“When wind flickers across the ocean’s surface, it produces small ripples which provide a greater surface area that can catch more of that blowing wind. Eventually these ripples become larger and larger until they cohere into wavelets and eventually waves, attaining their greatest size when they come closest to matching the wind’s speed. What makes this whole chain of events slightly stranger is that it is not the water itself traveling across the ocean as a wave, but merely the memory of the original wind’s energy being constantly transferred as vibration from one neighboring water molecule to the next. When I heard the roar of that wave behind me in Nusa Dua, what I was actually hearing was the sound of the past arriving in the present, with me directly in its path.” - Stephen Kotler, West of Jesus With good will for the entire cosmos, cultivate a limitless heart: Above, below, & all around, unobstructed, without hostility or hate. - Buddha “What gives travel its value is fear. At a certain moment, when we’re far from our own country, we become seized by a desire to go back, to the protection of old habits and ways. At that moment, we are feverish, but also porous, so that the slightest touch makes us quiver, to the depths of our being.” - Albert Camus
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Auckland International Airport
…to stand in exactly the spot where I stood 4 months ago/ yesterday/ a lifetime ago, and be overcome by memory of what that felt like - 6 am, pissing rain, freezing cold, and the realization that I was really Doing This, that I was half a world away and there was no turning back… and here and now, with so many people and places inside me, so much felt, smelled, tasted, seen, endured, and reveled in; now I stand here again and contemplate my return. powerful. I Did It! SF I am back. Surreal. It’s cold. 4 continuous days of transit has brought me here, into the warm fold of friendship and familiarity. I don’t know what’s next, but I’m here, and I will bring a different, changed self to this place, and See What Comes. This journey began with 2 significant deaths - that of my 20 year life partnership & marriage, and that of my beautiful brother Geoffrey. Seems not only does Nature abhor a vacuum, but she’s also pretty fond of bookends - the trip ending, as it has, with the death of Bowie and my 14 yr old husky-shepherd-chow Uma… I have muttered that I am really sick to death of death, but that means life, too, it’s all the same circle, so I take it back and try to breathe more space into my heart. I have returned to SF having met many challenges, felt my heart open in clunky, uneven shifts, like a calving glacier, and done some real healing around the losses of the past few years. New Zealand gave me untold levels of wonder at the natural world, many precious friendships, and crazy strong legs. Indonesia gave me still more beauty, a lot of laughter & good food, new friends and old friendship rekindled, …and way too many of sarongs! From Thailand - lasting inspiration, contact with my Natural Self, & an intense lens on the deep, old patterns I’ve held within for too long. Sri Lanka gave me stupendous beauty, surf, once-in-a-lifetime thrills and soul wonder, burning red grit-scratched eyeballs, the best food ever, and a cute Sri Lankan boyfriend. Not a bad haul… :))))) I can only hope I gave back also. Many thanks to those from home who stayed in touch, who commented through Facebook, and reminded me that I was never really alone. A thousand bows to the nuns & monks of Wat Suan Mokh for teaching me that grace is possible and human beings can actually be that beautiful. Thanks to all the friends I made along the way, who saw past age and who laughed at my jokes. Thanks to Dinesh, for giving me entree into a Sri Lanka I would otherwise never have discovered. Well, I guess that’s all then… still waiting for the book deal with movie option… ha ha ha… ... don't let me come back as a Sri Lankan dog... Temple dog.- one of many desperately mange-ravaged skeletons that are everywhere here, most have a convulsive twitch, panting, with eyes half-closed, as if they are just praying for someone to come along and put them out of their misery. it guts me.
