Sunday, February 01, 2009

head in the sky with your feet on the ground... literally

The more I see and do and experience, the more my mind is filled with images. rubbish. confusion. understanding. and every night, stranger and more vivid dreams.

On Saturday morning I woke to someone new beside me in bed, which would have been surprising if Bart hadn't woke me up at 1am to tell me about Jenna's migraine. After the body massage she felt worse and couldn't fall asleep as the dorm was too cold, so her and Bart traded places and she came to sleep with me in the double bed in our slightly warmer room. We woke up at almost the exact same minute and then told eachother our twisted unsettling dreams. I was so happy she felt alot better in the morning.

That day we went on a hike through one of the paths the hostel had mapped out. We took lots of water, high energy snacks, photos of the map and called upon the ghost of Jim Thomas as we began climbing roots and slipping on rust colored soil. He was called the Silk King of Thailand and part of the CIA and went missing after going on a hike around dinner time. There are many theories about how he went missing. That he was kidnapped, or that he fell hundreds of meters through the "empty ground." Supposedly, his family is still offering some kind of lofty financial reward for information about his whereabouts. Although if he was still alive right now, he would be 102.

So we climbed through a rainy rainforest until we reached the top. Above the clouds there was no rain and only quiet fog. It felt like a movie as we grew more and more lost and I started my "What would I do if a Zombie came out of the bushes for me?" scenario imagining. Standing infront of an electricity tower the path became very very difficult to follow or even see. There seemed to be big orange arrows in random directions that led nowhere. And on every path that we knew wasn't "the one," was a human or animal poo...? As we climbed directly under the electricity tower and looked for more paths, we finally, after about 20 kinda nervous minutes found a rust colored landslide which led up to a very clearly marked path. But it was very inconspicuous. Had we not tried that way, we might still be in the jungle. Anyway, as we happily chuggled along that route we entered into very dark, mossy, viney forest which looked like the one in the Princess Bride. Trunks of trees formed the most inticing shapes as branched pushed for light. As we descended from the clouds, rain tickled our skulls and we began to climb down down down. Again, a fork in the path and we decide to go right when we should have gone left. This brought us to walking through the tiniest most indecipherable path which looked like an animal trail as we pushed away blankets of wet plants. This was an exhilerating bit of the walk. It's weird, the under the surface silent collective hope of getting lost. The desire to be in danger and the urge to feel your adreneline flow through the body. My excitement for a moment to trust myself. to depend on myself. to know the forest again so well that you move around hollow or fallen trunks as if they are pieces of furniture in your home. the comraderie between Jenna, Bart and I was very humorous and uplifting. It's nice after being a pair and hanging out with eachother for so long, for someone new to come into your relationship and zest things up by shifting the dynamic.

After a little visit to a strawberry growing farm, visiting a night market and getting drenched by rain, we reconvened for beers with Jenna, Rodrigo and a few other travellers we had gotten to know after Bart and I packed to leave the next morning for Singapore. I got a little tipsy and had the thought whilst we all played cards, that I felt totally comfortable with these people, and that I wouldn't mind being able to hang out with them more. It hit me that there is always someone to leave behind even if you've only been in a place for a few days. I feel inspired and blessed by how quickly the dynamics of a small group of people can develop and mean something. Everytime, I find this... sometimes, without even consciously creating it. It comes to me and I bring something to it with divine love and gratitude and somehow I know that facilitation in small groups of people is what aligns me and brought me here.

That night I put together a small ziploc bag of goodies and called it "Jenna's Bag of Happy" and after everyone was a sleep and I finished writing some mantras my heart was ringing out like a Vipassana Retreat bell, I slipped the bag under her shoes in front of the mixed dorm where she slept. One of those mantras was this:

I have a pitcher plant
where I throw all my thoughts

for the monkeys to steal.

They have no idea what they are getting into.


But they are hungry and
I am chopsticking a full belly of
memory
after
memory.

We got the best bus back to Singapore. With luxury seats that go back into bed mode. The bus threw us down winding roads and my stomach sang the blues, even after Jenna gave us special accupuncture bracelets for motion sickness. So I took a gravol and conked myself out for almost four hours witch made the nine hour trip seem short. I also watched the Constant Gardner and affirmed my love for Ralph Fiennes.

This morning, Monday Feb 2nd, I packed my bag and went to Orchard Road while Bart went to the science center. I had a really nice day to myself and got a wicked new pair of sunglasses. Tonight we fly to Melbourne, stop at Bart's uncles house for 24 hrs and then fly on to Auckland.

I can't wait to see Ada and shower her with me love you long time adoration.

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