To the Girl Outside the Variety Show

Dear Amber,


You're that girl with the genuine face
standing outside the show tonight
your cheeks chilled by the bitter valley fog 
of winter
your eyes crisp in the glow of a 
dark December sky


You stopped me
to tell me
you like my art
in that go-out-of-your-way way
like a child, full of courage
"I really mean it..."


Oh, I thought, that's right
my art
I do have an art
it was like being caught playing clueless 
by a familiar old messenger
an owl who'd been watching me pretend
not to love what I do


You're that voice inside my head that
never stops cheering
sustained by the joy it finds in 
helping me remember 
the gift I came here to live 


You're that girl, you are
for me and for the art that lives inside
and I can't help but wonder
where to buy the soundtrack of 
your soul


Love,
Jessica

Dear Chico's Arms

Dear Chico's Arms, 


You reached out to me when I was 18, your creeks strung across the valley.
Blue oak. Red bud. Sycamore. Salmon.


I walked over your bridges and my heart spoke an easy "Yes."


Those college days were just a taste, a lick off the top of a Shubert's 
Chico Mint melting ice cream cone

Humboldt Park, artist: Gregg Payne

I graduated, my family came
"What a cute town..."
"This is a bubble world..."
"What do people do here, just sit on their porches all day long and socialize?"


Somedays, yes.


You didn't want to let me go and 
I resisted too, and then
San Francisco called. There's work there. I had to go.


Your arms rested, warmed by the hot valley sun, your hands dangling in the branches of almond trees, gray squirrels tickling your belly. Your arms are patient arms. 


And in between them lies a womb more fertile than any I know on Earth. I came back to you, fell in love 30 miles north in the cold Sacramento River current, and I missed you. The night sky was brighter there, your small-city lights tumbling on a navy blue blanket, dulling the radiance of stars. But in my heart, I longed for the human spirit lights, the Chico community, a tribe more starlit from within as any I've seen on Earth. 


Some say there's a giant magnet under Chico. 


Years passed and you welcomed me back to a sanctuary home, sycamore limbs cradling my nighttime breath, Little Chico Creek singing prayers around the dinner table. 

And I'd stay there, in and out for years, true to my fluttering gypsy soul, tucked in and held by you. Chico. Valley town, soil rich, rice fields in rain land of entrepreneurs giant wind chimes, earth-loving beer makers, MaMuse harmonies, bike touring adventurists. Chico. "Little boy." College town.

Your arms are so rich, and they cannot offer the ocean. Fertile river mud, not sandy salt kissed air. So I left again and frolicked in a crisp ocean way, southern sunny heaven. 


And as the mist filled my joyful heart as I slept in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, you held space for newborn Buddhas, one after another, seed by seed soaked in full sun, filling your fields. I could hear their giggles from afar, and so, one day, with no clue why, I came north again. 


And until today, I've never known the sound of stillness as it curls up in my lap, purring, soft like silky peach fuzz, eyes like crystal. We blend together beneath this giant wind chime, as summer turns to fall.


Your playmate, 
Rio

Note to a 3-year-old Friend

Dear Graciela,

Today I had the
really, if I think about it,
unfathomable blessing of spending
three hours with you
you who came through two of
the dearest friends life's given me
Nicholas and Emily

Graciela at 7 months

All of what you came to share
would splinter specks of light
to fill a thousand suns
and blind me
in this moment
if I looked

As it stands, the way you ask
"Tia can I wash dishes with you?"
at three, pulling up a chair
beside me at the sink,
soaping up the small plastic yellow spoon
"Tia can you hold this so I can rinse?"
"Be careful with Mommy's glass..."

Shy with hellos and goodbyes
you say "I'm here"
with your eyes
and tell the truth when
Mama comes home from her new haircut
blue feather braided into black hair
"Mama I can't see it!"

Truth from a 3-year-old's soul
three just on Earth
this time around
Infinite, by all other means

I assure you, passionate little angel
what you came here to
teach us, your parents, passersby, me
is being heard.

Our hearts sometimes shudder with the sound
as you shake our comfort zone reality
with the wisdom of beyond our eyes
and sometimes it will seem like
nobody is listening
our heads so far perched above
the child's
perfect presence horizon

But I promise
on some level
Your love is landing
voice of a dream bird
singing our dream song
Young friend,
your love is landing.

