I opened my Crown Chakra to receive wisdom from the Universe, then my Third Eye to see beyond the visible.
image from jillconyers.com beginners guide to the chakras
About that time a thought barged in. Where’s my ear chakra?
Why wouldn’t my ears have a chakra? Listening is far more advantageous than speaking during meditation and if messages were incoming I wanted to know why ears didn’t have their own reception center.
No sooner had the question formed, abrupt and silly as it was, the answer came.
Wisdom of the Universe and visions seen with Third Eye go directly to the Heart Chakra. The heart hears all unspoken information meant for you. It translates and forwards it to the Throat Chakra. The messages coming through the heart enable you to speak your truth.
I no longer cared about my ears. I was awed as the story unwinding in my head continued.
Your gut (Third Chakra) listens to the body and transmits messages to the seat of creativity and innovation, the Second Chakra. There, an appropriate course of action is conjured. That information travels to the Root (First Chakra) communicating what the body needs to survive and thrive. You have two intuitive listening centers, the heart, and the gut. Your ears are for the earth-plane only.
I think this may have been the most elegant download of information I’ve ever received. I’d wondered a stupid question not even expecting an answer. But the Universe honored my curiosity in the most beautiful way.
To be clear, this was for me, nobody else. I’m not a guru of the chakras and I will never challenge someone else’s interpretation. I’m also not a medium. Those gifted souls regularly hear messages for others. Furthermore, I don’t usually post details about my rituals. I refer to them, but I don’t belabor them. It’s the quickest way to lose a reader and I value my friends who follow this blog and respond so caringly. In over 400 posts I’ve only gotten one rude comment and I take full responsibility for that. I broke my own code and wrote a political piece, an area best left to journalists.
So if this is going to turn people off, why am I writing it?
I hope to generate greater interest in meditation. These are strange and complex times. Much of what we depended upon in the past to chart the way ahead doesn’t work anymore. There’s too much unknown. Too much uncertainty. Those who can access their ‘inner knowing’ will gain insights that won’t be forthcoming any other way.
The human organism is vastly under-utilized. We have so much more potential than we employ to our advantage. I’ve been steadily drawn more deeply into the exploration of those untapped reservoirs of possibility and my mind is blown. Over and over again. It’s exhilarating, humbling, and simply magnificent. I want that for others – for everyone. That’s what is called for as the Age of Aquarius dawns.
I used to have them regularly. In fact, it was the odd day that wasn’t. But it’s been a long nine months since I’ve experienced twelve hours that were gorgeous from beginning to end.
It began with a moody sunrise.
Clouds stirred a potent stew setting the stage. Anything could happen.
My morning routine behind me, I readied my computer to tune in to Jessa’s class. My oldest daughter has created a niche for herself that nobody else can occupy simply because they haven’t walked in her shoes. This child of mine heard a different drum and listened. From an undergrad in psychology, she enrolled in the California Institute of Integral Studies for her Masters in Women’s Spirituality which took her to the Goddess Temples of Malta for ritual, dance, and music. There she experienced the archaeological remnants of pre-patriarchal culture.
After grad school, Jessa was hired by Yeungnam University in South Korea where she taught English to English Literature majors for several years. During that time, she explored other parts of Asia. Every so often I’d get a message: I’ll be out of touch for a while Mom…I don’t want you to worry….which would instantly trigger acute anxiety and push all my fear buttons. With a local guide, she journeyed by donkey along Tiger Leaping Gorge, completely off-the-grid. That visit to the matriarchal Mosuo community on Lugu Lake near the Tibetan border in China gave me weeks of nightmares. She loved it. Leaving Mother Lake: A Girlhood at the Edge of the World, by Yang Erche Namu, is the memoir of a young Mosuo woman. If you want your eyes opened to an alternate universe, read that book.
For ninety minutes I scribbled notes as Jessa presented her class Crossing the Aquarian Threshold: The Jupiter Saturn Grand Conjunction. Forty of us Zoomed with her on a deep dive into the ramifications of the planetary alignment that will arrive on Dec 21, 2020, the Solstice. Her diverse perspectives and surprise ending gave me so much hope for the future that, as soon as she finished, I had a full-blown meltdown. I know, that doesn’t make sense. I should have been overjoyed, not unglued.
