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I want to share this with you. Its difficult to condense these experiences into words but I wish to reach out and touch you. FOrgive me for flowery lines and unbroken thoughts. I was in Bali and that’s how it is. I just have to let everything flow out ....
Bali, is for me, a paradise of yin possibility. I found exquisite joy in small things like flowers in my hair and cleaning rice with Balinese sisters and lush friendship vortexes. Time here, slips out from under you in the gorgeous ease of the day. Rubbertime, Balinese call it, rubber drips into your time so that each moment stretches out and cushions you. Bali is full invitations to lean back and be blissful, its in the food and in the homes with bamboo space and running streams.
Bali for me is also revealing. It strengthened my body and spirit while very gently showing me my weakness and shortcomings. My fears and neediness came to the surface so that I could deal with them in love. Much of this was facilitated by a woman I met the second day I was there, Wayan. Kadek and Tutti also. These three femme fatales made the core of my experience there.
There is a fire-spinner who did a poi workshop in Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand. In january, as I prepared for travel, I was searching the web for firespinning in Thailand and his post came up. Forest. I soon realized that several people I know in LA, know Forest, and I only heard glowing things about him. Through tribe.net I continued to follow his posts. When he wrote about Bali, something woke up inside me. Yes! I had heard on the wind about an artistic mission going there. So in Bangkok, I bought a ticket to Bali. And in Ubud, I went to pass by an ex-pat hang out that Forest had mentioned. Then I saw, across the street, Balinese Traditional Healing. Learn Balinese dance. Yes! Dance and healing practices. Learning these is a major mission of my adventure. I followed guiding lights and here it is. I walked in to talk to Wayan about learning dance.
The night before I had seen some of this dance. Low, connected to the earth, elbows akimbo, hands taut. Flashes of gold, sweeping sarong tails and flowers, flowers, flowers. And the eyes, Darting. Small shifts in the eyebrows tell the story.
I asked Wayan about dance. She looked at me and I looked at her. We recognized each other. She invited me to a Temple ceremony that night and the following day to go to a healing temple. Earlier that day I had the sense that I would be going to a temple so I already had my temple dress ...
The healing temple is a large pool with fountains fed by a freshwater spring. At each fountainhead one prays and bathes. Part of the Ben Ben Stone film crew was there as well. We held flowers in our fingertips with prayer hands above our heads. I took that moment to connect strongly and clearly to the Divine. Afterwards, Wayan had a feast for us, grilled tofu and tempeh, water spinach, seaweed, red rice and noni juice were among the good things to eat.
The food! Wow! I've never eaten such energizing food. It is food with love cooked into it. After the healing temple I stayed with Wayan for a few days. This time together was important for increasing my self-awareness and understanding of Balinese life. I came up against gaps in economic equality in friendship and the difficulties of mixing healing work and business. I also saw the battle to direct passion and love and how these energies can be fruitful and also abused. Wayan, Kadek, and Tutti, these women clearly reflected to me certain aspects of myself. Much of the time, I just hung out in the restaurant with them, teaching English, learning Indonesian phrases, participating in whatever small tasks were at hand. We practiced massage skills together. I made some monetary donations to the household. A little dance. Later Wayan found an experienced dance teacher for us. We all practiced together. It was fun, trying to hold the positions, sweating, using one foot to sweep away the trailing sarong. It opened options for me as a dancer.
Wayan took me to see a healer with a holy knife. It was surreal. "Intense form of acupressure" - my mind held on to this phrase as a way of rationalizing what I was doing. Six Balinese and me sat in a small structure and watched the holy healing knife go to work on each person's body. Each person removed their shirt and sat in front of the healer. The healer pressed the dull point of the knife into the body, and dug in or drew it across their skin. Without breaking the skin. But enough to hurt. The healer cackled as his victi- I meant patient winced and cried out. When my turn came I balked momentarily, then gave myself over to it. I sat in my bra and sarong with my back to him. He reached under my arm and across my chest, and gave me a swift twist, and my back said POP!-POP pop POP. He twisted me to the other side and it felt great. Then he searched out my body evils with his knife. I breathed into the prodding until he got to my feet. He drew the knife tip across the souls of my feet and jabbed it between my toes. After a few minutes I couldn't stand it and I pulled my feet out of the operation. He told Wayan that the source of my energy block, why I get so easily fatigued, is in my feet. Which could be true. Strange things happen in my body when my feet get attention.
