In God's Golden Bowl

A million years ago, before the last Ice Age, we visited Nelson. I do endeavor to provide timely accounts of Where We Went and What We Ate, but time is nothing if not elastic when you're traveling, and is probably not best spent in youth-hostel Internet caves, especially when you're in New Zealand.

To this preface, however, I will add its epilogue, the account of precisely how we made our way to Nelson, which is to say that we nearly did not. The night before our Monday-morning flight, we decided to program the alarm on my new watch, a reward for 10 years of service at the day job. It was titanium and Danish, so no complaints there, but we did discover at this late hour, after perusing the instruction booklet we had so thoughtfully packed, that its "crown" could not, indeed, be extended to the third position, let alone the second. I would need to acquire an alarm clock if were were to awake in time for the flight.

And so I ventured across the oceanic breadth of Wakefield Street to the New World, which by New Zealand standards is a pretty good-sized supermarket. That I did this without any navigational devices, and possessing scanty star lore, without being struck by an automobile was a significant accomplishment. In the end, however, it would take three such sojourns to acquire the sought-after device and the 1.5V aka AA battery that powers it.

The "Abstract Art Swivel Alarm Clock" is a masterwork of Chinese design. You can tell its worth right from the box alone, which features the following instructions in no less than eight (8) different languages:

1. Removing the Battery Cover.
2. Inserting the Battery.
3. Setting the Time.
4. Setting the Alarm Time.
5. Using the Gerund.

Step 2 was my particular favorite, as the battery found its final resting place not because the slot was consciously designed to house it, but by a considerable application of will on my part. I won, but this meant the onset of a peculiar "click-clack" that would haunt me the rest of the night. Despite my lack of faith, the instrument performed its function, and early the next morning we were on our way back to Nelson.

The flight from Wellington to Nelson, across the Cook Strait, comprises probably the best 25 minutes in the air you will find anywhere in the world. We were treated to a glowing sunrise over snow-capped mountains, oceans of cloud, and that distinctive gemlike water. We had traveled once the other direction, taking the ferry from Picton; this mode of travel is equally majestic if rougher on those who haven't yet gained their sea legs.

When you land in Nelson's little airport, you are greeted by a flat plain encompassed by a far, long ridge of mountains whose distant strength is hard to capture on film. Once in the town itself, you find yourself enclosed by steep, verdant hills, long intersecting triangles of folded green in dappled golden light. The land here is reassuring, and you feel you have a solid place on the earth, as if you are given definition by its otherness.

We met with Kimberly and Cathy at the former's retreat in the section of Nelson called the Maitai Valley. The meeting was to be a yoga workshop of sorts, a reunion of those Jenifer had taught two years ago, but it was the Queen's Birthday, after all, and short notice meant a more intimate gathering would be had. After lunch in town, at the Morrison Street Cafe, we returned to the valley, and I stepped out to take some photographs and take in the view. It seemed I had stepped onto the set of The Last Samurai, even if that film was shot on the North Island. Just behind the retreat center was a small, sloped pasture, and I counted myself lucky to meet the likes of Zoe the goat and two horses, one brown, one white. How could you not grow as wise as they, living on the side of such a mountain?

Not all talk was yoga-talk, however; Jenifer, Hawk, and I also spent our share of time enjoying the view from Kimberly's spectacular and surprising Art Deco house. From the so-called Centre of New Zealand, which we had hike to last time, the house appeared an orange rectangle lodged squarely in the middle of a mountain. Up close, its color was terra cotta, its design boldly and aerodynamically Art Deco. It fit its environment quite suitably, and though Kimberly and her husband, both Americans, couldn't be more grounded, such a dwelling might well be considered "flash" even in avant-garde Nelson, home of healers and seekers. The architecture of New Zealand offers up some surprising secrets about the culture; I'll try to comment on these next post.

Jenifer and I also connected with Elayne, a massage therapist, and her husband Mark, a woodworker who specializes in Native American flutes. We had gone to Elayne for treatments on the recommendation of a mutual friend, and, as so often seems to be the case here, soon found ourselves invited over for dinner.

The flight "home" to Wellington the next morning was just as terrific as its predecessor, and it seemed we even brought a bit of Nelson's golden weather back with us . . .

Weekend in Waikanae

I was going to post this entry yesterday, but Fortune stepped in and allowed us to catch the last showing of Star Trek at Wellington's Embassy Theatre. Good thing, too, because it seemed best to see how "The Future Begins" before discovering how "The End Begins" with the premiere of Terminator Salvation.

