What learning ukulele on my own this holiday taught me

As mentioned in my earlier posting, I picked up the ukulele on my own this holiday.

I want to stress the words in italics, because like what the Bodhi Master once said, we all must learn to be impressed by ourselves. And I am really impressed by how I am able to do it at all. 

Which concurs with what Ladia told me during my apprenticeship when I broke Permaculture Perak's only umbrella on the third  day of my apprenticeship while trying to use it as a crutch to climb up the stairs to my tent as my knees was hurting badly. "If you think you need it, you will need it," said Ladia with a shrug of his shoulder. 

The narrative I have always spun for myself is often this: I am a slow learner, I need to learn things the explicit way, hence I NEED a teacher to teach me ukulele, I CANNOT learn it via youtube videos, the way many of my friends can.

And indeed if I think I cannot do it, I cannot do it. It is as simple as that. 

This holiday, armed with loads of time at home as I am not travelling since Chit is getting married, I decided that I do have time to waste, if I chose to. And after being inspired by a Filipino athlete from the Asean Para Games, who, among many of his achievements, included picking up guitar on his own, I decided I want to prove myself otherwise. 

Spending at least an hour each day strumming the ukulele alongside my youtube teacher, friendly elderly "Ukulele Mike", these are the lessons I distilled the past 1 week:

1) That with discipline, many things are possible. 

I failed to realise at the outset of my picking up the ukulele, that my strongest gift of having iron-will discipline will set me in good stead in this path of learning the ukulele on my own. It was only when my colleague Susan  shared about her experience of learning the ukulele that I realise I don't have much to worry about as I have plenty of that to boot. Thank you, mama and papa for giving me this wonderful gift! 

2) I actually enjoy the art of experimenting, groping around and discovering

3) With a "I have lots of time to spare!" mentality, many things are possible!

I have always known the advantages of experimenting, exploring and discovering are wonderful in honing creativity, learning and above all in living a full life. Yet I score a big-time low in all 3 departments, especially in areas I am weak in or new to. I am someone who cannot stand having to walk down aisles in supermarket to locate a product and would always approach a retail staff to ask for the specific location where the product is placed so that I do not need to waste precious time in locating it. I also cannot stand exploring technological stuff to see how to work something out and will always seek the counsel of the most able person around me. 

I watched a CNA documentary "Business Warrior" a few days ago which featured a 27-year old Singaporean girl Denise Lim -- a mountain climber, yoga instructor and now a restaurateur in Guatemala who is on her way to starting a second business. Figuring out that it costs very little to start a business there, she said the only thing she will lose is time. 

Perhaps I have this show to thank for the lightbulb moment that came to me yesterday. The reason why I always feel I am not adept in experimenting and exploring is that I always feel I DON'T have enough time, as one does really need to spend loads of time when unravelling something totally new, mysterious and scary. 

I wrote an entry about my anxiety about time some time back. But it only occurs to me that this constant thread of anxiety that runs at the back of my mind could actually hamper me so much. 

Which means if I start to think to myself "I have plenty of time to spare!", I may lead myself down to a path of discoveries of many things about myself and the world I know not of. 

The power of music

We are all musical beings.

Tell me that a year ago and I would have rolled my eyes within. I never was musically-inclined since young and would balk at the idea that there was a morsel of musicness in me, as I could not hold a tune, play any musical instrument nor really entertained the thought that I could appreciate music (other than the occasional Chinese pop song in town).

Yet it was during this holiday that I truly appreciate what that line above meant.

We are indeed all musical beings. Music does not have to be purely viewed in terms of notes/chords put together. Music are sounds in essential form and the moment one is touched by or drawn towards particular sounds, be it those of nature, or the voices of some people especially those with deep bass quality, you have taken your first few steps to being a music connoisseur!

I have to thank Ingeborg Nebelung a music therapist from Norway who awakened me to this idea (the line came from her during her workshop that I attended a few weeks ago). And I think that also drives me to (unconsciously) adopt music and sounds as my theme this holiday, leading to my eventually finding the courage to tell myself that I CAN pick up ukulele on my own (despite a strong inner voice these past few years telling myself that I won't be able to do it), by watching youtube videos.

And oh how much I have been enjoying myself doing this! I am now able to strum my ukulele in 4 different patterns, achieve some kind of nuances (I hope!) in the playing of simple pieces and is now (whoohoo!) on the way of playing my dream piece "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"!

My dream of branding my lessons eventually with the playing of ukulele (the happiest musical instrument in the world), here I come!

Ladia the Shamen

If you lose yourself in the wild,
without any egoistic bearings,
you might just find yourself,
your true nature.

– Stonepeace


This morning, I woke up at 5am to the sound of the final remnants of raindrops landing softly outside my bedroom window. The last time I recalled this happened, it was a year ago exactly in Lenggong, Perak where Jay and I were working as apprentices with our master farmer, Ladia. This post came a tad late then, considering how much my 10-day apprenticeship at Permaculture Perak changed my perspective of life since then. 

