The Little Witch of Modera

Chapter One 

CHUBS

What would drive a man to cut off his dead lover's head?  Its not easy. That is the thought running through my mind as I race to meet my writing deadline at the Weekend Financial Review.

I am frustrated.

"No, you cannot interview the wife, because she is just too tired to talk anymore," says my editor. I stare angrily at him down the phone. I can picture him running around the office with his sleeves rolled up and his collar awry. He has nice grey eyes. He does not take leave, even on his birthday or on Ramadan. He goes home at 2 am, after everyone else has left the evening shift.

How will I write my piece on the Midway Murder? All I can think about is this buff sexy ole cop dude who has now hung himself in the middle of the jungle.  He had annoyingly taken the mystery with him. A mystery that has this entire island talking.

"How do you know the wife didn't have something to do with this?" says my mango friend Faa, in the middle of feeding her cats, in a rather manky dressing gown. Through the WhatsApp video, I can see them plowing restlessly through her house, on her laundry, on her countertops, on her washing machine, in her armchairs, under her bed. There seem to be cats everywhere, but there were only four at the last count. I told her not to increase her population of animals, but I know the next time she sees a kitten or some geriatric dog she will feel sorry for it. A crow popped its head in at the window and cawed raucously for food. Faa has named it Rasta.

"How do you know- she must have got fed up with this old bugger messing around with the girl and she must have done something. Like a hooniyama," said Faa.

Hooniyama is the Sri Lankan word for Voodoo. There is a God in charge of this process, named the God in Charge of the Village. I'm surprised at her because Faa is a Muslim.

"What kind of hooniyama can you do?"

"Anu knows we should ask her, there are lots of things… that can be done" says Faa, evasively. I feel that she has already consulted Anu and is not ready to discuss it yet. Faa was creative in thinking up ways to discretely torture her husband when he annoyed her.

This is interesting. Why didn't I think of this before?

As a journalist and an ex-wife myself I can begin to imagine the drama behind this murder story. And feel enraged for us all, the dead man, the murdered other-woman and the grieving wife and children. No one plans these things they have a way of happening. Well, sometimes wives plan things. But we will come to that later. I need to finish my article. My petrol tank has corroded and Im without transport too, which is bad in the middle of a pandemic. I have to get through all of this without getting this damned virus and spreading it at home. 

My current husband keeps trying to be funny with me but I told him to stay one meter away. 

An advert at a local Kovila in Hanwella saying they do not do Mantras or Gurukan, which is another word for Hooniyam, but that they do other things. 

Flying fist, noble heart

An appreciation of Grand Master Hassan Khalid founder of Fei Quan Do International

 

It was with the greatest sorrow I heard of the sudden passing away of our beloved martial arts Master the Grandmaster Hassan Khalid founder of the Fei Quan Do international school of karate in Colombo. He passed away last Thursday at a ripe age of 72 with nary a warning of his departure and having lived life to the very fullest. A couple of days before his sudden passing he had been conducting training as usual at his Wellawatte class.
I remember him from years of attending his karate classes in Dematagoda and Wellawatte, after my quest for personal security and independence, brought me to train in karate. In the first place I had always been inspired by the 70s film Kung Fu featuring David Carradine which introduced me to the silent and noble beauty of the Shao Lin tradition. Grandmaster Khalid's philosophies were very similar too, with more of an emphasis on internal mastery, discipline and effort rather than of crushing enemies or giving the ego-free reign.  I remember the first day I went to his class and was terribly worried as to what to expect, but he called new students to the front and made them feel welcome and very at ease. I also remember a lot of humour bandied by long-suffering Master Khalid where he compared our earnest side kicking to the clumsy slow actions of dogs pissing on lamposts...this still has me giggling even now...

To be frank, I was hopelessly lazy and slow, not to mention uncoordinated, but Master Khalid was immensely patient with us matured ladies and gave everyone a chance. (Thankfully ladies were allowed to do the easier form of push-ups so that their knuckles would not get scarred etc.) He was very motivational, not only in training martial arts but expounding the deepest philosophies collected from a long and eventful life of travel around the world as a mariner, prior to his opening of the School of Karate. Sometimes his training was quite exhausting but took us to levels of strength, courage and discipline that we did not know ourselves capable of. His training was with the purpose of mentoring a fully rounded and balanced person. Along with his success as a trainer par excellence, he also balanced a wonderfully large family of eight children and always spoke lovingly of his wife's good qualities. His noble mindset was that he was not interested in accumulating money, but wanted only to do a good service to his students and to be a breadwinner to the last. So he kept the class fees very reasonable and would often waive the fees for less privileged students.