I think it was the build-up of nine months of horror, holding myself tight to maintain sanity, making daily life-and-death decisions, “Can I see this person? Am I Covid free? Are they? Should I go to the store? The restaurant? The library…?” A message of hope seemed too much for my nervous system to bear.
There’s nothing like a blubbering, cleansing cry to refresh the soul.
It took a while but eventually I collected myself and made a huge bowl of fresh mango topped with homemade granola for lunch. Ketut appeared just in time for Nescafe and gosip, a favorite pastime that isn’t really gossip. I don’t know how we got onto the subject of the Cempaka tree and its metal heart, but I learned that Cempaka heartwood is incredibly strong, like metal, and is used for temple structures and wood carvings. Ketut wanted to know if there were such trees where I come from. I said there might be one in a botanical garden inside a glass house to keep it warm, but not growing wild like Bali.
Good laughs, always good laughs with Ketut.
After sitting all morning, I needed to move my body. For several days I’d been itching for new reading material. Ubud’s Pondok Pekok is a lending library about a quarter-mile from me. It also has a section of used books for sale ranging from seventy cents to $3.50 USD. They’re not in any logical order so it’s a game of hunt ‘n’ peck. I’ve passed hours paging through musty tomes, but this time it went fast.
I found three good novels, then a splash of color caught my eye. Out of a stack of used and abused children’s books I pulled this gem.
The cover sold me. Tell me, who could resist opening this book? It was in utterly pristine condition – an enigma in the Ubud library world. Every page was a feast for the eyes.
Graeme Base is an author/illustrator, a rare bird in literature, and he’s written this story in delicious rhyme. Above are pages two and three of Hubert the elephant’s birthday party mystery entitled The Eleventh Hour.
The feeling that I’d struck gold lingered as I hurried home and rearranged furniture to prepare for the next event of this exceptional day. My table found a perfect spot under the ceiling fan – also the best location to catch cool breezes. I use the term ‘cool’ loosely as rainy season is upon us with high temperatures and 99% humidity.
Ketut had challenged two friends to a few games of Texas Mean which he always wins. But not this time! Our precocious thirteen-year-old neighbor took four out of five rounds and I got lucky with one. She was blissed! He was skunked (overwhelming defeat – check it out) but took his losses with jovial goodwill.
A few hours later, games finished, I started to return the table to its original position. But the chair and ottoman I’d moved out of the way and tucked in a corner looked so inviting I couldn’t resist a sit-down. Before me stretched the wide-open view of sky and clouds. I day-dreamed until it was too dark to see. Wholly at peace, full from heart to toes with gratitude for life, I pulled myself out of my cozy spot, showered, grabbed one of the new books, and went to bed.
What made this day special, superbly elevated above endless days before it?
The message of hope
My blubbering melt-down
Gosip with Ketut
A successful treasure hunt
Fun with friends
Cloud-dreaming
People. Learning. Variety. Challenge. Surprise. Fun. And HOPE. Hope that there will be much more of this in the weeks ahead. I don’t think I can wait nine months more for another perfect day.
If you want a peek at where else Jessa’s been and what she’s done, here’s the link to the credentials page on her website. And to all who are reading this – wherever you are – I hope you’ve had more than one stellar day. It isn’t quite enough.
P.S. A recording of Jessa’s class Crossing the Aquarian Threshold: The Jupiter Saturn Grand Conjunction is available for $35. Please include your email address so she can send you the recording. You can make your payment via PayPal paypal.me/jessawalters or Venmo. Once she receives payment, she’ll email you the link to download the recording, along with a bounty of resources she references in her presentation.
The recording is about 90 minutes. One of the participants, Mary Foley, had this to say: “Such an amazing presentation, thank you so much! I love how much you bring from your work in somatics and racial justice. You weave a picture of hope without letting us off the hook for the tremendous amount of work we have to do!”
For more information and for other offerings, you can visit Jessa’s website: www.jessawalters.com
Thanksgiving morning dawned, hot, muggy, and slightly overcast.
There was no planned outing with friends to a local restaurant for roasted stuffed turkey with all the trimmings. Such gatherings are discouraged for now, and to actually find a restaurant open, and not only open but serving turkey which is outrageously expensive to buy here…well…it just wasn’t going to happen.
