Washed up in Bali

As I arrived into port in Bali, having just completed my trip across Java, the first thing I noticed was a big shift in the energetics of that land. Whereas Java has a very masculine, fiery energy, Bali felt powerfully feminine and watery. I’d spent all that time trying to get there, as my guides had let me know it was important to be on the island from around this time. But I didn’t have a plan for where to go. I’d heard stories of it being overcrowded with a lot of people from the modern yoga scene, or something. I didn’t want that.

I had researched a bunch of the temples and sacred sites and most of them seemed to be in the eastern side of the island, so I had a choice of whether to go along the north coast or the south coast to get there. I listened. What was coming through was the water. I sensed a lot of water portals and they were calling me.

One of the messages that came through for me in Java was from Thoth, who my friend has a very active connection with, and he’d told me to do a sea ritual with the goddess Durga. I wasn’t able to do that in Java, as the ocean is wild and it didn’t come up. But here, it felt right. Not only Durga, but also Nyai Roro Kidul, the sovereign spirit-queen of the underworld-ocean whose authority predates Islam, Hinduism, and even the Mataram Kingdom. I sensed she and Durga had some kind of relationship or interchange, and yeah, during the Hindu-Buddhist period (600–1500 CE), she was explicitly identified with Durga — read as two faces of one goddess: destruction and protection, the cremation ground and the ocean floor.

Tanah Lot

So I picked south and headed for Tanah Lot, as it felt like the most potent portal and the right place to start. The name means "Land in the Sea" and it describes how the rock this temple sits on is a piece of the earth that refused to dissolve into the ocean — the earth is an island in the underworld, and the temple is the axis that holds it in place. It’s one of seven sea temples built along Bali's coastline forming a protective chain around the island and serving as gate posts which filter out hostile spirits from the oceanic underworld, and also allow easier access to these domains.

There was a potent full moon coming up and I felt my ceremony there was connected, so I stopped only one night in a beach hut along the way there and asked my host to drive me past the open rice fields and then along all the narrow, temple-studded roads as we approached the temple. I booked a room in a hotel actually on-site. Most people are in and out but I felt like I might need a few days. I ducked my way past all the influencers dressed in ballgowns taking sunset photos, clambered over some rocks, and tucked myself away in a little cave-like spot to do my ritual.

As I was setting up my offerings, I noticed a local Sadhu wandering on the beach, picking up bits of shells and stones. He looked homeless. He came over to me with a soft but skinny face and big Shiva eyes. They’re the kind of eyes you earn only from a sincere spiritual orientation, pupils wide like planets. He was very gentle and offered me some gems and shells he’d found. He also told me he was a healer and offered to teach me Javanese healing techniques. He even had a bottle of the herbal healing oil the tribe I’d been looking to train with had made, and they weren’t even on Bali. It was a very magical moment. I thanked him and did my ceremony and soaked in the newness and beauty of it all.

The next day I slumped bigtime. I was exhausted from all the travel and I didn't know where I was supposed to be going or why. And Bali was starting to do her work on me. Bali is a healer. She calls you to her when you’re in need of some powerful emotional healing work, and her softness and beauty has a power all of its own to melt the places that have hardened and to dissolve grief and trauma. I began to realise how delicate I was. My time in Peru and the emotional abuse that happened there had left me traumatised. I had regular flashbacks of a few of the people in my community where my body would contract at the memory of it and I’d dissociated significantly to be able to cope. My body felt so unsafe I wasn’t even able to take simple stretches – ironic considering how only a few years ago I’d been a yoga teacher. Now, held by Bali, I could sense how that all needed to unwind. I stayed three more nights in that strange place that was both touristic and a live, legitimate Hindu temple, and I just cried, slept, and connected with the ocean.

Nusa Penida

Cheeks still salty, I was crashed out on the bed when a sparkly, crystalline energy started to show up in my awareness. I looked at the map and felt called to go to a bay on the little island of Nusa Penida, just off the south coast of Bali. Again, there was some urgency to it. Nusa Penida means ‘Island of Priests’ and where I was heading was Crystal Bay on a quieter part of the island, but still popular due to its stunning beach and snorkelling.

