As an insider of both Buddhist and modern cultures, Leschly will bring to life the inspiration and warmth of the Buddhist tradition in a series of stand-alone programs,  at the Crystal Castle & Shambhala Gardens.

In each session, Leschly will unveil the wisdom of Buddhist insights, and how these can be integrated through the practice of meditation in our every day life.

Leschly has studied and practiced Buddhism for over 40 years, and has taught for the last 20. Primarily as a student of the late Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and Buddhist teacher Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, he is a resident teacher for the latter’s Dharma organisation Siddhartha’s Intent in Australia.

Jakob Leschly – teaching at the Crystal Castle

“Everyone recognises and cherishes wisdom, peace and compassion. Yet sometimes it seems that no one actually believes these can be translated into reality. Buddhist meditation challenges such a sense of poverty. Basic goodness is inherent to all sentient life and the objective of the Buddhist path is to actually manifest it. The Buddha taught so that we can claim this natural inheritance, and by doing so, consequently help to dispel the gloom and suffering of the world.” – Jakob Leschly

Leschly is a practitioner of Vajrayana, promoting the simplicity of sitting meditation as the universal ground for natural insight and compassionate action. His language is straightforward and inclusive. He encourages critical enquiry, and delights in the fruitful encounter between East and West.

When:  Saturday 18th February, Saturday 25th February & Saturday 4th March 2017 (Come along to all or just one)
Where: The Peace Room / Crystal Castle
Time: 11.30am – 12.30pm
Cost: Included in your entry fee

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The annual Day of the Dead ceremony is an opportunity for everyone to come together to honour and remember loved ones who have died, are dying, or who are lost to us in some way. Although it has the same name as the South American celebration, this is a uniquely Australian cultural experience, open to any religion, spirituality, belief or culture.

It is an opportunity to remember, honour, celebrate and create positive social and cultural change. The Day of the Dead is a wonderful way to introduce children to death and bereavement in a gentle and positive way.

Writing messages for our loved ones

Local celebrant and Deathwalker, Zenith Virago will facilitate the event starting at 4.00pm on Sunday November 13 with the creation of community art, personal memento making and writing messages to add the community shrine for loved family members or friends.

From 5.00pm till 6.00pm Zenith will conduct an inclusive Ceremony of Remembrance accompanied by the Mullumbimby Choir. At the close of the ceremony participants can join a silent, candlelight procession along the Rainforest Walk to a sacred grove, The Forest of Friends and Family, to leave their crafted mementos, which will slowly return to the earth.

Join the event on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/199863397118387/

The post The 10th annual Day of the Dead at the Crystal Castle appeared first on .

Says Crystal Castle owner Naren King: “It took seven hours and several teams of experts to ‘birth’ it from its shipping container at the port in Brisbane, who said it was their biggest challenge in 50 years.  And it was then we discovered that the Uruguayans had under-estimated its weight by 5,000 kgs – meaning that the cave actually weighs in at over 20,000kg.”  If you think about the fact that the average elephant weighs 5,000 kgs – that’s five elephants in one massive stone.

Top:  The Crystal makes its way from Brisbane to the Crystal Castle. Above:  Careful unloading of the precious stone.  Photos: Toby King.

This massive geode was created 120 million years ago, in northern Uruguay, South America, when a giant bubble formed inside a molten lava flow.  Through intense pressure, heat and the presence of iron, millions of tiny amethyst crystals began to grow.

“When a farmer discovered this massive geode, we just had to go and check it out,” says Naren, who took his daughter Manya with him to see the geode for themselves.  “We found this geode so awe inspiring, we knew we had to bring it home. This magical creation of Nature is our gift to the Crystal Castle in her 30th year. We couldn’t have done it without the guys from Universal Cranes – who got the cave safely off the truck and into position,” says Naren, “and also to Brad and Daniel from Cargo Network International, who have been our trusted import partners for 25 years, and to Interport depot’s Mick & Kath and their  team for the epic seven hours of unloading.  It was truly a team effort all the way.”