I awoke with reasonably good intentions of accomplishing something, but a goal as fuzzy as that rarely gets much traction.
So I napped and read, read and napped, and thought about Thanksgivings past.
The table was set for ten or twelve. Before Dad said grace, and before digging into moist slices of turkey, candied sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and stuffing with gravy, we took turns telling what we were grateful for.
Between snoozes and the interesting story I was sort of reading, I rehearsed my current litany of blessings, see-sawing between past memories and present realities when suddenly… I had an overwhelming urge to sort through files. Trust me, this never happens. I knew I had to act and act fast or the notion would pass.
Soon the floor around me was littered with stacks of ‘keepers’ and ‘dumps.’
And then…
There it was. The packet of old photos Mom sent home with me when she was divesting herself of a lifetime of family history kept in picture albums. I’d never bothered to open it.
Oh, my! Ms. Bouffant 1969.
I was 19. How did I even get my hair to do that? I probably slept on giant brush rollers all night, then teased the curls into rats’ nests, smoothed the top and spray-lacquered it to the consistency of a bike helmet with Superhold Aqua Net. Remember Aqua Net? Superhold was purple.
I came across other shots equally as humiliating, but my pride will only allow one at a time.
As it happened, I actually accomplished quite a lot in spite of my very slow start. Eleven fat folders became four skinny ones. I found poems I’d forgotten I’d written and old diaries that jogged more memories.
So I wasn’t really alone for Thanksgiving. Old ghosts came back to remind me how truly grateful I am NOT to be living in the past. No matter how tough this Covid year has been, and no matter how uncertain the future seems at the moment, helmet hair and Aqua Net are forever behind me and that’s worth celebrating!
“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “to speak of many things…”
I hadn’t read through the whole poem of The Walrus and the Carpenter, by Lewis Carroll until today. It’s a horrible story! But that well-known line captures the feeling I’ve had for months – the necessity to state the truth of the situation and move forward.
Moving forward means going toward the future, a future that has no basis in past experience, nothing to look at and say, “When this happened before, this is what I did.” If Covid has done nothing else, it’s shown me how much I’ve depended on the past to navigate and plan for what’s next.
So now I’m flying by seat-of-the-pants intuition and my gut.
All the while nursing mild hysteria at being cooped up without nearly enough social stimulation. Not to mention the black hole of lonesomeness for my family a g’zillion miles away. So if what I’m about to say sounds impetuous….
It’s not.
My decision is based upon hundreds of hours of banging my head against a wall, meditating, then banging my head a few more times for good measure. In other words, I’ve thoroughly thought it through, considered all the options, changed my mind then changed it back, and finally have arrived at a place of knowing what I want.
I’m selling the lease on my property here in Ubud and embarking on the next great adventure.
Bali has been my home for nine years. That’s longer than four of my marriages. I’ve thrived here. The island welcomed me, nurtured me, and grounded me in a deeper understanding of myself. Out of a driving desire to communicate with Ketut’s family, I learned to speak Indonesian and my escapades on the back of his motorbike will remain some of the most precarious and precious moments of my life.
It’s been a glorious ride, literally and figuratively. But my gypsy soul has itchy feet and my Viking heart is pounding a new rhythm.
Do I know what’s next?
Remember, there’s no past giving me clues to the future, and my crystal ball’s gone cloudy. But I can stay in the present moment and take the next right step. Then the next. And the next. To relieve myself of my responsibilities here is the first right thing. The old must be set aside before the new can emerge.
Of course there’s an election. I know it. You know it. We all know it.
What we don’t know is similar to what we don’t know about Covid. When will it end?
I, for one, am ready for the stress of uncertainty on too many levels to be over. It’s something I don’t want to get used to. I don’t want to adjust and accept it as the ongoing state of things forever and ever, amen. I’m talking Covid now. I know, eventually, the numbers will determine the next president of the United States. But as I watch the corona count escalate with cold weather ahead for many months, I wonder…
It’s not just another flu. In 2018-2019 the U.S. death toll from influenza was 34,200. From January 2020 to the present, the deaths from Covid in the U.S. stand at 242,230. Even I can do that math.
That’s reality. I don’t have to like it, but I can’t deny it.