Then it was Wayan's turn. Knife on the back thighs and shoulders. Her long black down to there hair sways around her body. She pulls down her bra and shows the healer her breast. She lays back and he pinches and twists her coffeebean nipple with one hand and with the other hand, he presses in the knife. Wayan's face creases with sensual folds of pain and relief. She jerks and cries out. The audience, the Balinese and me are riveted. We leave our mouths ajar so that mosquitoes fly in and suck blood from our tongues. I am surprised and not surprised. I know what this is about. The pain that is being addressed in the breast.
Five days passed without my notice. Rubbertime. I started to feel restless, so I hired a guide to accompany on my motorbike to Amed. Snorkeling. Wayan fretted. She gave my guide a serious warning to keep us safe. My gentle lovely guide. He taught me to smoke cloves with breakfast. We explored iridescent communities in as offshore shipwreck. Challenging myself to dive deeper and deeper, swimming through the hull of the downed ship. Staying down, equalizing the pressure in my ears, going further and further until I was on the edge of panic, holding calm as I rise up for air.
When I get back Wayan says she can't sleep worrying about me on my motorbike.
"You want some food?" It became a phrase of loving concern. Each time I walked into the restaurant Kadek would ask "You want some food?" As my time to leave drew near I heard the phrase more and more, even when I had just turned down the offer. We started to laugh about it. I started to say it back, "You want some food? How about coffee? Tea?" Wayan and I plotted out dreams for the future. We started to get sad at the thought of saying goodbye. "I get really sad you leaving, you know?" Me too. But I'll be back. Undoubtedly, I will return.
Also, there are wonderful interactions with other travelers and seekers. My last night there was a gather at the home of the yoga teacher Sky. At the end of the evening four gorgeous boys remained and I watched them play tumble through wrestling/partner yoga/acrobatics. Then we laid out on the floor and made sound vibrational harmony. Sky was my guide for the shivering challenge of a late night Temple crawl at Besakih. He explained the significant points of Hinduism and helped me eat my first Durian. Durians. I could eat Durians everyday for the rest of my life. It's more of an experience than a food ....
So that I was still thinking about Durians when I arrived in Bangkok.
Premonition.
Bali, is for me, a paradise of yin possibility. I found exquisite joy in small things like flowers in my hair and cleaning rice with Balinese sisters and lush friendship vortexes. Time here, slips out from under you in the gorgeous ease of the day. Rubbertime, Balinese call it, rubber drips into your time so that each moment stretches out and cushions you. Bali is full invitations to lean back and be blissful, its in the food and in the homes with bamboo space and running streams.
Bali for me is also revealing. It strengthened my body and spirit while very gently showing me my weakness and shortcomings. My fears and neediness came to the surface so that I could deal with them in love. Much of this was facilitated by a woman I met the second day I was there, Wayan. Kadek and Tutti also. These three femme fatales made the core of my experience there.
There is a fire-spinner who did a poi workshop in Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand. In january, as I prepared for travel, I was searching the web for firespinning in Thailand and his post came up. Forest. I soon realized that several people I know in LA, know Forest, and I only heard glowing things about him. Through tribe.net I continued to follow his posts. When he wrote about Bali, something woke up inside me. Yes! I had heard on the wind about an artistic mission going there. So in Bangkok, I bought a ticket to Bali. And in Ubud, I went to pass by an ex-pat hang out that Forest had mentioned. Then I saw, across the street, Balinese Traditional Healing. Learn Balinese dance. Yes! Dance and healing practices. Learning these is a major mission of my adventure. I followed guiding lights and here it is. I walked in to talk to Wayan about learning dance.
The night before I had seen some of this dance. Low, connected to the earth, elbows akimbo, hands taut. Flashes of gold, sweeping sarong tails and flowers, flowers, flowers. And the eyes, Darting. Small shifts in the eyebrows tell the story.
I asked Wayan about dance. She looked at me and I looked at her. We recognized each other. She invited me to a Temple ceremony that night and the following day to go to a healing temple. Earlier that day I had the sense that I would be going to a temple so I already had my temple dress ...
