See Ya Soon, Ceylon!

It's my last day in Sri Lanka! Another amazing experience in my home away from home. I'll be back in a month, headed to India to study for a bit and eat some masala dosas!

Girl Time with Caroline.

So grateful for my afternoons with Caroline. It's great to have some proper "girl time" which we fill with girly ramblings, lots of tea, belly dancing, yoga-ing, swimming, sunning and naps in the sand.

Tears in 26, Transformation in 27

Tears in 26, Transformation in 27

Goddamn I have done a lot of crying this past year. Tears of sadness, joy, exhaustion, confusion and overwhelming grief. So, go figure, I opened up "Women Who Run With The Wolves", and the paragraph that I open up to is about tears....

"Tears carry creative power. In mythos, the giving of tears causes immense creation and heartfelt reunion. In herbal folklore, tears are used as a binder, to secure elements, unite ideas, join souls. In fairy tales, when tears are thrown, they frighten away robbers or cause rivers to flood. When sprinkled, they call the spirits. When poured onto the body, they heal lacerations and restore sight. When touched, they cause conception. Tears call things to us, they correct things, provide the missing part or piece. ... they not only represent feeling but are also lenses through which we gain an alternative vision, another point of view.

There is a Sufi saying, a prayer really, asking God to break ones heart: "Shatter my heart so a new room can be created for Limitless Love.""

And so, I am grateful for the year of tears, because it has brought about the transformation that is bringing me into a most epic, exciting, and abundant twenty seven...!

Big Thanks for my Birthday

Thank you to everyone who put the effort in to make my birthday so incredibly special here in Sri Lanka. Yamuna and Sentara cooked all.day.long to feed me and my 14 closest friends here. We sipped Campari, champagne and club cocktails...feasted on the most epic rice and curry...and drove the neighbors mad with those ridiculous little birthday bazooka thingys! Yay birthdays!

Presents.

I put this on Facebook, and then I realized that many of my readers don't have FB. So...

For my birthday....
I don't care much for presents, and it wouldn't be very easy getting them to me here in Asia anyways. But I would like the gift of CEREMONY. Ana Forrest inspired me to ask for a "talking circle". Tell me a story about an experience that we had together that made our connection strong. I want to feed my heart.

God Bless. Xoxo

26.

25 was filled with loss, and 26 I discovered the lessons. I celebrated my day in Rishikesh, India at the abandoned Beatles ashram. This year held so much for me. In India I studied marma massage, Ayurveda, palmistry, and reiki. I overcame my fear of water water rafting and rafted down the sacred Ganges river. I journeyed to Nepal where I cried every day for a week. I walked around the Boudha Stupa, praying, for 6 hours a day "om mani padme hum". My heart was broken by the loss of my father and it was here that I really dove into that sadness. I returned to Sri Lanka for sunshine and smiles, making my way to Arugam Bay to slide perfect waves at Main Point. It was here that I met Nir, Mimi, Pontus, Patu, Uthu, Situ, Malcom, Gerrit and Marina, and Markus and Kelly...my family, for life. I surfed for hours in the morning and played backgammon for all the hours of the afternoon. We drank iced coffees at Ravis and had dance parties in our living room. I fell in love and for the first time in my life understood that you can love someone and not hold on with two hands. I still have this love in my heart today....

I came home to south jersey to get back to the summer grind. I taught full power, packed-to-the-max yoga classes and played music in the evenings. I taught my first ever yoga teacher training, and realized my power as a teacher. I healed others with Thai massage and reiki, and started healing myself by embarking on an intense candida cleanse. I wouldn't have been able to do it without the support and love of Kelly Croce and lorie rice, and I'm finally beginning to feel better after 10 months. I managed to carve out an afternoon of free time on Sunday afternoons for family beach day on sumner ave and even got away a few times to see my friends. Bridget and Erika had babies, Kaitlin and Brian and Samantha and Joe got married. Gina and Megan got engaged and my Nana passed away. Ah, life...moving so quickly! I started doing yoga retreats and lead powerful and amazing retreats in Italy and Mexico. I led workshops in key west, and when we weren't doing HipHop yoga, I was dancing with drag queens and overcoming yet another fear- getting scuba dive certified. I found my way back to Sri Lanka, where I feel completely at home. I met yet another amazing group of people who have loved and nourished me, and I am further reassured that home is wherever my heart is. One of my greatest accomplishments of 26 was starting Golden Buddha Yoga, under which I'm running retreats to heal and empower and my own teacher trainings to explore the soul and understand how to exist in your ultimate truth.

