Raised In An Ashram
Part 1.
Emotional Rating:1 /10 (easy read. 1 death)
A story of a life forged in chaos & love in the 1980’s.
Growing up in a cult/experiment/movement.
We were fortunate enough to travel lots. By we I mean my mother and I. Thus we lived in crazy, strange and wonderful lands.
I grew up in wild hippie-communes and ashrams all over the world. From the wild, buzzing, hot-sticky jewel of my heart that is India...to running around Ibiza as a child in the1980's...going on adventures with other kids, whose parents were off finding themselves.
I was mainly, holding on for dear life on the back of mopeds, often driven by 12 year olds.
My life was full of colourful adventure. I am one-part daughter of an olive oil producer from Crete, the other my mama’s side, the descendant of large and strong women from a quaint teeny-tiny village, in southern Germany (where time, may have stood still!)
There, I'd fetch milk in large cans and rode on dogs, swam in lakes and in rivers that wound themselves around our farm house. Where I lived with my nan Irml, whom I loved very much providing warmth, a slow pace of life and a well needed routine.
Here me in my traditional ‘Dirndl’ dress that I wore when I was still sweet and innocent, living in the south of Germany…one side to me for sure…
…and here the other side of my character :)
why my upbringing was a little unusual was that my mother was looking for ‘herself’ in Oregon, the U.S.of A…and I was simply not allowed to go with her.
My grandparents (who were very traditional) insisted that I was not to be surrounded by (wonderful) freaks and beautiful intellectuals, who wore little clothes (that was the sticking point I think) and who made out with each other everywhere (also not cool with the my Nan) and so I lived with them for what seemed like years and my mother went wild in the desert. We’ll come to how ‘wild’ another time!
I spent my time evenly on two halves of the farm. Separated by a lovely river and a wooden bridge. One side was very down to earth, real farm house that always had food on the go. If it wasn’t being cooked, then it was being caught, butchered, smoked, taken from the ground, the river the forest. Summers were spent jumping in hay bales from 10 meter up in the hay store.
My grandmother was a lovely lady. She liked to wear kaftans and was very creative. As she had so many children she didn’t really get the chance to see where her art could have taken her. She was an orphan and married young. To a man that was a Siberian war prisoner for 9 years and expectations of wivelyness had to be met. She was a however a master seamstress, an extraordinary cook, gardener and painter. She loved all things travel. She’d collected all the national geographics and liked listening to my mothers tales. I think she’d be happy knowing that I became an avid traveller & artist. We’d cook, bake and do crafting together. She’d make me the most beautiful dresses and I loved her very much. Warm sunny days in our garden that grew with heavy with berries and where we could fish to catch our lunch. For christmas our big family would bake enough to feed the whole village. Braiding pleated buns, the finest kipferl, which will dissolve in your mouth. (I will add this to the blog another day! These need to be shared!)
For contrast, I was fortunate enough to have another branch of the family who lived on the other side of the bridge. Their garden was huge and groomed and the floors were polished and smelled of beeswax, the tables were draped in stiched linens and the women wore pearls and red lipstick. This was the posh side of my family…the judges and so forth. Classical music would echo through the house and the clocks alone would fetch a fortune at Sotheby’s.We’d have coffee and cake together every sunday…My poor worn out relatives were very kind and we had lots of parties and ate homemade cinnamon ice cream. ( i will share that recipe too!)
They ate their bread with a knife and fork and I loved spending my time playing hide and seek with my cousins.
My dear great aunt, Ruth would take me in her little Beatle and we’d go to the lakes and swim in the rain. We had a german shepherd dog too and she’d always make the car smell but those are the kind of memories that made being a kid very special for me. We’d sleep in the bed that was my great great grandparents and she always had a heated blanket in the winter. Strangely though she used to pop a bit of olbas oil in our night time tea…i don’t think she knew that it wasn’t meant to be ingested. I thought she was cool. Tiny, kind, resilient and hard as nails but she was always there.