 

Master Khalid was a shining personality who always lived life to the fullest, training and inspiring thousands of students not only in karate but in the other aspects of how to live a good life and find happiness. He himself was the epitome of strength, decency, integrity, tolerance, liberality and so many good human qualities apart from being a fearless karate pro, deft with his fighting skills.

From him, I learned, no matter that I was in a society that intimidates a weak female that I can be self-confident and unafraid. I remember telling him at the time that I was probably one of the few women who had a chance to occasionally use some of the fighting tactics we learned when I had to administer some punishment to a pervert in a bus. However as always advised in karate, I did not go pushing for fights but have always used it more as a confidence booster which I sorely needed, as well as to actually avoid conflict. Personally, I think that every young girl should train in martial arts to give them the confidence and security to face this world, especially in the light of various recent happenings. Karate training is also one of the best work-outs you can have today, which is why Master Khalid was extremely fit and full of life until practically the last day. I know that he would certainly have loved what he did and been happiest as he was allowed to keep doing the work he loved till the last.

Though he is no more, we will continue to be touched by the magic, charm and vitality of his inspiring personality and we will always have our Grandmaster in our prayers. We are honoured and enriched to have been his students. 

The Life and Times of ALJUHARA

….ie  more of that rahu/ kethu/ aturu dasha crap

 

Its about two years since I last wrote for WOW officially and may I say I'm glad to be back. Quite a lot has happened in my life in these two years and you can be sure I will be updating you about it, in occasionally painful detail.

Now where do I start? .

I have a lovely young friend in office who studies horoscopes in her spare time. I mean it very seriously, its like you can have a Diploma in Mumbo Jumbo, supervised by a number of lecturers in various sub topics, the main one is the Astrology Diploma and the sub topics include stuff like Herbal Remedies, Exorcism, and Spells. (ok this may sound like Hogwarts to you but this is good old fashioned Mattakkuliya where she is studying this stuff from an ancient and venerable guru, the type who probably takes about half a minute to turn a yellowed page in his crumbling antique textbooks….using of course, a shaking, saliva-moistened old digit…) And she takes this very seriously and she is GOOD in this stuff if I do guarantee so myself.

Well about two years ago, after being bullied no end by me to read my chart, Sulakshani, for that is her name, told me that I would a) buy a land b) move out of my family home. and c) become fat.

 

You may say this wasn't really a prediction, but rather a set of things I should do or would feel like doing, or as I prefer to think, things that I would subconsciously want to do once I had heard about the prediction. …however to me they were quite impactful, serious  things. And not really things you can do as easily as all that. Except perhaps the getting fat thing, but then would you want to?

 

Land is blooming expensive in this day and age in Sri Lanka and my salary barely keeps me alive from month to month, Ive been living in my ancestral (read:parents) home for the last 25 years and have established it as a comfort zone par excellence, mosquitoes, porcupines[1] and all,  and last but not least,  who on Earth wants to actually get fat because of your horscope?!?

 

Well, I began to sit around thinking what a materially useless life I had been having for the last ten years of working, although I enjoyed the work, there was nothing to show for it and although I enjoyed life I didn't know where I would live if I had to move out of this crowded nest…the more I thought about it the more I ached to have my own swamp, my own square feet, my own home to hang my hat in…this idea was followed by months of frenzied scanning of HIT Ad  and all the copycat adz pamphlets of rival newspapers…and week after week I had to carefully decipher what people wrote about their properties…I actually became pretty good at this " near the 122 bus route" sounded good, until you find out that this bus only passes through 3 times a day, the rest of the time you basically have to hitch hike on passing bullock carts, " peaceful country environment" means you have to walk 20 minutes to get a panadol and "close to the city" means your windows rattle every 7 minutes when staff buses go past. "in close proximity to the XYZ Balika VIdyalaya" had its own hideous implications which I leave you to figure out. And leaving all of that aside, the sheer price of these Sri Lankan "perches" was astounding. Translated into foreign currency Sri Lankan villagers were asking me sums of money per square foot which could have bought me good suburbs in many American States!…I was confounded! It just didn't seem to be something I could bring about…I went on a number of interesting and expensive land-spotting foreys and took lots of photographs of Kaduwela, Hanwella and romantic Labugama…up in these leech infested hills bordering onto Ratnapura, illiterate villagers continued to cheerfully gobsmack me with thundering quotes for their little (and completely deforested) plots of useless marsh land until I actively hated them. These people hadn't worked for this wealth, they had simply inherited stuff and stripped it, cut all the trees, eaten and of course drunk the proceeds and now were trying to rip me off royally by selling me denuded craters of slanted earth….but at the same time, man, was the scenery gorgeous, I could stand there all day looking around me…this was mother Earth in all her beauty and I wanted a small patch at least for my final resting place.

