What fun, visiting a slightly erotic lingerie shop.
Pushing my body in beautiful sexy white, red and black leather and laquer.

And then paying with my visa without blinking. Making the odd joke ‘now I’m poor and rich at the same time’.

And then unexpected acquiantance walks in. Haha, what a pleasure to meet. Little twinkling in her eyes as she meets me downstairs, for I forgot something rather important and she flushes, ’thought you’d left the store’. I don’t mind I say and I mean it.

We’ll be both having fun.

I wish I could save you, but I can’t.
I wish I could hold your hand and say everything will be allright,
but that’s a lie.
I would like to comfort you, heal you, caress you, feed you, hold you, until you die painles, but that’s wishful thinking.

But I can sit next to you and be with you and I won’t run away when you get scared and cry. I will hold your hand, I will cook for you and I will heal you
as good as I can, as long as I can, without holding back .

And I will look after myself, remain true to myself, comfort myself, so I can  be strong and vulnerable at the same moment. I won’t lie to you and don’t look away.

I see death winking over your shoulder. When I give you a healing I feel the wings already pricking in my back. Mama bear and papa bear and my quardian angel are holding out for me. I will be love.

Tiktok tiktok, time leaking.

Love can hit you hard.

Myy solar plexus opened up.There where passion arises, I feel pain and strong creative energy. Real life boost this is. Makes it easy to give without any expectations.

Do men realize what happens to a woman when she opens up for him and let him enter in the court of oaths?

Are we ready to receive?

I would like to get into devine love, to make love without emotion, without past, fantasy or covetousness, pure body meets body to feel what devine love is.

How to leave my ego behind before I hit the sheets?

I would like to free myself from emotion and become soft and easygoing, giving, easy, silent and loving.

(The last part is based on Barry Longs remarkable words, thank you.)

My mother rings me to tell me ’t she isn’t coming, because the trains are having problems. An hour or so later as planned she gets her act together and is sitting in the train. Stupefied I think, why didn’t you ring before? But never mind she’s on her way.

Me being already on the spot where we made our appointment, make another round to sniff the atmosphere and eat, buy a sunny summerdress and watch the people.

As long as I can remember we visit every year the Pasar Malam, an Indonesian fair in the Haque. My parents both born in Indonesia while their parents were working there because of the recession in the thirties.

Of course there were years I didn’t come along, but since my father died in june 2005 I feel this urge to go there. He was homesick for the land he was born. He hated the cold wet long winter in Holland. He never told how bad he was treated in the Japanese camps being a young boy separated from his mother at ten and put in a menscamp all by himself. He only told stories about blowing up frogs, trying to get food, growing food. Surviving.

My mother told me they broke the fingers of my fathers mother because she didn’t want to give attention to the Japanese soldiers being a beautiful blond. They probably did something else to her as well. She would never be able to play the violin anymore, but she survived until she went crazy.

My mother gives me a book: the hell of Tjideng. About a Japanese camp, not the one she’s been in, but the camp commander she did meet. And he was hell. I read, I cry. Totally unforgivable, how the Japanes soldiers humiliated the people in the camp, being numbers without a face bowing in the hot sun for hours with bare foot, being kicked up if you fell down, getting less and less food, watery soup and slimy porridge, getting sick and sleeping in the doorway with too many people to fit in a house. Not being able anymore to fight amongst each other about the food being stolen by your fellow campmembers, being bitten by the rats at night and seeing people die day by day. Loosing weight and power and not permitted to smile, sing or whatever emotions, but bow for the Jap. Cleaning the lavatories too smelly and full of shit by by too many people being used. Loosing all your belongings by moving all the time from place to place, carrying your own stuff.

I want to understand, I try to understand but I can’t. I am fascinated by Japanese food, packaging, ikebana. I am an okido yoga teacher, a Japanese form of yoga. My parents were tortured by Japanese soldiers during the war. I can forgive but not forget.

My mother is always afraid, she lives at night. she says she can’t get angry, she’s too afraid what happens if…. me to.

I’m so sorry for all the pain.

Every year at the fair we share, the memories will come up, my mother will have restless nights again. She’s weird, collecting whatever rubbish she can get her hands on, picking up every rubber band, button or shiny object she finds. Her house is too full and too dirty to live in, but she lives there, we are not welcome anymore. So I meet her somewhere else.

And I try to understand, I want to understand but I can’t. It hurts too much.

I haven’t got a clue, but somewhere up there, there’s something cooking in the cosmos. I just decided to move out of my permanent working space: too expensive, too many practical things to work out,  and rent a fitting parttime studio. Now the owner invites me for a conversation to buy  the goddam place.

And I would be very stupid not to get into negotiation. Not for keeping that place as a working space but making it into a nice appartment to sell overnight. Because it is a beautiful location on the best street of the village, situated close to the city , near the highway and in walking distance of nature. What more can you get?

At first I only heard them, but not knowing what to look for I started asking around reproducing the sound I heard: eeeek, eeeek, eeeek. It sounds a bit dramatic, troublesome. My neighbour told me it was a tawny owl.
Next thing was to spot them. My friend told me just to sit down at  sunset and wait. So next day when I heard the sound I ran out, sat on my bench and waited. I didn’t have to wait long. Over my head  the  owl silently appeared and  disappeared again between the trees.
For weeks they were here, in the area. Noisy, alarming, two little baby owls squealing and their mother, in her silent flight, always near. Sometimes the little ones were really showing of. Sitting in the top of the pinetree or playing with each other.
Today, after being away for a while, I was hoping to see them again, but sadly enough it stays quiet.

