It feels as if I have been procrastinating about this trip. Every morning Dewa comes and asks what I would like for breakfast, and I give him one or two slices of spelt bread, and he returns with nice scrambled eggs with tomatoes and onions, and my spelt toast, and a tall glass of fresh tropical fruit juice, and a dish of fresh sliced papayas, bananas and pineapples. Then he sits and watches me eat while we chat about various things. Often I will stash the fruit and the juice in my little refrigerator and have them later.

Dewa tells me that Balinese name their children by numbers, from one to ten, regardless of their sex. But nowadays the government discourages people from having more than two children, because most people cannot afford to support a larger family. The Balinese word for first is Wayan, which is why it is such a popular name. Second is Made. Third is Neoman. Fourth is Katut. When you add an “I” it indicates a man; like my friend, I Made. “Ne” indicates a woman. Wayantaka means “older sister of Wayan.” And Wayanadik means “younger sister of Wayan.” And (if I got it right) Butuwayan means “sister of Wayan,” and Ebuwayan means “wife of Wayan.” Ebu means aunt or sister, or simply a term of respect. So Dewa and the others addressed me as Ebujoy.

Every morning I tell Dewa, “Tomorrow I will take the bike.”

In my room there is a nice yellow laminated flyer that tells about a great trip that you can take up to Mt. Batur. The bike trip is not very expensive; just about $35 US, and that includes meals.

But since I learned that I didn’t get the royalties that I hoped to receive (sad to say, the sales on my new book, Vibrational Healing through the Chakras, have not been doing well, and the old book, Color and Crystals, has been out-of-print, waiting for the new edition) I’ve had to be quite frugal, and besides, I’ve been awfully busy. But it turns out that Dewa can provide me with a bicycle for my trip to find Ketut Liyer, for just $2 for the day.

“I’m really going to do it today, Dewa. I’m going to rent the bike.”

“You’re going to see Ketut Liyer?” he asks knowingly. We’ve talked about his daughter who was born with a hole in her heart, and how the doctors say that she needs an operation. But that would put him into major debt, probably for the rest of his life. Right now he just makes about 500,000 rupiah a month (which is pretty good in
Bali, especially since the bombings), and that is just barely enough to support his family with two kids. So we’ve both wondered if possibly one of the traditional healers could do anything about a hole in the heart?

“Yes,” I say with determination, “today is the day,” as I finish up my breakfast, mentally going over the list of things I need to do before I leave, so that I can get off by 9:30 at the latest, before it starts getting hot.

He puts out the bike for me; the one with the basket in front, and I buzz over to the internet cafe. There is some important business that needs to be taken care of right away, so by the time I get back, it’s after ten. The Balinese tend to take a long lunch break and nap from around 11 until about 2 or 3, but if you walk into their home or business during these times, they will politely get up and take care of you.

I wish I had gotten an early start. But I didn’t, and I’m afraid that if I put off this trip again, I may not make it. I may want to leave Ubud in a couple days, and I have plans for tomorrow and the next day, so I need to go today—even though I am feeling kind of depleted after yesterday’s bout with diarrhea.

“Maybe this isn’t such a great idea,” I think to myself as I pack a little lunch with sliced apple (the pectin is good for diarrhea) and a spelt bread sandwich with tahini and honey) and a bottle of water.

I am intimidated. I rarely get intimidated, but I am intimidated. This is twice as far as I’ve gone, in a whole different direction, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to find people out there who speak English, and I don’t know what the roads are like. I consider hiring a driver, but that would be a bit pricey, and I need the exercise, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable having the driver hang out while I’m taking as much time as I want, to be with this person. I don’t know if he will even be there, or have time to be with me, or want to be with me.

I do have a strong impulse to take my crystals. I have the feeling that he will enjoy looking at them. That means taking a heavy pack (not the heavy one I take on the plane, but still, a pretty heavy one). When I go out to the bike, I’m relieved to find that the pack fits into the basket. I guide the bike down the narrow lane, past the children shrieking as they chase after the white chicken that has been dyed bright pink, and out to Monkey Forest Road, a one-way road with bikes and motorbikes that go in both directions.

