Table of contents for Issue 3 in YOKE Magazine

“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.” Morrie Schwartz, Tuesdays with Morrie It's a knife edge/age of uncertainty where we – and our planet – are all heading. A time when we are moving faster than ever before, when our lives are becoming more globalised and yet more fragmented, when ‘connecting' somehow disconnects us and makes us more isolated, when it seems to me that the structure holding up Western society is a…

ROBINA COURTIN It might sound like a paradox, but Robina Courtin says the best way to change the outside world is to look within and work on ourselves first. That is the only way to break the cycle of dissatisfaction and desire that drives our increasingly materialistic society. “The more you get, the more you want; it's a self-fulfilling kind of energy. But if you learn to focus the mind, get clear on what attachment is and why you get sucked into buying all this stuff, you realise you can live in this world surrounded by all these million-dollar gorgeous things and not be affected by them. You can let them pass like a dream and enjoy listening, looking, tasting and smelling, but not have to hold on to everything.”…

We are at a point of transition. Of many transitions. Global politics, business, and technologies are shifting shape. And we are shifting with them. The question is: do structures form us, or do we form structures? The Italian Operaismo1 movement of the 1960s believed that it's ultimately the people who change systems. So, we are looking at our own agency and wondering - how can we shape the world around us? Understanding poiesis is key to influencing this global transition. Poiesis simply means “becoming” or “bringing forth”. It means to act from the heart - heroically even - to contribute to something larger than oneself. In philosophy, the concept describes the poetic and aesthetic realities that surface through human reflection and emotional expression. What comes about through poiesis are subjective…

Anyone who travels to the limits of knowing and ponders such a question as ‘unity’ is essentially posing a religious question, well beyond the scope of science. There are two dangers constantly lurking in all religious acts. The first danger is that God evaporates. When God evaporates into the self, a person perceives unity and even achieves it, but only by reducing the question to one of psychology. It's amazing how many ‘spiritual’ people are self-absorbed. ‘My’ spiritual journey, ‘my’ understanding, ‘my’ philosophical take, ‘my’ religious commitment: all of this shrinks the big question into nothing more than an experience. Experience is just experience. It's not long ago that people were taking drugs that cut them off and sank them into a world of interesting experiences, yet claimed that some…

SHAUN PARKER “I wanted to tell the history of mankind from the big bang to where we are now in five minutes using only hands and fingers. I was dealing with such an epic topic I needed to do something ridiculous like hand animation to tell the story! It took me three weeks to choreograph that five-minute sequence. Every nanosecond had to be an authentic representation of what was going on in the universe. Hey, if I'm going to honour the universe, I've got to make it really bloody good!” Shaun Parker is talking about his latest dance work AM I. Fresh off the plane from presenting its European premiere at Germany's Movimentos Festival, Shaun is rugged up in a red and white beanie and a bright green hoodie. After…

Every year, on 24 August, faith and tradition bring thousands of people to the feast of St. Bartolomeu do Mar for an unusual ritual that mixes the sacred and the profane. It dates back to the sixteenth century, 1566 in fact, claiming the devil is on the loose that day. Children and parents carry a black hen or chicken for three laps around the church and pass under the litter three times, then go to the beach to dive in the waves an odd number of times, three, five, seven or nine. This is called the ‘holy bath’ that drives away evil and cures diseases they believe are related to demonic possession, such as stuttering or epilepsy. Later during the day the procession to thank the saint is one of…

How to nourish ourselves, asylum seekers, the community, local farmers and the Earth? Simple. Take one community ecosystem, an army of volunteers and a crowd of internet funders, add a set of wheels and a dash of imaginative compassion, and there you have it – the Food Justice Truck. This award-winning social enterprise by Melbourne's Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) aims to reach ‘the others’ – the asylum seekers who cannot access the centre's services through capacity constraints. There are more than 10,000 people seeking asylum in Victoria who are on bridging visas, and who face growing food insecurity. The Food Justice Truck is a mobile fresh food market, where I or anybody can shop at regular supermarket rates (or even slightly less) while asylum seekers receive a 75 percent…

ELINOR CARUCCI Can you share a little about what it was like growing up in Israel? Israel is definitely a different culture. Even though my family is unusually open and warm, overall the culture is more open than in America, both physically and emotionally. People are more straightforward, kids run around naked on the beach, that kind of thing. Of course, you also have the ultra-orthodox Jews, but they are like a separate part of Israeli society. Among women especially, being naked with each other is very accepted. I was shocked when I moved to America and some of the young women I met told me they had never seen their mother naked. Your family seems so open in your photographs. Are they unique in that? I'm very close to…

CINDY PASTEL Nothing about Cindy Pastel's life is conventional. One of the original drag queens, she found fame (if not fortune) as the inspiration for Hugo Weaving's character in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. She survived the AIDS-ravaged Sydney of the eighties, a cerebral haemorrhage, Hepatitis C and alcohol addiction, all with her wry smile and a slick of red lipstick intact. “So much of how we live is about putting people in boxes. I like to break out like a loony freak. Why does everything have to have a label? So long as you're not hurting anyone, just do it. That's what I say,” she says over a coffee in Sydney's Surry Hills. Her own parents couldn't keep up with her sexuality. “All those years I…

Mixing surreal and figurative imagery, my paintings are deeply integrated with the urban environment and explore themes of waste, consumption, loss and transition and contain a sentimentality and softness influenced by children's books. My large-scale murals often inhabit the isolated, abandoned and broken corners of a city. And those cities are far and wide, including outdoor projects in Sydney, Melbourne, London, Vienna, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Copenhagen, Moscow, New York, Oslo and Dublin, among others.…

