Asia Podrozniczka

In the Land of Smiles again

2010-07-13T06:34:00.000-07:00

Well, I am in South East Asia again and can't access my o2 account so for the time being please write to the hotmail account: asiakabat@hotmail.com. I will write more, finally, as soon as I get some wireless connection - this time I've got my own computer so hopefully will be able to write about this interesting land. Ciao for now, many hugs to everyone.

Laos - the Land of Smiles

2010-01-23T05:37:00.000-08:00

That's how Laos advertises itself and that's true - people are very friendly and easygoing and smile a lot, naturally, genuinely, from the heart. I have been travelling in Laos for two weeks and it was a beautiful journey. The internet places are scarce here and the connection is slow in many places so I will write about this fascinating land soon and until now just sending you greetings from Laos and many hugs.

Croatia and China

2010-01-02T04:08:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends,

Happy New Year!

I am sorry I haven't been in touch for so long. I hope to write about my latest adventures soon. In October I went to Croatia with Patrycja for a week and I have been in China since 24 of October. The main reason for this trip was to do clinical practice in acupuncture in a hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, which I did, and I am very glad - I learned a lot in terms of practice. I followed different doctors and was exposed to many patients and many different conditions. I did the training at the International Acupuncture Training Center, affiliated to WHO and the Beijing University of TCM. I worked at the hospital from 8:30 to 12 or 1 pm depending on the amount of patients which came for treatment. I worked at different clinics, the general clinic, VIP clinic, neurology clinic and my favourite - dr Zhou's clinic. Even though they have different names they do accept patients with all kinds of conditions to be treated, maybe the neurology clinic had more patients with conditions involving strokes, paralisis (like Bell's Palsy), spasms of all kinds and other conditions involving the nervous system (according to Western medicine diagnosis). I learned most from dr Zhou who is a wonderful person, doctor and teacher. She was a Western medical doctor first and then got fascinated with traditional chinese medicine and studied acupuncture. Patients from around China and the world come to see her. I finished the practice and stayed a little longer in Beijing with my friends Monika and Marek, and with new friends I made there, fellow students Issak (from Korea) and Alexandra (from inner Mongolia), and also friends I made in the Polish embassy. I spent Christmas with all these wonderful people and after Christmas I left Beijing to travel. I first went to Guilin and greeted New Year there and then today I came to Kunming. Tonight, at 11 pm, I will be going to the old city of Dali which is further north in the Yunnan province. Here's the jist of my whareabouts. The more detailed description of places I've seen and visited will come soon. In the meantime many hugs to all of you friends and readers of my blog, and many kisses.

P.S. I have no access to my blog. Like four years ago blogs and youtube are blocked here so I am sending this message to Marcin who will post it for me on my blog. If I come across some internet place with fast internet connection, I will write again, and if not, then I will write from Laos which I plan to go to next.

Wiselka, Ogrodzieniec and Krakow

2009-09-10T13:50:00.000-07:00

So the birthday party was great. It didn't happen on the beach but around the campfire in Michal's garden. All my friends and Michal's guests who were at his house at that time were invited. There was a beautiful bouquet of forest flowers which my neighbor Marysia made (made with the herb "krwawnik" which is blood-giving and regulating, blood=soul...) and a big cake and some smaller cakes, wine and beer, and most importantly wonderful atmosphere under the Wiselka dark and starry sky. The whole time I spent in Wiselka was wonderful. Wiselka, or particularly Michal's house, is a great meeting place. My friends and neighbors joined me there, friends whom I met in Wiselka earlier also were there as Michal's guests who come to his house all the time, and then there were new friends who stayed at Michal's house so I made new friends... There are several rooms at Michal's house which he lets to vacationers in the summer and all vacationers become friends. They meet at a big kitchen downstairs, they make campfires at night, they watch each other's dogs and kids, they go for trips outside of Wiselka, and then they also visit each other at the places in which they live. This time I visited Gosia and Marek who live in Szczecin and Wlodzimierz who lives in Krakow but the story about these visits will come in a minute. So in Wiselka we woke up early with Max, we went for a walk to the forest (Max to pee, me to eat blackberries), then we ate breakfast, then we went to the beach (Max to bathe in the sea and sleep on dunes, me to study my Chinese medical texts), then we went to the village for dinner, then I went to visit Michal's father who is over 80 and was in need of Chinese medicine and someone who can talk about paralel worlds, then I did acupuncture for Michal (so that he can stop smoking for ever...), then we went to the beach again to watch the sunset, then went back home for supper or for campfire with friends, then we dragged ourselves to bed and we were so tired, but happy, on some occasions that we kinda fell asleep before we reached the bed... Originally I planned to stay on my piece of land (1km away from Michal's house) in a tent but all the friends who were supposed to stay there with me decided to stay at Michal's house so we also stayed at his house. We changed the rooms a few times to make space for some guests, slept in Michal's famous "salon" and eventually ended up in a small wooden house in the garden, which was actually the best thing. So the outlined plan of the day was sometimes interrupted by some short trips somewhere, going across the border to German towns and the like. We didn't go to Bornholm this time because the ferries go there only on Saturdays and we didn't want to stay a whole week on the island. Some other time. Wiselka's air is the best air I have come across. After three weeks Max and I became strong and beautiful, and full of energy of exquisite kind... Also my daily visits to Michal's dad were incredible. We talked a lot, I did some acupuncture, we exchanged some funny stories and humor, and we bacame close. When we were saying goodbye I felt this connection to Mr. Marciniak, something hard to describe, something elusive but eternal... and I thought that this will happen in the future maybe, that some of my patients will become my friends, or that they will grasp something I wanted to share with them and that I will grasp what they wanted me to know, without saying a lot, just absorbing the energy. During my daily visits we were both learning from each other, learning stuff that is most valuable, stuff that books don't teach, only life can...

Then Gosia and Marek invited me to visit them in Szczecin. I met them three years ago in Michal's house and it was wonderful to meet again. I stayed at their beautiful old house, we went biking around the city, we went to see "The Tempest" in the courtyard of the old townhouse (but were chased out by a great storm and rain, the tempest indeed), we went to a museum and art galleries, we listened to music at night... Szczecin is a beautiful city. It was badly damaged during WWII, a lot has been rebuilt and now the rebuilding and beautifying goes on full speed. It has many nice old buildings and the new ones are built to resemble the old so the atmosphere remains. It is also a port and I love port cities.

I stayed a few days in Poznan after my return, did a million things that always await me on my return (it's funny but there's always some administrative stuff, some kind of mistake about the house, the car, this or that, taxes or fees due, etc., etc., which is made by some secretary in some office and then it takes me a few days to fix it... it seems it's the Polish specialty, the very erroneous administrative body - it resembles Kafka's "The Castle" - and the administrative body's pride, and the ordinary customer, tax payer, who has to deal with it... and break it, but not in a way that it is too obvious because then it is impossible to fix anything...). And after I dealt with the fixing I went to Ogrodzieniec to visit Mariusz whom I met in the Bydgoszcz School of Acupuncture and who also visited me in July. We went to visit the castle in Ogrodzieniec, or rather the ruins of the castle. The castle was very big originally and it still has a lot of space to walk about. It was built on the hill so the view from it is beautiful. This region of Poland - Jura krakowsko-czestochowska - is famous for its hilly form and for mountains or rocks good for rock-climbing. Mariusz climbs rocks and I went with him and his friends rock-climbing on a rock right next to the castle. I never did it before and thought I would be scarried hopelessly but I wasn't really. Mariusz was securing the line from the bottom and the line was fastened to a kind of harness tied around our waists. I stood under the vertical rock and though it would be impossible to get to the top of something like that. But the rock is quite porous and there are spaces to find for toes and fingers and push up. It was fun and when I got to almost top I felt good. It was not a big rock but still it gave me a feeling of elation, physical and mental. I will have to do it again in the future. We also went with Mariusz to visit the salt mine in Wieliczka. It is one of the oldest salt mines in Europe and the only one still in existance - not a working mine but very well preserved. It is now a museum and it can be visited with a guide. There is also a sanatorium part where people stay for inhailing salty air for all kinds of immune and respiratory problems. I was enchanted with the many corridors, sculptures made of salt, all kinds of chapels and even a salt cathedral (dedicated to St. Kinga - the patron of the Wieliczka Salt Mine), the salty lakes, the old wooden equipment, etc. We had a great guide who explained everything to us, who told us a lot of jokes, poetry and even sang some songs. It was great. Everything happens about 150 meters under the ground - you can even have coffee or eat dinner at the mine's cafe and restaurant. It is a really cool place and I recommend it to everyone who visits Poland. In the evening Mariusz's friends joined us for "parzonki" which is a tipical dish for this region of Poland (close the coal mines). It is layers of potatoes, sausage, bacon, onion, beets and carrots, put in a cast iron pot and placed in the campfire. It is done exactly the same way as the dish in Minas Gerais, a mining region in Brazil. I wrote about it when I was describing my trip to Brazil. Very tasty. We had it with home made vodka rakija which Mariusz brought from Croatia as him and his friends toured Croatia on bikes in August.

After I parted with Mariusz and his parents I went to Olkusz (which wasn't in my plans but I got a lift there on my way to Krakow) and visited the small but nice old town market square. Then I went to Krakow and walked around the huge old town market square. It was full of tourists... so full that I felt tired of the touristy atmosphere after an hour... Krakow is Poland's main tourist attraction and it shows. I remember it from some years before and it was such a nice and quiet place. It is still beautiful, with its old buildings, cobbled streets, many churches, the river flowing through it, the Wawel castle, but the atmosphere is gone. I am lucky that Wlodzimierz gave me a tour so at least I could see the places off the beaten track and I have good memories of it, walking in the evening when it becomes quieter and frendlier. We spotted a concert (Bach, Vivaldi and Morricone) in the Church of St. Peter and Paul and I went to listen to the music inside the beautiful interior. Later that evening in Wlodzimierz's house we listened to all kinds of opera pieces, masses and songs until 2 am. We eat breakfast listening to fado and film music... Wlodzimierz loves music and has a very big music collection. I then went to visit the Wawel castle - home to many Polish kings- which is quite big, consists of many buildings and a huge cathedra. In one of the cathedral's towers there's the Zygmunt bell, weighing almost 13 tons, still in use on some especially important occasions. I visited the treasury and it had very little jewelery and common everyday use things, mostly it consisted of armory, all kinds of weapons, helmets and cannons. While I was walking through the treasury I was thinking why people spent so much time and energy on decorating weapons which were used for killing and not on pots and plates they used everyday at home with their families... all these swords, muskets, bows and arrows... all were encrusted with precious and semiprecious stones, pearls, gold and silver; even horses' harnesses and seddles used in warfare were exquisitely decorated. All this made to be used in wars and to kill... to present the might...

It is wonderful to visit friends or to be visited by friends. I love these trips and the time spent together. It's one of life's big flavors, all these conversations, exchange of ideas, learning from it, exchanging energy, admiring nature and art together...

On 1st of October I will be going with Patrycja to Croatia. Patrycja found cheap tickets Warsaw-Budapest-Split so we are going to backpack for a week. We want to see Split, Dubrovnik and some islands.

And now I am in the process of doing the last fixes to the house, finding tenant for one floor of the house, and getting ready to depart to Asia after my return from Croatia. Unless something unexpected happens, someone else invites me to visit him or her and I postpone my trip. But such is life and I go with the flow of it...

movies and travel

2009-07-27T04:33:00.000-07:00

I thought everybody forgot about my blog (I almost did) but it turns out people are still reading it, some I didn't even know where reading it, so I am gladly going to write more. I even ran into a friend Iza I haven't seen for 25 years and she is reading my blog - what a surprise - and we talked standing on the old market square in my homtown and we felt like there was no 25-year gap. In fact we haven't changed much physically and mentally we are on the same waves... When it comes to things unexpected and so called coincidences, which I experience daily, I will talk about them here later. First, since last time I was talking about a movie, I will start talking about two movies which I recently saw (or even three). One is absolutely great, one is not so great but very useful, and the third is interesting and good but dark.

The first movie is entitled "Rusalka" (which means the mermaid in English). I saw this movie with Marysia. I mentioned in the blog before that I met Marysia in Calcutta in India. Our meeting was highly "coincidental", the only person I met in my travels who lives in my hometown. Since then all our meetings have been coincidental. Marysia calls me and says "here and here there's a movie/festival/some cultural event and we get together right away and we go. It is totally spontaneous each time, like in the beginning. So this time it was like this also. We went to the movies, the cinema in what used to be the "home of the railwaymen", and saw "Rusalka" and got enchanted by it. We left the cinema uplifted and the rest of the people left it sad and crying. Such is the difference in perception... I read some reviews after we saw the movie and mostly they were only about the superficial stuff of the movie, because like every great movie it has many layers, superficial, deeper and very deep. The very deep layer to me was the idea that we come to the world for a purpose. We have a lesson to learn or a test to pass. Sometimes we have many lessons to learn in a lifetime, sometime maybe we carried over from the past life just one task to complete. It seems that Rusalka, the Russian girl from the movie, had to overcome the feeling of jealeousy which was destructive. The first time it came over her when she was a little girl and was jelous about her mother, she was very destructive and burnt a house. When this feeling came over her the next time, when she grew up, she overcame it - she found love in herself which allowed her to help instead of destroying. Eventually love for another human being was greater then selfish feeling of jelousy and the need to keep a person to herself. After feeling the bliss of that emotion, could she ever feel this emotion so strongly again? Was there any reason for her to be around after the task was completed and lesson learned? There wasn't, hence, the ending of the story, for me and Marysia one full of hope, for the people in the cinema, who were only looking at the flesh and not at the spiritual, a tragedy. You will know what I am talking about after you see the movie. And don't read the reviews before you see it because they are flat and superficial.

The second movie is "The Secret". I friend downloaded it to my computer some weeks ago. I've heard about it and I've heard about the book on which it is based. I saw the first 15 minutes of the movie, thought "what kind of superficial bs this is", turned it off and decided it was a waste of time to watch it. Then I started thinking that if so many people read the book and watched the movie, since it became such "bestseller", I should see it to see what attracts people to "The Secret". So I watched it yeasterday and here's what I think. It's not "a secret". It's basicaly the pauperized version of the notion of karma - whatever you do, it comes back to you, whether you do it, think of it, or intend it. Eastern philosophies have been dealing with this notion for thousands of years. The movie says that now the quantum physics, and the latest reasearch, points out that "everything is energy" so "we are connected to everything". Physicists say that we can attract certain energy, etc., etc. For anyone who has travelled outside of the Western world or read about research other then the Western scientists' research, whatever is said in the movie is a surface of the "research" done by people in other parts of the world. However, regardless of how simple, or - I have to use this word here - primitive the stuff they talk about is in the movie, it is quite usefull to the people living in the reality of the Western world and Western civilization. The mind of the Westerner cannot believe based on the intuition, it can believe only what it sees or percepts with the senses. It has been trained to do it from the beginning, by the system of education and the everpresent media. So it's hard to say to the Western man "believe what you feel" - he has to see to believe. So it's easier to say "believe that you are going to get a new bike or a car". I agree with the makers of the movie: if you ask for a car, you will get it. I have often said this to the people in the acupuncture clinic in NY: "Why don't you ask the Universe for what you want?" Some were looking at me as if just came straight from Mars. I know asking works and it's not a secret. It gives people a glimpse of how good life can be if they get into communication with the Universe. Finally they realize they are not alone, help can come, the energy (or whatever it is) comes their way, things start to change positively, things become clear and bright. And maybe once people get what they want they can go to higher plane of understanding and ask about other things than material things and go into deeper understanding or reality. The other thing I like about the movie is that it doesn't talk about modern psychology and doesn't use any of the stuff modern psychology uses. The people in the movie say that about 80% of people in the West grow up in disfunctional families (because our model of the family is disfunctional in the first place so no wonder, but that's another story) where there's alcohol, sexual or physical abuse, or verbal abuse, etc. So basically we are all kind of screwed up from the beginning so there's no reason to be feeling sorry for ourselves that it happened particularly to us since it is not particular to us but particular to almost anybody. Instead of looking for shrinks (who are as screwed up as ourselves) then and going over and over our bruised selves, we can just start waking up in the morning and saying what we are thankful for. That's IT. Instead complaining we fell into Yocasta or Oedipus complex, and that we have this psychosis or that neurosis, we forget about this complex or that complex and just say we are thankful we can walk on our two feet, move our two hands, and the head is in its place as well. If one gets into thankful mode one can make a very looooong list. And then we realize, as the movie says, that we are "timeless... we are the picture of God in the form of a human body... we have Godly potential..." and then we realize we can do basically anything we want. We can start living life instead of dozing off life in one day. I also liked what they said in the movie about health : "you can heal yourself". You get sick because you want to and you get healthy because you want to. Jao de Deus in Brasil said that he removes tumors in people's bodies because it makes them feel that since he did something, they will regain health. But actually, he says, whether he does it or doesn't doesn't matter - it's all in the people's mind.

The third movie "Aphonia and the Bees" is a movie by Polish director Jan Jakub Kolski. It is a very good movie but it's about the dark human nature, about the dark times in the Polish history, about hidden emotions which burst out with uncontroleable force when held in too long... It's interesting, like all movies by this director, so I can recommend it, even though it's so dark...

And about the time since my last entry. I did a series of shorter trips to visit my friends. I went to Slovakia to visit Katarina, to Warsaw to visit Marcin and Dorotka, to Mazury to visit Viola and Marek. Then I went to Marocco to visit friends I made there in January and to see the festival of Gnoua music in Essaouira. I did a stop over in Girona in Spain. I am going to write about these trips soon. On Saturday I am going to go to Wiselka and I will stay there until the 20 August. I will take with me my friend Jarek, who is joining Marzenka and their son Iwo (and their two dogs Bard and Pola) who are already staying at Michal's house. On weekend there's a festival of Slavs and Vikings in Wolin, close to Wiselka, so we'll spend some time then. On Sunday Gosia and Rashid are coming to visit me in Wiselka, my neighbours are going to join me, some other friends... it will be great. We will be walking in the forest, sunbathing and Balticbathing, picking blueberries and running with dogs on the beach. I also want to go the island of Bornholm on the Baltic sea. It belongs to Denmark but it's straight up from Wiselka and there are ferries and catamarans going there from Miedzyzdroje. I heard the island is beautiful and people bike around it. I will get the riksha to pack Maksio and we will tour the island.

In September I will be getting ready for my next trip to South East Asia. I decided I will go to Thailand first, then visit neighbouring countries and then I will either stay there for a while or go to China. More details soon.

And next week I will be 40, 1040 that is. But actually I am timeless so I will be 0000. In any case I like to celebrate timelesseness so there will be a party on the beach at sunset. Anyone who wants to come to the party is invited: 7 pm, Wiselka Beach, Wolin National Park, Baltic Sea. Many hugs to everyone.

Vicky Christina Barcelona

2009-04-19T14:30:00.001-07:00

I just saw this movie with Hania and I loved it. It basically reflects what I have been thinking about lately which is such: although I dislike melodrama, it is better to live life fully, expressing all emotions and being honest to the point it hurts about them even if it means there's going to be some melodrama involved in life eventually, than live life half-heartedly, always sticking to the "plan" of what we imagine our life should be or sticking to the norm or to the society's rules, never risking anything and being afraid of trying anything out of the ordinary. And maybe that is the reason why I feel better in places where people are hot blooded, live emotions on the spot, never look back and never regret anything. And that is why I feel so bored in societies in which everything is according to the plan of a "perfect" life, perfect family, perfect job, perfect house, etc. and not taking any risks so that that perfect life remains "perfect". I feel very connected to Juan Antonio and Maria Elena and to their living out of the moment. Hania said an interesting thing: the triangle Maria Elena, Juan Antonio and Christina is honest and out in the open. Dough will be in "perfect" marriage with Vicky, until he gets bored out of his mind one day and gets a mistress on the side and will go to great lengths to hide it. In the first triangle everybody deals with their emotions as they come and everything is discussed as it happens. In the second triangle, in the "perfect world", when the wife (or the husband) finds out about the spouse being unfaithfull, then the melodrama starts and there's so much of it that it can kill everything. In any case, and in my case in particular, I come to the conclusion that there's nothing worse than a boring life and it is better to ask for what you want and to get it if you can than lie flat and hide in the never changing status quo. It's interesting how at one point Christina, the American tourist, suggests to Juan Antonio that Maria Elena should see some shrink about her suicidal attempt and mood changes in general. I don't think Maria Elena would think there's anything wrong with her, anything that would require any doctor's help: this is how she is and how she deals with life, in a compulsive way but that is what make her feel ALIVE. Would she want a doctor to proscribe some pills so that she would not be able to feel all the emotions, the pain, the tragedy? Hell no! She may want to kill herself at one point but to be half dead while being alive by numbing herself by prescribtion drugs - I don't thinks she would want that. I liked so many things about this movie. I also loved the scenery of Oviedo. We decided with Hania that we will some time in the future undertake a road trip to see all this beauty.

My story about Morocco will come. I have talked to Gosia who is coming with Rashid to Poland in June and we will go to Morocco to visit Rashid's family and the friends whom I made there recently. So I think I will get to the details of my trip before we set out to Morocco again but if not, then I will write with new impressions.

Now I am almost done with the house renovation. I will start looking for school of acupuncture, hopefully to start in the fall. In the summer I will still be here in Poland, making short trips here and there, visiting friends whom I haven't seen for a long time, visiting Katarina in Slovakia for a few days, visiting Marcin and Dorotka and their son Tomek (the next baby will be born in a few weeks) in Warsaw, visiting Gosia and Rashid in Lodz, and enjoying the good time.

Easter greetings

2009-04-14T13:12:00.001-07:00

I have been thinking about you dear friends during Easter. Easter is a big holiday in Poland and probably the most spiritual one. It lasts two days so there's lots of time to celebrate life, to sit at tables full of traditional dishes, share the food and conversations with friends, family and neighbors, and to think about spiritual and earthly things, and about people we love who are far away. And in my case I always think of people who are far away since due to my nomadic nature my friends and loved ones are spread out throughout the planet (and beyond).

Starting with spiritual stuff, on Sunday morning, after I woke up and patted Maksio who came for his morning back rub, I thought how the Easter morning is the celebration of resurrecting from the dead, from non-existence, and how for me every day is the Ester morning and every day I live as if I lived the whole full life in it. I was resting in bed, in the quiet home (my mom went to the South of Poland to visit her sisters and extended family so I was home alone with Max), feeling incredibly well and peaceful. Then, after contemplating resurrection, other dimensions, and the wonderful unexpectability of things, I got out of bed and started the day. I went for the Easter breakfast to the house of my neighbors and friends whom I will call "the Dezor Kids" since, although they are grown up now, to me they will always be kids because I remember how they were all born (I was a teenager then) and how they all were in diapers, how they were changing teeth and growing. Out of 8 kids (they were 9 kids but the second oldest boy Adam died) 7 still live in their family house: Ania, Michal, Julia, Marcel, Liliana, Laura and Luiza (the twins). The 8th child Helena lives in Belgium with her family (her partner Emmanuel and two little babies Julian and Celina). We were also accompanied by Ania's boyfriend Max (who is from Argentina) and Julia's boyfriend Pawel. Girls bake delicious cakes and cook good food so the table was full of all kinds of home made delicacies. We had lots of fun eating and talking and afterwards we went for a long walk with Ania's dogs Taco and Lilo and with my Maksio. Everything is blooming in the forest and it is getting warm so the walk was great. We really are lucky that we have this beautiful forest and lakes so close to our homes. We were chilling out the whole day, talking, watching short films made by Filip (Liliana's boyfriend) and sharing lots of laughs. The next day, still a holiday in Poland and what is called Smingus dyngus - the tradition of pouring water on each other - I met with Patrycja and Hania for coffee and cake and then later we went altoghter with the Dezor Kids and their cousins for a long walk again and got somehow wet. The Smingus dyngus tradition is still very much alive (it comes from the very old times as I heard): people run around with little plastic bottles or bags full of water but also with buckets and water guns so one can get quite wet if one can't run fast... I had the camera so I was spared. After the walk I visited Hania and her family and once again we set down at an Easter table eating and drinking and enjoying the time together. In the evening we all met together again in my freshly renovated house for a party that ended at 2 am. I ate a LOT of cake this holiday... a few types of cheescake, two types of poppyseed cake, a few types of babka, a yeast cake, chocolates... Today I started the day with drinking liver-detox tea... But it was all worth it because everything was delicious and what are the holidays for?! Today my friend Przemek came for leftovers because he couldn't join us yesterday but I still have cakes until the rest of the week. More friends will come and all will be eaten in due time. I enjoyed the holiday a lot - it left a very warm feeling in my heart.

Well, and about Morocco - I will write about it soon. I just have to finish that freaken tax return which I pushed aside until now and now is the last day so got to do it before the deadline. How I dislike this paperwork stuff... absolute torture... but what has to be done has to be done and then I can move on to enjoyable things. Hugs to everyone.

House Renovation

2009-03-13T11:12:00.000-07:00

Hi Steve! Nice to hear from you. Where should I start? The craziness in my life continues...

Maybe I will start with the latest. The latest is such. While I was away in Marocco the main water pipe in the house broke, hectolitres of water spilled into the basement/first floor and everything got wet and the parquet floor started swimming... Around the same time my mom got sick with the flu and then got a Bell's Palsy (paralysis of the face due to the facial nerve infection). I came back with my own infection but nonetheless pulled up my sleaves and got to work. First I did acupuncture for my mom (her face got back to normal and she also noticed that her facial wrinkles got smaller, as a side effect). Then I went to work on the house. And I am still working, after six weeks! Due to a wonderful coincidence (or God's finger, as I believe) my elementary school friend Michal, whom I haven't seen since I left the elementary school, came for a visit because he had an idea of a 25-year reunion of our class and I was on his list. So I asked him if he knew a plumber and he did and that's how I found Mr. Marian who turned out to be a plumber, and electrician, a painter, a floor fixer - in two words we called such a man "Mr. Gold Hand". So Mr. Marian also pulled his sleaves and together we have been fixing the house bottom to top. Today Mr. Marian came for the last time and the rest, such as fixing stuff outside like the roof, garden, etc., he will do when the snow finally thaws... because it is still cold in Poland although the spring is in the air. So the floor downstairs got replaced. We also had rats which most likely came from the stables which are close to the house so we got rid of them and had to replace some pipes which they chew, these nasty rats. Everything is fixed. Now I also have a heap of garbage in the backyard, an incredibly big heap of garbage, which was in the basement because my dad had the herding disorder which means he couldn't throw away anything and everything was collected somewhere in the house. I still have about 100 screwdrivers, lots and lots of bolts and nails of all impossible kinds, three lawn movers, different types of plastic garden chairs, miles of cables, tin, carpets, not to mention most likely a few cars in car parts stored in the garage and the garden. I also have a whole VW of 30 years which I decided to sell. I love the VW but it is a car that requires constant work and I don't think I can do it. So there's still more work to do but the worst part is done. At least the house became brighter and lighter and I made happy a lot of people with all the stuff that I donated and gave away. I still have to drive some stuff for the flee market, but when it gets warmer, and books to the library. Mr. Marian became part of the family and enjoyed home cooking of my mother and the espresso I made for him in the italian espresso machine. Mr. Marian drove 50 km every day, because he lives in a village outside of my hometown (25 km away), so I am espacially grateful for his services and that he agreed to help me with everything.

I take breaks from fixing the house and I go everyday for a long walk with Max and then with my friend Hania to the gym. We found a great place for spinning. It's called Magiel fitness. Magiel is the old device to press the loundry so we are pressing our bodies hard there. It is located in an old townhouse and all the beutiful ceiling fixings and the wooden floor have been kept so it's like spinning in a colonial house. The instructors are great. So we start a day with driving Hania's son Wojtek to school in the morning and then we speed to catch a class. We get energy for the whole day. Sometimes after that we go for a coffee to our version of Barnes and Nobles. And then Hania goes to her chores and I go to meet with Mr. Marian who is waiting in the house. On Sundays Mr. Marian had a day off and I had days off too to enjoy some theater and museum activities. I am really impressed how nice my hometown has became lately. So many nice cultural things are happening and so many nice coffee places flourished for conversations. It's really great.

I don't know if I mentioned earlier that I decided not to go back to Amsterdam and to study there. I decided to look for a different school. I found a school in Poland, 100 km away from my hometown, and I will ask if I can continue my education there. Classes start in September. I will look at this school and some other schools in Europe and in China. In any case, I am very glad the water pipe broke because I did what had to be done and what was waiting for me to be done since my father's death. After this part of my life is cleaned and fixed, I can move on to the next chapter, without worrying there are things waiting for me to finish. So until September I will most likely be here, at home, enjoying friends and nature. I started giving English lessons as a way of getting some money and I will most likely just do this so that I can be free in the summer to spend some time in Wiselka on the Baltic coast.

And now I can start writing on Marocco. I will do it in a new entry. I actually woke up with a cold today so I will take a break for rest and some linden tea and write some more soon. It seems I have been sick on and off this entire winter. Time to work on my immune system... I am sending you lots of hugs, my friends everywhere.

Finally!

2009-02-18T06:54:00.000-08:00

Dear friends, finally! I have the internet connection at home. I will be connected to the world and to you now. I will soon write about my travels in Marocco and about my life in Poland at the moment. It's midday now in my hometown Poznan and I have to run some errands but I will be back soon. Ciao!

Happy New Year

2009-01-02T11:51:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to everyone!

By some strange turn of events I came to Marocco a few days ago. I will write more if I find a keyboard that resembles the one I am used to. Until then all good wishes to everyone.

more on Amsterdam

2008-11-30T03:45:00.000-08:00

Zinnia's comment made me want to write more about the "attack" issue because I left out in the last entry of what else came to my mind after it happened. I also thought of how easy it is for people to blame immigrants for whatever bad happens. That is basically what I thought after the man told me it's the "immigrant problem". I didn't see the faces of the men who attacked me. They spoke in English and I couldn't point at any specific accent. The policemen suggested they could have been drug addicts because yes, they do also have people addicted to hard drugs here. So... To assume immediately that immigrants attack people is racial or national or however you want to call it, profiling. Most of the people who are begging for money on the New York subway are Americans. How many times have I listened to elaborate stories of how they came to live on the street (one woman was begging for the eleven years I was in Queens for diapers for her little baby...). Of course, I understand these people are sick, weak, mentally unstable, addicted, for the most part. But they have legal status and the knowledge of the language of the land. At the same time all these immigrants work minimum or below minimum wage (if they have no legal status or they don't speak English), working long-hour and hard jobs the autochtons would never even consider doing. And they are not respected for what they do, on the contrary. I actually found an article in the Dutch paper discussing this issue. There was a voice defending all the immigrants doing the work that needs to be done but nobody wants to do here except immigrants - because immigrants have no choice, basically, but to take whatever. And lets not forget that what the "rich" and "developed" countries do affects hugely the entire world. Many of the world poverty or the political, tribal, etc. conflicts, fueled by arms provided from developed countries (and I mean ALL developed countries because I don't think there is one which would not be guilty of trading arms), made the people flee their land in search for a peaceful and better life conditions. Everything is very connected these days. Before we point a finger at anyone we should think long and hard...

After a week of living at Martijn's apartment I moved to the apartment of Nicole - a person I met in Colombia in October. I came to visit her and she offered that I stay with her as she has a spare room at the moment. Nicole was born in Colombia but has lived in Amsterdam since she was four years old. Nicole took me to an opening of a restaurant where her daughter is a manager, she took me to the huge outside market which I very much liked (with all kinds of things to wear, furniture, herbs, bikes, street food... anything under the sky) and the cafe "Granny" which she has visited all the years of her adult life and which remained unchanged all these years. We went to see a movie which was a part of the Documentary Movie Festival. I also walked on foot, since I love walking, through many streets and found some streets I particularly like and a cafe with good vibes and great capuccino on Utrechtstraat. So I found some nice things and places in Amsterdam and it will be nice to be coming here the next year for school and more wondering around.

Yesterday we also had a party at Femke and Vivhar's apartment (and their 4 cats), my schoolmates, to celebrate the end of the semester. I very much like the atmosphere at school. It's very different from my former school. I begin to fully understand the importance of Qi Gong exercises. What we did at Swedish was kind of playful and was used more for relaxation and a break from all the other theoretical classes. The Qi Gong here is really taught for the purpose of self-cultivation and basically means that we have to do the Qi Gong exercises for minimum of 3 hours a day. They are exercises which teach us the power of mind over body as everything else stems from it, from the perspective of Daoist philosophy. In the beginning the exercises are very strenous, for the body and the mind. It's sitting, standing and wide-stance meditation for the most part. I find it painful and challenging but everybody does in the beginning, so it just takes time to get into the practice. However, after the exercises I experience incredible lightness and clarity of mind. It's very hard work but very rewarding. Apart from the Qi Gong exercises I have also other subjects to study but the Qi Gong is the base. This is most important because the mind free of delusions is what makes a person compassionate and understanding so a doctor who know the mechanics of using needles and point combinations, etc. cannot be a good doctor if he is also not cultivated toward mindfulness and mind and body clarity. I think that once one does the Qi Gong exercises one fully understands the difference between self-cultivated and unself-cultivated mind. The insturctions are given in one-on-one classes and it is up to the student to decide how to schedule them, whether once or twice a week, depending on the student feeling ready to go to the next step. There are specific modules/classes to be taken but it is up to the student to design the schedule so the responsibility belongs to the student. Depending on the self-cultivation process and the student's seriousness and self-discipline, he or she will need less or more time to complete the program, and will graduate sooner or later.

I woke a little sick today, I was biking with Nicole in this cold and damp weather, so I think I will stay home today and read Chinese Anatomy and Physiology reader as a way of bed-rest entertainment. Warm hugs to everyone.

