BKS Iyengar / The Wealth of Health versus Appearances

There is something so awe inspiring about watching this 45 year old film footage of BKS Iyengar demonstrating asana. Who was the audience? Did they have any understanding or was this a form of outlandish gymnastics to them? After all these years of practicing yoga even I still find it strange to watch a yoga asana practice. It definitely is an experience to be had within, rather than observed externally.

In my parallel life I am a professional Artist, from this perspective I really should promote my work, chase the career, socialize strategically.. The more I practice Yoga Asana, the more my life changes, and it becomes increasingly impossible to abuse my body with 16 hour work days for the sake of appearing ‘successful’. In reality my name gains credential, it does indeed, and at the same time my body gains internal wounds from exhaustion, from one too many times rushed to meet a deadline..

In the past year I have spent significantly more time thinking about the Wealth of Health than about which gallery to attempt to impress into exhibiting and selling my work. I am still finding my way, but while it scares me I also feel that it was the only sensible decision to take a full 18 months out from even considering to make any Art work or engage in the Art crowd. My feet feel like they landed on the ground a little. My health is improving, and still I am fragile. The healthiest years in my life were those when I practiced yoga 3-4 times a week without fail. 6 days a week seems to deplete me.

I believe it is possible that this has to do with my approach to the practice and my approach to the days following. I strongly believe that Ashtanga practice can be restorative, in my experience it was depleting, but I have a feeling that was my way of practicing and living that could have been responsible.

What do you think?

life essentials; in the words of a friend of mine

"Passionate about healthy conscious living in the full spectrum of life: work, relationships and the rest." Julian Giacomelli chief at: http://www.crudessence.com

question: am I extra terrestrial or am I not?

I feel just a little bit like an incomprehensible alien at the moment. Nobody I know well enough leads an alternative life, with long distance relationship spells, and far away travel, and exhibitions at galleries, some of which damage or not return art work for months or longer; and not a plan that is very similar to the plans other people make when they feel they are making a sensible, standard type plan. I think I am incredibly sensible, but certainly not standard. Of the people I know who are not standard, I don't know (m)any who are sensible and plan for the future. My friends, even the ones who on paper aren't actually so standard at all, appear to despair at my lack of standard.. I may after all be an alien. 
------------
standard = average = normal = predictable = steady = having the illusion of being plan-able ≠ actually life isn't plan-able, I understand it may appear so, and I also try and emulate the pattern, the plan-ability but... is life plan-able?

Andrei Ram Om teaching Handstand

lovely insights into how to work towards handstand. I love this.

Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga - Ritual in Motion

A nice introduction to aspects of Ashtanga Yoga Asana practice.
There is just one thing that David Robson says that I disagree with. He says that Asana is difficult, and that it should be difficult. I am not sure I agree. I think it can be gentle and easy, too. Asana being difficult, the way he seems to mean it, seems focused on achievement of a kind that actually I don't support. The implication seems to be that one ought to achieve certain 'goals' that are too attached to the physical 'look' for my understanding. I think Asana can be easy. 

open hearts

In the last days I have been thinking about meeting the world with an open heart. Or rather, I have been thinking about how difficult that can be. I see some other people, their blogs and websites just overflow with open-ness and love for life and the world. 

What every young cow needs..

..a Z300i mobile telephone with digital clock pretending to be an analog one. A discarded doll, 2 combs, some bottles and containers of medicine, various junk and empty coke and pop drinks...

............

(image DSC_5703)

some days are easier than others...

occasionally it feels a little more like this...

I'm definitely a communicator

.. I write 300 word messages and e-mails all the time, being generous with information and suggestions and I get back 3 to 7 work replies ALL the time. (Occasionally replies stretch to 2 sentences...)

funny.. Am I over-generous? Or are you annoyed by my wordy communication?

Thai Massage and Yoga Teacher qualifications / ONE definite 'knowable'

below are my recent Yoga teaching and Thai Massage practitioner qualifications. What any qualification you ever achieve should first and foremost remind you of is that these pieces of paper signify the beginning of your journey, or a mark along a journey of learning that will continue forever. If you are to be a good teacher, if you wish to be a good massage practitioner, if indeed you hope to be a good artist, mother, father, friend or lover, then you will know that you have never learnt 'it all', that you are never 'fully qualified'. Our whole lives are lives lived learning if they are lives lived well. My most alive periods of my life have been those in which I was most active seeking understanding and knowledge. You will always find that no matter how many signposts you find along the way, the path forward is kind of unknowable. 