The healing temple is a large pool with fountains fed by a freshwater spring. At each fountainhead one prays and bathes. Part of the Ben Ben Stone film crew was there as well. We held flowers in our fingertips with prayer hands above our heads. I took that moment to connect strongly and clearly to the Divine. Afterwards, Wayan had a feast for us, grilled tofu and tempeh, water spinach, seaweed, red rice and noni juice were among the good things to eat.
The food! Wow! I've never eaten such energizing food. It is food with love cooked into it. After the healing temple I stayed with Wayan for a few days. This time together was important for increasing my self-awareness and understanding of Balinese life. I came up against gaps in economic equality in friendship and the difficulties of mixing healing work and business. I also saw the battle to direct passion and love and how these energies can be fruitful and also abused. Wayan, Kadek, and Tutti, these women clearly reflected to me certain aspects of myself. Much of the time, I just hung out in the restaurant with them, teaching English, learning Indonesian phrases, participating in whatever small tasks were at hand. We practiced massage skills together. I made some monetary donations to the household. A little dance. Later Wayan found an experienced dance teacher for us. We all practiced together. It was fun, trying to hold the positions, sweating, using one foot to sweep away the trailing sarong. It opened options for me as a dancer.
Wayan took me to see a healer with a holy knife. It was surreal. "Intense form of acupressure" - my mind held on to this phrase as a way of rationalizing what I was doing. Six Balinese and me sat in a small structure and watched the holy healing knife go to work on each person's body. Each person removed their shirt and sat in front of the healer. The healer pressed the dull point of the knife into the body, and dug in or drew it across their skin. Without breaking the skin. But enough to hurt. The healer cackled as his victi- I meant patient winced and cried out. When my turn came I balked momentarily, then gave myself over to it. I sat in my bra and sarong with my back to him. He reached under my arm and across my chest, and gave me a swift twist, and my back said POP!-POP pop POP. He twisted me to the other side and it felt great. Then he searched out my body evils with his knife. I breathed into the prodding until he got to my feet. He drew the knife tip across the souls of my feet and jabbed it between my toes. After a few minutes I couldn't stand it and I pulled my feet out of the operation. He told Wayan that the source of my energy block, why I get so easily fatigued, is in my feet. Which could be true. Strange things happen in my body when my feet get attention.
Then it was Wayan's turn. Knife on the back thighs and shoulders. Her long black down to there hair sways around her body. She pulls down her bra and shows the healer her breast. She lays back and he pinches and twists her coffeebean nipple with one hand and with the other hand, he presses in the knife. Wayan's face creases with sensual folds of pain and relief. She jerks and cries out. The audience, the Balinese and me are riveted. We leave our mouths ajar so that mosquitoes fly in and suck blood from our tongues. I am surprised and not surprised. I know what this is about. The pain that is being addressed in the breast.
Five days passed without my notice. Rubbertime. I started to feel restless, so I hired a guide to accompany on my motorbike to Amed. Snorkeling. Wayan fretted. She gave my guide a serious warning to keep us safe. My gentle lovely guide. He taught me to smoke cloves with breakfast. We explored iridescent communities in as offshore shipwreck. Challenging myself to dive deeper and deeper, swimming through the hull of the downed ship. Staying down, equalizing the pressure in my ears, going further and further until I was on the edge of panic, holding calm as I rise up for air.
When I get back Wayan says she can't sleep worrying about me on my motorbike.
"You want some food?" It became a phrase of loving concern. Each time I walked into the restaurant Kadek would ask "You want some food?" As my time to leave drew near I heard the phrase more and more, even when I had just turned down the offer. We started to laugh about it. I started to say it back, "You want some food? How about coffee? Tea?" Wayan and I plotted out dreams for the future. We started to get sad at the thought of saying goodbye. "I get really sad you leaving, you know?" Me too. But I'll be back. Undoubtedly, I will return.
Also, there are wonderful interactions with other travelers and seekers. My last night there was a gather at the home of the yoga teacher Sky. At the end of the evening four gorgeous boys remained and I watched them play tumble through wrestling/partner yoga/acrobatics. Then we laid out on the floor and made sound vibrational harmony. Sky was my guide for the shivering challenge of a late night Temple crawl at Besakih. He explained the significant points of Hinduism and helped me eat my first Durian. Durians. I could eat Durians everyday for the rest of my life. It's more of an experience than a food ....
So that I was still thinking about Durians when I arrived in Bangkok.
Premonition.
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