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AO is Rock and Rolling in Kathmandu

“Robin Tamang is arguably the biggest rock star in Nepal. Initially, he started out with Robin and Looza. Later, he formed a new band, The New Revolution, by  handpicking each member. Five albums already under his belt, he is coming out with his sixth studio album Hamro Desh.”  Robin has a passion for music and children and invited the AO Team to leave Chitwan and return to Kathmandu to work with children in an Orphanage  that he works with there.  Here is the story from one of the team:  Rob Lenfesty

“We arrived back in Kathmandu after the long and bumpy bus ride.  The road to Kathmandu winds perilously along the side of steep, jungled mountainsides with a cold blue river raging far below.  The road is narrow and often has no protection from the thousand feet of drop.  Following the somewhat morbid but expected thought of how often a vehicle goes off the side, I caught a glimpse of a tangled, twisted metal chunk of bygone bus on the rocks below.  Ok, better to enjoy the stunning beauty and leave that thought behind!!

We arrived at the guesthouse that I inhabited not even two years ago on my last visit.  Coming back here has felt like a true full circle.  Especially when my friend and Nepali rock hero Robin Tamang came roaring in on his Royal Enfield Motorbike to meet with us.  Robin had agreed to be our host to an orphanage he has been working with closely for the last 9 years.   Two years ago I played an inspirational show with Robin and his band The New Revolution for the kids at this very place.

Robin has the uncanny presence of a rock star wherever he goes; he is passionately dedicated to the Nepali people and to the hearts and minds of the children.  Thus this man has made children the target of his work.  He believes that the key to changing the failing infrastructure of this nation is to touch the minds and hearts of the kids now.  And he is doing it as well as it could be done.  You can see the love and starstruck awe in the eyes of every Nepali we see as we make our way to the orphanage.

We arrive through the gate and are immediately swarmed with kids.  The older ones remember me quite well, and all are enthusiastic to see Robin; not as a rockstar, as he has been a frequent uncle-like figure since many of them were in diapers.  They love him with the complete child-like adoration for a beloved relative.  Where the kids in Chitwan were not as touchy-feely,  we quickly found the opposite here in Kathmandu.  The loping game I played in Chitwan very quickly became eight or nine kids vying for real estate on my arms, shoulders and back.  Thus wearing a full, squirming suit of children I would try to move in any way possible.  Needless to say I got my exercise!

This orphanage, NAG, has been run by a Swiss woman named Nicole for 20 years.  Her work has been remarkable; the grounds of the school are beautiful and some of her first children are now the teachers and managers of the school.  She finds children with either no parents or incapacitated parents and gives them more than just a second chance, she gives them access to one of the most diverse and best educations they could hope for.  With the help of Robin they even have an entire music room with keyboard, drums, guitars and more!  These children are truly blessed, and have seen the darker side of what life can offer as well.  This balanced experience augments the delight that shines from their eyes so that they radiate a zest and vigor that inspires.

We gathered a group of the younger kids together to teach them the two songs we were to record.  Robin stepped into the performers role beautifully and guided them through the syllables that he himself had just learned.  The kids took to both songs written by Richard Gannaway enthusiastically and in no time we were recording them in chorus.  We recorded individuals as long as their attention spans could handle and then played with them some more.  We left and promised to return the next day.

The Next day found more of the same.  While I was not recording I can honestly say I had at least two kids strapped to my arms or back, minimum, at all times.  I found a game that proved to be more restful with a group of around 12 boys.  I would simply fall in any direction and they would push me back up to standing.  I got to a point where I could trust them well and would fall rapidly in any direction, at which they would (usually) catch me before hitting the ground.  Even as we loaded up into our taxi to leave I had kids clinging on to me.  It was sad to leave!

We decided to go directly to Durban Square, the historic and ancient center of the city.  There we were greeted by statues and pagoda like temples with intricate wooden carvings, and the white stone Royal Palace.  We explored the ancient city for a while as normal people would, though I was itching to play with this place on a more creative level..  I found some lion statues and began to find ways to do yoga poses on and with them; developing quite a crowd in the process!  I played with a few of the kids in the square too, some were imitating my yoga, others showing off their break dancing skills.  We played at this and other games until the sun set and it was time to go.

Unconventional interactions with my environment always seem to lighten up any place I find myself.  I was able to interact with an entire group of people who would have been normal passerby’s if I hadn’t stopped to turn the world on its head for a moment.  I hold sacred the opportunities to imbue the creative essence of this life with the environment and people around me.  If one person smiles as a result then it is a success.  My hope is that others may be inspired to look at the world they live in with the imagination we were born with, sidestepping the conventions we have learned to take for granted.

We found our rest back at Tibet Guest house, another beautiful and active day in Kathmandu for AOMUSIC.”

Nepal: The Soul of the World

 

In my hope to write every day about the trip five young people are on in Nepal, life broke in and tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Remember about making God Laugh?  Throw your plans out the window and go to NYC”.  So, two days later I did and I am now in NYC with my daughter Sasha.  Hot. Loud. Crazy New York City.  There is no other place like it…except maybe Kathmandu.

Each day I surf the moment and the time zones and field so many details of producing, from more ATM machines that are down or changes of plans, budget problems or little details that at the end of the day don’t amount to a hill of beans next to the depth of the journey for all of the Team in Nepal, representing AOMUSIC.

So, I will try to catch up and the only way to do that is to make this entry be all about the day in the life of our AO Ambassador, Rob Lenfestey who has shared a story with me.   I will write more tomorrow about the last person on the Team.  Our own Yoda.  By now your curiosity is peeked, so look for new blog entry and a story you will not believe.  It is all about navigating life by intuition and instinct, a skill we could all cultivate.

