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Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness

~ Recovery from PTSD & depression + yoga, silliness & poetry…

Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness

Tag Archives: AnthroYogini

Hangin’ with a Desert Chick

19 Friday Nov 2010

Posted by Svasti in Fun

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

AnthroYogini, CBD, Chinatown, Cocktails, Desert Book Chick, Gin Palace, hurricane, kindred spirit, margarita, Melbourne, Spicy Fish, tribe, vodka martini

Just after 6pm this evening in the post-work CBD chaos (reeking of desperation and celebration), this was to my right, part of Melbourne’s town hall…


And this was in front of me…


As I waited for the Chick From The Desert (aka Anthroyogini)…

Then, like a tiny yet furious hurricane she arrived with fierce hugs and oh…maybe a tiny little tear at the corners of her eyes (it was pretty awesome to meet after “knowing” each other by blog only for so long!).

Although she was in town for a short but intense visit only, and we had just a few hours to get acquainted in the flesh!

So I took her to Spicy Fish in Chinatown for a glorious dinner. Then, for something completely different for a girl from the outback, the Gin Palace (they’d apparently do well to open a similar bar up her way!).

A vodka martini for me, a margarita for her. And endless chatter. Oddly, we didn’t really talk about the blog world that much. But Amanda is indeed, a kindred spirit.

I left her at Collins St with more hugs and promises of more time, some time soon. Both visits to The Alice and more here in Melbourne.

And yayayayayay!! Because… I do believe I’ve identified another member of my tribe (I think they’re all spread quite far and wide)!

🙂

~Svasti

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Check out Desert Book Chick!

01 Thursday Jul 2010

Posted by Svasti in Fun, Reviews

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

AnthroYogini, book blogging, Depression, Desert Book Chick, passion

Some of you will be familiar with Anthroyogini (aka Amanda, the desert dwelling anthropologist). But the Anthroyogini blog is on hiatus right right now – or perhaps permanently (any news, Amanda?).

BUT Amanda has been blogging quite furiously and successfully for a few months now as Desert Book Chick. Which (no surprises here) is all about books. That gal reads at a furiously lightning-paced rate and has tweaked both her blog AND her book review posts until they glisten. She is doing incredibly well in her new blog-genre!

So if you like books at all, it’s definitely a good blog to keep tabs on.

Even more than that however, Desert Book Chick has really helped Amanda overcome her own very recent battle with depression.

Whether its yoga or dancing or writing or whatever… there’s plenty of evidence to show that if you throw yourself into whatever activity you’re passionate about, you CAN kick depression in the ass.

Make sure you read this wonderful post by Amanda:

A Very Personal Retrospective

…to learn how her book blog evolved, and how it has unexpectedly become much more important to her than she ever imagined it would!

~Svasti

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Are you a lover or a fighter?

03 Wednesday Mar 2010

Posted by Svasti in Health & healing, Learnings

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Amedeo Modigliani, AnthroYogini, Aum, Body image, EmBody Talk, Love, Meditation, Om, self-loathing, The BlissChick, Yoga

Reclining Nude by Amedeo Modigliani, c. 1919

I’m sure most of us would immediately say we are lovers! We prefer peace and harmony in our lives over fighting, right?

But what about the war you wage against yourself? Whether it’s physical, mental or emotional – or all three – we are hyper-critical of our Selves in so many ways, aren’t we?

This is however, the way it goes in a world where duality rules the roost. We always want what we don’t have, we always perceive ourselves as not quite what we want to be.

And that is war. Or if you prefer, self-loathing. Any time we are in that mode of thinking, then we are in conflict with ourselves.

Just the other day I found myself cursing my poor left shoulder, for no other crime than being injured and limiting my movement (it is getting better BTW, just slowly)!

Now, if a friend came up to you and told you they were injured would you curse them? Would you be rude and mean to them or ignore them? Probably not, right? You’d probably be sympathetic, perhaps send them love and healing vibes. Maybe you’d even help them work out the best course of action to get some healing going on. Yeah… that sounds about right!

This is especially true for our relationship with our own body. Women have complexes about their bodies in droves (an epidemic perhaps?) but I believe many men do, too. Personally, I’ve had a life-long struggle to accept how I look and some aspects of that struggle are ongoing.

Sometimes it seems like no matter how much yoga I do or how many times I chant Om or meditate, those thought patterns about my body remain. They run deep! Of course, the more yoga, meditation and chanting I do, the easier it is to see those thought patterns and marvel at their relentlessness.