Yesterday was largely a regrouping day after returning from sunny Nelson on the top of the South Island. I'll get to our stay there next time, but first let's go back to our weekend in Waikanae. Through a mutual friend we met in Nelson two years ago, Jenifer connected earlier in the year with Melissa Billington, an American expat who teaches "Myoga" at her Powa Centre in downtown Wellington (and also on TVNZ's Good Morning show). As luck would have it, she was running a teacher-training workshop in Waikanae, about an hour north of Wellington on the North Island's west coast, and we were invited to go along.

The drive up was fairly unspectacular if you were somehow able to become bored with the steep hills, dense bush, and glistening blue-green water; or if, through a sizable act of will, you had overcome your fear of hurtling down the wrong side of the road, perched to the left of the driver as if dangling like the gyroscoping gun turret mounted on the far side of a B-wing fighter.

In any event, we safely reached our destination, a lush and serene place far from the road known as Saddle Creek Farm. As we crept along the winding dirt path, a massive black-tailed rabbit sauntered across the lane, taking all the time in the world and offering our whirring hrududu no regard whatsoever. He had dealt with our kind before.

The retreat building itself was a rustic wood cabin topped with the fairly commonplace corrugated steel roof that suggested a shantytown in Nairobi, Mumbai, or Johannesburg. Yet the scenery gave a far different impression, of a rugged land worked by rugged individuals who don't seem to mind the isolation of the bush or, indeed, of their tiny island nation.

Dinner that night, as all the weekend's meals, was prepared by a feisty Italian woman named Pia. The food was hot and excellent, an Italian/macrobiotic blend that was far heartier than I could have expected. Breakfast the next morning, however, would not be served until after a two-hour yoga practice that began at 5:30. Those familiar with my metabolism will know that this prospect was not encouraging, but somehow I found my center and enjoyed an excellent practice led by Melissa, and survived to tell the tale.

After breakfast, Hawk and I ventured into the wild. Along the way we met a strange goose with a green face and a box-like body. His "shoulders" were pointed and his honk sounded like an old-time motor car's; he was strange yet still familiar, as if from a world turned sideways, and typical of the fauna to be found on this fair green isle.

Further down the road we came upon a tiny white chapel set on a slope set before a tall sheep's grazing ridge. We had learned that this little building was actually the painting studio of the farm's owners. It seemed the perfect place for contemplation.

We returned from our tramp, content in having bolstered our man points; for we were the only males in a workshop full of women. The setting would have been perfect for who knows what manner of moon dancing, witchcraft, and Cosmo quizzes ("How to Tell If He Really Loves Your Dosha!"), but in truth the discussions (at least the ones I was privy to) centered around the science of Ayurveda and the Vedic moral precepts known as the Namas and Niyamas, as outlined by B.K.S. Iyengar in his book Light on Yoga.

I alway find that such getaways, when enjoyed in the company of new friends, tend to seem longer than they really are. But the darkness of Sunday evening rolled around soon enough, and we were on our way back to Wellington, for a brief interlude at our familiar room at the YHA, before an early-morning flight to the South Island, to Nelson, and to familiar faces.

The Heart of the Labyrinth & Other Tales

The willingness to suffer the “betwixt and between” state prepares the soul to leap to a new ground of being. Such a leap connects inner and outer, spirit and body, and makes “mythic sense” when nothing else makes any sense. — Michael Meade

Initiation of a Hybrid. A few Friday evenings ago I was driving Jenifer to her new yoga with live music class, we were yammering about the future, and then it happened. A deer hit us. We saw its face flash in the window, felt the impact, and pulled over.

Amazingly, the Prius suffered only minimal damage, by which I mean approximately $1355's worth, nothing you'd notice if you weren't looking for it. The strangest thing is that the contact wasn’t violent. It wasn’t upsetting. If anything, it felt as if we were hit with a blast of positive energy, a bolt of nature. A mysterious gift.

We returned to the site of the contact, but the deer was gone. I’ll never know if it lived.

Kicking and Screaming Into the Digital Age. Jenifer tricked me. She picked me up from work, and then turned left onto Swedesford instead of right. “Where are you taking me?” “Just relax and go along for the ride.” “Why are we going to the mall?” “I’m getting a new phone.”

