APW: Travel Blog #2 - Honolulu to Manilla to Rak Tamachat

Design a life that makes you happy and stimulated.  Create this in a sustainable way that includes abundance for you to give back for all the gifts we are given throughout this life. Live.  Learn.  Live.

Grateful to be alive, breathing country air, choosing to be on the road again.  My spirit has in a few short days begun to feel more calm and free.  The road in front of me leads into the illusive horizon.  I recognize how I’ve changed since the last time I engaged in travel.  I recognize how I will continue to grow and be different, though at the core, I will always be the boy who fell asleep face first into a plate of spaghetti.

I begin my travel, inevitably, with lessons to learn.  Immediately tested with expectations, and how to be patient with your path, and to not get hung up on what you think will be, because there is no true knowing.  All of this translates to: I miss my flight to Bangkok.  It is becoming an unskilled art of mine, to (un)intentionally not take preplanned flights to places.    And having familiarity with this feeling, I chose to avoid feelings of annoyance and disappointment with the expense and the adapted schedule.  So I sat at the airport, accepted the circumstances, and instead enjoyed another 2 days on Hawai’I, exploring the island of Oahu for the first time.    I ventured to the north shore, met a permaculturist from New Zealand on the bus, met some world travelers at hostel I stayed at, hung out on the beach at night, and took one last swim in the Hawaiian seas.

Accept the challenges and changes with introduce themselves into your lives.  Even if they appear disagreeable, invite them in and learn from them.  Do not reject the circumstances that have been placed at the table in front of you.  Rearrange your ingredients, get creative, and cook up something wonderful.

Food for thought:

In the two gifted days on Oahu, I was able to talk story about organic farming with Oahu and Kauai Natives, along with a boy from El Paso, the customs security agent, Israeli and German Travelers.  Previously when traveling I was an observer and listener, now I feel I have something worth sharing.   I will share what I have learned about healing the soil, for the benefit of the plant, the humans eating and breathing, and the ecosystem.   It all fits perfectly, into a natural ecosystem that this world has distanced itself from.  Who knows what any of these conversations lead to?  I was on a whim when I traveled to Hawai’i on a great friend’s suggestion 4 years ago.  We never know what we will become, only that every influence in our lives nurtures growth.

I will not preach, and I let most ideas be, but when a philosophy has the potential to harm the natural world and its inhabitants, it can spread like wildfire, I will stand up and have a go at balancing the larger forces out there.  I will do what I can and find my peace with the rest.

Incredible Person of the Day Award:

On my flight to the Philippines I sat next to a Chef in Waikiki.  He visits his family at home in the Philippines every three months.  What a beautiful responsibility he fulfills.  He told me is so grateful to be able to work away and come home and provide for his wife in children.  Not many are so fortunate to be able to provide for their family and live their passion.  I admired greatly this man named Jazz.

View from the roadside #1: bench at Waikiki Sunset

There was man offering directions and laughing the pigeon’s ineptitude of receiving them.  He did this for hours, waving his hands wildly, raising his eyebrows to the sky.  He was incredulous and mocking, using the rolled up newspaper to slap his hand in disbelief or direct the pigeon towards the ocean, as if that is where his destination lay.

He performed 10 meters in front of me, while next to me lies my backpack: my only belonging and reliable portable home for the next 6 months.  Next to my backpack sat an elderly Japanese woman, a real stunner.  Equipped with silky gray hair, a gentle thin smile and an elegant oriental summer dress. 

The trolley on the street rings behind, footsteps flood the street, all shapes sizes and colors, a woman plays ukulele to the ocean, which plays percussion for her.  The music of the city.  A city both beautiful and contrived.  With splatters of Hawaiian, Polynesian, International and Metropolitan culture all mixed and spewed on shore from belly of the humpback whale.  A culture that breeds pro surfers, executives wearing ties, bikini models, homeless haircuts, Polynesian dresses and all walks of life.  Similar to Las Vegas for me, Honolulu is a city that does not belong in its landscape.  And it is strange, having lived in such close proximity to this metropolis, but not seeing it face-to-face until now, to feel this way.  We are 2400 miles away from a great landmass, and it is both strange and beautiful, to say a hui hou to Hawai’i from Hana to Waikiki.

I spend my last day here waking up with the sun on the North Shore.  I arrive by bus to the Bishop Museum and then make my way to Waikiki.  Through the long uneventful hours of riding the bus I sit and admire the landscape and introspect on the idea of spending time with oneself.  I have been tossed around the island last year like a rag doll, though this was all my choosing.  I am choosing now to remove myself from the world of clutter and distraction and focus on nurturing myself and relationships and communities around me.  I live with the undesirable sacrifices I made last year. 

