deadline

our new collection of handbags are turning out goregous!! against all odds (including our manufacturer almost backing out as he's completely overbooked). but we worked our ninja magic powers and he's back on board to complete our set. we've been working around the clock, midnight nearly every night.

it's been very fun and gratifying. you just get bursts of excitement when you see a vision become a real live piece.

Cheers - ninja chick

big gulp

there is torrential rain pouring down. for days, on and off, like nothing i've seen before in LA.

these next two weeks are going to be nuts. we are sampling a whole season in a week, and shooting with a full crew and then shooting it for catalog. gulp. the prototypes can have nearly no revisions, imperfections. it has to be like clockwork. my production head and i will be working around the clock. wish us luck!!!!!!! then we are off to nyc. seriously gulp. we were under the gun like this last time too, but i think we have even less time this time.

business as usual.

did i happen to mention that each day as a soul owner of a business is a total gift of surprises, both tender, ellating and irritating? welll, today's nice delight is the power completely out -- and won't be up for seven hours. its a black out on our studio block from the sobbing rains.

so. coffee in hand, en route - had to re-route and take over a friends home office. invasion of the fashionista's! it's fun. we're a very adaptable group. at my coffee spot the barista said 'oh you must be so excited! day off!' i'm like ... o hells no. we were all collectively panicked to loose a day of work. we simply can't. way too much to rock on!

everything all at once

everything all at once, all the time. - entrepreneurial life motto.

i swear, every single moment running this business is entirely unique - incredible heights, enriching lessons, catapulting fun, and insane challenges that have brought me to to the floor.

today has been a good day. we are finishing our second season of bags in time for show and it's caaa-raaazzy. of course. we have to make 6 body styles and shoot them (come up with the shoot concept) and then shoot them separately for the catalog (and design and put together the catalog) and then fly with with them and dozens of other stuff to nyc. in two weeks. that normally takes months. but we are game. and the body styles are gorgeous, we are all very excited about them. i can't wait to show these.

(you can see why i don't have time to date).

teaching

quote from "the way of the peaceful warrior" by dan millman::

"'love is not something to be understood; it can only be lived.'"

the character in the book realizes that his mentor/sage/teacher has been giving to him, training him extremely hard physically, never letting up a moment even though he silently had a heart condition. he never pulled back. he gave everything. to which the mentor said, 'better to live until you die'..'i am a warrior, so my way is action. i am a teacher, so i teach by example. some day you may teach others as i have taught you - then you'll understand that words are not enough; you, too, must teach by example what you've realized through experience.'"

midnight dinners and dancing sugar elves in my dreams

wake up first thing.

mind says, "why. why the bacon. really? were alllll those bits o' bacon necessary drowning out all the pretty little leaves? ... and then the cookies. really? twelve triple ginger mini's? right before i hit sack?" last night thoroughly ready for slumbeeville about to be carted off to freudian fueled dream-land i'm fading out and suddenly i have a surge - a sugar surge. like a peculiar jolt of injected perky-alert ... what humoured me most was that i had the audacity to wonder why.

ninja. in progress.

:)

hiya.

burrrrrr i'm freezing. one time i took lizard (bff supreme) to the beijing modern dance troop's interpretation of the full album of "the wall." it's her favorite of all time so i "inspired" the press office to give us two tickets - midway through the show i looked over at her and she just had tears streaming down. she's a cool bird that one. not a cryer. and every now and then, she'll let me see. see her. isn't it amazing, i *want* to see, i'm her bff, the safest person of all to see and yet deep inside there are voices of conviction in most of us, "don't show someone this, who wants to see it anyway?" "why burden someone?" because it's a seriously cool gift that's why! i'm honored by someone feeling safe enough to share with me.

a funny thing happened when my book came out ... in it i share (slightly mortifying) stories about myself to illuminate the six secrets of the ninja. i'd notice that there were certain people who knew me for quite a while and always had some sort of candy coated social distance yet after they read these (embarrassing) intimacies about me, they quickly endeared themselves a lot more. i had not changed, they had not changed to me, but all the sudden they snuggled on up. it was peculiar, and enjoyable.

it's amazing - the walls we hide behind. palaces around the self. firing spit wads at fellows and ducking behind red bricked safety. intricate, coded passwords required for entrance, "we'll lower the castle gate if thou shalt be tall, gregarious, honest, smart enough to fix my problems, and smarter still not to tell me how ... if thou will never speak strong words, catch the hives of insecurity and breakout flirting with everyone in a five mile radius, will ever be in a foul mood or invariably human whats so ever - amen and welcome."

another brick in the wall. and o how they are built.

it's the one thing we all seem to want - love - and it's the one thing we all seem to shield ourselves most ferociously from - the chance at it.