…and well, yes, I fell for one of the marshes, it is a very tiny modest little marsh, predictably treeless, although luckily bordered by rubber plantations and a distant river which they hadn't managed to pollute too much yet, in the salubrious surrounds of the former Sitawaka Kingdom, where long ago a king had boiled[2] a lot of monks because they would not absolve him of the crime of patricide…and yes I moved out of my nest, a big step for me, but since im 40 (for crying out loud, it was about time!)..

As to the getting fat part…Id say fat is a relative concept…I was probably fat to start with although with difficulty I am retaining my BMI within healthy limits to ensure that my diabetes dosnt kill me too quickly…But you know what? I kind of think Sulakshi does in fact know her astrology stuff quite well. Drop us a mail if you'd like your chart read too hanwella7@gmail.com.

 

 

 

 

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[1] This is a completely different story

[2] Or drowned, I cant really remember 

Sins of the Fathers

COVID19 as a manifestation of the divine feminine

Finally, we are forced to stay in one place, in one quiet time period and to think. 

Finally, we can reevaluate the rules that we were born into, the reality that we were made to accept was true. A hidden disease is destroying average people like you and me in hundreds, in thousands, it is unstoppable. Collective human intelligence is losing pitiably when pitted against an invisible spherical microbe. Thousands of years of faith, belief, aesthetics, religion, scientific advancement, medicine, technology, commerce, wealth,  ancient wisdom, and modern homo sapien cunning- all bow humbly to a radiant microscopic red sphere with a halo of horns. Advanced white man, who thought he was in the same mould as God, is brought to his knees, the richer and prouder he is, the more terrified. Brave soldiers in medical gowns keep falling in the face of this onslaught. The rest of human society are suddenly aimless like drugged zombies, clawing pathetically for toilet rolls.

A few people already knew that something like this could happen, and they understood why. They tried continuously to warn us. But society was too set with its "bullshit rules": layers of false beliefs that hold us back. The lies our fathers told us. Conditioning brainwashed into us. The mantra repeated in every social group,..demanding that children grow to adults rote learning more bullshit, for them to aspire only to work as slaves for a system that locks them into a mindless cycle of work, consumption, relationship, marriage, responsibility, drudgery, sickness and debt, only for them to force their own offspring in turn to slave for the same system in an evil and foolish generational cycle... 

It starts with "Go forth and multiply." 

The words of an invisible supremacist male creator in holy books of 70% of humans belonging to the major world religions, telling the naked ape to procreate and in effect implying that planet earth was his to dispose of. 

Mother nature, in contrast, visible tangible to anyone who looked around, or ever breathed her oxygen or ever ate of her produce, a nurturing long-suffering female, exhausted from weeping, raped continuously until she could take no more. 

The COVID pandemic rears her head like an enraged female creator, come back to destroy for the purpose of creation. A divine feminie to cross the eras of masculine energy that promises to ruin planet earth.

For look at how differently the virus itself treats men and women: even in affluent societies which handle the pandemic more systematically, many more men die, their lives are disrupted and desperate, pointless male pastimes such as war, sport, politics, night clubs, pubs and serial adultery are the first to grind to a halt. Then there is a reversal of status at every level. The higher and more advanced the countries the more the sheer death. Countries which profited from dead things like black gold are soon to bow to agricultural economies for food when paper money loses meaning. Suddenly the humble farmer, the creator of food, becomes a shining warrior against starvation and factories of toys matter no more. Countries regret that only 2 per cent of their GDP was spent on health, while humans know that health is the greatest wealth. 

Consider the backdrop: There were long-standing human population statistics that the apes in their conceit chose to ignore. Each day 380,000 humans are born, and only 130,000 die of all causes. So each day the population of the Earth increases by 250,000 greedy naked humanoid animals who seek to consume, destroy, and exploit nature, all other species, and each other. So even if the virus kills 250,000 people A DAY for the next year it will still not be able to right the balance. But it might do just that anyway. 

Because although the virus itself will have to work itself out naturally, its repercussions among the broken cogs of society will kill many more from unemployment, malnourishment, poverty, hatred, war, suffering, suicide, abuse, violence and neglect. Many of us will continue with lives that are more like living death. Is this what you wanted, our father?

And how did it become right for humans to multiply so indiscriminately, and to grab whatever they could for themselves and burn the rest of it? What ideologies are to blame? What makes this insane and unchecked human reproduction acceptable? Religion, tradition, culture, politics, capitalism, patriarchy- all playing together in a powerful tightly knit structure but now all bowing cowering to an enraged mother nature who has had enough. 

And yet this is only a minor tantrum, typically because she is female, raging in retaliation from centuries of abuse, directing her violence randomly and ineffectively. 

