Haven’t even left yet and already I miss her.

A few photos from the Island of the Gods, 2008-2009.

More to come…
Yours truly, Robin

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Tri Hita Karana
3 Balinese words that symbolize the heart of the Bali Spirit Festival:
Harmony with God, Harmony in Community, Harmony with Nature

It’s official. The 2nd annual Bali Spirit Festival is under way!

www.balispiritfestival.com
A vibrant, uplifting and diverse festival of yoga, dance and music which awakens and nourishes each individual’s potential for positive change within our world.

Festival Vision –
*We honour, respect and promote the power of the saccred arts of yoga, dance and music.
*We champion the collaborative power of the global creative community with Bali.
*We strive to strengthen the ecological health and harmonious vitality of Bali and the cultural vibrancy of Indonesia.

Opening night, Tuesday April 28, 2009 -

I park my Yamaha motorcycle with hundreds of others feeling like I’ve arrived at an outdoor rock concert in California. Except that this is different. This is Bali.

For one thing, most everyone I know on the island is here. Claude from France, Rama from Venezuela, Glenn from New York, Orly from Tel Aviv, Marie from Sweden, Charley and Stacey from California, Ketut from Ubud, Bill from Australia, Paula from Singapore, and more. Each of us arrived in Bali once upon a time on holiday – and stayed. Why? Because we are better here than we were at “home” – and a big thank you to the Balinese who so graciously share their island and spiritually-infused lifestyle with us.

Locals, young and old stand to one side, watching us curiously. The air is balmy, the dress, tropical casual: shorts, sleeveless shirts, tevas, and long flowing sexy Goddess.

Attendees meander among the stalls of the Dharma fair, checking out handcrafted jewelry, hand-tailored clothing, and organic food and drinks. Eventually we make our way to the main stage, where we spread out on the grass. (Over 1000 tickets have been sold). Stars sparkle overhead throwing palm trees into silouette, and bamboo mats are spread out on the lawn.

Local dignitaries welcome the crowd onstage. Ketut, a Balinese healer, reminds us that we are much more than our physical bodies – which he compares to wrappers discarded on the side of the road (which is by the way far less common here than it was even 1 year ago). I Made Gunarta, co-founder and producer of the concert along with wife Meghan Pappenheim, welcomes us first in English and then in Bahasa Indonesia.

Pooja Bhantangar shimmers and shakes to haunting Indian music.

Rocky Dawuni, his waist length dreads swaying in the tropical air, performs fusion Reggae, Afro Beat.

Nick Woolsey spins fire, flames tossed into the air, spun round, streaking the night.

Larisa Stow and The Shakti Tribe huddle in prayer on a darkened stage preparing for will be the last performance of opening night. Lights, action! Lusty goddesses chant in Sanskrit, whipping the crowd into a spiritual fervor. Sofia Thom, ecstatic dancer,undulates stage right like the tantrika she is.

We are here not only to enjoy the music and the dance and to catch up with friends, but as part of a collective effort to be better than we were – yesterday, 15 minutes ago. It is about spotlighting the divine in everyone and celebrating it. It is dedication to living a life that supports and nourishes ourselves, every living being, community, and the planet.

Party on!
Your humble blog Gloddess,
Robin Sparks
www.robinsparks.com

Day One at the Balispirit festival, April 29, 2009:

I cycle through an outdoor Bali Hai movie set of rice paddies as the sun rises. Uniformed Balinese children fill the streets walking to school. The warm sun licks my bare shoulders. I pull over to the side of the road next to a football field where boys and girls in bright yellow uniforms fill the field like happy bees. I hear the deep resonant chanting that I often hear wafting on night air usually near temples. Incredibly enough, the sound, I discover, is coming from the coach who stands peacefully at the side of the field, the children buzzing around him. He wears a white flower behind his ear.

Right there on the side of the road, I speak into my voice recorder: Bali is beautiful without trying. So beautiful it hurts! In a good way of course. (-:

I climb back onto my bike and arrive at the festival in time for 8AM sun salutations guided by globally renowned yogis, Mark Whitwell, Ravi Vempati, Katy Appleton, and Uma Inder.

Eckhardt Tolle says actual consciousness cannot be defined in words. That consciousness is the space beyond and around thought. Awareness. Presence. A way of being that is beneficial to one’s self, to others, and the planet – in every walking moment.

Consciousness surrounds us here: Organic whole food served on biodegradeable banana leaves. Toilets that compost. Recycling bins everywhere. Integration of the local culture with the foreign. Friends hugging. Love. Lots of it. And gratitude to spare.

I join journalists in the media tent to speak with yogis Katy Appleton, Eoin Flinn, and Mark Whitwell.

