Helene.

all things spirit

[allthingsspirit]

NYEPI (Hindu New Year and Day of Silence) REFLECTIONS

NYEPI reflections:

How fitting that I arrive back in Bali on this day of Silence...it seems Silence is what I need now more than ever...

I have been on the road for quite some time. I have yet to really feel at home anywhere since I left New York City in 2012. New York was the last sense of community and home that I had, up until recently. From there I moved back to my place of birth Washington DC for a bit, then to Los Angeles, where I came into my first contact with Yoga, and most recently, Portland...but none of these places, though each served their purpose and brought something very special to me, ever really clicked in that way. You know that click when you no longer need to think about it and you just know deep inside of you that it's right. I realized I need diversity, action, mindful living and above all, connection. Connection to nature, connection to others...connection to myself. There was one place however, that kept me coming back, time and time again...it seemed no matter what, I would somehow always end up back there, and this place...was Bali.

Finally I have taken the leap that I have wanted to take for quite some time and have decided to just stay here...for awhile, and work on the projects that I have already begun. I'm reluctant to use the word "move" because to me that feels permanent. And if there's one thing I've learned on this journey it's that absolutely nothing is permanent. Whatever we think we own, is a total illusion. So I will just say that I plan to be based in Bali until the wind carries me elsewhere...if it does happen again...

There is such a feeling of familiarity being here, as though I've been here my entire life. I feel ground beneath my feet. But another great lesson I have learned is the importance of finding that sense of ground and home within yourself. Our outer worlds will continue to change, but if we can keep the inner world stable and pure, then nothing can ever really shake or break us.

I am also finally, for the first time in perhaps my entire life, relishing in my own company. To quote the wonderful and beautiful poet Nayyirah Waheed, "I have always been the woman of my dreams" ... something I have come to find out more to be true, the more I truly get to know myself...

Getting to know ourselves is such a funny thing, isn't it? How some days we can look in the mirror and barely recognize the person staring back at us and others be so infatuated. It's just like any other relationship, the relationship we have with ourselves. It takes patience, understanding, kindness and so much love. It is true that the relationship we have with ourselves is a direct reflection of the relationship we have with others...

If I could describe these past few years of seeking in my life in one word it would be: curiosity. It's this curiousity for something deeper and more meaningful that keeps me constantly moving...

Today I am just filled with so much gratitude, love and joy in my heart. I know that as long as I continue to trust and surrender, and to listen to my hearts calling...I will find what it is, that I am truly searching for.

Hari Om Tat Sat.

[allthingsspirit]

My heart

Oh my heart….my heart….being ripped and shred apart….oh my heart….my heart….. my precious precious heart…. i try to protect you….and i fail miserably… maybe because….there is no protection…. you have a mind of your own…. and you will do what you want…. i can not stop you even if i try…. when it comes to the battle between the mind and the heart…. the heart ALWAYS wins.

[allthingsspirit]

Go out there and feel alive!

I really enjoyed this writing prompt so wanted to share it on here. I think it's something we don't tend to think about too much and we probably should! Today we were asked to simply write about 3-5 activities that make us to feel truly alive(outside of writing). As soon as I read this I started to feel a tingly sensation inside. Thoughts began to arise of all the activities I enjoy and love to do. I have been in somewhat of a dark space lately, so this really helped to come back to the light and remember all the sweet memories and the things about life that bring me so much joy. 

We were asked to describe the sensations in our body each activity gives us, how it makes the world feel, taste and smell. I recommend trying out this exercise! Even simply writing about the things that make you to feel alive make you feel more alive….

Traveling. Travel travel travel. Exploring new sights and sounds, new colors new smells, new faces. Even as I type this I feel a rush in my entire body, like a drug addict who finally got their fix. The world feels like my playground, it tastes like candy, it smells of freedom.

I love meeting new people. Deep soulful connections, these make me feel truly alive. To connect with somebody on such a deep level, thats way beyond just the intellect or surface. To really connect with another's soul, is a completely indescribable feeling. This can happen with a man or woman, it doesn't just mean in the romantic sense. I have had some of the most incredible human connections with other women who I have met along my journey. The world feels a little brighter when this happens, tastes just a bit sweeter, and smells of aromatherapy.

