Category Archives: Ed Saugstad

artists don’t retire

When I turned fifteen, half-a-century ago TODAY🎈 — back in the era of Rock’n’Roll🎸 — this is how I thought I would look now! (Rock-Star saving the World with MUSIC🎶 … didn’t quite work out that way😉)

(Only the stuff on the wall is photoshopped!)

You

Beyond the windows of your eyes,

Your soul abides in sunny skies,

Bathing in the light of love

That pours down sweetly from above.

That is the way it’s supposed to be

When a soul is clear and free,

But on the unmapped sea of life

Inner storms bring pain and strife.

High above each storm, a star

Shines to show you who you are:

Not this head and not this hand;

Not the owner of this land;

Not this angry shrunken heart

Feeling like it’s torn apart;

Not the one whose thoughts bring noise

Never knowing peace or joy;

Not the child that fears the night;

Not the man that wants to fight;

Not the woman, alone and sad;

Not those thousand dreams gone bad.

High inside, but within reach,

There waits a pristine, sunlit beach,

That graceful shore of your own spirit –

Listen now, and you will hear it.

Open your hands and feel your breeze

That softly blows through inner trees,

In the Country that’s your own

Where seeds of happiness are sown.

It’s only just a breath away.

Once you reach here, you will stay;

For here is where your life will start,

And soul and joy will never part.

– Edward Saugstad 2008

what time is it? it’s time to groove🎶….

Here’s a new melody/rythmn I played spontaneously in morning meditation today (and some top music stars talking about thoughtless-awareness and the cool-breeze)

new beginnings…

my first try on my new toy – meditative begin to the new year (after enjoying the globally televised Strauss concert from Vienna!🎶)

“Happy New Year!”from the Canadian/Austrian Saugstads

Brigitte Saugstad Art Exhibition

public opening in Neulengbach, Lower Austria

3 December 2022:

AND ALREADY FIFTEEN YEARS AGO!😃

(Brigitte’s first solo exhibition)

Georgio Pilla, Italian art critic
~Austrian artist Brigitte Saugstad~
(Venice, 16 January 2008)

“This artist, this charming signorina, is here to present her ceramic work.
These pieces are art in its purest form.
She takes nature and transforms it into art.
That alone should give you an idea
of her intellectual and comprehensive capacity.
But she doesnʼt rest there.
She also wants to give us the feeling of joy in form,
and so these pieces were created, beautiful, sometimes white,
sometimes colorful, a little darker a little lighter.
And when she concentrates on her favorite sport,
she gives us the ice princesses, where the body weight defies gravity.
As you can see, the skaters are quite robust,
but their whole being, the whole body, their physical form turns to poetry in her hands.
They simply float in the air, there is no weight,
only music and dance, only pleasure in contact with the frozen earth
or lifting up and away from it.
These ice dancers, when they are in the air, appear to be flying.
It looks like there is no weight holding them down.
She was able to feel this and express it in these wonderful works of art.
Look at these figures that float towards the sky.
It is truly an expression of joy, an expression of happiness, and much more.

Nature is expressed in these beautiful spheres, which are made up of nothing but little field flowers.
Look at the wonderful forms that remind me of seashells and the waves, the song the ocean sings.
We are looking at pure art; we are in the hands of an artist.
Out of a handful of earth, out of a handful of clay, life is created, because these figures are alive.
They live in her and, as they are here in front of us, they should also live in us now and in the future.
We should feel the joy and the lightness of heart that she has given us today.”

Cabella river wonderworld

about Creativity 🌞🌱

In case you’d like to hear Edward talk spontaneously about Creativity for a few minutes (from the SY Cabella Camp!) …

PUBLIC ONLINE INTERVIEW IN CHINA
First video:
“How do you keep the inspiration flowing continuously and bring forth the new ones in your artistic works? Have you ever felt the inspiration exhausted? Can you share the secret of persisting in creation for decades?”

Second video (scroll down):
“Modern people’s creations can easily be displayed, for example, when they are posted on the Internet, they can easily receive affirmation and cyber attacks. For a creator, being criticized may hurt his creativity. How can he protect it?”

