Like nailing jelly to a wall

Tags

dreams, Getting started, spirituality, Travel, writing

An update on my ‘spiritual position.’

Honestly, working this stuff out is a full time job.  (See previous posts:  The story so far.  Green Mist theory).

If there is a God (and when I say God I am usually referring to a kind of vague yet huge concept that encompasses The Field and The Collective Consciousness; like a kind of golden light or the feeling that you get when looking at a butterfly.  It goes beyond my explorations of different religions and Buddhism and beyond being an omnist (someone who acknowledges the truth of all religions).

What I think right now is this:  If there is a God and God has a plan for me then it’s this:  It’s what I am doing right now.  It’s what I did in the recent lead up (Orientation) and it’s what I intend to do next (go back to the UK, live on a boat for a bit, then go off travelling around the USA*).

Whilst of course being aware that it’s only ever right now, plans change, and that although all this sounds so easy, unless we are going to turn into full time spiritual devotees and only meditate, study spiritual texts, discuss spiritual matters, and eat, sleep and use the bathroom, life as it is distracts us.  As in Journey the East, it is so, so easy to allow oneself to get knocked off the path and for one’s awareness to slip.

* possibly combining it with a DIY book promotion tour with readings at independent bookshops and vegan cafes

My husband and I have been having a lot of talks about the nature of reality, etc etc.  Last Thursday night I couldn’t sleep so I got up and wrote last week’s blog post.  In the morning I finished the blog post and then we talked some more and I came up with my new spiritual position as described above.  I then typed it up and then went to work on the book (can you see where this is going?)  I don’t usually do anything on the book on a Friday, but I thought I had free time as I had got the blog done early (by dint of being awake typing through the night…)

My eyes began to blur and I couldn’t focus.  I tried to push on through but in the end I had to give up.  I laid on the bed and closed my eyes.  All I could see was a bright white, like a blank page on a computer screen, with distorted tool bar icons making a row of triangles across the top.  I took off my t-shirt and put it over my eyes.  I tried to send myself healing and to relax.

It came to me that by overdoing the spiritual talks, not sleeping and overdoing the writing I had triggered some kind of episode in my brain and that my mind was being somehow cleansed and reset.  A feeling of otherworldly peace came over me and for a few moments I thought, I have a choice, mental illness or a higher state of consciousness, I can’t have both.

After a while I got up and felt very strange so I did a load of stuff to ground myself.  I went out onto the balcony and ate a banana ball and a banana.  I counted five things I can see, hear, feel etc.  I stood on one leg.  I went on YouTube to listen to a song my friend told me about (the one at the top of this post).

The ad below came on (‘Sometimes to find your way you have to lose your mind’)

 

My husband came home and gave me a pep talk about how my mind is  really strong and I am totally sane, and reminded me of a line from one of the first books I read on this journey (the spiritual one not the travel one) ‘The last vestige of the ego is to tell yourself you are going mad.’ (The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying)

In hindsight it might have been better to just allow myself to stay in a slightly altered state of consciousness; by trying to get out of it I probably made it feel worse, but I suppose I was scared.

Anyway, as Jung says, this stuff isn’t all about butterflies and rainbows, it’s also about making the darkness conscious.  Last night I also couldn’t sleep, but this time I let myself go down into the things that I am afraid of, my childhood memories, the meaning I extrapolate from them, the effects I have allowed them to have.  And I realised that there was nothing to find…  I have explored the worst case scenarios and survived.

At the risk of looking and sounding like cliché, I bought a chunky silver Om pendant.  It caught my eye and overcame all resistance to shopping and spending and seemed a fitting souvenir for my altered consciousness last week.  I looked up what it actually meant (previously I knew it as the sound of the universe, and the man who sold it said it offers protection but I didn’t really know what each bit meant).

https://goo.gl/images/ARZtQC

It explained to me what I had instinctively felt; when we are in one state we aren’t in the other.  One level of consciousness is the normal level, where we experience the world through the five senses, another is deep sleep, another is dream state, another is a higher state of consciousness which is the aim of spiritual practices.  We move between them and they are separate states.

Travel update

We will be here in Varkala for another month and have been busy planning our trip and getting excited about moving on.

 

Writing update

I have been working hard on Goa Part Two (Anjuna, Arambol, Panaji) this week and hope to have a draft completed on Monday.  From Monday I will be working on Kerala, bringing it up to date, as well as looking at the proposal for Hay House.