The most amazing revelation of 26 was that someone you love can die, and you keep on living. But not just living, thriving. Every day I live my life not only for myself, but also in dedication to my Dad. I feel each experience holds deeper meaning, every hug is felt more and every meal that much more delicious....every day, every second, every breath - a blessing and a celebration. It was through my Dads death that (this year) I discovered my strength. I can, and will, do anything and everything that my soul desires....the path is clear and there's nothing that I cannot overcome.

And through all of this you have been with me! How lucky am I, to have people who love and nourish me so? I write this from Sri Lanka, on my last day of being 26, and though I'm sitting alone, I hold all of you in my heart...those here, there and passed. Thank you all for making 26 such an amazing year....I am already smiling for the joy and abundance that 27 will hold!

26

Palmistry, white water rafting sacred rivers, reiki and my 26th birthday celebration. Crying, exploring grief and praying in Nepal. Om Mani Padme Hum. Arugam Bay waving sliding, nature-loving, beautiful friends and family. Love. Love. Love. Wanderlust: dj drez dance-all-night, shaking it out, crying and laughing and sweating, Gabrielle Bernstein and MC yogi. South jersey beach time with friends.

26

Yoga Retreats in Italy and Mexico...shooting guns in Texas, teaching HipHop yoga, dancing with drag queens and learning to scuba dive in Key West. Weekend trips to Nyc, dancing at la costa and quality time with friends. Carving pumpkins, dinner parties, dancing dancing dancing and birthday celebrations. Yoga teacher trainings and soul explorations!

R+C Love.

RICEANDCURRYRICEANDCURRYRICEANDCURRY.... I LOVE RICE AND CURRY!!! I've been eating a fair few meals at the Floating Buddhas house and helping him in the kitchen. He trusts me more now because he "trained" me well. I know how he likes everything sliced...(the onions get a diagonal cut for raw sambal, small dice for coconut sambal and a big dice for vegetable curry). I love that everytime I eat here, there is some dish that is not only a new addition to our rice and curry selection, but there's always something that I have never seen, tasted or heard of before. Tonight was the BEST spread yet! We had bed fruit (I love love love this potato-like fruit!!!), coconut sambal, dhal, some crazy horseradishy-type root vegetable, a green herb sambal, pappadams and FISH SAMBAL. Holy good god almighty let me tell you about this fish sambal. It was thinly sliced red onion, thinly sliced spicy green pepper (you could use Italian long hots) and cooked fish (any white fish would do. These looked like mini-mackerels. You could even just sub a small can of tuna fish). Season with a touch of salt, some crushed chili pepper and lime. OhmygodOhmygodOhmygod I could have eaten the whole bowl. So tasty. So simple. I love rice and curry!!

-2 medium sized red onions, cut in half, thin half moons
-4 small fish (or) 2 cans tuna (or) 1 medium sized fish ((cooked and meat picked off))
-2 long hots (any long, spicy, green pepper)
-salt, red pepper flakes
-juice of 1 lime, more to taste

*Use your hands to mix it all up.