It felt like another powerful portal, but more to Lemurian other-worldy energies. And there was something to do with Arcturian star beings going on, I could sense that they wanted me there and they were doing something with me. The whole island is so powerful that anywhere on it would have been fine, they said, but this was a particularly good spot for what I needed. I booked myself into a room nearby and spent a beautiful week meditating on the ‘secret beach’, having lunches by the ocean, and sleeping a lot. The healing was sinking deeper into my system and it was what I needed to come out of shock.

Before I’d set off for Java, a high level psychic reader had told me after three months in Indonesia I would meet a teacher who I’d spend about a year training with, who was linked with my destiny, and who, through the technology of his local ceremony, would open up a bunch of capacities that were lying dormant in my system. ‘How will I know it’s him?’, I’d asked. ‘He’s just going to come across your path and insist he teaches you’, she’d said with a smile.

Well, the precise three month day had come, and that morning I felt called to travel across the island to a highly revered cave. There was something about it that felt important so I headed to Goa Giri Putri (meaning womb of the mountain). As I got to the entrance and exchanged some words with the priest to enter, a tall, white-robed Sadhu crossed my path and said to me: ‘You! I can tell you’re spiritual! I need to teach you. Come meet me in Denpasar and I’ll do a ceremony to open up your senses’, gesturing eagerly with his hands over his eyes and ears. I gulped. We spoke for a while and he seemed pretty push honestly but I thought, hey, this is my destiny, so I agreed to meet him in a few days back on the mainland.

Tirta Empul and Denpasar

As I tuned in, this all felt like a karmic watershed moment and I wasn’t really sure of the rules. What did feel important was to do a water cleansing first. There was also a baptismal tone. I booked a place near the famous Tirta Empul, a powerful ritual cleansing site connected with Lord Vishnu that’s become a really touristy place. It offers the melukat purification ritual where you move through a row of water spouts, ducking your head under each one. Touristy or not, I felt called to do it.

I got to my homestay nearby and they told me there was actually a secret sacred cleansing spring in the woods behind the house. I went there and did my own cleansing ritual based on Egyptian rites and felt like a big chunk of what needed to happen was already done. The next morning I went early to Tirta Empul before the crowds and received the purification. I cried. I could feel karmic layers being lifted off me. Just goes to show, sometimes even the touristy places still have power.

Then my new friend had also been in touch (hassling me actually), and came to pick me up and take me to his house in Denpasar for the ceremony. I’d asked Vishnu, he’d said yeah. So I got on his scooter and headed over to his family home. The ceremony was in two parts: the first part was also a water ritual. A series of springs tucked away in the outskirts of the city, where you move along and each one opens a different sense gate. The second part was more of a localised Hindu ceremony back at the house. It all went smoothly and we sat with his wife for a while afterwards and spoke of possible future arrangements. He gave me a few sacred objects and oils and she dropped me at my new hotel. We had dinner on the way, she was really nice.

The next couple of days he didn’t stop calling me and texting me. He told me he loved me. He told me him and his wife weren’t happy and he wanted to be with me. In short, he turned out to be a total nutcase. I had to send the gifts back via taxi and text his wife to let her know. I blocked him and that was the end of it. Spinning, I was left with nothing but huge question marks around this supposed destiny. But I felt I’d saved myself a lot of grief with the strong boundary. The thing I’d been waiting for for months had fallen through. Now what?

Well, with no better plan, I headed into town and went shopping. I looked like a shipwreck in a place where everyone was immaculate and I needed pampering. I got a haircut. I had a massage. I bought some Bali dresses that reminded me and others I was a woman. Bali is all about embracing your inner goddess, so I did.

Kintamani

I met my friend from Java who was also on the island and started seeing images of me riding on the back of his bike around a lake and some dusty mountain roads. He mentioned we wanted to take a trip to the Kintamani area, which is the caldera complex of the volcanic Mount Batur and Lake Batur (the largest lake in Bali). That was it. There was something about us both being in that location at that time that was necessary, and I could feel the higher versions of us arranging the details. I got there a few days before he did and it was the dark/new moon. I stayed on the edge of the lake and let the kundalini move my body to weave some astral magick between myself, the land and the wider cosmic structures. The goddess Danu was with me as well – the local goddess of lakes, rivers and fertility and another great spirit of purification. And the following day I visited a very magical looking temple on the far side of the lake and turned up just at a time when a local ceremony was taking place. I was invited to stay and granted blessings by the priest. Then my friend and I did our thing – whizzing around the sand dunes and drinking smoothies at a couple of the restaurants in that area which have a great view and are popular spots for influencers. He went back to Denpasar, and I arranged a jeep to take me over the rugged mountain roads to the northern coast. I was being called by some faeries.

