Count-down for yet another Indian experience

Well, I decided to do a short post here because again I'm in count-down to visit India.

I am actually visiting my mentor.

This trip makes sense to me in so many ways in this moment of my life, and the only reason I am doing the half-public exercise of writing down my expectations is so I can cross-check them with the outcomes, which I believe will as usual overcome those.

Also because the expectations are realistic, and that's probably why I dare to state them... Or aren't they: am I being optimistic even in my realism?

1. Be with my mentor, really be with her, listen to her wisdom, be there for what she needs, share our thoughts on philosophy, spirituality, sociology and "emotionality";
2. Be with myself and rediscover the inner peace that that place once instigated in me;
3. Find strength, self-preservation strategies and compromises with myself in order to keep the balance in this moment of my life;
4. Work on an exciting idea that I had in August 4th, 2010;
5. Try again some yoga hoping that the habit sticks to me;
6. Do Isha's Bhava Spandana retreat, another if this one is not possible and/or hopefully some travelling;
7. Rediscovering Bangalore with the Indian friends that stayed back;
8. Meet the new member in Ubhayaker Bijur family;
9. Have the time to actually get to know Archisman;
10. Do some reading and some diary writing, and hopefuly some reporting here in the blog too.

Cute Girl Has a Catchy Dance

Guess who that one reminds me of? If only my parents read my blog... :P Do you?

The "cute girl": A true happy free soul influencer!

Apparently the story goes that they taught the little girl that dance, then she went to dance it having no idea that the others would join her... but that changed nothing: she kept happily doing her thing... and the clip came out.

Guys, let's all go for it!!!

I met Sweden in Sevilla

SWEDEN

Well I started Summer in Sweden and for the first 2 days I actually thought that, not only Could I live there, as I Wanted to.

So much perfectness!... - naturally speaking and civilization-wise...

Everything is thought for you which makes it easier to enjoy life.

Even if you do it with your own hands - be it painting the house or fixing the fence (which is their custom), the system, the tools, the common knowledge... is ready for that too.

Life-quality is incomparable to any I have witnessed before: I mentioned here before the freshness of the water and the air... But then there's the fact that you ride a bike to and from work, that you arrive at 4 or 5 pm from your job, do no unpaid extra-hours, still manage to have a full life outside work; that the simplest and cheapest supermarket is to the level of a gourmet here in Portugal, that they have the habit of eating early dinner and still go for [what we call here] "hygienic walk" along never ending beautiful -tree-paths and lakes... Furthermore, every car trip seems like a succession of paintings as the roads are paths which were stolen from forests.

... But then the weekend went by and the so common rain came to bless the Summer... and then for a moment it stopped feeling like vacation. Can you believe in some places in Sweden they get something like 3 weeks of sun per year?

I enjoyed getting to know Johan's family better, trying to understand Chess better... Taking it easy and resting...

And I can't forget the yet again amazing Sauna and Lake experience in Tolg with John's family... And this time my first experience of taking a bath in a peer, and taking the soap out of me in pure night, in cold lake water, to the light of stars and a set 1 am sun. UAU!

I loved watching a Speedway contest in Vetlanda. Apparently that small city where Anna, Olle, Karin and Mikael live has one of the World top teams in this sport.

It was fun Bowling with the family, other family get-togethers, going to that Island with Johan (what was the name again?), watching them cook candy, watching Granpa dance in National Day celebrations, trying to fish with Kent...

But we did want some better weather for more barbequeing, more fishing, more lake-bathing, more biking, more walking-around, more country-side activities...

So in the end, yes, I'd like to try living in Sweden because it is becoming such a big reference for me in what regards life-quality, in anything that doesn't depend from "Saint Peter".

Although I have to confess I know I would struggle with the little Sun and the certain rain... But I would especially miss the sun - I feel more and more my connection to it, my dependence of it.

