chiang mai motley crue

i made it from the wat in northern thailand to the bustling city of chiang mai in a pick-up truck filled with funky young thai artists who are working on the wat's new purple-mosque-like pagoda.... driven by Noi, an incredibly talented artist who paints primarily on wood, we zoomed down and chugged up the stunning mountains of northern thailand, with breathtaking views, some rain and a soundtrack of bryan adams, anne murray and willie nelson singing "heart of gold". canada's music exports are alive and well...

i met khun daeng (means red) and she showed me around her family's ceramic showroom. it was so stunning to see so much pottery of so many styles and designs, of such CLASS that i felt foolish saying over and over- it is sooo beautiful. Noi is one of the artists for the woodwork and they do the designs and the manufacturing on-site. it was a huge and simply gorgeous space.

Noi and our motley crew of 5, most from our pick-up truck days then went off to see the mountains nearby. again, my breath was taken away. we went straight uphill, up and up and up. we stopped at a wooden wat being built beside a waterfall and then further up, at a magical waterfall. the trumpeting of cicadas and birdsongs practically drowning the sound of the water cascading down the rocks. we all stopped, found a spot to Be, with one playing his flute and enjoyed nature's orchestra.

with a stroke of luck, i met up with my friend nikko and her mother in chiang mai and spent 2 amazing days together exploring the city, talking about Life, our journeys and travels, drinking fresh fruits juices and spending a great afternoon with a young thai designer whose clothes are whimsical and delicious, and oh so cool for this hot season...

i then took the bus from chiang mai to sawankhaloke, the small city where jimmy lives, and was met by jimmy burning down the main street on his bike. what a sight!!! we've weathered the heat of the days (36 degrees and dropping), the evening wind and rain storms which took down huge branches, re-arranged the way his wood and grass house sits, and offered us the opportunity to see exactly where the leaks are in his new grass roof. we devised a tarp system for the interior of the roof and have had beautiful, dry sleeps ever since!

it's not all fun and games living in the tropics!!! but the daily jewels are many: unbelievable fruits with durian in season and mangoes just at the tail end of theirs, dips in the warm river, visits from jimmy's friends and neighbours (this morning puek came over and his english vocab has increased to Yes!, Buffalo! and this year's new word, Dog! he is a very lovely man and we established this morning that it is this way to sukothai, that way to sawankhaloke, that he doesn't speak swedish or burmese and that he has already been to one of the three funerals that are on right now and so will go now and take his bath.)

yes, 3 funerals means loudspeakers are blaring music all day and there is generally just lots of noise around. our house is between all of them, so last night we had their musical soundtracks playing simultaneously with our own, having taken out the guitar for a first evening of singing.

so i am here until may 14th when we leave for bangkok to get my flight to mexico for the 16th of may. jimmy will actually be joining me there in june, for a short extension of our world travels in a new continent! we are now mixing spanish,malay,thai, french and english ~ but we seem to understand what we're on about...

buddha bliss

i've just come out of the 10 day dynamic vipassana (means insight) meditation retreat at Wat Thaton in northern thailand and WOW what an incredible experience, what a stunning place and such generous-generous people.

perched high on a mountain overlooking the tiny town of thaton, its winding river and hidden villages, wat thaton is a treasure grove of discoveries. one morning for our meditation, we walked up up up to the massive golden standing buddha on the top of the mountain and at every turn, a surprise, a delight: the highly orginal pagoda painted the colours of the spectrum and looking a bit like an easter egg mosque; a lookout with a view to a green, lush valley with crops planted in symtetrical formations, or simply dense forest with morning clouds hugging the tops of the trees... it was absolutely magical...

and the discoveries, of course, in a 10 day meditation retreat are the treasures and ercognizing the "suffering" (a main tenet of buddhism) i found inside. of the 10 days, i spent 4 days alone in my perfectly cute little kuti (my home overlooking forest and mountain side) to which they delivered my food for the day in a tiffin in the morning. i practiced the dynamic meditation (walking, sitting, standing and lying down - all with hand movements). ajahn suthep, the energetic teacher/monk and supachai (or Super Thai!), a young monk teacher (both of whom speak thai-english) came to teach and talk one time every afternoon.

supachai made sure to prepare a RAW (and some steamed veg) tiffin for me every day! the mangoes were great and the papaya like candy! and in the evening, he brought a bowl of fruit.

neat things:

they got TOTALLY into the raw diet! even the cook who just wouldn't or couldn't understand at first, now prepares a special thali plate for me every morning and every lunch! it is tooooo much! and connie, a dutch woman who works here and does some organizing is on her 3rd day of her new RAW diet.

the meditation group was small, at 5 people - i was the only woman so it was wonderful to have connie around - so it was very intimate. i have a new friend in michael, 55, from california, who has introduced me to Breema, a persian form of thai massage that i just loved. my energy was sooo different, slow and calm afterwards.

my resolve about this path has deepened. i've had many realizations and insights about my life, my self, my path, what i will do next and how all this integrates into my daily life...

crazy serendipitous things have happened, too, in terms of who i have met here and what they have brought me/taught me. and that so many parts of my life would converge here. i taught yoga in the mornings and i LOVED teaching it, it just flowed, and everyone seemed to get so much from it. i realize that i love sharing and teaching and learning from teaching/interacting and that it has always been a secret desire to integrate healing arts into my life as a teacher and student (i think that the breema and yoga are both things i will pursue in this way).

ajahn suthep, the teacher/monk runs an organic farm in a small village called wawi and has some amazing ideas about meditation centre-food-community. they are so linked to what i felt was coming next for me in terms of transformational work (coaching, yoga, organic organizational and personal development, as well as local/international development).... so i am off to chiang MAI tomorrow to visit a woman who has a place in nature, and where there is an idea forming about organic food/cooking, meditation and healing. she is donating her space to ajahn and Wat Thaton and he suggested i go see it to see what kind of ideas i have.... so far they seemed to be very connected to the ones i've been having ...

i loved the intimacy and the independence i had here - the form of teaching is very much that the teacher is simply a guide - you must learn on your own and only then will the teacher take you to the next level. the meditation style is active, so that you can integrate into your daily life - that meditation IS your life, that your life IS your practice.