Turning 4-0 and positively Hobbit-like

Tags

Bali, Beauty, Birthday, Forty pieces of silver, freedom from suffering, Happiness, hobbits, LoveX massage, Middle Earth, pampering, peace, spa day

[Note: this is a scheduled post]

Hopefully today I’m nowhere near a computer at all.

For shortly after midnight on AEDST (Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time), I turn 40: the milestone many people either loathe or love.

Personally, I’m down with it all. Maybe its because I’ve already been through all sorts of life-upending crises, so I don’t need a mid-life one to shake things up.

If everything is going according to plan (like the rest of this trip to date), today will be spent doing yoga, meditating, having a wonderful breakfast, indulging in an Ubud-style spa day, writing and then whatever takes my fancy. I intend to partake of beauty, inner reflections, nature, pampering and good food, while immersed in the magic that is Ubud.

To celebrate I’ve got a couple of things for y’all.

First up…

I’m making like a hobbit from Middle Earth! But no, it’s got nothing to do with large hairy feet. In fact, mine are all nicely buffed and polished right now.

Those lil dudes have an awesome tradition of giving gifts to others on their birthday, and I’m following suit. Just because I’m feeling grateful for pretty much everything at the moment.

So I’m gonna purchase a few things while I’m here in Bali that’ll perhaps end up with YOU. You can trust they’ll be yoga themed and beautiful.

Right now I’m thinking I’ll buy three little gifts, since I only brought a tiny bag with me (a triumph of my packing abilities!). And it will be a lucky dip. As in, I’ll draw the winners and send them whatever I’ve bought and it will be a surprise. 😉

Sound good?

To put yourself in the running for a birthday present from me, just leave a comment below. Simple, yes?

Secondly, I present to you…

Forty pieces of silver (part 1 & part 2) – half a lifetime of learnings over two posts, coming over the next couple of days. Stay tuned!

So, happy birthday to me and happy birthday to you, too.

May all beings know beauty, peace, happiness and love. May all beings know freedom from suffering.

Enjoy your day or your evening and know that I’m thinking of my lovely blog readers, friends and family (at least a little bit) while I indulge in blissful pursuits, self-care and enjoy my birthday present to myself (a short trip to paradise!).

[Edit: the winners have been drawn!]

Much love,

Svasti xxx

Refuge

Tags

Beauty, Depression, Exercise, Nature is healing, Personal earthquake, Port Philip Bay, Refuge, Regeneration, Richter scale, Sailing, Waking up, Yoga

Took three days and a minor personal earthquake to leave the house, finally. Okay, maybe it wasn’t so minor. Perhaps a five on the Richter scale, not that I’d know, given I’m no expert on measuring disturbances of the earth, or the mind, for that matter.

And what did I do? Nothing incidental of course. Not just going to my local coffee shop again, or to the movies. Too easy to zone out with such activities, and continue my non-participation in life, under the guise of actually being ‘out there’.

So, having prepped my bike with a new (and actually useful) bike computer and extra tail lights, I took off for a long ride. Been missing out on that a bit.

Since the bike became my substitute car, I’ve been quite utilitarian with my cycling and decided it was a good day to break that habit. Still, it took me til at least three in the afternoon to make it out the door.

Another quirky factoid about this writer – tends to take me absolutely ages to discover stuff that’s been right under my nose all along. How I’ve never been on some of the stunningly beautiful bike trails I rode yesterday (right beside the sunnily autumnal and picturesque Port Philip Bay), I’ll never know.

Maybe because some of them are quite new. Wasn’t til the homeward-bound leg, I recognised a place I’d spent a lot of time as a kid… the yacht club where my dad sailed, and where, for a time as a child I sailed sabots. That beach looked so different now! So much… smaller, and the boardwalk with the cycle path never used to be there, clearly… and they’ve shored up part of the beach with more rocks, and there’s some wetland preservation going on. Geez, the yacht club looks tiny! The little bit of flat water (thanks to the L-shaped pier), where I used to sail… those boats we sailed must’ve been tiny, too!

But this was the return journey and by then, I’d woken up a little, or a lot.

I’d already begun to notice in practice (not theory), something I know, or knew but forgot (more likely). That, for me at least, yoga isn’t enough. Sure, it works on my body and mind on many levels, but I need the fire of intensely rigorous movement to bring me back to life.

Something about the way it informs the body. Sends off instructions that explain yes, this is why we are alive, and this is what we do. When I’m riding or running, I know what I need, because actually, I’m out of the way and instead it’s Presence and Self calling the shots (a much wider view than my day to day ideas).

Ah… relief… and understanding. That even if this life can’t be anything other than the tiniest of bleeps on the landscape of time, there is a way of going about it that feels more right than not. By right I mean of course, something that makes sense to me personally, on a fundamental level…

The photo above (taken on my mobile phone) is the halfway point, where I turned around to head back home. But not before I’d stopped for things I’ve not allowed myself much of in recent times… enjoyment… sitting in the afternoon sun for no other reason than just because…

Right near where I’d stopped, was a young guy with his eyes closed and firmly positioned iPod earphones… in a wheelchair, one of his arms all bandaged up. Someone I guess, had helped him get to where he was, but they weren’t around, and he was alone and basking in the sun, perhaps asleep.

And this silent injured man told me many things. That while we may be broken (physically or mentally) we can regenerate. If nothing else works, then rely on the sun, rely on nature… take refuge in those things around you that don’t and can’t cause you any pain.

For instead, there’s beauty (thank you Jaliya, for your wonderful words), and in that beauty is some kind of fundamental state of love, offering healing with every inhale and exhale… a re-focusing of one’s energy to an upward, ever expanding spiral instead of the other one, onerously down and less-than.

I’m not out of the darkness yet, but I think I’ve found a kind of pathway… seems maybe to be leading somewhere I’d like to go… and I’ll go further next time!

~Svasti