It Only Takes A Smile

         This past week my friends and I hosted our own vision board party.  The last time we did this together as a group, with the exact same attendees was nine years ago.  Vision boarding is an annual event for me, whether I am teaching a class on it, or completing it solo.  There’s magic to setting our goals for the year with communal intention.

         I knew this would be an all day event.  When I teach workshops for this purpose, they generally lasts 90 minutes.  It’s never enough time.  When you do this project with loved ones, time is lost.  For us, we wanted to make it extra festive.  We added yoga and delicious takeout cuisine.  Therefore our vision board event turned into a 11 hour event. 

         Verbalizing our goals aloud in a group is a form of accountability.  We are not just vowing to ourselves what we want to achieve, we are sharing it in a group.  When we do this, search for images that symbolize our desires, and note to others what it is we are seeking, others in the group offer ways they can assist in finding you what you need.   The universe can assist us in manifesting what we want.  But we must be intentional and focused.  

         The other thing with vision boards is it isn’t magic.  Yes, what we put on these poster boards can come true, but there’s a missing component.  We need to take action.  Each day we need to narrow our eyes to what it is that we desire and work towards inching closer to it.  Our friends can continue to serve as accountability partners after the vision board is completed.  We can continue to check in on each other’s progress, and steps that need to be taken for this to manifest in our lives.  If we do not achieve what is on board, we must also wonder is it something we actually wanted in the first place?  Or is it simply a carry over from last year’s goals?  Goals need to be refreshed and decluttered annually.  If not, they will remain take away leftovers forgotten about and tucked away in the back of your refrigerator.  Is it still okay to eat?  Are they moldy and need to be thrown away?  Ask yourself this each year as you revisit this vision board process.

“Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward.”-Nelson Mandela

I love the sun. When I was a child, my mother would always say “the sun loves you.”  I am half Filipino, and generally have tanned skin that rarely burns.   The sun is my life force, particularly in the dreary months of January and February in cold parts of the world.  I’ve been living in the UK for 8 ½ years, and now Paris.  On the shortest day of the year, the sun seems to set nearly close to 330 pm!  There is little day, and along with that it can feel as if there is little hope. I long for every moment with the sun, when she peaks out from hiding.  

But currently I am in California, a place I used to live.  There is a heat wave where it is near 30 degrees Celsius (practically 90 degrees Fahrenheit).  Although I love the sun, it’s almost too much for me at the moment.  I didn’t pack properly and my unexposed skin seems to burn slightly easier having lived in Northern Europe a bit too long. 

Despite this I am navigating my moments with the sun. I wake up with her as she stretches over the downtown Los Angeles horizon and slowly brightens the light in my bedroom.  She seems to wake up earlier here than in Paris.  I have crept down outside after my morning daily discipline routines are done, and spend time with her before she gets to her peak.  

It’s interesting, although the sun traditionally has been known to have more of a masculine energy, and the moon feminine, I still call the sun “her.”  In the English language, we don’t use these masculine and feminine articles, but in the romance languages it’s necessary.  Everything is categorized as masculine or feminine, for example:

                                     Sun                               Moon

Spanish               el sol (masc)                          la luna (fem)

French                le soleil (masc)                      la lune (fem)

For some reason, in my heart, I seem to view the Sun and the Moon both as feminine entities.  This may be due to their life giving energies, which are the foundation of our days.  Yet even in yoga, the Sun is seen as more of a masculine yang energy: doing, active, busy, productive.  The Moon is more feminine yin energy: reflective, slower pace, and intuitive.  But when I lay in the sun after long periods without her, I am not busy.  I am interacting with the sun in a feminine way.  I am taking her in, simply being versus doing.  I am receptive to what she wants to give me.  Perhaps this is why I tend to idealize the sun as her, especially when there have been long moments without her.  

It’s easy to forget how much I appreciate the sun, when I’ve lived in places like Hawaii and California.  The sun is a constant that is taken for granted, and is only missed during a period of endless cloudy days.  But when you reside in a dreary city or country, the sun does become an old friend that you are catching up with.  You don’t want the day to end.  

And so today I sit in the sun, take her in, and embrace our sacred moments together (before she reaches her peak).  

I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days.
Henry David Thoreau

“Legacy. What is a Legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see” /Lin-Manuel Miranda

On my long expedition this past week from Paris to Los Angeles, I was able to catch a film I have been longing to see on the plane: In the Heights.  This was Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first musical which he wrote as a college student, but only recently was released on film.  As I watched this, I couldn’t help but be pulled into the emotions, drive, and motivation of the characters.  

There is something spectacular about almost every musical I have come in contact with, ever since I watched Olivia Newton John and John Travolta in Grease.  In junior high, my friends and I wanted to emulate the Pink Ladies, and nicknamed ourselves with their names.  We found joy in being silly, learning how to hand jive, outburst into song, or recite the lines from memory.

Although I love books and film, there is something different with musical theater.  My connection is heightened when their lines are sung, versus simply read.  It’s pure brilliance: storylines, dance, sound, emotions, desire, conflict, and drive all contained into words that rhyme.  How I used to long for the world to exist as a musical!  As I’m watching this magic being performed, I can feel everything the actors are feeling.  The inspiration is contagious.  I’ve caught what they have been trying to convey.   And my motivation to live a fuller life exists for days or even weeks after the show is complete. 

I have never been an actress, and was only in one high school musical as a background singer.  I do not yearn to be on the stage.  But I do want to embrace the drive and zest for life these performers exude.  There will always be a special place in my heart for musicals, and I’m so grateful for the brilliance that playwrights and lyricists have shared with the world.