Tallebudgera - Currumbin Valley, QLD
Woke up in a house that is precariously perched on the side of a mountain overlooking the ridge that delineates Queensland from New South Wales.
We'd arrived at night and not yet seen the panoramic view from Matthew's living room until i got up at dawn and stumbled down his living room's wooden stairs, past the old wood burning chimney with the flu that stretches all the way up to the vaulted ceiling adjacent to the wall of windows looking out towards Collangatta.
Tawney and I had picked up our friend Paul at Coollangatta Airport yesterday evening before making our way through the dark, stormy night to meet this new friend we had met outside a Bon Iver show in Brisbane last week. His name was Matthew and he was decidedly one of the most beautiful people either Tawney or I had met… ever.
We exchanged numbers that night and he immediately invited us over to the home of he and his beautiful girlfriend Lani in the Gold Coast to "break bread"…
One week later, we were pulling up to his magical mountain home with a bag of grapes, 2 bottles of wine, some chocolate, and a soul brother from Sydney.
In all honesty, we had NO idea what was about to happen and joked in the car of potential serial killer weirdness and compromising scenarios… but in our hearts we knew it would be the lovely night that it was.
I really think that you CAN know someone straight off the bat when you recognize a reflection connection or like-energy in someone… you just KNOW that they too walk your path and you can tell that getting to know oone another can only further you down that path.
Matthew and I found each other in the living room at day break. I was sitting on a big green swiss ball taking in the view, considering sitting in meditation but finding myself in the same thoughts i used to have each day in the Mentawais last year…. I would look out through the bending palm trees at the perfect crashing waves and completely set aside the idea of closing my eyes.
How could i close my eyes when there was all this beauty to look at?
It was a moving meditation just to walk around the island right?
maybe.
But in all honesty, nothing is the same as closing your eyes and looking inward…
As my favorite Carl Jung quote says:
"He who looks outside, dreams… He who looks inside, awakens."
So i woke up this morning and did a sit beside Matthew. With eyes closed, we awoken. For a solid 40 minutes I sat unmoving just observing… allowing thoughts to crop up and then dropping them, releasing them and returning to the breath, and eventually to the emptiness.
It's constant… and eternal.
Finding that you have strayed away from your intention and then pulling the reigns and finding yourself back on track… Especially for someone like me who's pendulum swings wide.
When i fall off course, I end up in another time zone.
And here i am… in another time zone… again.
It's a good thing i don't really understand time and just let it be what it thinks it is… because otherwise I would probably loose my mind trying to figure out what was happening half the time as a flit and flounce around the planet….
I pull myself back to the now.
The only time frame i can truly understand or fathom… and i am reminded of India.
I left India just over 3 months ago. It feels like yesterday and it feels like a million years ago, but I talk about it all the time and with the blink of an eye, I can be transported back to the smells and sounds and daily lessons i found on my journey there.
I miss my daily guitar lessons from Baba Aaron… and i miss pressing my sweaty, dirty, palms together and bowing my head a hundred times a day when i meet someone who blows my mind and completely flips me upside down…
But then again, there are lessons everywhere - every place i travel to… not least of which here in Australia.
btw - www.travellers-autobarn.com.au/
-----
Half a day later and i am curled up with my laptop in a net hammock next to a late-afternoon lake that is surrounded by yurts, huts, and half naked hippies… These dreadlocked travelers hailing from all over the planet are soaking in today's sun - playing volleyball beside a painted magic bus and gathered around a picnic table playing Bon Iver's 'Skinny Love'… Wild turkeys and strange lizards that run on two legs cruise around as laxly as the young, international gypsies…. This is The Arts Factory in Byron.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised to be hearing Bon Iver everywhere since Tawney and I spent the end of their tour with them last week… Because everything happens in this synchronistic way… and because they RULE… It makes me SO stoked to hear their music getting love all over the world… So amazing.
But here I am by myself smiling over my shoulder at the German accents I can hear through the words "staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer."
Those lyrics always remind me of a year and a half ago when I was still living in Venice Beach. Kings Of Leon "Pickup Truck" was my anthem at that time… a time when i had a series of root canal surgeries and dramas with my teeth. I would always snap a picture on my blackberry when my mouth was bloody and send it to my roommate Josh because the lyrics in Pickup Truck sing "A piece of a bloody tooth… Just so you know I was thinking of you." it was my photo message to tell him i was thinking of him - even in the midst of a shitty dental procedure. He always makes me happy - even in the shittiest of shit.
Whats with all my favorite songs singing about bloody teeth? (My front teeth are veneers)
Wow… I digress like a pro.
Gotta get back to my story about today…
I'm gonna go back to Matthew's house this morning which feels like an eon ago.
From there, Tawney, Pail and I started driving in our Travellers Auto Barn shaggin wagon - (we went the super long way) towards Byron… And without even trying, we found our way to Mount Warning… a place we had heard about multiple times since arriving here.
