Lightning Storm in Buenos Aires

I love lightning. One of my earliest memories is looking out a window, watching a lighting storm from my mother’s lap.

In Southern California, land of endless sunshine, lightning was rare. The weather was fantastic but boring. So perhaps it’s just the contrast, but one of my favorite things about Buenos Aires is the weather.

Summertime in Buenos Aires means the air gets unbearably hot and heavy with humidity. But some evenings, at the end of one of these smothering days when you just sweat for hours and the skies are motionless, at around 9 or 10 at night, a sudden wind will begin to gust crazily. And within minutes it’ll be pouring rain, lightning forking across the sky.

Here’s some video* I took from the balcony of my last apartment, in December 2011.

 

“This life of separateness may be compared to a dream, a phantasm, a bubble, a shadow, a drop of dew, a flash of lightning.”  - Buddha

“I roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I did not understand. Why thunder lasts longer than that which causes it, and why immediately on its creation the lightning becomes visible to the eye while thunder requires time to travel. ”  - Leonardo da Vinci

“Genius unrefined resembles a flash of lightning, but wisdom is like the sun.”  - Franz Grillparzer

“Bring in the bottled lightning, a clean tumbler, and a corkscrew.”  - Charles Dickens

“Electricity is really just organized lightning.”  - George Carlin

*This video was my first-ever video edited using iMovie! Well, first completed video anyways. I started a Burning Man one, but I really have no idea if I will ever finish it due to the massive amounts of footage and photos I took… 

Scientific Censorship + Creating Reality

A year ago I had lunch with one of the first geneticists to come out against GMOs in the ’90s, a little spitfire of a woman named Dr. Mae-Won Ho. After releasing a  report criticizing GMOs, her funding was revoked, her lab was shut down, and she was removed from her position.

Unfortunately this sort of thing happens much more frequently than you’d think would be possible in what is supposed to be an ‘objective’ discipline.

I was reminded of this today while watching climate scientist’s James Hansen’s TED talk today:

“[White House] Energy Policies continued to focus on finding more fossil fuels… I decided to give a public talk criticizing the lack of an appropriate energy policy. This led to calls from the White House to NASA headquarters and I was told that I could not give any talks or speak to the media without prior explicit approval by NASA headquarters.”

‘Science’ is not necessarily objective. It is political, and above all, it is commercial, paid for by people motivated by profit. Though I suppose it’s silly to separate the political from the commercial anymore.

Those scientists who speak out against the general consensus and status quo are often censored or alienated; in that way today is not much different from Galileo’s age, were it not for the existence of a free internet (for now) through which people can much more quickly share and access the truth. Ok well that and the fact that it’s no longer legal to set someone aflame for heresy.

Why am I writing about this? I generally espouse the belief that we create our own realities through our focus, and that it is pointless to waste energy on negativity.

So maybe it’s pride, I-told-you-so, yet another story that illustrates the views I’ve presented on this blog, on Facebook, and in conversations over the last few years.

Maybe it’s awareness – if you are aware of what’s behind the illusions and lies of this material world, you can choose something different. The contrast between what is and what you want can give you the power/energy/motivation to get active in creating what you want.

Where I take issue is with focusing on all of the negativity in the world, posting articles and rants and missives, but not DOING anything about it in one’s own life.

I am trying to live in a way that is aligned with my values, and the strongest of which is living in alignment with the natural world, both for selfish and altruistic reasons. I decided a few weeks ago that I would prefer to live somewhere without cars. At first I was researching intentionally or historically car-free cities; and then the opportunity to live on a ranch in Patagonia popped up, so I took it.

If health and beauty and nature and the environment are important to you, as they are to me, what actions can you take, wherever you’re at, to live in ways that align with your beliefs? Can you ride your bike somewhere instead of driving? Can you make an adventure out of navigating the public transportation system in your city? Can you begin to minimize your consumption of products in general, ALL of which indirectly consume oil via plastic and shipping, and contribute to the destruction of our planet?

I suppose that my reason for focusing on the discouraging yet inspiring stories of people like Dr. Mae-Won Ho and James Hansen is to see what exists now, clarify what I want for myself and my world, and begin to take action that will move me in that direction.

So: What do you want your world to be like? And what choices can you start making that will take you there?