Dancing. Particularly dancing to deep and dirty house and techno music. The feeling this gives me is almost too insane to even put into words. Is there a word that can describe the way that a sick beat feels on my skin? The way it can totally transport me to another time and place and the way it immediately lifts me to bliss and ecstasy. There are very few places where I feel more alive, more free in my body and more connected to myself than I do on the dance floor. And I'm always sure to be right in front of the DJ. I want to feel the connection as much as possible. I want to be as close to the magic as I possibly can…. The world feels more playful, tastes like chocolate and smells like sex. So sinfully good… Not that sex and chocolates are a sin though! 

What can make a person feel more alive than falling in love? Falling in love definitely makes this list. I suppose thats why I allow myself to do it whenever the opportunity arises. No matter the outcome. Even if in the end it's the most god awful painful feeling I have ever felt….it's all worth it, just for the way that it makes me feel like an illuminated fairy dancing in the clouds. It takes me to another place, beyond this world in which we live in. To fall in love is one of the most magical and terrifying feelings in the world. And this is exactly why it makes us to feel so goddamn alive…. The world feels like heaven, it tastes like chocolate covered strawberries, and smells like fresh roses.

Running through a forest, surrounded by tall and endless trees, stopping for brief moments to stretch my arms out into the sky and inhale the fresh oxygen from the leaves. Then twirling around like a little 5 year old girl does when she's wearing a princess dress. The world feels like a mystery, tastes like spring water and smells fresh. 

Of course…practicing yoga. But thats a given. Practicing yoga IS feeling alive. 

Generally just feeling….allowing myself to FEEL….makes me to feel so blissfully alive.

[allthingsspirit]

Live fiercely, love fearlessly, give selflessly.

I am currently participating in a 30 day online writing workshop called "Write Yourself Alive." Writing has always been my true passion. For as long as I can remember, from the first time I was able to pick up a pen and use it, I have been writing. Writing about my life, my desires, my fears, my joys, my discoveries. It has and always will be my greatest form of release. But at some point I pushed it aside, out of my own insecurities and fears. You know, those pestering typical ones, of "I'm not good enough" , "What if people don't like me", and just that general "I suck" mentality. While I have overcome many of these negative thinking patterns, they still like to make their gracious appearance in the movie that is my mind from time to time. 

Since beginning the workshop I have rekindled my love affair with writing. Promising to never cheat on it again. Each day we are given a writing prompt to get our creative juices flowing. Today we were asked to write about if there is anything we have yet to forgive ourselves for. Ohhhhh man. See what I mean? Writing makes you to go there, even when you aren't ready. But once you start, you can not stop, its like a lover when you first meet, you just want to keep going keep exploring keep digging deeper….

Is there anything yet which you haven't forgiven yourself for? Yes. I wish I could forgive myself for just being myself. Just allow myself to be this, without feeling guilty about it...

Why is it that being ourselves can often times be the most difficult thing to do? Why is it that there is often so much shame and guilt and embarrassment surrounded by this? Why is it that we feel a need to constantly please the people around us, as a validation to us as a human being. Well….I'm here to say….fuck that.

I've gone my whole life giving way too many fucks about other people's opinions of me. And the truth is, it's slowed me down. It's slowed me down from living fully from the place that I have wanted to….

Lately, I have been giving in much more to this, to just being completely wild and free and crazy because that's what makes me feel alive. Yet there is still the occasional guilt surrounded by this. Shouldn't I be settled down by now? Shouldn't I be focusing on finding my life partner right now? Shouldn't I be anything other than what I am?

When those annoyingly influential questions come up, its best to step back for a moment. Breathe. And look around you. Look around where you live, the people you surround yourself with, the kind of work that you do in the world, the person you go to bed with at night and ask yourself…"Is this really what I want?" And listen. Listen deeply, listen closely. Feel. Feel what is happening in your heart as you ask yourself this question. You will know, what the answer is almost immediately. It is too little often that we go deep inside ourselves to explore the truth of what is happening in there. If you've answered yes to these, then fantastic! Celebrate yourself, and tell those silly little questions they can leave now. They have served their purpose. If you have answered no to any of those questions, ask yourself why that is. Why are you with someone or doing something or living somewhere where you don't really want? Perhaps life has limited you at this point in time. But are you just going to settle with that, or are you going to fight to truly live the life that you so desire, the life that is calling you, burning for you to come play with it…the life that you were meant to live.

