Head of Wild Foliage, NZ Feb 6th 2009

"He showed me a sketch he had drawn once during a meditation. It was an androgynous human figure, standing up, hands clasped in prayer. But this figure had four legs and no head. Where the head should have been, there was only a wild foliage of ferns and flowers. There was a small, smiling face drawn over the heart... To find the balance you want, thsi is what you must become. You must keep your feet grounded so firmly in the earth that it's like you haev four legs instead of two, that way, you can stay in the world. But you must stop looking at the world through your head. You must look through your heart instead. That way you will know God."

This quote is from one of my favourite books I've begun re-reading called Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I lost my Krishnamurti book somehow. But I know it's happened for a reason and it will just come back and find me so far.

So it's been four days since I've updated, but it's gone by so quickly it feels like only 24 hrs. Is it weird that time has gone by quite quick on less than 3 hrs sleep a night?

The flight to Melbourne wasn't all that great because the food was late but that's not important. The stuards looked tense and stress and one dropped a whole tray on me and I didn't even mind because he was african, wearing a baby blue colored suit and his name was Jupiter. I've gotten into the habit of visualizing white light around whatever hunk of metal my vulnerable little body happens to be encased in. And I try to send gratitude to everyone and anything that ever had to do with the building and upkeep of such a huge human carrier. the pilot, the people who loaded the food, the people in the air control towers, the engineers, the double checkers, the materials the earth gave to make this plane, everyone who's ever had a trip in it, all the people currently in it. i send all this points of physical matter love and white light and happiness and this makes for a much calmer flight when that unexpected shake of turbulence hits and I grab Barts hand out of instinct and he starts making fun of me by gasping and squeezing and jumping me.

So we arrive to Andrew (Bart's uncle) and Kath (Andrew's neighbour) waiting for us at the airport and they drive us to Miller Street where they live in Prahran. We took a walk in their area (which reminded me alot of Toronto Queen Street Summer) and I got a bank account. (How efficient am I?) The thing I was most surprised and urked by was the apparent deadness of the grass and all living green things sprouting from the ground. This saddened me quite a bit. There was just a heatwave that happened right before we arrived, but I began to appreciate the green of Canadian summers, the diversity of our weather even if it does get so cold, we hibernate. There is a balance in that cycle. This lack of green, I did not yet know, would be compensated by the green hearts of the kiwi people.

The street we were on was a bit shi shi. Cute boutiques with pretty things I promised myself later I would stop to look at when I return. The girls are good looking and have nice dressed, and there is this summery indie feel amongst the young with slight nu rave peaking through in the form of neon sunglasses. But there are these horrible looking sandals that everyone wears which cover the ankle and I just don't get it... since the ankle is one of the sexiest parts of the body *to me anyway*

Because I was so tired and ungrounded, my first impressions of Melbourne were very random and awkward. So I'm deleting it all from my mind and letting it go so that I can approach my new city untainted and clean... (hmm, wouldn't it be helpful to approach all of life this way. thats what Jenna does. she's like a piece of glass life moves through.) ANYWAY

Andrew has a been living in the same one bedroom flat for around 20 years. Every wall in his home is covered with shelves of books. Some shelves just line the top of of the walls right under the ceiling. But as soon as you walk in, to the right is a room blanketed with books. Everything is organized and labeled. The energy of this home library and the accumulaton of this information mirrors the energy splaying off in various directions from Andrew's head. It's like an energetic cosmic archive of Andrew's brain. It's the combination of certain philisophical, religious and political book that makes me feel I understand him one inch more. And alot of Chomsky.

I have always dreamt about building my own library but somewhere along the way of the past year, the idea or belief entered me that I needed to let go of as much unneccesary physical baggage as possible to live simply. Fuck that! I'ma get myself a LIBRARY! To have a library is to build your own inspiration jungle of words and ideas. It's a milky way of cosmic knowledge that you came to earth to encounter. Just like cosmic knowledge hangs over cities and places. I know this is a really hippy thought for some of you, but just roll with me for a second. Indulge all your limitless fantasies and possibilities vicariously through me. What an ultimate pleasure and blessing that it's even possible for us to do this. Let alone write books for people to include in their library with our name on it! I am reminded of all the beautiful people on my path who house impressive libraries. Miki Laval, Mike Donovan, Patricia Mohan. We all have a little library in our heart. Even if it is just one or two shelves. Even if we bought the shelf for $10 dollars and then sold it for $15.

When I think of even having my top ten books in the same counrty together my mind body brims with visions of having each one of the truths I found in them at my constant disposal. Have you found truth in words that lie on a page? Have you read a line that just made your whole body tingle with vibrations. Have your ever read a book a second time and noticed a line that hadn't stuck out to you before, but now it does based on your current orientation and understanding of the world? Its a fuckin spiritual thing man. Like waking up hung over beside your best friend and just having the best day recording a podcast, going to the sauna, ordering a pizza and just blabbing your heart out the whole way through.

After a nap and hearty meal of polish hunters stew with Andrew, we re-packed, re-strengthened, re-visioned my greeting Ada outfit, hit the pillow for about three hours and then got up at 4am to catch a train, get on a new plane with the dew of precious things and fly to the land of clouds that called out to us through his blood connections. Brother and sister coming together and girlfriend witnessing a brew of old fireworks, stories and familiar eyes.

