Friday 15th may – Byron Bay.

“I’ll be there in 10 darling…oh and order me the schnitzel!” she shrieked down the line before promptly hanging up on me. I hung up the phone and placed the order mentally so as not to forget.
That was the voice of Honu, the 64yr old Buddhist nun who I have befriended and been ‘hanging out’ with for the past 2 weeks.
She is infamous on the Byron social scene and refers to herself as an ‘action nun’ who prefers to make her mark on the community rather than simply prey for it, choosing to spend her early mornings at the local farmers market chatting up the young farmers rather than preying to the divine. There for, attempting to have a simple brunch with her is how I would imagine tea with mother Teresa. A constant stream of individuals “not wanting to interrupt” but doing so anyway, crouching by her side to whisper a word of thanks, or wanting to hold her hand, all while I sit across from her trying not to slurp my banana smoothie too loudly.
Over our lunch we discussed the project at hand.
Together we are attempting to start and run the first charity in Byron bay to feed the homeless and anyone who has a rumbly in their tumbly and no money to feed it, from the left over foods from supermarkets and donations from people that would other wise go in the bin and therefore, to waste.
An incredibly worth while cause in my book, and seeing as I have a distinct lack of work at the moment I am ploughing most of my time into helping out and have become ‘Honus second in command’ not the catchiest title I admit but one I am somehow proud to lavish upon the ears of anyone who will listen as it seems to have some sort of kudos within the realms of the community centre. Somewhat similar to being Madonna’s PA I like to think.
Along with such topics as ‘do backpackers deserve free goods?’ and ‘what to do if a violent hobo attacks you’, we also stumbled upon the topics of Ayer Vedic and macrobiotic eating. I know the basics of both of these rather lengthy subjects but have never really put them into practice other than what little food I consumed at yoga camp, which I am informed, was strictly Ayer Vedic. Honu regaled me with tales of how she came back from India ‘fat as a pig’ and thus underwent 2 years of strict Ayer Vedic eating, before announcing that she was officially ‘over it’ and threw herself in macro biotic eating before finally deciding she had had enough of it all and has since returned to her one true culinary love. Chicken schnitzel and chips followed by the odd sneaky muffin and a cappuccino to wash it down.
I love this woman.
As well as hanging out with religious royalty and feeding the local bums, I have been putting my yoga teaching in practice finally and running my own classes. They are private/miniature classes that I am running from my very own studio. My beloved boy convinced me to hold out for a little while longer in ‘the house that crack built’ until our lizard of a landlord had buggered off to Thailand to become a sex tourist. As soon as he had slithered away we skipped yogically into the enormous room and after completing a few celebratory laps we set about dividng it in half with bed sheets to create our long awaited love nest/yoga studio complete with altar, candles, incense and my precious teaching certificates pride of place for all to see.
In my very first week of opening mine studio aptly named ‘Honey House Yoga’ by Adam and Ollie in honour of the amount of the sickly sweet substance I manage to consume weekly, I have taught virtually every day. My classes are admittedly very small as my room can only accommodate 2 students (3 at a push) at a time, plus myself, tho I feel this is a good thing as they get a lot more personal instruction and we get to have a bit of a giggle too, plus they get to hang around for a cup of chai après class, on my rather voluptuous veranda whilst playing spot the possum in the enormous tree in our front garden that encroaches on our dear dwelling a little more each day.
x