If there's one thing I have learned, it's the importance of goddamn self appreciation. I have abused myself in countless ways over the years just from this simple lack of appreciation for myself. And for what? Because I have my father's voice in my head telling me I should get married when deep down I know that's not what I want. Not now at least. Or because I feel a woman my age should be more…what? More what? What's wrong with simply what is, exactly how it is right now. All I can think about is this moment, right now. Right now, in this moment, I want to be free. I want to continue to live my life as a mecca of experience, I want to continue to study at the University of Life. I invite life, right now, in this moment, to keep throwing the craziest shit my way. I want to battle through it all, slash through it like a warrior and laugh life in the face and say "You can't hold me down, as much as you may try to…" Until one day life and I can skip happily down the yellow brick road, hand in hand, heart to heart.

In the meantime, keep giving it to me, keep giving me more heart ache until I finally learn my lesson that an unavailable man is simply an unavailable man. Keep throwing temptations my way to destroy my body until I finally learn that this sacred vessel of mine is here to move me through this world in the way that I want to move. Keep deterring me from my yoga practice until I finally realize that my practice is my ultimate savior, as my practice IS me. Keep sending me all the obstacles, the maze, the confusion, the hurt, the dark….so that I may continue to fight my way to the light. 

And the only way we can continue to fight our way to the light is by continuing to live our lives exactly the way we are meant to live it. To continue to stay true to our beautiful selves even though this may hurt more than simply putting on a mask. To put on a mask and hide who you are, is easy. It's easy to move through the world pretending to be someone else, because you could never really get hurt. It's much harder to show the world who you truly are, because only then you will find the truth! And the truth isn't always pretty. The truth hurts, but the truth is what makes us stronger, wiser, what helps us to grow and evolve and eventually help others to do the same. By being yourself, you are inspiring the person next to you to be themselves. If the world had more people truly living closely to their authentic selves, well….it very well might just be a different place.

The world needs you. In the form that you are. Don't change it.

"One day baby, we'll be old, and think of all the stories that we could have told…" 

[allthingsspirit]

Notes on love

Love is the most beautiful thing there is. Without love, we can not breath. Without love, we can not survive. It is our food. We must learn to love fiercely, passionately, and without fear. We must love selflessly, openly, continuously. We must continue to love even when love stabs us in the heart and makes us bleed. Because without love, there is no life. It's important to remember, that there are so many different types of love. Love can not be categorized and put inside one box. There are people who you will meet at different points in your life and who you will love in different ways. There can be unlikely love, comfortable love, intense love, compassionate love, passionate love, selfish love, motherly love, fatherly love, brotherly love, sisterly love. In the end...if it makes your heart best faster than you can think...it's love. Most of the time love will make us do crazy things. Things that we would never do otherwise, because when the heart is so strongly triggered like this, it's nearly impossible to stop it from doing what it wants. That is, if you are truly listening, and feeling. If you are truly listening and feeling what is happening inside of you, then the unthinkable could happen. Beyond your wildest dreams... It's important we also stop judging love. Love freely. Sometimes we meet people for a short but sweet time. They are merely passing through our lives to teach us a lesson or two, and when their job is done, they leave. Be especially grateful for these messengers. Although our hearts may ache unlike any wound we have ever felt before when they are gone, these messengers are our angels. They served us in one way or another. It's important not to take that for granted and to take their message with us as we continue on our path... The main lesson is...never. stop. loving. First, find love for yourself. Then, open your heart to the world as if the world is waiting for you to dive deep in...because, it is.

[andreabalt]

"A writer is a world trapped in a person."

