Friday, October 29, 2010
There's No Place Like Home
To say that I have returned a changed woman would be an understatement. Not only have I experienced objectively through witnessing art, architecture, people, animals and food, where the true wealth lies is subjective, through pages upon pages of letters never sent to all the people in my life, repairing the circuits in all the fuses I've blown over the years, breakthroughs and epiphanies. I've ceased to search for things beyond and realized that I am that-which I seek. I have received advice over the years from Buddhist's, Catholics, Baptists, Hindi's, tarot card readers, psychics, reiki healers, yogis, a therapist, countless books and palm readers to name a few just to conclude that I am my greatest guru and healer. For the exception of myself, no one knows what is right for me. My personal journal where I write in a stream of consciousness differs greatly from my blog. Some experiences I have chose to take to my grave. Nothing will force you to live in the present moment like unplanned solo travel. Hopefully my soul has been cleansed in the oceans and rivers of which I swam in the most necessary of ways, such as my hideous taste in men and situations that rob me of my precious vitality. Surely only time will tell. Some days it feels as though I've lived lifetimes and others the past six months are mere memories, so dubious and improbable that I find difficult to acknowledge that I have once prevailed. New York has never before looked so vibrant and alive to me. I am exactly where I am supposed to be at this very moment. As I rest my weary head on my brothers couch in Brooklyn, drifting into slumber, I am content because now I certain that I was wearing the ruby slippers all along.
Varanasi and Calcutta
Where to begin. These two places were inspiring, exhilarating, irritating, disorderly, confusing, morbid, heinous, corrupt, stunning, radiant, repulsive and blithe all existing in one single moment. This being my most challenging of all my travels, I was grateful to have my friend Michael with me in Varanasi or I might have lost my cool in the narrow streets of this three ring circus. We dodged the unrelenting scams, shared the experience of frequent near head on collisions in the rickshaws and went sari shopping together. He's going to make his into a wall hanging and I into a duvet. This cow dung obstacle course is known for its vibrant fabrics and is most famous for the burning ghats on the Ganges river. People come to Varanasi to die so their body will be cremated on the shore of the Ganges and ashes scattered into the holy waters. Holy men and babies are not cremated but are submerged in the river, I have heard several rumors of dead babies and animals floating at the surface. Not to mention the millions of liters of feces and other sewage being dumped into that river, I passed the boat ride and a bath and was more then satisfied with the view of the water from a distance.
Michael and I met a local on our first night there and he took us over to see the ghats, I couldn't believe what was before my very eyes. I was within feet away from a burning body and didn't realize it at first. I was not expecting everything to be so exposed for the public to see. They do this twenty four hours a day at an average of 200 each day. It is not unusual to see corpses being carried through the streets as they are being carried through so frequently. They are being carried in the same manner one would carry lumber to a construction site.
Calcutta was much more civilized but still not easy. It took me almost three days to get there from Varanasi. It should have been a simple overnight train ride but I missed my first train after waiting eight hours because of delays because the track that it was originally supposed to arrive on was changed and I couldn't hear on the loud speaker that they switched. I couldn't figure out why there was whole families of Indian people sleeping on the floor of the station. They are camped out with blankets, pillows, food, the works, because they are aware that they are going to be there for a while. Even when I finally boarded a train it sat in the station for about an hour and continued to cease all through the night. I feared I would never reach my destination. When I finally did arrive, I went to see a Hindi movie because I heard that cinema is such a big deal in India. They like lots of suspense and action and dance scenes and not one dull moment. There was no build up to the plot, or subtleties. The entire time people were scaling the walls, jumping from one building to the next, shooting things and having wild car chases and then an intense choreographed bellydance scene thrown somewhere in between. The audience cheers and claps and eats and talks on their cellphones. The men here were following me around the streets wanting to know where I was from, if I want to buy something, offering me a chai or a rickshaw ride or asking me for money. I tried being direct as possible since I realized early on that they can't take a hint, for example saying "get the f*@#k away from me!" doesn't phase them one bit. I tried ignoring them and they would follow me for blocks. If they weren't saying anything, they were shamelessly staring and watching my every move like a hawk. I stayed focused on the purpose for coming there and that was to see where Mother Theresa did her healings and to see the little Bengali girl I sponsor which made it worth every tribulation. Who would have known that very sunny day in Manhattan on my way to the library when someone asked me if I wanted to be a sponsor would have brought me to Calcutta. I am so glad I paused my ipod for this solicitor because it changed my life and someone else's. Her name is Koyel and she is five years old, she is beautiful and funny and clever. I brought her a Barbie and she was obsessed with it, it is only the second doll she owns. I also took her shopping and let her pick out a toy and a dress and took her and her dad to lunch. What an incredible experience.