-Tia

What the Heart Knows

Dear Heart,


As I sit with the thought of you
and all you know
this morning
across the table from a friend whose skin
whispers
like Spanish moss
my chest expands on its own
to make room
for all you know


Your wisdom is wider than
all the world's libraries
your capacity to feel 
packs eight thousand words into none

You know wholeness
you can't break
though we might feel your power
shattering universes of feeling 
inside of us
this is simply 
our watery bodies speaking
their greatest gift
our capacity to feel




We need not fear that shattering
it is what widens our world
Let us love 
with the all of you


Passionately,
Your devoted student

Farewell to Luna

Dear Luna,


You left your body on Monday and I want you to know
how much you touched our lives
for the eleven years you shared with us.

Luna grooming her sweet self near Mt. Lassen

In Alaska, in Chico, in Baja
in the mountains, at lakes, at sea
on rafts, on trails, in sand
in creeks and under the
dining room table licking up scraps
dropped by your vivacious new
human sister Morgen


Glancing with pure devotion at Marko
Snarling ever so gently when 
children stumbled over you
Snarling not so gently when Lusa nipped at your ankles


Batting your whispery white eyelashes at
the three dozen compliments strangers gave you
every time you walked down the sidewalk
I am Luna, 
Regal Snowy White 
Star of the Dog Universe


I always felt softened
to be with you
In a world of rough edges and splintered lines
you were the perfect blend of
icicle feather, angel paw


Your Earth tribe will miss you, sweet one.
We will always love you.


Tia Jessie

Dear Baby Boy Soul

Dear Baby Boy Soul,


Are you calling to me?
I dreamt of you last night. Someone in India had asked me 
to care for you while traveling. For two weeks, 
you'd be mine to watch and care for.



And in that dreamscape
where all lines cross and 
one reality becomes another
you felt like my
little boy.

Then one day our group of travelers went to the mall. 
A tall girl I'd befriended walked beside me. 
I'd dressed in a pink and orange silk sari
wide skirt flowing at my ankles
just like the tall American girl.




Somehow
she was holding you now.
"I'm going to hold him for a while," she said.
My heart agonized
I had loved holding you 
it was heaven
and I'd waited all day to be with you again
your soft brown hair and chubby thighs that felt like
my hands were designed to hold them
as you sat on my hip


"No you're not," I said to the girl. 
"i've been wanting to hold him all day
and he's my responsibility. I'm watching him."


"Well, too bad, because I'm holding him."


I stood there, shocked
jaw dropped down toward the layers of 
pink and orange 
floral print silk.


Fighting energy does not belong around babies
I would not aggressively grab you from her arms
She would give you back later


But the grief...
Baby Boy Soul


Are you real?
Like in Velveteen Rabbit, are you real because
I love you?


Will you pass through my body someday
bewildering me with the sheer miracle of growing
from seed to full human being?


I would die with love for you every day.


Am I going to have you? And if not, why do you keep 
showing up in my dreams?


Mama

Charm, Power and the Human Heart

Dear Old Lady on NPR,


This morning as the day opened up before me, your voice crackled into my cottage. You were at a diner having breakfast with your old lady friends when a charismatic NPR reporter handed you a microphone. 


Two years ago he asked you, "How do you feel about Obama?" You were optimistic, and perhaps even as enamored with his charm as I was. Swept off your Aerosoles. 


I remember how I felt two years ago. I hope people don't expect a dozen miracles a day from this man. He is one man. We have a whole Congress, a whole complicated and complex system, a huge web that influences what happens in the political and economic landscape. It's ignorant to perceive the bulk of the power, and place the bulk of pressure, in his hands. 


We are here to awaken. And when we "go to sleep" and expect people in influential positions to "make things good" for us, we choose not to play an active role in shaping our world. And in that very moment, our world ceases to meet our deepest needs, because we are made of Source, God, Love, goodness... and we get to create what we want. To deny this gift is a tragedy. 


As you well know, Obama is criticized by every corner of the political map these days. Some of it makes sense to me because we put our faith in leaders and when they aren't able to live up to what they said, or to our expectations, we naturally feel disappointed. 


But all the rational claims and criticisms in the world, however fact based, will never outweigh the power of the human heart. And in my heart, I know Obama is an exquisitely beautiful soul with noble intentions and tremendous courage. 


In moments of fear, sadly, humans tend to blame. We don't see the power to create inside of ourselves, so we project the power elsewhere. But you didn't seem to do that as your elder-wisdom permeated my morning air. You still believe in Obama. You see his heart, and you see that he is a loving human being. Your eighty years have polished you with the sheen of forgiveness, of leaning into light. Of choosing to see the good in people.


