a WAY, kin to MAGIC...

***********
magic magic everywhere



there was so much magic today.

i asked my friend yona twice how to say "magic" in bahasa indonesia...
the second time she finally said "ZANI! why you love magic?"

we had an incredible conversation that i can't even really translate/transpose because it was in so many languages... english, indonesian, body language and energy.

She picked up my rose quartz ammulet and held it for a little while and then closed her eyes. Then she looked up at me like she understood. "magic" she said.

apparently she has seen terapis (i guess some kind of healers) use rose quartz to heal people.
and here i am telling her i believe in all kinds of magic and synchronicity and i wear a rose quartz chunk around my neck that sasha made and tied around me in venice before i left...
i have a rose quartz ammulet that erin and i were gifted in santa fe and i never travel without.
and a rose quartz heart that a reflection connection spirit gave me after the car accident.

"zani-merah jambu magic" (rosy pink magic) she said...

i told her i am a "bagus penyihir" (a good witch)

she said "merah jambu magic bagus penyihir terapi"...

magic is everywhere.

i see it in the sunlight on the palm frawns... i see it in the way the raindrops fall... i see it in the reef and the vines and the trees... i see it in every set of eyeballs i look into. but i hear so much magic when someone laughs.

it's everywhere.

i walked out of the bungalow about midafternoon to find Ainsley near the driftwood castle using this SUUUPER old school lawn mower on the grass that grows under the clothes lines that are tied between palm trees.
I got so excited by this lawn mower that you push and blades spin... almost as excited as i get to use a clothes line that's tied between palm trees to dry my sarongs and bathing-suits in the island sun... i relieved Ainsley and started pushing this giant, heavy thing around that you literally have to use all your upper body and core strength to make it move... and i seriously did not want to stop. it might be my new favorite pasttime/form of exercise.

the monkey, beaker was sitting up on the roof of the outdoor shower, next to the rain reclamation jugs (that would very soon be getting a filling) - she sat munching on a banana watching me with my silly grin, giggling every single time i pushed and pulled the mower.
yona was giggling to herself too, as she pulled weeds and made the little dirt circles around the trees perfect.

they say if you don't maintain the landscaping, jungle will completely take back the island in less the a year. i don't think i can even explain the climate here.
there are about 500 coconut trees on this tiny island, kamani trees (hawaiian flower trees that smell like honey infused jasmine), orchids, climbing vines, just seemingly every single kind of flora and fauna that exists. it's just SO lush. everything blooms and flowers.

even my fingernails and hair are growing at rocketspeed. (although that might be because i ate fish!! yea. its true. i did it. i overcame my fear and i tasted a tuna that cahn had caught that afternoon in front of the island... as he does every night.)

i'm feeling rather full of life to be honest... more then i ever have really.

but everything is ALIVE.

last night i lay in my bed and just listened. it was SO loud. the symphony of crickets and lizards and bugs and geckos all singing at once from deep in the jungle squaring off to the booming waves that crash upon the coral reef.
there is a serenity in the movement and the noise though. it's so still, and yet SO active and moving.
i think about that a lot, that all round me on this 12 hectare island, is moving tides... sometimes i get almost feelings of vertigo like when you are sitting in a car and the car next to you starts reversing and you think your car is rolling forwards but its not. it's actually still.

ya. like that.

another bit from my book "The Twelfth Insight"

"When we feel convinced inside that our spiritual experiences are real, then we must live them fully and openly and tell everyone about them, because if there really is an influence - and i believe there is- then it helps everyone get to a higher level of experience faster."

then i read "We have to stay awake and help others stay awake."

my mind wandered off to staying awake in the car with Mikey.

Mikey was my best friend before life lead us in different directions. He and i went on some pretty insane adventures together though in that year we spent absolutely inseparable.

A few times i drove him to Las Vegas to play music with this ridiculous, satyrical punk-rock band he played in. He dressed up as this motocross racer and got all bro-ski on stage... little did the audience of x-games pick-up truck driving americans know that under that suit he wore a peace sign and a wooden burning man symbol and eyes that ached for deeper meaning in life.

We had a habit of talking for hours upon hours - literally ALL night - and then we'd "sleep" during daylight hours using a blackout curtain- but completely infiltrate one another's dreams-pace and continue our conscious conversations.

We kept each other "awake" almost like a game.

One time driving back from Vegas - we left the Hard Rock after his show at 5am... He needed to be in LA to work at 9am... so i floored it and drove through the night in my little convertible with the top down. Mikey had it in his head for some reason that if you slapped the inside of eachother's thigh really really hard it would keep them awake.
(i got back to LA with completely bruised and welted thighs.)

But we made it.
And we had helped keep one another awake.

Ironically, the Twelfth Insight chapter I am quoting from about keeping eachother AWAKE in the last two blogs, is called "conscious conversation"...

which is exactly what i called my corners at the collective shows (a by-product of being awake as a community of musicians and artists)... thecollectiveca.com
this picture is me, courtney, colin and peter moon at a manifestival for the collective... i made those signs to hang above this little corner i would sit in and just make a little zen zone and encourage people to speak their minds - set intentions.... dig deep into conversations.. and bounce ideas off one another - since we are all conscious beings that have been magnetically drawn together on that night.
it was a pretty awesome time, and this picture is one of my favorites. courtney berman used to photo document all our events and it's crazy that on the other side of the world i can still look at her pictures and be brought right back to those moments.
i love her. (and it's her sister who gave me "The Twelfth Insight" before i left... what a cool family)

I almost had to shake myself to bring myself back to the island after drifting off to those mikey memories.
it felt like a million years ago, even though they were very recent. (last year this time he was living in my apartment... and i was about to leave him to housesit while i came to THIS island, which was the beginning of the end of the Bay street flop house and the beginning of the OM hOMe.)

Coming back from that train of memory my eyes were all black and bubbly, trying to adjust to the driftwood castle. i guess i had been staring straight at the sun while i was off in memory land.

I was sitting next to Cahn.


Cahn is pretty amazing, actually. He lives in this three walled hut and i don't think he owns a pair of shoes or a shirt. and he creates all this incredible stone work on the island (i.e. the shower of the bungalow i have been sleeping in.peep that pic. its unreal)
He doesn't have a computer. No email address, and only got a cell phone a year ago. He reads all the time and thinks deeply, but lives simply.

We started talking about a myriad of things, but mostly the symbolism in everything.
The reflection of nature in itself.
several things stood out in our conversation as mindblowing awesomeness, that i sat and chewed on... rolled over in my mouth like a sip of mezcal...
He told me that

after we are born (from our 100% saline amniotic sac) .... WE are 70.8% water in our bodies. The earth is covered by 70.8% ocean.
The word for "month" is the same as it is for "moon" in bahasa indonesia.
BULAN.
A woman's cycle is 28 days. The Moon cycles every 28 days.
The moon controls the tides... you wanna tell me that the moon doesn't control our emotions too?
BOOOSH.

And if you have ever taken a yoga class from me, you have probably heard me relate the breath to the ocean waves...
as we inhale, its like the sea drawing the water back into the body of the ocean, and as we exhale its like the waves crashing towards the dry sand.
it even sounds like waves.
if you close your eyes and meditate and just listen to the sound of your breath its like being inside a conch shell.

