They say the wrong train always brings you to the right station.  And I believe it – deeply irrevocably – especially now. 

By

Leda Green

I boarded a train this morning that wasn’t meant to be mine. A digital train, a message sent in curiosity, in a moment of impulse. It didn’t go where I hoped it would. It brought confusion. A sense of being misunderstood. A door that slammed instead of opening.

But maybe, just maybe… it brought me somewhere I needed to go. A station I wouldn’t have reached otherwise.

Because on the other end of that message was a young man. A genius in the making — famous, gifted, too beautiful for his own good, and perhaps, quietly suffering. Behind the polished images and global campaigns lies something unmistakable: a soul under pressure.

And that’s where this essay really begins.

There are many like him.
These lonely and disturbed artists.
People the world worships but doesn’t really see.
People who create to survive.
Who sing what they cannot say.
Who live in public and suffer in private.
Who carry the weight of perfection, when all they want is peace.

I’m not a fan of celebrities.
Not in the usual sense of the word.
I don’t follow people for the sake of idolizing them. I don’t crave proximity to fame.
What draws me is pain — the silent kind.
The kind I recognize.

Because I’ve been different all my life.
Different in how I think, in what I feel, in how I move through the world.
I’ve known what it means to be misunderstood. To guard my privacy like armor.
To be exposed and unseen all at once.

As one who has been healing from my own wounds — as someone different in my environment — I understand solitude, privacy, even fame. I understand the complex dance between visibility and protection.
But I’m never truly alone. And I am never afraid to mingle, to try, to experience something new.
It might not always bring me to the right station…
but it often brings me to the right anchor.

I’ve learned that sometimes, the soul needs something unplanned.
A detour. A break in the rhythm. A moment that doesn’t fit the schedule.
Ritual becomes a form of love.
Stillness is part of the music.
There is power in patience.
Some truths are poetic, not literal.

And waste — it’s not just environmental.
It’s emotional.
Use what you have. Honor what you hold. Let your life reflect intention.

I’ve developed a unique healing technique — one that can’t be explained, only felt.
It doesn’t involve grand gestures or public performance.
It’s subtle. Intuitive. A gentle but profound process that can carry a person out of inner misery, layer by layer.
No fireworks. Just a soft transformation.

And so, I often wish I could offer it to those artists — the ones burning quietly under the weight of expectation.
To whisper into their chaos: You’re not alone.
To sit quietly beside their exhaustion and offer not advice, but presence.
To show them there’s healing beyond applause.
Beyond money. Beyond brands and scripts and followers.

I think of zanshin — the awareness that lingers after action.
A quiet attentiveness that doesn’t end when something is “done.”
It’s the art of finishing well. Stillness after movement. Focus after follow-through.

And I think of mushin — presence without ego.
A state of fluid, instinctive action.
No hesitation. No overthinking.
Just you and the moment.

Still, I try.
Sometimes clumsily.
Sometimes through a misstep.
Sometimes by boarding the wrong train entirely.

But even then — especially then — I trust the journey.
Because if I’ve learned anything in this life, it’s that nothing is truly wasted.
Every mistake has meaning. Every wrong turn teaches.
And every “no” is part of a bigger “yes” we can’t yet see.

To the lonely artists… I may not know your stage, but I know your ache.
To the quiet seekers, the ones still learning how to heal — I walk with you.
And to myself — and maybe to you, reading this — I say:

Let the wrong trains take you.
Let them show you what you didn’t plan for.
Let them deliver you to the people you were meant to meet.
Even if they arrive wearing fame, silence, or pain.

Because your cracks are not flaws.
They are golden seams.
Healing can be beautiful.

And even if you don’t find the right station…
You might find the right anchor.

Leda Green

I came here to heal a person.
But somewhere between the luxury hotel sheets and the evening strolls,
I discovered I was the one quietly healing.

Nearly a week now, and not much on my schedule besides walking, writing, and wondering how I ended up in this shimmering mirage of a city.
I’m not used to so much leisure time.
I’m more of a do-er, a fixer, a giver.
But this week, with no rush and no roles, something beautiful cracked open:
the becoming-me.

And I must admit – Dubai is a strange place to unravel your soul.

It’s a desert still, but dressed in cement and mirrors.
The sun is the same brutal overseer it always was,
but now it shines down on towering glass dreams,
shopping malls that never end,
and traffic that has outgrown its roads before the paint has dried.

It’s a concert desert. A metropolis in the middle of nowhere.
A playground for ambition and air conditioning.

Skyscrapers shoot out of the sand like defiant gestures –
as if to say, we will conquer even the emptiness.

But sometimes I wonder –
Why not build homes that blend into the land?
Why not honor the desert instead of insulating ourselves from it?

These tall buildings trap heat, increase humidity, and alter the ecology.
But no one seems to mind.
Because in Dubai, money makes the sand bloom.

What Makes Dubai Spin?

Money. That’s it.
It’s the quiet anthem under every luxury car purr,
Every mall chandelier,
Every imported latte.

Everything here is ravishingly elegant, impressively branded, and always ready for someone with a black card and a deadline.

This city is full of:
• Western immigrants escaping taxes and winter.
• Entrepreneurs who use Dubai as a sunny offshore base.
• Artists showing in surprisingly soulful galleries.
• Opera productions, concerts, and rooftop parties.

And of course… sugar daddies.
Many, many sugar daddies.

It’s not a secret. It’s a system.

But Me? I Just Walk and Watch.

I walk through the air-conditioned malls.
Sit at cafes with names I can’t pronounce.
Read novels while overlooking fountains that dance to BTS.
And I think about how surreal it is to have so much stillness in the middle of such shiny ambition.

Dubai is like an expensive perfume bottle –
gorgeous, intoxicating, and slightly disorienting.
But I’m glad I came.