#VictorHugo #writing #quoteoftheday

[allthingsspirit]

Aftermath

The funny thing is, I feel more beautiful now than ever. I seriously feel like a flower that has finally blossomed, as corny as that sounds, I know, but its really true. He opened me up, that little fucker. He showed me my beauty, or rather held a mirror up for me to see it. Thats all I needed. A mirror. It can be so hard for us to see ourselves sometimes. And thats why, many times, these people come into our lives. Just to do this one thing for us. That is their mission, and once its complete, it may be time for them to go. If we can just enjoy it for what it is without attaching the long term story to it, we can have a beautiful experience that results in priceless life lessons learned…

However this is of course much easier said than done. Esepcially if you are a very passionate person, a thrill seeker, a lover of bliss. For people like us, when we feel such a deep connection to somebody, it can be hard to let go. Because we want to feel like that all the time. Its the FEELING we don't want to let go of, rather than the actual person. Us greedy types, as they would call it in Buddhism, would sacrifice just about anything to feel even if only a moment of bliss…and ecstasy. And many times, people are very capable of giving us just that. Or at least we believe it to be them giving it to us…until we realize that we've had it inside ourselves all along.

So this is when non attachment really comes into play. But how, how it's so hard. Every Tuesday morning that I teach I'm telling my students to "let go, let go..." "Let go of the old", I say, "Make space for the new." Easy to say….so much more difficult to do. 

But I think the best way is to continue to focus on yourself. Do what makes you happiest, spend time with people who bring out the light in you, and also, spend time with yourself. I'm an extrovert by nature, so it took a very long time for me to get really comfortable with just being and hanging out with myself. Thats why its so important to retreat from time to time to give yourself that space to get to know your soul better and see your true capabilities. You will find that you begin to love yourself more and more as you get deeper into the process and into yourself. Because we are all pure love, joy and ecstasy in our cores. We just have to come back to it. 

I'd like to also point out, that hanging out with yourself doesn't have to automatically equal boring. Try it. Opt to stay in one night instead of going out on the next night you have free. Put on your favorite music, in fact blast it, smoke a joint if you need to drink a glass of wine. Don't get belligerent, but by all means, just relax, in whatever way that means for you. Just get to that space, that space of happiness for you, because once you are there, you are meditating. So don't think that "I have to stay in and meditate tonight" means sitting quietly in a dark room in an even darker house. No. Have a party for one. You'll be surprised at how awesome and fun you are. 

And this, is how we begin to love ourselves. I mean truly love every part of ourselves, the flaws, the perfections, all of it. We get to appreciate it. And then something magical happens. Others start appreciating it, too. In a way you might have never seen or felt before. 

It's a contagious thing, this thing called love. It comes in many shapes and forms and types but we have to stop being so afraid of it, whatever it is and however it may look like…we must allow ourselves to experience it. Because without love….theres really no life. 

"If you miss love…you miss life."

[allthingsspirit]

Find love everywhere. Love life as if life were your lover. 

[allthingsspirit]

Love, or something like it.

Wow, how interesting it is to read that last post…it seems the next chapter in my life was to experience something I was ready for and needed to experience….LOVE….

Just as I wrote, I could have never in a million years predicted what was about to happen for me next, what, or should I say, who, was waiting for me in DC...

One month after packing up my things and moving back home to DC from LA, I met, what felt like, my soul mate. It is true, what they say, about soul mates not always being the ones you are meant to end up with. Many times these soul mates come into our lives just as a reflection, a mirror of ourselves and in the end it is too painful to actually stay with them. But the lessons that are learned through these relationships can be the greatest and another entry into self discovery...

So. Love. What is true love? How can we identify it? How do we know that the relationship we are in is a representation of it? Through my own personal experiences, especially with my most recent one…I can say that true love means loving fully, completely and deeply. True love is not selfish, it is selfless. True love means loving the person for exactly who they are. True love means "I" becomes "We". Otherwise…what it is, is a selfish love. If the "I" remains in the relationship and there is no "We" then it is a love merely for self enjoyment. 

From the moment I met this "soul mate" I was intrigued. Was it love at first sight or was it a strong sexual attraction…it is difficult to say. But what unfolded next was something I couldn't have possibly ever imagined...

