I didn’t listen to Frank Zappa in the 60s, 70s, and 80s when he was at his most prolific. But when I found this quote, I pulled up his Live in Barcelona Concert on YouTube and fell instantly in love. What a satirist. What a brilliant and open mind.
Which mine wasn’t. You’ll see why.
It’s not that I haven’t been meditating. I have. Like a fiend. At this epic juncture in my life, I want all the help I can get and the Universe never lets me down. But, sometimes the messages coming through are obscure. Sometimes, they don’t look, sound, or feel like emissaries from a most powerful energetic source.
I’ve welcomed spirit guides in the most unusual forms that I won’t discuss here because I want to maintain a modicum of decorum for all of you who at least try to believe what I write. Those messengers, in whatever fantasmagorical shape they assume, have answered every question I’ve ever put out there in the most synchronistic and beautiful ways.
For that reason, I thought my mind was conditioned to promptings, especially when seated on my pillow fully focused on getting those downloads.
But today, as I sat trying to access that quiet dark place behind my eyes, intent upon merging with all beings, all energies, becoming one with the flow, a fly, yes, a common housefly infiltrated my space with no awareness of personal boundaries whatsoever. Concentration impossible, I leaped up, grabbed the flyswatter, and returned to my pillow. I had several perfect opportunities but swung and missed, swung and missed, swung and…
A while ago I read a book, If Truth be Told – A Monk’s Memoir the life story of Om Swami. A visual of the monk high in the Himalaya’s, sitting for hours in the bitter cold without eating, drinking, or allowing any distractions to interfere with his meditation, glided into my mind. Here I was getting hot and bothered over a common fly.
I took a deep breath. I would not kill the fly, not now, not ever. It seemed I couldn’t anyway, and once again I settled into the quiet.
The fly crawled up my arm. It traipsed across my shoulder and lit on my closed right eyelid. Suddenly, the light came on.
“No!” Laughter erupted, deep, ironic laughter. “No!” I said again. “You are NOT my spirit animal. I detest flies. Okay, Universe. I’ll admit you have a great sense of humor, but, a fly? No!” And yet, I knew. This fly was a resounding Yes. It had been tirelessly trying to get my attention and escaping all my efforts to annihilate it. This fly had a message.
Trying to meditate at that point was futile. I got up and Googled Fly Symbolism.
The Universe has creative ways of letting me know that I’m on the right path. The fly messenger was no different. The speed at which changes have unfolded for me in the past nine months, as baffling as it has seemed at times, was affirmed by the fly. It was the appropriate messenger with exactly what I needed to know for this moment.
I still don’t like flies, but this one, the one that’s dive-bombing my head even now while I’m paying it the ultimate compliment, has earned my respect and the right to co-exist with me until it dies a natural death or escapes through an open window. I’ve bonded with worse.
It’s been nine months since I left Bali for my first trip back to the States in two years. I’d planned to return to my beautiful home in Ubud, my dear friends, and the amazing Ketut. I’d purchased a round-trip ticket. But as time drew near to go back, I couldn’t. The impact of Covid, lockdown, and ongoing monkey invasions tied my stomach in knots at the mere thought of revisiting that nightmare. The desire to be closer to my family had become the mantra of my existence.
So I diverted to San Miguel de Allende in the mountains of central Mexico where a friend welcomed me and helped me find a home to rent. I signed a one-year lease and settled in.
Needless to say, I had a lot to process. That’s what this blog is about, the process.
I’m astounded at where this journey is taking me and the doors that are springing open as the way ahead becomes clear. And I’m grateful to the bone for my morning practices. The guidance that comes through journaling, yoga, and meditation is uncanny and the synchronicities that accompany each step forward are beyond my imagining.
But backing up just a bit…
After several months in Mexico, I realized how far away I still was from family. To visit me required an international flight and passports. It was the same for me to visit any of them. For those of you who haven’t experienced air travel lately, it has become a brutal undertaking, and although San Miguel is a magical playground for adults, it isn’t set up to thrill pre-school grandchildren. What had seemed a possible long-term solution in theory, wasn’t adding up.
