I have been wanting to create SoundScapes for many years now. I love going to beautiful places in Nature, and tuning in to the sounds. I feel a kind of mission about preserving those sounds before civilization encroaches.

It ‘s already almost impossible to do recordings in Hawaii or in the Southwest because of the omnipresence of air traffic, automobiles and dogs. So I’ve been excited about the prospect of recording here in Bali, during the early morning hours, when such things are at a minimum.

I’ve been waiting for the perfect recording device, and when I bought this laptop over a year ago, I expected to be able to use it that way. But there were complications; I already had a great stereo mike, but I needed an adapter so I could plug it into the computer. Then I needed a program so I could do that kind of recording (Final Vinyl is what I’m using now). Then I needed to learn how to use the program.

It finally all came together here in Bali. First I recorded the nature sounds that you hear at the beginning of this blog [soon to be installed]. Then this morning, as I finished meditating, the sounds flowed out of me as they often do, especially when I’m outdoors.

It began in Hawaii. After Raphael died, a bright red cardinal began visiting me. He would fly right up to the window and peck and peck on the glass. People said he had fallen in love with his image in the glass, but I felt something else was going on. I would walk up toward the glass, and after awhile the bird would stay there and allow me to approach.

I wondered if it was Raphael’s spirit, coming to visit me? I named him Bright Spirit, and every morning he would come into one of the trees next to my lanai while I was meditating, and when I broke out into song, he would join me. Such a high, to sing with a wild bird!

My friend Karen was my housemate at the time, and she told me that when I went out-of-town Bright Spirit rarely came to the house. But as soon as I returned, there he was again!

In the Spring, he showed up with a mate. She was shy, and rarely came close to the house, but I was glad to see he had a partner.

Then one day, in the middle of the day, he came flying up to the house making a racket. “What on earth is going on?” I asked, annoyed at his incessant noise. Then it occurred to me to sit down and tune in on him, to see if I could understand what he was trying to tell me.

I sat down and opened my consciousness, and within a minute I had a vivid image of his mate flying into the woods and something terrible happening to her. Then I noticed that she wasn’t with him.

I went to find Karen, who is an animal communicator, though the main animals she talks to are cats. I asked her to listen to him. “Oh, he’s probably just looking for food,” she said flippantly, but I implored her to actually sit down and LISTEN.

Karen went out on the porch, and closed her eyes, and consciously tuned in. As I studied her face, tears began to roll down her cheeks and I knew I was right. I went outside and tried to let him lead me into the woods, but there didn’t seem to be any way that I could be of help. So I just sat down on the lanai and I toned to him from the deepest place in my heart. That seemed to comfort him.

After that he went away. I always felt that his mate had been upset with him for spending so much time with human beings. And now it seemed that he needed to find a new mate. About a month later he returned to show us his lovely new lady, and they flew away together. Just occasionally he would return after that.

But from that time forward, I always tried to meditate outdoors, and I began to sing with ALL the birds. After my morning meditations, I would break into song (sometimes I wasn’t even aware that I was singing until I heard the sounds!) and the birds—whatever birds were around—would start singing with me. I’ve always wanted to record these wonderful sounds, and this morning, here in Bali, I had my first opportunity.

I don’t always sing on key, and toward the end there is the sound of the gardener moving things around, but the bird doesn’t care. We just go on enjoying our sounds!

SOUNDS OF BALI

Soon I will head out of the very fun town of Ubud and head for the ocean. I’m loving it here. Life is very rich and full. Like last night, just passing an outdoor temple and seeing a large group of men, shirts off, muscles glistening in the light, sitting in two groups across from each other with two elder men seated in the middle calling out chants as the alternating groups of men made staccato sounds that shook their whole bodies as they swayed together or bounced up and down, making these incredible animalistic sounds that built in intensity (I’ve heard them from a distance in the night and it sounded like building to an orgasm).

Further down the street another temple is alive with similar sounds, but his time I looked in to see a similar group surrounding a bigger-than-life portrayal of what looks like a god (I’m guessing that the actors are enacting a scene from the Ramayana, from the sacred Vedic scriptures), making grand gestures, and a couple of female figures in elaborate costumes.

I know the people all over the island have been preparing for two days now for a ceremony that happens just twice a year.

In her book, Liz talks about two healers that she encountered during her stay here. I’ve asked a couple of locals about them, and they didn’t recognize their names. But this morning, before I leave the Ubud Bungalows, I feel that I should ask Wayan, the manager. Sure enough, he knows exactly where I can find both of them. “How did you know about them?” he asks, and I mention the book and he smiles and says “Many people ask about them who have read the book.” It is, by the way, a New York Times Bestseller.

“And how did you know about this place?” he asks, and I mention Robert Frutos and he smiles and says, “Yes, the big man. He stayed here two years ago. He stayed for two weeks.”

I have become so slow inside. My need to achieve anything whatsoever is about down to zero, yet my ability to take care of whatever needs to be done is smooth and efficient.

While I was at the temple, a visitor asked a monk, “Why do we do everything so fast?” The monk responded, “The Roshi wants us to function effectively in the outside world. If we get too slowed down, then when we go into the outside world we’ll be totally out of synch with what everyone else is doing.”

I can see the wisdom in that. I am reaping the benefits of the long meditations combined with fast and disciplined activity.

I am so grateful that my travels have brought me to Bali at this point. This feels like the closest I have come to living like I did on my mountain in Big Sur, where I had no commitments, no responsibilities, and I could just live a very simple life and devote myself to loving God and loving Nature.

I’ve always thought of those three months in Big Sur, when I was barely 17, as the happiest time in my life (along with the time I performed a double wedding for my two sons—when they each married women who had been my students—and along with the year that I spent with the love of my life—until we both knew that he had to go back and be a Daddy for his two boys, and then there was the time I spent three months on Molokai with Raphael. . . .).