I’m Taking My Freedom

 

 

I’m taking my freedom
pulling it off the shelf
puttin’ it on my chain
wearing it ’round my neck
I’m taking my freedom
puttin’ it in my car
wherever I choose to go
It will take me far

I’m living my life like it’s golden
living my life like it’s golden

I’m taking my own freedom
puttin’ it in my song
singing loud and strong
proving all day long
I’m takin’ my freedom
puttin’ it in my stroll
I’ll be hop-steppin’ y’all
lettin’ the joy unfold

I’m holdin’ on to my freedom
‘Can take it from me
I was born in-to it, it comes naturally
I’m strumming my own freedom
playing the god in me
representing his glory
hope he’s proud of me…*

Living my life like it’s
golden, golden, golden…..

- Jill Scott

Happy Leap Day.

Take the Leap.

 

*I don’t subscribe to the traditional definition of god; I believe we are each a physical manifestation of the universal creative consciousness which underlies all things. Ie we are all god. So, no hoping “he’s proud of me.” Love the rest of the song though.

I’m moving to Patagonia!

Well, I asked for clarity, and I got it.

I’m on day 15 of my No Refined Sugar Challenge.

Five days into the No Sugar Challenge, with the clarity and energy that you get when you cut things from your life, I decided that I wanted to take a break from all commitments and obligations. I realized that I still haven’t entirely gotten to know myself, and because of this lack of self knowledge I still say Yes to things I’m not 100% sure I want to do. When you’re interested in everything and have problems saying No, this is very easy to do. Most of the time I will commit to doing something because it’s interesting and I feel like I should. But when I do something because I feel like I should, rather than because my heart wants to, I procrastinate. And then I beat myself up for procrastinating.

In the past, people have said to me, “Maybe you’re procrastinating because you don’t really want to do X.” I always thought they were wrong, that I DID want to do X, but that I was just lazy, not disciplined enough, too flawed in some way to overcome my fears and limitations and do what I should be doing.

But now I see that they might’ve been right. So I decided to release all commitments, obligations and guilt, and decided to take space to listen to and follow my heart and do what I want without anyone else’s input, including my closest friends and loved ones.

And it’s not that anyone has ever forced me do anything; it’s just that I end up perceiving every kind of “work” situation/relationship in a warped way, and I turn it into a power struggle, in which I rebel passive-aggressively by dragging my feet. I’ve realized that this is rooted in my upbringing by two very authoritarian teacher parents to whom I was not allowed to say no, or have honest conversations in which I expressed my feelings/wants/needs. (Mom, I know you’re reading this. I still love you!). I’ve been doing a lot of Inner Child healing work over the past few months, using the books Healing the Child Within and A Gift to Myself, and am coming to see how unhealthy my childhood was. Not that that’s abnormal – it’s estimated that 80-95% of Americans have dysfunctional childhoods, and I’m guessing that number runs the same for the rest of the world. I strongly believe that the entire paradigm of how we raise and socialize human beings needs to be changed; I’ll be writing more on this topic in the future.

Anyways, when I decided to take a break from everything, I made a list of what I want:

I want to live closer to Nature. I want to read and write. I want to meditate and do yoga. I want to free myself from debt.

Within the week, a friend who is living in Patagonia emailed me with an offer to come visit the horse ranch she’s living on. I asked if they needed anyone else to help out there. She said yes.

So, I’m moving to Patagonia on April 1st.

I’ll be in the middle of nowhere, helping a woman with Multiple Sclerosis write her memoirs. I will be able to save money and pay down my credit card debt. I will be in nature. I will be able to read and write (especially during the coming winter months, which is June-August down here!). The region gets some snow, but not too much, and the temp is in the 50s/40sF during the day and 30sF at night.

I’ll be in the northwest of Patagonia, the Neuquén Province, just south of Mendoza and near the Chilean border. Here’s more information on the woman and the ranch:

http://creativityheals.org

I’m excited and nervous which, as a friend pointed out, is essentially the same thing; I read somewhere that fear is just excitement without the breath.

Tomorrow I’m going on a 3-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat. More connection and clarity.

Thank you to all of you who are supporting me on this journey. Part of my practice of releasing my feelings of guilt and obligation is that I need to release guilt about not blogging “enough” (ie more consistently, like everyone says you should in order to maintain and build your blog audience, and not as much as I should considering I’ve repeatedly promised friends and loved ones that I’d put up more pictures). So, please forgive me. And I forgive myself.

Empathy and Creativity

Eckhart Tolle and Sir Ken Robinson, two of my favorite thinkers, had a convo about creativity and empathy:

“Human beings uniquely have extraordinary powers of imagination, the ability to bring into mind things that aren’t present… we can enter other people’s consciousness, virtually, which is what we mean by empathy. And if we imaginatively engage with somebody else’s consciousness, if we’re empathetic, then we broaden our own lives.

