It's been a summer of transitioning here in IVAland. A summer of big questions .. and almost inaudible answers.

Sometimes we (I) don't know exactly what to do next, but we know we need to make a change. This stirs up a lot of uncertainties about the choices we make. Are they "good" or "bad" … and who's to know?

I've been thinking this week that life is good. Despite what may be "problems," really I have had so many of my wishes come true and felt that most of my troubles were self-inflicted. It was just as I was feeling this way that I came across this story in a book of Swami Muktananda called Where Are You Going?

"Sitting Under the Wish-Fulfilling Tree

There was once an unfortunate man who kept roaming from one place to another. In the course of his wanderings he came to a forest. He sat under a tree and felt himself becoming very calm. A gentle breeze was blowing, and as he looked around, the man saw that the forest he was sitting in was beautiful.

"If I only had a companion," he thought, "I would be completely happy." The tree he was sitting under happened to be a wish-fulfilling tree. A wish-fulfilling tree is divine, anti is said that if anyone sitting under it makes a wish, that wish is instantly fulfilled. So at that very moment a beautiful girl appeared. The man was enraptured.

She sad down next to him, and for a while he was content. But then he thought, "It's a pity that the two of us have to sit under a tree, exposed to the elements. It would be much better if we had a house with a few bedrooms and a dining room equipped with all the amenities. Then I would lack nothing." Immediately, the house he had wished for appeared.

Delighted, he went into the house with his sweetheart, sat down, and had a loving chat with her. Then he said, "Look, what's the point of living like paupers in this house? I'd like to live like a lord. If only we had a butler and a couple of servants to serve us food." In the twinkling of an eye, a butler with two servants appeared.

The man called the servants over and said, "Prepare us two delectable dishes." Before long, the butler brought two servers containing gourmet food. The man tasted the food and it was delicious. But then he began to wonder, "What's going on? I wished for a wife, and she appeared and cuddled me. Then I wished for a house and got a beautiful house. Then I wished for a butler and two servants and they appeared. Then I wished for delectable dished and they, too, materialized. What's happening? There must be a demon here!"

A demon immediately appeared in front of him, with his mouth wide open. "Oh, no, he'll eat me up!" the man cried. Of course, the demon devoured him, and that was the end. This wretched fellow trapped himself in his imagination. At first he thought of good things, but in the process of imagining them, he also imagined a demon and his own death. If, instead of imagining a demon, he had thought, "God must be giving me these things," his fate would have been different…This is all there is to the world we live in. In the heart is the wish-fulfilling tree of divine Consciousness, and we are seated right in its shade. We keep creating our own worlds of thought and imagination. We think, "I am a sinner, I am inferior, I am this I am that." We get trapped in our own webs, and then one day we die."

(p. 52-53, sidda yoga publications www.siddhayoga.org)

So I've decided to keep making wishes, and enjoy the beauty of life and the way dreams materialize. It's taking some doing as I can get negative, but it's just an attitude, a perception, nothing more, and I can change my habits. Feeling the goodness and richness of life is getting more familiar.

I'm wishing you the same!

love
IVA

Hello summertime lovelies...

I'm fresh back in Stockholm from the States and it's been quite a day…beautiful in the sunshine and then a dramatic thunderstorm which I watched through the windows at Rival Café. 

Hello friends, fellow seekers of wholesome living,

I traveled up to New York this past weekend for a series of audition for opera companies .. and some eco living with some of my best friends and ma mama.

My mom came along and kept me sane during these auditions, which usually scare me to death. And she was in charge of food and made a number of trips to Whole Foods Market to keep me in good form. She didn't want her picture taken, so you'll see me showing off the food …

...n chills.

Hallo y'everybody.

So I've been, like, cooking n stuff? Trader Joe's has been the organic testing grounds for some of my favorite recipes. One of them in a quinoa dish that was taught to me by Nina Rosas, chef and owner of Soul Restaurant, an organic haven in Brussels, Belgium.

http://www.soulresto.com/index.html

Life is a great unknown. But even in the face of all of the uncertainty, we can be certain about who we are, and about who we want to be. 

Hello from Philadelphia, intrepid eco-travelers!

It has been time yet again to, ahem, "adjust" my hair color, so I decided to check out the salon Juju in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US of A.