Month: February 2016

Jenadriyah: A Saudi Arabian Festival

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Jenadriyah is a cultural festival that takes place annually in Saudi Arabia. Up to 3 million visitors, mainly Saudi Nationals, will visit over its 2-week duration. Given it’s so hard to get a tourist visa into Saudi it is really only open to those that live here. We were offered a chance to visit by Ricks Company and jumped at the opportunity. We are in the midst of a far richer culture than is apparent at first glance and I want to see and discover more. I am curious about the people, the land and every-day life. Language and accessibility are always issues for us here, particularly for me as a woman. This festival is also becoming a way that the country’s youth can reconnect with their own diverse history and unique culture as like kids the world over, they continue to lose touch with their roots. Imagine for a moment you have been transported into the desert to a place that is like a mix between Expo and the Royal Easter Show, albeit without …

My Meeting with Wabi Sabi

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  As I sit on the edge of the onsen about to lower myself into the water I know that all is well with the world for this instant in time. It becomes a brief moment of mindfulness as I use all my senses to become one with my experience . Wabi Sabi is a Japanese term used to describe harmony but the state of harmony that comes through knowing that everything is in a state of flux. Either forming or dissolving. Not about perfection, more about how, when we look deeply into nature the seeds of creation and destruction become visible and that they exist to remind us of the impermanence of all things. Wabi Sabi reminds us that the mere observation of nature becomes an experience that touches the spirit itself. An onsen is a natural spring used for bathing and in Japan due to the abundant shifting and settling of mother earth there are many of them. Vents, fissures and volcanoes abound. Originally the springs were open to the environment and fully …