I wait patiently until the traffic thins, and then I try to get the bike going with one foot on the outer pedal and hop on with the other, but with the heavy bag in the basket, the bike weaves wildly from side to side until I finally get it fairy under control. When I look up I see a group of Balinese smiling and laughing as one heavy guy imitates me, weaving the top of his body back and forth, pretending he’s holding onto handlebars. I think it’s pretty funny, and we all laugh as I weave on by.

Although it takes me considerably out of my way, I try to stay with the predominant one-way flow of traffic. So I feel pretty flustered when I find myself on an even narrower street, going the wrong way. I try to hug to the right side and stay along the curb, and I have to powerfully will everyone who passes me on a motorbike going in the opposite direction to pass me along my left side so I can feel safe hugging the right curb.

After awhile I smarten up and remind myself that even if I am going the wrong way on this street, I would do better to be on the LEFT side of the street (on the jagged side, next to where the cars jut out because they’re all parked at an angle) because people in this country DO drive on the left side of the road.

I come to a mysterious juncture that wasn’t on the map as I recalled, and I want to ask somebody but there is no one to ask, so I take a leap of faith and just follow my instinct, going straight and hoping for the best. By now I’m in the proper flow of traffic.

Soon the road plummets downhill into a dark jungle. I don’t mind going down, but I’m terrified of having to come back up on this one-speed bicycle. So I get off and walk the bike down so I can scope it out and change my mind if necessary, though there’s hardly any place to walk. Soon I see that the road does flatten out after awhile, so I take my chances and ride the bike down the hill while seriously questioning my sanity. I do not have a helmet. I wish I had that Lloyd’s of London Traveler’s Insurance for $600 a year. CANCEL! (That’s what I say when I have negative thoughts and I want to avoid programming them into my subconscious.)

Now it’s time to ride the bike up another hill, and I try to get some speed but the gears are too loose, and as I rise up out of my seat to pump, reminding myself of how well that worked when I was with my monk friend in Japan, somehow the bike just doesn’t have enough traction, and I’m working very hard and accomplishing little.

Finally I just get off the bike, huffing and puffing, and walk the rest of the way up the hill. It is now 11:30 and the sun is at its zenith, and the sweat is pouring down my face, making it difficult for me to see. My chest feels tender and I am totally wiped out.

I find a grassy place to sit down. I’m grateful that I brought along some food. I nibble on the apple and tahini-and-honey sandwich, willing myself to find strength from the honey.

I’m not even sure I’m on the right road. It was really dumb to have gone out in the middle of the day. It’s so hot! I haven’t seen any of the landmarks on the map (though I’ve been too preoccupied to look for them). I definitely need to ask someone for help.

I study the map carefully and determine that I need to find a major intersection with a road that crosses on the right and the left. It takes awhile, but finally I do come to such a road. At first I cavalierly pass the road, confident that I know where I’m going. (I can’t read the street signs.) But then I realize that I should have turned left at that intersection.

So I double back, and make the turn, and I don’t see anybody to ask, so I just resolutely head off in that direction.

After a fairly long time, I get really really convinced that I need to ask someone, so I stop my bike. There’s a big car repair place. I go inside and ask, and show them the map. No one speaks English, and they don’t seem very good at reading maps, and they don’t know who Ketut Liyer is, and the only thing that everybody is sure about (because several people have gathered by now) is that I should go back. I’ve gone too far, or too much in the wrong direction. “Go back.”

But I’m too tired to go anywhere. There’s a beauty parlor with a big bench in front of it. I sit down on the bench and close my eyes and pretend that people aren’t staring at me. I’m quite exhausted. I’m kind of ready to give up the whole idea. I wonder if my bike would fit into one of those cabs? (They’re really just big vans.) Honestly, I just want to go back to my room.

Then I get a brilliant idea. This is an emergency, right? And in an emergencies, you resort to emergency tactics. I need something to make myself strong. I will drink a Coke! (It is much too hot for a coffee.)

