All Points North, No More Back and Forth

      Always loved waking up with the sunrise and so I did today, on my last day in South Island, NZ. From now on it all points North without resistance and on an instant flow. I had my morning drink, which usually is coffee and so it was today too. Listening to Gangstarr all day and this is my associations with it. Early skate video days. Cancer is a tough thing, might be even the manifestation of fears in a physical form. It's hard to get to it, but Adam Yauch from Beastie Boys is working on it and you may join him in helping to eliminate every single infected cell by smashing them in meditation.

He once sang about Big L, now someone has to sing about him - Rest In Peace. I heard Gangstarr for the first time in this part who-remembers-when! :




Have a sunny day both - on the inside and outside!

Ferocious Fearsome Fear, Oh Dear

           Suddenly I realized my blog lacked insight. Fear and doubts crept in and I thought I have to write about the dark sides of things, which eventually will turn into bright side anyway. It's just the way things are - you can twist them anyway, depending on the obstacles of attachment. Fear is probably the worst enemy of all. It puts your mind in a box and is shooting thoughts between the narrow walls. With speed increasing the tension in nerves grows and what once was an opportunity, becomes a burden. It's only when the fear is battled one can proceed. Fear itself has no continuity, it has a freezing quality not just on a mental level but on a physical too. Every action begins on a mental level driven by our habituation with environment, situations and all other phenomena we encounter in our lives. That's just my observation based on some weak considerations. Nevertheless this is the understanding of it that I have gained in my twenty eight years in this body. Fear works as a protection of self and everything that you identify with it so to eliminate fear I believe one has to examine one's own existence and how other things exist too. 

I arrived in Christchurch in the evening of the 9th. It took four hours to hike from Oamaru and only three rides. Standing on the road with my hand out I surely know that every single car passing by is not the right one and the ones who actually stop are the ones for me. It's incredible how we are all linked together in this time and space. If you think about it, it may bring up many questions. I think if not doubts and fears, we could get immediate understanding of things. Well, but if that was the case then probably we wouldn't be talking about this now. 

Lina and Ingus, a couple from Latvia who are as vagabond as it gets and got married in Argentina last year, picked me up and took brought me to their home. It is located near Lyttleton, harbor town South of Christchurch. 

After getting in touch with a couple of bars and not getting any positive responses about a possible gig, I figured I am just going to stay here and prepare for my further move. Went up the hill to howl to the Pacific three times and think of all the dear ones left in the motherland and the ones I've met on the way. 

Being with oneself is extremely healthy experience, it never has let me down. Can you really be lonely? Well, if the only thing you can think of is you, then probably you cannot stay alone even for a couple minutes. If you sit down and start meeting all the people in your mind then it actually takes time to go through all faces and eventually fulfillment hits in. It's all out there in a mutual relation and it's always been like this. It's never solid, independent and existing on its own, no matter how we would like to believe it. The broader picture gives and takes. It takes bits of you and dissolves it in the atmosphere but it gives the freedom, the freedom from your worst enemy - brother fear. 

I had 120 bucks on me when I reached this paradise and I didn't think any further of how things gonna be, because to think that way would be really silly - I can't know the future so why expect anything? Same moment, everything comes as a surprise. Each moment is a new creation and is getting more exciting with each glimpse on it. I got tickets to Wellington, spending half of it and for the first time in my life couchsurfing.org linked me with people eager to offer couch. I am surprised, I am excited, what a wonderful moment this is. 

Little did I know before that I'd end up in this kingdom of fun and good food!

Expectations are the cause of frustration. So why would I even want to generate even the slightest feeling of expecting something to happen? The fear lives before the actual event has taken place. Alright, let's say, something bad happened. Bad meaning we classified it as bad because of our conceptual perception. Nevertheless the most fearsome moment is yet to come - what's gonna happen next? Who the hell knows? So why fear, all you can be is curious but neither happy, nor sad. 

I was invited for a dinner and ended up on a boat with great people. 

Clean clothes. I haven't bought any Tshirt in years. Everytime I take a clean TShirt it seems very new to me. Well it's more obvious with socks. 

Looking at the photo now, it seems unreal. I mean it's beautiful, right? Even though I'm sitting in the same place I took this picture from and possibly see similar sight but photo is something special. It has more of a mystery than real life. Why is that? Still moment is so hard to capture in real life, this is why I love photos. You can observe a moment in details and keep returning to it. Your mind works on top of this moment, it digests it thoroughly creating a doorway into a world of the unknown but not necessarily fearsome life. It's so easy to persuade myself that it's a photo and it's not real after thinking something bad and same works if it's good - it seems unreal. Whenever I talk to someone and say I am in New Zealand or India - it sounds impressive. It is, don't get me wrong, but it's our dreams that makes those places special. Places we're currently not in meeting people we never knew and probably never will. We attach value to phenomena which is not necessarily there when we encounter it. The only thing that matters is not doubting your experience and by that I mean physical and mental experience. This is something that we have and it's damn subjective, sure, but with objectifying things we're robbing ourselves. We're stealing the beauty of being in this world and experiencing it as it comes to us. I think this is the most exciting thing about our existence that things reveal themselves differently to different people. 

Sunday we were supposed to go kayaking and we did. Got into a cave and around the island. It was beautiful and I felt New Zealand on completely different level. I felt the salty water getting in my eyes and rocks rubbing the bottom of the kayak. Sounds of birds and smell of the sea. Probably all these things together drove me to write this blog and not being afraid of what's gonna follow. Inevitably it will generate feelings, opinions, smiles, hatred, fear and inspiration. This is how it works. Words are one of the doorways into this world. Body, speech and mind - our manifestation as such. The tools that work dependently on one another and cannot work on their own. Moreover, the flow of things that caused us to be, think, speak or act in such way is untraceable for my narrow mind. I've come this far by pretty much all of things I can think of and none of them at the same time. So fear, please, you see there's no place for you in me. 

