Morning preparation

Jan Cornall has now lead three retreats at Daku; she’s just come back from the latest and has sent me a brief account of the week:
I love the moments on our Fiji  writer’s retreat when the breakthroughs start to happen.  You would hope for it on a course called Breakthrough Writing but it’s not going to happen straight away, unless simply getting off the plane in Savusavu Bay and slowing down to the pace of the locals, relaxes you so much you just can’t help yourself. Sometimes it’s when we get out the coloured pens and make our first story maps that things start to fall into place, or when you slip into a voice you know is so right for your story you want to shout – hallelujah! It could be that you discover your favorite three chapters have to get the chop (and you are ready to let them go) or you’ve worked out how to cut 10,000 words down to 1,000. It might be that giving yourself a week to concentrate just on your writing; no cooking, shopping, worrying about all the small details of life, turns on your creative tap and you wonder how on earth you will ever stop it. It certainly has something to do with devoting time to working on your craft, receiving positive encouragement and daily feedback and becoming involved in the development each others stories; as if through the daily activity of sharing our stories and the processes of writing we draw the strength and courage to finally inhabit the uniqueness of our own writers’ voice. The same voice that at the beginning of the week we were so unsure about. I can’t wait to do it all again next year.

And here’s a few words from a couple of the writers:

Reading out the day's work in the evening

BIFF WARD: Jan was everything that was promised and more. She really can work with people writing in any genre and at any stage of its development – even if they haven’t actually started! She had us all writing new stuff, re-working bits and, most importantly, reading to each other and giving useful feedback. It was a rich, rewarding, expanding, inspiring process. It seemed to me that everyone went away with clarity about where to go next with their project and the focus and energy required to keep going.  Even with people from very different backgrounds and experiences, Jan had us all working together productively and well.

Daku allowed me to have a deeply satisfying routine to my days – something I never seem to establish at home. Wake up to tropical paradise through the louvres; read a littler; walk up to the yoga platform and spend an hour stretching a centring looking out to sea; shower in outdoor funky bathroom; delicious breakfast; then writing time on my verandah followed by class from 10 till 1. And that’s only thew morning! everyday! All in the Daku resort atmosphere of informal comfort and friendliness subtly underpinned by fabulous service.

CHRIS RICHARDS : I have become a bit of a writers class “junkie” and this one had the most
eclectic and skilled group of people thus far. All very imaginative, all very productive. Jan basically set the parameters, set us up and let us go. The old iron fist in a velvet glove method which I do well under. Of all the workshop leaders and facilitators I have worked under over the years, she is my favourite.

Picnic on the beach

A lovely start to 2012 – a dynamic yoga week with Michelle Jayne. We were up every morning to start the first workshop at 7.30 – and soon sweating hard.  Her practice is influenced by the Power Yoga approach, but her major mentor has been Ana Forrest. She first met Ana when she trained with her in 2008, and immediately found a deep sympathy with her verbal descriptions of body placement. It

A different sort of sun salutation

gave her a deeper understanding of how to create space in your body, and how to move from a sense of suffering (interpret this in the sense of finding an asana difficult / challenging / tiring) to finding curiosity and joy. So as we moved through the morning practice she encouraged us to hold certain poses and find the joy in them – often an attitude of mind, but sometimes a sense of discovery in what we could do.

Two-legged down dog

The afternoon workshops explored ideas of patterning of the mind and how to respond when you hit the edge in an asana, and then the late afternoon practice allowed us to find relaxation in extended stretches. This was the time when we had some others join us to explore and enjoy the benefits of working with long poses and the support of straps.

Stretching it out

And then there was time for the beach, for snorkelling on the reef, for shopping in Savusavu and for a cruise on a yacht. Altogether a great start to the year’s yoga programme.

