change

i was walking home at night through the forest to my room. i love that feeling... the winding path, the tall trees...but the usual closeness i feel when i walk in nature, was not there...almost, but not quite...again i thought "what? what is it all about?" and i received an answer; "just witness". Oh! okay!...and i continued to walk and slowly saw how when i was just witnessing what was going on, i was already connecting to something else inside of me. and the nature became more alive. hmm...

the following day, before dusk, i heard some families walking over to the sea and decided that i may as well go hoop now, so that if any of them want to hoop too, they can join me. and i walked over with 2 hoops, like usual. it's always more fun to hoop together with someone, and it is a chance for me to teach who ever wants to hoop, for free....so why not.

while i started on the short path to the sea, a father was walking a few steps ahead of me. i had noticed when i walk on the street that it is not customary to overtake someone. you just kind of slow down to their pace and keep a decent distance between the two of you. ( i assume this has to do with ego...and a feeling of togetherness instead of individuality).  i learned this the hard way, by having women who were walking slowly ahead of me to the market in the mornings, suddenly stop and cross to the other side of the road, because i had infringed on the "respectful" space between us. so  i practiced with this man in front of me now as we both walked on the narrow path some 30 meters to the sea.

 the 2 little girls gave shouts of glee when they saw the hoola hoops and came out of the water to have a few rounds with it. one of the grandmothers tried, some of the teens, and eventually the father, meanwhile, i was just hooping in my "non-stop-just-looking-out-at-the-sea-meditative" mode. once most of them left and the father was still enjoying and succeeding, i showed him a few more moves with sign language and let him practice some more. by the end of the hour i had had enough, and he did too. we said goodbye, and i laughed to myself how an hour ago, we were strangers walking on this path, and now i was his hoola hoop teacher! i enjoy seeing people enjoy hooping and love it when people try try and try again...and he was one of those...

what happened next kind of blew my mind...i had just turned from looking at the sea for an hour and was now facing the forest on the path to my room. suddenly the forest loomed huge and was greater than three dimensions! i did a slow double take, so as not to lose contact with what i was experiencing, but still to make sure i was alive and this is really happening. and it was...it was as if another dimension of life force and vividness and color and texture had suddenly inhabited the same trees i have seen everyday for the past couple of months...i wondered if it was the lighting as the sun set?  i was grateful, and just tried not to make any sudden movements in order to prolong this vision for as long as i could witness it.

then this morning while i was reflecting on life, i remembered how about 20 years ago a close friend had expressed the idea that "it's as if you are in a room and suddenly the floor opens up and you go falling down and land in an even bigger room beneath it." and i wondered if that is the change that i was witnessing. that a week ago i had written a friend that i feel that i am bursting already. i have no more room inside of me to be grateful for everything i see and feel and experience. and that snorkeling with such colors and designs of fishes and corals just baffles the mind and senses and what more can i do to say thank you to God?! 

what followed that was a slow week of "sinking" into an aloneness ...suddenly my friends weren't around, no one writing, no one calling, gamelon practice cancelled, and i started to realize that this isn't fun, ("the floor opening underneath my feet"?). i knew there was a reason it was happening, perfectly orchestrated, but still preferred to be high and happy. and i wrote the blog "alone"...and then today, after some major miracles happened yesterday, that are inexplicable, i thought...maybe i am actually witnessing "change"? as if God was putting a new screen for me to view and experience life and i caught him in the act!

i remembered another conversation also some 20 years ago when a friend told me that loving someone is so painful, because no matter how much you love them, you can never truly be inside that person. and now i realized also, that the way i see the world, is not how anyone else sees it. it's not even how i saw it a day ago! here it is changing before my very eyes! and a day ago, when i thought i was suddenly returning to israel for an indefinite time, i suddenly saw the nature around me, in technicolor, and realized i would not be seeing this in another day! and i got all chocked up. i realized how connected i have become with this nature that nourishes me so deeply, as i see it, smell it, walk through it, care for it.

and the thought crossed my mind, that maybe these balinese have a totally different experience of nature than me?! that all of their superstitions about walking alone at night, or the monsters in the sea during storms, etc...may just be true! that maybe they see things that i don't see! just like my vision is changing while i am here...and they live in 2 worlds, they even have names for them; the seen and the unseen...it's simple...and i must admit, even though it may sound a bit childish (which the balinese definitely are!) that i have begun to see faces in the rocks and trees lately...