Vanessa's Freedom35 Tour

light on

2008-10-30T17:36:00.000-04:00

I look outside and see bleak. it’s the same scene as yesterday, the same street, with my neighbourhood’s three storey walk up apartments, hedges and sidewalk, balconies with flowerboxes and bikes. but today the air is grey, the wind bites through what is left of the flowers. shivering skeletons. the trees are slowly, brutally being undressed. their leaves lay like ashes, spread recklessly across the sidewalk, mixed with broken glass from a car window.

yesterday I looked outside with joy, to the sunshine, the promise of light. my body felt light, my spirit felt light. today is the same scene, and there actually is no absence of light - it is a nuanced grey that simply brings out a different depth to the colourful brick across the street, and to the trembling green-golden leaves, to the denim on the passing pedestrian, and the milky puddles of old mucky rain. so I look inside and wonder, is it my light that I’m worried about? how do I sustain that light I felt, these past weeks in the sharp sun and bright faces of Zimbabwe? that feeling in me that I was alive, that every moment mattered, every conversation a lifeline, and each breath, vital. so vital.

my return home has been fine. resting, fasting, and then being in my neighbourhood - buying groceries at my favourite places, seeing neighbours, bumping into friends. walking in the particular rose sunshine of a Montreal autumn and feeling the buzz of this city ~ fresh faces, chattering on the corner, the hum of French and English in and out of shops and cafes… on Sunday I saw more people in a day that I sometimes do over the week such was the energy in and around me. it was as much the sunday as it was my own curiosity and feeling of warmth of return…

and yet today, this bleak, this fear, is slowly skulking its way into my periphery. I don’t want to go back into old patterns, these ways that I have cultivated to protect my self from my own happiness, my own light. these past years have been spent too long insular, fatigued, depleted - and I see how it became habit, an excuse, to draw in. to isolate myself, from myself. I want that time to be over - and I have felt it shifting, and shaping and asking, ASKING to be let go. these habits die hard. do I need to be gentle? can I cut the chord? I thought I had, over and over. and yet the skulking feels real. it may be its last hurrah, attempting to show its face, or sneaking in unnoticed.

but I see you, and I need to look you in the face and say it’s over.

you were the company I needed, to live in my own dark places, to explore them and know them and not pretend that there is only Light. I needed to feel you and honour you, and know that you are equally a part of me, of all of us. you helped me shift my perspective, and see more, go deeper, and have compassion for those who live there. and then I let you stay for too long. Zimbabwe reminded me of the Light -of how it feels to be in the light, and come from my light. the liquid dark moon, and the shades of sun, have been showing me the nuances of my own light - and my quest, my question, is to honour these shades in me, and let the right one show up or slow down, as needed. to know myself, is to know the tune and cadence of my light, and to share and show up as needed, as required, as gifted, and ask from others the same.

so this bleak that I see - is simply a shade, but I am asking the habits that go with it to fade - so that I can see the nuances, and show up in the way that I feel, not the way of my fear.

written on the body

2008-06-26T21:22:00.000-04:00

She wants us to heal
but to do so is to fundamentally shift to a sacred pace that sustains
I see my own patterns as the patch dynamics of a healthy ecosystem
learning how to let go and bring in the new
how to nurture, when to burn and clear out

cycles of generosity and abundance
in tandem with the moon’s dark liquid hibernation

molecules of memory,
ancestral, umbilical, sewn through daily ritual
are embedded in the physical structure of my body

wide sky kitchens and hearths of hosting
offer refuge and sustenance,
creativity and care
fear and imprisonment

“how can I teach you, you who know so little beyond the self?”
veil after veil is lifted, but I cannot see
for all my looking outward

I step through the threshold
I’ve bitten the apple, skin to flesh, to seed
I offer and offer
but to receive to perceive to accept
is to till the soil of change

revolutionary minutae, a love poem

2008-02-24T06:35:00.009-05:00

it reminds of the radical idea of yours that everyday there is something so important about the everyday
something revolutionary about the minutae of the work that gets a family through this day unto the next
of choosing that which is already there
being satisfied with bearing a child, growing your food, making your meals, loving your children, having a partner with whom to build a life
that these are the miracles
to be noticed and cherished
nurtured
and i miss you, in these ideas
because these are our dreams
and this poem is a testament to the practical
the tangible
the manifestation of these little moments that are everything
these small acts that build a body, a family, a community
a whole life, a forest over time
it celebrates the many generations that brought these things to bear
and anticipates those who will come after,
lineage and continuity
it revels in the soil of a forest, its ecosystem alive
with the tiniest of nutrients that bring life to an eternal, temporal cycle
a forest is rooted in one place, committed to one thing

we each, you and i, have our own radical acts in our daily lives, and they are separated by an ocean
witnessed through email, skype, a feeling of knowing you are there....
and connected by our love and appreciation, our deepest respect and mutual inspiration
i can breathe you in, from this far away
this is a love poem to a love that exists and persists
that simply is
i need to accept that, just as it is
like the miracle of today and yesterday, and the snow that is falling, and my legs that walk me, and the smile that comes to my lips
this helps me to find peace in myself
to quell all my fighting and wanting, my desires for this or for that
to be happy with who i
where i am
what we have, what this is
over the distance, through the aspirations and hopes to be together
is this gift of loving, sharing, inspiring, connecting, holding
it is a liberation
not a problem to be solved or a dream to be made real
as you rest your head on my lap
under the shade of a tree
it is all perfect, it is perfect just the way it is

this is my response to a manifesto: the mad farmer's liberation front, a poem by wendell berry, sent to me with love, across oceans and times zones, into the lap of my life.

ascent

2007-12-21T14:12:00.005-05:00

so after two years of travels, work and explorations in different parts of the world, i find myself landing gently into the snowy breath of Montreal. renewed, inspired, humbled, i come home enriched with friendships, ideas and practices to bring back into the fold of my life and community here in Canada.

i'm grounding again. bringing this all home now, to practice it here in a new way. as part of that, i've taken on new project here in Montreal with ascent magazine and timeless books with whom i have been connected for years as a writer and through building community and young people's leadership (santropol roulant chefs became managing editors and vise versa!). they have invited me to help lead them into the next stage of their lifecycle as an award-winning not-for-profit Canadian magazine, book and web publishing group, and community of practitioners..... it is an amazing proposition with an incredible amount of trust and spaciousness to create...

i'm really excited about creating a new kind of space, a conscious space that invites, integrates, inspires and incites the worlds and stories of social action, sustainability, creativity and engaged spirituality through a physical & urban space; a print & media space; an organizational space of vitality and learning, a space that hosts and holds the work we've been doing and imagining locally and trans-locally...

**********

to tap into my thoughts on and the emergence of the conscious kitchen experiment this November in Greece at Axladitsa during the olive harvest,

click on my Venus' Kitchen blog.

here is an exerpt:

we learned about how to integrate the conscious kitchen not only as a programme, but into the whole operating system of how axladitsa hosts all its gatherings. beyond cooking together and hosting each other through food, is collectively being conscious of where the food is from, what choices we made and make everyday to plant, pick, buy, and compost our food and be conscious of where we create waste. so we have ideas for how to further integrate this into further gatherings with the vision of axladitsa becoming self-sufficient.

our larger purpose for being together at Axladitsa was to deepen our understanding and practice of hosting, or of holding space for emergence to occur.

the thing that really came up was about the evolution of hosting spaces for meaningful conversations into this realization that the people who gathered are developing a next level of this practice through hosting meaningful spaces. this means living this practice by integrating it into our daily lives.

i feel this is what has been emerging for me these last few years, this deeper integration and consciousness around the personal, collective and natural.

and so it is important for me to be part of an emerging collective, a group and network of people who are living and working this way, who are constantly working to be aware of the emergence of new patterns for organizing their lives, their work, and our collective work in the world. i have been feeling - and now i am witnessing - something happening that has to do with a paradigm shift around how we live, work, relate, communicate, convene, reflect, be still, and move into purposeful and wise action.

2007-10-28T08:57:00.000-04:00

i'm writing on a strange day, with lots of processings and emotions. the mother of one of my best friends died of cancer today. lots of grieving, sadness at missing her mother's passing by being in montreal with her friends to celebrate old friends and the new lives they've brought into the world. what is the greater wisdom that the universe holds - this turn that she was not there, with her brother, after being at her mother's side consistently since the diagnosis? yet such a gift for us, her friends, to be able to support her. i feel so lucky that i have both my parents in my life. i think i take it for granted that they are there for me, and i for them.

so i found myself home just now reading the shambhala sun magazine on "choosing peace", feeling unpeaceful inside, restless and sad. and i found this:
www.herwildsong.com/journeys.html - women who lead wilderness and healing journeys. it all somehow seems connected to going to greece next week.

as i get ready to go to greece to be in the wilds of the olive harvest, with my hands in the earth and food, with people who are mentors, friends and peers, transforming ourselves transforming our worlds.... i think of wilderness and grieving and healing. and am checking in with my own energies, my organs actually, around what really is next for me in my life and work; what i am truly up for. a diagnosis this week invites me much much deeper into taking care of myself and truly shifting my paradigm of work into that of a balanced and healing life. finally, i see the deeper and wider context of my journey this year - some kind of detailed proof that i have not been crazy, or worse, "lazy."

i was asked "if you were to go to that place, that place beyond denial, even if you were to go ever so briefly to that place of true knowledge, what would it tell you about why your body is where it is?" and what would i do with that knowledge? and then i think, if I had a short time to live, if i were to live as if i was dying, what would i be choosing? and how is this different than today? because most of us are living denying the dying and making choices full of fear that we will not be provided for, with love and grace and abundance, by the cosmos..

so i am going to axladitsa at a critical juncture.

and i am looking forward to healing lands and hands...

saffron defiance

2007-10-22T09:38:00.000-04:00

this question of freedom erupts suddenly, comes into sight, after years of repression in Burma. there is a fearless flow of saffron and defiance in the streets of Rangoon. then disbelief, shock in the blindness and violence of an army that asks young men to shoot their fathers, their spiritual selves, their own selves. and i am reminded of a tibetan monk whose response to the question of how he felt about the chinese soliders he witnessed torturing and killing his fathers ~
"what kind of karma are they creating for themselves?" ~
his response leaves me in total amazement. the freedom of his mind and heart, to think and see that far ahead and behind with such open eyes to the interconnectivity of all life, over all time.

this must be freedom. the long view, in the present.
the expansive heart, in service to us all.

then each of us is all of us
the courage and the blindness
the spiritual and the bereft
the all time and the today.

it is a question of balance, an equilibrium of opposites.
more of us must face our shadows and come into the light, and be so courageous everyday ~

Thich Nhat Hahn on spiritual leadership and the monks in Burma,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74o9P6G2y18&feature=dir

when i was in india and walking the himalayas with saklanaji, the 80 year old tree planter, he kept up this call and response to the villages below us which was basically
"wake up! and save the trees! wake up!"
here TNH speaks eloquently about non-violent and compassionate action in Burma, and he is saying basically that we have been waiting for the spiritual leadership in America to wake up!