He also told me that coral released these pheromones into the atmosphere that causes clouds to form above them (to protect them from the sun)... which causes it to rain.
(ironically this was a part of the conversation Mikey and I had in my bay street apartment that lead me to call Time Warner and cancel my cable forever.... As Mikey believed that the government had gotten ahold of this and made a technology so they could control the weather and then mind control us with our TVs to cause fear and panic)
typical.

I told Cahn that i believe everyone has a brilliant mind and a pure soul and is inherently good and all love... but we get covered in shit... like barnacles that grow over us in our sedentary state. or filth that builds up on a window that doesn't get cleaned. and once we are able to dig through and clean it off, pick off the barnacles and release all the shit we own and have been bogged down with... we can be free..
and return to purity and simplicity.

but it is hard to release and let go of the barnacles that have essentially become part of us.

Cahn said to me something that was like BONNNNNG - a giant bell getting tolled in my head.

"Barnacles won't live on anything that is in constant movement."

This is how i feel.

I think this might be how i got to where i am right now. I had this feeling like i was just COVERED in barnacles.
i was bogged down.
i was connected to too many people... too many things...
i was plugged into too many sockets at once...
and i felt clausterphobic.

so i started to shake.
i started to panic and have anxiety attacks that i couldn't get ahold of.

and finally i just started picking the barnacles off one by one and then i started running and dancing... and i danced right out of los angeles... and i am dancing on this island... until it's time to move on...

and i just wish that everyone could dance out of their clausterphobia due to stagnation... and then everyone could see what i see.

everyone would wake up.

everyone would see what colors actually look like when you see them through eyes that are awake...

i didn't realize an ocean could be this many colors of blue.

i run and dance and twirl towards the sun... towards spirit...

but in order to be free...
we must first be able to be.

so i guess sometimes we have to fit inside a box, before we can break out of it.

but my friends....

when you're ready to break out... come join me.

i'm waiting in the wild with open arms.

you're all invited to this party.

come run.
run away with me.
we'll run away from running.

nyamuk-in' me CRAZY

******************
today around 7am

I woke up in a panic.
I was in the bungalow bed alone and i had pulled my mosquito net out from it's airtight tucked-in seal...
my feet and legs were sticking out in the open air of the room... in free reign nyamuk (mozzie) land.

my whole body was literally throbbing.

without even moving my hand to feel or opening my eyes to see I knew I had at least 25 new bites.

the Mosquitos are so gnarly for me out here.

as a community of flying assholes, they are obsessed with me and will not leave me alone at all... ever.

I DOUSE myself in repellant daily and nightly... covering my skin in horrible poison, which I hate!
and it's to no end anyways...
they are kamikaze jihadists when tempted with my blood.

I have literally done everything...
I have asked nicely...
I have manifested a forcefield around me in meditation...
I have drank 10 gin and tonics hoping the quinine would make me bitter...
I have had almost a whole bottle of pedas manis (hot sauce) hoping it would make my blood spicy...
I've loaded up on B vitamins... (and now I'm out... but apparently they hate B vitamin infused blood)
I have used every spray, oil, balsam, and lotion in indonesia...

and still...

my blood gets stolen EVERY night...

my skin is left red, swollen, pocked to hell and insanely itchy.

so this morning I lay there on the bed in bungalow satu as the morning light crept in the window and the palm trees rustled in the wind and i scratched.
I scratched my feet and legs until they oozed and bled.
i ground my teeth and pretty much almost lost my mind and started screaming and then thought to myself:


"maybe I'm stuck on this level for a reason."


I can't get off this mental plane of freaking out over my skin and maybe that energy is actually attracting the mosquitos....

like how Jamie used to LOVE to wind me up... see how many times he could poke my hornet's nest until I exploded and everything went storming and swarming and chaos ensued.

tidak lucu by the way
not funny.

but maybe, just maybe once I stop caring, they'll leave me alone?

so I sat on the floor and I closed my eyes and I breathed deeply.

then I did sun salutations looking out the bungalows double doors towards the ocean until I was sweaty and exhausted.

then I walked down to the water (a whole 16 steps) to go for a swim and let the salt nurse my now open wounds.


I tied my mother's pink & purple tyedye scarf I use as a sarong around the kamani tree (the most beautiful smelling honey infused jasmine-smelling flowers bloom on this magnificent species)... and I dove into the choppy turquoise water.

it's definitely another storm day today.

I waded around- fighting against the shallow but strong current and spun around looking out at all the whitecaps out there.

every ripple in the sea seemed to be fighting against the wind.

this beautiul ocean that can be so still an calm that it literally looks like glass, is so throwing a temper tantrum today...
it is adamant it wants to flow southwest, but the wind has other plans for today. it will blow to the north whether the sea begs and pleads or not.

and the sea in turn gets chopped up, whitecaps like tiny explosions... like violently scratched open bug bites...

as i waded near the shore in the grey morning light of a brewing storm-- i watched it progress quickly and ferociously-- rolling across from the far out beyond... I watched it come straight towards me... I ran and grabbed my scarf that was blowing straight horizontal to the sandy ground, and went back into the bungalow as the mammoth rain drops reached land, pounding after my footsteps like the threatening echo of a giant running behind me.

I told myself:
today is the day you let go, zani.

NO obsession
NO freak outs
NO itching
NO caring
NO internet (I'm gonna try... except to post this maybe)
NO refined sugar (I realized I haven't tried that yet as a mozzie remedy -- because I made a percobaaan that I've been working my way through- peanutbutter, coconut, cocoa, coffee, banana ice-cream)

today I surrender.

and I let the banyak nyamuk know that they can't get to me.... they won't nyamuk me crazy!
they can bite me, but they won't provoke me or upset me.

I come to this feeling not by pushing past it or forcing it, but rather by softening inward, relaxing away from my skin and finding peace within.

I always teach that idea of moving in away from the skin-- now I challenge myself to do it.
literally.

i have been thinking a lot about leading by example.

i spend so much time teaching, for some reason.

it started when i was 12 yrs old and i started teaching dance...
since then i've taught pre-school, spinning, yoga, and more...

i always seem to be leading things.
but i wrote this poem in a book i was looking through recently...

"she whispered to her shadow...

upon these sands...

to be free, we must first be able to be.

i may guide you to the center of your soul...

but do not follow me out your door.

For i too stumble in the dark and walk towards a beacon i cant make out in the distance."


in other words... i am a student too!

and i am doing my best to live my truth...
practice what i preach...
walk the word, ya know?

then (to no surprise, really)... synchronicity had it's way (as it always does) and i opened the book that i am reading (a gift from BBerm)--- i am pacing myself through it SO slowly - only letting myself read tiny bits at a time, and then tasting them, marinating on them...
the book is THE TWELFTH INSIGHT, by james redfield

and i read this page today:
_____________________
.... I nodded. I knew a little bit about Kant. He was the father of a philosophy called phenomenology, which essentially called for thinkers to suspend their ordinary way of looking at a give phenomenon in nature in order to see it in a fresh way...
I'd even heard of the imperative idea - living and conducting yourself as if others would be compelled to live and believe the exact same way as you - because, said Kant, that is the exact influence we actually have on them.

