Bali, day 1

The adventure started going through airport security in Perth- in my carry on, I had multiple miron glass bottles (block all light, including x rays) in my carry on.  Once they went through the scanner, security searched through all my bags and opened up all my superfoods... fortunately they let me keep them.  So the miron glass definitely works to protect food from being fried by x rays!  Alys and I arrived in Bali at midnight only to find that the driver that had been arranged to take us to Ubud, one hour away, was nowhere to be found.  We waited 45 minutes before giving up and going to ask taxi drivers how much it would cost.  The only problem was, we only knew the name of the villa we were going to, but not the address or location and none of the taxi drivers had any idea where it was.  We found one guy who agreed to drive around Ubud looking for it for as long as it took to find it for $50.  We decided this was our best option, so he drove us out to Ubud and we drove up one skinny street and down another and another and another.  On the outskirts, the taxi driver decided to turn around and head back into the center of town and just then on a little wooden sign above a doorway, he saw the words "Villa Gaia"- that was it, we found it, totally by accident and miraculously!

It was now 2 AM, and knowing I only had a few hours to sleep before 6 AM yoga practice, I slept grounded and inverted and woke up feeling fully energized.  After yoga practice, we started arranging the retreat space, met the chef Sayuri, went through the Ubud markets (hectic!).  Then I rented a scooter ($20 for the week)- driving around on the roads here is so gnarly!  People everywhere on bikes, on foot, on motorbikes, in cars!  Later in the afternoon we drove through a monkey forest, with little monkeys all over the place! It was wild!  Then we got to see a very interesting ashtanga ashram and next to it a massive three story ultra elegant bamboo house that was like nothing I've ever seen before.  From there, we went out for dinner.  I had to stop to buy a razor, having forgotten to pack mine, on the way back from dinner.  Bali is wild with so many streets and I had just been following other people around all day to get wherever I needed to go.  But Sheridan told me just to follow this same road and it would take me back to the villa... I was a little apprehensive, but I said okay.  After buying the razor, I followed the road for many kilometers... and finally it came to a fork- the first sign that something was wrong.  I picked left, and drove for 15 minutes... nothing looked familiar.  I went back to the fork, now getting cold being out in the open air in the evening.  I went right at the fork... nothing looked familiar for a long way.  I went back into Ubud, drove all around... trying to ask for directions, but everyone either didn't speak English, or had no idea where to find the street I was looking for.  This went on for 3 hours!  I was really missing my GPS!  (It turns out the directions I was given left out several key turns!)  At one point, going up a hill, I ran out of gas!  I had to push my bike half a kilometer to the nearest gas station to fill back up and I was still no closer to figuring out where I was or where I was going.  I stopped at an internet cafe to try to figure out where I needed to go on Google maps... but the "show my location" function wasn't working.  Finally, some guy walked into the cafe and he knew where I needed to go!  Ten minutes later I was back at the villa... what a crazy adventure.  My first day in a new country and I spend 3 hours driving all around these little wild streets completely lost!  It was intense, but I think I enjoyed the adventure!  This afternoon we start the yoga retreat, I'll be teaching superfood, superherb, and longevity lifestyle classes.  Check out my morning view...

The Moon's Bathing Place

After a wild concert last and two farmers' markets this morning (where I bought 4 kilos of bee pollen, all that they would sell me due to limited supplies- I'm stocking up for winter!), I needed to get back out and explore nature.  I love having meaningful experiences in nature- to me, that's what its all about... all the raw foods, all the superfoods, all the superherbs, everything else I do to cultivate vibrant health and longevity is all really designed to enhance my ability to have meaningful experiences in nature.  Sometimes I get the profound pleasure to share these experiences with others, sometimes I have the equally profound pleasure of experiencing these moments in solitude.  This occasion happened to be one of the solo adventures.  I knew I wanted to go somewhere interesting, but I didn't really know where.  I knew it would take some driving to get there, but I wasn't really ready to spend half my day driving.  I looked through a local tourism book that was given to me for Christmas by the amazing family that I stayed with in Mandurah when I first arrived in Australia.  I wasn't finding much, but then read a small section about Meekadarabee Falls in Ellensbrook.  I knew the word Meekadarabee was obviously aboriginal, but I had no idea what it meant.  It didn't really say that much about it, but waterfalls are always nice and Ellensbrook wasn't far from Margaret River, the second farmers' market I went to this morning.  I knew almost nothing about this place, but decided to go for it.  I drove out there, parked, and started following the trail out into the forest.  The nature around me was exquisite- large, majestic, wild looking trees everywhere and several small creeks flowing within view of the trail.  I arrived at a viewing point in front of a pond, which sat just below a 10 foot tall shallow cave.
    
