Hello World!

I’m making my return to blogging!

I have been waiting for something to truly inspire me to write a blog and nothing has forced me to sit down and write for a long time.

The ad that started it all.

But then, our first issue of Vegan Voice arrived and as I lay reading it in bed Monday night, I noticed an advertisement for a new vegan and raw food restaurant in Melbourne.

Melbourne?  Really?  Are you sure you weren’t lying in bed in L.A or New York?

I could only wish.  No, for real – Melbourne!

I’m not sure if this is the first restaurant offering the fullest selection of vegan AND raw food options in Melbourne, I’ve been away awhile.  But I don’t care!  I have found my new home.

I have been thinking how cool it would be to have a little hide out where I could go and order my chai latte with home made nut milk and agave nectar and not be stared at like I spontaneously grew a third eyeball in the middle of my face.

Then BANG!

The business card.

Yong Green Food.  421 Brunswick St Fitzroy.  Right around the corner from Go-Go class.  Perfect.

So Fion and I trotted off to Yong’s (YGFs? Greenies?  I’ll come up with something..) and ate a splendid raw version of nachos.  Well, let’s be honest here.  I was all for it, Fiona was less than ecstatic, but she’s slowly coming around to dehydrated versions of typically fat-laden foods!  Home made guacamole, tomato relish and hommus.  Despite Fiona’s raised eyebrows, it didn’t last long.

We moved on to the gyoza – OMG.  Too good.  Better than Soul Mama’s gyoza for sure.  No need for chopsticks, we inhaled them right out of the steamer.

We topped it all off with a slice of raw pecan pie with cashew cream (“I think, really, I’m French inside.  I just want cream and butter.  The real shit.” Fiona) which I was happy not to share!  Delicious.  Chai and café latte with fresh almond milk and agave nectar and I was born again.

The staff are delightful and attentive.  That shouldn’t surprise us, but it does.

It’s a little on the pricey side (not much change out of $50) and the serves are a little lean, but really, who’s not prepared to pay for wholesome, love-filled food and have someone gently teach you what a more than adequate portion size actually looks like?

Go. There. Now.

Jade

x

As a Western woman I have always had a concern for my appearance for one reason or another.  Weight, skin, hair, nails, clothes, shoes.  Not in a Sex and the City I-am-all-consumed-by-consumerism sort of way, but in the way that external self-analysis is almost impossible to be entirely rid of.

I have always wanted to be thin, but very rarely been.  As a teenager I thought that I would be more popular the thinner I was.  In my early twenties I felt that my physical size was an outward expression of my level of self-control.

My genetics blessed me with good skin.  I stopped biting my nails when I fell in love with Barbra Streisand (make what facial expressions you will…).  I’m still searching for a sense of personal style and when ever possible I wear shoes with sparkles – currently Slim Crystal Havaianas imbedded with Swarovski crystals (in all seriousness, I have trudged around India and Vietnam for the past five months and these thongs have very rarely been off my feet for more than an hour at a time – highly recommended foot wear for travelling, and much funkier than Tevas).

Now when I look in the mirror, I am still struck by my body size, considering I eat only two fresh vegetarian meals a day and am constantly zipping around Hoi An on my rented bicycle.  I rarely get close enough to the mirror to examine my skin, but I do notice the distinct colour difference growing between my upper and lower arm.  Having spent so little time in the sun in Australia, I have now developed a serious case of tan line, and not the bikini clad back-packer kind!

Yesterday I bravely went for a hair cut, manicure and pedicure, servicing my vain concern that my re-growth and nail polish were both at a point of being offensive.  I was struck by several moments.

My manicurist commented on the shade of the skin on my forearms, ‘so lovely, so white’ she said holding her arms against mine.  I’ve been paranoid about skin cancer and have always slip-slop-slapped in the harsh Australian sun, but I have never thought of my fair skin as any sort of asset.  Half an hour in the sun and I burn to the colour of a lobster. Consequently, I cover up.  In Asia my fair skin is seen as a testament to an assumed high-class upbringing, of one who has not had to work outdoors in the sun as a labourer but has had the luxury of staying indoors.  With fair skin, I must be wealthy and my life must be luxurious.