A nice cold Coke sounds like a great idea. It always blows my mind that I can walk into any restaurant or convenience store in the world and purchase what, for me, is pure amphetamine. So, with this hopeful thought in mind, I go back to the intersection where I made that left turn, and again I look for someone to ask. There’s a place where a young guy is selling cell phones. He’s sitting on a stool, smoking a cigarette. He takes one look at me and says, in English, “Park your bike here. Sit down,” He gestures toward another stool.

I gratefully accept his invitation, and then I open my map. He looks at it with me, and decides that I passed my intersection a long time ago (probably when I was obsessing about going up and down those hills). Then I ask him about Ketut Liyer and he says (Thank God!) “Yes — back,” he gestures back toward Ubud. “Banyon tree. Sign. Want buy paintings?”

“No,” I say, knowing that Liyer also is an artist. Then I try the word I learned from Dewa: “Fo-man-ku.” That means healer.

“You sick?”

“No, I’m a healer too. And I want him to read my palm.”

“Oh!”

“Where can I get a Coke?”

“There!” he points to the store next door. “My Mother.”

I go into the store through the back door. It looks more like his sister. I can’t see a cooler, but I ask and she points to a little refrigerator. I get out a cold can of Coke, and gratefully hold it up against my hot face. I pay and make my way back to my new friend.

I sit on the stool next to this young Balinesian guy and we don’t talk much but local people keep going by on motorbikes and waving at him and gossiping a little and laughing. He seems to know at least half the people in this neighborhood. One guy parks his bike and walks over to join us. Another guy comes over to check out a cell phone.

I can’t finish the Coke, but I leave the can with him, thank him for his help, and ride back toward Ubud. A little bit of caffeine goes a long way. It’s still awfully hot, but then I remember that I have a little green hat in my pack that Chisan gave me. I fish it out and put it on and say to myself, “This is my lucky hat!”

Now I’m riding along, looking for an intersection with a road that goes in both directions, when I notice a sign for Café Arma. Wasn’t that one of the landmarks I was looking for? I hastily pull off the road and start going through my pack to look for my map when I hear a friendly voice say in good English, “You look tired. Come sit over here.”

I look up to see a young swarthy Balinese man, dressed in traditional costume with an elegantly folded scarf on his head. “Come!” he gestures, “sit down next to me.” He leads me over to a couch in an outdoor receiving area for an art gallery. “Would you like a cold drink?” he asks. “It’s free.”

I love when these Guardian Angels appear out of nowhere, just when you need them!

I politely decline the drink, but I ask if he knows Ketut Liyer. “Oh yes! He lives down there,” he responds. Then he looks at the map with me, and tells me exactly where I must go. We settle in and talk about all kinds of things. He tells me what towns I should go to if I’m interested in woodcarvings, or in paintings, or in silver or gold. I kind of perk up about silver and gold, since I make jewelry, and he offers to take me there sometime on his motorcycle. What a kind man! He gives me his card, and urges me to come back.

Fortified and reassured, I set out to find Ketut Liyer. I am thinking to myself that yes, it would have been easier to have taken a taxi (or to get a ride on a motorbike, as someone pointed out later), but just think of all the nice encounters I would have missed!

I find the street and it feels just like walking through Hopiland. I see someone and ask, “Ketut Liyer?” He points to the right. I go for awhile then ask someone else; a little Chinese-looking man with a gray moustache and a traditional cap. He can’t speak a word of English, but he gestures with enthusiasm. When I make a wrong turn, he runs after me, talking and gesturing.

Finally I am standing in front of a compound that has a sign: “Ketut Liyer, Paintings.” I congratulate myself. It is now about 2:30. I’m glad I got an early start on this trip instead of waiting until afternoon. But I wonder if he’ll be asleep, or with patients? Elizabeth wrote that sometimes he had many many patients.

I walk into the compound. It always amazes me, in Bali, how elegant these buildings can be, even in the midst of such poverty. A woman greets me. I ask for him by name. She gestures for me to sit on the couch in a kind of waiting area. I sit down and try to recuperate. But I am definitely exhausted.

I sit with my eyes closed and try to gather my strength. Finally the door of the building on the left opens and he comes out. He is a barefoot little Balinese man with a huge toothless grin, wearing a sarong and a white T-shirt. The energy just radiates off of him. I feel welcomed at once.