Amsterdam

2008-11-13T07:45:00.000-08:00

Going back in time: after returning from Brazil I packed my stuff and sent it to Poland and gave up my apartment in NY. Then I went to Colombia for two weeks. I went snorkling in Islas Rosarias north of Cartagena - beautiful islands on the Caribean Sea, then for a few days I stayed in Cartagena, and then I went to Santa Marta and Taganga - a small fishing village with fishermen, artists and tourists. It's a lazy, laid-back small village where everyone who stays there for a few days knows each other. I met some old friends there whom I knew from Tyrona before and made new friends. Wonderful people live there, mostly the local artists who went there from all over the South America and the fishermen. I met also "hippie Cogui"as they are called by the locals or indigenous people who live on the verge of the jungle and the modern world, have built small houses and live partly according to old indigenous ways and partly according to modern society's ways. I learned a lot of many interesting things about the amazonian plants, also medicinal, about purification processes done by the peoples deep in the amazonian forest and about the possibility of going there and studying with the medicine man in the future, with permission of the tribal governing bodies. I will use these contacts in the future when I am ready to travel into these villages in the heart of the selva to get purified myself and to study the medicinal plants. When I came back to NY I stayed with Marzenka, Jarek and their daughter Nadinka, who were my neighbors all these years in NY and who became my friends. I went to the last herbal classes to get the certificate and then packed what remained of my stuff, said goodbye to everyone dear to me and left for Poland on the 21st of October. Katarina visited me in Poland a few days afterwards and we went to visit Michal in Wiselka. We had a wonderful time, walking on the beach (with my doggie Maksio whom we took with us), visiting the little towns on the German side, visiting the Polish buffalo natural reserve, eating delicious Polish home cooking at "Maria's Restaurant" in Miedzyzdroje - a town 10 km away from Michal's home. It was a very relaxing time. We slept many hours each night, getting used to the fresh ozonated and iodided air of the Baltic coast. After our return Kasia went home to Slovakia and I got ready to leave to Amsterdam. I arrived on the 6th and immediately went to my new school to get acquinted with teachers and students and to see what my schedule would be like. As I am quite advanced in the program I will need to do only a few courses to get the BA (with the BA in Europe it's possible to already work in the field of Chinese medicine) but they are stretched out throughout the year so what I have decided to do is to go back to Poland and come here for a few days every two weeks or so. Prices of rooms and apartments are quite high here and in gereral I like my home town more than Amsterdam. Amsterdam must be beautiful in the summer but at the moment it is gray, windy, it rains a lot and in general this is not my type of energy. I walked a lot through the city. It has very nice streets going along the canals, very nice architecture, people from around the world so it resembles NY in that sense, very nice parks so it looks like the city is build in a park in some places. There's general sense of freedom: dogs run in the parks without leashes, the famous "coffee shops"are everywhere (the places where you can smoke marihuana) and the smoke of weed is overpowering at times (seems like the locals smoke responsibly because they will always have the possibility but the tourists smoke themselves to death and they look very stoned sometimes on walking out of the coffeeshop), and so are the stores with all kinds of goods made from cannabis and various halucingenic mushrooms, the ladies in langerie are in the windows waiting for the customers in the red light district (I went to take a look and they are of various colors, shapes and sizes from around the world looks like), live porno shows are advertised in the same district. Looks like very open society. I live at the moment in the apartment of a schoolmate Martijn in the Turkish-Marrocan district and most of the women there cover their heads or are veiled altogether in black chadors and it's hard to find a restaurant that would serve anything else than kebab. So it seems Amsterdam welcomes everything and everybody. Seems like nice but somehow the energy here is stale. For some reason, maybe because it's autumn, there's just no fresh vibrant energy that I know from other places. My hometown is not as open as Amsterdam but I feel some of that energy there. I walked with Katarina and then with Patrycja in the old city, around the lake and forest behind my house and I felt vibrant. So in any case I see myself more there than here. Another thing is that I got robbed the day after I came here. I was walking from school at 8 pm in a quiet residential area and two men attacked me from the back, one threw me on the bushes and the other put a knife next to my belly. They asked for money and I gave them a little sack I had in my pocket with about 10 euros. I was so deep in shock, that this has happened to me here and never during my trips to "dangerous" places around the globe, that when they asked for more money because "that was not enough" I was just laying in the bushes, not moving, thinking "rats, I come from the exhile to my home continent after all these years and I get this?!?!?!". More than anything I was angry. I had a laptop and more money in my backpack but they would have to lift me from the bushes to get to it and they didn't because some people were coming from a nearby hotel and they ran away. Nonetheless I felt really bad after it happened because nothing like this happened to me before. I asked a man who was passing by shortly after the incident where the police station was and he offered to walk me and while we were walking I told him what happened and he said "I am sorry for what happened. It used to be such a safe place but for the past 3 years, since the coming of, sorry for the word, "immigrants" it's not as safe as before."I told him I was an immigrant. He said he was sorry. I said he didn't have to be, he was not the one who robbed me. He was sorry in any case. Bla, bla, bla. What came to my mind later was that some long time ago people from this land went to sack others and their houses and their land and they even named it New Amsterdam after they robbed it away so the inevitable law of karma always gets fulfilled. It seems that maybe we should not be punished for what our grandfathers did but maybe we were the grandfathers in a different life? Or maybe it's the responsibility of the collective conscious of the land and its people and what must be paid must be paid? So if I owe you any money I forgot to return, just let me know... I don't want to drag it to the next incarnation... The police officer who interviewed me said that such robberies are commmon nowadays in Amsterdam but usually no one gets killed in result ("usually"did not necessarily made me feel better). The good thing (and it seemed like a bad thing but it turned out it was a good thing) was that I lost my wallet the day before I left NY so I didn't have any credit cards or ATM cards and only the little sack with what usually be my wallet (the wallet was found after my departure and is in possession of Kasia in NY at the moment). So as a result of the robbery I made friends at the police precint and was given a ride home - that evening I was not feeling like walking after dark in Amsterdam (after dark is 4:30 pm). In general people are very nice here, very kind and helpful. It's a different type of kindness than the South American kindness, less open and spontaneous I would say, but nonetheless it's kindness in the way people know it here and it's genuine. A few times I asked for directions and I got a bike ride on the back of the bike. Lots of people ride bikes and the bike lanes around the city are splendid: very clear and safe. People ride the bikes and they ride them with smile on their faces - they seem to be happy. At least the people who live in the wealthy center of the town. The immigrants who live in the place where I live now (outside of the center), don't exhibit that kind of happiness but that's the condition of being an immigrant: no matter how welcoming the place is, it is not your place and you will never feel as good there as you would at home no matter how hard or difficult it is at home. That may not apply to people who fell in love with a particular land and decided to stay there but it applies to those who left their homeland in search of better life conditions or a better future for their children. There's a difference between an expatriate and an immigrant. One chooses to be somewhere else, the other is forced to leave his or her homeland because of economic, political, etc. reasons. So Holland is not a place I fell in love with and I am tired for now, it seems, of being an immigrant (I will one day become an expatriate) and I will go home to complain about the immigrants who don't want to assimilate and wear strange things on their heads... Just kidding.

Coffee and cake

2008-11-13T02:58:00.000-08:00

I didn't have the time to write as I said and I am again at the library, getting another break for coffee and cake... It seems I live in the library - it's such a cool place, archtecturally beautiful, with so many interesting things to do, and such great cafe upstairs that I just spend a lot of time here. So eventually I will get to write about the past two months a little later today. Until then hugs to everyone.

Finally

2008-11-11T03:49:00.001-08:00

Finally I have the time to write something on the blog. I didn't write anything for so long that I wanted to just get to the blog to see if I can still remember the password... So I got to Amsterdam last Thursday and a lot of things happened since then already. I have been sitting at the computer in the library - the best library I have seen in my life, I think - for so long that I am going to take a break for coffee and cake and when I return I am going to write about my experiences in Holland, Poland and Colombia which I visited again in September. Life is crazy... I realize...

Salvador de Bahia

2008-09-04T12:35:00.000-07:00

I returned to NY Tuesday evening and am in bed now recovering from a bad bad flu. Many people had it in the hostel in Salvador so eventually the virus got me too. So regarding the remaining of my trip in Brazil...

I stayed in Salvador till the rest of my trip. I become to really love the city and it is, indeed, one of my favorite places on this planet. It vibrates with life. The climate of ease and love of life is just visible everywhere - it's in the air. The first day of my stay I walked around the old part of the city. I visited the Afro-Brasilero Museum and Museum of Anthropology (mostly devoted to indigenous peoples of northern Brasil). Salvadorian population consists of indigenous peoples, slaves brought over a few centuries from Africa and the European conquistadors and their descendants. Cultura Afro-Brasilera is the most predominant and gives the city its unusual feel and character. The descendants of the slaves never stopped cultivating their traditions and religious beliefs. They have the places of gathering and regular celebrations - Condomble - where they worship the Orixas or the Deities. Here's what I found in the museum about the Afro-Bahian culture: "From the beginning of Portuguese colonization to 1851 approximately 4.5 mln of Africans arrived in Brazil as slave labor. Besides their workforce, they brought with them in their bodies and in their souls the seeds of the ancient African civilizations. They were the Guinea, the Angola, the Mozambique, the Fantis, the Ashantis, the Fons, the Ewes, the Yorubas, the Congos. They planted their religion, their technology, their enterprising spirit, their wisdom and their art in this new land. Here, the result of this cultivation of successive generations was the flourishing of an African Bahia." Everyday in the historic center there are performances of samba-reggae, capoeira (a dance/martial art developed by the Brazilian slaves) and many forms of artwork reflecting the Afro Bahian culture are visible everywhere. I talked to one of the local artists about how this land experienced so much pain and suffering, the indigenous and that of the slaves, but it persisted and the descendant of those who suffered so greatly live their life to the fullest - they didn't fall into feeling eternal victims of the past. I made friends with the artists of Pelourinho, those having their studios in old buildings and those selling their art on the street. With some of them I went to the Italian Cultural Institute for the night of celebration of the Bahian culture. Then to the bossa nova concert, to the Olodum performance (samba-reggae group) and in general around the city at night. I very much enjoyed our conversations and these night walks. There must be some crime in Salvador, as is the case in every big city, but I didn't feel any tension or threat, maybe because I was with the locals who knew their ways around. I also got invited to a birthday party of a brother of one of the friends I made in Pelourinho, Edilson who is a painter and modern ballet dancer, and I was so embraced by the extended family of seven siblings that I felt as if I always belonged to their family. Most of the time I spoke Spanish and they all spoke Portuguese and we found a way to understand each other. I picked up some Portuguese and hope to learn some more in the future. So the people of the Bahia are very warm, very welcoming. In general Brazilians seem to me the most relaxed, nicest people I have encountered in my travels. I very much enjoyed the random conversations I had with people on buses, at bus stations, when I asked for direction - many times people got out of their way to walk me to where I wanted to go. It made my heart very warm. In NY I always felt that the city, being so big, almost forces people to become impersonal and indifferent as a way of survival but in Salvador, which is also a big city, it seems people don't feel the annoyance of dealing with the rush of big place - they rejoyce it or rather don't get affected by it and continue on their normal slow pace. Maybe it's because they are so close to these wonderful beaches and every day they can be close to nature, to wash away all the impurities and fatigue of the day in the salty waters of the ocean. The beaches are incredible in that that they offer a lot of entertainment where people can really move their bodies. There are bike lines (probably around 25 km altogether), walks for walking and running, all kinds of fields devoted to playing soccer, basketball, volleyball. There are parks close to the beach, places for children to play. There are tiny bars with grass umbrellas with snacks and drinks. And all these attractions are open to the public and free. The modern part of the city has a lot of skyscrappers but there's also a lot of trees and green in general so it doesn't seem opressive. It seems the city puts great care to turn every piece of land into a green square. In general it looks that the city is building a lot, that people are investing in it, that the standard of life will hopefully improve for all, also the ones living in favellas. I will definitely go back to Salvador the Bahia in the near future and also I will visit the beaches north of Bahia, which I have heard are incredibly beautiful.

I also visited the Island of Itaparica which is accessible by ferry and speed boats. It's 29 km long and 12 km wide. On the boat taking me there I met Nora (from Bulgaria) and Luis (from Spain) - a couple who live in Sofia in Bulgaria and were also on vacation. We spent the day together, walking around the old city of Itaparica, admiring the old architecture and the relaxed atmosphere of a little old port. This is one of these places where I would like to live: small fishing village with a little square and a few restaurants, not a lot of traffic, clean beach, beautiful sunset... We spotted some houses for sale and were thinking that maybe it would be a good idea to buy a house there...

I got to Sao Paulo early morning 31 August. I always get to where the Cathedral is first as a way of orienting myself. I got to the cathedral at 6 am and it turned out that the area around it is rather run down and full of local homeless sleeping around. It seemed useless to be walking around this part of the city so early so I spotted a hotel advertising pay-by-hour services and I got myself 4 hours to nap before venturing out into the city. The hotel was one of the type with round beds, mirror on the ceiling and probably 10 porn movie stations (but that I didn't check). It felt quite funny to be sleeping there. At 10 am I went out and had breakfast at a cafe next door which really was a gathering place for the local homeless. There was some music on and some of them were dancing, and I didn't know whether they were ending with the dance the day or beginning a new one. I observed the local atmosphere of the place. The people were obviously mentally disturbed one way or another but not more than the average person I see on the NY subway - I saw the same emptiness and confusion in their eyes - except the NY people are dressed in suits and carry briefcases with them. At least the Sao Paulo crazies didn't have to talk to themselves - there was always someone who would listen to them in this specific community. I went to look around the city. I first went to Pinecoteca museum which is a beautiful red-brick building containing a lot of interesting classical and contemporary artworks, it is located next to a park and has its own beautiful cafe. From there I went to the area of Jardins and Avenida Paulista but got to feel so bad on my way there - the flu virus struck me - that from then on everything is kind of blurry. I walked a little but started feeling so unwell that just decided to go the airport and wait for the plane. I got there and it turned out I came a day too early! I don't know how I could mess up so badly but I did. I was supposed to fly out on the 1 September and was at the airport on 31 August... so I just got a Best Western hotel next to the airport and just fell on the bed when I got there and slept many hours. When I got to the airport the following evening they asked me if I would want to volunteer to give up my seat on that flight for someone who was in emergency. They offered me a nice hotel with food, a nice seat on the next-day flight and a voucher for $300 for the next TAM airlines ticket. So I couldn't really say "no" and I went back to the hotel, slept another night, recovering from that dreadful flu, and when I was sitting on the plane the next morning, I asked myself whether I would indeed take off. I did and after 10 hours got to NY. Katarina came home shortly after my arrival, she brought me food, made some tea and has been taking care of me since. This morning I woke up at dawn unable to breath again and Kasia made a major decongesting soup of garlic, olive oil, cheese and herbs and we were eating it together, having lots of fun at 6 am, she being exhausted from working 12 hours, me feeling so sick. Oh, these beautiful mornings when your body feels like shit, pardon, but your spirits are high and your soul is rejoicing!! We are both rejoicing the fact that we are leaving NY and beginning the new life! So Kasia is at work now and I am in bed still but tomorrow is another day and hopefully we'll recover the bodies to keep up with minds and souls.

I have now three weeks to pack my stuff, send it to Poland, and finish all loose end here. At the end of the month I will take another vacation of two weeks, about which soon. I'll be in touch and until then many hugs to everyone.

Bom dia Brasil!

2008-08-19T17:38:00.001-07:00

I finished the semester - thank God! - on August 8th and I came to Brasil on August 9th. I flew to Sao Paulo where I took a bus to Campinas to visit my friends Claudio and Victoria and their daughter Luisa. We saw each other 5 years ago last time, when they were in New York. I stayed at Claudio and Victoria´s apartment for a week. They showed me around the city, we went to a few nice places and different districts. The center of the city is mostly modern and looks like a typical South Amercian modern city center, which I described many times before. Claudio teaches at the Unicomp (University of Campinas) and he also showed me around the campus which is very big and consists of many circles of buildings, parks, small eating places for students, library of works published by the university, etc. Claudio and Victoria are also conoisseurs of wine so the evenings were devoted to conversation and wine tasting. On Friday we went to San Sebastian (which is on the coast - about 4 hours´ drive from Campinas) together with Claudio´s sister Renata, her husband Toninho and their two little boys Victor and Philipe. We stayed at Toninho´s parents´vacation house just one block from the beach. A very beautiful and quiet place. We were swinging on hammocks in the garden, talking and resting Friday and Saturday evenings, sharing jokes, also jokes for kids - the kids have a great sense of humor and are very witty - lots of fun. On Saturday we went boating around the beaches of mainland and then on the Ilha Bella - the island nearby. First we visited a small deserted beach. It´s one of these beaches where the selva - the jungle - goes right to the water almost and there are small waterfalls trickling down to the sea, between the rocks. We swam and enjoyed the beach and the sun. On Ilha Bella we went to one of these beaches which have small restaurants with tables and umbrellas on the sand. We enjoyed some drinks and snaks. It was a beautiful day and in the evening I felt this surge of energy I often feel after I immerse myself in the sea water and spend a day close to the shore - must be iodine and ozone in the air and being close to nature. On Sunday morning I parted with the Banzato family and took a bus to Paraty. The bus was going along the Emerald Coast, passing by its many bays, beautiful beaches and Mata Atlantica which is the mountonous jungle. The views were magnificient. I arraived at the city which is of the type I like: small, walkable on foot, old architecture, little restaurants and art galleries. I walked around for a few hours enjoying the charming atmosphere and then sat down with a beer at one of the local bars. There were two tables outside, at one a man was sleeping on his huge belly, and at the other one a man was sitting awake, drinking beer. I sat at the second table and conversation started to flow with Milton - a very nice Brazilian vacationing in Paraty. I love these random conversations with local persons I meet along the way. We said goodbye since I decided to go directly to Rio from there and so I just got on the bus and arrived terribly late, because of delays on the road. I met two friendly Brazilian girls who were on the same bus and one of them took me with her by a taxi to an area where she lived - Botofago - and where I found a youth hostel. There I met the friendly staff and a group of medical students from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Greece who came to Campinas to do an intership at the School of Medicine and were on a weekend excursion, visiting Rio. We had many nice conversations in the evening and at breakfast. The next day, on recommendation of Katie from England who shared a room with me, I went on a tour around the city which included a hike to a mountain peak from which we could see the panorama of the city, the hike to see up close the Christ the Redemptor (much smaller than I have expected), Santa Teresa neighborhood full of bohema and artistic outlet visible on the walls and in general everywhere, and around Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. Afterwards I just went on the Copacabana beach myself and enjoyed the sun, the sand and the Rio experience. It is a city which intimidated me at the beginning, being so vast and so packed with highrised buildings and such huge differences between different parts of the city. But then I got used to its energy, the energy of a place with huge differences between virtually everything. As the guide pointed out, the favellas (the poorest neighborhoods of houses illegally build by the people who immigrated to Rio mainly from the poor regions of northern Brasil) are next to malls of luxurious goods. There is some tension created by this inequality but at the same time there is a feeling of calm and leisure. It seems no matter what the status of the inhabitants they love their Rio de Janerio (the January River). The beaches are beautiful and excessible from almost all parts of the city in a short time, and they are all public, so whether you live in a rich neighborhood or a poor favella you can enjoy the fun on the beach. There are many things to see in Rio but I decided to go to the region of Minas Gerais the next day and come back to Rio another time or a little later. I feel that after the NY experience and feeling so oppressed by a big city I need a different type of atmosphere now - something smaller. I left to the Christ the Redemptor hugging of Rio and decided to hug something huggable to my scale. I decided to go to Ouro Preto, a city famous for its Colonial architecture and mild climate. It is located in a hilly region of Minas Gerais where the mines of precious stones were located and some still are. Ouro Preto is rich in history and I walked and walked, up and down the hills, visiting churches, museums, stores with gems and jewelery. I enjoy this a lot - a city in which I don´t have to take any public transportation and just walk on foot. I stayed at the O Sorriso do Legarto (Smilng Crocodile) hostal which is owned by Washington. Washington is a Gypsy, like me. He spent a long time outside of Brazil and just came back 8 months ago to settle in Ouro Preto. It´s interesting how once you leave your homeland and start leading a Gypsy life you can never call any place a home anymore. Even if you return to where you started from, it doesn´t feel fully home so in a way because you never have a true home your home is everywhere. Such is the life of a Gypsy... I tasted, in the tradition of tasting the local food of places I visit, the comida tipica of Minas Gerais which is the popular food of the miners and which very much resembles the tipical food of Poland - I even found a type of potato dumpling which we have in Poland and which we call "kopytka". The miners knew how to eat well: meats with heavy sauces, potatoes, rich soups. None of the sugarless, fatfree, tasteless stuff. All is full of flavour, cooked in cast steel pots and tastes delicious. What came to my mind as I was eating lunch was that I was born in a mining region of Poland - Silesia - and I feel this connection to mining regions wherever I encounter them. I left Silesia when I was four but the images of a mining town and the tradition connected to mining and miners´life remained in my memory for ever. Having "kopytka" for lunch, with a heavy brown sauce, made with real butter and cream, transferred me into a different time and place. Of places of interest I visited the museum of mining, science and gems which is supposed to have the biggest collection of stones in the world, and the amount of gems was overwhelming, indeed. I also went to Mariana, a smaller old mining town very close to Ouro Preto which was equally charming. The whole region of Minas Gerais is hilly and green and the views were beautiful.

On Thursday afternoon Washington gave me a lift to Belo Horizonte, another big and modern city, and from there I boarded a bus to Brasilia and after 12 hours arrived there. From there I took a bus to Abidania. I passed by Brasilia because, as I mentioned before big cities are not really on my itinerary and also, because I don´t very much like modern architecture. So I got to Abidania - a small city along the expressway, dusty and hot. That region is very dry, semi-desert, and it´s especially hot during the day during winter, when it doesn´t rain. The only reason I went there was to see Jao de Deus or John of God who is a healer and a medium. I have heard about him and looked at what people had to say about him on Youtube and it sounded very interesting. So I walked along the road, about 1km, to a place called Casa de Dom Inacio which is a clinic which Jao founded some 30 years ago to cure people. But he doesn´t really cure anyone, as he says, it is God who cures them with his help. So Jao and I have the same idea on healing. There are entities, or spirits if you like, which pass by the Casa and with whose help he can heal and perform operations (mostly the removal of cancerous tumors), without any anesthesia. After I arrived I learned that the sessions with Jao start at 2 pm (Wed-Fri). I got a room at a pousada right next to Casa (there are many along the road, together with a few restaurants and stores), had lunch, showered, and went to meet with Jao. The Casa consists of a room where people wait to see Jao, a room where you come in line to him and he touches your hand, a room in which people sit and contemplate, separate room for cristal bath (7 big cristals located over chakras and emanating appropriate color), tables outside for eating the daily soup, a library with books and cristals, a pharmacy of herbs which Jao proscribes, a garden and a patio with roof, overlooking the hills. We waited, all dressed in white, and then first went the people whose operations where scheduled that day, then the second-timers went (those who were meeting Jao for the second time) and then the first-timers and I was in that group. While we enetered the room, we passed by people sitting with their eyes closed in deep meditation or transe, some where reaching up as if they wanted to touch somebody (I guess the spirits). We enetered the room with Jao and slowly approached him in line. He held my hand and told me, through a translator, which herbs to take and to come back on Wednesday. I left, led to another room, where I sat and was crying, and crying and crying. They were not tears of joy or sadness, they were the tears of release and it was a similar experience to the one I had with Shanti (to those persons new to my blog, I wrote on the blog about Shanti in May or June of last year). So with tears all that was difficult, all that was impure, all that was burdensome, all that is leaving. These type of tears mean purification. After I have cried for a long time, I felt this lightness and as with Shanti, the palms of my hands got hot and tingly and the top of my head got hot as well. I went to take the cristal bath and felt the waves of energy passing through my entire body. When I got back to the pusada, I had supper, then I went to the patio of the Casa and just enjoyed the cooling of the evening and the sky full of stars. I went to bed at 8 pm and woke up at 8 am. When I can sleep 12 hours peacefully and deeply, I know that my body is purifying and recharging. I went to eat breakfast and talked to the persons staying at the pousada, then to the friendly owner Sandra, then I walked along the road and met the wonderful people of the town. It was peaceful and the good energy was flowing. In Campinas we talked with Claudio (who is a psychiatrist and a philosopher) about healing and about Jao de Deus and whether it´s possible, this type of healing. Claudio also printed out for me a research paper done by a medical doctor, his collegue, who tries to describe the evidence, as scientifically as possible, that Jao´s power to heal indeed exists. In my own experience I can say that it does. I met people who are blessed with such power so I can feel who really is or who is not or pretends to be. In the pousada in which I stayed there was a person who was recovering after the operation. There are no complications and no pain. On the cork board hanging on the wall of the Casa there are simple suggestions as to what to do after operation: basically it´s bed rest for a week. The people who mostly come to Jao are the ones for whom this is the last resort, after everything else has failed. I think these are the people who are most receptive to changing the mindset and who want to really believe in their own healing. I think God helps people such as them. How can you heal anyone who doesn´t believe they can be healed, who got to liking their disease so much that they don´t want to let go of it? And what is a disease, anyways? In the opinion of spiritual doctors, any spiritual doctors regardless of medicine they practice, the disease is a certain perspective. It is most difficult for people to change the perspective. Once they are runnig on a certain track it is difficult to change it. I see it in the acupuncture clinic at school. Sometimes it takes reaching the bottom or rather a dead end to look for a different track. So, coming back to my personal experience, Jao told me to come see him on Wednesday but I decided to leave on Saturday because I didn´t feel it was the right time for me to stay so many days in Abidania. And I always go with my intuition which comes from the communication with the Great Spirit. I respect all people, Jao among them, and I love them - it´s love of the Creation which is perfect, no matter how imperfectly it may present itself. The perfect creation, however, always has the imperfection in it, no matter how wise and cultivated, so this is the reason why I can never follow a man or any religion or ritual he has invented. I think Coubert would like my discourse... For those living in NY or vicinity: Jao will be at the Omega Institute in Rhineback in NY from 28 September to 2 October.

From Abidania I came to Salvador de Bahia, an incredibly interesting place. It is a big city but of so many flavours that it doesn´t seem oppressive as the other ones. Maybe because it´s built along the bahia - the bay - and it feels like a city built on the beach. It was recommended by everyone so I decided to see for myself if I can like it. And I do, very much. I am staying close to the Centro Historico, in Pelurinho - old part of town, full of bohemian atmosphere and charm. Today there´s a local party which means there´s music everywhere on the streets and people are dancing and walking around with glasses of capirinha - a most famous Brazilian drink - and beer (without the brown paper bags, imagine that!). I will write more about this amazing place soon. Until then bom noche everyone and many hugs from Salvador.

2008-07-23T09:40:00.001-07:00

In response to the comment to the previous entry: Hi Denis, Benzin is a small town but you should be able to find it on the map. It's on the Island of Uznam/Usedom (since part of the island belongs to Poland it is Uznam on the Polish side and part belongs to Germany so it is Usedom on the German side). It's right next to the border with Poland on the Baltic coast. A really beautiful place.

I am nearing the end of the semester and I have a lot of studying but still don't want to miss some nice events going on. Gosia's parents are coming from Africa for a visit on Friday and I hope we can all go to Pow-wow in an orchard park in Queens. There are some movies I want to see, some meditation sessions at the Tibetan House I want to go to... I will run around a bit before the school is over and then on 9th of August I am going to Brazil to visit Claudio and Victoria and their daughter Luisa. I will also backpack a little along the Brazilian coast. I haven't been to Brazil so it will be a whole new experience. After I come back in September I will pack my bags, send stuff to Poland, wrap up the apartment and get myself ready for Europe and... be ready for the next adventure! I enrolled into school in Amsterdam and classes start on 8th November so I will have time to settle there, find a place to live, some job, some places of interest. I already made one friend there Kathrin who is a student at that school and we exchanged some e-mails. The wind of changes is sweet and refreshing. I am setting my sail to welcome it. More about it soon.

Wind of change

2008-06-16T16:26:00.001-07:00

Before I get to changes I would like to share my thoughts on the book I have been reading. I thought I had to take a break from text books and read something else. It is a book I bought in Poland in April and it’s a continuation of the so called river interview of Wladyslaw Bartoszewski – a Polish historian and politician, and a person I have admired for a long time. He is 85 years old and still very active in the social and political life of Poland and the world. During the WWII he was imprisoned by the Nazis in the concentration camp, after he was released he worked underground – in the resistance movement, after the war he was arrested by the communist government and spent time in various prisons (altogether 8 years) and again worked underground in the meantime… in Radio Free Europe and in general and personal resistance to the system and its absurdities. After the communist system fell he became active in the Polish political arena, working for the new government of free Poland, also serving as teacher and professor, working at various universities around Europe, teaching younger generation values of honor, decent living, dignity, living in truth and respect for fellow human beings. I admire that man greatly, mostly and precisely for living in truth. This is basically what he says: you can choose to live in truth. If you have “the will to live in truth” you are fine. Bartoszewski always lived in truth, no matter how difficult it was and whatever troubles this may have caused him. In one of the interviews with him I read some time ago he said that when he was arrested during the WWII (and later deported to the concentration camp) during a random street-catch which the Nazis did in many cities of Poland, he was caught with a friend and that friend panicked and was showing the Germans who caught them his necklace with the crucifix to show them he was Catholic, to prove that he was not a Jew, hoping the street-catch was directed at Jews and by doing this he would be released. Bartoszewski said that at that moment, being a very young man, he decided for life that life at all cost made no sense – if he could not be true to himself and to who he was, there was no sense in living; if he would not be able to “look at himself in the mirror”, without averting his eyes in disgust.., if he was trying to save his skin at all cost, if he lost his self-respect and begged the persecutors on his knees... What I like most about that man is that he calls the things by their real name and at the same time looks for solutions to move ahead. What I mean is the following. He saw terrible things done by the Nazis in Poland, the killings of Poles and Jews, the destruction of people’s lives and his homeland, the terrible atrocities done by the Germans during WWII. After the war he worked together with various noble people in Europe, that including post-war Germany, to find those who were guilty of these atrocities; he searched for documents to tell the truth as it was and to bring to public judgment those who were guilty to the trials in Nurnberg. Many of the people who were in SS and responsible for killings of thousands of people were living peaceful lives after the war, often establishing their own businesses or even working for local governments in Germany. Bartoszewski believed that there has to be justice and without justice, without people being aware of the historical truth and reparations for those who have suffered, we would not be able to move forward or maybe we would move forward but that would be living in a lie. At the same time, knowing how great was the hostility between the Polish and German nations after the war, he thought that the just should talk and communicate, that the young generations should be introduced to each other and with the understanding of their father’s and grandfather’s faults, they should be more aware of importance of decisions, also political, of each citizen and that they should cultivate from now on the values of good neighborhood. Here’s what the chief Cardinal of the Episcopal Church of Germany said about Bartoszewski: “ What has given this man such great, undiminished strength to resist the forces of evil? I think that it is two values which are rooted in all social work of Wladyslaw Bartoszewski: justice and truth. He never denied that he felt fear but he could overcome it. He helped the victims and at the same time scrupulously recorded the deeds of their persecutors. It is a fascinating experience to me, to see how on one hand he can be emotionlessly objective and impartial and, on the other hand, how moving and emotional he is when he speaks as the witness, when he says what he witnessed with strength and decisiveness, more powerful than that which would come out of the mouth of any moralist. Because of that he will always be a person perceived as one who is “unsuitable, a troublemaker”, someone who – when it is necessary – will not be silent to upkeep a pleasant free-of-trouble atmosphere, but who will, when crucial, love dispute … who is skeptical when confronted with empty chairs. To him important is not good will, not good intentions, but deeds, or more to the point: good deeds ... There are situations where you have to go against the current. … One of the basic experiences of his life was the understanding that in cases which include justice and dignity of a man, no compromises can be made.”

Usually in whatever I do, I follow my intuition. And I also follow the values of men such as Bartoszewski. I want to have their strength, their self-respect and respect for a fellow man, and for any living being. I pray for those who live in fear and in lie, for the Creator and the Universe to show them the way… because they are lost. But that does not mean that those who do not respect me can step on me or abuse me – I demand respect and truth in any case. If someone spits in my face, I am not going to say it rains, and certainly, I will not give the other cheek to be slapped. And that brings me to changes…

I have been mentioning a few times in my blog that the school I attend, Swedish Insitute, has been changing negatively. Basically the administration (which in some parts has changed) is disrespectful to students, doesn’t stick to the original contract, makes various changes in the programs without any notice, revokes financial aid in the middle of a semester, etc. First the students were informed “behind the scenes” (it seems that nothing can be open at this school any more and everything is done “behind the scenes”) by some teachers that it was due to negotiations with a corporation which wanted to buy the school, then that it was due to new accreditation process but it basically seems that somewhere along the road the school had to have screwed something badly, either financially or legally, and is now trying to cover up, put the wool over students’ eyes, and fix it at the students’ expense. As a follower of Bartoszewski and many other noble man, the wool does not stick to my eyes and I can clearly see what is going on and I can’t be silent. Other students see it too but have no strength to protest loud enough or don’t believe that solidarity can take things far. I was raised in the communist system and I know what is a lie and what is the truth and I will fight if I have to (in those times whatever was absurd was called absurd out loud and no such thing as political correctness would cover it; I personally think that the notion of “political correctness” is the biggest bullshit ever invented, not only in politics but in general – this is precisely what would be considered a lie to Bartoszewski). To the administration of Swedish a lie is the daily bread, they lie without blinking… Talking to the owner of the school is like talking to the SS man (making a connection with Bartoszewski’s experience): “I killed off the 10,000 Jews in that city? Well, I am sorry. Now let’s move on.” This made Bartoszewski furious. It makes me furious too, whenever I see such attitude. “I am sorry” is just words, it doesn’t mean anything, only when it’s backed up by action and true will to repair what was done wrong. In any case, and not going into too many details, I asked myself what would Bartoszewski do confronted with evil and disrespect, what would all the other people guided by noble truths do and I decided they would not associate themselves with an institution which became treacherous and indecent, unless they absolutely had to for reasons beyond their control. I asked the Universe if it wanted me to continue here, for the good of my future patients, for the knowledge that I would get here to help them? But no, it seems the Universe doesn’t want me to do this at all cost, it seems it wants me to follow my values of living in truth and to move on and look for a school which will operate on the values of truth. I looked then and I found a school in Amsterdam and in London and I will look for the schools’ assessment of my study so far and decide where to apply. The school in Amsterdam is based on the Daoist philosophy so it would probably be better for me. I will see what they tell me once they get the transcript with courses I did at Swedish. In any case I will be leaving NY in early October. The Universe wants me to be somewhere else than NY and I accept this and I am even grateful – I will be happy to leave the city, ventilate my lungs with a fresher air, eat better food and maybe get more nature in my life. That will be again the beginning of another huge detox for me…

It would be better for me to study in Amsterdam because the school is rooted in the Daoist tradition but I have come to understanding that any philosophy, as long as it is connected to spirituality and not too restrictive, would be fine with me (being the “libertine” who can’t be part of any specific group or organization of any type). Ancient medicine has to be connected to spirituality because people who invented it were still connected to Mother Earth, to Sun and Moon and their cycles, to elements of nature, to themselves and the God content in them… I was thinking about this how the certain principles of nature are to be followed but not necessarily a master... I was thinking about this watching Adriano, our pathology teacher, who was doing a performance for the students of the tai chi he practices. He mentioned that he got very involved in the teachings of his master and that probably this was the main reason for his staying in NY. At that moment I thought whether I would be ever able to do this… stay at a specific place for a master. I always felt the Creator was the only Master I could follow… but he is everywhere I am… The tai chi that Adriano practices requires daily work of practice of specific movements. Adriano says that to get anywhere you have to stick to the practice and that it's hard work. I can’t stick to any practice other than the daily morning or evening walks in the woods with dogs (if I have the chance to do it) but there’s no hardship in it – it’s the biggest pleasure. And I feel that I can get anywhere I want just doing that… And if I can’t get somewhere (physically, mentally or spiritually) then I am not supposed to get there – it’s going to be part of a different time and space, and not part of this reality. I think masters would call it laziness on my part… but I think I can call it true belief.. of being guided in different way. The true belief makes me communicate with the Creator without emissaries… so the medicine I study has to go along with this. I respect masters for their wisdom but can’t follow blindly…

I was also thinking about the North American Indians lately. I feel I would like to get to know their culture better, although so little of it remains… I feel very connected to their nomadic nature and the belief in the Great Spirit. A few days ago news has spread around the world about the Canadian Government’s apology to the Native Americans who were forced to be educated (and brainwashed) in the boarding schools by the Canadian government and the churches connected to it. Here’s the website with the piece of news in case you haven’t seen it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7438079.stm

This is what one of the women who went through the forced education said: “I believe the aboriginal people of Canada were very spiritual. Their lives were centered on the creator. When we came into the white man's world, this world of greed, our spirituality was gone. … The system robbed me of kinship and community and everything that entails. Most people don't know what it means because they don't have it. … I would like to see some action to go along with the apology. I would like more funding for our traditional way of healing, and for our justice system. I want our rules instead of their rules.”

And this brings me back to Bartoszewski – whatever he was fighting for 40 years ago still stands, on different land now: apology without action is meaningless...

I am now going to study a little... I have a day off today and I am recovering from a very busy weekend. On Saturday I went to the herb class, then with a group of fellow students for a snack and then to Monica (my class-mate) and Gary’s wedding party – it was lovely: lovely conversation, good food and music. Yesterday after the herb class we went with Karen to Brighton Beach, where we met with Gosia nad Rashid, we stayed on the beach for a while and then went for supper at Gosia and Rashid’s. Every night I went to bed around 3 am so today I woke up, had breakfast, took a nap, had lunch, took a nap, had dinner, took a nap… Lord! I hate to be lazy to THAT extend but once in a while it seems it’s necessary. It’s 7 pm – time to do something! And after that I think I will just go to bed… Good night all my dear friends!

2008-05-24T20:59:00.000-07:00

...and the beach in mist...

2008-05-24T20:52:00.000-07:00

The forest in Wiselka.