Back in Waikiki, a man in robes walks by carrying a torch and touching the flame to the tikis across the boardwalk.  A woman next to me tells me she is unable to write about more songs cause they all end up with pain.  Can’t escape the ‘he-done-me-wrong’ loops.  I offer her a smile and hints of forgiveness.  The sun drops a few inches closer to the horizon, the hula dancers are in swing, and the hokulea and company of twinkling stars awaits beyond the darkening blue sky.  A German with a beer belly, white tennis shoes and an ironed aloha shirt sits down on the other side of me and snorts.  A big smile spreads across his face.  He loves his wife.  He loves his life.  Isn’t America beautiful?

200 years ago who would have thought this would become of Waikiki?  On this trip across continents and seas I will be measuring how times travels across this modern world.    And how the inhabitants of these lands balance its influence.  What do I know?  I don’t lay claims to know more or anything.  I am here to observe, speculate, grow, seek and participate.

As I consider all this, the man arguing with the pigeon returns.  Frustrated, laughing and smiling, I love it all.

 

Soon to come:

My journey to Rak Tamachat in Thailand.
Overview of my natural buildings course.
Ethics regarding the introduction of a non-native species into an environment.

APW: Beginning a Travel Blog

In a sense, this has always been a travel blog.  I journey and write along the way.  However, this is a more intentional phase where I will be traveling and documenting my experiences along the way.

72 hours from now I will be waiting in Honolulu Airport to board a plane traveling west to what western civilization calls the east.  It will be my first journey to a world rooted in tradition that extends beyond the reach of British Imperialism (some of it), and further back than the days of Columbus.  I will be observing, participating, engaging with an open mind, knowing I may be relearning the basics, such as breathing, eating, walking, smiling.  I am entering this new world in a state of transition.  I am not wiping my slate clean, though I am beginning again with an experientially developed foundation.  As cliffs are formed by the prevailing winds, beating rain and the waves of time, I too have been molded by the natural forces of this earth; the events that I have not foreseen or imagined, that have all befallen me while I enact growth on this little rock. The cycling of randomness, the balance that surrounds it, and the nurturing within it.   I am a pawn, I am the chessboard, I am the stillness before the storm.

I am many things and I have lived many lives, and I am seeking not to forget them, but to simplify them into a state of present awareness, where I can engage with others as a better, more helpful self.   My journey is one of learning, and giving back.  I am indescribably grateful for all the people who I have crossed paths with and the impacts each has had on my life.  From the friends growing up in New York to camping trips in the desert and the mountains, from September holidays with family to the mentors who have guided me without trying, from the island dwellers who have humbled me with their good natures and large hearts to the amazing people I have met in just the last month and have shared experiences that I will never forget. 

I am ready to create new loops and finds pace from the persisting ones to help gain perspective and move towards attaining a state of peace with all that has and will transpire.  I am leaving with this intention for personal growth and engagement with cultures I have not yet immersed myself in.   I travel to seek balance between the diverse peoples and places of this world, to note the similarities, and to see how sustainable cooperative systems can be applied across oceans, or simply shared with neighbors.   I will be growing food, and learning how the Nepalese and Thai sustain there ways of life (and thrive) without all the advancements of the encroaching modern world.

I begin this travel blog, still on Maui, not fully ready for flight.  The moment I physically step on the plane and watch the islands become clouds as I ascend towards the atmosphere will cement that all this is real and is happening.   There will be postcards and pictures to follow, and new feelings and sensations to describe.  My eyes are wide and my heart is beating and and I will return, someday, soon myself.

APW: 2013 Still Here, Where'd It Go?

There are thousands of ways to measure time.  What a year it has been.  Some elements of this past year that were previously constants in my life have slipped by without awareness.   Other events have occurred last week and already feel foreign, as if they transpired months ago.   And then, with a few deep breaths and reflection, I am able to recall past relationships and adventures so vividly that I feel the same breeze that blew in years ago. 

We all share this space, this dirt, this air and though we may be on similar wavelengths, we all individually perceive how the day and the seasons pass through our own lens, with our own memories and experiences.  I haven’t consciously not updated this blog.  I have found myself engaged in other experiences, and this was one of the many elements of my life that has slipped.

This will be an update more than a meditation.  A catch up from my end, and I would love to hear how your year is going too.  I have much to share, and I am finally giving myself time tonight, to "finish my thoughts" and reflect more wholly with consideration to the past and the present.  I've been in such a state of hurry, or rather living in a focused and planned present, that it hardly allows time for self-growth, reflection and carefully considered questioning of the day and the moment.

