k o a n : : l i f e

lam

2011-04-13T10:31:00.005+01:00

It's only words

2011-04-10T10:27:00.001+01:00

So why is it so intimidating? : )
Thoughts that clang with resounding insistence the rest of the day find their wallflower selves when invited to dance in public.

Icon cymbals playing in exuberant percussive delight. Ferry ploughing the harbour mouth; maestro feijoas piping their flautine heady scent; mccahon's light casting the hills as home, the green green green of home.

The luxury of small moments so high concentrate in satisfaction and corn syrup-free.

Hei Waitata Mo te kare.

Wondering

2011-04-05T10:07:00.004+01:00

So I am home and IW is not and I am wondering if it is some evolutionary thing, that women need to come home/back and check in on the, as it were, womb. See how things are, in case, of exactly what I'm not sure but I find myself wondering this as I feel some inexplicable desire to enter the Warehouse or Farmers or a New World to just see how things are, and how things are no longer. And while I have these urges, their companion urges are the desires in me that desire to not feel this way, to not wonder at the mundanities that cement in place a sense of place. Longings to desire something serious, important seemingly worthy of such basic biological and psychological draws. These thoughts are my holiday companions.

Made it

2011-04-05T09:23:00.004+01:00

Two 40-minute sessions trying to break into my own account to bring you this message. Password problems thy cohort is inconstancy.

Today was one of those. A good one. No shiny special just cosy warm. Baking, walking, talking, silence and
contentment.

Thanks this life.

And now. Home.

2011-04-03T09:17:00.002+01:00

Lyall Bay Beach
was perfect this morning . . .
except for you.

Seagulls, squat little fat men with their heads tucked into their coats coz its Welly.

Seaweed sealions askance and spreadeagled,
paused in Martha Graham postures with the music stop.

Surfers, soles of their feet in salute to the sun.

The breakers rolling in perfectly striated terraces.

My soul begins to drink the swell.

The ferry happened by a little later . . . and the paddle boarder too.

And yeah, all that was missing was you.

Look to this day

2009-10-29T23:13:00.002Z

Look to this day:

For it is life, the very life of life.

In its brief course

Lie all the verities and realities of your existence.

The bliss of growth,

The glory of action,

The splendour of achievement

Are but experiences of time.

For yesterday is but a dream

And tomorrow is only a vision;

And today well-lived, makes

Yesterday a dream of happiness

And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well therefore to this day;

Such is the salutation to the ever-new dawn!

Kalidasa

You gotta water sunshine

2009-03-27T05:28:00.007Z

Here are the gentlemen watering my sunshine soul, I am in a bit of a folksy phase folks . . .

Jose Gonzlaez
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4_4abCWw-w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B-h1EEsKDA&feature=related
and esp - proof that Kylie's earlier work has had a lasting contribution to music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmLGMWgHIgw&feature=related

Amos Lee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmQFwIKsU1U

Colin Hay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4tcRlHY-3Q

and the man who started it all on my Pandora station

Sean Hayes
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11119161

Also, not new, not folksy but incredibly beautiful and haunting, Sigur Ros
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-FPXrZi0v0&feature=related

Pink cake

2009-03-26T19:21:00.002Z

nuff said

i heart lyall bay

2008-06-11T10:59:00.007+01:00

little and often

2008-06-04T03:34:00.002+01:00

. . . the way to change a hard to change habit, by making a new habit. Start out easily and let it grow, pressureless.

I used to love guitar music of the early-mid 90s, lyrics too, the whole made me think. Now I listen to so much electronic music and I really miss words from another conception in correspondence with mine.

Here's a definition I read recently and liked (I should say that I am failessly impressed whenever I stumble accross a word to sum up an entire concept):

Connexion
Treating the facts of history systematically, in their connection with each other as cause and effect, and with reference to their practical lessons rather than to their circumstantial details.

Something I think we could benefit from keeping somewhere quite prevalent in the frontal lobes in reference to our personal histories as well as collective histories.

The place I read this was a collection of notes for a course I'm taking and it didn't give a citation. Damn, I'd like to read more.

oao
j

follow your bliss

2008-06-03T11:01:00.002+01:00

i made a resolution to write but at the moment I am a sinkhole for ideas but not so much a generator for them it seems. Am filling my internal spaces with the ruminations, wisdoms and resonances without words of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung.

My desire a moment is to find that fertile emanation from something else in this world to fall upon this lovingly prepared and long quiet earth within me.

: ) Love to and of this world,

jenn

Italian Grafitti

2008-06-01T11:46:00.001+01:00

A life made of these

2008-05-02T06:11:00.007+01:00

A phrase that came into my mind on the beach, place of much marvel and herewith finally takes form.

Words

"When the going gets tough, the average get conservative"
Henry Rollins.

