to abolish the blockage that may proceed your intent.

And acknowledge your efforts which you indeed represent.

To have polished the essence within your being is heaven sent.

Yet while we keep it positive and front a smile for our friends.

Everyday we face an obstacle that topples all our strength.

Yet we find a way to make another day be new again.

hear the wisdom from your heart the mind’s the one which condescends.

As truth awaits you, truth escapes you through the way you circumvent.

Embrace the truth and face the falsities of life by praising him.

“Jai Ganesha Jai” Thank you for being so next to Kin.

Gana pata yei, Chanting the wisdom thats from within…

And within this time I have been here, I have been inspired to share my heart more and more openly each and every day. I am practicing self-love and it’s as if the more love I give to myself the more expansive my bliss becomes. Others who surround me feel that and reciprocate, giving love back to me. It boggles my mind a little with regards to how that works. Yet knowing how it works is unimportant. What is important is my choices everyday and the experiences it has drawn forth so far. And my calling upon Ganesha to remove all obstacles, setting intentions daily and living as if all has been made manifest is the result of this journey in Spain.

It took me about two days after arriving in Barcelona to have a deep present awareness that I am half way across the world once again. My first time across the Atlantic; which I dreamed away and awoke to landing here.  I am couch surfing so I have never met my hosts, yet they treated me as if I was there favorite cousin; instantly apart of the family. They are a young husband and wife with their little one-year old boy.  “Here is your bed. Here is some organic breakfast, lunch and dinner all prepared for you. Here let me take you around town. Oh and I need to breast feed the baby. He can take the left breast while you take the right if your thirsty!”

Well, the last sentence did not happened but boy this is how nurtured I felt! It’s so inspiring!  I already have plans to build a home and include few lovely bedrooms for distant travelers to enjoy.  In the mean time I offer support, give love, massages and try to enrich the space I am ever so grateful for.  The wisdom from my heart knows the truth in giving; giving everything I can without the blockage of an impoverished mentality.  What gifts can I give to the world? Spain, as you will read, has given me one very insightful gift.

The gift to see beyond the superficial.

An organic farmer in Mallorca told me:”Spain has weapons of mass destruction: Tourism” This is true and I have seen this destruction throughout the world. First is the weapon of mass deforestation: Agriculture. This well-meaning farmer did not realize that even he him self is a weapon to our own ecological imperative – to restore the earth.  You may be wondering why I might be saying this about an organic farmer. I buy organic foods and I encourage others to do the same. In a sense, it is a lesser of two evils so to speak (I don’t believe in anything being ‘evil’). I could write a whole book on this topic just from my worldly experience.  However, I would like to say that making money is much more a priority to farmers (organic or not) then restoring the ecosystem.  I guess its just not awe-inspiring enough to switch our focus on healing the earth.  Well it is for me, because of what I see.

My last night in Barcelona (just two days) was with a friend I met in Thailand who lives here and happily hosted me. She sent me off for the day to see Guell’s art work; an astounding masterpieceof bio mimicry in art that attracts people from around the world.  Hmmm… People would take time off work, buy aticket, travel across countries, stay in a hotel and pay transport just to’see’ the beauty of Guell and Gaudi’s work.  A great attractor pattern amongst other things that Barcelona is investing millions to complete. Imagine if we looked at nature with the same regard, instead in our own back yards, and invested these millions in functional sustainable design to take care of the earth, ourselves and each other. We use bio-mimicry in permaculture design. Except we go way beyond just looks; we are finding solutions to life sustaining developments. This cannot be said for tourist attractions. The complete opposite is true.

The next morning I head off to help develop that new kind of tourist attraction in Mallorca. This lovely island now literally rapped and pillaged by agriculture and tourism lies another beautiful soul who I also met in Thailand. Chef Mango aspires to create a little permaculture/ raw food/ yoga oasis in the middle of this little island to set forth an inspiring example of caring for the earth and its inhabitants.  She certainly did that with me. The 10 days that followed was an inspiring time of daily explorations of the island and nightly conscious evolving with spiritual books and videos. I loved it and blissed out most of the time.

