A weekend in pictures

Tags

Lars Von Trier, Melancholia, Motorbikes, recalibration, relaxation, rest, The Astor

These photos are from mid-March – I just never quite got around to publishing this post… they depict a fabulous and jam-packed weekend, where so many of the rest are characterised by my loner tendencies (which really has to change, I know).

For once, I was surrounded by people who love me for most of the weekend instead of being mostly alone and it was SUCH a happy time!

~ ~

On the Friday night I met up with one of my bestest friends and her hubby. We went to a lovely art deco cinema – The Astor – which is actually not far from where I live, and saw Lars Von Trier’s latest film, Melancholia, which doesn’t have anywhere near enough Alexander Skarsgard in it.

Nevertheless, it’s a pretty out-there film. Some reviewers are calling the entire movie “a metaphor for depression”, but I think that over-simplifies a much bigger story that Von Trier paints about life, death and how everyone reacts under both “normal” life circumstances, and again under pressure.

It’s beautiful and wild and poetic and thought provoking. I recommend seeing it, although probably take a friend you can talk it over with afterwards. And get a hug from!

~ ~

On the Saturday evening an old friend of mine visited from Sydney, bringing with him his Very Fast Motorbike (on a trailer behind his 4×4). He stayed at my place off and on for a couple of weeks while doing a bit of motorbike touring with a friend of his, seeing other friends and going to the F1 (boys and cars – bah!).

He always knows I’m up for a ride, since motorbikes make the list of my favourite things. My friend and I used to ride together a lot with me as his passenger, when I lived in Sydney.

So early the next morning – a lazy Sunday when the weather hadn’t turned too cold just yet, we suited up for a day of long smooth curves and beautiful views.

Mostly I like not having a car. It’s better for the environment and also for my expenses! But it does mean I don’t get out of town anywhere near enough.

And that’s something I really need. Especially getting away to the ocean.

I requested that we explore down the Great Ocean Road and he happily agreed…

~ ~

I remember once describing to a friend the ideal place for me to live: somewhere where the mountains meet the ocean, so that I’ve got both. Kinda like what’s going on in this photo of Apollo Bay! This was our turn around point, after seemingly endless rugged clifftops meeting the southern-most oceans of mainland Australia, with smooth curves for the bike to hug and stunning vistas that placated my heart!

More of this. Yes, more of this please! I really need to buddy up with some other folks on a regular basis and get some road trips happening.

There is so much happiness thrumming in my body when I’m immersed in such beautiful surrounds.

~ ~

Speaking of the hills meeting the ocean – we veered off the main road and explored northwards for a while. To get away from the Sunday drivers and find less occupied corners to take. 🙂

The ocean views gave way to rolling hills and lots and lots of un-inhabited SPACE. *sigh*

So good.

~ ~

Of course, on such a Very Fast Bike, one has to be ready to hold on. When the bike takes off, your belly can be five feet behind on the road if you’re not paying attention.

But oh… when you are. And when you’re focused on the horizon as the bike sails from side to side as it takes one corner after another, it’s so very meditative. Very in the moment of right now, where there is no other and everything is very clear and still.

They don’t talk about the Zen of motorcycling for nothing, you know.

The following day was a public holiday, and it was a day for resting.

Long, lazy hours of pottering around, snoozing on the sofa and being okay with all of that.

Perfection, yes?

~ Svasti

Bali…

Tags

asuras, Bali, flow, imperfectness, jungle, monkeys, Motorbikes, motorcycles, Offerings, sacred, Sacred Monkey Forest, scooters, temples, Ubud, Yoga

Is where the sacred comes hand-in-hand with treacherous and undulating footpaths dotted with gappy loose-hinged drains.

Walkways are covered in Hindu offerings for luck and abundance, animal excrement, the bodies of dead creatures (most likely road kill), trash, incense and a never-ending parade of men offering innumerable variations of:
Hey-lllooooowwww Madaaammmm! Taxi, yeeesssss? Tomorrow, yeeesssss?

Road rage and road rules seem to be minimal, though. Scooters and motorbikes outnumber cars, trucks and buses in some parts of town and weave in between each other alarmingly. Right/wrong side of the road be damned.

