Detachment on Nusa Lembongan

As of my last post, I had decided to postpone my departure to Nusa Lembongan and stay a few more days in Ubud to meet up with Afi from Big Tree Farms and Simon, a sharp Israeli businessman, to show them how I make chocolate and to talk business... It was 50% a huge success, 50% total failure from one potential perspective, but from my perspective, a 100% success!  I originally say 50/50 because we made chocolate, but never got to business... The reason being that my chocolate, which included superherbs like astragalus, chaga, reishi, and shilajit, got everyone so high that nobody could stop laughing and joking around and licking chocolate off their fingers!  We were having the best time ever, no question about it!  I think this goes to the ancient business wisdom that the most important meetings are those that have nothing to do with the business at all.  We were all totally in the moment enjoying a high unknown to 99% of the world and we're planning to all meet up again before I leave later this month.

The next morning I left early to catch a boat to Nusa Lembongan, a small island 12 miles off the southeast coast of Bali.  Before leaving, I bid farewell to Dani and Elan, my friends who I had been staying with in Ubud. I was now back to traveling alone, which I think is really important.  Traveling with other people is great fun and almost all of my travels in recent years, with the exception of about a week during my Bali adventures, have been with friends.  (I don't count Australia as a solo adventure, as I made so many close friends there almost instantly.)  I haven't always traveled in a  pack, however, in fact most of my travels when I was younger and exploring Costa Rica were solo adventures.  Its great to share adventures with friends, but there's a different dynamic to traveling with a group.  With a group, your well being- mental, spiritual, and physical become strongly pulled to the direction of the collective well being of the group. (I say physical too because when other people start complaining about mosquito bites, mine, which weren't itching a moment before, suddenly start to itch!)  Being alone allows you to really be present with yourself and assess where your well being really lies.  Most importantly, this solo time allows me to make sure that I am 100% happy with myself and complete on all levels and that my social interactions with others don't come from a place of any attachment or need.  I want my interactions with others to come from a place of simply wanting to enhance everyone's experience of this enchanted reality.  I think I'm relatively close to this already, but this week alone allows me to really examine whether I'm 100% there and to do the necessary internal work where the need for it arises.  I think when we can interact with others with no attachment to them, essentially not requiring that person's energy or love to supplement our own lacking of spiritual/universal energy or self-love, all of our interactions, from the most mundane day to day exchanges to moments of deep love, become more powerful, beautiful, and enlightened.  Good things happen when we're not attached to them happening.  Great high energy interactions happen when we have so much energy of our own that we don't require the other person's energy, but can celebrate in the experience of universal energy together.  Great love happens when we have so much love of our own that we don't require the other person's love, but can celebrate in the experience of universal love together! :)

Oh yeah... my first few days here had fantastic waves too!
Right now I'm in the middle of a great book, The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire- Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence by Deepak Chopra- highly highly recommended!

Back in the Water!

Before my chocolate making plans for tomorrow were created, I was originally planning to leave Ubud today for Nusa Lembongan to chase some perfect waves.  Now that I'm staying here until Saturday morning, I really felt I was missing out on surf- so I took a 40 minute taxi down south to Kerama's this morning.  I've heard of this spot and how rippable it is, but also that it can be extremely crowded.  You can imagine how blown away I was when we pulled up and saw a perfect seven footer roll through the lineup and as it died out, I could see that there were only three people in the water!  I ran as fast as I could down the beach and was right out there!  Some of the bigger sets were up to ten foot, with most in the six to eight foot range and powerful!  It felt so great to be back in the water.  With so few people in the water, I got heaps of excellent waves and also my fair share of beatings, sometimes getting caught inside by a big set, sometimes take off too late and ending up cartwheeling down the face of the wave and rag dolled under water.  The wave looks playful, but packs a serious punch!  I've got a sore neck, knee, and hip, but also a big smile on my face, which makes all the pain go away!

Good things come with chocolate!

I love life! Its totally incredible!  Two days ago I took a group of friends and friends of friends out to the Gunung Kawi temple and waterfalls where I had an incredible experience last year.  It was really sweet to share it with all of these people and see their eyes open so wide when they came up to the waterfall.

