Category: Adventure (Page 2 of 2)

Lessons from watching 31 Sunrises

June 2, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

As an effort to sensitise myself about the unfolding mystery of dawn, I challenged myself to wake up every day before sunrise and write a page about it. To step it up even a bit further, I wrote the whole page with my non dominant left hand.

Since I have been traveling in the month of May, I had the fortune of witnessing sunrises at varying latitudes, longitudes and altitudes. I was at beaches, piers, highways, temples, in bustling cities and rustic hinterlands. Witnessing and documenting the experience of sunrise at all these places has been a great creative journey.
Today, I wish to share what I learnt from the whole experience, which was part of ‘The Power of Everyday’ project for the month of May.

My learnings :

1) The Sky has a Personality

No two sunrises were ever alike. I feel it holds true for ever since the sky has existed. Most of us wake up inside a house and never get to witness a sunrise, but believe me, even if you watch the same sky from the same place on two successive days, they would be quite peculiar.
The sky is alive.

2) We have become color blind

For as long as I can remember, every single landscape drawing of a little kid in school has a blue sky.
But if one takes initiative to watch a sunrise with a kid, they’ll be mesmerised by the range of colors exhibited in the sky. I would only come up with newer descriptions of colors, just when I thought I had exhausted my imagination. Such is the splendor exhibited in the sky.
I had to compare the shades in the sky to popcorn yellow, cashew white, Bunsen burner blue, misty Clementine, scarlet red, princely purple etc.
The experience truly enlivened my imagination.
We should all spend some time transcribing colors of the sky !

3) The Celestial Game

We have grown up to believe that the sun ‘rises’ in the east. But in reality, it is the earth that turns from east to west and experiences night and day in the process.
While watching a sunrise in rural Thailand, I imagined it to be not just ‘sun rise’ but also ‘star-set’.
The countless twinkling stars are outshone by the might of the sun. With the rising sun, stars disappear.
I would see Venus set every morning in the North-West horizon, as the cresent moon rose, only to be obliterated by daylight.
All of a sudden I would see a morning not just as sunrise. I got sensitised to more celestial phenomenon.

4) Clouds- Unsung Heroes

Clouds are the true painters of the sky. The most mundane sunrise I’ve witnessed was one where there wasn’t a cloud in sight. And the best sunrise I experienced was at a sunrise point at Samet Nangshe in Thailand, where I could see a storm in one part of the horizon and spent clouds hover just behind the behemoth of limestone piers as the sun rose. It was one breathtaking experience.
Clouds scatter and diffuse sunlight, infusing the sky with hues of their lively imagination.
They’re the true painters of the canvas of the sky.

5) Sounds

The transition from the buzz of insects at night to the rousing awakening of birdsong is a lesson in dynamics for a musician. A simmering symphony of nature orchestrated by the sun’s inevitable advent.
I always wondered what the birds sang about in the morning. Then one day, I realised, maybe they are just singing in surprise of the daily unfolding of colors in the sky. Encrypted in their song are reams and reams of passionate poetry.

6) We are losing our Sky

It was disheartening to witness a sunrise in India. Our bleached skies look pale and diseased. Every single day, we deprive ourself of the wonder the sky could be. Our actions are polluting the sky and if we don’t act soon, we will lose a priceless gift of nature.

Sometimes I wish,
If I Bicycle more, maybe there will be less pollution, and we might see one more star in the sky.
If a billlion of us choose to do the same,
Imagine how a sky with a billion stars would look like?

I hope we all take collective action, and reclaim the sky from our own doing.

Let us celebrate each sunrise with the same enthusiasm as birds and trees do.
And with each sunset, lose ourself in the infinity of the sky.

I leave you with that thought,
In sincere hope of fostering,
Existential awe.

The Power of Everyday (May-June)

June 1, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

Yesterday, I completed the second month of ‘The Power of Everyday project.’ For those of you who haven’t read about it before, let me share a brief overview of the project.

The Power of Everyday is a project that investigates the effect of consistent deliberate practice on the body, mind and soul. Each month I pick up a few actions that I resolve to repeat every single day. In the end of the month, I reflect on the progress and learnings along the journey here on my blog.

