~*...babies are the latest accessory...*~

yesterday, jonas came to pick me up so i could hang out with him and frederic in their new pad. i'm really glad i met these guys. the only other swedes i've hung out with was in flames, a swedish death metal band that my brother toured with last summer.

jonas and i made a quick stop at cats tattoo parlour for an art exhibit showcasing the work of a talented nelson artist named tamara. tamara enjoys working with metal, and her work is beautiful. i found out about tamara's exhibition of art thanks to tribe.net, more specifically the *tribe sluts* tribe. most of the peeps in that tribe are from nelson, so i'm more likely to run into these *sluts* in town. two different tribes (.ca and .net), same norm ;)

congrats on a great show tamara. great meeting you jenna j. good to see you out naomi.



jonas and frederic live in a nice furnished suite just down by the civic center. after eating some food and drinkin a few ales, we headed over to the shanti yoga space for tammy's reggae pot-luck party. this family friendly event was full of incredible people, great reggae music, and lots of babies. seriously, its like babies are the most popular accessory for beautiful women here....everyone seems to have one ;)


that is my friend rachel and her daughter rhythm. i met rachel about a month ago here in nelson. she drove a crew of us into the valley of winlaw for a full moon jam session. when i was introduced to her, she said she rekognized me and asked if i lived in london, ontario. i told her i went to school there. she then asked me if i ever went to om...heheh, other than the first year, i've been to all of them. it turns out that at om 1999, i drove rachel and her friend julie back to london from the party. it was her first party ever (she was only 17yrs old then).



you really can't see her that well in that pik (old ghetto camera) but that is rachel, julie, and my partner at the time amy. rachel now lives in nelson with her partner and daughter rhythm.



running into someone i drove home from om almost 7 years ago in nelson is the kind of random majik energy that flows through the kutenais. its nelson.



the biggest surprise for me last night was running into my friend lindzee, a jedisistar that i knew from toronto. she moved to the sunshine coast two years ago with her partner. it seems like there is a huge connection between the kootenays and the coast. i can understand why: there is majik here and on the coast that i have never experienced anywhere else in the world. the veils are thinner in the koots and on the coast. of course lindzee had the popular baby accessory in the form of her beautiful son azrah.


lindzee's was travelling with a beautiful goddess named paris. as if her beauty wasn't enough to knock you over, paris had one of the most powerful pieces of ink on her shoulder. it has encouraged me to start designing my own version of it, so one day i too can have this powerful piece on my body.


the universe is spiralling out from her shoulder. i just love how its edges are sharp and it is full of stars. of course mine would be red and black. maybe after i get my burning norm tatto on my back i can start saving for this design. ink is so addictive.

i also met a woman named naava. turns out she is a jewmaican...yup, half jewish half jamaican. i've been referred to by my best friend mel as a chiggajew, part chink, part nigga, part jew. i had never met a jewmaican before. jamaicans are spreading love everywhere it seems.


hmmm...me attempting to contain my excitement in pikchaz through a smile makes me look like i'm in pain. note to self on happiness in pikchaz, jack it the fuck down ;)

i wrapped myself up in pure sweet reggae riddims for the rest of the night and then retired at jonas and frederick's place where we played vidz and passed. what an excellent family event. thank you tammy for organizing such an amazing evening.



~*...normaste...*~

~*...zion...and my pc is here...*~

MY COMPUTER IS HERE!!! after two weeks of madness, my computer has finally made it to the kutenais. thank you to graham who got it shipped out here (yay free shipping), and to my sister who picked up my box in the first place. i opened up my case to find a box of kraft dinner inside and a card.


thanks thalia. you rawk!

so i connect my system to my 19" monitor that i bought at share nelson for $30, and wouldn't ya know it the focus is fucked on the monitor. hey, for $30 what do you expect. its either the left side or the right side that is in focus, or the entire monitor sort of focussed. high resolutions make it very hard to see as things are blurry, so i'm running it at 800x600 to minimize the damage it is doing to my eyes. hey, i'm just glad my computer is here and i've finally got the tools to get some work done.

i'm back to laptop keyboard typing again. yay wireless keyboards! and i've got beatz again. man, its so good to have my pc here with me. it makes missing the fresh snow today at whitewater worth it.

there is a road inside of you, inside of me there is one too. no stumbling pilgrim in the dark, the road to zion is in your heart. ~ road to zion, petra



