It’s really not enough any more to just point and shoot? It’s a bit, “is that ALL you know about iphone apps?” If this IS all you know, then this little rundown of apptastic iphone appendages will delight you. Play with them over the weekend.

I came across this great post on THE BEST CAMERA APPS from one of my favourite NYT writers David Pogue. Here’s the bits you want:

• Try TiltShift(from $1). It’s a photographic trick that, by using selective angles and blurring, makes the real world seem to be made of tiny toys.
• Time Lapse ($1) lets you create a high-definition time-lapse movie automatically while you’re away. Watch a building go up, watch a flower bloom or just see what’s been going on at home while you’re away.

Yesterday we ran a “sponsored review”. You see more of these around the web now, called sponsored posts or paid posts. I thought I’d be totally transparent about what these are about for me, here.

In a shell of a nut, they’re posts that are supported in some way – in $ or in kind – by a brand or service. The concept is derived from what’s known in magazines as “integrated advertising” (you see pages that look like editorial, but are actually an ad and usually have a banner at the top saying ‘advertisement’ or ‘promotion’). In newspapers and on TV, travel features and car reviews are mostly paid for by clients (an airline, a hotel, a tourist bureau). A line generally runs at the end: Sarah Wilson traveled with XYZ Llama Treks (or whatever). Since I’ve worked across all media, I know this dance intimately and I know how to tread the line…I’ve also seen how it is often crossed very tackily and dishonestly, especially online.

Why am I doing sponsored reviews on this blog? Two reasons

1. I’ve been writing posts six days a week now for almost two years. My blog costs money to run. A little bit of revenue will help me out. I don’t write for the money. It’s not why I started this blog. But I have rent to pay!

The other week I was lent a new Cooper bike (the same folk who make the Mini Cooper). I got my right-hand woman Jo to test-ride the three-speed Zandvoort for this sponsored review. To my mind it’s a great bike for kids out there who love the single-speed aesthetic and snappy swoopiness…but with a few gears to help you out. Over to you Jo…

(Bikes at Byron Beach – my Zandvoort with Sarah’s single- speed)

It seems a lot of people these days are keen to hook into the single speed vibe. They’re so pretty. So light. Only thing is, if you haven’t ridden a lot, or at least not for a little while (like me) then a single-speed can be hard, and a little dangerous, especially if you’re living in a hilly town.

A bike that looks like a single-speed, and is only a few kilos heavier, is the happiest of compromises. A geared bike, dressed in single-speed clothing!!

The T100 Zandvoort (which is what I rode) has a three gear twist-grip, just enough to cope with those hills, but it isn’t too heavy. It still has the agility of a single speed.

Sarah was keen for me to test the bike, because it’s the perfect solution for people like me. I trialled it in Byron Bay when I visited her. And I loved it.

I had forgotten how much I absolutely love to ride. It’s total freedom. The wind in your hair, feet up on the handlebars – the whole deal. (Ok, so I didn’t get to put my feet on the handlebars, but I remember doing that as a kid, and I’m so bringing that back!)

VVG does great things for me.  I love that he once painted a chair. Just a chair. A worthless chair. But he captured the “isness” of it so gloriously that it became a work of art worth an incomprehensible fortune.

This quote, though, takes things up a notch:

“If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” – Vincent van Gogh

Now, how grand is that!? Doubts emerge about things we care about. This is a good thing to recognise. We don’t doubt whether we can tie a shoelace. We doubt big, important, visceral things that are integral to our being and our uniqueness.

My doubts overwhelm me. Boy! I’m stalled almost hourly by them. You would’ve gathered that by now. But I’m learning that when I doubt something in me, it means it matters. And that my doubt – that voice within – is really just calling out so I listen to what matters…that I attend to it.

That’s point one.

Point two: we rise beyond the doubt by meeting it with it’s counterpoint. My fear that my writing is shit (which pipes up EVERY SINGLE DAY)  is only overcome by engaging in the writing…toiling and tinkering and improving. I’m only JUST learning this. I’m learning to recognise the struggle that goes on. That it’s not a struggle that’s trying to break me. It’s one to rise up to. We run our best when there’s someone to race against. I make my most coherent points at a dinner party attended by big minds.

I went to church at Easter. It was a perplexing, emotional experience. My relationship with the Catholic church is a fraught one. But one thing I got out of the service was how the story of the Resurrection is one that can resonate no matter whether you believe a bloke called Jesus died at some point in history and then miraculously rose again. I also loved that someone played the cello. Beats an organ. Pretty much anything does.

The priest at the church I visited – St Kevin’s in Bangalow – trod the line so well in his telling of the Easter story. He allowed it to also be interpreted as one of metaphorical death and rebirth (he didn’t invite it, but cleverly used the homily to show how it can be received in the everyday). Even if you believe in the literal version of things (Jesus did actually come back to life after bleeding to death on a cross), what I imagine you – we all – get out of it is a broad message that everything dies and everything comes back, albeit as another form, and that there are lessons to be taken from this process. We acknowledge the sins that Christ died for. So that we can continue our earthly experience with some goodness going on.

