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.
