Listen to the voice from within

Always trust your gut. That's what my Mom always taught me. Making a more permanent life here in Kurashiki means doing more professional things like following through on your word when you give it. Loyalties coincide with the same ultimate goal: be a better teacher, a more open-minded human being, and good things will follow. We always reap the rewards of our earnest preparations as well as face the consequences of our not-so-glorious moments.

Yet, life will always find a way to balance itself out. We are given the challenges that we CAN meet when we can meet them. All the tools we need are at our disposal. We just have to follow the signs, life's little markers that signal the path we should take. And always trust in that inner voice that sees without and within, the omnipotent energy source or awareness that completes us in our humanity and in our relation to the network of life-forces.

A new harmony is ready to set in.

Shivers and laughs

You know you've been in Japan too long when...you follow the trend and buy this season's ヌーボー ("New borduex" is a kind of wine that isn't aged) after watching the news announce its start.

So, fall is slipping into winter and December is nearly upon us. 'Tis the season for end of the term tests and people with cold masks on their faces and 簿年会(end-of-the-year parties). Christmas cakes will soon be selling and the catalogs for New Year's Day special food 「おせち」are already passing through many hands. I recently got my flu vaccine, while Katsumi and Lilica have scheduled theirs to be sometime within the next coming weeks.

Life slows down in the cold of Japanese winter, like synchronizing your heartbeats to the gusts of wind. Next year, I'll start teaching an English conversation class and I'm prepping for that, too. Yet, much time still remains...

We've been eating lots of daizu (soy beans) in our school lunches. Dinners have been hot and usually out of a pot. Lily's still growing, but has a very fresh memory of the recent events which she details to whoever is around, whether asked or not. She makes us laugh at her sharp awareness of details, like the facts that a red cup "is not blue" and that it's "no thank you" to more dinner but always "PLEASE" to the mention of dessert. She continues to make life a joy every day and she binds our family up in very good times.

Lilica's dancing video

Lilica loves to dance to "Pearly Shells" and other songs from her Mickey Mouse "Beach Party" DVD!

Of the moment

I've read that we are simian creatures of flowing time, that we, as humans, can't ever grasp the "moment" for its own sake. We are either comparing online events to what happened before or we are assessing how they will affect the future plans we've already conjured up. Can it be that we can't fully appreciate, live in and internalize "the preesnt" just for what it is?

I don't think it's impossible for us to live in the moment as it is. In fact, living in Japan for over 5 years has taught me a lot about how to see life through different perspectives and how to appreciate the little things in each and every moment. There is a balance between people relationships and with the environment around us. We sometimes are very powerful when the time has come for us to be and we sometimes have no control over the events of our lives. Yet, we do decide how we can live and how we can best face any moment with our wisdom, our grit and our sheer life-force from the origin of life.

Doing our best in every moment, regardless of the circumstances, trials and advantages, is living life like a ceremony. Living each moment in a sacred way, just for its own sake makes high moments in our lives when we are the best human beings that we can be. If we fail and still have the courage to smile, rise up and brush off the dust from our shoulders, we win.

Our minds listen to many more words than can be spoken by the fastest speakers, that is, our minds have the capacity to wander while we listen to someone make a point. No doubt the readers of this blog have already thought of other things in the midst of reading these words. This is how I know that we can reach our fullest capacities as human beings and live each moment to its fullest. We owe it to the precious lives we were given to live them, without shame and with our best efforts. Before we return again to the source of this great awareness, we must strive to live.