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