Everyone has to not only be honest but tentative in their beliefs before making great proclamations, otherwise we can be pulling others in the wrong direction, just by this mysterious influence we have on them. The Document says that we have to come to grips with the fact that our personal reality is contagious.

It says that each of us must first and foremost 'prove to ourselves' that our conclusions about spirituality actually work before we pass them along as truth. And because we are adding spiritual knowledge to our secular reality, we should use 'logic first' as we proceed...
_______________________________

**********
a little later on...

UMM... life got so beautiful today its blooooowing my mind.
i vlogged it so much...
and was able to upload a video to youtube...
here it is...
(p.s. that is my friend Yona in the driftwood castle)



maybe this was my cosmic omen telling me that i am on the right path - i am walking... charging it towards the unknown like the hermit crab - who cares what the destination... just forging new tracks in the sand...
and finding beauty in absolutely everything.

as soon as i stopped freaking out... so did the weather.

i mean - this storm just vanished.
it was so magnificent.

I am living my personal destiny... i am finding my personal truth... and i am discovering sweet synchroNECTAR everywhere.

and i am learning to bow to my divine teacher within....

OM SRI GURU BHYO NAMAHA...

2day's thoughts & things

****************
yesterday
a day for pondering...



i feel like today is a day for thinking.

i kind of want to cut myself off from the Internet. i want to not check my email or facebook or skype for a week and see what happens.

we only have the internet during waking hours here anyways - so at some point, the internet goes off and then doesn't come back until the morning.

it's another super stormy day.

the winds are so intense here.
last night, my friend joey and i slept in the driftwood castle under this epic princess mosquito net that i discovered two nights ago. its really thick and probably too hot during nights when it isn't so windy...
but it's been perfect for the conditions of the last two nights.
the mosquitoes and the wind stay out and we stay cozy inside.

the storms get so crazy. maybe its something with being so close to the equator.
i feel like ten times as much water comes down in each raindrop and the wind blows ten times as hard, and everything is just heightened.

tadi malam (last night) - everyone was exhausted, so we got into the princess net early and decided to watch this documentary "LSD: the beyond within" while the wind whipped through the room and the rain pounded down on the sagu palm roof above us. creatures clicked and rustled around as huge bugs buzzed outside the thick white fabric... attracted to the light of the computer screen.
i found out that LSD was invented on my birthday (april 16th)!
whoa.

then the generator went off... and so we put the computer away and chatted for about an hour in the pitch black of night.

it is SO dark on stormy nights. as wide as you can possibly make your eyes, as long as you wait for them to adjust.... there is NOTHING to see. its like seeing what it would be like to be blind.
not even a silhouette to make out.

its no surprise that the conversation lead to "synchronicity"... and the last things we said before falling into a deep, 12 hour sleep were agreeing that

1. we have no say in deciding what will happen. the only thing we ever get to choose is our reaction. (sound familiar??)

2. we are creating our realities. and have a choice to make manifest beauty and ease in our lives.

3. we have to trust and surrender. gifts cannot be given to a closed palm. we have to let go to receive. if we are wrapped around something - holding it tight - gripping onto people and things - we can't grow any further. we have to keep letting go.
over
and over
and over
and over

i slept like a baby and woke up before the sun was up, but dawn was starting to break, so there was a little light... sitting, to look out at the ocean, i started my daily ritual of sending blessings to the people i love, but softening my heart and melting from the inside out, across the ocean...
i visualize my love, melting like drawn butter... oozing into the hearts of my beloved.
the wind was so intense and looking over my shoulder i saw that princess tent and it was just too enticing, so i crawled back in and slept for another 4 hours or so.

banyak tidur. (too much sleep!!)

when i finally rolled out of bed, coffee and granola were out on the bar and i put on my trusty "morning mix" - plugging my i-thing into the speaker system and finding the perfect not-too-abrasvie and just loud enough to be heard volume level.

the mix starts with bob dylan "meet me in the morning"

my eyes started to adjust to the light. my body started to wake up.

then cat stevens "wind" comes on.

comments of how appropriate that song is on a windy morning like today are spoken... and i rant and rave about how much i love it.
seriously - its my top five favorite songs.

tia and i made up a harmony the last time we were in santa cruz walking back up from the sunset all snuggled together under blankets - before caravanning with all the gorgeous members of the red house and going to see aaron glass perform. (i love him.)

simon & garfunkel break into "the only living boy in new york" ...

joey made a comment about the line 'i get the news i need on the weather report.'
surfers seriously LOVE to talk about the weather... almost more then the British do.
the weather is no good today.
...and apparently is going to stay this way for a while.
well... plenty of time for yoga, pondering, and drug culture documentary watching, right?

i walk to the bar to fill up my third cup of wonderfully strong coffee.

"sigh no more" - mumford and sons comes on next.

my heart wanders off, diving into days and nights gone by over the last year in venice beach.
the undertow of memory pulls me into a night not too long ago - but seemingly in another lifetime when joshie wore his poncho, aaron and amber were in town - and that night's designated crew of love beings wandered back and forth between shawnskitawnky compound and the om home.
we climbed a wall like spidermen.
we crashed a house party on broadway and i pretended to dive into a pool, that was not a pool at all, but a reflection of moonlight...
aaron and the om home's tara sculpture got deep into it.
she told him to laugh and smile at everything.
we sat on the wood deck outside the sliding glass window when shawnski was sleeping and reminded eachother that WE are ONE.
we kept laughing and screaming "we created we"
we were wrapped in native american inspired blankets all night and then i dreamt that night about sky-diving with the blankets as our sails.

i gaze out at the indonesian ocean and then out a little further to the horizon and i sigh...
then i giggle at the fact that i am sigh-ing while listening to "sigh no more"

my attention comes back to the table and i tuned back in to the conversation being had by birdie and johnny.

"indonesia has the most diverse reefs in the world."
"ya... but they're quickly dying."
"ya... i saw that only 6% of the reefs here are perfect and undamaged."

*another point to ponder.... the destruction of the earth. HOW can we be doing this?
and what can we DO?

Cahn has been reading a book called "The Wild" - and as we were deep in come philosophical conversation, he stood up and went to grab his book.
he opened it and told me to read the first page...
...this is the first page.

whoooooosh
i mean... is this me?
did i write this?
or is this telling me, like mumford and sons tell me...
"you are not alone in this..."
there are others who ache and itch and thirst and crave THIS...
just flying...
freedom.
isolation.
the open road.
the wild.

i stare out at the waves a little longer and day-dream about dreaming.
touching foreheads with someone i love.
third eye to third eye.

i get up and change the music to "come around sundown" by kings of leon and proceed to let the entire album play three times while cleaning up and typing letters of love.



i decided that i am going to sit as HIGH UP as i can today and write... and i am going to write with my hand.... pen and parchment.
i will transcribe what is appropriate.

