Ants, Wizards, and Volcanoes

I arrived on the island of "Eat, Pray, Love" 5 days later than planned.

It was on the 15th day of the 12th month, the eve of the full moon-a special day for a moon-related ceremony the Balinese call hitam bulan.

Limos from the area's 5-star hotels lined up along the airport passenger pickup area. The drivers held signs with names, but none with mine.

I fell in line with my Balinese handbook alongside the rest of the new arrivals.

With jet lag from the 5-day fight, culture shock, the language barrier, and familial dislocation, panic set in. The noise and pollution of an airport under construction didn't help. Chaotic traffic and taxi driver hustle magnified my anxiety.

The heat was pervasive. Even the cool blue of the sky seemed inflamed as it burned above me; the sun's rays singed my head. The road ahead was like a stretched piece of black lava with the white lane divider lifted off the road by the heat.

The effect created an imaginary highway. Blended with the sky, leading to a place where only Bali's endangered starling might hide. Heat snakes rose and emerged to form a coiled python mirage.

The tar was so hot that my sandals left a Nike logo on them.

As I waited for Enzo the local musician to pick me up. I propped up my suitcase like a chair. I crossed my legs into the lotus position and fell back into last night's sleepless slump.

My chakras lay scattered across the Pacific Ocean.

Out of boredom, I made a sundial out of the roadside litter. To tell time was to insert an ice cream stick in a melted wrapper. I got on my knees and estimated the length of the stick's shadow.

Twelve fifteen p.m.

It was lunchtime, but does time matter anymore?

I thought about my crazy roller-coaster life. "There's no going back." I challenged an ant that stopped to mock me.

An ant with a raised sword a hero uses to inspire exhausted troops. "Tell them instead of doom, they're chosen for a sacred mission." The ant shifted its antennae back and forth as if trying to connect. "I'm Siddharlo," I explained, making fun of my name to sound like Siddhartha before he became the Buddha.

I needed to once and for all end the anger that held my demons. I wiped the sweat from my forehead.

I was glad to have company, even that of a solitary ant. I tried a couple of rusty yoga stretches, but too many years separated me from that practice. Back in the late '60s I'd been a hippie and studied things like Zen, shamanism, and yoga.

I experienced the purple light and talked to trees.

During the '80s I got into New Age music and books. I reassured myself. I knew enough to walk the walk and talk the talk to blend in with the Ubud enlightenment crowd. "Everything makes a sound, right?" I said in my make-believe conversation with the growing company of ants. "Atoms-stars-wind-sperm-light-dreams.even silence.”

We're all surfers on a cosmic sound wave, that's what we are. All right; I determined with the addition of beads and tie-dyed clothes, should get me by as they had at the Woodstock music fest.

It's not as if I was afraid that I didn't know what was going on. I raised my right and left arms and drew an X in the air. "I'm situated between East and West. Everything passes overhead. I'm on the equator."

The air was dirty and dry. After several hours my mouth cracked. My face was becoming sunburned, and I thought about giving up and hailing a taxi.

Hours later, Enzo, my host, magically appeared. If there ever were a real-life wizard the likes of Gandalf it might've been Enzo.

I recognized him in the crowd from the many hours I'd spent building his website. SKYPE calls to email, photos, and listen to his music.

His music included Belly dancing. The rhythm provided a soundtrack to my map with unnamed boundaries. He used many bizarre looking instruments-strange stick-like limbs that resonated on a single pluck.

"Welcome to Bali," Enzo said. We shook hands with the brisk fervor of two villagers exchanging roosters for hens.

The hair on his upper lip framed his penetrating Enzo stood tall, lean, and as elastic as a horsehair guitar string. The timeless 60-something dressed in a mix of colorful, Middle Eastern, gypsy-styled clothes. His coconut white-streaked gray hair was tied back into a ponytail. Beneath a clipped nose that no out-of-tune note could pass undetected, he sported a thin Salvador Dali-like mustache.

Persian-blue eyes with added panache.

Besides speaking Italian, French, English, and Indonesian, he knew many cultures and music. He was also a comedian trained in the Commedia del 'Arte tradition.

I never knew when he was kidding or laying a Zen Koan in my lap. For example, he would say in one of his many accents.

