On Lightness and Grace

"Slow down everyone you're moving too fast, frames can't catch you when you're moving like that." ~Jack Johnson

With each passing moment, I sink deeper into the slow life here in the south of Laos. So slow that everything suspends in time, like a photograph, like a never ending ellipsis....

Life is still, but water flows through everything. The Mekong and the waterfalls. Etheric and dreamy, an effortless magic.

The bold swim under the waterfall letting its power crash over them. Small children splash about the shallow shoreline. I lie on the floating platform at the edge of the small lagoon, and the sound and vibrations from the waterfall move through me. I buzz and tingle. Nothing feels real anymore.

From the road, frames rush past. I cross bridges and when there aren't bridges, my bike and I float across the Mekong by raft.

With each breath, I float out of time and space, and with each exhale, I ground back down. But back into a slightly altered reality.

In Savannakhet I stand face to face with powers that could change the course of everything. Being denied a visa is not part of my plan. I breath through the initial denial and connect with my own source of power. Through calm words, I get out of my own way and allow space for the miracle to come through. When I pick up my visa the next day, the sensation of lightness lifts me out of time once again.

I float on to Si Phan Don, the 4000 islands in the Mekong that separate Laos from Cambodia. Dirt roads, aged river huts, rickety bicycles bumble by--as though I've stepped back in time 30 years. Not much changes here. The islands float above the rest of the world where they can't be touched.  Don Det, at the river's edge, I sink my toes into the sand. From a distant cafe, music drifts through the palms and out over the river. You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.

My last few days in Laos an anticipation bubbles up from the pit of my stomach. Obtaining a visa is one thing. Actually crossing the border is quite another. Again, at the mercy of the person who stands between me and the place I've called home for so long.

We cross the border late in the day. The thud of the stamp, the smile of the officer, my hands uncontrollably shaking. I walked out of the building and into Thailand. I nearly burst into tears of happiness. Stepping out of one reality and into another. The lightness, the relief, the faith, and the grace.

There will be moments when all you practice and believe will be put to the test. And when the moment of grace comes and the miracle has transpired, you will know why you walk the path you do.

Tell me about moments of grace you have experienced. What did it illuminate for you? 

Sweet Starts and the Joy of Writing

After spending the last few hours of the decade chanting ancient mantras in a candle lit room packed full of devotees, seekers, and probably a few folks wondering how they ended up thrown into the mix, I came home, curled up in my hammock, and watched fireworks explode across the cloud covered skies of Koh Phangan.

Welcome 2020.

My first day of the year was full of beach, sunshine, and a new Murakami book, then meeting up with friends for yoga class, sauna detox, and the most delicious dinner I've had on the island yet. And to end the night, I had an almond latte which sent me reeling. I was up until almost 3am. Why do I do these things to myself?

I ended up logging onto an old online journal I kept the entire 12 years I lived in Santa Cruz. Twelve years worth of memories. Twelve years of a life that feels like it was lived by someone else...or several different someones. Some entries made me tear up, some made me laugh out loud, some I gasped in shock because I couldn't believe such insanity.

And if you count all the paper journals that came prior to Santa Cruz, that's a lot of  writing. I had some sort of a mad drive to document that I was alive and living life as best I could. And in a way, I suppose I still do. A life not so much filled by progress in the conventional sense, but by experiences and stories. Those suspended moments in time that I write about for the sheer joy of it.

The next morning I awoke to the sweetest email from an old friend I hadn't heard from in quite some time--thanking me for my amazing blog posts and inspiration, for somehow having a thought or answer to things he'd been pondering. We never really know the impact we have on other people, for better or worse.

An incredibly sweet start to a new year, caffeinated into the early hours and all.

Wherever my curiosities and questions lead me this year, I hope they continue guiding me to the heart of mystery--brushing against the mystical and colliding with all strangeness of a Murakami novel (in the best kind of way). And as I continue to experience life and write, maybe more folks out there will get hit with the magic and inspiration from it too.

Take note of all the ways you feel inspired this year. Keep following that thread of magic. It might lead you to the most unexpected places and people. And you might end up inspiring others along the way too. 

