Zaboo sat for what seems like hours soundlessly staring out the window and I noticed myself become fidgety and bored. As I moved to let my body follow my mind forward to the next task, Zaboo stirred at last and slowly turned to give me what felt like a look of distain, then slowly turn back to her panorama. What was she thinking I wondered? Did she sit there lamenting the wild hunt? Was she longing for a mate to wonder past down the path across the way? Planning her seasonal diet? Perhaps she was contemplating the passing of time and calculating how old she will be at her next birthday. At the last thought I laughed out so hard it sent Queen Zaboo out of the room and away from the odd cackling stranger she had once trusted to share her kingdom.

Chuckling at the antics of this tiny beast, I met with my host in the hall. He bid me farewell on his way to the store and as he gathered his cloth grocery bags like any good west coaster he casually inquired into my afternoon. I need a new blog post, it’s been too long. He asked of what I will write. I’m really stuck on that very topic because though I feel the urge to write, I have no angst or drama or special insight about which to communicate. He gently suggested I write about not have angst. I felt my face pucker and my brows furrow at the thought. Well, that would be boring! The look of confusion on this enlightenment master and wizened gentlemen’s face gave me pause and then he smiled at me knowingly and left the scene.

Write about all things being well? Communicate from a place of peace and calm? Why? Where’s the fun in that? That’s when it hit me. The real question I now ask myself is, why are times of anxiety or high drama so much more appealing to me than times of equilibrium? Oh, yuck, Mira – really? Yes. This is the truth of my experience at this moment. When life is safe and good and peaceful, when I am not infatuated or fearful, I am totally bored.

Memories of my teens and even in to my 20’s come rushing back. How much drama did I create? I can’t even guess. The idea of being in the moment had no meaning to me. Not even if I read a text on it or got an A+ on an exam about it could I have understood the nature of presence so riddled in my past and burnt by my history was I. I needed restitution and was entitled to my anger and angst, band mates, boyfriends and body be damned! It’s all about me because it’s all about me that’s why! Ah yes, the addiction of a dramatic tantrum fed me like nectar to a humming bird and my mind moved even faster than those flitting wings. Calm and quiet was unsafe and if I were to be too still I may hear something I must contend with in my psyche or worse go unnoticed which could simply not happen…attention must be paid.

Once fed and warm Zaboo is totally content to simply be. Be. Just sit and be in the vantage place of her sunny window. What was she thinking? Probably nothing. The images were flowing through her eyes and into her being and nestling there like warm morning chai after a great nights sleep. Nothing need be done in this moment and though the things that need tending come soon enough, those things are not here now. Now. Here.

I went back to the window and crept into the corner leaning myself to get the better view. Comfy at last I take a deep breath and then another and look outside. Another breath and I can now see the greens and blues again but this time the subtle pinks of the naked bark and deep reds of some unknown perfectly round berries hang from the bushes that line the pathway into the deep forest. A bird, then another, both land and show me their plumage of blue and white. A breath. My thoughts begin to drift towards that special someone I wish were here to see this beauty but I allow it to rise and pas and am back to sharing this moment with myself. The butterflies that must be sleeping in their caterpillar cocoons have no need or requirement to fly nor do they lie in their cocoon anxious about how they will manage flight. They will fly when they fly. Or they will not fly. No needs. The ocean and it’s power flow without worry or plan and I envy the movement of its unconsidered life but catch myself and my envy and breath back to this…this. To this.

I’ve wanted happiness over pain my whole life. Anything to make things pleasurable and to avoid discomfort was worth it’s price. I have come to realize that a peaceful stance is the more powerful place when it is allowed even if through brutal truth and fierce grace. Truth is better than the lie.

The truths of life are not always good. This is proven. The facts of circumstance can take us for a challenging, even terribly frightening ride. But as my teacher often tells me it’s the flow of the river of life that we can attend to with success in the search for peace but once we fight to dive from bank to bank, one being happiness the other being pain, then we can never attain a peaceful stance in life. Let go and allow yourself to move through the flow of the river.

Like this cat, who has already forgotten my affront to her peaceful throne and has no judgments about me in this moment, I can sit and simply allow life to be what ever it need be and move through it effortlessly. I thrive in the warmth of her eyes and aspire towards that calm presence. Rule well Queen Zaboo and thank you for this lesson.