Flash forward 30 minutes later and I have a new cell phone of my very own. How did this happen? I had no specific goals of über-Luddiosity, but something in me was quite pleased that I had stayed out of the network this long. And now, at one very simple word — “free” — I succumbed.

This Strike. So there’s this writers’ strike. And so those coworkers who know of my extra-corporate agenda approach me on a near-daily basis and tell me this. Some ask about it, but most want me to know that there is, in fact, a strike, and it is happening now. What this really means is that there are lots of reruns and no Leno and what am I going to do about it?

So we talk about it, and they seem to get that, until things fundamentally change, as a professional screenwriter I’ll be accorded the same relative status the professional documentalist is in the IT world. Which is to say: hidden.

What they don’t always get is that darn near everything on a screen, whether it fits in your pocket or occupies a wall in your house, is written. By somebody. And then I think about being eight years old and reading Alan Arnold’s Once Upon a Galaxy: A Journal of The Making of The Empire Strikes Back. I try to do this after they’ve left my cubicle.

The Heart of the Labyrinth. All summer I wanted to see a shooting star. It was a goal of sorts. I’d been taking a fair number of night walks to settle down after late writing sessions. Recently I was out and so were the stars and the wind, and a startled Schnauzer barking out of obligation. The trees were still orange, rustling like brittle rain whispering greetings.

The light pollution is always high, but the houses are flat and sky is wide, and the atmosphere itself seemed to billow out of the cooling towers my town is known for. The leaves and stars took me back to Jenifer’s yoga retreat, with its perfect weather and fast friendships borne of common purpose. Even Odin was there, the Norwegian Elkhound we fell in love with when we first scouted the location. Odin is aptly named, the “stirrer to fury” who one moment races through the retreat center at top speed, the next calmly snuggles, and then the next shares his stuffed orangutan with an unsuspecting playmate.

The high point of the weekend was the labyrinth we walked Saturday night. Candles in hand, we processed to the site, a flat space cleared before the forest. With the silent intelligence of bees, or geese, we lit the eight-circuit path, placing cups of light every few stones. And then, without a word of instruction, Jenifer stepped onto the path. I watched the others. They hesitated. Invariably, people want to know how to walk a labyrinth. They want the rules, or the correct technique, or the secret key that will unlock the mystery within. They want a sign, when all they need to do is place one foot in front of the other.

I followed, and then the slow trickle of footsteps began. All the usual human drives and intensities were immediately present in our instant community of spirals and light. Some pushed, moving too fast, others dawdled, but each of these movements, like the thoughts in meditation, were observed and let go. We walked in silence, together yet singly, weaving our way ever inward to a place of inner and outer stillness. With each foot planted on the damp mulch, each breath taken in, we drew nearer to that state of blissful emptiness. Not a stasis, but a vibrant intensity, the sustained charge of a fierce and lasting hug. Grace. I thought of our rabbit, who spent much of his blessed life in this illuminated realm.

At last I entered the heart of the labyrinth, and looked up, and saw — an orange streak of star shooting across the moon.

Autumn Yoga Retreat With Jenifer Parker

Quick programming note: Jenifer will be leading an autumn yoga and meditation retreat this October 19 to 21. Jenifer is bringing her transformative all-levels yoga to the tranquil setting of The Country Place Retreat and Conference Center, located in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains.

The weekend will mix therapeutic yoga sequences with hikes through the beautiful fall foliage of the sanctuary's 450 acres of woodlands and meadows. Perfect for recovering from the usual rigors of life or, say, the Austin Film Festival.

For more information, or to register, visit Jenifer's web site at http://www.jenifermparker.com/.

Enlightenment! While Supplies Last

Hey, Mates!

Greetings from tomorrow and New Zealand. Here's the first of several planned entries from Kiwi Land. This week I'm in Nelson (as in the English admiral) as Jenifer completes her final week of teaching at Hot Yoga of New Zealand, and then we head to Wellington and the unknown. After three decent nights of sleep, I'm finally feeling human after having survived the Barthesian stresses of flight and waiting and not-doing. I left Philadelphia at 8 am last Friday, arrived in San Francisco six hours later, wandered the airport for 10 hours until my 13-hour flight to Auckland, waited another four hours, slept through most of the 75-minute flight to Nelson, and then arrived at an airport about the size of a pregnant Wawa, greeted by Jenifer and her Australian friend Kate. Somewhere in there I read The Children of Húrin and the screenplays for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Dances With Wolves, but mostly I sat and walked and waited and otherwise inhabited a no-man's land of time and contemplation. It was not altogether unpleasant. I wonder what space travel would feel like.

