Happy New Life (not happy new year)

I really try hard not to send rubbish out and especially at a time when some of you really believe or strongly hope that upon the changing of a year things will change for the better for you. No shallow well-wishes or videos with nursery rhymes this time around. 
 
The love of my life found this and I am now sharing it with you. It’s written by an author I enjoy and I have added one of my photos from 2015 that hit home for me; it’s called “Live a Life You’ll Remember” after a song. 
 
Read and consume the information below; contemplate it. 
 
“One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through.
 
Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.
 
Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?
 
You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened.
 
You can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that.
 
But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister.
 
Everyone is finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.
 
Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.
 
That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home.
 
Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts – and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.
 
Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them.
 
Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.
 
Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood.
 
Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.
 
Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the “ideal moment.”
 
Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back.
 
Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person – nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need.
 
This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.
 
Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life.
 
Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust.
 
Stop being who you were, and change into who you are” ~ Paulo Coelho (must read: The Alchemist)
 
If this inspired you just a little then read further and listen below why the song inspired me:
 
“Hey, once upon a younger year
When all our shadows disappeared
The animals inside came out to play
Hey, went face to face with all our fears
Learned our lessons through the tears
Made memories we knew would never fade
 
One day my father—he told me,
“Son, don’t let it slip away.”
He took me in his arms, I heard him say,
 
“When you get older
Your wild heart will live for younger days
Think of me if ever you’re afraid.”
 
He said, “One day you’ll leave this world behind
So live a life you will remember.”
My father told me when I was just a child
These are the nights that never die
My father told me
 
When thunder clouds start pouring down
Light a fire they can’t put out
Carve your name into those shining stars
He said, “Go venture far beyond these shores.
Don’t forsake this life of yours.
I’ll guide you home no matter where you are.”
 
One day my father—he told me,
“Son, don’t let it slip away.”
When I was just a kid I heard him say,
 
“When you get older
Your wild heart will live for younger days
Think of me if ever you’re afraid.”
 
He said, “One day you’ll leave this world behind
So live a life you will remember.”
My father told me when I was just a child
These are the nights that never die
My father told me
 
These are the nights that never die
My father told me
Hey, hey”
 
Link to song: click here
Live a Life (Large)
 
Advertisement

Cremorne Sunrise

“Be a lamp to those who have lost their way. Be a doctor and nurse to ailing patients. Be a boat and bridge to those who want to reach the other shore of peace and happiness. Remove sorrow by means of kind and loving words. Make a man smile when he is in despair. Cheer him up when he is afflicted” ~ Sri Swami Sivananda

Cremorne Sunrise (Large)

This one was taken on the same morning that my LDV would not start and I could not get up to the top of the mountain. I ended up on the banks of the mighty Umzimvubu at Port St Johns River Lodge. Cremorne Holiday Resort is seen in the background, Spottedgrunterresort Port St Johns is to my left and Outspan Inn a few clicks down the river to my right.

Canon South Africa 6D, Canon EF 17–40mm lens, F9, 2.5 sec, ISO 50

Port St Johns Tourism Rotary Club of Port St Johns Community of Port St Johns, Wild Coast Cremorne Estate, Port St Johns Amapondo backpackers Port St Johns 5 Star Durban Celebrate Durban!

Merry Christmas

“However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.” ~ Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Web Preparedfishman (Large)

Early Bird Catches the Worm: Early one morning, before sunrise, I arranged for my tuk-tuk taxi man to fetch me. We shot some sunrise photos on the edge of the lake and it was then time to explore some of the narrow alleys on the edge of the lake / waterway.

The fisherman below had no doubt woken up a short while before me and had already retrieved his catch of small fish from his net. I met him in an alley that heads to the main road.

About 30 min before I had met another local who, like the fisherman, was also a smoker. I thought it would be a done deal; offer him a few packets of Beedi (thin, Indian cigarette filled with tobacco flake and wrapped in a tendu or possibly even Piliostigma racemosum leaf tied with a string at one end) and then he would allow me to take photos of him.

The fisherman declined the Beedi deal but through the translator explained that some Rupees (cash) to buy a 07:30 refresher in the morning from the toddy shop (coconut wine / beer) would seal the deal!

Wikipedia: “Palm wine is an alcoholic beverage created from the sap of various species of palm tree such as the palmyra, date palms, and coconut palms.

In Karnataka, India, palm wine is usually available at toddy shops (known as Kallu Kadai in [Tamil], Kalitha Gadang in Tulu, Kallu Dukanam in Telugu, Kallu Angadi in Kannada or “Liquor Shop” in English).

In the Indian state of Kerala, toddy is used in leavening (as a substitute for yeast) a local form of hopper called the “Vellayappam”.

Toddy is mixed with rice dough and left over night to aid in fermentation and expansion of the dough causing the dough to rise overnight, making the bread soft when prepared.

In Kerala, toddy is sold under a licence issued by the excise department and it is an industry having more than 50,000 employees with a welfare board under the labour department”.

Canon 6D, F4, 1/400 sec, ISO 640, NL – 24/105mm L

Beedi V2

Wikipedia: “A beedi (/ˈbiːdiː/; from Hindi: बीड़ी; also spelled bidi or biri) is a thin, Indian cigarette filled with tobacco flake and wrapped in a tendu or possibly even Piliostigma racemosum leaf tied with a string at one end. The name is derived from the Marwari word beeda – a leaf wrapped in betel nuts, herbs, and condiments. A traditional method of tobacco use throughout South Asia and parts of the Middle East, today beedies are popular and inexpensive in India. There, beedi consumption outpaces that of conventional cigarettes. Beedi smoking tends to be associated with a lower social standing, and these tobacco-filled leaves are inexpensive, when compared to regular cigarettes. Those with a high social standing who do smoke beedies often do so out of the public eye.”

I met the chap below near the Chinese fishing nets at Fort Cochin in Kerala. He was smoking a beedi and gladly allowed me to snap a few photos much to the delight of him and his friends. I’m not a smoker but couldn’t resist getting “low down and dirty” with many of the locals during the recent trip – communication jumped a few levels when I lit up my own beedi, sat on the ground, smoked and shared a few stories. Faces lit up, including my own, and we gossiped in half-English as best as we could. If you are ever in this area go stay at Heavenly Homestay,Fortcochin. Enquries: Patrick Bernad – highly recommended!

Web PreparedBeedi (Large)

Canon 6D, 24-105mm, F4, 1/160 sec, ISO 320 – PP LR PS

Fort Cochin, India

“Indians are the Italians of Asia and vice versa. Every man in both countries is a singer when he is happy, and every woman is a dancer when she walks to the shop at the corner. For them, food is the music inside the body and music is the food inside the heart” ~ Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

2121 (Large)

Photo taken on the streets of Fort Cochin in India not far from Heavenly Homestay,Fortcochin – the best place to stay when visiting there (enquiries: Patrick Bernad).

Canon South Africa 6D, 24-105, F4, 1/160 sec, ISO 320

Durban

FOR BLOG

“I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning” ~ J. B. Priestley

A summer sunrise in Durban (not this morning)