Promises of Spring and Water

Promises of spring and water

On the night of the spring equinox, which was also my birthday, I was sitting on a tatami mat floor in the little apartment that I share with one of my cousins in Okinawa, marveling at a pen I was gifted earlier that day by one of my relatives. I was turning it over and over in my hands slowly taking in every detail. It was a shimmery dusty pink color and personalized with my name printed on the side. To my even greater delight and wonder, there was a red ink stamp of my Japanese middle name hidden in the top. A pen with my many names! (2 but still, it felt very poetic). What if there was a pen for each of us covered in our many names made especially for writing the story of our lives? The stamp featured a kanji I wasn't familiar with and I caught myself curiously wondering aloud if there were even other kanji configurations? A cousin in the other room immediately started researching, his eyes widened and quickly presented me with 2 new ways, which felt like a special gift, same as the pen. Since you're in Okinawa this one makes sense.. he said presenting me with the options as if I were in a jewlery store and being shown the shiniest jewels. Everything felt surreal and extra special in that moment like seeing some new beauty emerge from the ordinary everyday for the first time. Like when I discovered the petals of a beloved electric magenta wild rose that grows everywhere here were the shape of hearts. I knew the individual characters of the name well, because they are everywhere here, they stood for peaceful ocean. And in some strange otherworldly moment within the ordinary it was like I was being presented with a new name.

Looking at those characters for peaceful ocean took me back to this photo shoot from last fall, the one that began from a vision I had while giving Reiki to one of my students. The vision was of me swimming and smiling in the deep ocean. For days and weeks afterward I tried to grasp its meaning and metaphor and everytime I thought I had something it would slip away. Kind of like water itself. Not knowing what I was doing I started looking for ocean photographers as if that would give me some repose. And after weeks of searching I got connected with a local photographer and booked a session for as soon as possible. It was a huge stretch especially since I'd never done anything like this before and had just been sick for weeks. But the pull from that vision was so strong, and my curiousity so great, I couldn't not follow this through. It felt like I was standing on the edge of all I thought I knew and peering into a vivid expanse of pure possibility. What was I being guided to see and understand? What was the water showing me?

Before that vision (and before I got sick) I had just finished an exciting year of personal and professional growth with my Reiki practice giving in-person sessions to wonderful souls who visited Okinawa for the first time (including one of my students from NYC!), while teaching and keeping up with my regular schedule of clients and virtual clinics and Reiki tea ceremony offerings for folks in the U.S.; it was a glorious year of stretching. The challenges of continuing my Reiki practice in another country are endless but the soul growth and learning about Reiki in Japan has been priceless. So this photoshoot, whatever it was going to be I still didn't know what I was getting myself into, felt like an end of year gift somehow, and I've learned sometimes we have to be brave to accept our gifts.

Getting ready for it reminded me of my first loves, art and the creative process. I went to a saltwater pool and practiced holding my breath underwater. It was a small gesture of preparation but felt very much like the beginning of the creative process. The one thing I love equal to my love for Reiki is making art because they both put me in direct contact with my soul. In fact the first time I learned about the world of healing was after college while at a dance intensive, on my way from California to NYC to pursue my modern dance dreams. For me, healing helped me have clarity about my art; it helped my soul to have accelerated expression through the medium of my body. And my art always led me back to healing myself. So I dare say at this time of complete and almost religious devotion to Reiki, it was was making sure I didn't forget myself, to not get swept up in sessions and offerings. The lure of an extreme life of service which was highly fulfilling but also empty in its sacrafice wasn't what Reiki mastery entailed, for me anyway. Reiki was reminding me that I must also always do what brings me personal joy, and never forget to honor and feed my artist soul. The vision wasn't a metaphor, but more like bait. And I was gratefully hooked. I wondered, what would the water teach me next?

And so I kept going like a child enamoured by adventure and love. When the shoot day arrived I nervously got into a taxi with all my snacks, pink umbrella and sun screen, ready as could possibly be. The driver, a middle-aged Okinawan man who probably knew every road everywhere, was like me in that he had never been to where we were going: a smaller island thickly blanketed in tall dancing sugarcane fields and little else. As we drove over the long bridge that connects it to the main island, the endless expanse of turquoise water on either side of the car coupled with the bright morning sun completely mesmerized me. It was a wonderland moment that felt like we were floating or flying above the ocean, and like crossing over into another time.