Out on the yacht

A pod of hammerheads

Out on a dive last week with Koro Sun Dive and we saw a HUGE pod of hammerheads. Colin, the owner and Dive Master, took us to Dreamhouse where the pod is often to be found. We dropped down to about 50 feet and swam out across the reef and into the blue, finning our way through the vastness of the ocean. I was dreaming happily of life and relaxation and nothing much in particular when suddenly Colin was grabbing my arm and gesticulating wildly: he was throwing an underwater wobbly which amounted to: “For goodness sake, keep your eyes on where I’m pointing because we can see lots of them!!” And sure enough, ahead of us were faint silvery shapes which resolved into dozens of gleaming bodies as we swam nearer. It was a pod of fifty or more hammerhead sharks. We were behind them but every so often one would turn and look at us, and we’d see its strange head with the eyes out on each end of the square hammer-shaped skull. They were cruising along gently, not too bothered by us. We were all transfixed, treasuring each moment, waiting for them to disappear – and eventually, with a lazy surge of power, they did. A magic memory.

Hammerhead sharks

A barefoot Santa comes up the drive

Christmas Day is never complete without Santa, and sure enough, he arrived at lunch with a sack of presents. There were 20 guests, and everyone received a small gift. Santa ho-ho-ho’d around and then disappeared off again whilst we went through to a fairly traditional lunch of chicken, ham, roast potatoes, pumpkin and carrot followed by Xmas pud.

Santa and the kids

Santa handing out the gifts

An extraordinary week with Noah Maze: the experience of learning from him was a daily endorsement of his huge reputation. Noah leads a very strong practice, well beyond the normal comfort zone of at least half the class. But with his meticulous work on the preparation of each pose, and the Anusara based emphasis on correct alignment, every student found that they were able to grasp the requirements of each new asana. As each day went by, although not every pose was mastered, everyone was astonished (and gratified) at the leaps in confidence and achievement they experienced.
Every morning practice lasted for two and a half hours, with a focus on standing and balancing poses and a lot of work on the strength based postures of headstands and handstands. Noah worked through each pose in different ways, teaching his students how it could be approached from sitting, standing and lying down. And, delightfully, he laces his teaching with humour – mimicking the New Joisey ATTITUDE of “whass da big deal?” as he hooked his arms under his knees and spread his hands in mock challenge in order to show the class how to prepare for astavakrasana (Eight Angle Pose); the shrill cry of the peacock he let out in pincha mayurasana (Feathered Peacock Pose)……making everyone relax, laugh, pause, refresh their mind and absorb the confidence he exudes.

Noah helps with a back bend

If I were to single out the greatest gift he gave us during the week, I think it would be exactly that: confidence. He is uncompromising in his demands – but his unwavering belief that it can be done pushes each student into fulfilling intentions they had no idea they could achieve. The class was of very mixed ability: two teachers, several others who had a well established and confident practice and several more who had only practiced yoga for 2 or 3 years – and one man who was just one month in. Each and every one knew they had taken bounds in their practice and in their understanding of what was possible for them.
There was more: time for teaching the life-affirming philosophy behind the Anusara practice, for meditation and chanting, for friendship and laughter within the group, for good food and dancing, for Fijian music and kava drinking. And for falling into a deep, exhausted and happy sleep every night. Namaste, Noah.

Everyone

Noah demonstrates a pose

Noah teaching inversions

In September, Kerrie Lester was at Daku for her second workshop. One of her students, Christine Leaming, writes about the week and what she learnt.

It was a week was filled with painting, new experiences, laughter and relaxation. Each day began with a relaxing stroll along the waterfront, followed by breakfast around the pool. We then went up to the yoga shala, a lovely open sided platform above the resort, to paint the view and to complete the other paintings which we had begun in the market place or on the jetty.

Everywhere we were followed by the bubbly children and the curious townsfolk and I surprised myself at my ability to sit and paint with an audience!

And then each day ended sipping a wine as the sun set and sharing a meal at the poolside table with other guests. Our free time was filled with swimming, shopping, visiting the pearl farm and sightseeing.

Christine painting in the yoga shala, with Kerrie in the background.