Rewind to March- I went on an aboriginal bushwalk with David Wolfe and the retreat group and at the end of the bushwalk, David and a few others were asking the aboriginal guide about cold water springs in the area.  The lady mentioned two places.  One nearby was dried up and the other she didn't really give us enough details to know how to find it.  All she said was that it was called "The Bathing Place of the Moon."

Fast forward to today- there was a large illustrated book at the lookout in front of the pond, which told the short story of Meekadarabee, which it explains means "The Bathing Place of the Moon!" I found it!  (The story of Meekadarabee is a story of forbidden love, resulting in the death of both lovers.)

This pond clearly wasn't the source of the spring, so I kept walking, soon coming to the most incredible set of waterfalls, covered by lush greenery with water cascading in all directions.  I was so mystified by it, I stood there for the better part of an hour, just watching it in contemplation.  Then I went around the back of the falls, walking a little further to where the spring comes right out of the rocks.  I had no plans (maybe subconsciously) to find a spring today, so I didn't have a TDS meter or bottles, so I just knelt down and drank until I was full.  Definitely going back tomorrow to collect!

Then I went and watched Truth Calkins presentation on Jing City from the last longevity conference... what an inspiring presentation!  All of the super powerful aspects of herbalism that I'm furthering my knowledge of and bringing into my life are getting me really excited!  How's this for an affirmation? I am a God in a four layer biobody suit.  I have neuroplasticity and I'm ready to create reality!"

Mangosteen!

Ever since I found out I'd be going to Bali later this month, the main thing I've been looking forward to is experiencing fresh mangosteen, the queen of fruits (the Jewish relative of the mango).  I've used mangosteen in juice and powder form not for the inner fruit, which I've heard is sweet and delicious, but for the bitter rind, which contains very high levels of xanthones, the most powerful natural anti-inflammatory compounds known to man.  Little did I know, my chance would come sooner than I expected.  Today Ben told me in passing that the local supermarket (of all places!) had great mangosteen.  I didn't think you could get mangosteen in this area, not having seen it after being here over 6 months.  "No way, mangosteen?! Here!?"  I rushed over and bought the 12 that they had left and split them between Ben and I.  I cut one open and enjoyed the decadent sweet juicy fruit inside.  I once read an account by someone who tried biting right into the mangosteen peel or pericarp that it was so intensely bitter, he felt like he died!  Hoping to take a slightly easier route, I ordered a fresh glass of cucumber juice in the cafe and blended the rind up with the juice in the Vitamix.  The mangosteen has similar gelling properties to chia seeds, noni, aloe, and irish moss, so the drink had a great red color and thick smooth consistency.  Margot, who blended it up for me, tasted a little and instantly said "AH! YUCK!"  Two more people got little tastes before it got to me- one instantly ran for water and the other nearly threw up.  Finally I got my hands on it and started taking it down... my throat instantly started going dry.  Sixty seconds later, it was all down and I was going for water.  But no matter how much I drank, my mouth and throat felt completely parched!  A few minutes later it started really hitting my stomach... I left my office and headed for the toilets.  I passed Ben on the way "I don't know mate," I told him, half laughing at my own predicament "I might not be able to keep this one down."  I was feeling really quite sick.  I went and sat next to the toilet for a few minutes and started having a massive craving for chia... it made sense because the chia gel would slow the mangosteen absorption and make it more bearable.  I rushed back out to the cafe and got a cup of chia pudding and practically inhaled it.  Slowly but surely the revolutions in my stomach turned to small protests, and then peace.  I got some serious medicine out of that one!