For her to have been most effective she could have come up with a plague which rendered the ape infertile, but no. Sadly, there is a real possibility that with social systems broken down and women lacking access to contraception, an extra three to nine million of unplanned pregnancies, including unsafe abortions and maternal deaths, could result from just the first set of lockdowns worldwide. Thereby leading to more teeming human suffering. 

So this time the tantrums of the divine feminine will probably not completely destroy us.

But we have been warned, this is only the beginning. 

Silver on the Palm Leaves

Its the 7th of April 2020 and Im writing from a beautiful Island named Sri Lanka inside a curfew, which is different from lockdown in that people actually get arrested if they are caught walking about, in theory. However, in a strange way, rules only seem to apply to people who fear the rules. Anxiety is for those who accept reality in its macabre extremes, and within each of us there is the capacity for suffering or for calm entirely based on the reality we see. Even now there are people on Facebook who order 5 kilos of pork and lots of cooking oil and seem to be well-stocked for a party at home. In my house, we are barely eating. We have enough food to last us about ten days and I find that it helps not to think beyond that. I believe the Buddha said that seven days well applied is enough for a human to attain arahathood and then nothing would matter. So finally now is my chance- and I would have three days to spare. I find myself incredibly mindful of things now. Mindful of the last bit of pepper, since the Government will not be importing any more and is turning Chinese ships away. Their plan has been to make us self sufficient in agriculture or something like that, something I've always supported. I hope I live to see this. I don't know if I will live beyond the stocks of Insulin I have since I'm a diabetic and even the food we have managed to stock up such as rice, pasta and potatoes is absolutely what diabetics should not be eating. This morning I woke up terrified that I would become blind. 

I cannot justify why I imagined that because I am certainly more careful about managing my diabetes now than I was a month ago! 

TO be honest, I have not hated this condition because it made me appreciate the food that I am allowed to eat, like veggies and greens and red rice, and it kept me away from the kind of junk food that Donald Trumps seems to like eating, which many people cannot seem to stay away from.

Back to having Diabetes in the middle of the Pandemic, well I don't know where I will get my next bit of Metformin so it should be interesting.

these are interesting times and if I stop writing a number of things could have happened - who knows maybe my keyboard needs repairs. There sure as hell is no place available for so much as replacing a mouse these days. One has to be mindful of everything one does, even if it is typing too fast.

Here is a photo from a hotel in Tangalle where my husband and I had a lovely escape a few years ago. Its not very posh, but then neither are we. At least we can marvel at the beauty of the sea. It was a happy interlude. It would have been happier if we could have shared the expenses but since he was unemployed for the last 15 years it was me who paid for most of it. I have written a book about him which you can read one day. 

The Strange Case of ALJUHARA

 - sometimes – because of a name, lives touch.

Because of a name, lives connected in strange ways. What's in a name, you may ask? Ever since I divorced and changed my name at roughly the same time Im prepared to admit there was some effect definitely. Underworld criminals probably swear by their aliases and their lives depend on them. So do singers, actors, artists and writers, don't you think? Madonna Prince and Shakira would probably project quite the same image if they were called Bandaramanike. Or would they , who can say? Well Sri Lankans are probably one bunch who spend a lot of time and money (on drunken astrologers) deciding on names for their babies and they say there is a serious reason for that. Your name can decide your life.

Why do you call your self "aljuhara" some people ask me (or actually they say mokoda bung mey aljuhara case eka?" or something like that) and its only now after almost  two years of writing this column under a myriad of different identities that I'm getting the chance  to  tell you the background about my pen name, and of course…. you can count on this being another schizoid story…

Years ago I watched a movie called "Jewel of the Nile" which the child in me thoroughly enjoyed. If I tell you that that was my favourite movie, it may describe my character to you. Playful, dreamy, fun loving, and not very serious, someone who believed in happy endings.  It had all those ingredients of a dream romance, there was the lovely scatter brained novelist lady, Joan Wilder ( with perfect legs and a tiny red nose), a heroic dashing action man, (played by Michael Douglas, bless his white cotton socks) and a vile but charming villain( predictably Arab) and also an absolutely amazing character, the actual "Jewel" (which is what the words al juhara mean) who is a Sufi. The adventure, danger and romance in this story leave him completely untouched but mildly bemused and the best picture that comes to mind is of him sitting peacefully deep in meditation on top of a speeding train while people are rolling about fighting near killing each other a few carriages away. I totally admired that cool aplomb and that's the character  I wanted to be although of course the child in me was completely fascinated by the romance, the action and the adventure of the story.