Kerrie is passionate about painting and passionate about Fiji. She is an enthusiastic teacher constantly encouraging and pushing each of her students to observe and interpret what they see. She showed us how to achieve this through the use of surface preparation, using mediums with the paint and how to make the desired mark using brush or spatula.

As a result my painting is vastly improved and I am now confident to plan a good composition, tackle figures in the landscape, and to use colour and texture more freely.

So if you wish to be taught how to really use your paints and mediums, and unleash your artistic talents in an authentic Fijian environment, then join Kerrie in 2012 at Daku Resort … I know I shall!

Kerrie Lester’s 2012 art retreat runs from 8 – 15 September 2012. See the Paradise Courses page for more details.

The writers on the Manuscript Mentoring week with Rosie Scott had a great week – productive, friendly, stimulating, full of laughs and stories – and Rosie enjoyed it every bit as much as they did.

Rosie Scott:
MAGIC! I loved it. Small but fabulous group very committed, worked hard but also lots of fun, the staff were as usual wonderful – great food and kindness to us.  They put on a memorable farewell night with kava, a lovo and singing and dancing by Keni’s children (Keni and Mereone sang with them) and a rendition of Gilbert and Sullivan by one student – the extraordinary Kevin who is a professional singer among many other things. And loved the outdoor shower I had this time, not to mention the snorkelling. The group all went away in high spirits, inspired to write.

As I said in my last article on Daku, it’s a great place for people  to get to a deeper  level with their manuscripts. It really is the best teaching experience for me too- to see the way people’s work improves over the week is a joy. I believe this is partly because they become so relaxed and open in this lovely place.
I hope this is will become an annual event.

(Yes, Rosie – it will. The 2012 manuscript mentoring week is up on the website – 22- 29 September.)

Helen Grenfell
Writers can be very defensive about their work, treasuring it as one does a newborn baby and very reluctant to expose it to the discerning eye of others. But Rosie’s generous nature and the relaxed and friendly group members put an end to such fears. She is friendly, perceptive, a skilful mentor and, importantly, for this course, she is a successful novelist and teacher of creative writing, with a string of academic qualifications that bring added authority to her task of mentoring.

She made the week good fun, yet it was also rigorous, and both the workshops and exercises revealed skills in my writing that I didn’t know I possessed. I came home realising I really could write, but also with a clear understanding of the areas of the craft I need to develop. Amidst the humdrum silliness of daily life, I am still writing everyday, a sure sign that Rosie and the group members had a positive, lasting effect on me.

Rosie had a sensible timetable of activities. We had all previously read by email the work of each of us in the group. The mornings were spent in writing exercises and a thorough workshopping of a group member’s piece; in the afternoon that person had a private mentoring session with Rosie. Nobody felt unduly stressed, and happy conversations bubbled along about books, films, and life experiences. A sense of humour, a good yarn, a well-told joke are essential pieces of equipment to bring to Rosie’s classes.

It is hard to explain just how suitable Daku Resort is for such activities as writing. It is small, very beautiful, and authentically Fijian. Colours are powerful – the red and orange of flowers, the deep shiny green of foliage, the stark white of a ship out on the blue bay waters. Laughter from children on the beach or guests in the pool drift up to our verandah where we always worked, but nothing distracts us; we are far from the rush and bother of our daily lives. A guest at Daku, in a conversation about travel, reminded me that ‘there are diamonds in one’s own backyard.’ ; it’s the moral of a story of African origin. That’s very true, but I would like to have Daku Resort as my own backyard, and Rosie Scott can have a cabin for free to advise me on my writing.

Cooling off after a hard day's writing...

AnneMarie Bennett
Rosie Scott is a terrific teacher – probably the best I’ve encountered.  And I’ve studied a lot.  In fact I never felt like I was being ‘taught’, but instead, her methods helped to peel back layers.  Rosie has a wonderful personality and a knack at understanding exactly what each person in the group needs to take their writing to the next level.

