take it all in

TAKE
IT
IN

TAKE
IT
ALL
IN

NOW
IS
THE
TIME
THAT
WILL
NOT
COME
AGAIN


a few days before july 30, 2005
i was 21, engaged to be married and walking around on a fluffy white cloud.
someone told me that on my wedding day that cloud would blow into hyper speed and before i knew it i'd be on my honeymoon in puerto vallarta having no clue what happened to that day i had been planning for all year.

so i snuck away.


i stood in my mother's walk in closet that had a window that looked out at the backyard & the guest house veranda... where my wedding reception was being held.

200+ friends and family sat at round tables sprinkles with flowers... there was a big platform up above the sunken jacuzzi area with stage lights and a sound system...
Friends were scattered all over the property. Most had drinks in their hands...
My friend Cary in her pink bridesmaid dress sat with her parents around a bunch of bright purple flowers. My uncle Steve was gesturing in a way that would indicate he was telling some hysterical over-the-top story to a group of my high school buddies. My grandmere stood ever so gracefully twirling her wine glass in between her fingers as she talked to my new in-laws. Dusk was rolling over the party and it was nearing wedding toast time... The fairy twinkling lights turned on in that moment and i remember feeling like a princess bride that had been given her cue to re-enter the reception and graciously accept the slew of love and affection and compliments poured over me and my new husband.

I will keep that moment with me for my whole life.

I stopped and i watched and i took it in.

Today it is almost 6 years later.


I am fully divorced (i think)... i live on a 12 hectare island in the middle of the indian ocean, giving massage, yoga instruction & general smiles and smoothies to guests that come to make our island resort their hOMe....
I am single.
fully.
for the first time ever.
and i am learning how to be okay.

there is always music wafting through the air here (which i love love and totally need) ...we listen to The Waifs all the time. ("London Still" is actually playing on the speakers here in the driftwood castle right this very moment as a matter of fact.)
There are a LOT of Australians here in Indonesia... so i have gotten to know quite a bit of Australian music...



This song "Take it in" is pretty much what i am talking about here.

Stopping and taking it all in.

It's really seriously amazing when you actually take the time to stop and sneak away and do it.

Take it in.
Take it all in.
Now is a time that will not come again.

Last night i snuck away.
My i-thing is dead somehow. (ya. i'm pissed. i really don't want to talk about it.)

Anyways - as my camera is my i-thing i couldn't take a picture otherwise i would show you what i was looking at when i snuck away.
I sat there and looked and I took a visual snapshot with my mind and rolled the taste of life around in my mouth... marinating on the canvas laid out before me.

I sat in the sand underneath the waning moon and gagillion and a half stars, facing the driftwood castle.
I held a gin and tonic with about a hundred limes in this big glass mug.
A grassy semi-circle separated me from the stairs of the Uma (or driftwood castle as i adoringly call it)... around the bottom of the stairs a buddha head was illuminated by the twinkling lights inside a green glass japanese fishing buoy.
Inside the Uma about 25 people were spread out listening to our friend Nick "Wallaki" play an eclectro-acoustic guitar through his PA and sing a Cat Stevens song.

As i was taking the visual snapshot he said into the mic "This is journey music"

On this journey i am on in my life i feel as though i am moving through these phenominal experiences, hard times and moments of such humor i can't breathe with the intention to just BE HERE NOW...
i am present in each moment and reflect on it later on... write or talk about it... maybe that's why i have to document it all the timme - taking pictures and vlogging with joshie and writing constantly... because i am so present i don't have the time after the moment to take it all in.

But i realized that i hadn't actually taken the time in a while to remove myself and sit just outside the window of now and gaze in...
Take it all in.

It was a multi-purpose party...
a goodbye to our four guests that would be leaving in the morning
a hello to our seven new guests who had just arrived after a treacherous 24 hour hour ferry crossing where they had to turn around and go back to Padang...
and a farewell for now to Birdie, our departing surf guide island buddy.

We stayed up late late and slept for 2 hours... waking up at dawn to get our guests on the boat so they could catch the inter-island flight out of here.
the new Bon Iver CD was finally finished downloading, so i put it on over the speakers and tiptoes around the very room that had been filled with Indos, workers, guests, and friends all smiling, drinking, singing and laughing with Nick, who was now asleep on the corner couch cushion next to John and Ainsley and Beaker who were under the pop-up mosquito net.

The room was still full of eau-de-love. an energy that seemed to linger in the air... in the atmosphere... or maybe it was the energy of the developing polaroid photo i had taken in my moment of taking it all in...



As the gin started to wear off and the sun started to shine through the clouds hanging above the sea this morning, Bon Iver in all his gloriousness took my heart to a place of deep deep gratitude.... just for being alive.


blessed am i.

blessed is this life.

and i'm gonna celebrate being alive.

every day.

every mOMent.

Tawney wrote on her facebook today

"BE IN LOVE WITH YOUR LIFE. EVERY DETAIL OF IT."
— Jack Kerouac

i am.

in love.

every day.

i am so blessed.

so so blessed.

a centipede sent

tonight....
just before dinner was brought out,
on a particularly stormy, windy, low lit evening in the driftwood castle at Togat Nusa Retreat...
our guests were lounging, engaged in conversation in each of the corners of the Uma as mellow-vibe music played off my "bliss" mix combining a bunch of venice lover people including pan am, mowgli's, brett dennen, peter moon & stevie starlight
Beaker, the monkey was hanging out... checking if anyone left a little beer at the bottom of their can so she could dump it out on the table and sip it up as she does.


She cruised around the room, crawling in and out of everyone's conversation and snuggling up underneath my sweatshirt, nuzzling into my chest and making little suckling noises.
(you might think that is weird, i just realized. its not... its adorable and endearing.
she got bored with my boobs and decided to crawl up towards the ceiling as she does... (it's like she's a monkey or something)
and all of a sudden she started freaking out!
screaming and pointing and jumping up and down shrieking and looking at something we couldn't see.
john e. jumped up and knew she was telling us something gnarly was there.

a giant (and i mean GIANT) centipede crawled its way out into the light and everyone gasped a little a took a step or two back.


Literally 12 hours ago i said the words "i have never seen a centipede."
and then there is Beaker screaming "LOOK! LOOK! the universe sent you one to see. Now stay the F away! They hurt worse then scorpions and will make you sick as a dog!"

But-- how did she know?
i wondered...
This baby monkey who is less then a year old and sleeps in a monkey palace at a resort and eats off a spoon... literally.
How did she know?
had she been bit before?
or was it just an animalistic instinct?

This all made me thing about human relationships.

one of my best guy friends has a girlfriend who is a goddess.
she is so talented and brilliant and i feel like i have gotten particularly close to her over the course of their relationship.

i found out that he cheats on her... all the time.

i have been here before...
this really shitty position of wondering if i have more of an obligation and loyalty to my cheating guy friend, or to the woman he has committed himself to.
but more so... a commitment to honesty.
... to the goddess.
... to the community.

i hadn't thought about it this way before until my friend Tawney is her wisdom read me an email she wrote to one of these cheating guy friends of ours that i love and want to slap all at once.

in her letter she pointed out the word "community"... she read it as "communication in unity"... she saw it as our obligation to keep clarity and a standard of truth and trust among these people who choose to live with and exist side by side with.

this blew my mind, as Tawney is a pro at doing- with the selfless, loving way she views everything, including a car accident that left her body smashed up, but her spirit glittering and bubbling over with positivity as always.

(this is how we roll. :) tawnski made this one night before i left to move out here. beautiful times with a beautiful goddess.)