My negative body image thoughts have become transparent to me now and I can separate my Self from them, but they never really let up… too tall, boobs too big, not pretty enough, too muscular, too heavy, not thin enough, not graceful, too different, thighs too big, nose too chunky, jawline not defined enough, lips too thin, too many freckles, wish I looked more like HER instead…

I know now those thoughts are not my true Self; they are part of the tricksy and distracting monkey mind that comes with this body and existence. The mind rules the world of duality and the more conflicts it creates, the harder it becomes to peel back the layers of delusion to an awakening of who we really are.

So this work of self-acceptance is vitally important.

Recently I was asked by The BlissChick (aka Christine) to participate in an interview series called EmBody Talk. It took a while to consider Christine’s questions properly and then attempt to condense a lifetime of body image issues into a (relatively) short response.

You can read the interview here: EmBody Talk: Svasti, Yogini & Survivor (cool title, thanks Christine!!)

I could’ve written so much more!

The wonderful thing about Christine’s interview series is that hopefully we’ll all learn more about what goes on beneath the skin of others. We will all be able to relate in some way to the stories being told and see how our negative self-image thought patterns are entirely detrimental. We are not alone in our self-denial!

Certainly, many of my own issues as documented here on my blog have stemmed from a deep dissatisfaction and self-hatred of my physical appearance, including (but not limited to) the reasons I found myself working in the sex trade industry all those years ago.

So I hope you enjoy the interview. On the same topic of body image issues, I also invite you read a couple of Anthroyogini’s recent posts (here and here).

Namaste!

~Svasti

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Show and tell

27 Monday Jul 2009

Posted by Svasti in Fun, Life

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

AnthroYogini, Beyond Words, copywriting job, hand-bound book, Karin, Lady Luck, life update, prize winner, weird job

I never usually win stuff, but this morning I woke up to find out that Lady Luck has kindly smiled down on me!

Karin from Beyond Words (one of my favourite artists in the blogosphere) had a little giveaway competition for her first blogiversary.

All the entrant’s names went into a hat, and somehow Karin pulled mine out as the winner!! Even better, the prize was a very special hand-bound book Karin made and created some tutorial videos about, should you ever want to try making your own book.

Karin's hand made book - that I won!!

This is it (click to see larger image)!!

Isn’t it beautiful? I love the gorgeous lotus flower stamp (also created by Karin) on the front, and the pretty green cover. I think its just stunning and I’m thrilled to be the winner of this wonderful prize!

As Karin suggested, I do plan to use it for writing poems, ideas and stories when I’m out and about, and not next to my computer. 🙂

My other show and tell item is the copywriting job I’ve been telling y’all about. The flyer it was intended for has now been designed and made awfully pretty.

AGF flyer cover - click to view PDF of complete flyer

Click to read my words (PDF file, 3.5MB)

In other news… the job I started a little while back (the one that saved me from absolute financial ruin) is very strange.

As I mentioned, its with this big corporate, in fact its the company that owns the previous big corporate I worked for (the one I quit when I went to Thailand around 12 months ago).

I’m being paid pretty crap money for what I’m doing, but then, its still not too bad. Just not what I’m used to being paid. Anyway, its enough to live on for now.

But the weird thing is, they really don’t have enough work to keep me busy. And last week I found out I wasn’t the only one in this situation. They’ve got digital producers (my job) and developers sitting around doing sporadic work. An email here, a meeting there, the odd phone call. Maybe half a day of documentation…

Don’t get me wrong, the people here are nice and I’m glad to be earning money. But it feels kinda wrong to be getting paid to do nothing (I’m writing this post from work at the moment).

Last week in my extensive down-time here, I finished two yoga studies assignments and made some awesome digital art to go with one of my essays (a cut down version of the essay plus the art I made will be shared here). Oh, and I sorted out payment for most of my overdue bills.

I suppose the upside is that its not a stressful  job and no one here (my boss included) seems to mind that I’m not doing anything, despite me constantly letting them know. But it doesn’t sit well with my work ethic – I’m used to doing at least half a dozen things at once… and yet, perhaps this is just what I need right now, a non-stressful re-introduction to the world of 9-5 work?

My final piece of exciting news is that next month I get to meet Anthroyogini and Mr Anthroyogini in person. Woot!! As I type, Anthroyogini is heading to Canberra to successfully complete and hand in her PhD thesis (which she is gonna kick ass at doing!).

Then once she’s done, we’ll rendezvous to celebrate in a coffee shop in Melbourne for our very first meet up.

Something to look forward to!

