The Dumpster Diet - One Month Without Paying for Food

Near the beginning of October I attended the vipassana meditation centre in Merritt for 10 days, volunteering in the kitchen during one of their courses, in exchange for food and accommodation. When I got back to Vancouver, I hit the local dumpster for my fruits and vegetables.

By then I was already nearly halfway through the month without yet having paid for food. My kitchen was already generously stocked with non-perishables such as oatmeal and rice. So I decided to take up the challenge to not pay for food this month.

I continued to dumpster dive religiously at my spot, which is about a 15 minute bicycle ride. And just 5 minutes away by bike is the local Sikh Temple, which offers free dinners 4 days a week. This experience has actually become one of my favourites in Vancouver, a sign that I may be starting to go crazy. But not only is the food good, they fill your tupperware with leftovers, and it is always attended by young hipsters and hippies, usually around 40 or so others. So it really is something unique.

The dumpster provided just about everything I needed - I scrounged staples such as greens, eggplants, potatoes, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, garlic, bread, apples and bananas. On top of that were occasional surprises - cheese, eggs, mushrooms and avocados, as well as sweets and baked goods such as croissants, muffins and even birthday cakes. There was almost always something new and different to add variety to my monthly no-budget cuisine.

While I dumpster dive to spotlight the issue of food waste and to reduce the demand on the industrial food system, I also do it for my own benefits. The most obvious is that I am saving lots of money on food. But on the other hand, instead of eating out all the time, I am spending time at home cooking, which I enjoy. The food is in surprisingly good shape, some without any defects at all, neither visual nor physical, and I believe it is just as nutritious (if not just slightly less) as food purchased in-store.

I feel like I came out of this month with a more humble relationship with food. I don't eat excessively, yet I don't feel hungry or develop cravings like I used to. I take what comes to me, not what I desire. I somewhat cheated, counting my time at the vipassana centre, but even there I ate humbly and practiced a bit of fasting.

Now that October is over though, I am a bit relieved that I can go back to the grocery store, and eat at restaurants again. Time for sushi!

A Summer to Remember - Overcome by Beauty

My favourite movie line comes from American Beauty, when the teenager is sharing his simple but captivating video of the plastic bag dancing in the wind: "sometimes there is so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can't take it, and my heart is just going to cave in."

I've had this feeling often during this summer, by far the best of my life.

I spent the vast majority of my summer outdoors, communing with nature, and with people who have the same passion. I attended four festivals, each unique in their own way, and each building upon the previous one, adding another layer of love. The fourth festival added the cherry on top, and since then I've been bursting with love and often spontaneously on the verge of tears.

While many would negatively associate tears with sadness and misfortune, my tears are associated with joy and happiness. And those tears have been incredibly healing.

I've experienced such epiphanies in the past but, somehow, this summer I've summited higher peaks of beauty and joy, and seem to be elevating to higher states of love and consciousness. Even in recent weeks, as I have lived small, my mind feels activated, my heart open and overflowing with positivity. My creative juices are flowing and I am writing a lot. There are new creative avenues that I am keen on exploring.

I only wish I was able to convey this feeling and spread it outward. This feeling is indescribable, incommunicable, can only be experienced; this state of being eliminates the need for any judgment or negativity that causes harm to our world.

Consequently, it confuses me why most people cannot witness and experience this beauty; that society traps us in suffocating boxes which only offer small, short glimpses of such beauty, before shuttering the blinds.

On the contrary, it seems most people would rather focus on negativity and fixate on extremist ideals, rushing to judge different people as if they were a lower species (though all living things deserve equal consideration). It's especially ironic, since today's world is the most peaceful in human history. Peace like love, flows and has its peaks and valleys. We must not confuse this current valley as a precipitous drop off a cliff into war, despair and destruction.

The third piece of the befuddling puzzle is a deepening sense of becoming more and more disconnected from this world which I so badly want to showcase this beauty to. I no longer wish to conceal this conflict, for it forgives ignorance, which causes the same problems plaguing our world, and prevents open dialogue, which is what we need to move forward on these issues.

