Painting in Tropical Rainstorms

I bend my knees to shower. I lean down to use the kitchen sink. Balinese people are shorter than I am. Their houses are smaller for me. This must be what it’s always like for people taller than me; a world of reaching down.

My first morning in the rice paddies. I wake up to sunshine, mountain views, honeymooners fucking with passion in the red tower-looking building. I crossed the jungle bridge to the pathway that leads to Intuitive Yoga.

I’ve been invited by a handsome man to practice yoga at 7am - sunrise. We met in a yoga workshop called “Spinal Freedom” and we bumped into each other again randomly on the jungle path. I love saying YES to these invitations people offer. I end up in yoga classes, spas, sound healings and restaurants I would never have chosen on my own. Little surprises delivered to me through other human beings. All I have to do is say YES and show up. Plus the joy on people’s faces when I walk in the room! Every time I hear these gloriously spoken words…. “You came!”

We stretched our bodies awake, opening my eyes to the island from above. After sunrise, the clouds hide the mountains. This was the first time in over a week that I actually saw Mount Batur. Soft morning air blew through the windows and birds played as we flowed. I laughed and traded big eyed looks with the girl practicing beside me when a mysterious giant bug dropped onto the wood floor between our mats. We still don’t know what type of bug it was but it wasn’t a butterfly.

It’s official, I’m living my dream. I’m naked. I am living in a house that is more outside in nature that it is inside. I move seamlessly between painting, cooking, yoga, coffee shop, resting in bed, working on my laptop, livestreaming and staring at plants while sipping green tea from the island of Java. No interruptions, distractions, being rushed or asked to do anything I don’t want to do. All this time to be alone and create. All this time to spread out and breathe at my own pace, to be in my own energy, to listen. I am here to listen. Three different bird calls, raindrops on the big palm leaves, a jet plane far above. Simple. Relaxing.

Today I dance naked in the jungle rainstorm, paint running down my legs. I’m brushing paint onto the canvas and then placing it the canvas on the grass to let the rain participate in the artwork. Water and color go everywhere.

I filmed the entire experience for my studio members. I usually paint naked because I make a big mess like this and the raw footage is available to watch on Onlyfans, (one of the few places I can post (even artistic) nudity on the internet). If you’re comfortable and curious, come join the naked painting sessions — sign up here.

Earlier in the day, I was livestreaming on my YouTube channel. This is becoming an everyday playtime for me. Hundreds of viewers from around the world tuning in to hang out with me, watch me paint and teach some yoga and life wisdom. I don’t plan anything or worry about what I’m going to say. I just see what bubbles up in the interactive conversation as people watch me create and move around in my pretty AirBnbs — these houses are taking the place of my art studio. I can live and work seamlessly in new places every week and bring my audience along for the adventure. It’s so refreshing — 10x better than rearranging furniture each month. Just as I start get comfy in a house, I move on into totally new energy. I LOVE IT. New scenery for my viewers and each place inspires totally different artwork and sides of my personality to come out and play. This painting below was created on today’s livestream.

Do you remember all those problems I was having back in Seattle, leading up to this magical adventure trip in Indonesia? I was crying and exhausted everyday. The living conditions were testing my patience and wellbeing. Loud construction outside my window. Sharing a one room home with a man who has a golden heart and a totally different lifestyle rhythm than mine. Stuck in hours of car traffic never seeing a smiling human face. Looking at uninspiring architecture and miles of hard concrete, one tree in sight, aching for nature. Constantly having to put on clothes and always on edge that someone was going to walk in right in the middle of my video recording. Homelessness so painful to walk by everyday. Drugs and alcohol downstairs every night. Oh the complaining could go on and I’ll stop it here and just say, Seattle life was awesome for me until it wasn’t anymore. My heart and head and soul turned like a sunflower and my feet took steps to Bali.

Now I am here and I lay back on the daybed and sigh in almost disbelief but not really because I completely believe this. I intentionally created this for myself. I listened to exactly what my parts were saying to me and I honored them and made little changes until suddenly life is totally different. This is what I needed and now I am calm and clearing like a sky after one of these jungle thunderstorm that makes my hair wet every afternoon.

My heart aches a little, missing love. My young parts worry a little at so much unknown. I feel my young parts cuddling into me, sitting in my lap, arms wrapped around me. I hold myself, my invisible inner children who need me to hold them. I rock them and coo in my mind, “It’s okay, I have you.” I feel the aches and I open my ears. Listen. I listen to the sounds I can here right in this real moment. In this moment, everything is safe, beautiful and good. I am good, so good. Being this good is something new to get used to.

Love and Rainbows,
Cha Wilde

Close your eyes
Fall in love
And stay there