Lessons from Bali

Tags

abundance, alone time, Bali, bleeding heart, Cafe Lotus, can't always get what you want, Celestine Prophecy, coincidences, Generosity, lessons, new friend, pragmatism, Ubud, Yoga

In some ways, I didn’t get what I was hoping for from my trip.

Don’t get me wrong – going to Bali for my birthday was awesome.

But I’ve since worked out that mostly, what I really wanted was some alone time.

Instead, on my first full day there I found a new friend. Perhaps… I got what I needed instead?

She’d also arrived the day before, from England. We were staying at the same guest house and met over breakfast. How classically clichéd! The more we talked, the more we realised how much we had in common. Fancy that.

Both there to do yoga. Both had the same camera, and similar back-story as to why we had this cheap and cheerful new piece of tech. Both with similar ideas about our trip. We did a couple of things together on purpose, but would then run into each other out and about in Ubud.

Before long we were planning activities together – yoga classes, sightseeing, massages, and my new friend even joined my birthday celebrations (a half-day tour and then later, dinner in Ubud at Cafe Lotus).

It could’ve all been very single white female, and yet it wasn’t. She’s super-nice. 🙂

Having recently re-read The Celestine Prophecy (which my travel buddy actually had with her on the trip!), I started to wonder about the myriad of “coincidences” that brought us into each other’s world.

Rather more prosaically, she claimed that of course we’d end up in the same place and liking the same things. I didn’t quite agree – we could’ve easily disliked each other, a mutual love of yoga or no.

Like I’ve written already, I don’t really believe in coincidences.

So I stayed open to finding out what sort of lessons we could learn from each other.

For me it was… that I’m an ultimate bleeding heart. Which I really knew anyway, of course. But I still need to create a few boundaries for myself (doh!) in order not to be a complete push-over when my heart gets involved.

Going to places like Bali and Thailand are especially challenging for people like me, because I want to help everyone I see.

Even though I don’t have huge amounts of money, I go to Bali and I’m perceived as rich. This is particularly hard for me to deal with. So I tip a lot and don’t haggle much when shopping.

Hanging with my new friend taught me a little more pragmatism. This is something I’m going to need when I eventually get to India, I’m sure.

For her… and perhaps this is slightly presumptuous, but I think she learned a little more about generosity. By her own admission, she’s “tight” with her money. She was often bug eyed about my tipping habits, and furious at local scams to try and separate us from even more of our hard-earned.

So one night over dinner, I explained why I do what I do – my personal philosophy on abundance. The lessons I learned while being unemployed while doing my yoga teacher training, and how that changed my views on giving.

How I used to be stingy, but now I see money as energy. Something we can exchange, and how that keeps the flow energy moving around the world.

That we don’t create abundance by holding onto everything we’ve got as tightly as possible, but by sharing and showing loving kindness to others.

That trusting in abundance enabled me to be supported by lovely people, find a job before Christmas and still go to Bali, when I’d expecteded things to be tight.

I think… we balanced each other out a little. And it was nice.

There’s more – I learned a lot from the yoga classes I went to as well. I’m still reflecting about those lessons, so look for another post some time soon.

But the alone time I craved? Didn’t really happen as much as I needed.

You’d think that for someone who lives alone anyway and doesn’t do heaps and heaps of socialising, that wouldn’t be a problem.

Still, I’d like to be away from my usual environment. Somewhere beautiful and isolated where I can really get stuck into my writing.

I did get some writing in whilst in Bali, but not enough. However, my holiday certainly revived my creative inspiration!

So anyway… looks like that’ll have to happen another time soon. Maybe a weekend escape in early 2012?

For now, I’m happy that I made a new friend and (re-)learned a few more life lessons.

~ Svasti

Bali…

Tags

asuras, Bali, flow, imperfectness, jungle, monkeys, Motorbikes, motorcycles, Offerings, sacred, Sacred Monkey Forest, scooters, temples, Ubud, Yoga

Is where the sacred comes hand-in-hand with treacherous and undulating footpaths dotted with gappy loose-hinged drains.

Walkways are covered in Hindu offerings for luck and abundance, animal excrement, the bodies of dead creatures (most likely road kill), trash, incense and a never-ending parade of men offering innumerable variations of:
Hey-lllooooowwww Madaaammmm! Taxi, yeeesssss? Tomorrow, yeeesssss?

Road rage and road rules seem to be minimal, though. Scooters and motorbikes outnumber cars, trucks and buses in some parts of town and weave in between each other alarmingly. Right/wrong side of the road be damned.

There’s plenty of horn tooting but its aggression-less. More – hello, do you see me – rather than – f#&k you!!

Between one and four people ride on two-wheeled vehicles, often with at least one rider glued to a mobile phone. Sometimes it’s the driver. Or one or two people carrying over-sized cargo: water flagons, bushels of coconuts, building materials. Occasionally the goods are bigger than the bike. And yet… there are relatively few bike accidents.

To me, Bali looks like unadulterated life. In the west, we like all the Ugly and Broken Things to be hidden. We pretend that everything is perfect by creating the illusion of order. In Bali almost every man-made object shows signs of decay.