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“You will LOVE this six-week journey of creative self-discovery,” says Candida. “Come and kick-start your writing projects at the Castle, enjoy the company of a small group on the beautiful cafe verandah, and delve into a wonderful journey of self-discovery.”

“This course is inspirational – it will change your life.” Cecilie Brown, Spain

Candida, who started Verandah Magazine 18 months ago, is the author of numerous books including the non-fiction series Yacker,  Australian Writers Talk About Their Work; two novels, The Hidden and Women and Horses; a book of short stories, The Powerful Owl, numerous anthologies and several children’s books.

Creative Writing

With Candida Baker

Creative writing courses for women:

Come on a six week journey of self-discovery

At the beautiful Crystal Castle & Shambalah Gardens.

Dates: Tuesday May 10 – Tuesday June 21

Course cost: $360.00 – includes Castle entry and morning tea

Times: 10.00-1.00pm

Candida Baker is a publisher, editor, photographer,

and the author of numerous fiction,

non-fiction and children’s books. She has an MA in Art History.

For more information and bookings email [email protected] or

Call: 0401056894 – or visit www.candidabaker.com

As a journalist Candida has been editor of The Weekend Australian Magazine, deputy editor of the Good Weekend; arts editor of the Sydney Morning Herald and a feature writer on The Age for seven years.  She was Director of the 2011 Byron Bay Writers’ Festival, and since then she has run numerous events and workshops in the Byron Bay region.

“Candida has worked with me for a year on my personal memoir, guiding me through the writing, editing and publishing processes.  She’s been a great teacher – patient and inspirational. She’s helped me understand the difference between writing words and ‘being a writer’.  I can highly recommend Candida – writers and would-be writers will truly benefit from her courses.”  – Anna Middleton

“This is the Queen Bees Knees of writing courses – Candida really knows how to support people to achieve their creative goals.”  India Morris, Lismore

To find out more about Candida Baker’s books go to: candidabaker.com/author

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Toni Childs performance with Laura Targett at the Rebuild Nepal Benefit Concert at the Crystal Castle next weekend, on Saturday May 30, has a deeply personal meaning for the singer, who was in Nepal only 36 hours before the earthquake hit.

It was their last day in Nepal and singer Toni Childs, her camera crew, band and their trekking party were packing up their gear. “We’d consolidated our luggage into one room on the top floor of the hotel in Thamel, the old city where we were staying,” Childs says, “and when I went up to collect the gear, I was standing looking out from the roof top – and I could see all these makeshift, cobbled together houses. I remember thinking, ‘if there was an earthquake here it would be absolutely devastating.’”

36 hours later, at midday on April 25, when Childs was back safely in Australia the earthquake struck, killing more than 8,000 people and injuring approximately 19,000 more. Hundreds of thousands of people were made homeless and entire villages, UNESCO World Heritage sites and centuries-old buildings were destroyed. Its epicentre was the village of Barpak, in the Gorkha district.

Toni Childs (front centre in grey) and her band of merry men and women – just days before the earthquake hit. Photo: Renae Saxby.

“There’s no words to describe what we felt when we heard,” says the US-born singer-songwriter who now lives much of the time in the Byron Shire. “Of course we were relieved we weren’t there, but at the same time we had just come back from this extraordinary experience of creating an album almost on top of the world, and to hear the news was just devastating.”

Childs, who has been nominated for a Grammy three times, and whose career has included songs such as Don’t Walk Away, I’ve Got to Go Now’, and the Emmy-award-winning Because You’re Beautiful had been in Nepal with her husband, Mik La Vage, and her other band members to debut her next album, It’s All a Beautiful Noise. “I’d had this idea to perform part of Beautiful Noise in Nepal,” she says. “I’d been trekking in Nepal before and I had this kind of crazy notion to do free concerts on Poon Hill on the Annapurna Circuit. It was epic, incredible, physically challenging and really, really cold.”