Alan Clements, activist buddhist, and first ordained american to practice in Burma weighs into this conversation, and is starting a world dharma institute is dedicated to and inspired by Aung San Suu Kyi Burma’s (detained) Nobel Peace laureate and leader of her country’s nonviolent "Revolution of the Spirit. "
http://www.worlddharmaonlineinstitute.com/

Venus' Kitchen

2007-10-12T14:30:00.000-04:00

today i lunched, i mean i launched Venus' Kitchen

it's a blog which explores in much more detail my culinary quest to integrate human and ecological systems with spiritual and sustainable practices.... it will have recipes, ideas, links, ingredients for living a yummy life ~ and it will harvest the places i go, the people i meet and the delices that i eat along the way and the special spices each offers into this collective cauldron.

so check it out http://venuskitchen.blogspot.com/
(but you can also click on the link just to the right)

sacred pace

2007-09-10T14:29:00.000-04:00

time compression ~ and life expansion

it has been a year since i returned from my freedom 35 travels to india, thailand, malaysia and mexico. it feels like a metamorphoses is completing and the creature that has come through the change is of a different time and pace than the one who unknowingly wove a cocoon for change. i had intentionally stepped into new life with freedom 35, with an idea of how i would come out of it. thankfully the universe gave me everything i needed in surprising forms, to push me and shake me and get me to places inside that i did not know existed ~ or needed.

and it is only 5 months since my last trip to india with alicia, and 3 since coming back from the berkana exchange gatherings in greece. it seems like a lifetime ago. i have felt that so little has been happening, but under the surface is the deep work of transformation.

in july, time stood still. actually it was i who stood still perhaps for the first time ever. after the vision quest, i committed to a water fast for 7 days. my first. my intention was clear and strong. in putting only water in my body, everything else seemed to clear in and around me. my body let me in on its pace, its quiet, and for the first time i understood something about stillness. last fall i had tried so hard to be still, to understand what happening to me, what was calling. but i couldn't hear my own wisdom or intuit my body's messages. i was too busy trying to be still. swimming hard against the current of transition, trying to "figure everything out" with my head. panicking, actually. frenzied. nowhere near stillness. isolation from my own self, needing the peace of mind granted in its cousin, solitude.

on a water fast, your body tells you when it is time to eat again and your tongue, which becomes discoloured, goes back to its normal colour. on day 7, neither indicator appeared so i continued for another 7 days, much to my surprise. i had no hunger. instead, a deep sense of peace warmed me, and i felt i was giving myself an embrace. my energy moved between the outward and social to feeling to stay inside and read, clean, write or work from home. i was actually listening to my body's rhythms, and my pace was so clear. decisions on what to do when were easy. i felt i was loving myself in a way i'd never considered before; i had never created such conditions to be so in tune, or aware. and i was surprised at how little i needed ~ i felt incredibly present to everything so i did not need to fill my time or my body with unnecessary things.

it became a sacred pace; my life and body moved at a sacred pace. and then i slowly came off the fast, as i stepped into my life again with a new sense of time.

a month later, in august, i was at the yasodhara ashram in the kootenays of British Colombia, planning to be there for 2 weeks and staying instead for 4 weeks. it felt like an integration of this past year's explorations and challenges. the longer i stayed, the more spaciousness emerged in my life back home. as i wished for new perspective on my life, the scheduled fall fell away - meetings and work cancelled or re-scheduled.

what was the universe calling in?

zen mind, beginner mind.
my whole time at the ashram invited humility, to face myself and my patterns and expectations, and to simply be part of the whole. to simply Be. as i am. and i found such joy in picking the kale from the garden, as a meditation, and then seeing it for dinner that night. such a challenge to make food for 100 people, have it never turn out as i thought, and yet see my small contributions appreciated by hungry guests. and so thrilled to be part of the emerging vision and practice of sustainability at the ashram, as a learner and contributor, not the so-called expert or leader. spaciousness. pace. gratitute for the lessons and the elongation of time.

so i look to this sacred pace also in my relationships ~ with shammi, with montreal, with work. i am ready to work and commit and move ahead, but at a sacred pace which honours the wisdom in my body, of our collective consciousness, of what is needed rather than what i hope for. the spaciousness means that in the letting go of those expectations come a new understanding of what is actually there. for the first time i am ready to let go and give space first, rather than in reaction to my own fears. it is freeing.

and it might take years before i reach the destination that is calling. one that that my body already knows, just as the monarch butterfly who flies south because it is its calling is not the same butterfly who shows up at the end of the journey. yet it knows to go that way ~ so what is "that way" for me?

listen listen. the knowing is there.

vision quest

2007-06-22T23:29:00.000-04:00

so i am going on a vision quest tomorrow, a ritual of going into nature, fasting and being held in one's quest and intention by healers, ancestors, friends, family, the natural world.

tonight i will sleep in my comfy bed and the next 2 nights i will be sleeping in the wilds surrounded and protected by nature as i quest. i have claire's tent and my journal, a bathing suit and granpy's book, hymn to isis, lots of water ... and a very full heart. i am feeling very grateful.

i realize so much love has come into my life this year, even as it has been a year of change and challenges and letting go ~ and learning to love myself in a way i never knew i needed to. there have been many new people coming into my life as new kinds of family and community from all over the world, and i am so blessed with my own family and my good friends, too. i am grateful also for relationships coming into a new forms, like with jimmy, and the new collaborations with alicia and myokyo and the zen community.... and now this beautiful friend shammi with whom i was in india and greece and am in the berkana community, with whom i feel i share and receive so much love, a boundless, giving love.

i am so grateful for these people, and for this journey.

so i leave to quest, and bring with me prayers and love and gratitude. i feel that questing like this is to clear the way, in my mind and heart, and clear the way to a closer relationship with what is around me and in me ~ and to the divine. my intention is really just that - to clear these paths and be in closer communion, to tune in. i will let you know how i do, how it goes.

axladitsa's playlight

2007-05-30T23:27:00.001-04:00

Silently stepping through Axladitsa’s path to the sea
Breathing and revealing, stopping to see,
to be

We look up
and see the delicate play of light on the tops of a forest of olive trees

Nature’s gift to us

Play, she says, twinkling a sunlight invitation
Play with me, see my light, my joy, be in it, sit here by the Agean
toes and skin touching the warm grain of my sands, swim in my healing waters, cold and sharp, awakening you, enveloping you in my embrace
And bring these gifts to each other
Embrace each other’s Light
Love it out of the darkness, peel out your sadnesses
Feel me in you
Swimming and rocking and playing
Let me help you touch your deepest and darkest, let me in so I can touch it lightly,
gently as this delicate purple flower, sturdy by the path,
mixing with the sweetness of sage, the lavender scent of lilac,
green peas ready to harvest, raw

we are opening to you
offering you everything
take what you need, gratefully, willingly
it is all here for you,
it is all already here
help each other to see it
soak me in to your pores, your blood and lungs,
this clean air I make every moment is for all of us,
always
and the quiet of this patch of tall soft grasses is eternal,
this quiet is in you
so be here, be with yourself and know that I am always here with you
in you
I am you
and we walk the same path of delicate purple flowers, fiercely,
love and light in every step

the (he)art of hosting, greece

2007-05-28T06:27:00.000-04:00

agean metamorphoses

2007-05-20T18:48:00.000-04:00

Healer heal thyself
What is this sharp soreness that lines the inside of my throat?
Dare I dream my dream, speak my secrets
The artist lays herself bare,
She is naked to herself, naked to the world
Risking everything, her bravery is vulnerable
Her vulnerability, brave

The water has called me twice now, this year
Neptune in my orbit
Dissolving the old ideas and structures, these ideas of my Self and how I move through this world into my fullness
The Indian ocean rocked me, lulled me and loved me back into my body
The Agean lifted me into lightness and ease and let me be in my wisdom and inspiration
And each waterway brought me companions who asked only me of me
Who saw me in that moment, wanting the me that I am
Not who I have been or want to be
And they needed only that which I could give
gifts of generosity, the mirror into each others lives and souls
The ocean and the moon, masculine and feminine in tandem
Our rhythms find each other, we move together
Heaving, breathing, floating
Healing

le design studio

2007-04-26T19:00:00.000-04:00

alicia and vanessa at our vastu design studio
(vastu means space in hindi; and it hints at the aliveness and personality of a space that breathes, loves, and has relationships..)

~ the studio is an exploration and experimentation of creativity and collaboration and making the spaces we want to live and work in ~ it in an invitation to those interested in in the spaces in-between you and me, where the possibilities lie ~

the "studio" is a hub of experimentation and by "design" we mean designing spaces, conversations, processes, ideas into actions ~ all with an underlying challenge of transformation and learning

~ our wish is to create a studio that personifies who we are in the world - and the world we want to live in.

head, hands, heart.

~ eating together, sprouting in the kitchen and growing food on our rooftop, hosting, talking and reflecting, planning and co-creating, this is a space for stillness and contemplation and practice, and for community and collective acttion...

saklanaji, forest sadhu

2007-04-03T15:54:00.000-04:00

ravi, alicia and i wove our way up the himalayas up up up from the town of dehra dun to visit saklanaji, an 85-year old sadhu whose life has been devoted to planting trees on the side of these mountains - they are our lifeline, our oxygen, we breath because of trees, we are alive because of them - he met us with a prayer, tears streaming down my face in the recognition of being in a sacred place, in the orbit of a sacred mission
with the will and vision of a self-proclaimed madman, saklanaji mourns and loves and every day, lives his prayer to the forest for the trees... he takes us through the paths of the oaks he has planted with his own hands singing at the top our lungs
"ek beti, bricth hazar" have one child and plant a thousand trees
"wake up" we sang to the village below, "wake up and plant trees!!"
three seeds into every hand-made hole, one for each of the gods, vishnu, brahma, mahesh ~ every act, every seed planted, an act of devotion
mostly blind, saklanaji knows the mountains like his own skin - the curves and textures, moisture and drainage, he moves through his forest deftly, confidently, joyfully
he tells us the secret of the forest's sadness, the road that cuts through her body, and the trees whispered to each other their fate. and saklanaji takes their vyog into his heart, and seeds their future, shows another possible future for the trees, and for us. they can live without us, but we can't live without them.
he takes us to a hole in the ground, the grave that he has dug for himself- HA! he laughs, i am a madman who has dug his own grave. a hindu, he will not be cremated as tradition goes, instead he crawls into his grave, lies face down and asks that we drape him with flower petals he has brought for this occasion, this performance. in his death, he will join the trees instead of burning them. he tells us he would love to come and see our forests in canada, and thank you for our invitation - he will be there, he will come, but he hopes we will understand that it won't be in person.

sacred kiss of chaos

2007-04-03T15:52:00.000-04:00

Lying on this rooftop with the roar of the Arabian Sea seeping through my every pore. Under the luminescence of the fulling moon, the stars shyly make their imprint on the velvet sky. My back is warm against the suntoasted cement; I am swimming in the warmth within and around me.

The ocean was wild and voluptuous this evening, thick waves crashing shorewards and spiralling backwards into pirouettes of foam and splash. I floated and swam and left my body to powerful rhythm, pulling and cycling me up and down, in a luscious dance. The water’s surface mirroring the soft pink and lilac of sunset, liquid beauty, changing in every moment into a canvass of supreme mystery ~ what are these patterns, these colours, this changing palette of sky and water…

I felt completely embraced by the lull and lush of the heaving water. I am part of this creature; I am IN this water and I AM this water. And I felt elated to be so connected with, to be truly part of this element, my surroundings, myself. Being in one’s element. Singing to the setting sun and the mountain of cloud descending into evening.

And now on this roof, with the moon in her glory of light and shadow.