Last month, I had five challenges to complete everyday-

1) To wake up before sunrise and write a page about it with my left hand (26/31)

2) Daydream for half an hour and write a page about it (25/31)

3) Practice Yoga every single day (25/31)

4) Celibate (31/31)

5) Write and publish a blog post every single day (30/31)

So how did I fare this month. In the month of April, I had a 100% success rate.
While I could not have similar success this month, I still learnt a lot.
I have mentioned in the brackets how many days out of 31 days of May was I able to finish the task.

The days I missed out on doing the tasks were mostly because of my peripatetic lifestyle at the moment. It is difficult to keep doing the daily tasks while being on the road, when you don’t know where you’re going to sleep at night.
Keeping that in mind, in June, I am only taking up those tasks that I can fulfil considering my current travel lifestyle.

I will keep sharing individual posts about what I’ve learnt from each of these experiments in the month of May over the next few days.

Meanwhile, I would like to share the projects for June for ‘The power of everyday project.’

Tasks for June :

1) Daydream and write two pages about it

2) Practice Yoga every day

3) Celibate

4) Write and publish a blog post a day

5) Spend 10 minutes on ear training every day

As you can see I’ve only added one new task this month.

I wish to be realistic and choose tasks that I can complete every day when I’m travelling.

This month, I wish to have some company in this project.

I invite you to choose a simple task that you’d like to do every single day and experience the progress first hand.

We all want to improve, don’t we?

Let’s commit to one simple task and take little steps to an evolved version of our self.

You can share your task for the month of June for ‘The Power of Everyday’ project in the comments below.
Let’s keep each other accountable and engineer our personal growth.

I look forward to know how you are challenging yourself this month.

In anticipation,

Your friend,

Sreenath

My fuel and fire

May 21, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

Touring with a bicycle comes with its own baggage. Quite literally. I have two pannier bags and a backpack strung up to the carrier at the rear of my bicycle. Collectively, with three liters of water and bagful of fruit, it would weigh around 25 kgs. My bicycle itself weighs around 18kgs and I weigh close to 54 kgs.
Adding all that up, we are a unit of 97 kgs.

The sight of the bicycle when fully loaded up is quite different from when it is not.
On first look, it almost seems impossible to an onlooker that a bicycle could support so much weight and bulge on the sides.
Often while bicycling through rural parts of Thailand, I would be greeted with curious stares from perplexed village folk. They would seem to be looking too closely at the bicycle as if trying to spot an engine or a motor that’s fuelling the loaded up beast of a bicycle I fondly call Mowgli.

When I would stop at a roadside shop to eat, they would look at my lean body frame and wonder how I am even biking this thing onward. I would be tendered sympathy and encouragement in equal measure by locals.

I wondered why it seemed so impossible to all the people I met with.

Then, I took a good look around to see all the other vehicles on the road.

Ah, they all had a big fuel tank!
My bicycle doesn’t !
And that’s where lay the difference.

I moved on to embrace the approaching breeze on the highway.

Curiously I asked my bicycle,

‘Mowgli, I just realized why people stare at us with such wonder !’

‘Really? What do you think the reason is?’

‘Because we don’t have a fuel tank !’

‘Ah, that’s not true’ dismissed Mowgli.

‘What do you mean?’

‘We definitely have a fuel tank!’

‘Really? Where is it?’

‘The fuel tank is right there inside you.
In you mind.
It has always been there.
And each new adventure, each new experience, fuels us up even more.
No wonder we don’t have to stop to refuel like other vehicles. In fact we have to keep riding to refuel!’

‘That’s wise of you my bicycle! But if there was always fuel in my mind, why did I not start a journey earlier?’

‘Oh ! Simple.
Because you did not have an ignition to kindle the fuel inside you.’

‘And what’s that ignition Mowgli?’

‘My humble self, your bicycle, isn’t it so?’

And I wondered,

Yes! This humble bicycle has ignited my fuel to head on a wonderful journey of deep discovery,
of worlds inside and outside.

Singing to the soothing breeze, our collective unit of fuel and ignition, with all our luggage and love,

Head on in search of newer lands
Of friends to be.

The Power of Everyday

May 2, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

We have a tendency to set ambitious goals for ourselves. We would like to be the ‘Biggest’, ‘ Quickest’, ‘Smartest’ , ‘Youngest’ etc. at a particular activity that we let into our life.
While this pool of superlatives helps one set a clear goal, it doesn’t help with the journey along the way to realising it.