~*...normaste...*~

~*...outifitting your personality...*~

saturday was about exploring new perspectives. being on the east shore at the home of the mou collective presented many new ways for me to tune into the prana of the kutenais.

amit shared with me a photo of his hometown in israel near the golan heights. he told stories of how furtile the land is, how majestic the mountains are, and the fear he lived in every day from possible attacks from syria and lebanon. i cannot imagine what it must be like living in a place where those who wish to destroy you are living past those mountains. having to hide in a bomb shelter while your town is being attacked is something i never want to experience.

amit had painted the wall of one of the night clubs in his home town during his last visit there: he painted a massive heart with an eye in the center of it. he said that the only way to bring about change in his homeland is for people to change their hearts. act out of love, or nothing good will ever be accomplished.

to amit's parents in israel, what he is doing here in canada is an impossibility. they have a hard time understanding why amit and his roommate ali, an iranian, are even living together, yet alone creating art together as brothers.



what amit and ali have done, what we have created here in canada, is a holy place: a place where people of all colours, all religions, all orientations, can celebrate together and create art through loving, honest, and forgiving relationship.

i enjoy highlighting the vibrations of the carribbean throughout the world, more specifically the effect that reggae music from the island of jamaica has done to the vibe of the world. its amazing how one little island has had so much of an impact on the musical rhthyms of the world.

amit told me about the buju banton concert he attended in israel. he said all of the israeli dreadlocks were out for the show. at one point in the concert, buju spoke to the audience and asked "how are things here in zion? is everything good?" to which the crowd yelled out "NO!". then in his deep rasp voice buju yelled "rise up people, rise up!"

a chinese jamaican, an israeli, and iranian, a romanian, a scot, and a brit...tuning into the prana of the kutenais surrounded by love, peace, and beauty.

mckayla, amit, and i spent some time playing the three crystal singing bowls that were set up in front of one of the many shrines in the mou collective space.



Quartz crystal singing bowls are one of the most powerful methods for healing on spiritual, emotional, and physical levels. The use of crystal bowls take the principle of vibrational healing through sound to a new level.

Quartz is composed of silicon dioxide, a compound that is also strongly present in human chemical structure. Thus, the vibrations of crystal bowls help to "re-tune" us to our own natural and healing vibrations. Like other forms of vibrational healing, such as crystals, flower essences, and Reiki, the tones of these bowls help to dissolve energetic blockages, allowing us to return to balance.

The initial effect of playing crystal bowls is to relax the body and mind. Once calmness is restored, the sound frequencies stimulate the chakras, brain, endocrine glands, and nervous system. When we combine the playing of the bowls with focused, positive thought, the results are even more powerful.

the vibrations and sound made from playing these bowls was definitely powerful. i had never played a bowl made of quartz, and it was amazing to play with others and harmonize the vibrations of the bowls.

scott is a talented artist, or heartist as he likes to be called. his armbands are beyond majikal. putting them on triggers in the wearer deep majikal powers.



it reminded me of putting on my dredi knight robe for the first time. it immediately stimulated in me and everyone around me the part of our personality that wears a cape. that's a very powerful energy to trigger, and these armbands are no different. they trigger the part of you that wears majikal armbands.


scott had this gorgeous green leather outfit that he had made, and i wanted to so badly to try it on. my wish was granted. of course i'm a big fan of bondage, so having this piece placed on me and then cinched up was nothing short of a pleasure.


the staff was hand carved by one of scott's friends and gifted to him for shambalah last year. man that thing was kewl to hold, and powerful to wield. hooray impromptu photo shoots in forests with leather elvish garb and hand carved walking sticks!




this was turning out to be the most fun photo shoot i've done. the outfit was incredible, the location was beautiful, and the energy was majik. of course we added more to the outfit in the forms of a pair of armbands, a rice hat, and an agate sphere.



can you tell how heavy the sphere is? it took a lot of strength to hold it up, as seen in my right arm. i wish my arm looked that good without having a heavy sphere in it. just look at my left arm in this photo:



amit then took the camera and scott, ali, and i tuned into the prana of crawford bay together. holding the sphere together was incredible. it felt like the world was being cradled in our hands. what a great microcosm of what we are doing here in canada. we have the world in our hands, and she is beautiful, the question is what are we going to do to keep her beautiful, and protect her?







some people would call what we were doing larping (live action role playing games), but there were no games involved. there were no costumes, rather outfits for our personalities. we were not pretending to be characters in a game, we were tuning into that part of our personality and embracing it fully without fear. there is majik in all of us, a mischievous elf, a powerful wizard, a majikal creature. however you can tune into the majik in you, don't be afraid to embrace it.

people are not just one thing. thank you scott, alexandra, ali, and amit for helping me rekognize and embrace the majik that is in me.

five hours in that outfit was restricting my breathing a bit, and i needed to be loosened out of it and relax for a while. after a short rest, we caught the ferry and headed toward nelson. there was a dj playing at fluid named cheb i sabbah. as much as i wanted to go, i was just beat and didn't really have the money for a $20 cover. so they dropped me off at home and i passed out.