She grabs hold of my upper arm, almost unable to stop herself from massaging my bicep.  ‘Strong’ she says, ‘very healthy’.  I look at her slender arm, the same diameter from wrist to shoulder.  I think of all the clothes I could wear with skinny arms like that.  My ample body mass is seen as a sign of prosperity, my family having enough food to create additional muscle and fat on our bodies.  Apparently, it brings good luck to her family if she touches me.

While she enthusiastically cuts my cuticles, I try not to concern myself with thoughts of un-sanitised equipment and hepatitis contraction while also pondering how much this woman and I fantasise about trading bodies.  I would finally be able to buy clothes off the rack and have zero body fat.  She would be wealthy and prosperous, living in luxury.  The Vietnamese are such lithe people, their bone structure so much smaller than most Westerners.  For many of my friends I know this is both a mix of genetics and the struggle for most Vietnamese families to have enough money to buy enough food to eat every day, to find enough of a variety to provide all the essential nutrients for a growing body.

Andrew X. Pham in his book ‘Catfish and Mandala’ (a really wonderful and inspiring read) talks of his trip to the Cu Chi tunnels.  Having crawled through the purposely widened tunnels, for large Western bodies last week, this scene made me chuckle:

After half an hour tunnelling on our hands and knees, we escaped to the surface, gasping.  Another group headed down.  A well-fed British woman in her fifties was desperately wiggling into the opening.  Her male companion and a Vietnamese tour guide struggled to help her into the passage.  One tried to keep her from getting stuck, the other tried to keep the woman from falling through.  Standing next to us, two Vietnamese soldiers watched with amazement plain on their faces.  They were both about five feet tall and a hundred pounds – roughly the size of the Vietnamese Rat People who built the Cu Chi tunnels.
“How do Westerners get so fat?” one soldier asked another.
After due reflection, the man replied, “Eggs and butter.”  His companion nodded in deep agreement, both of them mentally calculating – the wealth – how many dozen eggs and pounds of butter it took to amass a three-hundred-pound body.

We envy each other for very different reasons.

Now I see why people have written so many songs expressing gratitude for India. Alanis Morissette’s “Thank U” comes to mind instantly.

Thank you India, thank you providence
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you nothingness, thank you clarity
Thank you, thank you silence
The moment I let go of it was the moment I got more than I could handle
The moment I jumped off of it was the moment I touched down

On arriving in India, when we were headed for our fateful stay at the ashram, Fiona questioned how anyone could find peace, solace and equilibrium in a place that appears so out of control, off its axis, chaotic.

I pondered this and responded that perhaps this was indeed the very best place to find the stillness we were both searching for.

I feel at home in Asia, strangely. More at home walking the messy sidewalks, dodging motorbikes, autos and poop than I do here in Singapore with the cleanest and neatest sidewalks I have ever seen – certainly rivalling those in Melbourne. Even the alleys and laneways are clean here.

Sure, it’s quiet here – there is a certain Prosaic peacefulness in the air (perhaps Valium in the water?) that allows one to actually notice one’s independent thoughts, but cities such as Singapore and Melbourne present no immediate external or sensual challenges.

To be aware of yourself crossing a road in Singapore is quite different to being aware of yourself crossing a road in India. No emotion is aroused crossing a road in Singapore – you will make it. If you cross the road in India, you are filled with an instant gratefulness to be still experiencing the joy of life.

India had me somewhat hypnotised, and I concerned myself with thoughts of my lack of creative production, not to mention my lack of blog writing. Now that I am out of her grip, I am better able to reflect on the myriad of lessons I learned.

The frenetic external bombardment I experienced in India was almost perfectly balanced by my brain’s ability to create such inner stillness and quiet that I really ceased to be productive. Not necessarily a state I would like to live in perpetually, but interesting to notice.

I would liken my internal state whilst in India to Philip Glass’ “Escape to India” from the Kundun album.

In a city of over five million people, I saw so many faces everyday. I am still naïve to the intricacies in the social tapestry of India. I am reminded of words by Sinead O’Connor:

Perfect Indian

He’s shy and he speaks quietly
He’s gentle and he seems to me
Like the El Farrow
His face worn and harrowed
Is he a daydreamer like me?