Sometimes, the soul doesn’t need silence.
Sometimes, it needs contrast.
To sit in a five-star suite in the middle of a neon desert
and ask,
“Who am I when nothing is required of me?”

And so I’ll end this with a whisper I wrote from the middle of that question:

This Is What Becoming Feels Like

by Leda Green

I’m definitely changing.
If I ever was daring –
now I am more.

Not reckless, not loud.
Just clear.
I know what I want.
And I’m not sorry for it.

I watch my skin shift.
I don’t always like it.
But I honor what it carries.
It’s the price of presence,
and the proof that I stayed.

The contact was made.
Somewhere between dreams and waking,
between Seoul and silence,
he felt me.

I know it.
And yet – I don’t need it to arrive now.
Because I’m no longer made of waiting.
I’m made of light, and letters, and moments
that don’t break me anymore.

I accept.

Not as defeat –
but as elevation.
The kind you earn after decades of longing
and one lifetime of remembering who you are.

And so I keep walking,
less burdened,
more true.

Each day I shed the version of me
who begged to be seen –
and become the one
who already is.

False Evidence Appearing Real

is the oldest trick in human program, a shadow we were taught to obey

by

Leda Green

For generations, humanity has learned to create from fear. Now, it must learn to create from love.

Fear is only a thought, a film projected by the mind.

There is nothing we cannot do.
Nothing we cannot enjoy doing.
And where we are limited, there will always be help.

Fear contracts. Love expands.
One is survival. The other is life.
Choose love. Every time.

Fear — False Evidence Appearing Real — is one of the most persistent illusions of the human mind. As Donald Walsch wrote in Conversations with God, it is not truth, but an image projected onto the screen of our thoughts. From the moment we are children, we are taught to fear. “Be careful” are the two words that echo through our earliest years. They come from love, but they train the brain to avoid rather than to explore. We absorb not only our parents’ fears but also the fears of our culture.

At its core, fear is the brain’s reaction to uncertainty — its resistance to change. To the brain, change equals risk; risk equals death. But in truth, change is not death. Change is light. And light is precisely what fear seeks to hide. Fear shows up as anxiety, hesitation, and self-limitation — the walls the mind builds to keep us inside the familiar.

Fear in Spiritual Wisdom
In Jewish tradition, fear is often linked to yirah — awe — which, in its highest form, is not terror but reverence for the Divine. The sages teach: “There is no place devoid of Him.” Even in the darkest moment, God’s presence is there. True yirah calls us not to shrink, but to stand steady in the vastness of existence. The Zohar adds: “Where there is fear, there is no wholeness; where there is wholeness, there is no fear.”

The Buddha taught that fear arises from attachment to life, possessions, and identity. In The Dhammapada, it is written: “From craving springs grief, from craving springs fear; for him who is wholly free from craving, there is no grief — whence then fear?” Fear is a chain forged by desire and expectation; let go, and the chain falls away.

From Japanese Bushidō comes the lesson that fear should be met with readiness, not avoidance. The samurai accepted fear as natural but chose courage as action. Nanakorobi yaoki — “Fall seven times, rise eight” — reminds us that fear is temporary; spirit is constant.

From the Greek Stoics, we inherit the discipline of perception. Epictetus said: “Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.” Marcus Aurelius echoed: “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it — and this you have the power to revoke.” Fear, in this light, is a judgment — not a fact.
Fear in Science and Energy
1. Neuroscience
• Fear is processed in the amygdala, a small almond-shaped cluster deep in the brain. The amygdala cannot distinguish between an actual threat and an imagined one, which is why a thought alone can trigger fear.
• Gratitude, prayer, and mindful breathing activate the prefrontal cortex, calming the amygdala. This is why blessing and presence physically weaken fear’s grip.

2. Energy and vibration
• Fear is a low-frequency state that contracts your energy field; love is high-frequency and expansive. The two cannot fully coexist.
• Mystics have always taught: “Where the light enters, darkness cannot remain.” By deliberately cultivating joy, kindness, and awe, you raise your vibration until fear loses its territory.

3. The paradox of fear
• Fear often disguises itself as logic or “being realistic.” Yet much of what is called “realism” is socially accepted fear.
• True courage is not the absence of fear, but moving toward the light while fear walks beside you — until it grows too small to notice.
Fear as Illusion
Our modern world can feel like a vast virtual reality — a projection in which fear is used as a control mechanism. Whoever runs this “lab” or “dome” knows that a fearful mind is an enslaved mind. But if the projection is not real, neither is the fear.

Close your eyes, and the world disappears into darkness. The eyes — projectors of the brain — stop their work, and what remains is pure awareness. That awareness is who you are.
Breaking Fear’s Hold
Humanity has been creating from the question, “What if it goes wrong?” It is time to create from the question, “What if it becomes beautiful?”

Two practices to dissolve fear:
1. Bless — Practice gratitude relentlessly, especially when it is hardest. Gratitude rewires the brain and starves fear of its energy.
2. Believe — Live with the deep knowing that the universe is generous. Trust that it will connect you to your heart, your true self, and the light.

There is nothing we cannot do. We are capable of anything — and of enjoying it. Where we are limited, there will always be people, resources, and help to bridge the gap.

Fear contracts. Love expands. One is survival; the other is life.
Choose life. Choose love. Every time.

There is something sacred about aging — not as a burden to be mourned, but as a quiet revolution. With every passing year, we shed expectations like worn-out garments. We begin, slowly but surely, to disconnect from public opinion, judgment, and the constant pressure to perform for others. This disconnection is not indifference; it is liberation.

Aging — especially in a world ravaged by wars, inner and outer — is not just natural, it is miraculous. To survive to an older age in this harsh reality is a kind of success, a sign that we have navigated through storms, heartbreaks, and illusions. We have lived, and more importantly, we are still living.