Went to see the heavily tattooed highness of hyperactivity in Wellington. Three non-stop hours of manic storytelling, sound effects, laughter and sincerity; stupendous. : )

Phrases from the legal cases i've been editing:
"legislative nihilism", "instinctive synthesis", "constellation of circumstances", "impenetrable forest of detail concealing the timber of the matter", and "mechanic verisimilitude "

Moving

Hula hooping
Private tutelage from the high priestess of pink velour: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=E-zi5MLGq_U&feature=related

I did this one (very spazzily) first try on the weekend and surprised myself, still waiting to surprise myself with a second successful attempt. ; )

Laughter
"Why Moms can't do yoga"

Food

Kohlrabi, my food fad du jour, is one of those things where you just have to look past appearances: despite its "Sputnik-like shape". . . "it's not an alien honestly" and literal meaning (it sexily translates as "cabbage-turnip") and allow your sense of intrigue to make you take a bite. It is crunchy-good and mild sweet and tasty, try him today . . . . : )

The Gaping Void . . . Words of wisdom

2007-09-15T21:52:00.000+01:00

So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years:

1. Ignore everybody.
2. The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to change the world.

3. Put the hours in.

4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.

5. You are responsible for your own experience.

6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.

7. Keep your day job.

8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.

9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.

11. Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.

12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.

13. Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside.

14. Dying young is overrated.

15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.

16. The world is changing.

17. Merit can be bought. Passion can't.

18. Avoid the Watercooler Gang.

19. Sing in your own voice.

20. The choice of media is irrelevant.

21. Selling out is harder than it looks.

22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.

23. Worrying about "Commercial vs. Artistic" is a complete waste of time.

24. Don�t worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.

25. You have to find your own schtick.

26. Write from the heart.

27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.

28. Power is never given. Power is taken.

29. Whatever choice you make, The Devil gets his due eventually.

30. The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.

31. Remain frugal.

Cities

2007-09-15T21:44:00.000+01:00

"Asked him how he was liking New York.

"It's great," he said. "Everybody's insane with loneliness, but that's OK. After a while you realize that's part of the edge."

I was hit with a paradox. I wanted to be in New York, I wanted to be "part of the edge", but I didn't want to be "insane with loneliness". Was one necessary in order to have the other? Was it a price worth paying? To this day, I still have no answer.

The simple truth about big cities is that people don't go there to give. They go there to take, or at least, to get. If you feel like giving, good for you, somewhere an angel is smiling yada yada yada, just don't expect other people to follow your example. And if you're feeling lonely, at least now you now know why. "

Invictus . . . edited

2007-08-28T12:52:00.000+01:00

Out of the night that covers me . . .

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul . . .

I am the master of my fate

I am the captain of my soul

William Ernest Henley

things i like

2007-08-21T18:51:00.000+01:00

inspired by a thai magazine that had a spread worthy of a form 2 girls convention on wot is hot : )

1. Words

2. Yoshitomo Nara

3. Anticipation.

4. Old friends. New friends. Friends!

5. Peace. Inner. Outer. Aesthetic. Aural.

6. Regent's Park

7. IW

8. Flat white.
For serving coffee, and not tar.

9. Yoga
(just to be predictable).

10. London. Sometimes.

Wondering

2007-08-08T15:15:00.000+01:00

What is your favourite word & why?

Who did you meet who showed you something completely new or gave you a new orientation on the world? How?

What do you do unthinkingly that you could truly pay attention to while you do it & enjoy?

Think of something that has been in your life for years. Where did it come from? Remember & enjoy : )

What does it take to disturb your sense of ease? (JHL)
Listify. Now you know, look at it, is it a little bit crazily small or seemingly insignificant? Choose then, if you still wanna go there and keep choosing each time it comes up.

What gives you new perspective on the world? How can you cultivate it?

newness

2007-08-05T19:58:00.001+01:00

new things are exciting.
Some times new things are really just old things viewed from a new angle.
But sometimes, as much as we want to see something from a new angle, its really really hard.

One of the things about living in the centre of Soho (which usually either makes people exclaim how amazing or horrific it must be (the answer is yes, either way, bytheway) is that I find it really hard to slow down because life is at an incredible pace all around me and to step out my door is to go headfirst into the swollen river, audiably I am never removed from it and visually it surrounds us also with our half windows apartment. So to try and sort out a muddled head here can seem a little like trying to compose a haiku on the beauty of the river as it sucks you down into an eddying whirlpool darkening and stealing your vision. Not only is broad sight taken but the energy used in fighting the whirlpool means your chance to fashion something from the driftwood around you takes the creativity from you to see what is around you to support and help you.

When I leave the city and come back I can see the dangling branch over the water and I can muster the energy and the will to grab at it and take hold. Where things usually seem to falter is the keeping hold and drawing myself to shore to sit back, watch the beauty of the river and dangle my feet therein.

but I'm having a go. newness.

One of the very great pleasures of being a human is talking with other ones. But, its best of all when you listen. So often we get into the kinds of conversations with people that amount to tacit agreement that we will play the same rhythm with the conversation that we always do. A little conversation by numbers.

I realised recently that several of my friends (in fact probably all) have things in their lives that I know to be seminal to their lives and sense of identity about which I knew nothing at all rather than the fact of their existence in the person's life. For me this was religion and culture but it applies so broadly, for example if someone is really into music, more so than the what is the why? How does that thing make them feel, where/what is the resonance?

