Hello there Dear Ones,
Wow, life is amazing, I am forever being blown away by life right now. My intention for life right now is to celebrate every moment! This has been blossoming in many ways for me-talk about the power of thought, thought creates your world,life and reality. Well life has opened, calmed and gotten more exciting since I have last written.
I had to get out of Ubud, I wasn't feeling connected to it any more with all the noise and pollution and too many things I was thinking I had to "do". YIKES!!! Who wants a list of things to do on a holiday-whether it is to see things, heal or listen, a list of things to do is not on my list of wants and desires in my life. Yet some lists are very nice.
So I took off to Lombok and fell in love. I mean, fell in love.....in love with life again! I saw where I was holding back and now I see where I can open and live full on. My experience there on Gili Air was heaven. Awaken at 5:40am, go to the beach, write my intentions, meditate, do some yoga, and then lie in silence sometimes looking up at the gorgeous blue sky and green leaves of the trees above my head and then sit up to see the sun coming up over the great mountains of the mainland of Lombok-GORGEOUS Island! So lush, green, wet-especially now, wet season and the people are real there. They can live without tourism so not so much pushiness of need. Yet on Gili many live off of tourism. So my day then would go to having a banana pancake for breakfast with tea and fruit salad and then to my FAVORITE part of my day. The underworld that brought me back to life and healed some part of me that I can't yet explain. Try to imagine, drifting, floating, looking around and seeing light blue, and then you realize you might fall and trying to catch yourself when you realize you are being held by the gentle warm water of the sea surrounding you, watching fish of all different colors, shapes and sized all around you. The coral gleaming in orange, purple, green and yellows. Watching the sea plants swish along with the waters current back and forth, up and down in brillant colors! And then there are the turtles, what can I say, I was there long enough to hear their voice, they talked to me, I'm not joking. Not physically, but in a telepathic way. I would be swimming and I'd hear inside myself, "go to your right and you'll see a turtle". So I'd swim there and sure enough there was a turtle, brilliant with green and white spots, just drifting, floating to the surface and back down again in utter peace and joy! Then another time I was swimming to the deep cliff under water and something said "turtle" and told me to look to my right and there he/she was, it looked at me as if I was blocking it's safety route to the sea and so I moved a little further up and then it gently started moving toward the deep part while looking at me, communicating things of what it was feeling and sensing. I felt like these turtles were good luck, and healing, I felt lucky to have seen them, felt them and be with them if only for a few minutes! I fell in love with diving under the water and seeing everything closely, in my face. Watching the big brilliantly blue lips of clams go in and once I was gone go back out again, the fish that would come up to nibble on my fingers as they thought I had food, I watched all the fish going in and out of the coral and plants and the fish that lived on the floor of the ocean that matched as well as the shark like skinny fish that swam only on the top of the water, they love to watch people and swim near but not too near us. This is the most calm, most in love and best meditation I have had in a long time. I'd feel like I'd been gone for 30 minutes and it would have been 1.5 hours. I really fell in love with life there, they underworld life and the ocean is where I am at peace, feel at ease,understand life and do some deep healing.
In being there I realized that it's time to leave Indonesia, though I'm not done seeing what I would like to see, Kerala, India is calling. I really need to follow this feeling. So I'll be leaving when my visa is up on April 22nd. A little sad to leave as it feels like I've explored so little, yet learned so much. The great thing is I've had 2 full days of hiring a jeep with friends and going around Bali-get this, renting a jeep is only $10.00 for a day and then the guy that takes us around works on donation and really feels like more someone to hang with then some cold guide detached. Well, actually, I have to tell you, that I've been proposed to....yes, it's true, the guide is a local man that is very spiritual and getting into Tantra and within 1 hour of knowing me proposed. He told my friends yesterday we are getting married next year. I didn't remember saying yes. He's already got my career planned. Get this, I/we will be teaching couples how to kiss, well, locals anyway as he feels that locals here don't know how to kiss and need lessons. One of his first questions to me was if I thought I was a good kisser and I guess from my answer he gathered we could teach this course. Of course I wouldn't kiss my clients and the classes would be 50,000rupiah per class- $5.00. What's funny is he's never kissed me and I can't see that happening but it's funny to see how he puts me in a career. Then I will also making offerings for celebrations and oh if I want to yes I could do my movement classes if I had to. Pretty funny. Oh, and he wants 3 wives, one from Europe, one American and one local. I told him we'd better get along, but if we got along too well we may not want him any more!!! ; ) Pretty funny. So, no I don't hear wedding bells with him. But he is our guide and he takes us on some incredible journeys to temples, to the jungles to see gorgeouse parts of Bali that are breath taking and mind blowing. I have to say I was not open to Bali until coming back from Gili Air, I wouldn't have enjoyed this trip as much before. I needed the beach to relax from life to take it in. Now I walk down the street and I look everyone in the eye and I feel relaxed and in love with traveling and all of our differences fade away to a place that they are all safe and embraced with newness!