*****************
today

(this is transcribed from the book i wrote in)

the top right hand corner where you might write the date says:

who knows/2011
who cares o'clock

i told shawn hannah i would climb somewhere high and write with a pen today.

here it is.
pen in courtney's book.

my height is in my optimism only for i am upon a flat island.

i am, however, sitting on sand that slopes up from the ocean...

it's high tide but you wouldn't know it cuz i'm as dry as a bone...
minus the sweat...
and the slightly damp bikini from this morning's swim.

but, umm... is a bone even dry?

bones are under our skin, surrounded and swimming in blood and fluid.
weirdos.

i'm facing directly west.
(i can tell because of the reef and where the channel runs between our island and the neighbors... it's what defines the waves.)

i wonder what's out ahead of me.

what is beyond this island of ocean-eyed dreamers and simplicity?

the last thing i wrote in this book is
"SURRENDER TO THE SIMPLICITY, ZANI."

and i have
and i do
but i wonder
what happens if i take those irish lyrics and "swim till you can't see land"

how far can i go?

how long is my reach?

what will my fingertips brush up against if i stretch and shoot firelight out to light the way, as i soften inward and call out into the cosmos?

and it just occurred to me that i wrote this to myself:

"feel nothing. we reach out to find what was standing behind us."

its one of the first lines of one of the first in a slew of poems that erupted out of me after jamie left.
...i think maybe each word i wrote... (which felt every time like the words were writing ME)... were written to THIS me.
The one who was once future me...
and will soon be that girl i USED to be...

i don't know for sure, but i think our venice wormhole takes this ridiculous concept of time and plays with if in a funny way...
WHO KNOWS?

"Cuz I've been dreaming of the open road.
I've got this feeling like i won't be coming hOMe anytime soon.
Let's go around the world and make it new.
and Oh, let's get lost.
Let's walk into the dark and forget about our sorrows.
We'll learn to let go."

But like my friend Mick said that day we climbed to the top of a hill in Padang...

"we can't get lost when he have no destination."

and none of it really matters anyway.

Last night my friend Nati said, "Johnny... two things i've noticed about your island. two things. and i've taken note... and i love these things and i hope you never change them...
ONE: no t.v. anywhere.
TWO: no clocks in sight."

brilliant.
cuz WHO CARES whats happening over there?
BE
HERE
NOW

(btw - i clearly failed at the whole disconnect from computers and internet for a few days idea.)

But, hey... I'm just existing... flowing... Rolling with these waves and letting my love spill out from my heart and roll west.

i still have no clue what its gonna hit first - maybe the seychells... or the maldives... or maybe africa...

It doesn't matter.

I have enough joy to send to everyone.
I am happy.
Saya Senang.

I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know not and I care not. For I know what happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose. -Ayn Rand

i mean... BOOOOOOOSH.

p.s. i made this video today - kind of like a promo for yoga & surfing at Togat Nusa

F.O.M.O.

F.O.M.O. = Fear of Missing Out.

i just watched this.
it made my heart hurt.

sooo... remind me why i left this place again?
whooosh.

every person in that room.... i love you.

your crazy-ass gypsy-lady sister (who is currently perched in the middle of the indian ocean chanting at reefs and chasing red dragonflies through the jungle) deeply and truly loves you with all of her heart, soul, and self.

blessings to all of you, my hOMies

i wouldn't be who i am or WHERE i am without you.

i send you love & light every single morning as i sit drinking my coffee...
i look out at the waves and send cosmic messages in imaginary bottles to be carried back to california.... bliss blasts for your beings.

if you haven't felt one from me yet.... it's on it's way. get ready for it.

bloooosh.

beCAUSE...

**********************
today.

...beCAUSE

yesterday i woke up totally jazzed and with the entire island to myself.


everyone was off surfing and I was waiting to skype with Max and Kevin about our moroccan argan oil company - ARGANADIX...

I haven't been involved too much with Arganadix in the last month because I've been oober busy becoming an E.M.T. and gearing up to move and embark on this adventure... but the time has come to dedicate some time, now that i have plenty of it.

It's crazy how time flew in the month before i left.

A lot of really intense things happened right before i departed my fair Venice... like the way things go down in a dream. You aren't quite sure how that piece got there, but you go with it and just accept it as real.
Also - i seem to be forgetting some things. Like how when you grow up and once upon a time, things seemed magical, but then your grown-up brain says -oh no.no.no.... there's no WAY that is real.

Makes me think (very ironically) of Leonard Cohen's "Alexandra Leaving"...

even though she sleeps upon your satin.
even though she wakes you with a kiss.
do not say the moment was imagined.
do not stoop to strategies like this.

I can't help but to find myself saying many moments were imagined... and all i can seem to remember clearly is that some things slowed way down and others went into hyper-speed. i remember i got really overwhelmed for a minute or two.

You know, going full gypsy is not as easy as it sounds- there was a LOT to give away, allocate, and undo.

Planning to live without a plan takes a lot of planning, somehow.

Anyway- back to my story.
So, the day was here.
The sun was up... and I was crawling out of my nest.

I stretched my arms above me and groaned really low and loud.
I was all wrapped up in the tender yellow morning sunlight that was peeking through the jungle and into my window....

I shuffled around a bit, wiping the sleep from my eyes, and then did a few sun salutations on the porch...


...and made my way to the driftwood castle to get a cup of coffee.

walking from my dreamhut to the castle, i pass under palm frawns that make the rays of sunlight motorboat across my face.

my feet are leathering up (and not so tender as they were when i arrived) as i trot along the path of sand, shells and kerikecil (coral pieces).

the turquoise ocean ripples to my left and just a little further out beyond the reef the barrelling waves crash.
I could see brent's boat anchored out at a neighboring break and i could just make out my friends surfing.

They look like tiny black dots carving down epic blue mountains.

getting myself a coffee, I came to sit in the regular a.m. location- upon two benches that come straight out of the castle and run perpendicular to the ocean, we all come here, staring directly at the break they call "scarecrows"...
it just feels like the right thing to do, to sit here and stare at the waves for an hour or so before starting the day.

I love how every single person here wakes up early. like, super duper early.
early rising is one of my favorite things ever. (and I have recently realized- one of my non-negotiables in a man)... I think it's definitely a surfer thing but it's not so much a musician thing to wake UP before the sun- as it is to sit on the front porch and still BE up playing guitar as the dawn starts to glow.

which dont get me wrong, some of my favorite times of my entire life have been watching the sun rise with the loves of my life in Venice.... but getin up early is the best!

I used to wake up at the ass crack of dawn to practice yoga for a long time-- with my Ashtanga practice in London and then when I lived on bay street and would practice at yogaworks on main with Kathryn Budig. (one of my favortite yoginis of all time).

see... this is why yoga and surfing are so perfect together.

early risers.
in touch with an organic flow (the waves, like the breath).
the chill vibe.
and vinyasa (linking breath to movement).

I started making a little video last night to send to my yoga teacher friends to encourage them to come do a yoga and surfing retreat out here. (i'll post it when i'm done)

this island is just the perfect location for both artform practices and the ideal retreat location.

like I said... I was jazzed yesterday- making website stuff for arganadix, a little promo teaser videos for Togat Nusa- and then I went out with everyone after lunch an sat on top of the boat in my famous orange throne (where I take all the lifevests up to the top of brents boat and make a little bed) and took videos and photos of the crew surfing their afternoon waves.


we got back to the kingdom around dinner time and it started storming.


sheets of rain pounded down on the sagu palm roof.

the roofs are so badass here.

this tree (the sagu palm) grows in the mangrove jungles and provides food and frawns that make perfect watertight roofing.

