Life is Beautiful

There are days when I feel like I’ve been here for years, lifetimes even. The changes that have occurred within me are becoming more and more obvious each day. While I continue to find myself slipping through the quick sands of time, I have finally come to understand what it feels like to truly be present in the moment and enjoy every last drop of the sweet nectar of this life. Last night I stood watching the sun sink below the Balinese horizon, tie dying the sky with the most brilliant pinks, purples and oranges, and for the first time in my life, I felt so alive with the understanding that God is in everything. Later I realized that the feeling I had had came from me being able to fully step out of my mind and connect with the farthest reaches of my soul. Each day I brave the cold showers, hundreds of mosquito bites and the sore muscles and joints to have this feeling, even if it only lasts a moment. For in that moment, I feel that I am absolutely one with everything.

I am really finding my home here. I have connected with some amazing people on levels so deep I can see us dancing through past lifetimes together. I have started painting again and creating things I had no idea I could produce. I sing and play guitar in the little downtime that I have, and during the week I teach, which is what my heart has always longed to do. I teach English to the small kids three times a week and I teach short yoga classes twice a day. I feel like I have become part of this wonderful, loving family that lives here, and accepted into a culture so vastly different from my own.

Last week my body started processing something that I have been challenged with since the day I was born. Since the moment I came into the world, my lungs have been the physical and emotional center that takes the burden when I get sick. At birth I couldn’t breathe on my own, and throughout my life I have suffered from pneumonia or bronchitis, leaving me trapped in the fear of not being able to breathe.  So here I have started the process of cleaning out my lungs, which on the outside looks like I am sick again, but I know that this is profoundly different. For each time I wheeze or cough up fluids, I know that I am cleaning out and allowing sickness to leave my body. That doesn’t mean that I will never have a cold again, but it signifies that this darkness that has been trapped in my lungs since the day I was born will finally be set free, and it will be gone for good.

I have seen countless miracles happen here; people who have cured anything from depression to broken bones to HIV and hepatitis C. There is nothing that the Energy can’t heal if we allow it to and we do the work. I now watch in wonder as my own miracles unfold before my very eyes.

Om Swastiastu Ratu Bagus

Ya Se Fue

My time in Bali has been filled with so much love and light, but also with some intense work with the deep negative emotions that have dwelled within my being throughout this life. But this is how it works—we must allow and process these darker emotions in order to clear them and live freely. It has to come up to come out.

How different this is from Western medicine. In our conventional practices, we do things to “fix” the problem, instead of allowing it to surface fully and process through it. We take medications to make the pain and the sickness go away, when really these ailments are our body’s way of trying to release something. By suppressing the problem, we cannot clear it, and it will return worse or in another part of our body or mind.

Ratu (the Guru I have been working with) has taught me many valuable lessons, but the one teaching that has rung loud and clear through it all is that our soul is always well. For the soul is connected with the Infinite, the Universe, the Great Source, or as some would say, God. So to connect entirely with our soul is to tap into this infinite source of energy and light, putting us in perfect harmony with all that is and ever was. This is how we live freely of all dis-ease. So in this sense, we can trust that a part of us is always well, we only have to align with that. It is here that I am learning to do that, which has brought me to the greater understanding that I am already well; the cancer is already gone. Ya se fue.

As simple as this concept may be, the practice is difficult at times. We work hard to clear our bodies of dark energies. We shake every day, three times a day, for two hours each time. The shaking helps to move energy quickly, allowing us to feel the fear, anger, sadness and sickness and then move through it in a healthy way, rapidly liberating us from our ailments. The most difficult part of the practice is stepping out of our mind. Ratu says that the mind is the umbrella that shades us from the light that can heal us. When we can surrender, slipping out of our minds and into our bodies, then the real work can be done. This is much easier said than done. ..

I have decided to stay here for a while and see how deep I can really go. So much has happened in these three short weeks, I can’t imagine what can happen in three more months. In doing this work, I often think of the lotus flower. This magnificent blossom only opens itself in the most putrid and dark swamp environments. So out of these dark and contaminated places comes one of the most beautiful creations of nature. As I learn to open and radiate my petals, I am reminded that sometimes the most beautiful blossoms of light come out of the darkest and least expected places.