It’s always interesting to me that in times of war and conflict, the first thing we try to suppress is our empathy for the people that we’re rising up against. It’s only when we suppress our empathy that we can do things that are literally unimaginable.

From that power comes all powers of practical creativity. There’s a literal sense… that as human beings we create our own lives. We create our own realities. We compose our lives. And we can recompose them, we can recreate them, we can choose to see things differently.

Often the most dreary circumstances can be transformed, not by the circumstances changing, but by our attitudes toward the circumstance changing; that in due cause may change the circumstances.” – Sir Ken Robinson

 

“The ultimate creative act is that – not neccessarily to create something, but not to be a reactive entity, to create your own life.” – Eckhart Tolle

 

By Marcelle at Dreamosity.com

Day 9 Sugar-Free

Somewhere between Argentina and Uruguay, Jan 2012. Photo by Michelle Perry.

Along with giving up sugar (and, I just realized, all other intoxicants, ie coffee) I’ve decided to give up commitments, obligations, guilt and shame.

It’s been magical. Yesterday was one of the best days of my life.

More to come – I’m working on a couple of drafts simultaneously – but I had to share these quotes I found on a website that details how to live on a boat:

One of the most tragic things
I know about human nature
is that all of us tend to put off living.
We are all dreaming of some
magical rose garden over the horizon
instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming
outside our windows today.
- Dale Carnegie

I like to walk about among
the beautiful things that adorn the world;
but private wealth I should decline,
or any sort of personal possessions,
because they would take away my liberty.
- George Santayana

 

Sugar + Honey + Frank

I’ve been refined sugar-free for six days now!

I’m feeling happier. I think there are two reasons: 1. Sugar causes mood swings and 2. I’m not hating on myself for sugar binging or not acting in integrity with what I want to be: healthy.

The cravings haven’t been too bad. I did eat a lot of dried fruit and nuts the first few days, and I’m eating more dairy than I usually do (which is barely any). But I’m ok with that!

Yesterday I bought some freshly-made organic yogurt and honey from the El Galpon Farmer’s Market in the Chacarita neighborhood of Buenos Aires (the only place I know of where you can get organic stuff in BA…). The yogurt comes in a big beautiful bottle and was delish with the super-dark grainy honey:

Argentine Yogurt and Honey, fresh from the farm.

Yes, honey’s technically a sugar but, unlike refined sugar, honey’s not toxic to your system, doesn’t cause dramatic blood sugar spikes (it may actually IMPROVE blood sugar control)  and has an insane number of health benefits: it’s anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, and anti-viral. You can use it to help heal burns and wounds, you can use it on your face to clear up acne (which I do occassionally). It can help with sore throats, allergies, even weight loss! As I’m reading more about honey the list is getting way too long (athletic performance, free radicals, cholesterol, immune system, anti-cancer…jeez!) so for more info check it here and here and here. (I’m pretty sure all of these are from raw honey, not the honey you by in a regular store, which is probably counterfeit honey from China.*)

Unfortunately, according to one of those honey sites, the answer to the question “How much honey can I eat every day?” is NOT “Eat as much as you can.” Damn.

Even the Bible mentions honey, according to the editors of Wikipedia. Funny honey quote:

“While Jonathan was passing through the woods during the war against the Philistines, he found honey dripping on the ground; he plunged his spear into it, and ate enough to restore his lost strength. He was, however, sentenced to death because he ate honey on a day of abstinence”.

D’oh!!!

 

So, this next part has nothing to do with sugar or honey, but… Well, actually, it does, in a roundabout way.

I was reading The Daily Love and came across this awesome blog by Mollie Angelheart: http://thedailylove.com/always-come-back-to-love/

Some of my favorite bits:

“All those paths lead to one answer “we are all one and our only job is to be unconditional love and remember”.

It’s all in the remembering… From broken and alone to whole and complete and part of the whole that is The Uni-verse…

I am broken when I forget and whole and complete when I remember.”

Mollie’s bio led me to google the documentary she produced, May I be Frank, a documentary “exploring the transformations possible through healthy eating and positive thinking”:

Which looks AMAZING.

So, to tie this all together – I’m pretty sure Frank was eating way too much sugar. I haven’t seen the entire movie yet, so maybe honey even played a roll in his transformation.

I think we’d all do a little better with less sugar, more honey!