That was pretty cool, but yesterday was totally epic!  I was finally going to see the Big Tree Farms (big raw Balinese chocolate company) production facility.  It was only twenty minutes outside of Ubud, but my driver had absolutely no idea where he was going and it took us a full three hours to get there! Quite an adventure of its own!  I just stayed mellow the whole time and let the driver handle it.  As you'll see later in the story, this delay was perfect to set up what is about to happen.  I walked into the all-bamboo building and they informed me that the owner Ben Ripple was in the middle of a meeting, but that I was welcome to sit in.  As it turns out, he was making a major presentation to representatives of the Indonesian Trade Ministry on the worldwide trade of cacao, past, present, and future.  Two veteran European businessman, Serge and Simon were also there just checking out the production facility and sitting in on the presentation. It was really fascinating to learn about this side of the chocolate world that I really didn't have that much knowledge of previously.  Then as the presentation wrapped up, one of the sales ladies, Afi took Serge, Simon, and I on a tour of the whole facility.  It was really cool to see all the machines used in the processing- everything from peeling beans, to crushing them to nibs, stone grinding them into cacao paste over 15-20 hours, and then either packaging it from there or pressing it into powder and butter.  Along the way, I started sharing some of my cacao knowledge with the group and they were pretty stoked with me to say the least.  Pretty soon Serge and Simon were adamantly trying to convince Afi that Big Tree absolutely needed to hire me right away :)  I planted a few seeds of some business ideas I had in the chocolate and tonic bar world with Serge and Simon and they were quite enthralled... 

I was planning on leaving tomorrow to go chase waves on Nusa Lembongan, but the Big Tree crew and Serge and Simon invited me to come make my chocolate for them on Friday and talk business... So I'm going with the flow and hanging in Ubud until Saturday morning... who knows what will happen, but it will be great!  Then I went to a fantastic kirtan last night... it was dark in the room and the man next to me wasn't wearing his usual hat... I realized only at the end that I was sitting next to Dave Stringer the whole night!  So funny!

The adventure continues!

Bhakti inside me!

Thursday, after another trip back up to the spring water temple to fill up my bottles, I met up with some old friends for dinner who I had first met in Bali last year.  It made me so happy to finally see them again- we have all traveled to far corners of the world since our last meeting, bringing so many stories to our reunion.  They are the kind of people who are right on my level, we understand each other perfectly without even having to say anything.  Their positivity and love is contagious!

            Then we went to kirtan with the legendary Dave Stringer at Bali Spirit Festival.  The venue was an incredible traditional Balinese structure in the middle of the jungle filled with hundreds of people.  The best way I can summarize what happened is to simply say that this took my life experience to the next level!  I’ve taken supreme joy in devotional chanting since before I was even born (Thanks mom!) and to this day, I live for it!  And last night, with the combination of the Bali energy, the great crowd, and everything else, I had such a deep and profound experience, taking me to a level of bliss and ecstasy higher than I had ever experienced.  I could physically feel the energy pulsing through my head and heart filling and flowing throughout my entire being.  I love life! This is the best life ever!

Sumbawa and being present!

On Saturday, (which feels like three weeks ago, though it was only yesterday at the time I’m writing this portion of the post) Ben and I made the hour long taxi ride from Uluwatu back to the Denpasar airport.  From there we caught our small plane to fly two islands over east to Sumbawa.  Ben and I tried to get to Sumbawa last July, but never made it, so this trip was eight months in the making for us!

 Then we caught a taxi from the Bima airport, stopping off along the way to pick up food in a wild and hectic local market and finally arrived at our destination, Lakey Peak.  The lush beauty of Sumbawa is amazing, its very lightly populated, especially this part of the island and the jungle is so abundant, raw, and powerful.  Bali is totally awesome, but it can be hard at times to get away from all the people, buildings, and vehicles.

            The first afternoon at Lakey’s, we got really fun waves right out in front of where we were staying, even though it was a bit windy.  About two hours into the session, I made a quick miscalculation on a sizeable wave and the next thing I knew, I was being bounced across the reef.  I gave up some blood and skin from my hand, leg, and chest (how’s that for heart opening! Ha!) but fortunately none of it was too serious.  My hand looks like its been run over by a cheese grater, but it’s a sacrificial part of getting to know this new island and well worth it!