It’s truly not that easy to imagine how someone might actually achieve the goal of taking a group of 52 people, including two Nepalese guides, 25 sherpas, the band, musicians, crew, musical instruments and some trekkers up 10,000 feet in somewhat questionable weather, in order to perform music, but in the way of magical moments, everything came together.

Just one of the many pieces of equipment that had to be hauled up 10,000 feet. Photo: Renae Saxby

“We were just really lucky,” Childs says. “Although the weather was grey it didn’t prevent us from performing, and only two of our party were challenged by the altitude – one of them was our sound guy Adam, but he just took it really easy and he was able to cope. I must say though, I was standing with my husband Mik, who plays guitar, and my lead guitarist Christian, and I were  wondering how on earth our fingers – let alone the instruments – were going to be able to cope.”

As it turned out, there was no need to worry. “Our spirit met the moment,” she says. “There is something about the power of that land itself, and the vista and exactly where we were at that point in time. What we were experiencing was monumental – I looked at Christian, and we both started crying at just the same moment. I felt my voice grow a million times to fill the largest stadium in the world – and it seemed as if I was singing to the whole planet. It was stellar, indefinable, a heart-expanding peak experience, and made now all the more unique by what happened such a short time afterwards.”

Singer Toni Childs: “We simply couldn’t imagine not helping those in Nepal,” she says of the Benefit Concert at the Crystal Castle

For Childs herself, the road from her early career to where she is now was not always a smooth trajectory – her career had to take a second place to her health when she was diagnosed with Graves disease and mercury poisoning. Relocating to Hawaii the singer focused on her health and the long road to recovery, moving to Australia in 2013. Her new project It’s All a Beautiful Noise, is an ambitious artistic project, involving not just music but installations and exhibitions as well.

On the way back to Australia from Nepal Childs was giving a concert in Bali, and it was there that she met up with Naren and Sono, the owners of the Crystal Castle. “We talked together and we simple couldn’t imagine not helping those in Nepal in some way or other,” she says, and so the idea of a benefit concert at the Castle was born. Needless to say they were only too keen to come on board, and various other local community organizations jumped at the chance as well – it quickly came together and became bigger than the original idea. “We are going to create a one-hour broadcast with some of the best performances of the event, and make a documentary that will be aired nationally on Community Radio Stations around the country,” Childs explains.

Paper artwork for It’s All a Beautiful Noise

As well as music, Childs is playing to her strength as an artist and organizer of grand logistics by pulling together an art auction <https://www.charityauctionorganizer.com/auction/rebuildnepal>  with donations of art work by well-known artists to be auctioned online, and 100% of the money going to Nepal. It’s meant that she has had to extend her deadline somewhat for her own creative endeavour – fabricating nine full-size paper animals that are on the endangered list, as part of an installation for It’s All a Beautiful Noise. “We’re planning to send the animals to various centres in regional Australia, in conjunction with an exhibition, and then followed by the concert,” says Childs, who was gifted with as much paper as she needed for the project by MPI, who own the 125-year-old paper mill near Geelong in Victoria where Childs is currently based, finishing the project, as well as organizing the benefit concert and the online art auction.

Toni Childs and her husband Mik Lavage.

Childs art came about as part of her immersion into meditation. “I used to look for non-denominational quiet places in LA where I lived, so I could meditate,” she says, “but it’s hard to meditate in public spaces, so I began to design seven spaces based on the elements, the chakras and sacred geometry, so that these spaces could be used within other, larger buildings for quiet reflection and meditation. It’s part of my growth as an artist, a need to go deeper, and I think the installations are absolutely a reflection of that.”

As for reflecting on the earthquake, Childs deep voice drops even further as she talks about her thoughts since she’s been home. “I’ve thought about it constantly,” she says. “In the end there are things we have to take on board – Mother Nature, the Earth, she has to move herself, and unfortunately that means disaster from time to time. This earthquake would have been devastating in a place built to withstand them, let alone in Nepal – and then followed by a second one. It’s hard to come to terms with it, but one of the ways to do it, is to help – it’s that simple.”

www.toni-childs.com

Please join us on 30th May from 3pm to 7pm

at the Crystal Castle & Shambhala Gardens

for the

Rebuild Nepal Benefit Concert

with Toni Childs & Laura Targett

+ Special Guests.