Thank you very much for reading

See you next week

About

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Good things happen when you stay still

Tags

Cosmic ordering, India, Kerala, Law of Attraction, Personal growth, Varkala, writing

The cafe where we often eat breakfast is beside a little beach a twenty-minute walk away.  Sometimes we walk past and have a longer walk before going back to eat.

One morning on our walk before breakfast people were making a film and, after joking about being in it, we were talking about celebrities who just got discovered without having to do anything e.g. just walking down the street or sitting in a launderette.

My husband said, ‘I’d have liked to have been discovered.  It would have been nice if someone had just come up to me and discovered me without me having to do anything.’  By this time we had arrived back at the little beach near the cafe.

‘Do you mind if I have a quick paddle before breakfast?’  I went down to the sea.  My husband stayed back and waited for me.  A man was walking past and stopped to talk to my husband.

‘You’ll never guess what,’ my husband said afterwards, ‘I just got asked to be in a film.’  Apparently they wanted someone to walk past; they took my husband’s number but they didn’t call.  He didn’t mind, he said it was enough to have been asked after what he’d said just beforehand.

About a week later (this week) we were at the cafe, this time the film crew were setting up right inside the cafe as we ate breakfast.  We thought it was funny; in England the whole place would be closed but here everyone was just eating breakfast around them.  We ate up and got the bill quickly to get out of their way, but as we stood up to leave a man asked us if we’d stay and be in the film.

Now, this might have been my husband’s dream, but it definitely wasn’t mine, however I managed to just go along with it.  A young, good-looking, well turned out Indian couple had been seated opposite the ‘action’ table and were promptly moved out and sweaty, scruffy old us were seated in their place.  We felt sorry for them.  A man came round and put out glasses of juice of varying fullness on the tables as props.  Another man came round with a tin of biscuits, I watched what everyone else was doing before eating it, it was actually to eat right then, presumably some people had been there for ages and were hungry.

We thought up a topic of conversation and stuck to it and I tried not to think about what was happening (I could feel panicky anxiety just at the edge).  They did a take during which we just behaved normally i.e. talked together, then the director said to us, ‘It is a funny scene, it is a young couple, he is trying to impress her, can you look over to them and smile.’

Luckily I had no time to panic.  As soon as the man actor came over and started chatting the woman actor up, my husband looked over at them, I followed suit, my husband and I turned back to each other and smiled a ‘Young love!’ type of smile, the director gave my husband the thumbs up (I was too terrified to look over in case we’d messed it up) and we were free to go.

Although this was all very exciting for us, not least because of the Law of Attraction/Cosmic Ordering aspect, when I told my German-American and my English friend about this they were underwhelmed, saying it happens all the time that filmmakers want Westerners in the background, that sometimes they make you look silly, and that often the films don’t get completed as funding isn’t necessarily always secured before they start, meaning actors and crew don’t get paid.

In other news…  I saw a mongoose.  (Okay I didn’t know it was a mongoose until an Indian man told me, I thought it was some kind of miniature sea otter.)  We had a balcony crow invasion after my husband accidentally left a bag of nuts out.  It really looked like something out of The Birds.  They had picked up the bag from the table and nuts were everywhere.  We threw all the nuts onto the ground for them and they ate them.  ‘Those nuts were quite spicy, I don’t know how they’ll get on with them,’ my husband said, ‘but I suppose they are Indian crows.’

Travel update

Still here, in Varkala in the South of the state of Kerala in the South of India, still happy.  Every time we think about moving North within Kerala as per the original plan, something puts us off going there.  An outbreak of Nipah virus claimed the lives of sixteen people in Kerala nine hours North of here.  The monsoon caused landslips and water shortages in the hill stations.  Someone told us that one of the places we were thinking of going is full of mosquitos during the monsoon and someone else told us it has elephantiasis.

I am going with the flow.  Even if we stay here where it is nice and quiet, where not too much new stuff is happening and I have time to write, until the end of July when we are booked to go to Chennai, it would still be touch and go if I could get up to date with drafting and complete the Hay House Proposal which is my ideal.

Food

The food that wasn’t: a restaurant that was closed, looked as if it were opening again.  We stopped and chatted to the people working on it and they said they did lots of vegan cakes.  They specifically mentioned vegan chocolate cake and we got hopelessly over excited about this.

Even with turning a blind eye to the fact that the banana balls we buy from the bakery near the temple almost daily might not be totally vegan, even with following the while in India 1% and under rule about milk products which allows us to eat Dark Fantasy (individually wrapped melt in the mouth chocolate biscuits), sweet snacks are in short supply.

