spirit

bali bali bali

what to say?  so much happening every day (and slow internet connections) have made it less convenient to write blogs when the inspiration might strike.  i have a good keyboard this time, so i'll just let parts of our experience flow out and we'll see what happens!

we just completed our 4 day adventure at the bali spirit festival.  we chose to just invest in the 4-day ticket price instead of volunteering, so that we could have our freedom throughout the weekend (it was a very good choice).  collectively, we took 14 workshops throughout the weekend....yogic arts with duncan wong, a hollywood-nyc like intensely unique and yang-like instructor; body as musical instrument yoga with ellen watson; a singing class with tina malia; songs of the african sufi class with youssoupha sidibe, an inspirational and powerfully-voiced man from senegal....we all chanted these songs in arabic and walked around in a circle in rhythm clapping and chanting over and over, so powerful; west african dancing class; kundalini yoga with a wonderful teacher named rebecca pflaum...the class itself was so unlike any other yoga i've done, lots of singing and repetitive movements to push you beyond your normal comfort zone, it was so beautiful and ended in us singing a mantra in a circle with anyone who needed healing laying in the center, the rest of us with our palms up...the rest of that day was quite mellow for us as we were peacefully zonked by the class, but we did manage to attend an incredible balinese kecak (like the monkey chat at burning man) circle (or like the clip in the early part of the movie 'baraka') with everyone doing different parts of the 'song' all interlocking, and moving in unison...it's hard to explain, but so much fun!; sufi chanting with an INCREDIBLE group called fanna fi allah (they also performed on the stage at night) these people are all americans as far as i know, but they travel to pakistan for at least 3 months a year to study the traditional music there.  they absolutely blew me away, and inspired me with their dedication to this music that they love (much like nusrat fateh ali kahn if you've heard of him).  they used the harmonium and tablas and four voices....the lead singer has vocal control and a vocal range you could not believe.  yesterday carson also went to a  ritual called 'the serpent's path'. today's extraordinary life changing anusara yoga class with ananda leone, who might just be one of the most important yoga teachers i've ever encountered.  the entire class was about breath, and he started it by showing us pictures of the lungs, diaphragm, etc. and telling us about them, illustrating what our true lung capacity could be and explaining how most people only use 10% of their lung capacity while breathing.  we did some breathing exercises throughout the class and both carson and i felt transformed after the class...i wish i could describe it.  he is one of those people who just glows, and as he was describing breath and yoga, you could just see his passion for this work emanating out of him.  he lives in berlin and has two yoga centers there; i hope that i could train with him some day!  today i also went to a seka yoga class taught by a javanese man, nice and centering with more breath work, while carson attended a qi gong workshop with wai ching.  we finished off the day/weekend with an invigorating jivamukti yoga class taught by a woman named lily diamond, who lives in maui.  it was such a great class, so active yet present.  i've been breathing deeply for over five hours today, it feels so good!

we also saw a lot of music throughout the weekend; the favorite being fanna fi allah, but i also enjoyed the traditional balinese gamelan music performances.  yesterday we were both so tired from all day thursday/friday 10am-1 or 2am days of classes and music, that we only went to the festival for three hours.   it was nice to take a break!

as carson wrote last time, we get to stay at the ninth house for a couple more weeks which is wonderful.  we both love margot and jesse, who we live with and get to have breakfast with every morning around the table.  last night we woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of a bat flying around the room (!!) luckily we have a mosquito net around the bed, and after it was confused for a while i opened another window and it flew out.

i am loving the balinese people.  we've had some fun encounters, especially one with a woman named made (pronounced ma-day, meaning 2nd born) who owns a shop where carson bought some pants one day.  since she didn't have perfect change, she invited us into the back of her shop and gave us a coca-cola and we talked with her for a while.  she gave us our balinese names there too, as all people born first are named wayan (that'd be me) and 2nd are made (her) and third are nyoman (carson) and fourth, ketut.  it was so sweet to have her saying "sampai jumpa wayan!  sampai jumpa nyoman!" (sampai jumpa=see you/goodbye) as we left the shop.  the women here have the most brilliant smiles; as we ride down our hill in the morning we see them walking in their ceremonial clothing (a little boustier underneath a beautiful long-sleeved lace or embroidered shirt, a sarong skirt, and a scarf around the waist) carrying large baskets of offerings of fruit, flowers and incense to the temple for the morning offerings...we smile at them and they smile back at us so widely. 

we both had balinese massages the other day for an outrageous $5 a piece :)  such a good deal. we went to a woman named daiu that all our friends here see also.  she was so good, perfect pressure, and an amazing abdominal massage included.  we are so charmed by all the local balinese/indonesian products, like raw cacao beans, heirloom varieties of red and brown and black rice, wild honey from borneo, pure essential oils all grown in bali (we just bought an 11-oil set for $14!), local grown coffee, mango jam, papaya jam, banana vanilla bean jam, fresh local vanilla extract, wheatgrass juice, local kombucha, organic farmer's markets, coconut oil, coconut everything, palm sugar....  we want to bring home a separate suitcase of bali food but i'm not sure on the indonesian food export/USA food import rules.  we'll see.  we've found a great cheap restaurant called dewa warung where we literally order three dishes of food, AND two fruit shakes for $3.  it's incredible, so fresh and full of vegetables.  you can definitely choose the extremes here too, there's another place that is delicious and organic but on the higher end of $3-4.50 a plate (seems cheap still, i know, but "expensive" to our asian traveling experience) so it's fun to mix it up.  some of my favorite treats are the 'jajo' we get in the morning brought by kamong, one of the guys that caretakes the ninth house.  jajo is basically anything that's sweet, and the ones we like are sticky or sweet rice (usually black) wrapped in brown paper or banana leaves, mixed with coconut and palm sugar.  delicious!!  coconut everywhere, like a yummy fern/spinach/coconut salad, or fresh coconuts to drink, or coconut bars for dessert, or powdered coconut to sprinkle on dinner.  yum!

i love the flower incense banana leaf offerings everywhere here...i love the sunrises in the morning (even though we have to get out of bed by 8 because the sun is so hot)...i love the rice paddies and the green everywhere...i love it when a volcanic mountain peeks out of the cloud cover...i love the daily dose of rain, and the stars at night...i love 2-week old friends that feel like 2 or 10 year old friends...i love the lightening bugs and the sounds of the frogs at night, their bantering chorus...i love the food (i think i mentioned that before! :)...i love the music, and the sense of community and ritual within the music and just everywhere (like twice last week, there was a large procession of at least a hundred balinese people in full ceremonial dress walking up the main street of town, heading to a ceremony of some sort, with music and all)....and i love carson so much (we've been through so much together on this trip!!! a wild and fun and challenging and illuminating roller coaster) and we are in such a great space with each other now, having fun and being sweet and gentle and loving and growing our community together here and connecting that with everywhere we've been and back at home too.  that's one of my favorite things about traveling, is meeting people and expanding my community out into the world in all directions.  the world is so big, but it's really so small too!  as i realized this this weekend, i watched a band play and realized there was a musician there who i'd also seen and danced to when i was 16....quite nostaligic!

oh i could write more i'm sure....it's late though and we are both tired.  it will be nice to just do nothing tomorrow for a while and enjoy our yoga space at home.  i'm sure we'll explore more of bali than ubud in the next 3 weeks too, though it's been so right to just stay in one place for a while after so much traveling around.  i think it might be easter today?! i just realized this, we are quite disconnected from that holiday in this hindu culture!  i hope everyone is having a great day!  the first day of spring is soon!  i bet the crocuses are bursting out of the ground everywhere! (or soon, at least!)

much love!
melissa