Starve the Ego; Feed the Soul (or at least trying to)

So my last night in Chiang Mai was spent with some charming North Americans playing beer pong and drinking sambucca on ice-there were also a lot of thumb wars-extremely comical and an all round great night. It’s always such a breath of fresh air to meet people on a similar wavelength and just shoot the shit. Anyway, as much as I wish it could have continued, there was a flight to catch (another one-minus craic).

So I’ve only been on Koh Phangan for 5 days and already there’s been a major shift in me. A few epiphanies have come up in the last few days, mainly this has come up in yoga/meditation and it’s all devilishly interesting stuff altogether.

Spent my first evening walking along the beach at sunset which was just magical. So quiet, so peaceful and so colourful. Dragonflies danced around my head as I walked and the deafening harmonies of the birds at dusk filled the air. I then walked inland and came across an amazing food market where I ate all of the food. I had about 4 different dishes and probably paid in the region of €1.50 for the lot. I’m telling you, when I leave Asia the street food will be the thing my mind will yearn for, I got cant put into words how happy it makes me.

. So after shoving all the food into my face, I went for a wander. I actually ended up getting lost (naturally). I ended up in a forest with a very angsty dog giving it large at me, the inner girl guide in me was alerted and I got out the compass on my phone. To my absolute satisfaction, this bloody well worked! I managed to navigate myself back to shore in the pitch darkness. I’m sorry but sometimes, I am a fuckin GENIUS.

First 3 nights I spent in a dorm with a lot of Swedish people. Four girls to begin with-who I’m guessing we’re around 19. I tried talking to them, but after about 10 minutes of tryings to draw blood from a stone I gave up. They were challenging to say the very least. Anyway, 2 Swedish dudes then joined the ranks and were as nice as pie. So I went to dinner with them on the second evening-which came as a welcome interaction as I hadn’t spoken to anyone in about 2 days (besides trying my damnedest with the female swedes) so I was ready for some human contact. We went for Mexican food and talked for hours, covering most general topics. They are 23 and are mainly here to party. However on this night in question, they had only had 2 hours sleep from the previous night. They were trying to maintain stamina and go again but that was clearly a lost cause. Both were comatose by 11pm. I trust they have since gone on to rip up the town.

The next morning, I got up early and went to a 9am yoga class in a local retreat centre. The teacher was Russian and looked exactly like Robert Carlyle. Can you imagine a Russian Robert Carlyle guiding you through meditative practise? Just try picture that for a minute because it was an altogether hilarious circumstance and his harsh Russian dialect didn’t really offer anything to the calming aspect. Didn’t matter though, I was enjoying it for how bizarre it all was. To add to this; there was heavy building work going on right beside us. The construction workers were obviously hammering something down into the earth, at every hammer, the earth literally shook. Instead of letting this disrupt the class, Robert Carlyle-using his ingenuity-suggested that we use the earth shattering banging to guide our breath and maintain our own inner stillness even the the floor was literally vibrating. Fair play to him anyways for putting some kind of spin on a fairly shit situation. He was an interesting teacher. Very regimented (Russian influence?) not at all free flowing. He would set up a sequence and then we would do it 2–4 times. The class was all women, he began with a sequence to aid with our moon cycles-fairly ironic coming from a dude, but hey, I’m always one to go with the flow. His class kind of took you on a journey and I’ve never been to a class like that, so the experience resonated. Thank you Russian Robert Carlyle.

After the trials and tribulations of the Swedish dorm, I decided it was time to upgrade slightly, even if it was just temporary. I went further up the coast and checked into a hotel with my own room where I could be in my own space for a bit. The weather was quite turbulent, so I was grateful to have a space indoors where I could be alone. My room opened up onto an alcove where the shoreline was lined by Palm trees and tethered boats. Couldn’t have asked for more tranquility. I did a lot of yoga, focusing on hip openers which always takes its emotional toll-but all for good reason. I did some meditation and went up to the restaurant for dinner, massaman curry with the perfect amount of kick. The atmosphere would have been spot on had there not been 4 toddlers sprinting from one side of the restaurant to the other with unheard of amounts of energy and a decibel level to match. Must remember not to reprimand other people’s children.

The next day, I rented a moped and whizzed right up the coast to the very northern tip of the islands. The turquoise saturation of the ocean and the sky makes them almost amalgamate with one another, set off by the deep lush greens of the surrounding foliage. Photographs don’t do anything for the scene which is in front of you. This is something which must be in your reality to be fully appreciated. I met up with an old friend for lunch, another Lucy. Lucy and I used to work together for MAC cosmetics in London. Lucy is a visual artist as well as an MUA. She also practises reiki and has moved to Koh Phangan running a photography business focusing on capturing woman in their most primal state, or the state of the goddess which she calls it. There are a lot of people up on the north of the island doing yoga retreats or courses in tantra so her client base is ever flowing. We had a beautiful lunch and went for a walk along the beach. We did a water mediation in front of the ocean and she offered me a reiki session the next day. Knowing my past energy field and my current one; Lucy was able the grasp the change in me already since the last time we saw each other -about 3 years ago, when I was under the black energy vamp of London. I jumped at the chance at a session with her.

This morning, I got up around 7, had a quick breakfast and drove up to Lucy’s house on the north of the island, the road was desolate and beautiful. I took it all in and relished the silence around me. Not a soul around. Lucy lives just off the beaten track in a big chalet type house. The place is beautiful. Stone floors and wide open spaces. Upstairs was a giant unwalled room, Buddha resting on an alter in the corner and a treatment bed in the middle of the floor. The treatment lasted about an hour and a half. Starting with an intention for the treatment (which was up to me) we sat cross legged in front of each other setting the intention in. I knew exactly what issues I wanted to focus on and had a fair idea myself on which of my chakras needed work. I lay down and Lucy anointed me with an essential oil which would resonate with my intention. She placed crystals all the way up my chakras and began. While accessing the energies, Lucy uses sound to permeate into my chakras. Various things came up for me throughout, I couldn’t feel my body for the entire process. Afterward, she confirmed which chakras were open and thriving and which needed work. She also gave me some things to work on in my own time to get to the root of what’s coming out of my subconscious into the fore.

A lot of meditations happening now and new meridians opening up. Things becoming more apparent to me; things which had been stuffed away at the back of my brain. Stuff swallowed by subconscious. Meditation is definitely a task. But there is no rule book. Focus on the breath works for me. But I still struggle. It’s hard when you’ve got Even Flow by Pearl Jam on repeat in your head, or you decide to start figuring out your finances at this precise moment or wonder about trivial things, like which brand of butter you prefer. It happens. That’s the mind. Observe and move on. The butter will still be there later.

‘You’ve gotta be alone, to figure things out sometimes.’ -Kurt Vile