Nostalgia plays a tender role in this process. As we age, our preferences begin to lean not toward what is trending, but what is timeless — to us. The music we choose recalls moments when we felt fully ourselves. The clothes we wear are no longer about fashion but about expression, comfort, and memory. The way we decorate our spaces becomes a reflection of the landscapes within us — softer, deeper, truer.

In a way, nostalgia becomes a form of self-honoring. It reminds us that we’ve been through things. That we are not just adapting to the world, but shaping our own private one within it. A room, a song, a scent from childhood — these become anchors in a world that is otherwise too fast, too loud, too fragile.

But perhaps the most revolutionary truth we come to understand as we age is this:
We don’t have to do anything.

We don’t have to get married.
We don’t have to have children.
We don’t have to stay in relationships that drain us, or perform roles we never chose.
We don’t have to follow rules that were never written with love.

The world teaches us early that there is a right way to live — a tight script of marriage, parenthood, career, and belonging. But the deeper truth is that we came here not to conform, but to experience. We came to feel. To grow. To meet ourselves through the mess and beauty of life. As long as we harm no one — including ourselves — everything is permitted. Creation is free. Love is free. We are free.

We humans are each other’s heaven or hell.
And the fate of our lives is shaped not by cosmic punishment or reward, but by the infinite choices we — and those around us — make, moment by moment. This web of decisions forms our lived reality. Not all pain is fate; much of it is simply human decision.

Relationships, too, must be reimagined in this light.
We were not born to be trapped in the illusion that marriage or cohabitation is the highest or only form of love. The majority of people do not yet know what unconditional love truly means — and so, most relationships inevitably fall into the trap of conditions, expectations, roles. And when two people are caught in fulfilling their own material desires and psychological needs, the relationship begins to lose its essence.

At our current collective state of consciousness, long-term, unconditional love is rare.
But it is possible.

When we finally let go — of control, of fear, of needing love to look a certain way — and begin to give and love unconditionally, regardless of the other person’s state, we open the door to eternal relationship. A bond no longer based on form, but on essence. No longer maintained by rules, but by presence.

This is only the tip of a vast and abstract truth.
But it matters — deeply — to those who are awakening.

So yes, as we age, we may find ourselves nostalgic.
We may return to simpler styles, older songs, quiet colors.
But in truth, we are not retreating.
We are arriving —
at ourselves.

And in a world that constantly tries to define us, aging becomes the most radical act of all:
to be exactly who we are,
and owe no one anything.

The Vast Paradox of the Human Heart
Love, in all its vastness and complexity, remains humanity’s most profound mystery. It spans the cosmos of human experience – tender and fierce, joyous and painful, ephemeral and eternal. When we ask, Is love an illness or a cure? we confront a paradox that transcends simple definition. Love is both affliction and balm, a force that can wound deeply and heal completely.