Apparently its the first place that the rising sun hits in Australia - which i would guess means its the most Easterly point of the country.
And apparently women are not supposed to climb to the top - since it is traditionally a meeting point for men to gather and hike. The women gather in Byron.
Ironically (or not) Tawney and I found a mutual friend named Allison - our friend Mike Schiebel has been trying to hook us up with her since we told him we were starting this adventure… As we were sitting at a cafe hearing her story (the daughter of a national geographic photographer and a yoga instructor) my memory got jogged to an email I had gotten a few months back from my childhood friend Jessie Beemer.
Jessie had tried to introduce me to this same woman, Allison back then - and as luck would have it - the women found each other… in Byron… the meeting point for women historically in Australia.
I love this.
Last week I met Rebecca and Sunne, two Goddesses I had spent time with in Rhishikesh, India in December. We gathered at the Conscious Cafe - down the street from where I am at this present moment. In mystical, amazing Byron Bay.
It was Sunne who told me about Mount Warning, and warned me not to climb to the top, out of respect to the elders and tradition of the land.
Paul, Tawney and I found our way to the base of Mount Warning this morning - the avatar meets jurassic park rainforest terrain - fog swirled around the tip of this majestic mountain and the river trickled down between twisted vines and gorgeous rocks.
Tawney and I (of course) did our gypsYEAAdventure dance on a bridge in the middle of the magic but we passed on the trek up the hill - because of the whole respect thing and also because it threatened to be 6 hours, steep tracks, lots of steps and dangerous… oh. and it was raining.
We left and carried on to Nimbin - a crazy, rainbow colored explosion of hippies with babies and stoners… It was like Santa Cruz meets Telegraph in Berkeley but set in this gorgeous lush landscape… and it was there at our organic lunch spot that the sun broke through from behind a papaya tree as i ate a green papaya salad.
They call it "paw paw" here and i think its adorable.
Finally SUN! It didn't even peek its head out yesterday...
Leaving Nimbin, Paul relieved me from being perm-driver since Tawney isn't down to drive on the other side of the road… and drove us through the vineyards and mountains - fields and endless green green green landscape and into Byron under blue skies and hot sun.
We checked into the Arts Factory and immediately Tawney and Paul went down to the beach..
I couldn't get myself together and needed some decompression, zani time - so here i am.
Wow. I'm up to speed. That feels good.
It's like my inbox just got empty.
I'm gonna go take a yoga class.
OM love
Z
Woke up in a house that is precariously perched on the side of a mountain overlooking the ridge that delineates Queensland from New South Wales.
We'd arrived at night and not yet seen the panoramic view from Matthew's living room until i got up at dawn and stumbled down his living room's wooden stairs, past the old wood burning chimney with the flu that stretches all the way up to the vaulted ceiling adjacent to the wall of windows looking out towards Collangatta.
Tawney and I had picked up our friend Paul at Coollangatta Airport yesterday evening before making our way through the dark, stormy night to meet this new friend we had met outside a Bon Iver show in Brisbane last week. His name was Matthew and he was decidedly one of the most beautiful people either Tawney or I had met… ever.
We exchanged numbers that night and he immediately invited us over to the home of he and his beautiful girlfriend Lani in the Gold Coast to "break bread"…
One week later, we were pulling up to his magical mountain home with a bag of grapes, 2 bottles of wine, some chocolate, and a soul brother from Sydney.
In all honesty, we had NO idea what was about to happen and joked in the car of potential serial killer weirdness and compromising scenarios… but in our hearts we knew it would be the lovely night that it was.
I really think that you CAN know someone straight off the bat when you recognize a reflection connection or like-energy in someone… you just KNOW that they too walk your path and you can tell that getting to know oone another can only further you down that path.
Matthew and I found each other in the living room at day break. I was sitting on a big green swiss ball taking in the view, considering sitting in meditation but finding myself in the same thoughts i used to have each day in the Mentawais last year…. I would look out through the bending palm trees at the perfect crashing waves and completely set aside the idea of closing my eyes.
How could i close my eyes when there was all this beauty to look at?
It was a moving meditation just to walk around the island right?
maybe.
But in all honesty, nothing is the same as closing your eyes and looking inward…
As my favorite Carl Jung quote says:
"He who looks outside, dreams… He who looks inside, awakens."
So i woke up this morning and did a sit beside Matthew. With eyes closed, we awoken. For a solid 40 minutes I sat unmoving just observing… allowing thoughts to crop up and then dropping them, releasing them and returning to the breath, and eventually to the emptiness.
It's constant… and eternal.
Finding that you have strayed away from your intention and then pulling the reigns and finding yourself back on track… Especially for someone like me who's pendulum swings wide.
When i fall off course, I end up in another time zone.
And here i am… in another time zone… again.