Life in a Labyrinth

From my jungle hillside hut, it sounds like the ocean roaring when the monsoon winds blow. I close my eyes and fall through time and space. I'm back in Santa Cruz, at the Pine Street house, where jasmine vines strangled the lattices and all the windows were nailed shut. Wrapped in blankets and curled up on the old yard couch, I would stare at the black sky and points of light, the star clusters and constellations. On those eerily quiet and ultra chilly nights, I could actually hear the ocean roaring.

An oddly nostalgic moment given the turmoil of those times--looking into the stars and feeling both hopeless and hopeful, finding beauty in the untouchable, mysterious cosmos, listening to raw, wild nature.

In a few weeks a new year will roll over. Not just a new year, but a new decade. These man-made mile markers of time. The rhythms of the cosmos are timeless, but here we are.

Since I've returned to Thailand from summer travels, I've celebrated another solar return, took a whirlwind trip to Chiang Mai, and have dug deep into my manuscript. I'd like to say I've been too busy to post, but that would be a lie. I've been asking questions, processing input, and getting lost in the labyrinth of life.

Recently, I turned down an opportunity for more stability here on the island, to obtain a proper long term visa, to teach yoga. I walked a labyrinth in my mind. So tempting, but not my true north. To hold that kind of space for others is not why I'm here. And ultimately, my focus and energy would become too scattered, too diluted.

Not long ago, a seer, a sage of sorts reminded me I was on an expedition--one in which my only responsibility is to never lose sight of Source. Indeed. I cling to these guide posts though I know all too well I don't need them.

When I started this blog 4 years ago, I had no idea the direction it would go. All I knew is that it would be a place for outer and inner exploration. Questions would arise out of life experiences and I would explore them. Each post, a bit like a mini labyrinth. Unlike a maze, a labyrinth has no forking paths or impasses. The questioner winds and meanders, but ultimately, you will be led back to where you started--hopefully, a bit wiser.

Here's how it works:

You walk into a labyrinth with a question. You walk out with an answer. Sometimes the answer has nothing to do with the question. Sometimes you walk out with more questions. One time I forgot the question I asked and just kept walking, grass under my feet, stars in the sky, the whole universe inside of me.

And so, one foot in front of the other with mindfulness and purpose, I walk this life in a labyrinth. And much like those ultra chilly nights in Santa Cruz when I could hear the ocean roaring from my backyard, I lean into the beauty and mystery of the cosmos. I listen.

Why not step into 2020 like a labyrinth? What are you most curious about? What questions would you like to ask and explore? Why not tumble into the mystery and see where it leads you through the year?

Threads of Mystery

After dark on stormy waters, trapped on a boat somewhere in the middle of the Aegean Sea. Praying that the kid next to me wouldn't puke, that the boat wouldn't capsize. A few rows over a girl was having a meltdown. A nightmarish rendition of Sloop John B kept looping in my mind. I want go home. Let me go home. Why don't you let me go home....

How I ended up in Greece to begin with might even be the stranger story. I'd like to blame it on Apollo, god of light and wisdom, of prophesy and oracle, but that just makes me sound a little nuts. That, and I'm not into the blame game. So let's jump forward a bit.

My soul is lured to the most unexpected places for reasons only revealed as an afterthought. The name of a place comes into my awareness, and I know. It could have been that book on Greek Mythology that I found on a bookshelf in my house when I was a kid. Or perhaps my ongoing obsession with the esoteric and mysterious and otherworldly. Either way, it was in my psyche. I picked up the signal and everything fell into place. I met a teacher. There was talk of a retreat--Kundalini Yoga, Qigong, Akashic retrieval and healing. The timing was perfect. I was going to Greece.

The word mystery comes from the Greek word musterion (sacred secret) or maybe the verb myein (to close, as in the lips and eyes), depending on the source you check. And it doesn't take much digging to conclude that Greece is full of mystery. Its history shroud in myth and ancient architecture. Stories stretching so far back in time it's like they've always existed. Stories rich and complex, overlapping and interconnecting.

Deep in the mountains beyond Athens on the far side slope of Mount Parnassus sits Delphi, a site Zeus once claimed was the center of the world. It has a lot of stories, but it's most famous story is that of the Pythia, otherwise known as the Oracle of Delphi--a lineage of priestesses chosen to channel Apollo. Pilgrims would travel up the mountain in hopes to meet with the Oracle and ask for prophesies.

