Trippin'

My first week in Bali has been emotionally difficult, hence the lack of posts over the past six days. Suffice it to say -- the trip I had planned, the trip I had thought it would be, isn't the trip I'm getting. I'm getting the trip I need, if that makes sense.

A new friend here in Ubud told me today that certain locations on earth are associated with key parts of the body, or chakras. The Himalayas are the head (makes sense), for instance -- and Ubud, the liver. This also makes sense to me, given the emotional endurance test (purging?) of the past week.

Here in Ubud people realize and respect that evil is unavoidable. Evil and good exist side by side here very visibly. The black and white checkered fabric draped over statues, tables and doorways here are reminders of this belief. I first understood this reality in the alarming way that beauty and artistry exist everywhere, alongside feral street dogs and garbage... scooter exhaust hovers over beautiful, graceful traditional dance performances... delicate music is heard as slaughtered pigs sqweel and roosters crow all day long.

My new friend also suggested that here what you have and feel inside, you feel and experience outside. Reality is actually reality here; there is no shrouding of what is uncomfortable or unsightly. Conversely, we Westerners hide our garbage. We bury personal pain and other "stuff" we don't want to deal with, the stuff we don't think is beautiful, conforming, comfortable and acceptable.

Well, the past several days I've been shifting and growing, working to shed some things I have needed and wanted to shed for some time. In some ways, I'm giving birth to a new and improved, more "real" ME. The best way out of something is through it, and I'm now just seeing the light and the end of this week's uncomfortable, dark tunnel.

I think the forces of the universe pushed me to get to the end of this first trip, so that I could really begin and love this trip to Bali.