"As they say in Uzbekistan: may Allah allow the tail of your sheep to fatten this year!" And I would have to be an idiot not to get it.

En route to the car, we walked past tourist booths where all things unrelated to indigenous Bali were pushed into my hand. Brochures to theme parks, river tubing, dolphin swimming, scuba diving, 50% off colon cleansing, and real estate deals.

Before we reached the end of the parking lot, I was sweating. Enzo helped me with my things and assured me that the vehicle had air conditioning. Nearby, a blonde-colored dog wore what looked like hand-painted black eyebrows and barked at the gathering clouds.

It was December, the rainy season, and the day was due to its soak.

Dewi, our driver and Enzo’s girlfriend, was the first Balinese woman I met.

A few meters later, the gregarious 45-year-old shared her story in broken English.

She expressed through a pair of pink-painted lips and beaming white teeth. Divorced, two teenage girls, and she ran her own small textile export business.

She and Enzo had met via an online dating site called Indonesian Cupid.

I didn't know what the norm was for Balinese women. I had somehow pictured them to be like the tourist brochures, i.e. dressed in exotic, colorful sarongs with giant baskets of fruit on their heads.

Dewi wore stylish high heels that accentuated her gorgeous tall, brown, model-slender body.

Darting between cars she laughed.

I never had much luck with dating sites. My sister found her new husband on one. With my challenges, I couldn't in all honesty list myself as a good catch. But, I would learn soon enough that none of my downsides mattered much here.

I'd heard from lore that many Western women came here and married young Balinese men. Western men came here seeking young Asian wives. I guessed the thing to do was when in Bali do as the Balinese do.

I remained open to whatever may come.

Between bursts of lightning, the road to Ubud opened up its secret, all-knowing eye. The narrow, pothole-ruined road twisted through miles of endless, roadside art shops.

Generations of Hindu deities dominated the path ahead.

The statues' faces greeted me with multi-creature combinations of serpents and dragons.

Guiding me like guardians, crying out in a language incomprehensible to earthbound ears.

Driving in Bali is like being inside a Mad Max video game. And Dewi drove her van with the daring skill of a Hollywood stunt driver.

In the torrent downpour, the windshield wipers were useless.

Only by the grace of the Gods did each vehicle miss the other.

The storm subsided and the rice fields beyond the road glowed from the bath of the rain.

Deities of light and demons of darkness competed for every precious inch of the road.

About an hour and a half later, we passed a 50-foot high statue of a Hindu warrior holding a bow and arrow in the road. "That is a statue of Arjuna, the son of a God. It's a landmark in Ubud. You're in Ubud now, and by the way," Enzo said with the enthusiasm of a boring tourist guide. "The nickname for Ubud is the "Bud."

We took a right below Arjuna's arrow and swung up into a hilly area called Laplapan.

Dewi pulled over next to Enzo's house and parked the van along the narrow water canal that lined the road. I stepped out of the van and into a Balinese village sunset.

Roosters and chickens darted back and forth across the entrance through the compound.

Growling dogs joined in the mix, and the bad muffler on a motorbike pumped up the volume.

A group of local villagers looked on with mild interest. I had arrived at my second stopping point in paradise. My host lived behind what he described as a typical Balinese family compound.

Regardless of family size, babies to the most elderly, nuclear, and extended family inhabit the dwellings. The villas are made of concrete, reddish brick, wood, bamboo, and ceramic tile roof.

Two of the six villas featured a front door carved with Balinese Hindu symbolism.

In the center of the compound was a small temple.

Enzo's house stood alone, enclosed by a private wall with a rusty, vine-covered entrance gate. The back of the house overlooked a river coursing through a high gorge.

Lurking in the crevices waiting to lunge upon an unsuspecting traveler, I felt surrounded by creatures that could change their shape at will. And move invisibly and without form, upon the earth or through the air.

I imagined one that was a gigantic, winged monster, resembling lava, covered with black mud.

Should the formidable dark beast challenge my presence? I wagered if I could survive its fiery fang long enough to learn its weakness, defy its power, and rise as the victor.

Enzo knew the darkened path. I fell in behind him, finding some security in his muddy steps.

The house was, by American standards, a small mansion.