Anyway... the thing that she pointed out to me in this instance was what it does to the woman who in her gut knows and feels that her partner is cheating on her, but continually has to tell her intuition to be quiet so she's not "that girl"...

because, lets face it... every women on earth is in tune with some amount of feminine divine psychic perception. i believe this to be fact.

when our sisters hear their gut telling them truths...
and their man denies it...
and they are forced to believe that their gut was wrong all along...

we are teaching our inner goddess to shut up.
we are telling this wisdom from within that it is inherently wrong?
we are systematically killing our divine guidance because we are trusting the lies that are told to us.

this hurts me more then anything and so i have to be honest and let the truth be told.

it makes me wonder if tonight Beaker was having that reaction to this gnarly animal that bites hard and poisons its victim, because she had been through it before...
or if it was just instinct. she saw this thing with a hundred legs all crawling and clawing out in a violent way... and knew that it was bad news.

it makes me believe that we know when a person walks into a room...
enters into your life and they "rub you the wrong way"
or you get a "bad feeling" about them...

i can't help but believe that these feelings are not to be ignored.

many of us have taught ourselves to turn down the volume on our intuition, but i think there is no greater guide or early warning system then our own spirits.

Go ahead and call it coincidence if you want.

It's totally fine, you won't offend me.

I will just hear the word "coincidence" as a euphemism for "magic"

---------

This morning (the next day) - i had to go to Tua Pajet early in the morning to meet guests (who weren't even there in the end because the ambu ambu ferry had to turn around and go back to Padang last night because of the big bad Badai 'storm')

We didn't realize at the time... which was that golden sunrise hour... that we were heading for nowhere.

Birdie and I sat on a seat in the middle of the boat, still half asleep as we bounced across the choppy waves, but managed to stay dry in the middle.

I looked up at the sky and saw these beautiful puffy clouds backlit by that golden sunrise light. It made that glittery gold outline around the cloud as though aladdin's cartoon treasure chest of gold bars was twinkling just on the other side of that gray cloud.
I turned to Birdie and said "i think that's a message... reminding us that we just have to get past the dark clouds and fortune is on the other side. Our reward for weathering the storm ahead."

I told Birdie about the centipede last night... and about how i had JUST had a conversation about the dangers of centipedes and i said i had never seen one only to be shown one. Like it was sent for me to see.

I told him too, about how i had been googling current events and earthquakes in indoensia the night before the earthquake hit.

i said "it seems all we have to do is THINK something and it presents itself to us. Things are so clear. So immediate 'cause-and-effect'... 'ask and ya shall receive' out here...

I told my friend Jessie about Indonesia in an email the other day. Instead of painting the picture of paradise as i always do... i gave her a broader picture of life over here. I said
"in Indonesia things are very tough, rough, raw, cause-and-effect immediacy.
third world countries aren't so bogged down with floaty life vests and fluffy buffers.
you fall- there is no safety net.
you get hurt or die.
consequence is clear and reward is instant. things are exactly what they are."

The last few days have been such clear illustrations of this somehow.
I shared this all with my skeptical friend sitting next to me on the boat, looking at me with eyes that said 'uhh. ya. you are pretty much the most "out there" hippie cray cray in the world... but i guess, zan. '

Moments later we both saw the most incredible art i've ever seen.

The entire sky was taken up by this GIGANTIC elephant.
it was unmistakable, and we both saw it as clear as day without even having to point out where were seeing the eye, the ear, the trunk lifted up towards the heavens (a sign of good luck)... and all four feet walking, dancing... the front feet up higher then the back.. like it was galloping towards God.

I don't know what this means, but i really think it was some super duper message... i had just been talking about the signs and omens in the sky and there was this huge elephant with its trunk up. crystal clear.

We both sat there quiet for a few moments as the boat continued around the bend towards the town, and then a giant eagles came swooping down over our boat.

I remembered when we were out surfing one day about a month ago and Birdie told me about these eagles who had nested on the island and finally were big enough to fly away.
He said he'd been watching them practice flying a little further away each day, always coming back to the jungle... but he saw one leave the other day and he said he thought it was finally ready to go away for good. (or at least out on an adventure... though it's hOMe will always be the palm trees on our island).

Birdie (the person) is flying away next week.

...Leaving to move to Switzerland and then off on an adventure called "life"...
I think he will find his way back to this jungle one day, but he is ready to fly away for a while.

As we were walking around Tua Pajet this morning getting shopping for the island, i saw the same bird again fly over us, but this time there were two eagles.... and they swooped in and out crossing and then flying away and then crossing again... as though they were dancing with eachother... drawing a DNA helix shape through the sky as they wove past each other.

It made me remember not to hold on & grab tight those we love, but rather set them free... encourage them to glide and soar and then dance the dance of life as we continue to find each other again and again on this path... trusting that we'll always find our way hOMe one day.

haram marah

marah.

anger.

my old friend...

this thing I haven't felt in so long...
this emotion that I convince myself in un-yogic to feel.
the thing that immediately repells me from people and I avoid like the plague even if it means I devalue myself and discount or discredit my own feelings...
this thing that I just got filled with.

Since I filled up with anger... I have: fumed, smashed the ice unnecissarily violently, slammed back a super strong gin and tonic, gestured, contemplated how to scream profanities in indonesian, pondered other irrational things i could do to vent, marched out to the beach like a 5 year old throwing a temper tantrum, let myself well up with tears, let them dry up before they fell down my red hot cheeks, looked out at the crashing waves, felt my cheeks go a little cooler, lay back in the sand, closed my eyes and breathed deeply, opened my eyes and said to myself half laughing at the ridiculousness of myself...
"zani- remember where you came from, remember what you did. remember how you got here & remember why you're here and who you are"

then I let it go for the most part, grabbed my I-thing and now I'm here.
sitting on the beach again. a fresh G&T in hand.
and I'm typing.
so now, we're caught up.
this is happening in real time...

okay- here are my thoughts as they flow out.

what the fuck?
I'm sorry mom- terrible language.
but seriously?
what?
the?
fuck?

sometimes i think that people assume it's second nature for me to be so positive and supportive and loving.
AS IF I don't have bad days...
AS IF things don't irritate me.

I used to be selfish. ask my mom.
i used to get IRATE.
oh... it's in me, alright.

when i was 17, my friend katrina died.
she and i spent every weekend at her mom's house in brentwood for a good 6 months.
we snuck out like champs...
we chain smoked cigarettes, wore tons of makeup, went on super dangerous inappropriate adventures around LA at all hours of the night & laughed hysterically.
we were firey and intense together.
i loved her.

she had a sister named sabrina that was exactly my little sister tia's age.
we both loved the people in our lives to a crazy degree.
we were FIERCELY loyal and like tigresses, we would defend our sisters against ANYTHING.
i remember us saying outloud
"i would die for my sister."
"me too."

she did.

her anger took over her one day.
she saw red.
she snapped.
and now she is dead... and a young girl from brentwood is dead too.

i remember looking in the mirror after she died and staring into my bloodshot, swollen eyes and saying to myself "don't ever let anger take you over. figure it out zani. don't let it get to that point. it isn't worth it."


how is THIS for awesome word play awesomeness?

in indonesian:
MARAH - means "angry"
... spelled backwards HARAM means "forbidden"

i forbade myself to boil.
i learned how to calm myself down.
to tame the hornets in the hive...
i learned to be the bee keeper and use my breath like smoke to put the wasps to sleep.

and i have learned how to give instead.

I think that i have found a way to exist in a high vibration- and in my mind, I pull others up. I reach in and grab people- I massage them- I teach them- I take on THIER crap and then find a way to eliminate it for them.
I walk barefoot so their negativity I absorb can flush out my feet and the earth can redistribute it as positive energy like the trees taking our oxygen and turning it into carbon dioxide.
(an old man at the ashram i stayed at told me to do this and why)

but today i got mad.
pissed off nearly to the point of a boil...
marah.


here is what happened:


i have two shelves.
that's it.
two.
on this entire island.
in the whole resort
all i want is a little tiny tiny space for my sacreds.
a place that only I go
that only I can touch or see or feel.
it's not much.

okay - pause.

zani--- remember where you came from.

rewind

my ex-husband 2 years ago in the living room of our bay street house... "why do you need 10 thousand pairs of shoes?"
me "shut up! I wear them ALL"
(I didn't)
(I used the entire huge walk in closet and he was allowed to use the coat closet in the living room- but my shoes took up half of the coat closet too.)