But I was meeting wonderful women, soulmates really, and loving the Tuesday Market shopping excursions where I pawed for hours through hundreds of tables stacked high with clothing of every imaginable description. Vendors shouting “Barato! Barato! Barato!” (Cheap! Cheap! Cheap!) made me giggle, but they weren’t lying! Some tables had signs that read 2 X 50 pesos. That would be two pieces for $2.50 US. For a clothes-loving bargain-hunter like me, the Tuesday Market was paradise. There were US labels with tags still on them, Express, Lucky, August Silk, and Coldwater Creek, to name a few.
To add to the fun, I found Bananagrams players. They were fierce competitors and challenged my abilities to the max.
I said fun. How long had it been since I’d had fun?
I relaxed into the high desert heat and spent days exploring, often with my new friends, but sometimes alone, following mouth-watering scents for some of the best food I’ve ever eaten anywhere. Even in Italy! (Please note – Mexican wine doesn’t compare.)
I felt alive again, yet playing on repeat in the background was the gnawing knowing that I was still too far from family.
By now I knew I would not be returning to Bali. I’d left everything behind, a paid-for house that still had a seven-year lease, furniture, appliances, clothing, jewelry, deep friendships – everything. How could I justify not returning, especially to Ketut. His management of my property and the B&B supported his family.
There was only one acceptable answer. I told Ketut that if he wanted Rumah Jelita, I would transfer the lease to him and hopefully, after Covid it would become a good business again. He said yes. I left enough funds so he could maintain the property until it became viable. (His first guest will arrive in three days. I’m over-the-moon excited for him.)
The issue of my personal items and keepsakes remained. There were hours of hilarious laughter as Ketut and I videoconferenced while he went through my stuff. He’d hold up a ratty pair of flip-flops, “You want this?” One by one my treasures were placed in ‘keep’ or ‘discard’ piles. When the task was accomplished, he took the whole mess to the post office and had it shipped. It took three months to cross the Pacific – or was it four? Doesn’t matter. It arrived intact. Once again, bless you, Ketut.
After putting Bali in order, I finally felt I had the mental and emotional bandwidth to tackle the question, If not Mexico, then where? I put it out to the Universe but in my heart, I knew there was only one place that made sense: Aitkin County, Minnesota. The family farm.
When I moved to Bali I said I would never live in Minnesota again. I told myself I hated winter, navigating icy streets, shoveling snow, no way! And the thought that I would ever make the remote corner of northern Minnesota where I was born my home, well, no. Never. And yet…and yet…
That’s where most of my family has been for five generations – Aitkin County, Minnesota. My sister, Gwen, and her husband have their home on the family farm. My brother has 30 acres adjacent to them. Uncle John and Aunt Joyce live about a mile away and a host of cousins and old family friends are all nearby. My youngest daughter, her husband, and my twin grandsons, now 4 1/2 years old, live in Minneapolis, as well as many relatives on my mother’s side. It’s a 3 1/2 hour drive.
How does black become white overnight? All those nevers turned to nows?
Gwen and I have been emailing back and forth every day for the past two years. When I tentatively broached the prospect of my move she grabbed hold and ran with it. At one point I asked her why she was so excited at the idea of having her older sister living next door. She told me that she and W, my brother-in-law, acquired the farm from our parents twenty-five years ago because she felt her purpose was to create a place of abundance and safety for family and friends in the difficult times ahead. My coming, she said, affirmed her vision. Goosebumps.
Before I was even certain myself, Gwen had spread the word. Then, as I was researching freight container homes a cousin offered me a cabin. All I had to do was build a foundation for it and have it moved. My next chapter was unfolding effortlessly, which has always been the case when I’m in the flow listening as the Universe clears the path ahead.
My 180-day visa expired in May. I found a woman to sublet my home in Mexico for a month and I flew to Minnesota. When I saw my gift house for the first time I had one word for it. Potential.
For three weeks Gwen and W and I, augured holes for 6″ x 6″ x 8′ posts and worked our sorry, seventy-plus-year-old tails off building my foundation. We contacted a house mover and made arrangements. A representative from the electric company came out to the site and, ouch! Running new service from the pole to my home was pricey but essential.
