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.

pack a state of surrender

i came to padang to do my fingerprints for immigration.
i think it was a few days ago--- maybe a week. i can't be sure.
it's june though...
how is it already june 2011?

weird.


i tried to sleep the first night i got here at spice homestay in an air conditioned room on a springgy bed with a clock ticking next to my head and trucks zooming by on the street outside.

very weird.

the "real world" is always weird when i get here.

i lay in bed that night staring up at the reflection of car headlights from the street danced across the ceiling above me... illumniating the odd mosquito trapped in the room confusedly darting around looking for a way out of the ice box he had found himself in.
it must be VERY odd to be a Sumatran animal and find yourself somewhere cold.
it just doesn't exist naturally here.
everything is hot.
everything sweats.

my mind danced around like the lights from the street as i rolled around restlessly on the springgy bed that felt like a bag of weird squishy metal underneath me.

i thought about where i had been the morning before.
i had woken up on the island in one of the driftwood dreamhouse bungalows.
We didn't have guests so Birdie and I got to sleep in the bungalow instead of in the bar, like usual.
John E and Ainz and Beaker had come over in the morning to drape and lounge and hang and ask if we all wanted to go have dinner aboard the Indies Trader 4 that night.
We walked back over to the driftwood castle and i looked back behind me... John E was barefoot and barechested (as always) with beaker on his shoulder as he leisuresly strolled down the path looking up at the trees running his fingers along the leaves as he meandered across his island.
i said to him "what time will we leave"
without looking away from the trees he softly sang in his quiet sometimes inaudible John E way "sunset time i guess"
i looked down at my wrist and said "let's synchronize our arm hairs"
John giggled and said "I can't imagine trying to stay on time with a clock ticking. it's so unnatural."
He put his hand flat over his heart and patted his chest like a heartbeat
"That's the only tempo to stay connected to"

I thought to myself WHOOSH. so true. to profound. and simple. as every lesson i learn out here is.

Indos seem closer then we are.

Kahlil Gibran said "Come out of the circle of time and into the circle of LOVE."

true dat.

Time did some weird stuff as usual... I guess I have been on Sumatra for a few days. I can't really explain how or how long or what sequence things happened in...

But i found myself in a car on a long long daytrip with Dan, from the Palisades... we wound up to Bukittingi through hills sprinkled with marigold colored daiseys and pointed Minang style rooftops modeled after the Minang cattle horns... We drove up and up the roads with lines painted... though the lines are clearly just a suggestion.
Nothing is law.
Nothing is invariable here.

We stopped in a village for Gado-Gado and i wandered around... a little jalan-jalan...
I wanted to buy a bracelet for my new Mentawai friend named Yuli in Tua Pajet. Before i left to come out here i sat with her in her little warung and talked in Indonesian for about 3 hours. She gave me an avocado juice and a wooden bracelet before i left to get on the ferry, so i thought i would get her a little oleh oleh while i was out here in Sumatra.

I found a stand with a little lady sitting behind it in this small town on the way to Bukittingi.... i haggled backwards... going UP from what she originally offered to sell it to me for. She seemed shocked, but i felt good.
She deserved more then 20 cents per bracelet, so i gave her about 5 dollars for two.

Climbed back in the car.
The car climbed higher and higher through waterfalls and rice patties... coconut trees and suggested lines delineating lanes on these highways.

I kept telling Dan "Best not to watch" as i saw his knuckles growing more and more white from his tightening grip on the door handle as our driver played chicken with oncoming cars speeding around corners like a bat out of hell.

What a lesson on "letting go" i thought to myself.

Before Dan came to Indo he asked what he needed to bring and i simply responded "just pack a state of surrender. you will need it here"

That morning i had woken up early and sat at the table at the Spice Homestay and talked to my friend Sri about men and jealousy and how it is the worst worst emotion to have.
jealousy is toxic.
we must trust and surrender to everything instead.

The next night (i guess)... the rain came down in hot sticky sheets... passionate rain it felt like.
Water falling in giant drops from the sky that hung above West Sumatra.
the smells of the nearby jungles released into the atmosphere.
The echo of tropical rain on a tin roof transports me into memories of the past and fantasies of the future.

The morning brought coffee with my Aries soul sister and first wives club partner in life philosophy named Sri who runs the spice homestay here and is so badass. I thought she didn't like me for a long time, but convo by convo we find that we are the same... over and over again finding parallels and reflections in one another.

We could talk for hours over endless cups of coffee... and we do.

Yesterday (i think) - i walked to the market with my Aussie yogini girlfriend Liz who is coming back to the island with me and Birdie tonight (i think its tonight)... on the ferry. We had a pretty awesome adventure walking all over Padang, which nobody ever wants to do... but it was exhausting and fulfilling and dirty and gross and overwhelming and amazing and i loved it so so much.
We were like neon pink elephants walking through a sepia toned world... sticking out like amazon white women, though we were covered and appropriately dressed... we were clearly noticed by every single person in the vortex.
Liz is half mexican and gorgeous. she has beautiful native american inspired tattoos and carries herself like the goddess she is.
She and her fiance Bevo call the market the vortex because it goes for days and days and days it seems.
Fresh produce and plastic goods, Batik sarongs and Cane sugar juice sold in plastic bags with straws rubber banded... Vendors sitting in the middle of their pile of veggies covered in flies up above the muddy planks of wood we walk over to squeeze past each stall... live eels and leaches... fish splashing stinky water onto black jelly looking slices... the occasional dead rat to step over.
Everyone stopping us to talk.
Liz is getting a masters in Bahasa Indonesia and i am learning so we stopped and chatted to everyone, embracing the chaos and craziness and squeezing it tight to our bohemian loving hearts and hippie pranayama partaking soul
We went back to her house and had green smoothies that blew my mind.
I love to have healthy treats in this part of the world. they seem so few and far between.
Last night (i think)... i had dinner with a new friend who is here to work with Surfaid. SHe is from England but lives in Australia.
I saw her come out of her room at Spice and yelped.
a 5'10" blonde woman! whoa.
welcome!!!
We went to Fellas and ran into a bunch of friends. I like that i run into so many peiople i know around here...
its kind of a reminder of how small this community is when i come to padang.

After a bite to eat and one drink (that i didn't even want in the first place but was bought for me and i couldn't be rude)... i said goodnight to my new and old friends and walked back over to Spice to sleep.
At the gate i found the other Americans that are here to work with Surfaid including a woman named Tatiana who apparently is from the Palisades.
This blows my mind.

The small world gets smaller and smaller.

Today i am gathering my things and getting ready to head back to Tua Pajet on the ferry.
Its the long ferry that stops through Siobahn for 5 hours... meaning that i will be travelling back to the island (which is only a few hundred miles away) for about 20 hours.

Operation: Pack a state of surrender?
Game on.