a daylight dream

Another year passes by, significantly phenomenal, fulminating with heart-shattering perspectives and epiphanies that changed my world in all sense. As I write this, I am lighter in body and spirit, deep in veneration and gratitude for all the beauty that 2021’s days had left me with. Forsooth, it is time to marvel and engrain what had gone by— in essence just another year of growth and transformation. January Writing dramatic poetry, erupting from crevices so melancholic and loving. Going for endless runs and swims ‘neath January’s rains and sun-kissed clouds. Meeting up with my learners in the club. Loading up on oranges and apples from the wholesale fruit market. My mind acquainted with Taylor’s melodious ‘evermore’ tunes, inspiring the most treacherous visuals. Starting the second term online and having tremendous fun on Zoom with backgrounds and nicknames. Watching my learners create wondrous descriptive sentences that invoke the senses with wild imaginings. Composing a song. Conne...

  At last, it is the end of a deeply revelatory month. The whole of 2021 can be summarised into the processes navigated in December, which is quite beautiful, for I’ve intended to view it as a month of reverent journeys. December was a walk in the icy winter mornings, drawn to crimson artistry of the skies. Ah, I could talk about my love for open skies infinitely, and every day is a different canvas on which the light of God shines. It was immensely comforting to see how everything simply carries the light of God as it exists, and we, uniquely among all the other species, have the beautiful power to choose how to carry it. It is foreordained, surely, but we do have that will to consciously pour the Light out of our very hearts. In December, I went through the process of reflecting and writing. There were brilliant moments of sharing love with people around me, having empowering conversations in the book club and teachers whom I connected to rather miraculously. The most beautiful t...

I sit alone in my room, feeling time move. It’s been some time since I talked to anyone, and it really is my choice, at the end of the day. I feel myself withdrawing into a bubble of isolation and aloneness. It’s rather addicting not to meet or talk to anyone, sit in silence, observing congenial conversations and wondering if I’m able to love people this way. I went to the garden this afternoon since I felt so distant and alone. I sat on one of the steps and cried a little when I heard some of my favourite tunes, they touched the blues parts of me, parts starving for affection. The thing is… I do have love in my life. I’m not sure why it feels so alone all of a sudden, and it seems to come from right within me. It’s dangerous territory, it erases every single act of love permanently until I start thriving once more to truly see it all in abundance. I realised that deep inside, I’m not sure if I really love myself. I’m not sure if I’m good enough for anything, really. I know I should g...

Love seems to be memorised, for my fingers slide to hold your hand the first moment I’m awake. It’s the very first thing I do, and it has always been, even before the fleeting lifetime we had together. I was used to you not being here for so long, and  I missed you . Still, those fingers could dream of what it would be like to be loved, and they were contented until I had you here for a while. It feels wrong to say it’s been a while since it’s been ages, maybe timeless infinities, of our togetherness. A moment of waking next to you was all of it. God has foreordained that I outlive the ones I love, and now I suffer to do it all over again, unsure whether this is still missing you. I’ve missed you before, a time before I knew your name, and a time long afterwards. There was the time when you were here, and it was another kind of missing you, while looking into your eyes and breaking before the celestial connection you’ve gifted me. I couldn’t look into those inscrutable eyes of your...

It’s never been so sweet to be with myself as it is now, perhaps it starts with a little bit of numbness and pain, a little bit of restlessness and confusion— but the answers always come. The answer to true rapture and love always come in time. I’ve numbed myself with so many dependencies and false beliefs. I’ve numbed and emptied my heart with the perception that there is so much to be done, that I’m not proficient enough, that I shouldn’t even try to give myself space to do something new that a sacred voice within me longs to immerse itself into. It’s profusely and perplexingly arduous to learn sometimes, especially when it comes to what I devotedly care about, like teaching and being with children and painting and singing. The experience is turned into a challenge so harrowing to start and keep it up when my critical voice keeps finding excuses to not even try. The hardest time for me is perhaps when I come back from work. There is this sinking sensation the moment I step inside, it...

Ideas that come from love have a life of their own, they are not bound to the life and the timing and the plan of their vessel, they simply grow to their own accord, in the timing they find right. Two years ago, I was working on a project based on the enneagram personality theory. I worked for two months building material and researching, wondering when would be the right time to enact it, but it simply died down midst the other responsibilities and circumstances. I let it go and felt grateful for the time spent working tediously on it since it made me understand human beings on such a deeper level. The knowledge in itself sufficed, and it allowed me to become a better healer and teacher, too. Last week, my world turned around. Perhaps today, specifically, I was sitting in a circle of three passionate teachers, analysing personalities, watching them burst in epiphanies, eyes water and I saw ourselves talking in terms of transformation and awareness— conversations I only dreamed to have...