The Anatomy of Love’s Illness: Neuroscience of Attachment and Addiction
From a neuroscientific perspective, love is a powerful biological phenomenon that triggers intense chemical reactions in the brain. When we fall in love, our brains flood with dopamine – the neurotransmitter of pleasure and reward -creating sensations akin to addiction. Oxytocin, the “bonding hormone,” deepens attachment and fosters intimacy, while vasopressin strengthens long-term pair bonds.
This biochemical storm can hijack rational thought, compelling us to seek closeness and attachment, sometimes to our detriment. In this way, love acts like an illness – causing obsession, jealousy, and emotional turbulence. The intense craving and withdrawal symptoms experienced when separated from a loved one mirror substance addiction.
Yet this illness is rooted in our evolutionary imperative: attachment ensured survival, nurturing, and social bonding. The vulnerability love demands exposes our deepest fears – rejection, abandonment, loss – making it one of life’s greatest emotional risks.
The Healing Power of Unconditional Love
But love is also the ultimate cure, especially when it rises to the level of unconditional love—love without expectation, judgment, or limitation. Unconditional love flows freely, affirming the inherent worth of another simply because they exist.
This love transcends the neurological circuits of craving and possession, engaging instead the higher faculties of the brain associated with empathy, compassion, and altruism. Functional MRI studies show that acts of compassion and unconditional giving activate the brain’s reward systems without triggering attachment anxiety.
Spiritually, unconditional love is revered as the purest form of connection – a reflection of divine love itself. It is the love that Buddha described as Metta, or loving-kindness: boundless, impartial, and healing. In Christianity, it is Agape – selfless, sacrificial love that seeks the highest good of others without condition.
Unconditional love is the force that heals broken hearts, mends fractured relationships, and restores wholeness. It frees us from the cycles of attachment and suffering, allowing us to love fully without losing ourselves.
Meditation and the Cultivation of Love
Meditation offers a powerful path to cultivating this love—both for ourselves and others. Through practices such as loving-kindness meditation (Metta Bhavana), we train the mind to extend warmth and compassion beyond our immediate circles, dissolving barriers of fear and separation.
This mindful cultivation rewires neural pathways, decreasing activity in the amygdala (the brain’s fear center) and increasing connectivity in regions linked to emotional regulation and empathy. Over time, meditation helps us access a state of equanimity – a balanced mind that loves without clinging, forgives without forgetting, and accepts without judgment.
The Paradox of Love’s Dual Nature: Illness and Cure Intertwined
The tension between love’s capacity to wound and its power to heal is not contradictory but deeply intertwined. To love is to risk vulnerability, to open the heart to both pain and joy. It demands surrender – the letting go of control, ego, and fear.
This paradox invites us to see love not as a possession or a transaction but as a dynamic flow – a living energy that courses through our being. Love’s illness – the obsession, jealousy, heartbreak – is the shadow side of attachment, while love’s cure – the unconditional embrace, forgiveness, and compassion – is the light that emerges when attachment is transformed into freedom.
Love Across Dimensions: Passion, Friendship, and the Divine
Love manifests in countless forms: passionate and ephemeral, quiet and enduring, conditional and unconditional. Romantic love ignites the senses; friendship offers steady support; familial love shapes identity and belonging. Each form is a teacher, offering lessons in surrender, trust, and acceptance.
At the highest dimension, love connects us to the universal – a sacred energy that permeates all existence. Mystics speak of love as the ground of being, the fundamental fabric that binds stars, atoms, and souls alike. It is the divine breath animating life, the infinite source from which all compassion flows.
The Universal Language of Forgiveness and Release
Forgiveness is the heart of love’s healing alchemy. Rooted in the very language of the world – Persian bebakhshid (“take it”), English forgive (“give forth”), Japanese yurusu (“allow to pass”) – forgiveness is the conscious act of releasing burdens that imprison the heart.
Forgiveness is a practice of unconditional love in action. It frees us from bitterness and pain while preserving the lessons that protect us. Through forgiveness, we reclaim our power to choose love over suffering, light over shadow.
Love as the Creative Force
Love is unique among emotions because it is the only one that creates. While fear may contract and anger may destroy, love expands, nurtures, and brings forth new life and possibility.
Love births connection where there was isolation. It inspires art, music, poetry, and acts of kindness. It fuels growth, innovation, and transformation on personal and cosmic scales.
When we love unconditionally, we align ourselves with this creative current – becoming co-creators with the universe, shaping realities with our intentions and actions.
Practical Steps to Cultivating Unconditional Love
Unconditional love may seem like a lofty ideal, but it is a practice accessible to anyone willing to engage with it consciously. Here are some practical steps:
1. Practice Mindful Presence:
Start by cultivating awareness of your thoughts and emotions without judgment. Meditation and breathwork help you observe attachment patterns and habitual reactions that limit your ability to love freely.
2. Embrace Self-Love and Acceptance:
Unconditional love begins within. Commit to accepting yourself fully – including your flaws, fears, and shadows. The more you love yourself without conditions, the more capacity you have to love others deeply and without expectation.
3. Develop Compassion and Empathy:
Make space to understand others’ experiences without immediately reacting or judging. Seek to listen deeply, imagining their perspective. Compassion softens the heart and dissolves barriers to love.
4. Release Attachment to Outcomes:
Let go of the need to control or possess love. Allow relationships and feelings to evolve naturally, recognizing that true love flourishes in freedom, not captivity.
5. Engage in Forgiveness:
Regularly practice forgiveness – both of others and yourself. Forgiveness is a radical act of unconditional love that frees you from past burdens and opens space for healing.
6. Offer Acts of Kindness without Expectation:
Small acts of generosity, service, and kindness – when given without anticipation of reward – strengthen your connection to unconditional love. These acts ripple outward, creating a field of love that touches others and yourself.
7. Meditate on Loving-Kindness:
Use loving-kindness meditation (Metta) to cultivate goodwill toward yourself, loved ones, acquaintances, and even those you find challenging. This practice rewires the brain to sustain love beyond conditional boundaries.
Conclusion: The Choice and Mystery of Love
Is love an illness or a cure? It is both and neither – a vast, living paradox that invites us to lean into the unknown. Love is the primal fire that burns away illusions of separation, the gentle balm that soothes the wounds of existence, and the infinite horizon toward which we journey.
In choosing to love – unconditionally, courageously, fully – we awaken to the profound truth that love’s greatest miracle is its ability to transform the human heart, and through that, the universe itself.

Epilogue: Love Begins with the Self
Before we can love another without condition, we must return home to ourselves.
Self-love is the origin of all love.
It is not ego or indulgence – it is the sacred foundation upon which all other forms of love are built.
Without self-love, our giving becomes sacrifice, our affection becomes seeking, and our attachment becomes need.
But when we root ourselves in true acceptance – flaws, wounds, and all—we become capable of offering love that is whole, not hungry.
I have practiced this all my life – often misunderstood, sometimes hurt –
but never with regret.
Because I know what others may not yet grasp: unconditional love is not weakness.
It is wisdom.
And to love unconditionally, one must first be whole within.
This practice of loving from the self outward has brought me a peace no object or person ever could.
It makes me feel complete.
It softens the longing for a home I’ve never fully seen, but have always remembered.
And in those moments, I know I am closest to the truth of what love really is.

Death is not an ending.  It is love moving from one dimension to another.

By
Leda Green

Death is not a separation, but a continuation – the soul’s quiet migration from one frequency of existence to another, where love remains the only bridge.

There is no death, only change. What we call an ending is the soul’s return to its infinite nature – a passage between unseen dimensions, where life continues, reshaped yet unbroken.

This reflection invites the reader to look beyond finality and into the rhythm of eternity, where life and death rest side by side, and love threads through them both.
It is not about loss, but remembrance – an awakening to the truth that love never dies; it simply learns a new language of being.

Life is so ironic: it takes sadness to appreciate happiness, noise to appreciate silence, and absence to value presence.

In this dimension, we live in bodies. We speak, touch, breathe, and see. In the next, the body is no longer needed. The soul continues, unbound by flesh or time. It is not gone – it is simply in motion, traveling from one reality to another.

Life and Death: Two Faces of the Same Eternal Movement

Eastern traditions often accept death with a quiet clarity. Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism see life as a cycle, impermanence as natural, and the soul as eternal. The Western approach, by contrast, often fears death or treats it as finality. Yet death is a continuation of the living – a passage from one reality into another.

The Western world rarely speaks of death; it hides it behind silence and sorrow. But in the East, children are raised with the awareness that life and death rest side by side, that one cannot exist without the other, and that all times – past, present, and future -exist simultaneously. In that understanding, death is not tragedy but rhythm: a sacred breath where every soul’s exit is written before birth. Each departure is not random, but an unfolding of a decision made long before this lifetime.