It's a good thing i don't really understand time and just let it be what it thinks it is… because otherwise I would probably loose my mind trying to figure out what was happening half the time as a flit and flounce around the planet….
I pull myself back to the now.
The only time frame i can truly understand or fathom… and i am reminded of India.
I left India just over 3 months ago. It feels like yesterday and it feels like a million years ago, but I talk about it all the time and with the blink of an eye, I can be transported back to the smells and sounds and daily lessons i found on my journey there.
I miss my daily guitar lessons from Baba Aaron… and i miss pressing my sweaty, dirty, palms together and bowing my head a hundred times a day when i meet someone who blows my mind and completely flips me upside down…
But then again, there are lessons everywhere - every place i travel to… not least of which here in Australia.
btw - www.travellers-autobarn.com.au/
-----
Half a day later and i am curled up with my laptop in a net hammock next to a late-afternoon lake that is surrounded by yurts, huts, and half naked hippies… These dreadlocked travelers hailing from all over the planet are soaking in today's sun - playing volleyball beside a painted magic bus and gathered around a picnic table playing Bon Iver's 'Skinny Love'… Wild turkeys and strange lizards that run on two legs cruise around as laxly as the young, international gypsies…. This is The Arts Factory in Byron.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised to be hearing Bon Iver everywhere since Tawney and I spent the end of their tour with them last week… Because everything happens in this synchronistic way… and because they RULE… It makes me SO stoked to hear their music getting love all over the world… So amazing.
But here I am by myself smiling over my shoulder at the German accents I can hear through the words "staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer."
Those lyrics always remind me of a year and a half ago when I was still living in Venice Beach. Kings Of Leon "Pickup Truck" was my anthem at that time… a time when i had a series of root canal surgeries and dramas with my teeth. I would always snap a picture on my blackberry when my mouth was bloody and send it to my roommate Josh because the lyrics in Pickup Truck sing "A piece of a bloody tooth… Just so you know I was thinking of you." it was my photo message to tell him i was thinking of him - even in the midst of a shitty dental procedure. He always makes me happy - even in the shittiest of shit.
Whats with all my favorite songs singing about bloody teeth? (My front teeth are veneers)
Wow… I digress like a pro.
Gotta get back to my story about today…
I'm gonna go back to Matthew's house this morning which feels like an eon ago.
From there, Tawney, Pail and I started driving in our Travellers Auto Barn shaggin wagon - (we went the super long way) towards Byron… And without even trying, we found our way to Mount Warning… a place we had heard about multiple times since arriving here.
Apparently its the first place that the rising sun hits in Australia - which i would guess means its the most Easterly point of the country.
And apparently women are not supposed to climb to the top - since it is traditionally a meeting point for men to gather and hike. The women gather in Byron.
Ironically (or not) Tawney and I found a mutual friend named Allison - our friend Mike Schiebel has been trying to hook us up with her since we told him we were starting this adventure… As we were sitting at a cafe hearing her story (the daughter of a national geographic photographer and a yoga instructor) my memory got jogged to an email I had gotten a few months back from my childhood friend Jessie Beemer.
Jessie had tried to introduce me to this same woman, Allison back then - and as luck would have it - the women found each other… in Byron… the meeting point for women historically in Australia.
I love this.
Last week I met Rebecca and Sunne, two Goddesses I had spent time with in Rhishikesh, India in December. We gathered at the Conscious Cafe - down the street from where I am at this present moment. In mystical, amazing Byron Bay.
It was Sunne who told me about Mount Warning, and warned me not to climb to the top, out of respect to the elders and tradition of the land.
Paul, Tawney and I found our way to the base of Mount Warning this morning - the avatar meets jurassic park rainforest terrain - fog swirled around the tip of this majestic mountain and the river trickled down between twisted vines and gorgeous rocks.
Tawney and I (of course) did our gypsYEAAdventure dance on a bridge in the middle of the magic but we passed on the trek up the hill - because of the whole respect thing and also because it threatened to be 6 hours, steep tracks, lots of steps and dangerous… oh. and it was raining.
We left and carried on to Nimbin - a crazy, rainbow colored explosion of hippies with babies and stoners… It was like Santa Cruz meets Telegraph in Berkeley but set in this gorgeous lush landscape… and it was there at our organic lunch spot that the sun broke through from behind a papaya tree as i ate a green papaya salad.
They call it "paw paw" here and i think its adorable.
Finally SUN! It didn't even peek its head out yesterday...
Leaving Nimbin, Paul relieved me from being perm-driver since Tawney isn't down to drive on the other side of the road… and drove us through the vineyards and mountains - fields and endless green green green landscape and into Byron under blue skies and hot sun.
We checked into the Arts Factory and immediately Tawney and Paul went down to the beach..
I couldn't get myself together and needed some decompression, zani time - so here i am.
Wow. I'm up to speed. That feels good.
It's like my inbox just got empty.
I'm gonna go take a yoga class.
OM love
Z
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