Why I'm going to Buddha Field for 10 days.

 

My friend Jen told me about Buddha Field when we first met and talked about going to their summer festival. I looked at their website right away and thought it looked amazing. It was a Buddhist festival close to Taunton. It looked very relaxing, very chilled, colorful, happy and just my cup of tea. I have recently started Yoga so Jen telling me about this wonderful festival was just what I needed.

I looked on the Buddha field website every day. I looked at everything throughout the website, read everything and loved every single bit of it. There was no alcohol or drugs, all vegan food, lots of yoga, meditation and workshops. It was what I needed.

Side tracking slightly, but coming back to Buddha Field shortly.... 

My angel cards at yoga last night were EMERGING and SIGNS.

Its funny. My first week at yoga when I was told to pick a card that appealed most to me I thought they were all barking mad. How does a card appeal to me? Does it just jump out and say pick me pick me ? I picked a card but wasnt really into it.

These last two weeks I have really gotten into it and understand what they mean now by saying a card ' appeals to you'

I cant remember what my card was last week but it was very apparent for the lifestyle changes I am currently making and the spiritual path I'm slowly going down.

Last night was the same. Emerging and Signs.

Emerging :

You are awesome in so many ways, and you are beginning to trust and reveal your true nature more easily. At one time, you may have believed that you had to hide your feelings from others (or even from yourself). Now, however, you realize how vital and attractive expressing your authentic self is.

Your Angels are guiding you to honor your true feelings by expressing them to yourself and others. The Angels will help you lovingly talk about your feelings so that no misunderstandings occur with friends and loved ones. Your Angels will never guide you to do or say anything that could hurt you or anyone else! They will also ensure that your life will emerge to a new level of inner peace as you let your true self come out and play.

The second card was signs, we all know what that means. Recently I have been getting signs. My rheumatologist had suggested I practice Mindfullness.

Since telling me this I have watched two tv programes that mention mindfulness, a sign its the right road for me. I met someone through outreach who talked to me all about mindfulness and some books they have.

I was talking of going to live in London then I made friends with a lovely girl who taught me to Hoolla Hoop, told me about all these wonderful meditation festivals and so on. Another sign that I just wasn't meant to move away to London.

The festival I mention above are all based around Mindfullness, another sign that thats the path I need to take.

A few days ago I made friends with a girl through a Facebook group. At first I thought it was a bit random, but hey ho im up for new friends. As we chatted I learnt that she works for a refugee charity. I set up a refugee charity in Istanbul and continue to help the refugees, another sign that she was meant to add me and we were meant to become friends.

Some may not beleive in all this, and think im talking crazy hippy bullshit, but each to their own.

No im not gonna be a crazy preacher that tries to push things on people. Im just finding myself, finding my happiness, finding my way in life, my activities and so on. If going down the holistic and spiritual route is what's gonna work for me, then im more than happy to embrace it.

So back to why im going to Buddha Field for 10 days...

I kept on looking at the website, every day. Everything. I searched everything, I read all the blogs and knew it would be perfect for me. A perfect place for me to learn more about mindfullness, do more yoga, be more free and spiritual, learn, most importantly more about the spiritual path im going down, and also, be pretty healthy. All the food would be organic vegan. I had read a few times on the website that they needed volunteers in may for Green Earth Awakening. I kept on thinking about it and in the end, I just thought why not. Im not working, I dont have a boyfriend or any children, I have no commitments here right now.

I sent a very honest email, and things went from there.

My email went like this : 

I will be completely honest and put myself out there and tell you the truth from the start and if you will still accept me that would be wonderful.

I'm 24 years old, female, from Bournemouth. Im an artist and photographer ( My camera is annoyingly broken right now ) Im currently off work because I suffer with depression and anxiety as well as Fibromyalgia. If you don't know about fibromyalgia I will outline the basics of it. Its wide spread pain throughout the body, brain fog and confusion, chronic fatigue syndrome, clumsiness, tender and achey muscles. It gets better then it gets worse then it gets better and so on.

Im on some pain killers that helps with the pain and I manage most of the time okay.

I juice a lot, which helps, and try to eat as clean and healthy as possible. I have heard a vegan diet does wonders for fibromyalgia so Im keen to go down that road.

I have just started Yoga and Meditation and I love it but im still a complete learner.

I run an organisation in Bournemouth called Streetlight. You can check it out on facebook and I will also send you my blog where I write about it. I set streetlight up almost 18 months ago. Its an outreach team and soup kitchen feeding the homeless in Bournemouth. We used to have a very busy soup kitchen but the council stopped us so we now walk the streets every Saturday night feeding the homeless and chatting etc.