My family and I are growing apart, due to my own extremism. My extremism is centred on ideals of love and freedom, and have given me a lot of happiness; yet, instead of being happy for me, they judge me. I am consequently befuddled. Though my life obstacles are universal, my Asian-Canadian peers fully understand the challenge of growing up in a Western culture, but raised on conservative ideals.

My future is vague, but I do see an eventual resolution to my conflict with my family. However, my projection towards meeting their expectations won't come for several years as I still have a lot of growing up and soul searching to do. Before I can focus on them, I need to focus on me.

For now, I can only continue to focus on the beauty around me - around all of us. If I follow my heart and seek out the beauty, my footsteps will take me on a path towards success. And I encourage everyone to do the same.

I live life with no regrets. It's what led to the most memorable summer of my life.

A photo collection of the best scenes of my summer:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/11monthsandrew/albums/72157670962085214

Fantastic Four! The Soo River Faire

The festivals keep coming and the love keeps building and building.

After the magic of Shambhala, I thought I was ready to pull back from the festival scene, which I dove headfirst into this summer. My plan to visit Vancouver Island was delayed by one day. So, marooned in Vancouver one more day, I joined my ex-housemates at a drum circle that night on 3rd beach in Stanley Park.

I wore my Shambhala headband like a proud flag, and I was befriended by a few people about it. One pair invited me to a small festival they were organizing called Soo River Faire. I loved their energy, and my own energy was drawn to them and their event.

I ended up cutting my Vancouver Island stint short, to just 10 days, so I could make it back to the mainland for the fair. About 20 minutes north of Whistler, we turned onto the Soo River Forest Service Rd. We drove down this rough road for another 20 minutes or so, before arriving to the trailhead, where my car got a flat tire. As tough as the adventure was to get there, the location was perfect. A floodplain in the spring, the waters recede in the summer, giving way to a gravelly beach along the snaking Soo River, guarded by green and white mountains.

The festival was really intimate - around 50 people - and the music was really good, considering its size. The artists were humble and easy to talk to; some of them live in the same collective home in Vancouver with the organizer. One of the DJs was my ex-housemate, and it was a pleasure dancing to his set. Psychedelics were involved as usual, but on a more toned down level than Shambhala, and I got some good dancing in.

Main stage during the day; and at night (below)

I furthered friendships as well as met some truly special people here. In particular, I made one very profound connection, and we became very close, very quickly. We drove back to Vancouver together, further connecting on just about every topic, sharing stories and listening to music that moved our souls. For this, I want to thank this person immensely for the bond and understanding at every level of our respective journeys in this sacred universe.

By the end of the festival, the organizer conducted an emotional closing ceremony. During the first part, we huddled around a campfire and gave praise to nature by reciting odes of gratitude to each direction of the compass rose, while facing them. For the second part, the organizer put together some wood arranged to form a small tree, and attached written notes of peoples' fears and confessions. Gathered in a circle around it, attendees each read the notes one by one. Then the tree and all of the notes were burned, setting our fears free and, thus, concluding the ceremony.

Taylor conducting the closing ceremony

Cachou reading a note from the tree of fears and confessions

The organizer must have set his own fears free because, at that moment he kneeled to the ground in prayer pose and wept his heart out. In silent understanding, and with all of the emotions I already built up the past few days, myself and a few others knelt beside him, consoling him, and crying with him.

I've recently had a feeling that my summer was building up to something special - some cosmic gathering of the energies I have been nurturing. It all came together at Soo River Faire. I left the event feeling so full of love, it felt like my heart was bursting. For the next several days, I

I made a fun time lapse video at the festival, click here!

The event has been going on for 4 years, but for me, it felt like the start of something special. I hope to become a part of this event and its people in the future.

The (Vancouver) Island Connection

The latest leg of my adventures took me to magical Vancouver Island. To say I have been here before is a half-truth, like someone saying they've been to France, when they only visited Paris. That's because I have only visited Victoria, the largest city on the island.

This time I intended to change that. And though I cut my stay much shorter than I originally hoped, I still stayed 10 days and experienced the true island culture. The theme of my summer has been nature and people. So far I have camped maybe 90% of the summer and explored some really beautiful parts of western Canada. I have also made meaningful connections with lots of wonderful people.