If potential described my new home, torrents of glowing adjectives tumbled from my mouth when I settled on a building site. Words like serene, expansive, majestic, peaceful, nurturing, verdant, unspoiled. This is my view to the northwest…
Soon, building materials were being delivered by Home Depot…
W kept a close watch overseeing the delivery…
Gwen and I took turns stabilizing the augur while W manned the controls. The foundation was in progress…
Just getting to this point felt like a major accomplishment. This is my view to the east…
The three weeks with Gwen and W gave me a peek into what life might be like for this new – maybe final – chapter.
I arrived just in time for spring planting. Gwen loaned me a pair of overalls and a straw hat. She informed me that I could have as much garden space as I wanted and they would share all they produced with me as there was always an overabundance. (The mask isn’t mandatory – it was the only protection against the nasty biting gnats!) I set about relearning how to plant seeds.
In the midst of the excitement, the goddess Freya arrived. It turns out that was a very fitting name for this fur-bundle of love.
I’ve never seen Gwen so smitten!
Hardly a day passed that some relative or friend didn’t stop in for coffee and, I’m sure, a chance to check out what cosmic shift had occurred to bring Sherry back to the farm. Gwen and I baked goodies to have on hand for those occasions. I asked if frequent coffee klatches were a normal occurrence. Gwen assured me that, true to our Norwegian heritage, they were.
Then, the witching hour. Come 5:00 in the afternoon, all work ceased. Out came the wine and cheese and several hours of cozy chit-chat and DPQs ensued. I love that about my sister and brother-in-law. They know how to contemplate, deliberate, theorize, and examine to death a Deep Philosophical Question. They not only know how, but they enjoy it as much as I do. We agreed that even after I’m living in my own place next door, 5:00 is sacred together time.
One of my last evenings there, we were sitting in the screened porch staring out at the sea of green meadow undulating in the breeze. My father named this farm Willow Island for the clump of weeping willows clustered between the house and the barn. A few years ago, I dubbed the meadow between the house and the forest Lake Imagination. Now Gwen and W are happy to tell anyone who asks that they have Willow Island Farm on Lake Imagination.
My house will overlook a different field. Gwen wanted to know if I’d thought about a name. As I pictured myself sitting on my front porch gazing across the landscape, the answer was there. “It’s Granny’s Landing on Fantasy Bay,” I said. “What else could it possibly be?”
We laughed and after a quiet moment she said, “Sherry, that’s perfect on so many levels!”
So it is. All of it. And once again I find myself manifesting a dream.
There have been times lately when I’ve looked in the mirror and asked myself, “Who are you? I don’t know you!” A five-year-old, blue-eyed imp with bouncy blond curls looks back at me and says, “You’re little Sherry Grimsbo, and we’re going home.”
I was certain that was the opening line to David Bowie’s Space Oddity.
It was 5 a.m. in Bali. Roosters crowed. Shadowy edges of sleep retreated. I reached for my phone and typed in those words, mind control to major tom. They’d registered so clearly as I hung in pre-consciousness. I wanted the lyrics – find out what message the Universe had sent through my dreams. I found it – whoops! Not Mind Control – Ground Control. Hmm, Freudian slip?
I read through the verses. The last one said it all:
Don’t listen to it unless you’re in a super cheery state of mind. It’s dark.
I could immediately relate. That sense of floating through the days, losing track of weeks, months. Planet Earth is indeed blue if you define blue as sadness. But is there really nothing I can do? Isn’t there always choice? Somewhere? I’ve built my life on the belief that there is, that I have sovereignty over my thoughts, that my thoughts dictate my reality.
So if my reality sucks, I’m the one to blame for not exercising mind control because, as realities go, I’m still living a golden life. It’s just different, very different from what it was before.
Once fully awake I felt the shift in energy. My gut told me this was a big deal, an opportunity to enter into a new agreement with myself. Mind control to Major Tom…get your shit together, human. Today’s the day. You need to jump on this power surge now. You’re being supported by forces beyond yourself to make this change.