Life is like a flower between two leaves – birth and death. It is as brief and beautiful as the flower’s life. There is no need to celebrate birthdays to measure what is gone or what remains. From the moment we are born into this reality (a simulation created for the soul to experience itself) the clock begins to tick toward the dissolution of this form. What we call death is simply the end of one simulation and the entrance into another.

Love: The Bridge Between Dimensions

Imagine leaving for a planet where there are no telephones, no emails, no instant connection to those you love. Like traveling to an era before the telegraph, before voices could leap across distance- yet the love, the bond, the essence, still exist, quietly, invisibly. Form changes, but connection endures.

Love is the only emotion that creates reality; all other emotions are merely reactions. Even the hardest wars, when met with love, dissolve, for there is no longer an enemy to fight. The greatest enemy has always been within us – our numbness, our forgetfulness, our disconnection from the sacredness of life.

On Earth, we experience wars, plagues, accidents, and natural tragedies. We lose those dear to us, and a hole appears in our hearts. That emptiness is real. And yet, it is possible to honor it without being consumed. The loss is a space where love can continue. We can tend it, practice remembrance, and allow our connection with the departed to transform into a gentle, sustaining presence rather than despair.

Across cultures, this truth resonates. The Stoics teach reflection on mortality not to breed fear, but to live fully and mindfully. Near-death experiences reveal that consciousness persists – that love transcends form. In Judaism and Christianity, memory, prayer, and ritual allow the living to honor those who have passed, carrying their essence forward.

Ways to Tend the Hole Left Behind

Writing letters: Speak to the loved one as you would have in life. Share your thoughts, your gratitude, your love. Place the letters somewhere meaningful – in a journal, under a tree, or spoken aloud to the wind. The act itself heals, keeps the bond alive, and allows grief to transform into a gentle, sustaining presence.

Rituals and remembrance: Light candles, speak their names, celebrate anniversaries, or create small ceremonies. Ritual gives form to love that continues.

Meditation and reflection: Sit with grief without resistance. Acknowledge it. Let it soften into love rather than anger, fear, or despair.

Guided Meditation Exercise:

1. Find a quiet place and sit comfortably, allowing your body to relax. Close your eyes and take several slow, deep breaths. Feel the rise and fall of your chest as you inhale love and exhale tension.
2. Visualize your loved one’s presence as a warm, radiant light surrounding you. Imagine their essence peaceful, free, continuing its journey beyond this dimension.
3. Speak silently or aloud to them – share your thoughts, gratitude, love, or what you wish you could have said in life. Allow words to flow naturally.
4. Picture their light merging with yours, filling the empty spaces in your heart. Sense the warmth of connection, the ongoing presence that death cannot erase.
5. Let yourself sit in this shared light, breathing slowly, feeling the bond, the love, and the continuity.
6. When ready, slowly open your eyes, carrying the warmth, love, and peace into your day, knowing that connection endures beyond form.

Integration into life: Honor the deceased by living fully, embodying their values, continuing their legacy. Presence in life is a tribute.

Connection through nature and art: See their spirit in sunsets, songs, trees, or the wind. Life and death are intertwined; beauty remains a bridge between dimensions.

The Passage Beyond

The transition may feel mysterious, even silent, but it is natural. Like a traveler leaving home for another land, the soul moves into a new reality where the forms are different, where communication is subtle yet profound. Love does not die; it transforms.

We do not cease existing; we simply change forms. And just as we honor life here, we can honor the soul’s journey beyond, knowing that death is a gentle passage, an act of love, and a continuation of the eternal essence.

Wake up, please. Love yourself unconditionally. Through that love, you will love and respect others. You will learn that life and death are never opposites but one eternal movement – a dance of presence and absence, a continuous return to love.

A Poetic Echo

Love does not end.
It travels.
It shifts, it transforms, it continues.
The body rests.
The soul moves.
We are never lost – only changing dimensions.
We are eternal.
Write. Speak. Remember.
Let grief bloom into love.
We carry them always, within our hearts.

Spirituality is not an act, nor a belief, but a state of being

Leda Green

Spirituality is not an act, nor a belief, but a state of being. It is the condition in which the soul is aligned with itself, with nature, and with the present moment. To live spiritually is to exist in awareness, not as an escape from life, but as its fullest embrace.

Much confusion arises when altered states are mistaken for spiritual ones. Some argue that the use of drugs can open hidden doors to the spirit. Yet this is an illusion. Drugs alter the brain’s chemistry, cloud perception, and distance us from our essence. They silence consciousness rather than refine it.

It is true that in some cultures, such as among Native American chiefs and shamans, sacred plants were used in ritual contexts. But these were never employed for escape or entertainment. They were taken with reverence, under guidance, and within ceremony, as a means of deepening connection to the land, the ancestors, and the community.

The intention was integration, not diversion. Modern drug use, by contrast, isolates the individual, severs awareness, and often leaves the mind further from itself. Authentic spirituality does not depend on the numbing of the mind, but on its awakening.

The question is not about what is modern or ancient—it is about drugs. The ancients knew how to handle them. They worked with sacred substances through discipline, humility, and purpose. Today, even many who call themselves “certified guides” often lack the vision or the purity once required to enter those realms. The motivation has shifted from reverence to curiosity, from devotion to display.

These substances open gates that few truly see or understand, and in crossing them without clarity, people receive misinformation, become energetically drained, and are pulled into unseen dimensions they cannot navigate. What was once a sacred tool for communion has become a dangerous distraction from the true path of awakening.

As the Stoics reminded us, clarity is liberation; as the Buddha taught, right mindfulness is freedom. Both point to the same truth: spirituality is not a distortion of reality, but a deeper recognition of it.