I say most of the time cause initially I felt the negative sly of her perception to life.  Something I find quite challenging in my travels. I’m not all the time hanging out with blissed out raw food yogis everywhere I go. Many, I am meeting for the first time. The fellow I met in Valencia was a trip! An old bisexual man who was very nice to take me around and host me, yet kept insisting on giving me compliments and making sly sexual remarks about me.  With positive intensions I enter these new adventures with optimism and to my surprise they have friends who smoke, or they want to go out drinking, eating junk food,  or simple things like wanting to talk all day long.  Not my style. However the pros significantly out weigh the cons: Its interesting how when traveling outside of tourist accommodations, not supporting the consumer lifestyle, you get a deeper sense of the countries roots and their people. I was taken all over Mallorca and parts of Valencia and not only do my hosts not charge me for my room, my travel about, my food, etc. they refuse to take my money when I offer it. And the other spectrum of taking taxi’s, staying at hotels and eating out not only asks for money, they demand it!

Being inspired or ‘in-spirit’ charges me each moment I remember where I am, how blessed I am and how I choose to be.  And my final stopping point in Spain (Madrid) deeply taped a root that instilled a defining moment for me. After traveling 4 hours through the country side, seeing fields of Solar panels and Wind Turbines and thousands of acres of monoculture (mostly barley and wheatand rye) to enter into a large and heavily populated city being driven by this monoculture (an unfortunately not by alternative energy which only makes up 20%); I wondered if we will ever all wake up. Will people in Mallorca keep driving by the thousands of acres of Olive and Almond orchards abandoned (because it cost more to pick the trees then the market demands) to cities never wondering why their almonds come from California? Will the 20+ million unemployed Spaniards come to terms that money being the only source to provide sustenance for life should no longer be our imperative?  Some doubtful parts of me think we need another 50 Hiroshima bombs to drop in different parts of the world to finallyget people to wrap their minds around what I see behind the ‘fun’ of tourism, or the ‘be rich and be happy’ fasad .

I am inspired by change. It’s is the only constant.  We are improving no matter who slow it may seem. After teaching a chain smoking group of 15 women, seeing a 5 acre occupy garden in Valencia and hearing about city gardens blooming up from the waitress in Madrid and Barcelona at an organic raw food café, these affirmations have kept my fire bright. I just smile from the inside out, knowing that peace world-wide starts from inside.  Here I am, all the way across the world and the journey I take, the inspiration I feel and the power to change resides all along in my heart. You can choose to feel yours too. Cause I believe in you…

Namaste,

Deva.

With dirty hands  and a burdened chest I write this. This is not dirt of the earth. I actually enjoy and feel good with that underneath my finger nails nurturing my body, mind and soul. This is oil and grim and grease from working all week trying to get and old camper I bought on the road. I spent many years of my life ‘wasting’ hundreds of hours under a car hood looking to save or make a buck and ending up spending more and losing (money, time, patience) in the end. All while burdened with the stress of difficulty and inexperience.  I revisit my past with the familiarity of  uneasiness and lack mentality. Why not just pay someone to do it?  I went that route and got ripped off.  I figured towing it north to a mechanic I know well would save money and time. Yeah right! Getting towed was a weeks worth of hassle. Then once we finally got it there, it was 4 more days of slow going challenges.

Where am I going with all this?  I am going no where.  My mind visits the place of freedom with having a camper. No more dealing with other people and there energy (of all forms) within my living arrangements. No need to think about paying rent, trade or bargain. I’m free and everyone else could kiss my ass!  3 years now teaching about the means to freedom and still not living it myself.  And believe me, my every waking day is devising a plan on how to get there. “How do I produce the freedom we all deserve?”

Well, one thing is for sure;  I do have the capacity to create a ‘mental freedom’  removing the need to stress about things not going the way I ‘think’ they should go. I think things should go ‘smoothly’ with the camper. And the universe has aligned me to buy a plane ticket instead. I’m sure Source has  purposely intercepted for me to make this decision. Protecting me from an even worse scenario.  So I could be choosing a much more ecstatic feeling of joy and gratefulness rather then fighting for weeks to have things go ‘my way’.

What is my way? My way evokes the experience of things manifesting the ‘way’ I want them to.  And what do I want?  What do I really really want? Lets ask the real underlying question here:  I choose no wants, as that in itself is a statement of lack. I intend to manifest the greatest expression of my highest self in this moment now as a divine being!  I seek pure intention and allow for my higher source to guide me in divine union with All that is!