For those of you have not seen my show live, you will need to have an update on the last monologue of my musical The Lush Life Cabaret. The play is essentially about how we, as a species, perpetuate dissatisfaction in and for each other. Art verses Economics, Ageism verses Wisdom, The Dream verse The Expectations.

The play ends with our narrator telling the tale of her sisters’ 5 year old son.

“In a fit of some childhood demand he screamed out to his mother for justice as she pleaded with him for logic; a trap fallen into by many a new parent. Before her head split open spilling her brains to the floor, she raised up her arms, head to the sky and cried to the heavens, ‘LOVE!!!!’

“Now this boy, being raised in the community he is, with the loving open minded parents and clan that he has, is quite familiar with the word. So dropping his anger he screamed back to his mother, ‘LOVE!!’ and the two began to laugh.”

“I discovered this event when I was last in my sisters home talking about life, the universe and everything as we tend to do. Suddenly from his bedroom her child cried out, ‘LOVE!!!’ echoed in tandem by his father from the basement, ‘LOVE!’ immediately followed by my sister smiling at me, ‘Love.’

“Easier to be loving with a child near by perhaps. However, if it were me that you next see walking down the street head held low smile hidden under a frown from some recent dissatisfaction and you cried out from across the way, ‘LOVE!!” well, I would smile. Like the feeling you get when a friend simply replies, ‘Awww, I’m sorry to hear that”. It lets me smile a little.”

“A smile is a good start I think.”

“Imagine the bunch of us at the mall and I call out ‘Love’ and someone called back ‘Love’ followed by another and another and another, ‘Love’. Wouldn’t the customer service guy who maybe hasn’t painted in weeks due to some recent dissatisfaction, wouldn’t he be inspired? If only for a moment? And isn’t’ that moment worth it?

“Imagine it. A room full of people calling out for love?”

And then our narrator steps to the front edge of the stage and calls out with pleasure, “LOVE!!!” to the spontaneous outcry of 300 audience members…”LOVE!!!”

So my blog readers, when next you are at my show or on the avenue and you hear me cry out for love, I do hope you will fill the air with your love.

Love and LOVE

Home in you.

I’ve said this many times because it’s a vital truth: evolution happens under duress. To fly you must grow wings and fight your way out of a cocoon. To grow wings you must give up your arms and trust in the unknown. Seeing yourself and accepting the truth of who you are, not merely that which is seen outside you but the truth of your mind and being, is the foundation to maturing in this human condition. This maturity is not about forgetting how to play or cease spontaneity and fun, but rather it is about how to face the deep challenges of your life and prevail successfully.

The only way I have found to fully allow the truth of myself to rise into my consciousness and to perpetuate my growth towards a more powerful being, is to remain authentic, malleable and open to what arises in my life. I must not shy away from the ugly, dirty, scary bits of my mind. I must speak truths regardless of what others will think. I must stay in the moment – here. Ruminations of past and future trip me up. Memories cloud who I am today and projections can feed fear of failure. Though I can gently embrace my vision and intentions for my life, I must stay present, believe and most of all…be brave.

I had to come to NYC for several days of interviews and filming. My nerves were raw because I felt out of my element in this new world of mass media and massive judgement. Will it work? Will they like me? Will they accept me? Am I good enough? The frenetic energy and worrisome thoughts must have been spilling out of my exposed chest because my friends, independent of each other, all began to say the same things. Stop making excuses, step up and take care of business. Have faith. But the more I tried to be a grown up in my own life, the more I realized I had no idea how. I could see the next plateau ahead and as I steadied for the trek through to the next summit, I could feel the tears in my eyes. Truth can do that, it can bring you to your knees.

Acceptance – all the gritty parts opened like a scab to clean out the wound. Acceptance – all the glorious parts un encumbered by what others might think of you or what your conditioning has taught you. Acceptance to see yourself fully, step up to your purpose and love every inch. The how of it starting to become clear I could still hear the deeper issues of self worth, confidence and power which haunt me and weigh me down.