Eoin, surfer, author, yogi, and a self-proclaimed “blissoligist” from Vancouver, says his temple is the ocean and that his students are regular people, many of them formerly entrenched in a life of work, consumerism and television.

Katy Appleton, answers a Balinese journalist who asks why we need yoga, that yoga liberates us. Helps us to define what binds us so that we can let it go. “Yoga asanas help you turn the noise down so that you can settle into a full feeling of abundance”, she says.

Mark Whitwell proclaims that there is a yoga practice for every person, young or old, religious or not, regardless of physical location, environment, or politics. He points out that the Islamic world has more yogis than anywhere in the world. “After all,” he said, “Muslims perform full body prayers five times a day.”

Speaking of Muslims, Pujiastuti Sindhu, from Bandung (near Jakarta) represents Muslim yoga practioners this week on Bali, an island of hinduism in the world’s largest Islamic country. Puji has been in the forefront of recent yoga fatwa debates across Indonesia and Malaysia.

She discovered yoga in a second hand bookshop seven years ago whereupon she began to practice yoga and within 5 years was teaching it herself. “Yoga softens the heart, lets it open up – and only with an open heart can we receive the truth,” she says. In spite of recent government “laws” which discourage Muslims from meditation and chanting as part of their yoga practice, she says that there are many headscarf-wearing, Muslim yoga teachers in Indonesia. She believes that Indonesia is already loosening its anti-yoga rhetoric.

__________________________

So all you yogis, yoginis, dancers, musicians, wanna-be-in-Balians and already-in-Balians…that’s it for today. I am headed back to the festival to dance with the Goddess Tribe.

Your Bali Spirit Blog Gloddess,
Robin Sparks
www.robinsparks.com

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Everyday is an extraordinary day in Bali.

I began at 6AM this morning with a one hour holosync meditation, which is (in a nutshell) stereophonic sound designed to put take one quickly into an alpha state.

I then wrote on the terrace outside my room overlooking rice paddies, palm and mango trees, fountains, lotus flowers, a garden, and a pool. The staff brought me a breakfast of banana pancakes with palm sugar syrup and fresh watermelon, papaya, cantaloupe, and bananas. I put on a blouse I bought in Turkey, a skirt from India that I bought in Argentina, and flip flops from Brazil. Then I drove myself on a Yamaha scooter to see a house for rent in Nyuh Kuning, Bali by a guy from Oakland. I scootered through Monkey Forest past monkeys and temples and over bridges and up and around jungle ridges, past a man balancing a huge bag of who knows what on his head walking through a rice paddy and wound my way around tarp after tarp of rice laid out in the street to dry.

I ended the day at the open-air Yoga Barn in Bali participating a Osho-designed (India) Sufi (sect of Islam in Turkey) dance meditation, guided by Selina who is from the UK and has lived in Asia for 18 years.

Only one month left in Bali! Scary but a necessary part of the journey.

It is so easy to be here.

Philosophers’ Notes Discussion Group

The touchstone of my 3 months in Bali has been a discussion group I attend three times a week called Philosophers’ Notes. Brian Johnson from Los Angeles has been in Bali for six months writing Cliff Notes-ish summaries on 100 self-development books and in our group we discuss the big ideas he extracts from each one. He records our discussions and puts them on his website.

[caption id="attachment_827" align="alignright" width="291" caption="Our Philosophers\' Notes discussion group leader, Brian Johnson"][/caption]

There was a new guy in our group today, a fan from London who discovered Brian’s Philosophers’ Notes online and came to Bali expressly to meet him. And not a minute too soon because Brian announced today that he’ll return to Los Angeles in two weeks. (Note: Since this blog was posted, Brian has postponed his return to Los Angeles until August. Yay!) He’s been swamped with requests by authors to add their books in his Philosophers Notes selections. And a big name self-help author is advising Brian to expand Philosophers Notes and has hooked him up with the world’s largest spiritual publisher. In partnership, their mission says Brian, “will be to unify the world around a common set of truths.”

It is Brian’s work he says to challenge people to become fully alive. After being in Bali for 10 months “upgrading” his consciousness, he will return home.

All part of the “Hero’s Journey,” a mythical construct that comes up frequently in our discussions. From the intro in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell explains the Hero’s Journey like this: “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder (Bali in this case): fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.” I’m not sure what “boons” are, but I’m sure Brian will do a great job bestowing them. (-; To retain the wisdom gained on the quest, to integrate that wisdom into human life, and then share the wisdom with the world is the most challenging part of the Hero’s Journey.

Go Brian!