Another part of me completely delighted at the life of Joan Wilder who seemed to be having my dream job, and being a beautiful lady writer who actually gets paid and gets to go places to carry out the job she loves best. Ah, such a lucky creature, what an inspiration I would think. So when it came to choosing my pen name, there I had my two favorites and the rest of course you know- my best comic writing comes out under the nickname of aljuhara and sometimes I write under my own name (serious stuff) and even more serious stuff under a few other nicknames one of which is Joan Wilder. For all these I have booked the usual internet presences such as gmail, Face Book and a blog here and there.

About a month back I received a mail to my "Joan Wilder" email from a female telling me her name was Joan Wilder too and asking me if I was willing to sell the email account. She also asked me out of curiosity how come I had this email. A lovely chatty direct way of writing she has and so I thought she was a US school girl somewhere and replied that long ago Id seen a movie I really enjoyed and these were characters in it who I had related to, so I had taken these nicknames.

What she told me next was so amazing that I had to do a lot of research to check if it was the truth and now since Im satisfied with the answer, heres the email for you. 

hi Chandrika!

Thanks for writing. you live in Sri Lanka, eh? When i was little, in school, a long time ago, i did a long report on Sri Lanka -- then Ceylon -- and remember feeling that it was a special place to me. I've never been there. I live near Boston, Massachusetts.

well, here's a story for you…. My friend, Diane Thomas, wrote the original screenplay for Romancing the Stone. It was in 1980-1 or so. We were roommates just before she began writing it. I moved to NYC and she moved out the beach in L.A. - Malibu -- and committed to writing a script. She worked on it for a year on an old Ibm electric typewriter. At the end of the year, she gave it to a friend in the business who gave it to his agent. A week later, the agent phoned her up and said he'd sold it to Michael Douglas for $250,000, which at that time was the most an unknown writer had been paid for a script. So there were articles in the newspapers about it.

After the movie was released and did so well, Diane went on to writing more screenplays, including having a three-picture deal with Steven Spielberg. I spent the summer of 1985 with Diane at her then beautiful house in Malibu. at the end of the summer, I went back to NYC and she was going to come visit me for two weeks. A week before she was to come, she was killed instantly in a car crash a mile from her home. She crashed into a tree at the side of the road. The car was given to her by Michael Douglas as payment for her helping to think up the sequel to Romancing the Stone, which she had refused to write.

So. she named the character after me, although the character herself I see to be based on a combination of both of our lives at the time we were roommates.

warmly,

joan

If you are curious now, and you haven't seen or cant remember the movie run along and borrow it, because it will be great fun now just as it was then!( warning not in front of the little  kids because there are one or two very steamy scenes too)  but remember too that this was written by a city waitress based on the lives of two struggling student journalists and while it  led to  a magical interplay of character, fantasy  and tom foolery resulting in a movie which delighted millions around the world,  the happy story has a sad ending for the writer, who  died as mentioned in a car crash in the dream car she received as payment for her talent.  ( Didn't Hercule Poirot once say "Beware of the day your dreams come true , for then you will have nothing more to dream about  ,") A part of the romance lives on in my new friend who is the character behind the name, and is a talented, graceful and very young looking grandmother with three children and two grandchildren, living in Boston . Life is bittersweet we know and names make people, and sometimes make people meet for better or for worse….

Or maybe its just destiny finding an excuse...  

The Pusheekat Diaries

Greetings and warm regards from Purradise.

 

It is I, Peachy the 23^rd, descendant from a long line of regular backyard cats, distantly related to Serious the 48^th, who was a rather foreign I hear having been brought into the country on a Portuguese galleon in the time of the Kandyan Kings. Knowing her character though Im sure she was not really formally imported, but just scooted into the ship kitchen when no one was looking and got locked accidentally in the provision cupboard, only to be discovered and let out  in a hot nightmare of an island named Ceylon…cat habits, just like Hewman habits, die hard. Cats habits actually die harder. Trust me.

 

Well, Im Peachy, or anyway that's what they named me although I am actually gray and white with yellow eyes. My mistress is a woman we nicknamed Ally, who writes letters to the weekly papyrus- Hewmans like to sit and look at these flaps of crackly  white stuff for a long time, whereas we just like to scratch it to shreds, or pee on them- even though in many households, we get our dinner on them. (If dinner is too drippy the papyrus melts and we have to lick the floor…boring.)

 

I have been keeping a series of notes on life which Im happy to share with you in your own language thanks to this friendly lady heuwman who has volunteered to translate from the Mewish…

 

Anyway here I am talking to you good Hewmans and explaining all about us catpeopple.

 

For a start,  for example,it's a myth that we have nine lives, please get that our of your heads. We are just as mortal as any other animal, we just look a lot alike so its easy to replace us – that is probably the foundation of this silly misconception.

We are delicate. Really.