Kevin McGrath
The outstanding feature of the course was its flexibility. Rosie Scott concentrated
on the individual writer, drawing out his or her talent and helping the ideas to flow freely. Simultaneously there was plenty of time to get on with personal writing. Rosie is not only an accomplished author but a professional counsellor as well – a great help in getting an author
to sort out aims and ambitions.

You would go a long way to find more good humoured and friendly staff then those at Daku. You are always greeted with big Fijian smiles. The travel arrangements worked extremely well, especially as Fiji is so easy to reach. It was a great pleasure to take the domestic flight from Nadi to Savusavu, to experience the beautiful views of  mountain and sea from the aircraft window.

Stephen Price
No, I’m not a published author, merely someone who loves to dabble in both writing and traveling.  And when I discovered the writing course at the Daku Resort, I knew that I had to be a part of it!  Our writing instructor, published author Rosie Scott, was absolutely fantastic, helpful and very inspiring.  And the group of other budding authors that I met also led to a fantastic writing holiday. Rosie, thank you for everything!  I look forward to working with you once more!

Details of the 2012 course can be found at Paradise Courses – Manuscript Mentoring.

Rosie’s webpage can be found here.

Almost a year ago I spent a week doing yoga with my son at Mark Whitwell’s course in December. I wasn’t the only mum – and so I had the idea of writing about it from the point of view of doing a retreat with your son or daughter. It was subsequently published in Issue 32 of Australian Yoga Life. Here it is.

Sons, daughters and yogis
It puts a different spin on things to be students alongside your offspring. No more of Mum being the one who is telling everyone what to do! Recently I attended an overseas retreat conducted by Mark Whitwell that included three mothers with their adult children in tow. There was me and my 19-year-old son Charlie; Catherine and her two twenty-something daughters Dorothy and Paddy; and Lisa with her (not yet adult) 11-year-old boy Joe. Young Joe was simple: he wanted something that was easy and fun.

After the first practice, Joe described it to Lisa as ‘awesome’. Catherine is a yoga teacher herself, and her daughters Dorothy and Paddy saw it as a great family holiday with yoga thrown in. It wasn’t necessarily the beginning of a new dedication to yoga – but then Mark emphasised that yoga is a different practice for different people – and even excused the girls turning up late for class with the remark: “Sleep can be yoga too.”

Since then, Paddy hasn’t stayed with the practice, but says: “ I am playing tennis – which for me, and at this point in my life, is my yoga.” And Dorothy describes a general opening of horizons – maybe thanks to yoga, maybe not. “I don’t know if the experience has changed anything directly, perhaps it just helped to open my eyes. I feel like I am a little bit more open to new ideas or experiences than I might have been before. It was definitely a combination the people, the place and the yoga, not just the classes.”

But for each and every one of the mums it `was a special time. Lisa does yoga regularly now with both Joe and her husband Tim: “I was delighted to have Joe involved and my heart felt like it would burst when I looked over and saw him so involved and clearly enjoying the process.  He loved the opportunity to get to know people, hear their stories and learn about some of the spiritual and emotional aspects of yoga.  When I asked Joe the other day if my leg massage was hurting him, he said, “pain is not the enemy” ….. a quote Mark used during the retreat.”

For Catherine, it was an act of love, offering her daughters something she wished she had found earlier: “I wanted my daughters to have that experience now, in their 20′s, rather than coming to that sort of personal and spiritual awareness through longer, more circuitous and perhaps more painful paths in their 30s, 40s, 50s – as many people do.  I wish my mother had shared a yoga retreat with me when I was in my 20′s!”

And for me, it was just time together. Sometimes Charlie fell asleep during the longer talks; I’d look over and see his eyes shut and notice that regular breathing and once – just once – a tiny little snore. But there were plenty of times he was taking it all in and on other occasions he and I would discuss what had been said. I enjoyed that, walking down the beach throwing his ideas back and forth, engaged in a conversation that was entirely neutral in that I wasn’t telling him to do anything or prising out information about his life.

