In the hope that I may spread more seeds of love and growth among others, I've decided to start this little project called Q&A Friday. This is the first one in the series.
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1330 words
I visited Florence in April 2012. I worked in Krakow during that time, and wanted to spend Easter in Italy. I flew from Krakow to Milan,[...]
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"My name is Milena. I'm an artist / inspirer / entrepreneur. But that's just what I do part-time. Above all, I am a Full-Time Human."
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A young woman messaged me this morning. Her heart is broken and bleeding. It hurts so much. She cannot stop the tears.[...]
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In Midair
It is July 31st, 2015. I am half way through my yoga teacher training with a queer feeling of being in midair. The same as in a long-haul, cross-continental flight: you’re crossing the ocean in the pitch-blackness of night, having your belly strapped in the leather seat of a flying metal box. Time and place blur away in the soft breaths of asleep passengers. You don’t belong to anywhere.
I guess this feeling signals the teacher training program’s effects. Our day includes pranayama – yogic breathing exercises – and meditation, philosophy, theory lesson, yoga asana practice. From 6AM to 8PM, every day except Sunday, in a 1 month duration.
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Rapha and I are walking in City Square Mall, hands in hands. I am here in Singapore visiting him and we are going out for dinner. On a whim, I say “I’m gonna close my eyes now. And you lead me” “OK,” he replies, already used to my spontaneity.
I interlace my fingers with his, close my eyes. Rapha is walking on my left, a little bit in front. I sense the direction through the gentle pull of his arm and his voice whispering “Now 1 step down. Now 3 steps up.”
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I learnt this from a book of Julia Cameron. She compares art with pearl. Do you know how pearl is created? It is created out of a disturbance: a grain of sand, for example, finds its way inside an oyster’s shell. To protect itself, the oyster releases a substance to cover that grain of sand. That’s how pearl is made. The beautiful pearl is art; the act of transforming pain to beauty is a greater art. That’s the big art of our life.
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- How can you be so happy all the time? - Because I choose to
Happiness is a choice. We make this choice everyday, from the moment we wake up to the moment we tuck ourselves back in bed. We choose to be happy, or we choose to be unhappy. Choosing doesn't just mean the self-whispering: “I choose to be happy.” The actions that we take, together paint the picture of our choice. Many of us choose to be unhappy our whole life.
Choose to be happy means choose to be ourselves and to live our life. Not to be somebody else, or to live somebody else’s life. To talk, and walk, and see, and breathe the way only we know how.
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I grip the stone with my toes, press my fingers on its rough hot surface, push myself up to stand on a big rock. I am on top of a mountain now. I squint my eyes under midday sun, watching horizons, counting other mountain-tops. I raise my arms, spread my leg, face the sky. I think of a Walt Whitman verse, which I learnt in Dead Poet Society: "I sound my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world." I take a breath in my belly, open my mouth, and scream as barbarically as I can. This is splendid, being a free woman.
We make our way down the mountain as the sun rises higher on the azure sky. Though it is midday, the heat and the sunlight are still pleasant on the skin. The fresh mountain breeze helps. Leaning in from the sidewalk, bamboos pour shade on my exposed shoulders.
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