Penang (flexactly a week ago)

You Are the World.

i am the indian boys carrying wood over sand
i am the waves tickling the land
i am the father showing his daughter the clams
i am the monkey taking bread from your hand

i am the snake slithering to the stomp of your soles
i am the monk at the bus station just:

holding
a
bowl

i am the muslim crouching, clutching his Nikon
extending my lens to grasp the pause of a fire fly
i am a rock floating under your sky
(that means your the universe)
and I am the memory that slides out when you sigh.

i am the kunda in you lini when your
spine
aligns

i am the batu in your ferringhi
the nasi in your lemak
the Ki in you knee
the roti in your canai

i am even the heat on your toes like fungi


I wrote this poem on monkey beach after we had hiked there for one hour, after reading Krishnamurti and listening to "Burn Out" by Cinematic Orchestra. I was feeling very seperate from the things around me after Kuala Lumpur and sorting out my thoughts regarding muslim attitude towards the female gender. Conservative women covered in head to toe, including their face, with only a slit for their eyes, strolled the edge of the beach infront of me with their husbands while I and other foreign girls wore bikinis. Then I read this Krishnamurti section of "You are the World" about how the biggest psychological issue blocking us is this idea that we are seperate from others and everything. The quote, which I can't find now because the book is somewhere in the depths of my luggage. And even though I've vibed and agreed to this fact in theory it was the perfect moment for me to take that in again and I began to percieve my being from the point of those around me, finally, experientially knowing, that I am them and they are me so i should just chill the fuck out.

ps. i made a new word in the title: flexactly. Which means: flexibly exactly

head in the sky with your feet on the ground... literally

The more I see and do and experience, the more my mind is filled with images. rubbish. confusion. understanding. and every night, stranger and more vivid dreams.

On Saturday morning I woke to someone new beside me in bed, which would have been surprising if Bart hadn't woke me up at 1am to tell me about Jenna's migraine. After the body massage she felt worse and couldn't fall asleep as the dorm was too cold, so her and Bart traded places and she came to sleep with me in the double bed in our slightly warmer room. We woke up at almost the exact same minute and then told eachother our twisted unsettling dreams. I was so happy she felt alot better in the morning.

That day we went on a hike through one of the paths the hostel had mapped out. We took lots of water, high energy snacks, photos of the map and called upon the ghost of Jim Thomas as we began climbing roots and slipping on rust colored soil. He was called the Silk King of Thailand and part of the CIA and went missing after going on a hike around dinner time. There are many theories about how he went missing. That he was kidnapped, or that he fell hundreds of meters through the "empty ground." Supposedly, his family is still offering some kind of lofty financial reward for information about his whereabouts. Although if he was still alive right now, he would be 102.

So we climbed through a rainy rainforest until we reached the top. Above the clouds there was no rain and only quiet fog. It felt like a movie as we grew more and more lost and I started my "What would I do if a Zombie came out of the bushes for me?" scenario imagining. Standing infront of an electricity tower the path became very very difficult to follow or even see. There seemed to be big orange arrows in random directions that led nowhere. And on every path that we knew wasn't "the one," was a human or animal poo...? As we climbed directly under the electricity tower and looked for more paths, we finally, after about 20 kinda nervous minutes found a rust colored landslide which led up to a very clearly marked path. But it was very inconspicuous. Had we not tried that way, we might still be in the jungle. Anyway, as we happily chuggled along that route we entered into very dark, mossy, viney forest which looked like the one in the Princess Bride. Trunks of trees formed the most inticing shapes as branched pushed for light. As we descended from the clouds, rain tickled our skulls and we began to climb down down down. Again, a fork in the path and we decide to go right when we should have gone left. This brought us to walking through the tiniest most indecipherable path which looked like an animal trail as we pushed away blankets of wet plants. This was an exhilerating bit of the walk. It's weird, the under the surface silent collective hope of getting lost. The desire to be in danger and the urge to feel your adreneline flow through the body. My excitement for a moment to trust myself. to depend on myself. to know the forest again so well that you move around hollow or fallen trunks as if they are pieces of furniture in your home. the comraderie between Jenna, Bart and I was very humorous and uplifting. It's nice after being a pair and hanging out with eachother for so long, for someone new to come into your relationship and zest things up by shifting the dynamic.

After a little visit to a strawberry growing farm, visiting a night market and getting drenched by rain, we reconvened for beers with Jenna, Rodrigo and a few other travellers we had gotten to know after Bart and I packed to leave the next morning for Singapore. I got a little tipsy and had the thought whilst we all played cards, that I felt totally comfortable with these people, and that I wouldn't mind being able to hang out with them more. It hit me that there is always someone to leave behind even if you've only been in a place for a few days. I feel inspired and blessed by how quickly the dynamics of a small group of people can develop and mean something. Everytime, I find this... sometimes, without even consciously creating it. It comes to me and I bring something to it with divine love and gratitude and somehow I know that facilitation in small groups of people is what aligns me and brought me here.

That night I put together a small ziploc bag of goodies and called it "Jenna's Bag of Happy" and after everyone was a sleep and I finished writing some mantras my heart was ringing out like a Vipassana Retreat bell, I slipped the bag under her shoes in front of the mixed dorm where she slept. One of those mantras was this:

I have a pitcher plant
where I throw all my thoughts
for the monkeys to steal.

They have no idea what they are getting into.

But they are hungry and
I am chopsticking a full belly of
memory
after
memory.

We got the best bus back to Singapore. With luxury seats that go back into bed mode. The bus threw us down winding roads and my stomach sang the blues, even after Jenna gave us special accupuncture bracelets for motion sickness. So I took a gravol and conked myself out for almost four hours witch made the nine hour trip seem short. I also watched the Constant Gardner and affirmed my love for Ralph Fiennes.

This morning, Monday Feb 2nd, I packed my bag and went to Orchard Road while Bart went to the science center. I had a really nice day to myself and got a wicked new pair of sunglasses. Tonight we fly to Melbourne, stop at Bart's uncles house for 24 hrs and then fly on to Auckland.

I can't wait to see Ada and shower her with me love you long time adoration.