In Bali for 18 days

Note:   Murray and I arrived in Bali on September 18, 2011.  I wrote this for my newsletter, and I thought it would be good background material for this blog. Murray and I have been in Bali for 2-1/2 weeks now, and things are settling down as we settle in. We go to bed with the frogs and crickets, and wake up with the chickens. One wall of our house borders a local path and we hear the Balinese villagers as they chat and laugh going along the path. Our little house is a sort of duplex, and our neighbors are from Spain. We don’t know much about them yet, but we can hear them talking as our bedrooms share a common wall. Their unit is air-conditioned, so the bedroom is closed to the outside sounds. Our unit is not air-conditioned, so we get to hear the sounds of the village in the rice fields at night. We hear an occasional motor scooter, but mostly the more gentle sounds of village life. We have a housemate in the form of a gecko.  He patrols the beam in the center of our bedroom and, you may not know this, geckos poop.  Their poop is brown and our wood floor is brown, so I am practicing stepping over the section of the floor under the beam. Murray is on gecko poop detail, so the next time someone asks us what we do in Bali, I have an answer: avoid gecko poop. The article this week goes into detail about some of the aspects of settling in to a Third World country. I’m not sure this is going to be of much interest to anyone, but I’m going to go ahead and print it this week, hoping to hear back from you. I can continue to let you inside the process that we are going through as we follow our yes to Bali, or I could write more general articles about what I’m learning from this journey. I’m listening for the answer, and I would appreciate anything you have to say on the matter. Murray and I have established 3 agreements as we follow Yes: # 1 We agreed to tell ourselves and each other the truth about how we feel, what we are thinking, and what we want.  We have to keep an honest flow going, even if we feel we “should” not be feeling or thinking or wanting something. # 2 We agree to allow each other the space to have all of our feelings, all of our thoughts, and all of our wants without judgment. We have a tendency to shut down each  others feelings and desires because of our own insecurities.  Normally, this is not a problem for us, but this move is a stressful situation even though we have chosen it, and we are surrounded by great beauty, both earthly and human. # 3. We agreed to center our lives daily in lovingkindness, gratitude, and a healthy sense of humor.  The Balinese laugh easily and begin each day with an offering.  I want to be worthy of being a guest in their country, on their island, and in this sweet little village. I intend to make a movie to show you where we are living.  Completing it may have to wait until after the Ubud Writer’s Festival that starts on Wednesday the 5th of October. We will be pretty busy then.  We are committed to going with the flow, loving ourselves well, and picking the “shoulds” off our souls like the leeches those thoughts are. We want to be present in the moment, present to ourselves, present to each other, and open to whatever Yes wants to do. Yahoo! Blessings, Vicki

Pity the Bali dog, and Dog Lovers

Pity the Bali Dog, and Bali Dog Lovers

Try to talk nice to a dog here, and you get snarls for your trouble.  Bali dogs seem to be descendants of two dogs that seized control before independence from the Dutch. One was a white, short-haired, medium sized dog with a pointy muzzle and long tail. It fell in love with a black, short-haired, medium sized dog with a pointy muzzle and a long tail.  They met, fell in love and were so happy, their tails curled.

I suspect that one reason the Dutch left was to get away from these one-time domesticated beasts.  Once upon a time in Bali, people and dogs lived in harmony.  One day a disoriented traveling pooch missed his port call. He had too much Brem, the rice brew reminiscent of American Ripple, with a little Nyquil thrown in for flavor.

Being true to its colonial heritage, he fathered a few offspring, and soon marked his territory from Seminyak to Batur.  The nascent breed became pack leaders, talked tough and took charge. Calm, gentle dogs were soon following in their footsteps. Well-kempt dogs began to neglect their appearance to fit in. 

Dog brushes have been collecting dust for decades. Vestiges of dog grooming appear in cave drawings west of Tabanan, but modern canines refuse to go near water unless they are very thirsty. The newer breed abandoned traditional customs and values. Dog obedience test scores plummeted.

Who can blame island residents for indifference toward dogs today? Erstwhile dog lovers stopped buying can food. “If you’re going act like that, you can eat dry food.”  And so the rift between humans and dogs remains at an impasse.   Dogs seem indifferent to their human counterparts.  They scare me, and if they don’t want their shots, fine.  I’m not getting mine either. 

Let’s be fair. Many Bali have social graces. For one thing, they poop in private.  They must have learned to dig latrines as I rarely see any dog poop on the road.  Can’t say that for French dogs. In Nice for example, the dogs prefer to use clean cobblestones.  They have also been known to sign their work.

My gratitude goes out to people of Bali Animal Welfare Association, who are devoted to animal rescue, placement and welfare (www.bawabali.com / 0811 389 004). Be nice to them.

Following the YES

Well, Murray and I are in Bali for nine months, following our dreams.  We are available to see what happens to us as we learn bahasa Indonesia, get massages, swim in the pool, walk through the rice fields to eat smoked duck. We meet people from all over over world. Many of them are following their own call- right here to Bali.
It took us eighteen months of preparation to get this big chunk of time. Now we let go and see what happens.  Murray quit his job as an occupational therapist in the schools, and I brought my clients with me via Skype.  I am a coaching therapist with a wicked sense of humor.  I have to tell you, playing with clients as I sit poolside among the palm trees and aromatic flowers feels pretty damned wicked and wonderful.
We live in a two bedroom house on the grounds of Melati (jasmine) cottages in Penestanen, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia. If you have to look up where that is, you will be just where I was in December 2007 before I made my first trip to Bali.  In the Balinese language there is no word for art because everything is art.  The people laugh easily, smile with humility, and live every day in gratitude.  If you love going to sleep listening to frogs and crickets and geckos ( a barking lizard) and waking up with roosters, and you love being warm, you might love Bali too.
We'd love to respond to your questions and comments, so bring them on.  I've been longing for a longterm overseas adventure for forty years. Murray is willing to bring his sense of humor and adventure here to support his wild wife.  For the record, he is a peach.

Vicki

P.S.  This link will take you to a You Tube movie from our Bali Birthday bon voyage Blast we threw in our backyard right before we left on our adventure.  It might make you laugh, especially if you are nearly sixty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln7JqdZNePk