bali morning

8 am. - been on the deck since 6:30 loading photos for blog post. have gone from a mere glistening with sweat to now dripping with it. once download is complete, asana practice under the shade of the frangipani tree and then a swim. later today, Greg and i go to a different market, lunch at his favorite west Sumatran (if i remember correctly) restaurant, then pick up Suma from school and go to his volleyball game. very exciting.
oh, also, they have squirrels here the size of gerbils and geckos the size of small cats - their poop is the size of a deer pellet!!!  :)
practise
i am working with 2 things now, the first being “The Insect as Agent of Enlightenment”. so far, Bali seems the perfect training ground - the mosquitoes are crepuscular, so not an issue if i Sit before dusk; the ants, unlike their nasty NZ cousins, do not seem to bite; the flies, well, are just flies, curious but not malevolent in their intentions. so i am working with tolerating their investigations of my skin, against the overwhelming desire to brush them off. i’m not sure what kind of critters i will encounter in Thailand, but i want to be “good at this” before the next retreat; maybe i’ll even come to love them :)
the second is just a simple “mantra” of “here” (in breath), “gone” (out breath) - a simple noting of the breath on the one hand, but having, on the other,  far deeper implications.
i think travel can teach one a lot about meditation, given the lack of control one often has with regard to time - no shortage of opportunities to practice with surrender and presence on a travel day :)
Suryani, bless her soul, just gave me a quick lesson in the correct way to wrap a sarong - i wasn’t far off, actually, but for the final tying…i had hoped there was a way to avoid having to walk with the minced and in my case awkward steps of a giant geisha… but nope, that’s just how it is. god forbid i should ever have to run for the bus…:)))