Street cleaning is undertaken by shop-owners with hand-made switches, perhaps woven from palm or coconut trees. The never-ending run of downpours washes everything else away in the end.

Westerners flock to the island for yoga, partying and diving, but you won’t find many locals indulging in such recreations. I love Bali furiously, even with its bad smells and over-zealous touts and yet… I’m somewhat uncomfortable that most of the things I’m doing there are unattainable for many of Bali’s residents.

Five years after my first visit, Bali is doing somewhat better economically-speaking. Back then, so soon after the terrorist bombings tourists were sparse and businesses were desperate.

Now, there’s free wi-fi almost everywhere but much less honesty in commercial interactions. I’m pretty sure that the tourist prices have gone up considerably. You need to put some effort into bargaining in order not to be completely ripped off. Yet… things are still relatively cheap, although the price between what you’d pay at home and in Bali has narrowed. So it’s hard – for me anyway – to haggle too much.

Despite all of this, Bali is a place where stillness can be found. Where waking up before dawn comes naturally to me and where ducks can be observed in the rice paddies (they eat the rice paddy pests!).

The overwhelming heat and humidity also teach me to move and act more naturally – do a little bit and then rest. Move then rest. Eat then rest. Etc.

Nature has not been corralled into neat little concrete boxes as it has in the west. The jungle still rules, and barely tolerates any attempt at civilisation.

Occasionally, wild things happen there, too.

Like visiting the Sacred Monkey Forest and interacting with knee-high grey monkeys with their little hands that tug on your pants to demand another banana. All business-like. The signs warn not to touch the little cuties although what can be done when a curious one curls up next to you while you sit on a low stone wall? Even though you’ve no bananas left (he’s checked), he still hangs with you.

And then mind-blowingly, he uses your left knee as a perch. Tail swinging. In some ways, it’s almost like having a cat sitting there except it’s NOT anything like a cat.

It’s a wild monkey.

In Bali.

It’s magical. Even if you’re too stunned/laughing too hard to get a photo. Memories like that don’t fade.

Every home has its own temple, as well as public temples on every other street corner. Right along with the dogs.

You can also visit said sacred temples only to be lambasted by touts pretending to be temple workers. Lying to you about the access that your entry ticket allows you without a “local guide”.

The temple is sacred but apparently you’re fair game.

This is not so magical unless you allow for the magic anyway.

But it is the nature of Everything Not Being Perfect.

You can get angry about it or you can go with the flow.

The flow is always easier.

~ Svasti

Downtime in paradise

Tags

Bali, Birthday, Eat Pray Love, massages, Meditation, milestone, Ubud, Yoga

[Note: this is a scheduled post]

Right about now, I’m (hopefully) on a jet plane. Flying off to Bali for the holiday I planned and paid for before I found myself jobless.

But then a few weeks later I found another job, and now I’m about to spend five days and five nights in the beautiful and traditional Hindu yoga mecca of Ubud.

Why now, I hear you ask?

In four days I’ll reach the milestone of my 40^th birthday, and this little trip is a present from myself, to myself.

It’s all about the self-love, people.

This will be my second trip to the magical paradise of Bali. I’m so glad to be returning!

If you’ve never been, you should read Nadine’s 10 Things We Can All Learn From Bali. And don’t go to Kuta or Sanur. Base yourself in Ubud.

Y’know, in all of my previous travels both within Australia and overseas, I’ve always been doing something. Travelling with or meeting other people at my destination; attending yoga retreats; going skiing or doing touristy things. There’ve always been plans and while I’ve travelled by myself before, other people have always been involved.

This time it’s just for me.

My plans such as they are, are pretty simple: yoga, meditation, daily (super-cheap) massages, great food, writing, and perhaps a little exploring. I figure that if I had a partner, they’d be spoiling me rotten! But since it’s just me, I’m responsible for all treats and pampering.

Which is cool when you think about it, because I know EXACTLY what I like. How kind of me! It’s like I read my own mind. Hehehe.

Of course, I’m hoping that the PR blitzkrieg of Eat, Pray, Love hasn’t totally ruined Ubud since I was last there. I steered well away from any accommodation that referred to the book in their marketing! Fingers crossed I’m not perceived as just another stereotypical single female hoping to find romance in tropical paradise, huh? 😉

Anyhow. There will be a few pre-scheduled posts appearing here while I’m away. But I might be inspired to write a few “live from Ubud” posts. I’ll see how I feel.

Mostly, I hope to get stuck into my two writing projects and go to as many yoga classes as I can.

In the last week, I’ve felt both excited and terrified. This is the first real holiday I’ve had in a long time, I’m going somewhere I’ve been dying to re-visit, and I’m doing it all on my own terms. I almost had trouble believing it was happening. Somehow, the timing and the money and everything else has worked out. It’s also very freeform – just me, doing my thing. Perhaps this is preparation, too, for when I eventually head off to India?

The very fact that this trip is happening is part of the new changes I mentioned the other day. It’s a little tricky to explain them, except to say there’s lots of shifting going on energetically. It feels amazing.

Anyway, you’ll hear from me when I get to Ubud.

Catch y’all on the flip side, my lovelies.

~Svasti xxx

P.S. Even if you don’t have a holiday planned for yourself right now, why don’t you find some other way to show yourself a little love?