My Ancestors Walk With Me

My Ancestors Walk With Me

In the Judeo-Christian faith, prayers go to a higher power in the heavens.

For myself, who was raised partially Shinto partially Catholic, my prayers are lighted through incense and a Virgin Mary candle, my higher power walks with me.

You see, this light is in me and outside of me.

These are thanks to my ancestors.

Though my ancestors run through my blood, they are in my present.

They are my teachers they walk with me teaching me lessons about the everyday.

They also teach me lessons about the light.

Sadly, but a though necessary, they also teach me the about the darkness.

You have to learn about the darkness in order to appreciate those days where you can dance in the sunshine.

I do not believe in a heaven and hell.

For those like me who believe Shintoism like me, once you die you remain on earth.

You also walk alongside God or Kami.

But, they are also Kami, because there is no difference in Shintoism.

My friends and cynics are often confused by my beliefs.

Because remember,

I also light a candle of the Virgin Mary and hold a rosary.

I was baptized Catholic.

I am half Japanese and half Mexican.

How could I possibly negotiate both worlds?

It is through the world of spirits, God, and my ancestors that I find peace.

Through these two worlds, my ancestors, and deep spirituality is where I have found my most profound moments of creativity as a writer.

So, while my some may have their muses.

Others have their guardian angels guiding them across bridges in the middle of the night.

I have my ancestors walking by me side.

They are always with me no matter where I may in life.

Even in my darkest of hours.

They have pulled me back into the light.

So, despite your beliefs, I challenge you to do shake things up a bit.

We all need a little guidance from time to time.

Light some incense.

Think about your teachers.

Your grandmother who taught you how brush your teeth when you were just a toddler.

You think she is no longer with you.

But, if you light some incense.

Say hello and ask how she’s been.

Think about that memory.

She will walk along side you too.

-Lucy Tambara

Rose Quartz and the Importance of Self- Love

It is true, “All is fair in love in war.” However, through all of the strategies to entice our first love into that first kiss or sheer panic of wondering whether they will return to us after a break-up, we get so caught up in the games that they we lose sight something so incredibly precious and vital to winning the game of love: ourselves.

During the honeymoon phase of the relationship we spent our days absorbed obsessed with our new beaus. We stop writing our own unique life stories that were going on before these lovers entered the picture.

If you really want to him or her to return, here is my honest advice to you: put the phone away and stop sending him the texts about how you are soul mates that are fated to be. Also, close the browser to your Gmail account that has the email that begs him or her to return. Take a few deep breaths and instead start to write an alternative ending. Rather than focusing on them and their return to your life, take all the love, devotion, and passion that you have for them and return it back to you.

You do not have to enter this battle alone. One way I personally won the battle, was enlisting my trusty rose quartz.

Rose quartz the stone of unconditional love, it opens the heart chakra. While it has the capability to manifest love in all forms, it serves a higher purpose. Rose quartz provides its owner a sense of inner peace and self-love. It gives them the courage to heal and begin to feel okay to walk in their own shoes as a single girl at 32. While meditating with rose quartz, one also begins to realize that in order to truly bring in true love in you must at first have love at your home base, and that is within.

It does take time to heal from that first bad break-up. However, rose quartz when used properly, help realign your mind and soul. It helps you to understand that you need to always love yourself first and to never ever lose yourself in a relationship. To lose yourself in another is one’s ultimate demise and peril.

So rather than writing those texts to my former lover, instead write new stories about your amazing authentic and incredible you.

-Lucy Tambara

Love Them Enough to Let Them Go

Love Them Enough to Let Them Go

I call it a little tiny black cloud. My former lover calls it stormy seas.

The logical ones call it depression or maybe sadness.

The writer in me calls it heartbreak.

When it rolls in, my little black cloud, I ask myself if it was all really worth it.

The writer in me once again intervenes and remembers those nights where we kissed under the stars, electric.

It was worth it, because without those nights with my muse, I would not have been able to have the voice to heal all of those lost and heartbroken souls out there.

I felt as if for a moment, the heavens opened up for my former lover and I.

Little stars fell down all around us.

I looked at my former lover, at his intense blue eyes, and tears began to form around my just as equally intense brown eyes,

You see there were already two little black clouds already forming around my former and I from the moment we first kissed.

Sometimes you can just intuitively feel in it in the air, you just know when your love is star-crossed.

We tried to outrun it. I ran and hid behind my castle walls. Because he was my knight and shining armor he went to slay his dragons.

The other day, I looked out into the distance from my castle. I saw my former lover off in the distance, he was weary and still slaying his dragons. His little black cloud had grown into a massive one.

I took my bow and arrow in hopes that I could shoot his cloud down. I thought if I shot it down he would feel all of my love and itwould foster his return.

I shot my arrow straight through his cloud. Stars fell all around my knight. I know he feels my love.

Rather than waiting for this return though, I did something different.

I released him.

Sometimes you have to love someone enough to let them go. Your knights often need go off and slay their dragons alone without you. Also, I have climb down these castle walls and start new adventures. I have my own dragons to slay too.

But, here is something important to understand, love always remembers.

You will always take those memories of kisses under the heavens with you.

So, for all of those fair maidens out there, broken hearted waiting for their knights to return:

Love them enough release them.