The waves were particularly rough that day and after an initial dip I was honestly unsure I'd make it through the day. This was not the shallow end of the pool! Too exhausted to move anymore I rested under the generous shade of an adan tree, completely done for. That's when with all my defenses down I heard the sound of the waves as if for the first time. I noticed the shapes of the shadows of the leaves on the sand, birds pecking for food, hermit crabs appearing and then disappearing, kids laughing, all. I thought about how far I'd come, and not just the hour in the taxi but farther, dramatically farther. Something in me told me I'd be alright but I did have to keep going. With the morning sun becoming increasingly brighter and the photographer about to arrive there was nothing left to do but continue. I made a promise with myself: I'd do my best and try for one good shot.

Shortly after, the photographer arrived, and we got started. I could feel the creative process taking hold in all the familiar ways I dearly missed and slowly, gradually it breathed new life into me. That's when, like a most patient host to her many and varied guests, I opened my heart's doors to all my self-doubts, also big embarrassment and shame and everything else that had me at the zenith of anxious discomfort, literally swimming in the unknown. Mostly because with the photographer there I couldn't escape I stayed with the delicate retinue of emotions like an experienced trainer might stay with a young and wild horse. Then, perhaps something shifted because, I started laughing. It was laughter that came from a far away place and it moved through me like a beam. It was like my skin was laughing, like I was really and truly loved. All around was that ecstatic butterflies-in-the-sky momentum and it filled me with vitality I didn't know was available. I kept going in that direction, emotionally following the laughter, and as I did, I felt safer in the water and the process of creative flow began to carry me in an entirely new away. It was like the water held me like a mother.

Even though the waves were big and scary on the surface, underneath it was serene and stable, like a warm and steady hand of peace. It imparted to me a sense of strength I forgot was already mine; I was reminded. It was like giving and receiving Reiki, experiencing perfect peace in mind, body and soul. I was swimming within an ocean of Reiki. It was then that I discovered another lesson of the way of water which is that it's much like the promise of spring in that they both give us hope. The promise of spring is that it will come eventually and water (all water) leads us back to, or reminds us of, the peace that's already in our hearts (underneath the surface of things).

Being in Okinawa has been nothing short of entering a university of water. From the sacred springs, ancient wells that are perserved and revered like relics from the water gods, and of course the wild ocean itself that surrounds the many islands of this archipelago, water has been a part of my daily life in a new and special way. I was born on the spring equinox so I'm very firey in personality and demeanor, even though it's only my closest friends and family who know this! So I need the wisdom and help of water for balance and healing for my fire heart. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why Reiki led me here? This experience in the ocean was one of many since being here that have helped me not only to make peace with my cultural identity by healing or undoing impasses to clarity and loving, but also, for the first time ever, I've learned (because I've been shown) how to gently and carefully hold my own heart, and also, how to be kind. 

I've been able to discover a new meaning of peace by being with my mother's people, powerful water people who naturally embody oceanic peace. Okinawa, because of its rich history as an independent kingdom, the Ryukyu Kingdom, and its continued struggle to maintain autonomy and cultural sovereignty despite America’s ongoing military presence and Japan's colonial rule, is a place that exudes peace. And not the kind of peace that comes from conciliatory compliance, but from a rising up from its collective emotional well of shining laughter deep within both land and people. This unquellable laughter brings with it an emotional forcefield of self-reliance, like a secret elixir of longevity, a pure and sacred power. It's an innovative kind of peace that's available to us all, though tricky to master in our world today. But perhaps we just need to be shown?

The water has also taught me that strength can be gentle and it can be revealing. Later that day after the photoshoot I discovered a new water shrine for the first time. It was outside of the beach entrance a little further down the road. I saw it as I started my long walk to the bus stop feeling like I had just completed a full day of prayer for world peace. I clearly missed it on the way in and was in half-belief that it was really there. It was the beginning of golden hour as the sun began its dip beyond the horizon, casting an amber glaze over everything. The water was like liquid gold, shimmering peacefully at the center of the grove, emitting a stillness and clarity that came over me as well.

As I peered into the water from where I stood I began to wonder if the way of water might also move backwards and not always forward, as I previously thought. Perhaps it also leads us back to our source, to our beginning.. to who we've always been and will also eventually become? Maybe that's why rivers rush towards the ocean because they already know their destiny?

Just as I was about to turn around and leave I felt the urge to take a picture. I carefully balanced my things and umbrella in one hand while securing my phone in the other and still had two fingers available for a peace sign! I saw my reflection with the pink umbrella above my head, some golden leaves floating at my feet or coming up to me curiously like neighborhood cats. Behind me massive god-dwelling trees and a carved out piece of sky and clouds, the beyond peering in, all gaily crowding in and coming together for the picture. There it all was from the edge: self-discovery, a peace sign, the water bringing me back to myself, and promises fulfilled. Spring had come. It was a good shot.