The rain hammered down and we all lounged around digesting our food and playing with the monkey...

I had been thinking about my goddess sister Tawney all day for some reason.
Tawney has got to be one of the most inspiring women I know.
I remember the first night I met her so vividly.

For a couple months, my beautiful friend shawn had been inviting me over to his house and I kept not making it for one reason or another. Shawn and I kept finding each other along lifes path-- in a park in San Fran and on street corners in LA until we took a hint and realized we were supposed to be friends.
I remember he came to Harvelles on Christmas with me, my sister and about 4 or 5 friends.
I think it maybe was the next week I obliged and said I would come hang out at his house.
little did I know I was crossing through gate to meet my long-lost spirit family.

I feel like the universe had been waiting so long to reconnect me with these guys. but seriously .... all of them.
I can't say enough.
I love them so so hard.

so there was Tawney Bevacqua- beaming sunlight that seemed to bounce off her salmon colored sundress and paint every wall in the entire room with her bliss.
out of the blue she screamed "dance your dinner off" and we all immediately got on to tables and chairs and danced like it was our job.

Untitled from tawney bevacqua on Vimeo.

there is no way this is NOT my sister.

her room was decorated as though she had climbed into my brain, ripped a page from my soul and used it as a blue print.

we sat taking about philosophy and life all night and I recognized her paradigm so clearly it was like we wore almost identical prescriptions on our eyes.
then she picked up a book she had made of herself called "frequent flier" - which is photos of her exploding with joie de vivre - suspended in air all over the world-- India, Europe, South America....

needless to say, Tawney immediately became one of my best friends.

two weeks before I left on this adventure, a woman ran a red light in Venice Beach and smashed into my car, seriously injuring Tawney's face. (read her story for the whole thing)...
I didn't leave her side almost at all until I left an she was able to get around again. sitting by her side was an upanishadic experience.

I witnessed miracle after magical miracle

people coming together in support, sharing their healing modality, playing music, briging food, flowers... this was testament to how amazing Tawny has been to the world...
but the true miracle was her reaction.
and the power of her positivity and optimism. her healing was such a phenomenon and her attitude floored me.
she is an angel of light.


a photo of her in the e.r. covered in blood after the accident came on my computer screen as I was flipping through images in iPhoto with Johnny after dinner last night.

he was of course wide eyed at the gruesome post accident image.... but said "slavery sucks?.... who's a slave?"

Tawney was wearing a shirt from her work- the non-profit "FREE THE SLAVES"
in the accident.
(ya... like I said-- angel. she frees slaves and everything... ya. I know.)

I explained to Johnny as Tawny had explained to me and countless others since or known her--- there are an estimated 27million people in slavery today.
a slave is anyone forced to work without pay and unable to walk away.

Johnny and I were sitting in the driftwood castle right where my friend Ben and I had sat last week talking about altruism and causes. (He is the one who hired my Padang adventure buddy Mick to come and work for habitats for humanity and rebuild the tsunami destroyed villages.) and looked at the Free The Slaves website and talked at length about it.

it made me think.


why are we here on earth?


maybe... just beCAUSE.

to BE for a CAUSE.

my high school friend Doug died last October.
yet another tragic, unnecessary death in one of the most privileged communities in America.

a young man spoke very bluntly and candidly during doug's eulogy.

this is what I heard him say:

"you are the rich kids! you grew up like this cuz your parents are really successful. probably super dynamic and masters of their craft. and that same dynamic potential is in your blood. you were not only born with the ability an capacity to do great things, but you have the avenue to do it too. do you know how lucky you are? do you know how much you CAN do?! and instead, you assholes keep self combusting and dying off... cuz you have no cause to funnel that fire towards. so find a cause!!! do something with your life and these gifts you were born with and into! go find a freaking purpose and stop dying!!!"

it's so inspiring when friends like Tawny live for their cause and walk their truth and have a purpose.

we all need to find a cause... there are so so many... just chose one and start making a difference.

even if your purpose is just smiling at and loving every person you walk by today- just make it your purpose and don't stray from it. love fiercely. spread it all around the world.
be a love ninja!!!!!

god, I feel like such a missionary.

zensual healing...

a somber kinda day
*******************

we woke up on the island today with just the crew that live here plus joey from the d'bora boat.

and it felt a little empty... somber somehow.

even the weather felt that way. there was no sun. choppy whitecaps all day, and although it never actually rained, it felt like the clouds were on the verge of tears and the wind never stopped... i didn't actually mind the weather although everyone else did cuz they couldn't surf... it felt like a dramatic representation of that post excitement comedown time. the decrescendo.



but, if there is ONE feeling i know how to deal with, it's the feeling of emptiness.
and c'mon, this is nothing compared to the things that have brought me feelings of loss/emptiness in my life (i.e. 2 houses burning down, various friends/family members tragically dying, getting a divorce at 26, etc. etc.)
i gotta make very clear that waking up in paradise with my new friends i made in the last week no longer here is not exactly detrimental or horrifying.
but like everything does in life... it pulls at a string deep within us.

it asks us to go back in time... chase the undertow of memory and resurface a lesson we learned along that particular strand of emotional life.

and this morning it felt like, ahh. yes. i know how to do this.

i remember after devin petelski died, i started really pondering deeply about angels and what they were and i came up with the sentence that made the most sense to me:
"Angels are the Space Left Behind"

it makes sense to me at least, that when we LOSE something, there is that void, that longing and missing feeling - often we refer to it as a "hole"

but WHAT A GIFT space is...

In the western world at least, we are totally shit scared of space. We rush to fill... to consume... to stuff ourselves.
We don't know how to be hungry.
We don't know how to sit with the emptiness.

(this is something i work on with my breath-work... holding all the air out at the end of an exhale to train myself to just learn to be OKAY without grasping or gripping or wanting something.)

When i am talking about losing a friend or even just like today, waking up and feeling just a little somber... a little incomplete and empty... i think of the word
VINYASA KRAMA
it means "carefully placed step"... so i think about emptiness as a blank canvas - an unfurnished room - with which i get to place whatever i want in it... carefully, consciously, and thoughtfully.

Ironically - (or maybe totally not) - this morning i woke up in the bungalow (or as i really prefer to call it: the driftwood dreamhut) - which is where cahn's mother, father, grandmother, sister AND neice were all staying while they were here.
it is called Bungalow Satu (Bungalow One) - and it is absolutely the most unique, drop dead gorgeous thing you have ever seen.
It's where i stayed the first week i was here before the guests arrived and i moved into the monkey bar/restaurant/driftwood castle.

I told Ainsley i would get down on the cleaning duty as soon as i woke up this morning. (call me crazy, but i seriously LOVE cleaning. i was kinda stoked for it.)

