cursed with so I am no poet.

But am I really a poet?
I write for me, from my heart to the heart of my journal. I believe that beauty can be found in any and everything and one on this realm.
Instead of my yoga mat being a plain ole' orange one, it becomes my deserted island, my safe haven where I only reside, I make and 'bend' the rules.
My walk to my 'poet-less' job in the morning becomes my daily mantra, giving thanks for all that was, is and will be in my life. I give thanks for what I had, who I am, and what shall be. Every step is transformed into a song and dance of gratitude to the most high ( I love rainy days in particular: the tapping on my umbrella transforms my melody into a staccato). They say when you sing you pray twice =).
The scent of coco butter reminds me of summer, that of Maja brand foundation reminds me of my mother and the smell of an industrial dryer whisk me to a crisp fall morning.

So am I a poet?
A poet I am
I'm just a poet
or I just am

outgrowing my veils

2010-02-25T17:51:00.000-08:00

growing in place (the tentative title of this entry...we'll see where this goes by the time i finish)...

this piece was written earlier this year. it's been sitting in my unpublished folder and i just found the courage to publish and share it.
enjoy!

thursday evening, a snowy, slushy, i wanna stay in my sweat pants, messy hair and oversized socks day: thank you most high for days like these, days of nothingness but filled with so much. so much gratitude and peace and just stillness.

i woke up this morning with the urge to write, not sure about what, or why, but i just felt like writing. i even almost started that book i know i'll someday write, but then i saw the nutella and the breadsticks and i turned to them and moved my bookwriting to the bottom of my list: sometimes it's my academic writing, at times my computer, today the nutella.

i've been feeling a bit anxious lately, i just feel like nothing is never enough according to me (or is that my ego?), the work that i do, the love that i get, time etc.. things can always be better, colder, hotter, or faster, perfect example: i was on the 4 train on my way from work to visit my beautiful godson and i felt like that train couldn't go faster, i was looking up at the computerized map and clock (cure and curse!) and counting the stops, checking the time (annoyed when the 'next stop is...' message interfered with my paranoia and didn't allow me to check the same time i had checked 16 seconds ago). i really had to fall back, breathe and just BE in the moment. as cliche and cheesy as this sounds, it's the truth, i couldn't control neither the time of day, nor the speed of the train so i had to just BE. we are always doing and not being.
here's an example of how i'm always 'doing' and not 'being'...
i'm a constant complainer (part of doing, i'm always doing: yapping, nagging, sassying) i got sumthin' to say about sumthin' all the time. and although it's a trait i do appreciate it's something, like everything else in life, that i'm trying to balance out. it took me 28 years of life to realize just how much ENERGY i exert when i complain, when i want to argue, when i want to fight. this is energy i can be using to elevate the human consciousness by writing a book ;), finishing my degree, spending quality time with my man in peace, no nagging. don't get me wrong i don't go out there looking for things to b#$# about (or maybe i do, but that's just another entry) my complaining is warranted (people are as#$holes sometimes!!) but it's just not justifiable nor is it healthy.
i love the fighter in me, the fyah in my belly but that heat can come at a price.
the womyn in my family are tough, capital T tough (mind you my mom and all of my aunts are 5'1 and shorter!!) but tough nonetheless. they run their houses, they run their children (even after adults) and RAN their relationships... you see, ALL of my aunts (and my mama) are single-instead of purifying as a balanced fire does naturally, their fire burned their unions down to a crisp. now sistahs don't go throwing your hands up thinking i just set our movement back 30 years or that i'm trying to 'blame' women for the demise of our relationships: wrong!!! i'm just shedding light on an aspect of my relationship that I have control over, as opposed to trying to control everything up under the sun (the uncontrollable) while neglecting the one thing I do have control over: me! there are always two sides to one story, and i'm just telling you my side, trying to understand me through me, not through anyone else.

i would like to get down to the root of this fiestiness, why do we always have to be right? or tough? why can't we just let sh#$# go?!? i can't let s## go to save my life, ESPECIALLY if the s#$# is done by a man, ESPECIALLY if it's a man i'm 'in love' with. maybe it's because i don't want to look stupid, or don't want to come off as a punk, or that someone is taking advantage of me, i don't know! are these still remnants of our time of indentured servitude and/or slavery? is this distrust that we NEEDED back then still alive today, causing black/brown love to be soo difficult? i'm not sure but i am sure that i'm always ready to argue, to complain, to 'tell you about yo'self' and i'm just writing today to let my ego know that i'm getting tired and to kindly ask her to retract her nails, put them back in her fingers, unclenched my teeth and lips (one of the few places i store my anger, my right shoulder and hips being the others) and just let it roll off your shoulders.

i was taught that i should never trust a man, don't tell him everything, don't tell him how much money you really have, don't introduce him to your friends because they will 'take him' from you, don't cry in front of a man or he will not take you serious (i must be the laughing stock of any man i've loved then!! lol), don't talk about your period with him, a man is never yours he belongs to the streets. my goodness!!! is this the same person who i am to fall in love with, marry, have babies with, be FRIENDS with?!
this distrust has led me and many like me to b## and nag and complain and to be tough, in all the wrong ways!!

i'm afraid that if we continue to sweat the small stuff and nag about every little thing, by the time the real issues come around it's like we're crying wolf.
i'm working on a love that is mutual, unconditional, peaceful and happy and the older i get the more and more i realize only I can change that, only I can attract that into my life by working on me first and foremost, by remembering that not even our 5 fingers aren't equal nor perfect, let alone an entire human being. i have to learn to forgive myself and my humanness in order to do the same for those i love.

so much beauty in our universe, but we mask it, complaining being my veil...

outgrowing my veils...that's what i'll call this entry.
thanks for reading

what my blue peep toe shoe taught me

2009-11-19T19:17:00.000-08:00

good morning familia...