Enzo's personal belongings decorated the space. They resembled items collected on an international scavenger hunt. There was a multitude of books, artifacts, and musical instruments from every corner of the world.

When he told me how much he paid in rent my heart skipped a beat in disbelief. I don't know exactly how much he paid, but I think less than US 300 per month.

I later learned that he received a deep discount by paying four years in advance. Paying in advance was a traditional business with the Balinese.

Poor access saved him money, too. Not everyone would leave their vehicle on the public street. Tiptoe home at night past a pack of wild dogs.

Where I came from in America, comparable housing would be more like US 3,000 per month, with no river valley view. Little did I know when I would be hard-pressed to find a house of that size in Ubud for the same price.

His housekeeper showed me to my room and Enzo instructed me not to touch anything.

Curious fingers later discovered why. Doorknobs, switches, and many things fell or broke. It raised the question of the villa's age. I didn't ask.

After replacing his third water pump in a year, he explained maintenance on a Balinese house was a never-ending process of love and dedication.

Due to my naiveté about all things Bali, Enzo called me a "Quaker head." I considered the term offensive. I would soon move on, so I let it slide.

I looked under my bed blankets and chairs for snakes, spiders, centipedes, or anything that could bite me. In the living room, I found a friendly gecko that lived beneath the couch. I nicknamed it the cockroach hunter. One night he dangled from the ceiling with his squiggling catch in his mouth.

Echoing from the river below I heard the faint beating of drums. Enzo informed me it might be a ceremony.

I couldn't sleep from the jet lag and wanted to explore. If I stumbled into a ceremony, he loaned me his temple sarong, sash, and udeng-a tan-and-white headdress with a mosaic design.

That, or similar dress, is customary attire for visiting temples and ceremonies. I stowed my things and headed out the back door.

Into a cleavage of rock, I descended, and down into the Lower Jurassic, until reaching the valley floor.

After a few switchbacks, the rough footpath ended at the remains of a pair of moss-and flower-covered shrines.

The statues of gods are covered in clouds of burning incense. Past the shrines, I came upon a small botanical garden temple, carved out of ancient stone.

Trees wrapped in black-and-white cloth are called the Poleng.

In simple terms, the Balinese see the world as pairs of opposites: good and evil, day and night, mountains and sea. This duality forms the one cannot exist without the other.

Poleng is the perfect representation of this view.

The squares of equal size are perfect black and perfect white. They intersect and are not whole: parallel. Gray squares contain strands of both and show you cannot have one without the other. White represents good. Black represents evil, the underworld, and disease.

The Poleng comprises them both thus the whole.

This fertile, spongy jungle opened to embrace me. I liked the scent. Sun-loved wet jungle.

I felt reborn, forever wild; the sweet scent of ceremonial roses clinging to the damp air. The setting felt more like a dream . . . the kind embroidered in the twilight.

One woman broke into song with a high note she alone could not sustain. Others soon came in below it, lifting and holding it as if it were a shovel full of gold. Some men joined in, too, with the deeper notes.

The men were dressed in shorts, with pieces of bright yellow cloth wrapped around the waist and folded in the front.

They also wore headdresses like the one my host had provided me. The women wore similar clothes around their hips, tied on the left side with no drape.

The song echoed over the green coconut trees and bamboo.

The people sang with humility and gratitude, and put their hearts into the song.

An elderly man, the gelung (holy man) adorned in a white robe and beads. To signify his sacred power, a tall, golden pemangku (crown) sat atop his sage-looking brown head as he gazed into the stars.

The group all stood, watched, and chanted in blessing.

The holy man spoke again in Balinese, commanding the others. The throng then knelt on the green earth and, as he raised his hand. And his voice, strength appeared to descend upon everyone.

Storm clouds gathered and great dark shadows sailed over the deep green earth.

The people looked to the sky and toward the path by which I'd come. As darkness closed in I stood alone in the dusk among the giant stones.

Over the great valley of the river, up the eastern slopes of the hill, I climbed towards a peak. Soon the path narrowed.

I moved in a single file with my invisible companions.

Their presence was growing ever stronger.

By the time I reached the summit, I was gasping for breath.

The view stretched out across a fast-moving river.

Past the mountains, continuing beyond the borders of the imagination to a distant horizon.

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SOLO - 10 Years in Bali