Before that I was in Istanbul doing a very similar thing with another small organisation I set up helping the syrian refugees who had fled the syrian war and were living on the streets of Istanbul with children and babies. 

Im very friendly, of course I need to be, with feeding the homeless :) I work well in a team or alone, I love being around people but im equally happy with my kindle and chilling out. 

Im good with anything arty, photography, anything with children, cleaning, food / juices, etc etc. 

Coming to Volunteer with you would be a massive challenge for me and I by no means think it will be easy due to the work, being away from home, my anxiety etc. But I do think it will give me the massive kick start into being healthy, getting back out there and getting my illness under control. I read somewhere on the website that all the festivals are vegan. I think it will push my boundaries which will be good for me. I have traveled before, a lot. When I was 18 I went to Australia and asia for 15 months, I came home and went to Israel and Jordan for a few months, then america, then lived in Amsterdam.  So I have been around. Im just going through a slightly bad patch at the moment with my depression and I think coming to help with such a fantastic project, being in nature, doing a lot of yoga and being around nice people would do me the world of good.

I'm going to be coming to the main Buddha field event in July as a guest. I saw on your website there is a concession price for people receiving benefits. 

A few days later I received a lovely email back. Thanking me for my honesty and saying that I would be great for the stewarding crew. We went on to chat more and I explained how great it would be for me. I needed to break out of my routine, I needed to get healthy and I thought this was a great kick up the ass to detox and get healthy. I needed to go into Therapy but that was going to take a while, waiting lists and all that jizz with the NHS. I thought in a way, this would be like therapy for me. Being around wonderful, kind hearted , Buddhists who would teach me how to meditate, how to do yoga and many other fun, natural workshops. I would also lose my festival virginity and be part of the very important team that helps this brilliant festival run smoothly.  I'd hopefully make some new friends, too. 

Im a massive control freak. Especially with food. Controlling food is a big part of my life. It all started when I was 13 or 14. I was having a terrible time at school with being bullied and I couldn't control it so I started using food as a way to control my life. I would need to know in the morning what was for dinner, mum would say chicken, then I'd come home and it was pasta. I would be really upset, because it had changed. 

15 year old me

Over the years I have become really obsessive. Obsessive about when I was eating next or obsessive about one particular meal. I would eat the same meal for weeks, then not eat it again for months. I would obsess over going to restaurants, I would spend hours looking at restaurant menus online. I would obsess over a particular Pizza at pizza express and I wouldn't stop thinking about it and obsessing over it until I went and ate it. It didn't matter I had no money, I would make myself poorer just so I could eat this particular pizza. Then things would be 'alright'. If my friends suggested we go somewhere else, I would either cancel, or take ages persuading them to go to this particular place I had chosen. I had already searched the Menu over and over, I knew what I was going to eat and had everything planned. Changing that would cause me massive anxiety. Im not talking 6 years ago, I'm talking last week, yesterday and even tomorrow. This is still a very current issue.  This is an issue I seriously need help with. I'm hoping Buddha field will help me loosen up a little bit. I wont be in control of my food, the cafe staff will be. Although I'm pretty sure the first few days I will be befriending the chef so I can ask in the morning whats for lunch, I'm hoping after a few days I can relax on this and stop asking. 

I think this is the most honest blog I have ever written, especially about my issues and obsessions over food. There needs to be more awareness, and a hell of a lot more help, for people with food addictions. Its an eating disorder. Unfortunately, people only think anorexia is an eating disorder. Its not. I told my doctor a few years ago about all of this and they just poo pooed me, resulting in it getting worse.

20 years old. In vietnam. I barely ate anything but bread and nutella for the whole month  I was in Vietnam

I used to be obsessed with one particular chocolate yogurt. It was cadburys crunchie yoghurts. The ones that have two compartments. They were very nice, but not cheap. I think it was 2 for a £1.  I used to always buy about 6 every time I went to sainsburys, then I would come home and either eat them all at once so no one else could eat them, or put labels on them saying they were mine and no one could eat them, or store them in my hand bag and eat them in secret, or the other one, I used to put them in the shed fridge, then sneak out there at midnight when everyone else was asleep and eat them outside. Proper crazy huh. One Christmas, I really wanted them. It was Christmas eve, I made my mum drive me to 4 different super markets looking for these yogurts.