I relish the sweetness of a still moment in this country where the sacred kisses chaos and turns our insides out ~ and yet the sacred kiss of chaos leads to urgent conversations with newfound soulmates about love, unconditional, pure, connection and caring, and to this feeling of having found that part of myself that lay dormant - the love, acceptance, celebration of all that I am at this moment~ all I can be and all that I can share here and now.

So it is with Bala and Kate, these new people who have soared into my life unexpectedly, who have come to me and I to them in this moment that our whole lives have brought us to. This moment that will dissolve into the next moment, and we will be new again. Our whole lives, all of our lives, have brought us to this time, these connections, these lessons of living and loving.

And isn’t it ever so simply, in all its complexity and mystery, about love. The water loves - in its passion and fury and calm, the stars love in their play of light and constancy, the moon loves in her rhythm of push and pull, and the sun with his heat that burns and nourishes.

And we make love in every moment, but we forget and mask the love because we fear we will be burned, that we can’t be constant, that our fury will shadow our calm, that our natural rhythms will stand in too stark contrast to this artifice we call time. And all we do is hurt ourselves and each other, when underneath, always, is this love - this light in all of us that shines brighter still when we share it.

the comet story

2006-12-11T12:16:00.000-05:00

What are the old stories that we need to let go of, re-invent, and learn from to create the new stories of NOW that will move us forward into the world we want to, and are currently, creating?

We are the stories we tell. There is a First Nations saying that you can only tell your story 3 times, then it is old. You need to change it.

The language and lexicon of the mainstream media and culture and the dominant stories in the so-called “news” crush imagination and possibility and negate what is actually going on in the deep layers of communities, across networks and in the hearts of people around the world. In my travels in the last 6 years, I have witnessed extraordinary acts of courage in communities, within organizations and by individuals that are a lifetime of commitment, not a heroic moment of glory. And the story is about courage, change, connection, commitment and the diversity of lenses through which we can see and experience our life, the collective, this earth, this time, all time.

So my offering here is a story.

There is a story of a place, and a people, who lived their Stories. These were the stories of their ancestors, of the land, of the knowledge and wisdom of their hearts across time, and of their spirits in communion with each other and with the universe.

Everyday they touched the earth and breathed the sky, and they looked each other in the eyes with clarity, inquiry and compassion. They shared their sadness, sorrows and pain with hearts wide open; they laughed their joys, hopes and love with arms spread in invitation. In harsh sun through cruel snow, in the cry of a new life and the cycle of the seasons, in the peace of morning and the sigh of evening, this place and these people gave thanks for the mystery of the unfolding of every day, every moment. And they shared it, always, in Story.

One day, there came a comet, its mass of ice and dust, crushing their homes and burning their plants and gardens. It had arrived, unannounced, a force of devastation. After ashes and tears and shock and alarm, the people moved toward the comet with curiosity and trepidation. They held hands, and encircled the new arrival, holding a space for the unknown to become known, trusting each other, trusting time.

An elder began to chant an ancient story of pioneers to a new land, the story of her family and collective aspiration in a time of hardship and struggle. Recognizing the story, her grandchildren offered their sweet harmonies, in their own cadence and beat.

Some said they should barricade the area, and leave the comet alone. Others wanted to touch and honour it, as it had come from the sky and was now part of the earth. Still others felt to break it down further, crush it to pieces out of anger, and others simply to integrate it into their land.

Young children chimed to make it a playground, imagining that they, too, could travel across the universe at light speed and visit new people in new lands. That by playing with this force, they could share in its magic.

Ashamed at the confusion it had caused but still bewildered by its dramatic journey across the sky, the comet finally got its wits together, and spoke.

But no one understood its language. They did not speak Comet.

Yet they did understand. By looking into each other, deeply, with inquiry and compassion they saw that together, at this moment, they were creating the new Story. And while new ingredients had been offered, suddenly, shockingly, they knew that what mattered was their intent, the strength of their courage and imaginations and the integrity of their actions NOW. The raw force and mystery of the cosmos mixed with the openness of their arms and hearts would compose the music that would be sung through time by their children, absorbed into every particle of their bodies and the earth, and threaded into the complex fabric of a Story of a place, a time, a people.

The comet had landed changing the landscape of Story in a moment. A moment that had taken light years to arrive and whose energy would spread beyond all boundaries murmuring whispering uttering pronouncing personifying….

....we are the stories we tell….

zazen boxe on the main

2006-10-26T20:05:00.000-04:00

i find myself waking up at 5:30 am to tread lightly down the stairs of the Zen Centre for the morning sitting. i am living here, in this little house on the corner of montreal's main thoroughfare, The Main (also known as St. Laurent), facing the portugese park. its late night junkies, lunchtime diners, family gatherings sprinkle my days with sounds and smells of urban chaos and renewal. the stillness of our home, in harmony with the cacaphony of urban rhythms, and life.

stillness in mid-city.

that is the theme we live here, daily. thrust into the activity of city is this space of quiet and contemplation. and i am having soooo much fun! talking to myokyo, the abbess, who is full of life and mischief and serious teaching. and kieran, the student resident practionner, 22-years old with bedhead and a penchant for late-night omelettes, he studies neuroscience at mcgill and leads the tight life of a student.

except he gets up at 5:30 am everymorning to be the soshi, the monk's helper.

unlikely room-mates.

and then there is rumi. myokyo's dog. a beautiful, friendly, massive creature whose loud bark resonates throughout the house with joyful, decisive jabs.

welcome to the zen centre, he says, i live here!

after meditation (tea ceremony, chanting the heart sutra, walking and sitting meditation - remember the sequences, the bells, don't fidget!) we eat breakfast. i then zoom up to van horne street on my bike, through the leafy streets of mile-end passing the morning walkers and bikers who weave their way through the city to work or to a café with some other 'self-employed' friend. i am going to box, yes, to BOX! really! to my friend phil's Blue Cat club de Boxe to sweat, skip, run, train, shadow box, hit things and concentrate wildly on getting it right.

my cousin lisa asks is there buddhanature in boxing?

i joined the class 3 weeks late. i practice my patience with myself, i let go of thoughts and judgements about how i ought to be doing and sink into being comfortable with looking someone in the eye as we practice the jab, or uppercut and its defence, focusing on the moment, one more push up, go go go you can do it --- yes! there is buddhanature in boxing.

after only one week, i am sore, and thrilled. and i end these days with yoga, stretching and holding those parts that have been used like never before, and connecting with and letting go of my self....

precision, practice, meditation, le boxe. no contradictions here - just a life! i live here!

the arriving...

2006-10-10T11:05:00.000-04:00

"we learn by going where we have to go,
we arrive when we find ourselves on the road walking towards us"

a new friend lent me The Art of Pilgrimage before i left on my freedom 35 trip. he had understood quickly what this journey was about... and i opened it again just last week, a little while after arriving back here in canada.

there is not just one arrival, i read. and it is true.

there is the corporeal arrival and welcome home. and there are the sundry adaptations to this new yet deeply familiar environment. the arrivals of the new self in the old place, new in subtle ways and new because you yourself are new....

canada welcomed me with the glow of summer weather, and my friends with a canoe trip and big hugs of stories and smiles. my family met at the cottage for a celebration of birthdays, new life (welcome to the world Roslyn Fancott!), the sweetness of water, sun and delicious food, and unconditional love.

as the glow of summer led to the changing light of autumn, i realized i was a whole new landscape. i had assumed that i had let go of all i needed to let go of, that my trip had given me the space to go through the hard and the lovely stuff of change, but alas, the coming back offered a whole new set of hard and lovelies. and even though i have gone through this kind of re-entry from potent, transformational excursions abroad, i had not at all anticipated that this one would be difficult. hadn't i gone through all that ON the trip, didn't i just have to BE all that i had become, here and now?

so i arrive where i started and am coming to know the place for the first time...

my mother. she had been present to me so often on my trip; she came to me strongly when i was in meditation and when thinking about healing. mother-daughter. she is in me and i in her and so our journeys and our healing are connected. one afternoon after coming home, we were lying on the couch, and i told her with choking throat that she had been with me in this way. and now she is diagnosed with a lump in her breast. i offer myself but in order for me to help, i say, you need to first identify what you need, and then you need to ask for help. this is a radical - for her to do this and for me to be talking to her in this way. this is my initiation into adulthood. this is our new family project - we have entered a whole new landscape.

my health. shouldn't everything be perfect after sun and fruit and yoga? after TIME spent in a new way, exploring, and letting go? My hair is long and bright, the tropical sun has kissed my body, but my insides are freaking out. i see a naturopath and hear: estrogen too low, heavy metals high, kidney qi and digestive fire practically out, circulation poor, adrenals exhausted, and all that that means and how it all manifests physically, psychologically.... it is time for another major transition and while my body adjusts and re-adjusts i sigh. i am not to fight this, or blame or hide, this is just simply what it is. my tan fades, my body blurbs and bleeds and rebounds, and I try to simply celebrate its achievements and lessons.

purpose and place – and the potential lives that await for my arrival. is it in toronto, or montreal or elsewhere? I need a room of my own, with a view, and sunlight and space to practice "stillness in mid-city". I find a sweet apt on esplanade and bernard in montreal, only after the elephant in the room that was my mother’s operation goes smoothly.

i let go of the perception i have of other people’s expectations of me (“so what BIG project are you working on now?”) and let myself swivel into a rhythm of conversation, writing, exploration, and threading together the pieces and themes that reveal themselves. there is time for loving the city, the Reid family Barn (for which i am thankful on thanksgiving), the light touches of friends, family and seasons and the wonderful circumstance of collaborating with myokyo, at the zen centre de la main… inviting me to practice my practice, live my vocation, experiment with how I can express myself through work and purpose and see where it all leads…

because the art of pilgrimage is the craft of taking time seriously, elegantly.

desert roses and social change

2006-06-21T20:54:00.000-04:00

so after the blanched desert ghost town of real de catorce walking through the surrounding stunning mountains, laced with cacti of all shapes and sizes (including peyote!) and the silvermine ruins of ancient stone tucked in there majestically, the winding and charming cobblestone streets and callejons (alleys) of guanajuato, a city perched on the side of mountains with a surprise, a plaza, a fountain, another tiny alley at every corner, and the colourful colonial beauty of san miguel de allende.... i found myself in acapulco of all places!!!!

the ocean called! the water! humidity! my hair and skin were as dry as the desert sands and although the beaches there were not at like the private calm beauty of hatwanakorn in thailand and d'lagoon and the adam and eve beach in malaysia, i was happy to be near the ocean once again.

one day i managed to sneak my way into a hotel overlooking the ridiculously crowded Caleta beach, and spend the day swimming in their salt water pool, uninterrupted, with the squeals of glee from the throngs of families on the beach. the beach was in fact a pretty polluted cove, with a dangerous riptide, so entire families sit in the water close to the breaking waves looking somewhat like clothed beached sea creatures.

