thePlace

A delirium envelops me – from lack of sleep. The allergy I contracted from Bali added to the heaviness of my eyes.  Unsure of from what, just swelling and light peeling of the skin around my eyes.  They are the most sensitive parts of my body, the first to be afflicted whenever I expose the body to any trifling of inhospitable conditions, MSG especially.  My bothersome susceptibility is to be blamed.

 

The 7 hours of long wait seems like another life time.  I’m unredeemably stuck and very much doomed.  My first try with JAL and my last.  No more cheap flights.  The horrid flight to Bali 6 months ago is another forbidding reason not to fly JAL.  Narita is a dowdy kind of  town, a place I would not go out to.

 

I’m depleted, no mood to walk around airport shops, even if I do, my inanition would have prevented it.  I have my sun-shades on; otherwise, the glare of the shops’ spotlights would hit me like a clenched fist.   Nothing appetizing to eat – I had 3 apples since arriving in the morning. 

 

As usual the dog-tiredness would not make me sleep a bit, not in the lounge, not in this overly air-conditioned area. So, more writing.  The eyes would have to endure more misery.

 

Thinking about the qi, thinking if I should raise the vibration.  The Narita airport must be a huge block of electromagnetic field fueled by giant electrical machines.  Sifu said not to practice qi in such a place. But I feel my being incarcerated in a dark and heavy place, chained, mind clustered, heart fainting….

 

I wish qi would come and find me.  Like it first did through sifu 5+ weeks ago.  After he opened my points that day, I barely slept for 3 nights. The vibrations kept me going as if the qi in and around me have been aching to open up to each other for eternity; the flames of spontaneity once let loose, danced in eternal songs.  The dance swept me up like flying sparks, glinting, unable to stop.  ‘i’ was burning in a bright light of qi, luminous and unwillingly shining – in a blaze, burning everything. Leaving nothing, yet everything stays.

 

Everything else is inconsequential.  The void in me filled up to the brim, dreamlike, happy and full of energy.  It lasted, like a whirlwind, swept through the dry land. 

 

Those 3 days, in spite of all the last minutes activities, I found the quietness, the voidlike quietness.  If only for a brief moment, I tasted it. I knew it was the qi but didn’t confirm it with sifu until later.   As I practice, it comes and revisits me, now and again.  Not as intense, a lot more subtly – when I practice in the sough of the wind in the Space, when I am in the presence sifu’s qi (if he has the time and fancy to send me some powerful bolts), when I meditate after the qi exercises.  The feeling of lucidness, the beauty of its simplicity, the it-ness.  No more ‘the I”, no more the perceiver – just be.   And lately when I learned to spin the points half-instructedly, I accidentally floated into the void - quite a different out-of-body experience. 

 

In the Mahamudra Upadesa, Tilopa says, cut the root of mind and let consciousness remain naked, self-quieted, self-existing, luminous essence of mind is the mahamudra, the unborn essence of mind….

 

Back in Bali, in much the same bold spirit, I absorbed sifu’s emailed instructions, I imagined his words, tried to grasp the deeper meaning of his directions.  I started with Tao qi meditation daily.  When I asked him when I can learn to fly, Sifu said it would take me a year to master the Tao qi meditation.  In other words, don’t even think about it! 

 

There were bad and good days of practicing – my mind wandered off fleetingly, the chameleon on the coconut tree caught my attention, the kids ridding the buffalos down the paddy field made me laugh, etc.  There were a couple days when I had to practice in the bus, one or two other days when I could only think about practicing….

 

On 28 June, Sifu said I should add the Shaolin qi gathering exercise. 2 days later, I told him I felt the qi in my dantien was overflowing (as confirmed by the shinseh). On 30th, sifu took me to the next step of basic healing breathing exercise; he said in his typical brusque email fashion, “You can do qi healing already, now that you have qi in your dantien.”  -  I save sifu’s instruction in my laptop for references when I gnaw over the practice of qi, etc. 

 

The same day, I started sending healing qi to a friend that has inoperable cancer in the US.