The list goes on. 

What else was there. Smoked salmon. I became obsessed with it one point with bacon, avacado and eggs. For breakfast. Smoked salmon and avocado aren't cheap. So this was another expensive thing. I'd have it for months every day, then I'd decide I suddenly hated smoked salmon.

Another one was soft garlic cheese and parma ham crispy rolls. Lidls sells a nice garlic cream cheese and has a fresh bakery so Id walk there every day and get my ingredients. I'd make two or three rolls with all the ham and cheese. I ate these for months then one day just moved onto another thing.....

. A few emails back and forth and I had signed up,  I was going to be part of the crew. I was going to go down a few days before the festival started and stay a few days after it ended.  Then the insane anxieties started.

I asked my mum 1 million impossible questions.  

Will my tent blow away?

Will rats get in my tend?

Will I get kidnapped?

Will I starve ?

Do I lock my tent when I'm in it ?

Bla bla, bla. 

All these insane thoughts were popping in my head.

Will it be clean ?

Will I  be able to charge my phone?

Will there be showers?

I didn't have any worries about my Fibromyalgia pain, I deal with that daily, so I can still deal with that in a field away from home. I was worried, and still am, about my fatigue. I'm worried I will be really exhausted, but, it could go the other way. With all the positive vibes around me, the healthy vegan organic food, I could be full of energy and it could be exactly what I needed. 

Im still worried about not charging my phone, about not liking the food and starving to death and about the camping. I have only camped twice before. Once with an ex boyfriend and I was a pain in the ass. I wouldnt shower, and the two nights we spent in the tent I made him wrap me up real tight in a sleeping bag so no spiders could get me. Who's gonna do that now ? Im gonna be on my lonesome. The second time I camped was in Thailand, and admittedly it was a real laugh. We did drink a lot of beer though. The showers were hilarious, just a hose pipe and bucket. I'm hoping that was more 'Thai style' rather than, 'Camping style'.

I leave on Sunday, Im taking a tent with a cow design on it, a blow up bed, both thanks to my friend, my backpack I went to Asia with, a warm sleeping bag, and my hoola hoop. I thought I could get a lot of hoola hooping done when I'm down there and if I'm feeling down at all I can do some hooping and jolly myself up a bit. Im sure there will be some other hoopers there too so I can use it as a mutual interest. Hooping is becoming quite popular now. 

I'll talk you through what im gonna post in another blog before I leave, I'm sure I'll be taking a few odd things. I need to buy one of those charger things, that you can charge before you go and then use it to charge your phone while your away.

What am I hoping to gain out of my experience volunteering at Buddha Field ?

Im hoping to make more friends, open up my eyes to new things such as yoga, meditation, mindfulness, Buddhism, veganism.  Be less of a control freak, chill out more, stop being so angry. Learn to deal with my chronic fatigue better. Sort out my diet and detox. But most importantly have any amazing time. 

I'll be taking my kindle and will be spending many an hour getting lost in my books. I love to read and have just picked up my kindle after months of abandoning it. I still think a kindle is the best thing since sliced bread ! 

Check out Buddha field here

Anastasia, x x x 

Day 4, 5, 6 and 7. Life with food issues is a learning curve. A very curvy one.

Day 4. I don't feel any slimmer. Aren't I meant to be skinny right now ? I don't feel particularly healthier either. I'm four days free of coke. I'm clean ! Coca Cola of course. I'm still barely sleeping at night and suffering with insane insomnia, so that hasn't cleared up yet, but It is only day 4 so time will tell. 

I find im only having 4 juices a day, a pint at a time and Im pretty full. Maybe its the chia seeds that we have been adding, but im pretty full. The only thing I miss is the chewing. I miss chewing food. I dont necessarily miss food, solids, but just chewing. Its weird, when something gets taken away from you, you miss it. When you have it, you dont know how much you want it. 

The idea of juicing still takes a while to get your head around. All your life you have been told you must eat, now were just drinking liquids, it takes a while to get your head around it.

I went to my friends house on the evening of day 4. Armed with a green juice and a pot of cucumber and carrots. I wasn't actually round there for long because my friend didn't feel well so we had to cut our catch up short. 

My pain isnt any less yet. I think that will start getting better a few weeks in. I still have the muscle aches, the burning sensation on my skin, the tightness, stiffness, all the typical Fibromyalgia symptoms. I'm hoping in the long run this changes.


