A Summer Song

The sun is shining, the breeze is fresh and the background symphony is a combination of skylark, goldfinch and magpie calls, broken up by the odd splash of a Pollock’s tale in the estuary. The sounds of summer in the Devonshire countryside… lush. How liberating it is for the mind to be free of the burdens of city life and its hard, dense energy.

In Psychology, there’s a term ‘sensory adaptation’ that describes a common, unconscious behaviour that we use to blend into our environment… you know when you walk into a room with an overwhelming smell and it dominates your attention for a while, until your senses quickly adapt and your attention moves elsewhere… my point being that with its constant sirens, flashing lights and pungent smells, I think city living massively desensitises us.

In one way, it’s probably necessary; creating a coat of sensory armour to shield us from the tumultuous tumbles and shin splints inherent to the rat race. But on the other hand, it causes us to lose touch with our feelings, our common-sense(s)… our human nature. Despite our technological advancements and ability to instantaneously ‘connect’, we’ve sadly become so disconnected…

Now, while this may be my comedown epiphany,

RIP Gary

My macro evaluation of society,

Or my mind finally getting the chance to run free…

Whatever the reason,

The beginning of this season,

Has given me the space to see.

Summer time in England is when the true magic happens and for once, I am not jetting off to miss the show.

The wand has been waved

Tunes <3

And all those enslaved,

In grey clouds and monotonous drizzle,

Have been freed to unleash,

Their well-groomed beasts,

As the candy pops, cracks and fizzles…

From Gottwood to Glastonbury and somewhere in-between, I’ve been swept up in a rhythmic wave to dance to the sounds of summer. The disconnection of city life has been thrown to one-side as the crew re-assembles in tents old and new, to dance and laugh and sing; Ay ay me hearty’s I feel it in my soul, I feel that pirate ting up in my soul…

Glastonbury 2016

Like the smooth transitions of a really good mix, the days have merged into one another seamlessly and for the first time in a long time, I’m stopping to process the metamorphosis.

Weeks ago, we flitted and fluttered as forest fairies in the Welsh woodlands to funky, house-filled beats. A wave of the wand, another weekend and whoosh! The times took a tropical turn and we floated for hours passed London’s bridges and towers, feeling somewhat wavy aboard the Captain and Co’s birthday vessel. But rougher seas were in need, so the spell conjured up something greater for us to do…

Boat Party
London, 2016

Gottwood, 2016

We became reckless and wild, like an unsatisfied child, attempting to take over every vessel in site (unless they were in the kids playground area during which all crew members [unless gold], were instructed to come back at 7pm…); we became pirates for the night and exercised our rights to groove to that sexy disco beat (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBpYgpF1bqQ ).

The fairy dust has finally settled on the windowsill in front of me.

A momentary breather from the mass of blissful confusion,

To ensure it hasn’t been an illusion,

And that the sounds that I’m hearing are real…

Om Namah Shivaya

Because one must not forget,

That in our attempts to re-connect,

We must still keep our feet on the ground.

For it’s too easy to get swept away,

In the tide of worries we try to keep at bay,

And we end up missing the current sound.

The one sound that we call,

The Uni-verse.

Quote of the day: "To be grounded is to be connected to our emotional-electrical currents, to the waves of our needs and images and the rhythms of actions which comprise our physical-psychic processes: the rhythms of the human and natural ground." - Stanley Keleman

Airy Fairy I

Wanderer

Dancin with the fairies

It amazes me what an intense effect stress has on the brain, I watch my amazing housemate work through a full-time masters and a half-time job, buzzing along the mood spectrum from calm to hysteria, those of us with slightly less stress showing pretty similar symptoms (if living in a house of girls is a reliable reference point ;) ) … it makes the importance of finding something to calm you down whether it be meditating or monging out to TV so important. Without the balance we’d all end up in asylums or …slow-down camps. The point of the stress rant was what has just happened yet again, on the start of an Easter adventure to Holland to catch up with a few of my favourite girlfriends from high school.

Just about where my head's at

Tralalala

I woke up this morning with a foggy head that soon vanished after a long sesh of yoga, a scattered feat of packing and a run in the spring sunshine. Packing always takes so much longer than anticipated doesn’t it? Doing it the night before is what we’re been taught for so many years but for me, it still hasn’t sunk in.