So when a couple of nights ago we walked past and all the lights were on and there was a board written up saying Vegan Cheesecake, and below it a list of flavours including chocolate…  I thought all my dreams had come true.  I bounded up to them very excited, only to be told that, no, we are just planning out the menu, maybe in August we will open, I was gutted.  August!  We will be in Tamil Nadu by then!

Writing update

I finished a draft of Hampi and gave it to my husband to read.  He gave me some very useful feedback: improve the reader experience by orientating them to Hampi and how it is laid out at the start; make more of the monkey stealing my tablet incident which is probably our best travel story so far; make more of me finding and being able to thank the family who got it back for me.  ‘I remember that was really important to you,’ my husband said, ‘Make sure you show it.’

I noted down all his comments in my exercise book, and then MOVED ON to Goa Part Two.  I will be going back to all the drafts and adding in the changes, but NOT UNTIL I HAVE COMPLETED THE FIRST DRAFTS OF ALL THE CHAPTERS.  I do not want to get stuck rewriting the first sentence of a novel over and over and not getting any further.  My fear of failure* is so strong that it is really important to plough on and STICK WITH THE PLAN.  All the feedback will still be waiting for me in my exercise book.

As I write and as we talk, I remember new things that I had forgotten, as well as bits for other sections and things that link across sections.  I write them down and keep on going.  I have completed the Anjuna part of Goa Part Two, next up Arambol then Panaji.  Collectively it is quite a big section, but I hope to have finished the draft of it next week.

*although actually right now I’m feeling like I could actually do this

Thank you very much for reading

See you next week

 

 

The Healing Project

Tags

Distance healing, Distant healing, healing, India, middle age, Travel, writing

Sometimes working on my thoughts and thinking brain can feel like trying to untangle a ball of wool that a kitten has played with.  Difficult, frustrating and maybe even impossible, or at least that’s what it feels like.  But what if I just decide to go and buy a fresh ball of wool or give up knitting altogether?

What if I just move my focus onto my feelings and especially my body and just use my thinking brain for reading, writing and arithmetic?

This week I have been doing some healing again, mainly just on myself, letting energy flow out of my hand into any sore areas, and letting the sore areas relax and accept the healing.  This is what a powerful imagination can be used for!

This self healing also involves taking breaks and having days off from typing and even yoga if things hurt.

I am even wondering if the subconscious mind actually lives in the body and learning to have a kinder and more aware relationship with my body might help me untangle subconscious issues without having to do any actual untangling…

There’s a great book called ‘Touching Enlightenment: finding realisation through the body’ if you are interested in this idea.  And if you are interested in tuning in for some distant healing let me know!

I got my period, which is what I was worried about last week, eleven days late.  I am 48 years old so my periods are a bit random and cause quite a bit of stress every month.  I am very unlikely to get pregnant I know but you do hear of people my age getting accidentally pregnant and thinking it’s the menopause.

Travel update

The monsoon is hitting the North of Kerala very hard at the moment with lives lost and crops and homes destroyed.

We are definitely going to Chennai in Tamil Nadu at the end of July.  We may visit somewhere else in Kerala before then depending on conditions.

Where we are we have seen broken tiles and damage to some of the shops and restaurants on top of the cliff.  One night I was woken by the biggest wind so far.  I saw a firefly come onto the balcony, flit about for a bit, looking almost like an ember, before it settled in the corner of the window sill and went to sleep (or so I assumed, its light went out).

On Monday and Tuesday we had two very hot and sunny days, 41°C!  It gets humid but then before long the rain comes again and cools it down.

We have been having fun planning our itinerary and booking places for later on: August- Chennai and other places in Tamil Nadu then Thailand.  September- Thailand then Japan.  October- India- Kolkata, Varanassi, Delhi, Agra, Rajasthan.  November- Rajasthan then to be arranged.  We will also build in another month or two in one place, somewhere comfortable that we’ve already been, for me to catch up with writing the book, maybe Hampi or back to Kerala.

Food wise, I have tried a couple of new things, Upma (a breakfast dish) and Momo which I think is a Tibetan dish.  Both very yummy.  We went into town one day and had vegetable biryani at a local cafe which we ate with our fingers (more practice needed).  We sat and watched as the heaviest downpour so far rained down outside before making a dash for the rickshaw stand.  We’ve got a local cafe nearby where we eat vegetable masala and dal fry; one night they cooked by candlelight as the electricity had gone out.  Some days we’ve eaten only snacks during the day- banana balls mainly- and treated ourselves to a meal at the Italian restaurant at night, delicious mushroom pasta and beautifully presented slices of wonderfully sweet fruit with maple syrup.

