St. Patrick's Day celebration, SoCal

Seth Auberon and Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; Moonbeam, FollowYourHeart.com

I'll destroy the pagans and make sure snakes do not return with their nature worship! (CP)

Flowery bhumi-deva Pagan ceremony, Avebury (Solar/Shahmai Network/shahmai.org)

   

It might be better to be in Amherst, Mass.

CANOGA PARK, California - Deep in "The Valley," the world-famous stretch of suburban flatlands that end only as the sea and mountains and desert get to be too much, there is an interesting old park. Well, it's less grassy "park" than asphalt town: Canoga Park held its St. Paddy's Day party with a parade that began at the Madrid Theatre on Sherman Way with a sidewalk march. There were stilt walkers, bag pipers, the sanctified patriarch himself, and friends all over Old Town Canoga Park. It culminated in a lot on Owensmouth with live Irish music from Jerry McLean and tales by True Thomas the Irish Storyteller. (CanogaParkCal.com)

Follow Your Heart!

For health, longevity, spirituality, love, and herbal cures, FYH has it all at (818) 348-3240.

  

Yoga unites body, mind, and breath (spiritus).

The jewel of the city, however, what puts it on the map and makes it worth visiting, is an awesome institution called Follow Your Heart (FYH)! It's a health food store, a vegetarian restaurant, a health center with free seminars and group meditation, a yoga studio, a product brand, a hippie haven, a hangout bar none near the California communes of Topanga in the wooded hills above and behind Santa Monica and Malibu beaches. More

• So Bohemian: Topanga: Malibu's hippie cousin? (CNN)
• VISIT: 21825 Sherman Way, Canoga Park, CA 91303
• The Real History of St. Patrick's Day
• St. Patrick's Day: 5 places to find a bit of blarney

Suburban school boy to Shaolin monk (video)

Amanda Cable (DailyMail.co.uk, 11-14-08); Pat Macpherson (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Shaolin monk demonstrates pain tolerance by breaking bricks with his head using a sledgehammer, indicating that most of us live nowhere near our human potential (Reuters).

(Nat'l Geographic) "Myths and Logic of Shaolin Monks" (kung fu documentary, see Part 2)

 

Ahmet gave up the trappings of suburbia for the good life.

He's the ordinary north London boy who became a Chinese warrior monk. And his story is as astonishing as it is inspiring.

 

Matthew Ahmet is 20 and he's hard, very hard. His head is shaved, and his body bears the ravages of a violent life. A mark on his forehead shows where a metal bar came crashing down on his skull. His forearms have been sliced repeatedly by razor-sharp knives, and his left arm has a "punishment" burn from boiling water.

 

So when he sits down, flashes a beautiful smile and talks about spreading happiness and peace, it comes as a great surprise. Matthew left his home in Enfield, north London, at the age of 17 to become a Shaolin Buddhist monk in China. In doing so, he renounced all the worldly belongings that are the staple diet of teenage life and entered upon a grueling regime of training, sacrifice, and punishment. Each mark on his body bears testament to this new and extraordinary life. Ahmet says:

Publicity poster for Ahmet's Shaolin show

"Recently, I went to visit an old schoolfriend of mine, who is at Manchester University. I met him at the digs he shares with his friends and I was stunned. There were dirty clothes everywhere, unwashed dishes and belongings just thrown around. In China, I wash my own robes in a bucket of cold water, which I also use to bathe in. I sleep on a bunk bed with no mattress, lying directly on a plank of wood. Everything in my new life is so neat and disciplined that I can't imagine being a typical student now."

Does this earnest young man, who looks like a feral youth but who is in fact gentle and thoughtful, miss anything about his "old life"? He says with a brilliant smile, "Hot showers. When I do go home, I love the luxury of being able to have hot water running over my body." More