“I always loved fairyland – how a petal could be a bed and a spider web a hammock. My mum noticed my interests and provided possibilities – crayons, fabric, craftspeople to work with, and then she stayed out of the way. I came to believe I could make my world exactly the way I wanted it to be.” Elora Elora Hardy grew up in a beautiful world and she hopes to keep it that way. The founder and Creative Director of Ibuku often talks about her magical Balinese childhood. Her parents (jewellery designers John and Cynthia Hardy) encouraged her to design her own clothes, make glass jewellery, and famously asked her to draw her ideal home. When she drew a fairy mushroom house, they built it for her. Echoes of…

ROWENA JAYNE I am speaking with the lovely Rowena Jayne, aka The Real Food Yogi. She is the New Age quadruple threat: yoga teacher, raw food chef, author and naturopath trained in Ayurvedic medicine. She wasn't born with a biodegradable spoon in her mouth; she has a past, a life before, that wasn't so fresh and natural. I ask her to describe herself before she found her path. “I wasn't in a good way. My mind wasn't grounded; I had arthritis. I had an eating disorder. I wasn't social – I'd shut myself off from the world in a lot of ways. And when I was social it was like this big facade. I wasn't well in my mind. When you have an eating disorder there are body issues, self-esteem…

SEANE CORN “I'd never seen anything like it. Two hundred children clawing at me for a bottle of soy milk. I was overwhelmed – energetically, emotionally, spiritually. Do I give the milk to a starving three-year-old or to the pregnant mother holding two kids in her arms? My stuff was coming up. As someone who believes in the mystical path, that everything happens for a reason – it wasn't working for me. It was unjust. It was evil. I was angry at our leaders, at everyone who perpetuates this kind of exploitation…” “IN SERVICE YOU HAVE TO COME FROM LOVE OR NOTHING CHANGES. I WAS NOT IN LOVE, I WAS IN RAGE.” Renowned yoga teacher and humanitarian Seane Corn is talking about her 2007 visit to the infamous Stung Meanchey…

ANA FORREST When asked what it is that she does, Ana Forrest replies, “I'm a teacher, I'm a Medicine Woman, I'm definitely a transformer.” And she is indeed all of those things. Having married the ancient discipline of yoga to the particular demands of the 21st century she is now looking to expand its healing potential to Indigenous populations, from whom she has drawn as much inspiration as she offers in return. “It's such an interesting juxtaposition for me right now, in that I really want to bring these wonderful life tools to these people, but I also want to learn from the Aboriginal people, from the native people, to see how these tools can be added to and improved,” she says. It's no secret that Ana turned to yoga…

Art can mesmerize us, provoke us, make us feel safe, or it can antagonise us and create paradox. All with the sweep of a paint brush, the click of a camera, the sound of a pen running across paper, or the feel of clay oozing itself into form. The creation of art holds a fascination for both the maker and the observer. We want to know what the artist's thought processes and methods are, while they want to know what the viewer's experience is and what they have to say about it. This is very hard to do at a meta level, but I will try. Why do we make art and what is the role it plays in our lives? I have been exploring these questions and I see…

I have lived in many types of cities, big and small, and wherever I go I search for a way to connect with others. I look for that collective experience that delivers a sense of belonging within life's transient framework. I was born in Sydney but since I was 14 I have lived between Sydney and Byron Bay on the New South Wales north coast. In Byron - a town of about 5000 people - the opportunity for collective experience oozes out of the unfinished pavement. Everyone is constantly interacting with one another, whether it is through local cultural events, buskers, or a simple smile and hello. Byron's emphasis on community is what made me realise how important it is to stay connected with your surroundings, for the well-being of…

PAUL PHOLEROS It was 1985 when an Aboriginal man called Yami Lester, desperate for a solution to his community's healthcare crisis, gathered three whitefellas together in a room in Central Australia and implored them to help him achieve his goal: to “stop people getting sick”. As Director of the Nganampa Health Council, Yami had run a health service employing doctors, nurses and Aboriginal health workers for many years in his own community, but had not seen any improvement in the overall health of his people. The men Yami assembled (a doctor, an environmental health officer and an architect, Paul Pholeros) agreed to the challenge. The outcome was Healthabitat, an organisation still run by Pholeros, Stephan Rainow and Dr Paul Torzillo. In the last 30 years, they have gone into communities…

In the closing pages of Mindful Work: How Meditation is Changing Business From the Inside Out, author David Gelles shares a final vignette that (like the rest of the book) is more revealing for what it omits than what it describes. Interviewing Chade-Meng Tan, founder of Google's wildly successful “Search Inside Yourself” mindful business training program, Gelles asks him why mindfulness is so popular in Silicon Valley today. Meng replies, “The corporate spirit here is to radically change things for the better, to take radical steps for improving the world … It's a very altruistic and idealistic culture.” Gelles shares Meng's self-congratulatory explanation without additional commentary. Yet it's well known that the Silicon Valley tech boom has created unprecedented socio-economic inequality in the San Francisco area, with record numbers of…

JESS MILLER Jess Miller isn't a foodie. By her own admission she's not even a very good cook, but she's interested in growing things. I first encounter Jess Miller when she takes to the stage at TEDxSydney's 2015 launch to present her curated food menu - Rebel Food. Impassioned and spunky, Jess grabs the mike and informs the crowd that she's sick of society's obsessive rules around food. As if rallying an army to war, she declares she wants to break the cultural, economic and social rules we've imposed on ourselves when it comes to food and have some fun. “We will eat things that are considered pests, that have outrageously been thrown away, overlooked and unloved. We will push the boundaries and celebrate the ugly and unexpected foods that…