i wanted to share a quick story bout some blue shoes that taught me an invaluable lesson this week.
i went into my favorite shoe store in nyc (shoegasm on 23rd and 6th) a few weeks ago and it was love at first site. i saw them the minute i walked it: they were a pair of electric blue peep toe pumps with a huge blue bow in the front. i was in love but my bank account wasn't. i couldn't afford them at the moment (i 'could' because i had money in the bank but as you get older you start separating your funds into 'bill' money, 'eating' money and disposable income, as opposed to when i was a bit younger: it was all disposable income) so i was smart and walked out of there with a broken heart and no shoes.
i kept thinking about these shoes and how i would rock them, what scarf they would go well with, the perfect jeans, etc. but i wasn't going to do it to myself and start living outside of my means.
i forgot about the shoes for a few weeks but on sunday evening as i was getting ready for my day on monday i thought of the shoes again and i don't know where this came from but i affirmed: miguelina, you are going to get those shoes tomorrow and you aren't going to pay full price. that's all i said and i went to bed. the next day came and i marched into shoegasm and there they were: my babies!
i asked for my regular size but they didn't fit, weird!! so the guy brings me a half a size lower and the only pair they have left includes the sample on the floor...ding ding ding! here was my affirmation manifesting itself. i tried them on and it was like a glove, perfect in every way. i put on my R face (retail face) and asked him for a discount because it was a sample and that i've worked in retail and i know how this works...and he agreed and took a percentage off the shoe!
i am a 7, have been since i was about 19, i don't remember the last time i bought a 6.5 but on Monday I did.
i affirmed something, didn't think twice about it, and i got exactly what i wanted and for the price i wanted.

this may seem like another 'i'm addicted to retail' tale, but trust me it's bigger than the shoes!!
this taught me the power of our minds and what we can do if only we watch our thoughts and our words (thanks Id) and channel positive energy into our minds, as opposed to all the self limiting, self defeating beliefs that human beings have been trained to entertain.
at times we want something and as soon as the thought of the want comes into our minds we tend to dismiss it because we start to think about the HOW, how will i start that business? how will i get that degree? how can i change this relationship around? i've learned that in life, the HOW is none of our dam business!! we leave that up to our creator and they figure it out. our role as co-creators is to ask for and affirm our good, pray on it, and surrender it into the universe. if we believe in what we want with all our hearts (whether a pair of blue peep toe shoes, a house, or a healthy relationship with our partners) we will get it, the only thing standing in between you and what you want is...YOU!
as i ALWAYS remind you all, trust me as i write to you i am speaking to me. these blue shoes were the tip of the iceberg for me because i have a long ways to go. i get in my own way soo much! i make excuses for why i didn't do this, why this relationship didn't work, why i haven't taken those salsa dance classes i've always wanted to or why i haven't worked on my yoga certification, but at the end of it all it's simply not believing that A: i deserve all these good and B: that i can have them.

a couple of years ago i read the Celestine Prophecy (changed my life!) and i wanted to visit some ancient ruins, and my heart led me to Guatemala. i knew i wanted to go to Guatemala and have an experience of a lifetime, but i didn't know how. i know some of my friends remember how i used to tell them 'i'm going to Guatemala' and they would ask: 'really? when?' and i would simply reply ' i don;t know but i know i am going'. they would laugh as if i were crazy, but i meant it and believed it! but that was an honest answer i didn't know, all i know was that the desire was there and i chose to believe that i deserved this trip, again, leaving the HOW up to my creator(s). i knew i wanted a grassroots experience, no electricity, no running water, just mama nature and i, and i def needed to see the ancient ruins of Tikal!!: and i got it!! one 'random' day at work a 'not so random' email came in from my school's listserve announcing a 10 day trip to Guatemala for $1,000..whhhhhat? that was the answer to my prayers/affirmations.

as india.arie says, it's that simple although at times it looks complicated. we are what we think and if you're anything like me you are plagued with thoughts of lack and negativity and fears of the what ifs, when will it happen, why me, etc. but we have to watch our thoughts and consciously shift our perception. watch our thoughts and try to be gentle with ourselves when 'negative' thoughts come up, try not to judge but coach ourselves through that and consciously change our perspective and think about positive things. i hear that it starts to change your life in ways you would've never imagined...i'm not quite there yet myself but at least me and my blue shoes are on that yellow brick road, on my way!

all of this ain;t nothing new. this is written in books, we've seen it in movies like 'the secret' and 'what the bleep do we know?', but i guess i was trying to bring all of the material in these books/movies a bit closer to home and share my excitement because i am starting to see all this stuff we read and talk about begin to manifest in my life.

so now not only do i have a pair of electric blue f#$# me shoes, but now my outlook on life has shifted a teeny bit and sometimes that's all we need. my mom taught me that all we need is faith the size of a mustard seed (if ya aren't familiar with the seed it is TINY!!!) in order to move mountains in our lives and to start to live a life of constant peace!! not glimpses of it but constant peace.
i pray we all find our source of peace down this path called life so that when the winds of change blow our way that peace keeps us grounded enough so that we aren't swayed to and fro during the 'storm'.

who'd a thunk it?...i guess i did!!