I came across this BRILLIANT read about why Easter resists commercialism on Slate yesterday. It addresses the Resurrection. It’s worth reading. James Martin writes:

Well, for one thing, it’s hard to make a palatable consumerist holiday out of Easter when its back story is, at least in part, so gruesome. Christmas is cuddly. Easter, despite the bunnies, is not.

Indeed, Jesus is betrayed by his best mate, killed brutally, then rises from the dead. Also, the Resurrection is hard to come to terms with.

This week I buy a crock pot

I’ve just finished reading Carl Honore’s cult read In Praise of Slow. It’s been out a while – the best seller (it’s also one of Arianna Huffington’s favourite reads) that was largely responsible for bringing the fashionable Slow Food movement to the time-poor masses, was published in 2004. But that’s OK. As Slow proponents say, everything in the fullness of time.

Slow Food, which began in Italy in 1986, is an aesthetic exercise in taking your languid time to truly indulge in the mastication process. It’s about long lunches in Tuscan courtyards with an old guy at the head of the table wearing a Dolmio-ish grin, eating truffles that were foraged that morning and rabbit stews that’ve bubbled on the stove for days, and imbibing wine that’s been foot-crushed by the neighbour’s elfin children. It’s quaint and rich and mindful and everything eating should be about.

I have to admit, I had this picture in mind when I found myself picking up a crock pot, or slow cooker, at Kmart recently for $35. I’m generally highly skeptical of kitchen appliances that cost $35 at Kmart. They wind up in corner cupboards, impossible to get at, never to be used again. But I’ve been surprised.

Two weeks I ago I sprained and hairline-fractured my ankle…and tore my tendon. I was running barefoot on ocean rocks in the rain because I was listless. “I know, I’ll do something slightly off-kilter, so I can feel a bit more alive.” In addition to demolishing my ankle I also ran into three nude men. Another story.

Jo. Me. Bung ankle.

So. I can’t walk for 6 weeks, run for 3 months. It’s a sentence. It’s a sign.

But this has helped. A comfrey poultice. I researched online the various benefits. Much has been said about it’s ability to heal sprains and even fractures. I looked at the different techniques and decided to get witchy with it myself.

Frankly, I’ve come up with the Creme de la Creme of Healing, Soothing Poulticessssss.

Check this shit out…

1. Cut up comfrey leaves – about six – and stick-blend in a plastic container(which means you don’t get your blender machine dirty) with some water…enough to make it soupy.

2. clever trick #1: Most recipes say to add a good handful of flour to get it paste-like. Good. But I used chia bran and psyllium husk because it got it SUPER pasty. Like a rubber. You need this so you can use the poultice like a goob and it won’t run everwhere.

Yesterday, in an interview for Yoga Journal, I was asked what lifestyle techniques I wholeheartedly swear by. I’ve been saving this trick up for a while to share…it’s certainly one of the main approaches I live by for maximum wellness and solid-to-goodness ground-ed-ness.

I tame my vata.

But I have a theory. I believe untamed vata is the reason why people in our culture are feeling more and more unsettled and angsty, and getting weirdly unwell as a result. I make a big call, but read on.

Our “vata” is out of balance. Contemporary life turns us into vata types. But it also aggravates vata energy. We’re set up to #epicfail!

Have no idea what I’m talking about?

OK, I’ll break this whole vata thing down

* Vata is an Ayurvedic term.

* Ayurvedic healing, IMO, is the most grounded approach I’ve encountered. Yoga as we know it today – all of it – and meditation and a lot of the dietary theory I espouse comes from this tradition which is more than 5000 years old (some say 10,000). It started in India. Buddhism stemmed from it 3000 years ago.

* If you want to learn more, Deepak Chopra’s book Perfect Health is a good start.

* Anyway. According to Ayurvedic thinking, we’re all made up of 3 doshas – vata, pitta and kapha. This is less woo-woo than it sounds. Promise. It’s simply a way to categorise body/personality types that exist for a multitude of evolutionary reasons. We all possess all three doshas, but tend to have one that dominates. Our dominant dosha can get out of balance, which causes us different digestion/weight, health and emotional issues.

Make sense?

So, generally…

Vata types have: light, flexible bodies and big, protruding teeth; small, recessed, dry eyes;  irregular appetite and thirst; often experience digestive and malabsorption problems; easily excited;

This is a nice bit of Tao reflection… especially for those of us who are very good at doing, but not at stopping.

Fill your bowl to the brim

and it will spill.

Keep sharpening your knife

and it will blunt.

Chase after money and security

and your heart will never unclench.

Care about people’s approval

and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.

The only path to serenity.

Lao Tsu

The trick, of course, is to know when your bowl is comfortably full, to know when you’ve done enough work.

I think you only know that once you step back quietly. In actuality, work is never “done”. There is more we could always do. But we need to realise backing off, releasing control, letting things be for a bit is as essential to creating as doing is.

This is a relief. Honestly.

What can we all do to step back? A walk around the block? Some care of the soul? Some gentle trusting that enough is done? Maybe just do less and see what happens?

I’m sad tonight. I have no desire to hide from it. This touched me.