Getting adjusted

Offering on the road

Puseh / Desa

Ketut - My Guide

Artist working on traditional style painting

Amazing Hand Carved Wall Hanging - Gallery Marka

Balinese Mask - Gallery Marka

Creating offerings

Ketut & Jen - Gallery Marka

Arriving from the airport Ketut picked me up to take me to Ubud. He is a lovely Balinese man who helps organize the yoga retreat I'll be at next week. He and Violejta have told me where to go for morning yoga, where to eat and how to get my phone working with a local sim card! They have been amazing. Ketut offered to take me sightseeing on his motorbike, an offer I didn't refuse. (sorry Gabrielle - I know as soon as I got here I jumped on motorbike with a guy I don't know - he's married )

 It turned out to be the loveliest day I've had in years. We rode through all these different artists villages and the roads were lined with wood carving studios, everything from a small shack to high end mansion style galleries. In another village the roads were lined with silver jewelery studios. We stopped at a spectacular wood carving gallery.  Then we stopped along the way at a few Balinese Temples, one of the big Temples called Goa Gajah amazed me. The temple services all take place outside.

 The Balinese believe we have three main relationships in life, your relationship with yourself, your relationship with God and your relationship with nature. When all three of these are in harmony you are balanced. To stay balanced you must remember that with the positive in life always comes the negative. To stay balanced you must smile at both the negative and positive, because you can't have one without the other. Every day Balinese women make baskets of little offerings and leave them everywhere for spirits. They believe Bali has the best energy of anywhere in the world, partly because they pray everyday to god that no matter what happens they stay positive and they pray that they keep the good energy within them strong. That's a belief to live by. We pray to god that no matter what happens we stay balanced and keep our energy positive and strong. This is Ketut's philosophy. He told me nothing makes him happier then seeing people come to Bali unhappy and negative and then really taking in the energy of the Bali spirit and leaving happy and smiling. He loves that.