After ten months, my morning ritual is sacrosanct. I don’t waiver from it. I don’t skip a day. To some, that may seem obsessive-compulsive but I’ll tell you what. It’s survival at its very basic level and I cling to that routine for dear life.
So I journalled, exploring the morning message with questions and words. Nadda.
Then I went through my yoga routine. Not even a whispered clue.
My last hope was meditation. I lit incense, put on my earth and sky mala beads, sank to the cushion and –
Woah!
I wish, wish wish I had words for what happens in those moments. Sometimes it’s a quiet knowing. Not this time.
It was as though someone shouted at me –
Mental Reset
However, and this may give you some comfort, I don’t hear voices. Instead, the words sailed toward me through the sky in Arial Black typeface and entered my skull with a jolt. My eyes flew open. In that instant, the landscape transformed from overcast to radiant.
Do you remember being in love? Or better yet, being loved? My insides felt like that. Happy. Hopeful.
Everything is the same, yet everthing’s different and I’m still sorting it out. There’s a tickle that feels like maybe, just maybe I want to start writing again. (Blogs don’t count.) I no longer feel panicky about the future and I’ve lost the compulsion to try to plan for it. What an exercise in futility that is! I still miss family. I still see transition in my future. But my present is here, now, and it’s populated by precious relationships and equatorial green.
My gratitude bucket is bursting it’s seams.
Normally I’d pull this phenomenon apart piece by piece, looking at all the angles, wondering what I should DO with a new perspective, a mental reset. I process. It’s who I am.
But that’s the most amazing part. It’s done. All I had to DO was sit on the cushion. The rest was a direct download from the Universe. Zap! And my new operating system was installed and running.
I want to encourage you if you don’t already meditate, start now. It’s not just for ‘those yoga types’. It’s the doorway to accessing your intuition – the things you know that you don’t know that you know – the most powerful tool the mind has to offer. Everyone has it but few take time to develop it.
Alan Alda said it well:
“At times you have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.”
I’d love to hear your experiences with meditation. It’s a practice that is unique to every individual.
It’s almost in the rearview mirror – this never-to-be-forgotten year. Even though turning over the date on the calendar won’t change reality, there’s something about ditching the double 2-0 that feels hopeful.
I’m not setting out to bash what we’ve gone through the last ten plus months. A microscopic virus has accomplished what monarchs, armies, and governments never could. Overnight it brought life as we knew it to a screeching halt.
I want to acknowledge and honor the significance of all of it. Once. Then it’s face forward utilizing what I’ve learned in preparation for a very different future.
So what were my lessons of 2020?
Number one with fifty exclamation points:
I need people
Boy, oh boy! Do I need people! A deep-seated belief that I’m a loner, perfectly happy to entertain myself for days on end, ended when that became my reality. But it’s not just people. It’s friends who care, who are committed to being there for each other – give-and-receive relationships that spring from the heart and don’t disappear when times get tough. Living alone with neither a partner nor pets, these friendship connections have kept me sane.
Number two could be listed shoulder-to-shoulder with number one, it’s that important:
I need ritual
I have to know there’s something to wake up for, something to occupy the beginning hours of the day. Fortunately, that routine was already in place, it just became longer, and vital. First, I journal with coffee. When I realized coffee was adding nervous energy that exacerbated anxiety I switched to ginger tea. Journaling finished, I do a yoga workout to hypnotizing hang drum music. After that, relaxed and soothed, I sit in meditation. By then I’m starving and ready to mindfully savor every bite of breakfast.
I need to move my body
Yoga’s great, but a walk gets me out of the house and out of my head into the empty sidewalks of Ubud. Sometimes I stop at Circle K even though I don’t really need anything, just to say a few words to another human. Sometimes it’s the library. The disorganized shelves of used books for sale are like hunting for treasure in a sea of trashy romance, but it passes time.
I need sunshine’s vitamin D
Rainy season came and cloudy days along with it. I wasn’t getting out as much and my thoughts grew steadily darker. It dawned on me one bright morning that I no doubt lacked vitamin D, a mood elevator delivered naturally via sunshine. I was out the door in a hot minute. That day I walked four miles and felt almost euphoric. Now I’m more cognizant of the shift toward depression and avail myself of stabilizing sunlight whenever that golden ball appears. It works like magic.