Donation – $25 + booking fee

(the full amount will go to the cause)

Click here for more information about Toni’s story and the event.

Tickets available from www.oztix.com.au or at the Crystal Castle on the day.

Gates open at midday.

The following is an excerpt from Toni Childs letter to galleries and artists:

“If you are a Gallery or an Artist, and would like to donate art for our fundraiser please send an email to Renae Saxby [email protected]   Renae Saxby is our auction coordinator and she will be your contact.
It is very important to all of us working on this event that 100% of what is raised goes to the people of Nepal. Your giving goes four ways:

1) Tents to Nepal – immediate shelter relief
2) Karuna-Shechen – food and medical relief efforts by the monks
3) Access Nepal – mental health work

4) Funds taken directly to people and groups on the ground
In the case of number four, Naren (from Crystal Castle) and myself will take funds raised to Nepal (traveling at our own expense) in order to assess where the money is most needed, and to ensure the funds get to people on the ground.
I hope you will join our effort, without a doubt your participation will make our auction a massive success! On behalf of the people of Nepal we would like to thank you for your donation. Your generosity, kindness and love will go a long way to help rebuild the lives of those who have been affected by this devastating earthquake.

Please be sure and share Rebuild Nepal with your networks and help us do what we can for the people of Nepal. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to call.”
https://www.mycause.com.au/page/103477/rebuildnepal
<https://www.tonichilds.com/>

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Subscribe to Verandah Magazine, or subscribe a friend to be in the draw to win a $100 voucher for jewellery from the Crystal Castle gift shop.

Subscribe to Verandah Magazine on the website: www.verandahmagazine.com.au and be in the draw to win a $100 voucher from The Crystal Castle gift shop. If you’re already subscribed – don’t despair – ask a friend’s permission, subscribe them and let us know who it is. First 25 go into a lucky dip for the voucher…email me on [email protected] and let me know who you’ve subscribed – yourself or A. N. Other…

But hurry!!  We’re already up to 15 people…only ten more to go…

Entries close January 17.  Winner announced January 17, 2015.

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Candida Baker grew up in the English country-side – and death was a frequent caller. But in a tiny village it was not so much the loss of humans that introduced her to the transient nature of the universe but the fairly constant death of animals around her…

Death was there with the Siamese cats my mother loved so dearly – overly-efficient hunting machines, killers of voles and moles, and rats and mice and birds, often laid out in the bath for us to admire if we’d gone away for a few days. They were masters of a death stalk – silencing their bells, or even, on occasion hunting a hapless victim together. It was there when yet another of my beloved guinea-pigs went to ‘heaven’, sent there by an overly-zealous Golden Retriever, or lost forever when they escaped, or even, on occasions, when tiny babies were eaten by their own parents. It was there, most extraordinarily, when Daisy, the only Jersey cow in a herd of Friesian milkers, got old and sick and on the night she died the entire herd surrounded her, keeping a vigil for her, so that when the farmer went to see how she was, she’d peacefully left this life surrounded by her friends.

Somehow though, I was lucky, I passed my childhood and early adulthood relatively unscathed by the loss of those close to me – I had sat with my grandmother when I was eight, and held her hand only a few days before she died. She’d had a stroke and couldn’t speak, and for some reason I found it not at all scary – it seemed natural to me, and I’ve always thanked my mother for giving me the chance to say goodbye to her mother.

Writing messages for our loved ones at the Crystal Castle ceremony

Local Byron Bay laughter therapist Ally Redding grew up without her Dad, and knows only too well how deep the well of loss can be. “My dad died of leukemia when I was four. My mum was left on her own to raise me and my three older siblings,” she says. “I didn’t fathom the enormity of that until I had my own husband and children. I never talked about my dad, I don’t remember him. My school friends never knew.   I felt embarrassed when I had to tell someone my dad was dead, I don’t know why.   I never saw my mum cry. We never talked or cried together as a family. I know mum did the best she could. That’s all we can ever do.”