Enjoy Rob’s words:

“My dreams thus far have been potent down here in the humid Nepali Jungle: I asked in my dream “So what does happiness look like? And was shown some flashing scenes and images in my head.  “What does clarity look like then?” and another image. “love?” “Friendship?” And on it went.

Then I asked “What does God look like?” and the door slammed open to my Guest House Room.  “Rob”, came Josh’s voice through the glass pane, “Rhino!” And so it was; gracing the river bank below. The first wild example of its kind to grace our team with its presence.  It even had the requisite black birds gracing its massive armor-like back and horn.

By 7am we had eaten our breakfast and loaded up into our transport with Raj and headed to two different impoverished villages full of kids to catch of glimpse of how they lived.

Before we even arrived in the first village, comprised of two long buildings that faced each other with a muddy courtyard in between, we were already being chased down by laughing barefooted children.  The locals were amiable and smiled, clasping their hands in “namaste” to greet us.  The kids, however, simply piled up on top of each other to get in front of us.  Once Karan brought out the big film camera, the ensuing kid pile was hilarious to watch.  Karan flipped the view-screen around and this delighted them the most; now they were watching themselves on the screen.  The gestures and experiments that ensued as each kid eagerly pushed themselves within the field of the camera and watched themselves live was adorable and thoroughly entertaining.

We went to look into their living quarters, which were small rooms split from one long building that comprised an entire half of the small village.  In these small 12×12 ft. rooms some 12 person families lived, cooked and slept.  Each room was impeccably clean and the space outside in the courtyard, while muddy, was free of trash and filth typical to urban impoverished areas.

We went to their well where one of the mothers was cleaning cookware.  This is where the ice broke between the myself and the Children.  I was walking behind the well’s concrete platform and began to slip on the slick algae that grows there.  I caught myself and didn’t fall, but instead turned it into a kind of gliding dance.  The children laughed and so I kept dancing some more.  Eventually this dance erupted from the well and culminated in me loping around chasing them through the village.  As this play continued I was struck by a certain beautiful truth that brought a deeper gravity to this project and its importance.

At its roots, AOMusic is for the creation of world music.  World music crosses cultures and brings them together, celebrating both our diversity and the immutable humanity we all share.  And so it makes perfect sense that  we should build the foundation of such work on that which binds us.  And nothing exemplifies the unity of the human race than the faces, laughter and songs of the children.

It dawned on me that you can change the set and setting as drastically as you want; from Lower Manhattan to the rural jungles of Nepal and you will always find kids.  Kids smiling, kids playing and chasing each other around whatever environment they find themselves in.  And if you took any of those kids and transplanted them in the other place it would take barely seconds for new friendships to be forged and play to ensue.  It is upon the pure essence of a child’s spirit that our “sameness” can be celebrated; and from this thread of unity we may truly celebrate that which makes us unique and different.  I had known before that this was important work and for all these same reasons, yet now a deeper part of me understood.  My bones understood and very muscle in my body understood.  Understood and beamed in celebration of what was before me: Dozens of smiling faces and bright eyes beaming at us, still charged up and ready to flee if the loping beast decided to awaken once more.  And it did.

As we prepared to leave I pulled Josh aside and whispered in his ear.  We then broke out into a goofy, fun vocal improve performance for the kids, one last gesture of gratitude for the gift of their purity and the deepening awareness it had inspired inside of me.

On we ventured to the edge of Chitwan, over the river by canoe and into the government’s Elephant Breeding Center.  The day was hot and muggy by this time, so we moved quickly over the open land towards the relative cover of the Breeding Center’s information booth.  We read a little about elephants, the struggles of captive breeding and the economic importance to this region across generations.  None of this, however prepared us for the elephants themselves.  Under relatively small shade structures, tethered to a wooden post on a small mound of dirt stood each elephant.  The front two feet were chained together tightly like those of a convict to prevent any kind of long strides.  A brief look into these incredibly intelligent eyes was all I needed.  Chained up like a convict, yet what was your crime?  A dozen or so such elephants lined the center with perhaps six or seven babies in all.  I felt uneasy being among the free humans walking along the railing gawking at them in their captivity.  Just one look in the eyes of one of these elephants was all it took to see their depth of understanding and awareness. I turned to look at my team.  Each and every one of us felt the same way.  We did not linger in this place long.  We made our way back out and across the river towards home.

The joy and celebration of the children was mingled with the sobering sadness and even wisps of anger around the treatment of such wise and beautiful creatures as these elephants.  All of this, the full spectrum of our human experience, is beautiful.  Asia brings this lesson home for me quite often.  The best and the worst all mixed into one beautiful cacophony of human existence.”

 

 

 

Suaraha; Where Instead of Having a Bicycle or a Car, You Have an Elephant! Day Three, AO in Nepal

No sleep for me last night.  Too much to do. So much to consider.  Yep, the bank froze my debit card seeing 5 people eating out in Suaraha, took care of that …again.  Yep, made sure that there was a new hotel reservation for Kathmandu, that the interview with the “Bee Acupuncturist” was in fact happening (an acupuncturist that uses bee stings as his needles) and answered the inevitable emails that come in about 4am every morning.  That’s before my feet swing out of bed,

I don’t care about sleeping. I think most people who find themselves at the apex of their creative center feel this way.  We forget to shower, eat…take out the trash.   It is like waiting for a child to be born.  While the Team is in Nepal, I am simply lit up like a firecracker.  It is one thing to achieve a goal:  Send 5 wonderful young people to Nepal as ambassadors for AOMUSIC and come back with recordings of children singing as well as unparalleled footage of this amazing process.  But it is what happens in between the goal and the outcome that defines the creative process.