 

Then there is the myth that we like eating rats.

We prefer sardines or salayo. If you look at this objectively for a minute you will easily realize that in the natural state there is really NO WAY for a cat to catch a sardine, so this means we need an intermediary. That of course is you, my dear long suffering host race…

 

To make sure that you understand what we want from you( fish, a hot lap or cow secretions) and give it to us(- unconditionally-), we have spent hundreds of years evolving a system of mews, purrs , fur explosions and quiet thrumming vibrations which those of you who are cat-sensitive will understand even subconsciously and the rest will positively hate. (Unfortunately there seems to be no middle path although we are working on it)

 

In return we provide good examples of stress free living.

It is known that spending as little as ten minutes with your cat is good for your heart ( unless of course said cat has done something under the sink- in which case it might be not so good) the truth is we show you Hewman people how to relax, how to not bother, and how to totally accept ourselves (and you of course)…

Now how bad can that be?

………………………

Next week: Diaries of an ordinary Sri Lankan house cat.

The Pusheekat Diaries

………………………………..

by Pushee.

 

September 30

 

I cant believe it – the year that seemed to have just started is now three quarters complete. Im older and –wiser, I think: Ive seen so much in this time.

Patchy decided to Expect.  .It made her young and frisky again. We were all expecting with her, but since she is an indecently old cougar way past reproductive age with a wound down biological clock….the catlet she got was actually rather dead. So she lost it and of course resolutely and determinedly as mother cats are supposed to, she spent so much time looking for it and mistress Ally had to console her and explain why the baby had had to go in a small cardboard box.

Our kind hewmie family  tried bringing another substitute catlet from a woman in Kotikawatta who has 160 dogs and 40 cats. This woman is amazing and spent some time explaining how she lived her life for the animals and how she worked like a machine and cooked 25 kilos of rice a day.

I personally thought it was a bit creepy when she told me about 160 dogs in cages ..and cats too.

Let me emphasize this :cats cant live caged, it's a fate worse than death as far as we are concerned. The thought of it makes me want to gnaw my legs off personally.

But to be incarcerated WITH dogs around , now that is concentration camp stuff. Let me change the subject somehow…

 

 

October 2

Ms Ally was crowing about two things she had done today. One was eaten bulath for the first time in her life (goodness knows what possessed her) and the other was to get bitten by a freshwater leech. I don't know the gruesome details but I think we should all be thankful for small things in life, such as BLOOD COAGULATION. Its scarey when you have blood that dosnt obey this principle, and oozes on and on and doesn't dry even when it hits the floor; her bitten leg smells so WEIRD my ears went back suddenly. How did she get a leech bite in red hot Colombo? Well, Ms Ally is always going off looking for land, and since she has no money to really buy any and dosnt really do the brokering thing either; I suspect that this is the closest she gets to  "budget tourism" taken to a new level of stingy…I know she loves this wild island, although it brings her grief. She can't even find a committed man here, generally I think because most Sri Lankan guys don't like cats and she has too many.

ETB is ok though, he generally leaves us alone and grudgingly feeds us with the belief that this will help his future prospects…

Did you KNOW by the way , that leeches are one of the FEW mindless, spineless annelids that care for their young , by carrying them around and feeding them? That we found on the interweb when she was trying to read how to stop the bleeding and that makes you stop and think. "Leech"is such a negative word for a maligned invertebrate who really doesn't hurt you, just takes a little blood and they are used in medicine for amazing procedures to do with keeping blood circulating . You knew that but did you also know it actually looks after its offspring giving it food and transport and protecting it like mammals do-  though it dosnt have much of a brain? .  One wonders how they got such negative publicity. But now you know what they are good for!

THE MAGIC OF BREATHWORKs

In July 2019 after ten years in a tumultuous relationship, I picked up the courage to walk out. I thought I would be devastated. I had loved him for more than a decade, he had rescued me after my first marriage completely broke down. It seemed to me that I desperately needed a man and needed love and intimacy and could not do without it. He was handsome, beyond my league in that way, and oh so manly. For ten years I  felt I would never find a match like him again in my life. He took my dependancy for granted and like some people do when you have someone dependant on you, he became complacent in his importance to me. His friends and alcoholism took precedence. I had tried many many times to leave him but the sheer gut-wrenching thought of not having him nearby and of being completely alone in this world as I thought, was terrifying, particularly for a lonely introvert like me.
But then one day I discovered Holotropic  Breathworks.

THE MAGIC OF BREATHWORKs

By Chandrika Gadiewasam

It is hard for me to describe Holotropic BreathworksTM to you. It is a system of breathing exercises which can send you into non-ordinary states of consciousness and expanded awareness leading you to find POWER WITHIN which you can harness. It reaches into hidden past trauma, and releases the pain, leading to much-needed catharsis, and unlike in meditation, there is nothing for you to actually DO (except breath!). You don’t have to sit in difficult postures. You can fall asleep if you want (most people don’t). You just have to release yourself, trustingly, to the loving Universe.