For Redding, her mother was the rock of the family, for me, the reverse was true. Even though my mother had not died, I had lost her to alcohol by the time I was 14, although it wasn’t until I was myself in my 30’s that she died when she fell down the stairs three weeks before I was due to visit her, and then while I was in England for her funeral, my darling grandmother, my father’s mother, who had not been well, died before I could say good-bye, and I had loved her most dearly. Emotions in our family ran high for some time.

Mentor and business consultant Sonia Friedrich, who has recently experienced a family death, warns about the heightened reaction we can experience when someone dies. “Raw emotions rise around the passage of death. Feeling the love we hold for another person or another thing that is about to terminate can be too much to bear,” she explains. “In this heightened state, often accompanied by physical and emotional exhaustion, we may react rather than respond. It can occur in a manner we never knew existed or even felt before. In heightened states of passion we become a stranger to ourselves, no matter how prepared we’ve been for the on-coming death. It’s virtually impossible to interrupt this state once it has begun and it’s only after that we wonder, “what happened?” with time to reflect on the power of the emotions that overcame us. We hope nothing was destroyed along the way – in us or in another and for this reason it behoves us all never to grasp at the words that were spoken or what anyone says in these heightened states.”

“Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

For me my mother and grand-mother’s death seemed to set in motion a small tsunami of death – my step-mother was diagnosed with cancer of the spine and died shortly after my first child was born, one uncle died suddenly of a massive stroke, another uncle died, my father and my second step-mother left this world not so much at peace with it I would say, and all of this was in England – while I was here, on the other side of the world.

At the same time in my immediate life I was coping with those other smaller losses we face – the death of a family cat, the death of our darling 17-year-old dog, the death of a young dog from a tick, (and not with me, alone at the vet’s) the disappearance of an adopted cat and more. I witnessed first-hand the understanding of animals of death when a beautiful horse contracted pneumonia. The vet told us to get Fox out of the stable because if he died in there we would have to have him sawn up. He pumped him full of antibiotics but it was too late, and Fox paced our fences, touching noses with each of the other horses in turn. I swore I would stay up all night but finally had to sleep in the early hours and when I woke, on Mother’s Day, there he was on the arena, and I’ve never been able to forget that he had no one with him when he crossed over.

Now, I’m lucky, and I know it. I did not experience the physical loss of a parent when I was a child, or the death of my children, or partners, or sisters – or even as yet very close friends. I cannot begin to imagine how hard it must be to continue to exist when those who are an integral part of a daily life are suddenly no longer there.

But what I had (somewhat belatedly some might say) worked out was that all the losses I had suffered had been accumulating in me somewhere, and despite my deeply-held belief that the departed have simply slipped through the veil of illusion that separates us from the other world, I was sad, simple as that.

As Sonia Friedrich says: “We have to feel to allow the process of healing to take place. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and her profound work with death and dying has taught us about our natural and powerful responses and in the process she’s really made acceptable the five stages of grief that define much of our behaviour. We really have to travel through them – the denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. There is never any need to rush your passage of grief. There is only one way to do it and that is in your own time.”

If someone mentions the idea of the Day of The Dead what immediately springs to mind (or to my mind at least) is the idea of Mexico and a huge full-on ceremony full of colour and movement, and yet somehow at the same time the name is confronting isn’t it? It’s simple and stark, and a reminder that this is our word for the end. So it was curiosity that this year I decided for the first time to go to the Natural Death Care Centre’s Day of the Dead celebrations at the Crystal Castle, mc’d by NDCC founder Zenith Virago, on whom I’d written a story the week before.

It was while I was driving there, thinking about life, death, the universe and everything, that I also experienced a revelatory moment – it occurred to me that although of course the physical loss of someone from our world is the most obvious manifestation of loss, many of us are also in far more grief than we might realise about what you might call life’s losses. The loss of several close friendships often weighs heavily on my heart, and all of accumulate these losses and disappointments through the course of our lives: the breakdown of a marriage, the loss of a job or home, or a change in finances, a miscarriage, the ill-health of a loved one, or our own, or the sudden disappearance of someone from our lives – these things (and much more) can haunt us.

