I recently traveled to Bali, Indonesia and did a one week spiritual retreat that allowed me to find my home within my soul, fill me with unconditional love and compassion, and awaken my wisdom and healing gifts even more. I want to start this off by saying the amazing group of people that were with me on this journey made it all the more magical, and I have fallen in love with each of them in their own way and I am in awe and in the deepest sense of gratitude that I got to share in the experience of this awakening with them, The buddies that I had were particularly amazing and the unconditional love and support shared will stay with me for a lifetime! That being said I am doing my best to keep this blog to my personal experiences, but they most certainly were a huge part of it too.
Before going to Bali, I knew this was going to be a big holy shi.. experience, so much so that I didn't even want to think about it, and knew that I was just going to go with it and let whatever happened happen. I didn't want to think about it too much because I am pretty sure I could have thought myself right out of it! Bali is a really incredible place, where the veil is pretty much non existent - and what I mean when I say veil is the spiritual one, where spirits really do exist and are present in a palpable way, magic really can happen, the divine is tangible and all of it is ordinary! The following is the summary of my experiences, they are entirely truthful accounts of what happened and how I've awakened.
Our journey began at these amazing cleansing pools at Pura Tirta Empul, we were guided by the lovely Nik Starr, a Hindu Priestess. She showed us the ways to properly give an offering, how to receive a blessing, very importantly the etiquette of being in temples, and how to go through each water spout and what each one represented (purifying the aura, each chakra, masculine, feminine, love, gratitude, receiving a blessing). It was a really neat experience, I enjoyed it, and I loved the holy fish that were swimming around. I didn't always feel something as I went under each one, and what I did feel was very subtle, and at the end of it I felt really peaceful and relaxed.
The next place was Gunung Kwai where we were lead through a meditation while sitting on hot stones and in the sun. It was not the easiest meditation for me to get through, but I know the importance of getting really deeply grounded and connected to earth energy when going into work like this. We then went further into the grounds and went through the offering process again and received a blessing, then we went to the secret cave of the kings. As we were sitting across from the entrance of this cave, I started to feel a little nauseous, Nik explained that she was getting permission from the Kings to go into the cave, and I really hoped that we wouldn't get it, but we did. As we stood and started to line up to go into the cave a wave of energy washed over me and I felt like I was going to be sick, I grabbed a facilitator and asked where to go, because I really didn't want to vomit on something holy or sacred, and she led me out of that space, and as I got further away from it, I began to feel better. She asked if I was sick sick or energy sick, I have never experienced energy sickness like this before, I have been around places that I have felt a bit uncomfortable in, but never this overwhelmed or this kind of response. As we were talking I understood that I was afraid to go in because I knew that I wouldn't be the same person coming out as I was going in. So I went in anyway! As we got back closer to it I began to get teary (but no more nausea!) and I went in and joined the meditation.
This was the first awakening moment for me, the first thing that I heard was "welcome home" and had the feeling of excitement from the spirits of the Kings that I was there. I lay down on the stone floor I easily went into the meditation, each person had their own unique experience with it, and though I know it was guided, I can't recall a word of it until we were ready to receive a gift. For me I went through this incarnation, I left my body and went where ever it is that my soul resides, there was another being with me that was helping me to get ready to come back into human existence, and I wasn't 100% ready to do so, mostly because I knew that I had to leave a piece of myself behind in order to be able to learn how to live in and fit in the world as best I could. Then I came back down and the first thing I saw was the blurry sight of my parents looking down at me, this is when we were guided to receive a gift from the Kings, and I put my hands out and the piece of me that I left behind was the gift that I got from them. I was able to place it into the baby version of myself, like it has always been there, and allow it to be activated now in my present time. This made me cry, both the feeling of coming home and the feeling of becoming whole, it was amazing.
The next day we did a sound healing meditation, that involved instruments, singing, natural essences and colored scarves. I got a light pink scarf and a magenta scarf placed on me, and the meanings behind them were pink for unconditional love, and magenta for connection to ancestors, which made a lot of sense for me, my great grandmother was a shaman and her wisdom got lost in the last few generations, I was then told that I would get symbols and signs that would be unique to me, which was very interesting.
The next day was Margo's painting/color therapy workshop that I loved, we got to paint our chakras on life size papers with the outline of our bodies from just below the hips to just above the head. I haven't painted a thing since I was really really young, so connecting with painting was really great, again it was easy to slip into a meditative state and just go with it as we were given each color. The result of the painting was amazing, for me to see what was on the inside, fully on the outside was eye opening. I honestly have it up on a wall in my house to keep me reminded of how amazing my energy is. It was also the first time I really saw the Shamanistic qualities coming out. We also had a lovely Oracle Paula Shaw come in an talk to us about intuition and did a singular card reading for each of us. I got the Evolution card which made sense for me as this trip was really about my evolution as a person, as a healer, as a soul. She told me that she sensed Shaman energy with me, and touched on the evolution is also in a global way of bringing in new energies and new ways which resonated a lot as well!