Oh, the food, glorious food, of Sri Lanka - where to begin its rhapsodic praises…?! Boiled peanuts and corn by the side of the road, Hoppers (a bowl-shaped cross between a crepe and the spongey Ethiopian bread whose name I do not remember) with dahl and a thin hot curry-ish sauce, Wood apple and jackfruit curries with red rice, accompanied by sides of ground ginger, lime pickles, ground coriander leaves (or something), kotthu roti, jackfruit, ramboyan, mangosteen… I am in heaven and have not eaten better this whole trip. Still woefully short on the fresh vegetable (greens, really) front though, and I think I will eat kale salad for at least a month when I get home!!! All but impossible to imagine that I will soon be in San Francisco, and I’m surprised to feel some resistance to it. Still, there are many people I look forward to seeing, and it might be nice to put my pack down for a while…<3 Last visit before the 4-5 hour drive to the airport is to Dambulla Cave Temple. Deceptive at first glance, with its Giant Buddha (in the process of being painted gold, and covered inscaffolding) and the super-cheesy Golden temple Building, but the actual caves...Mind-blowing! 5 separate caves, the walls and ceilings gorgeously painted, and filled with over a hundred buddhas - each cave has its own gigantic reclining Buddha (each one distinct), as well as many many seated and standing figures. It’s really quite awe-inspiring.
Sigiriya - the soaring Lion Rock and palace of a king turned temple on top, surrounded by a huge moat and the grounds filled with beautiful water gardens. Tales of fratricide and political intrigue in this place’s history... 2 cows and calf grazing happily on the grassy expanses of the water garden in the morning sun. ![]() Rogue safari w D & Karu - at dusk, drive in jeep to the outskirts of Minneriya National Park (close to Sigiriya) to a place where the elephants cross the road at night. Nothing says freedom like standing in the back of a safari jeep in the warm wind at sunset!!! Simple pleasures, but to-the-core thrilling. We found 2 groups, the second of which was right by the road behind some bushes and trees - we didn't want to disturb them so kept lights off, and as the night descended we just sat by the side of the road and listened - to the crickets and frogs and birds and these massive elephant jaws, ripping grass and branches, snuffling & and chewing… I can’t even explain the state of rapture this put me in; I almost cried, so intimate & beautiful, so close to these wild, majestic beings, respectful visitors in their home. Once in a Lifetime… and then - on the way home, now pitch black, lying down in the back of the jeep with a black sky above full of stars and hundreds of fireflies, which, at that speed, looked like shooting stars flying across the sky. UNBELIEVABLE!!
“Cooking lesson” in the restaurant kitchen @ Lion’s Rest- I helped to make curry, and everyone within 1/2 a mile came in at some point to peek/stare, giggle, and comment!! Performance anxiety… and FUN!!! :))) Biking around Sigiriya village, rich red dirt roads, immaculate compounds with mud or brick houses, jungle, temple and then climbed up to watch sunset on Pidurangala Rock, an outcropping that faces the side of Lion Rock. Spectacular. Mangey puppy. Kandy - Insanely bustling, gritty, diesel soaked city; I'm a little under the weather and couldn't deal. 5:30 am ceremony at the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic - took my place among the dawn throngs to file past the actual alcove where they keep the Sacred Tooth relic, offered my basket of flowers and a prayer, as drums and horn filled the air in an almost funereal rhythm. it has been so fascinating to experience all the different countries' "interpretations" of Buddhism... for me, it is a psychology, centered on a meditation practice; for SE Asians it seems much more of a devotional, religious practice. As such, I felt slightly like an imposter in the temple, and just wanted to stay out of the way!
Royal Botanical gardens were quite gorgeous, and took an entire morning to stroll through. Thousands upon thousands of Flying Fox bats in a long stretch of trees lining one of the main paths, that follows the river. It was cool until it was kind of creepy (they're huge! like eagle-sized!!) and the smell got to be a bit much!!
Below are a non-native giant almond tree, the name of which I regret I did not copy down :( 1600 years old, a shared temple , with Hindu iconography on one side and Buddhist on the other., with tantric iconography along the sides. In a stone square by the side of a large reservoir... deep & peaceful stillness there.I sat under the canopy and meditated. Birds birds birds, and the slap of the fishermen below, frightening the fish into the nets by slapping the water with some kind of paddle? I'm not sure, as I couldn't see, just hear.
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December 2016
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