Creating is the art of allowing.  Allowing the picture to come into focus without pushing, allowing for interruptions to the plan to reveal the REAL plan.  Allowing for magic to break in unexpectedly and change every person involved, which then immediately changes the outcome. Rain, food issues, cultural differences, language, altitude all are the ingredients for surprises, one after the other.   This is why I don’t mind loosing sleep.  This is why I have put my life in alignment with AO Foundation International:  Because I am guaranteed to be allowed to unfold, just like the process of making this film and meeting these families, children and the country of Nepal.

So, while I was still awake at 5:30 this morning, this email came in from my daughter Jessie.  Internet is difficult in Nepal and as the team writes each sentence they have to constantly re-boot, re-fresh, wait and shut down.  Does not make following thoughts very easy.  But it is the spirit that blazes bright in every email.

From Jessie:

“And it is a late late night for me….Today was like breathing.  It was our second and last day with the children at Shree Little Star School. As wonderful and amazing as they were, I am even more excited about the days to come and the future footage I will take, as we just got invited to come back to Kathmandu to work with a group of children in an Orphanage there, as well as with a renowned musician from Nepal.  Raj took only myself over to Mushard Village to quickly meet the new children here in Suaraha and speak to them about coming in the morning to record them.

Although the streets were muddy and the village small and poverty stricken. I have never experienced such radiating light, love and laughter like that from children.  I was only there maybe less then five minutes and I left with them knowing my name and chasing after me when we left on the Mo-ped. I have never felt happier and more up-lifted in  my life.  This was after a morning of slowly drifting down the Rapti River in a canoe with Josh and Rob doing yoga. We watched an elephant and her baby cross  the river.  A magical day of footage and pure excitement. Things are unfolding so fast and so beautifully, I can only assume I am walking a path that I have been searching for my whole life.”

Sigh.

So, the Team is working today with a new group of younger children and then packing to go to Kathmandu in the morning.  This was an unexpected new offering that happens all of the time with AOMUSIC.  Once people hear the music, doors open to wonderful new introductions to communities and children.  It is our firm belief to follow the gifts we are given and make those contacts, take the treks and be open hearted, open handed and supportive of the families and children contributing to our albums.  So a new adventure begins.

Our third Team member was also a gift.  I had never met Karan Sharma, but through an introduction to Marc Pingry Production a light bulb went off in Marc’s head as we were having dinner in Seattle.  “Karan…you must bring Karan Sharma with you”, said Marc.

Marc proceeded to share about this young man whose father is Romesh Sharma, an Indian actor, producer and director in Bollywood.  Karan has acted, and worked on a documentary series called  “Fantastic Festivals of the World”. He brings a creative eye, enthusiasm, great ideas and heart to the AO Project in Nepal and is working with a larger camera to film the team teaching children and the story of the team itself.  Here is a little on Karan.

Karan currently is living in India, and has studied International Business and Management Studies at the European Business School London. He is fluent in English and Hindi, and can speak some French.  Karan has also acted and we are excited to work with him in the future on our larger documentary that will trek to the Caves of Maratika and to a monastery near Everest.  He is a gem!

Fantastic Festivals of the World

Season One & Now Season Two   People around the world know how to have fun!The “Fantastic Festivals of the World” Series features the best, most exotic, bizarre and unique of these celebrations!  This exciting and colorful HDTV series can be seen currently on the Discovery HD Theater (www.dhd.discovery.com) in the USA on Wednesdays at 8 pm and 11 pm PST. the documentary was done by Marc Pingry Productions.  www.youtube.com/pingryhdtv

So, when Karan came enthusiastically onboard I thought our team was complete.  Until one night I woke up and saw a picture in my mind of a young man I barely knew and somehow understood that for some reason, Josh Massad, I think that was his name, had to be part of our team also.  I had no Idea why, but in the next few days I found him in Goa, India and found out why I had had a vision of him that night.   Tomorrow I want to introduce you to the teams own “Yoda”.  Josh Massad.  Our fourth team member.

Diary of a Dream: Day Two in Chitwan, Nepal.

     

So I dream all night about elephants and mountain tops eager to get up and see if there are emails in my inbox from the Team in Nepal.  Their late night musings, concerns or questions come in about 6am at my house and I am off and running.

And, as I promised, I am going to profile another member of the team who wrote a piece this morning that says it all.  I need not say another word except:

Rob Lenfesty is from Asheville, North Carolina and is the person standing in for Richard Gannaway and teaching the children music.  This is his first time working with AO and I am certain it will not be the last time.

 

Rob is part of an intentional community in Asheville, a yoga teacher, slackline teacher (get to know about this if you do not already know), a composer, musician and magic with children.  Here is what he shares with you from the heart of Nepal”

 

“Since arriving here we have set some cultural experiential goals. One for me has been to ride an elephant; and in the spirit of fun and creativity do some yoga asana on its back.  We had spoken of this often; and when an elephant came down the hill next to where Josh and I sat eating breakfast I commented;

“I wish they didn’t all have those boxes on their backs (referring to

the wooden platform adorning all elephants we have thus far seen)

because it will make it difficult to do any yoga on one.”

Half joking and yet, right in that moment, the elephant got to its knees and the owner dropped down and began removing the box off of its back.  I decided to get a closer look and walked down there. “Elephant shower?,” the mahout (elephant keeper) asked me, gesturing to the elephant’s back and the river.