Today’s Big Ideas

Today’s featured book was “The Other 90%” by Robert Cooper.
First a caveat…I found myself editing the word “God” from the notes that follow and then I stopped and thought, What’s up with this? Why am I comfortable speaking one way here but feel it’s necessary to edit what I say elsewhere? It has occurred to me lately that almost all my friends in San Francisco and Istanbul are avowed atheists. In Turkey secular atheism is understandable as a reflex to the threat of fundamentalist Islam. In San Francisco, I suppose it is a backlash to fundamentalist America.

In Bali, the people I’ve been hanging with openly refer to God, Jesus consciousness, Buddha, Abraham…all the big names in religious history. People here exist on a level that I can’t quite put words to. It’s a polyglot belief system, beyond Christianity, while oddly similar. The words you hear Bali-ed about are energy, vibration, polarity, consciousness, prayer, Goddess…I’m a kindergartner in this language and “way of being”, but I like it. And actually I think I’ve been an accidental practitioner most of my life.

Two years ago I wrote on my Facebook profile that my religious beliefs are: “spiritual, not religious”. I dislike (I was going to write “I hate” but that sounds decidedly unspiritual) dogma and exclusivity, whether it is in the form of fundamentalist Christianity, New Ageism (I received a reprimand from a friend via text message when he heard I was eating at Naughty Nuri’s, a restaurant that specializes in barbequed ribs) or I’m-gonna-convince-you-or-else atheism. Yes, atheism is a belief too. When you believe that your beliefs are the only right ones, you are practicing dogma and fundamentalism. My opinion of course. (-;

Quickly a little about my beliefs, I have always known that there is more than I can see. Since I can remember I have been able to sense things outside the physical plane. I am highly intuitive. I know in some indefinable way that there is a supra-loving, all knowing power both out there and in here, and well, everywhere, because I have experienced it. Repeatedly. And I believe that this super consciousness has manifested on earth a number of times to different ethnic groups as Jesus Christ, Buddha, Abraham, Mohammad…. and all the other “Greats”…If I had to pick one religion that resonates with me most, it would be Sufiism. Followed closely by Tantra.

Anyway, the word God as used in the notes that follow, means something bigger than yourself, which is in you when you are in tune with it. A something more than we can conceive of at our present level of consciousness that exists in every molecule in the universe. A universal intelligence if you will.

There! That said, let’s go…

The “Notes”:

Syntropy – The innate drive to perfect oneself.

Gradualness kills. If you want to make a change, Do it!

A good question to ask yourself is, are you closer to who you want to be and where you want to go than you were 30 minutes ago?

Winners are superior not to other people but to their former selves.

Your dharma, your highest calling, your raison d’etre is the divine expression of your unique truth. Everyone has it. It is when we shrink from expressing it in our lives, work and play, that we become depressed and frustrated. Most people numb the pain of non-expression through television, alcohol, food, drugs, gratuitous sex… fill in the blank here with your favorite numbing substance or activity.

When you take on the challenge to be and give your highest self to the world, you’ll be enthused, inspired, and happy.

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

What are you five signature strengths? Write them down and then make sure that what you do employs these strengths.

In every moment, we have the choice to step forward into growth or back into fear.

Pain is God’s gift – a challenge that helps us to grow as we reach towards becoming our higher selves, or as Brian puts it, “the unfolding of our awesomeness”.

When we get out of our minds and let the thing that is bigger than us, come through us authentically and truthfully, we are at our most powerful.He tells the story of a piano player who announced to his audience, “I am just a piano player, but tonight God is in the house”… Musicians know about channeling. Writers understand. Painters absolutely know. When you are “in the zone”, something bigger than yourself flows through you and the result is magnificence. By the way, it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill. And it is through letting that bigger thing flow through you that leads to excellence.

Go away for one week of complete silence, just you and your journal, and when you get back into the real world the ideas you wrote in your journal will seem insane. Do them anyway. Those ideas were divinely inspired.

Whenever you feel stressed, ask yourself, “How can I best let God flow through me?”

EGO = Edging God Out

Brian says that personal development guru Gay Hendricks’s affirmation is “I expand in success, abundance, and love as I inspire others to do the same.” Hmm, I wonder, is it ok to steal someone else’s affirmation?

Which leads to this one: If there is a path, know that it is not your path.

Are you a weathervane blown every which direction by circumstance? When everyone is freaking out about the economy are you stressed about it too? Or are you a lighthouse, rock solid beaming your light steadily no matter how hard or from which direction the wind blows?

Two of Brian’s top values he says are authenticity and full expression. Beautiful. I may have to borrow these too. (-;

You can gauge a person’s character by how easily annoyed they are by other people and events. Picture a “character meter” with a 10 at one end representing someone unaffected by anyone or anything, and the number 1 on the other, representing someone who is bothered by everyone and everything.

