There, and Back Again

A wonderful way to feel greater presence is to buy a ticket, take a trip, and enter a new world. So my journey to Bali this Spring, after a transformative year, was a delight. 

As I re-enter my world after visiting another one, I remember the story of the famous home-loving Hobbit who travels to an exotic land in search of dragon's treasure. There, and back again.

Now I'm back again, but I am still absorbed in There.  Beautiful Bali, oppressively hot, teeming with tropical life,  and filled with tender people engaging each day in reverent ritual.

Letting go is part of the key to enjoying new experiences, and good travelers know this. You must strike a balance between attachment to your goals (what I call the checklist) and relaxing into whatever is happening. Otherwise you’d spend the afternoon drinking rum down the road from the temple or shopping in markets instead of climbing the volcano.  While either option is good, you do need to choose - inspired by the knowledge that, as in life, your time is limited.

Travel teaches us how to handle curve-balls like tummy aches and bug bites, lost phones, long lines, getting hustled or downright ripped off, or just feeling unsettled and standing out in a crowd like a, well, a tourist.

Here's the secret: it's All Worth It. My treasure, found in a temple complete with a dragon: Sitting on the stone before the altar, breathing incense deeply, flowers behind my ears, hands in prayer pose against my forehead.  

Naturally I would get the smart-ass Hindu priest, who smiled down at me and asked, "American?" and when I nodded yes, he laughed and said, "For you, just make a wish, OK?" 

Sitting alone with this priest and my guide at Besakih, the Mother Temple, praying beneath the volcano on a muggy overcast day, I was at peace with myself for one blessed moment. My spirit woke up, saying to me, "Ahhhhh, This, now this is what you came here for!"

Then the priest poured holy water into my hands to drink (it tasted sweet, like lychee fruit) and daubed my forehead with a pinch of rice. "For prosperity, " he said, and my guide laughed and added, "Now you look Balinese!" 

Riding side-saddle on the back of a scooter, learning to make Banten offerings, and otherwise ever so slightly morphing into the culture through respectful action, words, posture and dress is my favorite part of travel. I admit, I like to "go native" as much as possible, and why not?  

The reverence that the Balinese bring to so many details of life reminds me of what the lady caretaker of a simple 13th century church in Tregaron, Wales, told me: "God is in the little things." This is my belief, too. Whether shooing sheep out of the cemetery or making coconut leaf flower baskets, presence arrives by paying attention.

And now, as my beloved traveling companion told me upon our return, the goal is to "keep the Bali breeze in the belly," despite the fevered rush of our contemporary Western lives. In America, we pretty much find, or invent, our own way. There is no national formula for achieving peace, and fewer common threads of community and ritual. With abandon, we make it all up, and muddle forward with as much graciousness as we can.

Yet, my trip to Bali taught me something vital: the power of reverence. All I need  to do is sit in stillness, hands in prayer, maybe inhale a little sweet incense, and magic happens.

Mt. Batur volcano, with swallow

Blogger at Besakih

Banten offerings

Lotus at Ananda Cottages, Ubud

Here she comes

Last week I arranged narcissus and pale pink gardenias in the Deetjens Inn office. Yesterday, the tights and boots came off and I wore a dress and flat shoes to work. This morning I woke knowing that it was time to place the fuschia silk cloth on my altar.

Yes, after the violent storms of this past Winter, Spring is gently, gently sailing into Big Sur. You can hear it in birds trilling in the trees, see it in daffodils dancing in gentle rains, smell it in cherry blossoms dropping their petals like confetti.

I hear the lupin are out in the back country, filling fields with the scent of sun-warmed grape jelly.

Spring, inexhaustible Spring. We die and we come back to life every year, such a lovely metaphor for our spiritual evolution.

Doing some much-needed Spring cleaning, I came across a postcard with these words of our "local son" author Henry Miller:

"Why then do we not give ourselves -- recklessly, abundantly, completely? If we realized we were part of an endless process, that we had neither to lose nor to gain, but only to live it out, would we behave as we do?"

Ah, Henry Miller, Hindu sage. It's all Lila, God's play. We exist to manifest God in a flow of spontaneous, creative vitality. An end in itself, this cosmic dance is why we are here, and we must join the party or miss out on what our souls need most.

Spring encourages us to give of ourselves, again. To jump back into the world with a shout, "I am here, so let's rejoice!" In a few days, I'm off to Bali, Indonesia, to sing and dance in temples, to ride elephants and pray under volcanoes. It's all part of the adventure of rebirth this Spring.

Partington Island

Everything changes. Nothing is forever. Mountains move, rocks slide, roads collapse. Sometimes, chaos and rubble rule. What we want to believe - that we can count on business as usual - is false. Security is not just around the corner, but change certainly is.  

