Please Log in to Vote.

0 out of 0 members found this useful.

a good journey and story

Posted September 4th, 2009 by Ambo Suno
In Reference to:
Educated in India

Hi - I like this interview presentation. It feels authentic to me - she seems to speak directly. I look forward to part two, which I'll probably watch after placing these thoughts and feelings down. Then I may have more to say.

This information isn't all new for me, and I get the same transparency with her here as in person. I did a developmental intensive with her and Susanne where the SCTi-MAP was emphasized.

Partly because of this prior contact and good associations I feel a surprise and a smile in me as I see her here now. I liked the openness of Jeff as I recently saw him here on ILC being interviewed.

I feel a number of other resonances with Beena, one of which is that my former wife was from Madras and I've been quite exposed over time, like many of us in this age, to Indian culture. Though more on the dabbling side of such a serious study, my wife and daughters studied Bharatanatyam, one South Indian classical Dance.

One of the study areas that animated Beena was polarity. In the developmental intensive, Beena presented a very useful and pleasing exercise for the class where polarities were applied to the four quadrants. The entire class danced, in a sense, with the given methodology about the four quadrants that were scribed onto the floor.

She and Susanna are excellent teachers and accessible warm people. The class is worth taking.

In a small spurt of related creativity, after the week, I found myself writing some short vignettes about surfing that described a developmental trajectory. When I sent it to Susanna, I was pleased that she, as well, thought it was amusing and conveyed the general stage-like progression. I'll maybe post it here again, soon, along with another vanity of a photo of a daughter in traditional South Indian regalia for her traditional engagement ceremony.

I digressed, about myself, again, but a lot of the juice of my enthusiasm has come from these rich associations.

Now Part II

Please Log in to Vote.

0 out of 0 members found this useful.

perspectives and cognition

Posted September 4th, 2009 by Ambo Suno

Part II was a good interview of how Beena came to Integral and to working with Susanne. I liked the very end where they just began to open up the particulars of how we arrive at perspectives and the part that various cognitive functions play in that. I liked her hesitant carefulness about that because it seems that coming to perspectives would be a delicate lacework of highly multiple functions working/playing in the big orchestra of mind and life.

Below is my play called "Surfing - Nine Levels of Incrasing Embrace" and then the grainy photo of daughter during engagement ceremony wearing what could almost be a classical dance costume. I do hope this doesn't distract too much from the interview. If anyone wants to speak of the interview on this thread jump on past this.

Normal 0 0 1 798 4552 37 9 5590 11.1282 0 0 0

Complete the following thought:

Surfing . . .

1.  [contact water] hauhh!! [pee in wetsuit] aahhh!!!

2.  yeahooo! [paddle, thrash, jump, splash] whoops! jesus christ!

3.  you head directly to the line-up and go for it. if you wait for those other bozos, you might wait all day. shredding it! this would be a perfect day, if it weren't for those dickheads that don't know what the fuck they're doing - "hey, go back to malibu, Diick!"

4.  hang with the buds - put on the duds - we paddle to the line-up - yo, dude, nice drop-in. I bought it on that last one, got too far forward - but sweet - it's all good. here, try this stuff. come on! [wheeuw inverted] yeeah - that's what i'm talkin bout! [smile]

5.  I get there at first light, about two hours before high tide, to get the tide push - wind was still light off-shore holding up the wave face. My board's clean, since I always keep it in the case. You gotta still use the cool temperature purple Sex Wax this week, laid on even and plenty heavy, all the way to the rails. I wait for a lull, paddle out with minimum effort, and wait patiently for the perfect shoulder to roll in. There's a right way to pop up neat - no wasted motion. Get in seven or eight rides, carving it up, clean well, hang the suit on a broad hanger, stow the gear, and get home for the rest of my planned day. Tomorrow, I'll start laying out the foam for my new board.

6.  Uh huh; I've been at this for 19 years, up and down the coast, Costa Rica, North Shore, Fiji, helped with that film, Surf Dudess. There's a guy in South India whose been sending me video clips of this point break. Awesome long rides, plenty waist to head high, with some periods of sweet off-shore tubery. I'm ready to parlay this love I have for surfing into a work I love - you, know, share it and make some rupees. I've already got a business plan for this chap.

7.  Manu says he wants more rental boards out and I can hook him up with a shaper - the shaper and I will teach some smart locals to sand and epoxy. We won't worry about the caste thing - they are getting that we're all the same underneath the dhoti. Dispose of the materials properly, use masks, the whole nine green yards. He has a well-off uncle in Bangalore for financing who's had a contract with Microsoft - his English is good. There's a chance that within a year or two we can put up about twenty bungalows using the indigenous bamboo and materials. No concrete necessary - hard packed earth and ad-mixture floors. We'll keep the price down so everyone can enjoy. There's no shortage of waves.

8)  It turns out that given the fall in Microsoft sales and less demand for customer service, Ravi, Manu's uncle, can only come up with half of what he thought - but he has some ideas and so do I. In the US, people aren't traveling as much so I'm bringing up the possibility that we can broaden our plan. We won't depend entirely on a surfing school. We'll still go out on the water ourselves a couple of times a day, stay fit, feel good, keep the chakras open. Meditate. We can still emphasize surfing and tropical shoreline eco-retreats. I met an amazing sweet old yogini who has been teaching pretty local, but I think that we can arrange for yoga retreats for European and other foreigners, as well as some of the more local people from the city twelve miles away. She'd like to teach more Patanjali; I already feel myself getting balanced just thinking of sukha-sthira. Kamala, thinks, too, that a small crafts store will help the community economy. We have to be a little sensitive to the elders who have been asking how hordes of loud Westerners will improve their overall life that's been pretty even for the last, oh, thousand years. If this is going to be East meets West, in microcosm, then a little patience and circumspection couldn't hurt the integration.

9.  Those were some sweet sets this morning eh. I felt something lift off the top of my head on that second ride, just as the sun broke the horizon. My eyes were buzzing. I thought at first, maybe it was too many coconut gin and tonics last night - then I remembered I haven't drunk for six years. [smile] Maybe I dreamed it. [smile] Hey, you've been liking working this community, right? I thought so. You and Kamalaji seem to have really wowed that last 10 day course. Seems you and she are really attuned. You two got something going on, eh. [wink] Hey, just kidding, Manu. Of, course, just cuz she's 76 and you're 31 doesn't mean it couldn't happen. Ow! That hurt. [smile] You've been doing too many handstands. Anyway, I've been thinking. Maybe you should be doing more. You're smart and personable and you pretty much run this place already. I keep making mistakes with the arithmetic and scheduling. You know that there is a chance that the International Yoga and Meditation Convention may be able to have one of the retreat venues here on the beach. You could be in charge of Surfpuram, here, and I could go surfing, err, I mean I could meet with Darini again and try to get Ken behind this retreat and others coming up. There's probably enough for me to do with the waves, just kidding, with the outreach. I could take less money and you'd get a 10 rupee raise [smile] and you could move into the chalet, I mean the bigger hut that I've been in. What do you think? Yeah, I'm serious. Cool. [smile] Now I can spend a little more time with my lower chakras that I've been ignoring. Ow.

10.  omm. [gulp] ahhh! [pee in lungi]  haaaa. [vibrant stillness]

 

 

 

ambo