The most exciting recent raw superfood creation- raw sweet potato chips- a raw superfood that tastes and feels just like regular potato chips and makes you feel incredible!

Tonight I had a great talk with a few wonderful friends that has me reinspired- the fire has been rekindled, I can't wait to make it all happen tomorrow!

HAVING FUN!

After a 2 month hiatus from blogging, I've come back to share a supremely simple, yet powerful realization that came to me yesterday evening.  The past five months in Australia have been great (of course with the occasional challenges), but yesterday afternoon at the end of a roller coaster of a work week, I was asking myself "Why am I here (in Australia, in Dunsborough, at Samudra)?  For 90 minutes, I could not find an answer to the question, no matter how hard I tried.  I started thinking that if I couldn't find an answer for why I was here, it was time to move on to a new adventure.  Then, thinking back to the state of mind I was in before I had ever been to Australia and coming here was only a dream, I realized that I came to Australia to have fun!  This seems such a simple and obvious answer, but I had forgotten it.  Being in a daily work environment where everyone takes everything so seriously had contagiously led me to do the same and I had been suffering for it for quite some time.  I had stopped having fun.  Now, how to solve this problem?  I resolutely decided to start having fun every second of the day at all costs.  If I appear unproductive and lose my job?  No problem.  If losing my job means having to leave Dunsborough or Australia and lose the possibility of future residency here?  I'm not too worried about it.  I'm going to have fun no matter what.  If being here prohibits me from having fun, I'll move on, but I'm going to give it my best to have fun here before abandoning this place. 

So today I started putting my new resolution into action.  I slept in until 8 o'clock (this is a major thing when I'm used to getting up at 5 AM every day for yoga) and then made my favorite warm chocolate herbal elixir packed with ridiculous amounts of superfoods and superherbs.  I stood out in the sun in the garden and drank half of it and bottled up the other half, which I drank in the car as I drove 45 minutes south to Margaret River, where my friends Kylie and Cat were having their debut at the farmers' market selling their homemade raw chocolates and dehydrated treats.  The drive down to Margaret River takes you through some incredibly majestic forests.  As I searched out their booth, I stopped at the bee keeper's booth to buy the last few kilos of bee pollen that he would have for the season.  The Western Australia bee pollen is the most nutritious and best tasting bee pollen in the world.  At home in California, I would use bee pollen in my smoothies, but would never consider it tasty enough to eat on its own.  Here, its not uncommon to see me eating the bee pollen by the spoonful, sometimes up to ten tablespoons a day!  It is so delicious!  I then found Kylie and Cat and jumped behind the booth with them for a few hours to help them sell and had so much fun doing it!  At 12 o'clock when the market finished, I helped them pack up and drove 20 minutes to one of my favorite beaches, sipping spring water that I had collected a few days earlier as I went. (The place where I get this spring water is amazing, just below the mouth of a huge cave with wild celery growing right where the spring water comes out of the rocks!)

The waves were head high and perfect- totally ripable rights with barely any wind and the water was a perfect light blue that most people only ever see in exotic photographs.  (I'd love to show you pictures, but I accidentally drowned both my video and still cameras in a broken bottle of pau d'arco tea a few weeks ago.  Check out some of my older posts to see the phenomenal water color here.)  There were only two people in the water and they both got out as a frantically put on my wetsuit, saying that they were both exhausted, having caught about 50 waves each over the past few hours.  I paddled out on a board that I hadn't ridden in a few months and had an epic session!  I was having so much fun getting one wave after another.  I kept looking around, seeing nothing but wild nature around me without a soul in sight and saying "This is unbelievable!"  30 waves and 90 minutes later, the waves died out and I went in content and stoked.  I took off my wetsuit and let the sun feed my body for a few minutes before driving off.