6 months later

my ex- post-marriage life partner in the OM hOMe bedroom "zani- this is insane. how many goddam dresses do you have? let's count them."
me "noooo! theyre mine! I work hard for my money and if I want a few dresses I am allowed to have them! I love them."


(there were 70+ to his count)
(I bought another one that afternoon)

pause.

zani- remember what you did

rewind

at the yogitoes office in santa monica - sitting at my desk - online researching storage units to store all my shit so I could downsize to a suitcase or two to come out here

my yogini goddess friend, sage- "zani-- can I suggest something? ya know... I moved away one time. I put everything I owned in storage and when I came back a year later I opened it and it smelled like someone I used to be. I forgot about 90% of what was in there and I ended up throwing it away later on. it was an unneccessary anchor to LA."

(later that day I gave 26 dresses to one girl that was at my house and about 10 to another.
I allocated all my furniture including my bed and started sloughing my possessions off one at a time.)

it was insanely liberating.

pause.

zani- remember how you got here

rewind

"I've got my life in a suitcase-- I'm ready to run run run away"


I listened to that copeland song a few hundred times.

josh sat on my parents green couch drinking tequila and serenading me with songs as i spread out everything I had decided to save and either put it in a pile for my suitcase or a pile for a box that would like in my parents garage.

I did it.
I got my life in a suitcase.
the bare necessities for a year at least.
full backpackers style.


I was no longer that chick with the overflowing walk in closet.
I was a gypsy with a few pieces of clothing, some bathing suits, a pillow case, some rose quartz and prayer beads and a cigar box of photos.

it was liberating.

zani!!- remember why you're here and who you are!

I came away as a gypsy to let go.
to live simply.
to just be me without all the shit... without the accessories and convertible and bullshit.

I have faced the lesson of non-attachment over and over again in my life.
I always end up with the same conclusion which is
"stuff is stuff... it comes it goes. just let go and be."

I am a yogi.
I am a peace maker.
I am a happy person.
I am working on non-attachment
I would give the clothes on my back away in a heartbeat.

and I would...

but today, when I walked in to the gudang/ my closet I share with about ten others/my sometimes yoga studio/ where a guy is staying right now- sleeping on the floor...

i walked over to my two little shelves that seem to get raped and pillaged regularly-- the place where I store the few things I have- all my possessions and clothing
and found my favorite blue dress crumpled on top of everything else.
it was ripped and covered in fuel.
yes, oil.
someone clearly used it as a rag.

WHY!?!?!????
seriously?

WTF!?

I mean it when I say that I would have given this dress to someone if they needed it.
but today it was mine and in this disrespectful, totally discourteous way- someone used it and of course no body would ever think to apologize or see that as a totally shitty thing...

it makes me think that people here must see me as this blue dress.
disposable.
not worth a second look to see if it matters. a pretty cloth to wipe up some shit with no worry about the stain.

I really have to think about how that makes me feel.

I said to my friend recently that sometimes i think the universe puts disrespectful people and circumstances in our path to see how we react.
if we value ourselves and recognize our inner goddess and see that in no way do we deserve to be treated , the universe will treat us as such... if we take it, we tell the world we are pointless and useless and deserve to be shitted on...

As much as i recognize that it's a freakin dress.
WHO CARES?
its the principal...

it hurts me that my stuff is thrown around. I have just a few things... but they are reflections of me.
I am hurt that somehow people see me as disposable.
it makes me want to cry because in my mind I give much more then i take.

maybe I'm wrong.

i think this sort of thing is not uncommon... where nobody respects and everyone feels disrespected.
the same thing happened in the OM home in Venice--- everyone felt disrepected and taken for granted.
until we all got wasted and told one another how we were grateful for one another...
then things got better

I think everyone in the world could use a trip to burning man to see the "gift economy"
everyone goes with a gift and with an intention to participate in the society by giving...
and since everyone is giving, everyone is receiving.
there is no measuremen

it would help everyone that feels undervalued or under appreciated in the world.
and remind us ALL

to just give.

forget getting angry.
turn the other cheek and just give... love... and laugh.


i am grateful for this experience today.
I got to remember why I am here.
stuff is stuff.

sure- I cared about that dress. I liked it and it made me feel cute in a place where I don't necessarily feel cute too often (covered in bites and flesh eating bacteria, no makeup and the body of someone who has a chef cooking them three meals a day... achemmmm)
but hey-
life goes on.

we have no say in deciding what will happen.
the only thing wevevwr get to choose is our reaction
so I laugh and OM and wherever I may be
I find that I am home with I'm with me

so I'm home.
I'm the tortoise who's load just got but one dress lighter.

big deal.

it felt pretty good to get pissed off for the first time in months.

I like being human and getting to have a range of human emotions.

oh
my
god

a bird just shit on me

I'm not kidding

right on my right shoulder

please for the love of god tell me that thing about how this is good luck.

hahahahahahahhah

okay. life could be worse.

I'm done being angry.
that was fun.

gotta go clean the shit

terkuat kopi & quakes

this morning...


I asked Linda to teach me how to make the kopi terkuat (strongest coffee)...
it's like dirty car oil that cracks out everyone on the island
...we had to stop making it for a while cuz it was causing heart palpitations in surfers when the swell got too big i think.
but I feel like i need it this morning.

last night, I lay under the shitty pop up mosquito net feeling the mozzies buzz around my face and land on my feet drinking me up as they always do.

my eyes were wide open but still not adjusted to the dark so I was blind and just listening to my inner voice inside my head babble on.

"well... what if there IS a tsunami? how would I choose to react? what would i want to be in that situation? could I possibly not freak out and get scared and instead just be patient and move consciously and quickly without being crazy?"

I wondered how the kiwis had gotten here so fast.

our new zealander guests must have run from their bungalow across the beautifully raked paths that I pulled roots out from juat a few days ago... coming up the stairs of the uma I wonder if they expected to see all the staff and guests wide eyed and waiting for instructions to either climb the tsunami-is-coming-and-we-have-no-time tree or get in a boat quickly and head out to sea.


instead they found me sitting upright like jojo the dog who was next to me with his ears at attention and a passed out birdie who mumbled from his sleep "it's cool. it was small and under 40 seconds... just the plates releasing a little pressure. no worries fellas. no worries"

the uneased kiwis went back to bed, most likely walking back the way they had run over here moments before.

i lay back and waited for my eyes to adjust back to the darkness

releasing pressure...

like one of those big 64 ounce bottles of soda in America. when they get shaken up you have to untwist just a quarter of a turn and let it go "tssssaaaah" and then wait a sec.. and then a little more.

sometimes little spurts are necessary... but we can't let things go too long... and I think this goes for everything.

before I fell asleep I had googled current events and world news.

earlier i had been sitting at dinner with our guests and someone said something about chile.

i knew absolutely nothing about this current event and figured the mention was further to conversation i had just had with our guest Brian, who was telling me about he and his wife - lifelong world travellers who met in a bar in London and then went all through South America together finally ending up to raise a family in Sydney...

sighhh.

i am so enamored with travel.

i don't think there is anything more romantic then leaving all the STUFF behind and just living for the mere sake of living.

Cahn said tonight "if i die healthy i'll think 'what a waste of a life!"

I don't know if i would go that far... but what an idea.

Someone said to me recently "I'm here for a good time... not a long time..."

Maybe this is everyones justification for being alcoholics and being destructive and smoking cigarettes or something...
But what an idea.

Like Birdie's song from the day when my Dad told me over the phone that it was the prophecized rapture or whatever it was called "If i Knew the world was gonna end... I would just hang out with my friends."

Seriously, i think i would.