What is this whole thing about self love? My new friend and stylist Debbie A. James of eJoile, looked deeply into my tearful eyes late one night and spoke of the simple truth that we must learn to fall truly in love with ourselves…all of our self…. before any other love can come. The words “personal empowerment” swam in my head like a foreign language. Even if I come to understand what the words mean, how should I integrate them in my day to day conversations? The academic in me wanted tools. I wanted a text book and some homework. I was being called upon now to utilize words like autonomy, leadership and confidence and then to believe those things of myself. But how?

Debbie spoke to me of a daily practice and of the necessity to pour love over ourselves and renew that commitment to ourselves everyday. “There’s power in treating yourself with all the love you desire to find from others.”

As I contemplated the ideas of self love, I could hear the little feral child in me reaching for the great rescue. I could feel the anxiety of the as yet financially unsuccessful artist in me, planning my back up and building the escape hatch. The fat, frizzy headed kid in high school, who wept herself to sleep at each teen age failure, reminded me that failure does indeed come. In fact, all the failures in my life rushed up to meet me in my present moment and I was engulfed with fear.

And there it is…the truth that brought me to my knees is where the answer lay. The truth of the moment need not be avoided but rather embraced and acknowledged. I remembered a professor telling me once, “The only way through it…well, is through!” I wont find the quick fix. I can’t will a sudden epiphany. I wont wish into existence my dreams and aspirations. And no matter how much I worry, I can’t necessarily predict the next pit fall. The truth is focussing on the potential for failure can send me falling all the same. One day at a time sweet Jesus, as the song goes. Learning from others and surrounding myself with positive, successful people is important. Listening for and learning from the lessons will help me grow. Patience. Practice. Discipline. Focusing on my craft and honing my skills while allowing my spirit to shine even if that means facing hard truths on my the way towards light and peace. Take care of myself, daily, hourly as required. I am home in my heart and in love with my Self. Home in Self.
I must. I will. I can.
Believe.
And love.

Our bodies long for connection and touch and our minds look for the knowledge that we are desired. Beyond the ideas of procreation, which is in and of itself a deep biological need, the sex act is a palate for a multitude of emotions to paint a spectrum of experiences. Many of these experiences are great and life fulfilling and might even bond a couple in ways that no other sharing can. Some make you more vibrate, the sexual energy feeding art and motivating life. A new crush can send you dancing or make you crazy. Sexual craving can be so very complicated and confusing that some would even kill or die for it.

Even the most secure ego will be effected by the bonding chemical (oxytocin) elicited by an orgasm. The most independent of individuals could think of nothing all weekend with images of their infatuation distracting everything else. A strong and powerful person in the morning can turn into to a puddle of shame and insecurity by the vulnerable state created as they made love through the night. Will he call? Did she like it? Is this right? Was it too soon? What happens next? Vulnerable. The irony is that the best sex is felt when we can allow that vulnerability to permeate and be our most open and exposed selves.

I’ve been reading about the principles of tantric sex and ancient practices of karma sutra. These things tell me that sex can be a truly Spiritual experience and that desire and physical attraction can be a transformative act, creating energy and space for new information and evolution. Tantra honours the fact that on a great and rare occasions, sex might open true love.

The carnal connection and visceral experience of great lovers can open us to the present moment as deep as practiced mediation. The present moment of “being” rather than “doing” leads to conscious sex and this can open a conduit to a united and Universal energy. That is to say when two bodies can simply allow for the skin and breath and sight to focus only on what the skin and breath and sight are actually doing at the moment of connection and let go of thoughts about future, past, expectations, insecurity, even thoughts surrounding the cherished outcome of orgasm, then the act of sex can be raised to a higher state of sensuality and connection. Heavy right? By allowing the very moment you are touching to be the only reality in the room, the two of
you are perpetuating a magnetic energy which might flow between you and raise you both …ummm… or all three…four of you….to a higher plane of reality.

It’s not what your bodies do that create the angst and discomfort which is too often attached to having sex. The primal instinct and perpetuation towards procreation (even if it’s just practice) is natural. We play. That is part of our species. We fuck. Also an instinctual part of our species. Those who choose an ascetic life, do so by pushing past primal instincts and see themselves as taking an alternate route to presence and higher thought, Spiritual connection with self and others. This is an honorable personal choice but not the inquiry I am posing here. The question is…why does sex, even the idea of it never mind the want and the taking of it, create tensions, possessions, confusions and all kinds of icky other things? Isn’t it supposed to be fun?