I hope you get a chance to know someone you know, better. To really listen is a gift of richness and newness.

Real Surreal

2007-04-04T16:24:00.000+01:00

Sometimes.

Is an interesting concept. The realisation and focus on the fact that reality is created only by our perception. The second that something fades from the acme of our attention it effectively fails to exist, until, from somewhere it rises to the surface again. Where has it come from and where does it go to?

sometimes (: ) ) my life in England seems like that. Who I am here. And who I am in the minds of other people, who really exist only in my mind, and in the more tangible sense, at the moment, exist mainly in my mind (physically resident at the nadir of possible contact).

Sometimes, concentration is a good thing. And at other times getting too close, too attentive to something makes it like ginger cordial concentrate - overpowering at best and in need of plentiful dilution in order to taste and appreciate the concealed delicousness.

There is more, email if you're interested . . .

xx
jb

the other sensual pleasures

2007-04-04T11:43:00.000+01:00

the chalice of the coffee cup

the kiss of air on skin

the nugget of walnut in raisin bread

the two ends that join a moment of connection

that feeling, behind the thought of a friend

immediate anticipation

movement through negative space

a swagger

blood rising to the skin, the result of invisible processes

perception of the fishing net of reality

watching the chicken dance of overcoat assumption

words. little mothers

slow. full. intense. perception.

Explication on application

xxjb

Freedom from the known

2007-03-19T22:31:00.000Z

It's a book by Krishnamurti that I'm re-reading at the moment. I finished it and then turned back to the front and started again. Yes, it's that good but also I had the awareness of just how much of it was going over my head, so hopefully a second reading will allow a little more to permeate my little grey cells . . . : )

In the book K talks about how we are constrained in our lives through authority. This authority comes in many forms - some obvious: societal, parental etc; others less so, such as the internal authority we have as an established framework within us that is a structure built from our previous experiences. These "truisms" are borne of our past and passed experiences yet we hold onto them and when we do we view life and ourselves with "the authority of yesterday" and in doing so never truly see or interact with what is before us in the actual moment.

To be completely present in a moment, letting go of preconceptions, knowledge, frameworks, traditions, structures etc is to free from this authority of the past, this freedom leaves you open to full experience of what is before you. This is newness, freshness, and is invigorating. Rejecting authority (which is different than rebellion or revolt), means that you are free, no longer looking to others, no longer fearful (because there is no right or wrong, no fear of mistake), and living fearlessly is a tremendous unburdening of all the dead weight you have been carrying with you as baggage to this point.

Basically I haven't captured the ideas nearly as well as he has but it is something that I do think about, the limitations we perceive in our lives which are self created realities; if we are unwilling to admit entry to other possibilities then the absoluteness of our realities are assured. It is far easier to perceive in others than in ourselves, I think we often see people we care about who have a strong belief about themselves or the circumstances of their life which just do not appear so to us yet the totality of their convincement actually manifests what they believe. In subtle ways through their reactions, actions, words they create subtle beginnings or seeds that grow into fully formed realities of their own invention.

We do the same things in our own lives but, we are living so much within our own framework that we fail to see or perceive it. Living each moment in full awareness of ourselves, letting go of knowledge, allows learning to take place in the moment, and allows other options to slip through the web of possibilities.

In the old days they didn't have TV . . .

2007-03-15T23:46:00.000Z

And neither do we. But, we also don't have a piano to sit around singing songs, we do however have a camera to sit around pulling faces . . .

tonguey

startled

ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

cheesee

no excuses

hey, noone said they were tuneful in the old days . . .

Tantra and Life

2007-03-15T22:52:00.000Z

I'm writing an essay (hear the creaking of those brain cogs that have been long rusted into an unfortunate modern scrap metal sculpture). The subject of which is the title of this blog. It is a fascinating topic, sort of the yoga equivalent of that English Lit major topic: Shakespeare is as relevant today as he was in Elizabethan England. Discuss.

It is extremely tantric that I realise as writing this essay that the essence of Tantra (the interrelationship of all things and the highest form of reality being any and everything that is before us right now, in a positive sense) marries together my above paragraph and yoga. For me, asana is the antidote to the cliche "use it or lose it". What is called the "natural aging process" is in fact the mistreatment of fine machinery. With the exception of those living with inherited ailments of the body most of us start life in a shiny new machine which we then overwork without oiling, fuel with the wrong energy and then leave out in the rain to rust and then complain bitterly about the shoddy machine we've been given to drive.

Yoga, as I understand it is beautiful. It is not about touching your toes. Which is the first thing that most people guiltily confess to me when they discover I am a yoga teacher. It is not about bigger better faster more or give up slump down laze round complain, the Western approach to life. It is about noticing the beautiful thing that our body is. The body and mind are our whole means for experiencing and perceiving this world.

They are not who we are. They change, whatever we define as "ourselves" is unchanging at its essence. If we think back to ourselves as children, obviously we have changed physically and mentally, yet it is undeniable that whoever it is that is having this experience, is the same as the person we remember from then, there is some essential "us-ness" or "me-ness"that remains unchanged.

