RE- Discoveries: meditation

Also said: re-discovery. My blog posts are seriously challenged at the moment since my pc seems to be infected by a virus and my permanent internet connection is down....
So i'll speak quickly and with images:

(>>>>delicious fruit longan)
Those are instances from my vipassana meditation silent retreat for 9 days in Chiang Mai, Thailand, a few weeks ago.

My weeks of.....I'm the queen of blog delays!

I realized lately  my blog posts always start with mentioning that i haven’t written for a while…and this was, seriously going to start with the same…with the difference that I have made a record this time…. 6 Weeks without a post….! I can be crowned the queen of bad blog administration….or of blog delays...
If you follow my twitter account www.twitter.com/debbje or facebook page www.facebook.com/deborahdinauta ( that I do update more frequently….lol!) you would know that I spent some time in a recording studio in Chiang Mai and recorded a cd with 4 of my original songs, just me playing my guitar and singing. I have chosen 4 tracks for the cd: Not afraid, Children of the sun, Raise your love and “Hundred things”. Being a perfectionist I  took my time before I was satisfied of the final result…but the experience of recording in a studio for the first time was not only super exciting( I was there, I was really doing it!>> that’s what I was thinking) but also a very important learning experience. 

Before entering the studio in fact I spent 9days in a monastery, learning and practicing vipassana meditation, and one of the rules we had to attend to was: no music, no sound, no instruments, no mp3 players, no computers…nothing except meditating ( not even talking!).
( I am going to talk about my meditation retreat experience in the next blog post)
So these 9days of no-practice really had an impact on my preparation while in the studio….or I should say not-proper-preparation because I had to record the tracks many more times than I thought I would, before getting the accurate playing and singing. As a musician, ( lesson learnt) you cannot really afford long breaks in order to keep a good level of quality in your music.
For the cd that I have produced therefore, mastered and ready to be packed in nice sleeves, I have different plans. One is to use it as a demo to send to music publishers all over the planet, starting with Europe first, secondly I plan to sell it while busking/performing in the next few months and I am evaluating if I want to sell it online maybe on itunes.

My week of discoveries, on the go, My new life!

It's been more than a month since my last post but  i have not stopped once to do something, live or make music.
I have spent june at New Life Foundation in Chiang Rai until June 27th and then I have started to travel in South East Asia, starting from the North of Laos and I am now in the South of Laos, in a charming island called Don Det.
I wrote an a amazing new song just the day before my departure from New Life, the song is called "I am out of here"and it kind of summarizes my discoveries about the world/life and myself of the nearly 3months i spent at the foundation.

>>Me and Ashton in the making of "I am out of here"

I feel really blessed, lucky and grateful for the life that I am leading at the moment. Being able to see so much of the world, meet so many new personalities and see the world also from their eyes.
It is so true that in this world we are millions of people and these millions of people they all have different ways to live, and there is NOT one fixed, righteous way. This is one of the endless beauties of this planet, there is no fixed rule.
This is one of the biggest change that I have seen happened in me: months ago, before going to the New Life Foundation, the simple fact that there was not a fixed rule to follow in the world, seemed chaos to me, seemed imperfection, seemed WRONG in itself, was making me unhappy and unsure.
Now, the same thing, the fact that the world is made of so many different opinions, ideas, rules that there is no OBJECTIVITY, makes the world a fascinating creature in itself and the journey to discover it amusing,exciting and challenging. Welcome to my NEW LIFE!

My weeks of discoveries: jam sessions by the pool and photoshoot for album/website

Life continues in the North of Thailand where i have been for the past 2months.
New songs have seen the light here and last week i completed a new super cool song, for which really i am undecided on the name ( i struggle to find interesting titles for my songs)but which has 3different parts and a kind of MUSE-ish chorus, which was really what i wanted to do, creating a kind of Muse song, full of pathos and triumphant.
Also i have started to work on a song, whose chorus only i had made while in Brisbane, Australia, waiting for a bus at the bus station. The chorus idea was very catchy but i had no idea on how to develop the song itself or how the verses could be. So the melody of the chorus has been buzzing around my head from time to time for the past 5months, until last week, i picked it up and played it on the guitar and i am starting to figure out the rest...the title for this song may be easy to find instead, it may actually be "it seems to have gone away".
Many things here in Thailand have increased my creativity level: the mindfulness and meditation training of New Life Foundation has given me more energy, meeting other talented musicians, like Sinead from London

( here in the picture of one of the jam sessions i organized at the pool) and hearing many emotional stories from people around the world, and feeling more than ever connected to other's suffering or happiness and life. We are all one, so connected, connected because we have the same human nature, even if we try to cover it up with lots of things, we do come from the same place, go through the same issues/struggles and go towards the same place.
It is often so easy to feel isolated, our own ego make us feel different and really think the others do not know how hard certain things are for us, but it is all an illusion of our mind, we do are so much closer than we have ever realized.
The clarity given by meditation and mindfulness made me take the decision to record a debut album here in Asia, which i'll do in the next couple of months, while i am investigating on where the best place to do that will be. I am quite excited by the whole thing, i have now 16songs i can perform on guitar but i'll only choose the best 7 for the album.
Last week i was very lucky to have the help of a good photographer, guest of New Life, Mukhia from Nepal. We took 70 pictures in a great setting perfect for the concept of album and the atmosphere i want to give and i can't wait to see the final results.