ROYGBIV

2009-11-09T17:08:00.000-08:00

The more amicably you greet trouble, the sooner he will go away. – Artemus Ward...

good evening familia. happy monday to everyone. it's been a while since i blessed my soul with a little 'writing therapy'; i've allowed academic work to take hold for a while but i still can't live without my 'prose'.the quote above came to me this past week as part of my 'word of the week' from unity of new york (the spiritual center i am a part of now, and one experience that has changed my life...but that's a whole other post). this quote spoke volumes to me for many reasons; i've witnessed, first handedly, human beings can complicate our own lives. we huff and puff and hem and haw when 'life' is happening, we b#%# so much about change that all of a sudden we find ourselves with an Erlenmeyer flask in one hand and a bunson burner in another- we've become the mad scientist, converting simple, healthy, UNAVOIDABLE change into drama! we make a mountain out of a small little anthill. i assure ya, i was one of those. i suffered from what i called 'the VCR syndrome', i would replay drama in my mind over and over and over; i would share my drama with anyone who was ready to listen, i wrote about it in my journal, i replayed the event(s) in my head and even added extra actors, and outfits and scenarios. sometimes i was the protagonist, but most of the time i was a mere victim of circumstance! during that time in my life, i felt as if life was happening TO ME as opposed to THROUGH ME.
although i am not a pink floyd fan ( i can't tell you what they sing, or who they are, all i know is that supposedly their 'Darker Side of the Moon' album and The Wizard of Oz correspond with each other; if you play the album as the movie starts, it will play in synch with the movie: coooll right?) i LOVE their album cover with the prism on it; it's just so powerful to see how a tiny spec of light, when filtered through a prism, can reflect the beautiful rainbow god blessed us with. the same can go for us: we can choose to be beautiful, clear, DRAMA FREE prisms, reflecting light and ROYGBIV, or you can be opaque, dull and clouded with what so and so did to you, how the late train effed your day up, how 'life is not fair' , WHY is it raining on a Wednesday god?!?etc. etc. etc.
i've learned that 'SURRENDER' is the name of the game. i've been practicing yoga for close to three years now, i've done many styles, on many colored-mats, in hot smelly rooms, quiet ones and in the privacy of my own home; i've stretched my body in ways i didn't even know i could-one time I even balanced my entire body on one toe (the right big-toe to be exact), and although these were challenging positions i pushed through the pain and the limiting beliefs and did it (yyeahh migue!) BUT when it came to Savasana, i couldn't hang. at first glance it seems super easy: savasana is the pose where you simply lay down face up on your mat, palms up and breathing normally. they usually ask you not to fidget and to try and be still: yeah right!! that is the moment when my ego goes buck wild: first my nose itches-so i scratch, then the itch transfers to my right brow, i take care of that, I get annoyed at this itch that has 'taken over my body' but it soon goes away-thank god. i go back to center, breathe in and as i am about to exhale the waist line of my yoga pants starts rolling down my hip, exposing my tiny pot belly i had masked so well! ladies (and some gentleman) you KNOW what i'm talking about: there is a certain 'place' where our pants feel comfortable and serve as a Monet- in the mirror it looks as if my waist shrunk 2 inches: cool! but if it rolls down about half an inch too low, that coco-cola bottle figure starts to feel more like a frozen two liter, oozing chunks of frozen soda out onto the sides of the bottle once opened...yeah that's how it can feel, and i ain't crazy i KNOW i'm not the only one ;).
i role my pants back up and take care of my 'frozen coca-cola' syndrome- now it's back to savasna: oommmmmmmmmm! i rearrange the towel under me, face my palms up again and come back to center only to be greeted by the same itch but now it's moved to my left collar bone...aaayyyiiii!!
ALL this just to show you how HARD the SIMPLE act of Savasna = Surrender truly is! our control issues take hold and we let the itch, the yoga pant, the mat, the job, the inconsiderate friend, the late train, the rude waiter, etc...get the best of us instead of surrendering! we feel like it's our job to do do do, to 'fix' things (sometimes it ain't even our own ish we wanna fix but that of our mama's, our partners, or when we feel the need to 'check' someone )...why can't we just be?

at times i find myself writing about the same 'stuff':change, life, love, surrender, etc, but i can't help it folks. i see children of god getting in the way of their own good: why? why can't we just trust god and surrender to her/his/their/its will? (i'm tryna be politically correct ya'll! bear with me lol)they know what they are doing, why they are doing it, with whom and more importantly WHEN! todo a su devido tiempo, everything has its season and happens exactly when it's supposed to, in divine order.

my mom taught me that life is not about simply living it, but about KNOWING how to live it. and i never got what she meant when she used to tell me that at the tender age of 7, lol (dominicans have no filter for age, they school you on life at an early age) but at 28 i get it - eureka!! knowing how to live it, is knowing when to gracefully bow out, let go and let God!!

i sign off of this post with this one request:
the next time change happens in your life (whether small scale like a late train, or bigger like a job loss), instead of being a VCR, why not be a Prism?

light!

I don't paint my nails when I'm on my period...

2009-08-20T13:29:00.001-07:00

As I sit here and type this here post I am in the beginning stages of ovulation (real men don't turn away now) and this beautiful, needed, healthy phase of my cycle is what led me to share these thoughts with you. My body is preparing itself for the most delicate stage during the month for a womyn, where I am more in touch with myself and with nature. For me, there is no other way to feel more alive then to menstruate. Here in this phase is where I cleanse, create, and live...and it's also a phase that has been almost ostracized from our culture. Now let me make some things clear: I don't sit here and anticipate my cycle, there are days when it's not fun... it's not like I am going to shoot an info-mercial in my white jeans walking in the park with my partner, or better yet: horseback riding on some beach smiling during the best day for all of us...the 2nd one! But it's also not something that puts a halt on my daily functions, causes me to spit fire out of my mouth and smoke from my ears. For me, at the end of the day it just IS, period ;). I am also aware that some sistahs have 'special' periods where prescription medicine and at least two days of rest is required, or there may be other illnesses tied into an irregular period; I just ask that everyone takes this entry in with a grain of salt.