Jembong

I arrived in Jembong at a great place with comfortable beach huts and relaxed. Nearby was a very mystical area with a waterfall and a couple of healing centers, and I could feel the presence of nature spirits as I soaked up the magick of the water. It was the space and support I needed to begin to contextualise what had happened in Denpasar. I was healing from narcissistic abuse from the teacher in Peru, and here again, was a narcissistic teacher coming into my field. I felt like I'd passed a test. I was being coached in relying on my own inner wisdom rather than anyone else who claims to have the answers. And now, a new timeline could emerge. I just had to let it flower.

Amed

Next I had what I can only describe as a weird detour in the story. I had to go to Amed next for some reason, that felt linked to love, so I went there and it’s a diving town and suddenly I had this urge to learn free diving, which is normally totally not my thing. I tried it, couldn’t equalize and hated it, and then ended up meeting a free diver who was also a neuroscientist studying the medical applications of pscilocybin from magic mushrooms. I had a conversation with him about the spiritual side but despite being brave enough to fly (and crash) light aircraft and dive to ridiculous depths in the ocean, he was too scared to actually try a mushroom. The mushrooms asked me to write a note for him inviting him to do so and saying they’d like to collaborate, which I left under his door, and, of course, that was the last I heard from him. 

The other weird thing that happened was that I kept thinking I was going to meet my husband. I’d been single for longer than I wanted to admit, and while not exactly in a good place for a relationship, I was getting a strong vision of myself sitting at a cafe with some beanbags, and the guy comes up and sits nearby, we talk, and fall in love. 

Well, I ended up in a cafe that looked like that and a guy comes up and sits in the spot. He’s talking on the phone for a while and seemed kind of interesting but also wasn’t really my type. We chat for a while and get on and arrange to go for dinner. In the process I was going through a fair degree of emotional build up around it, so when he showed up and his energy was totally off, I was disorientated. Another narcissist. And a kind of scary one. He asked me a rapid fire set of questions that made me feel like I was in a job interview and stared into my eyes like a wolf about to tear a rabbit to shreds. I don’t think he blinked once. When I got defensive around it of course immediately it was ‘my’ insecurity and I just started planning how to wrap the whole thing up as quickly as possible. Fortunately, the bats did it for me. Out of nowhere a bunch of them circled around his head and defecated on him. I struggled not to laugh. It was pretty clear we were done. 

As I walked along the high street I felt really angry with spirit. It felt like some sick joke. A con. I don’t know what it was. Another test? I was done with them. I was done with Bali. Ugh. 

Ubud

But Bali wasn’t quite done with me. Next was Ubud. Or more specifically, Yoga Barn. I needed some friends around me. For months of travelling I’d met interesting people all over, but hardly anyone who even spoke English, let alone anyone from ‘my world’. Though as a Disneyland-ish yoga studio complex it’s not exactly my vibe, it felt like somewhere I might meet some nice people. I got a cheap room nearby and signed up for a one-month pass and went into self-care mode – floating between the vegan cafe and the breezy, bolster-filled yoga shalas. It was very helpful. The classes were fine, although my trauma body still wasn’t quite resonating with most of them. What did make a difference were some of the individual healing sessions – they have a great team of practitioners there. And I made a couple of good friends which was even better medicine. Only one spiritual assignment left: Darkness

The Dark Retreat

My birthday was coming up and it fell in an eclipse window that year, and I was being summoned to do a dark retreat over that whole time. I’d been feeling it since Jembong but now it was clear. I booked in for 7 days because that felt like what was needed. You go into a man-made cave structure which is purpose built so they can serve you a little bit of food twice a day without personal contact or letting in even the tiniest glimmer of light, and that’s it. Just you and the darkness. And so I did that whole experience and it was a really great practice. Hard. Rewarding. A great purge of a lot of deep psychic material. And a container for some very powerful work.

I spent a bit more time in Ubud after that, but then it was clear that my time in Bali was complete. Up next was Thailand.

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