As i started to clean the space, i just automatically started setting up a little zen zone for myself (as i really really love to do wherever i am)... i just set out something flowy and colorful and the Green Tara tapestry that Aunt Devon gave me, and my Ganesha head and my Mary card my mother gave me, a couple candles and my bible books (various spiritual texts including Kahlil Gibran Sand & Foam ... duh.)

Ahhhhh --- zani's zen zone started coming together.

I didn't even realize until later in the evening tonight that i had literally taken that metaphor and actualized it. The way i relate feelings of emptiness to an empty room and conscious life choices to fill the space and redecorating...
I am so grateful that i get to borrow this little slice of the driftwood island kingdom... and get to play house and live here until a guest comes (of course).

While i was cleaning bungalow satu, my friend Yona came in to help.

She saw my zen zone and started asking me about my religion and surprisingly, we had the most EPIC conversation in bahasa indonesia about the way i see the world and jiwa (spirit) in semua (everything)... we ended up getting super deep. it was an amazingly bagus percakapan (good dialogue)...

Then we spent the day running around the island laughing and talking in indonesian... i am learning so much.

We went to the worker housing for a little bit and were laughing so hard. We didn't speak really one english word. it was so badass.
Yona told me i should write a song totally in indonesian, like my friend Nick 'Wallaki' did with his smash hit "Suara Alam"
JUUUST wait until this video gets posted. its SO good.

So i came back to zani's zen zone in the bungalow and sat in meditation, speaking to myself in indonesian only.
I couldn't think of the word for inhale/exhale or even in/out or up/down... so i visualized my heart...
the chambers of the ventricles and arteries and how the blood flows in and out through the body and lungs and i said canan (which means 'right') and kiri (which means 'left') - as i visualized the blood through my system as i breathed.

it was a SICK meditation... sick in the good way, ya know?
Bagus.

The night ended with dinner and a hard core game of darts. (i showed the guys who's boss... okay okay... it was totally beginners luck. and i ended up not even winning...)

But i am just feeling so happy to be here... still.

with deepest deepest gratitude for the magic of TOGAT NUSA and the amazing week we just had with our aussie fam.

This is me with Sophie, Cahn's radical 5 year old neice who i adore.



ya... we ARE actually mermaids... don't worry about it.

lunareflections from inside a reef ring

***********************
lunareflections from inside a reef ring

SPRING EQUINOX 2011

is everyone on earth feeling this magic or is it just happening over here?

the coral reef is completely exposed around the island right now.

this magestic, proud looking species is poking up out of the water in a ring that circles all the way around us.

i hear my brain going, "ahh.. ok. gotcha. NOW that makes sense."

it's like a secret roadmap has been revealed to me. the answer key popped up to say, 'See? THIS is why we are here.'

It's the lowest tide of the year apparently.

Cahn just told me that the most intense tides (highest and lowest) are during the few days after a full moon.

how symbolic is that?

the moon is so magical to me.
the cycles are always telling and profound for what is happening in life.

first of all - we know that the moon controls the tides.
it's a fact.
and then you think about how we as humans are... what? 80% water?
So i just really think the moon is inevitably going to have a pull on us in one way or another.

"The tides are in our veins...
We still mirror the stars.
Life is your child...
But there is in me,
Older and harder than life...
(and more impartial),
the eye that watched before there was an ocean." - Robinson Jeffers

so ya... i believe on a new moon which is dark... it is all about sitting with your thoughts and setting intentions... and the next two weeks as the moon waxes, those manifestations begin to sprout and take life.
and on the full moon, things are fully brought TO light.

i find it amazing too that i didn't even really realize or think to find out how potent and powerful that full equinox moon was supposed to be until i saw on facebook my super tuned-in friends in venice talking about it.

the moon was actually the closest it has been to the planet in 20 years.

And yet - without even knowing that or talking about it- we were all completely affected by the power of it here on the island. none of us could sleep the night before- everyone tossed and turned and was up and down feeling weird. i sat outside alone after i had been pulled from sleep and actually ended up writing long email replies to a couple people who i found emails from when i was sitting there in the quiet calm of my sleeplessness.
maybe we couldn't sleep because it was somehow our bodies anticipating the full moon energy that was on its way.
the last hump of waxing and growing to its magnificence the next night.
...and then the following night we danced literally ALL night and swam around the island.

celebrating something in the cosmos.
(little did we know the moon was reaching down to us as we lifted our hearts in song and dance to it... and i unknowingly returned the moonstone from my ring - which fell out as i swam in the silky water bathed in the light of that moon.)

...the tides are truly in our veins, my friends.

AND actually, something i started to take note of this morning -
the sea is in our eyes.

Every single guy here coincidentally (or maybe not) - has piercingly blue eyes.
Seriously - Johnny, Cahn, Birdie, Joey, Brent, Ben, Tom, Jye, Larry. Everyone. Eyes like the ocean.

It made me ponder for a second... i mean... maybe there is something inside of us that pulls us to live and exist near the ocean? We are inherently by-the-sea-dwellers...

even further to this idea that we are inherently drawn to the same place - and to one another... we realized this morning over breakfast, that everyone was from the southwest part of their country.

The Perth area is roughly in Australia where the Southern California area is in America - which is where the Cornwall area is in England.
...and check out a map of indonesia... We are pretty much as far west as it gets out here. As we talked about it, we realized that there is a pull to the southwest for all of us.
Maybe it has something to do with the way that "settlers" always seemed to land of the east coast in most countries... and then the "adventurers" - the "freedom seekers" -- the SEEKERS who want to search further, tend to head west -
we're the ones who go as far as we can... and then even further...

children of the sea with the tides running through our veins.

i just see so much symbolism in everything, it's kind of out of control.

i was just sitting telling my friend jackie here that i realized that the moon took her stone back, so i wasn't upset it came out anymore... and maybe i would go to outer-space and return the meteorite and then go to egypt and return the crater rock.

and then i walk out front and start going OH MY GOD - what is all that brown sticking out of the water?
and its because the reef is exposed

it looks like arms wrapping around our island... protecting us and holding us here in the middle...

the waves are breaking so huge right behind where i can see the reef sticking up and then between the ring and the sand where i am sitting, the water is just SO still and crystal clear and shallow... i can walk out for 100 meters and still only be chest deep.

we are just so held. we are so blessed.

before i came out here, i was talking to my new friend joey (he's staying here for a little while i think... he's from the dbora charter boat) we sat sipping our coffee in the driftwood castle chatting about our goals and what we want to receive and manifest for ourselves and i said, "well, shit. why don't we have a manifestival here on the island every full moon?"

-the name "manifestival" was created for the collective shows in LA -- but i feel like we could take it to a new place and have a manifestation festival here on the island where we all just plant seeds and talk about what we want and help each other set goals and even just the power of SAYING things out-loud...
speaking out what we want to make real for ourselves.

Josh and i have been talking about that a lot lately.... Realizing how when we actually verbalize things, they come true! it's insane.
we need to be very careful with what we say, because we are literally creating our realities.