I need purpose
This one’s tricky. From my arrival in Bali in March 2012, until I returned from Italy in March 2020 and found the island in lockdown, my purpose and single-minded focus was writing. I wrote two novels, a memoir, poetry, this blog, and an occasional short story. My entire life centered around writing and writers’ groups. Literally, overnight all desire to write vanished. I’m still trying to figure out why. But whatever motivated me prior to Covid was suddenly as utterly absent as my non-existent sex drive. Months passed and I regularly engaged in other projects, cooking projects, sewing projects, puzzles, and a plastic-bag-flag project. But I’ve found nothing to replace the all-consuming passion I once had for writing.
I need adventure
Perhaps some people get their excitement fix from movies or TV. I’ve never developed the habit. For me, it has to be an embodied experience. Go there, do that! But in my Covid-altered state, I forgot that I could jump on the back of Ketut’s motorbike and take off for favorite haunts or discover new ones. Even a bike tour of the backroads surrounding Ubud is adventure enough to scratch that itch for days. Now that I’ve remembered what pure joy it is to ride, it’s become part of the survival plan.
I need hope
We all need hope – a belief that 2021 will be better. But I’ve let go of the fantasy that there will be a return to what was. After flailing about for the first few months of the pandemic it began to sink in how destructive and broken the old ways were. Some were already obvious. Others have come boldly to the forefront to blatantly challenge history as contrived by and for the privileged few. In spite of the chaos, loss, and irreversible damage, Covid has pushed a massive reset button. For that, I am deeply and truly grateful.
Tomorrow is the 31st here in Bali. Fireworks and parties are banned and I can’t say I’m sorry. On this night in the past, Ubud has sounded like a war zone until three or four a.m. Instead of tossing sleeplessly for hours, tomorrow, in the silence, I’ll pay my respects to 2020 for the things it’s taught me. Then I’ll burn the calendar – a letting-go ritual signifying endings. I’ll bring out the fresh, new one with the number prominently displayed at the top. 2021. I’ll crank up the music to that iconic song from the Broadway play, Hair, This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, Age of Aquarius…
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.
After being sucked down the ever-deepening black hole of today’s news, I decided to look for something happier. It didn’t take long to find Sunny Skyz, an online media source with the tagline, Live. Laugh. Love. I scrolled past one happy tear-jerker after another unsure of what exactly I was looking for until this title grabbed me.
It’s about maintaining balance. Too much of anything tips me over. I don’t mind being toppled by an excess of joy, but when warning bells in my head signal an overabundance of darkness, it’s time to change course.
In my late fifties I had a teacher. Three times a month for fourteen months I sat with a group of six others to learn from this woman. I’ve never run into anyone else who talked about the things she did, or used the words she used. Every week she blew my mind.
As the world goes dark I remember her teaching on valences. A valence, in chemistry, is the power an element or atom has to combine and form molecules. She used the word to refer to the power of energy to attract like energy and our need to be aware of the affect that has on us.
She talked about valences over countries – collective energy from the thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors of the people and politics of a nation. The more powerful that energy becomes, whether positive or negative, the more deeply it impacts those living beneath it. It takes determination and a strong will to remain on an even keel when the overarching force is dark.
Her warning was for a country.
With the vast tentacles of the internet broadcasting doom on a daily basis, our entire world is blanketed in death-energy. The uncertainty of not knowing when or how this epidemic will end, doesn’t bode well for staying centered. It can send our thoughts spiraling into overwhelm and leave us feeling anxious, panicky, worried and afraid.
Those of us who are natural optimists fare better in times like these. We usually know what it takes to maintain a healthy state of mind when faced with difficult times. But even those blessed with eternal sunshine in their souls may be struggling with this one.
I’m grateful for having spent those months with my guru. She didn’t stop with the explanation of valences, she taught us how to work with them, physically and mentally. She showed us how taking just a few minutes to ground our bodies can make all the difference in how we deal with stress.
To ground energy, place both feet flat on the floor, take a deep breath and say your name out loud. You can do that anywhere. It takes about three seconds.
