praying in the field

image credit IG @fiveforkfarms

Somewhere between July and now I went into the field,

It was a full one, harvest days were plenty, but I forgot by flower shears

I always seem to forget them,

and when I have them,

I forget the basket,

and then when I have the basket, 

I can never hold them both

and all this is metaphor

dear friend,

but would you know?

So without shears and a basket,

I've simply been praying in this field,

or was that laying?

horizontal and ostensibly taken over by trauma of past

and others.

well

I am awakening,

and perhaps it was prayer the whole time.

I never am quite sure,

but Au Revoir Simone

is jamming to that old popular tune,

and a candle is glimmering 

scents of cardamom and vetiver

and nobody ever knows what vetiver is 

anyways.

Someday between this type and the next

I am growing.

I may not be that heirloom dahlia,

I'm more textured, oh wait, that's like really textured.

Maybe i'm just a believer 

maybe it's just praying over and over and over with eyes shut and hands swaying

and body wrestling with the ground since the bed is too soft and it likes dirt in all crevices.

well

This might just be the pick-me up, pray to the heavens and I would suggest start

laughing

and 

keep

it flowing

Sometimes it all seems so easy

and the rest of the time,

horizontal

and 

plated,

we can just pretend 

we are laying on a bed full of colorful chrysanthemums 

and

maybe it wouldn't be a lie.

but I wonder,

"what steps can we take, 

to keep ourselves awake?

so easy to fall asleep,

so easy to be weak!"

Attention, Attention.

I WANT ATTENTION

It's coming in clear now,

this is a craving.

no surprise here

and yet...

It's all consuming,

and I'm starving myself 

so I won't feel it.

bing, bing

Radio show host

dancer

music video maker

improver

actress

karaoke lover

---

why does it feel like a whole other me?

Did i forget and then forget again?

---

no no,

eat something healthy.

And try to consume a little less density.

maybe then it will be inside me

and not in the head.

RAW.

i mean,

RAWR.

or...

it's still something new.

like sipping a pipa in the sun

It's like sipping a pipa in the sun, and although the words have been said, I find it still so refreshing.

Refresh and again it's me, but this time I have proof that I was on stolen ground.
She sings to me stories that crack open mine and our hearts melt as we recognize the union.
Surrender.

We've been through war.
We never enlisted.

It caught me in wide-eyed confusion, 'is it me? Is it me?'

No dear one, It is not.

So dip down to the coolness of the deep blue.
I bend head back and laugh at the sky since in truth it is all perfect, and in truth i know it as pure.

And then little delights are peeping through now.

splendid day dreaming of an old love coming back into my life, opening to this new chapter, saying, 'wait, we missed each other before, but no, not this time, this time I want YOU'.

And I cried when you said you wished it could have been.

me too, me too.

But now I am stronger,
now I can say my truths.
Now I know sacred bounderies and I won't fuck this one up.

I want honesty.
I want fun.

We used to giggle with each other and you always made me laugh.

I'm intrigued and excited to have you back in my life, and I don't know why it is happening, I doubt you do either, but under the full moon in the venerable heat of the southern winds, our bodies will know.

Something to this tune: and I don't want to grow up, but maybe if I did, I'd want it to be full of laughs with you and sipping pipas till the sun sets.

Strawflower Fluff

Oh, but what will it be this time?
I've thought about Morocco,
that paradise of colors.

I've pondered the rainforest of Costa Rica...

and even this thought excites and then dissolves.

No, No, No.

I'm still shattering.

There is glass all over the floor, so I buried that broken Selenite, all dying things become reborn, and Mama needs healing, and fast.

Strawflower seeds and fluff have been scattered, but I wonder, will you find a home?

Assuming I'm exactly where I need to be, there is nothing more or less I can do.

And this right here is transforming.

So I make plans to keep plans,
and I'm re-learning to walk.

We slick our feet in Steroids so we can walk a little faster,
but maybe it's the slowing down that I need help with.

I've thought about the very fact that anything is a possibility and open endings look like dead ends when we try to look too far ahead.

Stomach this:

read about food, laugh with friends, snuggle with family, dance to rock music, create, craft, breathe.

It's this that is.

Marrakesh is calling, but be patient my darling, you know you are allowed to breathe, and I prefer you healthy and singing weird tunes.

it's intrigue, at it's finest

It's a wonder that every spasm in my body has a reason,
so these toes could not bend:
burn and burn this body, the
journeying seems tainted or stuck.

And then I broke all rules and ran to the red lights of Chinatown,
to meet a passerby in this life,
someone for the night, and not even that.

I said, 'we are crazy',
and these are the stories we remember.

When asked what the craziest thing I've ever done,
blankness comes, and then failed memory
and then
regret,
I must be able to remember the fun and the absurd.

Or did I never go there?

So these messages, and the finger types
are just to remind me that I am alive.