 

Came first week of July, I answered sifu’s questions and gave him details feelings and steps I do.  On 11 July he asked me to spin the qi from soles to Baihui and down to palms.  Took a couple of days to digest the spinning sensation. On 13 July, I tasted the radiation of qi from my skin.

 

On 17, sifu wrote “spin the following points 1. yongguang (at your sole), the huiyin, the dantien, the middle dantien (between your breasts), the upper dantien (your third eye), and the baihui.  Keep the qi spinning at the points.  Start spinning one at a time.  After that, spin all together and keep them spinning and when you exhale, use their energy to come out of your palm.  Tell me your progress.”  I did and I accidentally floated out because of an email gap.

 

In Singaraja I had to be chauffeured to an internet café, and not every day I could have such a luxury.  Sometimes, the Place took too much of my energy, I couldn’t even face the slight discomfort of cold mandi when returned in the chilly evening wind– not just the iciness of the well water but the bites that go with it…hence the gap of instructions.

Yesterday, the day of leaving Bali, Ayu ran her hands around my body when I was spinning.  I asked her if she felt anything and if she did, what. She said with wide-eyes, ‘plak, plak, plak, kuat sekali(really strong)!”  I think she meant the feel of electricity or something like that.

 

In a breath, that’s the qi adventure thus far.  A long long way to go still, and sifu would say I having even touched the tip of the iceberg…. 

 

Now that I’ve described the feeling of qi, it’s not too unlike one of the mushroom trips I had in the Philippines.  Wanted to be alone, I walked down to the lower hill towards the sea,  meditated under the sun looking out over the powdery white white sand, the hills on the east side and the forest behind me.  Everything was lucid, an inexplicably clearness that makes one weep.  I saw the qi, the wave of energy that came upon me from the ocean, the sun, the forest…and me rising with it, being one with it…. I smiled; it was pure bliss, a little more graphic, powerful and vibrantly red.   And the message was, ‘I must learn to die….’

 

And here I’m still in the Narita airport, few more hours to go and absolutely famished!!!

Had my first vegetarian meal on route to Narita.  The boiled banana pink sauce made it look like a Japanese grimcrack souvenir that tasted much like plastic.  The hostess mistakenly brought a non - veg meal earlier : porridge with prawns, soba and fish.  Still woozy from an on - off plane sleep; I stared at it for a long while.  The little curled up unqualified deadness of those red prawns was a dim reminder that they were once living beings, now slit and broiled.  The painful vision gave me a jolt.  I hailed down the hostess and she brought me the veg meal that I requested while boarding.

 

All the same.  Plane food that barely turns off ones hunger and afterwards, hardly remember what one has just injested.

 

Became a vegetarian on 23 June 2005.   That day I came down to Sanur from Singaraja to meet Ibu Made,  a long time friend of Sifu, whom he thought could be of help in one of my quargmires in Bali.  That night I walked the beach filled with seafood restaurants.  I was craving for sashimi. The hunger for a great fresh fish meal after not eating for the whole day was quite over powering.  I walked passed Ryoshi, Sakura and a bunch of Japanese sounding restaurants.  An atypical desire to fight the fish-eating ravenous prevailed over, I opted for a meager organic salad.  Conceivably, I did that in bereavement for the 9 koi fish (out of the 10 that I bought for the Place) that died on me the previous days.

 

The want for a fish meal followed me back to Tom's house.  A power that held me, made me restless, unfulfilled.  The quietus came when I decided to meet it head-on : the root of it, the how and why the desire for good food has been such a driving force.

 

My life thus far has been the 'live to eat' sort.  Besides travelling for months, my money has been spent on foods and drinks.  Sampling champagnes, cheeses, wines and great European foods for almost a year, restaurants reviews whenever I return to the US, friends that take me miles away to try out ever-innovative delicious Malaysian foods when I am back in KL.... A neurotic game to look for the unreachable through the fleeting pleasures found with senses overloading and over-indulged belly.

 

While meditating in the sitting area next morning, a weird and wonderful yearning came over me - I came to the decision that vegetarianism is part of the path.

 

No more meat and no more fish. Haven't missed them since.

