a daylight dream

T his earthliness is beautiful, captivating, bewildering. I hold your hand as we meander and wander by the valley, the hem of our clothes drowning in dew, my soul drowning in you . As much as it is wondrous, it is temporary. I stare into the snow-laden banks and all the lifeless views. The seasons do freeze our hearts, too. The hastiness of impatience, the impertinent waiting for grace to free fall into the fragile days where it’s empty and cold— when love is nowhere at all. Yet I pray in those seasons that I serve you, loved one. I pray to kneel on my knees and pray one long prayer with you, hold those shrivelled hands and look into your eyes till they tear in soft humility. Serving you by remembering with you, learning to love this earthliness through God’s grace that has befallen on all forms. Tonight, it is speechlessly silent. You’d wish to be here, to push more of you into the vacant spaces of our home. But there is no need, love. It is an ancient nothingness. We can be patient t...

Last week was cold, so cold. So empty, so barren, so devoid with everything inessential. So insensate, so unresponsive. Silent, but not solemnly so. A silence that haunts the heart with fragile emptiness. A humility breathed in with every gale of arctic air, in search of a vulnerable plea of guidance. Last week was all of this, and none of it, at the same time. Despite the boreal gusts, I choose to leave home in the early morning, my lungs almost cast in fractals of ice. My hands turn frigid, even in my pockets, but I still go. I face the seasons of life and watch it all mirror within me with a painful emptiness that is severely worrying. I watch the dawn unfold with rosy and lilac tints, the full moon in its fall, the blackbird soulfully singing its song. And I see the little dandelion petals asleep, arms clasped facing the stars. Venus adorns the eastern horizon with a spectacular glow. Clovers multiply in the shadows of the barren silk floss trees beneath a bed of autumn leaves. All...

I want to share with you a story, that whenever I relive it in my mind, it shatters my heart with incredulous faith, awed by the power of vulnerability in a child’s development. I have a boy in my class who had deep anger management issues. I remember the first few weeks (even months) of school, every lesson would be a terror, watching him move around hurting others, slapping, pushing desks and chairs in moments of fury, when experiencing conflicts with his classmates. I observed him and didn’t raise my voice or resort to punishments since I knew it wasn’t the issue. anyway, he was not afraid of punishments. he was fearless and extremely rebellious. when things got messy in my class, I’d send him out to calm down, but it never really worked. one day, i saw him outside the class being reprimanded by teachers, alongside another classmate who was in tears. my heart ached to watch him in this state, and I knew I was called to help him heal. I knew at this moment that I had to give up class...

it dawned upon me this morning how liberating it would be if i simply chose to go beyond the labels that bind me to this temporary lifetime. beyond the label of “ teacher ”, “ educator ”, “ advocate ” and “ poet ”, i’m but an eternal soul on its divine journey to wholeness. perhaps i’m more interested this moment in moving beyond labels when it comes to my career. sometimes, it is quite limiting to say that i’m a teacher when in truth, i come in many forms to serve those beloved children. i often hear others say “ i can’t do that, i’m just a teacher ” when confronted by challenges beyond their job description and title. well, perhaps we get paid for specific things, but the mind thrives on those self-imposed structures to create suffering when the heart speaks and calls for action yet stays fastened in some abstract box of roles. this year, i hope to bring my full humanness and light into what i do and move beyond my job description. upon learning that there is such a thing as  uns...

the day starts and we go separate ways to serve the world with gifts and bright, reverent hearts. like birds that come into murmurations and disperse, i find myself in places and conversations i have never planned. and so do you, but our hearts are bound to be where love is. when evening falls, i come home with an exhausted smile and broken heart from all the beauty that has surpassed the day. lately, there is this halo of surrendered love that follows me everywhere, humbling the smallest features of my face and softening my slowest steps. i come home with it, and here, it multiplies in wordless togetherness, a million times more blinding near your presence. our togetherness is different than i expected it to be, love. there is much more silence than i could have imagined. but it reminds me of the sweetest silence that prevailed before i knew your name, when this ancient love was only a comforting truth echoing in my chest; a fractal, an extrapolation of God’s fabric of love coating th...

today, i happened to reconnect to a beautiful friend with whom i share so many dreams and auras. we talked about divinity, interconnectivity and everything that binds us to God, the source of all oneness and aliveness. since that conversation, much of the chatter in my mind ceased to exist, despite the usual tendencies i have to want to do something. there are items on my list that haven’t been checked, some as absurd as “visualise activities for term (2)” which would mean going through every single day of the week for each unit in my head. well, it would be productive, but it would most certainly attach my ego to the outcomes, too. and so i dropped the list awhile and listened to the music of the spheres— musica universalis . the beauty in stillness and inner peace, the cessation of movement to coexist with all patterns in the universe. perhaps it would be healing to pay attention to our innate nothingness and the ultimate wholeness that we truly are. suddenly, the desire to eat, drin...

When I look back, I find that not much has changed in numerous ways. The irony is that an infinitude of changes had happened in the past few years, perhaps one’s imperceptible, but powerful enough to manifest breakthroughs that may not be visible now, but are to create lasting imprints. Since 2017, things started to change so rapidly. Reflecting upon it with my father, he tells me that not much has changed, but I cannot help but recognise the person I was then. There are fleeting remnants of who I’d always been, but deep inside, I’ve changed radically. It seems that the more appropriate term is not change , but growing back to originality and authenticity rooted in my spirit. I don’t know why I’m mentioning this now, but something in me whispers that starting from 2022, all the imperceptible changes shall become more embodied in real terms. Faint dreams shall stroke the canvas of life in colours of daylight. I am not yet aware of how that should manifest, and am forsaking all the detai...

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...