Then there was the physical aspect to the retreat. He mastered the poses with ease – and more. Stuff that I’d been working on for the last year he did with the natural grace of a 19-year old. He was already athletically in excellent shape as a rock climber, so had the requisite strength and balance, and was soon doing an impeccable headstand – but I took a secret delight in being able to bend more deeply that he could. But what pleasure to be able to do these things together, with no real competition behind it. And there was playtime too – laughter when he pushed me over whilst attempting Warrior 3; shared winks as we peeked sideways from downward dog; gritted teeth as we held the star position; and laughter as he swayed in tree pose and gave up entirely.

And sometimes I just held his hand when we lay in shivasana. Now how many mums get to do that with their 19-year-old sons! And who knows what links we’ve built with our children during that time? They may not acknowledge it quite so openly, but it certainly nurtured our hearts.

Mark’s next retreat takes place from December 11 – 18. It’s priced at US$1250: see Yoga in Fiji for details.

“A picture tells a thousand words”, but which words do they speak?

Elena Parashko’s haunting painting of a marooned ship in a drought-devastated landscape was recently selected as a finalist in ANL Maritime Art Prize in Melbourne and then snapped up on the opening night. Elena, who leads a week at Daku next September, describes how she arrived at the idea.

Paintings not only work on a visual level, they also target the intellect and emotion of the viewer. A painting is an artist’s voice that carries their message into the world. But it’s not just a one way form of communication. The viewer also brings their unique personality and lifetime of experience to each artwork they engage with and this strongly influences their interpretation of the inherent message in the work.

As an artist, I am passionate about the creative process and the influence my work has on others. My observations, values and ideals are infused into each piece I craft but I also allow viewers to interact with my paintings and draw their own conclusions. I may pose questions through imagery but I do not dictate what response the viewer should have to it.

My painting, “Ever Changing Times”, was a fun on a technical level as I experimented with paint and mediums to create a parched earth effect. But delving beneath the surface, I also wanted to create a powerful painting that reflected current concerns about the impact of climate change on our environment. I did this by exploring an apparent contradiction in imagery. A ship sailing through the desert makes the viewer stop and think on a number of levels. “Ever Changing Times” was entered as a seascape in the ANL Maritime Art Prize in Melbourne, Australia – a bold move to enter a painting with no sea into a maritime art competition. But it must have struck a chord with the judges as it was selected as a finalist.

Proceeds from sales of paintings go to support Mission to Seafarers Victoria.

Elena comes to Daku from 1 – 8 September 2012 to teach a week entitled: Evoking the Elements : Tropical Seascapes and Landscapes.

Fran and Dave from Christchurch, New Zealand – our intrepid explorers of the month.

Climbing the 137 steps to the top

Many of our guests at Daku enjoy strenuous hikes, and I knew these two were up for a challenge by the way they skipped up and down the steep muddy slopes of our waterfall path (which we have subsequently re-cut with their advice).

So it’s Fran’s picture that now graces the description of the trip to the Nakabolou hot springs, and the photos on this blog of the Bagata hydro-electric system are taken by Dave.

The hydro system is up a very lovely valley outside the village of Bagata, about a 25 minute drive from Savusavu. The main plant is fed by a water reservoir that you climb 137 steps to reach. Dave actually ran ahead of us to get the photo. Intrepid or mad? Whichever, they are great photos.

One pipe goes up, one pipe goes down.

The reservoir is fed by a huge pipe that runs back up the valley for about 3 km to a small dam. Dave explained how it worked and my physics lessons of so many years ago seeped back into my understanding: water always flows from a high point to a lower point, even if it has to go up for part of the way. Thus the pipe started high up the valley, ran down and finally shot back up the 137 steps to the reservoir – but that point was still lower than the source. (Hope I’ve got that right!)

The source of the water for the hydro-electric scheme

The Bagata hydro makes a very pleasant part of the trip to Nakabolou. The drive takes in stunning scenery and great views on a dirt road which runs alongside a stream. You’ll pass villagers walking to their farm plots and horses wandering into the water and you’ll see profusion of vegetation and lushness of landscape found only in the tropics.

Dam at the top of the valley