So of course, I look at the time, hoping it’ll be 2pm (I actually learnt the psychological phrase for this the other day… ‘false hope syndrome’, ha) but of course it’s 3pm instead and as I sit leisurely blow drying my hair, the cortisol levels rapidly rise and I realise I have 30 minutes until the bus leaves and I still wasn’t ready... so trying to get my priorities in check, I put down the hairdryer...

It's never seemed more
appropriate that both our
names begin with J .. for
this holiday at least <3

Chuk mung nam moi B! See
you in Dam B <3

Fast-forward mode began, what a familiar feeling. A taxi it had to be. A gulp of coffee and a regrettable puff of a J and the taxi arrived. Bags in, door shut and finally, feeling somewhat reassured we were on our way, 5 minutes down the main road. Shit. Please don’t tell me I just put my phone down on the kitchen table. 20 minutes left. Arghhhhh. After a brief inner-battle as to how necessary a phone was compared to a new bus ticket to Holland, we turned around. Run in, grab phone, back in the taxi. We arrived at the megabus to London with 10 minutes to spare; I check in and sit down. Realising I’ve put my laptop under the bus … um a 3 hour bus ride isn’t going to entertain itself. Gawwwd. The bus driver mutters under his breath and lets me climb into the luggage compartment and start rummaging while he eyes me suspiciously. I manage to awkwardly pull out my laptop bag, lying on everyone else's bags in the process and rolling onto the pavement next to the driver who was tapping his foot and shaking his head, making sure the items in my hand had actually come out of my bag. There's not much trust left in the world is there... but then again, after just watching 'the pursuit of happiness' and seeing the peace and love looking hippie run away with Will Smiths scanning machine, I can understand the association :p. I sheepishly walked back onto the bus, straightening out my clothes to then receive a call from the taxi driver notifying me that I had left my only warm jacket in the taxi. Eeek. As a lovely gesture, he was going to come back to

From Laos to Amsterdam -
Seeing these travellers soooon

A long awaited reunion
with these 2 beauts <3

return it to me. So I get back out of the bus, repeating ‘thank you’ in my head every time a late-comer walked up to the bus driver with their reservation numbers. Oh my god pleeease hurry up!! I stood, biting my fingers nervously with a foggy head, my inner-clock getting louder and louder as the minutes ticked on. The taxi driver arrives, I breathe a sigh of relief, run to grab my jacket, thank him and then scramble onto the bus. The engine finally starts. Ahh J we’re about to leave. The engine stops… I could hear the bus driver storming back onto the bus. “Who’s lost a black wallet?”. I laughed in my head… how bad would that be. He comes up to the 2^ndfloor and what do I recognise in his hand but my.black.wallet containing my passport, bank cards, bus tickets and money.

So now I sit on the bus that’s finally moving, cringing behind my seat and feeling successful at having ticked every box on the ‘what not to do when you start travelling’ list. Let’s hope the rest of the holiday gets better from here… :p

17 hours later at a (real) coffee shop
... AMSTERDAM

Recipe of the day: Easter egg fairy cakes
http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/7083/easter-fairy-cakes.aspx

The smoke that blushed

Street art I found in East London

Yesterday i was walking through Camden and infront of me a bellow of blue and pink smoke was coming out of a huge industrial dark chimney. It was one of those tiny details amidst a normal routine that puts a smile on your face, I was just waiting for a suitable accompaniment of rainbows, fairies and candy canes to shower down upon the unsuspecting landscape. Below the dreamlike smoke were swarms of preoccupied individuals going about their daily lives with their heads down looking at their phones or buzzing in their own thought bubbles. 

Even though we all share the same environment, we are such seperate entities and our society only emphasizes the fact. We have our own entertainment to start, ipods, phones, books, newspapers. We're tuned into our own thoughts and feelings, and we rarely attempt to merge into the more communal world and really interact with/ feel what's going on around us. We have conversations and link in to one or two other people's fields of existence but we are primarily individuals. Yet what strikes me as odd, is in psychology, one of the sociocultural principles is 'humans feel a need to belong'; within this principle lies the idea that we rely on each other to survive, our whole community and society is built up of various blocks, from farmers to shopkeepers to businessmen, if one stage didn't exist, the rest of our pyramid would fall apart. It's so hard to switch everything off when sometimes it's just a force of habit, and it almost instills fear when you think of the idea of not being able to communicate with everyone in your life for one moment. It scares me when I start to panic after only a day of not checking my emails - but at the same time, in feeling 'connected' to everyone, it creates such a huge disconnect with your physical reality causing a whole percentage of our awareness, and sense of presence to fly out the window. 