He sits down on the floor of the lanai and leans against a post, and gestures for me to sit down in front of him and lean against another post. It feels like we’ve known each other forever. We talk about this and that, and he tells me that he has a bad headache. Then I remember that I brought my crystals, and I go into my bag and take out the large bag of crystals and spread them out on the floor.

He loves them! He goes right up to the Chinese bluegreen obsidian and asks if he can touch it, and then he holds it up to his head. He also has a bad cough, so he holds it up to his chest. Then he tries some other stones, and we talk about the stones and how I use them, and he’s quite delighted, like a little child.

This man reminds me so much of Grandfather David Monogye in Hopiland. I knew David when he was 83, just before he went blind. I was with my friend Paul, and my son Kalon was six months old. I just knew I had to go to Hopiland, and we ended up staying there for a month. It was so good to be with David; nothing in particular that I needed to learn from him; it was just about BEING. It changed my life. It is such an honor to be in the presence of these elders.

I offer to do a Vibrational Alignment for Ketut, but he’s not into it. However, after awhile, when I offer to do something about that headache, he accepts. I sit up close to him, our knees touching, and I close my eyes and put both my hands on his head. I’m not sure this will work, but I can feel the energy moving in his head, and it feels confused and all over the place. I’m pleased when I feel the impulse to make sounds.

It’s a little intimidating to be making shamanic sounds for a Balinese shaman. I’ve never done anything like this before. Although I did once make aboriginal sounds for a man who had lived with the aborigines, and he said they were absolutely familiar to him. But I’ve learned to put my ego aside when doing this work, so I make an effort to put those thoughts out of my head.

“Do you mind if I make some sounds?” I ask, opening my eyes, and seeing his big smile. He nods his approval and I close my eyes, feeling for the sounds that want to come out; the sounds that somehow describe the pain, the misalignment of energy, the pressure and confusion that I feel in his head.

The sounds are not dramatic (as they often are!), but they are powerful. There’s some grumbing. Then some sounds of confusion. Then some high-pitched squeaking sounds that make us both giggle. I feel my hands making gestures, as if to let off steam from his head. I keep all this up for awhile, then suddenly I feel it is done. I remove my hands.

He gives me a huge smile and he says, “You ARE a healer! A VERY GOOD healer!”

His headache was gone and so was his cough. Now that he felt better, I asked him to read my palm. He reached out with his long Balinese hand with the long fingernails, and oh so gently stroked the side of my face as he brushed my hair behind my ear. Then he took my left palm and gently squeezed my hand a little from side to side so that the lines became deeper and easier to read, and then he said I’d live to be 104. He said I had a Very Big Heart, and a very healthy heart, and that I am strong. He saw the four marriages and the two children on the side of my left hand, and he said I would not marry again.

Then he looked at the back of my neck, and he told me that the Rice God was watching over me.

Then he went and brought me three of his beautiful Balinese magical drawings. He urged me to photograph them, so I could show them to you. They are extraordinary and they hold a definite power. It is a great sadness for me that when I got back to the mainland, the shelf that held my laptop had been improperly inserted, and it fell out, carrying the laptop with it, and it went crashing to the ground, wiping out my hard drive. All my photos for the rest of the trip were on the hard drive and had not been backed up.

The first drawing was the Goddess Saraswati. She holds the lotus flower and the lute and if I had $200, and space in my suitcase, I would have bought that drawing.

The second drawing shows a figure with double eyes, no head, and double legs. This one is about strength.

The third is about sexual magic. It shows two partners, completely entwined as one. He said, “I blessed this one for Liz (Elizabeth Gilbert). She married now. Happy.”

I think the idea is that if you buy a drawing, and if he prays over it for you, then the magic becomes yours.

I asked if I could take his photo. He was shy because “I used to be very handsome before I lost my teeth.” I told him how beautiful he is because his spirit shines through. But still, he was a little self-conscious, so I couldn’t capture his spirit quite as much as I would have liked.

Then we said goodbye, and he urged me to come back and to bring people.

The bike ride back took about twenty minutes, and it was amazingly easy. Dewa was sitting out front, as he often does, trying to drum up business for the bungalow. “How did it go?” he asks.