What is left of the Temple of Apollo, where the Pythia (or Sibyls, stretching further back) once channeled, a portal remains. Full of sacred secrets, entrenched with mystery. The vastness of the valley below. The towering columns. The chasms. The maxims at the temple entrance. Tour guides and books will tell you one story; deep inner knowing will tell you quite another. Know Thyself.

On another hill, near the center of Athens, not far from the Acropolis sits the National Observatory of Athens. Full of ancient books and maps of the moon and a replica (the original in a museum) of a strange anachronism called the Antikythera Mechanism, an analog computer dating from first or second (some sources say fourth) century BC. Designed to predict astronomical as well as astrological phenomenon to alarming precision.

Our guide darkened the room and opened the dome. Staring into deep space or simply up at a dark, star filled sky, the entire world falls away and something else entirely comes into awareness. It's a little ironic that the biggest and best telescopes in the world can't take you near as far as traveling inward, beyond time and space, to places that can't be fathomed by our current technology. Connect with the cosmos, tumble into the depths of the soul, into the depth of mystery, and there you are. Apollo was right. Know Thyself. The universe is far more mysterious than we can ever know.

Ancient mystery cults. Goddesses of the Acropolis. Lost Atlantis theories. John of Patmos and his controversial and strange Apocalypse. Never ending mystery runs through Greece.

Perhaps I shouldn't be too surprised I ended up here, standing on the far side slope of Mount Parnassus, overlooking the deep valley of Pleistos, staring up at the Temple of Apollo. Following that curious pull, the threads of mystery, and allowing the stories to seep through me.

On our last full day of the retreat, we hiked along the high cliff edge of the caldera on Santorini Island, crescent shaped volcanic rock, the remnants of a sunken volcano. White and blue structures etched into the cliff side, abandoned cave dwellings, winding cobble stone streets, the island has its own story. It took us four hours to trek from Fira to Oia. The sun set in the distance beyond the island and crowds of people gathered in wonder to watch the horizon, as though until that moment, such a fantastical and mysterious event had never occurred.

As we shift into Scorpio season, season of mystery, can you feel the change, the earth shifting, the night lengthening, the veils thinning? Do you sense threads of mystery running through your life? In your interests or your town or the places you are drawn to visit? Take some time this season to feel into it and tell me your stories of mystery!

By the way, I did eventually make it home. The kid did not puke. The boat did not capsize. Two weeks behind me now, settled back into island life, the monsoon rains last for days, memories of mystery still linger, ancient stories still surfacing. Back to writing life.

Eyes Wide Open

Satisfying things that stave off uninvited waking nightmares:

The fake camera click on my cell phone each time I take a picture
Long conversations unpacking the nuances of writing craft and literature
Hats that cover the bandage that cover the scar of freshly removed stitches

It could have been worse. It could have been a lot worse.

Cracked open in Ubud. Healing in Amed.

I cling to the back of Wayan as he speeds over steep, mountain switchbacks and narrow, rocky, unpaved roads. No one would dare drive on these roads unless you grew up here--which I decide, is precisely why they've been left in this condition. The deeper I explore this island the more I realize it's not near as ruined as people like to think it is. The natives of Bali know exactly what they are doing. They know how to protect what is important to them, what is sacred.

We stop at the peak above the clouds to watch the sun dip below Mount Agung to the west. Family compounds and terraced rice fields cut into the mountain sides and nestle into the crevices. The silence is deafening. The air crisp. The colors sharp. I've never felt more alive.

When I first came to Amed back in 2016, a local told me that the last time Mount Agung erupted was 1963. The entire Amed coast was wiped out. Since my first visit, Mount Agung has erupted roughly 15 times, the last being June of this year. Like the natives to this land, the island knows how to protect itself.

We make our way down into one of the valleys, to Wayan's home. His three little girls study me like a strange new toy, and I show them the pictures that I had taken 3 years prior when I first met them--their eyes big with surprise. The twins were just babies then. His wife brings me a small glass of the strongest and sweetest coffee I've ever tasted. It takes me nearly an hour to drink.