There’s plenty of horn tooting but its aggression-less. More – hello, do you see me – rather than – f#&k you!!

Between one and four people ride on two-wheeled vehicles, often with at least one rider glued to a mobile phone. Sometimes it’s the driver. Or one or two people carrying over-sized cargo: water flagons, bushels of coconuts, building materials. Occasionally the goods are bigger than the bike. And yet… there are relatively few bike accidents.

To me, Bali looks like unadulterated life. In the west, we like all the Ugly and Broken Things to be hidden. We pretend that everything is perfect by creating the illusion of order. In Bali almost every man-made object shows signs of decay.

Street cleaning is undertaken by shop-owners with hand-made switches, perhaps woven from palm or coconut trees. The never-ending run of downpours washes everything else away in the end.

Westerners flock to the island for yoga, partying and diving, but you won’t find many locals indulging in such recreations. I love Bali furiously, even with its bad smells and over-zealous touts and yet… I’m somewhat uncomfortable that most of the things I’m doing there are unattainable for many of Bali’s residents.

Five years after my first visit, Bali is doing somewhat better economically-speaking. Back then, so soon after the terrorist bombings tourists were sparse and businesses were desperate.

Now, there’s free wi-fi almost everywhere but much less honesty in commercial interactions. I’m pretty sure that the tourist prices have gone up considerably. You need to put some effort into bargaining in order not to be completely ripped off. Yet… things are still relatively cheap, although the price between what you’d pay at home and in Bali has narrowed. So it’s hard – for me anyway – to haggle too much.

Despite all of this, Bali is a place where stillness can be found. Where waking up before dawn comes naturally to me and where ducks can be observed in the rice paddies (they eat the rice paddy pests!).

The overwhelming heat and humidity also teach me to move and act more naturally – do a little bit and then rest. Move then rest. Eat then rest. Etc.

Nature has not been corralled into neat little concrete boxes as it has in the west. The jungle still rules, and barely tolerates any attempt at civilisation.

Occasionally, wild things happen there, too.

Like visiting the Sacred Monkey Forest and interacting with knee-high grey monkeys with their little hands that tug on your pants to demand another banana. All business-like. The signs warn not to touch the little cuties although what can be done when a curious one curls up next to you while you sit on a low stone wall? Even though you’ve no bananas left (he’s checked), he still hangs with you.

And then mind-blowingly, he uses your left knee as a perch. Tail swinging. In some ways, it’s almost like having a cat sitting there except it’s NOT anything like a cat.

It’s a wild monkey.

In Bali.

It’s magical. Even if you’re too stunned/laughing too hard to get a photo. Memories like that don’t fade.

Every home has its own temple, as well as public temples on every other street corner. Right along with the dogs.

You can also visit said sacred temples only to be lambasted by touts pretending to be temple workers. Lying to you about the access that your entry ticket allows you without a “local guide”.

The temple is sacred but apparently you’re fair game.

This is not so magical unless you allow for the magic anyway.

But it is the nature of Everything Not Being Perfect.

You can get angry about it or you can go with the flow.

The flow is always easier.

~ Svasti

A yogini & an atheist walk into a bar…

Tags

atheist, Compassion, Empathy, Karma, kirtan, Love, Motorbikes, rainbows, Richard Dawkins, Tantra, Yoga, Yogini

In all seriousness, the title of this post is not the start of a joke! Okay, well maybe it is… 😉

C is one of my very good friends and a recent house guest – visiting Melbourne for a conference and then a bit of 4WD and motorbike fun. When he first asked if he could stay I kinda assumed his conference was to do with his job, and only just before his visit did he come clean about the Atheist Convention he was attending!

Which made me giggle. See when we first met, C was doing yoga and meditation which is part of the reason we had so much in common. We dated briefly almost ten years ago, and we’ve been good friends ever since. But somehow C veered into atheism and threw the baby/yoga out with the bathwater. Like many people, C didn’t have the best of times growing up, he has chronic health problems (which I suspect are related to suppressed anxiety), and one of his brothers passed away not long after we met. Outwardly he’s a very happy-go-lucky, adventurous, fun-seeking, kindly and generous person but when it comes to matters of the heart, I suspect he shut up shop long ago.

