Journey of the Heart

On my fiftieth birthday I was walking on the shore of the Atlantic ocean and spotted a diver in the water...  I immediately remembered my days of scuba diving off the coast of Santo Domingo when I was sixteen. The gulf of years between sixteen and fifty became pronounced, but even more poignantly, I realized that it was time for me to accept that I had passed through youth.  It was a stark, sinking sensation of moving from denial into an uncomfortable truth.  This is the first poem I ever wrote. I had never thought of myself as a poet, and the thought of writing a poem never occurred to me. These lines came out spontaneously. I felt quite awkward when my esteemed writing friend, a poet herself, declared me "Poet Pranada," but her confidence in me gave me permission to write other poems.  My relationship with my writing mentor has convinced me that each of us women should go out of our way to help each other find our voice and ...

Before I came to my yoga mat in January of 2011, I was not aware and awake…  I was still living under the cloud and delusion that growing up with violence and chaos created. As I began to surrender to the practice of yoga -letting go of my stranglehold on so many patterns that were necessary for me to survive- I began to reconnect with the Truth of my Being, feeling my Spirit grow and get stronger with each deep breath. So many people, myself included before I began to study and understand the practice of yoga, believe that yoga is about poses and postures.  In yoga the poses are the vehicle we use to unearth the treasure of our true selves, as we move out of the past to experience the magnificence of living fully in the present moment. Yoga helped me move out of a rigid black and white view of myself and the world into the rich textures and technicolor of vibrant living strong yet flexible, graceful and grounded and above all, free!  (The fo...

As for all poets, poetry is for me a vessel - a way, a channel - by which I am able to reflect, consolidate, heal when needed and move forward...  Of course, it can also be a way to express the simplest ideas - a way of holding everyday things up to the light and enjoying the way they sparkle. Painting by Kimberly Crick We are now in The Year of the Serpent , according to the Chinese Zodiac. It comes round once every twelve years. I wrote my poem, “Serpent” years ago now - in 1998 - before the last “Year of the Serpent”. For me, this poem holds elements of all the reasons I write. It’s a reflective poem, looking at my self and how I deal with life, how as human beings we all, to an extent, manifest elements of the serpent, in the way we get knocked back and damaged and need to crawl into our holes for a while before shedding that old skin and moving on to bask in the sunlight again. It’s also a celebration of life and the fact that we are part of t...

As a lover of the Divine, grace has been a focus of contemplation in my life... Starting in my youth as a practicing Catholic and, most recently, as an aspiring student of bhakti- yoga.  There are many descriptions of grace, what it is and how it is given, within a spiritual context: “Blessings that come, regardless of merit, God’s mercy, God’s gift, having a quality of kindness.... The key that is required for self-realization, must it be earned? But deeds alone are not enough, grace and mercy are needed.... Divine favor, Divine care.... Exclusive to the practice of devotion, surrender to a Divine Source.... Do nothing, yet get everything, in a non-material sense...” And what about experience and Mystery? I am not an expert on grace nor the words to describe it.  Recently, I participated in a yoga retreat at a friends lovely yoga studio and home in Vermont. It was a sweet combination of meditation (japa), asana practice, walks in the woods, silence, c...

At the age of eighteen I traveled from my home in Italy to India on a personal spiritual search… My journey ended in an ashram in Vrindavana, or Vraja . T he early nights in the ashram were long, hot and humid. But they became tolerable by the mesmerizing sound of Veena singing. I loved sitting in her room listening to her poetic songs. Once, Veena taught me how to write a poem: She asked me to visualize an emotion and consider how to express it in words. So I started writing. From then on whenever I felt impelled to write my realizations, or feelings, or emotions, it was natural for me to express it through poetry. To me, poetry is the language of the soul on this long path to surrender and to love. As a practitioner of bhakti yoga, I need to cultivate a soft heart. Poetry helps me greatly in this sense. I was taught that in bhakti yoga the ultimate goal is "never to forget Krsna", so my poetry is mostly about Krishna. The book Gopala Champu by Jiva Gos...