BALIAN - AND - ON

and-on-and-on-and-on-and
and it don't stop.
and it don't quit.

indonesia... you never cease to amaze me.


maybe it is the faith of the people in the country that makes spirit so strong here... maybe we are located in a magical place - hugging the equator in the bluest ocean on earth... or maybe its just ME and i am in a place in my life to SEE the beauty and magic in everything.
the immediate cause - and - effect karmic motion and tests and lessons and rewards....
i feel like this "game" of life is just getting more and more apparent that it is exactly that...
a beautiful game that i love playing.

i think i have gotten pretty damn good at it lately... i can just flow and let the currents of life carry me.

last night i sat at the Pondok Pitaya restaurant/bar/cafe with two super Goddesses, Yuko and Jen.

Yuko is a Japanese surfer chick who owns the Budgidari surf charter boat, lives in Seminyak, is engaged to the captain of Palagic surf charter boat and is pregnant. She has also been my guardian angel on Bali and reminds me not to be afraid of anything. We had had a driver take us up here to Balian yesterday.

It's about a 2-3 hour drive through beautiful Balanese villages & rice patties by a mountain poking out through the clouds. Yuko and i chit chatted the whole drive with each other and our sweet Bali driver lady, Ketut. I realized that there is actually NO faster way to get there. this IS the highway (and the scenic route at the same time it seemed)

The night before last, i arrived back at the hotel after sitting under the mango trees in kuta and writing a piece for Ainsley on the Goddess Week we had on my birthday - where there were three women guests... I found myself back in the boyzone in the lobby of the crackhead hotel in kuta where a group of 20 Balanese guys just sit around. I had asked them to find me a driver to take me to Balian and they immediately introduced me to Made (Ma-Day) who would be driving me for 350.000rp (about 40 dollars) the next morning... we shook hands and touched our hearts and i fell asleep. When i woke up they all came over and told me that Made's sister Ketut would drive me instead and i also found that my guy friend who was supposed to come with Yuko and I up to Balian, wasn't going to make it.

The universe lined things up to make it a Goddess adventure.


We arrived in Balian around 3:30pm... a single road running down to the beach.
There are about two or three little Warungs (stalls/shops) and that's it. At the end of the road is the oceanfront 'Pondok Pitaya' where Jen had told us to meet her. It's a beautiful little place with ambiance and "strong ginger tea" which i love. There are two Ganeshas on either side of the garden, so i clicked photos and sent them to my sisters. (the new game we play - sending pics of Ganesh to eachother)

Sitting in the Ganesha garden we saw Jen walk up radiating her awesome powerful light.

I met Jen ON my birthday actually. I went on the sampan into Tua Pajet to meet her and her boyfriend Matt and bring them back to Togat Nusa Retreat. The whole time she was on the island she would mention her place she has in Balian but i never really got the picture that it was like THIS.

Jen has a kingdom in Balian... not unlike John & Ainsley's driftwood kingdom in the Mentawais, Jen's is a stone kindgom...

We walked through a rice patty and past a few beautiful indo cows, stopping to pet a particularly friendly one named Ferdinand.


"They don't eat these cows do they?" i asked cringing and already bracing for the answer i get everywhere in the world... from America to England...
"Nope. they don't eat cow on Bali" Jenny replied.

i almost cried.

Then we walked to the end of the path and i did cry.

Jen's house is built on two stories, the top level is a 100 year old house she bought on Java and had broken down and transported to Balian.
The Javanese houses are amazing for many reasons, but mostly because there are no nails! these incredible walls and roof are brick-a-brack'd together and held with wooden pegs carved into the structure.
Every inch of the inside is beautiful stone work, using about 10 different styles and types of stone laid together in this beautiful way... it just all flows together. Sun beds with draping Goddess tapestries and throw pillows, curtains and carved wood... and the stone walls are all adorned with her own art.

I asked her "HOWWWW did you do this?"

she replied "a bad break up"

we sat on her top level balcony area looking out at the ocean through palm trees, past rice patties and indonesian rooftops.


She has been here for 7 years building her kindgom, and running surf trips with primarily women, surfing every day, designing clothing, buying and selling land, painting, creating, practicing yoga, and living her dream into reality. She is so highly inspiring its unreal. Her story echoed Susan Nichols from yogitoes... my old boss and dear friend who had the same sentiment as Jen

"Don't THINK about it. BE about it."

I sat around the candlelit dinner table with Jen and Yuko last night and thought about my life, after spending much of the evening talking about about the divine feminine and sharing our stories to one another.
For as driven, strong, and secure a woman as i am, i have an equal river of insecurity running through me.
I often times hear myself say the words the Jen lives her life to rid women of saying
"I can't"

We can. We are capable of doing absolutely anything... provided we just DO it.

Jen's house is testament to this.

She told us a story about her Bantu (the woman named Ketut that has worked for Jen for 7 years and helped her in many ways) ... Ketut is a Balanese woman who has two brothers and two daughters. In Bali, the woman must leave the home and live with the husband and gets no inheritance, land or money.
Jen said that Ketut lives in a very small house with her husband and children, but Ketut's parents recently died and left her two brothers a huge plot of land.
The brothers asked Jen to sell the land for them.
She told the brothers that she would sell it, but for 5% more then they were asking and that money would go to Ketut.
What the brothers also don't know is that Jen is buying the land to give to Ketut's daughters.

Covered in goosebumps i told Jen the coincidence that our beautiful driver's name that afternoon was Ketut ALSO!

ya... it's not even amazing at all apparently.

there are literally FOUR names in Bali.

FOUR.

The firstborn is "Wokalayan" (or Yan, for short), second is "Made," third is "Nyoman" or Komang (Man or Mang for short), and fourth is "Ketut" (often elided to Tut).

SO funny. typical that i forgot this and was overwhelmed by the synchronicity of the names.
I was so lost in frustration and spirit-assaulting Kuta, i probably met twenty Made's and Ketut's and just totally didn't notice.

I found my balance and my peace again, here in Balian.

Again, i am finding myself SHOCKED by how much the buzz of a city got to me... It got under my skin and made my head throb... I even called my mother and went off on the phone to her about how awful Kuta is... I almost caught myself saying "Bali" several time... suggesting that this entire island was like Kuta.
It is NOT
and I think Balian is here to remind me of this.
I have somehow become an island girl and i am NOT mad about it.

But i remember the words on of my greatest teachers shared with me one time

"your psyche has drawn every single person... every single circumstance into its awareness to reflect itSELF."

So i am moved and grateful beyond words to be surrounded by Goddesses.

Both Yuko and Jen have partners that spend half the month away (Jen's boyfriend works in Australia and Yuko's running the boat in the Mentawais)... and i realized that something i always said about Jamie was that it would probably have worked out if i could have spent more time away from him. haha

I thought about this reflection reminder... then i thought about the way my energy had just settled as soon as i drove away from Kuta... I thought about how when i arrived in Kuta and the chaos that was happening i realized that it was the universe restoring balance from the extreme pace i had been able to experience on the island...
and i thought baout how my dislike of Kuta had once again been reflected by my amazement and awe of Balian.


I think (in everything) if we just take the time to step back and look at the giant canvas of life, we see the symbolism in everything and even more to the point, we see our reflection...
We see the things that irritate us are just parts of us that we need to be extra tender towards...
and the things that we admire and love in others, are parts of us that we can be proud of and allow to shine brightly, as beautiful aspects of our own spirit.