CLICK: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/NM66yrEY-pkkf1Vm3iz1Mw

HOST’S WEBSITE TEXT:

—The second chakra of the subtle system—

The abdominal chakra is the second chakra of the subtle system. In the body, this chakra provides the energy needed for the liver, spleen, pancreas, intestines and cerebral cortex to function properly. It expresses creativity and execution. This is a very important chakra: it creates all our desires on the left side, while the right channel starts at the location of the abdominal chakra. The main quality of this chakra is creativity, but this chakra also produces fat cells which, upon reaching the brain, are converted into an energy supply that helps the brain to think and process all the information it receives.

The Trait of the Abdominal Chakra is “Creativity”
The origin of all creativity is Love. Without Love, there is no creativity. When Kundalini nourishes this center, people become very creative. All great creative work has vibrations. All works of art that vibrate are held together by time. All work without vibrations is destroyed by nature and forgotten over time.

—Ten Days of Yoga—

(IMAGES – Brigitte Saugstad artworks)

She (Kundalini/Saraswati) teaches us through nature: listen to the sounds of birds, the gurgling of a creek or the thunderous roar of a waterfall, the rustling of the wind over the leaves or the forceful blowing of a canyon.

Look at the many greens in the garden, look at the sky, look at her paintings in the clouds. How many colors she uses when the sun rises over the sea or when the sun sets, enjoy her creations.

The origin of all creativity is love. Without love, there is no creativity. She holds a veena on which she plays the most beautiful music to inspire everyone.

Not only did she teach us beautiful music, but she taught us how to dance, talk, sing, write books, paint, and build. When we meditate, she exposes us to all the knowledge we can grasp.

becoming your own spiritual master

Ed leading international online meditation via Australia today

(I finally got a chance to visit Australia!😃🇦🇺🦘)

https://youtu.be/ArbfnRFbgAg

40 years ago – Christmas 1981🎄📞📺⏳

I’ve enjoyed sixty-three Christmases with family and friends. Most of them were at home in the suburbs just south of Vancouver, and in the charming old heart of Vienna. A few were in rural India. One was in New Jersey, and one in North Carolina.
Although all of these occasions bring back colourful memories of abundance and joy, one of the most memorable happened when I was, internally and externally, quite down and out — at the bottom of a long dive that was about to transform into a steady ascent that is still bringing me higher and higher today.
Forty years ago, Christmas 1981 (before portable telephones, personal computers, The Internet, etc.) I was living in a ‘shack by the railroad track’, on the edge of a wealthy neighbourhood. At this time of my life I used to have my place open to parties with local peers on the weekends. On Monday I would cash-in all the beer bottles to buy a bit of food for the week.
My fridge was always empty (except for all the alcohol from Friday to Sunday). On this occasion I came back to my humble home late Christmas evening and opened the fridge for some reason. I can’t describe to you my utter surprise when I FOUND IT PACKED FULL OF EVERY IMAGINABLE FOOD! Although I tried to find out who did it, none of my many smiling friends would admit to doing the deed. I still don’t know.
When I moved back to Canada twenty years later, a mature married man who had traveled the world and enjoyed undreamed of wonderful experiences, it was about a year before I ran into one of the old crowd (back in the 1970s, a couple hundred teenagers, and then young adults, in North Delta). My heart sprang open and my chest was filled with gravity-defying mirth! Then that same day I ran into three more old buddies in various locations, between ten and thirty kilometers apart, something I consider nothing less than a miracle. (As a result I ended up organizing a reunion that brought about a hundred and fifty of us back together for a nostalgic gathering.)

One thing that life has taught me is that Friendship is the highest form of love (collective consciousness). Even in a family, if the members aren’t ‘friends’, there’s no real bond.
May the whole world become a family of best friends.

Merry Christmas 2021!
Lots of love,
Ed Saugstad

(more here: https://edwardsaugstad.com/reaching-the-top-reloaded/ )

https://goldenganeshart.com/

my China interview, reloaded (中文翻译)

new, edited version of my recent Oakee Doakee, children’s books, interview 🌞


The RAMAYANA reloaded🏹

208 years, Husarentempel in the Vienna Woods (from 1813)

the Austrian Saugstads out and about exploring our neighbourhood again! 🦌🏔🔭🌞

“Happiness and Good Fortune, 2021!”