Yoga Asana is recognition and maintence of your Tonka truck, to see the driver through their lifetime. It is not about comparing yourself to someone else in your class, there is no Olympic medal for toe touching that I am aware of. I am also unaware of any compelling argument to convince me of the superiority of one who can touch their toes to one who can't. If you can articulate it to me or better yet yourself I would be very interested in hearing that hypothesis.

As in yoga, as in life. So ask yourself, What stops me from doing things which conceptually there is no reason why I couldn't do? Is it your mind? The mind is a faithful servant to us, but is the blind servant who doesn't see dangers heading straight for the master because of their devotion to their regular duties.

As we engage in the habits and rituals that are familiar and comfortable we turn away from the challenging, the unexpected, the different and we live on a kind of autopilot which makes the mind dull. Yoga is about awakening the mind from this soporific stupor that drains our energy and our inspiration. When we truly engage with and interact with what is before us, instead of what we decided would be before us before we even looked or engaged with it, there is a kind of beauty and newness to things that is always there but that we usually fail to see. Nothing has changed in the scenario, barring our awareness.

When you do asana (yoga poses) this is precisely the skill that you are exercising. Before you "do" yoga it looks a lot like assuming an outlandish pose, along the lines of "strike a pose" for the camera. In fact, the external appearance of the pose is a partial and indeed rather superficial appearance of what is happening when we practice asana, much like the way that the photo of a person is not the essence of the person it portrays.

Yoga poses blend many different things to teach us about ourselves. They are not about creating the most intense sensation that we can possibly bare. They are not so much about where you can and can't touch the body physically as mentally. Can you let your mind be present with you in the pose instead of wandering off somewhere else on a Sunday stroll to what you will have for dinner tonight, how much you need to cut your toenails, that great gadget/dress/magazine you want to buy, where to go on your holiday . . . ?

Can you work with your body rather than battling against it? Can you help it to gently extend what it can do, rather than berating or lamenting it for what it can't. Can you strengthen it, without punishing it through over exertion? Can you listen to what it is telling you at any given moment, hear what it is asking for?

Can you be honest about where you are at rather than where you would like to be at, or where the person next to you is at? Can you take the responsibility for how you treat your body rather than blaming your injuries or exhaustions on the person who your mind helpfully edited so you didn't have to listen to all those bits you felt didn't apply to super heroic/poor little you?

Can you be compassionate to yourself? Can you acknowledge that you are doing the best that you can right now, with what you have? Not so much physically, although yes, here too, but more in your mental efforts.

There is an awful lot to remember and then do. Having a running commentary in your head lambasting every little thing you do wrong as you attempt to keep a positive attitude and to keep on making effort, seems a little counterintuitive, no? Yet for many people this is a very great challenge. This is again the mind. It has that feeling that parents have when their kids start to assert their individuality and independence (I imagine), and feels a little worried that its role is being taken for granted at best and supplanted at worst. In fact, it is the same as the parent - child relationship. There will always be appropriate times for interaction, advice, a common face turned to the world. And there will equally be times when the child is on their own, experiencing and interpreting the world for themselves.

I could go on with this. But mercifully ( :) ) I shan't. I'll just say that to find a yoga teacher who you understand in some way who can keep you safe physically in the poses (for they are still a large part of the practice) and teach you to love learning about yourself, the world and the correlation and interconnection between the two is an amazing and beautiful thing. I hope you can and will let your mind sidetrack its routing from letting that information come in to its end destination of "No, I can't" to take the alternative route; "Maybe I can. I can".

ps. Superyogi tip: If you can't touch your toes bend your knees ; )

London personified?

2006-11-06T16:12:00.000Z

Something I've been thinking about a bit lately. If London were a person, who would it be?

A large question, and I'm sure a large personality. I'm not so good statistically (though I'm sure that would be fascinating), so here goes my completely non-scientific random, one person's observations-based take on that question.

I'm going to go with female, just to choose a gender for my comments. Diverse ethnically, a mix of say 8 different heritages coming from a mix of parentage, step-and-defacto parentage and grandparentage on both sides.

Perhaps somewhat confused, of fluctuating mental health. Inconsistent, diverse, definately. I think that she would be obsessed by health, which is not to say healthy. That she would wear A LOT of makeup, presenting surface respectability by trowelling makeup into cracks and wrinkley bits. This would help explain another attribute - poor personal hygene, or at least a definate "aroma" which feeds back into that layer upon layer aspect that would make Sara-Lee proud.

A mix of trash and high-brow, definately a participator rather than recluse. I think work-wise something in the media, or at least the public sphere. Possessed of impeccable morals and social graces which are evident in situation-dependent appearances, falling wayside like last season's whatever under the nightfall of a publicly anonymous situation.

A very addictive person, both in essence and to know. Hyper stimulated and stimulating, one of those people you enjoy immensely being unable to get your head around. A font ever-spewing of knowledge, both fascinating and the kind that makes you turn the cheek in the less Christian sense.

That's for starters,

anyone else?

London in Limbo

2006-10-14T22:37:00.000+01:00

It's supposed to be getting yukky here (weather wise). And we keep expecting something along the lines of . . .

instead of which it is park weather.