I don’t know if I can believe that if you hand one of these many faces the keys to their emancipation that they will simply throw them back in your face, as Aravind Adiga (author of White Tiger – a fabulous book, well worth the read) suggests. But perhaps centuries of expectation have ingrained an understanding into the psyches of “these people”.

I remember a scene while we purchased pasta and cake from a tea stall in 8th Main Road. A small child came up behind us asking for money, as many did. She was filthy and shoeless as they all are. We had made a decision not to give money to beggars, but given we were at the tea stall we were discussing buying her a samosa to eat. Two young Indian university students, also purchasing lunch from the tea stall, told the stall owner, a gruff older man with a decent paunch, to wrap up a veg puff and give it to the girl behind us. He flatly refused, once he knew the puff was for the child. “No. They will become expectant. You can’t do that with these people. You can’t buy her food”. “But she’s hungry!”. “No”. I looked at the child. Is she just one of them? I was struck by the scene of the stall holder who looked not at the child’s eyes, but at her matted hair and dirty hands, the young women who possibly saw a human element in her hunger and desperation, and us standing in our Havaiana thongs that could pay for a month’s worth of food for her and her family.

I will not be just another tourist who feels terrible about the child and signs up for a monthly donation to a largely administrative charity organization. I want to make real change. I’m not sure how just yet, but I’ll keep you posted.

But for now, it’s farewell and thank you to India for clarity and insight.

Indian Summer - Music by Victor Herbert, lyrics by Al Dubin.

The particular version I listened to was sung by Tony Bennet from his Unplugged album, which consequently has a brilliant duet with k.d. lang.

Summer
You old Indian summer
You’re the tear that comes after June-time’s laughter
You see so many dreams that don’t come true
Dreams we fashioned when summer time was new
You are here to watch over
Some heart that is broken
By a word that somebody left unspoken
You’re the ghost of a romance in June going astray
Fading too soon, that’s why I say
Farewell, to you Indian summer

Getting from A to B can now no longer be taken for granted. India. Hailing an auto. Full. Full. Full. Empty – wonderful. Vasanth Nagar is home, but however you pronounced that in your mind just then is wrong. Try it slowly. Clear diction. Inexplicably the driver finally understands and replies “Vazzanagar”. Yes, Vasanth Nagar. He shakes his head and just drives off! Maybe second, third or fourth time lucky. It’s the same process every time.

Okay, so not all strangers are kind but I have had an exceeding number of encounters in such a short time that my faith in my fellow human animals is very quickly on the increase. Certainly, multiple daily encounters with questionable auto drivers are far outweighed by these deeper experiences. I’d like to tell you about one of them.

Fiona and I have spent the past three weeks living in a foreign country with someone we had less than half a dozen conversations with two months ago. We met Amrita at the Sivananda Ashram and like us she was there to find some peace and answers to her inner questions. And now I’m sitting on her couch in Bangalore as I write this. So I asked her what in the world came over her when she decided to say “when you come to Bangalore, come and stay at my place” to two Aussie girls she was sharing a drink with at Beatles café in Kovalam.

Amrita has a depth of trust in her own intuition, which I find fascinating and inspiring. In my life, I have not been one to take huge risks, trust strangers easily or make big decisions quickly based only on my gut feelings. I’m slowly learning that there are great experiences to be had if one oscillates to the other side of one’s own cautionary brick wall of life occasionally!

The decision to let two foreigners live with her was based entirely on the vibe Amrita felt when she was around us. In contrast, there were other travelers who would have also benefited culturally from a local home stay, however Amrita is insistent that she would not have extended the same invitation to any other tourists she met at the Ashram. Why? She just felt she wouldn’t gel with their personalities.

I’m not trying to define a special characteristic in my and Fiona’s personalities, but was genuinely interested to know why someone would make such a generous offer to two complete strangers. I feel I have been taught to be so cautious and I wonder, if the roles were reversed, would I invite two newly arrived Indian tourists to live with us indefinitely in our apartment in Australia? It’s an interesting question to ask yourself.