Wishing you all the best for the coming year!

Best wishes, Ed and Brigitte

SELF-ISOLATION/RECREATION, DAY 5

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going!”

(the wife will find plenty for me to do at home!)

interview of an old Canadian pioneer sahaja yogi

MEDITATE TO REGENERATE ☺️

Image

surviving the storm!

homestead upgrades

New photovoltaic sun energy system:

https://www.facebook.com/edward.saugstad/media_set?set=a.10156583248401545&type=3

and, new larch steps to the creek:

https://www.facebook.com/edward.saugstad/media_set?set=a.10156583277136545&type=3

 

(Going up fast – looks like it’ll get above 2000 watts electricity production this morning! ⚡️Ω)

40 Year Challenge

(on my birthday, today)

‘Sir Ed Word’ with his Self-realisation 2019

‘Ed the Head’ with his elf-realisation 1979

(I survived the ‘60s, the ’70s, the ‘80s, the ’90s, the ‘00s and — so far — the 2000-teens!)

improv in the ancient Italian valley

Life is a journey

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Long, long ago in Canada, when I, as a small child, was hiding in my bedroom listening to the drunken fights of my parents; or, at fifteen, hurrying terrified through a dark suburban neighbourhood seeking rescue as my first massive dose of LSD ripped through my brain; or, as a young adult, begging for coins on a city street or curled up on the concrete under newspapers, trying to catch glimpses of my unreachable dreams,

I could never have suspected that I would someday be enjoying a good book in the living room of my homestead on the other side of the world, loved and respected and at peace with my soul and the universe.

It all comes from within us, every bountiful drop of life manifesting.

Seek the silence of the present moment whence abundance springs.

Union is the key to the front door.

 

Life is a journey.
Step out of the pain shadows into the comforting light
And always carry your true home in that beautiful heart of yours.

 

Victoria:
‘We were reminiscing about Cabella. Our daughter Joy said “For us children, Uncle Eddie was King” and “When I grow up I’m going to follow his tradition of making all the children happy.” Then she told us about the coins you used to bury in the sandpit and how they found enough to buy an ice cream, and other lovely stories and memories.’

Ed Saugstad TV interview and garden-party

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In which Sir Ed Word appears on local television

… and the Party commences!

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what goes on in the head of Ed? -1

https://www.amazon.com/Oakee-Doakee-Hate-Edward-Saugstad/dp/0955150361/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1526822119&sr=8-7&keywords=edward+saugstad

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I have become the hollow drum

36 years ago today I crossed an essential threshold and embarked on an epic journey …

into enlightenment.

Almost every day since the 20th of April, 1982, I’ve been able to attain clarity, and briefly glimpse blissful Reality through the instrument of my central nervous system, and the state of thoughtless awareness.

The upward spiral unfolds, with wonderful surprises arising just around every curve.

More than anything else, I wish this for you.

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(for full-size headphones or bass intense speaker system!)

In separation have I suffered long,
But now am glorified in the eternal bliss of Union.

And from my core,
That once was small,
The sound of Light
Expands to all.

Never will I shrink again
Into a ball of doubt and pain.
Forever forth, in inner sky,
I spread my wings and upward fly.

All Life pulsates within my breast.

I have become
The hollow drum.

~Ed Saugstad
20 April 2018

 

 

—special thanks to Linda Dzus (wife of one of my old best buddies, Doug) who took this amazing photo in their neighbourhood on Mayne Island, British Columbia, the oasis that I briefly took refuge in after attaining self-realisation, 36 years ago—

there and back again — a canadian’s tale …

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Well, I’m finally home. It’s great to be back!

No more adventures for me …
unless …

‘The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say’….

http://SirEdWord.com

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part-and-parcel-of-the-party!

🤓😏🤭😃😚🤗😳😋😍🤪🙃

the Broccoli Blues

“Oh dear! Who let Ed into the kitchen?”