Bohemian Hall

2008-05-24T19:58:00.000-07:00

I just got back from Bohemian Hall - a house of Czech and Slovak people abroad. Katarina was celebrating graduating from college. She got a BA in anthropology. I met Katka over 4 years ago in math class when she was just beginning her studies and I was taking math in preparation for a degree in oceanography, which I eventually abandoned when I found my true calling. I am so happy for Katka. I wrote about Katka before and our lifes' experiences and our growth. It seems like ages ago since we met. We were so green then... Now we are so different. We went to a Slovakian restaurant and enjoyed conversation about the past, present and the future. Katka decided she wants to go back to Slovakia and start her own business. That's the only wise thing to do, going back to the roots, returning from exile, working for oneself and not for some stupid corporation or silly bosses. Afterwards we went to the Bohemian Hall, where there was a Bohemian festival today with dancing and life music, and we met with Katka's friends who are also dancers of the Slovakian folk dance group. We sat at a long table, talked to people, drank beer and shots of Jagermeister, laughed and danced, or rather Katka danced because I have a weak head and preferred to be seated after a few glasses of beer... I met wonderful people and the atmosphere was great. Whenever I am at the Bohemian Hall I always think how different this place is from the NYC bars. There's alcohol in both places but the atmosphere is totally different. Bohemian Hall is all about camradership, talking and laughing and meeting with friends. NYC bars are about looking for a one-night stand... I have been to NYC bars a few times but never out of my own will - it was always because someone invited me to a birthday party or such. And every time I went I left disgusted. It's hard to describe but the atmosphere in these places is tense and people "check themselves out" as if they were a piece of meat. Utterly horrible. You have a feeling that if you start a conversation with anyone, they immediately think you are after them. You can just see the lust floating around in these places, the quick fix of insecure people who need the fix since they can't/are unable to even imagine a true and deep intimate relationship that may start with a flirt but needs a long time to be build. At the Bohemian Hall there's the whole range of communication typical of Eastern European crowd: from a pleasant friendly conversation with strangers, through flirt (just flirt and nothing else), through the beginning of a romance (?) perhaps. The art of flirt is something that doesn't exist in this land. It either never existed or got killed by sexual harrasment law. And I like to flirt, especially with very old man who know the art. It's totally "harmless" and so much fun. Flirt requires style, wit and class. I found the art of flirt in Europe and South America, and a bit in China. Where the flirt doesn't exist, the relations between the sexes are very tense and disgusting at their extreme. And the other reason why Bohemian Hall is different is that kids can be in the Beer Garden until 9 so the dancing scene involved people from very small children to grandpas and grannies. Age doesn't matter - everybody dances and has fun. Bohemian is the celebration of life and human relationship. You can wake up with a headache the next morning but it's worth it!

energy

2008-05-22T20:24:00.000-07:00

For some reason I got some energy I haven't experienced the past two semesters. I came out of hibernation, I think, or the Universe is giving me more Qi. On the physical plane I think it must be due to: liver and gallbladder cleanse I did before I left for Poland, good and organic Polish food I ate for three weeks, iodine and rest in Wiselka, and of course meeting with friends in Poland and friends in NY. I also started proscribing herbs to myself and I think they work for me. I feel good and I don't have any allergies (so far). I have spent the last three weeks very productively. I have been studying but also meeting a lot with friends and doing fun things. Last week I met with Patrycja, Gosia and Rashid in Central Park and then we went with Patrycja to see the exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art of paintings of Gustave Courbet, a French painter (1819-1977) and scandalist. Because of his "scandalous" life habits he had to even escape France and exile himself to live in Switzerland, where he died, poor soul. Some of his paintings where based on the pornography of yore which would not be considered pornography nowadays - you know: chubby ladies standing by bathtubs and the like. Patrycja and I very much liked his paintings, even "The Origin of the World" which was probably his most scandalous work but we though it was well done and quite true. From his paintings we have deducted that he had some Shen disturbances (mental instability) which he probably tried to muffle with alcohol, which contributed to his death in the end. Here's what he said:

"I am fifty years old and I have always lived in freedom; let me end my life free; when I am dead let this be said of me: 'He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any régime except the régime of liberty."

I guess I could say the same about myself. I am not yet fifty years old but everything else applies. I am not a "libertine" but liberty of though and self-expression is my understanding of libery. So in that sense I am a libertine. As to sanity I hope I can keep it as long as I live... and I hope Dr. San Si Miao's points can help me keep it.

I also met with Zohar and Kevin, my friends at PQ. We met with an idea of having tea and going to a yoga class afterwards. Karen joined us, then we bumped into two friends of Kevin's, then we walked some streets, we met another friend of Kevin's, then we walked a little more and eventually we met Elan, another friend at PQ. What a small village NY is! The yoga studio was on the second floor and we got there late and didn't want to interrupt. While going down the stairs we passed by a beauty salon on the first floor and Kevin contemplated getting a Brazilian bikini wax for a minute but then decided we could actually eat already so we went along a few more streets and found Polonia restaurant where we feasted on pierogi, potato pancakes and cheese and plum butter blintzes. We had a really great afternoon and evening that day. Zohar got married lately so she also was telling us how happy she is and how good married life is for her. I am really glad to see her so glowing. Last Sunday I also met with Gosia and Rashid at their still new apartment in Brooklyn. It was one of these wonderful leisurely day when you wake up, it's sunny but also drizzly, some mist and mystery in the air. You slowly get up, sit with a cup of tea in pajamas and contemplate life. You listen to the music and sit in the shower for a while. (Then you have to get out and get into the subway and get dirty again...) At Gosia and Rashid's we had some coffee and biscotti. We looked at property prices in Portugal and Spain on the internet, just for the fun of it. Gosia bought a piano and we played it, trying to remember what we have learned long time ago. It seems like "For Elise" is the thing that sticks to mind the best although I can't play anything from my mind - I never could anyways. I need the score with notes. Gosia will get some. Then we went to Coney Island, walked on the boardwalk toward Brighton Beach, "Little Russia by the Sea", and had dinner at a Russian restaurant which we like. It was heaven that day... One of these days that make my heart really warm... I also went with Patrycja and Daniel to a concert at Museum of Modern Art of music by Krzysztof Komeda composed for movies by Roman Polanski. The performers were Tomasz Stanko and his Quartet. It was a great concert and we met many friends there - it seemed like the Polish NY community interested in Polish cultural affairs wanted to be there.

So you see I have a lot of energy lately... I hope it can last until the end of the semester...
Anyone interested in the liver and gallbladder cleanse, please let me know and I will send it to you. Spring time is the best time for a cleanse (no starvation required).

And below I am attaching what I got from Maya, another Polish friend. To those who read in Polish I enclose it in Polish and to my English-speaking friends this is what it says: There is a foundation in Poland called "I have a dream", a Polish equivalent to "Make a wish foundation". It listens to dreams and wishes of terminally ill children and tries to make them come true. One of them Mateuszek Lang, who is eight years old, has the following dream: he would like to receive postcards from many people. So if you have some time to send him a postcard, please do. Here is the address:
Mateuszek Lang
Lang ul. Wiślana 37
70 - 885 Szczecin
Poland

If you go to www.mammarzenie.org website you can read about the foundation in English.

Witajcie Prośba! Wiecie czym zajmuje sie Fundacja Mam marzenie?
Spełnia marzenia dzieci śmiertelnie chorych. Jednym z marzycieli jest
Mateuszek Lang ze Szczecina. Wczoraj miał ósme urodziny, będą to
prawdopodobnie jego ostatnie urodziny. Jego marzeniem jest dostać pocztówki
od wielu ludzi. Jeśli macie chwilkę dosłownie czasu, kupcie pocztówkę,
napiszcie życzenia urodzinowe i wyślijcie mu. Was to będzie kosztowało
niewiele, a dla niego będzie znaczyć ogromnie dużo. Oto adres: Mateuszek
Lang ul. Wiślana 37 70 - 885 Szczecin Roześlijcie to do kogo się da i
ślijcie kartki ze wszystkich stron świata. Na razie załatwiliśmy kartki z
kilku europejskich krajów, ale wciąż można wiele osób poprosić, najwyżej
kartki sie chwilkę spóźnią. Wiadomość nie jest SPAMem. Inf o chorym
Mateuszku są na
stronach: http://www.mammarzenie.org/newspolska/2008/mateusz.php
http://mateusz.szczecinianie.pl/

2008-05-12T20:31:00.000-07:00

Here's one more.

photos

2008-05-12T19:59:00.001-07:00

I wanted to put more pictures but it seems only this one got uploaded... I'll try again.

back to NY

2008-05-11T20:43:00.000-07:00

I returned from Poland last Sunday and already got into the whirlpool of NY life. A week has passed already and so many things happened in it.

In Poland I spent time running errands, visiting various institutions, etc. but also relaxed in the company of old friends, went to visit some nice castles around my hometown, and as much as I could I spent time walking with dogs in the forest and around the lake behind my house. My mom went on some of these hikes. Rain or shine we were walking... Buffo who turned 13 last February didn't go for very long walks. He is doing fine but is a little weaker than before so his older age has to be taken into consideration. But on colder days he walked around the lake. Maksio, who turned 10, is still full of energy and chasing after sticks but gained weight since last July so I took him with me to my friend Michal's house on the coast and we went for really long walks on the beach. I think he lost some weight and hopefully will lose more - mom got instructions to slim him down. We had a wonderful road trip to the coast. It takes 5 hours from my hometown to reach Wiselka, the small village on the Baltic coast (and on the island of Wolin) in which Michal lives. I think I mentioned this all before but just in case... So we drove there with Maksio, stopped in the forests to walk around, had some breakfast and tea in roadside cafes. It was lovely, to see all this budding nature outside the window, listen to the Polish radio and feel the wind of freedom. The first few days on the coast I couldn't stay awake. I slept 12 hours every night - that seems like the only thing I can do after the semester ends: sleep and eat. But during the day we were walking on the beach and lying on the sand. In the evenings we visited Michal's father and sister with her family who live nearby. We also went together with Michal's father and Maksio "abroad" - the border with Germany is 20 km away. Now with all EU borders open we just drove through it without being stopped by anybody - the check point that used to be on the border was closed. We crossed it and Michal said to his father: "Dad, we are in Germany." "Really? How come?" It felt weird. Even Maksio was surprised. We crossed the border and found ourselves in the island of Uznam. We went around the villages, small ports that used to be fishing ports but are now more like yacht marinas. We also visited a hill, the highest in this area, which used to be a park and which now is a memorial and a cementary. At the end of the WWII the area of Miedzyzdroje, which is a city now on the Polish side but belonged to Germany at that time, got bombarded by the Alies (the planes belonged to Americans but orders were given by Russians) and 22,000 civilians were killed. The remains were buried on the hill. Another remainder of how sensless wars are. We also visited the towns of Herringsdorf, Ahlberg and Benzin - summer vacation spots which were rebuilt to what they were before the war - all buildings are kept in the same architectural style and there's nothing "new" there. There are nice boardwalks, restaurants and galleries.

Wiselka is heaven: quiet, simple, smelling of forest, moss and salt water. The beach is white and long. I got out on it, I looked ten kilometers to the left, ten kilometers to the right and I didn't see one person... In the summer I might see a few vacationers. It was a wonderful place to relax. Maksio went with me everywhere I went. He is an incredibly intelligent and witty dog and he didn't forget the manners I thought him when he was a puppy. He made friends with the dogs that welcomed him and ignored the ones who were barking from behind fences, not getting into any silly disputes. When he saw the sea he did a little dance - I think he remembered the beaches of Long Island. He was running toward me, then toward the water, dipping his tongue, caming back to me laughing, as if he wanted to tell me: "Did we come here again? Is this the place I remember from before?" I told him it was not the same place but much better! He got it at the end. Nobody was chasing us out and we could walk without a collar and a leash and people would be friendly and not terrified. It was really cool. That's what I call freedom. No such thing as "beach for nudists", "beach for dogs", "beach for families with kids", "private beach - keep out!", "leave before dusk", "no kite flying, no ball playing, no bird feeding" etc., etc. A beach is a beach. Period. Long and wide and there's space for everyone and everything. I was walking around naked one warmer day, I was flying my shirt in the absence of a kite, I was playing ball with Maksio, feeding swans, waiting for sunset and leaving after it got dark, and Maksio was pooping in the dunes and "writing letters" to other animals on the trees. We got the spice out of life and it tasted superbly. In the evening we had long conversations with Michal and were viewing pictures from Michal's journey to South America, from which he returned a month earlier. This time he went to Guyanas, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Venezuela.

On the plane to NY I saw a very nice movie about Gordo - a dog who traveled from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia: "Gordo's Journey to the End of the World". It put me into a good mood. I got back and it turned out I had a class on Monday - a continuation of the rather boring ethic class which is now a class on communication. But I really enjoy the other classes: clinical skills with John, biomedical pathology with Adriano, needling with Enrico, and clinic where my supervisor is Peter and I follow Bruce - a student of 3rd year. Last Friday we were extensively needling ourselves. Now we get to needle every point, learn depths and angles of needling and what every point does. I finally got to the very practical knowledge and application of it. It's getting to be very interesting now. I am getting nerdy because there's no way around it - putting all that stuff into my head. On my big table there's Materia Medica of Chinese herbs - I read it before and at breakfast. On the sofa table there's a book with patters of TCM, which I have to learn this semester - I read it when I sit on the sofa. On the bedside table there are flash cards with points to be reviewed - I review them before I go to bed. I take a book - comprehensive study - with me to read on the subway. And in the bathroom and bathtub I read pathology notes. I should find time to review tui na and dietary medicine but there's not much time left... I guess Chinese medicine is becoming my garden...

I found this nice Chinese saying in a book in Poland: "If you want to be happy for a short period of time - get drunk. If you want to be happy for a longer period of time - fall in love. If you want to be happy for ever - start cultivating a garden." In other words: find something you can do with passion, or find a passion so that there something which will always interest you. Alcohol evaporates, people come and go, they die or they leave or they change... A passion once cultivated always is a passion and is a pleasure in the time of stillness and a comfort in the times of storm. I guess in my case, and the case of my classmates, our passion is helping other people realize their full potential so that they can be in charge and responsible for their health and life. Being able help others do that is worth all these calluses on one's butt from spending time sitting and absorbing the knowledge that leads to liberation of oneself and other fellow beings.

Easter 08

2008-04-03T10:55:00.001-07:00

Here's part of the Easter gang. A picture taken in front of my building.

On wisdom and music

2008-03-31T09:21:00.000-07:00

I am studying for the test and taking a little break to write on the blog. On Friday I went to the Rubin Museum of Art again to see the new exhibits and I encountered the CD with the soundtrack from the SAMSARA movie. Just seeing the cover with the scene of the movie, a monk against a background of Himalayas, brought memories to me of my short time spent in Tibet and Nepal and being surrounded by vast spaces and mountains. The vast spaces around me and connection to nature give me the feeling of such freedom... The concrete around me now is so limiting... It's much more difficult to retain the sense of freedom in this present scenery. The music composed for this movie includes voices of the Himalayan people and instruments such as Armenian duduk, Japanese flute, Indian sarangi, Mongolian violin. The music is transcendental. The movie is beautiful, deep and simple, and I saw it in Kathmandu - I wrote about it on the blog after I saw it. I read the director's statement on making the movie and his spiritual connection to it and it deeply moved me. Here's what he says: " I went to a school called life and taught myself cinema. I always knew that I wanted to make films, even before I saw one at the age of nine. I lived in a very small and poor village in India, next to a railway junction where many trains stopped but only to exchange passangers. My village was nobody's destination. As a kid I sold tea on this unique railway platform. I would often sit on the deserted rail track, waiting eternally for a train to arrive, staring at five empty cups of tea, hanging from my five fingers." During my travels in India so many times I observed boys and men selling tea, walking around railway stations, streets of cities and villages and walking through the cars of trains. The image of cups hanging from five fingers is vivid in my mind, always...

Yesterday I took another of these boring communication and clinical skills classes. The material covered has nothing to do with ethics, at least not what I would consider ethics or anything that would bring me any realisations... It's just part of the curriculum and I had to take these classes. The school is changing its profile and is changing for the worse but I will write about this some other time. This time I just wanted to write about this class. During the class we watched a movie on Rumi and his poetry. It was basically a group of translators and literary persons talking about him and his work and how difficult it is to translate works such as these into English, etc. At one point of the movie one of the translators is meeting with a Turkish musician in Turkey and the musician tells him: "Forget about books, throw them all out." And the translator says: "But I like books, I learn so much from them." The two men talk about different things because they belong to different cultures and although they understand the words, they don't understand the meaning or the different meanings the words may have. The Turkish man really says: "You will learn from books how the material reality work - you are in it so it will help you adjust to it and make things easier for yourself. But if you are looking for answers to your deepest questions, you have to look in you. You will not learn the deepest meaning of life from books. You can only learn it from experience, daily experience and relationship of things, and your relationship to them, the illusive things and images that can't be captured in words". The American translator doesn't understand him. He looks for answers to his questions in literary works and believes it is the only way. Before my trip in 05 and 06 I read books very seriously, thinking they will bring me answers. Now I read them for entertainment. I study all this material for school and read a lot of books. It's all very interesting but it always is teaching me only the skill to do things - they are only teaching me the reality of one, material, dimension. The images I experienced during my trip, and also in NY but to a lesser degree because here the energy is scattered and hectic and concentration is fleeting, is what gives me connection to different dimensions, not as visible as the material but equally present. I am learning the skill of putting needles, applying herbs, moxa and guasha, but if I don't have the deeper connection with universal energy I am not going to be of any help to anyone. What heals is presence and wisdom. What brings me to wisdom is the image of tea cups hanging from five fingers and other images which I can't really describe.

Here's a line I also found in the CD:

"The winds of grace blow all the time. All we need to do is set our sails."
Ramakrishna

Various thoughts...

2008-03-26T19:57:00.000-07:00

I mentioned before that Steve Brown, a friend since my time at FSG, has been sending for 10 years, from time to time, "Steve's Questions" to a group of people who all met at FSG and of whom some are still there and others are somewhere else but who are all still linked by "Steve question". Recently the question involved an "original thought" that the participants may think of and some people replied with some really great original thoughts. The most interesting to me was the idea of the USA buying Canada. The reason for such purchase was as follows: the climate is changing and soon the terrain of the USA will become a barren land, a desert, while Canada will become a moderately warm place. (I would just add to that that the USA would have to kindly ask China if they would lend them more money for the purchase.) Further, the USA should sell Hawaii to Japanese because with snows thawing at the poles, it will soon disappear under water anyways. Isn't that a very interesting and original idea? The reason why the USA will become a barren land is not only due to climate change. I was reading a magazine devoted to nature of the US and its national parks and it seems that great majority of the "wild West" and the national parks is dying of pollution and toxic radioactive waste that is dumped there. This isn't an original thought but came to my mind when I was reading Steve's compilation of responses to his question.

And another idea came to my mind that has to do with my class at the school's acupuncture clinic. The last two weeks at the clinic were very interesting because some new walk-in patients came and we had very new cases to discuss. The way it work is that I follow an intern Ann who is in her 8th semester so is pretty advanced in her skills. She does the intake, checks the pulses and the tongue, and then I get the chance to ask any additional questions that I might think are relevant, and also check pulses and tongue. Then we discuss the case and Ann presents it to our supervisor (a licensed acupuncturist) and he approves or suggests changes to our treatment plan and then we go back to the patient and Ann does the treatment and I help her if I can (doing moxa or guasa since I can't needle patients yet). We had, this semester, various people of various ages, backgrounds and ailments. However, what came to my mind recently is that all these people have one thing in common - they all live in a culture that promotes what we call "excess". Basically it's a culture that promotes habits of wanting more, eating more (or none at all, which is also excess or the other extreme), getting lots of stimulation of all kinds all the time, excessive desire, excessive expectations, etc. They come to the clinic and they tell us they are constantly tired. Why are they feeling so tired? They have been running around all the time all their lives, doing so many things, sleeping 5 hours per day, having fun, and now they feel this fatigue all the time. What happened? - they ask us. Well... it's not so hard to understand... after 20, 30, 40 years of this excessive running around the body gets tired and it just shows the person to slow down, recharge, recover, rest... Some people don't eat, they just don't eat... They basically starve themselves or live on coke or other soda and sandwiches grabbed here and there and eaten in haste. They poop twice a week and consider it normal... but they ask why they have digestive problems... It's not possible for the body, and mind, to be healthy with that kind of abuse. The body is like a flower - you have to constantly water it, put it out to get some sunlight, nourish with some plant food, change soil from time to time, delicately clean the leaves... But the culture they live in approves of such lifestyle so how do you tell them that in order to get healthy they need to change their lifestyle... It's very difficult. It's so easy to take a pill or two but so hard to change habits which were ingrained early on. For some people the idea of resting and relaxing is strange (you do that on vacation - two weeks per year). Time has to be filled out entirely, to the last minute, with some kind of stimulation of the senses. I don't have a tv at home but when I get a glimpse of it when I am at someone else's home, I see how the mind is "trained" to thinking this way - the programs change with amazing speed, the advertisements are trying to pack so much in a few seconds - my mind feels violated by this speed and amount of information... It seems the real tragedy happens for the people who get retired. They suddenly loose that need to run around (and wouldn't have the strength to do it anyways) but haven't developed any peaceful activities which would fill their time. I am thinking of these old grandpas and grandmas in South America and some places in Europe who just sit in old market squares, or cafes, among other grandpas and grannies and sit and sit and just talk or don't talk but look content as fat cats warming up on window sills. The granpas and grandmas who come to our clinic have a very different state of mind: it seems they are in panic - so much time and nothing to do. A lot of this has to due with the fact that people don't build communities here so they are really on their own. They have few friends, they don't know their neighbors... In the end it creates emptiness. If you have friends and neighbors you spent your entire life with, you can sit in a cafe and not even say anything - you just feel good in their company and you can "just be".

Speaking about friends we had a very nice Easter celebration this year. Last year I spent Easter on a plane, coming from Poland to NY, and this year I was blessed with spending it with friends. It was supposed to be a small party but then it turned out there were many immigrant souls without families to celebrate Easter so we ended up celebrating it in a 14-people group at my small apartment. Everybody brought something, Gosia and two Patrycjas cooked some delicious festive specialties, there was wine and herbal tea, babkas and kekses, and lots of nice music and calm energy. Marta, our rising star of opera singing (who just got into Manhattan School of Music so we can let go of fingers which we were crossing all the time) sang for us parts from Carmen and other operas and it was beautiful and very emotional. We went for a walk looking for some green but in Jackson Hts. where I live there are no public parks, unfortunately. We just encountered a garden adjecent to an Anglican Church and longingly looked at irises and grass from behind the fence. We decided we will have to find time this coming semester to go to the beach because it's really hard for us to live without nature and the only place you can really feel space and see the horizon in NY is at the beach.

Today I, hopefully, passed the first final exam in this semester. I have 4 more to pass, one next week and three the following week. I am glad the semester is almost over and I will be able to go on vacation and spend time walking in the forest with my dogs - which, as I mentioned before, is my absolute favorite activity of all activies.

Pictures

2008-03-06T11:13:00.000-08:00

The picture which you see in the "Almost Spring" post was made by my friend Marcin who lives in Warsaw. He took it a few years ago on the Baltic coast near Wiselka - the village in which Michal lives. I also used this picture on my Syrena website because I really like it.

Grzes, my neighbor who created the Syrena website, showed me how to put pictures on the blog so now I can put some from time to time. This picture is of my friends and I at Gosia and Rashid's new apartment. We were playing with the new furniture.

Almost spring

2008-03-04T20:16:00.000-08:00

Mom came and left already. The month passed slowly and quickly at the same time. I tried to show my mom NY and took her to some tourist places in Manhattan but I think she felt most comfortable in my neighborhood, in Queens, full of immigrants and looking cozy in comparison to other parts of NY. She wasn't very impressed with it and very glad to be going home to daily walks with the dogs in the forest. We spent a lot of time paying visits to various institutions. My mother is entitled to receive benefits from social security (after my father's death) but to be entitled and to actually receive it is two different things so we spent a lot of time at the immigration office, social security office, court houses, etc., trying to close my father's affairs here and take care of her affairs. The only institution which is a pleasant place to visit and where there are high manners, helpful atmosphere, and humane treatment is the Polish consulate. After my previous experience with the immigration office I thought there could be nothing worse but it turns out that the Supreme Court of the USA beats everything... The immigration office has actually much improved since I was there last time about five years ago. The building got remodeled and people who work there are actually quite nice. They are not very knowledgeable but at least they are nice. That's a huge improvement. At the court house they are not knowledgeable and quite ignorant actually. I went there several times and each time different documents were needed. Every time I had to see a different clerk and explain the whole situation all over again. When I say that my father died in Poland I see this puzzlement on the clerks' faces... I wait for some response... I "see" the neurons in their brains firing, going back and forth, straining, trying to remember where this state called Poland is... or maybe it's an island on the Pacific that just got annexed to the United States... When I see they are about to get a stroke - from all that straining - I explain where Poland is, that mysterious country inhabited by almost 40 million people. I wouldn't actually mind their being so ignorant - not everybody is born equal (which is the advertisement here but not the reality) and has access to education or education that is educating. The reason why I let them strain is that they are mean to petitioners and everybody who comes to that office is treated like garbage. So I asked Ganesh to put some obstacles on their path, so that they learn the basic law of karma which really just means that what goes around, comes around. The faster they learn that lesson the better for their souls and for all the next petitioners who will come after me to the court. A little respect on their part would make our lives much easier and more pleasant.

I have about 5 weeks of this semester left. Feeling happy about it. With all the information we are getting on extra channels (besides the main 12 channels I wrote a little about earlier) I begin to feel that my head is getting very full again and it feels I almost can't take much more or it will all become a mush. I don't know if I mentioned this before, I think I did, that I had this great pathology class with Adriano Borgna, an MD from Italy who now is also a practitioner of Chinese medicine and who also practices environmental medicine. I really like this approach. It basically consists of detoxifying the body of heavy metals and toxins, arranging healthy diet and overall healthy life style. And then applying some Western med. tests which may apply and acupuncture and herbs. The main concept is that if the body is nourished with good, organic or biodynamic food, free of toxins, oxygenated and rested, it will defend itself better and keep diseases at bay. Hugs are very important (at least twice a day according to Adriano). Here's his website: www.macrohealing.com. Check it out for the general guidelines. The worst, when it comes to diet, is margarine and hydrogenated oils, and artificial sweeteners (including sugarless gum which is packed with aspartame). Spring is coming so do spring cleaning, of house and garden but mostly of the body and mind. Clean your colon and digestive tract, your nose and sinuses, liver and gallbladder, and blood. Ask for herbs at your pharmacies, for detoxifying massages (every old medical tradition has them, a very good one is the Ayurvedic Panchakarma), neti pots for the nose, spend time outside close to nature and oxygen, and go for brisk walks in the sun. Do some meditation to clear the mind of impurities and you will be like new. I am planning to do all this myself, except the brisk walks in the sun will have to wait for April - I will be going to Poland for the break between semesters to rest and get some energy for the spring/summer semester. Good night everyone.

Of mice and men

2008-01-27T20:41:00.000-08:00

I got back from PQ, after weekend of work, showered, drank some calming and relaxing tea and I should be studying for my pathology exam next week but instead I am writing because it seems that when I am very tired the only thing I can do is write... on the blog... isn't that peculiar? The customers were quite normal this weekend, no major melodramas (I returned the "too soft 'soft boiled eggs' only once) - very suprising. I noticed a drop in tips and I am wondering if that has to do with the American economy. I think everybody is beginning to feel threatened by it. There is this air of uncertainty hanging above... Some of my co-workers left to work at other PQ locations but the new persons who started working at PQ are also very nice and the atmosphere is nice, when it comes to kitchen and server staff. Regarding the clear-cut server (or slave)-customer relationship, which I have mentioned a few times before, what struck me today (not only today but today with a greater force) is that we have a half-hour break during which we can eat but we have to eat in the basement, in the supply room, which is basically freezing cold in the winter. Meanwhile the owner, and the growing corporation, screams around the world on how he promotes organic and biodynamic farming and humane treatment of farmers and how he is working toward the betterment of future generations. It's incredible how once a place grows and becomes a corporation, it looses it's humane values and the only thing that starts to matter is the profit. The God of the corporate world - Monsieur Profit. I was thinking how in the times of yore (I don't know if still in existence) in Poland there was one table at a restaurant reserved for the employees and when there was time for their break, they would sit with their meal at that table and eat, like human beings, together with other people eating, not with rats running around in the basement. Rats and mice don't actually bother me - they are everywhere in NY, it's a rodent city (they are certainly more organic then the corporate management of PQ) - the basement is particularly their kingdom. And PQ is kind of not so bad. When I hear stories of my friends who work for other corporations, hair rises on my head. Two weeks ago I went to Greenpoint in Brooklyn (the Polish district) because I started missing Polish cooking, and I went to this Polish restaurant that looks like the one from days of yore and where the waiter eats with other people and where he once asked me when I left a potato on my plate: "And you really can't eat that one last potato?!" (so as not to waste food). And I timidly responded that I would try (feeling guilty myself) and I ate it... If I said this to customers at PQ they would get so traumatized they would have to visit a shrink once a week till the rest of their lives, and they would sue me for damages. And the management would skin me alive... Such a different reality... Manhattan and Brooklyn... I think I am getting ready to end my PQ experience... I learned my lessons there and I am ready to move on...

There have been some recent developments on Syrena website (www.syrenaart.com) - she's alive and smiling mysteriously. I'll have to sit with Grzegorz and finish the store up but the format is there.

OK, now I feel ready to drop so I'll go to bed. My mom comes to visit on Wednesday, about which soon. Good night.

Welcome New Year

2008-01-04T18:18:00.000-08:00

I am looking forward to New Year. My mom says it will be smooth because there are no sharp edges in the 8. 2007 was rather rough for me but experience and wisdom comes from experiencing rough circumstances so I am grateful for them but it would be nice to experience some smoothness as well... The ending of the year was particularly rough because of the exams. We were all so stressed out that we couldn't sleep and eat. On our last day of comprehensive exams we all looked like zombies... Thank God for vacations...

I went to Barranquilla this time, closer to Tyrona Park. I spent three days on the beach but it rained most of the time. I met most of the friendly people I met there last time. It was very nice. I slept 12 hours every night and after three days of sleeping, swinging on the hammock and eating proper meals three times a day I felt somewhat rejuvenated. After that I went with Leiner, whom I befriended in August, south of Santa Marta to a beautiful colonial town of Mompox. It is located between two big rivers so it was a little difficult to get there but it was worth it. The city is not very touristy, it has a genuine colonial architecture and it is small enough to just walk around. The people were very friendly and eager to tell us about the city's history - Bolivar frequently visited it and the city is very proud of that fact. We spent the Christmas Eve in the patio of Dona Manuela hotel which prepared a special Christmas dinner with life music and dancing - in Colombia every holiday is an occasion to dance, Christmas Eve included. We set under a huge fig tree and enjoyed the atmosphere and after the festivities we sat around the swimming pool and enjoyed the coolness of the night air (during the day it is stiflingly hot there). The city is famous for goldsmiths who make filigree jewelery and I found one artist whom I particularly like and whose jewelery I'll be selling in Syrena. We left the city and after another complicated motorbike, boat and car ride arrived in Sincelejo. It was 25 December and the main square was full of lights and people celebrating Christmas. We stayed in the park a long time observing kids playing and being driven by older kids in plastic or wooden self-made cars around the square. In all cities there are people carrying thermoses with coffee (tinto - black and sweet sold in espresso-size cups) and "aromatica" (herbal tea) so we had several during the course of the evening. The next day we set out to Cartagena. I was there 2.5 years ago and the city has changed a little since then. It looks like a building site in many areas. Many new bed and breakfasts have been established and many new are being made in the renovated colonial houses. We stayed in one of the old run down hotels in the center which I like the most and I hope some of them will remain... Residencias Sienna was very run down but the people who run it were very nice and we had many nice conversations with them and I also played with the family dogs. I like hostels and small b&b because I like the atmosphere of being a guest in someone's house or being treated as part of the family. I went to visit a few big hotels which were converted to hotels from monasteries. The buildings are beautiful, the interior is extremely nicely designed and luxurious, the tiled swimming pools and plants in the patios are exquisite, etc., etc., but there is a clear division between guests and service and that I don't like. I ended up staying one night in a hotel like this in Barranguilla (the last night before returning to NY) because Barranquilla is one of these modern cities which don't have cozy and cheap b&b, only modern kind of luxurious hotels. The attention I got there was ambarassing to me, all pump and circumstance... I started talking to the manager of the hotel in the restaurant - he offered to bring me coffee - and I asked him to have a seat and he said he couldn't - me being guest, him being the staff - and we ended up talking for half an hour, him standing and me seating... In Residencias Sienna the owner or the cleaning lady would sit next to me with her broom and rag in her hand and we would talk for a while, naturally. I don't like the unnatural divisions... In one of the monasteries/luxurious hotels I asked if I could walk around and admire the architecture and the "bouncer" agreed and whispered into his collar "we have a guest walking around." I guess some people like this type of "security", pampering and attention where everything is "just perfect" and a bunch of people is at their service every way they move but to me it's excessive and I would feel weird in such a place. Cartagena is a beautiful city and it is still one of these places where you can sleep for $7/night (or probably $300 if you wish) and eat almuerzo (3 course lunch) for $2 (or $300) and I hope a portion of the town will remain accessible to ordinary travelers who enjoy simplicity. It is a really great place to spend the end of the year because the city organizes a lot of festivities around that time: open air concerts, dancing, various markets with crafts, etc. It is also a little cooler in the evening and at night than at other times of the year. During the day it is extremely hot and it is best to spend the midday hours lying down under the fan and drinking water. Leiner left earlier to join his family for the annual family reunion so I wondered around the city on my own. To escape the day heat I also went to Playa Blanca on one of the islands close to Cartagena but it was not as nice as the beaches in Tyrona because the islands are very touristy and there are lot's of tourists and boats so it's quite noisy.

I came back to NY 2 hours before midnight on 31 Dec. and greeted New Year with my neighbors Marzenka and Jarek and their friends and kids. The next day I met with Gosia and Rashid who moved to their new apartament in Brooklyn and later we walked with Gosia to Patrycja and Daniel's who live close. Another couple of friends joined us and we had a really nice time that 1 January. The next day I started school so here it is again... So far all the new teachers are nice. I am going to start assistantship at the acupuncture clinic so that will be very interesting. And I am actually going to be sticking needles into myself and the fellow students this semester. I will be soon writing more about the new subjects, also about the environmental medicine which I am going to study as part of the new biomedical pathology class.

Feliz Ano Nuevo!

2007-12-31T06:50:00.000-08:00

I did´t have any time in December to write any e-mails. The first two weeks were devoted to final exams, which were more difficult than I thought they would be. Thank God the semester is over. After the exams part of my group and I went to dinner to celebrate the end of the torture and then I just went home, packed my backpack, took a two hour nap and left for Colombia where I spent the other two weeks. I am leaving today because the tickets where too expensive to leave after the New Year´s. But I will make it to NY to celebrate the New Year, hoping it will be calmer than this year. The two weeks in Colombia were wonderful and I will write about it in NY. This is just a short note to send everyone greetings and to wish you all, dear friends, a wonderful New Year´s Eve and all the happiness in the new year and all years therafter.

Exams

2007-11-20T18:46:00.000-08:00

I had another exam today, the last one before the final exams the second week of December. Uff. It was a very difficult semester. I am going deeper and deeper and it seems more and more difficult but eventually it will become easier once we are exposed to more practice hours and have a chance to see how all this knowledge we have been putting into our heads is applied. At the moment my classmates and I feel tired... The regular winter madness of PQ is also tiring - it seems that the only place the US dollar has any value these days is the US so all the people from other places abroad come for shopping and then to dine at PQ. There are crowds and crowds of tourists on weekends... Sometime ago I thought that I would rather dance on a pole than work in the office again ("wole tanczyc na rurze niz pracowac w biurze" - tak ladnie sie po polsku rymuje) and I started to now think that maybe I would rather dance on a pole than work in a restaurant... or rake the leaves in Central Park... but the one great benefit of working at PQ is flexible schedule so I'll stay... I decided the only way I can survive in NY the next two years is by going away on vacation every time I have a break from school. So this time I will go again to Colombia - to go on a hike in the mountains this time, and to take a boat down the Magdalena river and spend a few days at Tyrona again, hanging on a hammock, doing nothing in particular, resting from never ending tests and exams...

Steve Brown, my former colleque and friend at FSG, left FSG last week and before he left he asked the last of his famous "Steve Brown's questions" (from time to time he would send us - the people who worked or formely worked at FSG and kept in touch - a question which we would ananomously answer and then he would send us all the compilation) which was "What would you do if you knew this was your last day (of your life)? And people said they would see their family, cook together, go for walks, spent time with those they love, etc. I also read in a book somewhere that when people die they always say they regret they didn't spend more time with their loved ones, enjoying nature, having conversations, going on vacation to see other places. Nobody ever says they regret they didn't spend more time in the office, making more money to buy this or that or making sure their bosses are satisfied. What is regretted are the feelings and emotions one never experienced or didn't experience enough of. I guess what I am saying doesn't apply in some places in the world so much but it applies to NY. I found myself in a situation where I don't have the time for meeting with friends but it's a specific temporary situation of going to school and working at the same time. But my friends who work in offices report how the office crew works around the clock and even comes to work on their days off... Even if one loves his or her job the balance and harmony between different aspects of life is needed. Here's what I found in the Swedish Institute (the school I attend) catalogue: "Arranging patients with time for self-care, fun, family, volunteering or travel creates a practice that can be satisfying through many stages." I hope to be able to do that one day -- instead of spending half a life on the NY subway...

