transcenDANCE around the globe.

transcenDANCE around the globe....

i had to get extra pages added to my passport today.

it feels like some sort of achievement to fill your passport with stamps but it's actually kind of crazy that it could be "full" with only 34 stamps.

I feel like i haven't even scratched the surface of places i want to travel to... and yet by American standards, i have exceeded the expectation for international travel.

I want to find the exact statistic, but i seem to remember that something like 75% of Americans don't even HAVE a passport, which means that not only have they never left, they don't even have plans to leave the country...

It's one of my pet peeves to hear a yank say "America is the best country in the world" and then find that they have never even VISITED anywhere else.

As Marcel the Shell would say "COMPARED TO WHAT!?"

(If you haven't seen Marcel... peep this video IMMEDIATELY. i am in love)

I feel like international travel is so under-rated in our country, and like i said, i haven't even done nearly enough mySELF!
I was talking to my friend Russell about it the other day as we were being driven around Bali before our surf trip... I feel like i immediately respect someone's point of view so much more when i find out that they have trekked through Nepal, or spent time in India, or lived in the wilderness of Ecuador...
I find that so much more valuable and respectable then any degree or job title or income bracket...

My friend Mikey D. is probably my travel icon. (i can't imagine the state of his passport. it's probably War & Peace thick at this point.) He is the ultimate professional noMAD... (his initials are M.A.D. - how RAD is that?) and he is one of the wittiest guys of all time. I think a quick wit goes a long way when you are traveling and making friends along the roads... and he has the road warrior thing down to a science.
I met him at my friend Amber's house last summer and remember energetically bee-lining over to him and losing myself in an hour conversation.
I had stopped by Amber's with my roomate hOMie love Joshie - and we had a strict 20 minute time limit, as we were totally late for another engagement - but really wanted to stop by and say hi.
Mike and i were laughing within 5 minutes and talking about the world and travel-life. I play this game where i name off an obscure place and about 8/10 times, he has been there. He actually took me to REI in LA before i left on this adventure and we had such an epic prep day. We try to hang out whenever we were in the same city (so far just New York and Venice, but i can pretty much guarantee we are gonna get some hang time in another country one of these days)...

So, I found a list of places i wanted to go and still have yet to check them off my list

Thailand
India
Australia
Peru
Tibet

Aside from Peru, I am in very close proximity to all of these places and itch to go there...

I think Thailand or Australia are coming next - maybe for a visa run - or quick week adventure - and then i plan to meet Aaron and various other love gypsies in India this winter.

Tibet might take a little while and Peru is on my radar for 2012/2013...
I really want to climb to the top of Machu Picchu.
I can remember being a little kid and we had this Geo Safari game that talked (BIG thing to have a game that talked in those days...)

One of the games was the 7 wonders of the world - and identifying it on a map...
I remember taking the Machu Picchu card and hiding it under my pillow (along with about 10,000 other weird things... yes i was a total shrine building, secret alter making pack-rat even then... Always trying to create the zen zone with my sacred things and intention items)...

Anyways - Peru always called to me and it still does today.
I know that i will get there somehow.

It's a weird thing being a gypsy... because although all i want to do is wander the world barefoot and talk to people and sing and dance around... it totally takes money and it kind of bums me out.

I had this big plan to just charge up my credit cards, but of course i seemed to forget that a lot of Asian countries are pretty much cash-only zones. So... if anyone is planning to make a cash purchase or something that they can pay on credit card instead, let me buy it for you and then you can put the cash in my bank so i can continue to travel, okay?

Also - donations to the help the love ninja fund are welcome... i will send OM blessings to you from around the world every night... just ask my friends who have been getting them the last few months... i can guarantee 100% results of warm tickly love feelings blasting at you from the indian ocean zone.

But saying that - i am totally going to be fine... i gotta just stop talking about how much i hate money and don't want it... because i realized that i have never had a hard time getting a job or making money... in fact it used to piss of jamie, my ex all the time because i have never actually had to apply for, or ask for a job... people just always approach me and want me to work for them and its an amazing thing that happens in my life!

I am blessed and i need to accept it and stop rejecting it.

i mean, SHIT... i'm in indonesia... look! i'm a millionaire... literally.


I definitely romanticize the idea of being a poor gypsy, but then i again think about my friend Mikey who travels and sees more then anyone i know... and he has his own company that supports him as he travels... so i think i am going to start my own publishing company and start to publish my own stuff as well as my friend photography, music, poetry and books.
i have such a wealth of content i can put together...
okay... i love this idea.
i'm gonna call it transcenDANCE publishing.
done.

wow. this is such a rambling blog.

but like i always say about setting intentions... it's all well and good to think about things and plant seeds in your own mind, but as soon as you share your intentions with others, you will get this opportunity to plant those seeds in other's minds too and then you make things real by having a force of people all thinking about and believing your intention in reality.

so - i would like to be based at togat nusa retreat in the mentawais (during the surf seasons) and then travel around on the off season and make money by writing.
(i have about 10 books i am writing in my head right now)...

it just seems to flow out of me.

especially right now.

after jamie and i split up i had this waterfall of poetry flow out of me... and i started just writing it all down... that's where this blog of all my poetry came from ponderings from my path...

and now i feel it opening again... last night i felt this cathartic feeling like i had just cried my eyes out or dove in a freezing cold lake...
my lungs were just drawing in so much air...
i couldn't figure out where all the space had come from.

it made me think of leonard cohen
"There is a Crack in Everything... It's How the Light Gets In"

I felt like this bell was tolled to hard it cracked like a clap of thunder that rattled through my soul and lasted for an hour or something...

i told my friend the other day that i feel like when i was at the ashram, i shook hands with my heart.

i feel so many things its almost hard to wrap my brain around it and figure it all out... but i guess that is the game i get to play...
unwinding the magic of this life thread that weaves in and out of countries and experience and dreams and consciousness...
it's pretty amazing...

and the MOST amazing part is that i am going hOMe to the Mentawai Islands tomorrow...
Togat Nusa Retreat...

HOW am i so blessed to live here?



i love you Indo.