But as you know….and as it happens life has always moves like a river and changes. One day my mother returned from the states, tanned and pretty but with a sad look in her eyes.My grandmother Irml, with the warm round face and the long black hair who played endless games of lego with me & who was my ‘home’ had died. I never had the chance to say goodbye to her. I was in my gymnastics outfit when my mother picked me up in our families brown merced benz and told me right there in the car that Irml had left her body and gone to the ‘other place’ which became a frequent destination of those I loved in my future life.
My sweet, wild and courageous mother took me from the biscuity-bosoms of my grandmothers house and drove to a big city on the other side of Germany, where we inhabited a commune in Berlin.
It had white-Italian carpets, which I remember staging one of my dramatic deaths on.
As I was a dramatic child and obviously unclear on death. I obviously had ‘things’ to work through. I’d decided to cover myself in ketchup and thus delicately displayed myself across the pristine corridor with the most splendid and largest kitchen knife I could muster. Cleopatra had nothing on me! I was a heroin. My mother LOVED THAT* (not) so much! I guess better the carpets than years of therapy?
*Also, not the german naked-inhabitants of our boutique commune.
As my mother had Albert Einstein’s IQ (yes it’s true) and because she recognised a restless soul, she decided I was ready to once again up and leave, taking me on more adventures… and we packed the little belongings we had ( mainly a huge, massive bag full of cash) and off we went to India.
Me in an Ashram in India, 1986, being given the name Shikha…(meaning flames of love).
I remember this so well. Everyone is laughing because I kept on looking at the wise man’s hands instead of his lovely face.
My mother here in the turquoise leopard print trousers.
And here another one in India
Pune 86’
The ‘Kids House’ …our own little place to go wild…whilst our parents meditated. I am the kid with the pink headband and the all over facial beard ;) I still know most of these kids! All of them are amazing humans.
My mother and I skipped, schlepped and hopped all over the globe and then when I needed to get an education and living in India for the rest of my life didn’t seem like a good idea, I eventually ended up in England, Devon. In an awesome hippie school! When I say something is awesome I really mean it!
This place was one of a kind! Crazy-fun-scary-Wild-sometimes lonely- always adventurous, certainly an experimental hippy situation!
Here our school photo, 1987’. England
The day I arrived I was picked up from a quaint little train station in Devon by a a dude in a van. The drive was lined with old trees, sheep in the fields and a bath in the courtyard with some kids skating listening to really loud music and looking all very 80’s .
The guy in the right hand bottom corner, Anu, taught me how to take photos. We’d listen to David Bowie and I’d help him process photos in the dark room. He was a true inspiration and probably one of the reasons I became a photographer and my beautiful aunty Christa, who took me to fancy art shows in metropolitan places. ‘If the kid isn’t going to shower then at least she’ll know who Bill Viola is!’
I loved this place so much. It was a mixture of crazy, idyllic and in the middle of nowhere…surrounded by hills and lush nature…and some poor local villagers who wanted to know why a 7 year old, tiny girl speaks like Eddie Murphy with a German accent (yep, my education consisted of watching American videos with cool guys kicking butt).
Although, just small children, we didn’t really have any rules as such, so basically we just learnt how to live with each other. I think I learnt how to cook a 5 course meal by the time I was 7 years old. I could also spit very far and I had a sharp tongue that would get me into trouble. I was probably just acting out because I was feral and probably a bit lonely at times. Also looking back now, I think I was very tired because I didn’t have a bedtime. We’d have food fights with jelly, have long meetings in the morning, singing ‘yellow submarine’, meditated, painted, watched 80’s films in a huge snuggle pit of 150 kids.
Although I loved this free & chaotic place, I don’t think I could put my son in a boarding school abroad...ok a better word for it would be a kids commune. I slept, ate and played with lots of children in a big house in the lush English countryside…running wild & feeling free and in no hurry to be anything but a kid. This was probably why I didn’t learn to read until I was 12 years old. I always preferred building dens, getting hench (to beat up boys) and to be completely honest, I basically thought I was a ninja! Eventually the school grew and so did I and when I was a teenager life again had it’s way of making change happen.
But that all that on another post!
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These days, what I love doing the absolute most, is hanging out with small humans in nature. Creating images that are natural, fun and full of love and feeling gratitude for the freedoms I have been afforded by those who came before me. Especially my grandmother and my mother, who are both together in the place where the light is bright.