Strangely – although perhaps not so strangely for those that know me –  I remember when my father died only because our most beloved Shetland Pony, Sally-the-Boy, with whom we had shared family life for ten years, died one week short of a year later, of a brain tumour which had taken him in six months from the happiest little pony on the planet to a shadow of his former self. (But even towards the end Sally lived to eat – three times our vet came to put him down, and three times Sally, who could not by then even lift his head, had managed to get himself up and feeding again.)

Ally Redding married the man she started dating at the age of 18. In 2014 they separated, and as the initiator of the separation, Redding took on the feelings of responsibility. “I felt I should,” she says. “I felt I was responsible for the whole failed marriage thing. I thought I should be seen to be doing ok. But in the end even though it’s what I wanted, we are all grieving – all five of us – and other family members too, probably. We’re riding a roller coaster, and I hate those things!”

A psychologist told Redding she had ‘complicated grief’. “My response to that was like ‘No shit Sherlock’!” she says. “I have two special needs kids, and home-school one of them. One thing that had happened with me was that I’m not used to feeling pain – I’m an emotional eater from way back, from when my Dad died, in fact – and I’m having to learn to sit with the pain.”

Which begs the question what should we do with grief? Should we ‘put it all behind us’, ‘get on with it’, ‘pull ourselves together’ – or should we dwell on it, live with it, feel it, but in doing so perhaps allow it to affect our lives too much?

Everybody has their own journey through loss as we have our own journeys through life, but I think that the presence of ritual and ceremony can is a really vital part of a healing process, or as part of an ongoing acceptance of what we learn to live with.

The choir gathering to sing at the Crystal Castle

It took me a little while, once I’d arrived at the Castle, to drop into a quiet space – it was all so beautiful, tables with clay on to make small offerings for a natural altar, pieces of beautiful paper to write messages on and hang on a message line, a surprising amount of friends to catch up with and chat to, that it wasn’t until all these pleasant distractions were over, and I was sitting by myself that I could really begin to feel why I was there. I’d come, I realised, just simply to allow myself the time to think about my parents, my family members and my animals – and also to think about those other losses, just as final in their way.

When Zenith started the ceremony, and the choir sang, I began to appreciate the true beauty of the gathering – that everyone there had experienced a loss, everyone there was gathered to bless those losses. Invited to say the names of their loved ones into the microphone, almost every single person began their litany – some of them seeming unbearable – a mother, a sister and a daughter lost to one woman. As each person announced the names of their loved ones, a we formed a circle, and as we did, a curious thing happened – a communal strength began to emerge – a silent acknowledgement that we had all, young or old, walked through this particular fire. At the end when Zenith asked us to touch the earth, and then the sky, to give a ‘whoosh’ of love for those gone from us, and the release was palpable. At its most basic level, we had been allowed to say it hurt, that death sucks when those you love are gone, and at the same time acknowledge the power of a group all holding the same intention, and for me the subtle presence of a presence greater than us.

Acknowledging loss with Zenith Virago at the Natural Death Care Centre Day of the Dead ceremony

It wasn’t masks and Mexico and giant ceremonies, but to my mind it was better than that – it was quiet time, reflection, an expression of love, and a place, finally, to take those losses, big and small, human and animal, and honour them.

You can contact Zenith Virago and the Natural Death Care Centre on: naturaldeathcarecentre

Sonia Friedrich is a mentor to business executives who wish to change their life. She has recently released “11 Steps to Healing – For Multi-Millionaires & Business Owners”. soniafriedrich

There’s an organisation called the Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement. You can find them at grief.org.au.

Laughter therapist and retreat owner Ally Redding can be contacted on allyredding

The post Travelling the road of loss appeared first on .