In some ways, Amrita says her invitation was an exercise in self trust. In the past, she has made regretful decisions when she has not followed her own instincts. She wants to make deep and connected friendships with likeminded people and she views meeting us as an opportunity for her to do this.

It seems she didn’t question her own judgment, and didn’t concern herself with worrying about potential problems. Amrita strikes me as a decisive and forthright woman who would have had no qualms in moving us along should we have had disagreeable personalities. I have admired and been inspired by her ability to advocate for herself in an intimidatingly masculine culture.

Some might say Amrita was lucky in her decision as it turns out that Fiona and I are not sadistic murderers, in fact we’re not even messy! We are considerate house guests – although a daily maid makes light work of keeping house for all of us. And the three of us get along famously. My question to myself for the next few weeks will remain – why am I not certain I would take the same risk Amrita did? Why do I perceive it as a risk more so than a wonderful opportunity for connectivity?

So now we are the three musketeers of Bangalore! Our names, painted on rice earlier today, are hanging around our necks symbolising our life long friendship. Osho says, in his book on Intimacy “Trust is possible only if first you trust yourself. Trust has a magic in it. If you trust in yourself, you can trust in me, you can trust in people, you can trust in existence.” Amrita is my realised example of these words. She seems to easily differentiate between trusting her developed instincts and falling into situations naively and with no desire to manipulate the moment.

I hop into the fourth auto I have hailed, once I have agreed on my destination with the driver. He turns to me and says “twenty rupees”, indicating he is now placing a surcharge on top of the metered price for my trip. “No, meter only”, I reply. “Ten rupees, Sunday Ma’am”. “No, meter only” I say as I exit the auto. “Meter, meter okay”. Not knowing the city roads, I can now only trust that my journey will actually end at my current home, Vasanth Nagar. Vasannagar. Vazzanagah. Vahzahnaga……

Recently I read the book “The Life You Were Born To Live” by Dan Millman and was prompted to answer the question: “Is my life an example of the highest integrity?”.

Finding the answer lead me on the following path. I found some answers to my internal questions in my myriad of dictionaries, thesaurus, encyclopaedia and quotation books. I would like to acknowledge that these are not my words, and at this point I am unable to reference these accurately. I have italicised my own internal questions and my own words.

So, what is integrity?

• Perceived consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles.
• Judging the quality of a system to be able to achieve its goals.
• Having a sense of honesty and truthfulness in regard to the motivations for ones actions.
• Hypocrisy in the contrast.
• Internal consistency.
• Basing actions on an internally consistent framework of principles.
• Everything a person does or believes; actions, methods, measures and principles – all derive from the same core group of values.

So then, what are values?

• Having accountability and moral consistency.
• Personal honesty, acting according to ones beliefs and values at all times.
• The wholeness of a moral stance or attitude.
• Wholeness = commitment = authenticity.
• From the Latin ‘integer’ = whole/complete = personal sense of wholeness from honesty and consistency of character.
• The refusal to engage in behaviour that evades responsibility.
• There are three steps:
1. Discerning what is right and wrong.
2. Acting on what you have discerned, even at personal cost.
3. Saying openly that you are acting on your understanding of right from wrong.
• It is not the same as honesty.
• Steadfast adherence to a strict moral code.
• State of being wholesome, complete, pure.
• A relative ethical value.
• Value system = set of consistent values and measures.
• Principle Value: foundation upon which other values and measures of integrity are based.

Then, I need to know what my principle value is. Love, peace, bliss? Maybe this equates to my original state.

But still, what is my principle value?

Peace is a state of being.

I possibly have several critical principle values: experience and consciousness.

experiencing consciousness
and having
conscious experiences

So, the answer to the question ‘Is my life an example of the highest integrity?’ would be – it is becoming more so every day.

These are my responses to a series of questions I have now misplaced. I thought it might be interesting to post them now, and publicly review them over time.

In my later years I want to be known for my joyousness.

I will develop a wide range of artistic hobbies: dance, painting, photography … I will also enjoy the outdoors as recreation, rejuvenation and relaxation.

My education will continue daily. Life and experience will be my educator.

I could invent a clear and simple technique to obtain bliss.

My community will be diverse, reflective of my personality and full of energy-giving people.