A three-minute grounding meditation can help you relax and bring your focus back into balance. I hear you groaning. Try it! It’s only three minutes.
Set a timer. Then…
Pause, take a deep breath and place your bare feet flat on the floor. (Wear stockings if the floor is cold!) Wiggle your toes. FEEL your feet in contact with the ground beneath them
Place your hands on your stomach. Take 3 breaths as deep as you can. Feel your stomach rise and fall with each breath.
When you’re ready, close your eyes.
Breathe deeply into your stomach while counting slowly to 5. Hold your breath for another count of 5. Breathe out while slowly counting to 5. Continue breathing in for 5, hold for 5, out for 5 until the timer buzzes.
With eyes still closed, notice how your body feels starting with y.our feet and working your way up your legs torso and arms, to your head. Really pay attention to how your body feels. Slowly open your eyes.
These are simple techniques to do on your own. They can be life-savers when time is short.
But…
If you have ten minutes and want to go to war with the valences, I challenge you to The Warriors Path Grounding Meditation. I love this one, but it’s not for the faint-hearted! You’ll see what I mean.
When I’m grounded it’s easier to detach from the stories, turn off the news, and take care of myself.
Whether it’s Sunny Skyz and therapy-goat stories, or my guru’s guide to grounding, I hope this post has provided a respite from the daily grind of negative news. Better yet, I hope you’ll find these tools help you de-stress and maintain your mental balance.
Someone says something, does something, implies something that upsets you. For days following you rehearse rebuttals, running the scenario through your mind over and over again. You write a scathing email but have the good sense not to push send. You run the incident past whoever will listen, adding their shock and outrage to your own. Ugliness expands and overshadows everything.
When that happened two weeks ago the insult wasn’t aimed at me. But it grew horns and a tail and I took it on, enacting the above scenario to the letter. In the midst of the heat and angst of that simmering kettle another situation developed. It was a blast out of nowhere that blindsided me and I was still trying to make sense of it when, Wham! A third shock-wave slammed full force.
The disruption of peace is so foreign to my life that by the time the fourth and final jolt landed, the utter absurdity of the sequence of events left me shaking my head. What was I missing? What lesson was being pounded home with unrelenting force?
The Universe knows me. When it comes to subtle hints I’m hard of hearing. Some people pick up the slightest whiff of – you might want to pay attention to this – and execute a course correction mid-stride. Not me! I have to be bludgeoned with it.
Intense dialogue between the inner world of experience and the outer world of events ensued. It was as though my personality was in surgery, undergoing a central re-calibration without anesthesia. No wonder I wanted that second glass of wine. And forget about Bintang kecil, the small bottle of beer. Bintang besar silakan! Large please!
But the numbing blur of alcohol was temporary. In the morning the issues were still there. My higher self looked on with disapproval.
It was time for a better choice. I dusted off the meditation cushion. I’d offer my predicament back to the Universe and see what She had to say for herself. She’s a chatty sort I’ve noticed. Given the chance, insights gathered from eons of collective wisdom are there for the asking.
No sooner had I maneuvered my legs into half-lotus and She was transmitting.
That injury you took on wasn’t yours – – an acquaintance had an expectation that you were unwilling to meet – – you were wrongly accused of an imagined infraction – – the performance of another fell short – – Why are you angry? It’s not about you.
What? Why am I angry? Not about me? What? What?
She hummed a bit, waiting. Blew a sweet-scented breeze through my hair. Whispered mysteries and magic while I reflected. I’d grown quite attached to my indignation. Entitled to it. I’d thought of hundreds of ways to verbally bring them down, make them think again before they messed with me. But, would I ever actually say those things? Probably not. I’d just let distress eat at me when indeed, it wasn’t my injury, my expectation, my mistake, or my performance.
She was speaking again. I strained to hear.
Let it go, She said. Let it go, let it go, let it go.
There are times when we don’t need to justify ourselves to anyone. Perhaps we’ve been standing too close to the conflict and we’re caught in the crossfire of a battle that has nothing to do with us. Engaging in the turmoil, even mentally, pulls us down. Fast.