Over the years, it’s like there was a proportional relationship between my immersion in yoga and his into atheism. Nowadays he considers Richard Dawkins a hero, while I’m a fan of kirtan… But it’s cool. We love each other enough for that not to matter.

C added another twist to his Melbourne stay though. Two of his friends (a couple) were also coming to Melbourne for a few days motorbike riding (C drove to Melbourne with his bike and their’s on the trailer behind his 4WD) and I agreed they could stay at my place, too.

The only reason I’m mentioning their visit is because it meant I had to give them my sofa bed and C had to sleep on a blow up mattress in my small second bedroom. Which doubles as my yoga room – all decked out with my altar, many images of gurus, Hindu gods and goddesses, a huge sparkly print of Ganesha, prayer flags, chakra posters, incense and candles… And so the atheist had to sleep in the room in which I meditate, do yoga, chant and various other spiritual activities!! Not that he minded and I did warn him about my decorating before he arrived, but I still found it amusing (heehee!). Must be my somewhat childish sense of humour. 😉

Anyway… I took last Friday off work so we could hang out. We were meant to be heading out on his motorbike that day (we’ve a long history of adventuring around the country on his bike). But rain was threatening and being on a bike all day in the rain aint much fun (it worked out okay coz we went riding on Saturday which was awesome!).

So we took the 4WD on some very rugged back country roads. It was fun and very beautiful, and yet I felt a little uneasy. It’d been quite a while since we spent a whole day together and our views on the world differ considerably these days compared to when we first met.

Also, it seemed to me we’d both been carefully avoiding the atheist vs yogini conversation – personally I don’t have a problem with anyone’s views as long as they aren’t evangelising. However, I really didn’t want to argue with someone who’s been a good friend in my life for such a long time!

But on our 4WD trip C asked me about my “world view”, what I believed in. And ahhh… where to start when someone who doesn’t believe in anything asks you about your “world view” when you’re a yogini from a classical non-dual Tantrik tradition? Ahem!

We talked about karma for a bit (because he asked) and I explained what I could, including that most people use the term incorrectly. Generally speaking, of course. But that’s an entirely different post…

So I started explaining that my world view is an ever-unfolding path. That it’s not about “belief” for me – never has been. That what I’m interested in are my direct experiences and relationship with reality. And I told him I didn’t believe (as he does) that consciousness is just a trick of the chemicals in our brains, or that after we die there’s nothing. But I also said I didn’t know for certain, because that’s true. How can I know?

I’ve been given a lot of teachings over the past ten years and some of them are still just concepts for me. There are things I “believe” are possible – as in, they could happen – but I can’t say for sure they are true. However, some of those things have turned out to be true in my own experience. Which equals direct knowledge, and not just buying into a concept as it’s taught without any personal experience to back it up.

And sure, I understand the atheistic view – that those experiences I think I’m having could just be delusions. But how do you prove that I’m delusional? I mean, I’m an otherwise (relatively) sane person but whenever I have an experience that doesn’t match with the general consensus of reality, it *must* be a delusion? It sounds like a very convenient argument…

C asked what kinds of experiences I was talking about. But hey, those things are difficult to explain even to other yogis sometimes. So instead I talked about how what we think of as reality is really quite limited. For example, we generally don’t see light as the spectrum of rainbows that science proves it to be. And we don’t hear every sound that’s out there – things that a dog or a whale can hear. Our experience with reality is limited by our senses and just because we can’t see, feel, sense or logically explain every darn thing that happens, doesn’t make it not true. And that sometimes as a result of my practice, I find my senses expand (permanently or temporarily) in some way and I experience the world differently. Which helps me unfold/unpack reality a little more for myself.

I explained how my guru encourages all of his students to see Tantra and yoga as hypotheses, and our body and mind as a laboratory in which we can run as many tests as we like. Experience. Sense. Feel. Think. Reflect. Consider. Witness. Do. Be.

Don’t just take anyone’s word for it!

C asked me how any of what I’d been explaining can be used practically. So I got to the point – Tantra, yoga, meditation etc affords me the ability to see the world as non-different. The concept of non-dualism posits that nothing is really separate or different they way we tend to see things in day-to-day life, which helps me understand that not everything is about me.

