January 21, 2015

CLEARING KIDS’ HEADS
The world is much more challenging and confusing for children than it was a generation ago. Research suggests that the increase in allergens and pollutants may cause ADT and other psychoses, and there’s evidence that wifi and hand phones send signals that may scramble all of us – especially, those younger, not fully developed brains.

Yet kids often grow up into functioning, inspirational adults. Amazing really. It’s when they don’t, or when they stumble along the way, that parents and teachers need help.

One of Taksu Spa’s most respected healers, Lela Thomas, has recently put aside decades of training in other modalities in favour of the tools of Access Consciousness ®, which she has seen “bring dynamic change to people’s lives, including my own”.

Lela is just back from in China, where she saw these tools help children with learning disabilities, emotional problems and “other challenges of being in a growing body”. For example, she mentions: a 12 year old with fitful sleep, disruptive in class, who relaxed easily back into happy home and school life; a “mute” pre-schooled who that very evening said “dinner time?” to her mother, after just one session, and an eight year old child whose desperate grandmother used the tool called “The Bars” to help her dear one cope with the death of a parent.

Lela says “troublesome” children are often gifted and with proper guidance become major contributors to life. Email: Lela#taksu.info for private sessions and international training programs.

POEMS ON PLATTERS
We decided it best not to eat dinner first. Our mission: to sample a series of seven “tasting size” plates at Room4Dessert … and who says sweets can’t come first?

As with a poem, it’s not just the individual lines – the lightest puff of sponge, the crisp soy meringue, the tart iced jackfruit crunch, the rum-poached brioche, the tiny square of strawberry jelly – it’s how the writer juxtaposes them that makes the poem sing.

Even before the individual tastes and textures started speaking gently on our palates, it was an treat just to sip a cocktail and watch Chef Will compose each sweet ode or sonnet or little Bali haiku on the platters that he’s crafted to suit each dish.

Room4Dessert is across from Neka Museum, heading north out of Ubud on Jl Raya Sanggingan. Open from 7pm till late, you can book on 0361 5532598. If you must have something savoury first, phone ahead for a tasty platter of fresh bread and imported cheeses. Will doesn’t mind.

COWORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE
Popping up around the region, co-working spaces offer work tables and equipment, access to great internet and the opportunity to catch up and share ideas with other mobile, independent professionals who’d prefer to travel the globe than work from a static office.

Ubud’s own co-working space is great; Hubud is located down near the Monkey Forest entrance and its event team is on the ball! At the end of this month, they’re hosting Coworking Unconference Asia 2015, where all the key-players in the coworking and innovation scene from the region will have a two-day discussion on the changing face of work in Asia.

What’s an “Unconference”, I asked? It’s where the delegates do most of the talking in personal encounters, rather than listening passively to a series of “talking heads”. So they’ll be discussing collaboration between regional spaces, and having honest discussions about the future of work, with people who work in a similar way. Delegates already booked in from coworking hubs on Singapore, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Bangladesh, South Korea, India, Taiwan and Australia, Coworking is growing faster in Asia than any region on Earth. CUASIA tickets: www.cuasia.co.

WITH YOUR WHOLE HEART
Ask Gamelan Cudamani to take you on their Summer Institute journey this year. You’ll remember it for the rest of your life.

Çudamani are musically vibrant and talented, socially open and welcoming, and full of creative, witty, funny, serious people who are full to overflowing with life and love for their culture.

Çudamani means “focus.” It means “do something with your whole heart without expecting something in return.” When this group of musicians and dancers were first named Çudamani by their mentor, Pak Ketut Kodi they were told that “Çudamani” is the third eye of Shiva – the dissolver of ignorance and distraction.

Summer Institute students – often post-graduates and teachers in their own musical discipline – come from all over the world to this internationally accredited University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) summer program. On the first day, their teachers explain learn that the name reminds them of their responsibility as teachers, of the generosity that has nurtured them as artists and people, and which they must, in turn, must expect from themselves as they offer classes and performances to others.
http://cudamani.org.

NOT END OF AN ERA
Despite the traumatized look on the face of my holidaying guest, Napi Orti has not closed down. I did find her news a bit hard to credit, but she insisted that – for the first of many, many nights of her visits to Ubud – there were no lights, no sounds and no sign of late night action at the legendary almost-all-night-if-there’s-even-one-more-patron-to-buy-a-beer bar on Jalan Monkey Forest.

Then I discovered via a little sign on the corner of Jalan Hanoman and Jalan Sugriwa a couple of days ago – Napi Orti has moved. The sign says 150 meters, but with no more clues at the next corner, I couldn’t find it. So your intrepid reporter returned to the scene of the old haunt. Ah! They’ve moved to Jl Jembawan – the same street as the post office, Bali Buda, but down the other end, past my favorite French café, Rendez-Vous Doux, past three polisi-tidur (“sleeping police”/ speed humps).

Not sure if the neighbours are ready for late night noise and less than sober patrons wending/ singing/ staggering their way home. But it’s good news for those who want to stay up extra late.