MOVE

I’ve been in rounds about how to tell this story. Three drafts and now I’m sitting here wondering how I share an absolutely fantastical experience while acknowledging that I am very much a normal human having a normal experience.

The thing is, we’re all capable of having fantastical experiences. 

We are full of so much magic. 

Every. Single. One of us.

I don’t feel it’s important to share my story because of how magical it is, but because of how mundane it ought to be for all of us. When we live our lives aligned to our heart, it becomes magic. 

I also don’t say this to taut how much I’ve cracked the code and you can too! Life gets magical, but it doesn’t get easy. In fact, it gets harder. Living a magical life isn’t for the faint of heart.

Moving to Bali was relatively easy. The path was laid out before me. Sign after sign pointed me there, and oh did the tropical breeze and ocean waves call my name.

Shortly before I realized it was Bali, I had installed a subconscious reprogramming script. I went BIG! My coach, Trevor, advised against getting too specific, but I knew what I wanted to feel like. With messages of beaches to live by and oceans to swim in, I started having dreams. The first one was insane.

I died.

More so, I killed myself. I had a doctor come in with lethal injection. Three friends were there. One left before the procedure, not able to watch. The other two held me through the rest. I hesitated, asking the doctor to come back. “No, there’s nothing we can do to reverse it. The injection is permanent.”

“Ok,” I said with a blissful smile while I accepted my fate.

I awoke in heaven, a big, beautiful beach house with a hammock and pineapples and a firepit with friends surrounding it, waiting for me to join them.

My friend did leave, after I made the decision to move to Bali, I didn’t hear from him again.

During one of the most intense weeks of healing in Bali, one that held a lot of weight and I’m not sure I still know the significance of it, but the visions were vivid. During that week, my other two friends were in Bali. That week I actually saw a healer who goes into the subconscious and cleans house, kind of like throwing out all the gunk that you don’t need anymore.

To say that Bali was a trip is an understatement. I experienced so many incredible things. I never lived on the beach, but I did find those friends.

What I thought I wanted, the beach and a hammock, hindsight, turned out to only be a mirage. Not a desert mirage though that leaves one wanting and missing the oasis that was promised. No, instead of an ocean of waves I experienced an ocean of loving friendships. Instead of the healing sound of soft waves I experienced the healing frequencies of many gifted energy workers as well as unlocking this ability in myself.

Turns out what I wanted was to learn more about what I want, to find out how to bring it about for myself, to heal myself, and to open my heart.

I can’t even begin to write about every single person who touched my heart, changed me so profoundly.

When I first arrived, I was isolated, working feverishly on my program I was to launch as my source of income. I became a bit of a hermit, but I was so dedicated to my work.

Then a friend started inviting me out. “It’s not good to be cooped up inside all day.” This advice was doubly worth heeding because she, too, was prone to coop herself up, a fellow introvert.

I felt like a kitten, dragged out from under the bed and gently reintroduced into society. I had no idea how much my heart had closed in the “business” of moving to Bali. 

I was so busy with making my life, that I wasn’t living my life.

I learned that it’s not one or the other. It’s both. We live our life to make it and we make our life while we live it. It’s much easier and more slippery to get caught up in making without living. If you live, the making will happen by virtue. There’s no stopping the making, but we can make a life that isn’t lived.

People ask me what I did in Bali. The short answer I’m always prone to is, “Live!” I lived in Bali. I felt what it was to try things, fail, explore, be in community with others, and create.

I didn’t ever fully sink into Ubud life. Something always felt off. Like I “wanted” something else.

One dear friend, who took over after my darling kitten coaxer left, helped me find the meaning of one very powerful word: joy.

With her, my inner child soared. We adventured in so many ways on the island, but we were also so happy to simply lose ourselves in companionship all day long. We would spend hours singing, talking, dancing, and playing. My inner child was so alive with her.

One day, we were writing chants together. She was so delighted. I was feeling tired and kind of meh about the whole thing. I couldn’t get into the energy she was in, bringing forth messages from these gods. She was on a different plane, one I wanted to be on so incredibly. She became my muse.

That same day, she also did something no vocal coach with years of vocal training, pedagogy, and more could do. She taught me to roll my “r’s” with the tip of my tongue. (Somehow, I learned it backwards and rolled them with the back of my tongue like a German, but that’s not very conducive for smooth singing.) Her Romanian “r’s” sounded like butter to me. I remarked and she spent a whole hour drilling me and helping me find another way to feel this.

Now, I roll my “r’s” whenever I am being hard on myself because it reminds me of all that we need in this life is joy, the simple joy of an afternoon making up songs and screaming “Ra!” at the sun until my tongue would relent in its tension and roll. 