Religion and spirituality are also often conflated, though they belong to different orders of experience. Religion is man-made: an edifice of laws, symbols, and institutions designed to organize faith. At best, it can provide guidance, discipline, and a shared sense of belonging.
Yet one may be religious without being spiritual, just as one may be deeply spiritual without any religion at all. Religion is the vessel; spirituality is the water that fills it. Spinoza understood this when he equated God with nature, removing the need for institutions in order to approach the divine.

Across cultures, spirituality has revealed itself in forms far older and purer than doctrine. The samurai of Japan sought not only martial skill but a way of being in which discipline and honor became paths to inner clarity. Tibetan monks, through meditation and silence, embody a spirituality of compassion and presence.
Shaolin masters in China unite body and spirit through movement, turning discipline into awakening. In the West, poets and philosophers reached the same essence when creation transcended ego and became an expression of truth. Rumi spoke of it as the annihilation of the self in love; Heidegger called it dwelling – being at home in the truth of existence.

At its heart, spirituality is the dialogue between mind and soul. Left unchecked, the mind constructs the ego: a fragile edifice of identity, desire, and fear. The ego hungers for permanence, validation, and control, yet it lives in illusion. The soul, by contrast, requires no construction. It simply is. Where the ego isolates, the soul connects. Where the ego clings to illusions of control, the soul rests in the reality of being.

To live spiritually is to bring the mind into service of the soul. When this harmony is achieved, consciousness sharpens, presence deepens, and life itself becomes the path. Spirituality reveals itself in art, in silence, in the movement of martial arts practice, in the compassion of prayer, in the stillness of nature, and even in the depths of suffering. For suffering, when faced with awareness, strips away the ego and leaves the soul bare to truth.

Spirituality is not about escaping life. It is about standing within it – fully awake, fully present, and wholly alive.

Leda Green is a healer, thinker, and advisor dedicated to restoring clarity, awareness, and authenticity in human life.

The Land That Pointed Me Home

LEDA GREEN

OCT 20, 2025

The first time I landed in Japan, it was Osaka, 2018. I boarded a train to Kyoto with the weight of history in my head—decades of reading, from children’s history books to Shōgun by James Clavell. But no book could have prepared me for what waited outside the window: streets so clean they glistened, alleys safe enough to wander at midnight, silence so deep it felt sacred. Japan, at once foreign and familiar, received me like a place I had always known.

Kyoto was a mirror to my earliest years in Tehran. I had left Iran when I was only three, yet in Kyoto, the memories rushed back as if I had never forgotten—the public baths, the careful change of shoes indoors, tea rituals, futons folded neatly on the floor, rice cookers humming, men in dark suits on morning trains. Childhood, suddenly alive again, walked beside me on every street.

As I wandered through the Shōgun’s castle, recognition stirred. I seemed to know the hidden corners and the gardens that stretched beyond sight. I sensed the presence of a secret garden, a quiet escape from the palace’s busy life, hidden just out of reach. It wasn’t knowledge learned from books; it was memory—or perhaps premonition—awakening within me. Every step felt like reunion with a place my soul had long remembered.

After four days, I flew on to Hong Kong, where patients awaited me. But Kyoto engraved itself into my heart so deeply that I promised myself I would return—not just to Kyoto, but to the other faces of Japan, to see whether the feeling would follow me.

It did, though in different ways. In Tokyo, I explored a city that never sleeps, modern and restless, yet beneath its pulse I felt an undertone of stillness—ma, the sacred space between sounds and gestures that gives rhythm to life itself. Among the rush of neon and trains, I found silence between the sounds, a pause that felt like home. I met remarkable people there, including the Chabad rabbi and his wife, who welcomed me like family at their Shabbat table. Yet even with their warmth, it was Kyoto that whispered to me the loudest.

On my fourth visit, I escorted two women through Tokyo, Hiroshima, Osaka, and Kyoto. Conflict shadowed that journey—one of the women was difficult, even violent. Hurt and exhausted, I parted from them in Osaka and flew to Dubai. Still, Japan softened the wound. Even in disappointment, I found quiet triumph: navigating Tokyo’s subway alone, mastering the rhythm of bullet trains, sensing the subtle pulse of each city. And always, the cherry blossoms—tender, radiant, shedding petals like blessings. I stood beneath them and felt that I, too, was one of those trees: rooted in one place, yet scattering pieces of myself wherever the wind carried me.

Then came the stranger. In a market one afternoon, an old man took my hand. His words were simple, yet they struck me with the force of revelation: “Your place is Japan. Your love lies here.”

Love? I had long placed love aside. For thirty years, I chose solitude over pain, and solitude had been kind to me. I had no longing for romance. Yet his words lingered like a seed falling into soil I thought had turned to stone.

That night, and on the flight that followed, something awakened—an ancient thread from another dimension.

My dearest,
This journey began with a whisper—so soft, it echoed only within me.
Yet with time, the whisper grew.
Now, even in silence, I hear you.
The echo in my heart has awakened.

By the time I reached Dubai, I had begun writing love letters to a presence I had not yet met but always known. A book was born midair, out of silence and prophecy.

Japan gave me flavors, too—the many cups of matcha, the teas I carried home, the sake that never once made me drunk. But more than flavors, it gave me recognition. It felt as if the land itself knew me, called me, belonged to me as much as I belonged to it.

I believe every soul has a place where its energies align, where the land itself welcomes us home. For my patients, I often read these places and guide them there. For myself, I had never sought such knowledge; I preferred to let the future surprise me. Yet in Japan, recognition came unbidden. Each time I returned, the feeling deepened. I did not know the language, nor many of the people, but I knew in my bones: here is where I belong—or at least where the path begins.