Day 5. Its 5 days of cycling my bike for half an hour a day and I can feel the burn. I can feel it. That's good right ? No pain no gain as they say. I barely slept last night. Even with my sleeping tablets I never get a full nights sleep and never feel rested. I had a dinner planned for Friday night before I started juicing, and I wasnt going to be good. My brother and sister in law have worked in this beautiful little fine dining french restaurant for over two years and were leaving, so we wanted one last supper there. My meal was amazing, I ate a lot, but because portions are smaller than the large ones I would usually serve at home, and spread out, I didnt feel fat.

I appreciated every little taste after juicing for 5 days straight I was so excited.

My meal wasnt vegan. I still haven't completely transitioned to being vegan.

My starter was poached duck egg with crispy Parma ham and wild mushroom veloutte.  My dad had crab and picked vegetables. I tried it and loved it so much I ordered one. Yes I was having two starters. My main was pork tenderloin, pink, with crushed new potatoes. It was the best pork I have ever had. So tender, hence the name. My dessert was the best chocolate fondant in the world. It just oozed chocolate. It was served with pistachio ice cream, chocolate crumble and raspberry popping candy. THE BEST EVER. 

Day 6. I was meant to be back on the juice. I was meant to wake up early and hang out with my friend. Im always meant to do a lot of things. I woke up crazy late and grabbed a juice and a few bottles of water and left to meet Scarlett to go to the Christchurch food festival. I was really really tired. Even though I had slept till 2pm, I was so tired. I didn't feel rested at all. We walked to Christchurch, about a 20 minute walk. Within 10 minutes my left leg was numb and killing. 

We walked around the festival and I still didn't give in to coke. I was so good. I came home and had a juice. I was meant to go out and do outreach for the homeless, something I do most Sundays but I was really tired.  My mum wanted to order a Indian take away so I ordered chicken tikka. I wish I didn't give into food. My chicken tikka was yummy, of course, when is Indian not yummy ? But afterwards I felt so full. The juice was definitely the way to go. 

Day 6. I didn't get to sleep till 4 a bloody m. 4 am. what the fuck. I then had to be up and outta bed by 6 am for a car boot sale. Which was disgusting. I'm really OCD about touching things. I hated it. I hate car boot sales. There was a burger stall and the smell of burgers bacon and sausage was wafting towards me and I was so tempted, but I didn't have one. I had my green juice instead ! I came home and went back to bed. 


I woke up and had half a juice, 4 bananas then just sat around doing nothing feeling hungry but really unmotivated. I just had spaghetti bolognaise cos it was in the fridge and readily available but Im bloody starving. I recon Im gonna make a juice.

So that's my week one done with mostly juicing, 5 days straight to start with. 

Im still coke free. No coke. Woop. I hope soon I will start feeling the benefits !


This is a photo of me on Friday night, compared to a photo of me 5 months ago.

Getting ripped off in Laos.

We had been in Thailand for around three weeks when we had our first official border crossing. We crossed the Mekong River to Huay Xai, Laos.  We stepped into tiny little wooden boats that I was sure were gonna sink and crossed a tiny river. I'm sure it was shallow enough for us to wade over. Nonetheless we had the drama of getting in these creaky little boats and stumbling out on the other side. Another country, we were in Laos. 

We queued up to see one man who looked at my passport, looked at me, looked at my passport, muttered something, stamped it and handed it back to me. He pointed to another man, it seemed I needed to walk to this other man. This was the man I had to pay. I paid him, no idea how much, and he gave me another stamp and I was off on my merry may to another man.

The third man, was the money man. I just gave the money man the rest of my Thai money to change and drew out £50 from the cash point. After clearing immigration, we travel by van into the rugged, remote north of Laos to the small town of Luang Nam Tha. I don't know how we survived that van ride. I'm not sure the driver had a driving license, I'm really not. We drove down lots of windy, bendy roads at what seemed like 100 mph and eventually came to an abrupt halt at our guest house. 

We all clambered out of the van desperate for food and rest.  We checked into our guest house and were led down to our rooms. As soon as we arrived we knew this guest house was going to be lovely. It was simple looking, but lovely. The reception was all wood, wood floors, wood walls, wood roof, wood everything. Too the left was the lovely restaurant we would come to eat in 3 or 4 times a day.  Once we were past the little wooden reception we were led down some little paths, surrounded by green trees and pink flowers. It was really beautiful and calm. We were led to lovely little bamboo huts with small balconies that looked over a small river. We were surrounded by nature and it was going to be a perfect place to chill out for a few days and relax.