For instance,
Wanting to be the quickest sprinter in your school helps set out a clear goal, but doesn’t help much with the work you have to put in to achieve the target.

I believe goal setting needs to be visualised differently. One must aspire to do the smallest task he can do, every single day, to reach his goal.
In my experience, nothing is as difficult as being consistent at something.
One of the reasons majority of new year resolutions never make past the first fortnight !

From what I’ve learnt,
One must design ‘micro goals’. He must aspire to do the smallest thing possible to take him the shortest distance forward in the direction of fulfilment of his goal.

Consistency is the key.

As a writer, I make sure I write an article every single day. As a fitness enthusiast I do Yoga every single day.
The habit of being consistent at the micro task every single day is the surest way to achieve the loftiest of dreams.

This is one of the reasons why I started
‘The power of everyday’ project.
This project aims at investigating the effect of consistent, deliberate practice.

In the month of April, I had the follow three projects.

1. To write one foolscap page with the left hand
2. To write and publish a blog everyday
3. To practice Yoga every single day

I’m happy to share that I did all of the above mentioned micro tasks, every single day in the month of April.

It has been challenging at times especially since I am traveling.
For example, on 29th April, I wrote my daily left hand page on a roll of tissue paper when stranded in an under construction school at an island.
I’ve written blog posts at ungodly hours just so that I can publish them the next day at 8 am IST no matter what.
I’ve found myself asleep on the yoga mat halfway into a yoga pose from the sheer exhaustion of the day. I woke up four hours later on my Yoga mat, and continued on to finish what was left of the daily micro task.

What did I gain from this month of experiment?
My left hand writing is improving and I can write much faster than before.
I am getting better at writing and creating content every single day.
And because of Yoga, I am definitely fitter than how I was a month ago when I started the project.

But more than that,
The most discerning change is in the mindset.
I sense a subtle shift in brain chemistry that helps me be in a positive frame of mind. Finishing all the daily micro tasks by the end of the day gave a reassuring sleep every night. Trust me, it really feels amazing!

In the month of May, I am undertaking the following five daily micro tasks in ‘The power of everyday’ project.

1) Wake up bright and early and watch the sunrise everyday. Write a page about it with your left hand.

2) Day dream for half an hour and journal it. Every day.

3) Celibate.

4) Continue the daily Yoga practise.

5) Continue writing and publishing a blog post every single day.

As you can see, I have built upon my old micro tasks and added a few new ones.

I’ll share one post about the progress of this project and what I’m learning from it every week.

I would really enjoy if you join me on this journey.

Pick one micro task for yourself, that you are willing to do every single day. It can be the smallest thing that leads you in the right direction (Say, write one line every single day)
Focus solely on consistency.
Pick something easy that would seem ridiculous to not do.( One push up a day every single day?)

Share your micro task for the week in the comments below. Don’t hesitate.
We are only enabling each other’s growth,
with the smallest step possible in the right direction.

The Eternal Journey

April 23, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

Shafts of sunbeams shine through the roof of an open wooden hut. As I enter the hut gingerly I see a little girl in a pink frock,
wonder-struck.
A busy carpenter bee digs up a home in one of the wooden roof beams. Little woody construction debris falls through the sunlit shafts onto the little ballerina’s arena. It feels like raining confetti to her. She gently raises to stand on her feet and swirls like a Sufi in trance.
I decide to sit down gently to watch.
She chuckles and dances experiencing this novel stimulus.
Oh the wonder in her eyes !

Inadvertently I sneeze and spoil the moment.
She looks at me and runs to her mother’s lap. All snuggled up she investigates me with a beckoning gaze of her left eye.
I assuringly go to her and extend my finger. I am met with a shy pinky finger handshake.
A strong breeze makes its way through the thick forest. The leaves sway and clap in appreciation of the moment.

Over the course of the day we become closer friends. We discover our mutual love for smelling flowers and singing lullabies.

As night sets in, I feel the conquest of a bout of cold in my body. I try my hand at lighting up a fire. I heat up some water in a camping pan for a gargle.

The baby’s mother comes close and asks,

‘How do you feel?’
‘My cold would heal in the warmth of your daughter’s company’.
‘ In our village in France this weather is considered to be summer!’
‘ Well in India this is quite a cold winter !’

Both her and I look at the baby dotingly. She tries to put kindling inside the little camp fire.
‘Comme ca?’ she asks us.
We nod smilingly.