The only thing is that i would invite all my friends from all over the world to come hang here with me on the island and we'd all transcend together.

after reading about the world and pondering all these thoughts... i had found my friend cary's name on skype.

"Is this really you!? like, really really?" I typed in the little box next to her name.
the internet is too slow to actually see her face.

we chatted for an hour or so and realized that we both felt so distanced from one another. she was looking at flights to meet me in bali this week and i didn't even know she was still planning to come out here.

she told me that she had a feverish dream/hallucination the other night in new York city. she was freaking out, convinced that the little wooden sculpture I made for her that she keeps above her bed had fallen out the window and down the fire escape, blown away out her east village apartment with the wind.
she thought she had lost this thing that represented me.

I felt lost from her too... i told her I felt like I couldn't even see her eyes when I closed mine.

I missed her so badly it was easier not to communicate... but then we realized that too much time had gone by with no communication at all. we had grown TOO far apart and were aching to start coming back towards one another.


She and my goddess girlfriend from San Fran named Laura are going to come meet me in Bali after Jessica leaves in August. then I can carry on to India and possily Australia with a little pressure relieved.
that pressure on my heart.
we did this in new york last year - the three of us - one of the best times of my year spent laying on cary's bed passing a bottle of wine around and just tssssahhhhhh - letting it out. everything.

I need to drink the strongest coffee today because I feel I need a kickstart
I need my blood to run a little faster...

funny we refer to this coffee as "oil"

yesterday I got a little energetic kickstart from my friend nick "wallaki" who dropped by the island for a couple hours to visit.
we both exist in a slightly different reality from the rest of the world.
we see magic in the mundane... the poetry in the trees and the faces in the clouds.
as my ex would say "we're woo-woo"

in the hour or so we spent together yesterday we seemed to talk a million miles a minute, covering the gamut. from awakening chakras to dreams to new songs to a brief catch up o the last 3 months we hadnt seen eachother.
he has returned to the Mentawais for goodsies and is living in a small village across the bay from where I live.
he has returned with purpose... all his recording gear, a PA system and plans to record all the Sipura village children singing on his tracks. it's genius.
the Mentawai people are singers.
all of them.

I am so happy he's back personally so i can have a woo-woo buddy out here. someone to vibe out with.
(us Venice beach types are few and far between out here in the islands.)
I felt like I got charged up hanging with nick for a little while. I just needed that little spurt... just a set of ears that understood my language so i could just let it out and bring in some new woo-woo off him.. i guess it was not unlike the earthquake that happened that night.

...releasing pressure.

when nick was leaving the last two things we talked about as he stood at the bottom of the uma stairs waiting for his canoe to be brought around...
was touching on global warming and environmental concerns we both had- and a bit about the earth's oil and how we believe it's like the coolant or lubricant for the tectonic plates.. and as we drain the earth of it, we cause this chafing of the plates of the earth.
(case in point 12 hours later)
he shared a little indo knowledge as he said goodbye for the tenth time.
adding ter- as a suffix makes something "the most"
so kuat is strong
terkuat is the strongest

my coffee this morning is terkuat because I need my oil. the strongest oil.

I think I have unknowingly been chafing, aching for my sisters... for my woo woo friends... for deep conscious conversation that doesn't involve the direction of the wind.

because what I care about today is the wind itself.

I miss writing poetry about the wind.

Cary asked me last night "please tell me you are writing?"

in all honesty... I'm not.

I haven't had the space.

i know that sounds weird when i think sometimes that space is all i have...
but i just feel somtimes like i don't have a space to myself to write... everyone walks in and assumes I'm on facebook. I don't think people get that I am in church when I'm writing.
but that's an excuse.

it's the same with yoga... I could just unroll a mat and practice in the middle of the driftwood castle but there is this pervie member of staff on the island that walks out of the kitchen and stares at me while I'm practicing and I get weirded out and stop.
again... probably just an excuse.

maybe I am just unmotivated and that's okay.

maybe this chapter of my life isn't the most creative, but it's okay. i can hostess and make friends, take photos, write my thoughts here on this blog, give massages and meditate in the tides like I did yesterday at sunset.

it was the soulstice yesterday... since I am in the southern hemisphere it was the winter solstice.
the shortest day of the year.
the longest night.

maybe that's why I felt like I had to squeeze in my visit with nicko... and why i felt like I lay there in the darkness waiting for my eyes to adjust for hours after the earthquake.

maybe that's why there seems to be magic everywhere.

--------

hours later.

i wrote that this morning.

now its bed time and i am back under the damn pop-up mozzie net i keep forgetting to get a real one that strings up that actually keeps the bugs out.

anyways - after i wrote all that this morning, i found a zen zone.
it had been here all along.
the perfect yoga studio.
i made the gudang (the little storage shed closet under the kitchen) my zen zone studio-
i lit candles & turned the lights off
i played meditation music through my laptop
i kind of practiced asana
i breathed
i lay back and felt warm.
it rained.
hard
i loved it
every mOMent of it.

and then i emerged back into the driftwood castle and almost immediately, my big brother, Brent - the reason i came out here in the first place... he showed up.
i saw his boat tearing through the water beyond the break and my heart swelled up.
everyone started yelling out "pixi! pixi!"


and then the sun came out
literally and metaphorically.

we went to town in his boat.
he was in SUCH a good head space.
he treated me like he always did in LA. he had my back.
he took care of me.
my brother i never had and somehow always had.
i felt safe and happy and cared for just hanging out with him.
he made everything i had been stressing about all better.
we laughed
hard

and then he left and i got an email from my soul sister liz.

she wrote to me that she had been right where i was... and reminded me that we were in this together.
and we forgave ourselves for everything
and recongized the light and strength in one another as we always do

and then i realized that i didn't need the strongest coffee.

because i can be terkuat... as long as i have mirror reflections from friends i love and that love me... and we all have eachother's backs and are here to remind one another that we are beautiful and strong...

like ainsley - the queen of the driftwood kingdom, who has faced the odds, charged the waves, dealt with the testosterone and still come through with grace and strength.
she reminds me...
and liz reminds me...

we have to love ourselves because we're not really gonna get it anywhere else.
this is island world... every man takes care of himself and is an island unto himself.
there is not much unity, but it's okay.

we are the strongest.

together we stand. as individuals. the strongest.

i'll still take that dank strong coffee though. it's incred.

and my idol/hero/guru KG said...

the white blank page

the white blank page is my favorite

my favorite mumford and sons song and my favorite part of the creative process...

the white blank page.

maybe that's part of why i love it out here so much.
the mentwais are such an unscathed... untouched... uncorrupted canvas (or so it seems).
there is no agenda... no rules or even time... it just doesn't exist.

there is just so much space.
infinite space.

i found myself walking down the beach today, watching my feet sink into the white sand with each step i took leaving a perfect imprint of my sole (soul?)...

I got back to the driftwood castle and found John E sawing at a piece of driftwood and making something... creating something from what others might have seen as nothing.

Last night we had a bonfire on the beach at the edge of the island.

Birdie and I hatched out the plan on that lazy afternoon and made ourselves the party planning committee... sitting on the counter in the kitchen discussing and planning what we needed to get together after lunch. He and our friend Tom went to go for an afternoon surf, stopping by the back of the island to collect the driftwood and build the bonfire while i collected the food and got ice for the eskie (the way aussie's say ice chest)...

Cahn went out into the channel behind where our bonfire would be to spearfish and caught a red snapper.
Linda and I made popcorn, salad, collected beers, gin & tonics, peanuts, and my guitar and by time the boys were back from surfing the sun was starting to do down and we were ready to load up the red wheel barrows and roll them down to the other end of the island to see the full moon start to rise.


John E. came down next and immediately started looking through the tee-pee of driftwood Tom & Birdie had collected, pulling out pieces saying "whoa! whoa! that's building materials! you can't burn this! it's a perfect towel rack! come on!"




A perfect example of what i'm talking about... seeing the art that hasn't been created yet in a piece of wood...

