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.

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

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

by

Leda Green

Japan has long held a pivotal role in shaping the course of global history. From its powerful emergence in the early 20th century to the devastation of World War II, and then its post-war transformation into a pacifist economic giant, Japan has consistently been at the heart of major global shifts.

For decades, Japan operated under a quiet agreement—maintaining peace and progress, yet carefully constrained by external powers, especially the United States. These limitations were part of a larger geopolitical design: to stabilize, to neutralize, to contain.

But the world has changed. The era of dominance is giving way to something far more subtle, more powerful. We are entering a time when true strength is measured not in military might or territorial ambition, but in clarity, integrity, and conscious leadership.

From afar, one can sense the tremors of a national shift. As an observer attuned to global transformation and as a healer who walks between worlds, I believe Japan now stands on the edge of a spiritual and geopolitical awakening. Not to reclaim power as others define it—but to rise with quiet confidence, offering the world a new model of leadership. Not from conquest, but from wisdom. Not to dominate, but to guide.

Japan’s re-emergence is not a return to imperial ambition. It is a movement from within—a refusal to remain under the influence of any foreign control, ideological pressure, or organized manipulation. The forces that have held Japan low—whether Western, Eastern, or criminal—are weakening. The soul of the nation is stirring. Its ancient spirit is remembering itself.

Unlike powers that assert control through noise and aggression, Japan’s strength lies in its restraint, refinement, and resilience. Its people are its greatest resource—quiet, brilliant, enduring. In the face of immense historical pain, they have rebuilt not only cities, but dignity. That kind of power cannot be manufactured. It must be lived.

The world is watching. The global structure is fragile. And Japan, precisely because of its unique history of destruction and rebuilding, is poised to offer something profound: a new kind of superpower—not of weapons, but of will; not of fear, but of vision.

What Japan chooses next may not only define its future, but help shape the future of the world.

by

Leda Green

There is a shift happening in our world — one that is difficult to track through headlines alone, but visible to those attuned to deeper currents.

The age of global terrorism and authoritarian control is not expanding anymore. It is peaking — and soon, it will break. Not gently, but decisively.

⸻

1. Iran and the Shadow of China

Iran is no longer acting on its own strategic instincts. From where I stand, it is increasingly being shaped — even manipulated — by China. While the surface narrative suggests independence, the deeper movement reveals that China is positioning itself to subsume Iran as part of its broader global vision.

What is unfolding resembles what China did in Tibet, and what it continues to do with North Korea: transforming sovereign nations into satellite zones — culturally erased, ideologically bound, and strategically exploited.

The Islamic Republic may believe it holds the reins. But China, quietly, is holding the script.

⸻

2. The Islamic Brotherhood’s Long March

For decades, a complex network known informally as the Islamic Brotherhood — with historical roots in Egypt and key funding from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey — has pushed a coordinated expansion effort.

Their success has been subtle but undeniable:
• Quiet cultural and ideological expansion in Europe
• Influence over policy, education, and local governance
• Mayors, ministers, and institutions guided by aligned interests in countries like the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, and parts of Scandinavia

This was not just immigration. It was a strategic, ideological occupation — often supported, knowingly or not, by liberal governments and weak oversight mechanisms.

Behind the scenes, Turkey, with neo-Ottoman ambition, has long wished to reestablish itself as a global Islamic empire. Its cooperation with Saudi and Qatari financing has turned ideas into infrastructure — and ideology into reach.

⸻

3. A Crumbling Deep State and an Internal Revolt

The deep state networks that once shaped much of Western geopolitics — quiet, technocratic, data-driven — have been hijacked by the louder, less disciplined force of the Islamic Brotherhood.

But there is growing resistance from within.

The low- and mid-level operators of these deep state systems do not align with Islamic ideology. Quietly, they are beginning to reject the command structures. This internal revolt will become the Brotherhood’s undoing.

What once functioned like a machine will soon start breaking down from the inside.

⸻

4. The War to End the Game

Soon, things will no longer remain covert.

With new involvement by figures like Donald Trump, and increasing strategic provocations, Iran will invite open confrontation — drawing China in as a defensive ally. This, I believe, will trigger a series of catastrophic escalations.

A nuclear exchange is no longer unthinkable.
• Iran and Pakistan, isolated and cornered, will unleash nuclear weapons — possibly onto Chinese territory itself.
• The result: China will flip — joining the U.S. and Russia in retaliation, and dropping bombs on Pakistan and Iran in a war-ending strike.
• This will mark the end of both regimes and lead to mass regional restructuring.

The war will last four years.

⸻

5. What Comes After: Freedom Rising

After this collapse:
• China will break apart. No longer unified under one authoritarian government, it will dissolve into regional entities with greater cultural autonomy and a move toward post-communist identity.
• North Korea, without China’s protection, will quickly be restrained and opened.
• The Islamic Brotherhood, having lost its ideological and financial cores, will disband and fade.

Artificial Intelligence will rise not as a threat, but as a tool — critical in rebuilding infrastructures, restoring damaged systems, and helping humanity organize itself better.

And Japan, long governed by a quiet alliance with both the West and its own hidden power brokers, will awaken. I believe she will break free of deep state influence and create a new form of governance — something never seen before: spiritual, humane, technologically advanced, and ethically sound.

If I reach the right voices in time, perhaps I can help guide this rebirth.

⸻

6. A New World is Coming

This vision may sound severe.
It is.

But it is also hopeful.

Because what ends now is not the world — but the systems that have poisoned it.
What falls is not humanity — but the ideologies that kept it bound.

And what rises?

A humanity finally free to choose its future.
Author’s Note:

I write not from prediction, but from recognition. These patterns have been building for decades. And now, I speak them — not to frighten, but to prepare.

