2011 in pictures.

What a year.
Riots, earthquakes and protests.
Things are definitely quickening.

News that shaped 2011. 

Different Stages of Meditation

In this essay, originally included in The Collected Works of Ken Wilber: Volume IV, Ken offers an in-depth description of each of the major state-stages of meditative practice—ranging from psychic absorption, to subtle illumination, to causal transcendence, to the ultimate nondual embrace of Form and Emptiness.

Q: We would like you to describe the experiences of several stages of meditation. But first, tell us about meditation itself—the different types and how they work.

A: It is common among scholars to divide meditation into two broad categories, called “concentration” and “awareness” (or “insight”) meditation. Or, “opened” and “closed”. For example, let’s say you are looking at a wall that has hundreds of dots painted on it. In concentration meditation, you look at just one dot, and you look at it so fiercely that you don’t even see the other dots. This develops your powers of concentration. In awareness training, or insight meditation, you try to be as aware of all the dots as you can be. This increases your sensitivity, awareness, and wisdom, in that sense.

Full Article

Pulling back the veil

Although I long had an interest in paranormal phenomena, I held these conceptually at an arm’s length, not knowing how to include them in my worldview, influenced as it was by secular 20th century European philosophers who had no (admitted) interest in such things. Then, in 1988, I read Whitley Strieber’s bestseller, Communion, about his frequent and bizarre encounters with alien Others who would take him away against his will. Strieber’s effort to make sense of these “abduction” experiences in terms of mind-brain disorders, such as temporal lobe epilepsy, made the book all the more compelling. He concluded, however, that he was in fact encountering an Otherness that could not be explained away in terms of materialist categories.  The veil had been drawn back for Strieber. 


Michael Zimmerman
full article here

Another article on possible explanations 

Resumé

Need one?
Well here, you would need a re-jus-me
Jus. As in, the posh gravy you get at nice restaurants.

I'm in the middle of refreshing mine at the moment but still get taken aback when I hear the word pronounced here.

The first time I heard it, I thought, maybe just a speech impediment? Perhaps an individual nuance? The second and third time, when it came from different people, I thought, OK there's a trend here. What is the deal with the french sound inserted in the middle of a word said with an ozzie accent?

No one knows.

Street Art

more

Slinkachu

Isaac Cordal

This one reminds of an installation I saw in Nagoya once. As I walked in, in the distance, was an old man in a wheelchair moving around in the entrance slowly. Something didn't quite feel right and his head was at a bit of a strange angle. As I got closer and turned the corner, there were about 7 more old people in electric wheelchairs slowly moving around. It took me a few seconds to realise they were in a cordoned off area and some of them were going around in circles.
Got a little bit closer still and saw that they were very realistically done mannequins. Complete with stubble, tweed suits and different expressions. The initial sight of 8 wheelchairs with old people asleep, aimlessly moving around in their automated wheelchairs was a bit freaky. When I saw they weren't real, it was a frozen moment of panic replaced by gentle trepidation as I walked away, very slowly.

dolk

More here

Fear or Laziness?

This is one of my favourite all time clips from a great film. I feel like I need to watch it every now and then, just to get a little focus.

Why do we meditate?

“Why do we meditate? We meditate precisely because this world of ours has disappointed us and because failure looms large in our day-to-day life. We want fulfilment. We want joy, peace, bliss and perfection within and without. Meditation is the answer, the only answer.”~ Sri Chinmoy

My friend is asking for the loving kindness meditation, what the Buddha called his antidote to fear: 
May I be safe, may I be happy, may I be healthy, may I live with ease.
I first read about the lovingkindness meditation in Learning To Breathe: My Yearlong Quest to Bring Calm to My Life  by Priscilla Warner. My own meditation practice had been less  than regular when the Twitter Yoga Book Club chose this as their new selection. The lovingkindness meditation was just what I needed to jump-start not only my personal meditation time, but it was also a safe, non-threatening way to introduce meditation to many of my yoga students.

Full article here

by Jennifer Fields

The most dangerous drug?

I'm a lightweight; always have been. I didn't get properly drunk until I was 25, on a night out which culminated in a spectacular public vomiting in a Chinese restaurant. Ever wondered what the clatter of 60 pairs of chopsticks being simultaneously dropped in disgust might sound like? Don't ask me. I can't remember. I was too busy bitterly coughing what remained of my guts all over the carpet.
Full article here..

By Charlie Brooker.

Tina

A picture I took a while back in my sister's car. We were on our way to York, I think..
I was trying to fulfil a brief for some pictures in the theme of "Move" and this one didn't make the final cut, but it's still one of my favourites.

Bento me up.

Some everyday lunch boxes in Japan.

Shy's 

New Paintings

Some beautiful new work from Brian Jones.

From Occupy Wall St to St. Paul's Cathedral.