But then my friend joey noted that just by saying things to our friends, then your goal or intention is in THEIR heads too and everyone is collectively helping to manifest your dreams without even really trying.

of course i start thinking that we should write our intentions down and carve them into candles and speak them to one another in a ritualistic fashion... but we could make it as spiritual or as not spiritual as we wanted...
even just hanging out and talking to our friends about our dreams and goals and intentions... i think that we can make absolutely ANYTHING real for ourselves.

and especially under the power of the full moon, which showed its power to us in the last few days...
it infused us...
it made us all LUNAtics for a night...
it took back the moonstone from my ring...
and it birthed this reef for us to see today...
it's blowing my mind.

here is CASE. IN. POINT.

lunatic behavior. it's no accident that you can't spell lunatic without LUNA.



and also something that is blowing my mind are the cloud formations out here.

i forgot how unbelievable the clouds are here.
They are so unique in this part of the world.
There are so many faces and spirits and images that seem to form in the clouds that hang over this island chain.

As crazy as it sounds... i seriously feel guided by the spirits in the clouds here.
It's undeniable.

The clouds are full of faces and gods and goddesses right this second.

okay. i think i have been sufficiently weird here.

close your eyes and see mine.
my pupils are the island and my iris is the ring of water i am wrapped in.

if you look into my eyes you will see i'm alive.

i am very alive.

Beach, Dance, Pray.

*********
PART 1 - i started to write this maybe yesterday - maybe it was the day before. no clue, really. jam karet.

Beach.

it's 11:11 (for a change)


I'm lying on the beach with my trusty i-thing.

we are SO LUCKY to be alive.

we get to receive this gift?
really?
we get to feel the magnificent power of the sun as it caresses our skin?
warms us
and
holds us
bathes us in light!?

dude. I am such a sun-worshipper, it's real.

must be an Aries thing.

When i was back in Padang, my friend Christina told me how whenever she goes home to America and comes back home to indo with an extra couple pounds and loses her tan, the indo women say in an almost jealous yet totally complimentary way...

"wow. you look so fat."

I laughed when she told me that... how funny that they thought it was a compliment.

sometimes over here... things happen like that. One person gets misinformed and then EVERYONE says the same misinformation.
ALL kids say "hello mister" to bule (white) women... like WHO told them that? And somehow it spread like wildfire...
I was thinking - HA. someone probably told an indo chick that you should call white women 'fat' and we would like it (just to mess with us)
-and now ALL the women in Padang walk around giving white women eating disorders.
(or maybe that's why there are only 5 of us. rarely does a western woman want to live somewhere that we are repeatedly called fat men.)

But then Christina explained that no... honestly... it IS a compliment.
think about it.
if you are muscle-y and tan and slender - then it probably means that you are out in the hot sun all day working hard and must not have the money to eat.
So, if you are pale and chubby - it means you are stoked - you have money and don't have to be in the heat...
So it's almost like saying "oh... you're fat? you must be doing well for yourself."

Whatever man. ya... it's burning boiling hot... but to me, this is H.E.A.V.E.N. - laying in the sun and absorbing all this sunlight medicine into my skin for an hour every day.
dipping in the ocean when i need a little cool off.
though its 85 degree water.

love.

**********
OK... part 2 i guess.
i don't know... i'm just structuring this blog as i go- and i have not many brain cells after last night's dance party mayhem booze-a-thon.
OH! good... this is part 2 anyways.

Dance.

Last night was the epic full moon.

So many friends are staying on the island... Some in tents, everyone bunking up together sharing beds - waking up spooning someone new....
But seriously, its been a week and i feel like these are my family and lifelong friends.
hard core.
we all feel the same way.
super bonded and like jam karet just stretched a week into months and months.

Brent is here - who actually IS my family/lifelong friend... but the rest are Cahn's family (who I am mildly obsessed with...)
and a bunch of various friends of John, Ainsley and Cahn.
Beautiful, beautiful people.

A handful of them work for surfaid and are part of habitat for humanity rebuilding the villages that were destroyed in the tsunami.

Brent arrived yesterday from Padang with about 6 people on his boat (including Ben- who i had already met in Padang, and shared his story of actually surviving the tsunami. He was carried away in his tent and hit a tree, which essentially saved him. He is here with his beautiful wife Rebecca -they've been together since about high school- and their daughter Inda who's eyes look just like the island ocean - a ring of turquoise around the pupil getting bright blue as they move out into the deeper water...
Also, Joey and Jackie who are badasses and work on a charter boat out here. Joey took some epic pics last night. i will share when i see them...

Everyone arrives at the resort in such a cool fashion... since it's an island, there is obviously no driveway or main entrance - so people just all of a sudden are here! appearing out of the jungle with big smiles always.
...and whereas sometimes in a group setting, when new people arrive it changes the vibe and everything shifts... here it just magnifies and intensifies the awesomeness.

Shortly after they got here, Brent and Birdie said they had to go over to Tua Pajet (the capitol of the Mentawais) to get supplies - a.k.a. more beer - and pick up some friends that were coming back to the island (Matt, Sas & Tom and their adorable baby Jonah.) Matt is from New Zealand and super awesome, loves to snowboard and is managing one of the building sites down south.
Tom is with surfaid too and his gorgeous wife Sas is an anthropologist who has lived in the Mentawai jungles and studied the monkeys here forever. Ironically, Beeker (our monkey) adores Jonah and squeeles when he comes over... They live in Tua Pajet and are such an awesome couple. I feel really grateful they are my friends.

ZaniGO was like... uh... duh. i'm coming too.

So off we went on an adventure.

Birdie started singing "electric feel" on the boat which stirred up the zanimal in me and lead to full dance off while the boat sped towards town - foreshadowing the night to come.

i took some killer photos in Tua Pajet, made friends with some locals in a store and learned to say a few new sentences.

We gave a ride to some of the villagers from Tua Pajet to the village where the wedding would be. (Pokorajat - on North Sipura)
It's really fun for me to talk to Indo people who don't speak any english... i feel like i am picking up Bahasa Indonesia more and more every day and i am so excited about it every day.
The taught me "Maeru" - the way to say "Bagus" (good) in Mentawai.

There are SO many languages out here.
I am mostly learning Minang (like west sumatra style indo) - but the Mentawai Island languages are totally unique... like the village.
seriously... the village is like nothing i have ever experienced.

but i'll get to that in part 3.

So anyways - we got back to the island from our Tua Pajet by way of Pokorajet, and there was a charter boat docked on the back of the island - and a bunch of new faces were in the bar.
I can't quite remember the sequence... but i know i was Vitamin T deep when the sun was going down.
Cahn's immediate family went to go sleep in the village, so there was SLIGHTLY more floorspace for sleeping, but pshhh... who needs sleeping?

We had dinner - then i sat in the back with Linda and Arielle (Linda is the indo chef and Arielle is the indo electrician that lives on the fishing boat and drives the little boat and goes surfing with everyone... he laughed at me SO hard that day when i went out with everyone at scarecrows. He's super cool. always smiling and has abs that scare me they're so ripped. (apparently that means he is a hard worker and not doing so well?? haha. ya. i don't think so.)

anyways - I had the BEST time talking to them. laughing our asses off... i teach them english, they teach me indo.

Linda is probably the funniest woman in indonesia. i kid you not.
she might be out of her mind.
so untypical of a Mentawai Island woman to be so outgoing and wild.
She's amazing.