~*...normaste...*~

~*...the majik of the kutenais...*~

i'm sitting in my bed at my new home drinking janis juice aka southern comfort and basking in the afterglow of an incredibly majikal weekend.

after eating at the soup kitchen on friday, owen and i headed over to a rooftop near the lake to spin some poi. the sun was shining brightly, and it was great to be able to share some of my limited poi experience with owen. we are all beginners at some point in time.

only a few minutes into our poi session, julia walked by and yelled out to us. i was supposed to walk up to her place later that evening and head to the east shore with her for the mou collective multimedia show. julia was on her way to get a ride to the event, a very early ride. i had no idea where the east shore was, and had no other way of getting there, so i joined julia and headed to the safeway to catch our ride.

turns out that i had met the person driving us to the party online. her name was flora, and she is a burner who encouraged me to live in nelson over kelowna. it was good to finally put a name to a face.


the east shore is an hour outside of nelson, including a ride on the world's longest free ferry ride. technically, the ferry is part of highway 3a, which cuts across lake kootenay connecting creston to nelson. hey, free ferry. jawesome!


we arrived at the school hall of crawford bay around 3pm, which was actually a local time of 4pm. the east shore is in another time zone, so it is an hour before the time in nelson. its like you are going back in time by an hour. trippy.


when we arrived at the school hall, i met the mou collective (mou = me+you) and began helping them set up the space. within a few hours, we transformed a bland school hall into a majikal place of energy and creativity. beautiful coloured material was hung from the walls, paintings adorned the empty spaces, and shrines full of crystals and gems channelled power and prana into the hall.




i met scott and his partner alexandra, two of the members of the mou collective. these two beings are majikal creatures, and i was blown away by their presence. some might call them elves, or fairies, or enchanted majikal creatures. of course i see them as jedis tuning into the force that is cradled here in the kutenai mountains. as i helped scott set up one of the many shrines (with the largest piece of smoky quartz i have ever seen), he brought out some of his leather arm bands that he makes. i had seen one of his armbands in a pikcha of a nelson dj named lion-ess.

i was so stoked to finally meet the person who makes these armbands. when i originally saw lioness *drool* wearing the armband, i wanted so badly to meet the person who makes them. of course i'd run into him in the kutenais.



and i was finally able to try one on. oh my god, these pieces wield so much power and energy.



i was told there were fairies and elves living on the sunshine coast and in the kutenais, but of course i was like "sure, fairies and elves you say? great, why don't you drop some more acid and get back to me with my galaktik myan symbol, you fukkin hippie." but they really are here, creating art, nurturing the land, and channelling majik.



the show began at 9pm to a full house. dance, art, creativity, movement, and fashion were all synthesized together to form an incredibly beautiful and moving performance.



after the show there was a jam held with a full band followed by a few djs. most of the people had left after the fashion show performance, but those of us who remained were treated to chill beatz in a beautifully decorated environment...oh, and incredible people to dance with.



after the show, we all helped in cleaning up the space and taking down the decorations before heading back to the mou collective's home few minutes away. their home channels incredibly powerful energy. as i was unpacking the car i heard the sounds of water, only to find out that their home is on a creek and the sound i heard was the water flowing past their home. i couldn't wait until the next day to see how beautiful their home was in the sunlight.

i passed out with mikhaila in my arms, and was honoured to wake up beside her in the same position. a new and beautiful day awaited me in the home of the mou collective on the east shore.

have i said the words majik and energy and power and elves enough for you yet? ;)

~*...normaste...*~

~*...a new day, a new home, and fresh snow...*~

boy does it feel good to have my clothes unpacked and hanging up in a closet once again. living out of a suitcase for the past 2 months has been the longest i've ever gone without a place to call my own.

taking a shower last night and putting on my pimp fairmont bath robe felt so good. hooray my own room!

