The waves this morning; a bride’s lace train snaking along the black sand. Scratches and holes in the sand are the evidence of the yoga poses I flowed through at sunrise. Wet diving mask thrown into the closet, still smells of baby shampoo. Meditation is now 20 minutes each morning, the sound of waves, counting the exhale. The neighbor man coughs up phlegm.
The motors start up. Women lay stick in the sand, a makeshift ramp for the jukung fishing boats about to leave the beach and raise their sails. Sunshine blinds the clouds and there is a small patch of blue above the jungle covered ridges of the volcano. Most of the green jungle is dark. There is a strip of light shining on the perfectly smooth slope of Mt. Agung this morning; a stripe of lime green palms.
I am being drawn into the freediving community of Amed, called into the ocean one breath at a time. Synchronicity flows through these days like a breeze through the garden cafe.
I watched a turtle eat breakfast off the side of the USS Liberty Shipwreck, 20m under the surface. I hovered in the blue space, as still as possible floating on current, as silent as possible drawing breath from the scuba tank. A peacock mantis shrimp scurried along the sand, an octopus poked eyes out from the coral. Garden eels hypnotized me in a creepy alien fantasy. I haven’t found great love for the Chinese trumpetfish yet although I see them everywhere. I’m more enchanted by the white branded triggerfish; those eyeballs!
I called shotgun and stuck my hand out the window to wave to the rice paddies. One Way Espresso popped onto the scene. My eyes lit up. I just wrote the journal a couple days ago that I needed a fresh vibes coffee shop; white walls, laptop friendly workspace, air conditioning, wifi. My hopes were low that I would find such a blessing in this salty town. Note to self, return to the One Way Espresso for a solid get-shit-done work session! Hallelujah. Five hours later I received a random invitation to join a group of freedivers for dinner at One Way Espresso. I ate a bowl of tempeh and tofu Ramen for dinner and laughed myself into bellyaches. First it moves into my consciousness, then it moves into my reality, and like magic it has become my experience.
The freediving community in Amed is opening up easily, like a sunrise, it’s just coming for me. Will I receive it now? Yes, please. I reflect back and see the flow. I see how I’ve been carried here. I feel the ease and I feel the limit. I can sense now when I am here.
I want female freediving friends to be with in the ocean and on land. I felt the desire in the body. I acknowledge the desire and saw the vision in my mind. I expressed the vision in my journal, noting the detail and the reason why I want. I move on with life, open now to receive it when it arrives. And here we are.
I hugged Julie on the beach in Noosa National Park. She was dripping wet with sea salt, her surf camera at her feet. We are peers; women who love the ocean who dove into scuba and flowed into freediving only to be traumatized by our first freediving training. She didn’t go in the ocean for two months after her training. It took me two weeks and courage to grab the snorkel and rent a pair of fins. I ate an entire bar of chocolate on the beach, listened to music, and swam out by myself. I didn’t need to pressure from other people. I was afraid for my ears. I was afraid for my life; the sensation of being under the surface with no air to breath, the panick sets in and the discomfort was too much to bare. My body didn’t forget this and it wouldn’t let me back in the water. I seriously worried. Will I ever dive again or is this the end now?
Before the training, Julie and I felt like free mermaids, splashing joyfully, eager to submerge. After the training, we were cautious to even get wet. This is the power of the nervous system. I WILL SURVIVE trumps everything else. I told Julie I was going back to Bali to try again.
Imagination kept showing me visions of my mother riding horses. “I’ve got to get back on the horse,” I heard the voice in my head. My fingers reached for the phone to call my mom and ask her to tell me stories of how she got back on the balance beam after she fell, how she got back on the horses after she fell. My mother has fallen (literally, physically) more than I have. She keeps getting up. I didn’t call her. Instead, I listened to whales singing in noise cancling headphones, pressed my forehead to the airplane window, stared out into the blue (the sky was blue in all directions), pretended I was freediving at this great depth and imagined sperm whales swimming by gracefully, suspended in the water. How strange it is that we just float like this, like we’re flying in liquid. I wrote in my journal, speaking to the parts of me who feel fear. “What are you afraid is going to happen? What do you desire? Your desire must be greater than the fear. What about diving this deep in the ocean is desirable to you?” Something shifted in me and I walked out of the airport in Denpasar open to try again.
Another freediving woman has joined me life. Her name is Tanya and she’s blowing my sensual mind with the stories of how women can experience orgasm-like sensations when they’re doing long hangs at the bottom of the freediving line. The men are looking on from another buoy in curious humorous delight. They said the sounds coming off the women’s buoy are quite entertaining. As the ladies resurface from their long hangs, orgasmic energy in their oxygen deprived bodies, their gasping for air, intoxicated by pleasure. Could men experience something similar? If men were to become aroused at the bottom of the line we would be experiencing some issues with drag. More bellyaching laughter.
I drink up the last spoonful of spicy miso ramen at One Way Espresso and look at this company I’m keeping. I’ve been laughing for hours now with three highly skilled freediving instructors; all of whom play like mermaids and fishboys, grateful just to be in the water, freediving at the center of their lifestyle. They’ve been in the water with the world champions. They’ve been in the water for years, childlike spirits splash around, pointing at fish, holding their breaths so long they’ve falling into the depths, communed with the sharks, orgasmed and returned to the tell the tales that now make me laugh, sending spicy ramen liquid into my nose. Burning and morning laughter.
I hug Tanya goodnight and she says she’ll be back in Amed next week and she’s looking forward to diving with me. Mattias waves goodnight and once again says, “I’ll see you on Tuesday. We’re going to have a good time in the water.” Mattias has been carefully selected as the human to help me get back on this water horse. Tilley thinks his teaching style will suit me; chill and fun. We dive on Tuesday.
Love & Rainbows,
Cha Wilde