Submission accomplished.
a man with his daughter dressed up for a festival
Michael and I getting suckered into buying silk scarves
getting my henna done
the finished product
Koyel with her new Barbie
women shopping for saris
people sleeping in the train station
me putting the plastic watch that came with the Barbie on Koyel
she loved the sunglasses that came with it
Koyel drawing me a mango
Michael and I met a local on our first night there and he took us over to see the ghats, I couldn't believe what was before my very eyes. I was within feet away from a burning body and didn't realize it at first. I was not expecting everything to be so exposed for the public to see. They do this twenty four hours a day at an average of 200 each day. It is not unusual to see corpses being carried through the streets as they are being carried through so frequently. They are being carried in the same manner one would carry lumber to a construction site.
Calcutta was much more civilized but still not easy. It took me almost three days to get there from Varanasi. It should have been a simple overnight train ride but I missed my first train after waiting eight hours because of delays because the track that it was originally supposed to arrive on was changed and I couldn't hear on the loud speaker that they switched. I couldn't figure out why there was whole families of Indian people sleeping on the floor of the station. They are camped out with blankets, pillows, food, the works, because they are aware that they are going to be there for a while. Even when I finally boarded a train it sat in the station for about an hour and continued to cease all through the night. I feared I would never reach my destination. When I finally did arrive, I went to see a Hindi movie because I heard that cinema is such a big deal in India. They like lots of suspense and action and dance scenes and not one dull moment. There was no build up to the plot, or subtleties. The entire time people were scaling the walls, jumping from one building to the next, shooting things and having wild car chases and then an intense choreographed bellydance scene thrown somewhere in between. The audience cheers and claps and eats and talks on their cellphones. The men here were following me around the streets wanting to know where I was from, if I want to buy something, offering me a chai or a rickshaw ride or asking me for money. I tried being direct as possible since I realized early on that they can't take a hint, for example saying "get the f*@#k away from me!" doesn't phase them one bit. I tried ignoring them and they would follow me for blocks. If they weren't saying anything, they were shamelessly staring and watching my every move like a hawk. I stayed focused on the purpose for coming there and that was to see where Mother Theresa did her healings and to see the little Bengali girl I sponsor which made it worth every tribulation. Who would have known that very sunny day in Manhattan on my way to the library when someone asked me if I wanted to be a sponsor would have brought me to Calcutta. I am so glad I paused my ipod for this solicitor because it changed my life and someone else's. Her name is Koyel and she is five years old, she is beautiful and funny and clever. I brought her a Barbie and she was obsessed with it, it is only the second doll she owns. I also took her shopping and let her pick out a toy and a dress and took her and her dad to lunch. What an incredible experience.
Submission accomplished.