Most womyn give me that 'your full of shit' look whenever the topic of menstruation comes up (more often than not fellas) and I tell them that for the last three years I have not taken a pain killer nor a diuretic for my cramps. I just don't feel it's necessary- I tell them..you're fucking crazy-they tell me. But I ain't bullshitting. I have been able to work with my body and not against it and have had some of the best periods as an adult (some sistahs are probably reading this like: 'best' and 'period' should never be used in the same sentence...but they can sistahs they can!).

Dominicans are some superstitious mofo's: don't put your purse on the floor or you'll lose all you're money, don't open the fridge after you've been ironing or your face will get all distorted; don't sweep over a womyn's feet or she will marry old. When I was a kid none seem more ridiculous then those attributed to la luna (literally translates into the moon but it is used to describe the menstrual cycle). These are the 'ground rules' that a young Dominican womyn must follow after she is honored enough to 'matar el chivo' (kill the goat-as your initial period is called...don't ask me cause I don't know where these two things came together lol). Rule #1: Don't wash your hair when you're on your period. I never got this one, sistahs would agree with me when I say that during those 4, 5, 6, 7 (yikes!!!) days you want to take extra long baths and showers and take good care of your body, and that includes washing your hair.
Rule #2: Don't paint your nails when you're on your period
Rule #3: Don't mess with harsh chemicals a few days before and while on your period. These include (but are not limited to lol): detergents (easy off and comet were your enemies), bleach, spray paints, nail polish and nail polish removers (see rule #2), etc.
Rule #4: Don't walk around barefoot EVER, ESPECIALLY when you're on your period.

Although I've made an exception for numbers 1 and 4, 2 and 3 are always followed...ALWAYS!! Going against these two have proven detrimental time and time again. Whenever I mess with harsh deteregents prior to my period I am a hot mess. It is much more intense, longer and painful, so i've learned my lesson and I steer clear of these things. I have gone days with chipped hot pink nail polish (my DR 2009 posse can attest to this) and I don't give a dam. I don't care what anyone else thinks about me or my nails, at the end of the day it's how Migue's going to feel. But isn't it amazing at how centered and rooted our bodies are during this phase that we get to actually feel what these harsh chemicals are doing to our bodies on the day to day. We use harsh detergents day in and day out; we already started to wake up to the affects that they are having on mama Earth and we are 'wising up'; but what about the affects that they are having on us? (men and womyn alike). The best time to understand these is when womyn are on our cycle.

Again, some sistahs may be shaking their heads in disbelief because they paint their nails and mess with harsh detergents while on their periods and they are 'fine'...but how would you know you are 'fine' if you are numbing yourself during your period?As a culture we are being anesthetized on a daily basis. Food numbs us, shopping does it for some of us, drugs, alcohol, video games, cars and the number one: tv. Most of us walk around not really feeling, not experiencing but just survivin'. We are not strivin' anymore and personally this is because we are so afraid to feel ALL of our emotions, the good and those not so good ones that lead us to crack open that bottle of beer, vodka or motrin. And I'm right there with some of ya, even the thought of any form of pain (be if physical or emotional) is scary. We restrict ourselves from feeling and in the process we cannot be whole; being whole means being balanced, and balance includes the smile and the frown, clarity and confusion, relief and pain. You ever wondered what would happen if we just let things be? If we allowed ourselves to just feel? If instead of running for the motrin, midol, diurex, pamprin we just sat and breathed through the cramps. Or we got down on a yoga mat and inhaled into cow and exhaled into cat? (yes these are real poses lol). We can overcome that pain and turn it into pure sensation, we don't have to charge it as negative but just let it be and let it ride out and see what happens-I have hopes that we will grow stronger, we won't be broken down.

I've had conversations with sistahs who purposefully get on birthcontrol just to 'control' their periods, so that they are few and far between; they want to go on with life without having to deal with the 'thing'. This goes out to the YAZ', the orthos (high and low), and my homegirls the depos whose period is kept somewhere in her body without seeing the light of day for up to 5 years! But I ask them and myself: where does all of that blood go? It HAS to go somewhere, right? Oh wait I know, I just saw the YAZ commercial a few weeks ago and the lady with the 'micro-machine guy' voice towards the end of the commercial stated that some of the 24 side effects includes-but are not limited to-nose bleeds, blood clots in the legs, and/or coughing up blood. What kills me is that some of us do not want to bleed from one, very natural area but we don't mind bleeding from other, less natural ones like our nose and mouth. It seems a bit backwards to me, doesn't it?Or we prefer to numb the discomforts (I choose not to charge it with a negative word like pain) of something as natural as our periods, that is completely ours, but we will deal with someone else's discomfort, the PAIN inflicted by an outside source: boyfriend/girlfriend, career, friend, etc.

I don't intend on being some martyr, dealing with discomfort just to show others that it's doable or just to prove a point to anyone but myself. I assure you I don't just 'deal' with my discomfort, I AM my discomfort, I am my period, I am my tender breast, my bloated belly, my lower back ache. My period and everything she comes with is a part of me just as much as every other 'desirable' aspects of me are: from my clitoris, to my orgasms and my hips-my period is right there, just as sexy as the other parts of me. I am aware that I have not had children (which I hear can completely change your cycle), I don't have a serious health issue that f#$# my period up (thank god) I'm just writing from experiences up to date. I am writing because I want us all to take our power back, and just like with everything else, it starts with self. Take back the power to feel and just be, discomfort and all; to allow all those emotions to flow through your body and see how you feel. I dare you all to become alchemist and transform your discomfort, bloating and fatigue into strength courage and wisdom ;).

Here are a few tips on how to prep (or how to help a loved one prep).
Definitely follow rules #2 and 3 above, lol. Your body is super sensitive during your period but believe it or not it can be much more sensitive right after ovulation, days before your period. Before I proceed I must ask, how many of us know how to track our periods? You'd be surprised at how many womyn don't know how to do it. I learned how to track my cycle when I was 21 years old! It's simple but many of us don't know how. You count 28 days from your first period, for example: if you got your period today, August 20th, you would count 28 days from today (or 4 weeks on a calendar) this means that on or around September 17th you will be on your next period. If you get this you can save some money on motrin and thermacare, etc ;).