and me? i'm no hero. a ninja - hell yes. a hero - hell no. sometimes my wall is so perfectly built i can't see beyond it even on my tippy toes. someone (and you know who you are - :*)) emailed me today about the wall that climbed up around them recently, surrounded by a murky moat of wounding. i get'it. i dig. there have been times when the whirl-winds of life slaaaammm me to the ground and leave a whipping, skin-scorching, grammatically correct email in my in-box in its wake. and my response to that? hide, well. life throws me down? i say - "falker, thattt's all you got?? i can do better." and that's just plain not right or ninja-ly. truly, my instinctive response to a blow dealt by life is to quite agree with it's aim and stay down for the count.

i like the ninja brother MLK Jr's end of one speech "If you can't fly, run; if you can't run, walk; if you can't walk, crawl, but by all means keep moving." warriordom is all about movement. it's about staying in. what is the "in" you are begging off, inching out of the room, spreading grout, adding brick, keeping you from him, from her, it, that, they, all?

yes it sucks when people are nasty, hissing cruelty in terse, anger infused verbs and nouns poured like draino, taking everything down with it. and it's impossible for me to smoke sugar out my nose and purr, "they didn't mean it, i believe in their best intentions." no. not so much. sometimes, honestly, i believe in peoples worst intentions. i believe they did indeed actually mean to scratch with that claw drawn. but here's the path of the warrior, not necessarily to put on the "positivity blinders" and think blindingly bright thoughts over all shadows, no, sometimes shadows are our teachers! in ourselves and in others. the path of the warrior is to see these dark spots in others and in ourselves, notice it, and then work to find a way to accept it, to forgive them or yourself. self/you/he/she. we.

the real coagulation happens when i tangle up with the very dark pit of someone and am somehow left bloody from it and am able to say, "okay, that's really shit of you. but alrighty. you must really be hurt, in a loootttaa pain." when i love someone i don't want them to be in pain. the compassion comes from being able to see past my own stone facade and see, understand where their tentacled roots have dug deep into the soil of their past and can only allow them to sprout protectiveness, biting words, defensive reactions, withdrawn wilting. to see that they are just human, and "best intentions" so set aside, they are fallible and f***ed up and eccettera. just.like.me. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. i can forgive you - i can *hope* to forgive me.

so anyway. i hear you. it's tempting to spoil away from the world in a castle top and stew over what "he, she, or the IRS did." i'm right behind you on that. but ... it's just ...sorta ... boring. the scenery never changes when sitting stale in that one, solitary, sedentary, untouchable place.

so.

draw the bridge and invite one in.

xo


---------------------

right now?

drinking:: tangerine juice

thinking:: how cold it is outside and how bad i feel for those who have no where warm to sleep tonight. how can we afford to bomb humans and homes in countries around the globe and yet we can't keep local humans sheltered.

stinking:: cat litter

:*)

honey

hiya ninj's.

i went on a hike yesterday and i was sorta appalled by my foggy senses. i have this theory, that the more we tumble through life exploring our taste buds, blasting through hot sauced incidents, that inevitably the very expanse of experiences dulls our buds, blurs our sight from streams of constant layers of life.

i've been a wild woman, boundless. right out of college i got a team of women to fund a documentary (that i certainly didn't know how to make) that took me to kathmandu and on a wild, rich adventure. i was constantly seeking heights, deep diving, surging senses, high all the time from experience. the delicious soft touches of something constantly new. saturated colors tickling my sense of sight, adrenaline speed chases on a motorcycle at night in bali, surfing, traveling alone everywhere, staying in the most sketchy area in bangkok - where a rotting wire fenced off a court yard, across which i could see local chinese gangsters toiling over money. large grey underwear drying the night on a line. holes in the light green bedroom wall with hints of marigold on it's edges, sleeping next to my pocket knife and thinking, i like the edge of this experience, to feel secure even here - i can feel safe anywhere. and the breakfast the next morning upstairs in a small, humble "cafe" where all the locals just stared at the white woman until human glances and smiles and barriers broke down and magic tickled in. the "bellboy" dressed in fading pre-war sage colored uniform toured me around the other rooms, the sights and his growing excitement touched every part of my curiosity. in the jungle of northern thailand making out with a french surprise as the moon fell over rice paddies while we were stranded from a storm, swans gliding across the paddied pond, frogs chirping a song. suspense.

this was me. for a decade.

then my business landed me and time passed and i grew subterranean roots, the highs stopped coming from the craze of the outsides but starting reaching inside, leagues deep.