(i am SERIOUS! Spot the Slim Mexican is a new and challenging raod game because the predominant body type that we saw was round and plump; according to my cousin, bronwyn, who is working for a health foundation in mexico city, mexico has the highest rate of diabetes in the world! probably due to all the corn, 12 tortillas per mexican per day, the fried foods, sweets and breads, and unbelievably sweet fruits read: mangoes!)

so juicy fruits and radical social movements have converged in this latest leg of the freedom 35 trip....

my first two weeks in mexico were all about intense learning and exploring, living in an adobe dorm, experiencing a temascal (traditional saunas) & being covered in an Oaxacan chocolate body scrub, visiting Nuestra Papel and Mondo Mujeres, two interconnected communities re-imagining both family and their world and committed to sustainable living and livelihoods, my own emotional jet lag upon arrival in the americas from my highs and heat in asia and now a head and heart full up to bursting after soooo much conversation, contemplation, dishwashing (!) and "open space technology" with people from around the world on Now Activism, the Art of Learning Center-ing and social change....

and these last two weeks with jimmy have been more of an "on the road" travelling kind. this is an awesomely beautiful and diverse country, both ecogolically and culturally. i never knew. and now i do. i really hope to come back sometime..... but first i come back to canada for summer and letting all this digest and gel and form ...

activism y mexico

2006-06-05T17:05:00.000-04:00

from the land of soursops and ripe guavas, chilies of all shapes, sizes, colours and HOTNESS, sweet & rich avocadoes (some of which you can eat like apples!), plazas and fountains and colourfully painted casas, secret rooftop and courtyard gardens, composting toilets, absolutely inspiring people and families living sustainably in the mountains of oaxaca state, the desert, the zapatista movement sayings "we walk with the slowest" and "escuchamos y caminamos" (we listen as we walk), the teachers strikes, the urban contaminacion and traffic congestion....

i have spent the last two weeks in Oaxaca, Mexico with community and organizational leaders from Brazil, India, Pakistan, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and the US including the Bar Fellows (civil society leaders from Boston).... It has been absolutely exhausting and inspiring.

we were living at Tonatzen Talli for 5 days. it is a a sustainable community in the mountains and desert with composting toilets, an organic garden and solar heating... sleeping in dorms constructed with adobe and local materials and feeling like we were outside only protected by bamboo and mosquiter nets and new friendships.... amazing raw and veg food and people from all over the world talking about cool stuff together... did a handstand in front of the entire group, as we were talking about how we will move forward, who are our mates in this endeavour, what are our fears ---- and being upside down and looking stupid is definitely one of mine!!!.... i fell on my head the first time, and my pants rode up to my hips, but i got it the second time and now feel like a superheroine....

we then moved to los olivos, in oaxaca city, with new people coming in and new friends leaving, to explore something called Now Activism. through days of exploration and seemingly endless conversation, this nowactivism is emerging as how we live our lives with our deepest integrity and connect this most personal with the webs of community around us, through our work NOW, our friendships, and our long term vision of what kind of world we want to live in and create. to imagine how we might live in and act in that world, TODAY NOW AHORITA.

we were hosted by and invited to an organization called unitierra, with solar cooking and alternative ways of learning by putting values into practice and being in communion with the earth and traditional knowledge. we were in conversation with gustavo esteva, one of the most radical, committed and alternative thinkers and actors in the social change and zapatista movements. did i mention we churned raw cacao with a bicycle grinder into an indigenous and delicious chocolate drink guided by an elderly mayan woman...

many personal and professional discoveries, as well as old friends from india and montreal converging, and now new ones from south africa, zimbabwe, nova scotia and brazil. i am just soaking this all in and will have to digest it a bit now and later, as the potential for so many things is HUGE....

jimmy is now here in mexico, and so i switch gears and head north to the beautiful and magical mountains and hot springs of san miguel de allende, guanajuato, st luis de postili and real de catorce...

just names right now, but soon to be part of the majestic tapestry that this journey is and has become. a delicious enmeshing of so many people and places both inside and outside of me.

chiang mai motley crue

2006-05-11T02:35:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-01T06:14:00.000-04:00

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.

RAW thai cuisine

2006-04-16T22:49:00.000-04:00

Traveling RAW in asia is full of discoveries and deliciousnesses, the fresh fruit and vegetable markets in every city and village become a main destination and vegetarian and vegan restaurants pop up as wonderful surprises! (recipes below!)

everywhere it is possible to find PAK (greens) and spices to make salads, and enough fruit to boggle the mind... except in dabong, near the jungle in malaysia, where you can only find okra and watermelon if you get there too late for the pick up truck which serves the tiny market there.

the longer i travel and the more seasons i am privy to, the more fruits i discover! (with the help of jimmy, of course, who knows which mango is in season when and where). i had some amazingly rich and creamy, sweet and spicy durian in kota baru, and have yet to try the many many other varieties that are out there like the elusive Red Durian.

new favourite fruits are ~ SALAKs a nutty tangy fruit in a reptile-like skin; CEMPADAH like jackfruit with its green spikey lumpy POD-like shape but inside it is electric orange and the round goeey pod inside tastes like spicy sweet curry; tong dum mangoes with bright orange meaty sweetness (and 4-5 other varieties i've fallen in love with..); ROSE APPLE light and sweet and juicy and travels well...

much to my delight i've found many raw-friendly vegan restaurants!
in Kota Baru, Malaysia, at Muhibah Vegetarian Restaurant, the girls tried to explain to me that the oyster sauce was vegetarian, the duck was vegetarian, the fish ... until i realized they made MOCK meat with tofu and seitan and used mushroom sauce! the mayonaise for the salad was made with coconut milk and pineapple! and their little store sold braggs apple cider, psyllium husk, and a form liquid aminos raw soy sauce!;
Kuala Lumpur's Formosa veg(an) restaurant near chinatown had books on buddhism that you could take away with you after a custom-made meal of fresh veg including shitake mushrooms...
in Sawankhaloke where jimmy lives in Thailand, the local gwitiyu (noodle lady) who speaks NO english confusedly put together a PAK only bowl putting the greens in the hot water for only seconds to make a yummy bright green veg soup (what, no salt? no sugar? so msg? no dried shrimp? huhhh?)
in Pondicherry, the restaurant across from the ashram hostel combined cucumber, coconut, red onion with lime juice and masala and of course on every corner, there was a fresh juice stand...

and now i'm in Bangkok, and my favourite veg restaurant from last time, May Kaidee's, has home stays and cooking classes... sooo.. being the only participant on a sunday, May Kaidee and I experiemented with a RAW thai cuisine class

BANANA LEAF SALAD, Green PAPAYA SALAD, Issan and Peanut SAUCES uses cashews instead, SPRING ROLLS using Cabbage leaves or Nori, Glass noodle dish using bean sprouts as noodles, thai carrot salad, tom yam soup and tom kah soup (lightly warmed), EGGPLANT, COCONUT AND THAI HERB SALAD, Pumpkin Hummous.

Tangy Thai Carrot Salad or Wraps

handful of raw cashews
1 tomato, chopped
1 carrot, grated
coconut, grated (best to have a real coconut and just grate a handful of hard-ish "meat")
1 tblspoon ginger, sliced lengthwise

juice of 1/4 lime, 1 tblsp raw soya sauce (or braggs), sweetener: honey/agave nectar

crush the cashews in a bowl or a morter and pestle (sp?!), add the tomato, lime juice, soya sauce and sweetener and keep crushing/mixing the flavours together
add the carrot, coconut and ginger, mix together

use a cabbage leaf or nori sheet and use this as the filling
you can add coriander, sweet thai basil or mint
and/or a lettuce leaf or leafy green, mung bean sprouts

Rawing it on the Road
an easy raw salad for the road is chopped okra, tomato, red onion, lime juice, sweet basil and pak chii (coriander leaf) smushed into my little tiffin (indian metal tupperware) and eaten happily on buses & boats.

the raw coconut noodle soups that jimmy and have experimented with (and devoured!)are easier to make and eat, when sitting still - using the fresh coconut water as the soup liquid, the soft coconut meat as the noodles, thai basil, chopped greens and veg of the day, mung bean sprouts, lime for tang and maybe chilis for heat

sabai dee in bangkok

2006-04-16T22:37:00.000-04:00

from the quiet and chilled vibe of the sea, to the dynamic multicultural, charming and colourful city of penang in malaysia to BANGKOK of all places. ON SONGKRAN, the out of control new years water festival, of all days.

after almost not surviving songkran, i have landed on my feet once again. whatever the warnings from friends and strangers, I DID NOT UNDERSTAND AT ALL WHAT anyone meant about staying away or simply embracing songkran, until i arrived. the taxi driver didn't even want to take me in to khao san road, where i had thought it would be convenient to stay (touristy, but all the travel agencies are there, as well as bookstores etc).

IT WAS MAYHEM. hoards of people on the backs of pickups with BUCKETS of water and HUGE WATER GUNS just ploughing through the streets soaking each other. vendors everywhere selling little hershey-kiss size balls of flour to put in water and the, smush on people's faces and say "kup khun khaa" (thank you). tons of young & hip thais wiggling through the packed streets... i arrive here with no guide book except the map i copied from the lonely planet at the airport bookstore, thinking i would stay in one of the "quiet" places near khao san road. no such thing - music blaring, tourists everywhere, it just didn't even LOOK like thailand. it made me feel lonely and i wondered why i wasn't by the sea. looking like it was about to rain, and me feeling hot and sweaty, i took a room at a place highly recommended in the lonely planet. NOT my scene. i felt shitty. but at least it was a clean room.

to make a long story short, i wondered why on earth i was in bangkok on a day when NONE OF THE TRAVEL agencies were open, there was mayhem noise and chaos everywhere and i just didn't want to be there. mustering up all my energies, i went for a walk to get out of there (it was like a mini-clausterphobic hell), and i walked and walked and walked the city streets and met people, and started to smile and said khap khun khaa (and i meant it) when nice people came and smushed my face gently with muck. i have NEVER seen any thing like this. it was like St. Jean Baptiste Day on st. viateur street but a quadrillion more people, and water, food, vendors and VERY LOUD MUSIC EVERYWHERE. the thais have a penchant for huge sound systems.

as i walked i literally stumbled upon my favourite veg place from the last time i was here - may kaidee 's vegetarian resto - she had moved! and she has a guest house! and she gives cooking lessons! and she's started a health food store! so i took A FABULOUS ROOM at her place - with teak furniture and floor, huge bed, two sides of windows, tons of room for yoga, super clean, quiet... and the next day i stumbled upon the most wonderful travel agency, ate bananas with the Ladies who laughed and did magic on the computer (i have secured a ticket to mexico), i found my 2 favourite bookstores, and finally finally, after nobody being able to tell me where to find a fresh fruit market (where do they buy their fruit?), i FOUND ONE PAR HAZARD and bought durian!

this wild ride in bangkok has given me the chance to make it here on my own - AND ENJOY it, too. i've only ever been here in transit, in a rush with jimmy as my guide. this is quite and incrdible city with all the contrasting dichotomies of big asian cities - pollution and parks, wide expansive busy streets and tiny little sois (alleyways), too many people and lovely friendly strangers....

having negotiated it on my own, finding beauty amid the chaos, i feel Sabai Dee... good, peace.... and ready for traveling alone north to chiang rai for a final chapter on the asian leg of freedom 35!

tripping out

2006-04-06T22:59:00.000-04:00

as the speed boat zoomed and crashed over turquoise clear water, i COULD NOT BELIEVE THE COLOURS I WAS SEEING. coming toward D'Lagoon on the small Malay island of perentian, my breath was taken away, or did it quicken in excitement and anticipation? i don't even remember.

a tiny little inlet with a miniature white sand beach, surrounded by smooth sun-kissed bolders, tropical trees and a wide wide sky. the bolders hug a rugged shore which turn into a scottish highlands-like hill of small shrubby trees trimmed by the winds. tucked away behind the beach's coconut trees are a few little bungalows, a dorm and an open-air restaurant. this is where we would spend four days - on a kodachrome-coloured tropical island.