Its now after 4 PM and I haven't eaten anything (only drinking spring water) since the smoothie I had 8 hours ago and I'm not remotely hungry.  This is something interesting that's started happening the past few days.  I've reached what feels like such a supreme level of nutrification (attributed to two of my three daily meals for some time now being almost entirely comprised of superfoods with lots of mineral packed kelp) that I don't really need to be eating much.  The past few days I've observed the lack of hunger, but still eaten regular meals out of habit, but today I'm taking a different route and waiting to see where it takes me.  For the moment, spring water is so amazing, my energy is high, my mind is clear, and I'm having fun!  I'm feeling like I probably won't need to eat tonight.  I'm not setting a planned amount of time not to eat, I'll eat when I get hungry, but not just out of habit.  I'm thinking that maybe when hunger does come, I'll be able to thrive on just one superfood packed smoothie per day and not need to burden my body with three daily meals.  This feels really good.  Let the fun continue!

Yoga, waves, and superfood parties!

Yet again, what an adventure the past few days have been!  On Sunday I did a promotion for Samudra at a environmental awareness event called the Great Green Move.  I did a chocolate making demo for 40 people, which was so much fun.  It was my first chocolate demo in Australia for a public audience and I made the mistake of pointing out the differences several times between my chocolate and Hershey's... only to be informed after that they don't have Hershey's in Australia!  But I think I still got my point across.  Then I got pulled in at the last moment to take part in a live yoga demo... definitely wasn't expecting that one, but I did my best... couldn't compare with the girls who had been practicing for years, but managed to keep up more or less and had fun doing it. 

Since arriving in Australia, I still haven't been able to find a good spring water source, as spring locations aren't as publicly shared here as back in California.  Finally on Tuesday I found some good maps showing water source locations.  I located 10 different springs on the map, though it wasn't possible to see what the surroundings were or if they were on private property.  After work Ben and I went to look for waves, but couldn't find any, so we decided to check out the first of the springs I had mapped out.  With a little searching, we found the first one, but it was contaminated due to the fact that it was in the middle of a cow field abundant with dung.  We went to look for the second spring I had mapped, but in Ben's 4WD we soon found ourselves bogged in the sand and the wheels just kept spinning deeper and deeper.  We left his truck in the sand for the night and I went to a meditation class.  It was nice to meditate, but the teacher lived too much in another world for me.  I think its great when meditation teachers can exist successfully in other realms as well as successfully interact with people and the world around them, which this lady just couldn't.  The funniest part though was that I had to come straight there from having tried to dig Ben's truck out of the sand and my hands and feet were covered in black dirt and sand... I was a sight to behold walking into this class! :)

Having worked on Sunday, I was entitled to take a morning off of work this week, so three friends and I decided to go surf yesterday morning after yoga at Guillotines, which can only be accessed by a boulder ridden 4WD track.  We scored perfect head high left and right waves all to ourselves on a beautiful clear sunny day for 3 hours.  The spot was a bit intense, there was only about three feet of water over the sharp rock reef at any time and if you didn't kick out of the wave in time, it went right into a rock ledge that stuck completely out of the water!  Luckily I escaped unscathed, but with a few close calls!  On the way back, we went back to Ben's truck and towed it out of the sand.  I was feeling great and had a super productive afternoon at work.  Last night we had an all time party at my house with an international crew, 1 American, 1 Frenchman, 1 Venezuelan, 1 Colombian, 1 Israeli, 1 Canadian, 1 Australian, and 2 Germans ;).  I made chocolate and some ridiculously powerful herbal cacao concoctions and we all got blissed out! (and did a bit of cacao butter painting) That is my kind of party!  Today I squeezed in an hour long surf at Goanna's between yoga and work and had another wicked (local for awesome) session!  I can really feel my surfing improving and I am so stoked on surfing at the moment!