My weeks of discoveries, biodanza and Koh Chang

I am struggling at the moment to keep the blog up-to-date with regularity because I am really spending most of my time just living in the present, meditating and keeping my eyes open to see and experience all that life is giving me at the moment.
Finding reliable internet is sometimes time-consuming also.
I am spending a few days in the wonderful tropical island of the Elephant, called Koh Chang, 5 hours drive and 50minutes ferry from Bangkok.
I was pleasantly surprised to see wild monkey near the hut that i rented, and for 15minutes i couldn't help but staring at them,in total love and amazement. Those little hands catching coconuts and their movements while eating, so human-like. Their ability at balancing on branches and letting themself fall down or pull up the lyaenas.
But exciting 2 weeks ago was our session of biodanza and dance mandala at New Life Foundation, an experience in letting go of emotions and using the music and dance as healing power.
One of my favourite exercises/dance was one where you stand on one leg and use one hand to create what you want ( left hand) and with the right you cut away what you don't want. So you use the right hand as a sword and at the same time you scream "ah ah"and you increase the rhythm and screams.
I loved it, and felt very relieved and happy after i did it.
In general I certainly went out of my comfort zone since many parts of the dancing required quite close contact or eye-contact with people. I loved dancing barefeet, it is so much me!
And this is us at New Life Foundation, moving to the sound during our Sunday morning biodanza which also meant: drinking circa 3 litres of water....so hot and humid!>>>>

My week of discoveries:Jam sessions,impermanence and new songs

It has been a hectic two weeks here at New Life Foundation in Chiang Rai, Thailand. I have been working so much on self development, through daily mindfulness, yoga and meditation and i feel i am doing huge discoveries on myself, there is so much we are not aware of about ourselves.
So much we hide even to ourselves or we have never been used to admit or never been allowed.
In the past 2 weeks a few people i really liked, volunteers or residents here have left for their next adventure, most of them still travelling in South Asia. The atmosphere here is strange because you feel like being back at school and also at the same time on a school trip...you meet at daily community work, then at breakfast, lunch and dinner, then we have workshops where we speak about ourselves and really talk in depth about emotions, feelings, situations.
We are literally people from all over the world,lots of English people and Americans,some from other countries but i have never ever felt so close and so much alike. It almost brings tears to my eyes because when you let your prejudices fall and really listen and ask people you find that under the conventions of the society they come from or the habits given by the environment where they were raised or live, we are really the same and we CAN understand each other truly deeply.
Here at NLF we talk daily about the impermanence of things/situations and how that affects our sufferings because human beings tend to attach and not want change which is the normal process of life itself. So the fact that you meet and like people here and after a while you have to part from them is a lesson on impermanence in itself and make you constantly have to check how you feel inside, it makes you ground on yourself.
While processing all these thoughts, listening to people, asking them opinions about my issues and meditating i have had lots of inspiration for new music and i have finished writing one song called "Been a while"and another one called "Wake up in the morning". The first one talks about deepest moments of sadness, so deep that you do not feel a link with the outside world, so close you feel in yourself, but the chorus sparks the seed for change into happiness.
The song "Wake up in the morning"is a good hymn to making every day a new day, realizing every day is a precious gift and that everyday you are born again and have endless chances.
I particularly feel connected to these 2 songs.
I have also organized jam sessions every week end, and given "concerts"here at the Foundation receiving much appreciation from everybody.
The following is a picture of a jam session last Friday in a club in the centre of Chiang Rai.>>>

My week of discoveries, Music books and others

Lately i have been investing most of my time in myself, and one of the things i am taking my time to do is reading. While living in my friends living rooms or spare guest rooms for the past 3months
( before my departure to Thailand in end March) i learnt so much from them, from their way of living and got cool tips or had the chance to be introduced for example to Ayurvedic cooking, since one of my good friends in Amsterdam is studying that. ( Really worth getting deeper into it, what is better for an Italian than recipes that are both tasty and have medical properties? I have in my mind a fantastic dish with only plain rice, lime juice and cinnamon, so simple but yet so delicious and i was quite surprised by the way cinnamon and lime combine gracefully in the mouth)
So inspired by her i also made strange and colourful food combinations like this one >>>

While living with my friend Charlie, who plays guitar in my band in Amsterdam, he lent me his book "Summer of Love"by George Martin. The book is  centered around the Beatles and the production of the album "Sgt Pepper Lonely Heart's Club": how they made each song, which ideas where behind it, all their musical research, new instruments they used ( even the toilet paper of their recording studio, considered "too hard for the conventional use"was used by John Lennon in one song!), That book was so inspiring, absolutely eye-opening on the world of songwriting.
But it also gave me hunger for more music books, to read more about other musicians stories, biographies, mindsets....So  after that, i wanted more...and by chance the next book to read came to me. One Thursday i read on twitter of this Dutch band presenting their debut album in the music shop Concerto in Amsterdam. It was just the Thursday before my flight to Thailand and i arrived to late for the concert, while i cycled under the snowflakes ( yes it was still snowing) so i reached the place and the concert was over....but i then had time on my hands to check the place out, which i had not done yet and there, the book called me from the shelf, so i bought it, right when i wanted one, and right before my departure. I am reading it now: the biography of the Rolling Stones, which is quite a thick book and actually it is too much focused on their "sex, drugs"life and too little on "rock n'roll"and songwriting for my taste, but still i plan to continue to read it until the end.
And then since i have landed at the New Life community centre in Thailand, i have taken advantage of their library of self development and buddhism books and i have just finished "How things exist"by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, which i admit, was a bit too hard for me to really grasp much of the buddhist philosophy it deals with....