with our 4 boxes of fresh food procured meticulously at the kota baru market, including succulent mangoes and 4 durian, our guitar and bags, we settled into a small bungalow with a balcony just the right size for one of us to do yoga, and both of us to sit and eat, sing or simply look at the water.

it seemed to me that time just melted away. i had an experience floating in the sea that i've never had before - buoyant from the salt, my whole body seemed to be ON the water, and then twisting and turning horizontally i imagined myself a playful sea creature being caressed by the sea. joy! the water was warm and simply enveloped me, i felt surrounded and so calm.

we found the adam and eve beach, after a beautiful quiet barefoot walk through the forest accompanied by spontaneous bird calls, the surprised rustle of a harmless and very large iguana-like creature, and armies of determined black ants in strict rows climbing over roots (david suzuki says the whole world would fall apart if the ants suddenly disappeared, for all the space they take up). again, my breath was taken away! this very private beach looked like a picture - so perfect and still, with brillantly clear greeny turquoise water, white soft sand, bright green trees... yet i was there in person! lunch on the rocks, slipping into the sea, being naked and free....

and the same kind of slipping away seemed to be happening internally. subtle shifts in my body doing yoga, a new ease physically as well as on other levels. some things are just slipping away, certain old patterns and expectations are coming to light and then .. just not there anymore. recognizing parts of me that may have been so tired, dormant, and seeing them again come out - humour, muscles, energy -

one morning after jimmy and i ate mangoes i climbed onto one the big rocks facing sky and sea and just sat looking out, and then closed my eyes, looking in. not much to it, except I FELT I WAS REALLY THERE. no busy mind planning-planning, no heavy heart wondering-hoping, and muscles breathing and happy not stiff and hurting...

little Miss Hap

2006-03-25T04:33:00.000-05:00

the camping at Hatwanakon National park was amazing, and full of challenges and Rewards. i'm christening this leg of the trip Little Miss Hap Goes to Hatwanakorn National Park, as the first week was full of crazy things like stepping on black ants whose bite was brutal - like glass being wrenched into a small area of one's foot, or being bitten by little tiny red ants and the itch and pain lasting and lasting, or going swimming in the beckoning beautiful vast ocean and running into the sting of jelly fish (and then RUNNING out of the water in shock, even though it is only a temporary pain, it is an awful image to think of diving in the waves and coming up with a jellyfish on your face). needless to say, there was trepidation about swimming... we were then introduced to silent and sneaky mosquitos (silent because my hearing was very poor due to wax build up which the sea has since drained) - just one critter in the tent at a time can chew up your whole night. so if all those bites weren't enough, i got a heat rash on my stomach and just felt red and itchy all over.

it didn't help that when we came back into town to get more supplies (read: delicious fruits and veg) to cart back to the park, i was experiencing (UPS) Urgent Pee Syndrome. on our way to see Durian Man, i stopped to relieve myself at a little resto-shop, and wearing my Art of Living baseball cap to protect me from the sun, i walked toward the squat toilet and BANG! walked right into the concrete slant of the staircase above. (baseball hats DO NOT protect from overhanging structures). being the brave gal that i am, i squatted to pee and, oh yes, you guessed it, started crying. ah, the relief. jimmy was shocked to see my red face as i opened the door, and was thus duly warned of the imminent threat of a headbang.

i say all this because weren't these my very fears about coming to the HOT of the tropics, rather than running to the cool of the mountains? i simply hadn't expected to run into all my dislikes in a few short days, and in such an idyllic setting. but there it is. the universe provided me with a veritable menu of icks and yucks and offered me the perfect balance with:

stunning sunrises and sunsets; a full moon performance that lasted 3 full nights; warm days of sun and wind with the cleanest air imaginable; green and lush forest and the longest of creamy sand beaches for walking; relief from the jellyfish after the full moon passed; nice nice nice people; privacy and quiet; long yoga sessions facing the sea with the breeze on my face; spontaneous singing before yoga, after yoga, with jimmy; a good friend and companion in jimmy; and so many discoveries of foods (pomelo, a sweet and huge grapefruit-type fruit; durian, a little out of season but creamy and rich like custard; fresh coconuts chopped by jimmy that yielded the sweetest water...)

with my lack of sleep due to hard ground (i hadn't anticipated a camping trip), humidity and itch took a bit of a toll, so i rented one of the seaside cottages for a few nights, for respite and then rented my own tent for the last 2 nights... it gave me room and rest. with jimmy and his tent right next door and his small tent for all our food supplies, we were like a little community a deux. and our trips to town were total adventures, making many friends at the market as we walked in with our 4 cardboard boxes to fill. there is Pomelo Girl, Durian Man, Our Favourite Veg Guy, Sapodilla Lady, and Annoying Man who is Very Helpful...

so little Miss Hap made it through her first tropical camping experience, and is anticipating her trip to Kota Bharu in Malaysia and the Jungle ride ... i am so grateful for all the Time i had just to be and to think, and to breath, and finally, in the last few days to play in the healing salt water waves with abandon (No Fear! No jellyFish)...

อฟืหหฟ
(vanessa in thai script)

magic yogi man

2006-03-06T11:03:00.000-05:00

greetings from pondicherry!

once i decided not to go the vegan eco forest retreat, all my dreams came true! during all the meditations at art of living, i realized i wanted to focus on my mind AND body; that freedom35 starts inside and more than anything i want to feel really free and easy allround!

so ... of course ... the universe provided!

on sunday, i walked into this little place called Prana Health on canteen street where the sign outside said Yoga, Detox, cleansing ... and spoke to Martine, a frenchwoman who waiting for a massage. while she was raving about the couple who run the place, i was thinking "well of course, i will ask for the woman" and then ta da this beautiful man appears with the clearest eyes, lovely warm and fuzzy white beard, in his little massage outfit of lungi and tablier! my mind was made up! he was IT! I was IN!

he gave me the most unbelievable 2 hour massage with E-V-E-R-Y gland, orifice, surface and interior rubbed and scrubbed. i'm talking NOTHING was left untouched. he pulled every hair on my head (oiled and rubbed and then yanked and pulled), he slapped and tapped, and pushed and probed with THE most expert and loving hands. and when he did my stomach to get at my internal organs, it hurt but i knew it was for a higher good. energy and prana were moving, emotions and sensations came up and... yes, i just started crying and crying. and what did he do? he held my face close and said in his soft voice "relax, relax, relax" and then put his beautiful beard on my face and held me in such an indescribable way... that i could only think that this is the way he serves the world, healing one person at a time. and then when i started laughing, he gave me an eskimo kiss - he rubbed my nose with his nose! i'm serious!

so i've totally changed my plans. i have decided to stay in pondicherry until i go to bangkok on the 10th and today started a 3 day cleansing programme with Ganesh (that's his name Dr. Ganesha). today was totally wild. get this:

yoga
herbal mud pack on my stomach, then a special tea
hot bath (plunked in a little plastic tub like a kid), a black pepper tea
warm enema, lie down for 10 min, let it all out, another tea
full head and body massage (by his wife), tea
steam bath followed by sugar cane juice and then a fruit salad

ok, but the whole time i had no idea what i was in for, what was coming next, how long i would be there, (it turns out it was a half day), and i'm totally naked going from one thing to the next in what is basically their house, but fully equipped with stone slabs for lying down, showers...

so i finished the day with another yoga class with 2 danes and then a fruit salad and carrot salad. they sent me home with tea for tomorrow morning. i feel SO GOOD. and i have 2 more days of this!

so i sign off, feeling totally blessed and caressed!

i highly suggest coming to pondi for the 7 or 10 or 21 or 30 day cleanse with Dr. G-Love! a day with him was the same cost as one hour of ayurveda at the ashram. really - worth the price of a plane ticket.

prem, shantih shantih...

rampant honkaholism

2006-03-06T11:01:00.000-05:00

so i had mused in my last email if the plans that had come so well together in my preparations would be just as clean and easy in delivery. and OF COURSE not! what would be the point of that!!!! it would leave out all the fun and spontaneity of a freedom 35 tour.

the perfect bus (big and air conditioned, my seat in the ladies section - seats 3 and 4 - up at the front looking through the wide window..) headed off to pondicherry from bangalore yesterday morning. and lo and behold, the bus driver turned out to be a honkaholic - one who honks excessively and obsessively, and even worse, can be characterized by a strong tendency to HONK ALONE (as in when there is absolutely no one in sight to need a honking of any sort).

the noise pollution only increased when the sai baba video (a well known guruji here) then turned into really bad indian film music videos played too loud and then progressed to murderous, extremely violent films played so loudly that for most of my trip in the comfy front seat, i was plugging my ears and averting my eyes.

we took a detour through villages (beautiful! green! lush! bustling!) and the driver didn't clue into all the looks he got from pedestrians and other drivers as he HOOOOONKED his way through main streets and tiny neighbourhoods. it was TOOO MUCH.

and then it started to rain.

so i arrived in pondicherry, rattled but smiling nevertheless at how a good thing can go so wrong, and in the pouring rain which is totally uncharacterstic here at this time of year proceeded to find a guest house. after the 3rd attempt, i decided to stay at the international guest house (part of an ashram, located in the bustle of the main part of town) in a big room, sparse, with a window that looks onto a wall, but a bathroom with hot water to warm myself.

it surprised me that an ashram residence would feel so lifeless, but even as i took a reservation for tonight at their other place near the ocean, i realized that that one struck me as even more lifeless. so i paid for both (150 rupees for one and 300 for the hot water - total maybe $12 for 2 rooms! i will stay in the first one for tonight and just take it one day at time. i actually quite like the contrast from ALL my other rooms thus far.

on the bus, i sat with jyanti, a 27 year old indian woman who works at IBM, unmarried, and on her first trip to pondicherry. as we talked, i realized it would be nice to have a local person in pondicherry to REALLY see the place.

so that is who i found today. as i was wandering, being a flaneuse (je m'baladais sur l'avenue), i found myself on a beautiful side street. a voice asked me in french if i was from the aurobindo ashram (just outside of town - a whole story in itself). i said no and a friendship was struck. i was a little wary at first, as it was indian man on a motorcycle (and those who recieved emails from my last stay in india know that this can be a single travellin' woman's nemesis!), but this man was different, he actually didn't seem to want anything from me, he just wanted to know if i knew about a performance at the ashram which would save him a trip out there - turns out he is French as in he was born and schooled in French in Pondicherry and has lived in France for the last 20 years. his name is Jean Michel Byron (!) and he speaks only french and tamil. no english! no hindi! so we spoke french. how wonderful!

we zipped off to see the aurobindo ashram on his motorcycle and checked out the sadhana forest where i had planned to go for the week (eco forest retreat that i keep mentioning - whoa it is NOT what i expected). it was a totally great day; among my favourite things are wandering a city and getting lost; being on the back of a motorcycle and seeing EVERYTHING; and sitting in a comfy place and watching the world go by. so i did ALL those things today!

with pondy being a french colony, there are many places here that serve french food (read: fresh salad! roquette/arugula!), but it also brings a certain european feel. the sea side of the city is referred to by locals as White town and is clean, colonial and there is pretty much NO ONE around, while the other side is called Black town and is wild, colourful, lively and chaotic and very indian with people sleeping on the street, peeing in the puddles - you just WOULD NOT see this in the former part of town. no way. interesting spatial analysis.