What is your highest ideal for yourself? In every moment how can you demonstrate this by integrating it into your actions?

Embrace your biggest expressions, surrender to the power that is bigger than you.

Aspire to be a 2,000 watt light bulb that can sustain more of God’s flow without blowing.

Adversity – when overwhelmed, ask yourself, what is one thing I can do to gain some control over this situation? Action kills fear. Postponement feeds fear.

That’s a taste of life in Bali and a nibble on the Big Ideas from one “Philosophy Notes” discussion. More soon!

Over and out, Robin Sparks – Ubud, Bali. March 6, 2009, where everyday is an extraordinary one.

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There are the plans you have for your journey, and the plans your journey has for you.
Things to do in San Rafael, Argentina:

1. Get an appendectomy.

We were on the neighbor’s ranch watching the annual gallop of the gauchos towards town when it was decided that I should see a doctor. I’d felt queasy all day, but, when it began to hurt to breathe, I knew that it was more than the bottle of Malbec wine we’d had the night before.

During the 30 mile drive over dirt roads to the hospital, I had time to think. I’d entered that travel place where you go from being captain of your itinerary, to giving up all control. It’s this very possibility that keeps many would-be travelers at home. And it’s the place that travel writers secretly love to go.

The on-call doctor at the private clinic looked like he’d stepped off the set of General Hospital. He poked around and called the surgeon to come in, late Saturday night or no. As an interesting aside, each doctor from that point on, from the lab doctor, to Dr. Castro, the surgeon to Dr. Gonzales the emergency room doc, each was more Calvin Klein model-esque than the next. What are the odds? The only way to explain it is that in Argentina you get into medical school based on your looks.

The nurses have an entirely different set of requirements.

A handful of expatriates and a couple of Argentines, some of them strangers an hour earlier, had gathered in the examining room to help. Johnny from South Africa, who had survived 14 heart attacks at the age of 35, introduced himself and told he’d be there no matter what. There were Annette and John, Brits who traveled the world on motorbikes before ending up in San Rafael to try their hands at gentleman farming, and there were Angel and Rosie, he Argentine, she Mexican, along with their daughter Candy. They’d recently moved to San Rafael, Argentina from Las Vegas. Did you get that?

Fifteen-year old Candy was unflappable as my interpreter until the doctors started speaking very fast and she said, “Ah, they’re just talking about a bunch of medical stuff”. Great. Argentines speak Castillano. I speak a rusty version of Spanish. It was a Three Stooges comedy of mis-translation.

The surgeon checked me in for overnight observation.

I ponied up the extra $30 per day for the one patient room with a rattly air conditioner in the window. I couldn’t see how anyone could heal in 100 degree heat, most especially me. Through the partially open doors of rooms up and down the hall, I’d seen visitors standing over the beds of their loved ones fanning them with magazines. Patients are required to have a friend or a family member stay in their rooms to provide basic nursing…an ingenious solution to health care costs, but a tricky one when you are a stranger in town.

As it turns out, my new friends fought over which one of them would remain with me throughout the night.

Next morning the pain had mostly subsided, so I figured I’d soon be headed home and was embarrassed that I’d caused such a ruckus. The docs came in to make rounds, said a few words to each other in rapid Castillano, and suddenly I was being lifted onto a gurney and wheeled down a hall to surgery. I told Dr. Castro, that no offense, but I would like very much to be flown to Buenos Aires for the operation. He assured me that I’d never make it.

Keeping pace with the moving gurney, Annette scribbled down the telephone numbers of my two children and my best friend and said she’d call them in the States. I wondered what they’d think when they heard this woman with a thick Northern England brogue calling to say their mother/friend had gone into surgery in rural Argentina.

A nurse strapped me to a table, tied both my arms straight out at my sides, stuck IV needles into my arms and I lay there like Jesus Christ looking up into the operating light dangling from the ceiling.

My last thoughts as the gas mask came down? A Readers Digest article I’d read years before about a surgical patient who was effectively paralyzed by the anesthesia but remained awake throughout the operation, able to feel every excruciating slice and stitch, but unable to let anyone know.

I ran a quick inventory as the doctor leaned in. I could hear. My eyes still worked.  I started to say, “Now wait a minute,” but my mouth wouldn’t work. I began to wag my head violently back and forth looking at the masked surgeon with eyes that I hoped screamed,  No! I’m not asleep yet! Your anesthesia isn’t working!…

The upside down face of the anesthesiologist came into focus. “Ms. Sparks”?

