Auspicious Beginnings

Body is sighing with joy after just finishing one of the most luxurious living room yoga sessions known to mankind. Tongue gets the reward of organic strawberries while ears are treated to the garden symphony of strange creatures serenading the evening sky. Plumeria and orchids conspire to create an olfactory orgy, all while skin is caressed by a loving evening breeze. Glow of garden candles, light shimmering atop the swimming pool, and stars laughing from above all battle for the gaze of my eye.

Sensory overload…

And that is just the description of the last five minutes. For the last week I have been in a state of constant over-stimulation as my senses adjust to this new place we call home. Each phase of the day brings something to marvel at, something to adjust to, something to make meaning of. I truly feel like a new baby must feel after the long, grueling labor, finally coming into a new world filled with nothing familiar. 

                                                              Born again. 

                                                             Clean slate. 

                                                             New life.

                                                             New beginnings.

                                                              Freedom.

That is how this newest adventure has come to be tagged. This adventure is the grand opportunity to create a wonderful new life for my trusting four-year old travel partner and myself. Sound really dramatic? I know…  But I was at a point where I felt I needed to make some dramatic changes. The previous few years had begun to feel like a constant test of the wills. Like I had been making decisions based on what was best for everyone in my life except for me, and that was taking a toll on my relationship with my self. In the fall of 2009, opportunities in Bali came into my awareness and the idea that I must make this place my home became rooted in my will. Some how, I felt life solutions were sitting in Bali, wrapped up in boxes that only I could open. Without ever having been, Bali became the place I was meant to experience.

I had some house cleaning to do before I was ready to be here, and so house clean I did. Pushed through a divorce in record speed, searched for and found answers to lingering questions from the past, and made peace with a few demons who turned out to be teachers in disguise. In many ways, it felt that I was "setting right" a few "wrongs" that persisted in my life.

Since arriving, this amazing place has seemed to be a reward for all of that work and anything I have ever done right. And since the Balinese believe in Karma, I may not be so far off the mark here. There has been magic and poetry in this windy adventure from the moment it all started some 2 years ago- maybe even 36 years ago, who knows how far destiny has been planning to land me on these shores. What I do know is that this all just feels right. I am exactly where I am meant to be.

This feeling of “rightness” was reinforced when Wayan, the lovely Balinese man who picked us up from the airport, determined that we were arriving on an auspicious day. “It is the time of bad karma being battled away and good karma getting the reward.”  I asked several other people to tell me more about this holiday called Gulingan Kuningan. Taxi drivers, the school secretary, my language teacher, all told the same story: the gods come down to Earth from heaven and battle between good and bad karma. Good karma will win, and on Kuningan, the last day of the festival, the good karma gods rise back into the heavens and take their seat where they are meant to be. Wayan seemed to think that our arriving when we did meant that the gods were delivering us where we were meant to be, and that I must have good karma on my side.  I hope Wayan is right. I certainly do feel that I am at the precipice of something BIG- something magical, something good.Something right.