I am curious,
I have potential
energy.

It's intrigue, at it's finest

and I know how to play this game.

But it's also heart, and soul, and mind consumption.

and for the moment, it's the rush, and the giggles, and the
oh my god, did I just do this?

and yes, I did, and
yes
it's real
and yes.

All yes.

It feels better to say it, and sometimes sitting across from another face, just reminds me
that I can do whatever it is I want.

And I said this what I wanted,
so here it is.

punch this line

Waiting up for the punch line,
but morning arrives dark and dreary once again.
I'm here for the laughs and the flowers
so punch me somewhere else then.

The amber and sandalwood are helping,
nude lips and talking to cute strangers.

Perhaps we are doing the best we really can.
Wallpaper bathrooms are beautiful because they are small and hold impact, so I suppose it's all in these small details. The purging and the dreams, the comforter hugs and my hands in your nylon hair. Whatever the cause, I'm itching for the release.
I asked for belly laughs and you enjoyed my line,
so clarify, own, and be bold in what is, and all the days are really just reminders of our own insecurities and judgements of the other.

but today I said I couldn't be in this world, not for the moment, and I returned to numbing this soul.
And later, It felt better, so I went out and had a laugh.

Really, it's all too simple.
and to cry is the best medicine unless the sun is shining and flowers are in my hand.

My friends say it better

I sent you flowers
but they'll arrive all wilted-
is our love like this?

Most gifts turn to trash;
people don't like what they get
and give what they want.

Checking my email
every ten minutes or so
I'm unpopular.

Do you wonder why,
though the world is full of peace,
the news is all war?

With such conviction
we profess the opinions
we stole from others.

Nothing is wrong with you,
yet your insecurity
grants you great problems.

I get the feeling
our parents knew each other
and had these same talks.

Don't hold on to tight;
all you love and give away
is yours forever!

Moving so slowly
with tender flesh on coarse ground,
snails feel everything.

With money you've changed:
you stopped fighting for freedom
once you could buy it.

I consume petrol,
meat, plastic bags and leather
time trumps my morals.

Where's integrity
when everybody's going
past the speed limit?

all words above from "This is not HAIKU" by Brian Dolphin (since friends say it better, and you are my friend).

Sent to eat the world

Hey, did you hear?

We were sent to eat the world!

Knaw on every crevice that hangs limp -folded over sideways-

broken,

bent.

Eat it all.

Munch the seeds, beads and glittery machines -

the silly cookoo locomotion things,

and all the beings who pretend to be too proud.

Let's go ravaging!

Fill your tummy with local goods,

earthen dirt, sod and sand -

until the earth stops turning

since there is no one there to turn for.

And then, with one big hiccup,

Spit     It       All        Out.

Relish in the release.

We only control our very being and even this is decided for already.

Relinquish yourself.

You eat and eat and eat

but must we remember what we eat we become-

and I don't want that chocolatey mess up on me.

Not now,

not ever.

To change the world is to fill it with songs and

smiles.

So eat up all the sadness, then

regurgitate it into

LOVE.

Friends, we've got work to do,

and I'm already knawing on some bone.

you were all thinking it

PHAROAH AND THE IMAGINATION ARE WORLD-INCENDIARIES.

THEY CONSUME.




-rumi

Hungry for fish

I called in the wellspring and your water poured down.
I wrote down, "BUZZ," and in another dream bees were creating honey, and for me too.
Swinging in the space of in-between.
Unknowns and all the could be's -
but this where creation lies.

Body moving - heart pumping -
sway with me here in this spaciousness.

We call in your Astounding love -
I prostrate full onto carpet, it's dirty but not soot.
Blessings pour out and it's not even asking of you.

Just be in this right here - kisses on ground-
yes, there are so many ways to kneel but I just want You - and the yearning is full and possible.

I said, "I miss you," because my heart was yearning for the body of another when all there is is You.

My body belongs to your wellspring.
So when I ask for joy, it's You I'm seeking -
to fill me with your overflowing love.

In this inter-web of being-ness, my soul quenches for your stream.
But I am that stream, and the fish inside -
I'm hungry with the fishermen,
I'm the boat and the boy on the dock laughing out loud since he saw a duck quack and bob.

But come back to me here, since this dream is mine now
and the swinging was always the best part.

I wont fall, even if I try.

Since your wings hug my torso and I am alive inside of You.

Tight tit shirts

And this heart was feeling all too numb & metallic,
so I put on tight tit shirts and danced with no illusion.

Full in splendid movement.
The raw and uncontrollable -
since this is the only way the blockage moves.

I am the iron fire,
and the strength to melt.
I am the iron and the stuck-ness,
the body and the shell.

If we recognize in this hilarity that I am all these that are and can be
then the music starts to unwind this overly filled sponge
and I am no longer on earth -


but flying in between the vital dance of songbird and
your
eternal love.