Maybe this is not so bad.  Risk can generate possibilities. Westerners moan, “this too shall pass” but Buddhists call this impermanence and embracing it makes life sing.  Perhaps it’s possible to find comfort in change, to be nurtured, not wounded, by reality. It is as it is, baby.

The unforeseen and seemingly impossible can free you from illusions and put you on a higher path.

On Partington Ridge this winter though, we’d be happy with a new and improved road. Living in Big Sur means navigating some utterly unique episodes of destruction. The latest one arrived last month, just in time for Christmas.

Our beautiful old road, steadfast for 75 years, the solace of my morning commute, collapsed on December 23, two days after the Mayan Apocalypse.

An enormous weathered rock face, composed of dinosaur-sized boulders (and probably as old) rolled down the cliff in a prodigious rainstorm, destroying a 60’ section of the road. Rocks as large as the pillars at Stonehenge crash-landed on Highway One. It was a Biblical event.

 A triptych of boulders resembling Mt. Rushmore is just a little higher up the road, which raises the question, is there more to come? What I could barely conceive of has become a reasonable expectation. 

The frightening becomes “the new normal” as my neighbors, many no longer spring chickens, hike over the path they’ve carved across the slide.

Personally, I prefer the “back road” because that’s where my baptism into this adventure took place. After changing into rough jeans from tights and sequins on New Year’s Eve, I traveled up the Dubois-DeAngulo dirt road at 2am perched like a hood ornament on my neighbor’s all terrain vehicle. This required a serious grip and a good sense of humor. To paraphrase Bette Davis – talk about a bumpy night!

Thanks to my wonderful employer, Deetjens Inn, we now share a Polaris Ranger 4X4 between three Inn employees and Ridge neighbors on an as needed basis. We can travel down to work each day, and taxi neighbors up and down with groceries and supplies.

  
Partington Island may become a real “eco-resort”, where we pack everything in and out on foot or on 4-wheel drive quad vehicles.  As a friend of mine coined it, we could become “Quadlandia” and remain tranquil in the stillness of Nature.

Everything is somehow smaller and closer as we reach out to our neighbors to arrange rides, share supplies and drink wine together. We solve each problem the lack of road creates step by step, and build consensus over the best course of action for rebuilding it.

Like the shifting rocks above the road, we can’t predict what’s next with perfect accuracy. All of this has deepened my appreciation of survival basics:  is there anything more welcoming than the warmth of a wood fire when you walk indoors on a cold and rainy night? The glow of candlelight while reading beside the fire? Warm clothes, hot food, hugs, and laughter?

It is so very quiet now, delicious, primal quiet. All of us driving cars up and down the road, so necessary in our busy rural lives, has stopped. The relentless drumbeat of modern life slows, and we remember. This is what we came to Big Sur for, after all. We want to feel, as our ancestors did, that we are an essential part of the cosmos, supported by the web of community. 

While we learn to love our neighbors more as we help each other out, we are really a tribe of social hermits here. We treasure the views from our nests, the meditative state of calm that Big Sur brings.  While that deep peace can best be sensed in a solitary way, we are fortunate on Partington Island to share this feeling with like-minded souls.

If there is a creed in Big Sur, it is that this land teaches, heals, and answers prayers. The Esselen, who lived and feasted on this ridge for centuries, leaving hillsides blackened with fire-stones and abalone shells, had a mystical belief: Certain places on Earth transmit all that has happened there. All you have to do is touch them, and you will remember.

The Neap of the Year

Notice how her lips are not moving. 

It's 40 degrees this morning in Big Sur as the sun rises over the ridgetop.  I wear thick cotton stockings under my sweat pants, a cashmere sweater over my thermal shirt, muck-lucks and fingerless gloves. I drink hot water with lemon to warm my insides, which has the added benefit of cleansing my liver from all the holiday cheer. My neighbor, who helped me restore the internet this week (after his horse wandered through the garden and snapped the cable) said, it's the "neap" of the year, approaching the shortest day, the lowest tide of the year.

Extra moisturizer helps offset the effect of the wood-burning stoves. The cats sleep close at night, staying warm. Storm clouds tinted pink on the horizon at dawn take the shapes of centaurs, angels and temples out of a Maxfield Parrish painting. Filling the house with firewood is an ongoing project, and we hike, rake leaves or dance to keep from freezing. 

This is the time of the year which lends itself to the contemplation which comes at the end of a cycle -- when projects draw to a close, lifestyles slow down, dreams fade into the background. We focus on stillness, and birthing what comes next. One thinks of a long winter's nap filled with visions of the year to come. 

So, with Nyepi, the Balinese New Year nationwide day of silence in mind, I decided on an experiment one Sunday  this past month. We live surrounded by words. We steep ourselves in our stories, constantly told and re-told to ourselves and others. Yet we cultivate the art of conversation less than we did before Facebook updates, emails and text messages. These new methods make earlier ways of communicating seem quaint. Why call someone to chat when you can let the world know your status with just a few keystrokes?