The problem is not what your body does, it’s what your mind does.

If he were to ask
I’d say
I am the wicked lover you begged for in your dreams
the one who knows her way around even the darkest streams
my heart will brighten heighten for you every time you reach
and let go just a little when freedoms what you need

If she were to ask
I’d say
Believe in what you can not see and hold out for romance
wait for that which takes your breath and pulls you in to dance
For if he is the other part split from what once was whole
You both will know inside our soul recognized; enhanced

And if I were to ask
I’d say
Would that he’s been waiting for calling out for me
and fight to be the King the Gods expected him to be
So mote it be that when destiny demands more than I’ve seen
This time, I humbly pray, please let my heart believe

The thing that struck me, as tears role down my cheeks: in real life if the man you broke up with because of some stupid shitty thing, chased down, oh lets say your bus, cut it off and forced it to stop so he could corner you and plead for your forgiveness… someone would would have him arrested!

The truth is that in real life, the “movie endings” aren’t documented. There are moments and memories, wedding days and births that we can memorex but the blissful ecstatic spontaneity of life goes unmarked. The tragic moments that resolve in a firework of actualization rarely happen as the camera is rolling. Need I say it? Movies lie.

Popular media perpetuates a limited social expectation and gender bias. Men still have to fight against expectations of stunt man like virility and are painting into a corner when it come to love, commitment and family. In our society, as seen on t.v., a devoted romantic woman is considered “needy”. Sexy is okay so long as she’s a size 2. Confident woman good, aggressive woman bad. Hard working, driven and passionate is allowed and sometimes encouraged but a woman who is fully accepting, full of adoration and vulnerable to the elements while openly loving to all who come into her path at the risk of her own demise and allowing for the fullness of her passions to over take her mind (deep breath)…um…not so good. Can the woman be the one who chases her man and still maintain her pride, femininity and power?

Exhibit A: Man falls for unique woman. She’s open, honest and comfortable with her sexuality. She’s confident, playful and intelligent. She allows for space. She has her own full and fulfilling life. She’s not jealous or possessive but adores him. She listens intently. She gets what you love. She allows for what she doesn’t get and is teachable. She speaks her mind and her needs. She stands up for herself and has no time for irrational fights and illogical manipulation. She’s comfortable being wrong. She’s comfortable being right. She apologizes. And he craves her.

But.. he gets freaked about commitment and begins to feel trapped by her intensity. He’s confused about wanting the life the books have taught this little prince and not sure if he can be her knight. Forever after? Really? Forever, he susposes, is a very very long time. So, he does the classic asshole move to push her away, usually involving another woman. She breaks it off in a painful fit of betrayal and they never speak again. It’s over.

In the movies, he would come to his senses and get on the next plane with a ring in his pocket (preferably his grandmothers who died in the middle of the movie) and beg her to believe that he’ll never want any other woman in the world and all the other possible experiences or potential pathways life might show. He’ll promise he no longer wants new, hot sex or open freedom to experience other women but only wants her forever and ever as his happily ever after. She cries. He cries. The wedding bouquet flies through the air. Roll credits.

But what about a third alternative that only seems to live on the cutting room floor? What if, after months of contemplation and soul searching she is the one who realizes she can’t live without him. She drops everything to find him, unconcerned about any other woman who might be in her way. What if she pushed her way through the security guards, calling out his name and ran to his side out of breath with devotion, “I don’t care about the things that come between us, I understand your needs. This is not about where we lay our bodies but where we rest our hearts. Sex and skin are not the same as love and adoration. I know you love me. You’re my best friend. I want to love you the way you need to be loved. I hear your fear and I’ll be patient and open minded because you are the best man I know. You’re the one”

Is she nuts or is she evolved? Is he a womanizing asshole or so full of love and sensuality that boxing him only changes him and his vast capacity to love? Can she witness his life and his processes as an individual or should (should) they forever bonded and fight through life as one until death? Will he accept her needs? How long does forever really need to last? Need an ending be avoided or made tragic? Can the journey be what it is and allow for the unexpected or must it be align with the imprinted plan?