            This morning we got an early started and scootered ten minutes south along the coast to a wave that Ben knew from being here two years ago called Nangadoros.  It was perfect! 5-7 foot lefts and rights, no wind, crystal clear water and even the occasional barrel to slide into!  And there was nobody else there for the next three hours!  We rarely sat for more than 30 seconds between waves, they just kept coming.  The only problem with this (a very high-quality problem as we say) is that three hours of constant wave riding results in lots and lots of paddling and my arms had turned into noodles by the end.  We came back to our place, superfed ourselves, and then headed back out for a few more hours.  The wind had picked up, but we were still the only ones in the water and had a great time.

            There are so many kids in this area and they are all so stoked!  When we ride by on scooters, no matter how fast we’re going, they’ll run out into the road to high five us as we ride by.  After surfing this afternoon, we went in search of a hot spring we had heard of.  We didn’t find it, but crossing a river coming back we saw two ultra happy kids who had covered themselves from head to toe in mud- I couldn’t help cracking up laughing!

            On the morning of my last full day on Sumbawa, Ben and I headed out for an early surf, only to discover that the scooter had a flat tire half way there.  Too excited to stop, we rode the rest of the way there on the flat and scored great waves all to ourselves yet again.  On the way back we stopped in the first village and the local mechanic pulled the back tire apart, used an improvised torch to melt the puncture back together, pumped it back up and we were on the road again!

            Later in the afternoon, as Ben and I were sitting outside our rooms polishing off a juicy watermelon, a pack of five young locals came up to us asking for “donations.” We played around with them a bit and offered them food, but politely declined their monetary requests.  But these kids were persistent!  They just kept on trying to negotiate!  I could never imagine being such a negotiator at six or seven years old!  Then I had an idea, which really wasn’t a serious one, but I decided to throw it out there and see what happened.  Right next to our rooms was a 40 foot tall coconut tree with perfect young green coconuts sitting at the top, which was significantly higher than Ben or I dared climb.  Ben and I had been craving coconuts for days and hadn’t been able to get any on the island.  I said to the kids, half jokingly as I didn’t think they’d be able to get the coconuts either, “I’ll give you 60,000 rupiah (8500 rupiah=1 US Dollar) if you can get us six coconuts from that tree!”  I expected them to either not understand me or to laugh at the ridiculous offer, but what followed was quite the opposite- one of the kids faces lit up as he said “Me! Me! I do!”  Within seconds, he was climbing right up the palm with a style that was a blend of a Cirque du Soleil performer and a Sumbawan monkey.  Within ten seconds he was at the top of the tree, standing among the top fronds, knocking coconuts down to us.  I was feeling a mix of elation at getting coconuts but also concerned, thinking, “You better not fall out of there!”  But all was good and he scampered right back down the tree.  All the kids were totally stoked on their payday and really thankful.  It was nice to be able to give them an opportunity to earn the money.

             We found a machete and cracked open our first coconuts since Ubud, feeling the hydration pouring into every cell in our bodies.  Mid way through our second coconut each, Ben brought up something very profound and important for me that only he could have ever brought up.    Best friends are great at supporting you, but can also be great at calling you out on where you are falling short of your ultimate potential.  Ben, with his profound knowledge of what I can best describe only as “the ways of the universe” and great spiritual attunement,  brought up something that he had noticed that morning in the water and often over his time knowing me- that I was often not as present as he knew I was capable of being.  This I knew to be true, though I had not ever really addressed it.  So often my mind wanders out of my present reality, either to the future, past or present in another location.  Often I find myself thinking of what needs to be done to develop my future career and what I want that to be, my relationships with others, the lives of people back at home and various other topics.  All of this mental wandering and concern with what I’m going to be doing in the future has hindered my ability to have the ultimate present moment experience.  Even on Sumbawa, the idyllic dream surf island that I had grown up reading about and ogling pictures of in surf magazines, I was still mentally elsewhere a great part of the time.  I had an incredible experience on the island, but it was not the peak fulfillment of the experience it could have been had I fully been there the whole time.  Ben offered me great wisdom in this area.  I can think all day long about what I want to be doing or where I want to be, but only by living in the moment will I actually end up where I need to be doing what I need to be doing for the greatest good of myself and all others.  This is a big one for me that I know I need to put major focus on.  We’ll see how my approach to it evolves over coming days, weeks, and months, but for the moment, every time my mind wanders out of the moment, I remind myself that “It doesn’t matter.”  I’ll get to the future at just the right time.  Magic doesn’t happen in the future, past, or somewhere other than where I am right now- it happens in the present moment.