”Fineeshed?” I couldn’t think of the Spanish word for ”Over?”
Ow. I’d been kicked in the gut hard. How much time had passed, I asked.  Thirteen minutes. Had it been my appendix? Yes. Had it burst? No.

”12 centimeters long!” the surgeon announced as if I’d given birth to something wondrous. Which in a way, I suppose I had. My appendix, an organ normally around 2 inches in length, had been found poking up into my chest cavity, a fully erect seven inches. Oddly, I felt proud.

The next morning, Dr. Novak, I mean Dr. Gonzales, stopped by my room, and after checking my stitches, said, ”You can put on your makeup now.” I chose to believe that he meant that my prognosis was good. Dr. Castro came by too, and announced that he’d made the scar small enough that I could still wear a bikini.

A few hours later, a nurse summoned my new friend Annette out into the hall. She returned carrying a a packet neatly bound in butcher paper. “What’s that?” I asked.

“Your appendix.”

We left it sitting there on my night stand until the next day when I summoned a nurse to take it away.

”La postal?” she asked. ”No, no. Don’t mail it, throw it away!” I said.

It may be a global world, but it is still a Babel world in lots of ways.

Two days later I was ”home” on the ranch surrounded by the warm people of San Rafael, Argentina feeling very grateful indeed.

Robin

P.S. – The cost of the surgery, hospital room, doctors and medication was  $1800. Less than two months health insurance premiums back home.

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I’ve been on a news sabbatical ( presidential inauguration excepted) for three months. No newspapers, no television, no internet news.

It’s amazing how little I don’t miss when I go without a media fix. The world goes on and the sad fact that people get murdered and bombs go off, is not affected in the least by whether or not I know about it. So the purpose in filling my head with group hysteria and negativity is… what?

In fact, for the past two years I haven’t had a television and very rarely read newspapers and online news. “Important” news gets filtered to me via email from my American friends. Sometimes even the “good” news comes late. Last year, for instance, I’d heard about this young black dude in the running for the Democratic party nomination, but as far as I could tell, he was inexperienced and an upstart and I figured Hilary was a shoe-in. Imagine my surprise when excited emails began arriving from friends who said they were going to vote for this guy who not only had a Middle Eastern name but who had lived part of his life in the Muslim country of Indonesia . My how the quickly the world is flattening. I am an American based in the Middle East and I currently live in Indonesia. Bring it on. I love this. OneWorld at last!

To get current with the presidential nomination and upcoming election, I delved into the “news” around the election and sure enough, I learned that this man named Obama was indeed a contender. And I began to follow the momentum as he won over the hearts of Americans and created hope throughout the rest of the world.

All right then, so I learn about the most “important” world events later than most. The 99% which isn’t important but creates fear, paranoia and fingernail biting? Gone. Poof. No longer part of my consciousness. Not knowing frees up not only my emotional space but tons of time.

The latest hand wringing news which has begun to filter through is about the crashing economy in America. My sister and at least two friends have lost their jobs. That is not good, but they have savings and they will make it through this. Companies are tightening their belts, individuals are hunkering down and stopping the flow of their money. Like a set of falling dominoes, mass consumerism has come to a grinding halt as massive contraction sets in. The amount of real wealth in the world has not changed one iota. Just the perception of it and its distribution. It’s a natural correction. I am also hearing that the government is trying to save us from ourselves by infusing errant companies with borrowed money. Mistake. But does my knowing about it change it? No.

In Bali, the economic crisis if brought up at all, is discussed as an abstract event that is occurring far away.

Foreigners in Bali
The foreigners living here are happy they got themselves and their money out of Dodge. Each day more people arrive to wait out the storm. (Usually women hoping to find love like Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, but that’s another subject.). A Wallstreet “head hunter” arrived two weeks ago after losing her job and lots of her savings. Shaken and wondering if she could make it here, I assured her that her income from her Central Park apartment alone, not to mention her Hampshires home would more than support her here. She can hardly believe it. But it is true. As long as the rupiah stays low relative to the dollar, foreigners are living like millionaires on less than $15,000 a year in Bali.

And the Balinese?
I doubt Bali will fall prey to this latest crisis. The Balinese certainly don’t seem worried about it so I’ll take my cue from them. Sure tourism will drop off, but they’re used to that, what with a 70% drop in tourism after the bomb in 2002 followed by another bomb in 2004 and the subsequent drop off in tourism after that. Neither of which the island has fully recovered from. Can’t get too much worse here on the tourist front.