THE SUN IS WHAT I HAVE CLOSEST TO THE FIGURE OF A GOD

SEVILLA

Then in July, the chance came to go back to Sevillha, where me and Johan met exactly 5 years ago (we disagree on whether it was the 31st of July night or the 1st of August 2005 morning that we met - the last is my version). There the Sun is definitely not missing.

The door in this picture used to be the entrance to Don Quijote, the Spanish school that is ultimately responsible for us being together. Yes, 'coz it was them who put us in the same apartment... Well and the rest is just details... :P

Anyway, Marta and Bruno were spending their sabbatical moth there doing Flamenco training, and it was a great opportunity to re-visit that city full of salero...

We loved it, Johan could almost picture himself living there... But with so much heat (we think it reached 50 dregrees during the day!!)... and no beach... Ufff! And how do you even have the energy to move around in such a warm environment? Plus there's no horizon as I'm getting used to again... : the Atlantic Ocean... And it's VERY touristic.

In the end, it's a nice town to visit every couple of years - exactly - as a tourist. It has a great spirit, it breathes Flamenco which I like more and more - the guitar, the singing, the dancing... there's something really transeunic about it... I realized this time (watching a breathtaking performance in Casa de la Memoria) that it probably is because it is so intense and that the music so often resembles the ORIGINAL SOUND, the tantric, the budhist, the hinduist "AUM" - or "OM", as trend tends to call it.

Of course it carries me to a level of vibration that is unexplainable...

But again: nothing to repeat too much so that it doesn't lose the uniqueness I still feel when I experience Flamenco.

Ready for more travelling? Yes! Preparing the next one. :)

Alentejo_Travelling my own Country

Ir para fora cá dentro.
That's how the Portuguese expression goes for when you travel inside your own country. And if my memory recalls well that became an idiomatic expression after a national tourism TV add some 10 years ago (or so I think - - how long does it statistically take to integrate a slogan in a language?).

PORTUGAL. My country. And exactly the one I learned to appreciate the lesser. I am ashamed of that, of not taking interest for it, of always looking at the less brighter side when it comes to Portugal:
- Melancholic; - Nostalgic; - Pessimistic ... and many inevitably negative "-ic-ending" words.
Ashamed of always looking at it exactly in the way I criticize "the Portuguese" for.

Well I feel I'm for the first time really willing to know the country I've always felt like mine only in one third - along with CAPE VERDE and BRAZIL.
This is after having come from India (in which I found so many worse - not even comparable - conditions)... And after that Johan came. And now I have a Swede to introduce my large home to, great loving company for tourism!

So this time we went to High Alentejo, interior Portugal.
Our base was Portel, a small village in the district of Évora, which is litteraly the centre of a star when it comes to road access.
This is a quiet place where people stare at you (and still keep looking when you've given in and taken your eyes away... :) ) 'coz everyone knows each other and you're not from there. And they're curious: that's simply it. A simple place.
It is amazingly silent all day long, hardly any cars, small white-painted houses ('coz the sun heat is so strong in the summer), real darkness at night; cows, sheeps, goats... just near by; breakfast with home-made cookies . . . And here cold is cold, homes have an inheritance of hunting prizes hanging form the walls, bread is "alentejano" and comes in special colourful coton bags, and you greet everyone in the street. A van passes by in the morning issuing the sound of folk music and offering home delivery of bathrobs, pijamas and other housewear. Somewhere in the village pigs scream, chickens run, horses grass (so silent it is that you can feel Portel's heart-beat if you simply keep quiet). Plus the view from the castle is amazing, a mixture of plain greens, and you almost feel the smell of olives and grapes.

