Tag Archives: the simple life

September 1, 2014 · 9:35 am

Songline Running


You’re a creative type? Love the buzz of that busy mind bursting forth new ideas? Of course! There’s only one little hiccup; a bug in the cranial software. It’s called ‘conscience’.

This little pest insists on telling you you should be exercising (just when you thought you’d mastered the fabulously healthy skill of dismissing all ‘shoulds’).  It gnaws at you with the ‘exercise’ message, ensuring you faintly recall a virtuous feeling you had when you did some years ago. But a huge groan keeps pace with conscience, fuelling an ongoing battle for songwriters like me, who are notorious for not exercising anything other than the mind. Until now.

Today,  a new sport, Songline Running, invented itself. And it’s not the regular sport of running with headphones on.  It goes like this:

You take up Songline Running, (having a name for something always helps).  In your first session, totally new, (and, you tell yourself, ‘vastly better’), songlines run through your mind as you run – (and, you tell yourself, this is the only way they come in at this level). Even miniature runs yield this quality of creative occurrences.  I call my miniature runs ‘shuffles’ …

Then follows the best bit. You treat yourself with the well deserved REWARD – (you might need to picture the reward before you begin, to get you out the door in the first place). And the reward is? Vastly better songlines of course, (or poetry if you’re a poet, novel ideas if you’re a novelist, and so on). You get to slam all that breakthrough, higher level brilliance into your songwriting software the moment you get home. Athletes call this a ‘warm down’ – you see them stretching in all sorts of gangly poses after the run. But for we ‘arteests’ the best ‘warm down’ is to ‘get it down’ … I’ve just completed my first Songline Run and I couldn’t wait to tell you!  I’m FULL of world-shattering new ideas.

Next time I post a song, you’ll be so impressed you’ll immediately take up the sport yourself, (that is, unless you’re already impressed with this triumphant little article, in which case, you’ll take up the sport now). OK. I’ve warmed down getting this all down. And I’ve popped those gorgeous new lines into my songwriting software, which I reckon is thanking me. Now it’s time for brekkies.

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March 4, 2013 · 9:31 am

Paws … Pause

BoomerAgeI like using humour when it comes to ‘don’t mention it’ aspects of being a woman at the esteemed ‘mature & wise’ stage of life … Enjoy!

Paws
© 2013 Radha Sahar

Women, they say, are like a book
Hard to read but it’s easy to look
They might dress up in leopard skin tights
They’re animal types
When they set their sights on you

They’re either apples, bananas or pears
But I say women are cuddly bears
They might dress down for menial chores
But love’s in store
When they wrap their paws around you

Now it’s time to pause
For more than a cup of tea
Yes it’s time to pause babe, and
Wrap your paws, your pretty paws around me!

Women are beautiful at every age
Even at the ‘don’t mention it’ stage
When we mention being very wise
Life brings many blessings in disguise

Now it’s time to  pause …

Women turn up with plates of food
Often in a playful mood
Wild cats or quiet birds in the nest
You are blessed
Coz they give their best to you

Now it’s time to pause
For more than a cup of tea
It’s time to pause, and
Wrap your paws, your pretty paws around me!

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May 6, 2010 · 6:49 pm

A Body Like an Avatar Alien, part 2

Here it is!!! – my new Avatar body – not bad eh!

Now before you elaborate on the finer differences between me and the Navi Babe in part 1, realise we are on another planet. On Pandora, eating unprocessed, plant-based wholefood, they’re naturally lithe. The idea of slimming has been irrelevant.