 

Monroe almost cried when she heard the news - no more companion for her restaurants binge in SF!

                                -----------------

Anyway， It has been a year of change. Quit alcohol in May while drinking in a bar in KL this last trip. The sorry sight of drunken men shook me and I thought it was time to stop.  No longer has the desire to be a part of the scene. 

 

The usual buzz from smoking left me quite mysteriously when I returned from NZ in April.  The vagary and caprice of senses overloading are now null and gone.

 

Perhaps all these are preparing me for something, for the Place, for the qi maybe....

 

Leaving Bali in 2 days. These past days were like a blur of hunger, a time without roots – scrambling to get everything done, one last chance to stir the Place into the right direction. 

 

One thing after another, I try to make quick decisions.  Where each window is, what material to be used, where the toilet bowl should be placed, the constant adjustments to be made, when and where to plant what, how plants should be grouped, things to be prearranged, Sifu’s instructions to be translated, laminated and posted on the wall for the gardeners…. Every little detail has to be attended to.  Being the sole decision maker, though physically drained, black eyes and all; there is no time for self-absorbed fretting and whimpering.

Not that I know what I’m doing, it’s just that no one else cares and knows better.  I care, so I pretend that I know – pure own-sensical way. 

 

The rocks underneath the house have been cleared, it took 10 days.  Made has agreed to a smaller profit, I have given up wooden floor and settled for terracotta - a difference of about $800. 

 

It’s the garden; the garden is the sole thing that would leave my heart hanging in Bali, dark souled. Time seems to have stopped when it comes to see any progress out of the 5-week hard slog. Everything moves in snail-pace.  The soil is still flaky when touched and slippery mud when rained on.  The few trucks loads of sawdust have vanished without a trace due to the recent downpours.  The 7-truck loads of dung seem like a layer of thin grease measly floating in the sea of denying dry hard earth.  The condition of gloom and dislocation only thickens when I found out that earthworms were no where to be found when a hole of more than 40 cubic cm is dug (as instructed by Sifu). 

He says the land is barren and much time, effort and money are needed to rebuild the soil.  I know he is right.

 

I’m still learning about the soil and experimenting with different means to build the soil.  Two piles of compost are still struggling to survive, and won’t be ready for at least another month or so. The success of bio and the bacteria making are yet to be revealed. 

The gardeners’ long-drawn-out way of working makes everything seems unbearable….I give them three months to plant the things I wanted, mostly local indigenous insects repelling herbs and medicinal plants and usable grass and eatable plants for fencing and protection from erosion. The grass is going to cost more than $500 for a mere 500 sq m. The grass guys are coming today; it will take them 3 days to place the grass in the ground. The grass is to be guided zealously and be multiplied to the rest of the garden as ground cover. 

 

I have pleaded for Made to personally take charge of it and not to leave it to Ketut, the supervisor he hired.  I want to see green when I return!!

 

The maximum budget for the final completion is $4,000.  The money put out for the garden to date, is slightly more than $3,000.  Not including the pool and the 2 Bales that I have paid Made, which totaled about $9,000.  Thus far besides the lower fish pond, the garden is like a black hole sucking up all my energy and not much to show for. 

 

Indistinguishably there is something quite inhuman, discouraging, about this landscape, especially in the full glare of the heat haze.  Although I love them so, those desolately beautiful great big rocks add to the gloom – they have the first say where the plants can be placed. 

 

My edginess and my desire to see it green, fertile, and filled with sublimely beautiful tropical trees and flowers…make the current condition all the more a mournful exasperation.

 

The half-cut cheerless cloves trees are determine to stay forever.

 

The excitement is not gone, only the weariness of mind and body has taken over momentarily.

            I visited the Tree with the lion spirit in it. Before the paved road, there used to be a dirt track through the area in the northwestern border of the Place.  In an island of spirits and gods, villages swear that there are spirits around this tree and scare witless of it.  Ruli saw it a few times from a far - a lion in the tree.  I believe her.  Being a Reiki master and a healer, she has that special gift. 