For example, I was eventually able to see how some angry guy using me as a punching bag was not in any way personal. It just so happened that I was there and he was reacting to his own experience of reality and chose to get violent. Actually, it had nothing to do with me at all!

To get to that realisation is HUGE, especially when you’re crippled with PTSD and depression – it is NOT an easy path to come back from.

I told him how many people who go through things like I had, end up on medication for the rest of their life. Or they end up dead or destroying their lives in some way because they can’t cope. And that everything I’ve studied and practiced, hand in hand with therapy, is what helped me extract myself from the pit of hell I’d landed in. Therapy alone could never have given me the world view that I learned through practice and study.

And then I told C that actually, there is something I believe in: a (crazy) little thing called Love.

I believe that Love is pretty much the only thing worthwhile in this world. That getting to know your heart intimately and being connected to your emotions is important. That compassion and empathy and accepting people just as they are, no matter how different they are from you without expecting them to change… that that’s what I believe in, if anything… and I just silently hoped that my message of love was heard, loud and clear because even an atheist can’t argue with that, right?

**Update** @Skipetty asked in the comments how my friend C reacted. To be honest, he said very little. Possibly it’s because I said a bunch of stuff he didn’t agree with and he didn’t particularly feel like arguing with me, either. But I also hope I gave him a few things to think about in that science-driven noggin of his. And hey, maybe he took it all in the way I intended, which is not meant to be a threat to what anyone else believes. It’s all just my point of view in the end, isn’t it? 😉

~Svasti

Hanging out in Clear Deep Heart/Mind…

Tags

Big Things, Clear Deep Heart/Mind, Essence Nature, flooding, hail, Healesville, koan, Melbourne, Motorbikes, non-conceptual meditation, Queenstown, Retreat, storms, Zen

Somewhere near Queenstown, New Zealand August 2004

Things are shifting rapidly for me once again. Or they are not.

I’m back from retreat of course, got back on Monday night and apparently missed a huge weekend of outrageously extreme storms here in Melbourne. So extreme that a friend in Sydney sent me a text to ask if I was okay. We’re talking massive floods only a ten minute cycle from my home, hail stones the size of your fist, thunder and lightning! You can check out some photos at this link…

Out in Healesville, we had storms but nothing severe and when I got home there was no damage to report.

I desperately need some time to sit down and write, but there’s not gonna be a lot of spare time til the weekend I suspect. And even then, I’ll have some house guests – one of my best friends is arriving Friday night (in his 4WD with motorbikes on the trailer!) and two of his friends will be staying for a couple of nights, arriving late Saturday night. I’ll need to shop and make sure everything is clean and comfortable etc… and then hopefully there’ll be time to put a little more of my recent adventures into words.

For now I’m just hanging out in Clear Deep Heart/Mind and chuckling at myself and recent revelations. My friend who made it possible for me to go on this three day Zen retreat? I owe him A LOT! I just thought I was going to a beautiful location to meditate and do yoga. I had no idea what else was gonna happen! For now, let me just say it falls under the heading of Big Things.

But it’s all a bit like that right now. I think I started to catch on last year and now, here I am… some of the stuff I’ve learned with my Guru over the past seven years is starting to come home in a big way. In part, that’s due to last year’s hard work and then my recent encounters with other wonderful yoga/meditation teachers who’ve reflected and magnified certain key points for me.

You could say there’s been a lot of Ah-Ha’s going on here and I suspect I haven’t seen the last of them.

As a bit of a teaser, here’s a few observations that’ll point you to where I’m at (kinda):

• Sitting for non-conceptual meditation is one of the best and worst things in the world
• If you do this for any length of time, everything hurts but never for the reasons you think it does
• Just when you tell yourself “I’m so freakin’ screwed”, the bell rings and the world shifts all over again
• The human condition of suffering, which is caused by our fight-or-flight reaction, wants us to turn away from pain of any kind whenever we can
• Learning not to run from pain is desperately challenging but rewarding
• Anger needs to be separated out in the mind from violent actions, thoughts and deeds against ourself or others – it shouldn’t be equated with violence because anger is a feeling, where violence is a response
• Every single one of us can be an asshole (to ourselves and/or others) every day of the week if we don’t make this distinction for ourselves
• Not being an asshole affords a capacity to laugh at ourself and fills the heart with boundless compassion
• Awakenings to our true Essence Nature are closer than we can imagine – and there are many to be had!
• You can never do enough yoga!