But better late than never. 

I still recalled how sounds (and music) played a part in the awakening of my being, a year back in that fruitful journey which awakened me to my true self, as I would like to see it. For every single night of the 10 days, it felt very raw where I would fall asleep to the cacophony of an orchestra of sounds -- a combination of the swishing of the tails of the goats (which slept just one floor below our tents) that sounded like a martial arts exponent at work with his sword in the middle of the night , their occasional bleating, and many unidentified sounds by various insects and animals. It was frightening at the outset as it made me felt so vulnerable, like being thrown deep into the jungle. But that experience made me open up to myself, including facing my anxieties and fears about my work and how I cope with my osteoarthritis straight on. 

Ladia was like a Shamen, on top of being a mad scientist with blond dreadlocks. He has this ability, through his storytelling, to delve deep into the psyche of what makes a being, and had, wrung inside-out thoroughly buckets of how I felt thus far by the middle of my apprenticeship. It is almost as if you are truly free, and can be truly free so easily, the moment you let loose, let it all out, and bare yourself. It made me realised why I was there, in cold December, even when I had to go without bathing one stormy night which cut off the water supply from the mountain. 

By the end of the apprenticeship, it is like a new being has crawled out of me, slowly but steadily. One who finally understood what it means to be grateful in life, and most of all, understood what was thwarting my recovery of my health and knees. 

I will always recall what Ladia shared with Jay and I (amongst many other things) about life, a quote from Eckhart Tolle: “The modalities of awakened doing are acceptance, enjoyment and enthusiasm. Each one represents a certain vibrational frequency of consciousness. You need to be vigilant to make sure that one of them operates whenever you are engaged in doing anything at all -- from the most simple task to the most complex" (which means if I find it very hard to do something with joy or enthusiasm, at least must have acceptance!)

So, thank you Ladia, for allowing me to call me by my name! 

The Poem that Jay and I wrote for Permaculture Perak and Ladia on the last night (in the dark some more!) of our apprenticeship

Travelling

I found the lovely Chinese quote from a poster which my sister and I saw in the Green Turtle Conservation Museum in Wangan Island (where we spent 3 hours in). 

This is the first postcard I have ever sent to myself from my travels, a practice that I picked up from my younger sister Chit whom I travelled with this June to Penghu Island, Taiwan. It turned out to be a very sound practice which I believe I will continue to do each time I travel, as it will allow me to keep track of what strikes me, of what touches me in this journey of life. 

This was a beautiful journey that I took with my sister, possibly the last trip we will take together before she gets married year-end. Hence, I cherish that very much. 

Taken at the Neian beach in Wangan island, where we were taken there by the tour guide of the Green Turtle Museum who wanted to show us the tracks made by the turtles as they came up to shore to nest. He wanted too to bring us to a cafe after dinner, but alas, that was not meant to be. 

Travelling with sis-sy, as what my Chit likes to say, is a very interesting experience --- this is our third trip together (first trip in 2013 where we went Puli and Taichung and this March where we went to our uncle's house in Beinut, Johor Bahru). I learnt from her how to have hearty laughs in life. Most of all, travelling with sis-sy gave me a safe environment where I practice the skills of travelling, where I am safe to make silly mistakes without having to worry being judged. That, I am tremendously grateful for and came to realise that the past few trips honed my courage and ready my heart to prepare myself for solo travelling that I aim to embark next year.

As mentioned in the Chinese quote in the postcard, solo travelling will truly give me the space to explore even more around and within me. That I am full of anticipation for!

 Mythologist and writer Joseph Campbell (March 26, 1904–October 30, 1987) once said this:

"[Sacred space] is an absolute necessity for anybody today. You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation."

And this is what travelling often brings, the sense of not knowing what you are in for, not knowing how something will turn out. Hence I hope I will be able to learn the art of relaxing and how not to have anxieties easily, as what my friend Li San said her solo travelling experiences taught her. 

Travelling, I came to realise too, from reading Campbell, allow us to identify and find our "bliss stations" from time to time, to ensure we are not lost in the busyness of life. It sort of crystallises one's life experiences during an intense short period, allows you to feel something about yourself and the world which you may never have felt in your life but which is something very integral and central aspect of yourself. In short, it awakens you to yourself. 

"Our life has become so economic and practical in its orientation that, as you get older, the claims of the moment upon you are so great, you hardly know where the hell you are, or what it is you intended. You are always doing something that is required of you. Where is your bliss station? You have to try to find it..."

And the most interesting thing is, travelling also taught us that we can find our "bliss stations" in the midst of our daily life, if we choose to. 

"If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be."

What doors are open to me? Where do they point to? I will take care to slow down in my journey of life to find that out :)