Relent and roll! The new “rock ‘n roll.”

Of course, you know that I was impacted deeply by a friendship that didn’t go as planned. I still roll over “What if’s” AND I am so grateful to him and all the experiences I had with him that shaped me. He loved my voice and his gentle approach to me and all of the choir members was inspiring.

The people I met in that choir changed me. Many of them had lived on the island for years. They found their home and community there. I admired their wisdom. Every single one of them seemed to have some nugget to give to me. When I took over in Woody’s absence, I bounced in with effervescent ideas and excitement. It was clear I was riding a wave of joy and it permeated everything.

Even here, I convinced myself I wanted something different than what my heart was trying to show me. I was shown love and community. During our choir concert, I wept tears of awe at how supportive a community can be.

Also, these members of the choir, more sage in wisdom than I, showed me what’s most important in life, the ways we show up, the ways we love, the ways we feel, and the ways we care.

I thought I wanted to be the center of attention, but the truth is I want to be in love every day. Not romantic, disney love. Not love that is special and separate and effortless, real, gritty, true love.

When I performed my first open mic in Bali, I was incredible. People loved me. They wanted to talk to me. They wanted to know me. They wanted to be near me. I was so adored. And, I was alone. I went alone that night. I was too afraid to invite a friend. 

Sometimes we fail to believe that we have everything.

When I would get sick, the choir would rally to help me and to give me advice. I was short sighted about everything I had, but more so, I wasn’t being honest with my heart.

I stopped wanting the jungle.

Two days before I found out where I my heart wanted me to go, I was watching my favorite movie, Chocolat. Vianne packed up to leave town yet again, dragging her malcontented daughter down the stairs to find that her kitchen was not empty.

Upon opening the door, she finds the townsfolk gathered to prepare the goodies for her Eostra fertility festival on Easter Sunday.

Determination and obedience to the ever calling wind completely vacated Vianne’s will in this moment and she could scarcely speak.

I bawled and bawled. This was what I wanted, what my heart was searching for.

In order for that to happen, you have to settle. No matter how much I wanted it to be, Bali was not this place. 

Wanting to belong on the Island of the Gods, and yet something in me kept saying, “Don’t get too comfy.” Even as I struggled and strived to make a home in Bali, deep down, I knew it wasn’t my home. And oh did I try. But when you try to make something right that isn’t right, it feels wrong. I’m well practiced at this.

It sucked.

I truly can give you volumes about how much I wanted Bali to be my home. In addition to all of the magic I experienced, I felt a sense of belonging and community unlike anything I’ve ever known. I was able to live in a more natural and free flowing way that felt like who I always was, giddy, creative, effervescent, so ALIVE.

I didn’t sink into the community though. I’ve become a lone wolf, and for good reason. 

Sometimes we have to be alone and godless to find god. To reconnect with our inner knowing, we have to separate and cut out all that pulls us this way and that. In order to belong, we have to first be.

The messages come and come and come and yet we rarely know how they will play out. We don’t have a clue what they will mean, just like I had no idea how much all of the reminders of Idaho and Gray’s Lake were pointing me to coming back to my roots to find myself. I thought I was mourning what had been lost. But, Gray’s Lake is also not my home. It’s my parent’s, and I could have kept longing for it, but I had to come home to let it go and let love flow.

The message kept coming to me that I wasn’t going to stay, even as I paid thousands for a kitas (Bali’s mafia version of a 2 year stay on the island and the ability to work there) I felt unsettled in the efforts to stay. Something felt off. I didn’t know how to read the signs then, so I simply kept reading cards and bypassing my way through the process.

And, damnit, I wanted “home” to stick this time. I wanted to build community, and friendship, and stability. I was so torn. 

A lone wolf does not become one that can run with the pack so easily.

In September, the signs were overwhelming, but I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to leave my friends, my community, this new way of showing up as a singer late at night to jam with a band in the mood that would create with me on the spot. Everything I wanted and more was in Bali, I thought.

“Move!”

“Move where?” I literally talk to my guides.

“Move!”

“Where? A new villa? A different part of the island? Back to the US? If so, where? How the hell am I supposed to know where to pick up and GO?”

I went to bed that night frustrated.

The next morning I had brunch with a new friend, another singer that I met in the studio recording a song that will probably never be mixed and mastered, but such is creation and you best remember that!

We exchanged our Bali stories. While she told me about the global gymnastics she performed as she upended her life in DC and found her path wandering, there were so many parallels. In addition to our classical singing background, former educators, and now women each following her path of intuition that makes little sense, but we’re doing this crazy dance.