Some men are like dirtflies, they seem to smell when you are available, then let them self drop and transform into a tick which keeps on sucking unto they are satisfied. That is if you let them.

Give me a break.

You need three things for a good relationship: intimicy, commitment and passion. Usually you don’t score at all three points, so you need to work.

Who said a relationship is easy?

When I look back (better not, but maybe I can learn something from the past) I always missed out on one of the three things. In my first real relationship there was no commitment, because he loved the bottle better.

In my second relationship the passion was lacking, no sex doesn’t keep me  going.

In my third relationship  we started out quite allright but in the end the intimicy got lost, and then the passion died and my commitment was lost.

How sad. So I leave.

But I heal,  I sit in my garden, watching the flowers, bees, birds, frogs, mice, moove, grow, change, like me.

Sometimes I become the tree, the horse, the person walking next to me, but most of the time my head spins too hard. But I can I will, be. From thinking to feeling to being.

Maybe mister right shows up, who understands that you need to work to get everything allright. That women have other needs then just being satisfied in clitorial orgasm. They want to be loved all over.

Why is it so hard to be free?

I was the girl where you always would find the door half open (or was it half closed). With a huge wall to overcome. How hard I tried to break it down brick by brick, but every time it seemed to rearise in full potential.

Hot tears gleaming, full speed on the motorway, music loud.
No escape now. Bye bye happines hello lonelynes, I think I’m gonna cry.
Hello emptynes, I think I’m gonna die. As a matter of speaking that is.

Humour, it saved me a many times, o well, yes I’m sad, but no I’m allright. And a beautiful smile, urhg, inside something breaks. Ugly it is. There’s this nasty creature on my shoulder, babbling away, yes, no, today, tomorrow, yesterday, and no she isn’t, and yes she did, and no not him, and yes he will and of course but no way, never mind, he is, he was , he will, she get’s along, she hates, she loves, she trembles, fuck you all.

Sometimes I feel connected with nature. But most of the time I feel disconnected. In the shadow. Feeling blue. I play my act almost perfect. As long as you don’t look me in the eyes. Hello sadness.

Why?

Why is it so goddam difficult to be happy?

Do we need to be happy?

The cat sits in front of my computer, waiting to be carressed, nestled in my computerbag, grmbl, hairs, grmbl, a nice glas of cool white dry wine is waiting to be consumed.

Is it possible to be happy and unhappy at the same time?

One part of me is dying, the past, aha, erlebnis, sehnsucht, jawohl.
One part of me is coming alive, full potential, aha, erlebnis, I dance, I cry, I scream, I talk, I love, I eat, I live, I sleep, I work, I manage, I….

Where I start sharing, my feelings, my love, my life, my present.
Will you walk with me in the dark forests of the soul and guide me.
Halleluja, are you afraid, I am.

Osamu Tatsamura, okido yoga teacher came to visit from Japan and teach in Laren at the okido yoga dojo and teacher training. This time not to teach us more kyoka-ho but trying to tell about and feel the difference between okido yoga and other yoga styles.

For me okido yoga means: listening to your lifeforce, acting from the heart, feeling solid in your hara. The main difference with other styles of yoga is that you become more aware of your capacities by regaining your lifeforce. Okido yoga is not one style or program you follow but every teacher gives his own interpretation because we are all unique and  changing gradually. The basic principles;  breathing, strengthening exercises, asana’s, doing opposite things as you are used to, put yoga into practice in your daily life, being dedicated in service to others, becoming aware of your needs: good food, exercise, knowledge put into action and social activities are making  okido yoga  a complete lifestyle.

I feel less fear
I become more sensitive, of what I need and don’t need
I’m aware of deeper emotions

Feeling really sad one moment
Feeling inner joy at another moment

And sometimes I can feel connected with nature and being united

I was very grateful for the opportunity this weekend to study with Tatsamura, he is such a wonderful teacher,
light and compact, flexible and strong in every way.
Putting knowlegde into action, learning from the difficulties in life, and receiving them as a gift, making yoga a lifestyle,
doing the opposite to balance, taking in the suitable, not taking in the unsuitable and eliminate the unnecessary.

As they say, the first few days after the AUM you’re very open. So don’t try to fix the argument with your neighboor, get in the mood to ring an old boyfriend to settle for once and all and don’t even think about telling the handsome guy you have this special feeling and…

No let it sink in and breath. As I do now.

For during the AUM you are in an emotional rollercoaster but after, you have to get back with your feet on the solid ground and feel earth.
To get in touch with earth I dig with my hands in the soil, plant seeds, weed, get my fingernails all filled with black earth and feel the dried skin on my hands.
As I massage the hands of my clients in the office I cannot notice but how soft their hands are to the touch and how solid and strong my working hands are.

After one of the AUM’s I have this conversation about my work. One of the things I do, is teaching childeren in primary school how to cook healthy. From the first day I started I thought I’m never gonna stay long.. But now I already teach at the same school for the fourth season. What I show the children is my passion for food and that healthy can be mjammy as well. What I like is how open and forewarded the children are and some really pick up what I say and try out things at home and hidden qualities are opening up. What I don’t like is playing the schoolteacher, getting tthem to listen to me, how they don’t show any respect, keep on nagging about all sort of things, hit eachother and scold at each other.
But then this man I’m talking to says: sometimes you have to give up your own ambition and put your knowledge into service. And I keep on coming back to our conversation.

And then we had this amazing weekend with Osamu Tatsamura a Japanese okid yoga teacher. I must tell you about him, but later, my class is waiting.