Mat showing me the swim holes in Cumberland

The first meaningful connection on the island actually began on the mainland. Several weeks ago, I drove Mat, a Kijiji rideshare, from Vancouver to Kelowna, and in the course of the 5 hour drive, we were chatting like old friends. Our timing somehow aligned so that I later drove him back to Vancouver to the ferry. About one week later, my deed came full circle, as I visited him on the island.

On the way there, I wondered why he settled in this no name small town... Cumberland far exceeded my expectations! I connected easily with his roommate and some of their friends that came in and out of their cozy home. They took me to some beautiful swim holes in the area, as well as an abandoned ski resort, where we picked huckleberries and admired the sunset. I was getting stuck in Cumberland, already staying a few days longer than planned, so I reluctantly said goodbye to my new friends and took off to the west coast.

Exploring the ancient (for us, anyway) ruins of an old ski resort

I was in search of Rainbow Beach, a wild camping spot on Kennedy Lake, and found it a half hour drive down a forest road, just under an hour inland from Tofino. There was a lovely boardwalk that led down to the beach, through a grove of magnificent cedars. The place was absolute magic.

I wasn't totally surprised to see a bunch of crazy hippies already camping there, some already for a few months, just living a free existence. I knew this would be my kind of place. When I arrived, the free spirits were hula hooping and dancing on the beach. That night a campfire party swelled to more than 20 young people from different places all across Canada.

On the second day I visited the surfing towns of Ucluelet and Tofino. I ran all around the rocks on Big Beach, like it was a big playground. I later checked out Poole's Land, a welcoming ecovillage just on the outskirts of Tofino. I picked up a hitchhiker, a gentle native man, and he shared his story of loss and inspiration. That night, back at Rainbow Beach, the group shrunk to a more intimate size, and everyone took psychedelics and partied like it was the 70's all over again. I admired beautiful and awe inspiring displays of fire spinning with staffs.

On my last day, the grey skies finally opened up and it started to pour. Back at camp, we all worked together to put up more tarps, gather dry wood and keep a fire going. Huddled around the fire, we shared our life stories about how we arrived here in this point in our lives, coming together on this blissful beach in the Canadian wilderness.

Big Beach, Ucluelet

I've watched and been inspired by lots of fire spinning this summer

The next day I picked up a hitchhiking traveler and we connected the whole 4 hour drive to Victoria, swapping travel stories, people stories, good music and positive vibes. We got together later that evening, where she experimented for the first time with psychedelics, while we chatted on the beach.

In Victoria I got together with several friends, continuing the string of meaningful conversations and deepening connections across my entire island trip. I even randomly saw a friend on the bus, who I cherry picked with earlier that year! It's no surprise then that I spent a few more days there than expected, and eventually had to cut fabled Salt Spring Island out of my plans.

Vancouver Island was everything I heard about, and more. Beautiful nature, beautiful people. Here, the further and further I got off the beaten path, the crazier and more wondrous people I run into. And that's just how I like it.

Thanks May, for hosting me near Vic, and connecting about the island and Chinese things!

Beautiful But Confusing - Dancing the Summer Away

As I stated in my previous blog, my string of recent adventures have spiraled positively into the most beautiful summer of my life. My spirit is soaring and my heart has opened up, simultaneously filling up and gushing forth with loving energy. One area of self discovery that has given my spirit flight is my embrace of music and dancing, and the magical convergence of the two at music festivals.

At this point, some of my readers shall be cautioned: all of these experiences I am about to share have occurred while using psychedelics, and I dare say would not be possible without them. I have expanded on this in previous blogs, and my hope is to slowly chip away at your armour through my storytelling, without sounding like I've lost my marbles (if I haven't already done so by now).

Tribe Festival - meditating with singing bowls

Astral Harvest festival - cool workshop space

Interstellevator, main stage at Astral Harvest

In other words, my goal is cultural deconditioning. Because we are taught, no, conditioned, to believe that these substances are bad for you, when in reality they are proven to have strong healing potential. Yet political and economic interests at a high level serve to keep them prohibited and out of the public's hands. Anyway, back to dancing, before I really lose you... please read on with an open mind.