We should be taking care of ourselves regularly but we need to be extra careful during the few days leading to our periods. Drinks lots of water, and please stay away from sugar and CAFFEINE!! One of my dear sistah-friends is hooked on pepsi and this addiction becomes intervention-esque during her period lol. She claims she needs a can of pepsi but is later paying for it. Although chocolate and sweets have been attributed to PMSing they are causing us to feel sick...remember this! Get your 8hours+ of sleep, and EXERCISE. This is crucial. The cat and cow poses mentioned above are great for cramps (I just typed in cat and cow pose on youtube and a bunch of videos popped up). With these poses comes another beneficial component: breathing. But through it all the number one thing that will help you with this is YOU. Being in touch with your body is what is going to help you be healthy enough to have healthier periods with less discomfort. Meditation has helped me a lot, not as much as I'd like because I have what Buddhas call a monkey mind where my thoughts don't sit still for 3 seconds, they swing around in my head, but slowly but surely as I say.

My reason for this entry was to help us all wake a certain part (or parts) or our bodies up; to cause a shift in the collective consciousness and for us to start to change the way we think about this beautiful, inevitable, life-giving phase in our lives. I hope it will help open up some third eyes (whether yours or mine...I am open to questions, comments or concerns) which in turn will allow us to move past our fears and into our true, balanced selves.

Signing off...
M.

2009-07-01T08:13:00.000-07:00

Heart as light as a peacock's feather; lips n finger tips oozing with honey; sweet sweet water tickles my brown toes and splashes on my yellow dress...she is I and I am O

Recreation

2009-06-09T18:24:00.001-07:00

Peace!
Praying that your hearts are as light as her feathers as you read.
Peace to the Gods and the Earth for her blessings, for allowing me to plant my feet on solid ground and to take in the breathe of life: ache.
I was in the mood for some comfort food this evening, it was one of those cravings where you are hungry and you want something but you don't know what it is: salad? (no, too cold and boring); arepas? (had some last night and wanted to go back and try the fish ones, but I had enough deep fried/stuffed street food in DR-a whole nother entry for that trip); turkey burgers? I wasn't in the mood to feel guilty over having fries and black cherry soda to go with it (I simply cannot have a turkey burger without a black cherry soda, I will compromise the fries but NEVER the soda lol). My palate and my mind began to exhaust themselves out and almost gave in and proceeded to drag me home to eat the only thing I had in the fridge: about 9 green grapes, a small bar of toblerone and some orange juice, but then it hit me: miso soup! Right at that moment- in between dirty ass Newark Penn Station and Secaucus Junction my tongue ignored the smell of rusted metal, shit and old freezer that seems to smack your nostrils whenever you are in that part of Jersey; all my senses cared about was some miso soup, maybe a spicy tuna roll and some tempura. The little fat boy that lives inside of me was excited, we were on our way to enjoy a meal we were blessed to have chosen, I am super grateful for the means which provide me with the flexibility to spoil my senses and the motor skills to enjoy every part of my meal.
I finally sat down and enjoyed my soup (it was DEE lish! thanks for the recommendation Marc, we def have to hit it up asap). I always add white rice to it (it's a Dominican thang, we always need white rice with our soups), but it's a meticulous process-I carefully stir in about a quarter size clump of that sticky rice with the black specs in it (anyone know what they are?) onto the oval-shaped ladle thingy they serve the soup with. I do not want rice in the bowl with the soup I want it on the lady thingy-weird but it's me! Just like I recreated that soup and made it mine, something I could enjoy, I transformed it in an unconventional way that helped me feel comfortable and warm and safe, I feel like we can all do just that with EVERYTHING in life, including change. My soup endeavor this evening helped me realize that life is all about recreating oneself, staying flexible-both feet firmly planted on the ground, but flexible nonetheless. Taking something new or foreign and adding our own personal touch to it in order to make it familiar and us. You may think you know it all at 27, 17, 30 but we can never know it 'all' because to me, 'all' doesn't exist: how can it when the only constant is change? At 27 I may think that I will always be in the field of Public Policy, that I will have the same people in my support system or that I will always live in Brooklyn, but we never know where the winds of change may take us. Being comfortable is dangerous and keeps so many of us in check, fearing what's out there.
Let's look at change this way: There is nothing 'worse' than an alarm going off on a cold Monday morning at 6:35am while you are drooling under your warm covers. As you peel them off all you feel is the bitter, uninviting cold awaiting you to step into it. We fuss and fight and snooze but have to inevitably enter it and go to school, to work, to drop the baby off or just to simple LIVE or we can choose to stay in bed, stuck and 'comfortable' fearing the cold that we just cannot get around.
During uncertain and unstable times in our lives (the economy has hit close to home with a number of friends and family getting laid off and with possible cuts being announced at my job) we need to be ready for change and ready to take whatever the universe sends us. We gotta make a lemonade out of them lemons or in my case a sweet sweet limeaide like my Mama Cilila makes for me OR you can dare to be adventurous and make a Caipirinha out of em suckas, but this takes guts, creativity and lots of flexibility. Whether you are laid off (I will send a prayer for you all), applying to Graduate school, starting a new relationship, grieving a lost or just simply re-evaluating your life trust that all will work out if you just open up to change.
I can safely say that everyone reading this has met some sort of change in their life/path (disguised as adversity) and although we may have fought it because it was uncomfortable, painful and sometimes even heart wrenching at the time (break ups suck..uugghh!!) in hindsight-which is a mothaf#$#-we can see how much we grew and how that particular situation led us to look at life differently. It may have lead us into a new field of work, a new city or even new (better, stronger, sexier) arms to embrace us and love us unconditionally :p.
Change is scary and unsafe and unwanted if we fight it; if we resist it than all of these toxins we attach to change persist. If only we (including myself) shift our perception and look at that glass of limeaide half-full than it's amazing how the universe finally starts to work in our favor and turns things around for us in positive ways.
Someone may be reading this and my be feeling as lost as I am now (hence my reason to write this entry) but I assure you that we are not alone and I promise you that all will work out if only we get out of the way and let God take control of our lives. God, Allah, Jah, the Universe, our Creator etc. provide us with the flexibility that we need if we only allow them to, if we let go of our control issues and just leave things be. Always trusting that there is a divine plan and that every single thing you need will be revealed to you along the way EXACTLY when you need it: not a minute earlier nor a minute later.