The Occupied Times online newspaper, issue 2.
Pirates, Anarchy, the homeless, legal action of the Church and some underground Hip Hop.

Another piece about the Occupation and Noam Chomsky's involvement.

And 6 things already accomplished.

Meals Ready

A touching short film by Nithuna Nevil Dinesh.

Hairy memories

Living in Australia for an English lass is a bit scary sometimes.
However gorgeous this country is, with its beautiful landscapes and oceans and all the colourful wildlife, I can't help but think of the many other things that might want to bite / hurt me in some way.
You know, like Sharks, Jelly fish, Snakes and even Crocodiles up north. I recently found out that the humble looking Platypus has a potent toxin that dissolves flesh stored in little spurs on the back of its legs. Dissolves flesh, people.
Yeah, not so cute now, with their little beaks, flippers and flesh melting venom.

This semi-irrational fear of certain creature here is a fairly recent phenomonon.
When I was 14 and no real concept of mortality, I even swam with sharks in an aquarium once in Florida on a family holiday. It was cool to see the funny looking hammerheads mosey on by underneath me.

                                                   

There is one thing here that freaks me out more than anything else.
Spiders.
Yeah, you knew that I'd left one out.
Now, I'm not an arachnophobe by any means, but if there is a spider above a certain size and it happens to be coming towards me at a certain speed, you will see just how fast I can move.

In England, there are some pretty big spiders in the countryside but they're usually not too bad
Here, on the other hand; not only are they much, much bigger, they can kill you. Or at least cause a whole lot of pain.
This just adds a whole other dimension to the usually illogical fear of something a fraction my size.

So, you'll understand that when I say I freaked out in said story below; you can understand that I really freaked out. Like properly. With high pitched noises and arm flapping.

Anyway, it was night time and Shane and I were driving back from visiting friends who live in the countryside. Their house is a property and at the back of it is tropical rainforest, dense with greenery and living things that hoot, call and rummage around. Lots of nature basically, you get the idea.

This may or may not have been lurking in said woods.

So, we're on our way home and had been in the car for about 20 mins. Shane was driving.
Suddenly, in the corner of my eye, I see a very long leg slowly stretch its way into a big step towards me. It was almost theatrical the way this leg moved. Slowly, carefully, with purpose.
Shane said that I moved like an eel and in one fluid movement that took about half a second I was in the back seat behind him.

In my best, 'trying to be calm but panicking inside' voice I told him to pull over. We were driving on the motorway so it took a long minute or two.
I didn't want to tell him what it was until we had pulled over. In my mind it would have been dangerous as he may have freaked out like I did.
An eternity later, when we finally manage to pull over and the light goes on, we can properly see it.
Right between the window and the windshield was a massive, enormous, gigantic huntsman spider.

It was so big it almost barked at us.

We tried (when I say we, I mean Shane) to get it out of the car gently with a stick but it scampered away into a nook. They have a very large leg span but can become freakishly flat when they want. Allowing them to hide out in tiny spaces waiting to ambush at their own leisure.
So, after succumbing to our new little friends stubborness / shyness, we got back in the car (me in the back) and drove for another 30 minutes. In the dark. Not knowing where he was.
Somehow, we made it home in a relatively calm state cradled by the what you can't see can't hurt you theory.

The next morning we got up early to go for breakfast out and I said that I wanted to drive because Jeff (Yeah, we named him Jeff) had been on the passenger side when he had tried to 'play' with us.
I had a quick look in the car and could see no hairy legs poking out from anywhere (discounting Shane's) so I jumped in and made the optimistic / flimsy conclusion that Jeff must have gone on to greener pastures.

It happened when I was just about to pull away from the kerb. Thank god I wasn't actually driving.
It was the tone of Shanes voice that made me stop more than actually what he said.

"Don't move"

I turned to him slowly and saw that his gaze was towards me yet not quite on me. It was focused on something just behind my head.
So, in about 0.25 of a second, I undid my seatbelt and poured my floppy self out of the car and shut the door.
As I turned around to look at where Shane was looking at, I see him.
Jeff, our new friend, giant arachnid and play mate.
With his set of uber long, over friendly legs and disarming smile.
Just perched on my seat, hanging out.

After some fairly girly squeels, aforementioned arm flapping and solid heart beating from me, I manage to get my act together. Now, apologies to my braver sisters out there before I make this comment, but thank God for boys.

Shane managed to catch it this time and once it was in the safety of a tupperware container.
I could satisfy my curiosity and get a close up. Jeff was pretty big. He was pretty hairy but he was also kind of chilled and didn't seem to mind so much when we relocated him to a nearby tree.

Jeff 

Shane said that just before I had pulled away from the kerb he saw Jeff on the side of my headrest with one leg, tentatively in the air just about to set off on an exploration in the curly mess that is my hair.

Apparently, as I read later on that day when I was torturing myself with pictures and information on huntsmans; I found out that huntsman spiders have a 'cling reflex' when startled or threatened and once they clamp on it is really hard to get them to let go.