We might all be a little Chaga High

Chaga high
and those rose buds.

We caravaned in,
took a seat,
said we made it,
and then we all were laughing over Cognac elixer
and your medicine food.

Delights and treasures.
It's not serendipitous,
it's just the way the world works,
and with this paradigm shift
there is much to do.

When we become the rain

Rain water and that infinite glow.
Your castle has been sieged and I remember the river of truth -
so I dropped my neck,
you let me submerge
in you.

Body comfortable
I'm not even skin or bone
so it melts away and I'm not swimming
I'm just being and
the force
stops.

When we become the rain, we are finally ourselves.
And as they prayed for rain, "Morid Ha'Geshem,"
I dripped out tears.

The Tzaddikim used to take one shoe off in shul and it says, "and then it rained!"
So we must become the rain for Mashiach to crack through her hardened shell.

Words are contrite -
I feel the sickness of parting and the emptiness of a dead party when all the guests go home and it's cups and empty bottles left before me.

There is still your castle of water,
so I must dissolve.

Since we die everyday,
if only we surrender.

I remember those patterns

When the tv screen goes blank, and the denial cracks into anger, there is only one thing left to do, and I remember those patterns.

I remember the gold and gild. I remember the black lace and the velveteen purse too. 

I tried to get rid of them, but they keep coming back like memories of us skinny dipping in the Mediterranean. The way the golden orb coated our skin in glow and the way your eyes shined only love for me, I cannot give it away.

I will line my new travel bag in these and embroider those memories too, since some patterns you never forget, even though we try to change them always.

You told me once that love is all there is, and I took your heart and smashed it on the floor since I found ice inside and I don't like spoiled milk.

You see, it wasn't you and it wasn't me, it was our pattern that came out lopsided and scratchy. We wore it, sewed it, loved on it, and smelled it's richness but the fabric was woven poorly and it started to tear not too long after we took it off the loom.

This is the lifecycle of the fashion trend.

Quick.

They say bell shaped curve and for the innovators, such as us, we rode that wave long and hard until we weren't trendy anymore and I was looking for gold while you were still wearing blue and we clashed, my dear, we just clashed in the daylight.

But nightime, it didn't matter, we cuddled close, we said our blessings, we felt each others smooth skin and drifted off.

Each day, we relied on the night. 

The bringing together of broken bits, you with the pins and me with the needle, and we stitched together our fabric as we dreamed.

But morning woke us abruptly too often and we tore apart all the seams we had just made.

So when I tell you this pattern is off, please believe me.

I'm the one that studied textiles and how to sew a collar.

It was new and it was old. It was everything to crave and so much pain.

Listen to this trend report:

Unabashed, powerful and strong. Streaks of mauve, golden coins and tight, tight tank tops. Bold decisions, patience and honesty. Clear communication, date nights and pajama parties.

Thank you for the sunshine glow and the shadow behind it, 

I'm remembering what I forgot, 

the power inside,

the delights of mini cakes,

the passions and the heartache

it all makes me who I am, and I'm ready to weave once more.

new refrain to an old song

Creative musings.

Creative Direction.
ECO-Bungalow
showhouse organization
Caribbean-Moroccan-Indain Inspiration
Sustainable high design farm events
Interior design
My own creative design firm
AZI JOY DESIGNS
Homestead Lifestyle
Bringing the outside in and the inside out
flowers, tablescapes, dinner parties, food


Vision
Travel
Collaborations
Designing with dear friends and for dear friends
Market research of what is out there
highlighting NEW and exciting young professionals with talent

Being affordable
High end design and accessibility


The work.

Start at home-
Photograph what I can do here
Make our room gorgeous and inspirational

I dream in flowers

                                                             image from floraculturalsociety.com

Spring-ing into a new job.

Heirloom flower farming, floral design and product design 

Blessed for the abundance of the universe bringing me to this moment.

now where to begin?

one step, one step

If I fully participate in everything I do, then all will be rightfully perfect.

x

return, return, we must return

 Zinnias in our hair, music in our hearts

It's been two years since I've sat down and written a blog post.
I'm always in and out of these computer fads.
And yet, it has been a bit since I've written in a paper bound journal as well, 
so I am reclaiming by art, my writing, my creativity and saying,

"There is no better time to return than now".

And so, I'm returning to me.
Returning to joy and flowers, yes many flowers, and you'll know why soon.
Returning to a part of myself that relished in blogging, and pictures and the rest.
Instagram has taken that and I still run with it there,  you can follow at PungentOranges.

There is newness in my current place.
I've moved to California.
I'm in a beautiful partnership.
I'm starting a new job tomorrow (flowers!)
I'm building a beautiful garden in our backyard and learning all the way through the process.

There is a lot to be grateful for.

So let's return to the present, the now.

Let's make our passions known and awaken to the abundance that gratitude brings, daily.


More love.