Life will always offer you new learning curves, new reasons to remember or re-learn old lessons learnt but forgotten. There is SO much to learn. Always. That is one definite knowable.

above are my Thai Massage and Yoga qualifications to date:

treasured fresh handmade paper notebooks from India ...

aren't these notebooks adorable!? 

I have a little bunch of them for sale. The large books are £12 

and the small ones £7. If you buy a large and a small together you will get a £1 discount! 

One daily cup of coffee blog and book

You probably already know about my love of coffee.. I used to take photographs of ever coffee I drank. In recent years I didn't keep up as diligently. I think this is a good time to review past coffees
(gathered in my coffee blog as flashback coffee moments) and once I catch up consider a fresh start.
I once had a coffee blog on which I would review coffee qualities and service, ambient and clients of cafe's I visited. I started a postgraduate degree just as I got really into the blogging / critiquing. It may be the future for this coffee blog: One daily cup of coffee.

One Daily Cup of Coffee
Q: What do you think?.. What would you like to see on my coffee blog?
Q: and what would you like to find in my coffee book?
I would love to hear from you.

below is a first draught for my first coffee collection book. It will be small format and paperback. But I would like to build up to a larger book in hardback in the future... Something to enjoy over a cup of coffee... perhaps.

Coffee by One daily cup of Coffee
Birgit Deubner from onedailycupofcoffee.blogspot.co.uk | Make Your Own Book

Over 7 Seas & Birgit Deubner Etsy Stores pledge to Donate to a family in Cambodia

This is very important to me:

I WILL DONATE 5% of profit made through Etsy to Nakry's Family in Cambodia. (To calculate I will deduct only production costs, not my time or any other costs)

I will keep a public tally of how much is raised on this blog. I also accept donations for Nakry's family.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Birgit75

============================================================
The backstory:
I want to donate money to the family of a friend I made in Cambodia. I know first hand of several very good charity and NGO organizations who are active in supporting children and people of all ages to have a better future. I will update this post with a link to my blog that I have to write more about these causes.

My friend's family lost 50-60% of their rice crop to last years terrible flooding that swept across Asia. My friend's name is Nakry, his family live in a small house on stilts, the wood of which is splitting and they fear it will snap if another flood hits them before they can replace it. Nakry's family, like countless families in Cambodia, rely on their family's rice harvest to supplement their basic food needs.

I don't know how cambodian families will get through this time. Food across Cambodia will have run out some time ago (it is June now, the next harvest is not due until around december, most farmers only have enough water supply for one crop a year, few are lucky and can try their luck twice annually)

My friend's name is Nakry, his home has an open door policy welcoming any children from the extended family, if they are hungry Nakry's family will share their already tight food. Tight food? The children of the family have stunted growth, as has Nakry, he is rather small, the children who are 13 years old, look as if they are 7. The loss of the rice crop is dramatic on a family like this. It is all part of why for example Nakry's cousin left school before she finished, to work for small change as day laborer on other people's fields. She is 16, she could have become fluent in french had she stayed in school. This is a can of worms. I hope you will visit my blog when I forward the address in the next weeks (I need to update the stories, or at least make a strong start).

What is needed? Money to flood proof the house, the family fear that the wooden stilts it stands on will snap if the house is submerged once more for 2-3 months in 2 foot / half a meter of water.

collage of quirky leg photographs

Nakry and his Family

I just wanted to anounce that I am still collecting donations for Nakry's family, to help with recovery from last year's flooding. There is a real danger of renewed flooding this year. I would like the family to have a safety net: enough to eat, and maybe the needed tools should their house collapse due to the high water levels. (The stilts of their old house have split last year in the 2 month submerge-ion in the flood waters. It would be good to have a tool kit of some kind of temporary patches to hold it up (I am thinking a sort of brace reinforcement!

another land of mango trees and coconut water sellers

(written some time ago):

... am I glad we came here!!! fresh cut Mango from the street stalls.. water festival for their new year! Had water thrown at us for hours today - soaked to the bones. Very well natured people, gentle water fighting. NO aggressions whatsoever. SOOOO refreshing and restoring after the country of people who know no boundaries.Pineapple shake for $1 here and it was delicious. SO happy. Glad we came even so we spent too much that we can't afford to spend... Now I feel like we did the right thing. It'll be good for us. I could live here by the way. People, food, culture, grace....