This is the way i see a white blank page.

There is SO much space on a blank canvas. I can write about anything... to anyone... i can use an endless string of words and spill my soul onto this white page... or this blinking white screen. it's the most beautiful invitation for creativity that i know of.

it's FROM the simplicity and the nothingness that we are afforded the opportunity to create and begin.

I guess that's why Shiva is the God of destruction, creation & transformation... it's all a cycle like the waxing & waning moon that hung in it's full glory last night... there is always death and birth and death... and like in permaculture design in gardening, one plant dies and becomes the fertilizer for the new plant that is growing next to it.

I have realized that losing two houses to fire was a great blessing. I was able to start over.
And maybe that is why i have the confidence to let go of things i love and leave lives behind to forge new tracks in the sand...
because i KNOW that to rip out that page that you've been drawing on, doodling on all day every day for your entire life...
to rip that page out and burn it and start fresh on a white blank page...

there is no greater gift!

we can be whoever we want to be.
we can GO wherever we want to go...

because all that exists is space on that white blank page.

i feel like i use this metaphor a lot...

when people i love die, i find that the space left behind (their angel) is like the gift of space in my heart.. when i hear people refer to the "hole in my heart" i try to think to myself how lucky that we have a hole... we have an empty space that is not spoken for... something that WE get to choose to fill...

and i think the goal (at least for me) is to use Vinyasa Krama - meaning "carefully placed step" to decide consciously what i want to fill that empty space with.

At the Burning Man art festival in Black Rock City, Nevada 50,000 beings gather upon the ultimate white blank page... the white gypsum dust desert floor where nothing grows, but one week a year, when 50,000 spirits grow.
Each person comes into the community and draws their own unique squiggle until the playa is a pulsating, moving, breathing, glowing, collaborative art piece.

Our fire burned bright last night under that full moon and made me think of burning man and my community i left behind in venice often throughout the night.


i wrote an email to my goddess sister before falling asleep and woke up to the most beautiful response from her.

In it she said:
"I make up communicating with you can be hard between a white screen and a keyboard. I know this is not what you want to hear when you're thousands of miles away from the people you love but maybe it's a slight downfall to how present we all are. Man, that sounds awful but it's actually a beautiful thing. I just try to connect to your spirit, the thought of bringing it to words can be overwhelming."

I forgot (for the ten millionth time in my life) that not everyone is like me...
umm.. i mean... actually NOBODY is like me... but what i mean, is that not everyone loves the white blank page...

i just assume that all these mirror reflections of myself... my friends and family who i love and see myself in so clearly... i think that they would want to sit down and get butterflies in their stomach to see a white blank page with which they could write to me... spill their soul to me in their own unique voice and flavor and know that i would slurp up every last word they wrote to me...

But i understand that some/most people see emptiness as daunting and overwhelming... and also i recognize that i was born as a highly articulate person that is able to find the words i want to use to explain colorfully and fully what i am trying to get across.
Most people have a harder time doing that i think.

So today i give thanks to the blank white page...
to starting over... and over... and over....
and being grateful for the space to create absolutely anything, always, in the emptiness.

and to give thanks to my friends who send their love in other ways then in writing.
i feel your love.
i'm infused by it and eternally grateful.

marine layer

sometimes my eyes are bright turquoise blue like my mother's... just like the ocean here.


sometimes my eyes are green like my father's... just like the jungle here.



today they are grey like my memories of southern california... just like the marine layer there...


there...

i am homesick for my beloved california... for that thick grey layer that sits over venice beach begging the sun to burn it off...

we talked about the marine layer last night after dinner.
birdie, me, and our friends tom & sas who are staying on the island... their baby jonah was asleep on the lounge in the driftwood castle and we sat at the big wooden table where we had eaten dinner some three hours earlier... our plates had been cleared... the table wiped down several times... but none of us wanted to get up and leave the company that we clearly all liked so much.

we talked about lots of things all slumped down on the beach seats with our shins resting on the edge of the table that was litered with empty bin tang cans...

we spent hours rehashing funny memories from the island since i've been here... (most have been blogged about here)... we talked for a long time about australian health care and general benefits of being from the land of kangaroos and crocodile hunters...

(p.s. i am taking applications for my next husband... i come with america citizenship, european union permanent residency, and the coolest family on the planet. oh ya... and i live in paradise. if you're way cool you can come live with me too... you have to be aussie, witty, and able to beat me at scrabble... thats about it.)

we continued to chat... talking about building dream houses... ocean views...
i told my table of friends about the highlands in pacific palisades where i grew up.
we could see a triangle of blue ocean from our house on palisades drive - the ocean peeking up between two mountains... and then i told them how amazing the highlands was when a marine layer rolled over west LA and swallowed up the coast line.
we would drive just three miles up our canyon road and always found the sun shining, beaming across the mansions, water reservoir, wildflowers and mountain lion land...
we were almost always untouchable by the marine layer up above the clouds.

i remember moving to santa monica with my ex and when the marine layer would roll in, feeling a little cozy now among those swallowed by the foggy layer, but also feeling a little claustrophobic, because my parents were no longer living in the highlands, so i had no escape.

though i remember, sometimes i thought of it like a dare.

the marine layer seemed to be daring enough yogis to practice sun salutations and forcefully encourage the sun to come out with our devotional vinyasas...

in case you dont know: a marine layer is:
In the case of coastal California, the offshore marine layer is typically propelled inland by a pressure gradient which develops as a result of intense heating inland, blanketing coastal communities in cooler air which, if saturated, also contains fog. The fog lingers until the heat of the sun becomes strong enough to evaporate it


anyways - today my eyes are the color of the marine layer and i can't help but wonder if this is my soul telling me to burn brighter... allow my heat and inner fire to become strong enough to evaporate whatever needs evaporating.

i am an eternal optomist. that's that.

but i must say, living in surfer boy land is not always the easiest thing. it can be a little overwhleming and demoralizing.
as i said the other day... there is nothing warm and fuzzy about the mentawais... except for beaker the monkey... and kitty... and jojo... and birdie when he's drunk.

i get chomped by bugs and take beatings from the conditions... and sometimes think i wouldn't mind just a bit of sympathy that i can't even point my foot because there are 17 infected mosquito bites on one foot at this present moment. and i am well aware that its part of living in a place like this... everyone goes through physical compromise to live here... but sometimes i want to just yell "YA! BUT I'M A GIRL... (AND NO COUNTRY GIRL EITHER)... I GREW UP IN THE HIGHLANDS... PERCHED ABOVE THE MARINE LAYER... I WAS RAISED ABOVE CLOUDS!!!!"

then i look over at Ainsley... and Sas... and Liz... and jackie and realize that these goddess women have set the bar far far far too high.
and a smile spreads across my face and i realize i can hang afterall.
i am more badass then i think i am.

One particularly unsympathetic human out here is Cahn, the caveman on the island who builds masterpieces from stone and lives eternally shirtless in his 3 walled banana leaf pondok seemingly unaffected by anything.
He often recites the Mentawai favorite phrase "Harden the F**K up Zani" to me when i get watery eyed about anything, then he storms off to snap two surfboards, stitch up his own reef cut, slam 26 bin tangs and wander back through the pitch black forest barefoot to his hut.

The other night i was complaining a bit about my popularity among the mentwaiian mosquito community and how i have tried everything to deter them...
neem pills & tea
B vitamins
vegemite
every spray and lotion kown to man
gin & tonics
spicy food
garlic

i try to make my blood bitter.

Cahn said that he and everyone who lives out here used to get bit a lot and eventually it just stopped... but i think eventually they bittered up as humans too.

"One day you won't be so happy all the time. One day you'll stop having bubbles coming out of your ass. One day you'll harden up and bitter up like everyone else... and then the mozzies will leave you alone."

But ya know how i feel?

I'll toughen up, fine. I'll allow the soles of my feet to continue to leather and my need for luxury to evaporate completely... but i just don't think i will ever get bitter...