so my plans for the eco forest - the ONE thing i had planned so much around and the one thing that brought me to pondy - may have changed. my friends from nasik are no longer going to be there (injury and health reasons) and i didn't LOVE the vibe out there today. so i may have one week to do some other things, OR see about changing my ticket and heading to bangkok a bit earlier! only time will tell!

let's get lost

2006-03-02T10:06:00.000-05:00

my last day in bangalore and everything went perfectly backwards, or opposite to what i had planned. isn't it?

i met renee, an melbournian, on my last night at the ashram, and we realized that we were both heading to bangalore so we took a taxi to town together having reserved hotels 5 min away from each other!

it was fabulous having a pal in the big city with whom to roam (and one who had an air conditioned room!). but more importantly, she is also a TAURUS! so we shopped and talked (and i painted my toenails), and went for a delicously decadent buffet at the hotel sheraton at windsor square. this is india - all extremes, contrasts and contractictions living side by side. like rohinton mistry's A Fine Balance between hope and despair, between opulence and poverty...

well, OM-y-god this hotel was just stunning. we sat in the atrium, all glass and high ceilings and wicker chairs, with lapel-ed waiters who put your napkin on your lap. we were facing a beautiful blue blue blue pool, fountain, lawn and chaises longues. the buffet was simply, how to say? OUT OF CONTROL. so many dishes, and for me, so much delicous green and raw foodS. plural. not just one, but many salads and lightly steamed BOK CHOY and veggies, and fruits and and beet halwa. it was pure bliss.

and even more importantly, renee and i talked and talked and de-briefed the intensity of the meditation/art of living/ashram experience. i had not talked to anyone about anything up til then, let alone talked!; i had only been experiencing. the course leaders had said, come out of the silence slowly, and i really did, but 6 days later i just talked and talked...

so debriefing was just wonderful. we were able to put our experiences in context - including the PATIENCE required to move gracefully through the crowds, line-ups, misunderstandings, heat, dust, did i mention the line ups of 100s of people (and line budders), and different cultural norms (i think in mongolia and russia it might ok to go to the front of the line to do one's thing, but north americans get really stressed and anxious about that).

we also put this in the context of some of the knowledge/values in which we were immersed at the ashram - accept people the way they are!; opposite values are complimentary! this was really fun, and we gleaned many insights into ourselves, the experience, Life, People, the Universe. it was one of those conversations like you have on a canoe trip, when you are so far away from everything, that time takes on an entirely new dimension and 5 hours talking is like knowing someone for 5 months or 5 years.... you just skip past all the social niceties and go deep.

so she left last night and today i had a solo day in bangalore. i had planned a smooth day of errands, but the universe DEFINITELY had other ideas for me. the first 5 rickshaw drivers had no idea what i was talking about so my day was actually the reverse of what i had thought it would be, and it was just perfect! and get this, the post office experience that i was just dreading (it took me 5 hours to mail 2 parcels in mumbai. I AM NOT KIDDING! 35 min line up at one post office, oh you can't send that from here, go to the other post office, lline up, oh you need to sew the package, line up, oh you can send that from this counter, but the books you have to go to another building...)

today it took no time at all! and there was so much help! i find once i send the goods, they are literally gone from my mind. they may or may not arrive, whatever. but the lead up to the sending is such a big deal.

yesterday's excursion to get my tickets for the next leg of the trip (vegan eco forest and pondicherry) and then thailand, was just wonderful! i took a rickshaw to an area called cambridge and after getting my tickets, i just walked around this neighbourhood and got intentionally lost. THIS is bangalore. cute streets, trees, people just doing their thing... i found an esoteric shop that sold little buddhas, crystals, books, insence... and then bought dried fruits at a supermarket-y place, and then some veg at a wonderful vendor. on the street, there were carts of oranges piled beautifully in massive and perfect pyramids, a mandir (temple) surrounded by flower and garland vendors, a jute shop, many little restos... it was a great hour.

and at the end of my day today i finally got to the first place i wanted to go to - called the Raintree where there is a shop called Anouki - an eco-friendly shop in an old mansion where other designers and artists showcase and sell their goods. they do vegetable dyeing and make beautiful clothes (a bit like sarah clothes) and it is just a beautiful place /oasis.

so i'm at Cafe coffee day, a hip internet cafe near MG road (there is a Mahatma Gandhi road in every major city), listening to beyonce singing (loud!) and sharing some space with urban hipsters. i've just eaten a huge guava from a street vendor (7 rupees, he cuts it up and puts spices on it which i had to wipe off b/c I LOVE GUAVAS the way mother nature made them!).

so i'll sign off and head back to my room to pack and then hop on an 8:30 am bus tomorrow... the getting losts and reversals have been highlights of the trip (expectations reduce joy!) and i'm finding there is an underlying flow that i just need to pay attention to, and i'll be taken care of!!

jai guru dev

2006-02-27T05:13:00.000-05:00

ok so i'm back in action after 2 weeks of breathing, yoga, meditation, chaos and silence at the art of living ashram near bangalore... yes FROM CHAOS TO BLISS is the mantra here. there were 12, 000 people who descended on this ashram and then 2 million people at the silver jubilee celebrations at the very dusty jakkur airfield. and get this, there were 20, 000 indians who came from ALL over to volunteer for the 3 days of art of living celebrations. i thought santropol roulant had lots of volunteers. this was just a whole other scale!

it was mayhem, but everything worked out and it was an extraordinary experience. world spiritual, political leaders and famous indian artists and singers shared the stage (for the first time! there was an orchestra of 13,000 indian musicians on stage). speakers included presidents, ministers of health, the UN envoy for refugees, heads of state from mongolia, denmark, croatia, argentina, south africa... over 50 countries) ... really, i've never seen anything like this.

i feel great right now, after all this breathing and singing (satsang every night!). very clear. and ready to keep up all this pranayam (breathing) so i can feel this way all the time. now that 98% of the people are gone from here to delhi for mahashivratri, another auspicous spiritual occasion, there is calm and quiet here on the ashram.

i have made the best of the ayurveda treatments here! i had my pulses taken by an ayurvedic doctor and it turns out i am a pitta constitution - means fire - so there are certain foods not to eat, and in fact a raw diet is good for the system. i also had a abhyanga hot oil massage (yes, and it is 35 degrees outside!). and is was AWESOME, so was the hot shower afterwards. what a feeling! and have had the facial marma and body marma - these are pressure points on the body, as well as the famous shirodhara where the scalp and head receive a gentle massage by way of a steady stream of hot, delicious oil. "relax! be in the experience!"

i took 2 advanced breathing and meditation courses, the first had 5000 people in it! they had to build a new space (a tent) for it. when i took the advanced course in montreal, there were 40 people and it seemed like a lot. but that is canada, this was the world! LITERALLY! there were translators working overtime all the time. in the second course, there were a mere 1000 people; it felt very intimate actually and we used the mahalakshmi mandap meditation hall (in the form of a 5 storey-1000 petaled lotus; it is a stunning building). so we went into silence for 3 days! i really really loved the silence. and the meditations were intense. i found that my body and mind both started to shift - and become less busy. i could actually sit comfortably for them for most of the time. so the stiffness in my hips and back and legs are slowly dissolving.

one world family
so i am ready to move, once again. i go to bangalore tomorrow, then to pondicherry to the vegan-eco-forest retreat and will meet up with my nasik family once again - nitin, anita and sakhi - to participate in meetings about alternative education and much more. then i head to thailand and malaysia to meet up with jimmy to travel and be in nature together. i am looking forward to being with a good friend (besides myself, of course). after this incredible international experience and this silence, i am wanting to connect and converse, and be quiet, with a close friend.

i realize i was with quite a unique family here at the ashram with people from all over the world at the same time as my blood family celebrated harriet and mark's wedding on the other side of the world, in vancouver. but i feel i was part of all it; that i haven't "missed" anything, that i was everywhere and nowhere, but the feeling of love and connection was inimitably present.

jai guru dev!

paces and places

2006-02-11T12:07:00.000-05:00

this part of goa is tourism gone wild. there are some parts of the beach that are SO crowded it is unbelievable. in fact, last night, i took the beach route to town to do my fruit and veg shopping (rather than along the main road! what a discovery!). there was such a mass of people at one point that i thought there must be a concert or protest ahead. but no, it was the main opening to the calangute beach. it was predominantly indian families and boys standing around, or swimming en famille fully clothed in their salwar kameezes, while the foreigners line the beach on "sunbaths", long-chairs squeezed side by side ~ with rather large and pink people on them.

there was one group of teenagers with a frisbee, and i thought "o my god they are playing ultimate frisbee!" well, not exactly. it was more like ultimate rugby; the frisbee never took flight, only the guy holding it did. his friends made a human wall, and with a gleeful yelp he ran around the side of them all the way down to some imaginary but agreed upon line, and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM went zooming after him in a hailstorm of sand. this is not how we use frisbees back home. i couldn't help but laugh because they were have a ridiculous amount of fun making up a game.

a new chapter begins on monday, as i leave for bangalore and stay at the art of living ashram for two weeks. first nasik staying with nitin and anita and sakhi in their home, then mumbai staying at a five star hotel and then on my own for the first time since arriving at a guest house, then goa in an apartment generously lent to me by a friend's family, then bangalore at an ashram~

the places and paces have all been so different.
and each one seems to be the right thing at the right time.

it's a family affair

2006-02-02T05:35:00.000-05:00

atheethee devo bhava

the guest as god, and the guest is family ~
nitin and anita and sakhi opened their home to me in such an open, generous and unabashed way that i felt honoured and at the same time, simply part of the family. the routine of everyday life, the ups and down, fun and conversations, eating, sitting together, excursions, errands.... when i thanked anita for taking care of me when i was sick, nitin asked "would you thank your parents?" and i said yes, because i would want them to know i appreciated them, but i understood what he meant.

no guest ever goes hungry ~
my mother used to tell me about growing up in montreal during the war years and always having a place setting for an unknown guest. it was a time when men from the east coast, nova scotia and new brunswick, faced such unemployment and poverty that they walked and walked across the country to find work. sometimes they would pass my mother's girlhood home and see the door open and a place already set at the table. they would be welcomed, fed, nourished and then continue on.

in india this is a constant state; there is always food ready for the potential guest. and they come. just like that, unannounced and warlmly welcomed. like the midnight call and 5 am arrival of a colleague of nitin and anita's who came off a bus, slept for a few hours, was fed a delicious hot meal of puri and bahji, and then off he went.

hopitality as spiritual practice ~
i asked nitin how he saw hospitality.
he answered that when you invite someone into your home this way you are a host, as your role is to ensure hospitatlity, it is to take care of someone, and ensure their sense of belonging. as a host, you move into a different plane as a person. this role invites you not to think of yourself or your interests, but rather to make a community. in your home, with your guest.

experience me as i am; i am inviting you to see me, to see my life as it is, my relationships as they are, as they evolve. these are the raw materials of my life.

to offer hospitality is to have the courage to show one's vulnerabilities and to have the other accept them. this, so that our relationship moves ahead, deepens, and opens. this is growth; a mutual movement towards, and a reciprocity of learning, sharing, accepting each other as we are.

you are a mirror to my growth.

this letting go, opening up, vulnerability and non-judgement is spiritual, and to practice it with others is to create community. a true communing with one another.

hospitality service has become associated with a commercial transaction, part of a market economy.

hospitality as service bring us back home.