AM SO glad we came here!! It is so extremely refreshing and restorative to be here! The people are so graceful and respectful, gentle and fun loving! It's their New Year and we have been doused in water for hours, the streets are filled with people sporting water guns and buckets....... It looks like there was a monsoon rain but it's just the whole city splashing water over each other, nobody is safe; whether one sits on a rickshaw, bus or moped... chances are everybody is soaked to the bones. VERY much fun and all in gentle humor. Had my first fresh mango cut up into pieces from a street seller. oh YUM

We had a pretty hellish journey to reach here but as soon as we landed it all got better.Our taxi driver - of reasonably old age - had tremendous fun throwing water at pedestrians and rickshaw passengers, while driving us from the airport to our guest house... You should have heard him laugh... infectious fun.

SO happy! The replacement flights cost us terribly much and I wasn't sure if we shouldn't head straight for Berlin but I think we would have arrived SO exhausted there... coming here was the BEST best best choiceJason's heat rash has not shown itself since we reached the airport in Bangalore yesterday and we decided on an airport taxi here today to keep the reappearance of the rash at bay. Same for our first night or two here. Normally we make do with fan rooms, not just to save the wallet but also the planet. But That J isn't getting sick was a bit more important today.So all is beautiful I am so happy to be out of India. For some reason I couldn't take more this time. Which likely has more to do with life and it's uncertainties than with India itself. But wow it is a challenging place and it doesn't even try to dress itself in any other way than: full on and challenging...I'll be taking a break from palak paneer for a while before I'll surely crave it all over again....

new skills

Traditional Thai Massage, Wat Pho certified

and soon: Thai Foot Massage, currently training at Wat Pho.

What is Wat Pho?

It is a famous temple in Bangkok, but also it is the school of a Southern style of Traditional Thai Massage. THE oldest school to teach Thai Massage and well respected internationally. More important the teachers who taught me have without exception been warm-hearted and very welcoming people. I have had the incredible luck to most days have been taught by one teacher while practicing my new skills on another teacher. This brings the teacher student ratio to 2 to 1.

I am looking forward to beginning to give Thai Massages and Thai Foot massages soon.

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

update June 1st 2012: now I am fully qualified in General Thai Massage, Advanced Thai Massage, Footmassage with Reflexology and Thai Oil Massage with basic Aromatherapy.

And am available for bookings. Please contact me through the comments section, my website www.senthaimassage.com or of course the old fashioned way the letter pigeon. 

Last Days in Siem Reap

It is time to pass on the money raised, even so it's not much at £130 total.

Looking at local costs and the difficulty of accessing a further out farming family I am considering to split the money between Nakry and his immediate family and his cousin who is 16 and was taken out of school to work as a day labourer on other people's fields. This work brings at most $4 a day for skilled labour and my hunch is that women get a lower rate than that. I'd love to be able to send her back to school to finish at least the basic education (High School) + ideally a language qualification that would help a lot also.

Good and verified / recognized Language classes here cost around $110-$190 for a 3 month term of 45 lessons. The changing price depends on the level taught. Academic language training with international IELTS testing is available as well, but the Basic Language skills have to be learnt first.

If I had a steady income I would love to be able to say: I will pay for you to take the full program of lessons over the next 3 years. It really makes me feel strange to not be able to help. It's a matter of $50-$70 a month. (help would be needed with transport costs and that could end up being $10 for each trip she makes to town to attend lesson as there are no local busses and transport relies on pick-up trucks and scooters and tuk-tuks charging $5 for a single journey). That's not much money.

I'd love to send Nakry, too.

The bottom line is probably that I should offer Nakry something to teach her and try help him to gain qualifications in order to pass them on. As he is more independent in the first place, with being a male (which makes him safer on longer journeys to town and also culturally it is preferred for women to not travel too far - I imagine a lot of this is about security.)

I wish I had an income and could help others make positive changes themselves... argh...

Women and girls are so much safer when educated! A study I read somewhere found that there is a direct relation between the schooling of a girl and her future children. It showed that approximately for every term that she would remain in education she would make sure that her future children would remain in education a year longer.. That's quite an equation!

Also given the levels of poverty here and the uncertainty of tourism (which often seems the only real source of income) girls are really vulnerable to the sex trade. It's not a Myth, it's not dramatization, it's a real but hidden and secretive problem. The trade of girls and women is real. And it is proven that education helps.