Until recently I’ve been distraction averse. I liked to ‘knuckle-down’ and get things done. I have an experimental project to finish and a novel to work on. But a new creature has taken possession of my mind/body/emotions and now I PLAN my distractions in minute detail. The rules are simple. They must
be mindless tasks
require movement
take at least two hours minimum
feel meaningful
produce measurable results on my ‘happiness meter’
Yesterday it was laundry. Today it’s defrost the refrigerator and make beet hummus.
The fridge is done so beets, here I come!
Look at that color. Time for a taste-test.
Whoops.
Dirt. This has that deep-earth essence, so beety, dank…and somehow I’ve gotten overly enthusiastic with the salt. Okay, what now? I refuse to admit defeat. (Sound familiar?) What can I add to beets to dilute dirt and neutralize salt that doesn’t require a trip to the store?
Lentils.
In no time the pot is simmering. Within thirty minutes I’ve added a cup of mushy beans to the contents in the blender and whipped it to a froth.
Taste…
Oh baby! We’re talkin’ perfection here. Not even a hint of mud. Salted just right. The color’s still vibrant and the beans add density, a substantial wholesomeness to the mix.
My stomach reminds me I skipped breakfast and it’s time for lunch.
I love carrot hummus on toast with egg. It’s my favorite meal. The beets might be even better…
Mmmm! A fresh loaf of sourdough from Bali Buda Bakery…
Sliced, fried, and smeared with gobs of beet hummus…
Topped with egg and served with a glass of turmeric-lemongrass-ginger-tamerind jamu…
My happiness meter is off the charts – I rescued a near disaster and it’s freaking delicious as well as nutritious.
Where’s my phone?
Just a quick peek…
Georgia’s doing a recount?
“Hello, Mingle Café? Can I still get that frozen mojito delivered? Yes? Ok. Bring two. Fifteen minutes? Great. I think I can make it ’til then…”
Has it been fifteen minutes? Can I check the results again? Maybe the numbers are different – Pennsylvania? Georgia? Do I want to know? Yes? No? Where’s my phone? Oh. Still in my hand. Hmmm,
I’ve done my morning rituals. I’ve picked spinach from the garden and cooked it. I’ve messaged everyone I know and it’s only 10:00 a.m. The day looms ahead and I need distractions – this election is moving like a herd of turtles and every little percentage point one way or another makes my heart stop.
I open the closet and a pile of dirty laundry tumbles out.
I’ve been procrastinating. Usually it’s just my ‘delicates’ in there. I always do them by hand for various valid reasons. But lacey tops can’t tolerate the massive commercial machines that crank out my heartier garments either. I have three that I wore over the past two weeks. They’re waiting.
All that wouldn’t be so bad, but there’s a queen bedspread with spots that will require bleach, and a white cushion cover that the neighborhood cat decided was his. It’s covered with short black hairs and muddy paw prints. The laundry isn’t good with too many details. They take a straightforward approach and do what they do to perfection. They just don’t do spots.
I take time for a little approach/avoidance conflict and finally give in. I can’t focus on anything more taxing than that anyway. May as well get it done.
A quick glance at the phone still in my hand – no change.
Soon I’m elbows deep in suds. It takes intense concentration to keep from splattering bleach on the dark blue dress I’m too lazy (or stubborn) to change for this task.
My second-floor apartment is a dream, but it’s small. The balcony railings double as drying racks and today there’s a perfect breeze. Here’s the bedspread…
And the cat’s cushion cover…
I used to schedule laundry day when I knew there’d be no friends dropping by for a chat. Garments and bedding festooned from the railings is not exactly an ‘uptown’ look. But Covid has taken care of spontaneous visitors – any visitors…
My lacey blouses hung from window handles flap happily and dry in a nanosecond.
But I’m most proud of my solution for drying two weeks’ worth of undies. At first I tried stringing ropes between chair backs. It worked but was aesthetically grim. Next I ran lines from the daybed posts and looped them around cabinet handles. This was a better solution since I didn’t have to circumnavigate the wash every time I moved. But it, too, was ugly as sin.
I don’t know exactly when inspiration hit, but it was a true ah-ha moment. Now, plastic hangers suspended from the shower head hook onto one another and my ‘little nothings’ drip into the drain – out of sight. Brilliant, don’t you think?