I burn.

I burn with love and light and i always have... and maybe that's why the universe called me here.
Maybe i'm here to burn off the marine layer?

and if it means i have to sacrefice my skin to the environment and my blood to the mosquitos and my heart to the realization that it will get no tender affection here... i can deal with that.

i HAVE spent most of my life swimming in a sea of love... so i think my love reserve should last me at least a couple more years.

It makes me think of Jack Keroac:
(i recited this to carrie turner on the front porch of the OM hOMe after a halloweekend that carried on for days and lifetimes and was one of my fondest memories in venice...)


But today, on this island in paradise i see...
in actuality, its not just the mad ones who are for me...
i love the bitter ones too.
i love the hardened, closed off, sad ones...
the ones who have forgotten how to laugh.
i love them because they remind me to laugh harder.
to burn brighter...

SO tonight i am going to practice sun salutations and then we are building a bon fire on the end of the island and we will sit around the light of the fire and remember to laugh and dream and love.
(and i will very nicely ask again for the goddam mosquitos to leave me alone.)

earth

i woke up this morning to a rainy island day.

the jungle inhaled deeply as though it was about to tuck into a delicious meal set before it.

it was after 7am and i was alone in guest bungalow satu having slept through the entire night without moving it seemed. (an unusual treat.)

my sister tia skyped me from venice.
she was at my old house... the OM hOMe.
this is the house that i stumbled upon last year after returning from this very island i'm on, ready to finally part ways with my husband, jamie once and for all... and ready to start a life of crazy chaotic partying 24 hours a day in the vortex of venice synchronectar vibes.
i could see a scratchy picture through the screen of my computer...
i saw the turquoise bass guitar jamie bought me after we had gotten in a terrible fight while living in london.
i came home still fuming... steam coming out of my ears... and this beautiful turquoise bass was propped up on the bed with rose petals sprinkled all over our tiny shoebox apartment in notting hill.

...and then there it was. on the other side of the earth in my old house with my old roommates. my old friends. my soul brothers.

suddenly the screen went green and i couldn't see anything.
(maybe i was seeing green because i was green with envy that tia was there.)
the boys played me the OM hOMe song and then aaron glass hit me with another song.
i cried a tear or two and sang along even though i couldn't see.
i got a picture back for a moment and saw my angel dog Abby.
then a friend walked on screen and it all died.
so i surrendered.
i shook off the FOMO (fear of missing out) and went to get a cup of coffee in the driftwood castle.

the rain came down all morning.
we all sat together in a clump of bodies draped over pillows watching movies on birdie's computer.

although the sun never came out, the rain subsided after lunch and i knew it was time to go be in the earth.
i felt the jungle calling me.
it seemed to sigh under my feet as i walked back to the bungalow to change clothes.

it's not sunset and i am back in the dritfwood castle and wrote this email to tia, my sister:


Tia:
whoa.
okay this is emotional.

i just took a shower.
i scrubbed my body clean.
i washed ants and a beetle from the skin of my arms
i washed a leaf off my thigh
and scrubbed the mud from the creases on the tops of my toes
i smelled the earth as the water ran down my face carrying with it the scent it had picked up in the jungle.

the earth.
the ground.
hands in the dirt.
fingers across the sand.
you.
flooding memories.
tears rolling down my dusty cheeks.
the day spent gardening.
weeding.
planting.
pulling.
clearing.
raking the path.
pushing a wheel barrow.
redistributing the dead leaves and earth to the other side of the island.
sweating profusely.

beaker sat above me in the trees all day.

this is what my day consisted of when i got off skype with you.
but you never left me today.
in my thoughts all day as i landscaped and worked in the garden.

my earth goddess sister.

you ARE.
you're my earth goddess.

no matter how crazy i have felt... no matter how much the winds of change have blown and scattered my leaves in the air and across the earth - often times like a santa ana windstorm... you have been the grounded earth that i have known i could settle upon.
the ground beneath me.
my environmental studies earth goddess sister.
i admire you so much.
i try to emmulate you every day of my life.
i appreciate you like you'll never know.

when i was literally "grounded" in high school you would stay home with me.
and here i am today on an island on the other side of the world up to my elbows in rich jungle earth... in the ground...
and you are beside me.
you are inside my heart so fully.

it makes me cry and makes my heart heave... heavy like the saturated leaves after a thunder storm like we had this morning when i was skyping with you
it was pouring rain.
and then it stopped.

and i found the earth.

i cleared the path today.

the book i am reading is called "Wild" by Jay Griffiths.
(check it if you need a book)

she said:
"but the path is not only space, a thin absence of forest: keeping a path open is an act of care, for the path is a line of belonging and walking it repeatedly is an act of intimate love."

thank you for being my path.
for showing me my path and supporting me as i walk it.

i love you earth goddess sister.

my muddy hands touch yours.

--------------
that afternoon back in the bungalow i found a letter my soul sister liz left me, tucked in my diary...
she wrote to me about the grounding week we had just spent together.
working in the garden, eating root vegetables, and being guided by the universe in grounding asana and meditation practices.
she drew this portrait of me:



i am so touched and moved and will keep this forever.

tonight tia emailed me and said that she was walking down the street in west hollywood and a piece of rose quartz (my spirit stone) fell from the sky to the earth at her feet.

she sent a photo.
there were people walking everywhere and a woman in a run DMC shirt with what looked like glow lights around her neck.
i felt on the opposite side of the planet.

oh wait... i am on the opposite side of the planet.

magic magic everywhere.

always.

a chakra journey on the island

chakra journey

there is nothing to fear but fear itself.
fear is scary.
terrifying.
its a prison
and the warden is not a nice dude.
he spits when he talks and you can't see his face.
he lives in the shadows.
he is your shadow.

i looked in my book of poetry and writings that i have been keeping on the island... there are some letters to loves and to-do lists too... but the letters to myself are the letters i think i hoped to bribe the fear warden with...

i live so fearlessly for the most part. i blindly blaze into the dark.
i talk to strangers. i love getting lost.
i move intercontinentally on the regular.
i get rid of stuff i love.
i lose people i love on the regular
and i blaze on.

but there are times when i am consumed.
overrun by fear.

i become mean... and i say horrible things to myself. i become self-loathing and worse, self-pitying.

the good news is... that i move through everything really quickly. i break a fever and sweat through sheets for a few hours and then bam. its done. i sit down at the computer to do a design at yogitoes, and would have it done before the meeting about creating the idea was over...
i get WORKED by fear, and then i resurface and shake it off.

but there was this letter in my diary... this letter that i wrote to myself and it started with big block letters that said the word "PATHETIC"
i was so overwrought with fear in the water one day i fully broke out in hives on my chest and started crying as soon as i could get out of eyesight of the other surfers.

i sit there and think about how i am such a confident person by nature...
i can walk into any social setting and make friends with everybody.... not even most people... i mean everybody.
i think i am highly creative and have no bounds with making stuff... writing, drawing, painting, song writing...
and then i get in the water
and every inch of my self confidence is gone
every ounce of my belief in myself as a strong woman vanishes
and i become this floundering, fearful child.

so i got back to the island this one day and i was pissed.
i was so pissed at myself for being so lame i wrote myself the meanest letter i have ever seen.
horrible stuff.
wishing really bad things upon myself.

i found it today.

today is blue throat chakra day.
today is the day that we practice self-expression and communication.
and i made a vow.
i promised to only communicate to myself with love from here on out.
no more mean letters or destructive negative thought patterns.
i fired the warden and chose to stand up to fear.

i finished our yoga session which was around 3 hours long.
we just flowed and intuited and listened to the inner voice... the wisest and strongest voice we had... and we ended up flowing in sync... coming in and out of mirror practices and then weaving our own unique fibers into the blue silky fabric we were sewing with our spirits.

