The truth: I'm scared of myself.

For the next 10 days, I will be in complete silence; no speaking, reading, writing, listening to music or even making eye contact with others in the Vipassana course. 10 days of 10 hours a day of meditation,  just me and my mind. The purpose of this Buddhist meditation is self-observation, mindfulness, and introspection, in hopes of seeing things as they really are and achieving a sense of simplicity. In theory, this is accomplished through cognition of the senses, discrimination of the type of sense, experience of the sensation, and the mind's response to the sensation. 


My schedule for the next little while looks like this:

4:00 a.m.                             Morning wake-up bell
4:30 – 6:30 a.m.                 Meditate in the hall or in your room
6:30 – 8:00 a.m.                Breakfast break
8:00 – 9:00 a.m.                Group meditation in the hall
9:00 – 11:00 a.m.               Meditate in the hall or in your room
11:00 – 12 noon                  Lunch break
12:00 – 1:00 p.m.               Rest, and interviews with the teacher
1:00 – 2:30 p.m.                 Meditate in the hall or in your room
2:30 – 3:30 p.m.                 Group meditation in the hall
3:30 – 5:00 p.m.                Meditate in the hall or in your room
5:00 – 6:00 p.m.                Tea break
6:00 – 7:00 p.m.                Group meditation in the hall
7:00 – 8:15 p.m.                 Teacher’s discourse in the hall
8:15 – 9:00 p.m.                Group meditation in the hall
9:00 – 9:30 p.m.                Question time in the hall
9:30 p.m.                             Retire to your room; lights out

Given that yesterday was the 1 year memorial of my father's death, I know I won't be alone in this journey.

Bhārata

Again, I have been neglecting my Ego(tist). However, in emphasizing quality over quantity, I am excited to share an artist named Ami Dang, who I recently met while travelling in India. I particularly enjoyed track 4, A Strange Community, which fuses tribal sounds, drum beats, vocals and synth. Listen below.

Hukam by Ami Dang

As for a quick update on my first month of six in India:

- I have learned that dental floss, coffee, sex (masterbation may satisfice), a nap or aspirin can cure just about anything

- one of the great things about India is that your shit doesn't smell like shit, because everything already smells like shit (or cardamon, or sewage, or tar, or burning garbage) 

- I will be heading to Sadhana Forest in Auroville by the first week of February, and staying there for at least one month (this is cultivating some tremendous excitement for me!) 

This country is dynamic and gorgeous, and I cannot wait to encounter more adventures here. 

B3RLIN

I haven't updated this since I left Canada for Germany, and there is a good reason for that...I'm just enjoying myself too much to stop and reflect on how much I am enjoying myself. It's similar to when you are at a monumental live show and the people in front of you are watching it through the cracked screen of their shitty 5.2 megapixel Canon "coolpix" camera; they are better off actually soaking in the experience itself.

Berlin has been all that I wanted (don't ask me the criterion for this), and more. I won't bother with the details, but the bottom line is that two months in Berlin has taught me how to party more than all of the Burning Man experiences I have had and all the pre/post fiascos that have gone along with them over the last 3 years. Here are some artists I should be seeing soon here:

Hippy-Hipster-Raver-Cowgirl...(Gangstaaaa??)

Sorry for the lack of updates, albeit, I swear I have a completely benign excuse! I have been travelling a bit to New York City, Portland, The Redwood Forest, Big Sur, San Francisco, L.A. and then to the almighty BLACK ROCK CITY. To finish things off I had an odd 24 hour decompression in Las Vegas before returning safe and sound to Toronto.

The Playa treated me like a bar of gold this year. Saturn, our reliable vessel, transported some absolutely wonderful companions (some old, some new) and myself on a fabulous journey full of discovery, adventure, challenge and constant soul searching. Special thanks to Alla, Jaca, Treymor, Wolf, Air, Rocky, Lamb Cunt and Rye Toast.

We were here. We were there. We will be again.

  

Chalk

This video is so real; it makes me want to find the beauty and loveliness in the mundane repetitions and habits we take for granted on a regular basis. I live and get glimpses of life through a "Chalk"-like lens periodically, but why can't I constantly embrace and be surrounded by everyday creative energy and clairvoyance?

I'll always be your Little Duck

DAPHNE005

The Modern Love imprint has been habitually rocking my early afternoons this past week. Andrea's You Still Got Me/Got to Forget (below) reminds me a lot of the Hyperdub releases from 2009, with a little techno and house thrown in the melting pot. As usual, PLAY LOUD.

On another note, I love the semi-retired life I have been leading lately. Everyday is like my own choose your own adventure book, and my choices never seem to disappoint. I could really get used to this.

Andrea - You Still Got Me / Got To Forget by modernlove

Oh Pariah!

