I made up my mind to take the bike trip. It’s been an awesome day. Incredible mountain views that were totally not visible from the town of Ubud. Beautiful back roads weaving through rice paddies. Going right out into the paddies and interacting with the people. Such friendly people! Always so happy to see us. The children running out to say “Hello!” and holding out their hands to be touched.

And the sheer fun of riding a good bike mostly downhill, but not too steep, and always weaving through little villages. Then stopping to eat in a Balinese family compound (the owner’s family—so nice that the business is owned by locals). And what incredible food! The most delicious tempe I’ve ever eaten (and I don’t normally like tempe).

I thought I would be totally wiped out when I got back from a 2-1/2 hour bike ride, but after a brief nap I feel great.

September-October 2007

After I left Alaska, I thought I would go back to Oregon. But after meeting all those people at the International New Age Trade Show in Denver (INATS West), and getting invited to all those places, I organized a book tour that would take me through New York, Boston, and Asheville, North Carolina. Meanwhile I met a bunch of people from Eugene, Oregon, at a retreat, and I took care of someone’s house in Eugene for a month. Then I went to visit a friend who lives near Yosemite.

When I went to get my plane ticket, I had a strong sense that I should not get a return ticket to the West Coast. In fact, I had clear Guidance that I shouldn’t make any plans after Asheville. I wondered why. Would I meet a special man? Would I be invited to teach my Vibrational Healing program on the East Coast?

It was hard for me not to make plans. My whole career is based on giving talks and workshops that have to be scheduled well in advance. But I decided to trust in Spirit.

I was well received at East West Living, “New York’s largest source for spiritual, holistic health and metaphysical books and supplies.” I was invited to come back and teach at a beautiful mansion in Briarcliff in Westchester County, just outside of New York City.

Boston went well. I had a great connection with the people at Circles of Wisdom in Andover, and they invited me to return and do the Whole Health Expo’s with them in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

I was feeling much more useful on the East Coast than in Hawaii or on the West Coast. It seemed that my skills and talents were needed more here, and appreciated more.

Next stop was North Carolina. I had only been to North Carolina once before, to Ocracoke on the Coast, to visit my friend and co-facilitator, Cynthia Mitchell. Cynthia was enthused about my coming to Asheville, and agreed to meet me at the airport and we would hang together for ten days, and maybe do some teaching together at a place called Crystal Visions.

Cynthia picked me up at the airport in Raleigh and we drove west for many hours to Asheville. The Blue Ridge Mountains were lovely, and it’s true, they definitely did look blue! But they were paltry compared to Alaska, and to the Canadian Rockies, and even the California Rockies.

When I woke up the next morning, I started writing a new book. The title would be Frequency and Intention—How to Use Your Psychic Powers to Heal the Planet. The book was writing itself. I felt good. I couldn’t quite understand why. People told me that these are the oldest mountains in the world, and they are full of crystals. They’re called the Grandmother Mountains. Maybe that was it!

A couple days later (it was the middle of October) I got a real clear message in my meditation: “Stay here until the end of the year and finish the book.”

Cynthia took me to Green Life, the local health food store, and I saw some notices about rentals. I jotted down two phone numbers. A couple days later I had some spare time and the use of Cynthia’s car, so I went to look at the rentals. The second place was perfect.

The neighborhood has lots of trees. The house is on a big lot with a huge yard and it’s set back from the road. It’s a yellow house with a big stone chimney. The woman was sitting on the white swinging seat on the front porch where the pink petunias grew in profusion. I sat down alongside her and we spoke for half an hour before I even stepped inside the house.

We had everything in common! She’s an RN who does natural healing work, specializing in BreathDance, to help people who have breathing problems to get off their inhalers. She just bought the house and moved in a month ago, but she has lived in Asheville for the last year, and has lots of connections. She belongs to the dance collective. She helped out at the herbal conference. She has a room in the house for doing workshops.

While I was in Anchorage I stayed at the home of a man who is an organizer for the Bioneers. This is an incredible organization that has groups all over the world (see www.bioneers.com and soon I will have more information on my website at www.highvibrations.net under Links). This organization has presentations by a wide variety of people on topics that ranging from civil rights and women’s rights to indigenous teachings to biology to green architecture to permaculture to philosophy to healing and community . . . everything about creating a positive, connected vision of the world, along with projects that are actually happening now, to change the world.

I decided then that when I settled down I wanted to join or create a local Bioneers group. Well, within our first half hour, I discovered that Dorisse Neale had actually taught at a Bioneers Conference, and that she, too, wanted to start a Bioneers group in Asheville. That clinched it. “I haven’t seen the house yet, but I certainly know I’ve found a new friend!”