I am ‘married’. I would like children. As many as we can afford to have.

To keep myself healthy I will
• seek therapy when needed
• eat consciously
• exercise willingly
• spend time with the people and doing the things I love

I will develop spirituality through yoga and meditation practice and by continuing to experience life.

I will earn an income through sales of my music and merchandise.

In my old age, the three most important things to me will be:
• People and my relationship to them
• Music and all forms of artistic expression
• Connectedness with all that is around me

Over looking the waves and rocks at Kovalam beach (Kerala, India), I have thought a lot about our short, four and a half day stay at Sivananda Yoga Ashram. Leaving much earlier than our month or two intentions.

We enjoyed the asana classes immensely. The food, though repetitive, was very tasty. The accommodation was spartan but adequate for our needs. We really struggled with the satsang. Chanting I don’t mind, but four hours every day was pushing my limits of respectful observation. By day two, we were being strongly encouraged to participate in worship which neither Fiona or I felt comfortable with.

One of the teachers showed an overt display of frustration and annoyance at several students leaving a satsang early, yelling out to the students that their actions were disrespectful, eventually running out of the hall to retrieve some of them. I’m not condoning anyone’s behaviour in this scenario, the movie we were shown was tremendously boring – a poorly crafted, too-long visual homage to Sivananda, who grew in size, wealth and popularity in each clip. Leaving satsang at any point is a sign of disrespect, though this information is inferred and not made explicit. This event caused no further open discussion the following day from our teachers. This was not the first example of lack of open communication.

Fiona and I talked intensely for two days about whether to stick it out or leave, whether we felt our ego’s were to blame for our inner rebellion towards satsang, whether we could endure satsang for the sake of the wonderful asana classes. In the end, we decided that Sivananda just wasn’t for us, so with some sadness we left on the Friday after having only arrived on the Sunday prior.

We have now been in Kovalam for just over one week and although, at first, we thought it too touristy and western catering, we are now learning from locals and long term residents about all of the little hidden gems of this little coastal town. It is likely we will plant ourselves here for quite a few weeks more.

With so few westerners, it is easy to strike conversation in the street or at a chai stall with the other foreigners. We me Mikey, from the US, while swimming in the beach two afternoons ago. He told me of a lady taking yoga classes in one of the closed restaurants which I attended that same afternoon. Evangeline, from the UK, is offering yoga classes as selfless service and just asked us to put in 20 rupees (less than $1AUD) each to give to the restaurant owner as a sign of our appreciation for use of the space.

Evangeline has been living in Kovalam for the past six months while studying yoga and yoga teaching and has been a wealth of information regarding local eating and shopping haunts. She is a really wonderful yoga instructor and my daily 4pm yoga class followed by a swim at 6pm has become somewhat of a ritual.

There are more and more connections and conversations every day, a type of lifestyle we just don’t cultivate on peak hour trains to and from work in Melbourne. I have always been struck by the silence. It seems a shame, for you never know who you could be sitting next to and how they might help colour the rich tapestry of your life, or how you could impact the direction of theirs.

Written June 2nd 2009

Lying on the red concrete floor under our room fan is the coolest place I can find at eleven A.M. to sit and write my first blog from Sivananda Yoga Ashram, Neyyar Dam. It is monsoon season in India, but we haven’t seen rain yet. The weather has been hot and humid, though not unbearable.

So, Fiona and I are now half way through Day Two of the two week beginners yoga course. First impressions?

The volunteers, staff and teachers are kind but not as outwardly joyous as the teachers we have had in our meditation classes with the Brahma Kumaris in Melbourne. Although we came without any expectations, it is difficult to avoid comparisons with past experiences.

Our room is very simple: two single wooden beds with thin mattresses (surprisingly supportive!), a small balcony over looking the town of Neyyar Dam, a standard Indian bathroom with cold water only and a western toilet – a welcome luxury!

After the first evening satsang (group meditation, chanting, reading and lecture) we were both a little concerned we had walked into some sort of religious transformation! The meditation is very traditional – no guided visualisations, just our teachers opening directions to mind our posture, breathing and thoughts and to repeat an Om, or similar, mantra. We then sit silently for half an hour. This is certainly a manageable amount of time, after my experiences at a Vipassana meditation retreat – ten days in silence, eight hours meditation every day. Extreme meditation!

