✨Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think) 💖

Posted on November 16, 2019 by nomadoftheuniverse

I am about 15 years late to the party 🙂 but I finally watched “House”. I am a massive medical show fan but the obnoxiousness of the main character kept me from watching it for a while. I loved the song that plays in the finale, it echoes the buddhist message that our problem is that we think we have time… Today and now, fellow nomads, now or never! Get. It. Done.

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New practice — a sensory deprivation tank

Posted on November 9, 2019 by nomadoftheuniverse

As you know, I love trying new practices that allow me to prod my unconscious 🙂  While researching next practice to try, I learned that FloatWorks offer floating in a sensory deprivation tank in London and I dived straight in 🙂  This is what the pod looks like 👆 

It is a strange experience – you are left in a room by yourself with what looks like an alive (water filter is on) giant jacuzzi with a lid. 

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Emptiness practice, from a cat

Posted on November 2, 2019 by nomadoftheuniverse

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A year later: what psilocybin taught me

Posted on October 26, 2019 by nomadoftheuniverse
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Source: The UK Psychedelic Society.

On September 28th, it was a year after my psilocybin ceremony. I celebrated by rewatching The Mind Explorers, buying an LED mushroom lamp from Ikea 🙂  and thinking about what I continue learning a year on after that amazing, life changing experience.

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New practice: love the season you hate

Posted on October 19, 2019 by nomadoftheuniverse

Source: Tricycle

The onset (onslaught) of the austere British autumn with its chills, wool layers and mandatory cold (or in my case sinusitis) reminded me that I am not a big fan of winter. I love spring which is filled with flowers and hope. I love summer filled with parties and fun. I learned to love autumn with its beautiful light, quiet cozy nights and anticipation. But I can not bring myself to love, or even like, winter. Continue reading →

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Make art even if it sucks — Hitrecord ‘Death’ remix

Posted on October 12, 2019 by nomadoftheuniverse

 Making art is something I have missed when I was busy. In my archives I dug out this cheery 🙂  short film that I remixed using rewfoe (Hitrecord user) imagery . Perhaps I should return to creating there, there is really nothing else like it as far as I am aware. And Joseph Gordon Levitt who created this project is of course a darling 🙂  Now, does anybody understand what the idea of the video was? My editing skills are work in progress…

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Chicken Ryaba, Buddhism and emptiness — an interpretation of an old Russian folk tale

Posted on October 5, 2019 by nomadoftheuniverse

As one of their first fairy tales, children in the Russian speaking countries used to get told an old Russian folk tale about Kurochka (Chicken) Ryaba. It is a very simple story (see below*) that is not so simple once you start trying to figure out its meaning. After an extensive (a couple of days online) and fascinating research I have concluded my findings in the following poem, heavily influenced by buddhist teachings on emptiness and dharma. The sort of things you do on a mini retirement…

* Kurochka (Chicken) Ryaba is an old Russian folk tale about a poor old couple whose chicken lays a golden egg. An old man and woman have no clue what to do with it. The appearance of the golden egg causes all sorts of disasters and chaos in the village and only after a mouse destroys the golden egg, the peace is restored. An old man and woman are sad and Ryaba consoles them with a promise that she would never again lay anything but common eggs. 

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The allure of unrequited love, or why we fall for unavailable people #crush

Posted on September 28, 2019 by nomadoftheuniverse

To all love addicts out there…

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Art therapy — a piece of summer

Posted on September 21, 2019 by nomadoftheuniverse

I wanted a memento of summer for dark winter days. I did some research and found this Lego idea on internet. In retrospect I could have knit it rather than use plastic but here we are. Art therapy and seasonal therapy combined 🙂

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Life purpose – everything I’ve learned so far

Posted on September 14, 2019 by nomadoftheuniverse

Blogging is like gardening. You go back several years, 6 or 2, you read your old posts and you realise how far you have come. This morning I’ve had an urgent urge 🙂  to summarise everything I’ve learned about life purpose. I have went through the purpose related posts on this blog, carefully pruned them (find top ones here) and summarised key insights below (see the end of the post). I then thought – are we even meant to have a life purpose? and jotted down the possible scenarios. Behold the bubble diagram!

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The day was crisp/ The light was new/ Autumn has come/ Like deja vu

Posted on September 7, 2019 by nomadoftheuniverse

Man, I forgot how much I love autumn. I was washing dishes one day and glanced outside – the light was different. It was soft as if I was in an oil painting. The angle has changed.

Sunlight in autumn is very special. I remembered a photo I made ages ago at my friend’s dacha (summer house). This photo encapsulates for me what an autumn day feels like – the light, the still life, the decor, the memories of that day (it was a grape picking picnic). I should print this out and put it on the wall.

Happy autumn, fellow nomads!

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If it’s not fun, don’t do it! And if you must do it, make it fun!

Posted on August 31, 2019 by nomadoftheuniverse

What do you do when you are mini retired? Well, art, of course. In the Episode 94 of the Here and Now podcast Ram Dass tells a hilarious story about cooking a lobster with his father as a buddhist (from 18:55). It’s an interesting question – do you cling to your holiness or do you live out your reincarnation as a lobster eating father’s son? It made me laugh so much I had to bring it to life in a collage 🙂

ram dass lobster FINAL

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Postcard paradise. Emptiness and holidays.

Posted on August 24, 2019 by nomadoftheuniverse

You can go as far as you wish – and yet, there you are. Hope you have a joyful holiday and enjoy this poem. Continue reading →

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Chanting with Ram Dass – Rama Rama

Posted on August 17, 2019 by nomadoftheuniverse

I have not realised how purifying, elevating and electrifying chanting is until I tried it. Wow! You don’t have to be a buddhist, religious, spiritual or have singing abilities (I don’t). Chant along and feel the expansion and the light. You can find the Here and Now podcast in your phone podcast app or on Youtube here. From 33:33 in an app, from 33:00 on youtube. Have a nice flight. Rama Rama.

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Kafka on stillness

Posted on August 10, 2019 by nomadoftheuniverse

I have left my corporate job recently and have been on a mini retirement mainly exploring and embracing emptiness from a buddhist perspective (or as my husband puts it, doing not much 🙂 ). I am reading books on stillness and non-doing like E. Slingerland’s Trying Not To Try and H.D. Thoreau‘s Walden.

Kafka is right, you don’t need to do anything, go anywhere – instead slow down, stay still, emptiness will come and wash through you, don’t escape like you always do, don’t try to fill it – face it instead, let it fill your heart and discover that it’s a veil, yet another illusion behind which is a delightful fullness *insert Mona Lisa smiley*

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