 

*If you are getting your honey from Walmart, Target, Cost Plus, Sam’s Club, Walgreen’s, Rite Aid, CVS, or individual packets from Smucker’s, McDonalds or KFC, there is a 70-100% chance that it’s not actually honey, as defined by the food industry (containing pollen), and could be watered down with high fructose corn syrup. Trader Joe’s honey, thank goodness, is legit.

30-Day No Sugar Challenge

Photo by Lauri Andler from Wiki

 

I am addicted to sugar. I never felt truly addicted to smoking or alcohol or drugs – none of which I put in my body anymore – but sugar still kicks my ass. Anyone who’s followed my blog these last few years has read about my trails and tribulations with sugar many, many times.

I am also allergic to sugar. It makes my system acidic, causing inflammation, which makes me break out (little tiny pimples all over my face) and contributes to flare-ups of psoriasis. I’ve had psoriasis consistently for almost two years now.

I’ve given up sugar a few times in the past, but never made it longer than a few weeks. I tried again at the beginning of 2012, but after 6 days (during which I felt amazing) I caved and went back to my cycle of sugar binging.

So this time, I’ve decided to place a wager. I’ve bet my friend China Brooks that I can go 30 days without eating refined sugar, starting today. She also is going sugar-free, and if either of us give into temptation during the 30 days, we have to Paypal the other $25. I don’t generally make bets but I’m pretty sure I’m too proud and stubborn to lose one.

Many people are unaware of the truth about sugar – how addictive it is, how toxic it is, and how prevalent it is in processed foods. I’ve experienced the physical, emotional and spiritual gains that come with giving it up. I’ll be exploring these over the next 30 days as I share my experiences and struggles and, hopefully, win my bet.

 

 

Crazy Goldfish Art

When I understood what this guy was doing, I was totally flabbergasted. My jaw literally dropped open as I watched the video.

Quickly glancing at the photos in <this blog>, I thought Riusuke Fukahori was painting resin onto REAL dead goldfish:

Photo by Dominic Alves

By Dominic Alves

But what he’s actually doing is PAINTING goldfish on LAYERS of resin, creating a sculptural/painted 3-D fish…

Watch the video of his process (for some reason I can’t embed it). Stunning. Human creativity never ceases to amaze.

 

Your Soul is Showing!!!

Today I ran across a great blog post regarding Intimacy, or “showing your soul to another.”

I have intimacy issues, but I didn’t even realize it until a few years ago.  I believe that most people do, because the way our society raises children is deeply, fundamentally wrong. When children attempt to show their souls to adults, adults generally react in one of the following ways:

1. “You shouldn’t feel like that/say that.” (Rejection)

2. “Don’t be weak.” (Protection)

3. “You don’t feel like that, you’re fine.” (Denial)

(Sure, they’re all pretty much the same, but you get my drift).

So, we stop being intimate, and we live our lives at a very shallow and unfulfilling level of interaction.

“Hey, I’m fine! How are you, fine? Great! Yeah, yesterday I did xxx, tomorrow I’m doing xxx, and god, I hate it when xxx does xxx. I’m so busy/stressed/tired, you know, so much going on! Ok love you talk to you soon bye!”

That level is safe and easy. But it sucks and it’s numbing. The shell that protects us, paradoxically, also keeps out the things that make life worth living. Ie, seeing and sharing souls.

The blog post that got me thinking about intimacy was by Beverly Golden at intentblog.com; here’s an excerpt (in which she includes an excerpt from Gaping Void) :

I recently received a daily Gaping Void email by Hugh MacLeod with the subject : Has your soul been seen lately?  Synchronistically, the topic was intimacy.  What followed was a beautiful way to end my piece:

“Intimacy isn’t strictly about romantic relationships, or even relations with family–sometimes it happens quickly, and often times in ways we hardly notice.

I’m talking about that moment when someone allows the world to see what’s inside…what they are really about. It’s about seeing someone for who and what they are and that the glimpse was offered either voluntarily or without the person’s knowledge. This is an incredible moment where our existence suddenly makes sense and all comes together in a singular place. 

For those of you who have experienced this, it’s something that never gets lost in memory or time. It’s like a little mirror we take out every now and then to remember a time when something so complex became so inconceivably simple. It’s pretty incredible.”

For me, this is the essence of what intimacy is really all about.  Dare to be vulnerable, dare to be seen.

Beautiful, no?

By hugh at gapingvoid.com

Do you allow your soul to be seen? How can you express yourself a little more authentically today?

And do you really see other’s souls when they attempt to show them to you, without trying to fix/change/judge them, or are you afraid to look, afraid to feel their pain, afraid you won’t know what to do?

I think we could all do with a little more intimacy practice. It’s what makes life worth living.