Enough of complaining. Instead of complaining I started working on something that maybe will make the time more flexible (and save me from dancing in the go go bar eventually). For some time I have been thinking about launching a gallery and e-store with jewelery. I don't remember if I mentioned it on the blog before but I encountered a lot of beautiful hand-made jewelery during my travels. I would love to be involved in presenting it and distributing it in places where it is not known, for some profit for the makers, some for me and the general joy of dealing with these beatiful works of art. So I started preparations. My neighbor Greg is working on the gallery and e-store websites, I got some nice silver and amber jewelery from Poland to start with, and I hope to start operations in January, after I come back from vacations. I will register "the company" as SYRENA - the mermaid of the Baltic Sea. I like mermaids - the mythical creatures inhabitating oceans and seas. I wanted my Syrena to be a strong and wise woman and feminine as well. Greg made her so. I am sure she came in his dreams and introduced herself and then he painted her... The website address is www.syrenaart.com so you can get a glimpse of the Syrena when you log on. I will let you know when the website is fully done.

HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD

2007-10-14T19:12:00.000-07:00

Last week I saw, together with Karen and Millie, a movie entitled "How to Save the World". It was one of the most inspiring movies I have ever seen. It was part of the South Asian International Film Festival at my favorite museum in NY - Rubin Museum of Tibetan Art. This is what the ad for the movie says: "It exposes globalization and its mantra of infinite growth in a finite world for what it really is: and environmental diseaster. But across India marginal farmers are fighting back. By reviving an arcane form of agriculture, they are saving their poisoned lands and exposing the bio-colonialism of multinational corporations. The movie tells their story through the teachings of an elderly New Zealander many are calling the new Gandhi." The New Zealander (80 years old but looking like 60 or less) sold his house in New Zealand and, together with his companion, went to live in India to do what he believes: to promote biodynamic farming. Long time ago, before globalization and genetically modified organism (GMOs) the farmers in India were farming this way. They used cow manure to make compost and used it as fertilizer. They exchanged grains with their neighbors and rotated crops. Now the grain is monopolized by big corporate companies which sell to farmers genetically modified grain, which produces seedless plants, hence they have to buy grain from them year after year. With the grain they get, often as part of a package, artifical (and often toxic) fertilizers and pesticides. In the beginning all this yields greater crop but after a few years the soil becomes dry and malnurished and it produces less (or becomes a desert entirely). The movie mentioned that some time ago there were a few hundred different variates of grain in India and now, with the genetic modification, they are down to 15. Isn't that absolutely awful? The big companies offer the farmers loans so in the end they get into debt if their land is not producing as much as before and they can't keep up with expectations of the companies' greed for profit. This has led to hundreds of farmers committing suicides. So the New Zealander encouraged the farmers to do composts - the first step to biodynamic farming - and gradually become a selfsuficient farm. Cows in India are abundant so dung is abundant as well. They fertilize naturally and gradually make the soil moist and rich which means that the soil also holds the water better so it resists times of draugh better. In the end the farmers produce a variety of crops, they exchange grains with their neighbors, farms help each other with collecting crops and planting - there is a sense of regained control, self-respect and work for the benefit of self and community. Farmers make enough to sustain themselves and workers, if they have any, and the surplus is sold at green markets for extra money needed to live. The production doesn't have to go up and the profits stay modest but enough to live in dignity and not being on the mercy of big and impersonal banks and corporations. It seems impossible that one man could save the world but it actually is possible. His encouragment and bringing back the knowledge lost time ago makes all the difference. He says at one point in the movie: "I don't concentrate on the problem, I live the solution." He is not fighting with the big corporations or goverments and trying to change their politics. He goes to the people, literally rolls his sleaves up and gets down to pick up the dung. The movie also shows how the new highways are being built in India but what do they do? They are the venue for the corporations to come in. If I tell people here, in the Western world, that the highways are often not necessary, they think I am a lunatic. But the movie shows exactly why the new technology often doesn't improve people's lives but just on the contrary. All these big charitable organizations which have a lot of money to spend have not done so much as one man mixing dung and making compost heaps. What is most important is that he gave the people hope that they can change their lives and be independent. Very often the charitable organizations make beggers of people, by giving them free stuff, instead of encouraging them to sustain themselves. I saw a lot of this in Nepal - I mentioned this long time ago, when I was there. What was also said in the movie was this: you are what you eat. If you eat food that was grown under the sun, on rich soil, where everything is picked by hand and processed by hand, by people who are connected to nature, the soil and the food they produce, you get nutriocious food, full of universal energy. You buy it from farmers who live near you so the food is fresh. 99% of what you buy in the big supermarkets is food that is processed with preservatives and all kind of artifical chemicals: bottles and bottles of soda and food packaged for six months' shelf life... While I was watching the movie I was thinking how this man, by encouraging people to do alternative farming brought them back their dignity and how we, the alternative medicine practicioners, can bring people their dignity when it comes to their health. Which brings me to today' communication and ethics class.

It was a 4 hour class tughts by a Western medical doctor. I think I mentioned this before that about 30% of what we study is the Western medicine. So first the woman gave us an overview of ethics from the perspective of Western medicine (and culture). We were talking about mutual respect, duties, obligations, best judgement, etc., etc. but all the time she was really concentrating on how we should remember to refer our patients to Western doctors because we "don't know enough". I think all of us in class were tired of hearing this attitude again... At one point the woman mentioned that if you don't feel capable to deal with the disease you should refer the patient to an MD, "even if it means you can't go on that vacation to Costa Rica" (implying you are going to loose money that patient would bring you). That would have never crossed my mind - to ask a patient to come see me if there was no need for a visit or if that person required emergency hospital care and I wouldn't refer him or her to make extra dough... Jesus Christ and all other Gods! The minds of these Wester MDs are just rotten with greed. Should a person who says such things be teaching ethics class? I think we were all kind of stabbed in our hearts but being very polite and not wanting to get into the argument, however, Autumn expressed her feelings in a very honest but very polite way. The woman insisted that we "just don't know" and it just showed how deeply inside she doesn't really approve of whatever we do. Her ignorance on our medicine was embarassing if she wanted to discuss it. I guess what brought all of us to alternative medicine and this school was dissatisfaction and bad experience with Western medicine. In theory the Western medicine may look good but in reality, and with the present system and control of the biomedical and pharmaceutical corporations, it does a lousy job and it does take away people's dignity. Anyone who has been in an emergency room and had to wait in pain for three hours before they could be seen by a doctor knows what I am talking about... We all believe that Western medicine is good for trauma and emergency (the system works badly but they do have some technology good for this). Of course, we would refer a patient with hemorrhage, cut limb, severe burn, etc. Everything else can be treated succesfully with Chinese medicine as we are learning it. It has been done for thousands of years. The ignorance of Western medical world on other modalities of healing is abysmal. We are learning how the Western medicine operates. Western docs see us as bread being taken away from them. Alternative medicine is very cheap: needles, herbs, essential oils, massage - all this is cheap. We can charge very modest fees. Western medicine got to be very expensive. Alternative medicine becomes again the medicine of the poor people. It seems MDs feel threatened. So even though we are not respected by Western medicine we are not going to "concentrate on the problem", we are going to "live the solution". I am not going to fight with Western medical world or even discuss what I do with Western doctors who disregard my medicine as medicine. I am going to see anyone who wants to see me in my clinic and provide best care I can according to the knowledge I get at my school. I am going to have free qi gong classes and free medition for the community in which I live. I am going to spread the word that a healthy lifestyle is the key to health. All our Eastern medicine teachers are calm but alert, well organized, expressing themselves clearly, treating everyone with respect and emanating this sense of health and wellbeing, composure, wisdom and modesty. The Western med teachers are not organized, forgetful, physically look unhealthy (except for Linda who teaches anatomy but she is also an acupuncture student at our school so...) . Our Eastern med teachers always stress how important is our self-cultivation, making sure we have enough sleep, eating regular meals, doing moderate exercise, and basically making sure we are in good physical and mental health so that we can provide help to our patients with clear mind. We should be also an example for them to follow. How can I trust a person who looks unhealthy that he knows what to do to keep me healthy if they themselves look like they were pooped? (pardon) Think of all these doctors going through intership who are in emergency for 12, 24 or 36 hours. Is that humane to be working so many hours? Can a practicioner so exhausted make good judgments? This whole Western system is just plain ridiculous and against common reason.

And finally for tonight: I got for my birthday a book from Autumn entitled "The Buddha in Your Mirror" which is a good book. Do you remember the famous line from Leo Tolstoy: "How to live!?" (I would add "to be happy") Here's a recipe from the book: "To be happy one must 1) have self-steem, 2) feel in control of one's life, 3) have an optimistic outlook, 4) be committed to a noble purpose. In addition having: 5) meaningful work and play and 6) maintaining lasting, loving relationship are also important components of living happily." The patients who come to our acupuncture clinic for treatments do not realize this is what they are lacking and they are looking for things "outside" of this for fulfillment and happiness. They look for absence of suffering, however, "true happiness is not the absence of suffering: You cannot have day after day of clear skies. True happiness lies in building a self that stands dignified and indomitable. Happiness doesn't mean having a life free from all difficulties but that whatever difficulties arise, without being shaken in the least, you can summon up the unflinching courage and conviction to fight and overcome them." Also, "various live views can undermine one's health, impede the body's ability to conquer illness and lead to psychological and spiritual maladies including depression, anxiety and fear. Among them are: holding others responsible for your own pain; interpreting others' unknowable thoughts and actions in a way that is negative toward you or believing others think more strongly about you than is actually the case; and deducting fatalistic general conclusions based on specific occurrances or limited information". There's help for our patients because we make them, through our treatments, look into themselves. We are not giving them pain and suffering killers. We are helping them build the self and take responsiblity for their health and life in general.

Good night everyone, sleep tight, and don't forget to be true to yourselves, work on expressing your full potential and acknowleding you are a wonder.

Pottery and Red Hawks

2007-09-25T18:41:00.000-07:00

I just got back from an exam - I think I passed - so I can relax a bit and write something on the blog. Exam time just started and every week I will have an exam and in December I will have comprehensive exams from the whole year. Dios mio! I am not going to think about it just yet so that I don't get the stomach ulcers too soon...

In order not to get too crazy with school work, and to have some peaceful meditative time, I joined a pottery studio not far away from my house and I started last week. During last week's class I made my first pot which doesn't really look like a pot but if you look really closely you might find some resemblance... When an experienced potter makes a pot, within a few moments he makes a pot which has some nice round walls, some nice hollow opening in the middle, some shape, some stand, etc. When a novice potter makes a pot, after a long and laborous moulding, wetting, drying, etc., a pot is really a blob of clay, shaky, too thin on the bottom, too thick on the top, etc. It's just really hard to make a pot! I actually made two the first class and my arms hurt more afterwards than after a boxing class, believe it or not. It turns out you need strength to make pottery. That never occured to me... And also, the clay has a soul and a character. If you don't know what you are doing, it splatters all over you, slides away from the potter's wheel and hits the person sitting next to you, it gets into your face and your eyes, and into your mouth if you loose concentration... Pottery is like horseback riding - if you don't know what you are doing, the horse/clay takes you on a wild ride. Today morning was a little better. I put some better control to it and got better results. Now we are doing the ordinary "earthy" clay but after a while we will "graduate" to the white clay which is a pure breed (the previous being a donkey but I like donkeys very much...) and requiring more skill. Eventually, one day, I will make my own pots, cups, plates, tiles, fountains, lamps, washbasins, and whatever else can be needed in the house of my dreams (when I get it one day). For now it's just fun to be splattered all over among the ladies and gentlemen who share the passion for taming clay.

This weekend they forgot to put me on schedule at PQ so I jumped on the opportunity to go away from the city on Sunday and I went, together with Gosia and Rashid, Patrycja and Daniel, Maja and Piotr, upstate NY to a park where there was a Pow Wow - the meeting of the Red Hawk tribe. There was a really great music (original and unchanged Indian music with lots of singing and drums) and dances, and a lot of beautiful crafts and works of art made by the Indians of North and South America. It all started with putting up a flag, also the US flag (with the figure of the Indian on the horse on the stripes). Afterwards the man leading the festivities invited all the veterans of the wars (WW II, Vietnam) and those who were serving in the American army to come out and be known - they were honored and hugged. I was watching this thinking at first: "How weird, to be honoring those who work for your opressors..." But then I was thinking about it and I think I understand what it all meant. The Indian brotherhood keeps strong, at least the Red Hawk brotherhood - whatever the choices its members make, they are still part of the tribe and they will not be judged. The roots are the most important - brothers and sisters belong to the tribe as long as they want to be part of it. The whole atmosphere was really that of the free people, free enough to dance their dances and sing their songs, to dress in their traditional clothes, to present their works of artistic creativity, and to look in such way that you know for sure they are not any part of the corporate world because no office would ever employ them. It is just very important to these people to be free. Some time ago, reading about the Indians, specifically about North American Indians, I was thinking how these people especially cannot ever become part of the Western society of cubicles, short hair, suits, laptops, "guality time", gyms, 2-week vacations, etc. What's most important to them is fresh air and sun light, and not having to adhere to all these stupid and impossible rules and regulations of "civilized" society. I am saying "specifically" North American Indians because they were the ones who never suffered any feudalism, any type of empires (the way South American Indians did), any type of slavery or organized goverment, other than the tribal wisdom of the elders. When they laugh, they laugh from their heart and when they are sad, they are sad for real and not because that's "how you are supposed to feel". I know, I know.. a lot of the North American Indians are alcohol addicts, gambling addicts, lost and degradated. I think I would be degradated too if I came from this culture of freedom and vast open spaces and they would tell me I had to live in a cubicle... I don't think I would ever comply... It's hard for me to complay, and me - I was born in a "limited space" culture, so I can only imagine what they felt when their buffalos where all killed and the still horse was installed.

I was wearing my main chief necklace of dark amber at the Pow Wow and a few of the Indian jewellers wanted to see it and to hold it - they knew the healing and energetic value of stones. It it great to have all the energy of their hands in my amber necklace. Usually the Indian artists don't have any websites and don't even use e-mail (not wanting any technology spoil their ways)so I got their addresses to contact them in the future and to present their jewellery in my future art gallery. Until it's a gallery it will be a website gallery. My neighbor Grzegorz is working on the website and it should be ready in December. I will let you know when it's done. It will be one of these long-term projects to develop with time, to be doing a fun thing, to help others support themselves, to support myself a little, and to just be around works of human creative force, hold them in my hands, and pass them on to others. The gallery will be named "Syrena" - the mermaid of the Baltic sea, about which I will write in the future and which you will see on the opening page of the gallery. Buenas noches.

Of Love and Other Demons

2007-09-13T20:02:00.000-07:00

I came back from the anatomy and physiology class and I have to say I found it super interesting. Today we were talking about how energy is made and used in the body in detail and watched an incredible movie about the various organelles of the cell. Cell biology was quite boring so I think a lot has to do with how the subject is presented and how much of her own energy the instructor spends on presenting it. Linda loves her subject and seems to have a lot of energy to make it fascinating. What I also like about this class is that Linda is also studying acupuncture at our school part-time and always makes connection between Eastern and Western perspective on how the body functions. Next week I am going to list a few books which Linda told us about and which have this connection in them or which, apart from the purely Western scientific take, discuss the spiritual or not-so-scientific explanation of the issues. The thing that hugely cought my attention today was the fact that the mitochondria in the cell can be grown or produced. Mitochondria is the part, or organelle, in the cell which deal with production of energy which then is used for various functions within the cell (and some of that energy is made into heat which keeps our bodies warm) so basically how your mitochondria works and the number of it determines how good your metabolism is (how well you transform things: sugars, fats, etc.). The better the metabolism, the better the body functions: things are transformed fast and eliminated fast. So through the exercise (of body and mind) you give your body a signal that it needs more energy and so more mitochondria is needed, and consequently produced. We were talking about body functions (and staying fit and lean) and also the mind. At one point Linda said that if you exercise your mind and exercise your concentration, your body can preserve the life of brain cells and possibly build new ones. Exercising concentration is meditation so I guess for those Westerners who think meditation is silly stuff which should not be taken seriously, there's basically evidence in the Western science that it does work, on cellular level.

And now about Love... I didn't take any book with me to Colombia because I was so tired of reading textbooks, and also I didn't want to worry about the inside of my backpack getting wet or dirty, so for the first two weeks I didn't put my eyes on the printed word. However, on the third week I noticed a book exchange in the little store adjecent to the only one little restaurant in Cabo and I borrowed Gabriel Garcia Marquez' "Nobody Writes to the Colonel" - a collection of stories - which I read with pleasure, as all the other books by this author I read before (especially "One Hundred Years of Solitude"). And when I came back I spotted on Katarina's book shelf his "Of Love and Other Demons." It is a very beautiful book. Everything is beautiful about it. Life's eternal truths are vailed in a way that they are there for everyone to discover on their own, or not. And I especially like the two different takes on illness: one of the doctor Abrenuncio (a mix of Western and Eastern, I would say, perspective) and the other of the Bishop (a spiritual view, however, distorteded by misinterpreted reading of the Christian bible, done by the Holy Office - Inquisition). I think my favorite line in that book is such: "No medicine can cure what happiness cannot." It is my firm belief, indeed. And the love story which is part of the book is, of course, beautiful. I always said that the story of Romeo and Juliet's love is nothing in comparison to the love between Balthasar and Blimunda ("Balthasar and Blimunda" by Jose Saramago) and now I add to the greatest love stories the love story of the priest and Sierva Maria. I become to love Marquez' books even more after I have travelled to Colombia. He very vividly describes the heat, the rainy season, the laziness, hammock siestas, and all this which is part of tropical climates and which is part of life in Colombia. I was reading "Nobody is Writing to the Colonel" swinging in the hammock in the heat of midday, experiencing all that... Part of "Of Love and Other Demons" takes place in the Convent of Santa Clara in Cartagena de Indias which was later turned into a hotel, which fact the author mentions in the beginning of the book, and which I visited when I went to the city two years ago. I remember how beautiful the Convent/hotel was, the courtyard and the beach nearby. I feel I am there when I read the book, transported in time a few hundred years ago when it was populated by nuns and demons...

Elan's tribute

2007-09-12T06:32:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to the website of my co-worker and friend Elan and one of his short movies, about the incided that happened at PQ. The link was sent to all of us waiters with the following note from Elan:

"Some of you already know. There was a nefarious act committed at PQ Soho between me and another employee (Zohar). It was awful. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Click below for the details. The title is "Putting up these chairs..." -elan

[For those out in the world unfamiliar with the American dining system, the restaurants are divided into sections and each waiter has a section he "services." The more customers you get into your section, the better...]

P.S. Not all acts commited by Elan are nefarious so check out his other movies and stories.

http://www.elanzafir.net/

Colombia

2007-09-05T21:25:00.001-07:00

I came back from Colombia a few days ago. It's getting really hard for me to come back to NY... It's hard to come to concrete and asphalt after walking on sand and earth for a while... I decided that the reason why I like Goa in India and Tyrona in Colombia so much is that I am not enclosed by walls there. In Goa I slept in a coco hut and in Tyrona I slept on a hammock with a roof made from coco leaves. So this must be what I crave - a way to live outside, all the time, day and night, being surrounded by nature instead of other buildings... Regarding the details:

It took me 18 hours to get to Santa Marta by bus. Most of it I slept but I watched the sunrise on the bus and the places we passed on the way were beautiful. The road in some places was really rough. Not as bad as the road from Diu to Bombay/Mumbai but almost as bad... But the bus had the airconditioning so that made the 18 hours pleasant. When we arrived in Santa Marta and left the ac'ed bus the heat wave hit me... it was really hot, hot and dry. I got a collectivo to the city center, which is basically around the beach and port, and I found the Mira Mar hostel which was recommended in the Footprint guidebook. I got a bed in the dorm, showered and ate, went for a walk around the city, walking very slowly in that heat, and after I came back I met Arava, a girl from Israel, who shared the dorm room with me. Arava got back from the hike to the Lost City and was covered by mosquito bites. I decided, even before I saw Arava's legs bitten to the limits, that I would not do the trail. It was six days, six days of walking up and down the mountains, and I thought I was just not feeling like walking a lot this time... I just felt like spending time on the beach and I decided then that I would stay in Tyrona if the beaches were as nice as people were telling me they were. The next day the hostel arranged a taxi for Arava and I, and also Susanne and Oliver from Germany, to take us the 35 kilometers to the entrance of the park where we got our tickets and then the extra 5 km to the absolute end of the road. From there we walked the trail in the jungle another few km to the coast and we reached Arrecifes - a very nice campground with hammocks to rent, a restuarant, bathrooms and showers. We decided to go another few km to the other campground, Cabo de San Juan de Guia, which we heard had beautiful beach and which had a more of a backpackers' atmosphere. All the beaches and little bays we passed along the way were breathtaking. Midway between Arrecifes and Cabo is La Piscina - a natural pool - the rocks block the waves so la piscina is calm and the currents are not as strong as the ones close to Arrecifes. La Piscina is a great place for snorkling and I spent a lot of time doing that there, observing all kinds of fish and corrals. When we reached Cabo I felt like home. Everything was very basic there: bathrooms, cold-water showers ("coeducational" and without any walls so you eaither take a shower nude or in a swimming suit), and restaurant. Hammocks are $5 a night and the tent space is about the same. Living conditions are basic at Cabo but the beaches are beautiful and atmosphere is great - it's one of these places which attracts people who like nature and quietness and the company of other such globtrotters who don't care for luxury so much as for the spirit of adventure. Arava decided to go back the next day since she had other places to visit and Suzy and Ollie also returned to Santa Marta because it was almost the end of their trip in Colombia. I was sad to see them leave so soon - we had wonderful conversations and enjoyed eath others company - but the day they left I met Leiner, who works as a guide in the park, and also Alvaro and Gordo from Bogota and Nestor from a city I forgot the name of but which is close to the border with Venezuela. The next day I also met Narciso and Carlos, also from Bogota. We spent a lot of time together. The first day we went on a small hike to Pueblito - remains of the village of one of the indigenous groups. We walked up the mountain first in humid heat, then in the tropical rain. The ruins are small but the atmosphere of the place is wonderful. The indians still live there and operate a small store with some artesanias and cold drinks. Along the way in the mountains we saw some monkeys of the makkak family, lizards, birds and lush vegetation. My plan was to just lie flat on the beach all the time but the first few days were a lot about walking, the hills, the trails in the jungle, the rocks along the beaches. The first walk on rocks was like rock climbing and it was so difficult that at one point I asked Leiner if a helicopter could just take me from there (we both laughed) because I got to the point where I thought I would not be able to go forward and thinking of going back the same way was eqaully scarry... but I made the big step over the abyss of 7 meters (Leiner measured it with a rope - I think he knows every pebble and every crevice in that park) between the rocks and it got easier. I think any type of mountain and rock climbing is good for that sense that things which seem impossible to do, are possible to do when you overcome the fear. And the satisfaction after you've done it is immense. So after the first few days my legs were full of bruises and scratches from walking and snorkling (hitting the rocks and corrals). Then Leiner took Alvaro, Gordo and I and also Abu who works at Cabo, to a place at the other side of the park called Chengue - a bay full of corrals and fish which seems like another fin del mundo. The only way to get there is walking through the mountains or taking a boat from a fishing village, which we did. It's a beautiful but very desolate place. There's a small camp there and a few people run it. Senora Sobeida seems to be the only woman there. She is a licensed masseur and was showing us the massage technigues on Leiner. There is a kind of kitchen there, a table and a roof of plam leaves to hang hammocks under. We stayed there for two days, snorkled and slept during the hot time of the day - the heat is profound and I had a hard time coping with it. There's no fresh water there so anything for drinking or cooking has to be brought from other places. We had some food and were thinking of cooking but, gracias de Dios, the people cooked for us so we eate wonderful dishes prepared mostly of rice, corn flour, fish and other sea food. Everything was delicious and it's incredible that you can cook so well having such limitted cooking facilities (and little water). The animals which were part of that little "farm" were very curious when we got there: the chickens came and jumped on our backpacks, the skinny cat came to get a pat (we were feeding him to fatten him up a little), not to mention all the ants who were climbing our legs in great numbers... I also found a scorpion in my hat but told him to go away - I prefer to be his friend from afar... I think he was hiding in my hat from the rain as that night there was a big thunderstorm, which was nice because it cooled down the air a little. On one of the beaches closer to Cabo I also saw a beautifully green iquana and then in the jungle a small alligator and around everywhere lots and lots of big red and blue crabs. Crabs are very interesting creatures. I observed them many times coming back to Cabo, looking at me, one eye this way, the other that way, walking sideways, jumping in their holes in the sand... A few times we also met the indigenous persons belonging to the Kogui family. They live in the mountains and try to preserve the way they have lived for a very very long time... They farm, live in palm huts, make their own clothing (white pants and shirts and stripped bags), and sometimes come down to exchange goods. They are tiny and lean people. Their knowledge of Spanish is limited - they speak their own language. Once when Alvaro and I met a Kogui young man Alvaro asked him how old he was and he said "I think about 20". Time is not something that preoccupies the minds of the truly free people... Looking into the eyes of a Kogui person is seeing a different reality, the reality of honesty and innocence. The evening I spent in Santa Marta I went to the beach and I met Edouardo who is an older person and who was telling me how he and other seven kids were the only survivors of a massacre on his village a long time ago, during the "war with the Colombian government" as he called it. He lost his village and his family and was wandering around for some time, looking for a way to live. Now, being older, he found his peace and his home in the mountains not far away from Santa Marta. He makes jewellery and sells it on the beach and enjoys his life "in between", being part of the modern society but keeping his indigenous values... He is a very wise man. His education is his life's experience and I believe it is the best education - it makes a person modest and compassionate. Spending time among people honest and free from fear (basically if you have nothing, there's nothing to loose and so there's no fear of loosing anything... not even a notion of loosing your face which so precoupies the Western minds seems to exist there...) makes it hard to come back to NY - a city of fake smiles and lots of fear... but coming back to school is wonderful. I met with my group and my teachers and my heart is expanding again, with admiration and appreciation, and gratitude to be part of this wonderful school and group. This semester we are beginning observation in our school clinic and checking the pulses and tongues of REAL patients and doing assassment and proposing methods of treatment so I am very excited. Yesterday my classmates Autumn and Shoan and I went to get our white lab coats and it seemed like a big thing to me. I am going to write more soon about my various thoughts. I am going to school now for the first internal anatomy class with a wonderful Ms. Linda Puckett who will make it fun and easy to digest.

And a little note to all wonderful people whom I met in Cabo and who are reading my blog: greetings and many hugs to you dear new friends! The memory of the place and our time spent together will be with me for ever. Until we sea each other again muchos besos.

Dad

2007-08-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

My father died on 5th of July. I went to Poland the same day to organize his funeral. I wanted it to be a beautiful farewell and it was. I invited people who are dear to me, my friends and neighbors. My dad didn´t have many friends, being a lonely soul and having a hard time connecting to people in an intimate way, but in his last yourney he was accompanied by me, my mom, and my friends - we all walked behind the urn with the ashes to the tumb where his parents lie - Wladyslaw and Franciszka. It was my father´s wish to be buried where his parents were buried. We paid respect to the remains of his physical incarnation. After the funeral we went for dinner to a restaurant close to our house. The restaurant is on the grounds of the stables and is surrounded by the forest in which I spent so much time before I left for America - a nice place to gather, spend time together and go for a walk... I wanted the dinner to be a nice event to remember, a time spent on conversation in peaceful atmosphere...

My father died on his own terms. He didn´t want to be immoblizied in bed and he wasn´t - he was walking on his own till the last day, enjoying life till the last minute. He died of internal hemhorrage which was a quick way to part with this world, in the end. I wasn´t with him when it happened physically but spiritually I was. I could feel his passing away and I experienced the transformation of the soul to a different dimension with him. He was not alone in the end and he still is not. The souls are never separated... I am grateful for meeting Shanti with whose help I can see things this way. To see things this way makes life rich and full of hope, as opposed to feeling emptyness, sadness and misery after loss. There is no sadness in me. There is only gratitude for the time spent together. The time spent together was difficult at times, especially the times where I was not wise and didn´t see things I later become to see. It took me some time to understand my dad but once I did I could feel unconditional love for him. My father has gone through very bad experience during the war, when he was a young boy. It made a mark in him and left him with many scars. After that it was hard for him to trust, to allow himself to love, and to express his feelings. On Easter morning he gave me a chocolate heart on which there were sugar letters saying "I love you." It was the closest he got to telling me that he loved me. However hard it was for him to express it I know that he loved me. I eate the hart piece by piece and it filled my heart with sweetness...

After I got back to NY I started studying hard to make up the missed tests at school and to prepare for the finals - I wanted to take them with my group because I so love it I want to stick to it until I graduate. They are incredible people. I got from them all the materials I needed and I passed all the exams. The exams were much harder than the previous semester and contained much more material. The day of the last exam, which was last Friday, I had a huge headache... That evening two of my classmates Karen and Autumn, and Rashid (Gosia went camping upstate) joined me to say goodbye to Ania and Tomek - two friends who are leaving for a year to backpack Siberia, China, India and South East Asia. I wasn´t sure if I could make it to the farwell with that big headache but we eased it with wine and beer...

On Sunday I came to Bogota. I have a three-week break from school and decided to do what I tend to be doing after events which seem to be breaking points in my life: it feels best to me to put a backpack on my back and go into the unknown. And the best place to do it is South America. It is my favorite continent still. It´s where I feel best (and on Iberian Peninsula). I found a hostel in the part of the city called la Candelaria - the oldest part surrounding the cathedral, with narrow winding streets, old buildings with patios and gardens inside. As always in South America I was struck with people´s kindness. After I came in the evening I went to eat and then for a walk to plaza major where I found the friendly dogs, wagging tails and stretching out for a pat and rub... This is honey for my soul... On my way from the airport a bus driver invited me to sit next to him and for half an hour we talked about life and he said life is hard in Bogota but it has a soul. Would a bus driver in NY say this to me? First of all he wouldn´t be able to talk to me while driving... So many things in NY are forbidden that it almost seems like life is stripped of its flavor by all these things one cannot do... Too much security makes life bland... But for now I can enjoy liberty of talking to bus drivers and all other people who feel inclined to talk to me. I am going to Santa Marta today. It is a coastal town up north and a port, and is a place from where one can go to Tyrona national park and from where excursions are made to Ciudad Perdida. I don´t know if I will go to see the Lost City (excavated ruins of lost civilization which are accessible through a trail in the jungle) - I will see how I feel when I get there. It is an area inhabited by indigenous groups of Koguis, Arhuacos and Arsarios and I read and heard that these groups preserved some of their shamanic traditions. If they would like to share their wisdom with me, I would love to listen if I decide to go... I will definitely go to the Tyrona park. It is a strip of coast unspoiled by civilization. There are only hammocks there and nothing else...

In Bogota I visited the Museum of Gold with lots of beautiful pre-Colombian gold pieces. There was a section on shamans and the indigenous idea of the world and cosmos. Here´s what I found written on one of the exhibits:

"Opposing principles are in a state of equilibrium in indigenous thought. There are men and there are women, light follows darkness, drought follows rain, and the world above has its opposite, the underworld. When this equilibrium is broken, the result is chaos, uncontrollable forces take over the universe, threatening disorder and terror. Wise men intervene at this point to bring order back to the world. They restore balance by means of sacred offerings and make it possible for life to follow its normal course."

The "opposing principles" are like yin and yang. The wisdom of the old, indigenous thought surpases any new, modern ideas. It is a basic principle which is in agreement with mother nature.

Many hugs to all friends reading my blog.

Shanti and time travel

2007-06-29T20:33:00.000-07:00

I realize that I don't write personal e-mails these days... I am sorry... I feel drained by NY. I will write more e-mails in the future. I feel that I have a hard time aclimatizing to NY life after not being here for 1,5 years. It may sound silly (it's already almost a year since I got back) but that's how it feels. I long more and more for nature... walks with dogs, green of trees and blue of sky. It seems that whatever this city has to offer, it is not what I would like. It probably has everything except nature, peace and quietness... I enjoyed the entertainment before (the theatres, movies, concerts, opera, etc.) but it seems that I got to the stage of life in which I would like quiteness most... but I don't want to complain - it's only realization of what it is that is making me feeling odd here and acknowleding it. But I do believe that everything is for a reason and that my place is here, no matter what it feels to me. The ways of the Universe put me here for now and that's where my lessons will be learned.

On recommendation of my classmate I met a few times with Shanti. She is of Indian descend, was born in Canada, spent 16 years in a monastery in Taiwan, and now lives partly in California (going to a chiropractic school) and in NY during her breaks from school. She has also the ability to dissipate negative energy and make one travel in time. The journeys I have made were fascinating. I always suspected that time was not linear, that it was more of a spiral, like the Nautilus, and different lives where happening simultaneously. It seems that if we travel in time and live through the experience we have not lived while living a particular lifetime, but live through this experience now, wiser with the wisdom obtained in the later lives, we can change the course of events in that lifetime and this lifetime. Have you ever felt that you had a certain problem and no matter what you did, however much you struggled and tried to attack the problem from different sides, the problem stayed unresolved and was like a thorn in your side? Travel in time can give you a clue as to what really is the problem in the problem. For that reason alone it's fascinating to do this type of energy healing/time travel. But it may be very tiring in the beginning because a lot of things come to the surface, mostly the negativites carried for centuries. After the first few sessions I felt very tired, dizzy, I had a fever, the top of my head felt very hot, I couldn't sleep, I had heart palpitations, felt huge chest opression, sweated profusely, I felt disoriented. According to Chinese medicine these are symptoms connected to Heat in the body (and Sun Si Miao would say they are connected to ghosts). Both Shanti and the students at our acupuncture clinic were telling me that in my case the symptoms mean that the "evil" heat is coming out. Thinking I am about to get a heart attack I went to our clinic on the day I felt really really bad and they checked my pulses and the tongue (the most important aspect of the Chinese diagnostic methods) and said my pulses and tongue were best they've seen in me, pulse was somewhat rapid but really really great and lively. I went home and palpitated and sweated more thinking they were all lunatics... sending me home in a pre-heart attack state... And on the fourth week I started sleeping again, 12 hours every night, feeling my senses to sharpen (not a good thing in NY - I smell the garbage more and hear the noise twice as much), getting more centered and memorizing stuff for school better and quicker. Getting on the spiritual path is hard work... and it is scarry in the beginning. I will try to stick to it and do my homework proscribed by Shanti. She is leaving to California next week and I will keep in touch with her through e-mail and report on what interesting things I notice in myself and the surroundings. I will stick to it for my own sake and for the sake of my future patients - if I am meant to do it, then maybe one day I can help people get rid of the negative energy the way Shanti does.

If you ever feel inclined to try travel in time you can try by concentrating on a certain chakra (just lie down, concentrate on a chakra, and follow whatever thought comes to your mind) - you may see glimpses into other lives.

So for now NY is my purgatory - a place which doesn't seem comfortable but in comfortable situations one is not inclined to look for growth, only in uncomfortable situation or an uncomfortable place one is forced to look for ways to deal with them and by doing that finding other dimensions. Then there is growth in misery but only if one looks for the growth - quitting looking brings stagnation and we already know stagnation is the worst possible thing...

Rumi and Sun Si Miao

2007-05-30T20:37:00.000-07:00

Sun Si Miao (581-682) was the most famous Chinese medical doctor of the Tang Dynasty. He developed the “Sun Si Miao’s ghost points” which were the subject of our class today. The idea is such that we, the humans, are prone to developing demons and ghosts within us. The “demons” and “ghosts” may be whatever is negative in us, negative feelings, emotions and deeds. And there are different stages of “possession”, from a mild one of feeling off or feeling “something is just not right” and we are loosing a sense of direction in life, to severe which would be the cases of epilepsy, withdrawal, depression, schizophrenia, mania, paranoia, etc. or all that would make us separate from the surrounding environment and going against our Selves, and causing us to be self-destructive. So the acupuncture ghost points treat all these disorders. They are disorders from the Chinese medical point of view because whatever is causing us not to be responsible for our life and making us unable to cultivate our compassion and the feeling of oneness with all beings and worldly phenomena, is a pathology. Great stress is provided in the self-cultivation, predominantly the self-cultivation of the healers which means looking into what we popularly call the skeletons in the closet or, as Sun Si Miao would say: the demons and ghosts within us. Skeletons/ghosts may be necessary obstacles for us to overcome them in order to grow but the problem starts when we lock them inside instead of dealing with them as they come. The first step to self-cultivation, in doctors and patients, is acknowledgement of our own suffering, areas of difficulty and struggle, our own negativities and shortcomings and the blame we put on others, and acknowledgement of the same negativities in others. So to acknowledge is the first step to work on these shortcomings. As long as we put the blame on others for our condition, the ghosts will hunt us. They will hunt us and dwell in us and eventually they will take over our Self and so we will see the world through their eyes and we will become delusioned. Sun Si Miao ghost points help us retain our clear vision which comes from our own Self, and they help us cultivate our compassion and our understanding that we should allow the change to enter and go with the flow, however, not being without control but not being victims either. That’s Chinese medicine psychiatry. Of course, it’s working on the energetic level so there’s help from the energetic power of the Universe – which to a Western doctor would seem a talk of the lunatic but to us, Eastern doctors this makes perfect sense and brings good results. It requires work on the part of the patient. It’s not about popping a drug a few times a day. The work is hard but it eventually brings patients to a different level of understanding themselves and the reality. The work requires us to look into ourselves and realize all the answers to our questions regarding the maze of life, and the solutions to our problems are inside us. Here's what the Persian poet Rumi says about this:

Why should I seek? I am the same as
He. His essence speaks through me.
I have been looking for myself!