Last New Year's Eve in Vancouver I had my first spiritual dance experience, when I saw the universe floating up and out of the swirling tiles of my living room, into my 3-D space, and I danced among the stars. The synchronicity of the dance was unforgettable. My curiosity piqued.

In May I attended the first year running of Tribe Festival, near Calgary, where I met a bunch of cool cats and realized that there was a community of alternative thinkers in my old city, just waiting for a festival to bring them together. An appearance of the Northern Lights made this festival really special. I later attended Astral Harvest near Edmonton and had another amazing time. At both festivals I attended yoga, art and intellectual workshops, connected with unique individuals, and danced the night away.

And then there was Shambhala - a fabled and magical 4-day festival set on a farm near the hippie outpost Nelson, British Columbia. At the beginning of August I left cherry picking early to volunteer in exchange for a free wristband. Two spiritual dance experiences left me forever changed.

Shambhala - the pinnacle of music, dance and free expression

On the grounds with my friends Spark and Jeremy (middle)

This is a normal sight at Shambhala

Shambhala at night transforms into a totally different world filled with mystery and intrigue, a sensation of sound and light intertwined with the mysterious but protective forest canopy. There is a neverending flow of Shamb-aliens - festival-goers dressed like hippies, fairies, dressed down or dressed up in onesies or other outrageous costumes. Shambhala at night sets the stage for magic to happen.

On Thursday night I was feeling the music and dancing while moving between stages, looking for my friends. I came across two guys who were doing poi and devil sticks, their equipment lit up with LED lights. Captivated, I stopped to observe, my dance moves flowing to their movements. They see me and come over, and our movements synchronize. We engage in a connected dance - time stops, everything else disappears, it's just the three of us and the music. We barely realize it, but 20 minutes pass by. We compliment eachother and move on.

Three nights later I ran into them again, and we greet excitedly. They told me they talked about me everyday! Noone had flowed so well with them without equipment as I did, using only my body. Humbled, I expressed that I thought about them everyday too and kept looking for them. Our connection through dance was an unforgettable experience. We planned to find eachother again that night but failed... I was disappointed in the missed connection, but it's a sign that we are meant to find eachother next year at Shambhala.

Fractal Forest - my favourite stage because... it's a stage set right in the forest

That same Sunday night, the last one of the festival, my friends and I started off with weird vibes, due to some unexpected setbacks earlier in the day. We hit the stage The Grove and saw a captivating fire spinning show. After the fire show, as we were leaving the stage, I came across some friends who were just entering. At that moment, I felt a compulsion to stay but was conflicted about abandoning my friends. I froze, not knowing what to do.

Then the French DJ Clozee started her set and I was instantly hooked, and began moving. Her sound completely took over my spirit and body until there was nothing but the music. As I danced I suddenly felt all the confusion and negativity that built up over the summer being purged from inside me, as each cell of my body shook to the bass. Overcome by the gravity and indescribable synergy of the moment, I cried, but kept dancing.

If this summer was a movie, that moment was the catharsis. I danced in this trance-like state for at least half an hour. I felt at one with the music, my body, and the universe, like never before.

I left Shambhala feeling transformed. I have traveled a lot in my life and, in this way, discovered the meaning of freedom. But Shambhala showed me a different kind of freedom, and expanded my definition of it. It showed me the freedom to express who you are, to reveal the real beauty inside you in a judgment-free, loving environment.

Thank you Shambhala! See you next year.

True North Wild & Free - Round 2, Cherries

After mushroom picking in the Yukon, followed immediately by attending the amazing Astral Harvest music festival north of Edmonton, I beelined over to Vancouver to rest, decompress and digest all these amazing adventures in the safe haven of my old collective house.

But it wasn't long before I got itchy (bare) feet and decided to give cherry picking another try. Ten days later I was back on a farm in the hot and dry Okanagan and back in my simple but beautiful home - my green Coleman tent.

The sun rises on the orchard. We have already been picking for 2 hours!

Life's a beach

I have awesome memories of my first cherry picking season at Coral Beach farm two summers ago. So I was pretty disappointed when I arrived at Sundher's farm - there was scarce flat land and shade for camping, and the amenities were relatively bare. I learned later on that Coral Beach is a rare exception among farms that accommodate pickers, providing a luxury experience.