I am guilty too of finding myself lost in moments where I do not appreciate the beauty of the ocean, the wind, the trees, the stars, the sunset.  Too “engaged with work” that when I look up and see the beautiful starry night, I have entirely neglected the sunset and transition of first star to thousand, one of my favorite times to be conscious of the world outside.

What has been existing for me is the meditation of completing the giant task list, problem solving along the way, falling asleep and repeating.  I’m on a 3 week bender of working from waking to sleeping (while taking better care of myself than earlier this year, with good nutrition, and often though not always good nights of sleep).    I will persist this pattern until August 26th when I head up to Haleakala for a 5 day camping trip.  First few days with friends and then some alone time.  I will soon be going on a trip that will draw me away from Maui for the longest period of time since 2010.  And I am very much ready for it, or at least I think I am.

So here I go, being more mindful about my thoughts and writings, as I recognize I have not treated my last year with that same sense of awareness and intention.  It has been full of spontaneity, and often disregard for myself in light of the bigger picture, which are neither good nor bad qualities.  I’d suggest they are necessary in this life, though they require a balance.

My work with the Community Work Day, now Malama Maui Nui, a Maui non-profit that focuses on the resilience, beautification, sustainability and restoration of culture and food security on Maui nui is coming to a healthy completion.  We just had a large workday at the greenhouse with 12 volunteers, about 8 from Hana, and it went excellent.   It was well planned and well executed.  We did a complete transformation of the gardens outside and the greenhouse inside.  Did a lot of work on plant hygiene and plant propagation.  All the plants in the greenhouse are grown for school and community gardens.  I am feeling more  comfortable each week handing this over to very capable hands.  I believe it will continue its path of maintenance, steady growth, and thriving plants.

The nursery business has been a larger learning experience than I could have imagined.  I have been running it the last few weeks without Jason, my business partner.  I now have a full grasp of the operation from production to finances to marketing to administration.  I have learned some, (though so much more to learn!) of the Hawaiian landscape, made many great connections, learned about budgeting and scheduling what it entails to run a business.  Though it has been a roller coaster year, I am grateful to have seen it through to this point.  I am taking space from it after creating many sustainable systems, where it will continue to grow.  In the last year we have annexed and established infrastructure in two new growing spaces (had to establish one twice after a flash flood), and one 4000 sq ft. greenhouse filled with healthy plants.  We now have benches in multiple retail stores (Home Depot and True Value) that sell Certified Organic Vegetable and Herb Starts (only nursery on Hawai'i to do so!) and Organic Edible Landscaping and native plants.  We have and are growing many fruit trees and beneficials as well and I am proud to contribute in this way to taking small steps towards food security on the island.

I'm slowly getting ready for Nepal, where I’ll be doing a 4 month program with Tevel B’tzedek, an Israeli Non-Profit that focuses on Environment, Agriculture, Education, and Women’s Empowerment.  I am hoping to be involved in the agricultural end of things, helping set up demonstrative community organic gardens in rural areas of the country.  I have not yet mentally prepared myself, as it never feels real to me until I step off the plane.  Then it all tends to come as quite a shock.  I have recently decided my path before going to Nepal which I am greatly excited about.  I'm taking 10 days on Hawai'i before flying over, which will allow me to catch up with friends and hikes and campgrounds and beaches that I've neglected this last year.  And possibly to make a trip over to Lana'i.  Then I'll be flying to Thailand for 2 weeks to visit permaculture farms, take a natural buildings course, and visit temples and mountains, and of course, eat local grinds.  I fly to Kathmandu 2 days before the program starts and will be in a great state to immerse myself in the new environment.  I am very willing to give all of myself towards something, and I prefer to do that in a focused area, instead of the scattered state I am currently in, growing plants in 3 towns spread over 2 hours of driving time on the island.

I have done a recent 5 day cleanse and feel much better, which has been essential to getting the amount of work done that I desire to do.  And though I have lots of planning and prep still to do for my trip,  I have taken some early necessary steps such as vaccinations and booking flights and I believe, as Modest Mouse sings, "It all will fall, fall right into place."

I hope you all are well and are finding peace in the present with the past year.  It has been a difficult emotional year for me, and this all leads to strengthening and shaping us into who we are and what we can give back.  We all have the amazing ability of knowing what is best for ourrself and others in the moment even when emotion overwhelms.  I am so grateful to be brought up in a family of amazingly large hearts and giving souls that have created my foundation.  I am grateful to all the friends I have met and will make and all the experiences we have shared and will share throughout our lives.  I wish you all much luck and happiness, with the ability to positively engage with all the unknowns of the following year.

With much love I will be thinking of all of you as I journey East.

A hui hou kakao malama pono (be well until we meet again),

Matthew