Park and Scrabble weather. That is where I'm headed tomorrow to geek it up bigtime. Yay!

Escapades of late have included a camping jaunt to the isle of wight, staying in a camping ground that made the shortlist for being the hi de hi camp ground (in my mind anyway) complete and replete with giant denim suited mascot Humphray Bear and Saturday night chanteuse Johnny Beau Geste (who Ferg and I couldn't resist cutting some moves to on tha floor). During this weekend away Ferg and I did our best to win people over to the charms of the lemonheads by fashioning (MacGuyver style) a speaker out of an offcast whiskey bottle tube with which to project the lemonheads classic the outdoor type. The following week we had only managed to convince Ollie and Watson to accompany us on our pilgrimage to the Forum to witness Evan in his latter day (continuing) glory. My phone camera made a tiny blurry speck of him so please enjoy "arty" blurry shots of another feature of the evening - the lighting . . .

Also, strange creatures have been sprouting up around the land. Fashion conscious denim-fetishist trees and cutesy confection have been contesting with Bansky in drag attempting to sweep all the controversy and weirdness (weirdly) under the brickwall.

And on the romanticness front Imery and I just celebrated our 7th year together with a trip to the only hungarian restaurant in the UK which has been going since the 50s and retains a total homespun charm while serving delicies like wild cherry soup and venison goulash. Yay and yumtastic.

Adios : )

x
J

More profundity:

2006-09-26T16:40:00.000+01:00

"Don't miss the donut by looking through the hole." - Unknown.

Announcing . . .

2006-09-14T16:47:00.000+01:00

sort of, quietly and modestly in a non-egomanical yogaish sort of way the birth of my yoga website. Yoga Seed. Yay! With many thanks to my gurus of technical and visual stuff O & I - much respect.

It's, yes, predictably all about me Jenn Burford but more specifically, yoga with me. The address is www.yogaseed.co.uk.

There you can find info on my public class, small group lessons, private lessons, yoga in general and the like, just in case you didn't get more than enough yoga to last you a incarnation or two ; ) by visiting the blog.

Check it out : )

and then one month later

2006-09-14T16:16:00.000+01:00

she resumed her "daily" blog.

News of the month in brief muppety form:
Still no passport . . .still no LA trip . . . still no ann-reunion : (
Have been augmenting my stump of natural knowledge with the Daily Mail's free fortnight of David Attenborough docos -geektastic : )
2 fullon all yoga weekends preceded by a dancetastic bank holiday weekend.
Have been spending some time too with my New Zealand yoga teacher who is visiting.

but my fave:

I finally saw the Lucksmiths live last night - only been waiting for that since I was 20 ! : ) Was fab tastic. The pic is from the song called camera shy, thought that seemed appropriate.

Then, tomorrow night is pitch black . . .

Looking and Seeing

2006-08-13T23:17:00.000+01:00

In yoga we make the distinction between looking (active, consumptive) and seeing (passive, receiving). In physical asana practice when you stare really hard at something it is an equivalent of grasping, grabbing, clutching. If you can let your gaze rest on something in an even, broad way so that you take in the wider scene, your mind is more still, yet still fluid and adaptable. As in asana, as in life. Rigidity and intractablness create tension which clouds the ability to think and act clearly. Maintaining a certain firmness (discipline without a sense of punitiveness or over-control) creates a spaciousness that allows you to perceive a whole scene or scenario and respond likewise, in a calm, focused and decisive manner.

I enjoyed this article from this weekend's Guardian about looking, hope you do too . . .

How to ... look

Guy Browning
Saturday August 12, 2006
The Guardian

Everyone sees but few look. For most people ,"having a good look" happens only when something interests them. For the small minority who are in permanent "have a good look" mode, everything is interesting. In general, the more you look at something, the more interesting it becomes.

On average we see a thousand advertising messages a day. When we go to bed we might remember one of them. This tells us two things: 1) most advertising is wasted;, and 2) just because we've got our eyes open doesn't mean we're looking.

The song says that you can look but you better not touch. But looking is a way of touching, which is why you can often sense when you're being looked at. Similarly, when you look into some individuals' eyes, it give you a physical jolt, as if you'd been kicked by a small horse.

Many people don't look much because what's happening inside their head is far more interesting. The less they look at the real world, the more unreal their internal world becomes. The level of people's eyes is a good indicator of where their minds are: eyes up, daydreamer; eyes ahead, well-adjusted person; eyes down, introvert or bingo player.

Love is blind but has a great sense of touch. More interesting than love at first sight is love at 74th sight, when someone who was part of your comfortable visual furniture suddenly becomes a thing of incredible beauty. The world would be a much better place if we could see everyone as incredibly beautiful, but that would make falling in love a less intense experience.

Looking at something carefully doesn't mean you can see it properly. That's because everyone wears the distorting glasses of their personality: paranoid people see everything as a conspiracy, greedy people see everything as a potential snack. The rule is, you don't see the world as it is, but as you are.