But recently, I met one or two Navi who had visited planet Earth, (invisible as they were in their beyond-the-speed of light spacecraft). Evidently, they had innocently tried some of the nosh down here, and it affected their genetic code. Sadly, they now have to keep an inner-third eye on alert when eating food high in fats and carbs. Turns out there is no outsize apparel is available in Pandora. And though I wouldn’t mind seeing a few of them running around naked, they’re not into it. Clothing is essential in the daily hunt for berries, nuts, edible greens. One gorgeous, sexy looking dude put me in the picture …

‘You leap through the forest and dive into pure waters, harvesting with care so each food source can readily sustain itself. Traditionally there’s no temptation to graze because you know food is precious. You gather & hunt for the whole clan – none of this individual indulgence stuff. You take what you need and no more – no private pigging out! Earthly diseases of ‘civilisation,’ do not occur here …’ he said, proudly. Then his face fell. ‘Now I’m a bit gutted. I need to watch my gut now.’ I was puzzled. His gut looked hellava trim to me, so I replied with a curious look. His divine-goddess-looking partner picked up the narrative.

‘There’s food available, and the Avatar Tea in your hunting pouch sports a little plant-milk; just enough protein and carbohydrate to keep you going for a few hours until we all gather to eat’. She explained that they still observe the ancient ways. Like their ancestors, they eat according to the sparse cycle of hunger, when and if there is food to go around.

It brough back memories. During my Navi training, when I first went without snacks, I experienced a new feeling – hunger!!! What I used to call hunger was just my stomach digesting. Real hunger felt different – primal and healthy. I found it occurs in waves every four to six daylight hours.

So the slimming tips I secretly hoped to pick up during my Navi training turned out to be, in essence, ‘live the green prescription.’ A bit of cajoling myself into health ways, and lots of inspiration, worked. Yes -I did it! And I’m still doing it, to the best of my ability. It can be challenging at times, especially in our society. But others are doing it too, working on eating more consciously, and taking a break to relax with a Whole Food Living magazine; recipes to try, new things to learn.

Evidently the apex of human induction has recently been reached. You can aim, fire and stay on target. We now have the knowledge needed to have a body like an Avatar Alien:  be active & eat healthy food in small amounts when you’re genuinely hungry, period. Back to Earth … Galump! As mother used to say, “Give thanks”, “Eat your greens” and “Think of all the starving children.”

As you pop a can of baked beans in the food bank trolley at the supermarket, you’re glad to be sharing whole plant food staples with others in the human clan – lots of struggling families out there. Tuning into your body, you notice you’re gradually turning a rather triumphant shade of blue …

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March 2, 2010 · 6:51 am

Have a Body like an Avatar Alien! – part 1

Avatar Alien Image

OK, so you don’t want blue skin; fair enough. But those slim, agile limbs and CGI waistlines! – what wouldn’t you do to have those? You decide to take the leap … back to nature, where such endowments are a natural given in the hunter gatherer lifestyle.  Suddenly ancient ways are making sense. Time to get hunting & gathering …

You’ve been great at hunting for bargains and gathering weight, but now you’ve seen Avatar …

Hand Mowing image

1. Back to the Plot
Square one. You realise that, like the Navi, you’re living on a plot of soil – well it was, before you had it concreted a decade ago. It’s out with the concrete and in with a magical, Pandora-style vege & herb garden. Out with that designer pebble courtyard and in with a luscious little lawn. Trimming inches off your waist as you trim the grass with a dinky little push-mower, you’re in tune with nature. Exercise, now integrated into daily home-living, is not only burning off calories, it is increasing your metabolic rate and your lean tissue mass! Every muscle sings as you dig compost and plant and weed your green haven. Gathering your very own harvest, you thank the goddess you haven’t lost the plot.

Eggbeater image

2. Out with Labour Saving Devices
Was there white-ware on Pandora? Hmmm … You realise over-civilization has you in its deadly, muscle-wasting grip. No longer. You’re washing laundry by hand, picturing yourself dressing real scanty like the Na’vi once your new body is fully formed. Hanging clothes out in the sun, your big-stretch regime has new meaning. Everything hums as you ‘vacuum’ the floor with your hand-sweeper (remember those cute push-things grandma had?). Manual labour is back ‘in’ as do-it-by-hand beaters, graters, peelers and lemon-squeezers consume energy – yours, not the environment’s. Your thighs are lithe from constant knee-bends, your arms are firm enough to go sleeveless and you’ve actually got a waist! But what to do with the waste? A boomer truckload of white-ware & electrical gadgetry is donated to those in need – frantic parents with a house full of kids to raise, for instance. You are now free to fight the good fight …