The jungle is abuzz with grapevine as fireflies flirt in pitch darkness. I choose a spot under an open canopy.
As I gargle, the funny noise grabs the baby’s attention. She follows the sound and finds me behind a thin outgrowth.
I take her in my lap, take a sip of hot water and turn my head up to gargle. She cannot stop giggling. And I do it again. Sip and look up.
She looks up too.
And I find her,
Wonderstruck. Again.
As my eyes open up beyond the banal, I finally see what she sees.
A beautiful array of stars, falling on us,
Slowly
Just like the wooden dust from the carpenter bees, falling through the sunlit beam.

A dizzying cascade of stars,
unfurling,
Falling from a height beyond,
Promising to never arrive.

She cannot look away.
And I dare not sneeze.

Through her, I learn to truly see.

And now,
I too am wonder-struck.
Watching the same sky with new eyes,
Realising how far into the Jungle I had to travel to realise,
The extent of
Our eternal cosmic travel.

Farming Mindfully

April 19, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

The morning drizzle had just stopped. A flurry of flirting clouds danced over the skyline obeying the wind’s choreography.
Determined to get back on the road again, I loaded up my bicycle and headed up north.

As much as I liked the fragrance of wet earth after a rain, today, I was wishing to ride away from it as fast as I could.
I was heading to volunteer at a farm 60 kms North of Chiang Mai city.
I had heard great things about the farm from fellow travellers. The focus area of the farm is to integrate Farming and mindful meditation. Quite aptly, it was named, ‘Mindful Farmers Community.’

Fascinated by the farm’s core values, I headed straight in its direction without thinking twice.

I would have been better off if I had thought about the terrain though. Even though it was only 60kms away, it was also at a constant 8 percent slope for half of the way. Traversing through a huge national park throughout, I could hear waterfalls all around me. After a point, I couldn’t bicycle anymore, the slope was such. For the next two hours, I was pushing my Bicycle uphill. Halfway up,
I could hear a thunderstorm brewing at a distance. I took shelter at a bus stop and waited for thick black clouds to condense.
The storm lasted for half an hour. Determined still, I kept pushing the bike uphill. I must have been possessed by something, else there was no way I could go on. What seemed like a simple 3 hour ride turned out to be an agonising 9 hour marathon. It was easily the most challenging thing I’ve done in my life.

But finally, I reached the destination at 6 pm. As I made my way into the community late in the evening, I was met with a friendly group of people. I was quickly escorted to my place in the dormitory, shown to the showers and then invited for meditation.
Following that I had a homely meal with all community members.
The place has a kind and accepting aura.
It is special indeed.

Sitting satiated after the sumptuous meal, as I reflect back on the day I wonder,

Notwithstanding where you are,
If you do what matters to you with all your heart,
People will even scale mountains,
Just to experience the deeply divine vibrations you set out into the world.

The wise monk who runs this farm,
Through his mindful work,
Led me all the way up this mighty hill.

And gave me a lesson,
Without speaking a word.

The subtle art of making friends

April 17, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

Late at night, I was working on my laptop in my hostel. There were other people around me busy with their own devices as well. The dark room was lit up by the faces of people staring on the screens of their phones. No one breathed a word.

Until a gregarious Irishman walked in through the door. He went on greeting everyone.

‘Hey, howya doin? ‘ Pretty good? Jolly good I bet eh? ‘

He took great care of each person in the room . He greeted everyone and asked them about their day.
He had such an affable energy that everyone felt connected to him instantly.
One conversation led to another and through eavesdropping, everyone got to know each other.
One of us was a competitive bicyclist, one a peripatetic traveler, one a Yachtsman and so on.
He got himself a beer from the little fridge and sat down across me. We had a good exchange of words. Soon he called up the peripatetic traveller to join him for a beer.
The three of us got talking and over the course of the next couple of hours we shared a lot of things close to our hearts.

As the night came to a close he shared his story.
‘A Yachtsman from Ireland, at age 74 he dreams of sailing across the Atlantic to go to the Caribbean. Then he wishes to cross the Panama canal and sail the Pacific like a roaring trade wind.’
His curiosity and childlike fascination about other people’s stories was inspiring to experience.
At a ripe old age, he personified the vitality and spirit of an young, adventurous sailor.