People see only what they want to see. Being something or someone that no one wants to see is therefore the closest we're likely to get to being invisible. Advanced physicists and philosophers will tell you that things exist only when you look at them. It would therefore be a great experiment if everyone agreed not to look at advanced physicists and philosophers for a while.

i hate to admit i'm old . . .

2006-08-12T22:26:00.000+01:00

" The idols of today are unmistakable - self esteem without effort, fame without achievement, sex without consequences, wealth without responsibility, pleasure without struggle and experience without commitment."

. . . but I agree with this quote, so I guess there's no denying it :)

water bears

2006-08-05T00:26:00.000+01:00

. . . win this years prize for cuteness and adapability under 1mm. These weird little things make us seem quite lame as far as impressive biological abilities. They "look more like a candy Gummy Bear than a grizzly bear -- they have the bright orange, red or green colors of Gummy Bears, and a gummy surface texture."

All this cuteness plus they can do lots of superhumanoid stuff like survive amazing heats, freeze and come back to life, be desicated and come back to life (this does not involve coconut in any way : ) but rather means they can lose every tiny droplet of liquid from their system and still reanimate).

For more amazing geeky facts and excitement check out the above link to "the incredible water bear".

Enjoy : )

disclaimer: drawings are cuter than reality - IW still thinks they're very cute
(i say maybe in a liquified orange ameoba/slater type way . . .)

"When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago"

2006-08-03T10:34:00.000+01:00

- Nietzsche

I find this extreme -ly true.

Humans are amazing little science projects of someone bigger standing over trying out stuff in a random jenn-understanding-of-science kind of way! : )

There is the madness (good as well as bad) of sleep deprivation, excesses, lacks, and compacted psychoses borne of compressed and concentrated living.

Kind of like the intense colour and power packed intensity of fruit juice "drinks" the ones that list the fruit around ingredient number thirteen - right behind 5 synonyms for sugar, 5 "colours" disguised as numbers and 3 stabilisers ( i think these are what stop you from going right over the edge on your long way dooooooooown from the sugar high of the drink).

This ramble has been brought to you by one well rested (and falsely buoyed by that ole seductive morning siren caffeine) . . .

Grew, well, ok "aquired" a moustache, no really . . .

2006-08-01T20:17:00.000+01:00

See?

Handiwork and design care of one I. C. Watson origamist extraordinaire, big ups! (hippy floral body art issuing from same source . . . ).

The occassion? Other than general lack of hairyness demanding to be dealt to ?

My friend Marese's birthday in the park, summer summer summeryness, rockabilly band and picnicing, all the things that make you forgive London's naughtynessess (for a bit at least).

Went to see a kundalini guru

2006-07-22T22:49:00.000+01:00

and practice kundalini yoga with her. Not really sure how i feel about it, other than a bit weird.

Also went to see Undercover Surrealism at the Hayward Gallery. I listened to voodoo, looked an animal entrails and admired Miro's scribbles.

My latest madcap adventure will be a trip to the US to visit my bestest homie ann, dependent on the altruism of the British passport peeps, fingers crossed xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx those are standing in for crossed fingers in lieu of some spiffy new keyboard fingers crossed lingo from tha kids.

Next weekend we're off to the countryside to check out Shrewsberry and hook up with the kiwi connection.

nano nano

jenn from zen

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds

2006-07-16T22:31:00.000+01:00

I am currently very into Bob. He is great. I am (again) tired but I wanted to write something so I didn't completely bail on my new resolution. I was just going to post some Soho scenes but my camera had other ideas. . . grrr.

So, more Bob:
The stone that the builder refuse will always be the head cornerstone.

Open your eyes and look within; are you satsified with the life you're living?

and:

How to live a joyful life

(not by Bob).

See ya
xx

Rusty

2006-07-13T22:25:00.000+01:00

Composed via a mixture of bad cliches:
1 On a brown paper bag (now transfered to screen)
2 In a cafe with jaunty energetic jazz dicatating the ebb and flow of the pen
3 Accompaied by a ridiculously frothy (hippy) soya cappucino

Rusty could be tautologised as a cliche too: use it or lose it.

Here I am thinking about my penchant for excessive verbiage. My natural predeliction to over indulge my mouth :) and wondering how I came to be so removed from my philonomosity (working it here).

I was thinking about how simple truisms slip from the edge of our minds. The limited rainbow that our mind's palette can display to us allows many colours to muddy into a brown that is indistinguishable from the backgound that they sit upon.

So they're there but not there until somehow the brush unwittingly catches some of that colour and transfers it somewhere else making it visible again.

I wish my palette could hold a rainbow.

Picnic in ze park

2006-07-12T22:13:00.000+01:00

IW likes to call this photo "Jenn trys to pretend her hippy drink is actually nice". Nuff said. I couldn't really argue with an assessment that accurate.

This American Life

2006-07-10T22:49:00.000+01:00

What is the suspiciously named link to the right?
Would anyone want to jump into courting American Life?
If you could have a choice between the superpowers of flight and invisibility which would you choose?
What do you think this says about you?
Where can you find out?

At a cool-long running radio show from Chicago. When I asked IW to summarise what he thinks its about (since he put me on to it) he said . . .