Well, honestly I can’t find the correct words to tell you how powerful it is. This isn’t a story about walking out of a relationship or breaking out of writer’s block, or banishing lifelong phobias, which all happened to me- this is about finding your inner strength, this like all self-improvement is about being able to fall in love with yourself. 

My own breathwork experience with only a one-day session, started basically with me not knowing what to expect, but trusting Sandy (my friend who introduced me to Breathworks) and the workshop facilitators and my sitter ( person looking after me) and allowing myself to let go control and go where the music takes me…

I think the key is in the breathing...we don’t usually breath so well and deep, allowing oxygen to go through our bodies so thoroughly...to our brains etc ...the music supports that because we all naturally respond to these various drums, etc and are capable of soaring through music. The music is sourced from ancient cultures around the world, bringing together atavistic wisdom and healing.  This combination is magical

There were a number of things that changed in my life that day

I always had a fear of drowning but after the deep breathing my particular vision was of Swimming with whales and dolphins and I lost that fear of asphyxiation. in fact I stayed a long time without breathing at certain points and those moments were almost ecstatic! I had naturally the fear of mundane pain and suffering but this experience told me that I was strong enough to conquer anything physical and go something of an out-of-body experience. Yes, there were dark scary troughs into which I fell but I gained confidence that I could climb out of them when I wanted. There was a feeling of freedom, strength, love and of all my mundane worries falling away. This strength has lasted me to this day and I believe it will last much further. but im looking forward to a kind of re-charging of my breathwork energy in March when the next workshop comes to Colombo.

After the workshop, the 35 participants spoke of what visions they had seen. People of various faiths had religious experiences, similar to OBEs/NDEs. Except for one young woman all participants spoke of nature...mountains, valleys, trees, oceans, horses, jungles, birds, flower gardens..and comfort, healing and freedom. A feeling that the universe will look after you! I remember dolphins. I feel it just goes to show that humans miss nature, that’s why we are mentally and physically getting sick and stressed.

Another strange side effect was that the blocked artist in me who had struggled for self-expression for 30 years, buying paints and canvasses but being unable to paint, suddenly and miraculously burst into creative expression. Id always been a kind of copy cat, drawing from photographs and other peoples paintings but suddenly here was I composing my own visual dreams on canvas. I have to say without a doubt that it was the strength and power within discovered through breathwork that led me to this amazing exuberance.

To be honest you probably won’t see every participant bursting into song or uncontrollable creativity or taking very bold steps like walking away from stagnant relationships...but I know that many of the participants found that day immensely relaxing, cathartic and strengthening. Finally a word of warning too: Holotropic BreathworksTM is profound and powerful so sometimes it may cause temporary distress when you face your demons. 

My own theory is that the more trauma you may have behind you the more effective it becomes. In my case...after Breathworks: I am soaring. 

What is Holotropic BreathworksTM Group Sessions are facilitated by certified practitioners who have completed the Grof Transpersonal Training program. With the aid of “evocative” music and occasional bodywork, participants are guided through breath exercises while lying down. This induces non-ordinary states of consciousness. Group sessions allow people to work in pairs and support each other’s processes. Sessions end with sharing and discussion so participants integrate what they have learned about themselves.

How to participate in Sri Lanka: 

Next planned workshop dates: March 27, 28, 29 (2020) 

Venue: Community Education Centre,# 117, Talahena, Malabe

Fee: Rs.5000/ per day. Rs 15,000/for 3 days. Those who apply before 15th January will receive a discount of Rs 1000/ for each day. You can participate on 1 day, 2 days or 3 days.

Interested candidates should register before 31st January.Registration fee(advance): Rs 4000/

Who can benefit?

Breathworks can greatly benefit people suffering from: anxiety and depression, trauma, posttraumatic stress, and anger issues, grief and loss and the emotional effects of physical illness.

Holotropic BreathworksTM can be a universal healer. Breathworks is not particular to any religion but it can very well become a religious experience.

If there is one thing adventurous you want to do in 2020, I suggest you try this experience and I know you will not regret it. 

Much love and stay blessed! 

For more information about the workshop please contact:

Ms Sandy de Alwis | Email: sdea_joy@yahoo.com | Tel: 0777683170

Sr.Janet Nethisinghe | Email: janetnfmm@gmail.com | Tel: 0714228358 /0772545870

http://www.holotropic.com/holotropic-breathwork/about-holotropic-breathwork/

Tikiri Finds the Sun - Chandrika Gadiewasam 2019

The Snake Rescuer of Habarana

By Chandrika Gadiewasam

• In Sri Lanka which boasts some of the highest snakebite deaths in the world, where snakes are hated and feared, one man daily puts his life on the line to save any snake he can.

