be the change

Sculpture by street artist Isaac Cordal, which has been dubbed "Politicians Debating Global Warming."

As we cultivate our life, our beauty becomes much more about what we are creating and doing than it is about our appearance. Having moved to London recently, after 8 years or so overseas, I've adjusted to a very different world here. I've had moments of 'burgh London' and all the bias I've had with life in the big city. Nevertheless I have very thankfully maintained a fairly balanced lifestyle, healthy food, regular yoga practice, soul fulfilling projects and had time for friends and family. However, city life overall seems hectic to me.

And yet this is life for most of our planet. Urbanisation is a growing trend and learning how to foster a conscious community here is essential for our survival. I wonder a lot on how these concrete hubs will evolve. Cities are pretty new in human evolution, they're organisms that were founded upon industrialisation, productivity and capitalisation. How does one create a lifestyle that is sustainable remaining honourable and supportive to life here? How can we create a community that is real, tangible, empathetic and humanly connected beyond Facebook / Instagram / Snapchats / Whatsapps and Whatnots? How do we make empowered choices on our well-being in a system that doesn't encourage us to live healthily? GDP aligns with waistlines. War is good for business. Our money system benefits from people's poor health.

So these are questions that concern the philosopher in me.

Recently after an evening of feeling overwhelmed by the outside world's cries notably after the presidential elections and integrating 'the world is coming to an end' and what that feels like in my nervous system (something like: "OMG OMG OMG!!!"). I had a big fat reminder to take full responsibility for creating beauty in my life. 

I see the world order as mostly unfair, elitist and cognitively manipulative. And the politicians are fighting to keep it propped up as people wake up to the Truth and see through the lies and insanity. 

Change can hurt like hell, growth pains and can scare the crap out of anyone but being stuck hurts a whole lot more. How many more species does this planet need to lose? What happened to the eco-system? In marched man made ego system.

So this microcosm of Jess orbit is consciously focusing energies on creating healthy and nurturing spaces, projects and experiences in the service of life from the inside out. It's a process after a really gritty year. So besides therapy, yoga, meditation, healthy eating and studies, I'm creating beauty where I can to nurture the soul, express my heart and liberate my mind. It's a huge shift from scarcity and fear to abundance and faith. Like I said, it's a process and I'm learning.

Below are some projects on my radar. I invite you to consider supporting them too:

• Standing Rock - What greater metaphor for the way in which our system is failing us than to see how sacred lands and waters are having to be protected by peaceful protestors led by indigenous tribes. USA's oil addiction looks to fuel the destruction of life and hope. This could be us all one day.
• Fund a learning centre in Guatemala - getting children out of poverty through education. This is a really special and inspiring project.
• Support The Dreamflag Project // Cloud Cloth - uniting children's dreams through creativity from around the world. A community that keeps the dream alive.
• The Venus Project - The future! An organisation that proposes a feasible plan of action for social change.
• Circular Economy - an enterprise sharing insights on how to design products and solutions with the view of abundance and sustainability. Recycling waste and efficiency models. A circular economy!
• Snowflake the Last Lost Polar Bear - a children's book sharing the tale of baby polar bear Snowflake and his journeys through melting ice caps addressing climate change and his hearts tale from fear to love. Kickstarter coming soon. Please do get in touch if you'd like to back it.
• Schumacher College - an international centre for nature-based education, personal transformation and collective action.
• The Shanti Space Yoga & Meditation Classes - I'm on a mission to peace out London! I've started teaching yoga & meditation for body, mind and soul. Reach out for class details at my mini 'studio come ashram' in Fulham: info@theshantispace.com

"Be the change you wish to see in the world" - Good old Gandhi.

Suggested reading:
The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible by Charles Eisenstein

going for gaia

Earlier this year I went to a special place tucked up in the jungles of Thailand. A place immersed deeply in nature called Gaia Ashram that welcomes students from around the world to learn and grow together in alignment with nature.

Gaia Ashram hosted 25 of us and with inspiringly talented teachers and facilitators we dug deeper in to the learning’s of the land. We were empowered with practical knowledge that enabled us all to live a more sustainable lifestyle free from the dependency we have on unnatural resources and the short cuts of the modern age which rely heavily on toxic substances, that consequentlypollute our lands.