And while these true desires manifest I create what I can. I create the beginnings of a full scale vegetable garden to empower the glorious beings I have been staying with the last several months.  This garden in its full bloom once complete with provide all the vegetable needs for a family of four and more. We have scaled the design to maximize the space and potentially create on all usable spaces. Including the pergola, walls and roof as growing areas.  I also created a permaculture course over several weekends, took a financial permaculture course and now preparing for a two week intensive in Alabama.  In my last few weeks here I began a project for a waste-free restaurant.  The idea was to completely illuminate all there food waste ‘on site’ and have the remaining waste all locally recycled.  Recreating the systems of Babylon.

We first began with a design. This design now needs to be scaled up immensely after weeks of work and finding out that the amount of waste is way more then what I was told. Our plan ended up being three systems to take care of the various waste. A large custom worm digester with and insinkerater and EM inocullant in the bucket of worm scraps daily. Then a plant based solar Composter for materials that may stress the worms (like tons of squeezed lemon peels or hundreds of egg shells, onions and the like)  which is also doused with EM and an activator (bokashi) to speed up the break down of waste to directly feed plants such as bananas and sweet potatoes. Finally we have an indoor automatic Composter to handle foods both the worms or plants could not handle (ie- condiments, concentrated sugars, salts, oily foods and the like).  It’s a pretty simple device that works really well. Throw some food in the top with some carbon pellets and in two weeks the bottom tray is full of soil.

It’s now getting late and while I am waiting for the train a big black train passes by wailing with sounds of horror. It was creepy to see Babylon’s systems in action.  Millions of products and matrials flying by on tracks of industrialism. Not nearly as mystical and awe inspiring as nature can be.  Like the waste I’m working on reducing at the restaurant these systems seem quite overwhelming at times. There are a thousand restaurants in Miami mounding up our landfills while I tackle this single one. Maybe it will inspire others to do the same.  Maybe not. I mean, this will work only if the employees even care to compost and separate the waste properly.

I could babble on for hours about the many challenges I face to make a difference in Babylon nation.  Yet I’m cold waiting for this train and it seems fitting to pass my time with a method to express myself and awaken to my inner truth.  It does not matter how challenging it is!  I am blessed with the courage to live my truth! And sometimes things get a little rough when doing so. Especially living in a society that is going in the completely opposite direction. I’m bound to bump up against some friction. Yet I can look upon that friction as an ecstatic dance! A direct contact and improvisation to find my boundaries and bend them; weave them into flow of movement and form that shapes the heart and mind to find and even greater experience to life.

In these next several months ahead I will be pressing those boundaries even further with a dance across the Atlantic Ocean to Africa and Europe. Where shall I embark upon to further express my fullness of being? How conscious can I tap into every movement and step in the name of love along the shorelines of Portugal or the open landscapes of England?  Where can I gracefully perform with body and voice to increase this quiet revolution I lead? Madrid, Paris, Scotland, Italy?  I am only one person… How could my contact to this inner world, a recognition of my divinity, make a difference to this destructive Babylonian system affecting the world at large?  I’ll keep shining this little light of mine regardless of outcome. Maybe that’s all we really need; is to believe in ourselves. I believe!

Another full day of working outdoors in the garden.  A nice gentlemen who has been to my classes has offered me a ride to the farm to help me work on my garden. I did not know I was in store for 101 questions. Yet, as he is panting along, taking frequent breaks and sweating profusely, I acknowledge what all the years of sustainable outdoor creations have done for my health. Moving 20 wheelbarrows of soils and mulch, redoing the gardens and building a new ones is a good days work. Especially since, by design, it saves me months of needless work trying to ‘control natures desires.’

As a Permaculturist, I frequently get questions from enthused on lookers that may spend 1 day with me out in the garden then watch my facebook posts from behind there computer desk from time to time that say “that’s wonderful, what a great guy, doing that gardening stuff! I’m a permaculturist too, look at my fruit trees. Hey what should I do about my bugs?  Can you come to my place (for free mind you) and look at what I got going on?”  Sometimes I feel like an asshole with the frustrating thoughts that zoom through my head in light of this. Geeze Marcus, can’t you be a little less apathetic, they are trying to learn from you here.  Although many do ‘pay’ more then just attention to what I do, I frequently find myself observing the underlying belief systems that many hold about how they believe to be ‘providing for themselves.’