your shadow is very tight

2006-01-30T03:23:00.000-05:00

so the transition to a partially cooked and totally yummy indian diet has resulted in an evening of explosive poos and violent vomiting. i had been feeling bloated and yucky, but chalked it up to so many new things, environments, foods, air, time zone etc. and that i was 'adapting'. but apparently 1.5 years on a raw diet DOES clean the system! so i went to bed feeling gross and was awoken with nausea and the EXPULSION OF ALL THE FOOD I HAVE EATEN SINCE ARRIVING IN INDIA. luckily my wonderful friends and hosts have ayurvedic home remedies and big huge hearts, and so anita rubbed coconut oil mixed with asofeidia on my gurgling tummy, and gave me crushed jaggery with nutmeg to stop the looseness of the stool, as it were. and wow, after the puke of all pukes, i felt sooo much better and slept like a little goatey (like the cute trio of goats who live outside the housing complex).

so the next day was spent recovering, eating only fruits and drinking lots of water, i took little walks outside and wrote in my journal on the bench facing the housing complex. it gave me lots of time to think about what i'm doing here, what i want from all this.

one of the neighbours and her little girls, vidhi and sidhi walked by and we chatted, she asking the question of all questions - what are you doing here? i told her about abhivyakti and bangalore and my plans for yoga and meditation and she said the prophetic words, 'your shadow is very tight'. ah this sounds very true, what does it mean? i asked. "means you are very busy here in india." ack! that is not what i want! hence the journal writing and the appreciation for this 'day off'. day off of what exactly??!!

so when i told nitin and anita about her observation, they said they'd never heard of 'your shadow is very tight' - turns out i had misunderstood! she said your SCHEDULE is very tight! they say ssschedoole here. but that is even worse! this has to change! i don't want to repeat my nasty habit of filling up my thoughts and time with appointments, rendez-vous, busy-ness. so the sick day was a good one. it brought me to this.

so next, is to mumbai for a few days, then i'll take a week to either go to goa (beach!) and then make my way to the art of living ashram in bangalore. i am REALLY LOOKING FORWARD to this. i want to sink into it. let time take a different dimension. see where that takes me.

so as we listen to kelly clarkson and the smells of fresh roti tickle my nose,(but not my taste buds, oh no, we are stricly raw for now!), i will sign off...

from the land of ridiculously cute children screaming hellos on their bikes....

good morning india

2006-01-23T01:15:00.000-05:00

i've been in india less than a week, and i feel i have landed into a wonderful life! so priviledged to be living with my friends, nitin and anita and their 14-year old daughter sakhi who is super company, as part of their family here in nashek, north of mumbai.

jet lag has been real, what with waking up at 1:30 in the morning and just wishing so hard to get some sleep, and then being wired but slightly confused all the day... this is receeding and after going to the Himalayan shop for ayurvedic goodies, i feel both my hair (dry, damaged) and my conscious state (sleep tea) with be the better for it!

it has been sooo exciting so far, living in the present (how long will you be here in nashek? don't know exactly...) and knowing that the future is going to be oh so interesting (bangalore in february, art of living ashram...), but here are some highlights, insights, sunlights:

went to do pooja and celebrate the end of a fast (21 fridays in a row, to laxshmi, goddess of wealth) with anita's women's friends who were wearing their beautiful saris and laughing and laughing;

next morning doing pranayam with these same women but in their sweat pants and salwars, with two or three of them giving instruction, the boom boom of a gymkana (that's right, a gym) downstairs and the buzz-honk-kapow of early morning traffic outside ~ this morning we ended with hibiscus tea, with lemongrass, cumin, cinnamon and lime;

did a presentation to abhivyakti (the organization nitin and anita founded and run) on santropol roulant - the work, reflection and the meanings gleaned ~ and found that our Eco-cycle and learning cycle ideas are alive and well here, but in a different cultural context (the Ashrams of learning, and the Lifecycle model);

met Mona, a wonderful woman architect who invited me to her women's book club (wow! what awesome young professional women!) who were talking about one soul, many lives and regression theory, and today i will go to her practice to look at designs and brainstorm about urban planning here in nashek, the 5th fastest growing city in india;

spent sunday at anita and nitin's family's farm (tomato plants! wheat!) with 24 members of the family and then shared a feast and family meeting; the 1 hour drive up was totally WILD and fun with pilgrims walking walking walking, their orange flags flapping in the wind, women carrying their goods confidently on their heads, colourful saris and outfits, many with no shoes. there were horses, pigs, and Goods Carrier trucks with "Blow Horn" written in all colours on the back, just in case you had forgotten that the ONLY way of driving in india is if you first announce yourself by horn, then press on the gas!

met a documentary film-making husband and wife who are professors of communications at the Tata School of Social Work in Mumbai; abhivyakti was showing their film SheWrite which is about 4 women poets in Tamil Nadu who write about women and sexuality and being persecuted for it. they are very Brave and the film was a courageous intepretation of their poetry but also about freedom of expression~ the discussion afterwards with the audience about the film and the issues of censorship and sexuality was a very interesting mix of talking about the issues in and aesthetic of the film...

all this and so much more, including my own yoga on the roof of the housing complex, with pastel colours of morning and the harsh smell of burning things to bring in a brand new day ...and time to myself... but wow, what a glimpse into people's lives here! and such generosity!

Super V's Book Club!

2006-01-14T01:09:00.000-05:00

OK these are books that I've recently read! Wow!

Race Against Time, Stephen Lewis (amazing, lucid, a call to action, he calls it like it is and does not mince words)

Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood (holy krykie! what a story! i ploughed through it! a plausible world, not sooo far away...)

The Art of Pilgrimmage, Phil Cousineau (yes! it is a pilgrimmage i'm going on)

Lighthousekeeping, Jeanette Winterson (a wonderful world, fantastique! full of myth and storytelling and love and intrigue ~ and lighthouse culture)

Sky Burial: an epic love story of Tibet, Xinran (author of the Good Women of China) ~ what a story, time changes, she goes to tibet to join the army to find out what happened to her husband and lives a nomadic life in tibet for 30 years, never loses faith, incredible)

Dreams of the Peaceful Dragon ~ a Journey Through Bhutan, Katie Hickman (what a journey, through the isolated east of Bhutan with a cast of characters and unbelievable nature)

The Broker, John Grisham ( the fastest read in the west! it totally caught me and i couldn't put it down. it'll probably be a movie)

what i'm bringing with me to India
Tea and Pomegranates: a memoir of food, family and Kashmir by Nazneen Sheikh and A Fortune Teller Told Me: earthbound travels in the far east, by Tiziano Terzani and A Guide for the Perplexed by EF Schumacher!

currently reading
Thomas Merton's Seven Storey Mountain
Henri Nouwen's Lifesigns: Intimacy, Fecundity, and Ecstacy in Christian Perspective
BKS Iyengar's Light on Life: the Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace and Ultimate Freedom (ya!)

remembering Rodrigo

2006-01-10T11:29:00.000-05:00

my friend rodrigo died yesterday morning of pancreatic cancer, 4 days before his 36th birthday.
i've know rodrigo since we were 14; he used to really piss of mr. peters, our grade 9 english teacher, who once threw a desk at him, then asked him to leave class. not sure who should have left really, mr peters or rodrigo.

rod called me from newfoundland one day 4 years ago, out of the blue saying he HAD to talk to me. i had no idea why, so we made an appointment and he came to santropol roulant, where I was the executive director. i showed him around, we talked and talked and he said that he worked all year to spend two weeks holiday with his family and what was that all about - all that pain for 2 weeks of happiness?

he looked at me gravely, "i have to change my life; i want to volunteer here".

so he did! he quit his job as a lawyer (yay!), and took a year to re-group, did meals-on-wheels deliveries and volunteered at events, talked to lots of pretty girls at the roulant... met a whole new community. he then found a job with a smaller law firm, and we saw a little less of him, but he still came to all the parties...

i interviewed him once, it was for our “Organic Evaluation” project in which we were asking volunteers, clients, neighbours and staff what they felt really worked at Santropol Roulant and when they felt their involvement had made a difference. rod kept saying he was surprised and kind of honoured that I’d asked him, that his experience and opinion was important enough that we should go for coffee together and take time out to talk in depth like this. it was one of the most illuminating conversations we’d ever had and we left reeling in delight, with new ideas and a certain affirmation that what we had exchanged and shared was very important.

that is what always stood out for me about rodrigo ~ along with a tough persona laced with that mischievous smile, was a deep vulnerability and tender tender heart.

ever since grade 9, throughout our time at mcgill and as adults in montreal, we had what seems like a lifetime flirtation with each other making fun, play, making light and we could also go into the dark and difficult, the stuff of the soul. i felt he put up a protective wall with his sharp and witty remarks and critiques, but in the end, rod and i usually talked about Love.

rodrigo, so full and Life and Verve, took an immense risk in changing the course of his life ~ with that crazy call from his cell phone in newfoundland ~ and I am really honoured that I was witness and participant in it. he contributed his brilliant energy and mind to a whole community as a volunteer at Santropol Roulant, and to my own life in our 20 year friendship. we dipped in an out of each others lives, and i can only assume that this will continue.

he takes with him all that he gave and all that he learned in his 36 years, and if we believe in karma, he will be starting from a brave new place in his next lifetime.

Rod's obituary in the Ottawa Citizen:

http://www.legacy.com/Link.asp?Id=LS16292724X

pilgrim's progress

2006-01-08T10:42:00.000-05:00

my intention is quite simple: to engage in conversation and contemplation with a diversity of people, organizations, social entrepreneurs and communities who are doing transformational work; explore with them certain themes that i've come to through the canadian context, and new themes and questions that emerge as i go ~ and to write about it, share it, celebrate it.

the purpose of this trip is to put in context the work i have been doing locally in Canada with work that is happening in other parts of the world .....

i am now ready to step out of the local and specific and see it in its global context. as the threads of my inquiry emerge, i would love to keep in touch with you for two reasons - the first being to bounce ideas off you in terms of the emergent themes, and the second to connect with people you think would be a good fit for this kind of interaction and engagement.

so feel free to contact me ~ let's be in conversation! there are so many themes that are already emerging (evolving leaderships and leaderfulness, collective entrepreneurship and community learning, social and individual networks and new forms of family ~ building on the Extending Families idea on the blog but aslo in ascent magazine... http://www.santropolroulant.org/images/ascent25-pg36[3].pdf)

two words that are meaning something very to me recently are Practice and Service..... and
a BIG part of this trip is to also really deepen my own practice, yoga, breathing and meditation - to really integrate this into my life, to show up for practice (and be there for the team! go team V!)

i'll explore the Service one, too.. just not now... i'm going to do some yoga!

viaje en mexico

2006-01-07T16:23:00.000-05:00

back from a week in mexico and it hit me THAT I'M NOT GOING HOME, to montreal, that is. i'm staying here in toronto with my parents, at their place, feeling very temporary. i was suddenly missing that feeling of returning home to friends, settling into my space the way i knew it, and being part of a collective energy.

i guess this is the part of the Transition that makes one feel like one is in transition!

mexico was really amazing, with 24 family members from age 5-75 to talk to, eat with (soo much guacamole!), and simply be with. lots of sun, sand, smiles. we explored the mayan ruins in tullum and chichen itza, went snorkeling in xel-ha (AMAZING fish, sting rays, really! i saw them! i swam over them! i've never been so close to such unbelievable fish) and lots of time to disappear over yonder to the wild side of the beach with its wild waves and rough nature. i found a lot of alone time to do yoga, breathing and meditation. still have a busy mind, but it's calming down noticeably!

liddy had told me that this would be a strange time for travel, and indeed i keep thinking i'll have a ticket soon, but it has not yet worked out that i have one in my hands. i'm ready to leave next week. i will leave after the full moon passes, as i generally feel like moving after She does her thing!

