Living in Bali: Bali Glow

I noticed it our very first visit to Bali. A liquid radiance in the people's eyes, an inner glow pouring out into the world. I saw it when bargaining with shopkeepers, after we had reached an agreement and everyone was happy, sama sama, good for me, good for you. I saw it when trekking through the rice fields, exchanging simple greetings with the farmers, seeing their faces light up like sunshine with each smile. I found it everywhere the children play, not with expensive toys, usually not with toys at all, just tussling and rolling and running around with each other, eyes flashing brilliantly. I photographed it to remember it. We were on our honeymoon, in 1997. On the porch of our beach cottage, a couple of weeks into our stay, I captured on film that same warm glow in my husband's eyes. I thought to myself, "That is the way I want to live."

Many years earlier, traveling in Kenya alone in my 20s, I happened upon a mirror near the kitchen of my little bungalow on the Indian Ocean. I hadn't seen myself in a mirror for a couple of weeks. I was startled by the look in my eyes; clear, peaceful and radiant. I had come into alignment with myself. Much of my life since then has been about learning to maintain that alignment.

Living daily in Bali vibe, earthy and open to the elements, I already see the Bali change clearly in Sofia, in Asher. We pick Sofia up at school and she has an air of uncensored freedom in her movements; not that she was restricted in the forest of southern Oregon, but the degree of relaxation and fluidity is notable. She came home after her third day of school and said, "The Balinese kids in my class talk like this," and proceeded to pull off a perfect Indonesian accent the rest of the night. I can tell she is digging the variety of subjects and I don't have to prod to find out what she's been doing all day, she rattles on and on. Asher has a grin just about all day long. That's not really anything new, is it? Still, there is that certain Bali glow that I am beginning to notice in my family.

It's easier to see it in others than in myself. We have only one mirror right now, in the bathroom, and it is not a full mirror. I don't look at the mirror much, but when I do I don't immediately recognize myself: my hair is about three feet high with curls.

One of my neighbors, Phan, a Cambodian woman who grew up in Thailand after her family escaped the madness of Pol Pot, gave me a Thai massage at her house. She used a menthyl balm as she rubbed; it caught the breeze of the overhead fan making me almost cold, an increasingly unfamiliar feeling. In the background I could hear the soft thud of a machete against plant material as the Balinese man who tends to all the gardens in our village cleared space for a new plot. (I have seen this man working in the gardens the last several days in tall boots, long pants, a long sleeve shirt and a great big wool hat as if he is expecting an ice storm, while I am wanting the lightest, most wispy fabrics and find even my usually comfortable yoga clothes feel heavy.) I hear the ever present song of the insects, soothing jungle white noise. Softly, in the distance, Asher is playing the flugelhorn. Phan folds me into poses that stretch me, using her knees, elbows, hands and sometimes her whole body to knead me. She expresses amazement at my flexibility in some positions, but when she gets to my upper back she asks me if I carry a lot (maybe giant water bottles up deep ravines or baskets of rocks on my head like some women in Bali). I've just been carrying stress, the stress of moving halfway around the world, of major life transformation. Now it starts to dissipate...

Another of my neighbors came for a visit. Visiting happens often in the Bambu Village and does not involve knocking on the front door as there isn't any. A visitor simply shows up, says hello and the visit has begun while I am perhaps peeling a pineapple or doing a yoga stretch. Sometimes the visitor walks in and sometimes the visit happens from the front steps. This visitor, Ajay, joined Asher and I at the dinner table. I wasn't quite sure of his function at the school -- he seems to be involved in most everything -- and it turns out he is the General Manager, meaning he has his hand in everything other than the actual classroom education. Ajay asked us to put ideas together for improving the school warung (small restaurant) and bringing raw food to the school community. I came to Bali with the intention of creating a raw food restaurant in Ubud, only to find out that one had opened just days before our arrival. I have been completely at ease with that news, knowing somehow it would all work out. Working with the existing Green School warung feels like a wonderful start, an opportunity to share healthy living food and develop bonds with this community at the same time. Ajay said we'll pour over the ideas and decide where to begin, which equipment to acquire, which equipment to create, what direction to head. Music to my ears. I'd like to build a solar dehydration system. If it's for the Green School, it will probably involve bamboo. Scroll down to see some other uses of bamboo in the school's central building, called Heart of School.