How much I hold inside of me. How much I carry on my back. How many burdens I let dwell on my shoulders. How many lifetimes of guilt and shame I have allowed to have a life of themselves deep in my heart. Upon reflection, I realised that my body has manifested certain conditions to embody certain patterns in my consciousness, in order to activate the need for healing. I’ve witnessed the ovarian dysfunctions, gut problems and thyroid under-activity, and they were all compassionate messages from my body that whatever I was doing wasn’t working to heal my scars. My heart beats ecstatically when I envision a life away from the regulations of modernity, every day a creative endeavour and a flowing current in the direction of life’s cycles. A day that is harmonious, a little cut out from ‘to-do’s and near to instructions derived from open loops of feedback, present in the here and now. Something in me shifts when I consider the possibility of creating something every day— an experience, a ne...

I look back and see that my most fulfilled times of magic, selflessness and love were when self-love permeated everything. It was when there was no doubt that I was good enough, not a single trace of dubiousness in regards to the beauty God has ingrained within my soul. Yet, it is quite easy to slither back to feelings of disbelief that such magic is possible and permanent. Seldom does this state of heart linger deep enough to remain infinite, it slides back to my normative state of judgement and self-criticism. Then, illness comes— weakness, distress, unease and uninspired motives despite my fullest efforts to do as much as I could. This very morning, it is a little hard to love myself though I am unsure why. It’s a settled motif that I’ve acquired over the years— to resist love within me. This kind of lacking abundance has dried me up on the inside for many years and I was but a wilted calyx that never got the chance to live. I remember how my life transforms each time self-love just...

I dream of gardens all the time. The greenery, the stretched silence that is not exactly silent, harmonious melodies buzzing amidst life’s gentlest reciprocities. I dream of being close to one every time I ponder upon being close to myself, which I assume, is an abundance of ‘ time ’s. How it befuddles me what it feels like when I lose myself by the trees. When it is mid-spring and the silk floss trees are groomed in emeralds sparkling against cinematic clouds. I imagine what it would be like if my life was closely intertwined with one garden— my hands in its dirt, fingers closely wrapped around a handful of seeds, digging into the ground, spraying it with water and pruning the wilted parts. I imagine what it would be like to stand bare feet almost every day on its ground, or cross-legged under a friendly shadow. It would be the perfect kind of aloneness, for I always have conversations in such a kind of solace. Conversations with dreams and reveries to come to life too soon, or maybe ...

It’s time again to see the essence ‘neath the facade of what begins before us. The coal-black skies and lifeless frames that were once budding trees and ripening fruits are but temporary situations, brought about since the very beginning of summer. The eyes tremble before the very thought that what I see this moment is not true as it is deep within. Waking up early is a blessing for I can witness the unfolding of dawn, and I can see for real that this darkness has no identity by itself. There is always a mirror image of wondrous, spectacular light that reflects the darkest hours. Perhaps this is what winter is here to show me so compassionately, it is never as it seems. The uncertainty, doubt and harshness are only the other sides of the coin— it is followed by the truest dawn, the most spellbinding kind of light that makes you forget how it was like to be so insecure. Winter is but a spring in action, and so the harshness before me is but the fleeting absence of life, and it will soon...

Perhaps the nefarious southern winds are blowing much more than the wilted lemon and mulberry trees today, for they are blowing my spark out just the same. I woke up with a neglected kind of heart this morning, my spirit trying to become the mothership, but the waves that have awakened are far too agitated to let it lead smoothly. It is also the conversations I had earlier with people around me that leave me wondering about certain things in our world. Last night, I had this vast emptiness within me; I knew it was only the unstable weather and lack of enthusiasm as the term is coming to an end. I felt this need for warmth and connection, but I was in my room, and it is not that kind of connection that is quenched by grabbing the phone and starting a conversation. It was the inscrutable need for a gentle embrace or a soft gaze that melts all the bitter, tough parts away. But since I didn’t have that, I turned to watch something on the internet that would soften those edges of aloneness....

I do wonder, astoundingly intently, if it is possible to show children all things before teaching them. More ideally said, instead of teaching them. There is a certain magic that comes with enticing the senses in a classroom— where knowledge is grasped through the body first and foremost before it is conceptually assimilated. I can clearly see that when the body is utilised wholly, it can function optimally, integrating the emotions needed to perceive and therefore abstractly uncover patterns. I have seen for myself what happens when children experience concepts through memorable encounters that captivate their inner world. There is a byproduct of fascination so tangible, that it causes a wonderful and effortless performance and demonstration of knowledge. Perhaps it is quite easy in English, for there is much to experience in a language, which is basically a lens through which we understand the world. My question is: is it possible for primary education to maximise the integration of ...

Sometimes, I just really want to scream. On days like this, a weekend, when I’m supposed to be resting, having slow mornings, joy bubbling around the corners of a day filled with intentional peace and slowness. On days like this, though, I just want to  scream . I want to scream for I’m facing my own restlessness in him. I’m staring at it, right in the eye, and it hurts. Oh God, it’s tearing me apart. It’s slicing my nerves, my veins and everything with stitches me together. It hurts to see him pacing the first thing in the morning, fixing up things around the house, just trying to do something other than being still. Just today, we spent the whole day fixing up something in the kitchen, and I was fuming, watching him being so nervous, doing things recklessly, mess all around us; that kind of mess which breaks the heart and confuses the mind with all sort of wrong scenarios. I was observing him, helping whenever I could. But inside, I just wanted to scream at him to wake up. I want...