On my journey, I am again and again awestruck by Nature and am grateful for the practices that have connected me deeply with her / it. I know there are some who see and advocate for a better alignment of our collective energies with the planet and the one organism we are all a part of.

What I experienced at Gaia Ashram was more than an internship. While we trained in practical ways to build and grow organically and learned how to sustain and support life; it was also an opportunity to go more deeply in to the unwavering truth within that recognises itself in nature. Realising this oneness nurtures a very genuine care for life on this planet. I still smile to myself when I remember my friend Pasang, a Tibetan monk who would pick the beetles from the path as we trekked through the Himalayas. So divine to see such a care for life.

For the first two weeks we studied Natural Building learning how to create structures from the materials of the land. It was so awesome to realise that one can build bricks and mortar simply from combining the plasticity of clay found in the earth mixed with sand to give it structure. In a beautiful way it was like building a giant sandcastle as we collaborated in a mud pit, made bricks and built walls (and a pizza oven!) out of all the materials available on site. There were no masks and lots of muddy hands!

The days were long, starting at 5.45am for meditation and yoga before breakfast followed by the day’s offerings of Personal Empowerment Workshops and Natural Building. Our international group; zany, honest and beautiful, over time gently opened up and the masks slowly faded away as we got more and more vulnerable and real together. It was so refreshing.

We learned how to work together in a community, the responsibility of honouring time and energy of others and the challenging recognition that community living is no walk in the park. That there can be an abundance of triggers; that some people get upset if there’s sugar in their breakfast and that others just don’t want to play in the group and that it is all ok. It is not a common experience in Western society to have so many people living so closely together and I feel I have more empathy for the families that live on top of one another in the East or in the shanty towns I saw in South America.

What amazed me was how such a large group of people were able to reconcile - if not appreciate - their differences while practicing non-violent communication (aka 'Compassionate Communication') void of the notoriously disempowering finger point when expressing feelings in a group setting. We encouraged one another to take full responsibility for our choices and yet there was an embracing honesty and accountability. It fascinated me to watch our humanity unfold in this shared intimate space and while I was there to learn more practical teachings so I can build my own sustainable empire one-day; these lessons were undoubtedly invaluable.

The second two weeks had us in the garden planting organic vegetables, creating compost, natural pesticides and veggie patches. Surprisingly I found the garden to be a very welcome retreat from all the activity going on and I loved offering my time and energy to pulling out weeds (very liberating!) while creating a stunning mandala pebble path to beautify the space. I tapped in to the inner gardener in me and am excited to devote more time to crafting edible gardens in the future rather than putting energy in to the supermarket giants and some pretty horrific farming practices.

Deep Ecology lectures and workshops asked us to look at the world and humankinds place within it. How we are behaving on a collective scale and what practical steps one may wish to take to realign with nature and the sustainability of our planet. It was not always easy and through Joanna Macy’s processes we went deep in to honouring the pain of Nature, something Western society feels very uncomfortable with even expressing let alone honouring. These practices were however empowering as we also committed to offering more to the care of our planet.

But what of this for you dear reader? Well, I don’t know if you are with me or not, but I need to be honest about my feelings on how we really treat the planet and ultimately ourselves. I wouldn't say I was anymore perfect than the next person, but I continue persistently to try and learn how to tread lightly and live life with sobriety, implementing energy thoughtfully considering all I have learned.
It’s been a pretty humbling process and not something I expected to find myself doing when I chose to leave corporate life for world explorations.

To completely embody our true nature we must develop a greater awareness, honesty and responsibility for our inside worlds and a gentleness with that. To see the self-limiting beliefs and behaviours that can be deeply embedded in the psyche and drop the masks worn to protect bottled fears inside. I cannot begin to tell you how liberating and expansive that process is but perhaps witnessing my travels around the world might reflect that to you; Anything really is possible. Which is why I remain hopeful.

I hope that the world we create together will reflect a deep compassion, care and practice that is in alignment with the rhythms of nature and to have care - if not reverence - for Nature’s great unifying spirit. 