You stand for that. Thank you for seeing with forgiving eyes. 


Jessica

Dear Self-Doubt

Dear Self-Doubt,


You spent the morning with me. Even after a bowl of fresh fruit, delicious gourmet granola and fresh local goat milk yogurt, even after a big cup of coffee and a walk with the dog, you were revved up and ready for the day. Disappearing during moments when I was being fully present, you returned when I turned my attention toward the past or the future.


You hung out with me as I searched for a place to live, and creased my forehead wondering if I'd ever find a place I loved as much as my Cardiff cottage. You considered which actions I should regret from the day before. You held a sermon inside my head scanning for ways I could be a better daughter or a more loving mother to my dog. You wondered if and when I'd ever live my dream. I almost let you take the reins again all day.


Then you met my friend Dresden. Within minutes of showing up, she and I were engaged in a Gmail chat session about living our dreams: about writing. We made a pact that every day for the next 30, we'll each spend 30 minutes writing. And publish it. 

Writer's Pact Girl

An hour later, you met Serra. She texted with an invitation to come swimming in her huge pool on this hot Labor Day. Swimming with bright-eyed children whose presence is like Buddha. 


And by noon, you met Randy. And like a parched field during the first few minutes of rain, within an hour spending time with this exquisitely beautiful friend, I could barely hear your voice at all. 


Self Doubt, I'll never hate you. You are welcome in my life; I am having a human experience. You are a facet of my perception and you want to be loved. That's the only way you'll find your place, wherever it is, at peace.  I'll just make sure to spend more time nurturing the friendships that help me to feel peace too.


Jessica 

Glance of Devotion

Last Thursday, one of my personal heroes was buried and my mother attended the funeral of a newborn baby. Life and death held each other's glance from Atlanta, Georgia, where 77-year-old Ray Anderson was buried, across the country to San Rafael, California, where a Latin American baby born without a brain was laid to rest. 

It happens all the time. People die. But when one of our heroes dies, it hits home hard.

Our hearts become draped in dedication to carry on their legacy, to find that place within ourselves that is most committed to whatever it is we are here to do in this life. Ray Anderson founded Interface, the largest manufacturer of modular carpet in the world. He was one of the boldest ethically based businessmen alive. In 1994 after reading Paul Hawken's book The Ecology of Commerce, he set big goals to be sure his business wasn't responsible for depleting the ecological life support systems his grandchildren depended on. Seventeen years ago, he started leading in a way that most CEOs are still not brave enough to do. Yet for Ray, it was outrageous to not be bold.  He set the bar high, and on Monday August 8th he ventured on from his body, leaving a greater charge for those of us who admired him.

Across the continent, my mother Carmen joined the parents of a newborn baby as her tiny coffin was lowered into the soil. When a baby dies, a stream of questions swirls within us, none of which seem to have answers. For 16 years, my mom has been an angel in the lives of pregnant, low-income Latina women living in low-income neighborhoods in one of the wealthiest counties in America. But no birth has ever been quite like this. I'll leave the details out.

What struck my mom most was not the grief experienced when a baby dies. She's faced that many times before. It wasn't how blessed she felt to have been asked by the parents to be the person to carry Baby Genesis out of their hospital room after she had left her body. It wasn't even how the woman's husband never left her side during the entire three-day labor. 

It was faith. 

Somehow, after living through an experience as grueling than anything I could imagine, the couple never lost faith -- in God. They never lost faith that everything is in perfect order. That their baby is not dead, that her soul still lives, as long as she is remembered. For my mother, the most striking element of the whole experience was the everpresent element of devotion to God.

In moments like these, when life in the body makes its swift transition into death of the body, it is God I ponder most. Ray Anderson was a Christian man as are Genesis's parents. For me, God does not live or have meaning in religion, for I don't believe a religious God exists in the big picture. But the God within each of us, the essence of Love itself, the pure spark  of beauty at our core … how do I want to express this spark, most? With this one precious life, what is my way of extending the profound gratitude I feel for being alive? How will I claim my right to be happy, and spill it out widely into the pool of humanity, so that others may more easily choose their joy too?

To invoke extreme courage in us: that is the mark of a hero. To sit beside a woman as she gives birth to a baby who will live less than a day: that is the mark of a hero. 