Anna wears Samson & Bronc vintage fabric floral top $50 and skirt $60

Maya wears Myee Carlyle hand dyed silk fringe flower cape $279 and Tashia singlet $59, Ghanda Clothing Pom Pom pineapple shorts $19.95 and Crystal Castle Chakra bracelet $18

Amber wears Myee Carlyle Marrakesh hand dyed silk skirt in tourmaline $279 (worn as dress) and Crystal Castle Bluelace agate and Rhodonite bead necklace $69 and quartz crystal pendant $18

Mia wears Ghanda Clothing lace swing top in antique white $29.95, Myee Carlyle hand dyed silk Akina kimono in ocean $289, Crystal Castle Garnet necklace $29 and Moonstone bracelet $19

Anna wears Ghanda Clothing cropped cotton t-shirt $14.95 and Bandana leggings $29.95, Crystal Castle Howlite bracelets $22 each, Mia wears Myee Carlyle Maisha dress $95

Anna wears Myee Carlyle Sibella silk mini-dress in Henna $289 and Shikha citrine earrings $65, Crystal Castle silver chain $59 and quartz        pendant $29

Little girls can be big girls too…

Armani wears Ghanda Clothing glitter daisy heart t-shirt $14.95 and Ghanda Pom Pom pineapple print shorts $19.95, Hannah wears Myee Carlyle Tashia singlet $59, Samson & Bronc wrap top $20, Crystal Castle Chrysophase bracelet $39

Armani wears Ghanda Clothing original owl t-shirt $14.95 and daisy polka leggings $17.95, Hannah wears Ghanda Clothing Aztec heart singlet $14.95 Aztec owl leggings $17.95

From left Mia wears Myee Carlyle Maisha dress $95, Anna wears Ghanda Clothing cropped t-shirt $14.95 and bandana leggings $29.95, Crystal Castle Howlite bracelets $22 each, Amber wears Ghanda Clothing ornate elephant t-shirt $24.95 and boyfriend jeans $39.95, Maya wears Ghanda Clothing Stripe cropped t-shirt $14.95 and boyfriend shorts $34.95

Maya wears Samson & Bronc 60’s top $50, Myee Carlyle Zalia pants $119 and Crystal Castle Howlite bracelet $22, Mia wears Samson & Bronc halter top $40 and 60’s skirt $70

       Anna wears Ghanda Clothing daisy floral Indi dress $29.95

Anna wears Ghanda Clothing boyfriend jeans $39.95.  Amber wears Samson & Bronc patchwork shorts $30.00.

Mia wears Ghanda Clothing lace swing top in antique white $29.95, Myee Carlyle hand dyed silk Akina kimono in ocean $289, Ghanda Clothing boyfriend jeans $39.95, Crystal Castle Garnet necklace $29 and Moonstone bracelet $19

Websites:

myeecarlyle

samsonandbronc

ghanda

Photographer: The Lioness. Stylist: Desiree
Models: Anna, Maya, Mia and Amber
Hair & Makeup: Äsa Chegwyn
Location: The Crystal Castle

The post The Secret Garden appeared first on .

Noooo. It can’t be two years since the Gyuto Monks blessed the beautiful Kalachakra World Peace Stupa – can it?

Apparently it can be, and was, because some of the Crystal Castle’s most beloved friends, the Gyuto Monks of Tibet have just spent five days at the Crystal Castle and the Shambhala Gardens offering their heart-filled program of chanting, meditations and activities, in order to celebrate the Peace Stupa’s second birthday on Saturday October 11, 2014.

For those of us who were there for the blessing of the site back in December 2010, with its beautiful indigenous ceremony and consecration by the monks, watching the stupa rise from its foundations to the eight-metre high glorious gold and blue monument it is today, has been an enriching experience. Before the stupa existed on its large, naturally amphitheatre-styled space, the Castle and its gardens were still a special place – but the stupa has brought with it, not just the presence of the monks, but a sense of spiritual peace even when they are not in residence. For me, the ritual of walking around the clockwise around the stupa three times, turning the golden metal prayer wheels as I go, has an immediate calming effect, and I drop into a meditative state almost immediately.