3. Facing the Cold, Hard Facts
On the 3D battlefield, you were in retreat and your stomach, in advance.  You stand on attack, bravely facing the cold, hard facts aliens have been bleeping to humans since consumerism took over planet Earth. They are:

Consume Less. If you have surplus fat, you’ve eaten more calories than you need. There is no way to shed weight, and keep it off, other than eating less and exercising more. End of transmission. Gulp. Blush. Surely reality is not that black & white? That cold?

Luckily, you’ll only need to eat moderately less, and exercise moderately more – that’s hot! But you soon go cold realising it has to be ongoing. Like, for the rest of your life. But at least ‘cold’ and ‘hot’ are your friends – extreme temperatures can increase your metabolic rate by up to 20% – it’s all going to work out as you work out!

Yoga image

You start walking in the winter air, taking cooler showers. You float into deep relaxation, basking indoors with a new Pandora-style passive solar heating system. Hot yoga is cool! Avatar suppleness will be yours to show off

You’ve faced the cold, hard diet & exercise facts. They took a bit of digesting … but your digestive system is now Pandora-fit!

4. Learning New, Ancient Ways

You’re the chosen one – the one who will be super-gorgeous, lithe, fit, muscle-endowed and trim. Your wisdom-body is forming a bright future, as you learn to live like the alien-ancestors. Already Echo Living, you’re well on the way backwards. You step further now, into ancient ways …

~ Mining Precious Minerals
Planet Pandora’s bogglingly valuable mineral, ‘unobtanium’ is not nearly as in demand on planet Earth as the one you’re discovering: ‘weightlossium,’ which is highly active when you get back to the essentials; minerals & vitamins. You discover seaweed, the ultimate mineral-rich food, and other ancient, super-foods. Every calorie counts.

You go nutrient-rich – wholefoods, high in nutrients, low in calories, digging in the garden instead of digging in at the bakery, dessert restaurant, sweet shop, or fast-food stop.  You’re high on nutrition, low on calories. And that new culinary goldmine is raking in the profits!

~Becoming Unrefined
Leaping around in the wild, you’re eating foods as nature made them. Nothing is refined on Pandora – no food industry exists to refine it. No fillers, additives, artificial preservatives, colours, flavours, humectants, emulsifiers, sweeteners, acidity regulators, modified genes and other profit-making, up-sizing ingredients. Your taste buds burst you into new heights of ecstasy.

Dinner image

As you serve delicious dinners in your little cabin, vitamins & minerals are pouring in, forming, strengthening and energising your dream-Avatar body!

Sitting on the throne, you reach a new level of ‘regular,’ enjoying kiwifruit, delicious whole grains and all that natural fibre without even thinking. Each day is a moving experience! What a relief – you’re returning to your, natural, unrefined, radiant, not-so-blue self! 🙂

Tell us how you go experimenting with your new Avatar body – or at least what you think about ‘weightlossium!’ And don’t miss Part Two … May the force be with you!

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January 10, 2010 · 11:07 pm

Echo Living

Echo Living Image.

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Have you heard about echo living?  You’ve come to the right place, because I just composed the idea! …

Anyone can afford it – it only costs a song …

Echo Living is a musician’s take on eco-living;  you just transform your lifestyle, grooving in an echo of the past. ‘Scaling down’ we musos call it – living the simple life.  Most musos are very good at it and have been echo-living out of necessity for years. Rampant consumerists, noting the typical musician’s simple lifestyle, labeled it ‘down & out’.  But the latest is that it’s definitely ‘up & in’.  Enjoy the benefits …

1. Your Life is Less Complicated
A simple lifestyle is less complicated: it’s as simple as that!

2. No Clutter
Echoing a simple lifestyle of days gone by, re-cycle all your clutter. It’s amazing how many possessions you don’t need!