We joked about our rooms having heaters and really thick blankets in. We were all a bit confused, it was lunchtime and nice and warm. We all had dinner in the guest house restaurant that night and had our first experience of Laotion food. Delicious. I had some kind of sticky rice, spicy chicken, and vegetables. It was lovely, we were also shown how to eat with our hands. You use the sticky rice as your cutlery.

We all had an early night because we were pretty shattered. The group were going trekking for 3 days in the morning but me and gill were staying behind in the little guesthouse. We had no idea what we were going to do, we planned on chilling out a lot and reading our books.

It was around 8 pm now and we found out just why we needed the blankets and heaters. It was freezing ! Bloody freezing ! The temperature had dropped so much. We were definitely going to need those heaters !

The next day me and gill decided to explore. We found two bikes at the guest house and decided to cycle to the nearest town. About an hour away. We were literally in the middle of no where.

I had all my money I had converted the day before at the border. Anyone that knows me, knows Im damn terrible with money. I just don't understand money. Even English money, im just terrible at it, I get confused so easily. I had just gotten used to using Baht in Thailand and then I had to move to another country and learn all about another currency. Something was bound to go wrong. Sooner, rather than later.

So we cycled for about half an hour until we reached the nearest town. This town was very basic, it had a few basic restaurants, a motorbike shop, a regular convenience store and lots of local people selling fruit, veg, cats, dogs, donkeys, you name it, they were selling it. When we were cycling up the hill towards the town, we were so pleased to see it. It was like a little gold mine on the horizon after seeing rice paddies for so long.

I popped into a shop and bought a can of coke. Damn my love for coke. I handed the friendly old man a note, he went to give me back some change, and silly ole me said ' No no, you keep the change' .

Obviously I was confused.

Obviously I was craving that coke so bad.

Obviously I was exhausted from the bike ride and feeling faint.

Actually, im just stupid. I thought I was giving him about 20 pence change, but in reality I was giving him about £35 change. No wonder the little dude seemed so damn happy with himself. 

So there we go, the first time I got ripped off. I'll never forget it, but I'll always laugh about it. 

Who spends £36 on a can of coke ?

Anastasia does.

Anastasia does.

    

My 2nd day, september 2013

My second day was quite similar to my first day, I just met more families. 

I took the tram to Beyazit again. I went to the T shop outside the tram stop and bought 5 packs of nappies, about 50 toothbrushes and toothbrushes. The cashier wanted to know what I was doing so I explained. She said it was very nice and wished me a good day. I walked all through the markets. I stopped at the shops I had been to the day before and bought all the same items.

Just three times as much :)

By the time I reached Eminuno I was weighed down with bags and bags and bags. My hands felt like they were gonna fall off !

I separated everything again into mini packets. I found one lady stood right outside the spice bazaar. She wasn't begging. She was just letting her children play. I gave the children some toy cars and moved onto some families who were sat around.

I found so many families in need. They all had children and a lot of them had young babies under a year. I handed out the milk and nappies to the families with children under 2 years old. 

Parents pushed their children forward to take the bags off me. The children were poorly dressed. Winter was approaching and most of them just had too small t shirts on and thin trousers. Their skin was filthy. The skin on their feet was cracked and dry from wearing no shoes. 

I gave all the children a bag each filled with bread, water, cheese, tooth brushes, toy cars, tooth paste, hats, gloves, vests and wet wipes. 

All the parents thanked me. I carried on doing the rounds and giving more bags out. Every single family was extremely grateful. They accepted the bags with gratitude and couldn't thank me enough.

One family invited me to sit with them. They said I could play with their two daughters. Both under 3 I assume. I asked the father if he would use my camera and take photos of me playing with the children and he was happy to do so. The children and the parents loved looking through the photos afterwards.

I tried to teach the little girl a simple clapping game. I played this simple game with her over and over again and she was just so happy. I will always remember how happy she looked while we played that silly little game. Her young sister, about 18 months, took my lip salve out of my hands. That was that gone. She gave it to her mum and her mum showed her how to use it.

I moved on to more families.

I found one family that consisted of one man, two women and about 10 children. I gave them the rest of my bags. They had a young baby girl who was not dressed suitably at all. They asked me if I had anything warm for the baby with long sleeves.

I didnt but I offered to walk with the babies mum to the markets and buy her a few warm baby grows. I bought 5 warm baby grows for 15 lira. Absolutely nothing to me.

I stayed with the family a little longer and played with the children before heading to sultan ahmet to meet my friends.