Extending Families

2006-01-07T16:18:00.000-05:00

There is a photograph on the wall at Santropol Roulant of an older man at his front door, which stands at the end of a long, grey hallway. He laughs and watches a young woman who reaches into a bright red knapsack filled with hot meals. She looks straight at him; they are laughing together. The newspaper article with which this photo appeared – about “shut-ins” needing help in the winter – does not accompany the photograph. We discarded it. It was the wrong story.

To the journalist, an elderly bachelor in low-income housing receiving meals-on-wheels was a sentimental story. To a social worker, he is a patient in need of healthcare administered by professionals. As a statistic, he represents a growing trend of isolated urban elderly. As a person, M. Lachance* was funny and warm and wouldn’t let you leave until you had discussed last week’s hockey scores.

He died suddenly in hospital. His sister, with whom we had previously been unacquainted, called to let us know. She thanked us for the way in which we were in her brother’s life over the last four years. “He had so many people in his life,” she said, a little surprised.

What is extraordinary is the way M. Lachance touched the lives of hundreds of young people who volunteered or worked at Santropol Roulant over the years he received our meals. He was known - and he was loved.
M. Lachance was not a “recipient” of a meal service, he was the catalyst for a whole community of young people (and the young at heart) to create a new kind of community.
His gift to us was to invite us each to bring the best of ourselves forward and create a Santropol Roulant.

The work we do at Santropol Roulant is part of an emerging narrative about family, connection and the ties that bind. These are not the traditional ties through marriage, bloodlines, and obligatory or contractual responsibilities. A new set of relationships is forming between unlikely people, between strangers who touch one another’s lives – and become lifelines.

Vanessa Reid began her love affair with Santropol Roulant in 1995 delivering meals by bike while studying architecture at McGill University. After working in India, she landed back in Montreal finding her roots at, and her community through, the Roulant as executive director from 2001-2005. The love affair continues….

*name has been changed

a version of this piece was first published in ascent magazine, Spring 2005. www.ascentmagazine.com and this version is one of 12 Harvesting Histories stories in the Santropol Roulant 2006 Agenda book! www.santropolroulant.org

the merry merry season

2005-12-28T22:02:00.000-05:00

a highlight of my day today was a sponteneous conversation with an elderly man in a wheelchair on dupont street ~

do you need any help?

we struck up a conversation and, quickly, he told me how he managed, how it all happened, how he was doing. we both left feeling quite uplifted.

the feeling i had was familiar...

this is what a place like santropol roulant offers people at doorways, on sidewalks, around the table, on the phone...

EVERY DAY.

i've been thinking about connection and belonging during this celebration and holiday season, as i've been feeling the absence of that specialness of santropol roulant ~ being able to just drop in somewhere and immediately be part of a community. i realize that working everyday at santropol roulant offered me, and hundreds of others, an opportunity to connect with random people, daily.

to be in spontanerous and often surprising conversations,
regularly
to be in constant contact with people so different than oneself,
language, age, country or city of origin, life stage/phase;
to offer the best of oneself, in service
to share
help

contribute
extend
stretch out of your comfort zone
to be intimate
to go deep
hello, Mrs. Z., how are you?
to be acknowledged, greeted, appreciated,
known

and to know it matters

creating a divine society

2005-12-18T18:13:00.000-05:00

"i'm here because of you," and a shiver runs up my back.

our Starlight Wonderkids group stepped out into the white snowy Sunday to volunteer at a seniors residence in Montreal. just like that. go and do it. it was part of an Art of Living course, DSN, a sanskrit term meaning creating a divine society. i felt a bit sceptical, having been on the other side of all this, at Santropol Roulant and everyday working with volunteers and seniors, co-ordinating people, their expectations, feelings, schedules...

the first place we call says no absolutely not, we don't know you, we need to screen our volunteers. so i call le manoir l'age d'or, a place i've passed many many times doing our meals-on-wheels route in the McGill ghetto. they say, yes, how wonderful, you missed the christmas party, but come anyway. we show up, there are 10 of us. they are overwhelmed thinking it would just be me, doing a friendly visit. we decide we will go in groups of two to each floor. i am assigned to the 6th floor to find a nurse named daniel. off we go for one hour.

so much happened in that one hour.

E. , so tall, skeletal, smiling. didn't know who was in the picture by her bed. was it her?

Mme B. in her striped tiger velour pyjamas, smoking a long cigarette and watching bowling. her room is comfy and pink. she has a cross on the wall, photos of her with beautiful red hair and sculpted eyebrows. never married, never a mother; instead took in her nieces and nephews in a small 3 1/2 apartment in montreal. if only more young people were like you, so nice. i say, oh they are out there, i've seen them doing exactly this for the last five years.

the woman who hears that she has visitors, and, overwhelmed and grateful, cries.

the tables downstairs reserved by, and set especially for, families visiting their relative for Christmas dinner, and the 3 that stayed empty with a parent waiting, alone. they paid for the meal, the table was set and they didn't show. is that possible? my heart hurts. such lonliness.

then i see the nurse. male, smiling, familiar. are you daniel? we look at each other, we know each other.

he says, "I volunteered at Santropol Roulant."

oh yes, i TOTALLY remember. he was so great, sincere, present. he had left to go back to school. "I've been here for two years." i can tell they love him here, "I'm going back to do my masters in nursing. "

and now i am here, in his place, volunteering, knowing perhaps, just a little bit, how he must have felt. full & whole.

it comes full circle.

last call, montreal

2005-12-16T00:09:00.000-05:00

i'm sitting in my empty room, on my last night in montreal. i have no furniture and no drapes; it leaves an echo, and a clear view from where i sit to the apartment across the street. red and gold lights make the outline of a large star and christmas tree which shine brightly from their apartment, all the way across the street to light up my room.

it is freezing cold tonight, and a full moon. the city was bustling, even though. mike and i headed down to le divan orange for our last dinner as room-mates (food made with love by catherine, the newly departed chef from santropol roulant). we watched manouche play a live show. smoky, and oh so montreal. the scene was colourful and joyful inside, a sharp contrast to the plumetting temperature outside.

i absolutely love my room like this ~ empty, open, clear. i love this view, and the simplicity. tomorrow i will have only my knapsack ~ full of christmas presents for family, winter clothes for toronto, and summer and travel gear for mexico and india. the rest of my belongings are now stacked in a storage unit, and i KNOW that when i return that i will not need or want most of what i packed.

the absolute BEST part of packing was finding the perfect gift for each of my friends among the many things i've collected and loved over the years ~ and so we had a going away party last night, where i got to give the going away presents to everyone! the gift really is in the giving! and it is so thrilling to know that all those things are going to be loved and used and given a new home. they will be given a completely new life, and so will this room when mike infuses this space with his character and things and habits.

i actually already feel like i'm travelling ~
with only one bag for tomorrow,
sitting here on an empty bed that will stay;
it is only i who go.

montreal sends me its signature farewell;
a massive snowfall tomorrow,
an apt parting gift
from this wintry city!

sitting in the Possibles

2005-12-06T22:38:00.000-05:00

So I’m going on a trip and I DON’T YET HAVE A TICKET, A DESTINATION, OR A DATE OF DEPARTURE!

The Trip, in fact, has already begun. So much has happened in these last few weeks since my retirement. Re-connections with friends and family, new ideas emerging, cleansing my room and my stuff, closure for certain ways of being and doing things such as working, living, being in a relationship, relating to others…

I'm sitting in this time of change, rather than trying to fight it or determine things. I'm letting things come to me, trying to feel them rather than think them. So what it means, I just realized, is my Trip has already started! This is it! Right here and right now! I just don't have a ticket yet for the part of it which is about flying elsewhere. And I have to say, I'm really liking this part~ this re-connecting and finding a new rhythm. It's just not what I had expected.

Doing research into Vipassana meditation, India, Ayurveda, Bhutan… has allowed me to connect with new people in person and via email and see the possibilities that are out there, the possible scenarios, relationships, futures. And now I am simply sitting in those Possibles. Getting comfortable in this uncertainty, in this process that is a transition from one part of my life to another. I’m no longer feeling the push to “get out of here and get on my trip”.

I’m on it already.

phreaky phall PHOTO album

2005-11-27T20:48:00.000-05:00

the story of 4687 jeanne mance

un onion ne peux pas devenir une banane

petites anges
believing is seeing

anchors away (or, these roots were made for travellin')

2005-11-27T20:30:00.000-05:00

tranquillement je me déracine.

i'm pulling my roots and steppin' out ~ transionning from being at the centre of the action, of a network of friends and ideas, a place and neighbourhood, and a web of community to having one foot in and one foot precariously perched in the unknown. my anchors are lifting; the security of my job, my apartment, the cozy hub of friendships and family, the familiarity of montreal, of canada. and now the shift from being in a romantic relationship to being the sole proprietor of the Freedom 35 plan. these roots were made for travellin'! it is the soil around my roots that is too heavy to bring with me. i leave the soil, so carefully nurtured, so others can plant their seeds.

my anchors are lifting, and the only thing to do is sail. on my own terms, at my own pace. so i plan my trip to india. creating the contours of a new phase of my life.

finding my pace of grace.

social entrepreneurs anonymous

2005-11-14T23:02:00.000-05:00

GROUP OF TEN
Innovative, gutsy, visionary, luminescent.
Bealighters 2005 @ McMichael Canadian Art Collection

poster on queen street west

2005-11-13T22:43:00.000-05:00

be patient
be emotional
risk everything

first step ~ toronto

2005-11-12T20:30:00.000-05:00

walking walking walking ~ this a walking city and i'm enjoying the cityscape and glittering hum of activity as i walk through neighbourhoods of tree-lined streets mixed seamlessly with the commercial ones... many conversations with friends and family, exploring raw food restos (LIVE organic food bar ~ you must go! 264 Dupont St. @ Spadina, 416-515-2002) and generally enjoying a pace of life centred around connecting with the people i love and with no other agenda than to do just that!

went to the commemoration of ken saro-wiwa on thursday nov 10th and was blown away by the passion and talent of performers (d'bi young, sara slean...), and the courage of his family. 4 grade 8 students read their thoughts on how people shouldn't be mean to people, it's not fair, and that everyone should know the plight and purpose of ken saro-wiwa. rohinston mistry read from ken's fictional writing about a man who "went mad"; he began singing and dancing for no apparent reason. through a series of interventions to "cure" this malaise, his family kills his spirit and then kills him. crushing. poignant. and unsettling, that kind of joy and abandon is punishable, not celebrated. seen as a disease, not a natural state....

well, this freedom 35 for me is also about tapping that untamed joy and creating the conditions within me and around me for it to be unleashed... unabashed, constantly, without apology... i've been sharing my enthusiam and energy with a focus on my work with santropol roulant for the last 5 years and feel and see the impact that has had on the world around me... but what of the world within me? let us see....

a taste of freedom

2005-11-09T12:06:00.000-05:00

so the taste of freedom began with none other than a PARTY... raw food, the santropol roulant kitchen humming with conversation, the love of friends & neighbours.... this is me and todd in the kitchen preparing delicious living food appetizers and unbelievable chocolate mousse pies made with whipped avocados, dates, cacao and carob