If you ask me all of this is driven by fear and I recently learned fear can make you do two things: send you soaring into the air to meet up with the you that you were destined to be or keep you stuck and scared under your covers, living in poisonous melancholy for what 'was' or those could'ves would'ves and should'ves some of us love so much.

Thanks to the universe for allowing me to express myself through this site and thanks again to all those who read my words and take this journey called life with me. It's all about each one teach one, what I've learned and has helped me heal I teach as I pray you all do the same. It's all about raising the collective consciousness to a level where we are free from self-limiting, self-sabotaging behavior.

Until my next post...
Shine yo lights

Fertile Ground in conert. Philly, PA =)

2009-05-19T18:42:00.000-07:00

Love in excess: drowning in a shallow sea of 'deep'emotions

2009-05-15T12:57:00.000-07:00

(this a FB note i wrote a few months ago)

paz y mucha luz para todo. peace and light to all.
i pray that 2000 and MINE is yours as well and you are exercising your god-given right of co-creator and creating the life, relationship, job, family, etc you want...
Thanks to all who take the time out to sit and read my words: it means a lot to me. May you all grow as much reading them as I do writing them.

Excess: we are a society of excess and that has been proven time and time again but never so clearly as it has been proven during these last few months where we have seen the economy crumble and where the 'bottom a go drop out' as Marley so eloquently put it in I Shot the Sheriff. We do EVERYTHING excessively: shop, work, drink and even LOVE (yes I said it..and I'll explain why in a minute). The one thing we should be doing more of...LIVING...is being left to smolder on some back burner.We have heard that age-old saying: Everything in excess is bad for you, EVEN LOVE. But Before we focus on the 'excess' we need to focus on the WHY the excess exists in the first place.

I was blessed to sit around with some intelligent, driven, nice men a few months ago, and the topic of 'loving a womyn too much or being too nice to a womyn' came up and I was allll ears. The main argument was that when you are too nice to a womyn or 'love her to much' they don't love you back in return (topic of my previous note) and when you are too nice people (mainly womyn) take you for a sucker. Now although, unfortuantley, there have been many cases where this 'seems' to be true, it is not ALWAYS the case, it's not even the majority. We must dig deep into the core of all of this.
Why are we loving in excess to begin with (when I say 'excess' i mean THE only time when you feel you are loving more, giving more, and when the other person takes you for granted). What is it about YOU that you feel you have to give sooo much of yourself to this other person? Personally, it has to do with many things: your past as a child, your past relationships, etc. To begin: we live in a culture of 'fear': terrorism, terminal diseases, foreclosures, killer african bees (michael moore-lol!) etc. and all this 'fear' has spilled over into our hearts causing us to fear finding REAL love =(. We are so afraid that we won't find the EXACT person we are looking for (I am talking: physically, emotionally, spiritually, etc..to the T) that when we do find someone, pardon me - but 'anyone' -we do almost anything to keep them around.
We give and give and give and we don't have anything left of us =(, anything left for us to admire how beautiful we are, anything so that we can acknowledge that we are children of god and are made of beautiful pure powerful light...this leaves us neglecting ourselves for the sake of love! (are ya catching all the oxymorons in this one note?). We think our feelings are 'deep' so we give so much of ourselves to another person but to me, that's not that deep at all, so this then leaves us drowning in a shallow pool...tough way to go out!!
When we lose ourselves in 'love' (notice the quotation marks) we are doing a dis-service not only to ourselves and to the other person but to LOVE in general. How can you give away what you don't have? That is such a capitalistic notion..it's like borrowing against something that is not all yours..yet. You do that and you end up losing and losing like so many people are doing now a days =(. Even the great Roman empire crumbled!!
We don't have enough of us left to believe in us so the other person doesn't believe in us (follow me?)..they can't!! If I don't believe in me, then no one else will.
Another reason why I think this is happening is because we are exerting so much energy and placing so much of our attention on another maybe because we are 'afraid' to address some deep rooted issues we have within (and trust me..we ALLLL got 'em!). I must admit: it is hard to take a REAL CLOSE MAGNIFIED look within, where you can't 'blame' no one else for things that have occured in your life, how you are feeling, why you are neglecting yourself and focusin so much on this other person etc...We may also feel afraid to show our true selves, our imperfections, our flaws to another so we go around being 'so niiiiccee' and PRETENDING so that they don't see that we aren't perfect. Ummm I don't know if you noticed but NO ONE is perfect, not even the five fingers on our hands are perfect (thank you mami!). But if we are not 'ok' with ourselves (flaws and alllll) then we will never be ok with anyone else being ok with our flaws and allll so we hide and we are nice and we are 'polite' etc etc etc So long as you strive for perfection you will always be that guy that is 'too nice'.
But if I don't go within and find the 'weeds' within and take care of me and love ME then no one else will...they can't and I can't really whole heartedly naturally love anyone either.