I smile in thankfulness for Ray, for the baby and her parents, and for my astoundingly beautiful mother. The greatest gift I can give back, to do my part in this cycle of giving and receiving -- all of which is love -- is to express the beauty I see and feel in this world. There is great pain too, but having our attention there too long just makes it grow. 

We are not of this world, but we are in it. Thank goodness the beauty of the human spirit is infinite. 

it's ethics, at the center

My uncle, Dr. Louis Rios MD, is going through a transition. As a general surgeon for more than 30 years, he's now reflecting big time. Between New-Yorican (Puerto Ricans from the Bronx) style joke after joke after joke, as his siblings and he are known for, he asks himself: What has this career given me? How is society better off because of what I have done? What are the ethical issues at the center of medicine, that I might speak to in my later years? How can I help make the field of medicine less focused on money and more focused on caring for the sick?


Yesterday we barely made it out of a late afternoon Florida thunderstorm, parking the boat as the heavy drops began falling. For hours while still out on the water, I stared at the dark clouds on the horizon, letting thoughts float up from within. Somehow, during this week spent traveling with my dad to visit his siblings on the east coast, I have been struck by the power of ethics in my life. Not ethics as enforced or designed by anyone else -- but ethics stemmed from the core of one's own being, from the mind-boggling internal, intuitive guidance system we have all been given.  

This afternoon Uncle Lou (left, with my dad) asked me to read an article he wrote a year ago. In it he expressed, with vulnerability, the sense of abandonment experienced by physicians who don't get the kind of emotional or moral support given to, say, police officers, when someone dies. Doctors lose a patient and are paged on the hospital intercom to perform two more surgeries. Policemen, on the other hand, are substantially consoled and given paid time off to cope with the loss.


Where is the justice in this equation? What might Uncle Lou voice, in journals of medicine, to help bring about a place, an organization, that provides the kind of support doctors need when a patient dies under their watch? 


The power of values flashes through my mind. Sesame Street values like kindness, respect, generosity, care, and appreciation for cultural differences. 


I think of my primary college mentor, Bruce Grelle, who inspired his students to reflect on the values and ethics promoted by major religions like Christianity and Buddhism. Are their spoken values genuinely held by their representative religious institutions?


So tonight in southern Florida at Uncle Lou & Aunt Martha's house, after some California Cabernet and fried Puerto Rican 'tostones' (tohs-tohn-ess), I feel a joyous sense of comaraderie with my uncle, a man of great humor, integrity, class and sensitivity. And I can't help but notice a shared strain of ethics at play in our path -- a strain shared with great passion, as well, by my father, Lou's older brother. 


One thing is for sure. I am not promoting "one right way" -- that there is one dictatorial "rightness" in any human voice, in any one religion or in all of them combined, or in any book ever written. 


When it comes down to it, what I'm saying is personal. My own life is about spotlighting that no matter your age, Sesame Street had a point. And if all we do is focus on being kind, celebrating this astoundingly precious gift called life, being human enough to mess up madly and forgive ourselves, having the courage to ask questions and speak up when something just doesn't resonate with our own internal moral compass... that, I pose, is the primary substance of a life well lived. 


Hats off to the Uncle Lou's of the world. 

Swamis, Ships and Letting Go

Hello fellow Earth traveler friends on this ship called Life!

We’ve reached the next chapter in Jessica’s Adventure Story, and this train is headed north again come late May. I’d thought my stint here would be a year, yet surprise! Seven and a half months it will be.

Why? There are two main reasons for the move. The first is easy to understand and convey; it’s straightforward. I had a contract end in late January. The project went well and I expected to have another client by now. I don’t. Rent here at my cottage is high – fair, but high – and signals say it’s time to let the place go and step into what’s next. The other reason is the “what’s next” part. The best I can say here with words, is that there’s an artful voice inside that keeps gently sending messages, an artful way of living that is calling me to lift my roots again. And I don’t need to know what it’s gonna look like; I trust the voice and feel so grateful for the choice and freedom to listen.

Ego will say there’s a right and a wrong here. The voice has so many different ways of showing up: “I should be learning something else here,” ... “If I leave so soon, it is a failure,” ... “ As with every Life richly lived, there are layers upon layers of ideas and possibilities at play.

Love knows no right and wrong, and the “voice for Love” gives us gentle affirmations that our inner voice is worth listening to, it is wise, it guides us well. 

The moment is bittersweet.