We ate well and fat, and in the meantime we visited the biggest artificial lake in Europe - Alqueva Dam, ate at Amieira Marina, drove to Reguengos de Monsaraz hoping to buy wine only to find a beautiful modern-shaped church, and enjoyed a great wintery sunny day where the sun insisted on touching the waters beautifully.
On Sunday, Valentine's Day, time for the ditrict capital: Évora. The place for lunch was tough to find but in the end "Almedina" surprised us with a cosy family environment. We had time for a stop at Arraiolos as the car this weekend seemed to drive itself while I didn't dare or felt like harming the calmness with any speed higher than 80Km/h.
We liked the pace in Évora and the fact that the centre of the city is inside ancient walls: it makes finding your ways a bit of an adventure, and being inside the walls have something of mysterious and tale-like. We finally bought the so-expected Alentejano wine, and after long walks, some sight-seing and visiting Roman Temple at dawn, we drove back to Lisbon with a feeling of calm, rest and peaceful-mindedness.

Johan ended the day pleasantly surprising me with great spontaneous generosity when we met our building's night guard (a man from Cape Verde who has switched nights for days for 10 years now) and offered him one of the bottles we had brought from Alentejo. A nice man of few words, Mr. Zé Manel.

LONDON - Biggest Party on Earth

D LONDON EXPERIENCE

Life keeps treating me well.

I travelled earlier than I thought I would again, and to a place that hadn't seen me since adolescence.

Last time I was in London I was around 16 years old. 10 years later I remembered King's Cross Station, next to which I lived for 2 weeks, Millennium Bridge next to which I studied English, the view of Trafalgar Square from the National Gallery, the flowers in Notting Hill's Portobello Market, Mind the Gap and not much else.

From 1995 I remembered even lesser: there was the driving on the right hand-side, Hard-Rock Cafe and its expensive branded black sweat-shirt that I wore for a whole year after that, my long showers my trip companions complained of, Harrod's and my aunt saying to Jimmy: "(No, don't come in) - I'm not apropriated". :D

The turn of a decade was something else. I saw it with Raquel eyes and taken by the sweetest hand, and the warmest hug.

MARIANA. My forever trip companion, my forever big sis'.

Mariana is a Brazilian Londoner whom another one of those big non-coincidences brought to me in India.

We lived heaven and hell in that sub-continent of which I miss only some few people, some natural beauties, some exotic tastes and some laid-back experiences... and cherish the overall experience of.

In LONDON it was all about enjoying.

I left from a week stay there with the clear feeling that that's THE PLACE WHERE YOU CAN BE WHATEVER YOU WANT TO BE.

The closest I experienced of that (but for sure far away and in a fully different perspective) was Thailand: Bangkok... and the marvelous Islands - place of wonders, place to get lost if that's what you're looking for...

'Nyway...

Mariana took me in a journey through not only some ex-libris of that gigantic glamorous organized city... but also through some untold secrets only true Londoners can share.

What I loved the most was for sure the diversity of people, the true melting pot London is, the extremes in looks and way of living that people can allow themselves to express there with no awkwardness feeling. That city has a place for all sorts and looks down on no one - but that's because you almost have it hard to find locals, British people - so much is the colourfulness!

In this context I have to mention Camden Town and its weekend fair, experience with which Mariana gifted the beggining of our journey together in Her Majesty's kingdom capital.

That place sells anything you may imagine and gets together punks, fifty's, rastas, posh people, brazilian "cochinhas", S&M material, motor-bike seats, piercings, lights, statues and drums..........all about fashion ... what results is an amazing experience to your senses in an authentic journey through times and options that takes place inside ancient horse stables.

Then there was "the Pub Culture" as Mariana would put it after an Indian comment.

I'm not much of a "go out for a drink" sort of girl, hence pubs apparently shouldn't be the place for me. Nevertheless, under Mariana's arm, I was guided through cozy, historical, fish & chips serving, old-school, out of the rain, beer producing, British only, dancing crazy, standing in circle, no non-alcohol beverages, checking out, with fireplace, nice . . . English PUBS which I really ended up enjoying.

Walking downtown through luxuriant streets, pin-pointing the tourist spots, was only bettered as an England experience by one full day of rain when we not anymore cared about how soaked we were and simply walked around with our feet and shoes flooded. So much fun!