Joe + Caroline

Joe was a serious looking man, super jacked, with lots of tattoos. To be honest, he scared me a bit. He paddled out into the lineup on his short board and then made a comment to me about having a lot of balls to have a longboard out at Rams. He was quiet, serious and didn't seem excited to have ANYONE joining him at the peak, let alone a little girl on a longboard. Then he saw me have a wave and his face lit up (though he tried to hide his delight) and he grunted a comment like "yeah, that was an alright wave"....and we've been friends ever since. Joe may look tough, and he may put it out there like he's a hardass, but inside he's just a sweet softie (but don't tell anyone that, or let Joe know that I know...!). We got to talking in the water and he said that he'd been really sick with a wicked cold for a few days. So after the surf I dropped off a healing care package of: oregano oil, colloidal silver, echinacea, vitamin c and zinc tablets, and some fresh ginger, along with instructions for how to take it. Well don't you know, he felt better after a day, and was cured after two days. As a thank you he invited me to dinner at his house, and that's when I met his "missus", Caroline- who is the sweetest, most darling, loving human being!! Of course, she is the Yin to Joes Yang, the softness to balance any of his hardness, and the Queen to his King. Dinner that night was a blast, and we've been eating dinner together nearly every night for the past two weeks. Caroline has the sweetest British accent, and a wicked sense of humor- which when combined (she says "what would happen if the whole world farted at the same time?!") is a recipe for intense laughter. Also, she's a brilliant belly dancer and teaches back home, so we have been meeting up in the afternoons, alternating between yoga with me and belly dancing via her. It's been a great way to break up the day, do some exercise and have a bit of "girl time"- because, as I'm sure you've seen from the photos, I've been surrounded by lots of men --not that I'm complaining ;)

Joe has been coming to Sri Lanka for about 25 years now, and I love to hear his stories! I am so incredibly in love with this country, so I find all of his exciting tales of how wild it was truly fascinating. Also, Joe was here for the tsunami. The building collapsed on him, he was washed to the railroad where he was tangled in debris, almost drowned and was later found unconscious. He was in the hospital here for 6 weeks before he was able to walk and move about. He surfed Rams every day for 5 weeks, no one out. He helped rebuild this town with his bare hands, and every year would come with money from the UK to distribute amongst the locals. He taught all of the local boys how to surf and (along with a few other expats) outfitted them with boards, fins and leashes. He is a beloved part of this community, with all of the locals treating him as family. He was here throughout Sri Lankas civil war, and now he's here through Sri Lankas growing popularity- as the breaks get crowded, the beaches fill up, and the prices rise. And as grumpy as he gets about this growth, I think he'll continue to come back- because just like he was willing to brave the Tamil Tigers and natural disasters, I think his love for this country runs so deep that nothing will ever turn him away.

So happy for the time that I've had with Joe and Caroline. They, too, feel like family, which is so nice to have when one is so far away.

Living, Dying and Perfection

Well, it has been one full year (almost to date) and I finally finished reading "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" by Sogyal Rinpoche. I cannot stress enough the importance of reading this book and understanding reality as being "unbroken wholeness in flowing movement". As Sogyal Rinpoche says...To see death, then, through realized eyes, is to see death in the context of this wholeness, and as part, and only part, of this beginningless and endless movement.

When Buddha lay dying in a forest grove, surrounded by 500 of his disciples, he said to them with his last breath:

****"It is in the nature of all things that take form to dissolve again. Strive with your whole being to attain perfection."******

Perfection, I find, is a word that gets misused. People have an idea of the "perfect body", the "perfect life", the "perfect job" or the "perfect partner". I have none of these by social standards, but for me and from my perspective- I am perfect and am always actively working towards perfection. Because perfection to me is pure, is honest, is authentic and content. I strive to be perfect, not by starving my body or working some bullshit job that I don't like to buy things that I don't need-- but I am perfect because I am moving from a place of purity...pure love and pure devotion. One of my (Indian)teachers last year was amazed by my spiritual practice and he said to me, "Why? Why do you do all of this?". And I responded, "Because I want to be pure." I didn't hesitate with my response, and I didn't think about it. It was my truth. And that's my hope. To keep moving through this life with grace, motivated by truth and honesty and love and hard-work and a deep understanding of all things, especially of myself.

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying says....To learn how to die is to learn how to live; to learn how to live is to learn how to act not only in this life, but in the lives to come. To transform yourself truly and learn how to be reborn as a transformed being to help others is really to help the world in the most powerful way of all.

Thomas Merton wrote: "What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless but disastrous."

We need to wake up to the urgency of the need for spiritual transformation, and the urgency of the need to be responsible for ourselves and others.