My mind has been racing lately. So many ideas, not enough (read: NO) time to follow through with any of them. Music, business, creating, sewing, traveling, planning, decision making. A friend over at 283 has this to say:

...ultimately, isn't fear the most immediate yet overlooked obstacle to living the way we should? I came to the realization this morning that fear has become not only a hindrance, but a safehouse, a comfort for me. I fill every spare moment I have with work, fearing that free time will lead me to the daunting task of thinking about and making decisions about the direction of my future. At the same time, I am using this lack of free time as an excuse for why I have been unable to nurture any of the prospective seedlings that are bursting through my frontal lobes. In all my pragmatism, this cycle is completely illogical, and I recognize it as such, which makes me want to shout even louder, "FUCK YOU FEAR".

But please, don't be afraid of this:

Fjällräven Kånken

I like classic, practical things. Given that 50% of my job is in finance, if I calculate the per usage rate of this new purchase, I am making an extremely economical decision. Enough said:

I want all of them, but I think Rusty wins.

xoxo

Dreams of Kerala

I want to make out with you, to this, on a rainy Sunday, the sun burning orange, about to retire.

Rouge

I want to eat with my hands, and be nude, and stand still while the rest of the world spins and spins around me. I want to feel the earth, every corner of it. I want to see the way that leaf falls, or that boundary changes, or how the pattern that water makes is one of the most beautiful chaotic messes ever created. I want to enjoy, and appreciate the movements of bodies, my own and those of others. I want to lay under the sun, or rain, or clouds- and soak in all the things that people can't enjoy because they're too busy earning a living to pay for mounds of unnecessary garbage and a week of false solitude and relaxation. I want to feel intrigued forever.

Dill Swing

Sometimes life feels like this:




I was thinking today, just how much I love life. The sun overhead, on the back of a motorcycle, not a single encumbrance weighing on my conscience. I love my friends, I love the Summer, I love the vibrant busy-ness of my schedule, I love thinking about the future. I need to embrace and ingrain in myself this current sense of invulnerability to unhappiness or negative forces.

Our lives are never plateaus of emotion or experience, but when we are at either end of the happiness spectrum, we tend to forget this. Our current state bleeds into our entire memory of how the past was and how the future may be.

Everything, every activity, seems like an adventure to me right now; exploration and discovery are the essence of my thoughts and actions and ideas.

I must remember this feeling.

Thom Yorke is a "hipster" (or, Why Liberty Village scares the shit out of me)

I hate waiting. If doing something requires waiting, I will do something else in the meantime, regardless of the length of time the waiting period is for the initial task. Essentially my downtime threshold for multi-tasking is 1.5 seconds. The following are some examples that I remember from today alone:
1) Vacuuming my house while boiling water and steaming vegetables
2) Calling my insurance company while downloading and screening resumes at work
3) Watching/listening to an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia while blow-drying my hair
4) Going for a run while waiting for my clothes to go through the spin-cycle at the laundromat
5) Buying groceries while waiting for my clothes to dry at the laundromat
6) Going to the liquor store during the 5 minute wait for my Portobello sandwich
7) Getting passport photos taken while waiting for the TTC

No wonder I have no patience, and find it difficult to adhere to anyone's schedule but my own! I simply can never do one thing at a time; I need constant stimulation from a task or else I move on to another provisional task.
What does this say about me?
Has this always been the case? Did culture/life/location bring about this shift (if a "shift" has actually occurred)?
Is this tragedy or efficiency?

I don't want this life I'm starting

Shouldn't I be happy that I am starting my career? That I got a job in my field? I mean, in this economy and with little experience, I should be ecstatic for the opportunity that awaits me, right? But I want passion, I want my entire world to be full of things I love. Music, fashion, film, art, words, exploration, design, travel. We are given this life, this limited time, and the only one who dictates what we do with it is ourselves. I want a job with freedom, creativity and versatility that permits me to indulge in these passions and allows me to be myself, not a contrived version of myself. Oh life, you get me every time. What the fuck am I getting myself into?

This helped relieve some stress:

Wipe that face off your head
Some sensible advice for young women from your battle-scarred future

Kate Carraway, February 17, 2010

Dear girls,

Last night I watched you and your idiot friend lose your fucking minds outside of a bar. You’re, what, 23? 24? I guess you got kicked out and your buds were inside? Whatever, I don’t care. But watching both of you drunk-cry, scream and throw punches at a standard-issue-beefy bouncer (who was laughing at you, by the way), I had a sense of deja-ewwww of the more embarrassing and avoidable moments of my own fleeing youth. And, as I have been actively seeking wisdom from ladies slightly and much older than me ever since my recent turning-of-29, it seems an auspicious time to offer some hard-won, well-considered tids of my own. Listen up, bitches.

OK, first of all: shopping isn’t a hobby. Find something else to do. Remember when you are flicking through clothes at mall stores and looking at advertisements in magazines and furnishing your disgusting apartment that you are being seduced by commerce, and not in a way that leaves you dripping in anything other than child labour and debt. I mean, I wear (vintage) fur and believe in fashion, but you have to know what it is that you’re doing and for whom you’re doing it.