But the main reason Bali won’t feel the recession is that the Balinese are a communal society and with the exception of tourism, they are self sufficient. They grow their own food, a lot of which doesn’t even require growing, because it sprouts of its own volition all over the island. Trees droop under the weight of bananas, coconuts, mangos, and papayas. Rice proliferates in the volcanic rich soil. Each Balinese plays a role in planting, maintaining, harvesting – all to assure a smooth cycle of life. There is more than enough water routed through the centuries old irrigation system, from family to family, rice paddy to rice paddy before completing its trip back to the sea. The Balinese make and repair the things they need like housing, clothing and tools. They take care of their own. There are no complicated financial instruments like mortgages and credit. People pay cash. If they don’t have enough cash, family and friends pitch in. And so in Bali, the basic survival needs are provided by Mother Earth and the need for friends, family and loved ones? It’s an integral part of their society. What more do they need?

Oh yeah, fuel. I’m not sure why, but gasoline is dirt cheap here. It costs 50 cents to fill up my Yamaha scooter. Cheap or not, luckily for them, the Balinese don’t need much of it. 95% of Balinese are not dependent on cars for transport. Homes and buildings are open to nature, designed to take advantage of sea breezes and temperatures that vary little year round, so there is no need for heat or air conditioning. Bali should weather the current economic storm just fine.

Last night my curiosity got the best of me and I broke my sorta news fast to read the local Bali Advertiser. So what is making the headlines in Bali?

Indonesia Bans Yoga for Muslims, Triggers Row
Indonesian yoga teachers disputed on Monday that the practice of yoga was damaging for Muslims after the country’s top Islamic body issued a fatwa banning followers from yoga that includes chanting, mantras or mediation (I’m sure they meant “meditation”)…because of a view it uses Hindu prayers that could erode Muslims faith. The meeting of Indonesia’s Ulema Council stopped short of a full ban and said Muslims could practice it as long as it was only for physical exercise…

Egads. I finally find my religion and someone’s threatening to outlaw it.

Bali Government Issues Guidelines for “Nyepi” – the Official Day of Silence
Nyepi, the absolute day of silence that will mark the dawn of a new year on the Bali Hindu calendar bgins at 6am on March 26….
No lights may be lit.
No work may be performed.
No amusements enjoyed.
Silence must be maintained.
People must not venture outside the sealed and silent quarters.
Hotel service staff must stay at work during the 24 hour period as travel between home and job will not be permitted.
All roads will be closed and emptied except for emergency vehicles.
Hotel guests must stay on their hotel grounds thourhgout the 24 hours…
Guest rooms will have their curtains drawn and outside lighting at hotels will be dimmed or extinguished.
Bali’s Ngurah Rai Airport will be closed with no flight operations allowed. Technical and emergency landings only permitted. Any crew landing at the airport between 6am aon March 26 until 6am the following morning will not be allowed to leave the airport terminal.
All Bali sea ports will be closed.
The once monthly tsunami alarm testing that occurs on the 26th of each month, will not take place in March.

I’ll write more later about this holiday. But here’s the deal. It’s the day that the Balinese hide out from evil spirits who come looking for trouble on that day. The Balinese figure if they hide and the island is quiet and dark, the bad guys will think no one is home and they’ll skip over the island in search of someone else to pick on.

Human Head in a Box Mystifies Authorities
A human skull found in a parcel by authorities when they xrayed the packet at the Ngurah Rai Post Office on January 28th continues to mystify authorities. A spokesman from the Sanglah forensic department said that it appeared that the skull was not a fossil, or intended for medical science or study, but appeared to be part of some sort of ritual as the skull had some kind of markings etched into the bones…

Danpasar Police Crack Down on Shirtless Motorcyclists
…Denpasar’s traffic police will soon be taking action against drivers, presumably male, cruising Bali’s roads bare-chested. Declared “Operation Sympathetic”…a police official confirmed that special attention would be given to foreign male tourists…the police spokesman also said a failure to wear a shirt can result in greater injuries when cyclists fall and make contact with asphalt road surfaces.

The Balinese Haunting Hour
Midday in Balinese is called tengai tepet and is one time of the day to be aware of. Even today many Balinese will not sleep at midday or embark on a a journey for fear of misfortune or being possessed by a demon that may be ‘lurking in the mist’…The ‘haunting hour’… occurs at dusk..Demons are thought to be present in great numbers at this time and it is the best time to put out offerings to them…made up of flowers, and incense stick, rice parcels and liberal splashes of rice wine called arak brem (demons have a penchant for hard liquor, of course.) It is recommended that you not sleep during this time for fear of possession…some Balinese maintain that whistling can attract demons, particularly witches which have transformed themselves into leyak (menacing fireballs or other manifestations of evil.

That’s it! All the news that’s fit to print in Ubud, Bali. Now back to my bubble.

Robin Sparks
just after bathing in the holy springs of the Hindu temple, Tirta Empul in Bali.