We’ve come pretty far as a community in how we love. I have seen the arrival of same sex marriages. My father and mother were from different cultures and fought through racist ideas about a brown man and a white woman having a child. Friends have weddings with a priest and a rabbi both bonding them in love under God. In some places men have more than one wife and they all live openly as family. Some woman have several lovers, each of whom have her heart in their own unique ways. There are as many ways to love as their are people so why must be conform to some pre fab packaged ideas of love set upon us by marketing strategies that need to perpetuate the status quo, religious doctrine that fight for power and control over how we live and love, fear based stereotypes that box us into ancient ideas that shame our natural instincts and biological pre dispositions toward polygony while evolving towards a oneness that can change the world.

Love.

We have become a species of limitation while we blindly leap off cliffs towards content and mass media. We have a billion different ways to express sex and even more to communicate war. But love has become reduced to a four letter word disemboweled by fear and left impotent from dilution. We restrict the potential of love more than we do that of God turning both into sources of pain.

I’m a knight in shining armor. I am also vulnerable to my hearts desire. I am conscious of my weaknesses and cognizant to my highest mind. I require intensity and devotion and passion and connection. I am addicted to the newness of relationships. I fight for you. I fight for love.

Someone make a love story about me.

I, on the other hand, love that kind of heat. The kind where all at once you become enveloped by the sun. I like sweaty, sticky heat. The heat of detoxification and renewal. I am a fire sign with Indian blood, I like it hot. This kind of heat reminds me of New Delhi, the feel and smell of the streets a mixture of beauty and tragedy where your senses are over whelmed and confused by the like of jasmine and cow dung in the same inhalation. Here, sights of palaces and silks cover starvation and violence.

Chicago streets offer it’s own flavour. Stars of a very different nature than those we can wish upon, hide amongst the salt of the working class. The smell of roasted nuts and thousand dollar colon wafting past a hobo’s urine. I wander about my summer day resenting the barrage of air-conditioned fakery imposed by every room. Taking the long route home, I can enjoy this glorious summer sky.

On this walk I saw a young boy. The darkness of his skin and weight of his back pack a reflection of days spent working outside. He walked the meridian with bottles of water, calling out “One dollar. Want one? Water? One dollar”. The fiery purpose in his eyes caught my attention most and I was suddenly transported back to the slums of Mumbai. I remember my rickshaw taxi making his way around a flock of sheep in the road via this tiny back street. It was my first slum.. The guilt of my privilege burnt on my half breed olive skin as I tried to bare witness to the suffering which co existed too naturally with the day to day tasks of life here on the streets. The pain of it still indescribably sharp for me to tell of it here on the page. The deep regret and fatigue and need on this young American face reminded me of that place and that time and that lesson.

My walk from down town to the west end was disconcertingly like one I might take through a third world country. I pass homes with million dollar facades and store fronts professing the latest cure for your unhappiness and then notice a one eyed man, over 65 years, crouching on a street corner. The jingle of his week old Starbucks cup, his call of hope that you might give him enough to buy a happy meal, or perhaps a bottle of whiskey; either will ease his suffering for a moment. Not more than a few steps later is a woman on the ground with her small daughter in her lap, both too hot and tired to even ask me for money. A tiny pink and purple tattered cloth was laid out for my change. The farther west I travelled, the more insidious became the need for help. A profound sense of me being a stranger in a strange land opened a new discomfort in my stomach. I knew someone would risk their life and mine for a moments peace brought by the contents of my purse.

Safe now at the back of the too cold bus I thought about something my dear cousin Sanjay said to me once while we drifted on a boat in the Ganges: “God will embrace your prayer and then expect you to put up a good fight”. I remembered floating on that magic river watching the priests on the shoreline dance their elaborate prayers to the Gods. They pray for enlightenment and peace. They pray for knowledge and for forgiveness. They pray with gratitude and servitude and all the power of their belief that they will be loved and answered.