a man with his daughter dressed up for a festival
Michael and I getting suckered into buying silk scarves
getting my henna done
the finished product
Koyel with her new Barbie
women shopping for saris
people sleeping in the train station
me putting the plastic watch that came with the Barbie on Koyel
she loved the sunglasses that came with it
Koyel drawing me a mango
Sunday, October 10, 2010
The Doctor Is In
Ayurveda that is. If you are negligent, please allow me to enlighten you on the subject at once. Ayurveda is India's medical system that has existed for thousands of years. The word Ayurveda translates to "study of life" and everything they believe is the polar opposite of how we conduct anything related to health in the west. They treat the cause and not the symptoms, they prevent diseases instead of waiting for them to develop, and they believe the mind and body are one and the same. It's all about balance and being intuitive to what your body needs. They treat you with therapeutic techniques and through diet. The initial consultation was ten dollars, a far cry from the $150 in New York, so I decided to do panchakarma, a purification of the body. From merely listening to my pulse, Dr. Rana gave me specific details about my life. Within seconds she knew how much I despised the morning hours, that I ate a lot of bread that day and my thought process on decision making. The first four days I went to her, I drank an elixir of herbs mixed with ghee, which is clarified butter to unblock obstructed energy channels and got a massage and steam bath. Ghee is believed to have many healing properties. She also did a daily assessment of my tongue since the tongue is the "mirror of the body". The fifth day I had to drink warm water boiled with licorice root used to induce vomiting. She made me do this three separate times to prove to me how much mucous I had acquired in my lungs over a lifetime of pollution and smoking. I hacked up and dry heaved until I could endure no more. Dr. Rana was not completely satisfied and claims that I had much more to go but I had to put my foot down with this one. The sixth and seventh days I got the shirodhara and netra basti which look like this:
Shiro, meaning "head" and dhara meaning "flow", warm sesame oil pours down the scalp for about thirty minutes activating the third eye chackra followed by a scalp massage. It's a meditation of sorts, it sends me into a serious trance. The netra basti is an eye treatment where cold dough is placed around the eyes as a barrier and warm ghee and herbs are poured into the eye to nourish the skin around the eyes and improve eye sight. It takes some adjusting to wrap your head around eastern concepts. For panchakarma to have maximum results you must follow a diet for the week that omits dairy, sugar, meat, eggs, oil, nuts and anything spicy accompanied by two liters of water each day. At the end, you get the down low on your body type and the foods you need in your diet. Besides the forced vomiting and the grand finale of an enema it proved very effective and sure beat the master cleanse in respects of nourishing the body while detoxing as well as being an amusing process.
This country is corrupt in many ways but I am intrigued by the culture. I went to the post office to mail some things home and I stepped back in time. My packages were covered in a cloth that was hand sewn at the edges and sealed with wax. Much more exciting than what I usually do. For hello they say "namaste" which translates to the divinity within me perceives and adores the divinity with in you. The same word is used for yesterday and tomorrow, "kal", which sums up the Indian perspective on time and my personal favorite for goodbye is "fir milenge" that translates to until we meet again.
In total, I've taken three Indian cooking classes, two Tibetan and one French if you count when my friend Antoine rented Reeta's kitchen to show me how to make crepes and jam. Reeta also let me make four types of Tibetan bread in her kitchen so I could show her what I learned.
The end of season was nearing in Dharamsala, so it was time to move on before it got too cold and turned into a ghost town. Onto Rishikesh the "yoga capital of the world"(question mark)All my attempts to find a great class has been unsuccessful. The ashrams I went to were either too strange or you have to make a commitment for a length of time or I've shown up for a class that the teacher just decided he didn't want to teach that day, no yoga on Sundays and I even showed up to one class where someone brought their two year old son(wtf?). India has exceeded almost all of my dreams....except the yoga. I found the classes lacking flow and taught in a very mechanical manner. I finally surrendered to the fact that it just wasn't working out for me. The only ashram that impressed me was the Maharishi, where the Beatles wrote The White Album. The story is that Ringo left early because he was homesick and didn't like the vegetarian food. The ashram is no longer in use but still has a great energy about it. Rishikesh is located at the foothills of the Himalayas and is littered with wondering sadhus(holy men) in loin cloths and hippies and has the holy river, Ganges running through it. There is an ashram, temple or shrine at every turn. It was a great city but I'm pretty sure that everyone that loves Rishikesh so much is because they haven't experience heaven on earth in Dharamsala.
My energy has been crazy. I'm talking on a scientific level. In the past few months I've purchased four watches and replaced the battery in two of them. All have lasted less than a day or two. The last one, the second hand started moving counter clockwise. It's not just the watches, it's my ipod freezing up, and not being able to upload video or pictures anywhere. I googled it and this is a fairly common problem with people who have too much of certain types of metal in the body. I finally realized the problem was me when the last watch I bought wouldn't work when it was on my wrist but functions perfectly when in my bag, it just can't touch my body.