i stood from my final relaxation in savasana, walked in the bungalow, ripped the horrible mean letter to myself from my book and marched into the water... right up into the waves. i felt the jagged reef beneath my feet and i tore the pages and let the waves roll over the tiny shreds... i watched the ink bleed. i watched the pages turn to pulp and i let the waves knock me from side to side.

when i got to the uma there was a boatload of guys already there drinking bin tangs after a massage or two...
which turned into 6.
i gave 6 massages, back to back...
all the while doing what i do... and honestly what i do best... teaching and guiding, talking about yoga, guiding them through breath-work as i worked out their knots from the same reef that terrifies me and beats them up.
i stood up to the fear, because i am the good witch.
i am the healer on the other side
and i am lucky enough to have studied with all the amazing teachers, sages, and gurus that have guided me to know what i know and think the way i think...
i am forever at their lotus feet as i guide these men and help heal their bodies.
this is my way i communicate.
i teach.

i always have.

i have taught dance, theatre, spinning, yoga, and pre-school.

i am so aware that i am an eternal student and i am just touching the tip of the ice berg... but so many people i meet and know have been too scared to even go to the land of ice bergs, so i teach them the tip that i know... and hope they'll find their way to the mountain of endless spiritual questing too.

tomorrow is the third eye chakra day.
i dont know what that will entail.

this entire chakra journey has just emerged out of nowhere...

my spirit sister liz came to the island with me... after our hellish journey on the sumber rezeki, we decided to cleanse so we ate root vegetables, and practiced this beautiful grounding earth practice... we weeded in the garden and talked about our past, our roots, our families... and i dreamt of earthquakes.

day two we sang to the sun... we ate sun-dried bananas and pineapples... we bathed in yellow light and did candlelit kundalini visualizing ourselves infused by the fire of the solar plexus.

(oh... btw - we decided that we are super orange, sacral chakra women... so we didnt need a lot of work on it... its constant... intertwined in everything we do... so day two we skipped to yellow.)

day three we did a heart practice... deep backbends... green mossy mediations... then i cuddled up on the couch and watched seven years in tibet as the rain came down. when the sun came up we collected pieces of shells and coral and made a little love zone on the beach for ainz. we were to full of love. we decided to stealth mission hug everyone on the island... i think i did it.

today was the blue light. ainz even threw a blue skirt at me after dinner.

everyone is a part of this cleanse.

i was reading this morning about anger... and thought about this letter i wrote to someone so long ago.

respecting the person to whom i wrote this letter, i will edit it down... but essentially... this is what it said:

"We all loose our way
Even a soul that's been found
Even the buddha himself

Year after transformative year, i keep getting lost

Probably because I go too far with every single thing.
Where there is the smallest amount of elasticity I find a way to stretch it around the earth twelve times...

But i like getting lost

I've said that many times when I've found myself in a forgein place.
I like to wander around a city I don't know and sometimes I even spin myself around with a blindfold on and see where I end up
I ride a city bus to nowhere and then push the bell and get off when I don't recognize a thing.
I'm not totally sure why
Maybe I like the challange...
To place myself in the unknown and then decipher which puzzle pieces to shift around until I recognize the image I'm looking at.
But that's the thing-- I PUT myself there and somehow know that its a game.

What happens when its my life?
... And not deliberate?
Maybe these games I play are like learning games for kids to learn deductive reasoning that they'll use later...
Or those horrid word problems in a math class... We're unintentionally learning the skills we'll use later on when trying to do our taxes at 35.
I have to remember I am trained for this getting lost business..
I hold the key- the skills to work my way out of these terrifying, lost black holes I fall into time after time...

I got lost in marriage and you brought me out... Took me towards the light. Though we took each-other there.
Hand in hand, side by side, guiding one another in sync.
That was our purpose as cosmic soul partners and light seekers.

We were moths that  went TOO FAR
and my skin began to burn.

we flew too close to the sun.
And blinded by the light I couldn't see and panicked and lost my way.
I lost myself in you
In us
In light
In love
In all that we were

Who knew a divine light could blind you?

And now I've found my feet back on earth in familiar territory... And my scorched skin is healing, and my eyelids are beginning to open once again.

But you hurt me so badly.

When I lost myself in our light, I lost my anger.
I forgot that it is human to get mad.

I was so far gone, stretched so far into our love paradigm that I had convinced myself that love was all there is.
And that to be angry would be hypocritical, sacreligious even to who I was and this path I blindly walked...

I walked too far.

and now i see...

and my eyes are blinking open for the first time in months to see the destruction and aftermath..."

.... it went on.

i let myself get angry.

it was empowering.

i read that letter to a mutual friend but never gave it to the intended recipient, but i didn't need to. it was to live in my life of letters unsent.

more then 6 months later, finding that letter i was empowered again.

i felt the yellow light of my solar plexus chakra growing... my personal power.
and i felt the blue light of my throat chakra so present and bright.

then liz took a photo of me in the little love den we were creating, and swear to god... this is it...
the light of the blue and yellow chakras are present in the photo.

it blew my mind.


-----
(two days later)

the next day was third eye chakra... we intuited our practice once again and listened to the divine teacher within... we went into the water and i tried to learn how to use a stand-up paddle board.
i ended up learning how to do a headstand on it before i could stand up and paddle.
this is so typical of me.

sometimes i think i was built upside down.

we found ourselves in the water floating on our boards and talking about psychic intuition and mental illness.. and how i truly believe that those with "mental illness" are closer to God.
in India they are called "God Mad"
i know that drug induced psychosis can be different... but sometime people with that hyper connected open channel are communicating with beings on all planes.
not just this one that we normies see.
(haha.. see how i made you think i was a "normie"... :)

i spent the evening thinking, teaching, and talking deeply.

we had guests come to the island off a boat and after two massages i found myself in a deep conversation with an australian wine maker who lives in germany.
i knew he got what i was saying so i delved in and blasted him with yoga philosophy 101... through the eight limbs and onward...
sharing my philosophy and being present.

presence is such a gift.

today is OM.

well... every day is OM.

but today is the 7th crown chakra...

the thousand petaled lotus unfolding on the crown.

samadhi.

we sat in meditation surrounded in white light and i felt the totem pole of clear chakra lights stacked beneath me and i felt infinite space above me and around me... and pink flowers literally started blooming all over the island this morning... right beneath us. springing to life to mirror the thousand petaled lotus blooming on our crowns.

and i remembered that we are CREATING this reality.

i can make obstacles for myself.
i can say i don't have enough money for that
or i can say i'm too scared of this...

but at the end of the day the only thing holding me back are the reigns i place upon my own shoulders.

so i get to create what i want... it's just all about setting clear intentions and making it real.

easy as that.

(oh... and be good and compassionate and honest too.)

LAM.VAM.RAM.YUM.HUM.KESHAM.OM

the sumba

the sumba


i didn't even know if i would write this blog.

i thought about it.

it was too exhausting to think about again, after having just gone through it... but now there are sheets of rain... more like quilts of rain coming down and i am in the driftwood bungalow and liz is studying for her exam and the light coming out of the lamps made from japanese fishing buoys is so beautiful... it feels like its melting across the room... and the echo of the rain pounding on the roof is like a song to me... like a lullaby.

when i was younger i was a ballet dancer.
and not like i took ballet class at the local studio and bought a pair of pointe shoes one time to wobble around on.
like... i mean... i danced roughly 30-40 hours and destroyed at least one pair of pointe shoes a week... fouette-ing them into soft pulpy wood and blood-stained satin...
i lived, breathed, and dreamed ballet as did the pre-professional level girls i spent every day of my life with.
we were sick.

i fell asleep every night to the nutcracker, dancing it in my head... like a mad composer, i knew every note, every crescendo, every pause. i had performed in about 8 productions of the nutcracker when my career as a ballet dancer ended.
2 seasons i danced with the Joffrey Ballet at the LA Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and had no intention of ever doing anything else but dancing ballet.