Now back to the conversation mentioned above...I chimed in and stated that I would like a partner who has other things going for themselves, not just me not just 'us'...I mean I"m not talking about someone who has a million and one things to handle in their lives and I'm the millionth and one (neglect is NOT any better then smothering) it's about balance folks.
Balance balance balance...
leads me to my next point of imbalance...
There are so many reasons why the scales have been tippin against our favor... I'll address the brothas first...I can't speak for all womyn but I know I can speak for myself and a number of my sister-friends whom I know very well. We do not expect a man to give us 'everything' - pay our bills, take us out to fancy restaurants-be 'too nice' to us, etc (then again, some brothas may have crossed paths with a sistah struggling with her own baggage who needed that treatment at that moment-don't judge her and understand that most womyn are NOT like that)...I can't speak for us all but I can speak for A LOT of womyn and say we don't need that especially IF it's not coupled with one BIG HUGE factor: communication.
if you are taking me out, paying my bills, buying me things but you are not talking to me about your feelings, insecurities, our relationship, etc. then it doesn't mean ish to us.
Why do you feel you have to go out on a limb in the first place? A nice, long, mutual heart to heart (not a lecture, not a 'state of the relationship' conversation) but a nice, organic, heart to heart is worth more than any fine wine, any trip to any country in this world (or even another planet) worth more than any bill you pay: that ish is priceless!!
and WHY are you giving us 'all' of these things. do they fall into your notions of love or are you following someone else's? mmm maybe the media? your father's or your uncles? or what yo' boys tell you? instead of sitting still with you, going within (back to my earlier point) and not following a mold or a pattern, we tend to jump on the band wagon-but I see many of ya-excuse me..US...falling off that wagon and bumping our heads.
Just do what comes naturally, organically, EASY! Love is NOT supposed to be hard. yes it takes work but I'm starting to look at it like a job that i like...no no, one that i 'Love' ;). And YES those really do exist, there are folk who LOVE what they do and some of 'em even get paid money...A LOT of it, to do what they LOVE...but then again we wouldn't know that we are too afraid to even DREAM of that.

Sistahs...I can't leave us out, it would be unfair and 'imbalanced' of me to address our counterparts and not address OUR 'bags'. Don't think it's only the men who feel they are being 'too nice' because lawwwd knows our species loves hard! (please refer to my previous note 'give me the courage to love with an open heart' for more info on this..lmao...sorry practicing for that dissertation in a few years). If you are at the receiving end of all of this and are with a brotha who you may not be feeling as much as he 'seems' to be feeling you then please please be honest with yourself enough to be honest with him and KINDLY let him go, don't lead him on long enough to make him grow bitter and feel he can't be 'nice' to any other womyn for the rest of his life. It takes courage to do that but it pays off, big time, in the long run. If you really like or love this man and feels he may be giving too much of himself then talk to him, help him through those insecurities, those barriers..but ONLY IF you really want this to work and you really love him because not only does it take YEARS to get through both of your 'bags' but it takes a lot of work!!
But some sistahs may not necessarily want to let this man go, she feels 'safe' with him, he is giving her things, may be feeding her ego and telling her nice things-but that is only a train wreck with no survivors (gris! lmao). One person is giving way too much the other person may be ungratefully receiving them and at the end of the day all you got there are all the necessayry ingrediants for a wholelotta resentment =(. Let the brotha go, give him his wings back (the ones he willingly gave you) so that he may soar higher and meet someone who will appreciate him for who he is and what he has got to give.

Ok ya'll I'm starting to ramble, lol. I've been sick for almost two weeks and I think my homeopathic meds are kicking in ;)! But thanks for taking the time out to read my long a#% 'message to self' which I expose to you all. And please trust that I grow and learn as I write, I am still far from where I want to be re: Love, but I'm realizing that that is OK! I am, like my hand and yours: not perfect. But I'm willing to expose myself completely: flaws, sassines, attitude, thin 'vanilla wafer' skin ;), insecurities, power, humility and all so that as I grow you can grow and vice versa...

So continue to Love with an open heart and give only what you can, always leaving enough for yourself. So until we get this right...no no, sorry...until we get this'balanced' and we learn that "Love is or it ain't..thin love ain't love at all"(Toni Morrison).

Ache

Ugly Betty's Ugly 'hermana'