Ed-olution (birthday 1983)

Ed found! (Delhi 1983)

For the period of about a year-and-a-half after I finally found out how to actually meditate in April 1982 (having put in much effort already for eight years, without benefit) and I moved away from the party neighbourhood of my youth, there seem to be no photos of my amazing progress. Now, by chance, I saw THAT Ed, exactly thirty-four birthdays ago, strolling along with a wedding procession in the heart of New Delhi!

I had arrived alone at 2:00 a.m. in humid Bombay two weeks before, after anbombay-marine-drive-1983 exhausting series of flights, with an overweight suitcase and a phone number. It was the first international journey in my quarter century of life on Earth. (Little did I guess then that I would return to India more than twenty times!) Someone back home in Vancouver had just bought my ’65 Chevy panel van, enabling me to join my new yogi friends on the India tour. A kindly airport police officer 65-chevy-panel-vanhelped me reach the others, already a huge, international group of pilgrims, and that very evening I met Shri Mataji, the founder and teacher of Sahaja Yoga meditation, on the first of many joyful occasions over the coming days, years and decades, in various countries.

Among the many memorable events in Delhi was our viewing of the new Gandhigandhi-movie-poster movie in the cinema that it had world premiered in just nine weeks before. (As a girl, Shri Mataji had spent time with Gandhi at his ashram, where he would sometimes implement Her advice on spiritual issues.) I remember walking out of that air-conditioned building and looking up at the hot, wide blue sky, realizing that those historic happenings had taken place not long ago under this very canopy.

I was lucky to be among those few of us from Canada (at that time there were only a handful of people practicing Sahaja Yoga in North America) that were invited to stay for a few days with Shri Mataji in Her daughter’s house. Several massive public programs were held throughout the city, and I attended my first puja, which celebrated Shivaratri at that time. At the compound where we all met each day, someone organized a cake and candles 🎂, and some new friends sang Happy Birthday to me that third day of February … so long ago, now! I drank lots of yummy chai there, discovering too late that the caffein was brutal on my sensitive liver. We also travelled up to the Himalayan foothills, where I saw some Indian girls enjoy snow for the first time. I spent that wonderful month in India without getting sick, a bit of a miracle (although as soon as I got back to the West I cleared out quite thoroughly!)

I still feel all that as a solid building block in my evolution, and this unexpected window view now brings a fresh breeze to grownup Ed.💨

(And, adding an interesting twist to the perspective: I happen to be turning 59 now, the same age Shri Mataji was when we first met back then!)

Shri Mataji gave each of us a present that afternoon (6 Feb 1983)
They were original Indian artworks. Somehow I managed to hold on to mine (the only thing I have left from my early twenties). It now hangs in my little art-studio in our homestead in the Vienna Woods:

Shri Saraswati Goddess of Art and Knowledge

Shri Saraswati
Goddess of Art and Knowledge

(read more here …)

https://edwardsaugstad.com/reaching-the-top-reloaded/

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dancing robots

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here’s a little futuristic musical sketch i doodled last friday afternoon (and afterwards added some video clips to)

wishing you a fine day!

Ed:-)

R2D2 and C3Po and music

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WARMING UP AND COOLING DOWN

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happy Eddie — and friends — in his new attic sound-studio!

😀

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Ed Saugstad – Sahaja Yoga meditation (german)

(in case you understand german)
here are a few segments of the recent interview about some of my experiences with Sahaja Yoga meditation:

(more on the YouTube page)

MOUSIE DANCE PARTY!

😉

Mousie Dance Party!

just sayin’…

… still waiting for the collective state of enlightenment and benevolence to manifest all over the world (that’s increasing, but doesn’t show up often in the mainstream media)

Here’s a scary, heavy-handed suppression by local authorities that I came away from unharmed, thirty-six years ago:

(from the University of British Columbia newspaper)

The Roundhouse Affair

“Yes, there are many who would shape the world according to their own limited conception of morality and justice. And so, as for you my friend: into what sterile mold would you have us fit?”

—Ed Saugstad, September 1980