The only doorway for this eight hundred year old tree is it's form. It holds the information that can be interpretable by the minds of humans and passed on by their speech. It has a meaning now and different one for every one of us. Ferocious Fearsome Fear, please let us go at once and let us hold each other dear without any trace of you, dear fear.

The Penguin Club and Farewell Song To The Nui

       Me and Jeremy packed our stuff into his four wheel drive Suzuki. Zach, huge dog friend, on the back seat eliminating last traces of fresh oxygen. We're ready to hit the road to Otematata, a place by the hydro dam and lakes where I measured 20 km by feet not too long ago. 

Play the song while reading the blog, it will generate the right feeling for you for sure.



Kakanui El Rancho. This is the rooftop and antenna to communicate with outer space.

"I will show you the back roads" said Jeremy and we hit not the shortest way but certainly the most exciting one on the backroads. Elephant rocks was our first stop and I can tell you what, it looked completely different as I remembered from 4 years ago. Well one thing, it was all dry and yellow now. We had super juicy green grass last time we were there. The summer's been pretty dry so...

Shapes of Penguins, Skulls and city of Jerusalem, this what you get to see here. Well and plenty of tourists too, including me. Can't hide it with camera hanging down in your hand.

I wonder who lived there?

Yeah, the city of Jerusalem you may wonder. Yes! It's the whole filming set there. They ran short on money so not shooting currently but the whole set is there and it's not that we could go and not that we really wanted to but, it looked great. Meaning - great for a Jerusalem and great for Jerusalem in New Zealand. You may end up thinking it's not that great after all. Let's not go there anyway.

A head of a giant or what once was a head. I see the skull with one eye still in there. What do you see?

Lakes were extremely turquoise on the way to our destination and sometimes it seemed to outshine the sky.

The Swamp in Ote was as welcoming as usual. The barbecue was on fire and so was Jeremy, the guru of barbecue. Despite the fact that I am vegetarian I really enjoyed hanging out seeing men at work and grilled vegetables with mushrooms tasted unearthly.

I will repeat myself if told you how beautiful the sky is looking from this angle. And I really needed to take rocks as models and figure out the movement of the sun here, which, I can tell you, is the opposite of Northern Hemisphere but still goes from East to West. Get it?

Mornings on the lakes. All range of colors and shapes. Was standing in the front of the boat, lightly leaning to its windshield and eating air like dogs do when they get to the open window in a car.

The campus was fed well and was resting far too much. So me and Steffo (on the left) took our bellies for a bicycle ride and I can swear I almost left my heart there on the road up to the dam and even further on up the lookout track. Going down was hell-yeah-no-breakes fun until I noticed how the front wheel was vibrating to the extent it could disconnect.

Do I have to mention that this day was extremely beautiful? We found this little beach after cruising around the lakes for hours.

The Penguin Club. I was so glad to play there for the second time. It's really surprising what great bands have played this venue in such a small town like Oamaru. I spotted the 5.6.7.8's poster. That's the japanese girl band that Tarantino used in Kill Bill's I soundtrack. Wicked. 

In the pictuere belowe I am probably playing Beastie Boy's Gratitude and the drummer is rapping while playing drums and penguins spinning vinyl.

The last evening in Kakanui before I head off to Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland. The trip is halfway and now it's halfway home. 

Checked the mail, nothing for me. Will check it next time, hopefully something except for bills. 

The Sun too is shining from underneath sometimes. Especially in The Nui so you don't have to worry about burning the skin on your nose but rather the nostrils. Who knows what happens if you have a couple holes in your jeans in the right places. Can be painful. 

Sleeping maori was shining light as he always does on the evening before. I am very much pleased with couple recordings done here and 5 songs written in The Nui. Thank you very much, it was auspicious time and wild times too. See you wherever my path will take me! Much Love. 

Life in Kakanui - It's Just Another Perfect Day.

            Oh, what a life! I will confess, I fell in love.... I fell in love with the sky! It's been hunting me for the last couple weeks and you know what, I just gave in to its beauty. So anyway, Kakanui, or Taranui to be more precise, is the spot where rainbows appear at 7:45 am on a purple sky with dark purple mountains on the horizon mixed with yellow green fields. It's the perfect cover for my new album, the vision I mean. 

Pacific glow

Jeremy and Zach. Taranui locals that I was very lucky to befriend. Walking Zach in the evening and in the morning, having a swim in a Pacific. Blue Penguin colony on the left, seals in the middle, together with caves and everything else worth exploring is just right there. Forgot to mention, beginning the day by listening to Rodriguez's Hate Street Dialogue is just very funny. 

Ever since my hike down to Querenstown the moon stayed full. I'm not sure why, but I'm here to discover.

From this photo on, I introduce you my new love. The Sky. Wow! It might be just me, but I really love it, don't  you?

Finishing up a nice day after walking a dog with a super smoothly cooked meal. Did you know that you have to caramelize the onions with brown sugar to get this unearthly taste!?

The studio setup. How I love this look. It gives me this drive of actually sitting down and writing, recording a song. That's what was done yesterday looking at the view captured in the photos above.

This is the end of the first part of Life in Kakanui. Going to the lakes over the weekend. Getting on a mission to explore South Island of the Land of White Clouds and obviously bringing good, creative vibes back to you. Sharing is caring. 

I hope this day will turn to gold for all of you. Love.