Please Don’t Ever Change

13 Apr 2019 16 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , ,

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When I look at this photo I want to laugh and cry and fall to my knees. I want to say to the young man planting grass, “Please, don’t ever change.”

What I actually said went something like this: “Those sticks, Ketut. Do you really expect them to grow?”

“Ya,” he replied. “Soon many.”

My only frame of reference to gardening was Minnesota. If you lopped a branch off a tree and stuck it in the ground in that climate, trust me. It absolutely would not grow.

Ketut gathered cast-off cuttings from nearby hotels and scrounged compost piles after dark. He dug up bushes from his family’s garden in the mountains near Kintamani and transplanted them here. He had a vision and the skills to manifest it. In no time the grass filled in and the stick-garden matured. There were papaya and banana trees, frangipani, and bougainvillea.

In spite of my skepticism, the plantings matured and multiplied. I added a gazebo to the once-upon-a-time stick-garden. Ketut installed electricity and a fan. Now I could have my coffee there and read or write surrounded by voluptuous tropical foliage.

It’s been five years since Ketut gathered branches and stuck them in the ground. Hundreds of plants bursting with fruit and flowers have emerged from those scant beginnings. I wonder, have I changed too? Have the seven years in Bali transformed me from the stick-garden I was when I arrived to someone fully alive?

I have more close friends, more visitors, more invitations, and more commitments than ever before. I’ve learned a foreign language, written two novels and a memoir, and had many articles published. I’ve leased land, built a house, and explored the mountains and coastlines of the island on the back of Ketut’s motorbike. I’ve held Writing for Self-Discovery workshops and my blog has brought others to Bali to imagine their own possibilities.

But what about self-discovery, the reason I began this writing journey in the first place? I had to dig for those answers and when I did I found I’ve become more honest. I’m willing to be seen hanging out my dirty laundry. I’m prepared to be disliked rather than sacrifice who I am. My list was revealing.

  • I let go of perfect – horns fit me better than haloes
  • I know things – it’s okay to be smart, intuitive and right
  • I’m worthy of love – self-love is essential, not selfish
  • I’ve developed a sense of humor – dry and warped but it works
  • I thrive in tropical heat – with an ice-cold mug of Bintang
  • I’m a creature of habit – don’t mess with my routine
  • I’m courageous – but definitely not fearless
  • I’ve become transparent – see my shadow? It’s really dark!
  • I need privacy – especially in the morning
  • I feared loneliness – it didn’t happen
  • I can manage unconditional love – but not marriage

And Ketut? The young man I hoped would never change? His smile is broader, his laughter even more infectious. He’s incapable of malice. His kindness is immeasurable.

Everything changes, but some things just get better.

Seismic Shifts

20 Jul 2014 2 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , ,

For those of us devoted to inner work we are aware when we’re in the middle of something big.

Transitions manifest in various ways. A squirrely uneasiness, a plunge into deep depression, an expectant nervous sizzle, these and other unsettling phenomena like them can signal significant change.

Volcanic Eruption

Volcanic Eruption

When the earth’s crust moves, volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis result. A movement of mere inches can throw the existing order of things into chaos. When the violence settles, whole land masses have disappeared and new ones have formed from the molten contents spewed forth. Craters and mountains rearrange themselves. Earth-wounds lay open, fragile and unstable.

The energy of our transitions works the same. Just as the earth shudders and trembles, spouts steam, or rumbles sometimes for months, maybe years before a major trauma, so we do likewise before the breakthrough.

A human experiencing change is a microcosm of that magnificent earth force. We are transforming on a cellular level, altering the synapse sequences of nerves, re-routing paths in the brain, overriding destructive programmed responses. It can leave us feeling raw and exposed but at the same time, new, like a landscape stripped of old growth awaiting the gardener.

It behooves us to become conscious of the way we experience these seismic shifts. Whether we’ve sought change or had it forced upon us the opportunity is the same. If we approach the challenges in a spirit of friendliness and cooperation, gratitude will manifest and accompany us on the journey. And as we know, life is only and always all about the journey!

 

Growth

12 Apr 2012 1 Comment

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I took a photo from my balcony that first morning in Bali. The tender young shoots of rice plants in the paddy below spoke of new beginnings, possibility, unlimited potential. They were like pre-schoolers marching in obedient rows, drinking deep of the nourishing mud at their roots.

Every morning since then I have eaten breakfast overlooking that same paddy, observing the subtle changes, drinking in the green of it, the succulence. I have seen it tended by barefoot women, bent all day over their task, mindfully pulling away what doesn’t nurture, what doesn’t belong.

And this morning when I sat down to breakfast and drank in the view it was like looking in a mirror I could so clearly see my reflection there. The seed of self planted here in the healing climate of Ubud has taken root. Things that do not belong to my truth, that do not nurture my growth, are being pulled away. I have met someone that I vaguely remember from a long, long time ago, a simple girl with poetry and passion in her soul. She got left behind when she didn’t fit the image I created for myself, the person I thought I ‘should’ be. We’re getting reacquainted. She’s a grown-up version with life-grit in her pores, not very pretty but very, very real. I am falling in love for the first time…with myself.

The rice paddy, too, has matured. She is a vibrant maiden now, full-grown but not quite ripe. I may not be here for the harvest of the rice. It’s not a plant whose growth I can predict with familiarity like tomatoes or corn. I’ve heard it has to turn golden before its time. I don’t need to know. It has fulfilled its purpose for me. Others will enjoy the fruits of its yield. My job is to show up for the reaping of my own late-sown crop.