2009-05-07T20:33:00.000-07:00

Thursday night and my brain and I are exhausted, I just sat and watched three hours of television and to be quite honest I don't know how folks do it. I'm tired from staring at the idiot box for so long, am super hungry from all the ads they numb us with (I've never wanted an iced Latte more than I do right now...forgive me fellow 'enlightened' brethrens), I swear I have Restless leg Syndrome and am just annoyed at the Nissan ads with with shiny new cars on the screen and the disclaimer afterwards claiming that if you lost your job and cannot make the payments they will make em for you: bullsh$#! First off that's a straight lie, the fine print will probably state that you need to hand over your first born after you lose your job THEN the payments start kicking it, BUT, that's after you're unemployment benefits run out!! It's sad because so many of us buy into that (yes I said US, cause I ain't completely unplugged...yet!). Now riddle me this: If there is a chance, a HIGH ONE-because nothing is guaranteed-but let's say there is a high chance of you losing your job (let's say we are in a recession like we are right now or if your boss gave your group 'the' severance pay speech) then why t f are you even considering buying a car? a brand spanking new one at that? the irony of this all is that most people tend to buy more stuff on impulse when they are down and out, when they are stressed about losing their jobs, but then they end up even more stressed and depressed when they can't make the car payment or only got a quarter tank of gas in their new E-class...(migue scratches her head).
Now to the point of this entry...the time was a mix between some Oprah ( i KNOW so many of my sistahs feel a certain way about her but I love me some Oprah...ssshhh don't tell no one, lol) some Ugly Betty-now let me stop here again and use one word: Yuck! What is up with her super 'hispanic', bright clothes wearing, fake a$# accent having, door knocker wearing, teenage mother, gum smaking 'hermana' and her bright ass Rexican house- are they Puerto Rican or Mexican? not trying to do the whole divide and rule here but there are obvious differences between both, but off course they cannot be distinguished by the naked white eye. What is really hood with that?!
Ok, now I am the first to tell you that stereotypes start from somewhere, I wish I could give the small-minded full credit and say that they made them up all by themselves but I can't. Stereotypes are relatively 'small' things that are blown way out of proportion like having one bright yellow wall and one bright orange wall and then a red white and green tapestry draped over your plastic covered couch...OMG!! Now, again, these are exagerrations of truths because we still got semi-plastic covered sofas in my house BUT our walls are beige and Gris and I DO NOT sound like Rosie Perez when we speak-see the balance?. Now there is nothing wrong with being proud of your heritage and where you come from - eating tacos, mangu, dancing bachata, playing dominoes, doing your first holy communion (although 80% of us never move on to do our confirmations and about 100% will most likely not marry through the catholic church) BUT the west tend to take it to a whole nother (yes-NOTHER) level. Our culture is comodified, and portrayed in ways that are tasteless like it is on that show. It's sad because the rest of the show is pretty good, the actors are great (I love America), the plot was nice and not over the top but then that one sore on my side...uggh!
There is just so much more to being Latino. Again, I am not into dividing and ruling but there are certain unique characteristics that make, let's say a Dominican Dominican and a Mexican Mexican. Maybe that is why the family on the show is Rexican or Moricua (lmao) you can't just paint your set bright orange, put a Jesus christ statue up or have a dam chihuahua as a pet and label the family 'hispanic'. What of my love for Khemet? Or my sistah B's beautiful nappy fro? And where will my homegirl's Yemaya statue fit into all of this? We are multidimensional and it's beautiful, we are a mixed salad not a melting pot ready to serve americans a heaping serving of 'hispanic' for yo' palate.

This post had a mind of it's own and I let it lead. I started out with the intention of writing about a Micheal J. Fox special I watched about Optimism and look at where we ended up. This is why I try not to title anything I write until I am almost done in an efforts let my creative juices flow!...I guess I'll leave that Optimism for the next add.

Until then, see you NOW.
M

Where, how, WHY do I begin...

2009-05-04T17:54:00.000-07:00

It's Monday, May 4th (already!), it's 8:55pm and I'm sitting in my purple room, with my purple hoody and purple socks (can ya tell I like the color?..thanks gris). I don't even know where to start, I'm nervous because it's the first time I'm exposing my writing (aka myself) to the public. Although I am not sure who the heck will read this 'random' site it's still a bit nervewrecking to know that my ish will be out 'there' in cyberspace (oooo it's like mentioning el cuco-you ARE dominican if you just laughed at that). But for real ya, it's pretty nervewrecking, yes because of the proverbial boogie monster we call cyberspace, but because my writing is very personal to me. Now i've tried my hand in the academic type and that ish hasn't made me happy one bit, it's something about having to detach my feelings and my corazoncito from my writing, it's kind a schizo if you ask me, as if I'm two people: one is migue running through the field of daisies with my curly ass fro' blowing in the wind feeling the grass blades caress my skinny ankles. The one who understands that the world is a bit unbalanced and lacking L O V E and all she's trying to do is leave it in better shape then it was in when she chose to enter it that hot August evening. The other is the migue with the white lab coat, pocket protector sitting in a cold, flourescent-lit office hearing the hum of the computer and the fake 'academic' laughs outside my office, she's the one trying to write sentences that are not run on, that do not start with I or have the words 'feel' 'believe' or 'know' in them. Trying to use big, SAT/GRE words (it's called jargon lol) like deindustrialization, dilapidated, ad hoc, marginalized and my all time favorite: juxtaposition. (now which migue do you think I wanna be?).

In a world where we've been asked to detach ourselves from how we feel, what our guts are telling us and has us all (but mainly sistahs) believing that to feel and to be emotional is irrational i hope this space becomes one where i am one, you are one reading this and commenting and as you leave you feel even more whole then when you logged on. I just want a space where I can express myself, work on my creative writing and touch a few lives, just as so many have touched and shaped mine.
I must warn you all, like me, my writing is pretty random. So you will see that my grammar is not 'proper' (it AIN't jargon, thank god! lol), I cuss like a sailor, my topics will most likely vary from gentrification in Bushwick, to sex, to growing up Latina in the U.S. to reminiscing about the chocolate milk they served us in NYC public schools. I ask that you all read my work with the same 'randomness' in which I write; with an open heart ready for any and everything. free of labels, judgements and expectations.

Thanks to all those who took the time out to read this lil bit o'me and thanks in advance for those who chose, or will choose to take this journey with me.

To my peoples who always remind me that I 'have a way with words' you all will never know how much words like that mean to me (more than complimenting my stilettos, or my funky bags or my music-yes even my music!) you all appreciating my writing means the world to me...

My dream is to write from my heart for a living, nothing fancy just day-to-day stuff about stuff lol. Just something to remind folks that they are not alone, they are not the only ones living life and experiencing the ups and downs of growth. I am not afraid to expose my heart to the world,to show my triumphs and losses, my fears shame and lack but my love optimism and faith as well. Although some of you don't feel as comfy doing so, it's ok!! that's why God sent folks like me into the world, so we can air out our dirty laundry and spare you from having to show us your granny panties.

I don't know HOW that dream will come to fruition but I've learned that the HOW is none of my business, all I must do is trust the universe and understand that all things are happening as they are supposed to and I must walk by faith and not by sight.

if not now then when?...right?...RIGHT!

ache