Skate, guitar, art and love

01 Feb 2025 | Lyall Bay, NZ
What a magnificent remarkable time I always have while hanging out with my beautiful "everything" Rachel. Today, we spent some time on wheels. With a cruiser longboard and a push bike, alternatively :). Returned to Rachel's van parked by the ocean at Lyall Bay and had a guitar lesson. Rachel are a wonderful musician and teacher. I learnt the twelve-bar blues! Afterwards, we had a look at Procreate (an app for sketching and painting digitally) on our iPads (not so old-school). We chatted about creative ideas and projects. While still playing the guitar, Kelly Bentley appeared serendipitously. Then, Frankie (her extremely cute cuddlable dog) came to spread some love. Thank you, thank you!

Pōpokotea - Whitehead

25 Jan 2025 | Zealandia, NZ

Sick

28 Nov - 11 Dec 2024 | Space Studio, NZ
A period of time in which I got sick in Wellington. For the first time after I had dengue fever in Mazunte, Mexico, February 2023. This time, it wasn't covid. The symptoms were mainly body ache for 5 days, moaning in bed at night. The inspiration to undertake Oshawa diet #7 for 10 days came to me. A fasting of only brown rice and optional Gomashio (a seasoning of unhulled sesame seeds and Himalayan pink salt food-processed together). The last five days I spent in Mauna - Noble Silence. What an amazing reset. It allowed the mind to rest from rushing into the future scenario of coming back to productivity as soon as possible. And so the body rested peacefully. It felt like if a subconscious mind tendency, an old pattern had been brought to light and dissolved. I was blessed with the lucidity to see it and the courage to communicate to Lana (owner of Space studio) that I wasn't going to teach any yoga classes for two consecutive weekends. Thank you to Flora (an angel who appeared in my life) who covered two Monday Koha Yoga classes in Newtown. And thank you to Zealandia and the existence of Sick Leave which I requested possibly for the first time in my life! (after a predominance of more than 10 years of self-employment). Thank you to Lana for arranging the yoga schedule! Thank you to Sarah Morley for delivering 3kg of Organic Brown Basmati from India (locally found in one of my favourite stores GoodFor). Thank you to Sarah Meek for delivering brown rice from her own pantry and checking in on how I was doing every single day. Thank you to Zoe (and her mum Prue) for delivering flowers, medicines, 2 jars of gomashio. Thank you to Oshawa for writing about the macrobiotics zen diet and sharing it with the world. So much love and gratitude!

Cacao ambassador

19 Oct 2024 | Wellies, NZ
Now, I can import 100% pure ceremonial Keith cacao from Guatemala -stopover in Australia warehouse- to Wellington, woah! and share it with the community. $90 per block. Minimum price globally required for all practitioners in the world. This price ensures that part of the money goes back to more than 35 Guatemalan families and the farmers. I'm my own non-profit organisation and by that I mean that I pay wholesale price and that creates a little margin that hopefully pays (without me being aware of exact calculations here) shipping and GST costs. Flick me an email to get a block to rosasantanayoga@gmail.com

Quit Instagram and Facebook

02 Oct 2024 | Wellies, NZ
And... I'm quitting instagram and my 1012 followers and FB woah! after 10 years of believing I couldn't. Maybe we can have a video-call and do it together. With Love, R 🌻 (Email to my friend Paris)

Quit Whatsapp

14 July 2024 | Wellies, NZ
Kia Ora whanau and sangha, With the intention to be more present with myself, with you, the rest of the community and the loved ones overseas, I'm quitting WhatsApp for now and maybe for good. It's a self birthday present for 2024! 15th of August, he he :). In the short period of time that I've reduced the time spent on my smartphone, I noticed a few things. I realised that the typing, the subconscious 'waiting' for a task to be completed, a message to be replied along with the constant checking to see if it’s been responded was limiting my capacity to be fully present. A great deal of attention and energy would go to the interaction between "me" and "a device". Prior to or even without actually establishing a connection with the person I intend to connect with. All I would have done would be delivering messages from a place of “getting it done”, with the sneaky dopamine boost as supposed as a side effect. Followed by an incessant ruminating of inner chatter: “have they replied yet?" "oh, I need to send an audio to my friend overseas" "I need to listen to that audio again, what did they say?" "Have they seen my message yet?” "Did I write it with all my heart?" "Shall I delete it and re-write it?" "Shall I re-read what I wrote?" "Shall I check who has replied or texted me one more time?". Reflections: Was all of this getting on the way of me connecting to deeper parts of my Being and embracing the feelings and emotions that are present, no matter how difficult? Do I intend to cultivate more time in Self Awareness and keep integrating the practices in a world full of distractions? The answers in my Heart are yes. 

communication with loved ones overseas
This is the hardest and the biggest excuse I'd always give myself to stay hooked. However, I've already scheduled a weekly call with my mum to her house landline or her phone via Skype. A weekly call including my three brothers. And a call including my aunties who my mum gets together with on the weekends. I'll start here and see what needs to be changed further down the road. I trust that by removing the 'instant communication' factor, there'll be more mindspace and heartspace to be there for my family, emotionally. To be proactive, rather than reactive. To practice active listening with the intention of lessening their / our suffering. To be more compassionate. Easier said than that. Big practice. Self reminder: what’s life all about otherwise?

more presence As I keep integrating from being back in city life after ashram life for such an intense period of time overseas, I believe that this move is another step to my-Self. I trust the time not invested in the relationship between "me" and "a device" will be devoted to the relationship with myself. I trust this will ripple out positively in the world around me.

back to old school
If I'm lucky to have you in the Space whare / whanau / sangha. I hope to see you more in the flesh. If that's not always available, let's call each other if you like or give a 'no internet' text message (sms). If I'm teaching or surfing or meditating and I didn't pick your call, I'll for sure call you back. If you are overseas you may like to use this email to connect with me and we may like to schedule a video call via Skype, Google Meet or any other easy platform for the both of us. If you didn't have data or wifi for this I can also call you to your phone number without wifi or data as I have credit on Skype to do this, including landlines.

P.S.: And last but not least, if you haven't watched "The Social Dilemma" on Netflix -a revealing documentary by social media channels CEO formers of how the robots and algorithms have taken over- I encourage you to do so. And if you feel inspired to get out of the Matrix (and eat canned food with me in the actual real room ha ha), I'll be with you in full support in a heartbeat. (On a side note: I'm still on FB, only on "Happy & Calm" and "Koha Yoga Newtown" pages and also my usual Instagram, sharing in a more selective and mindful way). Thank you for sharing with me this roller coaster called life.
With Love, R 🌻

(Inspired by an email sent on this day to Lana, Oli, Sarah Morley, Luke, Tess, Conor and Sophie. The yoga commune who I live with at Space)

Quit smartphone

02 Feb 2024 | Wellies, NZ
I write this a year later (02/02/25). Wowee! I keep using the lil phone from the pic above, there's no way back! For the last year, I've used my old smartphone as a music device and GPS. Easily downloading Spotify playlists and offline maps on Google Maps. I keep connecting to wifi for this and for daily meditations with Hridaya on Insight Timer.