            The Tree belongs to a neighbor that doesn’t dare to sell the land – in case the spirit puts a curse on him for selling it.  Not sure how old or what kind it is.  I plan to put the octagonal meditation hall next to it because of the open green view of the valley below and the sea beyond.  I have always liked the Tree, know that it is in the background watching but never pay much attention to it until now.    

            ‘Singaraja’ means the lion king in Bahasa, although it is implausible to find lions in Indonesia, I thought it’s quite appropriate to have the lion spirit ruling the area. It’s a good fortune to have the king dwells next to the Place.

            Majestically perched on the ridge of the hill, it is magnificent. Its rugged skin warp and twist, things grow in them, insects mate around it. I sniffed the left-over heat musk on its skin, slightly sweet.  A lonesome house stood far away in the next green canyon below, no birds, no sounds; I wondered why there were no offerings on the ground…. I stood there for a long time, looking at it absorbedly, listening to the silence – can’t find anything that resembles a lion.

            The sun is setting, lit up as if a spotlight played on it, the Tree danced in the cool breeze.  I felt its qi for a while, stroked the big trunk, said my hello and thanked the spirit for being there.

            Over and over again, I awake in the Space with a queer, dreamlike impression, that all these white overhead, all this blackness around me and the strange sounds streaming through… listening, I find my eyes & thoughts growing fuzzy.           

            New sounds, new nocturnal visitors. This time, bats that come and eat pretty pinkish unpalatable water guava fruits that hang in abundance from a big tree that leans a yard away from the bed. I hear the flutter of the wings between leaves, and the bombings of odds and ends of the fruits on the floor and table, while eat flying.  With the whooshing above, their innocuous performance is palpably spectacular in the black night.

            Try to think it’s a cool thing but still it is an undeniable sleep-stopper.

            A room with no walls is the Space that I am living in as a paying guest, while waiting for the House to be built in the Place.  A sweet-dire spot with a mattress on the ground in a sprawling ant-city, the Space is on the second floor of a separate out house, 20 yards from Ruli and Made’s home in Dusun Klunching, one of the small villages around Singaraja. Besides the double bed on the floor, a long low table, small cushions to sit on and a small refrigerator, there are a few odd unutilized furniture spread along the 5M x 9M space.  A lovely ever-changing view of the open paddy field fronting the Space, and the distant Bali Sea in the far northeast corner.  With only low lying bamboo barrier on three sides and less than a meter tall glass in front, the Space which is about 24 feet high up from the ground is opened for all that passes the paddy field. 

            My only semi-private sanctuary - is the thin half-opaque white mosquito net.  Lately, it has been my made-believed solace from the wild wind in the days too.

            Without any trees and other building from the far-off tree-lined horizon, nights in the Space are often nippy and windy. When there are strong wind and rain, I am completely under the mercy of the elements.  Every now and then I have to get up in the middle of my sleep and pushed my bed and all the cushions away from hard tropical flying rain.  Half soaked and things flying about, sleeps are unapproachable on those nights.   To go to for a pee, I had to climb about 22 tall Balinese uneven steps down (which requires concentration and wakefulness if I don’t want to break my neck) and walked 14 meters along the down stair space where it is used for massage training, to a dingy soiled western little toilet with no sitting protection.  It means –I would be totally awake after the climb and spend the rest of the night tossing and turning.

            More sleep deprivation factors: The fun-loving big orange ants that use my body as racing freeway, the voracious smaller brown ones that take a chunk of me whenever there is anything remotely appetizing (so I discovered my sweat is sweet – through itchy red-dots covered skin), and the tiny furry-like cozy ones that are just attracted to the warmth of my body.  In a few days, I have learned to identify their moves on me, inevitably kill some with uncontrollable reflexes. And there are those itches from field bugs bites, noises from the scuttling snoopy rats,  dogs that bark incessantly for whatever reasons, roosters that started off at 11 in the night and periodically through the morning, the loud cry from the mosque at 4:30 am not too far away, and almost nightly and at 5 am, the never-ending wailing of temple ceremonial singings and clinking and gonging of Gamelans from all directions. 

            In an open space, noises carry far and clear.              