With a broad smile on my face I crawled up and there I was, riding bareback on an elephant mere seconds after musing about it.  We went into the water and the elephant began sucking water into its trunk and drenching me on its back.  The day was already hot and the water was refreshing.  Another blessing barely in disguise; by standing in a couple of feet of water the elephant afforded me the opportunity to safely try fun things like headstands on his back.  Elephant Yoga!

A few times I splashed down into the water but was able to get back up and try again.  Afterwards I was able to just connect to the beautiful and intelligent creature before he left the river.  One goal manifested, and beautifully!

I feel that the “child-like” compulsion to play and try new things is the key to refreshing and invigorating the human spirit.  Such play awakens the divine inside of us; we glow with the pure joy of living and the happiness that is derived from new experiences and magical opportunities realized.  It was with this playful and activated spirit that we piled up in the truck and drove to the school to meet the kids who are to be the heart of this journey.

We arrive at the school to find a group of well-behaved enthusiastic children sitting behind their tall wooden desks, eager to learn.  It did not take but a few moments for us to break the ice with some perfectly goofy vocal exercises and games to establish a playful vibe for this experience.

It was now in this moment that the true alchemy of this group of AOMusic ambassadors really became apparent.  While I prepared the materials to teach the kids the song we were going to record them singing, as well as confer with the principle and school officials to discuss logistics, Josh continued to engage the kids with fun games and exercises that served the multifaceted purposes of play, exercising musical awareness and exercising singing voices.  We wrote the song on the whiteboard and practiced each syllable and then the song.  The kids picked it up immediately.

I was astounded by how quickly they got it.  After a few more games we brought them outside and got a recording of them singing as a group underneath a mango tree in the schools courtyard.  I then proceeded to begin my individual recordings while Josh continued to pull engaging games out of thin air to keep the kids delighted and inspired.

When we finally stopped for lunch I decided to bring out my slackline to see how the kids enjoyed it.  Slackline is a piece of flat one inch wide webbing that you place between two trees and then practice balancing on.  I teach with the Yogaslackers, a group who are dedicated to bringing this wonderful practice to the world in an easy to learn format that celebrates the diversity of opportunities this simple tool provides.  In a class what we establish are the basic poses of an ever-growing list of yoga asana that we have applied to the slackline and the flows that move between them.

I set up the line and the kids all gathered ‘round.  I showed them the basic knee balance that we first teach and then each kid who wanted to (and some teachers too!) gave it a shot.  As each approached the line everyone would cheer their name and clap enthusiastically for even small victories from each person.  I did a quick demo of what is possible and then fluidly returned to recording the children individually.   Josh found even more games and musical adventures to take the kids on in the mean time.

The film and photo crew of Jessie, Karan and Baldev continued to find creative ways to shoot the recordings and orchestrate shots throughout the session.  The fact they have been doing so since we arrived in Kathmandu; capturing each inspired moment along the way with ease.  Thus we made sure the light was perfect and recorded the kids as they sung; eyes beaming at the fancy cameras, boom stand and recording equipment surrounding them.  Even for those of us familiar with all of this equipment it was surreal.

I can only imagine the wonder of it all for these kids out in the Nepalese countryside.  In all we were hoping to keep the kids captivated for an hour, at most an hour and a half.  After all, today was a special day of holiday and we knew they would want to get out and enjoy it.  Except we were underestimating ourselves as well as the kids.  For four hours we not only kept the kids captivated and entertained, but they were hungry for more.  They wanted us to stay and continue to play and record.  To reiterate with enthusiasm; Josh Massad stepped up in a beautiful way.  He had the kids singing tabla rhythms and had brought an arsenal of fun instruments for them to play.  Entertained, entrained and educated all at the same time.  And wanting more to boot.

Because of how musically engaged and fun-loving the experience was for the kids, by the time they reached me for their individual session they were fully loose, activated and vocally warmed up for the experience.  When we finally left the children were beaming.  I beamed at my crew.  I could not have been blessed with a more alchemically perfect combination of people to create this magical experience with.

Rob Lenfestey,        Celebrate Life.

Tomorrow is another day, and I will finally introduce you to a young man from Mumbai who is filming in Panasonic HD for our larger documentary:  Karan Sharma.  And does he have a wonderful story.

 

 

Daily Diary: AOMusic in Nepal: Day One. Following the Dream.

First Day in Chitwan, Nepal  August 19, 2012:  AOMUSIC Arrives

When I wake up I look at the clock these days and do my math.  Ok.  It is 8am here in Washington and it is just after suppertime in Nepal. “Hope they don’t drink the water”, I ponder. What is the team doing on their first day of having gotten to Chitwan?  Then, I get a note from my daughter Jessie who is feeling the time change and cannot sleep.  My luck.  I get to hear a bit about their travels.  Her email opens with:

“Good morning to you from the middle of the Chitwan National Park where elephants roam in the grasses across the water that we see from our balcony. Beautiful!  We start with the kids at 11am tomorrow morning and are very excited.”

After meeting for the first time in Kathmandu Airport, having dinner together and getting to know one another before they get on a bus the next morning, everyone is wired.  The bus is a long journey on tiny cliff sized roads but they got there safe and sound and are now settled into their hotel overlooking the only National Park in Nepal.  A feast for the eyes.

So, tomorrow the crew meets the children and start both recording and filming, gets to know the village after taking a jeep ride from the Hotel and begins interviews with families.