In class today our teacher Libby, the master Witch-Wu, also gave us the wonderful poem by Rumi which goes along with Sun Si Miao’s philosophy on acknowleding of the ghosts:

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival

A joy, a depression, a meanness
Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
Who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture.

Still, treat each guest honorably
It may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice -
Meet them all at the door laughing, and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes, because each one has
been sent as a guide from beyond.

On life and death

2007-05-04T19:41:00.000-07:00

I went to Poland on March 20th because my father is ill. I actually had a dream that a big black bird flew into my room through the window before my father was operated on and I knew that meant bad news... even before the doctors knew it... He has pancreatic cancer. When I got to Poland and found him in the hospice he was in a very bad state and doctors were giving him a few days to live but I took him home and, with the help of hospice doctor and a nurse he got much better. After two months he can lead "normal" life although motions are slower...

When we talked about his illness I told my father that anything is possible: he can live for a while, for a short time, for a long time… Whatever the doctors say I don’t see things the way they see them. My father will pass away when the time is right for him to leave this life… There must be still lessons to learn for him in this life… I talked to him about it and it sparked some curiosity in him and maybe helped him a little… My father lives in the material reality, reality created by the Western religions and culture which is characterized by uncertainty regarding what happens after life. The culture does say “Memento mori” but it’s very unclear what it means… Since fear of the afterlife accompanies any thoughts about it, death is perceived as a tragedy. It always surprises me that those who say they absolutely, with unshaken faith, believe in God, cry so much and have such difficult time coping with death of loved-ones. It seems to me that those people especially should be happy that God has cut the suffering of their loved-ones because whatever good happens to us, life on Earth is nonetheless connected to suffering. If we believe in God, we should have faith that whatever he puts on our path is for a purpose. Of course, the loved-ones who pass away were dear to us and we loved them and will miss them, but I feel that if we love them with true love which always has in mind the wellbeing of the loved-one and not our own, we will let them go... Otherwise, it will not be true love but our own attachment which puts our own needs first. When I was in the hospice I went through a moment of panic, I did. The panic was connected to the state of my father but, when I thought about it more, it was mainly about the environment of the hospice. I could feel what the patients were feeling, how anguished and confused they were, how unable to accept what was happening, how they and their families were full of fear… If there is a measure as to which culture is more beneficial for humans, then maybe the one which does not instill in people this type of fear… Because I am sure it was not present in the old old days when people observed nature and how sun raises and sets, and how plants and other animals are born and die, and death was just part of a cycle… I read a book recently entitled “Good life, good death. Tibetan wisdom on reincarnation” written by one of the Tibetan Llamas. In the forward the Dalai Lama says that Tibetans are blessed with an “inborn” belief in reincarnation and the idea of karma (the belief that whatever you do to others will be done to you if not in this life than in the next but in any case everything has to be experienced because only from experience wisdom comes) puts the responsibility of our actions into our own hands. When we think good thoughts and do good things, good things happen to us in return, etc. This does not mean that if someone slaps us on the cheek, we should offer the other cheek to be slapped. No, you should ask the slapper why he did that, why he used force. By accepting violence done to us and becoming victims, we are not doing anybody a favor, we are not cultivating benevolence and compassion, we are not being “good”. By pointing out that anger and violence leads to more anger and violence and that communication and conversation can bring solutions, we ask the slappers to respect themselves (by not acting out on their anger) and others. So, from that Tibetan point of view, whatever you did in this life, whatever you are so attached to, that loosing it causes anger or sadness or jelousy or fear, will have to be lived through in the next life until it is not connected to negative emotions and doesn't push us to negative actions. There is nothing to fear on a Tibetan deathbed: "if I did actions which brought negative karma, I will come back here to suffer a little more in the next physical incarnation. I will be coming back until I go through the negative emotion I myself instilled and understand my actions completely based on this experience, and until the process of cultivation of my soul ends, which really depends on me and my actions." A Tibetan soul needs not to be afraid of what is on the other side... The hell fire is only the next incarnation... In any case, coming back to hospices. The places are so dreadful because everybody there is in denial… I guess that a culture which has a difficult time coping with and expressing feelings as they come, has a difficult time expressing feelings connected to the last stage of life. When I got my father home situation drastically changed. He was still just lying in bed for the first week but the atmosphere was different. He eventually started eating, walking, going out to the garden… He is probably not spending time on any deeper thoughts connected to spiritual things - he never got to the third level of energetics - but he is to some extend still enjoying his life in his hectic way of a very young soul. I think he knows that it is a given time. He was so close to the end that he knows how it can feel and he is less scared. He didn’t loose the sense of humor which is good and helpful in any situation: when I first came to see him in the hospice he said to me: “This is the end.” And I said “No, it’s not the end” (not trying to fool him he was not dying but thinking more of the fact that death is only the transition and he will be born again) and he responded: “Do you want me to live forever?!” We both laughed. I told him later "You will live forever dad, maybe not as Edmund Kabat and maybe not as my dad, but you will live forever. And even if you are not my dad then, we will be connected in some way or another, because nothing is accidental and everything is connected forever and every being is part of the beautiful whole."

I came back to NY two weeks ago and went straight from the airport to school – the next semester started and it will last until mid August. The time I spend with my father gave some insight to life’s ways and I decided not to kill myself the way I did during the previous two semesters: I will work less and enjoy study and my free time more. I will work at PQ only two days a week (most likely on weekends) and go to school as before Monday to Friday 6-10 pm. School is already a full-time job because I have to study at least equal amount of time I spend at school. I will just use the federal loan and not worry too much about it. I will never retire anyways and practice medicine until I drop so I have the rest of my life to pay any loan. I will be doing what I love so it’s not going to be a burden. Most of my classmates are doing the same. It seems that we have changed so much since January… The knowledge (and wisdom) we get is changing us physically and mentally. I think that once you get into the Chinese philosophy of life and lifestyle, as thought by the old scriptures and classical text, you have less and become more. So it seems everybody is getting rid of stuff not needed (including pounds – all who had pounds to loose, are loosing them gradually), stuff negative, stuff blocking energy... We are eating and drinking healthier things, thinking different thoughts, seeing the process of our life in a new, and very interesting, way. Every class is very interesting and every day we are getting this incredibly amazing knowledge. It’s so different from the Western knowledge that it is sometimes difficult to grasp but when we do, the horizon expands, our eyes open wider, and it seems like the brain and heart expand their capacity. Since it is classical Chinese medicine, and not the TCM, we sometimes laugh that we are learning witchcraft because medicine, philosophy and religious beliefs are all woven together and it’s not possible to talk about one without the other. Libby who is our principal teacher of Oriental energetics takes her magic wand in her hand (a piece of chalk) and draws these incredible things on the blackboard… To whoever would like to read about the basics of the classical Chinese medicine I can recommend a book entitled “The Web That Has No Weaver. Understanding Chinese Medicine” by Ted J. Kaptuchuk.

Gradually I will write some about the Chinese medicine on the blog. I can start, as I promised, with Qi. The basic idea is that the Universe is constantly changing and all on this planet is in constant fluctuation. We are part of the whole and as such, are also constantly changing. But it is a part of our nature to be afraid of change. Often times we become stuck and want to stop the current that takes us God knows where, we think… We prefer what we already know and feel more comfortable in what we have gotten used to. But by doing this we are struggling with what is unavoidable… And that causes a lot of our struggle and confusion. Whether we are talking about the physical or mental and spiritual body, if there’s movement, there’s life. If there’s a free and unobstructed flow of blood and all other bodily fluids, and also thoughts, feelings, and emotions, then there is no diseases. If we can take things in as they come, process the change on the spot by either accepting it or making some arrangement to make it bearable, in other words if there’s flexibility in our way of doing and thinking, we’ll let that energy which is constantly flowing through us pass on freely. Because everything has a kind of energy. The energy of the Universe, of the whole and the detail that creates the whole, is passing through us. So the idea of Qi or the universal energy is that is should flow freely. If by our wanting to keep it still mentally or physically (physically by let's say contracting different muscles, for example the heart muscle by keeping hurt feelings too long or being too sensitive), we create obstruction in the flow of Qi. The Qi guides the blood – Qi and blood are unseparable. If there’s obstruction in the flow of Qi-energy there will be obstruction of blood as well and that may lead to blood stasis or stagnation. Stagnation causes pain, physical and emotional. There are many conceps in Chinese medicine. This is one of them. I like its philosophy and how it later translates to acupuncture treatment – by connecting various points on the meridians (the pathways on which the energy travels) we make the blood unstuck, we make it flow freely again. There is something called a microcosmic orbit which is the energy flowing through the midline front and back of the body. Over three years ago when I first went to get the acupuncture treatments I began to feel the microcosmic orbit – I started feeling how the energy travels through my body in a circular motion. If you would like to try it yourself here’s how to do it:

For women: sit on a chair straight but relaxed with your feet planted on the ground and palms of your hands rested on your tights. Close your eyes and envision the energy going from the genitals to the midline of the front of the body, through all the organs, neck, face, head, to the back of the head and down your spine, and down to genitalia, and start visualizing the circle again.

For men it’s the same except they should start from genitalia to the back and the spine and then the front.

Women are more yin (nourishing, going inward) and men are yang (energetic, going outward), hence the direction.

Try it and see how it feels. We did this meditation in class and we had some interesting feelings connected to it. A few of us felt where the energy was stuck and “pushed” it forward. I read somewhere that in the old time, when people’s minds were not so clogged by the amount of sensory input, people felt the microcosm orbit flowing through them easily. Now, we are often disconnected from our inner bodies and it is hard for us to feel it without bringing it back by meditating on it. By meditating we are really learning to listen…

Here’s what I found on a tea bag tag (I drink these different herbal teas with these cool tags attached to them – some contain great thoughts):

Practice listening to become intuitive.

I very much believe in this. Instead of listening to others all the time, listen to what your own intuition, your deeper soul, has to say to you. You may hear some really interesting things… With that I will finish for tonight. The only uninteresting subject I have to study is the cell biology from the biomedical point of view – comparing to Eastern stuff it’s pretty boring and I have a test tomorrow so I’ve got to hit the book and get it over with… I will write soon more on my findings.

Hecitc times

2007-04-23T03:46:00.000-07:00

To all my faithful readers: I experienced some hectic times recently, travelling between Poland and NY and didn't really have a chance to be in touch but I will write soon. I will be back in NY in a week, with all the news of the recent weeks and the beginning of writing about Oriental medicine. Until then be healthy and wise, enjoy life and be greateful for every day (I found this on a tea bag: "An attitude of gratitude opens many oportunities." I like that and agree that an attitude of gratitude brings good vibes and good karma). Big hugs to everyone.

Monday

2007-03-05T20:26:00.000-08:00

I may not remember my name but I know my purpose... (it's Monday) I finished my three-day marathon at PQ and got back from school. Today's class of Acupuncture Energetics is tought by a wonderful teacher named Sheila Mason. Today we discussed the third level of energetics which is "differentiation and discrimination." The first one is "respiration and digestion" and the second "interaction and communication." The first two are present in every person's life and the third in these individuals who ask themselves the questions such as "Who am I?" and "What is my purspose of being here?" So when we discuss issues connected to spiritual cultivation, Soul and emotions, I clearly remember what my purpose of doing what I do is. And Sheila is such a wise and gentle person that all of us in my group aspire to be a practicioner so balanced and so gentle as she is in the future...

Katarina left on Wednesday and the time we spent together was very nice. Katka's life problems got resolved in the three weeks and many new possibilities appeared. And this is how it should be - whatever obstacles appear, resolving them will open new doors because it means that old things have to dissolve, changes have to be made and the new wind will bring new ideas and new options. So instead of fearing the change, it's wisest to embrace it and use it to one's benefit. Katarina and I were talking about how much we have both changed since we first met over three years ago. When we met she and I separated from our now ex-husbands (we used the same lawyer to file the divorce papers) and there was a melodrama connected to it because we were so silly at that time... and a little confused regarding life in general... At that time of the profound change three years ago Katarina rang my doorbell, I opened and saw her standing at my door with a bag with her belongings in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. She said "Asia, I came here to get drunk." (The phrase always makes us laugh now.) And so that's how it was: she got drunk and I got drunk, and we were telling each other our life stories, crying and complaining about the senslessness of human existance, specifically it's female part, and the dawn came and we finally fell asleep and when we woke up we felt much better. I guess it was the catharis we both needed. Luckily we both come from the cultures in which you see a friend when you have problems not a psychotherapist (and such therapy is much cheaper - a few bottles of wine instead of $200 per hour of psychotherapy for endless time or as long as the psychotherapist needs the dough). Three years passed and whatever problems appear now are just laughted out loud, incense is burned to chase away bad spirits, relaxing tea is drunk (no more alcohol), organic food is eaten to nourish the body and mind, and uplifiting music is listened to bring positive vibes. So time passed, we got new experience and certain wisdom which lets us take things as they are and never make a huge thing out of any problem which appears. Which means that the passage of time is a good thing and certainly maturation and getting old and wise. It's not wise to cling to the past or bad habits or stagnation. Which brings me to the idea of Qi in Oriental medicine about which soon...

Sunday Pain aka Pandemonium

2007-02-18T16:22:00.000-08:00

So today there was no time for our usual talk at The Daily Pain, just no talk whatsoever. Today a beehive of hungry customers invaded The Daily Pain... It happens on some weekends... The stream of people is coming, and coming and coming... there's a line at the door all day... the dishwasher works full speed but still can't keep up with washing and there's not enough glasses, egg cups, plates... and things are slowed down, and customers are impatient, and we run like crazy to make things work... If you can believe the value of food I sold during my 9 hour shift was $1,600. Do you know how many sandwiches, salads, coffees and pastries I delievered? Sounds like impossible... It means I made about 50 km walking around that restaurant, feeding all these hungry mouths... On Saturdays and Sundays like this, at the end of the shift I don't know my name anymore... On Monday I wake up at 5:00 am, start work at 6:30, finish at 3:00, go to school 6-10 pm, and when I come home around 11 pm I not only don't remember my name, I don't know who I am at all, and what the purpose of this, let me call it purgatory, is... It's all a blurr... When I wake up on Tuesday morning, I remember my name but the purpose is still unclear... I recover though and on Wednesday it all comes back to me again! Until the next weekend pandemonium... But I am not complaning. The amnesia is temporary. The feeling of having a purpose is always staying deep inside me and it comes back when the body recovers. The one thing that I can't stand in life, I really absolutely can't stand and won't ever, is boredom, so anything other than that is fine. Nothing in my life is boring. What I study is super interesting to me and the customers at PQ are constant entertainment. Some are very difficult and very confused, as I mentioned before, but dealing with them helps in training patience and benevolence - sometimes I feel like casting a bad spell on them but eventually I just let them deal with their issues by themselves and their karma to teach them what it suppose to. Let Ganesh take care of that and put obstacles on their path when they are needed and lift the obstacles after the lessons from overcoming them have been learned.

So my friend Katarina has been staying with me. She left her apartment and is looking for another nest and until she finds it, she will be staying in my monasterio. Katarina also studies and works at a restaurant (but totally different hours) so there's not much time we can actually spend together but when we can, we listen to around-the-world music, burn incense, read wise books (Katarina studies anthropology) and have insightfull conversations.

Yours truly, without a name... until Tuesday...

Le Pain Quotidien aka "Daily Bread" or "Daily Pain"

2007-02-04T17:00:00.000-08:00

Yes, in French "Le Pain Quotidien" means "The Daily Bread" (pain = bread) but for us, its staff, it's "The Daily Pain". So I returned from the Daily Pain and it was a rather amusing day, as usually. On some days, like today, my shift coincides with the shift of Ingrid, Erin and Elan. When they work on the same day I do (and also Julia who belongs to this group but she wasn't there today) we have most interesting conversations. All of them are actors (and Elan is also a writer) so the conversations are often about culture, human nature and psyche, and subjects connected to all this. Usually we start in the early morning hours, awaiting the first customers, and then we continue throughout the day. Sometimes we have a few minutes to talk, sometimes a sentence or two can be exchanged. Sometimes one of us has to run to attend to a customer and then when the person returns, the person is updated on where the discussion was left off. Today I got to work at 9:00 and we started with Ingrid's exclamation "I hate Freud!" I got so excited that someone shares my opinion that I exclaimed "I hate Freud as well!! Psychology stinks! And psychotherapy and psychiatry!! " I looked around thinking I exclaimed too loud and saw some customers looking at us puzzled... (We then got on the brooms and flew away via the windows...) Then Elan came and he brought up the subject of the book "The Games People Play" which was the continuation of our earlier talk about psychotherapy and psychiatry and the function of human psyche, and human behaviour, from the Western point of view. (more about this in a moment) I love these conversations in haste. On weekends we usually run our asses off (pardon but it's the truth) there are so many customers (demending, eternally dissatisfied, unhappy, neurotic, and often rude) to attend to and we still find a minute or two to entertain our minds with fresh ideas which come from this exchange of our explorations and experience, our minds and all that makes our life rich and exciting. We are all studying, working and doing many things in between. Elan's baby son was born two weeks ago, he is sleep-deprived but still full of energy for talking and enjoying life basically... I sometime overhear our customer's conversations and they are so incredibly dull... so cliche dull... This may be prooving my point that certain amount of hardship creates creativity; things which come easy are not appreciated nor stimulating... A sentence between serving coffee and picking up a dropped spoon may be more meaningful than a long talk when there's time and money to spent half a Sunday at a restaurant...

So regarding "Games People Play" Ethan started by trying to convince us that people "play games" (meaning use methods, often deceitful, to get what they want) and they do it everywhere, that it is a universal fact, true under any latitude and in any place in this world. But then my point was such: this theory is based on a research done by a Westerner and it is based on the Western concept of how the human mind works. So I, naturally, can't agree with this, having seen (mostly by travelling to distant places) how a certain perspective can make a certain "fact" "true". To Elan's saying that the research was done to proove the point, I exclaimed that "Research is biased and science is bull shit in any case!" (half of the clients must have gotten heart palpitations at that point I am sure... I was half joking... meaning I only use such strong words to amuse (or confuse) the customers, or rather to get them out of their comatose state...). And this brings me to what I have intended to write about the medicine I study.

I wanted to write about this for a long time but had no time earlier. It seems that on weekend days when I come home I am too tired to study or do anything except write a little on the blog so it will be a weekend paper in sections about the fascinating world of Eastern medicine. I was thinking that usually when I tell people what I study they rarely know what it is, meaning they associate Oriental medicine with acupuncture good for muscle and joing problems. So I thought, dear friends, that I will write a little more about it so you know what treatment you will get, when I finish the program...

Let me start from the beginning or the philosophy on which the Eastern medicine is based. To do this I will also talk about the Western medicine. Western science, including medicine, operates on principle that scholars or people who study a lot are the ones we should all look up to with great respect - they are the ones who know how to lead us, how to cure us, how to show us our purpose of being here. We should read books written by these people, see them on TV, go to the churches they operate, etc. They are the people who collect the various degrees and the higher degree they get, the higher they seem to be above all the rest... It does not matter what kind of persons they are and what the moral values they go by are. What counts is the social status. So in principle when we are born we are a "white page" and we have to strive and learn, learn, and learn from all these learned men's books to become learned ourselves and to understand what this life is about... We trust that these learned people know so we listen to them. We do what they ask of us. We do what politicians ask of us and we do what doctors ask of us. It's easy in any case: it doesn't require our active thinking or listening to our intuition or any work we will have to do to proove to ourselves that this and that is good for us. So when we go to a doctor we ask the doctor to cure us. He administers some tests, gives us some pills and that is it. Our problem is gone and we don't have to focus on ourselves again, our mind and body which gives us some signals which we can't understand (but a doctor can or so we believe). We have more time then to spend on reading, listening, watching... or acquiring knowledge externally, as I call it.

Eastern philosophies operate on a very different principle: every being born is equipped with everything that being needs to understand all which it needs in this life to operate, be well and content. What damages the ability to use the equipment is what is artificial and goes against the laws of nature, hence man should rather empty the mind of external knowledge and instead turn into himself and discover again what lies within him and what will make him understand all that he needs to understand and strives to understand during his lifetime (Do you remember what I wrote a year ago when I was in Nepal, what the Tibetans said: "While the Western men was exploring the outside of himself, going even to the Moon, we explored the inside of ourselves"). So the Western man drives himself crazy with reading books and magazines, watching TV, obtaining data, doing research, etc., etc. and trying to get wise on this second-hand knowledge, while the Eastern man leaves to a cave to meditate and concentrate on nothing, on only his experience with his own mind. What the Eastern philosophies tell us is that we are presented during our lifetime, this lifetime, with certain tasks and out of these tasks we get the experience which we need to lead us to where we can get, if we respond to these tasks naturally (listening to our intuition and our internal wisdom). There is no one who can really be a guru for us or who knows what is good for us better than we ourselves. We may find friendly souls who will be of help to us but on us depends our wellbeing - only on our own experience. So a doctor should be such a friendly soul. A friendly soul will do acupuncture sessions and proscribe herbs, and also tell us how to cultivate our qi energy, what changes to make in out diet and lifestyle, etc. Eventually, we ourselves become our own healers since whatever sicknesses we suffer from are due to our own making. This is actually what the Eastern medicine does: it shows us that we are masters of ourselves, of our bodies and our minds and we may think external factors make us ill (and in certain cases it is true) but all our internal long term diseases come from our neglect of taking responsibility for ourselves.

More on this (and specific cases) next week. Next weekend I will be taking the herb class again with what I call a "famous professor" but really what I should call him is the "healing presence" in Eastern terms. He is a very modest and humble man who just puts the knowledge into our hands and makes us responsible for acquiring it through our experience with it - there are no tests during the class. The "Healing Presence" knows that whoever got to his class is a person who understand the value of responsibility...

baths and dogs

2007-01-27T20:42:00.000-08:00

I went to work today (9-5) and at 4 pm my friends Gosia, Patrycja, Ania Porazka and Kasia came to have dinner and after I finished work we all went to walk around Soho area a little (we found a really cool store with Asian art - many beautiful works of folk art) and then up Broadway. It was a very nice day and nice evening. To finish the day in a relaxing way I prepared a bath with sea salts when I got home. Last week I floaded the neighbors downstairs when I did it - the water pipe under my bathtub broke. It was one of these funny situations when the neighbor rang the bell, I was silent for a moment sending repelent energy to whoever was behind the door to leave me in peace, but the door-bell got so intense that I had to open, dripping wet (like a mermaid or, perhaps, a Venus coming out of the sea-foam...) opened the door and examined the cause of the leak with the neighbor... It was reapired during the weak and I could take a bath again. While lying in the water, aromatic candle flickering, soft music playing in the background, I was thinking about how I enjoy being alone in this apartment... I love the company of people, meeting with them and spending time with them, however, I really enjoy this space of my own where I can separate myself from the rest of the world for some time and be reduced to just... breathing... space... But after that thought another came and it was a thought of my dogs when they were with me here. And I decided that if I miss any being in my apartment it is the dogs. A thought came to my mind how when I was lying in the bathtub when they were here, my elbow (Mr. Olecranon to be precise) protruding from the bathtub, once in a while one of the dogs would come and check on me, lick my elbow and go away, to a different room. Or how when I woke up sick they would not wake me up, the usual ritual of tails wagging and ready to go out, but instead walked on tiptoe and waited until I dragged myself out of the bed to go out for a short pee-walk instead of the regular walk. And then Eureka! I realized why my relationship with the dogs is so special. And why of all the things, activities and whatever you can find in this world my favorite activity always was a walk with the dogs. Here is why. When I take my dogs for a walk in the forest, lets say the forest behind my parent's house in Poland since that was what I did during the summer, the dogs run around on their own, they meet their doggie friends, look for interesting smells. They have their own things to do: looking for trees to pee on, finding new trails, observing insects, squirrels and birds, etc., etc. I have my own things to do: admiring nature, thinking (or not thinking, depending on the mood), talking to people we meet along the way, etc., etc. We do our own things but we never loose sight of each other - if we do, dogs come and check what I do or I call them to see if all is fine. Sometimes we play together, sometimes we are in our own worlds, but in any case we remain close. This I would call the true friendship or a basis of a true relationship. In this friendship there's never the sense of urgency or "neediness" to be with the other being. And also: silly things happen sometimes but grudges are never held for a long time, or jeleousy, or any negative feelings. The relationship I had with all my dogs, and the dogs I met and got friendly with (like the dogs in Goa, for example) were of this type. Dogs are just very smart and they possess what many humans have lost - the playfulness needed in life to make the heart light and free of lingering bed feelings - the true sense of living in the present. And they also have the sense of independence, the good type of independence which is not the selfish type of independence. If dogs are not of this playfull type it's usually because their owners affected them in such way that they lost this primal instinct of living in the present... How do you like this theory? It comes from my observation of people and dogs. And I don't know if I mentioned it before but of all the smells in the world I most like the smell of a dog's paw. It's not something one would use as fragrance for perfumes and such but when I smell my dogs paws they always smell of adventure, of all the places my dogs have been to, the grass they ran on, the moss, the acorns, the moist earth, mushrooms, rain, puddles, sand, etc., etc. If you've never smelled a dog's paw try it one day and see for yourself how amazingly different it is from anything you have ever smelled. Which brings me to the book "Perfume," which I very much liked, even though it is a dark book. Good night.

Swedish Institute, College of Health Sciences

2007-01-20T13:30:00.000-08:00

That is the new school I am attending now. I am so glad I transferred here. I love it already. It is a place good for me. All my teachers are incredible: the type which I like the most i.e. firm but humane; direct, concrete and serious, but witty and having great sense of humor at the same time. No wishy-washy ways as in the old school. It seems that there's also lots more studying from day one. Tests are every week. Anatomy seems better here and geared toward acupuncture practice more, which is very good. I feel that what I learn here is practical knowledge but at the same time everyone pays attention to the Shen or the spirit, understanding that all, health and disease, good and bad, comes from it... It goes along with what I believe so it all makes sense to me. The students are also more mature here than in the old school. We are a group of 12 people (six girls and six boys) and it is a very interesting group with various backgrounds. We dived right into the Chinese theory of acupuncture and we already have point location class so we basically lie down on tables and learn how to locate points on each other's bodies (we use colorful stickers to mark them). When the program is over we'll know almost 400 points on our bodies so our own mothers will know less about our bodies than our classmates. Now we locate points on upper and lower extremities but we'll get to the bare bottoms or basically bare bodies next semester when we get to the points on the trunk. Sounds like fun? Shame is not something one would worry about in a medical school I guess... I also attended the first weekend class of the Chinese herbs with the famous professor and it was incredible. We are fully clothed there and will be just uncovering the bare facts about almost 400 herbs, their properties, how to mix them into formulas, when to gather them, witch parts to use for what ailment, how to store, how to cook, etc. Lots of information to memorize... but the profesor makes it interesting and fun and we treat plants as beings so it is like meeting people and getting friends with them. It's like the anatomy class where all the bones and muscles, and tendons and ligaments, and blood vessles and nerves (why did God have to create man in such a complicated way?!) are friends and we get their names, and say hallo to them (Hallo Latissimus Dorsi, how are you today? All is well Brachioradialis?). That makes learning fun. The administration works much better in the new school as well. I have a feeling that the people who work for the school are really concerned with passing on the knowledge to us and want to take the administrative stuff out of our shoulders so that we can concentrate on studying. I'll be happy here.

The end of the year was fun. My friend Alejandro from Mexico came to visit with his friend Hector and together with other friends we went to Mexico Lindo restaurant, where one of my friends works, to celebrate the New Year's Eve. It was very nice. I spent a day walking with Alejandro and Hector around the city and it made me feel like a tourist and that was nice also. We went to the Metropolitan Museum, to Central Park and along 5th Avenue. Now the vacation is over and it's mostly school and work again. I arranged the schedule at PQ nicely so that I can work there in the morning and the classes are in the evening 6-10 pm. For a period of time I was entertaining the idea of working for a publishing house but I let go of this idea. For the time being I am happy at PQ since I like the staff a lot and some of the regular customers. And, the thing is - I don't know if I would want to be chained to a desk again... I think tis the time in my life to be in motion, except for the time I have to sit firmy on my Gluteus Maximus when I study Mrs muscles and such, and the points. But the studying for Qi Gong is also about movement and I love this class a lot and the practice I do for it at home. I will proscribe the Qi Gong exercises for my patients when the time comes.

Many hugs to all my friends reading the blog. There are, as usually, many things I want to write about, philosophical and medical, but I have so little time... I will write when I find some...

Happy Holiday Season!

2006-12-26T20:24:00.000-08:00

Happy holidays to everyone! To all my friends in all corners of the world, up above, down below, in the middle: I wish you health, and happiness, lots of love from all creatures created by the Almighty, all your dreams to come true and "million things to go your way" as one of the chinese fortune cookies says. Most of all enjoy every day as if it was your first and last day. And be adventurous and curious.

I celebrated Christmas Eve with my father and 12 of my friends. Everyone cooked something delicious and I got lots of sweet goodies from PQ including the profoundly chocolaty chocolate cake. We stuffed ourselves uncounscious. There were pierogi, bigos, barszczyk, herring in oil and sour cream... all the traditional food usually prepared for Christmas. All was very delicious. Everyone brought a unisex present and the Secret Santa delivered them to everyone and we unwrapped them with great joy. As always during such parties conversation was flowing, moods were superbly good and everyone enjoyed themselves. Guests left at 3 am. The next morning I woke up terribly hungry, can you believe! and ate breakfast, went to bed again and then Gosia woke me up at noon to make arrangements for brunch. So Gosia and Rashid came and we ate again! That's what we call Christmas! It was a really nice and relaxing time. Now we are preparing for the New Year's Eve. We have to spend time on festivities now because when the school starts again we'll be running like crazy again and there won't be much time for partying...

Have fun my dear friends, enjoy the New Year's Eve!

P.S. I called my mom recently and she told me my cousin who is looking for a house to buy is having problems in getting anything bceause not much is being built in Poland at the moment, due to the fact that all the construction workers emigrated from Poland. I told her "I know, all Wiesius, Stasius and Rysius are working on my roof!" (that's regarding to what I wrote before)

cold and exams

2006-12-08T18:59:00.001-08:00

So I've cought some cold today. It's 10 pm, I have a headache big as an elephant, but I am trying to study for my last two exams on Sunday, sitting in front of my laptop, in my pajamas, wrapped in the now famous bathrobe of the ex's late uncle. I am taking a break from the various famous Chinese practicioners of yore, and chis and yangs and yings... to drink some cammomile/levander tea and write a bit on the blog, to feel close to all of you my friends... It's incredible how important it is to have friends and to feel their presence. Earlier today I was driven to a wall by the school administration (the lack of yin and yang at that school is driving me crazy) and Gosia called me and we chatted and I felt so much better, in my state of cold and school aggravation... The aggravation basically comes from the fact that the woman who deals with financial aid is on maternity leave and nobody else deals with her stuff. When I complained about it today to the registrar's office I heard that "Rita went on emergency maternity leave and what do you want me to do now?!" I laughed out loud. Out of the blue it was an emergency! For the entire nine months Rita was thinking she was getting prone to excessive weight in the belly area... and voila! one day a baby comes out and she needs to be rushed to ER! I am just kidding. The things people say at that school to cover up the lack of organization or incompetence just make me laugh... It's this type of laugh when you laugh because there's just nothing else you can do (rece opadaja). Well Sunday is the last day and I am gone. I applied for the other school which I think will be much better - the one which is run by the Taoist priest who is a famous Chinese medicine doctor. Also, my prayers have been answered and he himself is offering, at his private clinic, a class on Chinese herbs for a small group of students. I asked heavens to send me a guide, someone who will teach a class without going through these silly tests and papers to write which are basically a waste of time. And here it is. By word of mouth I learned about the class (it will be two years, meeting one weekend out of every month) and I went to his clinic and saw him on Wednesday and told him I can be curled up in the corner, quiet as a mouse, not bothering anybody in any way, if he can just please, please let me be part of that class? The doctor offers it rarely and requires that the students have the knowledge of the Chinese medicine theory and they are certified in acupuncture. I am a total green leaf/tender foot but he said I can be part of the class! He rarely offers the class so it's incredible luck that he is offering it to start in January. I am in it! I am taking the risk of not knowing entirely what he will be talking about but I believe in the power of the mind which wants to be educated for the benefit of other beings, so I can try and see what comes out of it. Which means that I will have totally no time for anything except school and work, but what the heck - you live only once and that opportunity may not come again. No, I take it back: you don't live only once... but it's a long story... I also want to find a Shaman who will tell me other methods of healing, based in the indigenous Indian ways, but that will take time it seems... If I can't find anyone here, I will have to return to Cuzco one day to learn from Shaman Jesus. He is the only person I have met so far from whom I could learn, I feel... In any case the adventure with healing methods of ancient medical systems is thrilling. If only the aggravation of administration coming from the modern corporate systems is taken away I will be able to peacefully turn my mind completely to the ancient ways... I found some interesting books lately at the Rubin Museum of Tibetan Art. There's a bookstore inside the museum (and beautiful works of Tibetan art: tanghkas, jewelry, woven fabric old and new...) and I found there "Medicine Buddha Teachings" by Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche and "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep." I am putting this information on the blog for anyone interested, also in translating them to Polish (for Wanda and Zbyszek). I said sometime ago that I can't recently read anything written by Westerners about spiritual advancement (and health because spiritual advencement has a lot to do with health, both physical and mental), especially regarding the beliefs connected to Eastern philosophies so I was really glad to find something in English but written by people rooted in Eastern philosophy. Whenever I go to a "regular" bookstore and take anything "best-seller in spirituality, sold in 3 million copies" it's so infentile and so exegeratted, etc., etc. that I put it down, disgusted. I guess people really want to educate themselves on the issue of the mind, and how it works, on its conncection to Soul and body, etc. so it's really good that there's interest in this field, but it's sad that what they are served to learn from is of such poor quality... But I still can find some books which are about helping onself with various things, or mostly seeing reality in its proper way (more about it soon) but which are not "self-help" books but books on attaining wisdom, I would say. I run away from anything labeled "self-help" as fast as my legs allow me... OK, time to go back to chi and it's accolytes. Isn't it cool that after I attain this vast knowledge of how the body, mind and Soul work, if you wish I will be able to help you, all my dear friends, with all aches and pains (to the extend that your karma lets me so do good deeds only and don't acquire bad karma)?

O, I totally forgot to mention that I met with Przemek, my new roof-top friend, for beer one night at one of the Jackson Hts. Mexican bars where even waitresses don't speak English. I really like these places - I feel transported into the land of the Maya. We had lot's of fun watching soccer game on the tv above the bar and taking part in the festive Mexican atmoshpere. Cheers!

Some recent developments

2006-11-10T21:18:00.000-08:00

So my life in NY continues. I see NY a little more realistically again as opposed to enthusiastically, as I saw it when I just returned over three months ago. It is, as I have always thought, the craziest place of all the places I have seen… but I manage to stay sane and hopefully will remain in the blessed state of sanity till I am ready to leave. I really like the subjects I study, of course, and I really like working at PQ. I like the staff, the managers, the waiters and the kitchen staff. I think that I am learning as much about human nature and behavior at PQ as I learn in the Clinical counseling class. And I train myself in understanding people and situations, and dealing with whatever comes my way in a flash. This is a very useful experience. I basically work, go to school and study. I try to squeeze in the gym and boxing and spinning classes and so far it’s been possible. Sometimes I just go to relax in the steam room after work – it feels really good after a day of running around. I lie down on the bench, put my legs against the wall and let my thoughts drift away… when the mind comes back and the body relaxes and regenerates, I go home light. I also try to get enough of sleep… which isn’t happening now since the roof is being repaired and the early bird construction workers like to start drilling and hammering at the crack of dawn… Mr Czesiu and Stasiu, as I can get from their conversations, are the type of men who like to throw meat around all the time (it’s a direct translation from Polish: throwing meat means using obscene language) and use the fcuk (translated as kruwa) as a punctuation mark (“Dej mi Czesiu kurwa ten mlotek kurwa bo mi sie zepsol tamten kurwa.”). Today, since it is my only, one and only, day off I thought I would sleep until I can sleep no more but alas, kurwas woke me up and kept me awake. At one point I heard grime falling into my aircondicioner and couldn’t take it any longer and opened my window and screamed at them kurwa, for breaking my kurwa aircondicioner kurwa! Just kidding… I didn’t throw meat to that extend. But a few minutes later I heared the doorbell and who do I see through the hole in the door: the super and a man – must be Czesiu or Stasiu I thought. I open the door wrapped around in a stripped men’s bathrobe (*the story about the bathrobe below), hair standing in all possible directions from tossing in my bed since the early bird’s ruthless awakening me, green on the face, and steam coming out of my ears… If looks could kill they would be dead on the spot so the super disappeared like ether and the other trembling and stuttering men came in to fix the a/c. When I calmed down and started looking at the man with my usual calm and understanding composition, we started talking and ended up talking for half an hour and it turned out that we come from the same city and lived within, I would say, about five km from each other. And, who knows, maybe we have some distant relatives! Isn’t it incredible? And it was neither Mr. Czesiu nor Mr. Stasiu but Przemek. Isn’t it an interesting beginning of a friendship? When Przemek left I thought of some PQ’s French crème donuts I had in my fridge and didn’t get the chance to give to my neighbors, and so I took the nicely packed box and delivered it to the roof and asked Przemek to share with Czesiu and Stasiu. It turned out to be a really amusing morning in the end. I keep encountering these really funny situations and I am wondering if it is now the stage in my life where just fun stuff happens or is it my perspective which makes these situations funny and amusing.