Seeing a musical from 30 meters up far from the scene and adoring it. Finding a jazz concert hidden behind a mysterious door. Eating barbequed burgers in -1 degrees Celsius to come in to a bar where almost all had their Mac Book Pro, where DJ's came an hour later to play Chill-House and a door opened at 8pm to give way to another secret: an early night electronic disco. There I danced my brains out with hardly anyone on the dance floor just because I felt like it and no-one really cared. At 12h30 me and Mariana had finished my last night with a deserved Indian meal - one of the countable cultural features that we are really fond of in the country that was our home for almost a year.

But the perfect experience was that of seeing one of the greatest fireworks on earth from just across the river, right in front of London Eye. "The biggest House party on Earth" (as in House music) was well worth the 4 and a half hour wait freezing in happiness, dance, friendship and expectation.

I just loved it. Check this out.

Mariana, luv u!!!!

You shall not say "it ain't possible"

About the purposefulness of Life

This means to be as much of a thesis as a declaration of my feeling of me.

I FEEL THAT LIFE IS PURPOSEFUL, THAT IN NO WAY COULD IT BE BETTER EVER, THAT IT IS ALWAYS AS IT HAS TO BE IN THAT PRECISE MOMENT OF YOUR TIME AND SPACE.

By purposeful I mean not that there's an end waiting and calling from a far away lost future, that finding that out and the means to reach it is what we should pursue; but other that we should be faithful in the Now, in the relevance of this moment for our Path - even if we're not sure where It is leading us or even where we would like It to take us.

I feel and know that Life is purposeful now, that there's no such thing as a coincidence, and I say this not only because of my readings which do help me to keep the spirit and most of all find the right words for it (e.g.: Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield and The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle here mentioned before), but mostly because I´VE BEEN HAVING THIS UNEXPLAINABLE BUT HIGHLY MOTIVATING FEELING OF SINCHRONICITY FOR MANY YEARS NOW.

Life has been proving to me time after time that things don't happen by some random reason, your life and mine and the world aren't rulled by change but by a superior collective and inter (actually: "inner")-connected matrix and conscience that makes every minute meaningful and every decision determinant.

In my long arguments about this over the years, the most common OBJECTION I hear is that what I am saying is that I believe in destiny, "right"? So what space does that leave for free-will, I am asked.

The other one was how could I then explain so much disgrace in the world if there is actually this wheel of major purpose underlying all that is done of this place we share with all nature.

Well, I must say the first point was a problem to me for a while when I thought that non-coincidence might not be reconcilable with the denial of a full predestination, a master-plan designated for you irrespective of your power of will or conscience, basically a decision prior to your own acts and mental dispositions covering your whole existence - I don't believe in that.

• ... then the word "believe" comes in. This word seems to allow doubt in too as it leaves space for factual proving of the opposite... if only research could ever collect spiritual data! (BELIEF IS WHAT KEEPS MANY GOING SO IT MAY BE A BLISS AS IT MAY BE AN IGNORANCE-VEIL.) Dogmas and book-based religions often tried to turn faith matters into sets of rules for followers: the only thing they managed was to empty the creeds of its meaningful power of making people reach and think beyond their own ego's. Now they promote ego's, leading to catastrophic fanatic disconnected ways of being in the world, to people living in fear and spreading monstruous feelings.

It was difficult to keep my thesis also when I still labelled happenings as good and bad seen from a micro perspective and thus found no possible bigger reason for so many records of human suffer in history. I am not saying I have it all sorted out, say the least that massive massacres and other unforgivable human-planned events or natural catastrophes were justified or are now justifiable but YES that I believe there is a macro-structure, a macro-world evolution that somehow could use those "tortuous lines" to write its story, teach its lessons, lead its way.

