travel highs lead to post travel blues, yet I'm finding meaning in this crazy life

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Into the solitude and back with GRATITUDE

Into the solitude and back with GRATITUDE

“Appreciate all that you have before wanting more” I live a ridiculously good life. I am grateful. My connections are meaningful, I work hard, I do meaningful things in my career, in my relationships and family. I have so many pleasures, I have so much […]

Years on, and

Years on, and

Its been years since I published a blog post. I’ve drafted many though. I couldn’t connect with the person I was when I originally set up this blog. I had to change the front page (from a happy-go-lucky-follow-your-dreams fairies-and-rainbows travel blog) so that I could […]

My little ant friend

My little ant friend

My heavy steel capped boots thumped weightily on the walkway between site offices. The large ants walking across the path scattered as the thunder from the boots reverberated through the concrete. I don’t know if ants can see and react as quickly as other insects, such as a fly; which seem to be able to sense the incoming swat and quickly escape away. The two ants on the next pavement caught my attention, the ants were a few centimetres apart from one another and heading in the same direction.  As I approached, the vibrations already had the ants walking slightly erratically, but then as the shadow of my boot signalled the impending crunch, one ant successfully dodged the boot but the other ant jumped, right underneath my already falling boot. And, his fate was sealed. The death of this little, fragile ant stuck me, as had he kept walking along his original path, he would have naturally avoided the footfall. In that very moment, the contemplation of his reactivity and doom plunged me into depths of thought and metaphor, regarding our own human blindness in life. Is it true that we cannot ever know what will happen next? If we cannot clearly see the entirety of the situation, with the world in all its vastness, complexity and interconnectivity, then we can never hope to control any outcome, at best, all we can hope for is a subtle influence. I started questioning how much time I spent planning, strategizing, thinking; the cogs whirring inside my head rather than moving, being productive, creating. All I can do is follow the signs, trust in life, enjoy the process and let go…

Hope to cope with the golden chain

Hope to cope with the golden chain

Dear Mr Magic, Alas, we both must return, to the matrix world of cars and cities. To re-join the land of lost souls, compromises and negativity, shining our little bulbs. Is it possible to stay alight, when light shines into the darkness; shedding? I am […]

Ometepe inspire

Ometepe inspire

Ometepe. The magical vortex island. The island; this moment in life has given me a synchronistic and uncanny gift. The island with the volcanoes, the jungle by the lake and the sunsets in raw chocolate paradise. Nicaragua appears to be the land filled with the […]

Meditation

Meditation

My first encounter with meditation was as a ten year old. We were a group of girls in a dormitory at golf camp still awake and restless at 2 am with a big day of golf looming early the next morning. Our senior guide took matters into hand in the most surprising way – she taught us a full body gradual relaxation method where we would focus all of our attention on sinking one body part at a time, working our way from the tips of our toes to the top of our head. We would try to imagine the muscles of each body part becoming smooth and sinking into the bed, and then work our way up to the next part. 

To my surprise, it actually worked. We all fell asleep quite easily. But the remarkable thing to me was that my brain, focus and thoughts actually created a change in my body. Revolutionary. It was the first time I had experienced a connection between the body and the mind. 

Previous to that, whilst I had been inside buddhist temples as part of primary school’s religious curriculum, I was separated, distant, learning about something that ‘other people’ did – not understanding or comprehending the point of their endeavours and pursuits. 

But after the pleasant relaxation experience at camp, my skeptical beliefs had been challenged – and such commenced the start of my curiosity on mediation. Its seems ridiculous to me now that as a 27 year old I am much more open to life and learning about new things than I was as a child. But of course, now I understand why that is. It is because as a child I did not think for myself; I was learning appropriate reactions to stimulus from examples around me, and within my society and environment I learned to be skeptical, to be distrustful of information presented outside of mainstream education and to be wary of people who were different to what was considered normal. 

I have been on a long journey since then, firstly understanding and then a conscious selective unlearning of much of the framing taught during those early years. The travelling helped a lot. It helped me to see that there is no ‘normal’. Travelling allowed me the insight that people are basically the same no matter where they are. With the same struggles, the same temptations, the same moral desires; the same nature but just expressed in different settings – admittedly some more extreme than others. 

I am curious by nature. I love learning. I want to know the reasons why. I need to understand the reasons behind the reasons. I ask lots of questions, and I am not shy. Those traits of mine are not always a good thing, and it can be unpleasant when people are just trying to chill and this super enthusiastic girl wants to pick apart their brain and get deep with them (just as in this picture I was getting deep in the lake in Pucon, Chile). I am learning to turn down my curiosity at times to settle into, enjoy the moment and not disturb others. But most of the time, I am exploring, I am thinking, discovering and reasoning, and then testing my theories out loud and receiving feedback. Each new person describing their own version of reality, and one more data point for my human – scientific – perception analysis. The topics of interest change all the time, one leading to a stimulus which leads to yet another, usually not apparent immediately but in the end are all intertwined. There are links between everything, but the most fascinating ones that I have been exploring recently are the linkages between the inside world and the physical world. Coming from a scientific background, I have some understanding (or can find reputable information) on how things work in the physical world. But more and more I have been following Alice down the rabbit hole, ever deeper, to discover, test and explore the connections between our physical experience and our mental experience. It’s a bewildering journey, one road I am glad to be walking. But I want to pose the question. Why are we not taught this at school? It’s true that I needed so much time and to be free from distraction and obligation to do justice to this exploration, but to be exposed to it at school would have been very helpful. 