Maybe I feel so light and in a laughing mode because I have no contact with media. I have no tv, I don’t read papers or books other than the textbooks. I was surprised to find out the other day that elections to the Senate took place. I had no idea… I heard that Rumsfeld resigned, who would think? I used to be so involved in art and culture, politics – I watched public tv to know what was going on locally and globally; I wanted to find out about all the conflicts, human rights, etc., etc. Then I went out to the world and I decided that whatever I read in the magazines, most of it anyways, and saw on these believed-to-be-good-and-objective programs was really not the truth. I sometimes see the headlines in the papers people read on the subway and just the headlines themselves give me chills, they are so silly… So I feel I know what goes on in the world and I always have it in my mind, but I am not exposing myself to the manipulated information and the fake melodrama and maybe from this also comes my lighter state of being…

*The bathrobe is the only thing I kept which belonged to my ex-husband and it wasn’t really his bathrobe but his uncle’s. The uncle died before I had the chance to meet him so I didn’t even know him but from what my ex’s family said about him it seems like he was the nicest in the entire family so when my ex wanted to get rid of the robe I thought that I wanted to have that thing which belonged to a nice and wise person. The robe remembers the time of Edward Gierek, or maybe even Gomulka (someone’s hands made it during the 5 year plan, and reached 300 percent norm), so it is a historical artifact on top of everything else. So that’s how it is and if you ever surprise me with an unexpected visit early in the morning I will greet you in the Gomulka bathrobe of my ex husband’s uncle. Isn’t that hilarious?!

Tao Te Ching

2006-10-04T20:36:00.000-07:00

I found this verse in Tao Te Ching:

Empty yourself of everything.
Let the mind become still.
The ten thousand things
rise and fall
While the Self watches their return.

I emptied myself of everything... I let my mind become still... and the ten thousand things which rise and fall each day are looked upon by my Self... and observed by it...

The Self observes the teachers, students, customers, pessers-by... fellow brothers and sisters... in the struggle to understand what emotions are, and cravings, passions, peace of mind, and contentment... I am taking a clinical counseling class at Pacific College and it is a very interesting class. Last week all the students in the class talked about what brought them to study acupuncture. There were different stories told and most of us got very emotional telling them. After I told my story I thought that because my road to understanding the reality as it is and stepping away from the path of delusion was so long and bumpy, I will understand the struggle of my future patients, and how difficult it is to abondon old and wrong ways if one gets stuck in them... But if the time is not ripe for a change then the struggle is fruitless in any case... so maybe it's good just to realize that one should be patient with onself... Thoughts such as these are reflected in so many Eastern sources (Tao Te Chin being one of them) but one has to know where to look...

In my last entry I mentioned how Western logic made no sense to me. I just started reading another book we use for the fundamentals of Chinese medicine class and here's what the author, Giovanni Maciocia, says: "The concept of Yin-Yang, togehter with that of Qi, has permeated Chinese philosophy over the centuries and is radically different from any Western philosophical idea. In general, Western logic is based upon the opposition of contraries, which is the fundamental premise of Aristotelian logic. According to this logic, a pair of contraries (such as "The table is square" and "The table is not square") cannot both be true. This has dominated Western thought for over 2000 years. The Chinese concept of Yin-Yang is radically different from this system of thought: Yin and Yang represent opposite but complimentary qualities. Each thing or phenomenon could be itself and its contrary. Morover, Yin contains the seed of Yang so that Yin can transform into Yang and vice versa." Then the book continues the explanation of Yin and Yang principle. I spent countless hours in college preparing for logic class, pulling hair, biting pencils, gasping in despair while doing exercises such as "All women wear skirts. Ann wears a skirt. She is, therefore, a woman. John is a man. He, therefore, does not wear a skirt." But what if John likes to and does wear a skirt (was my question)? Is he a man? Is he a woman? Is he a woman in a man's body? Is he a transvestite or just likes to go against the current? In Ying-Yang theory it would always be possible to explain John, and who he is. According to Western philosophy John is a freak, or an exception in the best case. According to Yin-Yang John may be a Yang (masculine) with a touch of Yin (feminine) or vice versa. There's no contradiction or anything strange with John. The philosophy of Yin and Yang is extremally accurate and there are no exceptions to the rule because the rule is flexible, as flexible as life is. "Precedents" don't exist. It's such a simple concept that it encompasses everything and every possible situation. It's incredibly logical. So, although my former logic professor believed I was a freak since I didn't agree with the concepts he was so dead sure about (and questioned my reason and sanity for not accepting them as true), I am not a freak after all! The other half of the globe goes by a completely different concept. What a relief! However, regarding the sources... I want to say that even thouse Westerners who, like me, see the logic of Eastern theories are often so stuck in Western logic that when they translate Eastern works they do it from the perspective of the Western logic... it's like that school which I am attending now... it teaches Eastern medicine from the Western perspective. There are constantly workshops on "scientific (Western science) proof of benefit of acupuncture" (as if 5,000 years of proof was not enought and the 200 year old science had to proove it) and the admissions advisers ask students if they are interested in "acupuncture face rejuvenation on cruise ships and in spas." They are missing the whole point of Oriental medicine... they are as much money oriented as regular Western medicine medical schools. Many of the books I read on Eastern philosophies written by American writers are self-help books, so artificial in content that they resemble the Evangelists shows on TV... huge melodrama and public catharsis... but what to do? Learn Chinese, Hindi, Tibetan and read the originals? Maybe in the next life... My hunger for knowledge and wisdom will have to be satisfied by other means than just written, and translated, word. I will have to find a master and be his or her disciple... in my quest to help people heal themselves... if this is what I am destined to do... and if not I will take the school's advice and get on that Pacific Princess cruiseliner and just erase the wrinkles on the million-dollar faces... just kidding!

a quick hallo to all my friends outside of NY

2006-09-22T06:41:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

I intend to continue my blog because many ideas come to my mind and I would like to share them with you (and I have all this writing to do about the last part of my trip). The blog is also a wonderful way to keep in touch. I didn't put anything here for a while becase the time in transition was full of big and little things to do. This is just the jist of what was going on:

I enrolled into Pacific College of Oriental Medicine and started the fall semester two weeks ago. For the first time in my life I study something which totally engulfs me. Especially the foundations and fundamentals of Chinese medicine are mind-blowing knowledge (and I adore dr. Kuo who is lecturing on the subjects and who comes from Taiwan). What is interesting is that it is a very logical knowledge, very concrete, although it is rooted in sprit and the invisible workings of the universe which may seem not easy to grasp at times. When I had a subject called "Logic" in college in Poland it totally didn't make sense. "Logic" based on western philosophy most often doesn't make sense... to me... Now nobody talks about logic but all is perfectly logical. I also have anatomy and although it is a lot of material to memorize the book is written so well that it is a very interesting subject, indeed. It's called anatomy but really it's anatomy, physiology, biology and biochemisty in one. I also have taji chi to master the movement and the flow of energy and proscribe it to my patients in the future. So I go to school on Friday evenings and then on weekends. I work Tuesdays - Thursdays at Le Pain Quotidien (www.lepainquotidien.com) which is a bakery-cafe type restaurant founded by a Belgian chef. I work as a waitress to get some extra money for living expenses - I got the federal loan for school tuition and part of living expenses. Restaurant job is a good place to continue my unofficial antropological studies. The restaurant is located in the Soho area and it attracts a very varied clientele: true New Yorkers and tourists, European expatriates since it is a European-styled cafe, expatriates from other places. Some people come for a quick meal, some linger for hours with their laptops and books to read. I enjoy serving them all, and seeing what their relationship is to food and to me based on the cultures in which they were raised or live in. If there are any generalisations to be made, a restaurant can serve as a good place to see how a culture shapes its inhabitants. For example: to the people from the outside of the US I am "a waitress", to the people born and raised here I am "just a waitress." I believe this comes from the power people have, or think they have. The tipping system gives the customer the power, of either tipping or not tipping, or rather tipping or not tipping well. Where there's no tipping and the waiter gets a regular salary, no brown-nosing is needed, or required... ("where there's no tipping if I am nice to you, I am nice to you because I am a nice person, not because I count on a heafty tip"). The tipping system creates a certain insincerty... Also, the way the service is done in the US and anywhere else is totally different. Here you have to come every let's say 15 minutes, to check on the customer and ask if they are fine and if they need anything else or they will be offended that the waiter neglects them. Outside of US the waiter doesn't come to the table unless called or else the customer will feel harassed. In US the check is brought when the meal is done (to chase out the customer and make space for the next customer). Outside of US a check is never brought before a customer asks for it - one can sit at a table whole day if one wishes. So, thank God, I got this employee packet in which it is stated that waiters can use their judgement as to how to proceed when serving i.e. harras the ones who like to be harrased and leave in peace those who wish to be left in peace. I enjoy serving people and I never frown at their often difficult requests (Can I have the goat cheese salad witout the goat cheese?; Can I have the cappucino extra light, half regular coffee, half decafenated, some regular milk in the coffee and some creme on the side?) . Plain cappuccino gets a half-page description and if it is not done "just the right way" the customer is outraged... The cappuccino melodrama is typical of very elegant customers who emanate wealth and I believe it comes from the fact that there are no bigger problems than that in their life... One might say they are lucky, one might say they are not... depending on the perspective one has... The biggest problem at PQ are eggs i.e. egg mega melodrama: they are never made the right way i.e. they are either too soft, too runny, too hard, to watery on one side but not the other side... With the amount of eggs returned to the kitched and thrashed half of the hungry in the world could be fed (not to mention the bread and other food)... It hurts to see how much food is being wasted. City Harvest, a company which collects leftover food from restaurants for homeless people and in need of free food, is soupposed to come and collect all the unused and still fresh food but they rarely do it. I feel that you have to try very hard to be hungry in the US... as opposed to other places where there's war or a natural diseaster and there's just no food whatsoever. Here there's lots of food and it is not respected and so much is being wasted...

I am going back to anatomy and will be back shortly with other news and more NY melodrama.

hard to bellieve... but back in NY

2006-07-20T04:47:00.000-07:00

I got back to NY yesterday night... and what a strange feeling this is! The taxi driver who was driving me home was Indian so, when I closed my eyes, I felt for a moment I was in Calcutta. When we stopped at the intersection a car passed us by playing loud Spanish disco music and, close my eyes, I had a feeling I was in Mexico City... This is truly NY - everything together. For a while I felt that I didn't leave NY at all - that my trip was just a one big hologram. When I got to Madrid I felt I was going home after a very long long trip. When I got to NY I felt I never left it... How the mind plays with me... Buba who sublets my apartment went to work (his wife Benia and daughter Gabrysia are in Poland on vacation) and I am sitting at his computer, feeling happy already to be here. I will have breakfast at the Uruguayan Cafe Nueva to see if the old owners are still there and then I will take a stroll to say hi to all little stores in my neighborhood.

My plan in NY is such: I want to visit the schools of Chinese medicine to see if I like any of them more than the one I saw in Spain. If so, I will stay here and enroll and study, work and live here for a while and if not, I will go back to Barcelona. In any case I will have access to internet and will write more on the blog and individual e-mails.

I am sending hugs and kisses to all my wonderful friends everywhere, in all corners of the world. Happiness fills my being and I am sending you vibes with this feeling!

Poznan and Wiselka

2006-06-30T01:51:00.000-07:00

The ending of my grand trip will be described when I get to my own computer. I haven't forgotten about stories of India, Hong Kong and Taiwan. I will write about it at a later time. Since I got to Poland I have been running around my hometown, visiting places, theatres, movie festivals, antigue and craft fairs, etc. - June is a month in which a lot of cultural activities goes on so it was a good month for culture development. In the evenings I run with dogs to the nearby forests... and we get intoxicated with the air fragrant with pine and blooming grasses... I spent the last two weeks in Wiselka on the Baltic coast in my friend Michal's home. Wiselka is one of my very favourite places in the world. I spent time with friends who also visited Michal and we all enjoyed white sandy beaches, pine and birch forests, and campfires at night... And, for the first time in my life I can, without any restrictions such as lack of time or time difference, see all the football matches during the Football World Cup. I don't always follow soccer games and don't know all the changes and scores, but I love world cup games because it's nice to see the best of the best. I am not a fan of a particular team - I just like to see the game and be engulfed in it. My favorite, however, is the Brazilian team - they play with incredible finesse. Wiselka is a small village so it seems all the football fans gather at a tv in a pub made in a big tent and the atmosphere of watching the game is absolutely great.

I will be going to NY on 19 July. I have a free ticket to use to Mexico City so I will be going to NY instead of going to Mexico. I am so glad I will see you friends from NY soon!

Barcelona and Warsaw!

2006-05-14T06:15:00.000-07:00

I decided the part-time teaching job was not enough to live comfortably and decided to try my luck in Barcelona. Barcelona is even more beautiful than Madrid. It's one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful, city I have seen. It is, in my opinion, the most beautiful combination of old and new. The old city center, with its hundreds and hundreds of old townhouses, is punctuated with modern buildings, also the Gaudi buildings, which are beautifuly blended into the old style. There's the incredible coast with beaches, promenades, cafes, marinas... There are so many casas the cultura: places where different courses on culture, arts, music, health, fitness, etc. are offered and are either free to the public or require a small fee. It is a city where one can develop or broaden interest in many areas and at the same time it has a quiet and relaxed feel of Madrid. There are more art studios and galleries there than in Madrid - the people who live in Barcelona, both Barcelonians and expatriates, are very creative and artistically inclined. I would prefer to live in Barcelona. I looked at a few offers of teaching jobs but, like in Madrid, they were substitution courses offered until the end of June. I decided that it would make more sense to go to Poland and relax there and return at the end of the summer and look for one school with so called block hours where I could work in the mornings or evenings and not run around the city to teach at different schools. So I boarded a bus and after 40 hours got to Warsaw. The bus route was beautiful: we went through France, Switzerland with a short stop at Geneve and Lousanne, and then through Austria, Czech Republic and south of Poland. Now I am staying with Dorotka, Marcin and Karmelek at their new apartment and soon I will head to Poznan to see my parents, my friends and doggies. It seems that I will meet with some other friends who are relocating to other places via Warsaw this summer. There's a great movement hanging in the air...

Nueva Vida

2006-05-05T02:49:00.000-07:00

It´s already a week since I came to Madrid. I feel that I walked most of its streets and admired its parks, palaces, monuments, etc. Madrid is quite easy to navigate. The subway system works well if one needs to cover longer distances. I am still staying at the hostal Palacios. I found one room with a balcony (that´s important as summers are long and hot here so it´s nice to be able to sit outside) in an old building in the old city center and I found an entire three-bedroom apartment for a dirt cheap price of 750€ (the grandpa who works in Palacios wants to rent it out to "personas muy tranquilas" and I seem very peaceful to him...) but I don´t know anybody here so don´t have anybody to share the rent with... anybody wants to join me here? I have a week or so to decide what to do with this apartment situation. I found a part-time English teaching job and will do this for the time being. There are many English schools in Madrid but I got here in the middle of the term, or rather at the end of it, so I will probably have to do some summer courses and look for a permanent position in the next school year. But all that is fine. I found a school of Chinese Medicine which is part of Universidad Europea in Madrid. There is a branch in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia. The program lasts 4 years and one year costs 2000€. The school is also affiliated with the University in Beijing. The courses are in Spanish so if I want to attend I have to speak fluent Spanish. I´ll see how it all goes but there are some plans for the future and that is good, really good. I am immensely enjoying this city. It´s big so there are things to do but at the same time it is peaceful. The pace of life is slow in comparison to NY. In Places like NY, or even Warsaw, there´s a clear distinction between areas inhabited by wealthier people or those less fortunate. Here it seems everything is evened out. No glitter but no stink either. No brand names, no luxurious stores, no sophisticated restaurants. Most restaurants are of the bar or taberna type, the usual tapas bar, and prices are about the same everywhere. On the scale of sophistication I would say Madrid stands much lower than NY and Warsaw (and even Buenos Aires and Mexico City seem more "modern"). And that makes people so easygoing and content with whatever there is. It seems they are not very excited by the "new" - they like the old ways. There are Starbucks coffee places, for example, but they seem to be attracting only turists. Madrilenos like esspresso, capuccino or cafe con leche - the classic coffee, and hot. Anybody wanting any innovation such as syrups in their coffee, moccachinos, frappuccinos, grapuccinos, brampuccinos, dreduccinos, etc. will only find it in Starbucks.
More about Madrid soon.

MADRID!!!

2006-04-30T04:51:00.000-07:00

I got to Madrid on Friday evening and it is just absolutely awsome here! Yesterday I walked all day through its narrow winding streets, peeking into bars and pastelarias and basically enjoying the architecture, which is my favorite. I always thought that for a place good for me to live in it´s got to be walkable i.e. it must have sidewalks on which one can walk and encounter other people. I feel that people, being social creatures, must be able to walk and see others, that it gives them a sense of security, even if the people they pass on the street are strangers. When I lived with my father in the American mid-west long time ago, when I was a teenager, I never felt comfortable there because I thought the cities there were built not for people but for cars: there were no sidewalks there and people were just basically driving everywhere (the only place where they would meet would be the local mall but then they would not look at other people but at the shop´s windows...). I felt that American mid-west was a culture of alienated people. So, coming back to Madrid, I walked and walked thought this highly walkable city. The amount of architectural details is incredible here. It´s Sunday today so the entire city is out, enjoying the restaurants and the wonderful weather of sunny 20 degrees Celsius. I am staying at one of the hostels in the center. It´s Sunday and tomorrow is May Day, another holiday, so I can´t do much in terms of settling but I have already sent via e-mail my resume to various English schools and other places so hopefully I can find some job soon and an apartment. I would definitely like to settle here. I don´t know if for ever but for now I would like it to be my base for exploring Europe - it´s possible that during the exploration I will find a place which I like better than Madrid and will like it to make my home por siempre. But this feels very comfortable for now. I always felt that Europe was my true home and it does feel like it, that I have come home after 9 years of travelling. Maybe it feels like it since I have this strong connection to Spanish-speaking people: I feel I understand them without words or maybe the fact that they are so relaxed and easygoing makes me feel this way. I find that I didn´t forget the Spanish I learned in South America and I can communicate with people and they are so thrilled that I am trying!

Internet cafes are rather expensive so I will write more about my stay in Qatar, about Hong Kong and extensively about India, when I get an apartment and my own internet. I miss you all my dear friends and I think of you often. I hope you will all visit me. I will let you know asap when I get a permanent address.

Hong Kong once more

2006-04-22T21:48:00.000-07:00

I got back to Hong Kong yesterday and hoped to hop on a plane to Madrid right away but apparently all flights bound for Europe are booked for the next three weeks. I found, however, a smart travel agent who looked extensively for some possibility of departing earlier and found a flight by Qatar Airlines with a three-day stop-over in Doha in Qatar. I don't know anything about this country and I have to do some research on what the relation of Qatar is to American/Polish passport, what the woman is required to compulsory or voluntary wear... All I read so far on the net is that it's a "tiny oil-rich sheikhdom" where women enjoy more freedom than in other Gulf states. We'll see about that... I will write from there or from Madrid.

Easter in Taipei

2006-04-15T02:53:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends, best wishes for Easter to everyone who celebrates Easter. I like this holiday a lot as it marks new beginnings, new roots, new sprouts, new ideas... I will celebrate the new beginnings with Nikki and Farhaan, and with their expatriate friends over Easter brunch tomorrow. However, the new beginnings will not be happening in Taipei. I have decided not to stay here and here are the reasons.

After staying here for a week I decided that Taipei is not mentally stimulating enough... I found many places during my travels which were amazing in terms of architecture and culture and in which I felt very comfortable (mostly in South America). In Taipei I feel boared already... The people are very nice, really really nice, but very quiet if not to say lethargic... It seems there's not much life here... not many cultural events... it's basically, like in Hong Kong, about business and shopping... It is easy to find a well paid job (the pay for English teachers is between $20-30 per hour and you can get as many hours as you can cope with...) and cheap apartment but I decided I need a place which will enable me to feel that I am mentally expanding. So, since I am so drawn by Spanish culture I decided to go to Spain. I will be going back to Hong Kong as soon as I can get on the plane and from there to Madrid or Barcelona. I feel that I need to be in a place which will offer culture as I know it or which is familiar to me. I basically miss Europe... The only thing which interests me in the Chinese culture is the Chinese medicine (and the Chinese martial arts) so I will have to find a place where I can study it in Europe, hopefully in Spain.

There are virtually no internet cafes in Taipei and the one I am using in Happy Family guesthouse is constantly occupied so I will write when I get to Hong Kong.

Taipei

2006-04-08T19:14:00.000-07:00

I got to Taipei and I am staying at the hostel in the city center. The hostel is called "Happy Family" and it is a nice place. It is located in a "SoHo" type area - I've got the bohemian part of the city as I wished. Taipei seems a much more relaxed place (in comparison to Hong Hong). There's an occasional piece of garbage on the streets... It's neither too clean nor too dirty, which I consider a healthy state and more accessible than the spotless HK. People are dressed... normally, and more creatively i.e. not in the latest fashion brands. I like laid-back places. Nobody can speak English so it is hard to communicate. If I stay I will have to learn some Mandarin to make my life easier. I would like to stay here, yes indeed. Tomorrow I am going to start job hunting. Nikki and Farhaan are coming back to Taipei tomorrow so maybe I can use some advice from them. I will be in touch shortly with more news.

Hong Kong once more

2006-04-05T04:52:00.000-07:00

Even though I found the internet heaven it was hard for me to visit it - I have been running around the city with the friends from the hostel. I will be leaving to Taiwan the day after tomorrow and once I find a place to stay and a job I will be in touch more often. And, I will write all my thoughts on India which are still in my drafts folder. I am adding things as I read more books about India.

To escape the glitter of the city centre and it's business-like atmosphere I went to Stanley beach on the Hong Kong island a few times with Traige aka Trojka from Holland and it is a very nice place. Hong Kong is like NY but it lacks what I call a bohemian district, like East Village in NY. There's the "old part" on the island but it is mostly old streets and little stores - there's no artistic atmosphere here. Everything is basically new: all that's built, worn, driven... It's incredible at the beginning to see this but it gets one tired... I heard that Taiwan looks more like mainland China so maybe I will find it more interesting? Let's wait and see...

Hong Kong

2006-03-28T21:30:00.000-08:00

I got to Hong Kong and man, what a culture shock it has been again! From a hot (40 degrees Celsius), suffocating, poor and disorganized Calcutta to this heaven of commercialism, spotless, most organized, air-conditioned, efficient and cool (about 20 degrees Celsius). It's a lot like NY but much cleaner - there's not one piece of garbage on the streets, no gum, no cigarette butts, no nothing. In terms of architecture and interior design it looks like 22 century (or Odyssey 2000). It's basically offices and shopping malls. It's a shopper's heaven: all possible brands, including the heute couture brands, and at reasonable prices. I walked in the Harbor City which is a mall but it is, indeed, like a city and checked where the best, most beautiful (and they are really incredible in terms of styles and fabrics) clothes are made and they are made in India and in Poland. They are also made in Sri Lanka, Macao and some other places where there's cheap labor. The blouses you can get in India are $2 and here they would be about $30 (and in the US they would be $200, I am talking about the BIG brands). I bet the Indian tailor gets $1 per piece and the Polish one slightly more. That's how the world works, not to mention that a lot of people live on 40 rupees a day in India which is $1 (that is enough for two meals). The Indian government declarees that below 25 rupees is life below poverty line. So I came, in just one day (the flight was 3 hours from Bangladesh), from the country where people live on $1 a day to a place where a cup of coffee is $1 (or $3 when it's Starbucks as prices for food are closer to these of NY); from a country where there are power cuts every day to a place where there's electricity used for air-conditioning in a climate which doesn't require any cooling; from where people have one set of clothing which they wear until it drops off from them to a land where everybody looks as if they stepped out of a Vouge magazine and leaves a smell of sophisticated perfume behind them. Everybody is well dressed, coafiured, manicured, equipped with all kinds of electrical gadgets, wired with headphones for i-pods, telephones, etc. Right now I am sitting in a public library where there are about 100 super fast computers for free use up to two hours, in a steryle, air-conditioned, quiet environment. The use of the phone for local calls is also free at the guest house and I hear that the land line is free in general. The guest house is a flat in one of the high-rised buildings and it's $8 a bed per night. It's not entirely spotless and the dorm is incredibly small but it's fine in comparison to some hostels I've seen before... During the flight to Bangladesh I met a couple from Spain, Margarita and Serge, and at the guest house I met Hanna and Victor from Sweden and also Alex from Ethiopia and we have been enjoying walking around the city (also late at night - it seems a very safe place) and conversations at meals and in the evening. I will stay here a few more days. I will also see if I can leave my resume at some employment agency because I could definitely stay here for a while. Hong Kong is lilke NY - to enjoy it fully it would be best to stay here for a few months. The one thing that I immensly enjoy is... the clean bathroom with a clean toilet, with the toilet paper, a waste basket, and a hook (and tilted walls so clean that I can see myself in them as opposed to walls so dirty that you are afraid you would get glued to them permanently if you touched them). As I can remember the last time I could actually sit on a toilet seat was in the hotel in Moscow. You may find it funny but I am telling you guys... it's hardship... not to have a clean bathroom once you are used to it... Since I found this computer heaven I will be back soon with more news.

Leaving on Sunday

2006-03-24T00:59:00.000-08:00

Just a short note to let averyone know (who is worried whenever I change places long-distance) that I am leaving on Sunday morning to Hong Kong, with a day stop-over in Dhaka in Bangladesh, instead of stopping in Bangkok as the Bangladeshi airlines are the cheapest. I have not planned to be going to Bangladesh and don't know much about the country so I just put "Bangladesh" in the google search and I got "virtualbangladesh.com" website and the first thing advertised there is "U.S. Immigration Law Firm" and "Move to Australia in 2006. Your Stress Free Immigration Solution." So maybe when I get there it will be just me at the airport and the wind passing through its vast halls... the mass exodus already taken place? I'll report the details from the brief encounter with Bangladesh soon. And I will post my "paper" about India either from here or from Hong Kong. I am now going back to the Salvation Army hostel and will remain motionless until the sunset - it's hard to exercise any motion in the suffocating heat of mid-day...

Mumbai and Calcutta

2006-03-22T06:12:00.000-08:00

When I was in Mumbai a few days ago I started writing a long "paper" again with more imprssions about India in general but wasn't able to post it. It's in my "draft" file so I will finish it soon but just wanted to report that I got to Calcutta aka Kolkata two days ago. I am staying at the Salvation Army hostel and I met there Maria from Poland (and my hometown!) and Karie from the US. We have been walking together around the city. I will write my impressions about it soon. In a few days I will be going to Hong Kong (via Bangkok as I have a free stop-over option). I heard that there's really cheap electronic equipment in Hong Kong so maybe I could buy a laptop there (?). I will check the prices when I get there. Any suggestions regarding good, light laptops of good fame are most welcome. When I get my own one I will be floading you with letters!

India - some general thoughts

2006-02-23T00:41:00.000-08:00

While I was in Chennai aka Madras I visited Ramesh Menon whom I befriended when I was still in NY since Ramesh published "Ramayana" with FSG. Since our exchange of e-mails having to do with the book we stayed in contact and I wanted very much to see Ramesh in person. We spent a very nice Sunday afternoon at Ramesh's apartment and talked about many interesting subjects including my confusion when it comes to India... more about the confusion down below.

Chennai is a big, stretched-out city, hot and with hordes of mosquitos buzzing above it. I did some sightseeing but because I still felt sick from the flu which started over four weeks ago and this overpowering weakness I have been experiencing I couldn't really enjoy it... My original plan was to go to Taiwan from Chennai but it turned out that it's not possible to get the Chinese visa in Chennai so... I was lying in bed on Sunday evening, mosquitos feasting on me (some so heavy with my blood that they couldn't fly off and got squashed by me accidentaly when I was tossing and turning in my bed unable to sleep...) and I decided to take the 11 pm train back to Goa with a stopover in Bangalore (and from there, after a few days' rest, back to Mumbai for the Chinese visa). I quicky packed and was off in a flash. The train to Bangalore was luxurious first a/c class because it was impossible to get the simple sleeper (no aircondition and no sheets but space to stretch out and much cheaper). In Bangalore I boarded a train to Lusi, Sasi, something of that sound, to get closer to Margao and Palolem Beach, back to my already missed "home" - The Rainbow Coco-huts. There were only "general class" tickets available and "general" means something that looks like cattle car... and among the cars there's one "for ladies only" and I got on this one since all others were packed beyond limits. I founded myself among a group of women who were returning home from Bangalore from a conference commemorating the silver jubilee of The Art of Living Foundation founded by Sri Sri Shankar. I have never heard of the organization before and the man, and it's very strange since it seems it is a huge and powerful organization (http://www.artofliving.org/) doing a lot of great things. It was the first time Indian women talked to me (usually they hide behind their husbands, fathers, brothers...). We talked for about 12 hours, almost the entire trip. It was amazing to me how enthusiastic they were about their lives and at the same time how aware of the limitations imposed by the culture they live in. They possesed the wisdom of someone who understands the conditions in which one lives and accepts them but at the same time, knowing she can't make any changes on the grand scale, makes changes within herself and her closest environment. Their husbands were travelling in other cars and they were rejoicing the time they had for women talk and for singing. They were girls and young women and older women and even the older women had a very modern take on women's place in the world. The Art of Living organization goes beyond cast, race, background, religion and it was very refreshing to see how among these women only "humaness" rules, how it's the highest value, and the outlook on life and reality is not shaded by any cultural or historical bias and prejudice. To find people such as they in India is most incredible because they were raised and they live in this culture were everything is, indeed, so segragated... Which brings me to my understanding, and my confusion, about INDIA:

There can be many perspectives on India. The main two, I would say, are such:

1. From the Indian (or should I say Hindu? having to do with the Hindu religious-philosophical thought) perspective: Everything in India is as it should be (i.e. the caste system, the tradition, culture, all is a part of the divine plan and universal reality and it takes its own course) .

2. From the Western perspective: India is a so called failed state (i.e. the government is extremally corrupt, the country faces enormous economical and political problems, it is also grossly overpopulated and polluted.)

For some people I have talked to the two perspectives are mutually exclusive, and for others, me included, they are not mutually exclusive.

I want to say here that I feel it took me about a month to recover from the cultural shock I underwent when I got here. I wasn't writing about this much before because I didn't know what to do with these strange, and often negative, feelings which I haven't experience anywhere before. I couldn't make heads or tails of myself... and that has never happened before. Everything at first made me feel very uneasy... When in Nepal, one of the foreigners I met told me that he had the feelings of repulse, annoyance, disgust... when confronted with beggars, poverty and "lack of manners" in Nepal (and Nepal is not nearly as bad as India). I thought "how sad he cannot see the culture beyond the superficial dirt of the streets, etc. and thinks of his own comfort only; how sad he has no compassion for the beggars..." And here I was, standing in the middle of the train station in Varanasi, disgusted, annoyed, repulsed, abhored, outraged, angry... on the verge of going back to Nepal. The floor of the train station, and a lot of sidewalk outside it, is covered with sleeping people in rags, men urinate on the walls inside the waiting room, the stench of urine and unwashed bodies is nausiating, decaying garbage is everywhere - very rarely you will see a garbage can, cows walk on platforms and dump their dung... [What I had read and heard about the holy cows is true - they are truly Holy in India. I have not seen one skinny cow here. Humans are dying on the street and no one pays attention to them but if you accidentaly scare or disturb a cow it will not go unnoticed: you will be scolded.] I was standing there, thinking: this is humanity deprived of humaness - an undishtinguished mass of bodies... about whom nobody cares... why is it like this?! who is responsible for such degradation of people and culture?! Many times, even in Mumbai, I walked by people lying on the streets and wondered whether they were still alive or already dead, and if dead how long it would take anyone to notice and to report and if reported, what happens to the corpse? The amount of people living on the streets in big cities is incredible... I read that one-third of inhabitants of Mumbai live in slums. Confronted with this you ask yourself all these questions... and wonder around stunned and torn by feelings you come across for the first time... And then the baggers chase after you... In the beginning you give them some change or food but there are so many of them, that in the end you run away... You also see a lot of abuse among the beggers. You see mothers hitting their infant babies so that they cry and the donations are greater. You learn about parents mutilating their babies to "adjust" them to a begging profession. You see kids handing out a deaf-mute flyers in the morning and selling you things, broading about the cheap price in loud voices, in the evening. Begging is, indeed, a profession in India... But, of course, for some people it is a way of life, for others a necessity. So I ask myself where is the government of this country and what it's doing and why it spends money on atom bomb instead of sanitation and education? But, of course, the situation doesn't only have to do with bad governing; it also has to do with religion and tradition. At first it seemed to me that the forces which affect this country are very different from the forces influencing life in any other country I have seen before. And, looking at the abuse among the poor, it seemed that the "core," about which I wrote earlier and which seemed to be the same in all the people in other places, was different in people in India. It seemed like some of the universal values found in other places didn't exist here. To get on and off the train you have to push your way with your elbows. There's no such thing as a line to, for example, obtain a train ticket - everybody is trying to get ahead of everybody and whoever is stronger gets to the window first. You are stepped on, pushed, speat on if you don't swearve in time to avoid the mucus as nobody looks around, sneezed and caughed at right in your face, and nobody ever says "excuse me." There's no such thing as "personal space" and for someone who comes from the environement where the personal space is observed one, like me, can have the feeling of being intruded, violated... But then, I came to understand, the people with whom I am in contact most of the time (because of my backpacking cheap way of traveling) are the "low-caste" people - the people who for centuries have been deprived of self-respect and dignity. Politeness is not something that occupies their minds in the struggle to survive. When you board the a/c car it's very different: high manners and smiles. Here the educated and powerful reside. It's a very different story... so it's actually not as different as what I have seen in South America. The poor (who are also a different "caste" in a way, a caste of indigenious colonized peoples) there, however, do have self-respect or they begin to have it and it shows in the political life as well. In South America the descendants of the colonisers claimed to be the smart and able ones to rule the countries, in Europe of yore there were kings who claimed they descended from God himself, and here there are Brahmins who are also descendants from God himself... And, of course, those who are in power (who come from the higher castes) will not want to let go of it (and the comfortable life it guarantees). They will justify their right to control and rule however they can to stay in power. They will call the holy scriptures, history and tradition as witnesses to their rights. It took the French revolution and the Russian revolution and the various uprisings and movements of other-then-the-ones-who-descend-from-Gods to bring better living conditions to all. I wonder if this will ever happen here? It happened to the British rule but the internal tradition is much stronger to overcome and to question. During this past weeks I talked to people from different castes and different backgrounds and it seems that India is torn between the cast tradition and those who would wish to see India free from it and all that it brings. The women with whom I talked on the train were telling me how they volunteer time to teach kids to read and write in the countryside and in the cities' slums, and their parents about hygiene and health. They came from different castes and backgrounds, some where educated working women, others were homemakers. It seems that what the government doesn't provide is done by non-governmental organizations and people who take matters in their hands and by changing the lives of communities (entire communities, not just one particular caste group) near them, they are changing the country. The women were telling me: "Ours is a developing country" i.e. "there's hope for it to become a country where the higher living standards will apply to all people who live in India." So, now, when I got over the confusion, and can see what forces govern life in India, I feel that I would like to learn more about it and talk to more people. I feel that I begin to understand what life is about here. It takes a while to get used to India. When I talk to tourists some tell me they hate it and want to get away immediately and they leave before the get used to it... Others love it from the beginning - these are usually the ones who came for the spirituality: to visit yogis, ashrams and learn about the ayurvedic life-style. I personally believe that you can be on a spiritual path anywhere, in absolutely any place in the world, and attain the peace of mind which makes life calm and thrilling at the same time - you can stand in the middle of Times Square in New York and feel at peace with the universe. However, there are people who believe they will get to some positive conclusions fast by coming to places like Tibet or India and some of them do, indeed. There's no one way, of course...