      This morning Ruli performed the cleansing ceremony on the Place.  The 4 beautiful crystals which I bought from Denpasar were put into shallow cemented holes in the 4 corners of the land. She meditated, did the cleaning rituals, cleaned the crystals, and instructed Nyoman3 to plant the sanctified Merlati bunga (with fragrant white flowers) next to the hole.  On each hole, she laid the 3-leged 6 directions Reiki Tibetan healing symbol and on top, the crystal surrounded with 5 small pink rose quartzes.  She planted the lit incense, blessed the stone, sounded the singing bowl, murmured prayers, touched her forehead with the water jerry can, and then watered the surrounding soil with the holy water obtained from Tirta Empul - the sacred bathing place in Bali where dead warriors were revived.                                                              

            Later, she had the gardener gathered dried twigs and leaves in a big bowl and burned sea salt and  crushed ginger with it. The strong summer North East wind was in its top element under the blazing mid-day sun; the aromatic bluish smoke wafted upward – towards the site for my house. 

            The smoke thinned out, cleansing and blessing the Place, almost hidden by the heat haze, then abruptly, disappeared all together.

Met the Teacher, my sifu – the guru for my voyages of qigong and organic gardening.  Found him through the net and met him in his chicken farm the Sunday before I left KL for Bali.  Pulling into a parking place, I spotted him right away in a crowd.  I thought I knew him but can’t think of where and when we have met. Perhaps he looks like someone I knew –but nameless and faceless.

He beckoned me over and opened up my qi points.  A strange thing to do to a complete stranger but I felt completely at ease.  I was there to see if I can learn anything about organic farming and I was sure I didn’t tell him that I wanted to learn qigong.  My doctor, the shinseh in Bali, has prescribed qigong as a recommended panacea.  I have always been interested in knowing more about qigong but never had a chance.  The last couple of weeks in KL I did ask around to see if I could do an intense course.  

A coincidence - a fortuitous collaboration ascribable to the right conditions, in the right place?!!! He felt it and he knew.

An incredible farm he has.  A glorious display of richness, exotic fowls and animals – the emanation of the creator’s esoteric intelligence.   He gave me his recipes for making bio-nutrient, lactic bacillus bacteria and compost.  These became the corner stone of my organic gardening attempt.  A feverish effort to make the soil fecund in the Place, I discover new issues and problems weekly – the sudden arrival of termites, the mass attack of evil biting ants, the pile refuses to heat up, etc.  Sifu is the only advisor I have and I’m indebted for his tireless sms and emails that take me through all the challenges.

He also imparted the basic qi exercises on the same afternoon – which I began practicing since and feel the change in and around me.  He taught me more and is teaching me as he guides me via the net and the phone.

It’s been about 6 weeks now, and I’m still struggling with the composts and indefatigably practicing his updated qi instructions – inevitably hassling him with my omnipresent queries. I’m certain that Sifu keeps a busy schedule, his late night emails, early morning messages, plus the postings in his blog give the impression that he has no need of rest.

I only hope his earnest support will not give place to a dull regretful lassitude later.

I see him dancing with the qi, flowing with it, in it…he is it.  Free from unnatural trammels. 

I have only met him once – spent a few hours with him in his farm.  His face now seems at once clear and blurred as I try to recall how he looks.  All I know about him is that he owns 2 farms ( a chicken and a goat farms), he had spent part of his life in Indonesia; and that his grandfather was his sifu.  Yet it’s easy to think that he knows about most things in life, his protean knowledge exudes that.

I wrote him once jokingly, ‘karma would have it that he has only met me once before he knew that he is inescapably became a guru on my gambling attempt in life….’  He wasn’t amused and quite rightfully; he only wants to keep his role as the Teacher of my organic farming and gigong adventures, nothing superfluous.

He has also inspired this, the keeping of a blog – perhaps not exactly palatable to his idea of keeping one.  His, laconic, and this, verbose.

For all that I’m grateful, an unexpected and much needed assistance; not of my own creation or choice.