I have put some pictures on Instagram followingthebrownrabbit of the temple area that I love so much.

Writing update

I finished the draft of Goa Part One.  I have almost finished a draft of Hampi, just another hour or so needed then I can give it to my husband to read.  Then I will be onto Goa Part Two.  I am excited about getting that done because after that is Kerala, where we are now.  I hope to get up to date before we leave here at the end of July.

Thank you VERY MUCH for reading

See you next week

Happiness is…

Tags

India, Monsoon, Papanasam Beach, Personal growth, Travel, Varkala, writing

 

‘If you have a heartfelt wish, the universe will grant it.’

(Renata, a German-American woman who fell in love with India whilst here on holiday many years ago and subsequently moved here after the universe granted her wish)

The monsoon is here.  I woke up at 4am Saturday morning to the sound of rain and stayed up reading blogs because it was too loud to sleep.  This rain sounded different, as if there were layer upon layer of rain falling so fast; as if each raindrop is falling faster than rain usually falls.  The sound was like listening to movie rain in a surround sound cinema, wrong as it feels to use something artificial to describe something real.

Lying in bed at 4am, I realised we needed to move.  Our previous guesthouse, lovely as it was, was surrounded by trees, a small river and a kind of swampy area which got wetter as the rains went on and the river overflowed.  The communal area became unusable due to the increase in mosquitos and our room, although safe with mesh at the windows, was dark and had begun to smell damp.  In the monsoon there are cases of fever and I just suddenly thought, let’s move somewhere healthier.

We checked out some places online and went off to look, on our way looking at other places we passed.  We were on our way to look at the last place when a man called to us from the very nice guesthouse next door.  We wouldn’t have looked otherwise as it looked way out of our price range, but he ended up giving it to us for our budget price as we are staying for a month and it is off season.

We have a big, light and airy room, complete with a desk for me to write at, a spacious private balcony and a bathtub.  The other day there was some hot water and I had a small bath for the first time since March!

We are up high and near the sea and are able to sit out on the balcony even in the evening as the mosquitos are far fewer here.  The view from our balcony is palm trees, a few buildings and the sea.  At night we can see the little lights of the many fishing boats out on the horizon, which intermingle with stars and planets and, dancing amongst the palm trees, many fireflies!

When we arrived here we sent almost all our clothes out to a laundry service to start afresh, including my backpack which had gone mouldy, and are waiting anxiously for their return as we have not got many clothes left!

We have a slightly new stretch of beach to explore, and went walking in bright sunshine, past two mosques and a Muslim graveyard, past many guesthouses and half finished developments, and all along the top of the cliff with the grey sea crashing against the black rocks with huge white spray.  Then the sky went grey and we got caught in the rain and arrived home completely soaked but utterly exhilarated.

We are a medium walk or a short rickshaw ride away from the temple area with the local shops and cafes.  This week we ate in a new local cafe.  There was no menu and the one person who spoke English just told us what they had.  We ate vegetable biryani, vegetable masala and roti, everything freshly cooked and delicious.  We have been back there twice for breakfast, masala dosas, theirs are spicier than usual- everywhere does them slightly differently.  We also went to a new little tea shop and had masala chai (my occasional exception to veganism) and delicious deep fried balls of banana bread, satisfying, sweet and delicious.

Today we got a rickshaw to the temple area and actually went to the temple.  We don’t tend to do much touristy stuff but after reading somewhere that the temple and beach area are the ‘Benares of the South,’ I thought we’d better go at least once.  Non Hindus are not allowed inside but we walked around the outside and admired the beautiful colourful carvings.

Afterwards we met Renata at a cafe and I had a real espresso and one cigarette.  Here you can buy one cigarette to have with your coffee; I love this country!

I don’t know if it shows but I am happy.  There is so much fun to be had.  Even though it’s raining a lot, there are still sunny spells.  There is a restaurant very nearby and the guesthouse has a kitchen we can make porridge in if it’s really raining hard.  We have all the little cafes in the temple area to visit and Varkala town by local bus to look forward to, which we haven’t done yet; the bus stop is outside the tea shop that sells the banana balls, conveniently!

I have only got one thing to worry about, but I hope by this time next week I will be able to report that that is okay too.

Writing update

I have just about completed a draft of Goa Part One which covers our time in Colva and Agonda.  I just need to spend another hour or so on it then I shall give it to my husband to read.  Next up, Hampi, which I am looking forward to.  Hampi is such an amazing place; so beautiful, so spiritual.  I really fell in love with India there.