To discover what you don’t need, take an extended vacation in a small cabin or caravan; no lounge, dining room, family room, computer room, bedrooms, guest rooms, bathrooms, kitchen, en-suites, dressing rooms, games rooms or any other rooms, and the clutter in them. You realise that, apart from what you need for work,  the possessions you left at home are superfluous, and your big house was a time-consuming slave-driver. So, with a huge smile, you de-clutter, sell up and move into a smaller place – to hell with the Joneses!

3. You’ve More Time to Relax
Not needing to mow lawns, care for furniture, ornaments and kitchen gadgets,  wardrobes full of clothes & shoes, not needing to sort the games room, vacuum floor upon floor and generally maintain a large building, you  discover how to relax. Now you thrive in the blissful absence of television, having found life is much more relaxing without it.

You find there’s a sunset to look at and a real you. You’re learning to play a musical instrument – and by now you realise that doing nothing is absolute bliss. When you go on holiday you no longer have to keep up appearances at the best hotels – you’re far more content at the backpackers or couch surfing. And … your love-life is reborn!

4. You Enjoy More Peace & Quiet
Living in a quieter place, there is no traffic roar, no neighbours too close by having loud ‘domestics,’ or winding up the volume on music you hate. You chill out listening to birdsong and making your own music.

Your house-sale profits went into fantastically effective insulation & double glazing for your cabin so it’s real quiet – and coping well with the onslaught of unpredictable global-warming weather extremes. Insect screens mean noisy bugs are not trapped indoors,  and you have peace of mind not killing them. Barking dogs? You’re almost ready to get rid of them too – since the best thing you can do to slow global warming, according to New Scientist, is to go vegan. Better still, Wholefood Plant-Based style vegan – ultra healthy, real food. Who needs highly processed alt-meats and Lab foods when beans, tofu, chickpeas & lentils are cheaper and healthier?

5. Happy Healthy Meals
Cooking is a melody with your whistling kettle and your two-plate hob. No oven, no microwave, no food processor, cake mixer … You’re shedding extra pounds not doing any baking – who needs cakes anyway? -no complicated meals are expected. No one imagines a dinner party in such a situation. Everyone’s happy with soup, steamed veges, salad, fruit, and bug-marked organic produce from your garden.  With no pantry, the essential grains, nuts & seeds, canned food and a few treats are all accessible on a shelf. Echoing the healthiest civilisations, you stand a chance of surviving on grass ‘n weeds soup if things turn sour. Meanwhile the delicious vege recipes you prepare are amazing!

6. You’re Fitter, Stronger & Slimmer!
As you’re secluded from the road, it’s a bit of a hike up to your place.  You’re walking much more, weight-lifting supplies and musical instruments up to the cabin, toning every muscle group as you tread, goat-footed, across uneven, un-concreted land. Your arms strengthen as you stretch up to attend to the trees, or dig the ground to plant new ones. You’ve plenty of time for recreational walking at last. There’s room for your yoga mat and a few dumbells, but not for the plethora of exercise machines you didn’t use before – you make better progress doing a simple floor routine to music anyway. You swim in real places like the ocean and the local swimming hole, and jump on your bike. Everyone says how fit and slim you look, and of course you’re just lapping that up.

7. You Have More Time in Nature
You’re smelling the roses now and Mother Nature is pleased you no longer have five hundred bottles of lotions & creams. Echoing your grandmother’s lifestyle, you’ve only three or four essentials;  good old fashioned soap, a little patchouli oil as a deodorant, your favourite oil for your hands & skin, and a simple first-aid kit …  (though some of us can still indulge in shampoo & mascara).

You’ve discovered you’re actually part of nature, a wonderful symphony, in which you play a part – now you’re not polluting the environment. You run round naked in the air occasionally, upping your dose of vitamin D after your solar shower.  No more SAD syndrome – you’re living in the light!