Awash in all this communication, our souls are caught in a maze of stimulation and we forget that silence is the starting point for reverence and true understanding. In the words of the Prophet Mohammed, "The first stage of worship is silence." And while reaching out to others for guidance is key, it is as much our vulnerability and willingness to listen that comforts and heals. 

I decided to spend a day in silence.

Abandoning all the gadgets (phone, laptop, ipod) in order to  listen and observe my thoughts. Remembering Blaise Pascal's famous quote, "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."

Just before dawn, I began my day by wrapping myself in a blanket beside the fire, becoming absorbed in watching a flickering candle flame. The cold weather somehow helps the process of turning inward.  After a few hours of reading and puttering about the house (and making notes of conversations I needed to have very, very soon) one word escapes my lips as I look the white orchid beside the window, "Pretty," I said. 

Later that afternoon, after not answering phone calls (which was hard but kind of a relief, too) or checking emails (OK, I peeked at Facebook), I took a solitary hike, ending up at Partington Cove, where I watched the waves. Surprise, surprise, there's a huge amount of noise in my head, much of it repetitive. Damming the outward flow of talk, I watch the debris of my thoughts, memories and emotions rise to the surface. 

Some treasures float upward, and a few monsters, too. A wedding cake emerges beside a broken teapot. A gem-studded veil swirls around a Christmas tree. Baby goats bleat and scamper over hay bales. A coyote strolls past the bedroom door in the early morning fog.  The wind blows and all is still again, the water smooth.

During this low ebb of the year, when the seas of our souls become a little more tranquil, it's possible to observe the currents that flow like themes through our lives. We can begin to identify the crashing waves from the quiet pools, and perhaps choose more freely how we navigate the tides.

Photos by Linda Sonrisa

My Urn Awaits

On this night when we traditionally laugh at our fears -- of goblins and ghouls, of things that go bump in the night, of our unleashed selves at that wild costume party -- I am home alone in my dark old house, about to build a fire, watch a scary movie, and contemplate Death with love and humor.

Tonight, through ritual celebrations, people of all ages in our death-fearing culture get to relax a little, and take the tiniest peek at the monster under the bed.

Perhaps what we fear is Life, not Death. If we surrender to Life and live in each precious moment, we have to let go, over and over, and damn, that can hurt.  It's often easier to dull the senses through distractions, but my wish is to completely wake up to the beauty and pain of it all.

Pausing the stream of mental chatter and tapping into essential being is what I have been seeking and studying here for years, especially recently. I want to enter into all the moments of my life, not just skate along the surface in the commentary of my mind and wonder what the hell happened when it's over.

Recently I was given a lovely gift from a couple who has faced Death in many ways. Awareness of our end-date adds a certain spice to each breath we take, and while my friends did not intend that I make this simple urn my final resting place, I think it is a perfect fit for my cremains.

So my very own pink and cream ceramic urn, with gold leaf details and a flock of tiny birds flying behind a fan of pink bamboo, sits on top of my dresser and waits. The dash of grief I feel when I look at it each day is gently teaching me to accept, not fear, my death. A note inside states that it is the future home of Linda Sonrisa Rowland-Jones.

"We love beauty because the mind stops," says Eckhart Tolle, and the wonder we feel in Big Sur brings flashes of serenity, so that we can sense our ability to blossom. The ocean, the mountains, the night sky, birdsong, storms and sunsets, flora and fauna, and the full moon on Halloween combine to create a world whose beauty makes me forget that Big Sur (and so much more) will outlast my physical form. Instead, a powerful awe compels me to fully enter the moment.

And then, there is Death, sitting on our shoulder, reminding us that this, right now, is all we have.  Someday the Reaper comes, and we don't know when. Add Love to these powerful truths and you have what I seek: Presence.

Tomorrow is the Day of the Dead, America's "newest holiday". Hooray! Pick an event in your neighborhood and remember your loved ones who have gone before. Let us embrace our dear Death, our teacher, the one who will lead us into a richer, sweeter Life.

Photos by Linda Sonrisa

"The Clip is on the Altar"

There are a few spots in the world where you will hear this phrase. In places where religion and violence have sadly merged, spawning civil wars, and in hippie-hillbilly enclaves like my town.

Last summer, a rattlesnake curled up behind a statue of Hathor on my altar. This year, the clip for our .22 rifle rests next to a dancing Ganesh.

Coyotes have their way in Big Sur, with tolerant humans who mostly have domestic animals, not livestock, and who have definitively moved out their larger predators. Mountain Lions and Bobcats are as rare as Unicorns, where these prairie wolves are everywhere, some monstrously large, all fearless.

