Alone and Alive in a Jungle Rice Field

You are the greatest platform from which I can jump and grow beyond myself.

I rolled up the scrolls, folded the drop cloth and packed the bags. I’m moving out of House Pino in Ubud Center at the perfect time. I made home and studio on this white balcony overlooking a Warung and a parking lot full of scooters. I’m done with the city noise. I’m ready to go deeper into the jungle and create from a place of spacious peace, more breathing room for my body, away from other humans, away from traffic.

My favorite road in Ubud leads out of Ubud. Jungle vines hang down over the car that carries me to Penestanan Village. It’s a footpath only kinda place. I’ll be dropped off at the supermarket and a sweet old Australian lady will help me carry my bags up the stairs into the maze of allyways. She asks me if I want to turn right and walk to the house via cement pathway or turn left and take the scenic route through the rice paddies. Scenic root 100%.

This jungle has healing energy in it and I keep thinking about the sunshine and tropical rainbow colors of the beach. It’s a monsoon, tropical thunderstorms, heavy rain. I’m on the porch, legs over a holster, listening to rain and chirping birds, strong cravings to eat all my feelings in the form of nuts, chocolate, coffee, smoothies and protein bars. Waiting for ginger honey tea to chill out so I can sip it. A part of me loves this. A part of me is pulling away from this. A part of me feels the healing magic, the fresh privacy and possibility of creating new pathways for myself here. A part of me is straining for the door, wondering if the ocean would make me smile. It’s easy to cry with the jungle rain. This house is another answer to my prayers. I have deeply longed for solitude in the trees, just like this, knowing the sounds of the plants, animals and elements would heal maybe better than the singing bowls.

A part of me wants to hide in my work. A part shakes her head in fatigue, asking me for more clarity before I serve others. Only work when your energy is pristine. I catch my parts sneaking out to fight the fires, teenagers of my psyche creeping down the hallway to go play and avoid the work.

I told myself i would do this, for years it was on my lists, and now here I am. This is what it feels like.

This house is alone in a field of green. This is exactly where I need and want to be. Alone in a house in alone in a field. When I leave the house I travel by foot through a jungle path, over a little bridge that crosses a jungle river, and I pop out onto another footpath that leads to the Yellow Flower Cafe and Intuitive Yoga studio — both hidden gems. This feels magical and I say “YES!” to myself as I walk these steps.

Bags unpacked in the new house, I receive an invitation from Louise. She invites me to join her at the Tjampuhan Spa. We swam together in hot and cold pools inside a stone cave on the cliff overlooking a jungle ravine. A brown river ran between the steep hills of palm tree and we giggled in the water at our luxurious moment of life. This is a beautiful life we are living.

I walk home over flower petals, chirping and croaking frogs in my ears, water rushing in the gutter, my skin warm, soft and glowing. I’ve just emerged from a cave of carven monkeys, hot steaming water rolling off my body, hair cool from the cold plunge. The air and my body are soft together tonight.

Love & Rainbows,
Cha Wilde