I savored big time on my honeymoon in Bali – the trip of lifetime for us. It was all about devotion – devoting ourselves to the culture, to love, to yoga, to living outdoors. It blew much gunky old stories and sadness out of my heart. These are the distilled insights I brought home in my journal:
1. Pleasure is a very good teacher
I have a strong Calvinist streak that shows up as needing to be productive even on vacation (sheesh). But in a land where beauty and art are everywhere and you can get a good $10 massage on almost every corner, I invited pleasure to unravel my worker bee self. I devoted myself to savoring: the flower bath, the languorous afternoons on the day bed watching the swifts dart and soar, the golden prana glow after yoga, the decadent vegan raw desserts, the people’s generosity and kindnesses… and being loved by Bob.
2. I choose to see myself as separate (separate from Source), but I’m not – ever.
This knowing settled over me in yoga class. It was like one sweet doh! Of course I choose to separate – that’s the only way it happens. It’s thrilling to choose differently. To flow back to wholeness anytime, anywhere.
3. Permission to create wildly and to play is my learning edge
Halfway through one of the many massages I savored, I started gently shaking and silently roaring with my mouth open wide (face down so I don’t think I freaked out the massage therapist too much). The thought attached to my movement was, “I get to be me!” It was a flooding of self-knowing, of being goofy, funny me, and that my “work,” if you will, is to simply embody and express that me. How very true for us all.
I hope to go back to Bali in a year or two. It would be wonderful to retreat there with you… let’s see if we can make that happen in 2015!
Speaking of retreats
My wonderful VA Amber sent me an email last night saying there are two spots open in each week of the Taos Writer’s Retreat – there may even be a single!
This is first come, first serve. Amber will assign spots in the order of the emails she receives on Monday.
The details are here – please be sure you can attend before you email Amber: Amber[at] jenniferlouden[dot]com and no need to panic here, if you know you are interested, read the page and give us a shout. Love love love to have you there! It’s a truly wise and generative community of all levels of writers and so much fun to boot.
FAVORITE READ OF THE TRIP
All Over Creation by Ruth Ozeki
I wept like a baby reading this book. Some readers may find the story too polemical but, for me, the truth of her science/politics combined with her achingly well-drawn characters and her ability to make me feel made this moving read. That said, her main character drove me a bit batty. She’s annoying in her selfishness and a tad unbelievable but still a fantastic, moving elegiac to family, daddy love, and the freedoms we are losing.
LAST THOUGHTS
May you remember you can always bloom from the mud.
Love,
Jen
P.S. This poem speaks to what I mean in #3 above.
Nanna Aida Svendsen from Of Water Lilies and Warm Hearts
“Heart on the Mend”
You are not here
a wise woman said
to fill the hole
in other people’s souls
You are here
to find the joy
in being you you are
and expressing
what you love
You are here to find and Honor
the wisdom of your heart
the knowing of your soul
And in the presence of your living love
others are more likely to remember
to find and to mend themselves
