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...