I loop the compound snapping photos, inadvertently scaring the chickens and pigs. Night falls and it's time to head back to the coast.

The full moon rises, and I fall asleep listening to the waves lap the shore.

Only a week prior I was exploring the dusty roads of Labuhan Bajo on Flores, hiking the arid ridges of Padar Island, sinking my toes into the pastel sand of Pink Beach, and standing feet away from komodo dragons and manta rays in Komodo National Park. A surreal and magical experience. The kind I disappear into far too easily.  Little did I know what would happen the next day.

As I prepare to leave Bali, I tell myself won't return, but I always do. And each time, it reveals new layers of itself. Eyes wide open, it says to me this time. Not in a whisper, but a shout.

I drive south down the winding coast road--a steep cliff on one side, a scattering of small, coastal villages on the other. I rarely pass another driver. I stop and take in the raw landscape. Images forever imprinted in my mind, in my writing, in the pictures I take. My life a series of patchwork stories, stitched together with nothing but photographs and old journals.

Our past is always in flux, never fixed. Do you ever look back on old photos or writings or revisit a place and see new layers? Do they tell you new and different stories each time?

It's been a month since the accident. The waking nightmares have subsided. I'm overwhelmed with relieve and happiness and gratitude to be back in Thailand, to be back in my little hut on the island. But before I move forward with island life posts, I'll step back two weeks and tell you stories from Greece! 

The Play of Maya and Lila (Or Dancing with God)

"I see the game and the game it sees me, and we will dance until they bury me." ~the Devil Makes Three

I narrow my eyes to a point on the map and make it my destination. I drive north for what feels like hours. When I finally arrive, my body fills with awe at the scene all around me--the wide, expansive beach deserted except for the few fisherman scattered over the jagged rocks and the small group of Balinese holding ceremony. They walk slowly to the edge of the water where waves crash hard on the shore and make an offering.

I find my way to a small, cliff side warung overlooking the beach. I didn't know places like this still existed here, I say to the ladies minding the place. They look at each other and smile as though they'd been waiting on me to show up and unlock a secret only I could see.

Back in Canggu, I walk from Pererenan Beach as far north as I can and back again. Wading in and out of the water, I let the waves crash around my legs. One of the streams running to the ocean had risen so high since I'd first crossed now looks nearly impossible to cross back. I lift my bag over my head and put one foot in front of another.

Midway and up to my waist in water, a man in a mild panic runs out of a temple shouting at me in his own language. I smile and wave once I'm across letting him know I'm okay. He stands and stares at me for a long moment before turning around and walking back into the temple. Perhaps it was a foolish decision, a dangerous move. I'd probably not given it a second thought had no one else been there to witness it.

One day folds into the next. Same same, but different. I capture the environment around me and play with light. Snapshots of a world in motion. Turning waves into particles. I drive down the peninsula and stretch out on Bingin Beach and read about the quantum world, about qualia, about consciousness giving rise to the material world. As long as we are players in this divine play of life, there is only the subjective universe seen and felt through each of us.

In an instant, a month has passed, and I'm already in Ubud. Kundalini yoga, kirtan, singing bowl meditations, and classes on yogic philosophy and mysticism fill my days. Our teacher paces the shala and talks about Maya and Lila, the illusions of this world and the divine play. To become too enmeshed in the game, in the world, the matrix (call it what you will), the mind will conquer. Suffering will prevail in one form or another. Fine tuning discernment in order to navigate the game, the play of Lila, is key.

One day folds into the next. Same same, but different. Most days I hum at a place of peace, and it takes a lot to knock me out of this realm. Sometimes it takes a bike whizzing at me at top speed to knock me out of it. One minute I'm crossing a nearly deserted road. The next, I'm in a panic and being whisked away by an angel to the hospital with blood pouring from somewhere.

Lying back on the stretcher as the nurse carefully stitches my wound together, two thoughts go through my head. The first, why? The second, why can sometimes be the most pointless question to ever ask. Sometimes there are no answers to why? There is only the unfolding and our dance with it. I breathe deep. I allow my mind to rest, to not get involved. I allow the miracle of healing to take flight. And all I feel is grateful and at peace.