I speculate that of course the more girls are ins school the more want to also be in school and even if they are not able to attend the general dynamic will create more knowledge and more self determination among girls and women of any age.

==

It often seem strange to me how here even graduates of English Literature Studies have not heard and much less read authors like George Orwell. I would have thought that any english literature course would read 1984, I would certainly wish they would. But the way things are I think Cambodians here in Siem Reap are a long way off from Critical Studies. It is easy to be dismissive of degree programs at home that are called "Critical Studies", " Media Studies", Gender Studies... it all sounds a bit wishy-washy at times, but seeing it from here those are amazing testaments to the freedom we have to really think about who we are and how we fundamentally and subtly affect each other and the world around us. Here people learn to english language but I am not sure if they learn much in terms of content.

I am by no means meaning to imply an absence of intellect, but rather an absence of available course programs and not enough opportunities to access what is available in limited quantities.

===

I'll change the ££'s into $$'s today and take as much as I think is right to Nakry's family.

Green Gecko Projects

http://greengeckoproject.org/

settling into Siem Reap / unedited

I am at a hotel near my very cheap guest house, having very expensive espresso to use their great wifi. It's my first time here and it's wonderful. I'd like to spend a week's budget on a day on their terrace! :) I'll restrain myself. I only ordered yoghurt.

Their noodles and vegetables are almost $4 and for that I get 3 portions of fried rice with a sprinkle of vegetables in another place right by my guesthouse. But then again... I am tempted by deluxe noodles... hmmmmmm

Yesterday I peeled myself out of bed and hired a tuk tuk to take me the 13km to the Silk Farm where my friend Nakry works. I think I was too sick to go but I really had had enough of laying in a boring room day after day. So I AT LAST saw Nakry and we are meeting again on his day off on monday. I'm making progress finding out where to buy baby chicken which will be part of my little help-package. :)

The tuk tuk to the Silk Farm and back is $10 and there is no way to get there cheaper,which is a bit steep. So much money wasted really.. (grrrr)

I am volunteer teaching German at a Cafe called Peace Cafe, and I have 5 students.I have split them up into one-to-one and even smaller groups because they have all different levels of German speaking practice. It's great to be able to offer something and to work with people who are so keen. At last I have a sense of purpose. I started on monday, even so I was still really sick, but I didn't want to let them down.One woman is a local NGO worker, Noungh, she is a real inspiration. A strong personality but also really nice. She's saved me at least $4 so far by giving me a lift on her scooter afterclass and to the Photography evening slideshows; stubborn as I am I only missed the first opening evening and attended at least the slideshows - beginning at 8.30pm - every evening. The first evenings I could barely manage to lay on the big mat on the ground which everyone sat on. But am progressively becoming better. The Photo Festival finishes on saturday evening.And of course I haven't really managed to fill my quota of 'achievements' at all. But I think I did ok given how sick I was (and still am) - hurrah to stubborn-ness........

Today is a rest day. I'm not doing anything except sit here with wifi for a couple of hours, then some rest in bed and then a german lesson with 3 students. Interesting people. Super nice people.

It is much easier to relax here in Siem Reap, once you figure out how to escape the tourist mania.It is easier to have something to do here that is useful to others. In Chiang Mai it is harder to do things without spending money. Much easier here. But much hotter, too. The heat is pretty exhausting.

Cambodia #5

The month long flooding destroyed thousands of crops of rice. Most affected are small families who rent fields to plant rice on. The quantity of rice lost varies with size of field but my friend Nakry lost 150 kg (minimum expected yield). His family rent a field 10km away from his home.. The roads are too bad for cycling and can't be navigated by motorized vehicle either (now even worse after the flooding).

Nakry used to walk to this field and work on it on his day off work (typically one day every 10-12 days). His family use around 100-120kg of rice a month! Bear in mind that rice is their main food source. 10 kilogram of rice cost about $7-8 - this is the cheapest rice. A safe assumption would be that a kilo of rice may soon shoot to $1 per kilo (hopefully not more!) as so much of Asia was affected by the flooding that food shortages are to be expected. A huge quantity of rice was lost this year in Cambodia, Thailand, and to my knowledge also Laos, Vietnam and I don't know but assume as it is the same region also Burma (Myanmar)

Back to Nakry and his family. He is extremely hard working, currently giving regular French and English Language lessons to extended family and some others. Extended family in Cambodia really means VERY extended to the point that in Europe we may barely know of people's existence.. His salary supports a whole bunch of children in his immediate and extended family to eat and receive adequate schooling, I have no idea how his salary of $130 per month support so many adults and children. 5 adult family members were at home when we went for lunch on Nakry's day off work yesterday. I understand that there is not much work but that what work is available people jump at.