Interesting article: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/14/nasa-civilisation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists

Great TED Talk 'Life is Easy. Why do we make it so hard': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21j_OCNLuYg

practically loving nature

Eco experience Uruguay - a project on sustainable living from Michelle Raymond

While in Buenos Aires, I studied at the TEFL English School with two wonderful teachers; Michelle and Brad (below) who moved to Argentina from South Africa. Since that time they have embarked on a new adventure together; they are creating a stunning sustainable community in the hills of Uruguay. Environmentally conscious living at its finest.

Michelle & Brad

What is the use of a house if you don't have a decent planet to put it on? - Henry David Thoreau

At present they only have the land tucked in the hills of Uruguay. There are no buildings on it, so they have to start everything from the very beginning. Their plans are incredibly exciting and will provide a beautiful place for people to enjoy the divine scent of their lavender fields, learning to tend the land with opportunities to study English and do yoga while living sustainably. Such a wonderful beacon of light for people looking for a change or to learn new paradigms of sustainable living in this world.

In the meantime they need money to make this project really happen. They have some funds to start but to speed it along Brad and Michelle are putting a call out for donations and investment capital and obviously, I really would like to support them in anyway I can.

You can learn more about their project here on their blog and visit here to make a most worthy donation to their project.
If 100 people gave us either $5 or 5pounds, it would help their project tremendously. 

lost & tripping with shamans in NYC

Aya: Awakenings - Trailer from Rak Razam on Vimeo.

For all those seeds the vine has touched, and for those yet to sprout....   

Rushing through the cold streets of drizzly New York City after a couple of mis-directions on the subway, I finally arrived at the cinema. I looked around “is this the right place” I asked myself as I mopped my sweaty brow and took in a deep centering breath. While according to my friend Kyle, getting lost may arguably be my forte, being late is something I constantly work with in the land of time especially since my watch strap decided to snap (and not having a phone etc.) 

The scent of sage filled my nostrils and soothed my nerves while affirming that despite being a little late for the showing; I had arrived at the right place. This was the evening I was going on a trip to the Amazon and thanks to my tardiness, my friend and I (sorry Pablo!) were forcibly sat on the front row for some airborne journeys of Pacha Mamma spirit through shamanic medicines in Rak Razam’s latest documentary; AYA Awakenings.

While personally, I advocate meditation; it did become very clear to me that there are medicines out there for those searching for that heart opening experience of oneness. I asked Rak some questions after what was a wonderfully insightful experience. 

1. For those who do not know about Ayahuasca can you describe its qualities?

Ayahuasca is an indigenous plant medicine from the Amazon that combines MAO-inhibiting vine with DMT-containing plants for a hallucinogenic (visionary healing modality. You can feel the vine seeping through your blood and body as it locks onto your vibrational frequency and starts clearing and healing blockages and supressions, ills and hurts. It can be a bitter earthy medicine, or sometimes neutral, thick or syrupy, and like most medicines it usually tastes awful. But it is the most powerful tool in the Amazonian shaman's medicine cabinet. It's been proven to scientifically relink up the synapses of the brain flushing it clean, and you purge and vomit up any sicknesses within you, whilst simultaneously being thrust into a world of geometric visions, sometimes spirits, entities, and multi-dimensional reality!

2. In the documentary, one of the most powerful shots was sharing your experience during the Ayahuasca ritual. In as far as words can describe, what was that like?

I liken it to a connection to the web of life, but a visceral, real, immediate and emotional connection. Ayahuasca opened up my heart chakra, my ability to feel, my intellectual-empathic pathways to feel the fact that there are no negative spaces separating us from everything... we are all connected in the Great Green Womb where we are all one, the atomic sea of vibrational consciousness itself. To feel the wind and the breath of mother nature, to hear the frogs and insects and know with a certainty they are talking with one another and pouring through spirit in the sounds, connecting and cascading the other species in the web, to feel that connection and the intimacy of life itself is transforming.