Of course, the house turned out to be perfect. I would have a lovely, sunny room with my own bathroom. There’s a guest room. The house is laid out so that we can both have plenty of privacy. There’s a big living room with a wonderful fireplace. There’s a front porch and a side porch, where you can see the mountains in the distance. There’s a big garage for storage, and even a little shed where I could do my lapidary work. Best of all, I can watch the sun come up from my bedroom, and we can watch the sun go down from the back porch. And there’s a big yard, and plenty of space for an organic garden.

I hoped to find a place right away, and it was available. I wrote a check, and Dorisse looked at my full name and she said, “I know you! I have your book!” It turned out that she had a copy of my first book, Healing Yourself, the herbal.

A few days later I moved in. Immediately I started making connections, meeting people, and feeling extremely welcome. Something that blew my mind was that almost everyone I met had their own story to tell about being mysteriously guided to come to Asheville. And there were lots of sound healers. That was true in Hawaii, too, but it didn’t surprise me there. Why Asheville???

As I started to write to friends, to tell them about my move, they all seemed to know about Asheville. They had heard about it, or they had friends or family here. They all thought it was a very cool place. Some people called it the San Francisco of the East Coast. Some compared it to Portland. People say this is one of the safest places on the planet if there are earth changes. Once I went downtown, I was truly charmed; it seemed a bit like New Orleans.

There was something exciting to do every night of the week (if I chose to participate). There was all kind of dancing and music and healing and parties. What a wonderful place to live! And plenty of beautiful places nearby to be in nature. And tons of waterfalls. And a fairly mild winter.

Within a couple weeks I was told by Spirit, “You’re going to stay here.” That was fine with me.

I do miss my grandson in Maui, but I’ve already adopted a couple of Indigo kids to take care of occasionally, and they really need a Gramma, so we’re all happy.

July 13

I never thought of coming to Alaska until I was invited to teach at the herbal conference. I thought of going to Norway because I heard the mountains are so awesome there. But I had no idea that Alaska was so beautiful! This is probably the most gorgeous place I’ve ever been in my life.

In Portland we have Mt. Hood; in Northern California we have Mt. Shasta; on the Big Island we have Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa; in Maui we have Haleakala. But in Alaska . . . . there are endless ranges of them! Mt. McKinley, the highest of all mountains in North America, is here in all her majesty.

Glaciers, snowy mountains, colored mountains, and then a Three-Hour Sunset!!! Oh, it’s just incredible. It sort of makes our mountains in Hawaii and in Oregon pale by comparison. In fact, sometimes I think about The Little Prince, who lived on a planet with his one and only beloved rose. Then he traveled to other planets, and when he came to the earth, he was shocked to discover that there were MANY roses.

But no need to compare! They are all just beautiful!

By 8:30 at night the mountains start to turn colors–the glacial rivers and white snow-covered mountains behind those, layers upon layers of mountains—and this metamorphosis of colors continues, slowly and gracefully evolving until around ten o’clock, then it gradually fades slowly by around eleven there is just the slightest hint of darkness, as if it would soon be dark, but it is not.

By midnight we give in, knowing that it’s not wise to stay up all night, but reluctant to lie down, especially those who live here year round; the locals call themselves manic during this time of year because they know that these endless days will not last forever, and soon they will turn into endless nights. So they must rush to put in their gardens quickly and have all the parties they can before they must retreat indoors into the dark of a cold and endless night.

I was looking at some maps with Maggie and Court today, thinking about a future trip, and they showed me how to take a ferry all the way from Bellingham to Homer. I would dearly love to do that. It wouldn’t cost much more than flying, and then I’d have a vehicle once I got here. (It costs about $250 a week to rent a car here.) Then I’d love to drive back down through Canada. I’d like to take at least a month or two for a trip like that. Mid August would be a great time to come up here, because then I could be in Fairbanks by mid September, which is a good time to see the Northern Lights.  That is right up there on the top my list of things I want to do!

July 12, 2007
Alaska Airlines en route to Anchorage via The Inside Passage

I’m excited about this trip. I rarely get excited about traveling, but it’s exciting to go to a new country or a new culture.

Even just being on the plane feels different. It reminds me of going to Hawaii, especially when there are a fair number of Hawaiians on the plane. The Hawaiians and Alaskans and Native Americans all have that down-home, no-bullshit kind of feeling. You can walk down the aisles in this plane, and you get the feeling that people actually talk to one another. The air is alive with interaction, even when everyone seems to be just doing their own thing.