A 4 act documentary radio show on humanist topics.

Its great, check it out :)

ps. I would fly
to find out what that says about me . . .
go to the site and search for "superpowers",
have fun! : )

first class

2006-07-10T22:34:00.000+01:00

My first yoga class that is. As to the quality and whether it was in fact "first class" well, you'd have to ask a participant that :)

I had 7 students including the lovely IW. I really enjoyed it and I finally feel a sense of going for my dreams. Terror did not even try to court me. I felt capable and calm. how yogic. ;)

namaste, one and all . . .

xx

getting in early : )

2006-07-09T12:05:00.000+01:00

at the mighty early hour of 12.

Meditated again today after three days off (2 due to inescapable jackhammer noise and 1 due to saturdayness)

I had missed it : )

Tonight is the world cup final. If it seems strange that I might be interested in this know that my interest comes more from the fact that we reside atop bar italia and if the scenes from our street on the nights of regular matches are anything to go by, tonight will be interesting indeed.

We, therefore, are giving actual matchtime a miss (VERY loud doesn't begin to cover the volume) and heading over Angel-ward to try a Japanese restaurant that looks (to harken back to that pop-culture bible of my youth Heathers) very . . . : ) yum.

I'm sure festivities will still be exploding all over the place on our return, so there may be some pics of tonight to follow. In the meantime the above is a morsel from an earlier game . . .

long day . . . tired girl

2006-07-08T23:25:00.000+01:00

busy with lotsa yoga seed stuff for first class on monday . . . check out the beautiful logo imery made for me.

new resolution

2006-07-07T19:50:00.000+01:00

And ok here it is. To put something on this every day, even if it's just a photo or a quote. Observe above the teaser campaign for my eventual tale of our Japanese Escapade exploits . . .

Something like . .

Stumbling out of ye olde misty mountains Jenn is set upon and almost savaged by deer, but fortunately discovers her emergency supply of deer defusing biscuits and then, having circumnavigated seemingly inescapable peril, she retires to the cherry blossom infused zen garden to meditate on the day's events . . .

whatchya think . . . ?

i don't have an iron

2006-06-04T19:52:00.000+01:00

For those of you who know Kit, this may not surprise, i have been indeliably marked with the notion that ironing can and should be avoided as a waste of one's time, sanity and energy.

More often than not in my life i manage to live my carefree ironfree life without a twinge, however of late it has been disturbing me as I at last come to realising one of my many looooooooooooooooooooooong-term projects: getting my weird little creature drawings onto teeshirts. You print them onto teeshirt transfers and then just dimply iron them on . . . hmmm. I think I shall have to approach my friends in that "grown up" end of the job market that requires un-wrinkliness (all age prejudices aside o'course) as a pre-req to employment.

Blogging my way back to you

2006-05-30T23:50:00.000+01:00

Woah.
Bet you forgot that this crazy girl existed.
I did.
but am back from the unwelcome hiatus of being myself that was my time at the job which for there is no description that can be befit by words.

Here is the last year minus said unverbable.

What a punchy beginning and now, 3 days later I'm still waiting for inspiration to strike. Ah well, may have to proceed sans inspiration and hope that it sidles up to me for the ride at some point along the way.

I think I'm gonna start by going backwards, how Jenn.

It is now May. Freaky. I am 30, or to borrow Tom's fave phrase triple x. Freaky x 3 Despite this heady proclamation I am in possession of neither the feeling of maturity or adulthood which one imagines in each of those years prior to such an age.

London continues to be mystifying and rewarding by turns, turns that are sort of reminiscient of a whirlygig. At the moment I am in the process of starting to build my yoga teacher business. I have 5 private students to begin with whixh is great.

My love of yoga continues to expand and I see its application in most aspects of daily life, something which I could go on at length about except that my tendency to go on at length after lengthy silences renders that an unwise proposition if I want anyone to make it through reading this blog.

A bientot mes amis . . .

Spain for Xmas

2006-05-19T11:48:00.000+01:00

Xmas?
Yes, that was approaching six months ago!
: )

We went to Girona, a beautiful medieval Spainish city outside of Barcelona, on the sage and much appreciated advice of the lovely Spainyard in self-imposed Belgian exile Francesc. Thankyou Francesc!

Here we did engage in all manner of cliched (though no less enjoyable for it) episodes of rambling ancient cobbled streets, gourmand dining, market visits, coffee and chocolate indulgences and excessive consumption of laughing cow cheese (maybe not so cliched touristy the last, though the pension we were staying in insisted upon it as a breakfast fortifier in a way reminiscient of that motherly eat your carrots, it helps your night vision kind of way), to this day Imery cannot see it without.

We balanced out this break from the pace of london madness with . . .

Barcelona madness : )
Barcelona was only a 45 minute trip by train so we made the trip several times. It was here I visited my favourite thing in Europe to date -

The Miro Museum!!
Imagine several hours of natural elation. I was in heaven. I have lots of Miro works. Imery has lots of photos of me beaming.