East London again

It's funny, when we were younger in 'world studies' we went over the theory's that two great philosophers had about the true characteristics of human beings. Aristotle and Plato I think it was, were more positive about us, they truly believed humans were able to act for the benefit of others and not for self-gain. Whilst Hobbes on the other hand believed humans were completely selfish and every act was for self-gain even if it wasn't conciously done for that purpose. Lets look at a few examples: In helping someone carry their bags up the stairs, you gain satisfaction and content. In having a child, you set yourself up with what will become a physical, emotional and financial support system (that especially benefits you in your older years), in opening yourself up in a relationship 'for' the other person, you gain love, support and all that jazz. Hobbes commonly used the example of letting individuals loose in a sweet shop, or a bank, and taking away rules - what happens? We'd go crazy and grab everything we could, not stand around holding hands. A more recent and solid example is last year when the raids took place in London and the more primal side of the community was revealed, looting shops, stealing whatever there was to steal, getting violent, using weapons etc.

.. And again

When I first learnt about these philosophies, we were asked to give our opinion on whom we agreed with, I chose the more optimistic view. Thinking of humans as purely selfish and evil just didn't float my boat. But as I've grown up and my eyes have widened to the reality of the world, I do believe Hobbes was right, as pessimistic as the idea may be. Our main goal as mammals is to survive - but to do this it does involve helping, supporting and interacting with others, so though at its core our nature may not be full of rainbows and fairies, it does manifest positive outcomes.. but back to where I started.

Street art in Neasden

As I was watching the smoke drift over the conker trees, grey buildings, and billboards advertising the latest and most lustrous hair shampoo! I thought of a poem that made me smile, it was written by a great friend that sadly passed away last year - but her gift of writing should always be appreciated:

People don’t look up. 
They spend their lives absorbed in their feet,
in the pavements,
in the leaves and dirt,
in the rubbish discarded on the streets. 
This is what we seem to be fascinated by, 
only daring to lift our heads when someone points out how beautiful the sunset is, 
or a bird, or rarely, 
occasionally, 
something above their normal eyeline.
There could be entire goddamn cities on rooftops and no-one would notice. 

- Cameron Krokatsis 

I remember this poem when I lean over my windowsill and watch passers by. It reminds me to look up once in a while when I'm strolling through an empty street. The other day a little girl in a blue school uniform with dark red hair, was sitting by the window gazing out at the empty street with a melancholy stare. What was going on in her mind was a mystery to me but the image the mystery created was beautiful. 

Time to get out of my head and check what's next on my to-do-list, deep breath!


 Recipe of the day: Fairy Cakes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/fairycakes_93711

Close your eyes - what can you see?

Fairy footprints

I sit in the loud silence of the evening. Some may recognize that saying as a paradox but it is no such thing. Having lived in tropical countries most of my life - I've been lulled to sleep by the spinning of fan blades, the buzz of mosquitoes (not the most pleasant sound) or the distant rush and beeps of cars. But here, isolated from civilization and surrounded by water that almost insulates us from sound waves - one can tune into the universal hum of silence. When I was younger I would put my ear to the pillow and hear the sound almost escalating. My imagination would go wild - I could see a whole world of tiny people, (similar to those in 'Horton hears a Who' by Doctor Seuss), the sound emanating from the minute golden foghorns that one could only faintly detect.

It's funny how the concept of imagination is generally associated with children. The idea that as we get older and more wrapped up in our physical worlds, our imagination loses priority. A large part of that does have to do with time. As kids we're free from the list of responsibilities that accompany adults. We have the time and space to roam, and our minds aren't subject to so much influence that's thrust upon us as we grow up. Newspapers, TV, just media in general, then there are books, events, people. Up until the age of about 12 I wouldn't watch the news out of fear. It was like watching a real life horror story, the confrontation with reality was too gory and brutal. But you get eased into it, the death of hundreds of people due to car bombs or warfare begins to seem more normal. Of course empathy remains but as I've said before, when you routinely see the same kind of things on the news, it brings with it a strong sense of normality.

