My name is Quinoa.

I am currently travelling through Europe for the summer and always very happy to meet gentle, thoughtful, life-loving people and to spend time in nature, gathering, camping, hiking or rock climbing. I will spend most of my time at the Rainbow Gatherings in Bulgaria and Turkey and at Radical Faerie Gatherings in Folleterre, France.

I am a writer and performer and I have been travelling on and off for many years, especially in New Zealand and Australia. Sometimes I live in Melbourne or Wellington. Sometimes I gather with beautiful gentle people in the wilderness.

I bring a gentle calm into my environment, but I am also prone to exuberant and joyous expression. I like to share poetry and philosophical conversations. I enjoy hot baths and independent cinema. I love to be out in nature and I love to connect with humans and other animals.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I love to share and experience exuberant joy.

I always carry food and I always carry my writing. I love to cook for people. I love to perform my writing, speaking at open mics and open fires everywhere I go. I wrote a book about my travels around Australia called How Australia Made Me An Anarchist.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I have hosted and I have surfed and have enjoyed many positive experiences through this website.

Interests

I am interested in the beauty incarnate in the bodies of certain valuable individuals in this strange world, those beautiful people guide me to wonderful places.

I am always learning and always writing.

I love swimming naked in the ocean and will take any opportunity to do this anywhere in the world there are gentle, friendly people.

I am most interested in making connections with humans and other animals that break through socially constructed barriers. I search for these people everywhere I go.

• animals
• arts
• writing
• books
• poetry
• performing arts
• beauty
• concerts
• cooking
• walking
• movies
• traveling
• music
• piano
• backpacking
• rock climbing
• swimming
• hitchhiking
• beaches

Music, Movies, and Books

Check out the programme for the New Zealand International Film Festival for an idea of the types of films I enjoy watching. I usually attend that festival, seeing over 60 films in 2.5 weeks.

I have been enjoying the early independent films of John Waters lately, particularly Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble. Divine is a great role model.

I think Lars Von Trier is the most important artist in the world working in any medium at the moment. To see what I mean take a focussed moment to watch Antichrist, Melancholia or Breaking the Waves. I am considering going to Denmark to offer myself as his apprentice.

Bjork, Anohni, and a diverse range of other chilled music. Björk is overwhelming me with the beauty of her voice and the depth of her vision. Bob Dylan is my favourite.

I usually read a lot, but sometimes books are too dry and lifeless. I like to read the weirdest, most difficult books I can find. Lately I've been reading Carlos Castaneda, William Blake, about psychedelics and shamanism, queer and feminist history. Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Danced naked in the pouring rain by a huge fire in the Australian wilderness.

Teach, Learn, Share

Death comes to all those willing to live and death comes in many forms. The scariest death is the one that occurs in the midst of life, the one at the end is relatively quick and painless. I fear the death that will end the minor and stifling conveniences and comforts I have accumulated.

I like to blame those in my life that represent my mistakes. These scapegoats pay the time I have talked my way out of. I fear nothing but the aspects of myself I project onto the skin of others. I yearn for nothing but the aspects of myself I have long rejected. I perceive only the holographic forms of my own abstract thinking; therefore my fears are never unfounded. I dream of a deeper conception of reality than my senses can gather, but when my phone wakes me from non-REM sleep I instantly forget them.

Everything I want will fit onto a shopping list that will always be slightly longer than my wealth. As I grow older I systematically shut myself off from my ability to form new ideas about my life; instead I build higher and higher fences around my pedestal. I think the pedestal is getting higher and it's true the legs are growing, but actually the well around me is growing deeper.

I use time to prove I exist, but time has already chosen when my presence will be eliminated. I want to sleep forever and wake up in the yesterday when I knew that I was safe from the chaos of the universe.

Despite my creative perceptions I cannot imagine a structure able to control the mass organic force called life that binds me to this dimension. So in the meantime I distract and amuse myself with the sex and food I can convince myself is utilitarian. I cannot convince myself that employment for the accumulation of economic benefits is worth the value of my sobriety and streamlined sanity. I must have a mental illness because I am under the impression that the government is not working in the best interests of me and my friends. I cannot understand why I am not miserable that I am the only one in my family to not have a partner and a job. I am not bound by the neck with mortgages and employment contracts, but I don't know what to do with my freedom. I have boundless conversations with those souls willing to dismantle their barriers but nothing convinces them that anything but their anxieties are manifest.

I feel like there must be a codeword God has programmed into the recesses of our mind that instantly releases us from the baggage we pack into every orifice and tuck under our skin and through our hair. Maybe if I speak that word out loud I will have a purpose in life, though I must develop an economic model for presenting this codeword to others in bars or theatres around the world. If I cannot justify my existence how can they believe me when I claim I am as much alive as anybody; and how can I say that honestly when I feel half-asleep. I know I will do something and the sky won't fall as a result, but I fear the stares of others and what their unconscious prayers might be burning into my flesh.

Hope is the most dangerous valuable commodity on Earth and I handle it like plutonium. When my spirit is pure and shiny and honest I know I will be protected; I know I won't die unless I need to; I know I won't stagnate cos I'm never willing to dig holes to stick my feet in and I know I will recognise the truth because I usually refuse to bury my head in the hole society has dug for it. I know there's a TV in there and some KFC that was on special cos it was defrosted yesterday, but there's nothing on TV better than the tide coming in and out and I can't afford to eat free chicken, much less work to pay for it.

I would love to collect many books to fill my mind and many masks to hide my face but I have nowhere to store them; I have no home to lock and if I leave them lying around they are likely to get stolen. I see every human being as a work of art, beautiful to explore, but they only open their hearts to me briefly and for specific purposes.

I am cold because I look silly in the hat that keeps me warm.

I have profound connections with a few individuals around the world but we are not together because the most superficial and banal aspects of our lives do not correlate. They invite me to their homes but their energies are bound to activities they do not enjoy, understand or gain value from. I ask them why they persist in these activities and they shrug; when I continue to press them they make empty threats against the chains and bars they hold around their faces. Neither of us know what to do but for some reason they toil in despair while I wander in confusion. We both run from our own tailbone and yet when we're lying in bed with the moon shining on our faces we understand explicitly the futility of everything except love. Even hope is futile when there is no object of hope and there is understanding that chasing anything is an empty-handed affair.

I am older than I was yesterday but not necessarily closer to death because my actions could have changed the trajectory of my life. I will carefully consider which bridges to burn and then make sure a really good jump could get me back just in case; yet I know there are so many bridges in the world I can't burn them as fast as they are being built. I'll just walk across this one in front of me cos it's here and so am I. Tomorrow I may change my mind but today I don't give a flying fuck what all this noise around my head is telling me. I'm going home to have my lunch and then I'll live the rest of my life; until then I will rest my hand from all this writing and have a drink of water, cos I know I will feel better when I stand up.

© 2009 Chris Kirk

2009-06-02

What I Can Share with Hosts

I love to cook and usually have a surprising amount of food in my backpack.

I am a performance poet and I am happy to share with an attentive audience.

I am friendly and respectful, clean and communicative.

I am happy to help out around the house.

I love a good intelligent open-hearted conversation.

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Guatemala, Mexico, New Zealand, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, United States

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