It takes a conscious act of will but there is sweet liberation and personal empowerment when we choose to move away from the ruckus and just LET IT GO.
I grew up with prairies, forests, and the sky-blue lakes of northern Minnesota. The earth under my feet didn’t move. Ski hills were hills. They didn’t erupt. My nervous system calibrated to this solid certainty and made assumptions.
I’d heard of The Ring of Fire – first when the scratchy voice of Johnny Cash made the song popular – and later when the Science Museum in St. Paul brought the reality of volcanoes and earthquakes to the tundra.
The IMAX film produced by the museum introduced a different world. I watched mountains spewing fire, their molten guts dribbling down like icing on a cake. I remember the shiver of terror and the thought that followed: why would anyone live there? And yet, fascination gripped me. For weeks afterwards I felt a bit off-kilter and walked around humming, “I fell into a burning ring of fire,” under my breath.
Fate takes interesting twists. Was that day a foreshadowing of things to come? Now I live in Indonesia. This nation has the most volcanoes and earthquakes of any other place in the world. I’ve transplanted my Midwestern beliefs about solid ground to a country that shivers and belches daily. What was I thinking?
For the past week, Mt. Agung, 25 miles from my home in Ubud, has been threatening to blow. There’s a side of me that has gone untested until now. I’ve never faced a looming natural disaster. Ever. In northern Minnesota the worst we had were blizzards. Roads closed, 4 – 10 foot snowdrifts piled up, and school was cancelled. Yippeee!
Waiting on Mt. Agung is different energy. With every tremor, adrenalin floods my system. I have caffeine jitters though I haven’t touched coffee for months. And there’s an overwhelming helplessness that triggers people in different ways. Some get angry. Some rush out to stock up on food, water, flashlights. Some spring into action organizing shelters, collecting donations, working round the clock. Some cry.
I haven’t gotten angry, and I haven’t cried. But I’ve worried, and I’ve haunted the news channels as well as Twitter, Facebook, and the Indonesian government sites that dole out information in careful bites. Through it all, I’ve realized how little I’ve changed. Something in me needs to know, needs to suss out every factoid and warning. In the U.S. we get used to 24/7 reporting when disaster strikes. We expect to be fed a non-stop diet of fear and distress as stories repeat and images burn their indelible imprints on our retinas.
There’s a better way – I’m sure of it – a kinder way. Somewhere between getting ready, and having done everything I can do, there must be a quiet place in the mind to go and wait. There must be an off switch that allows silence from the clamoring voices and peace in the midst of uncertainty. In the interest of self-preservation, I’m determined to get there. The well-being of my Midwestern nervous system depends on it!
Tears are easy for me. Sad movies, happy movies, a poignant story, a gesture of kindness…. It’s 9:00 a.m. and I’ve already had two good cries this morning. But first a note about meditation.
Ubud is a guru-abundant community crawling with yogis and healers. The streets are full of tourists, half of them are couples in matching his/hers outfits and the other half sport breathable but form-fitting, zen but trendy, yoga attire. They’re everywhere. But the ones I listen to are often seated at the next table in a café. Eavesdropping because it’s impossible not too, I’m soon aware that whatever else spirituality might be, here it’s big business. In what could easily become the spiritual seekers capital of the world, these enlightened beings self-promote shamelessly and one-up each other on daily hours of meditation, mastery of impossible poses, number of followers, DVD sales, podcasts, guest appearances, until I can’t help myself. I slow- swivel in my chair for a serupticious peek at the braggarts.
What happened to the student seeking the teacher in a cave on a lonely mountaintop somewhere in Tibet?
So when I sat down to tell the story about my tears and was about to mention meditation, discomfort squirmed around the word. My prejudice goes back to being raised Lutheran in the Scandinavian style. There were two subjects in our household that were taboo for discussion: politics and religion. They were seen as controversial, and controversy wasn’t tolerated. Kids, crops, and cooking, were acceptable topics.
Spirituality settles into the broadly defined religion category and I’m not surprised to note that prior programming still kicks in. So although it makes me uncomfortable to tell you that this morning I was meditating, it feels important in context, and in truth, I was.