but i wonder -- did all of that living, that adrenaline thrill, all the cultures tasted, the kindness of a stranger in madrid while lost, the curious divisions of old and young in budapest, the pregnant silence of that bowl of borscht while no one spoke the same language but whole stories were told and understood, did that tumbling rolodex of living cause the cities so foreign finally to blur into one single effortless city, finally, slightly indistinguishable from the brilliant next. did i dull my taste buds by trying too much? i remember flying into a new interesting city and i felt the tarnish, i felt the subdued maturity like a weight, like a sack of sand i carried. i didn't get excited like i used to - bubbles that raced to the surface, every glimmer of new information like a pop! pop! pop! bursting.

now i've burrowed into my business and for a year (or years) solid i'm not sure i've taken in or really seen the scenes flying by me. sigh. :) i guess my pendulum swings further than most? i flew so far that way, into tangible, tactile experience, then i hermited myself into a myopic tunnel of creation. stubborn this one!

that question has quietly mulled over in my mind over time - did all that incredible living deaden my senses a bit to new pages turning?

i'm easily charmed by the simplest things in life. plump water drops on a leaf. a smile from a stranger. the waving, rushing stream of black and white fur as a skunk tucks into a bush. but man, i drift away from seeing by the hamster wheeling thoughts of business, lists, nexts, think think think.

the greater challenge isn't in changing life to meet some peaceful imperative - tea drinking, job quitting, hillside soul searching. the greater challenge is in weaving a sense of presence, a way of calm into the speeding river of your life, as it is, today. now.

i don't need to change the scenery, i need to change my sight for seeing it.

as i've been writing this, i had made a plate of fruit. out of habit (the do.er in me, the insistent, multi-tasking, lots to be done person) started charging into the fruit as if there was some goal, place to arrive, complete and move onto the next. woooaaaa, slooowwww. i wasn't even tasting what kind of fruit it was, if you held a gun to my head and asked i wouldn't know.

slow. an apricot, a tender, fibrous, slightly sweet apricot with my dad's bee keepin' honey lightly dropped on top. the first time i tasted the honey from the bee’s he keeps i rushed in a spoonful and thought
"yeah that's cool honey," until my seriously ninja friend tiffany took just a bit, lingered in the moment of it and announced that it was the finest honey she ever tasted. i took a second dip, sloooweerrr this time. hmmm. yeah. hmmm. well shoot-me-in-the-foot, i can taste pedals. i can taste dozens of silky rose pedals, blue colorado wild flowers, i could taste spring.

i want to know how to be here more, in the life i have, for the honey in front of me.

that's the mission of the ninja, to keep the sense's new. The concept of shoshin – (also explored in Ninja Chick), the warriors fresh slated mind. the effort at continual birth. past all the inhibition of memories making new moments stale. there's this zen technique of "naming" moments as a way to stay in them. so brain doesn't float off into thinking-ville. ... typing. typing. biting on lip. breathing in. out. noticing. thinking. ... just as easily the instant can slide away right from under you, or you can stay where your feet are, in the sticky, rich amber colored, pedal flavored moment.

:) love to the warriors.

ready

hi ninjas.

i had one hellofva week on me. :) it was full on and it's taught me a lot. i'm blown away by my team, my two staffers at my business. they are just the back bone. they are so good. in every way. in their passion, intention, skill sets. i'm softened by them. particularly by what they each offer as they see how incredible the climb can be for me at times. it's UNREAL having a business. it's everything all at once all the time. and if there's anyone on earth ready for that, it's me. but some days? i feel capsized. and i did indeed have one of those days this week. one of the girls said i have a crap poker face. it's like that process when you cook where you heat a broth and seperate the fat, the fear has separated away and has shown itself for what it is. fat! i think the process is called clarifying - and how appropriately so.

i feel ready, completely energized and ready to separate what is fear and what is true and take this all the way. all the way. there's so much energy behind it, support. it's funny tho how in your primary involvements in life your shadows can rise to the surface. they rise to the surface to be seen and released. and my primary commitment now for a while has been my business. so if there's ever something i have to deal with -- like shyness, not being confident etc - then it rears itself in my work and if i don't deal with it, it effects this sacred place i've created, this thing that actually supports a string of other families as well. so the weight of dealing with my own "stuff" actually is heavy, and pertinent. which is cool. it's like an invitation. a constant participation. a friend was considering leaving the country and volunteering for half a year far, far away if that person's film didn't do well or even if it did and they wanted to know my thoughts on the plan. i said that sometimes staying can be more important. that although the other plan is all dressed up as adventure, that sometimes the greater adventure is staying and confronting what's in front of you. failure. success. tangling up in the arms of life. of love. of hurt. of the thousand moments poking gently at your skin.

that.

staying in.

is it.

that's the warriors calm. staying through regardless of result. letting the fire heat up your world enough to see clarification. see what is real and release the rest.

xo L to u. particularly to ohio and chicago. you know who you are and i love you.

warriors

a note to the ninjas - i'm happy (shocked) to find that a nice slice of readers of my book are men! i've gotten lots of feedback from guy-ninjas who have read the book and found it... helpful!