I also got an email that was very thought provoking from the team.  I sent contracts to each of the people going.  You know.  Those legal papers to cover everyone’s asses just in case a rogue elephant eats the camera.  They were modest agreements but they lacked something in keeping with the spirit of this journey.  This is what I heard from the Team which was written by my daughter:

“We need to discuss the contracts.  We feel the wording is stern and of a square tone, not promoting the creative and inspirational intentions we are creating. The contract doesn’t reflect the project! it feels harsh and slightly aggressive.  It just doesn’t hold up to the energetic integrity of the project.  My intuition is that it doesn’t feel right.  The magic will be subdued with a lingering unenthusiastic written contract. Kinda like not wanting to put something out into the universe that is not consistent with the intention.  Law of attraction type deal”.

And this is my daughter.   Waking me up to making sure I am calling in the energy I want for this project.  I am so proud of her. Maybe I just graduated from parenting school.

So, I am letting you get to know the four major people on our AO team and what better way to start but by introducing my daughter, Jessie Felix.  I will write more tomorrow and introduce Karan Sharma from India.

And!  No one has said a thing about rain!  Yeah.

So, for our first world traveler and adventurer:  Jessie Felix.  Jessie is our still photographer, one of our videographers as well as the one who will do most of the interviewing and carry the purse strings.  She is amazing if I may say so myself….especially to travel with three men she does not really know.  Here is what Jess says about herself.

 

“At 26 I have driven to the four corners of the U.S., been to forty-eight states and traveled to five countries outside of the United States.  I have lived at 39 addresses and counting. I am an artist, a muse, and a nomad. I do not dare sit still as life grows all around waiting to be seen. I have attended six colleges in six different states and walked away learning to trust my intuition and to follow my heart that leads my feet forward.

I have experienced loss, tragedy, and devastation, come close to death, pulled myself out from the depths of hell. I have experienced broken hearts, disappointment, rejections, criticism, and failure. I have witnessed how love can transform and break someone, how death can be immobilizing, that life is a blessing and a curse. And what I now know is that nothing is truly predictable and everything can change in less than a heartbeat.

Happy tears do exist. The best ones fall from your face with complete perfection, and if you can face yourself in a mirror you can face anything. I have witnessed miracles and mysteries and been completely amazed by the most insignificant things. I try to capture what others may not see. I let my emotions come through the lens and immortalize.”

Please visit her at www.jessiefelix.wordpress.com

From Tulsa to Kathmandu

 

I left for my “Year as a Gypsy” on September 2, 2011.  As that year comes to a close my life has opened.  By shedding my beliefs about what I “thought” might make me happy in life and asking a new question about “what would bring me joy”, I made some bold new moves.  After selling most of my belongings, letting go of my house, my man, my dog and my attachment to any outcome, I packed my car and drove off.  First stop, Asheville, North Carolina.

My blog, www.the-gypsy-life.com has chronicled what can only be described as a “surprising” year.  I had thoughts of writing full time, landed a screenplay writing job, re-invented myself with a new website www.mayalunachristobel.com and felt the stars aligning in what I believed was my destiny.  And then I learned a very important saying first hand and right between the eyes:  “How do you make the Gods laugh?  By telling them your plans”.  It was simply a few weeks into my adventure that I threw the blueprints out and adopted the only thing I knew to do:  Navigate by intuition …one day at a time.

So, here I am, many stories later, still no driver’s license, but well traveled, well cared for, well fed, well loved and inspired beyond anything I could imagine.  And after just one short year I have found that my heart is happiest singing, participating in a music company that has children at the center of everything, and creating opportunity for myself and as many others as possible to live their dreams.  How could I have known any of this before taking the leap?

Today, August 18th, one of those dreams is being realized for a group of young people who just landed in Kathmandu, Nepal.  I took a leap of faith and decided to produce a short film of recording children in Chitwan, Nepal, singing songs composed by my partner, Richard Gannaway and AOMUSIC. By reaching for my dream as a filmmaker, four amazing young people are reaching for theirs.  Paying it forward is not just about money, or gifting someone, but is also about what happens when I say yes to a vision from the heart…it expands to include so many other people who get a chance to do the same.  Physics of the Heart.

It is the height of the monsoon season in Nepal.  This “Dream Team” is made up of my daughter Jessie, who with her Canon 5D will be interviewing the village, the children and the team as, come rain and more rain, the children learn to sing.  Her photography will be part of a campaign for a documentary series.  Then there is Rob who is from Asheville and a yoga/slack line teacher as well as musician par-excellence who will be recording the children.  Josh is the “Yoda” of this entourage.  Josh has been living in India and has a story to share that will both curl your hair and make you stand up an applaud the tenacity of spirit in this young man.  Josh is a musician and teacher of music to children all over the globe.  And lastly is Karan, from Mumbai, India who is going to film the entire journey of AO in Nepal.  He has filmed numerous documentaries and brings so much to this unfolding story of AOMUSIC as we trek to where children are in need and hear the songs of their undaunted hearts.

So in these next ten days I will post a short story every day from Nepal to give you a window into the courage, the creativity and the spirit of those on this trip, the people of Nepal, my own unfolding in this process that has not been without obstacles, all in the hope that just one person might find their own heart on fire for change, for reaching for your dream and for helping those who need you most when you do.

As for me and coming to the close of a year on the road?  The Gypsy Life has become the life I choose from this moment forward. There is no other way to live for me.

 

A documentary about AOMUSIC and our non-profit foundation is being made into a documentary.  As of yesterday we have funding coming in from a producer on the project.  Yet until the shooting of our Documentary we are going to Nepal as we promised to film and record the children that will be on our next album released in Feb. 2013.  Our Kickstarter Campaign has only a few more hours and this is the money we need to travel and record, and film this beginning of an amazing journey of marrying Music with Cause.