On the topic of money: learn it. More crucial than most things in your dumb life is getting your credit and savings in order. Being afraid of money and bills is for babies. Know what is for grown-ups? A budget, a retirement account, a clean credit report. Related: clean up your heaps of filth a little bit every day and then a lot once a week. (Unless you’re a committed crusty, in which case, I salute you.) Respecting your stuff is almost the same as respecting yourself. Dig?

STFU. Stop yelling into your phone on the bus. You’re not impressing anybody. Moreover, when you and your girl squad are screaming, four-deep on the sidewalk, or texting instead of talking to each other, I’m judging you. We all are. Get it together.

Onward: get sex. If you hang with sluts, just go to the alley and put your tongue inside their mouth. Proceed, and use protection. Or, in a more likely scenario, make someone know that they want you by finding a balance between genuinely not giving a shit because you’re better than them, and being the foxiest, funnest, most into-them girl on the planet, because you are. The important thing is to maintain control of the situation (until they’ve checked out OK and you can get onto the business of being vulnerable). Oh yeah, straights: get yours. For every orgasm he has, you should have two or three. This is just biology. Give good head. It is a tremendous human power to deliver A+ oral. And always, always, calm down. The best advice I’ve ever heard about boys is, “When in doubt, don’t call,” courtesy of my oldest sister, who is God’s boss. If you’re wondering whether or not to text, IM, email or call a guy, don’t. He can call you if he wants to. This isn’t an anti-feminist head game — the objective is to free your mind. Just, seriously. Relax.

Do something. Doesn’t matter what. Probably your mom or your shitty high school friends or a man has tacitly suggested that women should fear and avoid failure, disapproval and criticism, and should instead invest their energies in other people’s art and ideas. You know, my love, that this is a lie. If I see you sitting on a curb, smoking, and you don’t have a blog or a band or a small business or something other than a boyfriend, I swear on a stack of Sassys I’ll spit my gum on you. If you don’t end up liking what you’re doing, try something else. No BFD, right?

Say yes. Being a scaredy-mouse is weak and boring. Be afraid of something and then do it anyway, again and again. Say no. To your boss, your parents, your friends. Learn how “no” feels in your mouth and in what instances saying it will make you and your life better. Being a salty bitch should be countered with kindness, but remember, you’ve got to get yours.


Decide what kind of person you want to be with, and then become that person. The only way your life will be cinematic, or even vaguely interesting, is if you run it the fuck down and make it happen. Yeah, all by yourself. And shit can get lonely. So, find your best friends. You have an obligation to be honest and rad to these people and expect the same. Figure out who and what makes you choke on laughs and makes your skin burn with joy, then take it (and them), and don’t apologize for it ever. And once in a while, cradle your beautiful teacup face in your hands, and remember that you’re perfect.

Love, Kate. xoxo

Fort Building

We made a fort that looked something like this yesterday and slept in it:



It's amazing what some bed sheets, a few brooms, and some dental floss can create. Our fort was a vessel for music listening, candlelit ambiance, Pop Rocks candy, wine, and the sharing of horrific news stories and wonderful ideas. Further proof that genuine fun is generally free, or at least quite inexpensive.

What's so dirty about dirt?

We spend a profuse amount of time attempting to "wash" the dirt off us when really most of the things we put on us or in us are dirtier than dirt, in an inorganic sense.

It seems I was intrinsically nonspiritual until about four weeks ago. Preaching Dawkins, placing science on a pedestal, and stubbornly insisting that scientific reasoning must provide the singular answer as to why so many individuals across the world seem to be inflicted with the "disease" of religion (see here). Now, a light switch has turned on.

As with most things in my life, inclusive of religion, I am an all-or-nothing/black-or-white type thinker. Religion made no pragmatic sense to me and my rational beliefs, actions and morals. This changed however, when I discovered the simplicity in the "grey" of spirituality I never knew existed.

Dichotomies, Dichotomies

"Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right. I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top.

At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles- a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other- that kept me going."

-The Rum Diary, Hunter S. Thompson

Burning Man aka Too Excited to Write Full Sentences

- Finally.
- Gone to Mars from Aug 29 to Sept 9.
- T.O.----airplane---->L.A.----shortbus---->Black Rock City.
- My notebook and I will report back (maybe not to you and you, but to me and me).
- Theme = Evolution (!!!)
- 39 degrees in Reno.
- Totally unprepared.
- I want to live like Marie and Marie.

Little Things

A woman, her husband and their two young children sat down with Chinese food. The woman parked her stroller beside the table. She cracked open her fortune cookie, put down the fortune without reading it, and gave the cookie to her young daughter. After ensuring her daughter was content with the peach coloured cookie, the mother picked up the fortune and read it. In that single moment I realized I always would have read the fortune first. This confirms all that I already knew about myself.