I have also read two good books recently which gave me insight to the historical, political and economical background and changes in India. One is Rohinton Mistry's "The Fine Balance" and the other one is Salman Rushdie's "The Moor's Last Sigh." I very much recommend both.

A few more words about Palolem. It's becoming one of my favorite places in the world. It's nothing special, really. A nice beach but can't say that it's as nice as the Caribbean islands or even the Baltic coast. However, the atmosphere is just amazing. The people who run their little businesses here and the crowd of tourists it attracts are just really really nice. There are a few restaurants/clubs with really good open mike nights and one street (we call it "the town") which has everything one needs. Before I left for Chennai I met Agnieszka and Michal who are Polish but live in London. The four of us, Agnieszka, Michal, Jim and I, rented motorbikes and wondered along the coast. We went to nice deserted beaches north and south of Palolem and inland to see the villages. The time spent with them was a really great time and I miss their company. We'll be in touch and visit each other in the future - it's that type of friendship. This time my neighbors at the Rainbow Coco-huts are Josi and Ayal from Israel and we enjoy talks at the Rainbow restaurant, dinners and music in the evening. A few days ago we went to a discoteque at a club called Titanic and it was wild fun to be dancing in the tighly sqeezed group of people from around the world, of all races it seemed, interestingly clothed, tatooed, body-pierced, dreadlocked, and otherwise hm... enhanced? What I like in Palolem also is that nothing is too wild here - the artistic and bohemian crowd is also within limits. The music stops at 1 am and it is quiet so you can have everything: the music, the party fun, the dancing, but also the quietness of the tropical night... And Ms Watson who disappeared a few days before I left for Chennai resurfaced again, bigger and slightly taugher from encounters with village dogs, and is getting fat on the food I, and the friendly cooks, give her and sleeps under my bed and hammock...

Some of my friends complain that they don't get e-mails from me and the blog entries are rare these days. After the hours spent at the internet places during the past year my patience grows thin for them... In India, and especially in Palolem, the power cuts are profound - sometimes most of the day there's no electricity. I will get better when I settle somewhere and have a regular access to reliable comps and electricity flow - I promise.

I am going to stay here a few more days and go to Mumbai... I haven't booked the train ticket yet... it's so hard to leave Paradise...

Many kisses and hugs to all my friends and faithful readers!

Chennai (previously Madras)

2006-02-18T03:37:00.000-08:00

I got to Chennai yesterday afternoon after 24 hours train ride from Margao in Goa. Just a short note to let everyone know where I am. I am at the end of my rope with the malfunctioning internet places and power cuts. I will write more when I am sure what I write is not lost. Hugs to everyone.

Diu, Mumbai and Goa

2006-02-06T02:34:00.000-08:00

I have been so busy doing nothing that it was hard to come to the internet cafe...

First regarding Diu. It is a charming island. It is about 25 km long and a few km wide. On one end there's a massive Portuguese fort (with old cannons directed toward the sea, remainings of churches, walls, etc.) , on the other there's a fishing village and in-between there are beaches and mangroves. Next to the fort there's Diu town and it resembles very much the typical Portuguese coast towns: narrow, winding streets, whitewashed houses, catholic churches painted white as well. I rented a bike and spent the whole day riding around the island, walking in the fort, peaking into the old abandoned churches, walking on the beaches and even going to see a very nice sea shell museum run by a retired naval captain. At breakfast I met a very nice older couple who have lived in Kalamazoo in Michigan for 40 years but were originally from Delhi. They told me that even though they come from India, every time they return for vacation they go through the same culture shock I went, life in India being so different from the western culture in which they've accustumed to live. More about it later. Because Nitzan and his friends where going to Mumbai the next day I decided to go with them. We spent three days in Mumbai. It was rather hot and very dry during the day and with pollution added to it, it was hard to tour the city. So I got a bus city tour and went to all the places of interest and just to get the overal feel of the city. It is so far the most westernized city of India I have seen. It looks run down, the way all other places looked, but it was cleaner and some life and hope was visible. It is the seat of Bollywood (the name of the city, from Bombay to Mumbai, was changed a few years ago but "Bollywood" remained) and it is perked up by the glamour of the movie industry and all the movie and other business it attracts. The architecture of Mumbai is fascinating. It is a mix of colonial, hindi, muslim architecture styles and the influence of many ethnic and religious groups is present. We stayed in Colaba district which is labeled as "tourist area" and it has some nice cafes and restaurants and many street shops with crafts. It was very near the Gate of India, a sort of arch looking out into the sea (it was built not long ago to commemorate the visit of Prince of Whales I believe). In the evening we walked around the area and enjoyed the cooler breeze and the atmosphere. The city is surrounded by beaches and it's also nice to spend some time there (but the water is polluted and not good for swimming). Dal, Jess and I were approached by "extras hunters" and asked if we wanted to be part of a Bollywood movie. We jumped at the idea at first (the fact that the scout considered me a "girl" at my age was really amusing; the power of blond hair still amazes me...) and even went to a meeting with all other western girls who agreed to "dance in the background" but it turned out the shooting would be done out in the open air downtown and it would take all day and we decided we had no strength to be dancing all day in that heat. If it was going to be done in the movie studio I would be glad to do it and see how the movie industry works here. The pay for the day of shooting is 500 rupees - a lot for Indian standards. We met some girls who worked as extras for longer than a day to support their trip in India.

In Mumbai our group split. Girls went to Myanmar, Nitzan went to Pune, and Robert and Neate were heading to Goa. I decided to go to Goa with Robert and Neate for a few days. On the train we met Jim from England and the four of us stayed in Margao in Goa for the night. Margao is a small town, also influenced by the Portuguese colonialism. We had a wonderful dinner at a restaurant run by lovely middle-aged couple. We stayed long into the night, talking to them and other diners. The next day Robert and Neate decided to go along the shore (Goa is a long strip of land along the coast and is made up of many small towns, villages and beaches) north of Margao and Robert and I came to the Palolem Beach. I decided to come here because the guide book said that it was the most quiet of all beaches of Goa, without loud "trance" music and all night parties, dope, hippies, etc. It might have been interesting to see such "beach life and party atmosphere" but at the moment I am more inclined toward peace... When we first got to Palolem in the afternoon I thought I would just stay here for a day or two because it didn't seem as quiet as the guide book said. I expected just a few coco huts and one or two restaurants, and instead I found a great number of huts built on poles and a lot of small restaurants streatched out in the entire Palolem bay. However, it turned out that it is, indeed, a peaceful place. All businesses are family-run and the atmosphere in our "Rainbow Huts and Restaurants" is very homely. Vacationers turned out to be very nice people who after 10 pm speak in hushed voices so you can fall asleep to the sound of the waves... There's also a number of friendly dogs running around, looking quite healthy, plump and happy. The past few days I have been waking up before sunrise and walking along the beach with a crowd of dogs, chasing each other and greeting other dogs who live in the further parts of the beach. When we got here I felt really tired due to another of my virus infections (I have been getting whatever comes my way on this trip, all the colds and flues...) and persistent stomach problems. I spotted the only malnurished puppy of about 4 months (named Watson aka the Skeleton) who, as it turned out, got dumped on the beach by someone the same day we came. So the first three days I spent sitting at our little restaurant facing the sea, with the puppy sleeping on my lap and feeding him a mix of raw eggs and milk every few hours. He was healing me with his doggy energy and I was healing him with the food he needed. Next to us was a girl from France who fell into a ditch and sprained her ankle and besides her a Canadian who strained his neck. What a collection of invalids! We spent long hours talking, drinking ginger and honey tea, admiring the run rises, sun sets and everything in between, particularly the food our wonderful cooks cook, the food that is delicious and, most importantly, digestible (and ridiculously cheap...). Jim was making fun of us "the retirees." He sprained his toe, however, playing soccer so now he is the one limping around with a sour face. The puppy from a totally lethargic skeleton, just in a few days turned into a very energetic beautiful border collie-looking dog. I named him Watson because he didn't have any appetite in the beginning (he really was half-starved; it looked as if he forgot the function of eating) and we had to constantly hide the body of evidence (his uneaten food) in the sand so the cooks would not see it, and hence Mr. Watson and I, Sherlock Holmes, were conspiring on the locating... It turned out, however, Watson is a female so we call her Ms. Watson. Which remainds me of Elvisa in Chile, who was also a skeleton and who I hope grew up to be a powerful cat.

Today early in the morning we went on a boat-trip to see the dolphins. We saw a few couples and a few lone ones which also must have been a part of a bigger group. It was very nice. I saw one from the shore yesterday morning as well. I love places like this, I really do. It's not as charming as the Caribbean (except for the dolphins there's not much marine life to see) but peaceful and relaxing. (The marine life is compensated, however, by daily bull-fights: the holy cows which take laisure strolls down the beach do some head-pulling for the amusement of other cows and the sun-bathers.)

Robert and Neate made their way south and joined us. The group seems to be staying here for another week or more. I think I will stay for three more days and head to Bangalore.

I will write about my impressions on the Indian culture soon.

Mumbai

2006-01-27T23:34:00.000-08:00

I stayed one day in Diu - a very nice place - and came to Mumbai yesterday with Nitzan and five other people: Jess from Australia, Dal from Israel, Nate from Canada and Robert from Germany. It's so much better to be travelling in a group in India. We will be touring the city today and tomorrow. I will try to come to the internet place in the evening to write about my impressions of the last few days. Now I just wanted to send a quick note to give my location for anyone concerned. Mumbai aka Bombai seems to be a fascinating city.

Leaving for Diu

2006-01-23T21:03:00.000-08:00

I am boarding the bus bound for Diu - an island south of Jamnagar, on the south coast of Gujarat. According to the schedule it should arrive at it's destination at 8 pm so, realistically speaking, I will get there sometime around midnight. Nitzan, the Israeli whom I met in Kathmandu, is staying at the Super Silver hotel so I asked him to tell the reception person his Israeli friend is coming and wants the Israeli rate. Isrealis are known to bargain hard for everything so they get very favourable rates for rooms, money exchange, etc. In Kathmandu Nitzan got Nikki, Farhaan and I the special rate when we first got there. When we went to the Israeli restaurant Nitzan would tell us: "you don't have to give a big tip, nobody expects it here." We had a lot of fun regarding Nitzan being and Isreali, him included. So now Nitzan is in Diu and I am going to join him and see if he maybe also goes along my route - it would be better for me to travel with a male companion to avoid all the street harrasment from men. A lone female tourist has a very hard time travelling in India. I don't mind when someone tells me I am beautiful, or stares at me as if I was a Virgin Mary, or wants to talk to me for a few minutes as it happened in other places I visited, but here men "glue" themselves to me, follow me, or even try to grab my arms or my hair. It's very unpleasant... Diu was a Portuguese colony so if I find the beaches and architecture nice, and if Nitzan wants the job of my bodyguard, I will stay there for a few days and I will write more from there.

Jaipur, Udaipur and Jamnagar

2006-01-23T01:11:00.000-08:00

Jaipur is called the pink city because many of its buildings are painted pink. I got a tour there to see the city in one day. Among the tourists in my group there were two nice girls from Australia, one of Indian descend - she was visiting her uncle who lives in Jaipur and was also part of the group - very nice people. We went to see the famous astronomical observatory built by some Maharana, the city palace, and the Amber Palace located on a hill. A huge structure. Must have been beautiful in its time of glory but now it looks very neglected. The whole city looks neglected. It has some nice parks and wide streets so one day, if it is renovated, it will be beautiful again. The best part of my stay in Jaipur was a meeting with an elephant and with monkeys (different species than the one I saw before). The elephant was waiting for passangers to carry them up the hill to the Amber Palace. He was dozing. I stood next to him, he opened his eyes, lifted his trunk and sniffed my hand, delicately touching with its soft ending. And then he looked at me and, of course, there was a whole universe in that gaze. He looked at me with curiosity, love, compassion, and playfullness. I patted his tusk... I wanted to tell him: lets leave all this tourist business and go somewhere where there's nature, away from this busy city. I felt so sorry for him, to be away from where he belonged. Of all the Hindu gods the one I like the most is Ganesh - the god with the elephant head. When you look into the eye of an elephant he is, indeed, divine. Everybody is, but he is divine effortlessly... The Ganesh I saw at the foot of the Amber Palace hill was the biggest elephant I have seen. I had no idea they could be this big. The monkeys were in the garden of the Amber Palace and it was their natural habitat - they just came from all over around to be entertained by tourists. I had some biscuits in my bag (my only food these days as my stomach is not tolerating the "freshly" prepared food...) and I gave them to a nice doggy and then to the monkeys and they came to get it one by one, without any rush and very politely and delicately. We exchanged smiles and head scratches.

Udaipur is considered a very romantic city and it truly is. There's a beautiful City Palace and many smaller palaces on the lake. Some of them are turned into hotels. I toured the main palace and the smaller ones, and the narrow streets of the old town. The outside architecture of the palace is beatiful but the inside is somewhat kitchy to my taste: a lot of filigree, minature paintings, lots of mirror tiles on walls, lots of garish colors... Eveybody has his or her preference. Mine is the art of the Chimu and Moche or Maya and Aztec cultures: rough form, one color, simplicity. The "Maharana" style is very elaborate... too elaborate for my taste. Also clothing and jewelry sold in stores and markets is very colorful, very rich in gold and precious stones. There's nothing I would want to take home from the state of Rajastan, no matter how aggressively the sellers would try to sell it to me...

With a short stop in Ahmadabad I arrived to Jamnigar today early morning. One thing which I really like in India is the institution of the "retiring rooms" at train stations. They have cheap (and quite clean) rooms and dormitories at each railway station so if one arrives in the middle of the night (due to train being delayed, for example) one can crush there instead of looking for a hotel at that impossible hour. They are so cheap that when the train is late 5 hours or late "indefinitely" it's worth taking it. I slept a few hours at the retiring room and went to see Dr. Baghel at the University of Ayurveda with whom I corresponded earlier regarding courses on Ayurveda. He greeted me warmly and introduced me to some of the professors. The state university is the only university in India which offers full 5,5 year program on Ayurveda to foreigners (in English). They also have an introductory 3-month course. The semester starts in July so I have time to think if I would like to stay here for the next 5,5 years. The city is close to water but it is nonetheless a desert city. It is winter now but it's still hot: about 30 degrees Celsius. In the summer it is above 40 degrees. The beasts of burder are camels here. The city is dusty and hot. There are some suculent shrubs and palm trees around but otherwise the vegetation is scarce. People seem to be very nice. I would say they also look happier than in the cities I visited before.

Agra, at last

2006-01-19T01:11:00.000-08:00

I got to Agra after 17 hours on the train. I booked my ticket for Jaipur for tomorrow morning and today I am wondering around Taj Mahal. Now it is closed for lunch break and will re-open at 4 pm. Taj Mahal is as beautiful as the pictures show. The main building - the mausoleum made of white marble inlaid with stone of other colors - is really, indeed, an example of perfect balance. From the distance it looks beautiful, with the narrow pools with shallow water leading to it, and from up-close it is equally enchanting. I will have to find more information on it. I read some bits and pieces about it but my knowledge is fragementary (and I don't want to use a guide because I never do - their monotonous voice put me to sleep the few times I used a guide before in such places). The grounds are nicely kept - the surrounding garden consists of grass and some interesting shrubs and trees. Behind Taj Mahal flows a river but it is very badly polluted, like all rivers in India, I heard. I had breakfast in the morning at a restaurant close to Taj Mahal and observed the monkeys which are running everywhere in the city. It is amazing to me how their movements are similar to human movements. It's incredible. When I see a dog anywhere I talk to it and some of them respond and some don't but they respond in a "dog" way. The "monkey" way is so like human that it's almost freightening. I was sitting at a table and a monkey was outside, behind the glass window. I looked at her and pointed at her with my finger: "Hey you, how are you?" She looked me and then around herself: "You mean me?" said her eyes. "Yes, you." She scrathed her head, didn't know what to say, looked a bit embarassed by my attention, and slowly withdrew... In Kathmandu I went with Sanjeev to a park on the outskirts of the city. Sanjeev wanted to take a walk to the pond with fish and I decided to take a nap on the bench. Between my head and the bench I put a box of cookies. Just as Sanjeev was leaving a group of monkeys came and one of them quietly and skillfully, without touching me, took the cookies away. And then she, and all other monkeys started screaming and "laughing": "We got it! She didn't even notice it!" But at that time I did, and so did Sanjeev and a group of people passing by. We were looking at the "thief" how he opened the box carefully and took out the cookies one by one, from the first row of cookies, and ate them. Then they all left and Sanjeev told me that the thief would eat first and then share the rest with the other monkeys. Having all these monkeys around is like having another "type" of humans around. It's hard to treat them like animals because they so resemble us. Especially when mothers take care of their kids, play with them, breast-feed them. .. More about fauna and flora of India soon. I am going to go back to Taj Mahal and enjoy it's beauty until the sunset.

India

2006-01-18T01:53:00.000-08:00

On Sunday I said good bye to all my new friends in Kathmandu. I warmly parted with Dr. Fatima and promissed I will visit her sometime in the future - if I decide to study Chinese medicine I would love to do some acupuncture intership with her and closely observe her skillful hands. I parted with Sanjeev and his family and friends - wonderful people.

I left Kathmandu on Monday morning and got to the border with India at Sonoulie at 8 pm. The first bus I boarded broke mid-way and I was transferred to another one and then there were many checkpoints and we were further delayed by the thorough checks of the bus in search of Maoists and their weapons. So, instead of eight hours' ride it was twelve hours. At the border I met Ivan from Slovakia and Miki from Hungary. We eate dinner and crossed the border together. The Indian immigration office was the most modest I have seen so far: a long desk with three man sitting at it and a chair for the customer. The power was cut so we filled out the customs forms by the light of two candles. We got on the bus which took us to the nearest train station which was still three hours away. When we got there I felt too tired to be going any further and decided to spent the night at Borogpur (roughly - I don't rememger the spelling). I walked Ivan and Miki to the station to say good bye to them - they got on the train bound for Varanasi last minute and while the train was in motion Ivan was writing his e-mail for me... I turned back in search of a place to rest my bruised butt. I looked at four hotels opposite the station and in terms of standard they beat the Hotel Valparaiso in Santiago de Chile - I thought there could be nothing more shabby than Hotel Valparaiso so it was a shock... It's hard to describe how dirty a room can be... I finally found a place which had at least clean sheets. It looked like a bathroom because it was tiled the way a bathroom can be. I have no problem sleeping in the bathroom as long as it is clean... In the morning I went to the train station and it turned out that the reservation for the ticket has to be made at least 4 hours in advance - something they forgot to tell me at the information booth the previous evening. So I couldn't go directly to Agra as I planned ("because the computer doesn't pick up the booking any more" so technically there can be a seat but...) and instead had to first go to Lucnow at 1 pm and then catch a train to Agra at midnight. Well, all trains in India seem to be delayed so the first one was delayed 4 hours and the second 5 hours. When I got on the train at 5 am instead midnight I was so tired that I just crawled into my sleeping bag and fell asleep... and when I woke up a few hours later it turned out I was going east instead of west - the people at the tourist information place put me on the wrong train. If I got them into my hands when I learned this... They were telling me "Why don't you want to go to Varanasi?" and I kept saying "I don't want to go to Varanasi, I want to go to Agra." I think they just decided I cannot leave India without going to Varanasi... (I sniff sabotage here) and that's where I am now. However, I am so pissed, and so tired (also of gringo pullers who fell like voulters on me when I left the station, wanting to sell me all kinds of services I don't need) that I decided I will leave India without seeing Varanasi. I went to some posh hotel for tea and lassi and now I am at the internet cafe. The train to Agra leaves at 5 pm and I intend to take it. I went to a posh hotel to hide... from dirt, misery, beggers, crippled people, the overwhelming stench of urine and excrement, human and cow... This is the biggest culture shock I have experienced... I will get used to it in a few days but at the moment it's hard... I feel like running away... I was sitting yesterday in the restaurant connected to that only clean hotel with just bathrooms and saw a bus, double-decker Mercedes, full of western tourists and for the first time ever I wanted to be part of such organized trip, to see India hidden behind the glass, free from all the hassle of train tickets, street harrasment, filling out endless paperwork... The beurocracy exceeds that of the one in communist Poland by thousand times. When a guy came to me on the train asking to fill out a questionnaire about the tourist information services I explained what happened and told him to get out of my sight or else... poor guy... it was not his fault but I was just so annoyed... I rarely get mad but when I do I look like a charging bull. The guy disappeared in an instant. People in general are very nice. I enjoyed talking to them on the trains and in tiny restaurants. (The government workers do look like the workers in communist Poland though: as we said it then "they pretend they work and the government pretends it pays them salary." I think government workers are everywhere the same...). I talked to a group of men on the train to Lucnow and a few of them were trying to flirt with me, asking if I was married and if not, whether I would consider an Indian husband. "But can you cook, my dear? - I asked - "because I like to be employed and lead professional life outside of the house, you see, and I need a husband who can do the regular household chores, you know the washing, ironing, taking care of the kids, etc., and that on top of his regular job - no tolerance for wondering too much around, spending too much time with male friends and playing pool..." They looked at me blinking their eye-lids nervously and quickly changed the subject. I think, as a "man repelent", it works better than saying I am married or have a boyfriend. The situation of women in India seems very difficult, more difficult than in Nepal. In Nepal women seem to be raising their heads. New laws were passed a few years ago and women have more rights than before, for example they can keep half of property and goods if they get divorced; before all stayed with the ex-husband. I am reading a book about India now, to get more knowledge about the caste system and how Hinduism influences its followers. In Nepal I read articles how the government and various NGOs encourage inter-cast marriages and encourage women to study. I read articles explaining that the caste system doesn't have anything to do with religion, that it is rather a distortion of the religious thought and that the caste system is more a socio-economic system designed by those who benefit from it the most. I know that Mahatma Gandhi was very much against the notion of the untuchables - people having no rights whatsoever, whom the high caste people can abuse as much as they want. The hours I spent yesterday waiting for the delayed train I spent at the waiting room for "upper class" people... I had to sit somewhere so I went there and they didn't turn me back so I stayed. Most of the floor of the train station was occupied by sleeping people, many of them in rags... These must be the "low class" for whom no waiting room is provided... It's hard for me to swallow all this... I feel great compassion for the people. In South America people were poor and led simple life but didn't seem miserable. Here, so many seem at the end of their rope... I feel sorry for all these baggers I see but at the same time I know I can't possibly help them all... It's a frustrating feeling... very frustrating...

I will write more from Agra or Jamnipur... when I get there eventually...

Charles Schultz

2006-01-11T02:11:00.000-08:00

I would like to put something on the blog which I got from Yvonne (it's meant to be sent by e-mail but I like it so much that I will put it here as well):

The following is the philosophy of Charles Schultz, the creator of the"Peanuts" comic strip. You don't have to actually answer the questions. Just read the e-mail straight through, and you'll get the point.

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.
3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America.
4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.
5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winner for best actor and actress.
6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.

How did you do? The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. These are nosecond-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners. Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.
5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

Easier? The lesson: The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They are the ones that care. Pass this on to those people who have made a difference in your life. You are receiving this because you made a difference in mine.

"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia." (Charles Schultz)

I am spending the last few days in Kathmandu. On Saturday or Sunday I will be going to India. I did some research on Ayurvedic schools and I found Ayurvedic University in Jamnagar in Guyarat, University in Pune and then schools in southern India. So that will be my route. I want to try Ayurvedic treatment on myself (especially the purifying procedure called Pancha Karma) and possibly register for an introductory course in Ayurveda. I will be going by bus to the border with India and then travelling by trains.

Tomorrow I will go last time to Durbar Square in Patan - one of the districts of Kathmandu. It is a very old districts with beautiful Hindu temples. The first time I went there I went with my Reiki master who took our Reiki group to a lecture delivered by Jane Goodall, held at the museum in Durbar Square. I forgot to mention it before but it was one of highlights of my stay here. I was always fascinated by Jane Goodall and her research on chimpanzees. She founded Jane Goodall Institute (www.janegoodall.org) and is on tour lecturing about it and its purpose. I admire her and what she does immensly. She spent most of her life in the jungle with the chimpanzee family and got very attached to it but she also understands that if people kill chimpanzees and animals in general, making them endangered species, it's because they usually have no other choice to sustain themselves or make a living in their presently changed ecosystems. Her institute is devoted to protecting animals and the communities of people by helping them to create sustainable livelihoods in areas where they may be exploited or in which their natural habitat may be destroyed. The lecture was very interesting and it was hard to believe that the energetic lady who delivered it is 72 years old.

I have also seen a few movies about Tibet, all good ones: "The Himalayas", "Seven Years in Tibet" and a really good documentary entitled "Tibet. Cry of the Snow Lion." I wonder if it is pssible to rent the documentary in the West - I highly recommend it (if I have mentioned it before on the blog, forgive me, I don't remember if I have). It shows what Dalai Lama calls the "cultural genocide" in Tibet. I wonder if Tibet will ever become indpendent. China is growing into such superpower that no country will be able to press it to withdraw. When China invaded Tibet it was on their claim that they were freeing Tibetans from teocratic rule. It is true Mao believed that "religion is poison" but what always seems to be the true reason for a power to size foreign land is for resource and strategic purposes. Dalai Lama is a religious leader and Tibet was ruled by Tibetan priests. Religion was government in the case of Tibet. According to western civilization (and to communism in particular) the idea of religious system being govermental system (and feudal) may not be acceptable and many revolutions and uprisings happened to separate the church from the government but to Tibetans it was acceptable and desireable. Tibetans were a happy nation before the Chinese invasion. I talked to a few people in Lhasa and I talked to Tibetans living in Nepal. They don't welcome new roads, buildings, and companies built by the Chinese in Tibet. They value their tradition more than modernization and progress. I also talked to a few Chinese who settled in Lhasa (they get very favorable terms of employment and business incentives and they can have two kids if they move to Tibet, instead of one if they live in mainland China). They asked me if I thought Tibet was part of China "because some westerners thought it wasn't." I tried to wiggle out of these discussions for fear of being locked up (if governments of powerful countries are afraid of speaking up what I, an ordinary gray tourist, can do?) but what I really wanted to tell them is that Tibetans and Chinese have different language, different traditions, different lifestyle - they have very little in common - so no, I don't think Tibet is part of China in any possible way and the fact that Chinese killed two million of defensless Tibetans does not make them even good neighbors. What is so sad in this conflict is also the fact that so many Chinese are brainwashed to believe they have the right to be in Tibet. And, even though Dalai Lama calls for non-agression and no hostility toward the Chinese, many Tibetans develop hatred toward their oppressors. You may not see open hostility in Lhasa but the tension hangs in the air.

Ayurveda and politics

2006-01-07T23:18:00.000-08:00

First about Ayurveda:

I am reading books devoted to Ayurveda and Chinese medicine (I ruled out Tibetan medicine as inferior to these two). One of them is "Ayurveda and the Mind. The Healing of Consciousness" written by Dr. David Frawley who is a director of American Institute of Vedic Studies in Santa Fe, New Mexico. According to Ayurveda when treating psychological problems and mental diseases one must first heal consciousness. Remember my picture of the subconsious specialist? My idea was not far away from the Ayurvedic take on subconsious, except according to Ayurveda the subconsciousness is not hired by us but rather it is always a part of us but if we train our consciousness well it will have control of the subconsciousness or, basically, the subconsciousness will just keep quiet. What I read in that book explains how our mind works (according to Vedas and Vedic philosophy) and what to do to strengthen it so no mental imbalances ever trouble us. "Ayrveda does not look upon the human being as a limited set of biochemical processes. It views the human soul as pure awareness, linked with but not limited to the mind-body complex, which is its instrument of manifestation. " According to Ayurveda we should develop our awareness not only to prolong our lives and have better energy but because "our awareness is the only thing that we can take with us when we die." (That is, of course, when you believe the soul or the pure energy within us travels when our physical body dies). What I really like about the Ayurvedic approach is that it looks at every person (and every being for that matter) with compassion. The fact that a person is evil, angry, agressive, disonest, doesn't mean he or she has to be this way until he or she dies because that's his or her personality. All negative emotions can be changed into positive emotions, and compassion and selflessness can be developed in a person who doesn't show them initially. The book discusses the tools to help a person develop them. It requires much discipline and consistency but can definitely be done. Since body, mind and soul are connected, the Ayurvedic doctor works on all of them simultaneously. The body must be purified of toxins and the immune system must be strengthened (for this body clensing procedures are administered and physical exercise is to be done - yoga among them); the mind must be calmed down and emptied from wrong impressions and right intake of emotions must be cultivated (through meditation and other technigues); our interactions with other people have to be changed to be harmonious (as our compassion grows); we have to finally look at our soul and develop relationship with it - or develop "communion with the greater universe and the Divine powers at work within it." After our working hard on our body, mind, and soul we may come to the conclusion that the "ego is our sense of transient identity, that we are the creature of a particular life or body. The soul, on the other hand, is the sense that we are an immortal conscious being, an individualized portion of Divinity. " If we begin to feel we are "an individualized portion of Divinity" nothing can sadden us any longer; the feelings of inferiority, worthlessness, and being unloved will be lost. Ayurveda says that the most important relationship we have should be with ourself because all other relationships are temporary. When we develop this love for our Self (nothing to do with egoism - it's not love for Ego but for Self) we will feel happy and complete regardless of external circumstances. I would like to cite a few paragraphs from the book:

"There is a seeking for primary or lasting relationships. All our human relationships are secondary because they are bound by time and must pass away. They only become primary relationships when we see God within the other. Without a recognition of the eternal Being behind all relationships, there can be no fulfillment in any relationship. We are born alone and die alone and can never be one with another physically or mentally, except for brief moments.

Yet we are never really alone. Though we are born and die in a single body, there is within us the consciousness of the entire unvierse, should we choose to look within. We can find all worlds and all beings inside ourselves. Real relationship is to see the Devine in others and in all life. It requires that we relate to our real origin, our real parents, the Divine Father and Mother of the universe, and not just to external bodies and forms."

If anyone wonders about the usage of "God" in this excerpt here's the further explanation (and that is why I also like the Ayurvedic philosophy):

"Each of us possesses an inherent ethical sense, which we call "conscience" - a feeling that certain things are right and others are wrong. Our conscience causes us not to wish harm to any creature and to feel the pain of others as our own. Conscience is a major part of intelligence, which establishes how we value and treat other people.

Directed outwardly, intelligence creates morality, which may be little more than arbitrary customs of a particular society. Directed inwardly, intelligence creates universal ethics like non-violence, which transcend all cultural prejudices. Through our inner intelligence, we act ethically and humanely, not for the material or social gain, or even for heavenly reward, but for the good of all.

Organized religion, with its dogmas and institutions, is another product of the outward-oriented intelligence. It results in the clash of beliefs and their exclusive claims. It ties us to a particular church, book or savior as truth. On the other hand, directed inwardly, true intelligence creates spirituality or the quest for eternal truth beyond name and form. It leads to the truth or our own inner Being, our higher Self in which the insistence upon a belief, saviour or institution appears naive."

In yesterday's paper I read about the famous western neurologists' discovery of a protein which may be responsible for depression. The article said that so many people fall sick with this "debilitating disease" that more research has to be done so in the future a cure is found... Why do these western specialists not look into 5,000 old Ayurvedic practices? The cure for mental instability and diseases of the mind and soul (and "depression" among them) has been found. Not all who suffer instability or are depressed may want to use it but for those who do, it is out there waiting to be used. I have to say, though, that among the doctors I know psychiatrists are the doctors most rigid in their practice, most unflexible to "new" ideas or any health systems which were not thought at their medical schools. For this reason, I believe, instead of broadening their knowlege about the existing old types of treatment, they will work on developing Prozac 2, 3, and 4 (which already is called "vitamin P") and what a joy that will be to the pharmaceutical companies! I also read today an article in a magazine about anti-depressants and its "culture", how the author heard at a party two literary men discuss when to take it: "you take a Prozac pill just before you start writing and take it during the time of your working on the book/article, but if you are planning to spend an intimate evening with your wife (anti-depressants weaken the potency), you should stop taking it 24 hours before..." Prozac seems to be popular as much as Coca-cola and chewing gum. According to the article Prozac is ill-proscribed for 90% of people. I personally think it is so much better not to have to depend on anything, absolutely anything, for one's feeling of happiness and life-fulfillment. I don't know how many people statistically suffer from depression in India and China (Chinese medicine has similar view on mental diseases as Ayurveda). To work on your soul you must have your stomach relatively full and since in these parts of the world food is not so easily accessible as in the developed countries, the Chinese and Ayurvedic principles could be more effective there than here, paradoxically... But I don't know that really... I am just wondering about it and speculating...

About the political situation in Nepal: it is turbulent. The Kingdom of Nepal has a king who possesses all the power and lives comfortably in his palace in Kathmandu. The economy system is basically non-existent. The King has no mind for economy and doesn't care. He gets a lot of help from the governments of developed countries but not much of it filtrates to the people of Nepal (of course, that's how a dictatorship works). What gets to the Nepalis is help from all kinds of charitable and relief organizations. The people are fed up with the present state of affairs. In the countryside the Communist Party of Nepal operates (they are called the "Maoists") and it is in the state of war with the Royal Army. There are also 7 democratic parties organized in a 7-party alliance. Shortly before I came to Kathmandu the 7-party alliance and the kind signed some 12-point treaty to start changing the political system from monarchy to democracy. The Maoists proclaimed unilateral sease-fire to join in the talks. During my stay here I have been observing the turbulent situation: the democratic parties weakness in making the king adhere to the points; the king trying to wiggle out and "outsmart" the parties and secretly deploying the Royal Army in the countryside; the Maoists trying to stick to the proclaimed cease-firege but nonetheless getting involved in killing or capturing soldiers and villagers; villagers dying in the conflict, killed by the soldiers or the Maoists (some supporting the Maoists, some inocent people having nothing to do with the "insurgency" being killed "in error"). All the region surrounding Boughdeau is in the hands of the Maoists - there's no governmental authority there. The first time I went there (since I probably was the only turist venturing in these regions) I was thoroughly interrogated by a Maoist and had to proove I was not the agent of the CIA (my passport was checked in detail and the Chinese and Russian visa was inspected). I told him he is very proud if he thinks the US administration gives a damn about Nepal (I am sure G. W. Bush doesn't even know where it is located on the globe...). Communism is a thing of the past. Terrorism is a big thing now (and not any terrorism, the one directed at the US). And besides, Nepal doesn't have oil or anything of interest to them dudes. I haven't seen anything in the papers about US involvement in Nepalis struggles. I read about the EU pressuring the king to share his power with the democratic parties and to involve the communists as well to prevent the further bloodshed. Eventually, I think, the king will have to share or they will chase him out. The Maoists proclaimed the end of the cease-fire a few days ago and bombed a few buildings in the city of Pokhara (they took out all the people before they detonated the bombs, one person got hurt). Every day in the paper there's news of people being killed in the conflict. The UN posh SUV Toyotas are driving around Kathmandu monitoring the situation (I always wonder why they have to have such luxurious equipment...) and soldiers are stationed at all main intersections, barricaded with sandbags. A few years ago, I was told, bombs were detonated everywhwere, regardless of whether people were around or not. The situation got better since then but no one really knows how long it will take for the country to be stable. At the moment, it seems, all Nepalis would prefer to be somewhere else... People ask me if I can get them visa to go to the US or Europe. Whoever has enough education to get some business visa emigrates. The paper said that 90% of young doctors leave. Soon there will be no mind power to steer the country even if the king does become the representant of the country instead of being its head.

Nepali countryside

2006-01-03T22:53:00.000-08:00

I got back from Boughdeau yesterday. I found a computer which seems to be working well so maybe now I will be able to post my experiences in the Nepali countryside.