The glorious blue and gold of the World Peace Stupa.  Photo: Candida Baker

But although the building of the stupa began in 2010, the idea was created long before then, first occurring to Castle owners Naren and Sono King in 2003 when they were visiting the Buddhist sacred sites in Borobudur, Java.

“We were touched by the beauty and the energy of the monuments, and dreamed of one day building a stupa in the Crystal Castle grounds,” says King. They travelled to Dharamsala in India for a private audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and while they were there, they were requested by a high lama, Woser Rinpoche, using a Tibetan form of divination called the ‘mo’, to build the Kalachakra stupa. “He told us that it was specifically for restoring balance to the Earth in times of war, conflict and environmental destruction,” says King, “and during our audience with the Dalai Lama, we were privileged to receive His Holiness’ blessings for the project. Since then the project has also been blessed by other revered Buddhist spiritual leaders, the Karmapa, Gaden Tripa and His Holiness Sakya Trizin.”

The symbolic meaning of a stupa is profound – it is a sacred monument built by the Tibetan Buddhists to represent the process of enlightenment, and is representative of community strength and interdependence. Tibetans believe contributing to the building of a stupa is in itself auspicious, and that once a stupa is finished, the practice of walking clockwise around it can bring great benefit. They are considered to be so powerful that the mere sight of a stupa is said to put one in touch with one’s own innate goodness, inspiring compassion, kindness and good karma. (I might start walking around it as much as I can…)

Brass prayer wheel, handmade in Nepal. Photo: Candida Baker

Kalachakra means ‘Wheel of Time’ and a Kalachakra stupa with its unusual spherical body symbolizes the energy cycle and the essential structure of the cosmos, which is why it is known as the Stupa for World Peace.
As masters of the tantric arts, the Gyuto Monks were superbly qualified to oversee and carry out the necessary rituals and ceremonies at each stage of the construction.

The ‘Peace Stupa’, as it’s come to be known, is filled with many sacred objects, scriptures and relics, and again it was during the process and planning stage that King became the recipient of some extraordinary gifts. “When we were in Kathmandu a monastery gifted us with a complete collection of the Buddha’s teachings, 108 volumes of sacred scrolls, as well as the teachings of the first Dalai Lama,” King says. “When we were in Dharamsala a monk came to our guesthouse one evening and very carefully handed us one of his monastery’s most sacred objects: the ceremonial yellow hat of his late teacher, Kirti Tsensup Rinpoche, who was one of the Dalai Lama’s teachers. It was a very moving moment. The generosity of spirit the Tibetans possess makes being in their presence a privilege.”

Forty brass prayer wheels, known as ‘Mani’ wheels were handmade for the stupa by a family in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal. For around 350 years this family have been creating these extraordinary prayer wheels. The finished wheels contain over 130,000 Om Mani Padme Hum mantras and the Tibetans believe that when a prayer wheel is turned the prayers inside are released into the universe for the benefit of all.

Involvement of the community was an essential part of creating the stupa, and the Castle also celebrated that involvement during the anniversary.

The Gyuto Monks at the World Peace Stupa, Crystal Castle.

During their ‘anniversary’ stay the Gyuto Monks, together with any visitors who wished to participate, created a number of large Mani Stones, which are round, flat stones inscribed across two rows with the syllables of the sacred Avalokiteshvara mantra, Om mani padme hum, carved in Tibetan script. On the final day of their visit, these sacred stones will be placed around the Kalachakra World Peace Stupa, forming The Mani Way. The monks also performed a universal cleansing ceremony, Theng Khru Yol Khru. This puja, designed to create Peace Energy and cleanse the Buddhafield,  first covered the area near the World Peace Stupa and then widened to encompass everything from sea level to the skies.

The monks chanted for approximately two hours and their chants included an invitation to the Buddhas to join with them in reciting the requisite prayers.   “This was a unique opportunity to participate in an ancient custom and a powerful ceremony for personal, regional and world transformation,” says Naren King.

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