Call me a flower child

When we lived in Sri Lanka during the last few years of the Civil War, I'd receive emails from friends in other countries asking if I was alive after a recent bombing - And that was normal. The news made it look so much more terrifying than the bubble us expats were living in; surrounded by constant parties, beaches and a lot of security guards. Actually there was one day that I remember quite clearly. We were 14- 15 years old, a group of friends and I. We'd bought tickets to a concert that had a few local well known expat bands that had won various music competitions - so you can imagine how excited we were. Everyone was wearing their 'Icarus' shirts and the buzz was getting bigger as the concert went on. 30 minutes into the show, the announcer comes up on stage with the microphone announcing "Hi everyone.. uhm.. there's currently an air raid occurring and the government's instructed for all lights and electricity to be switched off in Colombo to confuse the terrorists". Everyone nervously laughed at the 'joke' that he'd come up with to kick off the intermission. The lights all went out and I looked out the window in the Foyer.. I could see little bright lights shooting into the sky "Fireworks!" I was so excited - someone else screamed back "They're bullets!" Within seconds, thousands of teenagers in Icarus shirts were running into one another tapping furiously at their phones. The phone signal was totally gone and the doors had been padlocked by the guards to ensure none of us were hit outside the building. Everyone clustered together, the heat rose and sweat appeared on everyone's panic-stricken faces. "I love you if this is it", I heard that over and over again. It seemed so unreal, we heard about this on the News! We didn't experience this! It all turned out to be OK, the Tamil Tiger Planes were shot down by the Sinhalese army and the doors were eventually unlocked. Needless to say the concert did not go on, but our lives did.

Red poppy riding solo

Distinguish the grey horizon

So to link these slightly shocking stories to my main point. Imagination is almost 'lessened' because so much of what one would imagine via watching video or computer games, happens in real life so less is left for the imagination to conjure up. Some people do choose to spend their time indulging in their imaginations instead of falling victim to reality. Artists tune into their creative streams and focus them into more mature creations like sculptures, clothes, movies etc. But artists only make up a small percent of the population so what does that say about the rest of us? Imagine if the people that created our surroundings had wild imaginations like Dr. Seuss - our houses would be lop-sided and bright purple, Willy Wonker would have created chocolate rivers and bubble-gum trees, and Yayoi Kusama would have polka dots splattered all over the place.

Monopoly

Back on the road at last

Scone prep.

My brother and I discussed this on our walk today - to our left was the windy sea, due to the overcast, dismal day it reflected the grey sky; sea and sky blended together, separated by merely a line of dark grey horizon. To my right a royal contrast, golden fields of wheat blew in the breeze that created gentle waves of kernels at its surface.
Dad was walking slower to accompany my granny, and my brother and I walked on ahead. The discussion began with the effect video games have on the mind - his argument was there are far more pro's than cons and mine was vice versa. He claims that it aids his imagination, I asked "with violence?" And he began telling me of all the things he saw happening around him at that moment. I chimed in and added my usual whimsical fantasies of fairies and elves running between the straws of wheat. His fantasies always seem to resemble scenes from Lord of The Rings - a slight obsession to put it lightly.

Fresh scones baby!

All fantastical thought was paused as we ran into various forks in the path and had to zone back in while he figured out where we were going. The day dragged on, Smoked Haddock and salad for lunch followed by a big game of monopoly. Board games have to make an appearance on drizzly days. After my 12 year old brother had successfully made us all bankrupt with his ridiculous money-making tactics, I set about making fresh scones. I had the house to myself for a few hours as the others were off 'prawning' in the boat. I stood outside in the brightening sky and inhaled on a familiar friend.. The rest of the day has been slow and light. The scones were delicious with blackberries, clotted cream and jam (with tea of course) and the sausage pie for dinner filled us to the brim.
Time to close my eyes and switch on the imagination button for a few hours.


 Recipe of the day: Sausage pie (Any pastry can be used)
http://www.jusrol.co.uk/recipe.aspx?RecipeId=141