I went to B on invitation of Sanjeev Thapa whom I befriended shortly after I came to Kathmandu and whose family lives in B and where he was born and raised. Now he lives in Thamel in Kathmandu and owns a store with his brother. He invited me to his cousin's wedding. I got the proper outfit for the ocassion: a knee-length, emroidered, long-sleeved shirt and narrow-legged pants. It is a traditional Nepali dress for women although the culture is so mixed here (Nepali, Tibetan and Indian) that many women wear sarees and typical Tibetan dresses also. We got to the village three days before the event. To get to the village we took a bus which took us 30 km east and then we got a jeep for the next 30 km since there is really no paved road up the mountains. We then walked the last few km to reach the village, taking a narrow path in the mountains. Another way to B is to walk up and down the hills for about 35 km and we took this path when going back to Kathmandu. The village is high in the mountains and from there one can see the whole Himalayan mountain range. It looks beautiful with the snow-capped mountain tops - very majestic. Nobody in the village could tell me exactly the altitude of the village but I would say it's about 3,000 km above the sea level judging by how I felt when I got there. There's no electricity there, no running water (but there's a nice clear-watered river in the valley and there are a few streams going through the village), no stoves except open fire in the house which people use for cooking and heating in the evening. The days are warm and sunny and the evenings and nights are colder but never more than maybe minus 1 or 2 Celsius. People live in clay and hay houses which are two story high: the ground floor is a room where the family eats and gathers for talks and warming up and the first floor is for sleeping. There's minimal amount of furniture (only beds really) and kitchen utensils. The family sits on mats spread out on earthen floor. The villagers farm the land on tarases and grow mainly wheat, corn, potatoes and beans. They also keep chickens, goats and buffalos - a huge, black, almost hairless cows. The diet is very simple and same most of the time: boiled corn flower, rice, potato cury and beans. There's also buffalo milk, milk curd, and cheese. Very rarely people eat meat. There are four tiny stores in the village (wood shacks) and the asortment of goods for sale is very limited. I mentioned it in one my previous blog entries. The stores also serve as cafes: people (mostly men) gather there in the evenings to drink milk tea (and play something which resembles pool). Life in the village follows rather strict rules. Women work in the house and take care of kids, food preparation, they carry wood to make the fire and water for cooking and cleaning the pots. They also take care of the farm animals. Men work the land. Like in Kathmandu the life of men and women seems to be running separate paths. Even in the evenings men stay together, walking around the village, visiting neighboors, playing pool... Women stay in the houses, during the day they visit each other. There's no close human contact such as kissing or hugging, even between parents and children. Even when the kids live in a city and come to visit their parents they don't hug them or kiss them to greet them or say good bye but only put their forheads to their parents' feet to show respect. Life in the village at first looks simple and peaceful, however... Having travelled a bit now I personally think that people are the same in their core everywhere in the world, that they are very social creatures and crave human touch and contact and that every strict set of cultural rules which forbids that contact have negative effect on them. When we got to the village Sanjeev told me: "Life is so peaceful here. People are so happy." But the more time I spent in the village the more it seemed to me like maybe it is a peaceful place but not so happy. Everyone wears the same clothing, the same jewerly, all women have holes in their left nostrils, the same safety pin attached to their neckleses... Marriages are arranged. Religious holidays and festivals must be obeyed. Everybody belongs to a specific caste. You have to follow a strict rule and all is well if you do. So in the end I thought that people are neither happy nor sad, they just follow the rules. To be happy you have to be able to make choices for yourself or be like the people in the Ecuadorian jungle where there are no rules to follow, no social or caste system. Sanjeev's family is big because his father had seven wives at the time where polygamy was legal. In Boughdeau there are many cousins, uncles and aunts and some family lives abroad as well. Sanjeev's father died 13 years ago and his mom now lives with a daughter in law and three kids of another brother who also died some time ago. Saros is 14, Sagar is 9 and Susmita is 10. They are wonderful kids. Since women and men worlds don't mix (in Kathmandu is becomes more popular for men to have women friends and vice versa but it is still impossible in the countryside) Sanjeev was spending time with his childhood male friends and I was spending time mostly with the family and specifically with the kids. We went to the water mill to mill the corn grain, to the river to hunt for stones of various shapes and colors, we walked on the slopes of the mountains with the goats, jumped on the river stones and looked for little fish and all kinds of plants and herbs (we found mint and made mint tea in the evening to everyone's delight). I felt really good in their company. [In general everywhere I go I feel best around kids (and dogs) - they are spontaneous, inventive, creative and know how to enjoy life. Grown-ups are, for the most part, such boring creatures in comparison...] They all speak English because English is compulsory at their village school. Also, when I went there the first time crowds of kids were following me everywhere I went because no tourists get to these regions and many of them didn't see a white person before. It was fun - I felt like a move star - but at times annoying when I wanted to pee (only few villagers have outside toilets so there are virtually no bathrooms or toilets there) and couldn't get rid of them to perform these hm... intimate acts. Peeing in haste is stressful... Because kids never get hugged or kissed here the three Thapa kids got close to me because I just couldn't help it - I had to hug them. I could see how they craved the wormth they never get from their family. Especially Susmita liked when I combed her hair, when we washed hands together holding a jar of water for each other, when I put some cream on her face burned by the sun... When I was leaving the first time I told the kids I would bring them some children's books and some crayons and paper for drawing (there's no libary and no toys of any kind in the village) and that's really why I wanted to go there for the New Year's Eve - to deliver what I promised I would bring them. So I got some books in Nepali and in English, color pencils, coloring books, etc. and we spent the afternoon of January 1st drawing, painting and reading a simplified version of "The Call of the Wild" (one of my favorite childhood books). I dramatized my reading of the book and the kids, along with neighbors' kids who came for the reading, listened with their mouths open about the great dog Buck and his adventures. I got very attached to the Thapa kids and I really hope that they study well and eventually go to high school in Kathmandu and have adventurous lives. I also had my "personal assistant" named Sunil, a boy of 8 years, who followed me everywhere and always wanted to carry my bag with toiletries when I went to take a bath in the river, who picked fruit for me, and wanted to be of service whenever his family didn't need him to do some farm work. For him I also got some paper and coloring materials and I think that a present made him believe in good witches who use some magic and bring presents to kids. It feels good to be a good witch... I was told Sunil skips school sometimes so I told him to attend it everyday and he promised he would.

I greeted the New Year with Saros, Sanjeev, his two friends Razan and Esbi (the rest of the family went to bed early since they don't celebrate the western New Year's Eve) and we toasted with milk tea to our dreams for 2006 to come true under the very dark sky with billions of stars in it. Esbi, being a good singer, sang some Nepali songs for us. We then got into the family room and talked until 1 am, sitting around the campfire. It was very nice. One of Sanjeev's uncles is a famous Shaman (his father and his grandfather and his grandfather were also Tibetan Shamans) and he did the future fortelling ceremony for me and said that my future is bright for 2006 so I welcomed the New Year especially warmly...

While in the village I also practiced reiki. Sanjeev's mom has arthritis in her hand and I did reiki for her (I also got some Ayurvedic oil for massage and aromatherapy) and she said it made her feel much better. I also treated a few other patients and one of them, an older uncle, whom I reikied in the morning came back in the evening saying he felt so good (he had pain in his shoulder from a fall) he wanted to be reikied again! It made me feel so good knowing my reiki power is growing! I am not ready yet to go to the second level of reiki - I need to reiki more patients - but I can feel myself that the healing energy is flowing.

About the Buddhist wedding. Buddhist and Hindu religions and traditions are mixed in the Himalaya mountains. The villages around B are of mixed population: Tibetan and Nepali. There are many mixed marriages (Sanjeev's mom is Tibetan and father was Nepali). Some weddings are Hindu and some are Buddhist. The Buddhist wedding of Sanjeev's cousin seemed to me a rather solemn affair in comparison to our Eastern European weddings where people eat and drink all night, and dance until they drop. The bride's family lives about 10 km away from B so we walked there early in the morning. We got there around 8 am and were given breakfast. The groom was sitting in front of the house, dressed in white, and there was some holy food displayed in front of him. The bride joined him, dressed in heavily embroidered red saree-type dress, around 11 am and then a Shaman performed all kinds of witchcraft to ensure their happy marriage. Then the family and friends wishes the couple all best and put sticky rice on their forheads. About 100 people, family and neighbors, were sitting in front of the house eating and talking, not really mingling with each other but sitting in small circles. Around 2 pm some of the people got on jeeps to be driven part of the way to B, to the groom's village and the rest of the people walked the 10 km. We walked because the jeeps were so overcrowded that I prefered to walk. When everyone got to B the whole ceremony was repeated. And after that everyone went back to the village of the bride and then came back again to B. Phew! Lots of walking instead of dancing! There was no music of any type during all the celebrations. It was interesting for me to see but I am so used to weddings with dancing and much enjoyment that I missed that part.

In the meantime, between my two visits to B, I found a great Tibetan woman who is practicing Traditional Chinese Medicine. Her name is Fatima and I was told she is about 80 years old but looks as if she was 50. I am taking acupuncture and it is different than the acupuncture I got in NY. She is so skillfull that it seems she puts all needles in half a minute. Amazing. It hurts a bit when she puts them but then, when I lie down with needles stuck in me and lamp above me, I am floating in some other world... The needles are put on my front and in the back I get the low current massage and afterwards the nurse massages my back with some nice-smelling oil. It's heaven. Especially after the treckking to and from B. To be as skilfull as Fatima one must have a lot a lot of experience.

In my next entry I will write about the political situation in Nepal.

Computer problems

2005-12-30T00:38:00.000-08:00

Dearest friends, the reason I haven't been writing recently is that I am loosing my patience with cyber cafes in Kathmandu. Computers are really really slow and a few times power cuts erased my writing... I am going again to Boughdeau for a few days, to celebrate the New Year in a purely organic way - it will be a party with candles under the stars with whoever wants to celebrate this New Year's Eve (Nepalis don't really celebrate it now but in February). I will be back on Monday or Tuesday and shortly after I will be going to India. I haven't decided where yet, whether to Goa first or straight down south. I will decide after I come back.

Have lots of fun when celebrating the beginning of the New Year. I will try to write all I want to tell you about Nepal after I come back from the countryside.

Happy Holidays!!!

2005-12-23T00:15:00.000-08:00

For those celebrating Christmas: Happy Holidays! And wishing you lots of love for and from the loved ones, time spent together with your families and friends, lots of tasty food, presents, snow, kisses under the mistletoe, enjoyment of all kind and also rest and relaxing time.... And for those not celebrating Christmas: Seasons Greetings! Wishing you a wonderful end of the year. And for all: Happy New Year!!!

I will spent the Christmas Eve with Piotr, my one Polish friend in Kathmandu. He lives here and rents a house on the outskirts of the city so today in the afternoon we will do some shopping and go home cook something which will resemble traditional Polish holiday dishes. I am not religious but I will accompany him to the mass at the Christian church tomorrow and afterwards we will eat what we cooked and celebrate the tradition. I will write about my Nepali country adventures soon.

Enjoy the holidays my dearest friends. I miss you all.

Back from Nepali countryside

2005-12-21T03:15:00.000-08:00

I have just returned from the village of Boughdeau at the foot of the Himalayas. I was invited to a Buddist wedding and was supposed to go for four days but stayed for almost two weeks. This is just a short note that I am back in Kathmandu so that those who worried that I was kiddnapped by the Maoists can sleep well tonight. Tomorrow I will write about the village and its people, and about the political situation in Nepal.

I opened my e-mail server and saw all the adds about last-minute shopping and had to think hard what shopping was! Just kidding. I totally forgot the hustle and bustle of the last days before Christmas in the Western world. In Boughdeau the only things one can buy is soap, matches, kerosene for lamps, dry instant noodles, milk tea, biscuits, buttons and white thread. Everything else is "organic": made or grown in Boughdeau. Even life in Kathmandu, the streets, cars, clothing in stores, etc. seems strange to me after the organicness of Boughdeau.

I will be back tomorrow with stories and Christmas wishes.

Tibetan medicine and more on Kathmandu

2005-12-04T23:54:00.000-08:00

There are a few Tibetan medicine clinics in Kathmandu. I went to the one which is in Boudonath - a Tibetan refugees aera. There's the biggest Buddhist stupa - or holy place - there. It's white and cone-shaped. Like in Llasa people walk around it with praying wheels, burn candles and incense. The nearby Sechen Clinic looked really nice and I saw a doctor who diagnosed me on the basis of my pulse, bodily composition and interview. It was a very accurate diagnosis. I am to take pills for 10 days (which I have to crush with teeth and swallow with warm water - the pills smell of dog poop and are the most disgusting thing I have ever had in my mouth). After that he will tell me what to do next. I also asked him about schools of Tibetan medicine and he told me that if I wanted to study Tibetan medicine I would have to go to Daramsala or Darjeeling in India as only in these places I could get a certificate after completing my studies. I will also go to the Auyrvedic clinic in Kathmandu to see what this type of medicine is like. I am reading books which compare the different types of treatment so that finally I can make the decision.

Boudonath is about half an hour away from Thamel where I am staying and the first time I went there Roland, who is from Germany (in case I haven't mentioned him before), accompanied me there. Many years ago Roland spent some time meditating in the Buddhist monastery of Kopan. We walked to the top of the hill where the monastery is located since I thought that maybe I could go there from time to time and listen to some teachings and meditate myself (I did that in New York in Tibet House and I liked it a lot). However, when we got there I lost my interest in the place entirely. I expected it to be a peaceful place, free from distractions, commerce and western "consumption" influence (not that I am totally against "consumption" but maybe not in the monastery). The monastery is very commercialized. There are workshops on Buddhist teachings for $350 (seems like a very steep price considering the prices in Nepal), a shop with souvenirs, a cafe, nice dormitories for the practicioners, and flyers advertising Kopan and asking to "sponsor a buddhist monk for just $1 a day!" (don't miss that opportunity, dear friends, to sponsor a monk, you'll feel soooo good after you have done it! you'll never be closer to nirvana...). The Kopan monastery resembles very much the San Marcos village in Guatemala: a bunch of spaced-out westerners lying on the grass around a luxurious fountain, sipping coffee, reading books, meditating... I have nothing against doing all this, really. It's just that the Buddhist teaching, as I know it from the books I have read, of renouncing the comfort and practicing modesty is very far away from what I have found in the monastery. Hipocrisy always gets to me when I see it. I know that among the monks there are children and old men who need to be taken care of but majority of the monks are young, healthy, strong men and if I am to choose between sponsoring an orphaned child or a victim of a natural diseaster I will choose them over a monk. A monk can work, just as anybody else can, and he can meditate and save the world while working - according to the teaching of Buddha you can meditate everywhere and everytime. Yesterday I went to a meditation session at the Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Center and instead of meditating for 1,5 hours I listened to the story of a converted Buddhist's life (a man from Australia) who was telling us how he was a rich, spoiled kid, smoking pot, doing drugs, no meaning in life whatsoever, lucrative job, girls, etc. and he got to be a monk and he is so happy now! staying in the center, giving three daily meditiation sessions to people - it's such a hard work, it makes him so exhausted at the end of the day, but he feels soooo good about helping the humanity... This was the last meditaion session I have gone to, I swear (the one that is not about meditating but about psychoteraphy). I have heard this story a few times already. Every time I am polite, of course, and I stay till the end but as much as I don't want to I just boil inside (Why don't you go to a Potosi mine, sweetie, or work the land on these tarrases side by side with the Nepali farmers all day long to see what hard work means? - this is the question I want to ask). I would say that it is easier for the camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich spoiled kid to become unspoiled kid. What I want to say is that the teachings of Buddha and of Jesus (I only know about these two; I haven't looked at Islam and Judaism yet) are very far away from religions which are based on these teachings. I would say that from the distance (from the Tibet House in NY and my readings about Buddha's thought) Buddhism as religion looked like something very pure and true to the teachings but seeing it, with as much objective and unbiased eye as possible, in Lhasa and Kathmandu, it is not. It is just as far from what Buddha said as Christianity is from what Jesus said. I would say that both Christians and Buddhists are much more occupied with ritual and religious gadgets than with practicing the teachings in their daily life. I would like to tell this little story that I got from the answers to the famous Steve's questions: There was a man on the subway train in NY, dressed all in white, his hair and beard long as that of Jesus, and he was telling everyone how Jesus changed his life, how He is the light, how we should be good to one another, love one another, because love is the salvation, it will conquer the world, etc., etc., etc. and just as he finished his talk and was ready to go out a woman came in pushed by the crowd behind him, bumped into him and stepped on his foot. "Watch were you are going you stupid bitch!" said the "Jesus." It may not be as drastic as this but it portrays what I want to say well. So I do respect all human beings, even the monks who live on the $1 dollar a day provided by some elderly woman who worked hard all her life and raised ten kids. But I would not consider the monks my teachers. I would consider the woman who raised 10 kids my teacher. When we were walking down from the monastery we again saw Nepalese working in their gardens, women cooking their daily meal, kids running around - the regular day as it happens everywhere, simple and modest. I told Roland that I so much prefer this life and I can learn so much more from it than I could ever learn at that monastery, so fake and distant from life as it happens. And that's how I feel. I saw a very good movie right after we visted the monastery. It's precisely about that. The title is "Samsara" and I very much recommend it. In the movie a wife of a man who was a monk before he married her and who after some time wants to go back to the monastery because he can't cope with this daily life full of suffering, tells him that so much is said about Buddha but so little about his wife and son whom he abandoned when he decided to look for enlightment. Is that not the most selfish act? So, my path, I think, is to never believe any teaching blindly and never follow anybody just because he thinks he "knows." What I liked most in Buddha's teaching is that we are our own teachers and we should listen to our own reason and intuition above anything else.

Thinking about Buddhism (and Hinduism since they are both practiced in Nepal) brought my thoughts to culture and what I see on the Kathmandu street. I read in one of the guide books that the Nepalise society is prudish. It seems to be true. Men friends can walk holding hands and embracing each other, women friends can do the same, but boyfriends and girlfriends can't. A kiss in public would be an offence. Homosexuality is a crime punishable by law. Women walk and talk in their circles, men walk in groups. It looks as if the two worlds don't mix except at home. Feet are considered dirty parts of the body and should not be put on chairs or pointed at people (while sitting or lying down). Men to whom I talked have a rigid idea of a woman's place in the world. In The Kathmandu daily I came across a big article about what the society thinks about couples living together before getting married - many people contributed responses and most were opposing such degradation of tradition. Also, men shake hands but women don't (you can imagine what torture this is to me, used from South America to throwing myself at people, hugging and kissing them as if they were my family). I was expecting to see here as much physical warmth and openess in contact between people as I saw in South America. I had this idea that if people who were influenced by Christianity (with its rigid ideas about women, marriage, contact between sexes, etc.) was still such an open society than here with Buddhist ideas they should be equally open. People seem also much more fatalistic here than in South America. Some of them told me, when we were talking about feelings and relationships, that their heart was broken by former girlfriends or boyfriends and they could never love anyone else... Instead of living in the present and forgetting the past (as the predominant religions say) people seem to have this unhappiness in them which comes from the past events. People in South America seemed to really live in the present. Past girlfiends are past girlfriends, welcome new love! What I want to say is that Christianity with the idea of the original sin and people as being soiled and imperfect from the very birth, having to work hard to earse the sin, the flagellation of the flesh - now it's out of fasion but flagellation of the mind is very much in use among Christians - masochism to chase out the evil thoughts and deeds, etc. as opposed to Buddhist idea of a man being born as a perfect being, the way he should be, equipped with everything he needs to be enlightened and achieve nirvana if only he lives in the present... What really does shape culture? That is the question.

Reiki

2005-12-03T23:34:00.000-08:00

I can't believe a week has passed since my last entry on the blog... I signed up for a course on the first level of Reiki. Reiki is bioenergotherapy or treatment with energy. It was given by Elif who is a Reiki master. She is Turkish but has lived in Kathmandu for many years and has been practicing Reiki since she first got here. I really liked the course, everything about it. I like the place (Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Center), the fellow students (four of us), the atmosphere and the training itself. I like the fact that I can really feel the energy coming out of my hands, and when I am "scanning", or having my hands above the person, I can feel where the energy is and is not in the person. Ocasionally I feel tingling in my fingers or even a low electrical shock. It's really amazing. First Elif tought us the philosophy and "tuned" us to give energy and then we practiced on ourselves. Two of us got very relaxed, peaceful and well-rested. Two of us, including me, had a really bad belly ache and didn't feel good for the first three days of treatment but on the fourth day the energy came and I personally woke up ready to climb Mt. Everest. So I like how the reiki works for me and seems to be working for people to whom I gave Reiki but what I like most about this type of treatment is the philosophy behind it: although the person can feel the energy he or she receives, it is himself or herself who is really doing the treatment by absorbing the energy. If a person is not ready to receive it and resists it, there may not be effects. Elif said that the healer is really just a vassel; the true healer is oneself. There's no one really who can heal us except ourselves. When I first got to the office of Susan, my Chinese doctor in New York, in June of last year she asked me "Are you ready for the treatment?" (Are you ready to take part in your healing? Without your participation I won't be able to do anything.) Elif told us how, from the perspective of Reiki healing, the sickness is seen. I have heard this philosophy many years ago during the psychology class in college and I read about it in many books afterwards but I understood it fully when I got to Susan's office: like many things illness is a work of our subconscious mind. I developed my own sickness, unconsiously. When we feel inadequate, worthless, unloved, insignificant, we look, or rather our subconsious mind looks, for something to make people love and accept us. We may think we want to be cured but really it just feels so good to be so weak and hopeless that people have to take care of us, we poor little things. We don't even really try hard to be healthy again. We may go to see a doctor, take the medicine he proscribes, but then we still do things that we know are ruining our health. I was thinking about this this morning and since I like metaphores I liked this one: at a certain point after we come to this life we start feeling there's too much to think about, remember about, figure out about. It seems impossible to grasp all the daily life "stuff." We put an add in the paper: "Wanted. Subconsious specialist to take care of stuff. " He answers our ad. We are too busy and too hectic to check his references. We hire him. We give him an empty, vast and beautiful, bright room in our house (our body). He moves in, covers the windows with curtains, closes the door and unpacks all the equipment and switchboard to deal with our stuff. He puts a sign above the door "Subconsious." We sometimes visit the room and check on him but gradully we stop checking, we stop going over the accounting papers and his business plans. He is left alone. He gets bored sometimes... And he starts playing with the switchboard to make his life more fun. Instead of "food" when the stomach says it's hungry he pushes "food", "food", "food" whenever he feels like it. Brain says it's sad, the guy pushes "angry." We feel happy, he pushes "not worthy enough, get over it." We are curious about something and want to try it, he pushes "fear." He is out of control, he loves this game he is playing with us. He is rolling with laughter when we feel one thing but do other thing - just as he tells us to do. We do things which bring exactly adverse outcome of what we hoped for. But sometimes a day comes when something happens (a signal, a meeting, a circumstence) which reminds us about this guy whom we hired long time ago... We storm into his office, look at the switchboard, see the real work he is doing for us, and we fire him on the spot. He leaves and with him he takes his switchboard and all the things he has been collecting all these years: the huge amount of memorabilia from the past: emotions filling big jars and standing in every corner of the room, bottles with never-shed tears, boxes of anger stuck under his bed, photos of all the people who hurt us, abandoned us, abused us... All that he takes with him. The room is again a vast open space. We open the door, open the windows, let the air come in and for the breeze to take all the dust away. Through the window we see a meadow and out of it many trails of possibilities leading to the horizon... But first we have to undo the damage we have done to our bodies with the help of the subconscious guy. Now we really want to get rid of our sicknesses. We look for whatever is out there: modern medicine, alternative medicine, herbs, therapeutical massage, Reiki, meditation, therapy with laughter, therapy with dance, with art, with scream... We are not just trying it but really want it to work for us. We look around and find something that helps us the most to feel well. So... coming back to Reiki. There's the energy which goes to the person's body and which can trigger the desire to change... Elif told us that in her practice she saw people cured of any type of disease, including cancer. So if I can draw the energy from around me, concentrate it and send it to a person and the person wants to take it and use it, I will be very happy to do it. And then whatever happens next is up to the person.

There are still many things I want to write about today. I will run to the Center and come back later to tell about Tibetan medicine, the Monkey Temple, the streets of Kathmandu and the friends I met over the past few days.

continuation 2

2005-11-27T23:38:00.000-08:00

I also went to the Tibetan Medicine Center in Llasa and met with a Tibetan doctor. He was a wonderful person and spent a few hours with me, explaining to me the basis of the Tibetan medicine. He also told me that if I wanted to know more I should go to Nepal or best to India because in Llasa the doctors were not able to fully practice the medicine according to their old books - part of the practice is forbidden by the Chinese authorities. Especially part that has to do with the psyche. We talked about the Tibetan medicine and also about the Chinese and Indian Ayurveda. The doctor told me that I should also find out about Ayurveda and see which of these forms of treatment would be most suitable for me and at which I could be most effective. What I like about the Chinese and Tibetan doctors is that they are humble: they practice their type of medicine but they are open to any other type and see the potential benefits of merging them all. The western doctors discredit all non-western types with a frown and hostility, believing that the medicine they practice is the best. What a pity. So on the doctor's recommendation I decided to go to Kathmandu. I found a Belgian couple who wanted to hire a jeep with a driver to go to the Nepalese border and we shared the expenses. It is the beginning of winter in Tibet but it's possible to drive through the mountains for another 3-4 weeks. After that the road will be closed because of snow. We set out the next morning at 6:30 am and drove through the deserty mountaineous landscape until 6 pm. We stopped for breakfast in one of the small towns and for lunch in a small village. In the village we met a couple, a Polish men with a Chinese girlfriend, who wanted to hitchhike to the Mt. Everest base camp but it would be additional 8 hours for us and we would have to pay the driver extra so we left them in the village - they would have to wait for someone going to the base camp. We saw the peak of Mt. Everest from the distance. It was warm in the car but outside it was freezing. It felt like minus 20 Celsius. We got over a few passes, one at the hight of 5,100 meters above sea level. The driver spoke a few words of English (everytime we would pass a Chinese military truck or a police jeep he would say "Fuck Chinese") but he sang the English songs pretty well - we listened to the popular American pop from the 70s and 80s (my favorite YMCA was part of the collection; I think it must be THE most popular song for all times and all countries) . "I love you more than I can saaaaaaay" sang the driver. "I am a small small girl in the big big world", "Baby don't leave me, pleeeeeese." It was so funny to listen to him knowing he didn't know the meaning of the words. We also listened to great Tibetan and Indian music and also to Eminem, the driver being equally fond of both types of music. So it was karaoke time for all of us; Gilles, Veronique and I would sing along whatever we knew. We spent the night in the Llasa hotel in one of the small villages. The hotel is a row of rooms in the back of a house. There's no heat and no bathroom. The bathroom is a hole in the ground and it's hard to pee since first it's so cold you don't want to put your pants down, and second it's so disgusting and smelly that you just loose the urge to go... Tibetans don't have bathrooms so the ones along the way are built mainly for tourists and it seems that no one is checking the state they are in. The living conditions are very hard in this climate. The house is mostly one room with a fireplace-type heater and dried yak dung is used as coal. It is the only stove and heater in the house. The room serves as living and dining room (also dining room for tourists) during the day and bedroom during the night: the wide day-sofas are beds at night. Hygiene doesn't exist. There's no running water and electricity is scarce. I don't think anybody takes a bath, changes their clothes often, or does loundry in winter. All the bodily smells which we the Westerners are used to be eliminating with detergents, soaps, deodorants, etc. are present here and it's just part of life. To a Westerner these are very hard conditions to adjust to. It's possible but it takes time. I was thinking how some time ago I was used to two showers a day, then when I started travelling I got down to one, and then when there was no water or it was freezing I didn't see anything wrong with a shower every few days and now I can easily go without for six days (I am glad I am not a stinker, though :). It's possible to adjust to anything if one must and Tibetans have to - it's a matter of survival. In the morning the three of my companions had breakfast and I just had tea as it was to early for me to eat and while they were dining I went outside to the freezing cold to see the sunrise above the village. A young Tibetan joined me and we both watched the sky changing colors. An old man appeared, walking with a group of about 15 dogs. He was feeding them some bread. He must have been a shepard with his crew (Tibetans are basically nomads hearding lots of sheep and yaks). One of the dogs came to me and the young Tibetan wanted to chase it away, thinking a tourist would be afraid, but I wasn't, of course, and I called him back and all the dogs came to me for patting and I patted them, tugged at their ears, looked into their eyes, my dear friends, and I looked at the old man and he was smiling from ear to ear. "We are made from the same stuff, dear" his eyes were saying. In such exchange there's no language barrier - words are not necessary. We left the village and the scenery chaged to higher mountains, snow-capped, deep gorges, winding steep roads. We saw all the various Himalayan mountain ranges and the driver told us the names of all the mountains. It was beautiful. After three hours of driving the landscape started changing again to lower mountains, not bare like the ones we saw earlier, but covered with evergreens. They turned into a dense forest growing on the slopes of the mountains and we started seeing waterfalls and even some subtropical vegetation. Amazing change of scenery. When we got to the border it was about 15 degrees Celsius. We got out of the car and undressed to teeshirts. The atmosphere was also very different: lots of Indian people, women dressed in sarees, men lightly dressed, all wearing sandals. A total mix of nationalities: Tibetan, Chinese and Indian. We parted with the driver and met a group who just came behind us: French couple and three persons I got friendly with: Nikki and Farhaan from Canada but living in Taiwan at the moment, and Nitzan from Israel. We went across the border, went to eat and then looked for a way to get to Kathmandu which is another 5 hours' drive. We got a minivan and with one short stop for snack and beer got to Kathmandu. We checked in hotel Garunda - a nice place in the tourist district. It is one of the most amazing cities I have seen. The streets are extremally colorful. There's all kinds of crafts being sold on the streets and little stores, spices, food, music. It's a town bustling with life. Bicycles, rikshas and motorcycles do a slalom between pedestrians. Whoever went to India or Nepal must know what I am talking about. I like it so much that, I think, I will stay here until at least the end of the year. I met with a Tibetan doctor today and I got so much information I have to sit on it for a while to digest it all. One of the things he told me is that there is a center and school of Tibetan medicine in Barcelona, of all places. Before I set out on my trip in February I thought that eventually I could settle in Barcelona. Isn't it amazing?! I don't know where I will go or what I will do yet, where I will study and live. It's a big question mark. But there all these amazing possibilites and I don't have to decide on anything yet... Leaving Poland a month ago I though I will just stay somwhere but now, coming to Kathmandu, that thing that makes me wonder around appeared again and I think I will be floating for some more time...

I haven't been responding to e-mails for a while - I am sorry. I wrote a bit on the blog for everyone to be informed and now I promise I will be keeping in touch individually more often.

continuation

2005-11-27T22:47:00.000-08:00

The most important thing in Llasa is the Pacala Palace built in the 7th century. Every Tibetan Buddhist is required to go on a pilgrimage to Llasa at least once in her or his liftime. The palace is a place of residence of the Dalai Lamas (or it was before the Chinese occupation). It is a huge structure situated on a hill, with many buildings attached to it since it's original form. I went through all the steep stairways, chapels with different statues of Budda and prominent Dalai Lamas, the Dalai Lamas "sarcophaguses" all in gold and precious stones, the apartment of the Dalai Lama. The monastery is a very strange building - it's an architectural style unlike any I have seen so far. It's difficult to explain. It's also rather cold and musky. The monks were wondering about, some were sleeping on low sofa-like beds in front of the statues, some were reading, some were sweeping the floor and cleaning the stautes and the many dark corners of the building. I talked to some of them (the ones who spoke English) and they were all very nice. One of them was openly flirting with me and asked me if I wanted to see him again later (a randesvous with a monk? interesting... just kdding!). I don't know much about the Tibetan monks. I only know that they are sent by their families to the monastery at a very young age. I wonder if this is a good system indeed. It seems rather repressive... I observed the monks on the streets when they were "window-shopping" at the markets, eating at the little restaurants, asking for donations for their monastery. There were a few who asked me to support their monastery away from Llasa and who got hostile when I told them I didn't give money on the street but I could donate money if I went there in person (that is true - I can only donate money to an organization which exists for certain). Maybe they were fake monks, I don't know... I wonder what their life is like and if it does resemble the life of the Catholic priests. It most likely involves the personal struggle of normal human instincts and what is considered a devout life, free from desire of any kind, the only goal being the enlightment or the connection with the higher power.

There were many beggars on the streets of Llasa. They would come very close to my face showing me the stacks of small bills, asking to give them more money. They would grab my hands, kids were wrapping themselves around my legs. Somone told me that begging goes along with the Buddhist tradition and those who have the money support the ones who are unfortunate and don't have them, but I felt that for many of these people it was not a necessity but a way of life. Every few steps I was stopped by someone. I heard "give money" about a hundred times. After two days I felt tired... One of the tourists I met in the Snowlands restaurant (a touristy place but having good food and a heating system; I basically went there to get warm - there was no heat in Hotel Yak) told me that he saw a similarity between the Indians of Bolivia and Tibetans. And that is very true: I saw the same connection. Both are highland Indians, their body built and facial features are similar, they dress similarly, their lives are equally hard in the harsh climatic and environmental conditions. However, I think that Bolivians are too proud to beg. It must have to do with their believes and tradition, not so much with the Christian tradition but the pre-Columbian. Also, there were many crippled and mentally ill people walking and crowling on the streets of Llasa. That looks also different from what I saw in Bolivia. In Bolivia the family tradition is so strong that all the less fortunate people are embraced by their families and seem not to be left to themselves. Observing the life in Llasa I was wondering about all these similarities and differences and what shaped the two groups of people. I tasted the food in the many little eating parlors. It's difficult to get a non-meat dish so I had meals containing yak meat. The famous Tibetan tea which contains butter can be very delicious or disgusting depending on the freshness of the milk (in any case it's sour in taste). I walked around the long market street and got many strands of coral and turquise neckleces - I will make a huge necklace out of it, to resemble the ones worn by the Tibetan women. Also men wear jewellerly, particularly turquise earings.

Llasa and Kathmandu

2005-11-27T03:27:00.000-08:00

I came to Kathmandu yesterday and it's one of the most amazing places I have seen so far. But starting from the beginning.

The last evening in Chengdu was really nice. I talked to Heike about alternative medicine and we will keep in touch since we are so interested in different types of it. I went to bed thinking I would quickly fall asleep to wake up at 5 am next morning to catch the plane to Llasa but I started talking with Bret from the States who shared my bed (he occupied the ground floor of the bunk bed and I, free from any fears now, resided on the top floor), and also Maria from Sweden and one nice Englishmen whose name I forgot, unfortunatelly. Lying in our beds in darkness we talked about faith, religion and life in general until we all fell asleep. I love conversations such as these (and the collective teeth-brushing at the collective sink). The next morning I was picked up by a minivan and with a group of six other people were transported to the airport. To go to Tibet you have to get a permission and you have to be a part of the group so for the flight I was a part of the group; nobody cares whether the group stays together or not after they disembark at Llasa. The airport looked nice and fairly modern. The food on the plane of Chinese airlines was rotten, the flight attendants were not specifically nice (Swiss is still the best), the bathroom not really clean.... but I got to Llasa safe and that is all that counts. It is about an hour's drive from the airport to Llasa and the scenery was nice along the way - mountaneous, dry with some shallow-looking lakes. There were no factories in sight and air seemed much cleaner than I could smell and feel before. Right after I left the plane I started feeling the familiar headache, dizzines and the tightness in my chest - the typical symptoms of the high altitude sickness which hounted me for the next 24 hours. I followed the tourists to the Yak Hotel which has a variety of accomodations, from dorm beds for $2 to a suite for $150. I got the dorm room and shared it with some Chinese people. I have to say that at first I was very disappointed with Llasa. Usually I have no expectations whatsoever but I have heard so much about Llasa... Mr. Kryg told me that it has changed a lot over the years, that the Tibetan tradition is slowly disappearing, and that it was good I was going before it was too late. I felt at first that I got there too late already... When the bus entered the city center I immediately saw the Pacala Palace, the house of the Dalai Lamas, but then the streets resembled these of a typical Chinese town, with all the advertisement, department stores, restaurants, etc. I was expecting a small town with none of these modern achievements... Llasa is separated into two parts: the Chinese and the Tibetan. There is a part of it which is totally Tibetan with the traditional whitewashed Tibetan buildings and painted black around the windows but in general the presence of the Chinese style is predominant. The first day I walked around the city, its both parts, and just looked into the various markets, narrow streets, and the life happening on them. When I was in the Tibetan part many people, dressed in their traditional clothing and wearing amazing jewellery of silver and various stones, came very close to my face and stared at me. Women where pointing at me and showing me to their kids. The kids looked at me with eyes wide open with surprise. I felt like a freak of nature and was wondering why I got all this attention. I surely wasn't the first white tourist who came to Llasa... One of the tourists pointed out to me later that many of these people were pilgrims who came to Llasa from remote regions of Tibet and who had never seen a fair-haired and fair-skinned person before. Isn't this amazing?

I don't know how the internet works here. I will see how long it will take for this to be posted and I will continue with my story of the amazing few days shortly.