Please visit our page and help up make our goal.  We would be so grateful and so would the children.

Blessings Maya

AOMUSIC Meets Hollywood

Nepal Monastery

AOMUSIC had gotten the attention of Hollywood. The story of this is amazing. As many of you know, we were invited to trek to Nepal and record some children for our new album to be released Feb. 2013. And word spread in Nepal that we were coming, people heard the beauty of the music and the message of love that is AO and suddenly we got an invitation to come to visit the sacred Caves of Maratika and record. This is an arduous trip, yet this ancient site houses a majority of sacred Buddhist teachings.

This pilgrimage to the holy Caves of Maratika is in Halesi.  Maratika Cave and Monastery is located south east of Mount Everest and was the retreat of Mahadeva while he was in hiding.  For both Hindus and Buddhists it is one of their most famous pilgrimage centers.  Here is a note we received from the Monastery:

“Regarding Maratika:  We have now a project to reconstruct our Maratika Monastery as it is falling a part also this year’s earthquake has made little problem. For this project many buddhist high masters including H.H. Dalai Lama has written the supporting letter for this project.”

So, now we can help give back to them through the sale of the album and help their project because of their generous invitation. So our trip expanded and we were planning to go in the monsoon season, with swollen rivers and nighttime hikes for hours.

Suddenly another email. We were invited for an unprecedented trek to Solukhumbu Monastery.  A rugged overland passage.  Here is the proposal from our contact there, and their historical invitation. It reads,

“O yes i have some new idea for you or AO music, since you are in Nepal.
When you are in Nepal you can take your crew to my teacher’s monastery in Solukhumbu, which is the most beautiful place, it is like Tibet,  where now more than six hundred monks and nuns doing prayer every day, i think that make a great experience for AO.  My Guru His Holiness Trulshik Rinpoche who is also the main guru of HH Dalai lama has recently passed away, after many months praying here in Nepal, his precious Kudung, which is his enlighten body, is now in his Monastery Solukhumbu. If you are planning than i can organize a trip and  guide to accompany with you i really think it will be good for AO music since we see that AO will be beneficial for so many people. For that sense that place HH Monastery is the most powerful place, if you are targeting music and chanting with visual beauty.”

So as you can see there is not only a story about the dedication of AO to bring World Music a new voice for change, involving children all over the globe, but our reach now can be educational and inspiring with this trek to Nepal and beyond.

AO trains and records children, most of whom are living in extraordinary circumstances. These children have never been in choirs before and are from the poorest of the surrounding villages.  They will be singing about love, light and our world for the first time, in a harmonically creative language.  This is a signature for AO, that the language cuts across all boundaries and languages and creates a universal, harmonically pure vibration.  You will see the effects of this on the faces of all the children of AO.

AO have been astonished at how these requests open new doors for changing the hearts of people. “But how could we fund this in such a short time?” we asked. Then a phone call.

“This should be a documentary” he said. And before we knew it a dozen interested film people, PBS producers, Independent directors, videographers and Bollywood interest just flooded in. Without effort. An amazing gift for the simple act of holding the vision. One song at a time, one child at a time and one dollar at a time.  One person said that this is a “Dream’Gig” and AOMUSIC has a big dream: To allow for the change needed on the planet to be both initiated by the light of children and the musical purity that is AO. Then to give back to as many children in need as is possible. Why? Because the children hold our future in their hands.

We are now going to Nepal in August to complete our original vision of recording the children of Chitwon and finishing the album and we have given the month of November over to returning to Nepal for all three treks, this time with a film crew and substantial funding.

And what I can say about living in the flow is that the Universe knows when Spirit is at the heart of life and gives such abundant support and love that it takes my breath away.
The project is cooking, growing sea legs, gaining funding and can be the single greatest help to advancing the causes of these children by creating both life changing music AND now creating a visual reference for spirit at work on a suffering planet.

We still need your help to get to the children in Nepal in August and want to have everyone who can give a tax deductible donation to make this trip a reality, become part of our team as we make this documentary. We will be looking for those who want to participate as associate producers or even carry our bags. As I will continue to say, It Takes a Village to Create Change. And Richard Gannaway and I have been the first to “move our feet” to fund the vision. We have used our own resources to make it thus far and I have given up coffee, time to even take a shower and Richard has given up vacations and sleep.  But we cannot move to the next level of the vision alone.

Please visit us at our Kickstarter page   http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/933732314/ao-music?ref=live.   For only $10 you can receive our Last Album,” And Love Rages On” which was shortlisted for the Grammys this past year. This trip takes $10,000 in support.  We are nearly one third there and have less than two weeks left to generate the funds or if we are short our goal even $10, we lose all our dedicated funding.

You can Donate tax deductible contributions on our AO website at  http://www.aomusic.com/ao/blog/wordpress/   and join us on the adventure. Please see the gifts we will give back to you for helping us get this first leg of the trip to Nepal accomplished.

And if you simply cannot push a button and donate $10, $50, $100 then do us the next best favor please.  Send an email to 5 friends.  Tell someone how interesting this project is and point them to all our YouTube videos or my website.  Your spreading the word and sending an email to friends is worth it’s weight in gold.

And get to know each of us at AO on my website at:   http://www.mayalunachristobel.com/heartbeat/

Blessings and thank you, Maya

A Sore Subject

I have had so many inquiries from those of you who have been following my journey this year, regarding my having taken a job with a friend to write a screenplay.  I have posted many funny and amazing stories about this journey of taking one man’s experience and writing a screenplay that does justice to his extraordinary moments.  All in 120 pages.