Happy New Year! 1934!

Yesterday Ben and I headed south to Uluwatu and scored some fun little waves in the afternoon all to ourselves at a little right hand reef break, whose name remains unknown.  Today is Nyepi, the Balinese New Year, a day on which the Balinese all remain in their homes and silently fast- it is a day of introspection for them.  We thought this only applied to Balinese and that we could go surf today, but when we tried to leave our place, they informed us that this would not be happening.  So we're in the room all day!  Good thing we've got books, movies, and super foods to carry us through!  Tomorrow morning we fly to Sumbawa!

Oh yeah- on the Balinese calendar, today is the first day of 1934... never thought I would get to experience the 30's, but Bali is full of surprises!

Back in Bali

First stop from the airport- the nearest durian stand!

It was great meeting up with my friends Ben and Sayuri and we had a delicious dinner at one of our favorite Ubud raw food spots- Clear Cafe.  This morning we're going up to the spring temple to fill up on water, then heading down south find waves.  After being relatively settled in LA for five months, the gypsy lifestyle is taking a little re-getting used to, but I'm diving right into it!  More adventures to come!

Oh the signs you see in Bali...

Going out big!

This morning started in Taipei, Taiwan for me, after having flown 14 hours across the Pacific to stop here for four hours en route to Bali.  You go into a weird time warp when you're in a dark plane for that long, but I did manage to get some good sleep.  I arrived in cloudy Taipei at 5:30 AM local time and being a good ashtangi, went right to the gate and laid out my yoga mat to do my morning practice.  After that long haul flight, it felt great to get moving and open up my body.  Its such a blessing to have this practice to take with me wherever I go to open up and reconnect.  I did my best to stay focused while every passer by stopped for a few seconds to try to determine what exactly I was doing.  The janitor lady stood about five feet away and watched me the entire time without so much as even blinking!  I told Ben, who I'm meeting in Bali, about this via Skype and he said "She's probably in the dunnies now bustin' out some maneuvers!"

But before this day could start, yesterday had to happen first.  My final day (for now) in America was without question the best day ever by far so far!  Saturday night was an all-night chocolate making extravaganza that lasted until 4:30 in the morning, but Monday morning I flipped my clock right back around to wake up at the same time I had gone to bed the previous night to get in a yoga practice before crushing an epic green superfood pudding and driving off to the tonic bar.  I love working at the tonic bar so much that I crave it and miss it when I'm not there.  Monday was no exception to this, with all of my great friends passing by throughout the day for one more Sage superfood concoction and for hugs goodbye.  It was just one of those days full of hilarity- so much laughter and so much fun.  Most importantly of all, though, real connection with real people.
As soon as I finished my shift at the bar, I had to run out the door to beat traffic to Oasis Wellness Center to teach a super foods class to an excited and eager group of students.  I poured as much information into them as I could and was really impressed talking with them afterwards to see how much they retained.  Then I went back home just for an hour, to finish packing my last few items, throw together a delicious salad with spirulina and chlorella all over it, make an ultra dense superfood pudding to take on the plane with me (I hoped they wouldn't consider it a liquid if I made it so thick that you could turn the container upside down and it wouldn't pour out... no such luck though- security sent me back out and I had to eat it before going through again.) and head off to the airport.

The past 36 hours have already been so under out of control, I can't wait to see what happens when I actually get to Bali!  Time to go get on the plane!

Eternally Living on the Edge of Death

     I don’t watch movies very often and there’s not even a television in my house, so I don’t often get exposed to the extreme sensory stimulation that these sources provide. Am I missing out? Some might say yes. But for the most part I think I’ve found many better things to spend my time doing. However, when I do watch a movie now, because I’m not so over stimulated, it can often be a very powerful experience.

     Over the past year, I often feel that I’m in the fast lane, pedal to the metal with my personal evolution. It’s a wild ride and I totally love it. About 10 days ago, I watched the movie Beyond Borders, a love story of two humanitarian workers. All in all, it was a great movie, but far beyond that, it planted a seed of realization deep inside of me that I feel to be infinitely powerful- Life is so delicate, I could die tomorrow. I genuinely feel that this may prove to be the most powerful and empowering realization that I have had in my life so far. We’ve all heard so many times “Live this day like its your last” and other such phrases, and though I always understood them, I never understood them, meaning I never felt them resonate at the depths of my soul like I did this time. I now see that I have to live every moment with the full realization that I could well die tomorrow and must act accordingly! Far from making me fearful, this has wiped away all of my fear. Living this way is truly living on the edge and as the old saying goes “If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking too much room.” Recently I read quote from Bob Dylan that my mom wrote down when she was my age- “What is money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.” This is one of the best quotes I’ve ever read- but it only achieves perfection if what you want to do is really what you would have wanted to do on your last day.