All satsang classes are predominantly filled with Sanskrit chanting which is foreign to us both. The chants are repetitive and the mantras are sung on only two or three notes. This style of worship is sombre and meditative, literally worlds away from the gospel choirs we experienced in Harlem, New York.

I have found it difficult to be spiritually and emotionally uplifted by the chanting, having joined in with my best attempt at Sanskrit yesterday and today. With my eyes open, I observe our teachers (both of whom are Western) with what I perceive to be expressionless, almost grim, faces. We sing “I am bliss, I am bliss, I am bliss absolute, bliss am I” with most people in the room totally devoid of any outward expression, save some swaying and knee tapping. I now find sitting cross legged on the floor not conducive to concentration once my legs start going numb.

Worship is a very personal and individual pursuit and what works for some will not work for all. However, my feeling is this – few people would be unmoved by the unrestrained outpouring of devotion at the gospel service we attended in Harlem. Even if one is without any spiritual or religious inclination, there is something that is stirred in every person in a room so utterly filled with love – the exuberant singing and music making, dancing and general jubilation.

At this stage, I cannot say I am moved deeply, spiritually, by my experience here. But my guess is that our teachers would suggest that it is not their intention to stir an emotional response in worship, unlike gospel worship. There is a reverence held towards having an indifferent attitude towards stimulus. Yoga and Gospel are two very different types of worships and I am aware that I am comparing oranges and apples to some extent, but both groups of people are devotional and share a similar purpose: union with ‘God’. I am happy to observe my perceptions of both experiences and share them with you!

I am not a particularly pious person, though I have always had an interest in religion from a social perspective. I have my own beliefs and am always happy to share in others practice to achieve happiness, peace, enlightenment, contentment and connection with their ‘God’. It helps me define my own understanding of self and all else.

If I had to choose, had to convert, right now, I’d choose Harlem any day. Tears well in my eyes just remembering the sound of their voices.

By the time you read this I will be at Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Ashram in Neyyar Dam, India.  More than a few people have already enquired as to why I would want to spend a month (or more) practicing meditation and yoga in monsoon season with no hot water for showers.  Through a series of blogs I am going to attempt to answer this question!

It all started with a new year in 2008, reflecting on my first decade in the work force.  Like most people, I had stable and secure employment as a singing teacher in several schools in Melbourne and also managed the Karen Leonard Music School.  While I enjoyed my teaching and the relationships I had developed with my students and the lifestyle my job afforded me, I was not entirely happy.

By chance, Fiona purchased a copy of Timothy Ferris’ “4 Hour Work Week”, which I read from cover to cover in record time.  This book is now my bible and I take it everywhere I go.  In short, Tim explains – in more tangible detail than any other ‘wealth creation’ book I have read – how to leverage yourself out of the nine to five rat race and into a career and lifestyle of your own design.  This book, seriously, changed my life.

So at the end of 2008, I resigned from all of my teaching positions to, once and for all, pursue my dream of a performance career, which had long been side-lined.  I have spent the past five months laying the foundations of a new online career.

I have started writing songs again – recording more than a dozen new tracks for release this year.  I have launched my online store, this blog and Myspace and Twitter pages.  This online medium of distribution also sits well with my ethical stance on reducing our environmental impact as I will no longer be manufacturing hard copy CDs and DVDs.  No land fill!  Yay!

So I am now a fledgling blogger and have discovered I am not the only one pursuing a self-created lifestyle.  In fact, there are so many people doing this now it even has a term:  Location Independent Business.  Who knew?!

My aim now is to have a level of creativity in all areas of my life, not just my compositional and performance work.

So, back to the ashram.  When my lifestyle coach, Loreen Visser, asked me what I would want to do if I weren’t teaching singing, my answer surprised me.  I said I had a strong desire study yoga and meditation intensively.  Second to that, I wanted to create a situation where I could write, record and release music as my total source of income.

With the first release of my new recordings coinciding with the first day of my stay at Sivananda today, I can now see a wonderful synergy at work in my life.