I’d been here for a couple days when I heard a lot of noise next door in the middle of the night. I figured that some locals had moved in and were having a party. The next morning Dewa (who turned out to be Ebudewa’s brother) brings me breakfast and he mentions casually that Lumena, the woman in the room next to mine, had gone “up to the mountain to meditate” and they left at 3 in the morning. What mountain? I wondered, and why was it so noisy to go meditating? I should meet this woman.

Next day a black-haired woman dressed in white glided by and stopped in to apologize for all the noise the night before. “I’m studying with a Balinese Traditional Healer, and we do a lot of chanting, so it can get noisy. I’m sorry if we woke you up!”

I invited her to come in and visit, and as our mutual stories unfolded, it turned out that she had a copy of the first herbal book that I wrote, back in the seventies, Healing Yourself. (This often happens!) Since she was so interested in chanting, I played a track from my CD, Altered States of Planet Earth, and she totally loved it. [You can listen to it on my home page at http://highvibrations.net ]

She has done a lot of work in promotions, so we talked about ways to promote the CD, and she asked what my target audience is? I told her that people who are interested in metaphysics, new age, wicca, and then I admitted that my initial inspiration for making the CD was to provide something really juicy for kids going to raves. I’ve never been to one, but I’ve heard that they are huge gatherings where everyone gets high on Ecstasy. I had some exposure to LSD in my younger years, and I know the difference between a “good trip” and a “bad trip,” and I do believe that mind altering substances can have a beneficial effect under the right circumstances. Though I no longer use these substances, I believe that marijuana is far less harmful that alcohol or tobacco and that it is criminal that people are being put in jail for using marijuana, and it is criminal that young people (many of whom seem to need to get high on something) are being prevented from using marijuana, and so they turn instead to “ice,” which is such a vicious drug. I do know that taking Ecstasy can be a beautiful experience, and that the music you listen to while in an altered state can have a profound influence on the kind of trip you have.

This CD, Altered States of Planet Earth, has the sounds of myself doing Shamanic Sounding (the shamans literally sing through me) in combination with Alejo (James Lowe) playing didgeridoo. People have told me that they love to use it for giving and receiving massages, for making love, for dancing and trance dancing, and contact improv. Lumena said that she has friends who are organizers for Burning Man, and she could make sure that they hear it.

She asked to look at my new book, Vibrational Healing through the Chakras, and she couldn’t put it down, so I offered to loan it to her for a day or two, and she was delighted.

Then she said she wanted me to meet her teacher, I Made Sumatra. He had been teaching her how to run energy, and he had a thing he did that allowed you to see your own chakras light up from the inside! Through working with him, she was beginning to see auras.

That all sounded quite exciting. I’d love to see my chakras light up, and I’d love to see auras. As I’ve said before, I can feel the spin of energy at the chakras, but I have not been able to see that energy.

A few hours later Lumena brought Made to my room. He is a good-looking young Balinese man with a huge smile and very loving energy. He was smoking a cigarette, which didn’t add to the ambience, but I was used to shamans who don’t fit the stereotype. We talked for awhile, and sometimes it was difficult to understand him, though his English was fairly good. He said that today he was going to be doing a ceremonial cleansing at his temple, and Lumena was coming. Would I like to join them?

“Of course!” I exclaimed, and he said that I would just need to wear a sarong and a sash, and could I be ready in an hour?

“No problem!”` I responded, with excitement.

“Good!” he said, “I’ll pick you up in an hour!”

This time I wasn’t going to mess with the purple pareo, which had bled all over my nice salmon-colored blouse. I had a simple blue-and-white pareo that I would wear, with a blue under-blouse and a see-through top, very much like the Indonesian style. I felt rather proud of myself as I prepared for my first official Balinese ritual.

Made arrived promptly in an hour, and said that he could now drive me over to his place. “First you, then I come back, get Lumena. Very close,” he reassured me, as he pointed to his motorbike. “Not far. You okay?” he asked as he observed my reaction.

Yes, I did ride on a motorbike once before. And even once on a motorcycle. But that was about forty years ago! This was intimidating. And furthermore, I was wearing a long skirt.

Now let me tell you something about myself. On the one hand, I am a raging nonconformist, and some part of me takes a certain pleasure in shocking people. On the other hand, I am extremely careful not to trespass or offend people of other cultures, if at all possible. But when it gets too tedious, I fall back upon the attitude that I am, after all, an American, and everyone expects Americans to do crazy things anyway.