I was enlivened by his sharing.
As we got up to go to bed,
I thanked him for bringing us all together on one table and enabling the exchange of ideas. We were sitting like perfect strangers until he arrived. And now we all felt close to each other, as if we’d been friends for a long time.

‘Thank you Mr. Eugene!’ I said as I hugged him.

“Don’t thank me young man,’
He raised his glass and said,
‘I just chose to say Hello’

Whenever you can,
‘You should too.’

Wonder-struck, sleepless on my bed,
I cherished the most simple advice I’ve gotten to cultivate brotherhood.

‘Just say hello!’

So my dear friend, I ask you,
How are you doing :)?

On sculpting your identity

April 13, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

You.
Yes you, my friend.
Grant yourself a few moments of perfect stillness.
Take a deep breath.
And Imagine.

Imagine who you currently embody. Your mind, body, thoughts and soul.
This is what you represent.
You’re a being in incessant flux, becoming and evolving.

Accept it.
This is YOU in the present moment.

Now imagine the version you wish to embody.
What do you represent?
How do you ennoble the people around?
Do you shine in your own glory, and invite people to do the same?
Visualize and believe in it.

Now,
Think of your present self as a chunk of marble.
And your better self as the finished work of art, the timeless sculpture you wish to create.

Now, let me share a story about the great Renaissance artist Michelangelo.
When Michelangelo was asked about his creative process of sculpting, he simply quipped,
‘You have to see the sculpture in the block of stone and chisel out the bits that aren’t the sculpture.’

Drawing a parallel,
each adversity,
each challenge,
each responsibility you willingly take represents the chisel your stone like self has to go through to inch closer to your better self.

Then, the question remains,

Can you visualise the better version of your self?
If so, are you ready to weather adversity, face challenges, embrace responsibilities that shall sculpt you each living moment?

It is a slow process.
It takes time.
It takes mindfulness.

But it also takes you closer to your better self.

So I ask you, my friend,

Are you ready,
To begin the journey,
Of Chiseling
Your own self?

Earning Sleep

April 4, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

I’ve been on a bicycle trip for the past 8 days now. One of the most adventurous parts of this mode of travel is the mystery about where you will sleep at night.
For the last seven days I had some kind of an arrangement of my stay beforehand. I either had a couch surfing host or I would book a bed in a hostel in advance. But today, I set out quite late in the day towards a national park, 150 kms away. I was sure I would only be able to cover 100 km in a day at my very best. So I knew that I would have to sleep somewhere in between. It was the first day I wasn’t sure of my bed.

Towards evening as I finished close to 80 kilometers, it kept getting darker by the minute. I’d heard that you can stay at Thai Buddhist temples at night. Luckily I found a temple and went inside.
After failing to communicate with three monks due to my language issue ,I was asked to meet the head monk. I wrote in google translate ‘Can I stay in the temple tonight?’
The monk read the Thai translation and said ‘Chai'(yes in Thai)
Oh the relief !
I was escorted into an open hall and given a mosquito net. Soon after, a thunderstorm struck that lasted for two hours. Secured under a ceiling, I felt fortunate to have decided to not cycle further.
As I lay on my Yoga mat and write,
I cannot help but smile and wonder,
It doesn’t matter where my body lay,
As long as I’ve worked hard enough to earn my sleep.
Grateful for the kindness of strangers and content with the hard work of the day,
Sleep is only moments away.

If life is not going anywhere

March 30, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

Deep in our hearts, we all have that little dream of an adventure. But we are guilty of postponing it forever. We think that life is not going away anywhere and we will fulfill our dream of that adventure someday along the way. We do this because we are too afraid to stray from the constancy of life. Since an adventure asks for a tectonic shift in our lifestyle and outlook, we postpone it.
‘Life isn’t going away anywhere,’ we rationalize. ‘One day we will embark’.

However, there is another perspective which might serve one better.

Life truly is not going away anywhere.

Yes, an adventure asks for time and mindspace. But if we give it what it takes, our life will only be further enriched through the experience. We can always come back to the constancy, the mundane daily life. And it is best to come back to it enriched.
As we return to our previous lifestyle after the adventure we’ll discover that we’ve evolved. And we are ready to imagine a life that’s true to who we are deep inside.

So if you feel your life is going nowhere, remember that life is not going away anywhere. Make time, be brave and fulfill the adventure you’ve always wanted to.
In the interest of the evolution of your soul.