Living in Cardiff, in this architecturally exquisite Dream Come True of a home I found here, has been storybook sweet. Too many ways to share what a high value I have for architecture and living space, so I'll stick with a brief version of one... My cottage is two blocks from Swami’s Beach and the Self Realization Fellowship, former home of Paramahansa Yogananda, a beautiful teacher who had a significant influence on my now-passed Uncle Cheo, who stood when he lived as a vibrant supporter of my poetry and free spirit. As Cheo died, he gave me some of his living plants. One plant still lives, having made its way south with me from Chico’s hot summers and cold, gray winters, to a space-by-the-sea... it has found a living Heaven in my living room, so close to Yogananda’s home, reaching tall into the welcoming skylight, and is healthier than ever.

Dogs are more welcome here than any community I know.  Water bowls on the sidewalk at every other shop downtown Encinitas. Lusa came into the salon with me for my haircut yesterday; it's just an automatic here. Dogs are part of the community. 

Lots of outdoor dining, year-round, all day and night... who wouldn't love that? 

Weather that pretty much EVERY day, has me saying, “Really? It’s this pleasant here?” Ocean air with just the right amount of mist in it, that pours down from the high window above my bed all night long, filling my lungs and heart with grateful breaths. 

More yoga courses than a person could ever need, though, I’ve probably only attended three! 

And the greatest gift that will ever grace my Life – this is the toughest part to leave – are the people I’ve found here. A perfect handful of remarkably solid individuals who have permanently impressioned my heart with their sheer AWESOMENESS, who will always be friends and of course, there is a difference between living two blocks from someone and living 600 miles away.

Even – get this – a new friend who is ready to co-create in business with me, someone who, had I tried to actually design a person to be the most gut-positive match for a business partner for me –surpasses that vision. Not to say that I can’t lean into this from a distance, but still... And hey I might come back. No one knows. What a glorious mystery!

“Home” in a specific geography is not what calls most now; it is how I live, and that I live committed to my art and way of moving through this world – be it writing, photos, films, piano, more writing... whatever forms of expression want to emerge from me in my lifelong quest to put a spotlight on the mind-rocketing beauty of the human spirit. My own, and that of others. It is all from the same Source.

At the end of May, Lusa and I will climb into a UHaul and head north to Chico again. I’ll be based in the cottage and open to adventures in travel – mostly by bike! And I will still be doing whatever I can to bring on new clients for my business, since I’ve put lots of time and thought into creating it, and it is currently my most promising and joyful form of generating income.

Being based in Chico could last for the summer, or not that long, or longer. What I do wholeheartedly embrace about being back there is the extraordinary tribe of community -- including the children. Creative endeavors find fertile soil in Chico, and the mere thought of some of the antics, wildness, delight and creative adventure that Chico is so good at living... makes me smile big. As does the reality of being a lot closer to my nieces and nephews. 

Grief and joy! At last, I think I accept and rejoice in the fact that we cannot know great joy unless we know great grief, and we cannot know great grief if we do not know great joy. (Thanks, Kahlil Gibran.) 

My main desire is to live my version of that fully – and in doing to, to live one big glorious lifetime of living, in co-creative and playful companionship the beautiful souls who surround me.

With immense thanks for your love and friendship!

Jessica

the gift that's stuck inside

Me: Hello Gift, I know you're in there. I hear you calling. I've been ignoring you.


Gift: Yes I am here. I've always been here. My patience is galactic, yet I too want to breathe. You don't always ignore me. But lately I've been shouting. I'm getting antsy. 

Me: Ouch. Sorry I don't always listen. I have been hearing your shouting recently, and it's painful not to let you out. It's strange, Gift, that I feel like I know you so well, and yet I act like I don't know how to start, how to let you out. Other people say I've started, but this voice is like a dam plugging the flow...


Gift: You think a lot. Sounds exhausting.

Me: Sigh...

Gift: I'm easy going. All I am is your joy. You know how to live me out into the world. You've done it many times.

Me: I have?

Gift: Undoubtedly. You are my best expresser, just like all the Gifts in the world have one living channel they most want to express themselves through. I believe in you. I'm excited to dance with you.

Me: Will you go on a date with me? At sunset today, down at the beach?

Gift: My full presence is yours. I can't wait to see the sunset in your eyes. I've asked the ocean to give us some space in the sand, so we can play.

Me: Thank you, Gift. You're so good to me.

Gift: Be easy on yourself. See you at sunset.