Shark Sighting

After a week of minimal surf and several days of nursing a strained neck from a yoga mishap (diving headfirst into the ground, not my greatest moment) today the waves finally came up in a big way!  Today being Saturday meant no work and no yoga, so I slept in (until 7:30... this is sleeping in when you are used to getting up at 5:00 daily or earlier for yoga), then made an elixir and went for a surf.  Afterwards, I went to Samudra to participate in a fundraising event for child trafficking in India... basically anyone could come do 27, 54, or 108 sun salutations and make an offering.  With my neck still not yet back to 100%, I played it safe and went for the 27 option.  After a delicious salad and a piece of raw strawberry cheesecake, I went for another surf.  Still hungry for more waves, I went to meet Ben, who was just finishing work, to go to Injidup Point.  We drove out there and walked 20 minutes out to the point with our boards only to arrive and here that a 10 foot shark had been seen there only one hour before.  We debated laughing for a while whether the shark would have moved on by now or not... in the end I decided that the waves weren't really that good and that paddling out would be too much of a threat to my longevity.  We hung around for the sunset and had a great inverted sun gazing session that really charged me up.  (When you sun gaze inverted, it is much easier to do, so you can do it for longer and get a more profound effect.)

Australianism of the day- Sometimes (especially on the east coast) instead of saying "thank you," they just say "ta."  This one really annoys me!  The first few times I heard it, I had no idea what people were saying and still it just doesn't make sense to me- "thanks" is not that long that it merits abbreviation to "ta."  I'll add this to the short list of colloquialisms I won't be adopting, which includes pronouncing the "h" at the start of "herbs."

Back to Dunsborough

Its been more than a few days since my last post, this last week has been so hectic (in the best way ever) that I haven't had a single second to type anything out.  After flying back to Perth, I was super stressed after having had some issues with the rental car agency and having to make a mad dash not to miss the plane, but this residual stress turned out to be the effects of the radiation you get exposed to when flying, because as soon as I went down to the beach and immersed myself completely in the water, the radiation was discharged into the earth along with all of the stress and worries.  My friend Shane and I picked up some awesome raw food treats (raw açaí ice cream, almond coconut cake, spicy kale chips, and glass-bottled spring water) from Manna in Perth and spent the afternoon cruising the beaches talking to lovely Perthians about superfoods (a few of them were into it, but most weren't ready for it... yet... but we planted the seed).  The next morning we made the 3 hour drive down to Dunsborough... how amazing it was to come home back into nature... not trees planted in the sidewalk or next to houses, but wild untamed raw nature.  It was also great to get back to Samudra and see everyone's amazing smiling faces that I hadn't seen in three weeks

The next day the day was the start of the David Wolfe retreat at Samudra.  As a part of the retreat, we went on a bushwalk with a member of the local Wardandi tribe who showed us a variety of wild foods and medicines used by her people.  

The next night we had a chocolate making class with David, making a special chocolate that hadn't been made since my last retreat with him in Costa Rica.  It is called "Sin Azucar," which is Spanish for without sugar and is also a play on the word sin because you are indulging in chocolate, which some might say is a sin, but it is sugarless, so its all good!  This is more than just a sugarless chocolate, it is loaded with 20+ powerful superherbs. which not only heal you, but also get you significantly high.  It was so good, I made 22 kilos (48 pounds) of it for the one night David Wolfe talk and chocolate party on Saturday night, which almost 300 people attended.  One night, David, myself, and eight other wild superfoodists had a super elixir blend-off... so much fun!  This is how superheros live!  We concocted every extreme superfood/superherb drink imaginable and then the cacao butter came out....  I'll let you decipher that one on your own.

The whole week was absolutely phenomenal and I'm super stoked to be back in Dunsborough and to have gotten to hang with David out here and make incredible chocolate and elixirs with him.  Today David and his crew left to Bali... they tried to get me to come with them, but alas I have to work... and its pretty amazing where I am.  Bali is definitely in the future plans for me though.  In addition to my daily astanga yoga practice, I've now also started an advanced yoga studies course, which is bound to take me to new levels.  Signing off for now... below is a photo of some of the David Wolfe retreat group.  Look at the view in the second photo to see whats making us smile so much!