I knew he was unattainable. He wasn't permanent as nothing really is. He was merely passing through my life, as he was passing through the city, and I knew this. I knew he had plans to eventually leave…this was clear from the beginning. Yet I allowed myself to do something I had never allowed myself to do before…to dive with my eyes closed and my heart wide open…deep deep deep…

There was no way I could stop. Even though my mind kept telling me this wouldn't go anywhere, I didn't care. I hadn't felt a love like this in too long…and I wanted to feel that, to feel loved and to feel beautiful and wanted and desired…and he provided that for me. He provided a mirror for me. And it turned out, that was exactly what he was meant to do. To bring back that spark in me, to re ignite my love fire, to show me just how capable I am of loving somebody and of being loved. In the past I had difficulty of giving myself fully to somebody…to be fully naked with somebody, mind, body, and soul...he created the space for me to do just that. And that's how I learned what it really means to love. 

Our love was pure, it was sweet, it was innocent. We would take walks for hours, and just talk….getting to know each other in this way was very special. We would explore the city together, him being a visitor, and me having just moved back…we were sharing the discovery of the city together. And when we made love…it felt as though we could shatter glass. I had never experienced intense orgasm like that before. One touch from him and my entire body would shake. Was this merely a wonderful sexual encounter? Or was this true love? 

Whatever it was, it was beautiful. I knew it wouldn't last, but I held on to a sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe he would hold on to me. But a woman's intuition is never wrong. Never. We just feel it, in the bottom pit of our stomachs and we know. I knew he wasn't mine forever…whatever forever means…

And so as the time drew closer to his departure, one day, just like that, he shut off. He closed his heart and let me go. He didn't have to say anything, I felt it. And so in that moment I realized it was over. And it was time for me to let him go…and for me to move on…

The way I am dealing with this pain is much different than the way I have dealt with this in the past. Instead of running away, either through travel, drugs, food…I am facing it, full on. I am allowing myself to feel everything that I am feeling. I am allowing myself to feel my heart breaking into a million pieces. And it hurts. It hurts so much. But it is also an interesting process, one that I have yet to experience in the situation of heartbreak. By doing this, by allowing myself to feel all these feelings…sadness, anger, grief, regret, whatever…I am letting them go, without really doing anything. It comes in waves…I can be perfectly fine one moment and at peace with the way things happened….and then the next lying on the floor in fetal position, shaking and hysterically crying. Flashbacks of moments we shared together zap into my head like lightening and it hits so hard and I feel it so deep…but then, it goes away. And this is the process. And it will continue like this until one day…there are no more tears. There is no more pain. And all that is left are beautiful memories. Those I don't ever want to let go of. Because they make me happy. I am so happy for this experience. I am grateful for this experience. The fact is, that I finally was able to give my very best to a man. What he chose to do with that was his decision, but at least I know that I had the courage to allow myself to feel all those things I never allowed myself to feel before. And even though this turned out to not be the true love in which I yearn for…the love of a man who can hold me completely, and fully…it was still a deep and passionate romance. And thats how I have to keep thinking about it. Nothing can ever take away the love that we shared. That will stay with me…forever. 

[allthingsspirit]

Magic and the Unpredictability of Life

Here I am, about one year later. One year since this blog began, and my how have things changed...

I read my words written this time last year, and I feel the struggle and confusion I was going through. Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful, but a struggle nonetheless. I could not have imagined then where I am right now. Two life changing trips to Bali plus one hell of a detox in India later, I feel like I am finally wearing my new skin...that many of those layers I was still in the process of peeling at the time this blog was born have finally shed. 

I write this evening from an empty dark room, in an empty dark apartment with nothing more than a couch and a bed left in Marina Del Rey. It is my second to last night here in California. This chapter, is coming to an end and I can hardly believe it. 

I'll never forget how it felt to come here. I really thought I was going to be here for a long time. That I would find everything that was left to find here. I know better now than to try and make any long term plans for my life. If there's one thing I've learned through my inevitable aging it's that life is totally and completely unpredictable. You see the plan is already written out for us. And there is nothing we can do about it, we just have to get out of the way. Get out of our own way. Trying to control everything in our lives will only lead to more confusion and disappointment. I have finally managed to learn what I yearned to know so badly just last February- and that is how to let go. I mean really let go. I have learned how to surrender. I have thrown my hands up in the air and admitted defeat, screaming 'I DON'T KNOW....but I TRUST." 