My work on this project took five months of my life and led me to amazing people and my going to The Film School in Seattle, fly fishing with Tom Skerritt and his wife Julie, finding amazing mentors to work with me, learning about fundraising and producing. What I have learned about myself as a writer and about the business of making movies has been invaluable.

Yet, what I have learned about the way the industry works has been disheartening even more so than I already thought I was aware of.  In the end, as those who become agents or lawyers in the mix do, the project was taken away from me, contracts disregarded, I was not paid and my friend vanished in search of Hollywood.  So I lost a friend. It is always hard to deal with any disappointment or feeling of betrayal anytime, but when it happens with a friend, I am always stopped in my tracks and need to find my way to making sense of what happened.  And I notice here that I use the phrase, “I am always”.

What I have come to know is that betrayal is commonplace.  Betrayal is to be expected.  Betrayal is in fact …necessary.

The irony is this.  My very first screenplay of nearly 20 years ago was entitled “A Necessary Betrayal”.  It is very appropriate that I must revisit my premise in that screenplay in my own life.  The pitch went something like this: “The wife of a pedophile priest finds her own dark side in the arms of another”.  Very melodramatic eeh? The rub in that story was….who did the betraying?  Did the priest betray the wife and the children or did the woman who dealt with her pain and claustrophobia in the church, betray him?  Did they each betray themselves and their higher sense of what is right?  All of the above.  So, in that story the pain of the betrayal by someone she loved led her to see how she had betrayed herself and in fact was capable of the same things she railed about.  Hmmm.

Wiki says this about betrayal: Betrayal is the breaking or violation of a presumptive contract, trust, or confidence that produces moral and psychological conflict within a relationship amongst individuals.   It always seems easier when it is an organization or anonymous person you feel backstabbed by, but when it is your family and friends it is an entirely other thing. We least expect betrayal from those we have learned to trust. The hardest part of this story is the need to ask this question:  How am I responsible and how did I contribute to the outcome and create the betrayal?  This question is far more difficult to sit with than the event of loosing a job, or pay or a friend. Because if we answer the question honestly, we cannot be a victim.

In the end this question leads to our inevitable responsibility for “self-betrayal”.  I, in fact, did not listen to my inner voice whenever it cautioned me to not take this project.  I over-road my inner knowing for the glimpse of a possible future for the story I was writing being on the screen. This was no different from my friend over-riding his loyalty to our agreement for the lure of a possible bigger deal in Hollywood.  Therefore, as within, so without.  OUCH!  My inner reality of self-betrayal was mirrored by the circumstances of betrayal in my relationship to my friend and the project.

This awareness is life changing.  In embracing the painful truth of this, there is no victim.  I am not done to.  I am a creator in my own outcome. In all honesty if I had listened to my own voice from the beginning I would not have taken the project.  I believe this wholeheartedly.  Bravely, each of us would do well to look at those betrayals in our lives that we hang on to or feel so effected by.  Affairs, swindling, robberies, cheating, broken promises done with intent, broken contracts for a better deal.  How have we contributed to those outcomes?  Has our fear created a response in kind?  Have we failed to speak up when we see injustice happening?  Did we fail to confront our deep intuition that a husband is cheating or a boss is ripping us off?  Did we have our head in the sand?  Why?  These are hard but necessary questions.  Blame is far easier than self inquiry.

Being a victim in life is far too easy.  Feeling victimized carries with it powerlessness.  Taking responsibility for the outcomes of our love or business relationships is a stance of power and personal responsibility.  I am endeavoring to stand in this place even in the midst of disappointment, loss and financial difficulty and dust myself off.  I need to embrace my tendency to believe in only the best in a person and not see other signs that I might act upon to protect myself or create clearer contracts in life.  From this vantage point the loss of this amazing project is simply “a day in class”.  A master’s level course in knowing myself and standing up for what I know to be true.  In this case I can be grateful for the learning so it may not happen again. I have become sensitive to the signs in myself and around me that I overlooked before.

And what I know is that the betrayals, especially in the entertainment business, are inevitable.  I am stronger and more prepared in myself to do a better job of taking care of myself and seeing the industry for what it is.  So, in the end I can thank my friend for all I have learned that I would not have without him and my future involvements will be clearer and more tuned to my own needs and knowing. I can only wish him well and will be the first in line to see the movie if it comes to a theater.

The post script in all of this is a silver lining.  As this project that consumed most of my life slipped away, a space was left, and experiences and opportunity that could not have come my way have.  Projects much closer to my heart and more tuned to the person I am are now available.  And I have finally started to do my own project, a story needing telling that I would not have gotten to for a long time if there had not been room made for me to fill.  I learned that what I am even more passionate about than writing for film is producing.  This is a new awareness for me as it is unbelievably exciting.

So, before I sat to write an answer to all the questions I have been receiving, I thought long and hard about what to say.  Knowing the subject of betrayal is a sore one for most of us.  And I knew I needed to be very candid about myself…publicly.  But, I think that what has come with age is my deep awareness that living a life un-clothed is far more interesting, invites far richer and real engagements with people and allows me to find the honest answers in myself to share with you.

Thank You.

Eddie! Or is it Eddy?

I wish I could say that I had fallen in love with some guy named Eddie.  The only Eddie I know is Eddie Haskell from Leave it to Beaver, and all I really remember about him is his annoying high pitched and grating voice.  A real whiner.  No, here I am referring to the eddy, those spots in a river that, on a long paddle, you look for to catch your breath. At least that is what I remember about canoeing.  My hope was for a calm eddy around the corner so I could get out of the current and take a breather.  Well, this memory of the benevolence of the eddy is being challenged and I am currently having quite a different experience.