What do you pray for, beg for? I pray for you. I beg that you might hear me. In all things, in all corners of my life and mind the directive is clear. I pray to be heard. The desire and desperate longing are clear in my eyes like those of a gutter pup seeking his lost mothers milk. I hold out my hand and shake my cup with a single minded wish of music and stages and lights and travel and song. My voice is the tool I have to love you. Like my brothers and sisters before me, troupes and gypsies, mistrals and martyrs, I go from door to door, computer to computer, asking to come in and get warm. Share my wares. Love my voice. Hear my words. I give you my heart and my confessions mixed with the specific spices of my perspective and you give me your time and attention. Show me your heartbreak and your love. Ask a friend to ask a friend to ask a friend to do the same. Share my art. Talk about me and with me. I am a stranger in a strange land vulnerable to the elements. Bring me to your castle and let me sing for my supper.

Amen.

We were speaking about why there can be so much physical pain in a thought. The idea of a loved one dying. The realization that I must leave home. Planing to quit my job. The knowing of just how hard the risks towards my dream will be has brought me to my knees. She captured a deep truth in a simple phrase, “Evolution happens under duress”.

Evolution, so says the Merrium Webster dictionary, is a process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state. Science class tells us, only that which survives the tests and trials of the Universe might continue to exist. To survive, a species must adapt ….learn and adapt.

Change is hard. That’s just true.

When it’s silent in the night and you listen to your thoughts, what do they tell you? Beneath the hamster cage rattling and the random task list items, what thoughts arise? What arises that sends you running for the nearest avoidance tactics like ice cream, sex, office, housecleaning, rage-full hateful words? Once you’ve hit bottom can you keep listening to yourself? What thoughts arise? Can you trust yourself, even just a little, to tend to your discomfort when bad memories, angers, regrets, guilts and griefs come up to your present life? And will you make the hard choices required to examine, accept, integrate and grow from these thoughts? Could you? Will you? Are you sure?

It’s hard to sit with your thoughts and deal with the truths underneath when the furry and battling of uncomfortable thoughts are left unattended. The sitting still with them is like holding your hand over a flame waiting for it to feel better. We believe we have bigger responsibilities than digging into festering wounds. But, too often, the avoidance creates or perpetuates an emotional imbalance. This only serves to create more avoidance techniques and more imbalance and so distract you from your real power, deepest capacity to love and possibly from your true calling.

The box of shit theory by my sister and wonderful artist, Lisa Greenberg, “First you get a box and place all your emotional shit in it. Then you hide it at the back of a deep closet and lock the door announcing proudly to yourself, “there, I’ve dealt with my shit!”. Soon, there will be an uncomfortable smell permeating your home. You ignore it until you can’t. You go and get out your shit and re-seal the box thinking, yes, now I’ve really dealt with my shit. Repeat for 7 to 45 years. Lisa says, “We don’t just put it in the psychic closet and revisit. We tend to move it around the inner world to try to find a better hiding place. Probably ,” she continues with her warm smile and twinkling eyes, “with and open window and lots of air freshener”. But no matter how you move it about trying to hide, eventually there will come a time when you lift your box of shit out of a corner only to have it explode and cover you with shit. It doesn’t magically go away by avoidance. It gets worse.

Road rage. Obesity. Domestic violence. Animal abuse. Alcoholism.

So how do we deal with the truth of our experience? How do we evolve inside a culture of distractions; inside the world in which external validation and million dollar marketing perpetuates the dissatisfaction of our species?

The only thing I know of is to listen. Be present. Be in the moment. Listen.

Yogic practice asked us to ‘finding comfort within the discomfort’. To ease into the moment and into your body and allow what is actually there to arise and be adjusted to, while gently pushing your body to reach or bend or hold itself still. Do not run from the burn as muscles grow and retrain. The same can be said for emotional discomfort. Hold still and listen. Allow yourself to feel whatever comes. Cry. Rage. Sleep. Listen. Grieve. Laugh. Dance. Be with your Self. Don’t push too hard but don’t give up at the first sign of discomfort either. Rest and self care are important too. It’s like making a Samurai sword. There are many layers of metal pounded and pounded until it is red hot. It must be thrust, at the right moment, into water then pounded upon again. Pounded again. The trick is to know that the Truth is more important than any lie we tell ourselves. Lies beget lies. Hurt begets hurt. Truth begets Truth.

Listen. Learn. Process. Change. Live. Love. Grow. Listen.