Some better why questions to ask: Why not dance with the divine? Why not become all? Why not live from a place of peace, of creation in motion? This is where we find miracles. This is where magic happens. But of course, I can only speak for myself.

What is your relationship with your reality? Do you see it as a dance with God? Or something else entirely? There are so many perspectives and stories. None are wrong, none are right. They just are. And I'd love to hear yours. 

Dream Wandering

The ocean roars around me, and the black sky fills with more stars than I've ever seen at sea level. I drop to my knees and fall back onto the sand. Jupiter, Antares, Scorpio--the only identifiable objects I can see in any direction. I close my eyes and sink deeper and deeper into the sound, into space, into a void so empty and so dark all I sense is the mystery that is all around me and within me, always.

During my first week on Borneo, I lapsed into what I can only describe as a mix of separation anxiety from my little Thai island home and an out-of-body experience gone wrong in which I failed to fully exit or re-enter my body properly. In other words, I felt weird. And it didn't help that my bunk mate had gone missing.

Kota Kinabalu is a grungy little port town, an entry point to Sabah, Malaysia on Northeastern Borneo. It's not the sort of place you'd want to get stuck in too long. Before Carla had gone missing, she kept telling me these stories about Filipino pirate kidnappings and clandestine wanderers. With each passing day that first week, it was as though I was falling down a well of wicked illness and nightmares--one that you don't so much crawl out of, but just keep falling through until you end up somewhere else.

One foot in front of the other, I walk steadily across the narrow suspension bridge 43 meters (nearly 150 feet) up in the jungle canopy. I've never seen so many shades of green, all glistening from the sprinkling rain. I've never breathed such clean, clear air. Being in the thick of the jungle is like slipping through a portal to another world. Like stepping out of time, you simply don't exist anywhere anymore.

Mid-July, Yolande calls and gives me the weather report. I'm not one to put much faith into how astrological events impact my life. I'd like to think I have the power to override these celestial influences, but when she told me about the insanity happening in the July skies, I embraced it. That explains a lot, I heard my voice say. After we said our goodbyes, I closed my eyes and fell into a delirious, restless sleep.

The Klias River--where magic and mystery collide. The boat glides down the river and passes a half sunken ship and abandoned river huts. The sun sets and the sky darkens. Fireflies blink and a deafening silence fills the air. What is it about rivers that flow through jungles that is so eerily magical and unreal? Stories hide in the jungle, and if you listen close enough, they will tell you their secrets.

I re-watch part 4 of the Ring of Fire documentary--the one in which the Blair brothers trek 800 miles across Indonesian Borneo in search of a nomadic tribe no one was sure still existed. They took off into the jungle, into an area of the island unmarked on any map, that not even their native guides had covered. How exactly would they find a nomadic tribe trekking blindly into unknown, uncharted territory?

Dream wandering, one of the guides told them--the dream wanderer can travel beyond the body, see with different eyes the way to scattered members of their tribe. And sure enough, one morning the guide announced he'd found the tribe through his dream wandering and was able to lead their group straight to them in two days time. Something had happened to us...we could discard our useless chart and wander freely into the blank spaces beyond the known world.

One would think after my experience in Laos I wouldn't be too keen to hop on a motorbike and drive through a country I'm not familiar with at all. But I also know that my greatest experiences (for better or worse) come from flinging myself into the world wholeheartedly, following my curiosity, and never losing trust.

Tampat Do Aman means place of peace, I was told when I arrived at my destination, the northern most tip of Borneo. And like in the jungle canopy, I slipped out of time and place. The longhouses and huts, the preservation of the land, the clear sea, the breathable air, the otherworldly magic shrouded in mystery. The roaring ocean, the dark, empty void, my body lying in the sand staring at the star filled sky. Like the Blair brothers, I found something I didn't think still existed. I found it by wandering into the blank spaces beyond the known world.

Look around you and within you--what do you see, what do you sense? Are you able to tap into the mystery, those blank spaces beyond the known world? Tell me your stories.

Oh, and as for Carla....turns out she wasn't missing after all. We just kept missing each other coming and going. On her last full day, we island hopped. We ziplined from Gaya to Sapi and swam about the shallow waters of Mamutik. But when it came time to catch the last boat back to Borneo for the day, she was no where to be found...