As life would have it, I am moving back home to DC in two days. In the end I realize that although things turned out differently here than I thought they would....I got what I came here for. I found the answers. I found my own voice here. I found my soul, truly, in its essence. I cleared the clutter and for once in my life cut out all my distractions. I allowed myself to feel again, I allowed myself to hear myself. I found Bali, and I fell in love. I saw magic, lived magic, experienced magic. I found a way to keep the magic in my life without the drugs, without the parties, without the once upon a time short lived thrills that once ruled my life. I found out how to expand my consciousness, naturally, through yoga. I found myself. 

And so I couldn't be happier, or more pleased. I am ready for the next stage in my life. I am ready, I am ready. 

World, I am coming. 

[allthingsspirit]

SIS 'Morab' [Cocolino]

Taken from SIS' album 'Confidance'. Available now from: http://www.cocolinomusic.com Audio is 112 kbps mp3.

its time to celebrate.

[allthingsspirit]

Wow. Where do I even begin...

Since that last post was written a little over a month ago so much has happened here on this little island. Magic, energy, healing, love, lust, passion, creativity, anger, frustration, sadness, joy, and all of that on repeat. Bali is like a mirror, anything you are feeling anything you are going through is reflected right back at you, and there is no escaping it. Anywhere. Even just from looking into the Balinese's eyes you see your reflection and you feel their power. These are some intense people. 

Basically I feel like I have finally been unleashed into the wild. Like a tiger who has run away from the zoo and found its way back into its natural habitat. That's what it feels like being here. And there's no turning back. I'm so deep into this, so deep into this spiritual path and awakening that there's no way I could turn back now, even though there are days I want to, days I feel like giving up as things keep coming up and being released and the tears keep flowing but with each day comes a truly new beginning and a feeling of an old layer being shed. 

I've been fortunate to meet and work with some incredible healers, both Balinese and Western. Two totally different energies and it has been interesting to be around both. I finally found the yoga guru I've been looking for, who ironically enough is from my neighboring state of Arizona. But of course I had to travel all the way to Bali to meet him! 

This post to be continued...

With love. 

[allthingsspirit]

taking steps

wow. it has been awhile since i've written a post. basically i went back into my cocoon. shutting myself out from the world as i always do when things get rough. i just completely shut down. i turn my back on everyone and everything. i forget what was so important to me in the first place and i go into my dark little corner. 

i don't want to be that way any more. i don't want to crawl back into my "safe zone" and hide myself from the world and just give up without even really trying. and so i won't. i refuse. i refuse to allow myself to keep going to that place over and over and over again. i take 2 steps forward and 6 steps back, when it should be the other way around-or not going back at all. 

earlier i had written about my intense passion for travel and how i had been missing it. so. i decided to do something about it and somehow i have found myself back in Bali. i just realized something-i said i found myself "back". does this mean i have taken a step back by coming here?

ok. i am going to stop questioning everything, and just let it be. i am grateful to have returned to this beautiful little island. and i am excited for what will unfold during my time here. bali is what got me back on my computer again, typing these words, after all. there it is again, that word, that silly little word- back. forward is more like it. 

[allthingsspirit]

treasure

It's scary, how life can change in one minute. In one minute, everything you once knew, life as you knew it, could completely change. This is exactly why it is so important to not have any attachments. Be open to the fact that life might not always turn out the way you planned, or didn't plan. That you may be on a golden path that somehow turns silver. It's ok. Just keep moving. Keep going. I feel like Alice following the White Rabbit. I keep chasing, chasing, chasing...when will I finally catch it? 

"When wealth is lost, you have lost a little; when health is lost, you have lost something of more consequence; but when peace of mind is lost, you have lost the highest treasure." -Unknown 

[allthingsspirit]

keep moving.

[allthingsspirit]

the people we meet on this journey called life

I have this friend who lives in Singapore. We met in Beijing, China on a yoga retreat. It was really quite amazing how we met actually. The retreat was in a rural village outside of Beijing. I was in China visiting my uncle and his family, and after 2 weeks in the pollution and eating tons of oily and MSG infested food, I decided I needed a break. So I looked up retreats and found one by the name of Mountain Yoga, just 45 minutes outside the city. 