All I know is that I feel better than ever. I mean ever in my entire life. Is it the Ayurveda? The fresh mountain air? The great company? Yummy food and chai? Mediation? Vegetarianism? Seeing the Dalai Lama? It's hard to put a finger on it, perhaps it is best to question it no further.
Sangye, a Tibetan refugee teaching us how to make bread.In 1997 he walked for twenty eight days to get to India.
Dr. Rana in one of her many beautiful saris
Maharishi ashram, where the Beatles stayed in the sixties
handstitched wall hangings made from scraps of old saris
having my mail packaged
to look like this
this holy man was wearing a tail and blessed me while making feline sounds
and I walked away with one of these orange bindis
I am so hooking Juneaux up when I get back.....
Shiro, meaning "head" and dhara meaning "flow", warm sesame oil pours down the scalp for about thirty minutes activating the third eye chackra followed by a scalp massage. It's a meditation of sorts, it sends me into a serious trance. The netra basti is an eye treatment where cold dough is placed around the eyes as a barrier and warm ghee and herbs are poured into the eye to nourish the skin around the eyes and improve eye sight. It takes some adjusting to wrap your head around eastern concepts. For panchakarma to have maximum results you must follow a diet for the week that omits dairy, sugar, meat, eggs, oil, nuts and anything spicy accompanied by two liters of water each day. At the end, you get the down low on your body type and the foods you need in your diet. Besides the forced vomiting and the grand finale of an enema it proved very effective and sure beat the master cleanse in respects of nourishing the body while detoxing as well as being an amusing process.
This country is corrupt in many ways but I am intrigued by the culture. I went to the post office to mail some things home and I stepped back in time. My packages were covered in a cloth that was hand sewn at the edges and sealed with wax. Much more exciting than what I usually do. For hello they say "namaste" which translates to the divinity within me perceives and adores the divinity with in you. The same word is used for yesterday and tomorrow, "kal", which sums up the Indian perspective on time and my personal favorite for goodbye is "fir milenge" that translates to until we meet again.
In total, I've taken three Indian cooking classes, two Tibetan and one French if you count when my friend Antoine rented Reeta's kitchen to show me how to make crepes and jam. Reeta also let me make four types of Tibetan bread in her kitchen so I could show her what I learned.
The end of season was nearing in Dharamsala, so it was time to move on before it got too cold and turned into a ghost town. Onto Rishikesh the "yoga capital of the world"(question mark)All my attempts to find a great class has been unsuccessful. The ashrams I went to were either too strange or you have to make a commitment for a length of time or I've shown up for a class that the teacher just decided he didn't want to teach that day, no yoga on Sundays and I even showed up to one class where someone brought their two year old son(wtf?). India has exceeded almost all of my dreams....except the yoga. I found the classes lacking flow and taught in a very mechanical manner. I finally surrendered to the fact that it just wasn't working out for me. The only ashram that impressed me was the Maharishi, where the Beatles wrote The White Album. The story is that Ringo left early because he was homesick and didn't like the vegetarian food. The ashram is no longer in use but still has a great energy about it. Rishikesh is located at the foothills of the Himalayas and is littered with wondering sadhus(holy men) in loin cloths and hippies and has the holy river, Ganges running through it. There is an ashram, temple or shrine at every turn. It was a great city but I'm pretty sure that everyone that loves Rishikesh so much is because they haven't experience heaven on earth in Dharamsala.
My energy has been crazy. I'm talking on a scientific level. In the past few months I've purchased four watches and replaced the battery in two of them. All have lasted less than a day or two. The last one, the second hand started moving counter clockwise. It's not just the watches, it's my ipod freezing up, and not being able to upload video or pictures anywhere. I googled it and this is a fairly common problem with people who have too much of certain types of metal in the body. I finally realized the problem was me when the last watch I bought wouldn't work when it was on my wrist but functions perfectly when in my bag, it just can't touch my body.
All I know is that I feel better than ever. I mean ever in my entire life. Is it the Ayurveda? The fresh mountain air? The great company? Yummy food and chai? Mediation? Vegetarianism? Seeing the Dalai Lama? It's hard to put a finger on it, perhaps it is best to question it no further.