Thank you Sogyal Rinpoche for this beautiful exploration of life and death! It has so inspired me and I hope that it helps all of you as well.

Always, All Ways.

Thank God for great friends that keep us in check!! Last night I talked to Julia, and this morning with Kelly and Bridget....my three best friends. All of them know me inside and out, and it was so great to check in with them about where I'm at and where I hope to go. I get anxious some times about what's next, and Kell's response was perfect, "What do u really NEED to live?? Not much. So who gives a fuck. Go balls out. Worst case you know you can come home and massage, cook, teach, surf anyway." Duh. Well said. Fear...gone. But it was the end of our conversation that really hit home. She said "God is with you always. All ways." Amen sista. And on that note I'm going to begin my powerful and amazing day...!

Run for Fun!

I came out of the womb with a very intense hatred for running. I have never, ever "enjoyed" it, and found it hard enough to tolerate the bit that they made us do back when I played school sports. I had asthma as a kid and suffer from joint pain now, and this combination has further reinforced the dislike and insecurity that surrounds the most natural form of exercise known to man.

Well, I stand corrected. Because now, I enjoy running and I look forward to my relationship with running and the growth that's to come. It's very similar to yoga and spirituality in many ways....
-If done improperly, you can hurt yourself. If done properly, it heals and strengthens the body.
-With a great teacher, anything is possible.
-Start out small!!! Just as you wouldn't start a meditation practice by sitting for an hour, you don't start running by pushing your body to the breaking point or running 5k!
-Slowly, Slowly. Shanti, Shanti.
-It's about having FUN and feeling GOOD
-It is a tool to help move past the conversations and chaos of the mind, and to tune into our highest Self.

And since Fredrik was such a great sport about being open to my spirituality ramblings, I figured that it was only fair to become a bit more open to his passion for running. As he phrased it, "I don't want to teach you to run, I want to teach you to LOVE to run!". He said, "You run so long as you're happy and enjoying it. But you never run farther than you enjoy. When you finish you want to feel content and excited for running the next day". And so, my running career has begun. We practiced a few laps on the beach, and he critiqued my style so that I wouldnt be hurting my joints or exhausting my body. He gave small but precise instructions that made an instant difference in how my body was feeling and helped me to transform twenty six years of anger towards this form of exercise. The lesson was 20 minutes in total and it was spot.on.

A bit that I took away from my lesson was...Run because it's easy and simple and fun. Don't push yourself. Put your running shoes in the bin. Embrace bare feet. Feel your toes extend and grip the earth beneath them. Feel a softness in your knees and calves. Keep your chest lifted and neck long, with your shoulders down and back. Use your arms to your advantage by keeping your elbows tucked in tight towards the body and move the arms (up and down, not side to side) without moving the upper body. Short steps as you glide along your path, landing with your foot underneath of your body, not in front of it. Most importantly, run with a smile on your face. Because life is good. Running is fun. And your feet can take you to the most beautiful places that you could never have imagined.


Cailin Callahan
www.cailincallahan.blogspot.com

This is rocking my world right now. My mantra.

Care Packages in Ceylon....

Fredrik made me the sweetest "care package" for me, that still moves me to tears of happiness and gratitude. He decorated a bottle with local flowers and foliage and in the care package were incredibly thoughtful gifts that were all connected to conversations that we'd had this trip. In my package was:

-a birthday card for me, not to be opened until march 3rd
-a detailed "folding for dummies" guide (inside joke- I made a card for Fredrik looked like it was folded by an inebriated child)
-a bar of wax that was melted a reshaped into a heart with "forever in my heart" engraved in it
-a "go surf" sticker with the reminder to put somewhere I see often (Fredrik often motivated me to surf when I didn't want to...)
-local Sri Lankan Ayurvedic balm
-a candle with the note "you light up my life"
-stickers, markers and scissors for my crafting/card making obsession
-chords for a Swedish song that Fredrik would play for me on guitar, along with a guide to pronouncing certain letters

Such a thoughtful farewell gift from a thoughtful person. I'm so touched :)