We also checked out some really nice design stores. As per its reputation, Barcelona is a city of style cats and is not so much eye candy everywhere you looks as eye coffee - rather more smooth refined flavours than nasty sugar highs. The food convinced Imery that baby octopus and squid ink are not merely edible but delectable and initiated me into what I'm sure will be a life long love affair with real tapas.

We took a side trip to the Dali Museum which stewed my brain a bit with attempts to comprehend the man. It gave me a much greater appreciation of his work which previously I had identified with merely mysogyny and weirdness. The mental space that holidaying provides to allow you to properly engage with things like art is superlative worthy. His ideas and deconstruction of the concept of literal "wholes" really captured me.

Jenn in Nature

2006-02-19T21:40:00.000Z

I'm a little concerned how similar our hairstyles are.

Why it is hard to give up sarcasm entirely

2006-02-19T21:28:00.000Z

Britain at the forefront of the modern museum movement . . .

Tales from the City

2006-02-19T21:03:00.000Z

Cultural Lessons from the Motherland
Tale 1
Tofu Tale
I went to Sainsbury's (Supermarket) and I couldn't find the tofu anywhere so I asked a shop assistant, "excuse me, where is the tofu?". "Tofu?," she said. "Tofu", I said, thinking this was an accident of accent, which happens quite often here. "What is tofu?", she asked. "Um, it's white and made from soy beans", I told her. "Is it tinned?", she asked me. "No . . .". "Let me just ask someone else . . . Yo, Marlon, we got any tofu?". "What's tofu?". . .

How many seemingly self-evident truths in life are part of the ego's self absorption that the rest of the world is completely oblivious to?

Tale 2
Why it is tiring to live here
Microphones that can be left permanently on so as to unleash the wisdom of drivers on a morning-weary precaffine stunned public : "Ok man, wake up! Hello, Hello, Can you see the buzzer, does it look like a joystick? Can you see the stopping sign?"

Tale 3
Why it is great to live here
Crazy Nick and his musical traffic cone. I will try to get a photo sometime but we are really bad about taking our camera with us. For now you you will just have to trust me that he is a new musical genius.

Begin where you are

2006-01-25T22:51:00.000Z

Don't really know what to say except that its nice (that most bland of adjectives) to hear from so many people I haven't been in contact with for a while.

The title of this post refers to something I was reading today from Heart of Yoga (Desikachar). He talks about how to construct your own yoga practice. It's a really down to earth book, very accessible and it is the style of a teacher I really admire so it is cool for me to see the tradition she is coming from. (ann it is that friday woman sue who you always really liked).

IW and I are both reading (different) books on Jung at the moment. He just told me something interesting a la Jung:

That youth and adolescence are a process of separating yourself from the universe and adulthood is a process of reintegrating and finding your place in the world again.

It makes me wonder then if it goes back again to withdraw for death and separation when you are elderly.

it's interesting because in my book today he was saying that individuality is a somewhat contentious state, which in a simplistic way would account for the above but perhaps in that case reintegration is the wrong word and it is more conformity that we go through in adulthood.

He discusses indivduality as subject to and moulded by the church and the state.

We have made science (statistical data) paramount in our society, and as a medium it discounts the individual as incompatible subjective data, yet any statistic if broken down is comprised of the same data it denies the validity of.

The church acknowledges the individual only through its adherence to their dogma which is basically again placing it in a collective category.

Jung says:In both cases the will to idividuality is regarded as egotistic obstinancy.

Which maybe explains why it is so hard to make sense of your own place in the world.

So, my novice advice?

Begin where you are.

: )

Hippy Stuff

2006-01-22T21:17:00.000Z

The colour purple. (without Oprah)
Where I work there is an awful lot of the colour purple. In that statement IW would stress the word awful. For us, purple has become synonymous with the concept of hippyness. IW takes much delight in teasing me about the many shades of lilac I am currently exploring.

For me, yoga has become a microcosm of life. The more i try to understand living in my body the more i understand living in the world. Which says not that I have answers for many of life's questions, rather that now I have more questions following on from what understandings I have gleaned.

Creating a sense of space in the body (flexibility, freedom, looseness) creates a sense of space in life (room, time, possibility). As freeing up the body allows it to move in new ways or ways that are now comfortable where they have not been before, conceptually creating this feeling simultaneously means room to see how we behave removed from the immediacy of our own behaviour. Seeing ourself in this new (perhaps truer, perhaps not) way gives us choice. In seeing our forthcoming action/response as a choice rather than from the safe veil of hindsight we can truly decide. Preempting in this way allows the choice to respond in new ways, to explore alternatives and to move away from old patterns that have and are limiting us.

koan

2006-01-20T19:38:00.000Z

courtesy of dictionary.com:

A puzzling, often paradoxical statement or story, used in Zen Buddhism as an aid to meditation and a means of gaining spiritual awakening.

why?

2006-01-19T19:30:00.000Z

Here is my new blog. Created not for the propogation of such self-evident information but as a way to address my appalling record at correspondence. I want my brain to work. Maybe you feel the same. I hope so.

the idea is for ideas,

what are you interested in, reading, thinking, at the moment?

here's my me at the mo:

yoga (duh)
jung - the undiscovered self
learning to understand balance
the breath

and you?