any way quick note for the day :: a warrior is someone who looks fear in the eyes and asks her to dance.

be be be.

i've been re-reading the book "path of the peaceful warrior." the entire book has one, simple, delicious point - to be in the moment.

be.

be.

be.

just be.

which is very hard for me.

task mastering, doing five things at once (i was reading the book while working out, while listening to tunes, while drifting off thinking about work), for example.

to be or not to be, that is the question. i was walking into the locker room after my "power reading" when i look up and ask myself, where am i? here? really, how often am i walking through the world and yet i'm deep in the furrows of my intricate thoughts, like a film flickering in front of my eyes playing out and covering the actual setting i'm walking through? i don't even "see" where i am. all i see is the make believe conversation replaying itself, the list of to-do, the what-next's. i looked up and saw the green and yellow tiles of the gym... that i'd never seen before, i saw them as if it was the first time ever walking through that hallway. staying in the brimming, husky, rotund moment we are (safe), actually we just "are." existing. is that enough?

there is a benefit to staying in the moment. we aren't in the overwhelm of expectations or the judgement of the past. of relishing in sundays heavenly sleeping-in-ness.

aaa. back to monday. in my corner of the world. lukewarm decaf at hand. toast in the belly. and lottts to do.

:)

hi ninjas!!

i've had a really nice weekend. i didn't work today ... alll day today. it's a miracle! i have a fresh new take on '08. i'm getting myself a life! it's amazing. it's as if i went catatonic in '07, dipping my head into a tunnel called work and not coming up for air until thanksgiving. which is when i popped up for air, i came to in san francisco at my best friends house *just sobbing*. i had been fighting off a cold, came straight from intense work and then a long drive that i wasn't at all present for. i get there and we are to rush off to turkey day dinner (which everyone already suspended for my later arrival). and i just. couldn't. move. i was beyond repair. pooped. this year just nearly killed me quite honestly. it's all entirely true what everyone says about having your own business. you better LOVE it. cuz it is everything. and this year? was just one intense bon fire after another. and frankly? if i were to ever "break" it would of happened then. but it didn't. cuz'of'the-kick'a'ass-ninjitsu.ness.

so. i'm in SF, in a rolling chair sobbing. it just hit me like an eighteen wheeler - i had given up everything. including my family. including my joy. including that sweet little devious sparkle inside. my friends and family very generously let me slide away. i mean, they knew how much my business meant/means to me, so they let me get away with being far away - not showing up for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays or being required to connect at all. i've never felt their support so pure as i have in this year, in that and many other ways. and yet what i had realized is that i let myself just slip away into this social comma. nothing counted if it wasn't for a deadline.

but praise allah! i'm back! like a ninja attack. and i'm ready. for the tickle nosed tango dance of life. this weekend (past the embers of a late night) i woke up early to register for a writing class at an art park in my hood. it's an incredible place. and i went on walks with friends. and generally recharged. and have been about town more. and feeling those sweet touches of life's eyes glancing at me again . the irresistible smiles of strangers. the light falling through thick trees, the symphony of plump water droplets weighing on leaves and tumbling to the ground.

i've just come to the conclusion that life won't calm down for me. i have to calm down for it. i've chosen a vivacious (read: insane) life. and it is *never* calm or regular or normal. every week there's some new impossibility dropped on my lap. usually before 10a.m. (absolutely not an exaggeration). then there's the 200 emails i'm behind on answering and the dozens of calls and etc. so. last year i just thought if i stayed longer, gave more, pushed harder, that i'd get a handle on it. you can't get a handle on a rushing river - always moving, always changing. brisk! you have to get smarter, more giving. more centered. so i'm dropping back into center. regardless. in spite of the great clock of to-do ticking in my head. it's helping so much already. when i'm worn out, i make mistakes, then spend twice the time unwinding them. when i'm fresh i make better decisions. i take better care of my team. and that was also demanded last week and i was 'there' for it. i was 'in,' in my stride.

anyway. there's a ninja theory. about good. about growing good habits. life is like a garden - you've got your weeds (bad boozy, sugar coated, late night habits) and your flowers (good nurturing habits that keep you anchored, flexible, alive). you can spend all your attention on the weeds or you can just water, sun and grow those flowers until they tower over all else.

this is getting pollyeanic isn't it?

:)

i just want to be here more for family, for life. it's so hard to do with my business. i can slip so easily into its endless folds. and i admit - i've USED that at times. when i want to slip away, from feeling, from obsessing on a relationship or argument or potential argument. i can easily get lost in work. but life begets life, and passion...passion. the more i have on the periphery of work, the more i infuse work with it.

so. to that point. i'm off to go do some reading, relaxing and movie watching! freeekin' heaven. heaven i tell you.

have a good one to my ninja loves.