“It was good,” I say, “but I’m exhausted. Next time I should get a bike with gears!”

“It does have gears,” he says, and shows me how to twist the handle to activate the three gears. No wonder I couldn’t get any traction going uphill! It was in high gear.

IT IS FINALLY TIME TO FINISH MY STORIES!

The next day when he came to get me on his motorbike, I was wearing pants, and I asked for a helmet. “Why?” he asked. I just shrugged my shoulders. He let me wear his helmet.

This time the ride felt much less traumatic, and definitely shorter.

On our second visit we settled in at the temple, and he asked me to write my name on a piece of paper (just as Wayan had done). Then he asked the names of my mother and father and wrote those above and below my name. Then he lit some incense and passed it over the paper.

I learned the importance of the placement of chakras on the hand. This time Made diagnosed my chakras by touching his index finger to the chakra points on my left and right hands. He explained that we would both feel a slight electric shock at each point if the energy was open.

As he touched the points on my right hand, they were all open except for the third eye. When he touched the points on my left hand, they were all open except for the second and the fifth. The heart chakra, the fourth, was very strong, and the aura overall was very strong. This all made sense to me, given what I know about myself. The partial closure at my third eye probably relates to my inability to see auras.

In fact, Made was quite surprised that the chakras did not light up for me. As I thought about it, I realized that while I inherited my mother’s psychic sensitivity, I also probably took on some her fear about her clairvoyance. She could see into the future, and this sometimes frightened her. If she saw, for example, that someone was going to have an accident, then she didn’t know whether to tell them or not. She was afraid that if she told them, they would think she was crazy; but if she didn’t tell them, and the accident happened, then she was feel responsible because perhaps she could have prevented it.

My mother’s way of coping with this dilemma was to pray for her “gift” to be taken away. And it was. Except on rare occasions, when it involved members of her immediate family.

For example, in between my two sons I gave birth to a little girl. She was born with the cord wrapped round her neck, and she died. My mother, who was not invited to the birth, came anyway, because she “knew” that I would lose the baby, and she wanted to be there to help. Of course, she didn’t tell me this until later.

I have a very powerful technique for working on Reprogramming Core Beliefs, and I saw that it would be valuable for me to do this. Meanwhile, however, I thought I would take this opportunity to see what Made would suggest. He told me that normally he would give a person a mudra and a mantra and a chant and some yoga postures to work on for a month, and sometimes that would make a difference. Now I knew why Lumena was doing so much chanting next door! She’d been working with Made for a month, and she was indeed beginning to see auras.

I felt a bit torn about all this. First, I still wanted to see Ketut Liyer, and my funds were very limited. Second, both Made and I were a bit skeptical about whether having just one more session was going to make any significant difference. Nonetheless, I was quite curious about learning the mudra and the mantra, so I did make one more appointment.

Also we were talking about doing a bit of collaborating if I would bring a group of students to Bali. So I felt that I also wanted to experience more of his energy. So the next time we got together, in my room at Jati3, I suggested that I could feel his chakras. He was so cute! He put his hands together like a little child and said, “You heal me? Oh good! Everybody needs healing! Should I take off my shirt? What do you want me to do?”

The total absence of macho energy in Balinese men never fails to amaze and delight me. They are so willing to be vulnerable and soft. What a difference from most American men. This is truly a culture where the men where skirts (sarongs), and I honestly think that does make a difference!

So I did feel his chakras, and there was really only one small problem that I addressed with the crystals. And then I offered to do some shamanic sounding for him. He said that would be fine. So as usual, I just put my mind aside and allowed the sounds to come through. And they were quite powerful.

When I was done he sat up and looked into my eyes. “You have everything you need. Don’t mess with it.”

That was what I thought all along. Maybe I just came to Bali to hear someone else say that to me. I was grateful for this acknowledgement.

May 8, 2007

After witnessing the power of the lapis lazuli on H, Chisan had an epiphany. That night it was as if the crystal that is on the Roshi’s altar spoke to her and said, “It’s dark in here. I never see the sunlight. Take me out and clean me off.”