Instagram followingthebrownrabbit for pics of our new accommodation!

Thank you for reading

See you next week

The rains

Tags

Blogging, India, Travel, writing

‘Even a plant that has died can come back to life during the rains.’ (Umesh, restaurant owner)

What’s on top

The monsoon is imminent.  One evening we actually felt cold and rued abandoning our fleeces, jumpers and warm socks in Delhi.  It has an effect on wildlife.  In the guesthouse we saw a biggish snake about to eat a very big frog, before being chased out.  There was another smaller snake in the guesthouse a couple of days ago, as it was being chased out it ran under another guest’s door and he had to be woken up to alert him.

I got a rickshaw into town one day, we later met the man and found he has a restaurant, a small local place at the other end of our road, near tiny shops and stalls where we bought bananas.  We promised to go and get breakfast there next week.  Exploring, trying out this new area was quite exciting and made us feel strangely enlivened, even though it isn’t at all far away.  My husband said that maybe it’s because we aren’t doing much, that a little bit of change has an effect.  A few days earlier, we had felt restless, and even went to look at some other guesthouses, before realising that where we are is still the best (for now anyway).

We’ve been in Kerala for a month but it was only a couple of days ago that I had a beer, for the first time since Goa and realised that alcohol is restricted in this state.  It is legal in bars and Government liquor stores but not in all restaurants.  My beer was served in a large mug and the can put discreetly under the table because of the police.  Sometimes groups of men come to the guesthouse and rent a room just for the evening to socialise and drink.

Rahul, who works at the guesthouse nine months out of twelve has gone back to his family in Assam, over 3,500 miles and a three day train journey away.  We used to chat to him every day, swapping language tips and photos of home and he and my husband played carrom together.  R, a guest from Switzerland who we had some interesting talks with has also left.  We and a permanent resident who works at the temple are the only guests now.

After two months of eating out for every meal, we’ve been enjoying making porridge in the guesthouse kitchen.  Oats and bananas are easily available with dried fruit and soya milk sold in some places. Cooking, even something so simple as porridge, has been very nice, and the porridge has tasted especially good, maybe because it’s a taste of home.

My favourite food to eat out at the moment is Gobi Manchurian,  cauliflower but not as you know it.  Battered and either ‘dry’ (deep fried with caramelised onions) or ‘with gravy’ (softer in a delicious rich sauce).  I wince at the thought of school dinner cauliflower and what the chefs here would think of that!

I’ve been doing quite a bit of yoga and experiencing little moments of ease and awareness; of being able to be kind to myself and flexible re my routine as well as get things done (something I really struggle with).  Also a sense of arriving in my own body, being happy with what I see and not comparing myself to others (another thing I struggle with).

Rain has meant a lovely Sunday afternoon type feeling, watching a film in the daytime as rain poured down outside.  When the film finished it had stopped raining, it was still light outside and we went out to eat.  As well as the sound of rain there’s the sound of hard green fruits hitting the tin roof at regular intervals and the almost incessant barking and/or howling of dogs.

What I’ve been watching

Partition (film)
Her (film)
Battlestar Galactica
Thirteen reasons why (Season one, I’m a late convert)

What I’ve been reading

Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh (about Partition)

(So basically Partition and the nature of consciousness, with a bit of High School misery thrown in.)

Writing update

I’ve worked really hard this week and completed a draft of Chapter One (actually more like chapters 1, 2, and 3).  This covers the period of how we got here:  Nothing to lose but our dignity (the idea); No half measures (the decluttering and giving up everything); The Matrix fights back (obstacles and temptations).  There’s still polishing and editing and probably some moving about to be done, but I am leaving it alone for now.

Yesterday I started work on Goa, which is where we went after Delhi.  It was really interesting reading my notes and blogs from that time.  I think I feel a lot stronger and more confident than I did then.

Today I just worked on this blog post.  Last week and this week I have ring fenced Friday only as the blog day and the rest of  the week for the book.  The good thing about this is that it separates the two nicely, especially as at the moment the book work is about previous months not where we are now.

It also ensures the book work gets done; writing the book is hard work and the blog is more fun.  It’s also written in the present tense and so seems more lively than the book.  Plus it allows me to change my opinions week by week.  I intend to complete the book, but I think in an ideal world I’d be a blogger rather than a book writer.  But maybe that’s just what I think this week.

The disadvantage of not starting the blog post until Friday is if like today I get distracted by talking and don’t start the blog until later then it’s a bit more pressure but hey, it’s not like I’ve got anything else to do.

Thank you for reading

See you next week