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Escape the World – three words that like a siren song tugged at my weary soul. Nine years of life on the road and a recent move to a foreign country had taken their toll. In spite of a multitude of reasons Not To Go, I went anyway, escaping the winter of Istanbul. I’d been in Bali for one month, a virtual paradise in and of itself, when I graduated to heaven by attending an “Escape the World” retreat held at the Kumara Sakti Resort in Ubud, Bali.

Located on the property of a Balinese prince, Kumara Sakti Resort is tucked in and around the jungle on the side of a ravine. From my room with its windowed walls, I can neither hear nor see another human soul except for a tiny dot on the horizon, which upon further inspection, is a farmer leading his ducks through a rice paddy. Just outside my room a tree bends over from the weight of several bunches of bananas. Larger than life waxy leaves dance in the breeze, so brightly hued they appear to be fake. It’s easy to see where the inspiration for the batik textile on my bed came from – the patterns for Bali’s famous ikat sprout all over the island. I stretch out on the hand-carved Balinese bed enveloped by a white mosquito net on the balcony to try something I don’t do very often. Nap.

Hand carved stone paths and steps meander, climb and fall next to streams and tiny waterfalls and statues to the Gods and lead to the dining hall, the yoga pavilion, and further down to the second pool. The only sounds aside from rain pattering on leaves, a rooster crowing, birds tweeting, frogs croaking, and geckos geckoing, is the deep resonant gong, calling us to yoga twice daily, and the tinkling of a bell to wake us at 6:30AM each morning. That’s right — just me and eight others in the jungle hailing from Holland, Jakarta, Australia, France, Sweden, Singapore, and America. The staff quietly attends to our every need and then some. When we return to our rooms each evening after dinner, there is a fresh frangipani blossom on our turned down beds, the candles on our balconies have been lit, and fresh incense placed on our tables. Although it’s a five minute drive to the center of Ubud, we may as well be a million miles away.

On our first evening we meet for tea and desert on the opulent terrace of the residence of the prince. Partners of One World Retreats, Claude Chouinard and Iyan Yaspriyana, introduce themselves and give us a preview of the week ahead. Claude tells us about Balinese rituals and traditions so that we can incorporate them into the upcoming week.

Among a handful of upcoming activities that include not only yoga and spa treatments, but forays into “real” Bali, we learn that we will attend a purification ceremony at a Balinese temple tomorrow night and are shown how to wrap our sarongs and secure them with temple sashes. One sarong for the outside, and one to be worn inside for bathing in the purifying spring waters. Claude encourages each of us to come up with an intention for the week to think about at the ceremony.

The next evening we go together to the temple and kneel behind a Balinese priest. Waving his hands in the smoke of the incense and holding up flower after flower in prayer clasped hands, he chants in Balinese. Whatever he is asking for and whoever he is asking it from, thank you very much. I am sure that I can use it and I accept it gratefully. We then bathe in the holy waters of the temple pausing under each of eleven fountains to make a wish before letting the healing waters rush over us. There is a longer line than most behind the relationship fountain.

Walking through waist-deep water sheathed in white linen and dipping under its surface reminds me of my Christian upbringing – the significance that water plays in cleansing and renewal. I’d been thinking that 2009 would go down as the year that I began a new life. In the year 2000 I began living abroad for months at a time in various countries in order to write about those who leave home to find a new one, as well as the stories of my own inner journey in search of a new tribe. I’ve been telling friends that my book has gestated for nine years and that it is time for it to be born. Two weeks ago, I laid in the middle of a kundalini healing circle and saw an amphibious-like shell falling away, and something raw, tender, and innocent, emerging. Might the book be a metaphor for me?

The next morning at 6:45 am I am stepping gingerly on the beautiful inlaid stones beneath my feet, shimmering wet after all night rain. The smell of jasmine in the air, deep gong signaling the beginning of another day. In the open air yoga pavilion overlooking the jungle, Iyan guides us through meditation and yoga with his deeply resonant voice, both soothing and eerily reminiscent of the chanting of the priest last night. Ommmmmmmmm. Iiifff youuuuur miiiind (up and note or two on the word mind) has gone awayyyyyy (up again on last word) bring it baaaaaack (stretch out the word back and bring it down a half note). One of the attendees has never before done yoga. Two are regular yoginis and the others, like me, are on and off practitioners. Our different levels are seemingly irrelevant. Iyan’s intuitive guidance offers precisely what each one of us needs when we need it.