Osaka taught me curiosity. Kyoto taught me stillness. Tokyo, motion. Hiroshima, humility. Each city mirrored a part of me. In Kyoto’s quiet I felt seijaku—the stillness that holds awakening. In Hiroshima’s resilience I saw gaman—the quiet dignity that endures. And through all my journeys, I learned kintsugi: the beauty of gold-lined fractures, the truth that our cracks are not flaws but openings for light.

There is a Japanese word—yūgen—that means a beauty too deep to be seen directly, only felt, like the shadow of a mountain in dusk. My connection with Japan lives in that place. It is not loud; it exists quietly, like moonlight behind a thin cloud.

Every pause, every silence between us, became a kind of zanshin—a lingering awareness that stays even when the moment passes. And perhaps this is what love truly is: not clinging, but mushin—a freedom of heart that allows everything to flow as it is meant to.

One afternoon beneath the cherry blossoms, I understood: Japan was never the destination. Japan was the mirror. It reflected who I had been and pointed toward who I am becoming. It was the land that pointed me home.

I arrived with no plan other than to let the land reveal itself to me. In return, it revealed me to myself. Each visit deepened the recognition: the silence, the stillness, the unspoken thread that connected me to something greater.

I do not yet speak of the work to come, nor of the doors that will open. But the certainty within me is absolute: what is whispered now will one day roar, and what is unseen will shine. Somewhere, hearts will stir, eyes will open, and the world will remember that love, vision, and courage are never lost—they only wait for the right hand to carry them forward.

And I, drawn by memory, by destiny, by the pulse of a land older than time itself, will be among those who ring the bell.

London carries with it an echo of my youth.

Arriving this time, I felt both a sense of closure and a soft familiarity—like returning to an old chapter, one already lived.

And yet, it is not my home, not the destination I am meant for.
I chose to live London as it is, not as a tourist.
I stayed at my friend’s house, sharing her daily life and supporting her in the challenges she faces. But on my very first evening, the city revealed something greater—something about myself, my path, and my way of being.
She had invited nine guests for dinner. None of them knew each other. I knew no one at all.
She prepared the salads, and I cooked the rest: beef, fish, rice, pasta, and more dishes than one table could hold. It was abundance, yes, but more than that—it was intention.
The evening unfolded like magic.
Strangers became companions.
Even the children tasted everything with curiosity and joy.
We began at 8:30, and by the time the last guest left at 1 a.m., the house was still alive with warmth, conversation, and laughter.
The people were so different my friend was not sure whether the evening would work.
But it did—beautifully.
The guests spoke of flavors they had never tasted before. Yet what they truly experienced, though perhaps without knowing, was unconditional love.
I cooked, prepared, and served as I do every Friday night with my own family—nourishing not just with food, but with presence. And I saw again what I have always known: that a meal, offered with love, can dissolve loneliness and awaken hope.
I arrived with a heart still heavy,
from storms of family,
from questions of who I am
as mother, as woman, as being.
The city greeted me not with answers,
but with a table.
Strangers became companions,
and love was served with every dish.
In their laughter, I saw my truth:
that the way I love my boys—
with food, with presence,
with open hands and no conditions—
is the right way.
London whispered back to me:
Belonging is born in the spaces you create.
This night was not only dinner,
It was a mirror—
reminding me of the strength I carry,
and of the book still writing itself
through my life.

A few days later, I met one of those dinner guests again—our Eaton chap. He said that I was interesting and inspiring. To hear such words from a 50-year-old, Eaton-bred Englishman carried its own weight. It was not just a compliment—it was a reflection, a reminder of the silent influence we hold when we act simply as ourselves, with love.
We met in Kensington at a beautiful Polish restaurant, very fancy and elegant, with good food. He was only two hours late, but once he arrived, he was good and interesting company. I learned something surprising about him: this refined Englishman buys his clothes from a second-hand shop.
From there we continued to Covent Garden Plaza, full of restaurants, a charming flea market, and excellent street music. Our evening ended at the theatre with a Shakespearean play, Born with Teeth—an exquisite performance. We returned home by tube and bus, London carrying us along its veins.
Yesterday afternoon we met again. This time, hand in hand, we wandered through the sparkling Cartier jewelry exhibition at the museum. We crossed ancient gates together, speaking of cultures, history, and transformation, imagining ourselves shedding old energetic blockages and entering new eras, fresh and alive.
In him, I discovered a man endlessly positive, generous, and cheerful—a soul filled with inner knowledge of how to live happily. Was he my mirror? Did I, in him, glimpse myself? The thought shook me, awakening hope that there are still people in this world with whom I can connect deeply, and enjoy, and most importantly—be fully me.
Later we dined together at a small tapas restaurant. Without hesitation, he ordered the entire menu, smiling as he said, “I have to taste everything.” And he did. I watched with joy as my companion absorbed life through every sense, as though savoring existence itself.
The scents of the dinner, the cool London air, the memories of my youth all pressed upon me at once. I wanted to absorb as much as I could, as though I were back in Manhattan, young and hungry for the world. We returned home overwhelmed yet content, resting before I must return to my present—and very temporary—habitat.

I also walked along Golders Green Road, and there, nostalgia struck deeply. Nothing had truly changed, except the people who pass through at different times. For a moment, I was in my twenties again. Returning home by bus, I felt very British—yet not at home. Not yet.
I gave a healing session during these days, which reminded me of a truth I have always known: people are the same everywhere, no matter what language they speak. All want to be loved. Love is the sum of all good events in life. Yet so many cannot obtain it, trapped in comparison—comparing themselves to others, and in doing so, killing their joy. Fear, anger, greed, dissatisfaction, and control take its place.