He has given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a deadly Indian cobra and he  keeps a saline solution and aloe vera tub to help heal snakes who have been attacked using kerosene: a man of humble means, who makes a livelihood from maintenance work, Jeganadan the snake rescuer of Habarana has never in his life accepted payment for the thousands of serpents he has rescued and released, because, he says, 'then people may hesitate to contact me."

"I started my rescue work in 2004, with the realisation that snakes are the animals probably treated with the most callous injustice in the world. You will see people and organisations rescuing dogs, birds, elephants, leopards -but there is no one who will stop and help a suffering snake." he points out.

Jeganadan has made it his life's passion to do so, at no small risk to himself.

He has no access even to antivenom, which is not available in rural hospitals, and points out that a trip from Habarana to the nearest government hospital with snake venom, which is in Polonnaruwa would take 1.5 hours, which would be more time than it takes to kill a person if bitten by a viper.

"The media is not very interested in saving snakes, there is nothing newsworthy in it for them,' he says adding that all the emergency calls he gets are through word of mouth and more recently social media which helps spread the word about his cause. " If an article or a post can save at least ONE snake from being killed then that is all that matters to me,"

 

Photos from https://www.facebook.com/jeganadan.habarana 

"My first advice to anyone if there is a snake discovered is not to poke or disturb it at all and never to throw kerosene etc, but to quietly watch it to make sure you know where it goes"  After a call, acting as soon as he possibly can, Jeganadan bikes over to the house and begins the long and arduous task of hunting the snake out, ensuring not to harm it in the process. This often means reaching into dangerous corners, climbing into roofs, operating in confined spaces and a great deal of patient searching until he locates and catches the slippery subjects.

On an average, he rescues around a dozen snakes a month, a few venomous but mostly non-venomous. Usually, the innocent non-venomous ones would also have been killed cruelly and needlessly if not for his quick intervention. Not only does he adamantly refuse any payment for this service, but all expenses are borne by him, on the principle that if he accepted payment some people may think twice about calling him. Often days of patient caring are needed to rehabilitate a snake which has been attacked with kerosene, by calming it, bathing it in saline, and then placing it in a tub of aloe vera gel; death from kerosene sprayed on any snake is long drawn out torment where the animals skin blisters and peels away leaving wounds which even show its skeleton, after which it gets infected and slowly rots to death over a number of days. More often than not it is entirely harmless non-venomous snakes that meet this fate, not to mention valuable endangered species. Even if a snake is venomous, as they never intend to harm people but only stray among us because their habitat is destroyed or they are hunting rats, or desperate for water, they can easily be kept at bay with proper precautions for example like keeping some water at a distance from the house, and keeping your environment cleared according to Jeganadan, who advises that all snakes have an important part to play in the ecosystems by controlling rodent populations which would otherwise devastate an agricultural economy such as Sri Lanka, and they are also the source for medical preparations etc. Only a handful of the snake species in Sri Lanka are venomous but due to lack of awareness of people, snakes are brutally attacked on sight.

On the subject of snake bite deaths and the lack of locally made antivenin, Jeganadan reserved comment except to say that after 30 plus years of trying to manufacture it, there has not been any real success from the authorities in charge. Many deaths would be preventable if the anti-venom were available, but it seems to be low in national priority as it is mostly poor villagers that would be affected.

Jeganadan goes out of his way to host regular awareness workshops for interested people, showing them the difference in non- venomous snakes so that at least knowledge will prevent the destruction of these innocent animals- but he has to carefully circumvent current laws which make it an offence to have such wildlife in one's possession. He laments over peoples attitudes, official lethargy and the ironic legal situation he personally faces when he tries to deliver this much-needed service to people; he needs to have live specimens to demonstrate to people that they are perfectly harmless, but at the same time it is an offence to have such fauna in his possession, so he has to release them very soon.

The attitudes of some people too have been most demoralising. Many ridicule him openly, some have even gone to the extent of trying to accuse him of profiting from the services he selflessly undertakes, which he points out is inaccurate because he insists that he will never accept payment for his time or expenses, as saving snakes is his life's passion. In spite of insult and criticism by such people for saving the snakes they believe should be exterminated, Jeganadan carries on undaunted, sure in the knowledge that he is doing the right thing, in saving people, snakes and Sri Lanka's environment alike.

Snake-handler Jeganadan can be contacted through FB@ ttps://www.facebook.com/jeganadan.habarana and on 0779 865 543