Lombok is mostly Muslim. How I'm getting to know more about this religion/culture and people. They are great people, so beautiful. They believe in no killing-ok yes we in the west think differently of Muslims as for our "experiences" with them or what we've been also told to believe. But the Muslims here are gentle, caring, spiritual, they believe in no lying, killing, praying several times a day starting at 4am. Mohammads birthday celebration landed on Easter funny enough! Well the celebration was grand! I have to say I love the that holidays here in Asia are surrounded and based on the kids. They put up a huge tree pole, grease it up with black thick grease and then the kids take about 3-4 hours to try to find a way up to the top to get gifts at the top they throw down to the others and some they get to keep but most goes to the adults-parents, etc. But they work as a team like I've never seen before, well except in Latin Culture they do it too. The kids were trying to climb the pole one by one, then they'd crawl up on each other-talk about kids not being breakable, these kids would be stacked up on top of one kid and that kid would twist out from under them and they'd all fall down. There no anger, whining, no parents running up to see if they were ok, they all just laughed. There was no violence, hitting, shoving, just laughter, fun and playfulness and working together as a team. Finally the adults got involved and one got to the top to wipe off the grease and after that, this very limber boy, who I thought would make it to the top when I first saw him, he did and he got the big prize that he got to keep!!!! 5,000 rupiah (.50 to us). All the others climbed to the top and the crowd would tell them which gift to choose, they all worked together in it, it was beautiful and peaceful. I can now see why western people can fall in love with Muslims. I met one man/boy and I could see how one could fall for him, or at least easily have a crush on him anyway. Gentle, spiritual, light, caring and very into his religion. They don't have sex until marriage, they choose their partners, they don't marry for at least 2-3 years to make sure they know each other and it will work between them. Wow! They really blew me a way. I love it!
So now I'm back in Ubud to finish things up with Batiking and seeing more of the island before I leave. I'm excited to be here, really excited, embracing life and travel like I hadn't before. Something really took me and opened me being in Gili and it made me love life so much more! Can I tell you that enough!!! Who knows.
The one thing that was funny and a little annoying in Lombok is they'd call you by what they know of you or see. Like they'd walk up and if there were tourists there they'd say "hello American, Japanese, or what ever you are, German". Instead of calling us by name as they all probably know us by name by then as there was only about 20 tourist on this whole island. My favorite was coming back and being in the bus and I was talking to someone and at the window this kid says, "noodle hair, water"? That is how he saw me, with noodle hair, and he wanted to sell me water. Pretty funny. He was persistant so after saying no kindly I closed the window and my friend just laughed so hard! I'm not used to so much persistance but I'm getting used to it.
Walking around Ubud seems new to me now as my head is up not nervous of all the people trying to sell me something. I'm learning a ton about myself and them and this country. It's been eye opening and every moment there is more to explore. Though I'm sad to leave I'm ready for India and the healing I have to do there and explore. I get that I'll be looking into Ayurvedic cleansing and yoga and see Amma as well as some other teachers possibly. But I'll be going up to Ko Phangan first, in Thailand. It will be nice to be at the ocean on my favorite Thai island. I actually just found out there is a Tantra Yoga class there that goes into cleansing, Ayurvedic healing, etc, so I may have to check it out on the way-they have up to a 40 month training course-no I won't be joining that!!! I don't have a huge interest in learning Sanskrit but I'm sure the training is great. I met the teacher 7 years ago, we'll see how I connect with his teachings now.
So there is a million other things I'm sure I could share with you but this is probably getting long. I would love to hear from you. I hope you are well. Oh, I read something went something like this "the past is a cashed check, the future is a promisary (sp?) note and the present is like cash, spend it now as you won't have it again". I love that. Makes you think, if I were to die tomorrow what would I have wished I'd done? For me, it would be dance/perform more, sing more in front of people, build more of a community of people around me, make more time for the people in my life with dinners, talking, laughing, sharing, games and just being. I'd let go of the stress of making money, saving money and let life be and give and receive love from the ones that near and dear to me. What about you? If you had one day or a week or maybe even 6 months to live, what would you do? It's a great question to see what is important to your heart. We can't take money with us, but to love our soul takes us so far before we pass away.
I send you love, gratitude for being part of my life and I so look forward to hearing from you. Love and blessings, hugs and kisses, Heather
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