-Lucy Tambara

Burnin’ Down Our Villages

Burnin’ Down Our Villages

“You're gone and I gotta stay
High all the time
To keep you off my mind
Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh
High all the time
To keep you off my mind
Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh
Spend my days locked in a haze
Trying to forget you babe
I fall back down
Gotta stay high all my life
To forget I'm missing you
Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh”  -Tove Lo “Habits” (Gotta Stay High)

A very wise man once told me that in order to regain sanity, control, and get over the loss of a lover one must burn the village down in order to rise again.

All is fair in love and war.

Before one can cover the village with gasoline and burn the motherfucker to the floor, you do need to do a little frolicking or what I call those brilliant flashes of “cray, cray”

Exhibit A, see the lyrics to the song above from pop dynamo Tovo Lo “Habits”.

It is currently the soundtrack to my on again off again love tryst with a certain blue-eyed musician.

Thank you, Tove Lo you just wrote exactly what most of my nights have been like without him.

I actually embrace and own these nights of “cray, cray”. Though my grandparents are probably looking down from the heavens at me in utter confusion as men chase me all around parties while I scamper around in pink tutus, I wander around Wilshire with open containers of hard liquor, or I sit and jam out to my guitar high on molly. For better or worse, these are moments that are going to shape me as a writer and as a person.

So, while we need those moments of passionate kisses, I also want to offer to you an alternative: we really do need those cray, cray moments where we make complete messes of our lives.

It is through these self-imposed catastrophes we can finally just light the match burn the fucking village down. What do we really have to lose at that point, really? I mean the shit is beyond repair at this point.

Kaboom!

I look through the shambles in my pink tutu and through the ashes I am digging around like a lunatic. I am not sure where to even start. How do you even rebuild? I mean he’s gone, you just burnt your village to the ground and you are all alone and crashing off of the molly. There is really nothing left to really write about either so you go silent and just sit with a bottle of Henny looking at the mess you created.

Good job, Lucy.

But, that is why every good writer is never left alone to her own devices. She always has a really good mentor (editor) to guide her through these moments.

“Dig through the rubble. Keep digging. Write about the one love you have been avoiding. It is easy to write about those recent ones. But, that first love never is.”

I am digging through my village. Pictures of my exes and then I pick up a small ring;it sparkles and is quite beautiful. I hold back my tears.

It is my wedding ring. Next to the wedding ring are my divorce papers.

So while, I may have gone off the deep end with my blue-eyed musician;It is my first love, I married and then ran away from to the mid-west with another man. I also never spoke of him nor wrote of till now.

But, I had to burn my village to get to this point.

There is a sense of urgency recapturing the story of my first love. Like the law of attraction, I might just get it right this time and will the love my life into my real life story. No more non-committal musicians, cheating grad students, and flaky photographers. I may just welcome back what I had with my first love, my best friend who always walked by my side and never let me fall from the heavens.

So the very wise man (my editor) was right, sometimes you do have to burn down your village in order rise again.

-Lucy Tambara

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God Walks among Us: Konkokyo

Add God Walks among Us

My grandmother who served as my mother figure during the earliest years of my life, she passed away when I was five years old. It hit me pretty hard. However, the reverend at my church handed me a very pretty red box and opened it. It had a circular mirror. I looked at him, confused. He then said, “Your grandmother is still with you. She does not go away. She is always with you. In the mornings just walk by the box and say hello and before you go to sleep you can also tell her about your day.”

For those coming from a Judeo-Christian backgroundthis sounds a bit nutso. For those airy fairy new agers, you are not cutting edge. Your ideas about the universe and all of us being interconnected actually are part of Shintoism and its little bastard sister, Konkokyo, or Konko. These ideas have been swarming around Japan since the 19^th century.

I rarely went to church. My Catholic mother grew up in time when the Catholicism was quite stern; it freaked her out enough to allow my brother and I to pick our own spiritual paths. My brother is super devoted to Konkokyo. I am not much for commitments so I blended Mexican Catholicism with Konkokyo. I go to confession and pray with a pink rosary, but, I also meditate. However, I also believe that the universe is (kami) God and not some old dude with beard looking down on us. I also will go on daily walks so that I can be in touch with my grandparents who are now both dead. Not a day passes where I do not think of them.

InKonkokyo, everything is seen as in divine relation with each other. Kami’s (god) energy is constantly bouncing off of us. In regards to the concept of heaven and hell, we are actually right now dwelling among it. When we die, we do not get booted to some palace or inferno in the sky. We remain in unity in this world and with kami.

Since every religion has its core beliefs, with Konkokyo they are quite simple: they focus on the now. They center on the betterment of humanity through practicing gratitude, being humble, helping one another, and meditation. The explanation for suffering and sadness is because people have become cut-off from the interconnectedness of humanity and the universe.

The great thing for me has always been in my darkest of hours, I have never felt completely alone. I know that my energy and my grandparents were right there by me interlocking. It did not make the mourning and loss any easier but it gave me another tool for coping. Having my grandparents in my life taught me to be hard-worker, a lover, and highly creative. It through my time with them I also am beginning to feel a little more comfortable in my own shoes.

By: Lucy Tambara