As I listened, there was one part of her story that felt foggy to me. I could barely hear the words she was saying. It was like I had cotton in my ears, especially when she said the name of the town. I was flummoxed.

As she spoke about this place, her words didn’t even register, but my body had a full reaction that I couldn’t ignore. Goosebumps from head to toe. I’ve never had such an incredible, physical response to a mere story. I paused her.

“Do you see this?”

“That’s the call, dear.”

I told her about my prayer the night before and said, nearly holding her by the shoulders, “Say this slowly so I hear. What is the name of this town?”

“Glastonbury.”

She continued to tell me wonderful things about this place and I made a plan. February! I will go in February after I do some holiday cat sitting in New York and rest from the island. My prayer was answered. I knew where to go and I had a plan.

But what about Bali?

As I rode my bike home from my brunch of revelations, I felt high, giddy, so IN LOVE. I beamed with joy…

and then I wept deep, mournful tears.

But I had found community and belonging.

I have to pause and reminisce on something Thomas said while I was in New York. He said, “If you are not following your nature and path, you are in pain.” I suppose I needed to hear this after leaving Bali because every fiber of me wanted to be back in Bali. And, although I do still miss Bali and my friends, something in me was in pain there. I had community, but I didn’t have inner sovereignty and inner knowing. Two things my heart wanted even more than community.

It was so strange. I knew. I knew I wasn’t coming back after I left. When my best friend on the Island left in July, I cried. I was so sad and I couldn’t make sense of it. I felt like I would never see her again. 

As the holidays were nearing, it was high time I booked my flight. I didn’t want to. I turned to Woody, my rock for that moment, and I would bounce back and forth between going, not going, changing the length of my trip. I didn’t want to go, but then I did, and then I really didn’t. I wanted to shorten it. It felt like if I left, I might not come back. He held kind space for my wavering consistently. The first time I brought it up though, he did ask, “Well, you’re coming back, right?” My gut churned. I responded, “Of course.” Inside, I felt my gut say, “No.” I tried to ignore what I felt.

I’m learning, learning ever so slowly how to listen to my inner knowing. It’s incredibly hard and even when I look back on all I’ve done following my heart, the next step doesn’t get any easier.

This knowing that warms my heart with inexplicable excitement comes with so much uncertainty as well. I’m taking a huge leap this time. There’s no mirage to lure me in anymore because I’ve peeled away much of the false beliefs, the carrots that needed to get me to move.

“MOVE!” Is enough. To know there is somewhere to go is enough. Whatever else happens, it will be better than any vision or daydream for it will be exactly what my heart longs for most, which is often not what we think it is.

I don’t know what Glastonbury holds for me, except this vision that I had a few days after learning of this sweet little town. Goddess, it felt like finally getting my letter from Hogwarts.

I was climbing a cobblestone wall in a long, floral peasant dress. My feet were bare and the climb was difficult.

Near the top, I became so incredibly tired. I didn’t think I could go any further. Just then, two figures reached down and pulled me the rest of the way up.

When I reached the top, I realized I was on top of the Tor in Glastonbury. From there, my vision zoomed, tunneled through space and time. I could instantly see what was happening at the Taj Mahal, then Antarctica, then India, and also Africa. It was clear that I could connect to the world from my bird’s eye vantage, not only people, but the energies of places and, most distinctly, the frequency and messages that come from mother earth.

The rest of the vision feels like fantasy that may or may not mean much so I don’t hold too fast to those. The Tor, I hold fast to. The Tor has been my phone’s screen saver as I scrambled through New York and slept here in Idaho. The Tor has kept me steadfast.

I only go for a short time, to see, not to move, not to find a home, but to connect more deeply with myself and the frequencies that resonate with me so profoundly they cannot help but become my songs. Home is inside me and with me wherever I go, a truth I'm finally starting to feel.

I may still be wandering, but I am no longer a lone wolf. This time back in the states has helped me see the ways I've blocked connections. (The irony that I ran a business called Touching Connection… My oh my, but we do tend to become passionate through our own weaknesses and pain, where we need to grow the most.) The more I am myself, the more I find myself with exactly who I’m meant to be…

This is why it gets harder for many of us that were led to believe we have to DO SO MUCH to have the life we want, but the life we want is in simply being ourselves. It’s that simple and that difficult.

Life is fantastical, and I don’t intend to let it stop being fantastical; fantastical happens in the loving moments with the people who care about us wherever we are. Fantastical is being the most humanly human we can be.

Every. Single. One of us.