After one such healing session in the morning, Emily the dog asked to go for her routine walk. We stepped out into a wet, rainy London morning. Since my arrival the city had been unusually bright and sunny, but today it wept with rain.
We walked into the park near the house, the one Mia had first shown me—a wide meadow with ancient willow trees watching silently over the grass. As I debated whether to head home, the sky suddenly cleared. The rain stopped. (I smiled, for I know I can stop the rain with my abilities.)
Instead of turning back, I let myself wander. I was searching for the forest Mia had once mentioned, and suddenly there it was before me: Big Wood, an enchanted ancient woodland whose roots run back over a thousand years, first recorded in 704 as part of a bishop’s land grant. These paths have carried the footsteps of generations, from Anglo-Saxon times through every century since.
My joy was tremendous. Emily and I entered the forest, its old trees whispering stories of those who walked here before us—centuries of lovers, wanderers, seekers, and children chasing through its leaves. Oaks, hornbeams, wild cherries stood tall as guardians of memory, their presence older than nations, older than all our brief human struggles.
I felt as if I were being bathed in the forest’s embrace, rejuvenated by the music of its leaves, its scent of soil, bark, and dried foliage filling my senses. The absence of such vast nature where I usually reside pressed on me—how much I miss it, how deeply it heals.
Not far from the forest stood another wonder: a great rose garden, filled with blooms of every imaginable color. I walked among them, leaning close to inhale. Each rose had its own unique scent, as if each fragrance could open a door into another realm of existence. For a moment, I was traveling without moving, shifting between worlds carried only by the breath of roses.
The walk stirred nostalgia for the immense rainforests of Vancouver, which I still carry in my heart. It made me emotional, yet grateful—grateful for my dear friends the trees, the roses, and grateful to Mia, who opened not only her home to me but also her heart.

This journey in London brought me yet another surprise.
One of the guests from that magical dinner called and asked to meet me. He said he found me inspiring.
Perhaps this meeting will be another step in clarifying where I am meant to go next. Each encounter feels like a signpost, placed carefully on my path. And so, with curiosity and openness, I wait to see what London still has to reveal before I continue to my next destination.
And yet, part of me had hoped for another call—for Los Angeles, for figures who might see the value in my work and invite me to bring it across the ocean. That call did not come. And so, instead of flying westward into a dream, I return eastward into a storm. Back to Israel, to the pit of unresolved betrayals, to face the painful fracture between my son and my sister.
It is sad. It is heavy. It is not what I wished for.
And yet, I know: even the return to pain is part of the journey. The roses taught me—each scent is its own world, each moment its own path. This too is a path I must walk, however bitter its fragrance.

Because in the end, home is not a city, nor a house, nor even a country.
Home is the place where love finally recognizes you—
and stays.
And until that moment comes, I will keep walking—
guided by destiny, carrying love as my light,
toward the place where everything that waits for me
will finally be mine.

Leda Green

Even A Small Flame Steadies the Night

a spiritual and political reflection on June 2025 and the crisis of belonging

by

LEDA GREEN

There are times in history when the human soul is asked to stretch beyond what it believed possible.
June 2025 is such a time.

We find ourselves — not only in Israel, but across many lands — caught between violence and vision, pressure and possibility.
I write this from the heart of a country torn between trauma and hope.
A country I love, and a country I must learn to leave.

⸻

The Energies of This Time Are Not Accidental

The cosmos is not just background light.
It speaks, it pulls, it aligns. And for those who listen — it instructs.

June 2025 is alive with planetary movements that mirror what we experience down here in our streets, our homes, and our bones.
• Jupiter in Cancer expands everything related to home, family, emotional safety — and collective belonging.
We are being asked to redefine home, and who we include in it.
• Saturn in Pisces demands spiritual maturity — no more illusions, no more spiritual bypassing. We must face what hurts, heal what divides.
• Neptune’s presence pushes us to dissolve false borders and rediscover the invisible thread of humanity — not as a theory, but as a lived truth.
• Mars and Uranus strike like lightning. They provoke, they trigger, they awaken. This is not a time of subtle messages. This is a time of cosmic urgency.

⸻

The Crisis in Israel Is Not Just Political — It’s Soul-Deep

What we are witnessing is not merely geopolitical.
It is ancestral grief resurfacing. It is spiritual fatigue reaching its edge. It is identity fractured by decades of survival-mode thinking.

We are drowning in:
• Moral confusion
• Generational fear
• Trauma disguised as pride
• Violence justified as justice

And yet, beneath all this — there is still a soul here.
A collective soul trying to remember itself. Trying to return.

⸻

Why I Must Leave — and Why I Still Belong

For months, I have felt the inner summons to leave Israel.
Not from anger. Not from fear.
But from the sacred responsibility to live in alignment with what I hear — spiritually, cosmically, emotionally.

I am not abandoning my people.
I am listening to what can no longer be heard within these walls.

I am being called to Kyoto.
Not as an escape, but as a pilgrimage.

To remember what peace feels like.
To remember what stillness without threat feels like.
To remember myself — not as a citizen of fear, but as a vessel of truth.

⸻

What We Must All Consider, No Matter Where We Stand

This moment is asking every one of us:
• Are you listening beyond your opinions?
• Are you grounded in love while standing in truth?
• Are you brave enough to release identities built on war?
• Are you ready to midwife something new — something soft, something sustainable?

The world doesn’t need more slogans.
It needs witnesses.
It needs soul-led leaders.
It needs people who know that love is not weakness — it is infrastructure.

⸻

My Personal Pledge — and Yours, if You Wish

I will leave, and I will carry Israel in my spirit like a stone warmed by the sun.
But I will also walk toward what is next — for me, for us, for the world.

I vow to:
• Build emotional and spiritual resilience in every person I meet
• Speak with clarity, but never cruelty
• Channel rage into poetry, and silence into peace
• Become a bridge, not a battleground

⸻

In Closing

The flames around us are real.
But we are also flames.

Even a small flame steadies the night.
Even a quiet soul carries a revolution inside.
Let us burn, not to destroy — but to illuminate.

Let us burn gently.
Let us burn bright.

With all my heart,
Leda