3. Has that changed the way you perceive and interact with the world?

I think so. I'm in the baseline world most of the time, but with an overlay memory of that interconnection and awareness of the larger matrix of nature and us as one species strand in the collective, interdependent whole. Every thought, word, action and deed ripples through the web of becoming and that remembrance reminds me to be as present, loving and understanding as I can in each moment. Sometimes that 'holographic awareness' can see the causal domino effect as certain events and things interact and connect to the larger whole, and sometimes I can see those strands and how they connect with an empathic knowing. The world is alive and aware and we are but one layer of Gaia's never endings in matter...!

4. One of your panelists mentioned the power of one's imagination. What are your thoughts on the mainstream media's impact on this in our present world?

The imagination has become ensconced in the mind forg'd manacles Blake wrote about in our modern age. Imagination has at once been commodified down to a narrow bandwidth of possibility, and the cultural dreamings we once had in our tribal mythologies are erased, or worst, co-opted and turned into saccharine Hollywood films. The heroic archetype has similarly been commodified by Hollywood like a virus that has taken control of the host body and is used to tap into this deep longing the human race has to express its imagination, which for me is linked to intuition and can be used as a valuable psychic tool to carve out the imaginal realm, to make manifest what we dream amongst an infinite sea of morphing probability. Imagination can be our GPS to survive, to dream in a better world, to improve the human condition, to think outside the box and to magically make real probability streams to anchor the thing we dream. Imagination is our anchor to the infinite, more than its come to mean in the denuded western entertainment complex: I-mage-i-nation is a holy, spiritual act where we overlap with Great Spirit and know and become.

5. What is your vision for the future of mankind and our planet?

Well let's talk sustainability - what does that mean? Ditching hierarchies, power (or revealing power has always been about the collective, the tribe, the majority) and collecting and connecting in networks, tribes, extended family structures that understand needs and wants, taking only what they need, and feeding the web of life around in all directions. Letting go of the old world of division, loving and caring for all our fellow being and species as interdependent units in a greater whole, working together for maximum connection and meaning.

Plant entheogens can reveal our own divinity, our soul, and at the same time reveal the frequency of soul we are embedded in, the existence of an ecology of souls and sentience that extends far beyond the physical. I feel the plants are tuning us back into these potentials as training wheels, and the medicine helps us remember our full beings as galactic citizens, and sometime soon we won't need the medicines, but will step forth with the ability to engage with the greater whole. 

More info on AYA Ayahuasca USA Tour 

happiness shouldn't cost the earth

I really like this TED talk.

There are many methods that exist today whereby we rely on the old systems which served a great purpose back in the day, but transposed in to the world we live in right now, may not be the most efficient way about it.

Nic Marks asks us to question a country's measure of success, the definition we rely on is a financial one, the GDP. But production doesn't relate to happiness and that is what really matters to people, in fact, as Simon Kuznets said in the 1930's "a nations welfare can scarcely be inferred from their national income" and so based on the scarced resource, the planet, what system is an effective one for measuring people's well-being whilst also considering that production isn't necessarily sustainable?

He believes the Happiness Index.

Asked in order of preference what was most important to a survey of people (importance ratings worldwide):

1. Happiness
2. Love
3. Health
4. Wealth
   

As you can see the first three are very close to one another, wealth on the other hand important, but not ranking so highly. So why is it we hear daily media updates on the stock exchange, the exchange rates, the performance of gold and yet we don't learn of a country's energy use? How close we are to achieving our carbon emission targets? As Marks puts it - our "collective goals"?

Marks also eludes to some truths in terms of what does make people happy:

• Connections - social relationships are the most important cornerstones of your life. Connectivity will also allow us to work together to achieve something good and if something does go wrong (peak oil for example), its these communities that will really make a difference to how we adjust and survive it.
• Be active - do things, go outside, listen to music. Being stagnant doesn't make us happy.
  
• Take notice - mindfulness is very strong for our well-being, cognitive therapy talks to how being in the moment and aware of your surroundings will help you feel good.
  
• Keep learning - being ever curious, always learning throughout your lifetime will keep you happier longer.
  
• Give - altruism and compassion are all hardwired to the reward mechanism in our brains, this something I am very much interested in (Changing the perceptions of giving)
  

And so bringing this to a grassroots level, whilst here we can question a country's measurement of its success (set in a time when production was paramount to the country's development), I feel there is another big question to ask - what is the correct measurement of the success of ourselves?