And not a bleach spot to be seen on my dark blue dress.
Normally I wouldn’t write a post about laundry. But these are not normal times.
After I’d finished my task – during which I hadn’t once checked my phone – I had a split-second panic attack. What to do next? Then, Dear Reader, I thought of you. Maybe this ridiculous story about my domestic distraction tactics will give you a moment’s reprieve from the grueling wait.
My love for this island hasn’t wavered. I’ve written poems and posts praising her wondrous landscapes and warm-hearted people. My taste buds have acclimated to chilies and fish sauce. I can’t imagine going back to canned-soup casseroles after thriving on fresh-off-the-tree dragon fruit, papaya, mango, and the magnificent red banana.
Here’s what I wrote in June, 2013, a word-picture of the old Bali that put all her eggs in the tourist basket. And the last verse, the Bali now, is a much different scene. As you read it, the word Bule means foreigner and is pronounced Boo-lay, accent on Boo.
Bali Beats
Kuta Beach, braid your hair?
Won’t take long…buy sarong?
Maybe two…good price…
Kuta Cowboy nice, you want
Mushroom? Weed? Speed?
What you need, Bule?
Bali beats, Bali beats, Bali beats…
Gamelan in the streets, cremation tower
Dodging power lines, three times
Black bull circles
Dizzy spirits flee
Can you see it, Bule?
Bali beats, Bali beats, Bali beats…
Kecak chorus, chant, trance
Women dancing
Golden deer and Hanoman
In the night by firelight,
Are you frightened, Bule?
Bali beats, Bali beats, Bali beats…
Rubbish smoking
Choking when you breathe it in…
The din of tourist bus
Clogs narrow streets
Defeats the purpose, Bule…
Bali beats, Bali beats, Bali beats…
Trash in ocean, river, piling up
While Bali smiling for you, Bule…
Taxi, yes? Today? Tomorrow, maybe…
Where you stay?
What you pay, Bule?
Bali beats, Bali beats, Bali bleeds…
Covid came and Bule fled
Business dead, no smiles here
Just fear, uncertainty
And empty streets
So quiet I can hear
The beats…of Bali’s…heart
The situation is bleak, and it’s a stern wake-up call. An economy based almost solely on tourism is fragile indeed. But the Balinese are resilient and creative. They will adapt. Many have already gone back to resurrect their paddies and vegetable gardens. But those who no longer have land, those taxi drivers, hotel staff, and restaurant owners who depended upon a steady stream of tourism for survival, are suffering.
I’m a Bule who is still here, and while I grieve for my Balinese friends, I also watch wildlife return. Birds and butterflies I haven’t seen for years twitter and flutter about the garden. Fumes from the exhaust of too many cars, buses, and motorbikes, jammed in gridlock, have faded away. The air sparkles clear.
They say it’s like Bali twenty years ago…before the Bule stole her heart.
Hibernating gets old. Just ask any grumpy she-bear who’s been holed up in a cave all winter in a state of suspended animation…
Does this sound familiar?
Of course Bali doesn’t have cold weather…or bears. But it has more than its share of expats who are feeling the effects of confinement. For the past few days I’ve barely stuck my nose out of the house. I meant to, but it was easier not to.
This morning, for some inexplicable reason, I woke up at 5:30 supercharged. The sky was brightening but the sun wouldn’t rise for another half hour. I made my bed, certain this was a fluke and the jolt of energy was just that, a jolt, and would quickly pass.
It remained.
The voice I’ve come to recognize as my stern grandmother (if you’ve never had a Norwegian grandmother you’ll have no idea what I mean) pulled me up short. Skam på du! she said. I think that’s the only Norsk phrase I ever learned. Shame on you!
She washed my hair once. I was about 4. My scalp was raw from her vigorous suds-ing. When she dumped buckets of water over my head to rinse out the soap, I came up spluttering and choking. That’s my most vivid memory of her.
I threw on yesterday’s clothes, masked up, and bolted out the door.
At 6 a.m. the air was cool and sweet. A brisk pace took me to Ubud Palace. Across the street the traditional market was already bustling. I don’t blend into the crowd very well, so I didn’t stop and shoot a photo straight into the market area where bodies moved shoulder to shoulder in a dense sea of commerce. Had I done so, my actions may have been misinterpreted, or at the very least, unwelcome. I don’t want to be the Ugly American.