The next morning she told Evan to take me to the Roshi’s altar, where we do zazen, and show me the crystal so I could clean it. What an honor!

Evan is from Russia, and he’s been living in monasteries most of his adult life. As we walked along the stone sidewalk toward the zendo, he told me that the only crystal he’d been exposed to was the deodorant crystal his mother sent to him, because it was scentless and the monks aren’t supposed to wear scents. “Will the crystal melt? Is it okay to touch it? I hardly used that deodorant crystal at all, but after awhile it just melted away.”

I assured him that real crystal is one of the hardest and most stable things in our universe—almost as hard as diamonds.

I was excited as we approached the zendo. I was expecting to see a big hunk of rose quartz or a large amethyst cluster. Evan was afraid to touch it so he just pointed to the beautiful crystal cluster just in front of the ancient painted statue that no one was allowed to touch or even to dust because it is so fragile and the paint would come off on your fingers.

I bowed respectfully in front of the altar, then reached in and cradled the cluster in both hands, feeling so honored to have been chosen for this precious work. Lovingly I took the cluster into the little area where we drink our tea during the walking meditation break.

Chisan was right; it was covered with dust, and eager to be taken into the sunlight. I washed it lovingly under cold running water, holding the points toward the drain for about a minute so that any possible negative energy that it might have absorbed would go down the drain. I wished I had a toothbrush to clean into its crevices. What a beauty! I could hardly wait to get it out into the sunlight. It seemed to have a tinge of brown.

Finally I took it outside and yes, it was a pale smoky quartz. How perfect! A large smoky quartz is one of the best stones to keep in a room because it takes negative energy and makes it heavy, so that it sinks down into the ground. This crystal has many different terminations (points), all going in the same direction. There is a dignity and nobility about this cluster; I’ve never experienced anything like it. As I tune in on it, opening my third eye to commune with it, I know at once that it was a Roshi in its own community; it was quite a sacrifice to leave its own community, but it was willing to do that in order to support the human Roshi.

Someone who was very conscious and aware had selected the absolutely perfect crystal for the Roshi.

As I examined it closely, I remarked to Evan that it looked like a castle. He said, “Yes, it looks like the castle in Germany.” The Roshi has outposts in many different countries, and I knew that the group in Germany had taken up residence in an actual castle. I could feel that this crystal maintained a connection with that castle.

At the crown of the largest point was a configuration I had never seen before. As often happens, the six facets met at the top, with three facets at least twice as large as the alternating three facets. In each of those larger facets, there was a rough triangular shape that joined at the top with the triangular shapes of the other two large facets. So the three connected triangular shapes had a remarkable resemblance to the cap-stone of a pyramid. It was as if the Roshi Crystal (as I called it) had a crystal crown.

On the shaft of one of the main crystals there was a step pattern engraved within the shape of the crystal, much like the steps leading up to the pyramids. The whole cluster naturally becomes narrower at the base; this formation is called a scepter , which feels appropriate for its royal status. I have seen individual scepter crystals, especially amethysts, but I have never before seen a cluster in scepter form.

When we sit zazen for a longer time than usual, during a specific time period such as one week, it is called a sesshin. When the sesshin is over, we each have a cup on a shelf above where we sit, and we get down our cups and a monk brings in a pot of tea in a ceremonial manner, along with the appropriate chanting. I felt that the crystal was requesting that once a month it be removed for cleaning and for exposure to the sun, and that it be brought brought back to the altar in a ceremonial way, along with a special chant for that purpose.

So I held the Roshi Crystal in both hands and brought it to the doorway of the zendo, where I bowed and then began the chant that I was being given on that occasion. Then I walked ceremonially, holding the crystal in upraised hands, bringing it to its place of honor, and placing it lovingly on its stand in front of the ancient statue. There I bowed again, feeling very good, and we left the zendo.

Later I told Chisan about my experience with the Roshi Crystal. I wish she had been there! She said she would try to arrange a meeting with the Roshi and bring up the crystal so I could show them both what I discovered. She told me that a man from Europe (who had visited the temple once before) brought the crystal to the monastery and said simply, “This is for the Roshi.” The Roshi knew that this cluster should be placed in one of the greatest places of honor in the temple.