Nakry's 16 year old niece left school at 15 because the family couldn't afford to pay for her to attend schooling any longer. She now is effectively a day labourer when all that would be needed for her to remain in school would be $1 a day! That's how little money would be enough to help keep a girl in education which ultimately would mean she would be stronger in society, a better income earner and certainly more protected against poverty. It seems mad to stop education before it is complete when a girl is so close to complete the basic education!

Here many whom I have spoken with know that education is what is needed and still sooo many residents of rural areas have not got the means to access the minimum education that would help so much to empower their communities.

FUNDS RAISED:

where are they now?

Still in an envelop in English currency. I am waiting to see how best to spend the little money we collected. It's really very little. I am toying with the idea of giving 50% each to Nakry and his family as well as a local NGO worker to support her in remaining high spirited and supporting larger projects involving whole communities. Her engagement means that a village of 100-150 people will soon have a school /health centre building, the villagers are educated about recycling and waste-reduction and re-use while benefitting from a flood relief scheme where they are the recipients of a reward scheme which exchanges rice, cooking oil, blankets (it gets surprisingly cool at night, very hard to sleep for old and weaker people) and mosquito nets as well as school bags and exercise books for successful participation in the recycling project arranged by HUSK and coordinated by Noungh.

Nakry: he already passes on his English and French speaking abilities. I would like to speak to him about a possible 'target' in exchange for the money we raised; e.g. a number of students and/or a level aimed for within a period of time. I am wondering if it would help to offer the students monetary incentive (i.e. 50cent to $1 for each lesson done well and attended on time, his niece for example often comes late or misses her class because she is working on a field for someone else who hired her for the day, I wonder if there is a way to get her to learn / give her access to learning, without loosing income..).

Nakry has a second little niece who is 10 years old but looks 6. Being so small is a probable sign of malnutrition early in life. I would like to find a way to support both girls to get as much education as possible.. In the meantime giving Nakry 50% of our raised money will help support the whole family and help with the lost rice crop.

Links to good things in Siem Reap

Great project!

I may use some of the money I raised (£60) to pass to this project as I think this is the best way to invest in positive change.

http://www.huskcambodia.org/husk-who-we-are.html

This leaves olny another £70 which I have earmarked for a family whom I know who lost their rice crop in the recent flooding.

If you can, please help make up the £70 or the £60 to £100.

Angkor Photo festival

LINK

Beyond Unique Experiences

Festival time in Thailand.

Loi Krathong, a festival honouring and thanking the river,

perhaps with it's origins in the HIndu worship of the

holy river Ganges.

water in places where it's not wanted

journey south next week

we will be back in Bangkok very briefly next monday on our way to Cambodia, where we hope the flood waters have receded by now. This photograph is from the river crossing ferry terminal 2 weeks ago. The man on the left is Heng, he is pointing to the center of an elevated walkway which also is submerged. That day several passengers (tourists mainly) had fallen off the walkway into 1 meter deep water...

We promised to visit Heng before we leave Thailand. We left a handful of provisions with him (dried noodles and a big bag of roasted cashew nuts being the most useful of them).

We are looking forward to the bus journey south, all in all it will take around 24 hours to reach Siem Reap. I'm excited to soon be seeing my friend again and to be able to help out a little bit with the costs of recovering from the flood's damages. Hoping that acquiring seeds for re-planting won't be too steeply priced!

If anybody is still interested in contributing to the small support effort then do please get in touch. You can transfer money into my account and just let me know how much you put in, I haven't got my internet banking set up correctly so won't be able to view what's there without you telling me. (small sums from £5 upwards are definitely ok. Best would be £10-£20 if you are able. More is of course even better. To give some idea of costs: here in Thailand we are occasionally able to buy 600ml waterbottles for 5 - 7 baht. We never pay more than 10 baht a bottle. It's 48 Baht to the £. Ideally we should be able to buy 8 bottles of water for a pound. More often than not it's 5 bottles. But that's pretty good still.. Street meals can be found for 25 baht a meal. 50 pence.. - we aren't always that lucky, it's a little tricky with me being vegetarian and being particular about not sharing my plate with minced pork or similar).

More soon.