wow, i can't believe i've already been in bali for almost 3 weeks. and honestly i have no plans to leave anytime soon :)
it's BEAUTIFUL ~ jungles, volcanos, flowers, temples everywhere, friendly people, good food, safe, clean. people here say i was lucky to chose this as my first stop, but warn me not to get stuck here! but that wouldn't be all bad...
i've been staying in ubud, a town in the center of bali (bali is a whole island, fairly big ~ would take a maybe 5 or 6 hours to drive across it). ubud is known to be the artistic/cultural center of bali and i can see why. there are lots of places to do yoga, meditate, go to healers, crystal shops ~ it's great!
i'm really enjoying settling in a bit. i'm so grateful for this time, i love waking up every morning & deciding how i want to spend my day. most days it's something like: meditation, breakfast - which is served where i'm staying, always includes fresh pineapple, papaya, bananas, then maybe running an errand, reading by the pool, going to yoga, having a meal with someone interesting i've met here. the food is great ~ there are a few "health food" places and i've been eating great fresh wonderful meals for $2 or $3 ~ things like green papaya salad, lots of tofu & tempe & curries & coconuts & cashews & noodles & fresh squeezed juices.
the place i'm staying is gorgeous! i have my own little bungalow, it's one big bedroom with a gorgeous carved 4 poster bed, big bathtub, nice front terrace/porch with a table & chairs. everything is woven bamboo or beautifully carved wood everywhere you look, and there are flowering trees right outside my door. it's amazing! and it's about $11/night :) oh and the same family owns an even fancier place across the street with this gorgeous swimming pool that i'm allowed to use. lucky me, huh?!
http://www.artinicottage.com/
i've gone on a few expeditions since i've been here. one day i went on this eco bicycling tour and saw & learned so much! had breakfast on the caldera of a volcano (there are 2 volcanos on bali ~ people say part of why it's such an interesting place is the volcanic energy here brings up a lot of things in you, good opportunity for dealing with & clearing things!). then we visited a plantation & learned about lots of local edible & medicinal plants, watched coffee being roasted & has a sample (i had ginseng coffee ~ yum!), got to taste lots of interesting fruits - guava, rambutan, passion fruit, other interesting things i've never seen or tried before. then we biked about 30 km, through all these little villages full of children running out calling, "helloooo! helloooo!" everyone here speaks english. it's nice, but it means i haven't had to make much of an effort with my indonesian or balinese. we got to tour a family compound (people here live with their extended families), see bamboo be stripped & woven & dyed, watch wood carvers, go into the rice paddies & thresh rice with these ancient looking women. we finished the day up with a trip to the monkey forest! ~ more of a jungle than a forest really ~ with 300 monkeys running around in there! and oh my gosh there was a cremation happening at the temple there which was quite a sight, one i've never witnessed. cremation is a big deal here ~ it's extremely expensive since it involves all kinds of rituals. so most people are buried right when they die, and then in july or august every year each village will do their cremation. the bodies are dug up & cremated together, since it's such an elaborate affair and most people can't afford to do it just for one body.
the balinese put so much time and effort and energy into their ceremonies & rituals! there seems to be a major one every week, and there is another temple everywhere you look. you're only allowed into temples if you're dressed properly; for women this means a sarong & a scarf tied around your waist. for men, a sarong & a wrap thing tied around your head, almost like a do rag. there is a 4-day ceremony going on right now & tomorrow is the culmination: the full moon. so this happens every month! and there is one for the new moon & there's a whole balinese calendar full of ceremony-worthy events!
the family at the place i'm staying invited me to their temple for tomorrow's full moon ceremony ~ i'm excited to see what it's like!
they don't celebrate the equinox here ~ i guess it would be the autumnal one for them since we're in the southern hemisphere (great stars by the way!) but since we're so close to the equator the weather doesn't really change much. warm & sunny almost every day, with a quick rainshower some afternoons. it's perfect!
it was balinese new year the week i arrived here ~ it's called nyepi. the night before, these giant papier-mache evil spirits are paraded around town. they are HUGE! i wish i could upload photos but the connection here is so amazingly slow that it crashes the computer every time i try. so each community creates one of these oogoh oogoh (what they call these giant evil gods) and march them around town with gamelan orchestras playing & tons of people in the streets. the idea is that they invite the evil spirits to come to bali, and then on nyepi (new year's day) the whole island falls silent. it's crazy. everything is closed, no one leaves their houses, no one speaks, even the airport closes! i had to stay inside my hotel place all day. it was really lovely. oh and so the evil spirits who have been invited come to bali & see that no one is there, and so they leave the island alone until the next year!
i've really been enjoying the spiritual explorations i've had time for here ~ it's such a good place for it. i've been meditating most mornings, and there's a great yoga place here ~ the classes are in this open-air pavilion which is beautiful. there was just a yoga/dance/music festival here so met lots of interesting people & did some amazing workshops: laughter yoga (soooo good! look for a laughter club near you: http://laughteryoga.org), qi gong, qawwali sufi chanting, kecak/monkey chant (just like at burning man!), received deeksha, having been really interested in sacred geometry ~ i went to an all-day lecture yesterday about the work of nassim haramein ~ unified field theory ~ amazing stuff ~ lots of physics & sacred geometry & ancient religions & civilizations & crop circles & the galactic federation. some of it was kind of out there, but it's a lot to think about ~ i certainly have some new ideas of what the universe is made of. and i'm really interested in sacred geometry! there's a lot of it here ~ i'm meeting people that are into all this stuff too, it's great.
oh there is so much to say but this post is getting awfully long. sorry not to have photos. i'll try to post more regularly so it doesn't get so long.
oh ~ i have a cell phone here, and would love love love to hear from you! country code is 62, then my number is 087.86.111.4393. i think you might leave off the 0 at the beginning. international texting is cheap too! :) lots of love & blessings to you all ~