The vast majority of the pickers here were French speaking Quebecers. No offense - there is nothing wrong with them, but they like to speak French, and too many of them means they only speak in French, leaving me feeling excluded, and I'm not outgoing or energetic enough to impose upon their conversation.

On my first day of work, I picked 17 buckets of cherries, which, at $5.00 each, meant I took home $85, not bad for a first day.

Needless to say, patience, not panic, was needed on all fronts. The situation would surely improve. Well, just like the first season, it was a rollercoaster ride full of changes that caused highs and lows in my temperament. But overall it was a more interesting and drama filled season that made the first season feel like child's play.

The primary reason for the increased drama was the climate. It was an El Nino and La Nina year, producing much more rain than normal in the Okanagan, which wreaked havoc on cherry production, as well as on picking conditions. This made it tough on farm owners, managers and pickers alike, and they, in turn, behaved erratically, spiralling the drama upon eachother.

This exacerbated the turnover of pickers, who were getting fired, leaving and newly arriving on a near daily basis. Halfway through my season, the ratio of English speakers increased to around 30%, with a few Spanish speakers arriving, travellers with work Visas from Mexico, Spain and Italy. By the time I left the farm, over half the pickers were Spanish speaking!

Patience paid off as usual on the social front, and I started bonding with some of the pickers. I even befriended pickers from another farm, camped across the road from the beach that I frequently visited. The people I met this time around were somehow different from two years ago - older, more mature, and more hippie.

On the picking front, things were challenging. After the decent start, I burned out physically and mentally, worn down by the heat and unable to find my motivation. I picked much worse this season, with the poor La Nina crop but a cheap excuse. My best day was 21 buckets, lower than the 30 buckets from my first year, and embarrassingly lower than the top picker, who was consistently picking over 60 buckets, or $300 per day!

This is why cherry picking is such a humbling experience. It actually demands a fine balance of toughness, focus and technique. And a good cherry picker can actually make money. But by society's account, it's not considered a serious job. In my own Chinese culture, agricultural work is even looked down upon, compared to being a doctor or - *swallows* - an engineer.

Anyway, I seriously questioned myself throughout the season. Not that I want to make a career out of cherry picking. But I seriously toughened myself up morel picking, and expected to continue the momentum in to better cherry picking. I was seriously wrong -- humbled again!

In the end, I have no regrets, as usual. Like any experience, it's the people that shape it, and I made some really meaningful connections. Seasonal workers - whether they're picking mushrooms, cherries, apples, etc. - are some of the most inspiring people I've ever met, living within nature, not outside of it, and embracing an alternative lifestyle, refusing to cave to the standards and demands of mainstream society.

Rock climbing at world famous Skaha

Round 2 of cherries serves as another memory along my lane, another notch on my belt, during an epic summer which is quickly becoming the best one of my 32 year long life.

Beautiful But Confusing - My Summer Motto

{Written at Shambhala, before the start of the festival - word for word, with just a few slight modifications}

Life is moving a million miles an hour. It's crazy, disorganized, madness.

Yet a part of me doesn't want the madness to end. That part of me wants to keep having crazy adventures, meeting amazing, inspiring people, making memories. Yet another part of me can't keep up the pace, is getting overwhelmed, needs stability, time to digest all these experiences. I guess that time will come... when I'm old and retired, right?

These days, I feel like Golem, two halves of my mind fighting over my consciousness. The winner gets to determine what I do after Shambhala, with Shams being the final battleground between the two warring sides. I spent this morning in Salmo in a cafe applying to jobs in Calgary and Vancouver. Instead of going back to the working world though, I could pick more fruit or mushrooms, take off to Europe, cycle down to Guatemala, or follow friends to find seasonal work in California. This is the dilemma of over privileged folk like myself.

But would life be easier if my main concern was working just so I had enough to feed myself, or have a roof over my head? Or a loving family under one roof, indulging in basic activities such as cooking and spending time together? It seems human beings are rarely content with what they have. Or that they always seem to find something to grumble about.

I can't believe I'm grumbling at all -- I'm at Shambhala!

Fractal Forest - one of the most beautiful dance stages, under the canopy of old growth trees