This is me, linda and yona (the other amazingly awesome woman i love. she's the bartender and funny as hell.) We all call eachother Siyang which means "sweetheart"...
and i teach them funny americanisms.
they tell me i'm crazy and laugh at how excited i get about learning indonesian



I think somewhere after our porch convo i came back in, drank some more, passed out for an hour powernap in the bar.
woke up with a pop-up mosquito net over me and decided i was fully charged and then i FULLY charged it.

danced like it was my job until ohhhh....5a.m.

we all did.

danced all over, under and on the bar... decided to take a midnight swim at 4am under the magical full moon.

HERE is the wildest magic of the week for me...

i wear a ring that i am totally infatuated with.
Susan gave it to me... its three cosmic stones - meteorite, moonstone, and this glass from the meteor craters in egypt or something.
Last night...
i came out of the sea under the milky moon hanging overhead in all her glory... and the moonstone in my ring was gone.
there is just an empty hole.

the moon took her stone back.

and what's even more crazy... i looked in my datebook - which of course i havent looked at in days - because who CARES what day it is... and i saw something i wrote on TODAY's date -back in October when Ainsley invited me to come live here.
I wrote on last night's date "first full moon island swim of the year"

i was always going to swim under that moon last night.

and the moon was always going to take her stone back from me last night.

which means i guess i was always gonna party down like it was 1980 like i did last night.

Somehow i fell asleep around 5am.
come to think of it... i think Birdie may have switched off the generator because it would still be going probably if the power didn't switch off.

i put ALL my driving force energy into the party and it was so unbelievably fun.
Linda was dancing like it was her job too.
We were doing a follow-the-leader kind of dance-off the way we teach each other our languages.

dance is just another language.

so... after sleeping for maybe an hour, Brent came into the mosquito net that Birdie and I were sleeping under and woke us up.
I wanted to kill him.

But we had to go to the wedding.

OOF.

oh. okay - sooo, part 3.
**************

PRAY.

We staggered to the end of the beach and climbed on the boat to head to Pokorajet.
This pic is me and Ains right before getting on the boat.

Thank God I have Ainsley. Thank God the Mentawais have Ainsley. This woman is not only one of my favorite friends ever - but she is the archetypal goddess. She is humble, funny, witty, and unbelievably patient.
She has been basically the only woman with all these surfer boys for so long.
I think i kind of relate to being the only woman with a group of guys - but mine are always musicians who are WAY more sensitive and appreciative then testosterone-y aussie surfer boys.

But we love them nonetheless.

And its been such a treat to have Cahn's mother & grandmother, sister Shana, 5 year old neice Sophie, sister-in-law Angie, Sas, Rebecca, Jackie, Linda and Yona! Goddess Fest!!

We had a goddess party the other night when all the boys went to the village for a Mentawai bachelor party.
It was super fun.

So the pray section began on the boat - sitting right on the bow of Brent's boat - the very very front... (which is the way Jay used to always ride- out there like you're hovering over the water with the wind whipping past your ears that drowns out everything else. it is straight up magic.
i felt so peaceful and full of life all at once as we made our way back to Pokorajet for the wedding.


I think i was still drunk.

okay.

i was DEFINITELY still drunk cuz i was chugging tequila like 4 hours before.

But the water...

OH MY GOD.... the water.

drunk or sober... it was divine.

it was so glassy it was like... uh. glass, actually.

I just organically started OMing... sending the deep profound, powerful vibration of that sacred syllable out across the gorgeous water that was the exact color of that barbisol stuff they keep the combs in at the barber shop.
it was breathtaking.

and then it started raining.

i didn't even care... i was so deep in prayer... on my way to a church in this unreal mentawai village to see my friend get married.

the rain was tickling my face, my closed eyelids.
the wind was kissing my cheeks, the splash of the turquoise water was licking my feet.
my third eye was open so wide.
my heart expanding love out through the entire ocean...
across the country.
through the ring of fire and encompassing the globe.


in no time, we were in Pokorajet.

The church was so incredible.
Such bright colors everywhere.
Gorgeous voices singing from somewhere i never hear voices sing from.
it wasn't like american idol, where people are trying to sing a certain way because they think it sounds good when they do it that way.
this was guttural and natural and more beautiful then any singing i've heard.
The village seems to be ALL children somehow.
I think each woman has about 7 kids... so it actually makes sense that it is mostly children.

There must have been 50 children who periodically got up and sang and danced for Cahn and his wife to be Sue, during the ceremony - which was also a 3+ hour church service in Mentawai.
I picked up some words from Nick's poetic Indo lessons and our song writing sessions.

Nick actually sang a song in Wallaki fashion with Cahn's brother Jye - who is so cool its unreal.
He and his wife Angie have been together since they were 16 too and are pretty much the perfect couple.
They are so vibrant and full of life.
Just like these kids performing, sharing, singing their little hearts out.
Apparently they had been rehearsing for weeks.

it was so dope.

i was so moved.

and SO F-ing hot i thought i was gonna die.. i was literally dripping in sweat. kept getting tunnel vision and thinking OH my god how embarrassing is it gonna be when i faint!?

no fans. no electricity.
and of course i am trying to be all respectful and appropriate so i am covered with this shall that is the hottest shit ass thing in the world. My drunkeness is wearing off and Ainsley and I were sharing glances of death to one another.

The service ended - and we all headed back intot he village near someone's house - and hung out with some of the locals, plus Linda and Yona and Arielle (loooove them) - and the rest of our friends/family. (who are mostly all leaving tomorrow - i am SO super bummed about that... and DEFINITELY going to Perth to hang with them. without a doubt. SUCH a badass family. i can't even think about it. i have such separation anxiety thinking about them leaving.)

anyways - we all hung out mentawai style - ate some food-- (well, i tried anyways)--


...and met THIS little guy. i just about peed my pants when i saw him.

then swung by the aprty that was going off - Linda was def still srunk too cuz she was dancing up on a stage fully grinding.
They kept pulling me up on stage - but the entire village (and who knows - neighboring villagers too) - all staring at the stage and i felt like Oh shit... how is THIS appropriate?
I'm sitting here sweating and what is more offensive?
Saying no to dancing or dancing and looking like a hussy and more then likely face planting from starvation and heat exhaustion?
So i left.

and so did like 10 of us.
All bloodshot eyes. We pulled up to the island and we all simultaneously felt like crying with relief.
back to the driftwood kingdom.

(Cahn's family who slept in the village last night arrived back here later then us with the same reaction. hallelujahs for being HOME. we are SO LUCKY to be alive.

we get to receive this gift?
really?

We are SO SO lucky to be alive)


So--- that's it.

aaand, i am well aware - this might be the worst blog i've ever written.
i have no intention of editing it.

the reason for both of those things are due to excessive alcohol consumption...

i'm back at the island post wedding now about to crash out like the ten people who are asleep around me.

i think i might juuuust be getting a hangover.

and i know the party is ALLLLL coming back here later... so best to rest up now.

(p.s. --- did you get the eat, pray, love. reference here? do i need to point this out?)

i should stop typing everything i think.

k.
bye.e