Paso a Paso: Diana's Blog

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

                                                                              by Derek Walcott

My intention is in my bones,

My pleasure in my actions,

My strength, in my voice.

I’ve grown a 1/4 of an inch and don’t plan on shrinking.

Happy Easter!

I was walking on the street and two women approached me and other fair citizens of Portland to answer some questions. They said their objective was to spread positivity in the world, and I said “YES!!!!!” Here are our answers to their questions…

http://www.hooplaha.com/describe-your-first-kiss/

http://www.hooplaha.com/how-to-say-i-love-you/

http://www.hooplaha.com/whats-your-guilty-pleasure/

http://www.hooplaha.com/how-to-say-im-sorry/

Lying down

                     I give.

Standing up

                     I balance.

Sitting down

                     I stay.

Moving

                    I change the world.

                                                                                                               3/1/12

The song of my pursuit.

To you blue pearl

            That sits at the crown of

            my head

            you are the making of

            a slow, patient, saliva

            a seeping of all things

            to the center

            to water

            to calm.

            Not transparent & brilliant

            like the

            prismatic diamond.

            You are humble

            a mystery, smooth

            and a whirling pleasure

            to behold—

            if only for an instant.

            Not every one can see through you,

            but

            You are seen.

            The objective is not perfection

            but peace.

            How can I continue to abide

           dwell,

            savor

            that pearly wisdom

            in everything?

            When I speak, let my tongue

            not hide the pearl cushioned

            beneath.

            Let my mouth, speak

            not of feathers

            but of pearls.

            In the morning I rise to the

            brilliant dawn

            & seek the precious pearl

            at night.

            There you rest

            Whole

            halved, heavy like

            the basin of a

            pregnant belly

            thin, slivered

            a fraction of your

            silvered wisdom

            will suffice.

            In the heat of red

            hot sparring words

            righteous in fire

            wild & honest

            in heart

            they burn

            to return to white.

            The darkness that surrounds your precious pearl

            is only known to be so

            by your

            humble beauty.

            Everything returns to pearl.

            Not blank, but milky

            Off-white. Pure in its pursuit

            pure in its mistakes

            Pearl of forgiveness,

            Hold us under your tongue,

            wing the breath that molds us

            to be strung

            upon

            your

            holy

            chain.

                                                                                                                        2.1.12

                                        For Katherine, with Freedom

 

There is a truth

            on the tip of my tongue

            an intentional

                        tension

            in the tendons of

            my face

            to the tiniest

            cells

            of the cells.

            They tell each other

            to open up, try wider

            bigger.

                Joy

            tinctured

            tangible

            fills

            the clay pot

            hollowed

            tender

            at my center.

_                         

           Tingle turns to

           impetus to touch

                        to think

                 Instinct

             agitated

                   always moving.

             Not the truth I know

             full well but

             the tale written

             nowhere else

             but here—

_                                       

            Sung

            into a

            5’5”

            brown

            short-haired

            small-breasted

            full-thighed

            Woman.

_                            

            A mouth  

            a mind

            a new

            Way of being.

It is hard to know where to start, but always so beautiful to begin.

I have not updated this blog in a long time, but to give you a brief summary I graduated, I have been working with my dad at Bustos Media as Administrative Assistant/ self-proclaimed “Wellness Coordinator,” and decided in June or July of this year to return again to El Salvador to see where my heart was. As wonderfully captured in this blog, that experience pulled my heart from my chest and held it out before me, and I have not been the same since. On a continuous journey becoming, growing, struggling moving and loving, I have come to find that as I get older nothing gets easier, just a little more complicated. This is crucial time to stick my feet to the ground, grow deep roots, and live with unrelenting gratitude to strengthen my will and tune my heart as I navigate my place in this small earth.

My biggest change in returning to this space is that I know what I love.

I love touch, I love dance, I love movement and the unbelievable possibilities it has to offer this wounded world. I return now with a clearer sense of what I can and cannot handle, I do not have patience to deal with 15 year old chisme, and crazy kids running around, my objective here is to help unlock that space within others to explore and see how their movement and  their bodies are entirely their own.

This body is the sanctuary of our emotions, the chamber of our souls deepest desires, a vessel of bones, muscle and tendons that are all in relationship together— to pull on our heart and bring us to coil in despair, to spontaneously combust with joy and release the pool of our tears. We are 90%  water, how can our tears not be our most essential self coming out? Tears are both baptism and blessing— bound in our inevitable human vulnerability.

This experience so far has already been full of new people, the unexpected, my best friend Maddie, the wonderful women of this world (namely Rosa and Eva), and the knowledge that above all things I exist to love with an open heart.

To take courage

to live

and love

for a deeper sense of freedom.

Sister Peggy, my soul, arrives this afternoon to Suchitoto— I cannot wait to see her. What my heart wants most now is deep, gut splitting laughter and the biggest embrace I can think of from this woman who literally means the world to me.

To end, I will leave you with a blessing/poem from John O’Donahue’s “To Bless the Space Between Us”

MATINS

I.

Generous in love.

By: Denise Levertov

We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,

almost always a lectern, a book; always

           the tall lily.

      Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,

the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,

whom she acknowledges, a guest.

But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions courage.

             The engendering Spirit

did not enter her without consent.

                                           God waited.

She was free

to accept or to refuse, choice

integral to humanness.

                               _________________________________

Aren’t there annunciations

of one sort or another

in most lives?

                     Some unwillingly

undertake great destinies,

enact them in sullen pride,

uncomprehending.

                     More often

those moments

     when roads of light and storm

     open from darkness in a man or woman,

are turned away from

in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair

and with relief.

Ordinary lives continue.

                                    God does not smite them.

But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.

                                      _________________________________

                                                            ——

                                      _________________________________

She did not cry, “I cannot, I am not worthy,”

nor, “I have not the strength.”

She did not submit with gritted teeth,

                                                  raging, coerced.

Bravest of all humans,

                                      consent illumined her.

The room filled with its light,

The lily glowed in it,

                                  and the iridescent wings.

Consent,

               courage unparalleled,

opened her utterly.

Annie Dillard from Pilgrim At Tinker Creek