I meditated for an hour last night and an hour this morning. It feels so good. I have a new goal: to create a lifestyle where I have plenty of time for loving God and Nature every day. That’s the first priority. THEN I will be happy to spend about three days a week seeing clients, and spend hunks of time teaching and writing. If I happen to fall in love with someone who is on the same wavelength, who wants to share this lifestyle with me, that would be lovely. I just need to be very clear about the order of my priorities. I knew all this when I was 17; I just lost sight of it while I got caught up in raising my kids and earning money and negotiating relationships.

As if to punctuate this new resolution, a lovely young Balinese woman passed by my lanai with a basketful of incense and flowers and offerings of food. It’s lunchtime, so the gods must be fed. Like in the Buddhist temple, the first morsel of food is always for the gods. The Balinese seem to be feeding a whole army of gods with every meal. Offerings are placed on the altar of every home and business, as well as on the ground. [Later I am told that the offering on the ground is for the Mother Earth.]

At the Ubud Bungalows, they had a big altar for the whole place, and little tiny offerings at each room, but here they seem to have an altar for every single dwelling, with four tiny offerings on separate squares of palm or ti leaves for both the altar and the ground. The young woman dips a flower in a bowl of water and lovingly and gracefully sprinkles each altar three times, then she places several sticks of lit incense at the altar above and the one below.

I went out tonight with the Australian woman, Anna, whom I met at the Internet Café on my first day here. We were trying to find the famous “Coffee House” in Ubud that everyone said was so easy to find, where all the expatriates hang out. Anna had been here a few days longer than me, and she had some ideas about it. We walked all the way to the end of Monkey Forest Road, to the Rendezvous Coffee Shop with the used bookstore. The French owner was friendly, but the place was empty and he said, “It’s better to come in the afternoon—I’m off to a party now,” as he left us in the charge of a Balinese girl, who picked up the phone as soon as he was out of sight.

From there we went to the Bali Buddha Health Food Store and Restaurant, and that was a huge relief. They actually have spelt cookies and rye bread and rice and soymilk, and unsweetened fruit juice, and a nice-looking muesli, and the restaurant serves free range eggs and fresh sunflower seed milk. Yes, it’s relatively expensive, but I already have a swollen lymph node under my arm and sores in my mouth from eating dairy and wheat (oh, I do so love green tea ice cream, and the wonderful homemade bread they serve with scrambled eggs in the morning!), so it felt like a real blessing to find the kind of food that sustains me.

As I’m walking through the health food store, I see a middle-aged woman with long red hair talking to a small group of people in the restaurant. I think to myself that I ought to meet this woman, but I don’t feel like interrupting her.

Normally I carry a backpack, but tonight I dressed up for a night on the town. So now here I am, carrying a heavy bag of groceries, and then I stop to buy a big bottle of water. It’s almost my bedtime and I’m beginning to feel weary, especially since I’m wearing my contacts, which dry out my eyes, which makes me feel tired and irritable. And I’m wearing a bra, which I try not to do very often, because it constricts my breathing and makes me feel uptight. (How come it’s fashionable now for girls with little titties not to wear bras?)

So now we’ve arrived at Anna’s bungalow and she invites me in, but I am much too tired. I keep looking for the lane where Jati 3 is, but I don’t recognize my usual landmarks in the dark. Passing a restaurant with people sitting outside, they say, “Good evening! How are you?” as many people do around here, and I mutter, “I’m lost!” as I stagger past them.

Then both the Balinese waitress and the German couple stand up and call out, “You’re lost! Come back and we’ll help you!”

Ah, music to my tired ears. I walk back to look into their kind eyes, and then I remember that I cleverly stuck a couple business cards from Jati 3 in my bag, and as I pull them out, I see that each one has a map on the back. I give one to the German couple and the other to the waitress, and within a couple minutes they figure out where I should be. “It’s just before Café Wayan,“ says the waitress, and I know she is right.

“It’s before the football field,” says the German man, and I know it’s way before the football field. “Now if you can’t find it,” says the man with the clear blue eyes “you come back here and we’ll take you there!”

My mother once gave me a beautiful card with an old Irish saying:

“Help a stranger to their destination,
though its end your own eyes may not see,
for kindness reaches with neverending branches
down an endless eternity.”

The waitress at the restaurant where I ate tonight was so sweet.
She said, “Do you do meditation?” I said I did.
“You have so much light around you; I knew you must do meditation.”

It’s nice to be seen. And to be helped.

What is it that feels so soft here? Softer than Hawaii or even Thailand? For one thing, the local people do not seem to resent the presence of tourists, as so many do in Hawaii. This is a tourist economy, and people have really suffered since the bombings. I don’t feel any anger under the surface, as I often did in Hawaii. It feels very safe to walk the streets here, even late at night.

The land feels so gentle. There’s such a rich infusion of the sounds of roosters, grasshoppers, frogs, doves and other birds. I’m just guessing that the gentle rasping that sounds like the backyard is being raked all night is frogs.

The people always ask where you’re going (Liz warned about that), which I normally would take offence to, but here it feels like they’re all watching out for me, like brothers and sisters. If I close the curtains in front of my dwelling, because I don’t want to be bothered and I want to enjoy the privacy of my backyard, they will just come around the side of the house and pop up in my backyard. But it feels so innocent! They don’t understand about privacy. They just want to come by and sweep my floor (they’d be hurt if I didn’t let them do that), or bring me a lovely breakfast. They want to stop and chat for awhile, and ask me where I’m going today and what I’m going to do.

It’s nice that most people (even most local people) speak English. They don’t seem to have any programs about how the “servants” aren’t supposed to hobnob with the guests. They’re just friendly and kind.