Hi, I'm Haley. I'm Kita and this is Bodhisattva.
I started June 2014.
I've been three years now and Haley joined me last August, right? August 1st.
So it's been a year. I've always just seen RVs and vans and been like,
"I knew freedom back in 2012." I started dating a woman, we never talked about it
and I just shared my desire to be in a van and she was like, "oh, well come over
here and look at my computer", and showed me a picture of her van
and then she let me take it and live in it for a while. It was totally the lifestyle
for me. Every van I saw I went and like went inside and asked them if I could peek
in and look in. I have another parts van, which is the exact same van. Got it for
700 bucks. And that's a good segway into how I got into the van is that I'd
been jumping around from collective house to collective house in Vancouver
living an artist, an artist lifestyle, having like four jobs as well
as my dance career teaching and performing contracts and then paying $600
$700 for a tiny room in a house with five to eight other people and there's
got to be another way that's a little more sustainable for an artist. I
originally moved into the parts van. We just got along and were really compatible and I ended
up being in Bodhisattva, it just worked out.
This is Bodhisattva 1980 Dodge Van 200, 1200 bucks. I got it off a guy who had it in
storage for like six, seven years. Old retiree sitting under a carport. He
wanted to get rid of it. He just saw how excited I was. That's another thing. When
you go buy it and they're old people, they really like passing on their gems because they were once young
just like you and everyone likes that inspiration, you know. And that is a big discount
sometimes because he wanted 2500, but all I had was 12 so he took it. Just
picked this little gem up. King Canada 950 watt generator. I've got this to charge
my two deep cycle battery. We can make smoothies off our Nutribullet, make
our own almond milk, hemp milk, walnut' milk. We lock it up, we start it, we leave,
we go do yoga, go do our errands, whatever and then we just let it run and
obviously we park it somewhere where it's out of the way, right? Otherwise you know
if there were people like here in this campsite sleeping why would I have it going on?
Go where you're
not going to be disturbing anybody and then do it. Here it came with a sink. It was like
a small counter but the counter was actually double and in the inside was a
sink, a single sink, so you could fill up water from a hose, gas station, whatever.
The water tank was all underneath and then you would run your water and I
never had a holding tank, some of the vans have a holding tank, so right here the
water would come out and this is where in, you know when I first got my van, I'd
be brushing my teeth inside I'd spit my water and then rinse the sink and then
of course the water is coming outside and that's when the community
center went under the van here on a Sunday morning and was like, "dude, you know, you're
just asking for trouble so stop that immediately", and I did.
Fridge, propane off the front battery 12
volt and electric so if I'm plugged in then I can save propane. If it's plugged in
it's the strongest I find. We got our cream for coffee in the freezer with a
big block of ice, some berries for smoothies. This is our lemon for the
living health, lemon juice. So in here's organic lemon with the rind with
the seeds, turmeric, black pepper, ginger sometimes Himalayan, cayenne pepper
all in the Nutribullet. We add maple syrup, this keeps us going. Another vanner
gave me the idea to turn the seat around and this is the actually the vinyl seat
out of the parts van and you can see the cloth seat was the original
one. Highly recommended it in the winter time or if you need it.
We just went to Value Village and got brand new shower curtains so polyester
acts as a good insulator so this is the inside of the, looks like the sheen, and
then we've got the inside which is like a brown suede. I doubled it and this is a
wool shawl for meditation and that's a really good insulator too so that's our
curtain on both sides and then the center one just provides a little bit
more flexibility. We just doubled it because we ran out of wool. Come on in.
Here's our stove, oven, we put our pot in here for coffee.
You know, you gotta have treats, right?ForeverLivingHealth we're all about
convenience so we had a craving for cookies the other day and we're like,
"let's bake some cookies" so oatmeal chocolate chip cookies we're going to bake
later. Maybe we'll bake cookies, you want cookies later? Cool. Then over here
we've got just our dishes and piss bucket. Screens on the windows are great
for the country. I've got to replace my two top screens and the bed if you can
look at the bottom and look underneath if I was to put this into a couch I
still have the full height so I can put wood, lumber, that kind of thing, and if I
have any long things like skis I put them underneath and it's
a nice storage. Yoga manuals, deep-cycle batteries, laundry underneath me, dirty
laundry, filing cabinet with all our papers important stuff, work stuff, all
the stuff you're going to learn online and then in that back corner is our
juicer and our printer and then clothes. We put a little curtain
up here, this just comes off easy. We can throw all our bedding up here. I've got this side.
I've got three bags and Hayley's got like three or four bags. We pretty much
eat out of the Pyrex storage containers that are like this,
right? So that'll be Hayley's bowl and that's my bowl and if we have leftovers we put the
lid on, throw it in the fridge, and if we eat it, great. And then of course I
designed this little thing. That's our spray bottle with the thieves oil we
told you about. This is handmade on Salt Spring island and it is a blend. Clove
oil, lemon oil, cinnamon oil, eucalyptus oil, and rosemary oil. All organic.
We put 20 drops in a spray bottle in one liter and that's our air freshener
that's our counter cleaner, that's our spray all the corners, mold, all the
drapes. These are two double mattresses extra firm from IKEA. These
are 149 each so it's 300 with tax. I'm just planning on getting a new mattress every
year. I sit on it, I do everything on it, other people are on it,
and then eventually if I'm sitting on this same spot like this is my spot and
this is Hayley's spot. So when we watch laptop movies right here, we lean back, we
stack up our pillows, eventually the cushions going to lose its umpf and we'll
just get another one. When we got these ones the sleep we had was just like
amazing after, you know? I don't have a horn so I've got an air horn. I've never
had to use it. We use the front up here just for like a mudroom so rain boots, I
got an air compressor for our tires. Always check your tire pressure, you got a lot
of weight on here, you always want to check your tire pressure. My tire
pressure I got three tires that always go like 10-20 pounds of pressure down after
like two three weeks so if I don't do it it's just stupid, right? So I've got this
one. 30 bucks Canadian Tire in Canada. I have no
idea where but it's got the pressure gauge right on it so you literally
screw it on, boom, leave it, clean, switch the tire. If you're living in the
woods there's rodents, right? So we've got an inverter hooked up and this is a
rodent frequency thing so we keep this on when we're away
cuz it's emanating frequency. It's supposed to be safe for humans. Do I trust what
every corporation says to me? Like a good citizen, I do. Bodhisattva is clean
antique and I feel like I can go up in some car shows with this, right? Where
some vans I look at them and am like, "what are they thinking?" You just got to be contained. So if you're
going to be a vanner and you're going to be on the road like keep your sh*$ tight and clean because
it reflects all of us.
When I've been in a house with other people there's so many different
paces around me as well as being in a city I'm being affected by my
environment. This shift the major thing allowed me to learn how to rest. My
best advice is just patience with the process. For me it's just four questions.
What do I like? What do I require? What do I desire? And, what do I deserve? I've
found in my own practice in my own life is what I deserve is what happens in my
life and that's very tough for a lot of people to swallow because there's a lot crap
that happen in people's lives. This is a simple lifestyle choice and to get there
there's so much that we say no to. To let go of, to let go of. This is the payment right here. This
is it, this is it. Deepening the relationship with nature, this majorly facilitates that.