And finally a Zen koan: Nothing is as it seems, nor is it otherwise…

There’s so much more to say, but for now that’s gonna have to do. Because there’s so much re-stacking going on, and the above-mentioned busy-ness. And I really need to find a way to explain myself better than a handful of cryptic bullet points. 😉

~Svasti

The invisible cyclist

Tags

Baylor University, Commuting, Cycling, Depression, Motorbikes, Post-traumatic stress, PTSD, Research, Tackaberry Chronicles

I tend to think my life in related metaphors.

Like, cycling – or for that matter, motorcycling (I’ve spent quite a bit of time as a biker biatch on the back of a good friend’s motorbike. I’m a huge fan of the current one – his totally hot Honda 1100cc – and beg for a ride whenever I’m in Sydney. Purrrrr!!). And, as I’ve already explained, I love my push bike…

The thing with being on two wheels in a four wheeled culture is that no one sees you. As a bike rider you can’t ever think cars, trams, buses, trucks or even pedestrians actually notice you on the road.

For all intents and purposes, you’re invisible.

Once, a couple of years back I actually had to shout quite loudly at a guy crossing the street. I was barrelling along at 40km/hr or so… he made eye contact but still… he was gonna walk straight into me. That sure would have hurt both of us at the speed I was moving. And it would’ve trashed my bike too!

But like a deer in headlights, he didn’t change his course. So I had to take evasive action… thankfully there weren’t any cars or trams coming up behind me or I woulda been squished.

As a two-wheeled commuter, I consider it part of my job to learn to deal with the blindness of others in order to keep myself from harm’s way.

And really, that’s how I deal with depression and post-traumatic stress, too.

Michelle over at Tackaberry Chronicles wrote a great post on Baylor University’s study of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Interestingly, it seems parts of the brain actually shrink after exposure to traumatic experiences. Which can impact things like decision making, ability to deal with stress, and also, the brain’s capacity for inhibiting fear.

Reading this kind of stuff helps me understand (rather than excuse) my reactions in certain situations… and for those with some grace and perception, it helps me to help them get it – why I might suddenly drop out of circulation. Or, when panic attacks set in, see them for what they are instead of thinking… geez, Svasti just totally freaked out. What’s with her?

Just like the dude crossing the road in front of my bike, other people for the most part can’t see what’s right in front of them. I’m definitely not the first person to feel like they’ve been falling apart in a serious way, right under the noses of others…

Even when there’s external signs pointing to things not being okay… many people simply can’t see it. Or they’re too caught up in whatever is going on in their own life (see: Light on the train) to notice if you’re a quivering heap on the floor.

So, I try to change my view. It’s easy to label others as lacking in discernment, cold, unfeeling or insensitive. But really, that’s just a perception, not reality. And it’s not fair, actually. Coz everyone’s got crap to deal with.

I’m fully aware that my emotional world is highly invisible to almost everyone – even some of those closest to me, even if I tell them I’m in trouble… even when I point them to this blog to read what I’ve written… I simply can’t expect them to realise or understand. They aren’t empaths, and they can’t read minds or feel what I’m feeling.

To date, I can think of only three people who’ve somehow known exactly what to do or say. Not that it’s the same thing each time… they just know how to be there in the right way.

**************************
Minor update (after reading Susan’s post and commenting): Possibly the common theme with the three people I mentioned is this – they never tried to do anything about how I was feeling… they just tried and succeeded in connecting with me in a human-to-human way. And, they demonstrated that they cared. It wasn’t just pretty words. It’s that kind of connection I think, that helps us remember that really… we’re not alone at all.
**************************

There are choices, always.

Every time someone fails to see, or care, or know what’s going on… I can choose to view that as a new hurt. Or not. I choose… not.

But, what I do choose is – to keep cycling onwards… keep taking care of me as best I can, relying primarily on myself… and the handful of people who do get it. Who can see the difference between when I’m in a good space and when I’m just not…

And constantly work to find that place where I can let go of the tension, the strain and the pain. Coz I do think its entirely possible.

~Svasti