Then came another big outing day! This was truly a really big day for me, we went to a traditional healer Tjakorda Rai which was not only amazing to get a one on one session with him, but to witness what he does was mind opening for me. When it was my turn I went up, he sits in his chair and goes through different acupressure points around the head and ears and finds the painful ones. I had two on the top of my head, he said it was stress, not from love but from work, he told me it is important for me to take care of myself and take energy in so I can give energy out. I also need to get out of the emotions of everything and out of ego. Which was so incredibly profound and simple at the same time. I really understood that I need to let go of wanting to take on others pain and suffering to help them feel better, and to stop going into and feeling the emotions of other people as they go through their journey's. I know I can listen with compassion, but I don't have to go into and feel their emotions within myself, when I do that it is feeding my ego, This was a really powerful moment for me, to really know grasp the understanding of what this meant for me and how I understood how to move forward with being a healer in the healthiest way possible for me. I also made the commitment to myself to devote myself to my journey and my self care and knowing that that actually takes precedence over everything else in my life, and when I do that, everything else will naturally fall into harmonious place.
Our next visit was to Jero Ayu, this beautiful woman who channels the spirit of Quan Yin who is the Goddess of compassion and healing. She was amazing, we began with her opening our hearts so she came to each one of us and placed her hand on our heart. When she got to me my heart was pounding so hard beneath my chest, and there was nothing I could do to slow it down or to change it at all, when placed her hand on my heart she said (it was translated for us) that I have a very strong heart and it needed to come out and through, she tilted my chin back so I was looking up and ran her hands along the side of my head and upwards, she also hit me in the back with a rock! But instantly the my strong pounding heart eased, and I felt calm and at peace. She then got us all to dance and one by one she would bring us back over to the spot where we could lie down and meditate, She came to me and placed her forehead to mine and we spent a blissful moment like that and then I was guided to go lie down. I tried really hard to get into meditation at this point but I just couldn't close my eyes, and after a short period of time I started staring at the ceiling, which was covered in red fabrics, and between two lanterns, written on the fabric, was my name. I shit you not. My name. The C was mostly gone, but the larissa was clearly there, and not there in the spirit sense, but in the physical real world. I wigged out about this for a while. Then Jero came over and placed two fingers over my sacral chakra which I could feel was blocked and then gently removed them and I was able to go into a deep meditation that began with me feeling like my mind had opened up and all I could see was blue sky and clouds within my mind that was bordered by a stone frame, it felt like a portal. Her helper was also a beautiful energy, she placed her hands gently on my feet which helped to deepen it as well. I went into the energy of my chakras and I saw them very differently then I have ever seen them, there were gold symbols surrounding each one and gold rods that were going through them, and then there were many chakras that ran in a line below my root chakra and above my crown chakra all with the same strange symbols around them, these symbols and their energy moved outwards to envelop me and I had the very distinct awareness that I am Infinite. Before coming back out from the meditation, this energy and the symbols became part of my auric field and when I tuned into that energy I could still sense them, it was amazing!! ( I am in the process of painting these symbols now!) Once the meditation was done, she talked more about compassion and balancing head and heart, and after thanking people for bringing us and translating, she looked at me and said that I've loved deep in my heart and she hopes that I will continue to come out, and she knows I will because she can see it in my smile. She then opened it up to questions. So both times she spoke to me, it was only to me, she didn't specifically give a message to anyone else in the group. At first it I just thought of it as this really amazingly compassionate and kind lady talked to me, and after some processing I realized that it was the Goddess Quan Yin that intentionally talked to me, and that is really important for me to acknowledge that, honor and celebrate it. Wow!
The final experience was with Ida Resi a high priestess for a water purification/blessing. We start in meditation/prayer and setting the intention of what we want released, which for me was fear of stepping into my own greatness and power as a healer, as a shaman, as a guru. When I went up for it, I was with the best buddy possible, and not a lot happened for me, my hands went really numb, I really didn't feel like I needed to make any sound, and it was over fairly quickly. She then told us to go over and stand in the sun and stretch our bodies. When I looked down there was a beautiful green dragonfly attached to my sarong, I thought that it was stuck there because it got wet, so my buddy handed me a towel so I could dry my hands off enough to help it out. So I sat down and the dragonfly and I just stared at each other. I then realized that it had a small brown spider that was attached to its leg (which I am fearful of spiders) and that was the reason it was stuck and couldn't fly. I ended up using a water bottle lid to get the spider off, and my buddy helped to get it off of me, where I was guided to kill it. Then I waited, while still staring into the dragonfly's eyes, and slowly it began to wiggle its tail and its wings, then after some time it took a few steps forward, then a few more, then I placed my hand out for it and it walked into the palm of my hand, where I raised it up to eye level and thanked it for its message and sent it pure love and gratitude, and the moment I was done it flew off. I don't think the universe/divine could have been more clear in this experience. My fears were small and insignificant, and now that they are released (and smashing them) I am free to fly.
Now that I have been home for a couple of weeks things are settling in, and though I didn't know if I could take the experiences from Bali and have them be applicable here, I've really come to realize that that is my new ordinary. Magic, Compassion, Love are all parts of my daily life, and I am excited about where my journey is going to continue to take me, and what living life with a very thin veil looks like. and how I can help others bring this same ordinariness into their own lives.
What a trip!