For example, in Hawaii, especially on the Big Island, the locals have a certain little wave they call a shaka. It’s when you hold up your thumb and little finger and shake your hand in greeting. It sounds simple, and I know plenty of people who started using the shaka within a few days of arriving on the island, and it looked fine. The truth is, it’s kind of a guy thing. Not too many girls give the shaka.

So I wanted to be sure that I did it right. The truth is that I studied it for nine years, and practiced it on the sly, until I finally felt I could give a good-looking shaka. I’m still very shy about it. But when I moved to Maui, I noticed that people gave really limp-looking shakas. I got downright judgmental about those wimpy Maui shakas.

So ever since I arrived in Bali, I’ve been observing motor scooter behavior. I noticed right away that girls ride sidesaddle when they wear skirts. No exceptions. So I wasn’t going to start out my first Balinese ritual by doing something that would be grossly offensive. Even though I was feeling intimidated, I was definitely going to ride sidesaddle.

The other thing I noticed was that hardly anybody held on to the person in front of them. There seemed to be a taboo about touching—except for very intimate couples, in which case the girl would lean into the boy from behind, and wrap her arms around his middle.

Well, I’d be damned if I was gonna NOT hold onto this guy! Even if he was a Shaman! So I climbed onto his motorbike, and held onto his hips, and soon we were rumbling down the crazy crowded roads of Ubud. So there I am, hanging on for dear life, wishing I had a helmet, and wishing I had gotten that Lloyd’s of London Travel Insurance, telling myself “Cancel!” again and again, and wasn’t this an exciting adventure?

The fumes of the cars in front of us, and the other motorbikes, were pretty overwhelming as we drove out of town and into the surrounding countryside. It was very beautiful, but the farmers were burning the rice stalks in their fields, and the smoke sometimes surrounded us. And his place was NOT close! It must have taken us at least 15 minutes before we finally slowed down.

Made pointed proudly at a big poster on the wall of a building as we were turned down a kind of alleyway. Here’s the poster:

And here’s the alleyway, with the kids:

Within a block we came to the entrance to his temple:

As we walked through the courtyard, he called out to the women sitting under the roof.

Then we walked up the stairs.

At the top, we could look out over the countryside. It was really quite beautiful. He indicated a kind of bench where I could sit, and said he’d be back soon with Lumena. Then he left.

An elderly Balinese woman brought me some Balinese tea (which is not too strong; I don’t think it’s black) and very delicate delicious pastries cut or woven into lacy patterns, probably made from rice flour sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. Then I lay down and took a nap, which is something that most Balinese do in the middle of the day.

Finally Made and Lumena arrived, and Made announced that his wife already did the ritual cleaning in the morning! He unlocked the door and invited us inside the temple, which was a simple room, where he turned on some music and we sat on mats on the floor and spoke about our mutual involvement with the chakras.

I realized that, for the first time in my life, I was speaking to a person who grew up knowing about and working with the chakras. It wasn’t a foreign language or a foreign concept for him. I Made Sumantra is a fifth generation Balinese healer. The Balinese imported the whole Hindu philosophy, along with the Hindu religion. And the chakras are a part of that philosophy, along with all the Hindu gods and goddesses. Of course, they have their own version of all this. There is, for example, a Balinese form of yoga that gives specific exercises and postures and mudras (hand positions) and mantras (simple chants, usually in Sanskrit) for consciously running the kundalini energy to enhance meditation, for health, and for various kinds of healing (and hexing, which is a serious problem in Bali).

Whereas I, who had been teaching about chakras most of my adult life, learned about them from a disembodied spirit guide! So it was gratifying and validating that I was fully able to hold my own in that conversation, and the only new insight that I came away with was that the chakras also show up in the hands. I, in turn, shared my own insight (by way of my guide, Dr. Laing) that the chakras show up in the face (as explained in my books, Vibrational Healing through the Chakras and Color and Crystals and I have never come across this concept anywhere else).

Here’s how they work on the hands. The first chakra point is at the center of the inner wrist; second is at the tip of the thumb; third at the middle fingertip; fourth at the little fingertip; fifth at the index fingerip; sixth at the ring fingertip; crown at the center of the palm.

We talked about sacred energy vortices, and how Mt. Agung, the highest mountain in Bali and an active volcano, is considered one of the great vortices, as is Haleakala in Hawaii.

I agreed to return another day, for a private session. I wanted to see if Made could make my chakras light up!