my roommate sunny had bought a 2liter bottle of a raspberry cooler which we drank together as a housewarming last night. i provided the bubble hash.


i ended up at the girlz' house where i taught julia, brandy, and carron how to make an origami box. then julia and i headed to the rez for reggae night. i love this night. excellent music, groovy people, and an overall irie vibe. reggae music is so good and naughty to dance to.

this morning i woke up early and was picked up by my friend greg and his wife demitra. they are visiting from ottawa and included nelson on their mountain shredding tour of bc. they've already shred red mountain and lake louise and only had one day to ride whitewater before heading off to fernie for five daze.

i met greg at harvest festival last year. i first knew him as depraved from tribe. funny how we first know people by their online nicks before we know them by their birth given names.

after a good warm up run with demi, greg and i headed off to some more demanding runs. the sun was out and shining, so no new snow...at least not this morning. we worked our way across to the cath basin and were treated to better and better snow the further we hiked.


dark clouds began to block the bright sun as we went inside for some lunch. those clouds meant business.


we ran into frederick and jonas in the lodge. they were ver happy about sweden winning the gold medal in olympic hockey. what a poor showing for the canadians :(


jonas and frederick took greg and i to some incredible snow they found in the back basin, about a 20minute hike from the silver king chair. man, hiking again without snowshoes was a challenge for me, even though it was more of a hiking traverse. but the snow we ended up riding was unbelievable. pure, untouched, and plentiful snow is there for you to shred if you're willing to make the hike.

and those clouds meant business. it was dumping snow all afternoon, puking it out by the time the day was over. tomorrow is going to be another epic day that i will unfortunately have to miss :(

the best snow in the world is here to ride if you're willing to make the trek to this little town in the kootenays. if you know about it, you know its worth it. if you don't, that just means less tourists tracking up the pow here.

it was great riding with you greg and dimitra. have a safe drive to fernie and i'll see you at shambalah.

its so good to have my own room to come back to...and a shower with my toiletries. yay house! c'mon computer! i hope it shows up soon. i miss her.

~*...normaste...*~

~*...my last night here...*~

i'm lying on the sofa in the solarium, the place that has been my home for the past three weeks. in 9 hours i will be moving into my new place in rosemont. i'll be living with a 50yr old buddhist/musician named sunny. i'm looking forward to having a closet and not living out of a suitcase.

the place wasn't my first choice, but my first choice didn't materialize :(

this is the longest i've lived without a place of my own. 9weeks its been. and what an incredible 9weeks! i've ridden 5 different mountains, climbed ice, explored picasso's art, smashed my friend's car into the side of a pick up truck, got my instructor's certification, ridden backcountry, found freelance work, and secured a place to live....oh, and built relationships with some of the most incredible people.


rainbowen just moved in with brett and ruben in rosemont. i'll be living just up the street from them. jawsome!

andrea, akkal, brandy, carron, and julia have been so kind to me by providing a place for me to stay for the past three weeks. walking uphill has been good for me. i'm going to miss you girls.

i'm tired. i'm going to bed.


i hope my computer shows up tomorrow. where the hell could it be? it was shipped out here last week! things move a bit slower here in nelson.

~*...normaste...*~

~*...shred with nature dread...*~

the snow that fell overnight was plentiful and by morning it covered the streets of nelson. i couldn't wait to head up to the hill and ride fresh powder.

i woke up at mikhaila's place and called jonas and frederick to see what time they were coming to pick me up, only to find out that frederick was already on his way to get me. needless to say, i missed my ride to the hill. that's alright though, i headed over to the hitching spot and was picked up in less than 2mins. gawd i love this town.

the dude who picked me up smoked me a bowl on the way to the hill, and picked up two more people who had ridden through the trees down to the road.

the hill was packed! but packed for whitewater is nothing compared to places like whistler. a packed whitewater is a 5 minute wait for the chair. yes, this place is wikkid that way. a packed lift at whistler is a 30 minute wait.

i ran into a dreadlock on the hill named nature. there aren't too many of us brothers on the hill, yet alone dreadlocked brothers who shred. nature and i spent the afternoon shredding his favourite tree lines together, each one just covered in beautiful powder. man its good to shred with another dread.

nature drove me home and i was in bed by 7pm. riding sure takes a lot out of you, and i'd ridden 4 out of the past 5 days. only have to ride three more times before i get my pass worth. schweet.

sorry, i rode without my camera today. no pix of the heavenly powder. next time ;)

~*...normaste...*~