After the timelessness of many months in The Australian Bush [forest], the return to Bali has been an experience that can best be described as suddenly landing in the middle of some huge energy vortex that contains the best and the worst of all that exists in our world of yesterday, today… and the pregnant potential of all that tomorrow may bring.
The raging inferno of the recent blazing forest remains deep in my soul, as one of deep cleansing and renewal. The miracle of how the sanctuary of Pedro’s house and studio survived is way beyond any rational explanation. For me it shows very clearly the truth and beauty of clear and positive intention. When free of any ulterior motives, conscious or unconscious, clear intention resonates with the energy that holds all that lives in a loving embrace, an embrace that transcends anything we can even begin to imagine. We have been gifted with an experience that can never be forgotten.
After the fires, came some days of balmy warm weather. Everything was black. The trees looked like the relics of some bygone age, stark and spectral. The ground was a bleak shadow, with not even a green stalk to be seen anywhere for miles. Yet the feeling was one of radiant silence.
Then the rains came, as if exactly on time. The quiet became a pulsating song of glorious renewal and joy. Dormant seeds literally burst into life and within hours green shoots danced from the darkness of the soil. Little beards of green, yellow and russet burst through the trunks of nearly all the trees and climbed their way to the top. Within a few days the whole forest became a Paradise. The brightly coloured birds flew with crazy abandon, for the usual obstacles to their free-flight were no longer present. The families of wallabies and kangaroos let their babes from the protection of their pouches and were friendly and approachable as they munched the abundant fresh delicious ‘bush tucker’.
We have never eaten so many juicy nettles, ferns and mushrooms as we did in those last few months in the bush.
Yes, there was much work to do. The water pipes that had been buried deep in the earth were molten bits of unidentifiable plastic and had to be dug up and taken to the local dump. The roof needed repair, so Pedro spent every moment, between the many downpours, making sure the rain stayed out of the house. The rest can be imagined…. perhaps!
This is but one small story which I tell in honour of the love and the gratitude we all need to feel for the privilege of being alive.