From the bottom of the land, I stood under the late afternoon slanting sun, looking up at the Place. The sky was so dazzling still; I dared not raise my eyes – slight mournful feeling seeps through my being. Nyoman2 was mumbling in his incomprehensively low voice, something about the cutting of clove trees; I was too absorbed to try to understand.

There must have been at least 25 people working in the Place; laborers, fat housewives, kids, skinny old men, etc. I have picked the top of the Place as the site for building my house, the south border, on the west half of the land – for obvious reasons: the best view, the most efficient use of the Land and most private. Everything has to be moved manually by people hired locally; so agonizingly slow and inefficient. Small amount, slow lug up and even slower down – for now they are burden-free to talk and smoke which are part of the routine. These people are paid daily and Made moans repeatedly that it’s already costing him (me) too much just to dig the big hole and the work is yet to begin! I suggested sub-contracting it, having monthly workers, etc – Made shake his head - he has bad experiences, it won’t work in this part of Bali. Oh well.

To add to this painfully ineffectual method of hauling, I have just verified that there are huge boulders underground and much effort and more money are needed to begin the foundation. Apparently those boulders (unsure what type) that first attracted me are everywhere – not only above ground, they are beneath too! I try to picture that the Place was just a rocky hill since beginingless time, and then there was a huge earth quake, a landslide, and all the rocks went underneath. Or perhaps the other way round. The point is, I don’t even know enough geology to make my imagination interesting!

I have chosen my course - there is no point blankly stare; I must make decisions, give instructions, make efforts to try to realize my dream or dream-like Place at the cheapest and most efficient way. I can’t think of anywhere else to put my house, besides, it’s too late now. I will have to cut back the design, reduce the cost to fit it into my budget. The pool budget has already been figured in, the question of maintenance – to be dealt with later.

Now comes the issue of the soil. I must decide how much money to pay out to make this the dream garden. Most of all, I must now take steps to turn the land into fecund soil. 2 ½ acres is not big but it isn’t so small either. To begin with, the land has not been taking care of for the longest time. It was just weeds and dried land and when it turned in to a clove orchard using spring water diverted from above, the guardian hardly did what is needed to get just enough of cloves for subsistence.

I now discovered the dark brown earth is hard at the top and there is no topsoil whatsoever. When dig a meter or so down, it’s quite golden brown, a mud-like layer which one of the gardeners, Nyoman2, says it’s even less fertile. Another impairment is the erosion on the sloppy ground, which leads to the question of how to prevent further nutrient run-off in the rainy season.

To make all these even more challenge – I have no idea what to do besides the the few things read on the net, relying on my common sense, smsing Sifu to get bits and pieces of urgent questions answered. The problem with talking to the average locals is their version of fertility has a different meaning. Besides having water in the land and adding some Sapi dung, they basically leave it to nature and do with what is given to them. As long as the land gives them what they needed to survive – it is fertile enough.

I must focus on finishing the house and the pool while working on the soil. I’ve just started with composting; they will be used on the vegetable and herb garden. As of now, there is no time to wait and too little compost to be useful for the current issues at hand.

House:
Get the final drawings and estimates
Details need to be given – statutes, colors, lamps,etc
Soil/mulch/garden:
Budget/get estimate on how much needed to get the basic done.
7 truck loads of cow dried dung, add or mix 7 truck loads sawdust – at least 4cms thick. Not covering northeast side of the land where there are fruit trees.
Plant grass on area that won’t be stepped on – string off to prevent damage.
Try to have the plants bought planted – taking into consideration of future plans, etc.
Wire fence to be built – north and west end, surrounded by cassava – fast growing, green leaves to be used as compost, etc. Layered with Tulasi, Lemon grass, etc.
Erosion:
make swales – which I must settle for the moment. This will be done when the grass is being planted. The 3 gardeners will make them while grass guys plant.
Plant vertivet and Gajah Grass to prevent erosion. Priority- southeast end of the land, next to the street. Have Made delineate where exactly the planned parking area is.
Bamboo to be planted along road as fence – east border and way up to the Place. Yellow bamboo – near house or tank to serves as pretty barrier.
……..

It’s a little overwhelming trying to find the other side of the rainbow-the money involved and the effort needed.