I haven't seen much of the country yet, but what I have seen is beautiful. Coming into Nelson by puddlejumper, you're struck by the purple clouds, the jade water, the merging of mountain and mist. Within minutes of landing I was standing on green sand and surveying the bowl of mountain that surrounds the the town. The streets and architecture feel like a somehow familiar mixture of Los Angeles, Seattle, and the suburbs of Hamburg, Germany: narrow, hilly streets; cute square houses nestled in the green trees everywhere.

Nelson is a smallish artists' community and surprisingly international; it's a place people choose to live. Jenifer commented a few weeks back that one of her classes featured more "foreigners" than New Zealanders. A number of our new friends hail from the U.S., and two of them, Tom and Heather, took us sailing yesterday. I practiced my casting but didn't catch anything. Tom, an organic farm magnate and bookseller, fared better, as did Kiwis Simon and Julia. Nonetheless, I was granted a fillet of Kahawai prepared by Grant, our Kiwi captain; I cooked it up last night and have never enjoyed fresher fish.

Jenifer and I were blessed to sail with such great company, and to taste a future we hadn't contemplated until now. I've never been one for stuff, but I wouldn't mind sailing a yacht now and again and chartering it in between. Tom and I discussed management, and I was particularly struck by his approach to gaining the allegiance of his employees: "Don't assume that everyone is intelligent. But allow them to succeed and to do so with dignity."

Today is pretty much an "off" day for me as Jenifer has a full load of classes. I hope to have a report of Golden Bay after the weekend--and then we're off to Wellington.

A parting note: these NZ posts will be updated with photos when I return to the States.

Blessed

If you had asked me last week, I would have said, Yes, as in marked with blood. On Tuesday I woke up at 3:34 am to discover that the prior day’s salmon was not merely disagreeing with my stomach, but instead engaged in a desperate, all-out brawl to swim upstream. The salmon was victorious, and I was left wondering if my Scandinavian ancestry had suddenly expired. Indeed, prior weeks had confirmed my unsuitability for any sort of Viking pursuit: I had squealed in fright at (a) the vibrating notification unit at a restaurant (where, I would very much like to point out, I ate bison meat); and (b) the feathers of a pillow that had burst in the dryer.

It makes sense, then, that my early-morning Battle Over the Sink was a summons by no less a power than Odin himself, that I might provide a worthy sacrifice for the vernal equinox. He got five pounds.

I spent the rest of the week on the sofa, which allowed me to catch up on some reading as well as question the rhetorical exigence of “Oprah and Gayle’s Big Adventure.” One of the books I read was Deepak Chopra’s excellent The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire. The book’s subtitle is “Harnessing the Power of Coincidence,” and my reading of it (a gift from a friend) was itself a coincidence. Exactly one year had passed since my first trip to Los Angeles.

The real benefit of being laid low, however, was getting to spend a bunch of time with Jenifer before her Big Trip. As I write this, she is in San Francisco awaiting her next flight, to New Zealand. For the next six weeks she’ll be teaching at Hot Yoga of New Zealand, a new studio in Nelson (an artistic community home to the One Ring). This is a key turning point in her career, a blessing just beginning to unfold. I'll be joining her for awhile after her stint is finished. In the meantime, I have a script to write.

Yoga Video: I Was Robbed!

Jenifer's yoga video has now entered the Long Tail. She and her one-man film crew Derek DiGiacomo worked hard to bring you an instructional video that departs from the "aerobics model" usually adopted by yoga videos.

They called it “Foundations in Yoga,” but I thought a better title would be “Ryan Rasmussen’s Yoga for Superheroes.” See that guy in the tight red supersuit?* Yep, that's me. The Talent. Sure, you might want to know that the video illustrates yoga practices such as mantra, intention, pranayama, asana, meditation, and prayer. Or that Jenifer really knows her stuff and has studied with folks like Sri Dharma Mittra, Beryl Bender Birch, and Shiva Rae.

But we all know what you're really after. And I don't blame you. I'm not a one-tusked cookie gobbler like Lord Ganesh. Look at him, trying to steal my thunder. In gold, no less. Talk about gaudy.

Ah, well. If you can look past all these grievances, you'll find the video available here. Thank you for your support.

*Capeless for safety.