Currently, the road has led me to daily mediation and yoga, in order to strengthen and discipline my body and mind. I am healing my sleeping problems with relaxation, and by recognising and changing self talk. I am exploring my subconscious through dream analysis and reading neuroscience. I am learning to understand the quiet signs in which my body communicates to me the requests for proper sustenance, and to practice being fully conscious instead of reacting – as much as possible. 

Next, I am looking into mindful focused meditation for healing, breathing exercises and the Wim Hoff method. I am sure I’ll go full circle many times, gauging more and more of the point, each time. 

It strikes me that many of the sayings are true – I’ve seen them all before a million times. But only now am I grasping the depth of their meaning. 

On from Pumalin Park

On from Pumalin Park

My heart is thumping in my chest. I’ve butterflies in my stomach. I can feel my heart pulsing throughout my body, red and hot through to my fingertips and toes. Its pouring down rain outside, and I’m sitting here in this beautiful architecturally designed house […]

Disasters in Chaiten

Disasters in Chaiten

It’s raining. My hips are bruised, knuckles cheese-grated. Jenny and her joy are gone, its nearly Christmas and I’m alone. I was bitten by a dog yesterday. Over forty people died in Villa Santa Lucia when a disastrous landslide wiped out the next town four […]

Climbing volcanoes

Climbing volcanoes

I was on the phone to Australia, catching up with someone who had up until recently been a very big part of my life. It was our first conversation in about two months, and it was brilliant. It was brilliant on one hand – certain people are just a joy to connect with, but on the other hand it was brutal. After two hours of questions and answers, posed without hope holding me back, answered without hesitation, faced with honesty and reality, I set down the rose coloured glasses that I had been holding onto. 

I heard many things that I didn’t want to hear, but that I needed to hear. With every disappointment in life I learn to accept what is, and grow to let go of my expectation of what should be. 

Some people can touch your life for an instant and leave a mark for a lifetime. Sometimes touches are sweet, but the marks burn deep. Sometimes you stick around, basking in the glow of the hopeful future, because you have tasted the potential of everything you have ever dared to dream for. When you find a unicorn, it seems that you are spoiled for life. The shine of the pot of gold, waiting at the other end of the rainbow, blinds you and binds you to drowning in the moment. 

I was so full of excuses for him, of understanding; the downside of the intense optimism of which I view the world through these eyes, had caused me to overlook a few simple facts. Distance isn’t easy for most people. Hurt people hurt people. Timing and constraints can count for a lot. Connection is difficult when you are afraid of being hurt or hurting like you had before. I am resilient. I tend to forget. I love the feeling of those rose coloured bloody glasses and I have trouble letting go. Not that it was made completely easy for me either. Nothing will make a person cling faster than an unanswered question, an response awaited. But I understand, and I forgive, and I feel for this man, and I thank the universe for the opportunity to choose my strength over my weaknesses. 

So upon ending the phone call with a song in my heart, a smile on my face, a tear on my cheek and a pain in my chest, I resolved to let him ….go……

The sum added up: it was three am, I was feeling very emotional, I love photography so I decided to seize the opportunity as a positive and climb up the mountain to capture the volcano in the early morning sunlight. Picture this, barking dogs, full moon, noisy jungle, gusty mountain and a girl, climbing the volcano in the dark but for the light of the moon. I was a woman on a mission. To arrive before the first of the morning light appeared, and on this epic journey to the top, I had to let it all out, I had to truly let him go. 

It was a long way. It was a tough walk. I stopped on the ridge to admire the glowing lights of Baños, the adventure town below viewed through bending palm trees as a strong wind blew from the 5000 m high volcano above. It was an incredible moment. I felt real, I felt made of substance. I felt a thought creeping in, a hope of a maybe, an if only, a what if. I let the thought in, I let it consume me. And then I let it go. 

There are seven stages of grief. I made a point to do each stage justice on my way to the top. The physical journey met me appropriately. Providing the slippery surfaces, the biting insects, the stinging plants and the unmarked paths and opportunities to be frustrated and lost. I had moments crying my heart out under the glowing moon, in the stormy wind. Crying for the fool that I had been, crying for the hope that I was letting go, crying for the love that I hold, that is to beautiful to go to waste, but needs to go to waste anyway. Crying for the sense that isn’t made. Crying for the timing and distance that wasn’t right. 

And when I reached the top, just as the full moon was lowering behind the mountains, I was wiping away my tears, accepting the time for what it was, and the situation for what it is, and thanking the universe for such a profound experience to grow, and love, and to be bold, and brave, and beautiful. I managed to let him go, but I will never let go of the passion that he inspired within me. 

And such commenced a freedom flight, a photo taking frenzy that my world has never seen. I made it to la Casa del Arbol, the swing on the edge of the earth at about 5.30 in the morning. It was closed. I wasn’t expecting such a spanner in the works so I engineered a solution – I climbed the barbed wire fence using bamboo and vamos, I was in. The whole place to myself, the first rays of sunlight touching the gorgeous Volcano Tungurahua high above me, armed with my camera and tripod and an insatiable desire to swing the shit out of that swing on the side of the cliff. 

 

 

Kayaking de la noche

Kayaking de la noche

Life is so crazy and beautiful. I had one of those special moments this evening when I realised that I was learning how to white water kayak in a lightning storm surrounded by the amazon rainforest.  I love the water so much. I am completely […]


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