It was at the end when, with prayer hands stretched high overhead in thanks for the unbelievable blessings of my life, that the first onslaught hit. Intense sobs from nowhere heaved in my chest and tears drooled down my cheeks. Gratitude feels like that sometimes when the bigness of it doesn’t fit the smallness of my expectation. I’m still incredulous that I’m here, in Bali, living in an apartment that dreams are made of, with a view of palm trees and red tiled rooftops and the overarching blue bowl of sky.
I collected myself, finished the meditation, and made coffee.
Sipping the thick, sludgy brew that I’ve come to love, and staring off into space imagining the day ahead, I didn’t hear Ketut come in. “Good morning.” His voice made me jump. He carried an armload of bags and deposited them on the kitchen counter. “Kue from Ngusabetegen,” he said and proceeded to remove fruits and cakes, and treats from the bags and place them on the countertop.
“So many, Ketut? All for me?”
“Oh ya, not so many. You keep in kulkas.” Kulkas is the Indonesian word for refrigerator and mine is a 2′ cube that sits beneath the counter. This abundance will max it out. Abundance. What he has brought me are not the 20 cent packets of fried dough or the over-ripe finger bananas that usually appear after ceremonies. Quite the opposite. I’ve watched his family make these confections over the days preceding an important ceremony like Ngusabetegen, and this gift represents more than just sharing leftovers. The gesture speaks to my heart with clarity. You are appreciated. You are respected. You are loved.
He sees my delight and hears my thanks. The Balinese culture is one of controlled emotions but Ketut has become accustomed to my hand-clapping, squealing excitement. He grins and beats a hasty retreat. As soon as he’s gone the dam bursts again and remnants of the earlier overwhelm wash over me. I dab at tears while unwrapping each precious offering.
In the front are hairy, pink, rambutan. Behind them are the cutest fruits on the planet, mangosteen, with its round purple body, perky green cap, and six-petaled brown flowerette at the base. In the back at the left is bulu. It reminds me of a bundt cake or a very large donut with a hole in the middle. The bon-bons in palm leaf wrappers sit directly in front of the bulu. These are dodol and they contain a sticky-sweet black rice paste with a mildly smoky flavor. Unusual. The red and green grapes are red and green grapes, anggur merah and anggur hijau. In front of the grapes is an orange but it tastes and peels more like a tangerine. Jeruk. A giant pink and white cookie that is made only for Ngusabetegen in this village is simbar. Behind it are pink and white rice crispy cakes, jaja gina. The white satuh balls remind me of Mexican Wedding Cake cookies, but these have no moisture. The moment you bite into them they decompose into a pile of sticky dust in your lap. Notice the green leafy thing at the right-hand edge. It’s called tape beras. My first encounter produced the gag reflex, but I’ve acquired a taste. Inside this banana leaf packet is watery, fermented rice. Yum! Oh! I forgot to put the lycee in the basket! There were 8-10 of those fruits in my gift as well.
But the granddaddy of them all, the sweet snack that took me to Ketut’s family home for a stay of four nights so his mother could show me how it’s made, is jaja uli. Brown rice, black rice, and white rice are the basis for this delicacy. Pounded and pulverized first, then mixed with palm sugar, or in the case of the white, left plain, they are packed into forms to get the round shape, then wrapped in coconut leaves to preserve them. To serve, thinly slice and saute in coconut oil until crisp. The flavor is exquisite. But the time…and the labor…? This is enough to feed the entire village and it’s now in my kulkas.
So like I said, I cried twice today, and all before 9 a.m. Can a heart break with happiness? If it can, mine does every single day. And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to have a little nibble of dodol while I fry up some jaja uli!
* 1) Don’t forget how to be still and stare off into space 2) Trust your gut and follow its guidance 3) Remember every day to be grateful for exactly where you are 4) Allow the abundance to flow through you to others 5) Accept help gracefully 6) Ask for help when you need it 7) Hog your peace: don’t over-extend and don’t over-commit 8) When you’re uncertain, wait. Don’t be pushed into a decision before you’re ready 9) Continue to be a student of life…and love 10) Live your truth!
writing for self-discovery 
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