     If I die tomorrow, will I be completely happy with how I have lived in my last day? What do I have to do right now so that if tomorrow marks the end of this life for me, I know I lived as fully as this universe allowed me to and served my complete purpose? This new approach fully liberates me to go big in all areas of my life, especially those which are most aligned with my true purpose. Once this realization fully sinks in all the way, there is no holding back! And that is one of the most amazing things I have ever felt!

     This has major implications in both the realms of work and play. The two areas where it becomes most exciting, though, are truth and love. On what may be your last day, there’s no time for anything but the truth, the full and deepest version of it. This goes far beyond just speaking honestly. It means being true to yourself and others in thought, word, deed, and intention. To me, being true to others and myself means doing whatever is necessary to make every interaction “real.” 99% of all of our interactions are so superficial, just barely scratching the surface of the depths of each others’ realities, so rarely ever really “seeing” each other. Of course those deeper realms can be sensitive areas, delicate, often with past trauma and pain. But when we can work through these past things and fully open to every interaction, it makes every moment, every word, every breath so much more meaningful. We have to start on the surface with each other, but we should only stay there as long as we have to. Once you begin descending to the depths of real connection with other people, really feeling and seeing them on the spiritual level, you just start wanting to live at that depth and realize that anything more superficial is just not worth it- especially on your last day! If you had 24 hours to go, wouldn’t you want to connect fully, openly, and deeply? To see and be seen? This depth of connection is where you really find the truth.

     Now for the implications of this realization as it pertains to love. Many people often talk about being rich or wealthy with love. I have been blessed to always have had so much love in my heart, which by this definition makes me a very wealthy man. Here are some true statements (from a wonderful recent blog by David Wolfe) about wealth and feel free to replace the word “wealth” with “love” and see how perfectly it works!

•True wealth (love) cannot be hoarded, only shared
•True wealth (love) is not created by what one has acquired, but by what one gives away
•And true wealth or happiness in oneself (love) is directly proportional to the happiness (love) that one brings to others

If this is my last day, there is absolutely no option- the only way is to love completely. 100% genuinely, unconditionally, and whole-heartedly in whatever way possible. When my time is done, I will know that I loved as fully as I possibly could. It is now inconceivable do anything less than give complete love. I don’t mean to make this sound simple or easy, because it definitely isn’t. I really believe in the lesson taught in James Redfield’s The Celestine Prophecy about love. Love is a super-powerful energy of which we can hold onto great amounts, but not infinite amounts. We have to be able to replenish our reserves, downloading directly from the universe in order to be able to give consistently and abundantly without ever depleting our reserves. The best way to do this, in my experience, is to have meaningful experiences in nature. If we can do this every day, even better! This reconnects us to the source from which we came and allows us to love without limits. And on your last day, don’t you want to be able know that you loved without limits? There are many ways of giving love and I will find along the way that people often aren’t ready, prepared, or comfortable receiving love in certain ways at this moment. This may change or evolve in that person over time, but I can’t be attached to that change. This lesson has come to me several times in the past year and I am now finally completely understanding.  Instead, I get to let go of that attachment and figure out how I can give that person love and take that route to give it fully! If someone isn’t open to love in words, I will give total love with my eyes and smile. If someone isn’t open to physical love, I will give total love with my heart and spirit. I will always find a way because this is the most important thing in life. This way, when I exhale for the last time, whether that comes tomorrow or in 3000 years, I will know in the deepest depths of my heart that I loved completely. There are many ways to die, but what matters most to me is to die knowing this as my deepest truth.

Teachers and Friends

As one of my last video projects before I depart Samudra, I made this video as a tribute to my incredible friends and teachers who have taught and inspired me so much and put so much love out into the world every day.

The Best Breakfast Ever? +Spicy!

Durian Adventures!

Bali!

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!