She was there on a marathon. She was running the Great Wall. And wanted to relax a bit before. However this retreat was not quite the relaxing and pampering type. It was more like a bootcamp treehouse up in the mountains. There were only a few tiny rooms, each with bunk beds, no heat and a shower that stood over the toilet(so you could literally shower and pee at the same time). My 2nd morning there I was walking to have my standard meal of white rice, veggies and tofu and plotting my escape plan when I heard a voice...an ENGLISH voice...."Excuse me, do you speak English?" Like music to my ears, I turned around to see a beautiful ethnic looking woman and I beamed, "YES". She looked relieved, and went on to ask, "Do you know what the yoga schedule is here? How do we know where the classes are? Is anybody else even here?!" These were the exact questions I had asked myself just the day before when I first arrived. I smiled and took her to the best part of the retreat- the glass outdoor floor surrounded by trees in which we were to practice yoga on. 

It didn't take too long for us to click. We quickly discovered that we were both explorers, and so we set out to wander the quaint rural village among us. It felt as though we had gone back in time. The tiny shops, rugged streets and markets were like something out of a historical film. We basked in street food, ecstatic to break our retreat diet of rice and tofu. We ate everything from fried quail eggs to sweet sticky rice balls stuffed with mung beans. We walked through ancient temples staring at the Buddha statues and talked about, life. She being a few years older than I had plenty of wisdom to offer. We found a man who sold the most delicious walnuts I have ever tasted. They tasted like they had been dipped in cane sugar and vanilla. But they were just real, authentic, still in their shells and straight from the Earth just as God intended walnuts. As we were heading back to the retreat in which we called jail at this point, munching on our newfound treasure, we came across what seemed to be a massage place. They offered ionic detox foot baths, a tub filled with hot water broken down with energy ions in which you would place your feet in and sweat out toxins. We decided to try it out and as we were sitting in those chairs sweating away the Chinese man who was administering it and who spoke absolutely no English somehow convinced us to do another detox treatment. "Do you want to go first?", my new beautiful ethnic English speaking friend asked me. "Sure!" I hopped on the table face down, bare back. Wet towels are placed on me and before I know it I hear her scream, "You're on fire!!!" Apparently, in China, getting lit on fire is an option at massage parlors. No, I didn't feel anything but, there were towels with a flammable substance, most likely alcohol, placed on my back, and they were, um, lit on fire. The Chinese believe this method protects the body from illnesses like the flu and common cold during the winter months. It's also used as a weight loss treatment. Hmmmm. After me, she jumped on board and got her back lit on fire too. Good times. Was quite the bonding experience. 

The next couple days were spent doing lots of yoga, hiking up probably the steepest mountain I have ever encountered and doing sun salutations 108 times in the sun. I realized this yoga retreat, was a real yoga retreat. There were no spa treatments (other than getting our backs lit on fire) no girls dressed in spandex (except for us two English speaking folk) just nature, sun, fresh mountain air....and yoga. 

Even though we only spent about 3 days together, I feel incredibly close to this woman who I met. Besides the fact that we both share a strong passion for travel and adventure, I believe we met as a means to have a window into different lives. She, living in Singapore, working a corporate job and traveling around Asia. I, living in Southern California, working freelance and living a seemingly liberal hippie lifestyle. It's funny because she tells me she loves hearing about my life-but I love hearing about hers. It's interesting, the people who come into your life. They all come for a reason. To show you things that you would never have seen for yourself. To remind you that you are exactly where you need to be. And to show you that sometimes you are inspiring others without even knowing it. Just being you, living your own humdrum little life. Skipping to your own beat. And that's more than enough. 

[allthingsspirit]

life lessons/notes

never give up. stand up for what you believe in. always be who you are and never anything less. take control of your life. know your right to be a sexual being on this planet. feel free to express yourself creatively. nothing is impossible, as long as our minds are limitless. love conquers all. let go of attachment. to be truly free one must be free in the body, mind and spirit. practice meditation daily. be selfless, but always take care of yourself first. love yourself. nurture yourself. step into your womanhood and ultimately into your feminine power. cry when you need to, but laugh more. laughter keeps us young. 

"Only the change, the transformation within you, is going to give you peace. Out of that peace will come your love; out of that peace will come your dance." - Osho