Permission to Shine

Mitja and I are having a great time in Goa...here on Palolem beach, doing all of the following things:

1. Swimming in the ocean - there aren't that many big waves here (usually), but you can get in and body surf, the water is extremely warm...

2. Playing music - we didn't expect it, but there's a huge open mic scene here, and we've been performing almost every night. We try to play Hindi songs, it's great...the locals always request our version of "Zara Sa" - check it out here: http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=ruJsJWsSqK0

3. Watching Hindi movies - we take a short bus trip to the bigger city of Margao and watch things like "Ghajini" and "Chandni Chowk to China." Chandni Chowk to China is utter crap, but Ghajini is honestly one of my favorite movies of all time. I recommend you check it out...usually Hindi movies are pirated onto YouTube pretty quickly, you can probably find it there. We're trying to learn a couple songs from the movie to perform at night...

4. Staying up till 6am or later - Goa is renowned for music like "Goa trance" - a kind of dark, full-on psychedelic electronic music. Last night we went to a party called "Silent Noise." After 10am, when loud music needs to be turned off, these people distributed hundreds of headphones to people dancing right on the beach...there were 3 different DJs, and hence three different channels you could tune yourself to. We just stayed up all night dancing to the music piped into our ears individually. It was strange to just take the headphones off, look up, and see all these crazy people raving to seemingly nothing at all.

5. A little rock climbing - there are some big boulders sticking up out of the sand and water. I'm not really

The title of this entry is "permission to shine"...a line from a song that our awesome Irish friend Suzy wrote, taken from a Nelson Mandela speech:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."