I think I was about 1 second away from becoming a traumatised, fully fledged arachnophobe.

Replaced memory of Jeff due to combination of traumatic memory relocation and Shane's impressions of a slightly morose spider who just wanted to play.

Crazy beards

Art produces ugly things which frequently become beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.
Jean Cocteau

When my friend Ang came to visit NSW from Melbourne a while back, she commented on how there is a Newy (Newcastle) look. Bit scruffy, usually in flip flops / thongs and often sporting a beard of some description. She mentioned this in comparison to the Melbourne look of shaved sides, asymmetrical hair and skinny jeans.

I thought that was pretty interesting. Local styles and all that. Except that here, not sure about England, there is a weird juxtaposition of people thinking that being a "hipster" is very uncool. Try hards, over doing it and just generally being pretty vain. I've never really understood this kind of prejudice towards people wearing certain clothes. Yeah, yeah, I get that a lot of people choose to wear stuff that matches their frame of mind / point of view and in and out groups and all that, but come on. Better to direct your energy towards something a bit more interesting.

Like this or even this...

I did find this interesting picture on the net describing the evolution of aforementioned hipster style.

  Anyway, back to beards, cos they're funnier than all this fashion malarky. Especially when people get obsessed with them like these fellas. 

                           

                                          

                                            And finally, a moose and the Norweigan flag. Brilliant.

2011 Nobel Peace Prize

 "It is the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s hope that the prize to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman will help to bring an end to the suppression of women that still occurs in many countries, and to realise the great potential for democracy and peace that women can represent."

Full article here

                                     Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

                                                        24th and current President of Liberia
                                                                      Read more

                                                                  Leymah Gbowee

                                African peace activist responsible for organising a peace movement

                                  that brought an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003

                                                                        Read more

   Tawakel Karman

                                            Yemeni politician and human rights activist who heads 

                                                 the group Women Journalists Without Chains.
                                                                          Read more

Striding ahead

In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves. Buddha

Scratch that Jeep

Scratch not far below
roots run deep
- all the way
in a matter of months
strong similarities
straddled on either side

Disappointingly, almost invisible
people asking how it copes
comfort zone
we would say it's doing well

Some things are less comfortable
soft remote
result in a wallowing experience
try to shake apart
whistles and growls.


This is the first poem I've put together since I was about 16. I say put together because I didn't really write it per se.
Last week, off I hopped to an editing workshop and this was the result of one of the exercises. We were each given a random bit of newspaper and a black marker.
Make a poem, be creative! the workshop leader spouted at us with enthusiastic smile and high expectations.
Mild panic arose. I hadn't gone near poetry since I was in my teens and still had trouble focusing whenever I optimistically opened a book of poetry.
So, instructions were to read through the article you were given and cross out any words you didn't want to include. The words you left would end up being aforementioned poem.
Relief. Yeah, I could do that. Take credit for rearranging someone else's words? Sweet.
The poem that I finished with, not so sweet.
You'd have thought it was an article about depression or perhaps even a cultural piece about refugees.
No, my scrap of newspaper was from the 'Drive' section of the SMH.
All Jeeps and cruisers and numbers I had no interest in.
What the hell does "a decent 360Nm of torque" mean anyway?

Pete's mascot on the combi.

24 hours a lifetime.

Used to weigh people's souls, honoured for symbolising victory and eaten with fried onions.

Pretty diverse list for a beautiful insect. 

I've always loved dragonflies and was happy to snap one today in the garden. 

Here it is! What a cutie.

But first, a bit of info. In the Triassic period, fossils of them reveal wingspans of over 2 feet! 

Loads of mad superstitions and tales involve dragonflies too. 

In Japan, legend has it that the Emperor of Japan was once bitten by a horsefly that was later eaten by a dragonfly. 

To honor the dragonfly, he named Japan "Akitsushima," or "the Isles of the Dragonfly."

In Swedish folklore, dragonflies were called "Blindsticka" and were rumoured to have had a penchant for picking out human eyes. Ouch. The Swedes also believed that dragonflies were used by the Devil to weigh people's souls, and that if a dragonfly swarmed around someone's head weighing his or her soul, that person could expect great injury.

                

                                              Bad Kitty chan

Not always just in stories though, in Asia they can make it to the dinner table. 

In Japan and other parts of Asia and the East Indies, dragonflies are considered a delicacy.

Dragonfly Nymphs
Num num

Children of the island of Lombok are said to catch dragonflies on long polls that are smeared with a sticky substance and then fried with onions. In Bali, dragonflies are fried with coconut oil, vegetables and spices. And in Thailand, Laos and other parts of eastern Asia, dragonfly larvae are served roasted up.

Something a bit more metaphysical..

Native American tribes believed and still believe that dragonflies are the souls of the dead.

                                          My fave..