8.  … and More Meaningful Friendships
Since it takes a bit of dedication to hike up to your bolt-hole, people only visit if they really want to enjoy your company. No salesmen, market researchers, politicians, or religious proselytizers knock at your door.  Fund-raisers don’t even know you’re there, and you’re delighted to bask in uninterrupted peace every Halloween.

When friends, family, musos and invited guests do visit, everyone loves the atmosphere. The mood of the place has a calming effect, knocking small-talk on the head. With no screens in the background, nothing distracts you from being genuinely human, fully present and aware. You’re even content with  a bit of silence, not feeling obliged to fill every musical rest with awkward chatter.  Since silence is so refreshing, energy builds for a sing-song, ditty recital, or a good old-fashioned board game. No one is bored as you echo the delightfully sane socilaising of your grand-parents’ era.  Everyone toasts your health & happiness; with so much to go around, you take a good dose and retire feeling loved and truly blessed.

9. You’ve More Disposable Income
Since you’re echoing the simple life, you now have more disposable income. The disposable-ness itself has not increased – that’s what everyone else is doing; disposable this and disposable that. No. You’ve got extra income to dispose of. At last you can help your kids into their own ‘little greenie’ echo-home.

10. Your Global Footprint just got Radically Smaller
You do this fun Ecological Footprint Quiz – as it’s simple to sign up with the site and take part.  Now vegan, writing songs and living in a tiny space, you’re able to sing about your results. But you still have an un-harmonious element: what you gleaned from the quiz makes you realise you can do better. You decide your footprint is going to grow even smaller which means your Echo will be even louder!

11. You’re Happy & Satisfied
Having time and space is amazing; you even keep an even beat on the drums! You discover a new feeling – happiness! Without the crazy rhythms of ‘civilisation’ tearing around your brain,  you can afford to not think. Not thinking is divine, and you sink, with a sigh of relief, into an ever-nourishing well of satisfaction.  It’s quite good discovering this, your own water-table, as water-tables are going to be a major problem for many over-civilised nations as global warming sets in. Your little well is a great place for echoes too, as you fill in time listening to the crystal tones of your dulcet voice – after all, you’re becoming a pretty classy singer!

12. Wow! More Time to Listen to Music
Not only are you singing and playing an instrument now, you’re also spending many warm evenings listening to music;  I mean really listening – you can actually hear in ways you previously thought impossible. You must be enlightened – echoing the ways and wisdoms of the saints and sages in ancient times (they actually heard music too, without a stereo). Like them you are now entering the celestial realms, ‘receiving’ higher transmissions in Keith Jarrent’s Vienna Concert and your favourite Joni Mitchell albums. You realise  echo-living has brought you to this, the apex of human existence. Your heart bursts out! All the rest of your disposable income goes into funding the latest Magic & Mischief album.  Definitely you’ve got good karma now!

13. Ahhh … Better Sleep
As your music player fades the last tracks of your chosen night-music into the ether, you drift into slumber … smiles echoing through your dreams.

Free from the nasty talons of desire for material goods, your mind can now have a good Zzzzz. You don’t need pills, a fancy mattress, or an expensive hypnotherapy programme. In your little cabin among the trees, you sleep like a log because you haven’t over-eaten, you have exercised, and you now have peace of mind.  Refreshed and energised, you wake with the rising sun, singing, ‘The hills are alive with the sound of music” …

You’re at peace with your destiny. And should you discover you’ve a life-threatening condition, you contentedly accept nature’s way, like grandma did, graciously ‘going to sleep’, easing into the daisies …  Your full, satisfying life is one your family and friends are inspired to echo. Your little echoes bounce around with other echoes, and music brings harmony to the world. The End 🙂

Post Script
Baby Boomer Girl lived in a one-room hut off the grid when she wrote this. Life is still  wonderful in her new Echo-home between the Tararua mountains and the ocean, on the food-basket plains of the Horowhenua.

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