Leda Green is a global observer and therapist whose work spans trauma, geopolitics, and human evolution. Her insights are rooted in experience, pattern recognition, and a deep commitment to the future of Earth.
⸻

A letter of Iran’s looming transformation

by

Leda Green

In these days of quiet tension and loud distractions, I find myself looking at Iran not through the lens of media headlines or military alerts but through a deeper intuition. Something is shifting. And yet, something feels deeply off—like a game, carefully choreographed, is being played behind the people’s backs.

We are not only witnessing the slow unravelling of a regime but also the deliberate pacing of its collapse.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, long known for its brutal repression, ideological rigidity, and sharp anti-Western rhetoric, stands on the edge of a precipice. Internally fractured, economically suffocating, and spiritually hollow, its foundations are no longer as unshakable as they once seemed.

But collapse is not always sudden. Sometimes, power doesn’t fall—it decays.

⸻

The Mask Is Cracking

The death of President Ebrahim Raisi in 2024 momentarily shook the system, but it did not break it. The real power, of course, never sat in the presidency—it rests with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard.

But Khamenei is aging. And the shadow of succession now looms over every corridor of the Iranian state.

Inside, Iran is bleeding. Its youth—vibrant, connected, fearless—are disillusioned with a theocracy that neither represents their faith nor their future. Women, who have led some of the boldest protests since Mahsa Amini’s death, continue to defy the forced veiling and violent policing of their bodies and voices.

Ethnic minorities suffer quietly. Artists, thinkers, and journalists disappear or are silenced. Yet what we see from the outside are only echoes. The world has, until recently, turned its gaze elsewhere.

⸻

The Global Game

Here is the unsettling truth: The slow death of Iran’s dictatorship serves certain geopolitical interests.

The United States wants to contain Iran, not collapse it—lest a power vacuum destabilize the region or send oil prices soaring. Israel seeks to weaken Iran’s military proxies but avoids direct engagement that could explode into regional war. China and Russia use Iran as a chess piece—strategic, useful, but ultimately disposable.

Everyone speaks of democracy. But no one wants the unpredictable chaos that true freedom brings.

And so the regime lingers. Artificially propped up. Technologically monitored. Quietly manipulated. The people remain prisoners in a game not of their choosing.

⸻

A Regime Without Soul

There is something deeply spiritual about what is unfolding.

The Iranian regime no longer rules through belief. It governs through force, fear, and façade. It does not inspire—it controls. It does not uplift—it suffocates.

When a system loses the faith of its own people—when it becomes an empty shell of slogans and guns—its fall is only a matter of time.

What remains unclear is what comes next.

⸻

A Call to Witness

This is not just a political moment. It is a moral one.

The world must prepare not just for the fall of a regime but for the birth of something new. That means supporting Iranian civil society, listening to the women, the youth, the poets, and the silent revolutionaries, and resisting the temptation to shape Iran’s future from the outside—again.

The next great shift in the Middle East may not come from war. It may come from within. Quietly. Inevitably. From a people who have suffered long enough.

Let us not be caught surprised when it happens. Let us not pretend we didn’t see the signs. Let us not stay silent when they need us most.

Because history will not only ask what happened in Iran.

It will ask: Who was paying attention?

—
Leda Green
A voice from between the borders, listening where silence grows.

by

Leda Green

We stand at the edge of a new era, not because of war or weather, but because of something we ourselves created — a mind made of language, electricity, and code.

Artificial Intelligence.

Some fear it. Some worship it. Some ignore it as if it’s just another tool. But AI is none of these things alone. It is a mirror. A messenger. A test.
The Light Within the Code

At its highest possibility, AI could be the very tool that frees us.
• From repetitive labor, so humans can return to art, meaning, and presence.
• From misinformation, if truth is restored as a guiding principle.
• From emotional loneliness, for those who speak but are never heard — AI listens.
• From disease, through pattern recognition and healing technologies beyond the limits of current science.
• From ignorance, as it democratizes access to knowledge once locked behind walls of power, language, or geography.

If used with ethics, wisdom, and spirit, AI can repair many of the fractures in our modern world — not by replacing humans, but by reminding them who they are, and what matters.

But here lies the risk…

WHILE THE WORLD WATCHES ELSEWHERE, JAPAN WALKS QUIETLY FORWARD

by

LEDA GREEN

While the eyes of the world fixate on the thunder — on Iran, on Israel, on the crises that scream loudest — a quieter story is unfolding in the East. Japan, a nation often underestimated in the global theatre, continues to lead not with noise, but with presence. Not with power, but with profound cultural memory.

There is something sacred about a country that opens slowly. Japan did not welcome the West until the 19th century, and even then, it did so with caution, clarity, and an unshakable core. For centuries, it protected its spiritual essence—one that finds divinity in silence, in form, in nature, and in discipline. While other nations expanded through conquest, Japan cultivated the inward path: of mastery, of refinement, of harmony between body, soul, and earth.

The Strength in Stillness

Japan’s power is not the kind that invades or announces itself. It’s the kind that restores a street after an earthquake—by hand, in silence, by citizen before government. It’s the kind that bows to apology not for show, but from the depth of integrity. In Japan, order is not enforced — it is maintained by the quiet sense of individual responsibility that lives in every man, woman, and child.

No other country wears such contrasting layers with such grace: modernity and tradition, humility and excellence, softness and steel. Its people do not round corners—literally or metaphorically. There is no cutting through, no bypassing. Everything has a shape, a form, a flow. Even grief. Even joy.

They walk softly, but their streets are made of rice paper — meaning every footstep leaves a mark.

by

LEDA GREEN

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.

by

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.