I didn't quite know which way was up when i wasn't dancing and i ended up spiraling out into destructive, chaotic behavior and essentially dancing on my grave into my later teen years.
I couldn't listen to the Nutcracker.
It was like staring at a picture of a dead friend.
I couldn't sleep without it and i couldn't stand the sound of it.
I needed a sleep mix.
(i still do... always falling asleep to a certain music choice.)

My sister came to my rescue, as she has done so many times in my life i have lost count.

She presented me with "Big Sur"
it was just 2 hours of a thunder storm in Big Sur, California where i was born.
It was simply the sound of rain and thunder recorded.
My new sleep mix.

I have always loved the sound of the rain. I think it may have come from when i was only 3 months old and we moved to Germany, followed by a few years in Switzerland... i spent my toddler years in the Alps and most likely fell asleep listening to the rain, hence my comfort from the sound.

i feel the warm, cozy, sleep vibes even now as i sit here on this island and the rain parades down on the sagu palm rooftops like soldiers marching in the battle scene of the nutcracker.
nevertheless... its a lullaby....

so i feel like i am calm enough to re-hash the last few days of my life.

rewind 2 days.

liz, birdie and i were in padang.
liz is my goddess girlfriend who lives out here. her boyfriend bevo is the surf guide on the bugidari. bevo had to go back to sydney for a few weeks to look after his ill father, so liz decided to come hang with us on the island.
birdie is of course my island/roommate. our surf guide and my fave.

we missed the ferry we were planning to take, so we had to go come back to the mentwais on the sumba rezeki.

everyone out here says "the sumba" with a look on their face of "whoa... yikes. that's rough."
but i thought well shit.
i am so rugged at this point. i can handle anything.
bring it on.
liz and i had marched through the padang market like it aint no thing and come out on the other side.
we could manage a ferry.

we went and had a gado-gado with some friends near the river before we left and just as we were finishing up a huge flash flood erupted from the sky. we were sitting underneath a tin roof that made the storm even more dramatic. (and it was already pretty dramatic)

we looked out across the river and towards the ocean and all swallowed a little harder.
just then, a big dead, bloated rat floated out next to us and down the river to the where the sumba was being loaded up.
we followed the dead rat, avoiding huge puddles and the giant trucks that were recklessly barreling down the streets and through the puddles splashing padang filth out to the odd unlucky standerby...

finally, we were at the ferry.

a midsized wooden boat with paint chipping off the sides. absolutely would not pass one single safety test in america. there were millions of bananas being loaded on to the bow as we stepped in to the boat. bodies were everywhere, draped on top of boxes and bags of rice and crates upon crates upon crates of little tiny baby yellow chicks all chirping away, pleading with anyone that would listen.

we crunched our way up a wooden stairwell with bodies and bags and food and piping all being passed up and down among us, until we found room "H"
our cabin was one among 5 or 6 rooms.
the door you slammed with your arm to pop open, but next to the door were screens, so you could just see in anyways. there were four tiny half-twin size beds. two bunks side by side with a wooden pole in the middle and two porthole windows that popped open with the same force you used to open the door.
there was just enough room to put our bags on the floor and each lie down on the bug ridden mattresses.

liz and i played zen zone master home maker and draped sarongs and towels across everything so at least we could lie down and not get really sick.


we sat on our top bunks, talking about life and energy and love and vampires and such as we watched the lights on the land disappear in the distance out the little round windows.

we lay down to sleep and the rest is a blur.

i know there was a huge storm which made for an incredibly rough crossing.
there was a point when i woke up being heaved back and forth across the bunk with the tipping of the boat.
the door that takes all the force to open was swinging open and closed on its own just by the force of the boat rocking and when it was flung open i saw bodies in the hallways in one direction and looked out the porthole windows the other way to see the waves going higher then the boat.
it didn't actually make any sense whatsoever...
i couldn't understand what was happening.
liz was terrified and woke up every hour with dreams that we were up on the reef.
birdie kept thinking we were tipping over.
the roof above my head split open in two places and the rain pounded down on me, soaking every inch of fabric, every sarong and towel and scarf.

i WAS that bloated drown rat i had seen earlier.

there was nowhere to go and nothing to do.
and again, i didn't know which way was up... like the mind of a destructive 16 year old, we swayed back and forth with the deafeningly loud sounds of creaking wood and indos being sick by the motion.

the light of morning started to shine after about 14 hours on that ferry and a few hours later we landed in siobahn (another mentawai port town). we hobbled off the boat that felt like it was sick itself... heaving in pain after the crossing it had just done.

with swollen eyes and throbbing heads, we sat in a cafe and drank coffee then walked up a road to get some blood flowing in our legs... meeting some sweet 16 year old muslim girls that took pictures with us and then walked us back down the road to sit in another cafe and drink orange juice.

after 5 hours killed in siobahn, we loaded back onto the ferry and immediately i fell sick.
i felt my knees get wobbly and everything started sounding like it was underwater.
i knew i was about to faint, so i made it back to my cabin and managed to grab some dry clothes from my bed, sprinkle them across the bed and then crawl back up and close my eyes.
i definitely spiked a fever and got the chills as i lay there and sweated for about two hours, shivering and shaking and all the while talking to myself and visualizing clear white light.
a little old ibu came in the room with a box of crackers she was defending with her life and i didn't have the energy to tell her to get out, so i just lay back down and she just lay down below me...
i seriously think she might have been an angel that came in to make me better, because when i woke up and knew i was fine, she sat up and smiled.

i walked out and found birdie and liz half asleep on the back of the boat getting a breeze as we charged it up the east coast of sipura towards tua pajet.

when we finally arrived we almost kissed the ground and immediately went to my new friend yuli's warung to eat some spicy soup and peanuts, although we still had to unload all the shopping off the ferry and onto the sampan and get ourselves back to the island... at least another 4 hours before we were back

As we were untying the ropes to cast off from the side of the sumba, and head home Birdie grabbed a little yellow chick off the ferry.
we deserved it
and the little chick deserved to be free.
our new little baby!
Sam Ayam (ayam is the word for chicken and is pronounced "i am") and Sam Ayam doesn't like green eggs and ham cuz Muslim's don't eat ham.

As we headed out from tua pajet and back to the island another storm (or maybe the same spiteful one from the night before) came after us in the little sampan.
Liz and I ended up in hysterics as we guarded the little chocky chick with our sopping wet sarongs.
I kept putting my hand up like it would make a difference in blocking the wind and rain and water from the ferocious ocean.

We literally laughed the whole way home but seriously collapsed as soon as we landed and unloaded and got out of the rain and into a shower and got Sam Ayam some warm towels and a little nest to hang out in.
Ainsley's granola never tasted so good (even Sam got down on it) and the bed in the bungalow with the princess mosquito net was like climbing into the ultimate royal sleep chamber.

We woke up this morning so grateful to be alive and to be here! in paradise.

We practiced yoga in the driftwood castle and then all feeling energized and alive, we went for a run (a first time thing out here for me)... we ran through the jungle across the coral and vines with our rugged feet and then across the soft white sand of the island, high fiving each other as we passed one another doing laps on the beach.

Liz and I collapsed in the ocean, rubbing the sand on our bodies to exfoliate our skin and wash off the sumba adventure, before returning to the house for some gardening and smoothies and a massage.

And now here we are.

She is studying and has no idea that i just relived that adventure, writing it out.

Sam Ayam is chirping away and the rain is still cascading down from the sky.

I realized on the boat that its all about how you look at things.
There is always something worse just as there is always something better.

3 weeks ago i took the Ambu Ambu Ferry and thought i was SO rugged.
As i sat on the Sumba i realized that i had mipronounced the word "rugged" before... because the ambu was Rugged (rugd) as in "with a rug"... a carpeted, easy adventure...
the sumba was actually rugged (rug-gid), in the ferrel, earthy, bearette grills kind of way...

and i couldn't see until further down the road looking back in hindsight that i was just mispronouncing the word all along.