Sangye, a Tibetan refugee teaching us how to make bread.In 1997 he walked for twenty eight days to get to India.
Dr. Rana in one of her many beautiful saris
Maharishi ashram, where the Beatles stayed in the sixties
handstitched wall hangings made from scraps of old saris
having my mail packaged
to look like this
this holy man was wearing a tail and blessed me while making feline sounds
and I walked away with one of these orange bindis
I am so hooking Juneaux up when I get back.....
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Conducting An Experiment
Step 1: Form A Hypothesis- The world is a big place.
Step 2: Gather Information-
a. ambition overload
b. all of my efforts towards one goal all in vein
c. epic failure
d. refuse to accept the reality of a wrecking ball to dreams
d. milk everything in life to the bitter end until dead inside
e. surround one self with all the wrong people and trust them whole heartily
f. indulge epicuriously into unhealthy cravings
Step 3: Organize Materials-
a. break apartment lease with a very elaborate unnecessary Miami Vice scheme and drag innocent people into it
b. have a Sweet Escape Party in the West Village
c. put all belongings at Mother's
d. take Juneaux to Dad's
e. get inoculated
f. purchase a one way ticket to Spain
Step 4: Conduct Experiment In The Laboratory Of Life-
a. tell your boss that you just wanna dance
b. take the remaining money that was saved from more successful times(less than $10,000)
c. rely on blind faith
d. swan dive into the rabbit hole
Step 5: Results-
a. educate self on fine arts in Europe
b. work on a farm and realize how much of an indoorsy girl you are
c. tap into personal power and realize one's own strength
d. do things completely out of character
e. shed thirty years of layer after layer after corrupt layer from soul
f. eat a lot
g. meets lots of fascinating people
h. wear spectacles only
i. read far too many books
j. closely review the first thirty years of existence (the rough copy)
k. meditate for days
l. work in reversing family genetics in terms of mental and physical well being (I was raised by people who's forefathers philosophy on life is all that you need is duct tape and a butter knife to fix ANYTHING)
m. realize the people most dear to heart are no good for nothing, lose what little sanity remained
n. have many epiphanies,latest one being(#218 my lack of success in recent years due to my refusal to stroke egos to those of whom are undeserving)
o. get henna and put a bindi on forehead
Step 6: Conclusion-
the world is a small place (maybe a little too small sometimes) nama-f#*@ing-ste!
Step 2: Gather Information-
a. ambition overload
b. all of my efforts towards one goal all in vein
c. epic failure
d. refuse to accept the reality of a wrecking ball to dreams
d. milk everything in life to the bitter end until dead inside
e. surround one self with all the wrong people and trust them whole heartily
f. indulge epicuriously into unhealthy cravings
Step 3: Organize Materials-
a. break apartment lease with a very elaborate unnecessary Miami Vice scheme and drag innocent people into it
b. have a Sweet Escape Party in the West Village
c. put all belongings at Mother's
d. take Juneaux to Dad's
e. get inoculated
f. purchase a one way ticket to Spain
Step 4: Conduct Experiment In The Laboratory Of Life-
a. tell your boss that you just wanna dance
b. take the remaining money that was saved from more successful times(less than $10,000)
c. rely on blind faith
d. swan dive into the rabbit hole
Step 5: Results-
a. educate self on fine arts in Europe
b. work on a farm and realize how much of an indoorsy girl you are
c. tap into personal power and realize one's own strength
d. do things completely out of character
e. shed thirty years of layer after layer after corrupt layer from soul
f. eat a lot
g. meets lots of fascinating people
h. wear spectacles only
i. read far too many books
j. closely review the first thirty years of existence (the rough copy)
k. meditate for days
l. work in reversing family genetics in terms of mental and physical well being (I was raised by people who's forefathers philosophy on life is all that you need is duct tape and a butter knife to fix ANYTHING)
m. realize the people most dear to heart are no good for nothing, lose what little sanity remained
n. have many epiphanies,latest one being(#218 my lack of success in recent years due to my refusal to stroke egos to those of whom are undeserving)
o. get henna and put a bindi on forehead
Step 6: Conclusion-
the world is a small place (maybe a little too small sometimes) nama-f#*@ing-ste!
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