Firearms can be fascinating to the gentlest of souls, and it's not just the movies that give them a certain frisson. Many of us harbor secret (or not so secret) fantasies of undisputed power over something or someone. And a rifle in the country is an acceptable tool. We actually have a use for it, should our rural infrastructure collapse. Coyote for dinner tonight, folks? Tastier than squirrel, more substantial than quail...

Still, it was not without delighted amusement that my friend Laura snapped this photo of me one morning this past week. "Is that a coyote?" she asked and began to coo at it while I hot-footed it back indoors to find the rifle, and the clip (on the altar.) She's mostly a city girl, so she almost dropped her coffee cup as I loaded, aimed and fired. Craaaack. And the enormous coyote (he looks enormous 100  yards away so I know he's big, and a real threat to my old, deaf dog) took off, well, like a shot.

I hadn't realized just how satisfying that would feel. This morning, as Kip barked at another of these jackals creeping up the side of the canyon, I fired again, and had the satisfaction of seeing the cheeky guy jump and scramble for cover in the brush. Oh dear. Big game hunting may be next.

Though really, I don't want to actually kill anything, that would be awful. And of course, changing their essential naughty coyote behavior is not in the cards. But I do want them to pay attention and respect my firepower, thank you very much. "Hey you big bad boy, the game is up! Mama has a gun and she means business!"

Red Rock Temples

The more you look without searching, the more you see. The giant stone formed by the ebb and flow of a great inland sea  a millennia ago becomes Cleopatra reclining on her headrest. Or if you look again, Lucy is watching Linus play piano on top of the rock. As with constellations, they begin to materialize before your eyes with a little instruction.

To the right of this rock is another wonder, Snoopy stargazing on top of his doghouse, complete with a rock silhouette of the knob of his famous schnozz. "The more I see it the more it looks like Snoopy," says the spiky haired, blue-eyed young man in the restaurant. And it's true.

This exercise in free-association, documented in the wry little guidebook by Barry Friedman, "Hey, What's the name of that Rock?" is part of the experience in Sedona. On day three I nearly drove off the highway (my usual rental car fiasco: feet struggling to reach pedals) as I identified enormous formations on the fly.

The vision, or truth, of the stone varies depending on your perspective, and the amount of time you spend honoring it with your contemplation. As in life, the clearer picture comes into focus with distance and a little relaxation.

Local myth holds that Walt Disney lived in Sedona around 1940, at the base of Thunder Mountain, possibly providing ideas for  Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain in Fantasia. Perhaps the landscape, sun, sky and storms of this timeless place inspired Walt to create what was the radically new art of this classic film.

As I sit outside on the balcony around midnight and watch the lightning crack down across the sky onto these lumbering ancestral forms, I think of Fantasia's Pastoral Symphony by Beethoven. You can see the Sedona sky as Zeus peers down from billowy dark clouds. Vulcan forges lightning bolts which Zeus gleefully aims at the merrymakers below during the sudden, brief storm.

Much of the cartoon landscape in Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in Fantasia, showing the sculpting of the planet via an inland sea, looks like Sedona, too. I swear that's Courthouse Butte there in the background!

How they tittered at the park information center when I asked them about a rock formation depicting a certain unmistakable act of lovemaking. These two ladies have been around a bit, with smiling faces and bright eyes, brighter at the mention of this naughty rock.

"Well, we've heard of it but never seen it," one said, then got so flustered when I showed them both a photo (uploaded by some happy Brazilian tourists) that she forgot to give me the recreational pass I'd just purchased. 

It took a 3rd generation local, the lovely Julia at the Amara Spa, to give me the scoop on Blow Job Rock. "The easiest one to remember," she laughs, "and once you see it, you see it everywhere." There it was, hiding in plain view, visible across the alluvial plain from a terrace just above the hotel. Like an Ebbinghaus illusion, it captures my eye and I can't stop looking: Sedona's funniest rock formation.

Much to my surprise (and secret dismay), my Mom (who dreamed of being a pilot when she was a girl) opted for a helicopter flight with Sedona Air Tours, so on our last morning in this amazing place we climbed up into the air in a bright red helicopter piloted by a wonderful, wise septuagenarian. We learned all that we could from him as we flew past Balancing Rock and through enchanted slot canyons, admiring monoliths pulsating with energy, ancient cliff-dwellings, and the awe-inspiring way the mesas meet the sky.

Spending the week with Mom helped me regress to a more child-like point of view, so when I see Balancing Rock I flash on Wile E. Coyote and his timeless search for fulfillment. How we can all relate to his perpetual frustration, despite his beautiful surroundings! If only he and the Road Runner could have sat around a campfire, drank tea and talked about the meaning of life. Not enough drama or fun for a cartoon though. Maybe that dramatic tension is precisely what we need to stay in balance, after all.

Red Rock photos by Barry Friedman
Balancing Rock photo by Linda Sonrisa, battling vertigo!