I end up looking a bit gharish in this poorly-matching, improvised costume. I feel kind of like an elephant in a circus show as I walk among these three graceful Balinese women, my new friend balancing a very full basket perfectly upon her head without even holding on. We have been joined by her daughter, who is about 14, and her neice, who is about 18. Ebudewa told me that I could go swimming up at the temple, but then I’d have to change my clothes. I asked if she would be swimming, and she said no, so I nixed that idea; it sounded too complicated.

I am game for almost anything, and I feel excited to be going on this field trip, as we all pile into the van, which her niece is now driving down the long driveway and onto the main road along very narrow streets that are teaming with bikes and motorbikes and pedestrians.

The trip up Gunung Batur, the second highest mountain around here (about half as high as the sacred Gunung Agung nearby) takes about half an hour. We are going to Tirta Empul (Temple with Water), in Tampak Siring (Water Big). When we arrive at the temple the two girls go in through the gate, and I can see that people are wading in the water that is shooting out through fountains into a big pool.

No one is wearing a bathing suit; they’re just wading into the water in their sarongs and shirts and going up to the fountains and putting their heads in the water. It feels like a miniature version of what I imagine the Ganges River must feel like during a festival. I realize now that we are at the mouth of the river, and this is a sacred place.

It is just beginning to rain, and as other people open up their umbrellas, my friend (who did not bring an umbrella) walks proudly with her offerings on her head, to the shrine, where she proceeds to unpack quite a number of offerings that she goes around and distributes, along with incense, at a number of shrines. I am now sitting out of the rain under a shelter where most people are huddling.

Ebudewa and her daughter and her niece are now kneeling on the pavement in front of the man in white, as others have done before her. She gestures that I can join them, and I think, “Oh, what the Hell. Might as well,” and I kneel down on the pavement as I try to imitate Ebudewa’s neice, who kindly corrects my hand positions.

The first position is with upraised hands on either side of the body. Then the priest (or whoever he is; the man in white) sprinkles your head and hands with holy water. Then you remove a single flower from your little tray of flower offerings, and you put your hands in prayer position at your forehead as you hold the little flower with your fingertips, and the priest comes and sprinkles holy water on you again.

Then you hold your hands cupped in front of you, right on top of left, and when the priest sprinkles holy water in your hands, you quickly bring your right hand to your mouth and gulp it down. This is repeated three times. Then he does it one last time, and you bring that water to the top of your head. Then he holds out a bowl with some kernels of uncooked white rice in water, and you take a few kernels and plaster them onto your forehead.

When that was done, I stood up and realized that my purple pareo was now dripping wet, and the dye was running. I attempted to squeeze it out, but Ebudewa indicated that that would not be appropriate to do while standing in the temple. So I followed her out, and she went around the edge of the pools and through a gate and down the path into another pool.

There she hitched up her skirt and waded in, apparently in order to get a container full of holy water. She indicated that this water was not for swimming.

Once I realized what she was doing, I wanted to join her. So I hitched up my wet purple pareo and made my way down the steps, at which point I lost my footing and fell down into the pool of holy water! Now my purple pareo was really running, and I was trying hard not to wring it out, and the rain was pouring down, and my hair was sopping wet, and all I could do was laugh! My friend laughed too, as she helped me climb out of the pool.

We made our way back to the man in white, and waited around for awhile as I sat there dripping wet, NOT wringing out my pareo, definitely a source of wonderment to the proper Balinese ladies who came with umbrellas. Finally the two girls joined us, and we made our way back to the car after picking up some rice pastries from the ladies on the road.

Big Island of Hawaii
mid April 07

I was up on Mauna Kea a few nights ago; highest mountain in the world (if you include the part that’s underwater). They had the telescopes out, and it was a bright night. No moon. Just minutes after the sun set, the sky was full of stars. This is supposed to be the best place in the world to see the stars because the whole island has orange street lamps that are designed not to cause glare.

I had just been hiking on the mountain, and I was high with having seen the sunset twice. You know how you can see it once, and then climb higher on the mountain and see it again? I was freezing cold from the wind chill—even though I was dressed very warmly—and my fingers and toes were tingly, and all I could think of was hot soup, or at least hot tea, which I knew I would soon be holding between my grateful fingers.

My friend and I didn’t know that the telescopes would be out that night, but sure enough, there they were. The astrologer woman had just set them up when we came down.

I had to get down on my knees to look through the lens of their biggest telescope, because of the way it was angled. And there was Saturn! This tiny white perfect globe in the black sky, all by itself with its exquisite white rings, just glowing out there in the universe.

I could hardly believe it! How could an object of such geometric perfection be sitting out there in the night sky? I was used to seeing pictures of it in textbooks. How did it get out there into the sky? It was stunning. I was thrilled.