But there are 2 certainties I have now:

- 1 is that SINCHRONICITY (OR NON-COINCIDENCE) IS A MATTER BEYOND OUR CONCEPTUAL MIND-FRAMES OF TIME AND SPACE (Katherine helped me solve this cross-road I was at, thanks so much for dissolving the conceptual knot, Kat), this "conspiracy" works way beyond the limited variables we use to measure and catalogue our rational experience, it's another sort of matrix (the unexplicable connectedness that makes you find your soul-mate, "randomly" meet just the person you needed or get a phone-call from the person that had just crossed your mind). This matrix links all existence into one big purposeful evolution & connection-oriented world, and it influences small scale events as the ones described as it determines the meaningful ways in which each person's life evolves and the way they link to one another in highly relevant "productive" ways. WE'RE ALL A CONTRIBUTING PART OF THIS COLLECTIVE CONSCIENCE THAT HAS BEEN EVOLVING WITH THE WORLD, that's just for a start how relevant each one of us is.

- THE OTHER CERTAINTY I HAVE IS OF THE TRUTH OF THIS, IT'S AN INNER POSITIVENESS, AN INSIGHT I FEEL OF THE TRUTH, so you can say it's a mere belief but I have just about all the proofs in my daily life of this that I used to call "my star"... And for the sake of this testemony and my happy life, I need to go no further.

You may be asking: but what do you gain from that? what does that add to your life? why are you even mentioning that? "i don't feel that. i have no idea. actually, i don't even care."

What all this makes to me is to believe profoundly in THE POWER OF NOW, OF THIS NARROW YET FULL OF POTENTIAL PLACE WHERE THE COUNTABLE AND THE UNCONTABLE VARIABLES REUNITE IN YOUR HANDS. It makes me be aware of signs, of non-coincidences, of messages hiden in that much more subtle realm that lies between the lines of the happenings in my days.

It makes me feel joyful and trustfull and CONFIDENT THAT I AM WHERE I HAVE TO BE - and not because I aim there, hereby living with an anxious heart on the future, on that expectation, suffering with antecipation; or otherwise hanging to the past, re-living situations that are impossible to change and grieving in non-action and self-pity or self-punishment or acusation.

It makes me active, alert and trustful in me and all humans, all of us who have potential to go beyond our conditioning, our labelling and our collectively repeated behaviours - to reach out to a higher consciousness of ourselves and all that of living and non-living that surrounds us.

And it makes me feel no longer in fight inside. I feel peacened, I feel no fear as to what may come as I am sure of its relevance in my way. Most of the times I do actually manage to live my words and not worry, just be happy. And I do actually get glimpses of sublime moments as I purposedly stop or at least manage to slow down the pace of my mind (our mind often just produces rubish that leads to no positive attitude or disposition but to time-bound hanging to something other then your present reality). THESE MOMENTS OF CONNECTEDNESS (medidative states some currents would call it) ARE SOME OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL YOU CAN GET IN LIFE: THAT'S WHEN YOU'RE MOST CONSCIOUS AND YOU CAN DETECT AND PRODUCE TRUE BEAUTY.

Am I talking about enlightenment? An approach to it maybe at this level that is realizable by any human being. I speak of nothing extraordinary, but only of withdrawing yourself from the viscious cycles of thought, prejudice and unconscious behaviours and live your presence, live and indulge in your SELF.

You'll never be any more fuller in your true self than you are right now, so leave it not for later - when maybe on an outer level you'll be richer or may have accumulated some more of someTHING: wealth, body fitness, belongings, clothes, job position, social status, you name it - but you'll be no more full inside. You're just about everything you may wish for on a spiritual level already: just access that inside you and clean yourself from outerly-build worries, demands, pressures, release yourself from the dependency on pain and the "stories" upon which you insist on creating your identity. LIVE FULLY. It's really your choice.

What does this conscience make me? I FEEL GRATEFUL EVERY SINGLE DAY OF MY LIFE.