More posts coming soon, I just needed a little break in the past week to deal with some stuff. But my short spell of radio silence is done and I’ve got plenty more to share…

~ Svasti

Spreading the Flowers lurve again

30 Sunday Nov 2008

Posted by Svasti in Awards

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

AnthroYogini, Award, blog award, GO! Smell The Flowers, Kinky Grace, Little BigGirl, Official Flower Smeller, The Nature of My Circuitry, Writing to Survive

This award serves to acknowledge others who are in their own way, smelling the flowers.

It’s November still (but only just)… and whilst I don’t plan to dish out the Go! Smell the Flowers ‘Official Flower Smeller Award‘ each and every month…

I’ve been getting to know some inspirational bloggers recently – and thought they could do with a shout out.

Ofcourse… like everyone says about giving out these award thingys, it’s hard to choose and I don’t ever mean to insult someone by not giving them one… I read a heap of blogs (you should see my RSS reader – it’s an absolute shocker!) and I wouldn’t read ’em if I didn’t like ’em (much less comment…) but well, these are the blogs inspiring me in recent times…

So who can be a Flower Smeller exactly??

Could be anyone. They may have recovered from an illness, written a book, made waves in the blogosphere, inspired others, made a major shift in their life, quit the rat race, discovering their greatness and on it GO!s as more examples from around the world start to surface. They may not even have an online presence at all – that’s where this award differs!

This batch of awards go to…

1. Kinky Grace

A relatively new blog, Kinky Grace uses words with astonishing simplicity, and without drama, yet conveys both her day to day life right through to the most shocking stories of her life… with a sincere naiveté and beauty. I’m impressed with her writing and where her blog is heading and I think its well worth a gander…

2. Writing to Survive

She’s already been given plenty, but she doesn’t have a Flower Smeller Award yet! I’ve only recently found Jennifer’s blog but I’m so glad I did! She’s a writer who mines her painful history to poignant effect. Whilst at the tender age of sixteen, she gave bith to a still-born baby, one she was planning to give up but… what does that matter? Her writing makes me cry…

3. AnthroYogini

What do you get when you cross an anthropologist with a yogini? An AnthroYogini ofcourse! And one that lives and works in Alice Springs, a rather remote part of Australia (we have plenty of remote parts since we mostly live around the edges of this wide brown land). AnthroYogini (aka Amanda) writes about yoga, her life, dealings with depression, her family, being an anthropologist, finishing her PhD and sometimes her cracking Aussie takes on life, the universe and everything.

4. The Nature of My Circuitry

Victor and I seem to read each other’s stuff and kinda go… yeah. He’s more obtuse than I am… and certainly a great deal more up front about his relationship with his mother… and displays both extreme rage and a complete sensitivity (say, about the whereabouts of his missing hamster – and no, that’s not a metaphor for anything people!).

Read his stuff. Its intense and its kinda out there…

5. Little BigGirl

She keeps it on the down-low, she doesn’t complain very much, and she’s doing a wonderful job. This is a shout out to a dear friend of mine and some-time reader of this blog.

Earlier this year, her boyfriend (whom she moved to London to be with) contracted bowel cancer. He’s in his early thirties for crying out loud! The day after I learned this news, I couldn’t work out if I’d dreamt it or not… Luckily the medics, they caught it early and his prognosis is good.

LBG is her boyfriend’s main support, in a country that isn’t her own, without the local network of her own family or Aussie friends being close by. It’s been incredibly rough on both of them but they’re making it through.

Darlin’ I want to say how proud I am of you, and how much I admire your spirit and your loving heart, being there for your man the way you have. You are strong and beautiful.

Oh, and you rock!!

[Note: I’m not linking to her blog unless she wants me to, since its really a very personal one for friends and family]

Award winners – CONGRATS!!!

Just leave a comment at this post to accept your award and the badge is yours.

Of course, that’s if you want to… and whilst there’s rules for this award, if you wanna be a maverick and ignore them (although that’s almost de rigueur these days and so its more crazy to acutally go by the rules…) then go right ahead!

The rules are:

  1. Publish the Flower Smeller badge (top of the page) on your blog, and award it to 5 others by writing a post with links to the 5 blogs or websites (or whatever) that you choose.
  2. From now until eternity you can award this badge to a maximum of 5 people per month as and when you come across more Flower Smellers. And – if you do, contact GSTF to let them know the 5 you choose so they can add them to the Flower Smeller section of their site and the Flower Smeller blogroll.
  3. Link to the post where your award was announced, so people can read about the origin of the award and find their way to the GSTF community.
  4. Write a post announcing your award, proudly displaying the Flower Smeller badge.
  5. All Flower Smellers – note that you may be approached to write a 500 word account of yourself to feature in the GSTF 2009 book – it could happen to you!!

~Svasti

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