Dear Son

A friend asked me to write something for a Baby Blessing she was attending for a friend last weekend. This is what came out. No I am not a mother, but I do feel like all the children of the world are mine to love! If you're attending a baby blessing and like this poem, please feel free to use it as long as credit is given to me, the author (Jessica Rios).


Dear Son,

As you enter this world having been tucked so far in the safety of my womb

May you embody safety by continuing to feel the infinite Love your mom and dad feel for you

You will emerge trusting us completely

And we will meet you by being loving enough to show you 'no' as often as 'yes'

When that is the Love you are asking for

This is the safe container we promise you

Precious son, while this container is created and held for you,

You will be my greatest teacher

May you feel completely free to express yourself

Exactly how you are

Whatever is true for you is perfect and beautiful

And as your mother I ask that you forgive me when

the boundaries I create are too tight or

the freedom I give you is not secure enough to fully trust me and 

make you feel safe

As a boy when you grow more aware of the world's problems, 

May you acknowledge the role men have played while standing in a place of confidence

That men are not to blame, just as women are not victims

When you're old enough to feel butterflies in your belly about a sweet young girl

May you treat her with the dignity of a flower

May you respect her just as you have been shown respect between men and women at home

And when the world suggests that it's not OK for men to feel deeply or even cry

May you stand in the power of what it means to be 'a real man'

And show them 

It actually is

Son, may you make the world your playground

Living in the Light and freedom of someone who is totally loved

Splashing in puddles and 

Zooming in rockets and

Climbing tall trees for all of the beautiful days 

Of your Life

in pure gratitude,

Mama

grandpa

Uncle Lou, 

Thank you for this reminder of Juan Rios Torres' birthday tomorrow! And while an avid writer has your attention... :0)

Since I was very young when my grandfather Juan passed on, I don't remember a lot about him except for the way his laugh pierced through what was otherwise a stern face, and how much he liked to share his lemon drop candies with me. He also passed on a set of his pens to me, knowing that even at a young age I was a writer. That meant a lot. I still love pens. 

When I think about it, the biggest impact he has had on my Life is in the sons he raised. Sons who have an unusually solid work ethic, who genuinely value their family, sons with a sense of humor that would make even the most miserable person lighten up, who keep respectful relationships with their ex'es (living or not) as an embodiment of that family priority, knowing it hurts themselves and mostly hurts the children if they were to do otherwise. Sons who have immense gratitude for your blessings, the shelter above your heads and the food on the table which is much more than you knew as kids in the Bronx. Sons who don't all believe in a religious God, but all of whom, as far as I know, are committed to something much greater than their individual selves.

Often, I shake my head questioning just why I've been blessed with such a remarkable father. And mother, but for now we are focusing on my father's side of the family. 

So thank you to all my Rios uncles -- for what you've done for your families and for who you are as men -- a precious combination of super-stern when it comes to your morals, and ridiculously funny. From someone who has always felt so blessed, in large part because my grandfather Juan Rios Torres raised his son Joey to be a man I can honestly and easily call my hero. And I know my sister and brother feel the same. 

LOTS OF LOVE,

Jessica

this is day one

Day One of this day, night one of this night. A space for me to write, like I've written with hand and pen for 30 years, now pecking keys instead. Narcissus stems poke out in sixteen directions, aglow from the light of an ivory pillar and a white taper, and when I lean in their scent reminds me no words could taste the way they smell. Pleasure is to feel. To feel is to bask in being human.

At one time I'd have wanted hundreds of people to read my words. Today if eight of you do, and through reading you feel more of the Love you are, tonight I will fly in my dreams.

An ascended master once was asked what s/he missed most about having a human experience. Without hesitation, "Sex." And then, "...the senses." And then, a laugh. Nothing really missed, just a thankful memory of pleasure, embodied.

And though I might question how anything could be missed in a state of unlimitedness, I'll rest accepting that the joy of living in Love with the senses is Heaven on Earth. In my Life's moments of feeling the most in touch with who we really ARE, there arises only one urge: to be happy. And for me, that means delighting in the senses. Seeing the world as innocent, forgiven and healed, what room is there for me to want anything else but happiness -- for myself and for e.v.e.r.y.o.n.e?

Lusa snores on her bed, shooting calm from my ears to my brain, oh favorite sound of my beloved dog snoring... deep in a dream while her mom pecks to lay these words. My joy is yours. May your joy be as you are, and were born.

Free.