But a few paces farther along, I captured the motorbikes lined up in front.
I stuffed my phone back in my bag and continued past the glistening Arjuna statue that marks Jalan Raya’s east end. For probably the 2,578th time in my nine years in Bali, I stopped, backed up, fished my phone out again, got the perfect angle, and took the photo. I’m still awes-struck at the elegance, the intricate detail, and the sheer size of these artistic works depicting scenes from the epic Hindu texts, the Mahabharata and Ramayana.
Still brimming with energy and smiling under my mask, I continued to Delta Dewata, one of two major grocery stores in Ubud.
I assumed it would be open. There was a patch of shade on the flight of steps leading up to…locked doors. I sat on the stairs and checked the time. 6:35 a.m. Their website said they were open every day, 8 – 10.
It wasn’t that I’d intended to shop. But I’d have browsed and found something I didn’t know I needed before resuming my jaunt.
I sat there, plotting my next move only semi-aware of the person working in the shrubs beside me. When a cracking sound caught my attention, I looked up – just in time.
WHACK! A huge penjor crashed onto the pavement, almost taking my nose with it.
I jumped. Probably squeaked a bit.
Then the ah-ha moment. Today is the day for removing these elegant, graceful tokens that are erected every six months during the celebration of Galungan-Kuningan. They invite the spirits of the ancestors back to their family homes to be remembered and honored. It suddenly made sense: That’s why the offerings I’d been seeing were more extravagant than usual.
Now I had a mission. I continued my meandering journey photographing the bountiful offerings and the women making their way to the temple.
Throughout the day, thousands of penjors will be removed. Their splendor has faded. The once-brilliant fabrics adorning them are now washed-out pastels. The spirits of the ancestors left weeks ago.
The penjor crashing down in front of me woke me up. It’s as though Grandma Rakel was scolding again. “Pay attention!” she said. “Don’t walk through your life asleep. Be present for the small things – they are your reality. They are right now.”
Wise and terrifying Norwegian Grandmother Rakel, thank you.
For thirty years I’ve been digging around in my psyche, excavating fascinating beliefs about myself lodged there, some true, many not.
By my 70th birthday, in my opinion, I’d achieved a decent level of awareness, had banished the more bothersome demons, and was living my dream life in paradise.
Then Covid hit. I quickly discovered what I didn’t know that I didn’t know about me. I didn’t know that overnight, trauma would erase the progress I’d made and send me careening back thirty-plus years to my un-awakened past.
In that state, I made impulsive decisions based on fears I thought I’d overcome.
Now, seven months later, the more progressed me has been restored and I’m in awe of human resilience – our ability to adapt to bizarre circumstances that defy imagination.
I automatically don the mask when I leave my house and have gotten accustomed, here in Bali, to seeing almost everyone’s nose and mouth covered, some more creatively than others.
I think twice before I meet with a friend if I’ve been in contact with anyone other than Ketut whose village still has no cases of the virus. I don’t want to be the one responsible for spreading this plague.
Even in my own house compulsive hand-washing has become second-nature.
I’ve reached a level of contentment just to be in the present with the way things are because the way things are isn’t 100% bad.
This was recently made clear to me during meditation – that I must accept and unify the dualities in life. Every circumstance has it’s positives and negatives, pros and cons, gifts and challenges.
Acceptance. Allowing what is to just be, without judging it as bad or good, without assigning blame, without getting attached to one outcome or another. Acceptance without expectation. Acceptance with gratitude.
Adopting that attitude creates a peaceful heart.
But for me, there’s a ramp-up mechanism that goes beyond peace and takes me straight to the next level – joy. I heard it in operation this morning.
Hack.
Hack.
Hack.
I ignored it for a while, then curiosity got the best of me and I looked out the window toward the back garden. In the far righthand corner I could see the shivering tops of a two-story cluster of bamboo.
I dashed downstairs, picked my way through stacks of downed trees, and there it was. There HE was. Ketut. The ramp-up mechanism himself,
Uh-huh. See what I mean? What man, woman, or beast could resist THAT FACE? He radiates pure joy and it’s highly contagious, especially without a mask.
writing for self-discovery 
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