After yoga, we eat breakfast in the open-air (of course) dining room. Black rice pudding with warm coconut cream. Fresh papaya, mango, pineapple, banana, yogurt, home made crunchy muesli, and a delightful bread that can best be described as crunchy, nutty, wholesome, slightly salty, and yummy. These are but a few of the selections on the menu. Master chef and raw organic cooking specialist, Ceciia Chaimberlan of Sweden, owner of Curly Foods (insert website url here) is training the kitchen staff this month. From the “Happy Salad” with its center of finely chopped green olives, lemon zest, olive oil, black pepper, naked cashews, and a side of tamari sauce, to the chocolate mousse which is so delicious that we raid the refrigerator to scrape the remains from the mixing bowl (imagine our surprise when Cecelia reveals the mousse is actually mashed avocado!), each meal throughout the week is a mouth watering concoction of raw organic ingredients. Cecilia says that for food to be truly nutritious, it is essential that it not only be healthy, but that it be prepared with loving hands. Fete acompli!

Early one morning, we drive up the summit of Mr. Gunung Batur and as the sun’s first rays beam over the rim of the volcano, we do sun salutations. Amazing. We gradually descend on mountain bikes past gob-stoppingly gorgeous rice paddies and through villages where the Balinese are going about their ordinary (albeit extraordinary to us) daily lives.

When first informed about the day of silence, some of us are a bit dubious. What, no talking? No phone calls or instant messaging? For 24 hours? Claude suggests we spend some of the time writing affirmations. (but no reading allowed). As it turns out, it is the day of silence that sets a transformative tone for the rest of the week and we love it. I for one, resolve to make a day of silence a regular ritual in my life. One of the participants, Andra from Jakarta says later, “It was the day of silence that changed my outlook on life. On that day I found that I’ve been searching for happiness in all the wrong places. That I have all the answers within me. It was a real awakening.”

A bridge leads from the resort through the jungle into the rice fields and eventually to one of the most unique, awe-inspiring, delicious, healthy open air restaurants in Bali – Sari Organik – situated next to the farm where it grows its own produce. There surrounded by a palette of colors, smells and sounds that are pure bountiful Bali, we laugh and relax and eat together, and I slurp through a hollow tube of bamboo the best mango lassie I have ever tasted in my life.

The spa treatment rooms are open to views that simply have to be seen and experienced to be believed. It is in this setting where we are expertly and reverently kneaded and massaged. I have never and doubt I will ever again experience anything like the three-hour ayurvedic massage that is the specialty of the trained masseuses at Escape the World retreats. The pedicure and manicure, the hair cream bath, the head and shoulder massage, the crown chakra anointing of oil, oh yes, those too are divine. But the ayurvedic massage not only puts me in a deep state of relaxation, but brings up insights and melts away negativity. I have long dreamed of living in Bali, and now here I am sitting smack dab in the middle of my dream my feet being washed lovingly, my shoulders being massaged looking out at what must be the most beautiful place on the planet. The world is my mirror. What I see, both good and bad, I create. It’s an analogy I’ve heard before. But it is not until this day during this massage at this moment as I sat here looking out at these scalloped mirrored rice paddies that the words take root. The world is my mirror. If I created this, I am one drop dead gorgeous woman!

Instead of ruminating on all the things my boyfriend does that bug me, I begin picturing the perfect loving partner all the way down to his calf muscles. The person in our group who annoys me with her deluge of derogatory comments about Americans? She too is my mirror and all negative thoughts about her go the way of the knot in my back.

Wrapped in a sarong and holding a mug of hot ginger tea, I’m seated on the terrace in a full-on post-massage glow thinking I smell like a frangipani flower and look like an oil spill. I don’t ever want to shower again!Someone emerges from an adjoining treatment room and sits down next to me. Guess who? That’s right. Her face glowing like an angel, we smile at each other, Goddess to Goddess. Duchess to American.

On the last morning we meet in the yoga pavilion to create from palm leaves Balinese offerings like the ones we have seen piled up on altars and stone Gods all over the island. Seated in a circle, we watch in silence as Iyan burns the pieces of paper we have given him, containing lists of things we want to eliminate from our lives. He covers the ashes with flower petals and takes the basket to the river. We watch from above as he first prays and then releases the petals and ashes, allowing them to flutter on the currents down to the river below to be carried out to sea. They back up behind a branch that has fallen across the water, but I turn and walk away in peace, confident that it is but a temporary obstacle that will soon be washed away on the current.

The Escape the World retreat touches parts of your heart and soul that a boot camp-like yoga retreat simply can’t reach. It is more than a meditation workshop, where one spends 99% of their time in their heads. And it is far more than its delicious healthy inventive meals and mesmerizing massages. The Escape the World Retreat is a buffet for all the senses. And isn’t balance what the body and soul craves nearly as much as food and water? Find out all about how to escape your world at www.oneworldretreats.com.

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