For nearly 9 months I have dedicated my life to learning to live in the flow.  To live from a much more aware and intentional place in myself. To give my mind a vacation.  It has been both challenging and magical.  My most valuable compass has become practicing the art of navigating life from the heart, the intuition and that “gut feeling”.  Yet in this practice my heart is always accompanied by my mind trying to get control of the process and of the unknowing. My mind believes it can figure anything out and that it will make me feel better in the face of uncertainty.

So, the river of life I live in right now is moving at a speed that my little boat is having some difficulty navigating.  My mind just wanted to “eddie out” and consider my options.

My home base for the better part of a year has been a room in my daughters apartment in Asheville North Carolina, where a few of my things and my cats live when I am not here.  She and I have busted the illusion that mothers and daughters cannot co-habitate as adults and it has been a great time.  But, the lease is up here and Jessie is leaving for the Virgin Islands on her adventure and I am packing my few things, my cats and heading….hmmm….well that’s not clear.

I have many options but no one of them turns that inner light of knowing on or makes me feel inspired and certain.  Every choice that comes up on the radar sounds great:  More time with Film School in Seattle, going to the coastal town of Point Roberts and writing, Findhorn in Scotland, setting down some roots here in Asheville, creating community with new friends.  All these ideas of what is next for me seem great from my mind’s point of view, but my heart is quiet. I have lost my compass.

So, I did the most familiar thing I could do in the face of packing boxes and moving out in  five days from now.  Yep 5 days.  I decided to let my mind take over and make a solution.  Big mistake.  My lack of patience to wait for the answer kicked in my most primitive response.  Just figure it out.  You can do it Maya.  Just get that pad of paper and get those pro’s and con’s down and it will be clear what you should do next.  Big, very big mistake.  It was at this moment I began to eddy out of the river of my inspired life and discovered that an eddy if far more complicated than I had remembered.

An eddy is a place in a river where the water is “moving in a different direction or different speed” than the main current. Eddies are made by rocks in the river, outcroppings along the side, behind logs, bridge pilings, and also on the inside of bends or along the side of the river.  An “eddy line” is the part of the river that separates an eddy from the main current. Eddy lines can range from gentle changes of current, to violent, whirl-pool-causing obstacles. The speed, volume, and motion of the current will decide what type of eddy line is formed.

The eddy that was created, the moment my mind jumped into the front seat of my life was nothing short of a violent whirlpool of thinking.  I began to chew on every detail of why this and not that.  My pros and cons list graduated to a full sized dry erase board in my living room where I could move around all the factors in my life like on a chess board.  This process of “figuring it all out” became exhausting and took me just deeper down the rabbit hole of indecision.  All the while I am being churned around in the washing machine of my own thoughts, the river is just moving past me in it’s predictable and constant flow and always going somewhere.  In the end, I made myself sleepless, anxious and stuck.  I had forgotten my compass.

Right when I hit my breaking point I stumbled on a post on Facebook.  There was a black and white cartoon of a man in the darkness without a flashlight.  All you could see were his blinking eyes.  That was me!  The quote went something like this: “They say when one door closes, another door opens.  But these hallways are a bitch!”.  I was in the dark corridor between leaving something and beginning something and I did not like it.

So, with a week before I had to fill a car full of cats and belongings, find storage for my few other things and go to AAA to get a new set of maps and trip books, I came to a grinding halt in my process of efforting to discern the right thing to do.  I just stopped thinking. I gave up trying. What a relief.  My little boat broke loose of all the debris and obstacles that the mind had created and just silently drifted back into the rushing current of uncertainty.  I was allowing myself to simply not know.  Chop wood, carry water was for me “pack one box at a time” and not know where it was going.  Sleep returned and anxiety stopped. I allowed the vast knowing universe back into my process.

And I now spend time every day reminding myself of the joy of the journey, even if I do not know the destination.  And that is the key.  Letting go of the destination.

When most of us take trips we have a map or a tour guide.  Without the map we do what?  We drive down the road and if we get lost we ask directions (or at least I do).  But like most I had become dependent on knowing where I am going and getting the map out when I felt lost.  The map shows you what is ahead, when to turn, the distance and the constructions zones to avoid, all in the service of me getting from point A to point B.  I have a point A but no point B.  I wanted a map and my mind was going to make one. But in reality that is delusional.  How can anyone get a map from point A to nowhere?  This process of needing to know and have a destination stripped me of the very things I have been learning:  That I do not always know what is next and if I allow that unknowing to just “be” then, without exception, something breaks into my life that is new and magical.  My heart and my intuition know that but my mind had forgotten.

I had forced myself out of the flow of my own knowing and put myself purposefully into a place that was “moving in a different direction or different speed” than the main current.  Why?  Because I was afraid to not know.  I was afraid to make the “wrong” decision.  I was simply uncomfortable in limbo and unwilling to live with the discomfort. Fears were my “eddie line” separated me from the main current of life.

So, you might be waiting to hear what I have finally discovered that I will do come May 29th.  Me too!  I still have no idea.  I rededicated myself to the path that this entire year is about for me and I am waiting for the direction to emerge.  I am waiting and floating on the river with my heart as the rudder.  And until that feeling of joy and inspiration floods my very being, I am packing one box at a time, I am getting my oil changed, I am putting out requests, I am meditating on the very vision of why I am on this road in the first place:  To discover what makes me happy.  So stay tuned for the next chapter.