I gave in the past few weeks and started doing some free work and giving free advice.  Being of service has its many rewards too. Yet, I find it arduous at times to accept societal regimes that lack the foresight to see long-term benefits of ecological enhancements.   However, things are in transition. I am constantly being presented with opportunities that encompass the means to move this footprint we are planting a step forward. I have thought up a few paragraphs of frustrations then erased them from the mind before proceeding on to the positive side of things.  I bear witness to my true ambitions and maintain a vision of a world I intend to manifest before me.  And with that, I thought I would offer a series of transitional pictures and insights (even some rhymes) that encourage and hopefully inspire more of this collective shift.

July, 2011, first day completed the design. thousands off seeds just taused around to cover the soil quickly

August 2011. it worked. haha. remulched again

Nov. 2011. cover crop has been chopped back several times, weeded twice a month. plants are 5 feet tall

Dec. 2011. cut back and laid down most plants. Added 50 pounds of worm castings then added 3 inches of fluffy hay. Remulched heavy on the paths, new annuals planted throughout. some perennials growing in.

May, 2012. mini forest has taken over of edible perrenials. Little ecosystem occuring.

back view. enough greens to feed a tribe.

edible hibiscus, kenaf, okinawa spinach, moringa, mucuna bean to name a few

underneath leaves cover the ground and insects turn it into soil. mimicking a natural forest.

Soil produced by mother nature. not me

chop down 1/4 the plants to bring back to soil. leave some for others to eat.

Produced many cuttings to share with Jeff for his garden

cover plant material with mulch (partly decompossed hay)

removed good soil from path and produced 10 bags of compost for Jeffs gardens and made two more beds.

June 27th, 2012. Seeded with thousands of cover crop seeds again.

you can kind of see the question mark behind the plants. remulched pathways heavily. will not come back to work on this for another two months. lets see what happens.

When I first decided to build a question mark Garden I did not even know it was going to be a question mark garden until the few last minute preparations of the gardens layout. As I finished laying out the soil from what once was two very high raised beds (I wanted to maximize usable space), I still really cannot claim to ‘know what I am doing’.   Primarily because I am certainly not the one making the plants create cell division and grow. I certainly have no power over what the bugs choose to do.  The plants grow themselves. The bugs do what they want.  So even with the confidence to move forward and take part in what Mother Nature provides, I choose to know what’s actually going to happen. And I am consistently amazed by the results.

This weekend I am driving up north to explore the South East for off grid living with a group of people. Then settling in to a very big transitional period of my life. For the first time in my life I will be living outside of the city in a rural environment.  I committed myself to stay for two months on this land that my mother has purchased for us to create a sustainable future.   I choose to know what feelings may arise from this… Will I actually be able to live outside of the city? Even when I travel, I am primarily in some form of city or town or village with many other people, homes, buildings surrounding.  My Yogic thought processes want to encourage in me the benefits of living outside of the city and harnessing the energy of solitude and practice. Yet truth is, it’s a mystery to me.  And to be of service while there focusing day by day on designing the land appropriately, learning the patterns, ecotones and habitats; will this really drive my passions? Do I really know what I am doing?…  I heard that Bill Mollison (creator of Permaculture) for the first few years never charged anyone for his services. He was reluctant to take responsibility for the outcome of his suggestions.  I was shocked to hear this.  And at the same time, it’s very understandable. Yes, I have studied for years and seen many successes (and failures), traveled the world to explore and understand more (just as he did) and here I am now taking on the task to produce a real live example of what this can look like on my very own land. What will happen? Will it work? Of course it will!

The area of Jeff’s lawn we will transform.Dig an area two feet deep/ six feet radious and mound over the dug up grass 1 foot high and wide around the circleStill curious as to what’s going to happen…

cover the mound and hole completely with cardboard and wet it down to form the shape of the moundadd a layer of cardboard around the mound on top of the grass for a permanent pathwayCover all the cardboard with a 3-4 inch layer of mulch

water down the MulchAdd food scraps to the top of the moundcover scraps with mulch to begin first sheet mulching layer

wet mulch again

Add a less then one inch layer of manure (horse used here)covering here and adding an additional layer of mulch to mound and path. (6 inches more to path)Caution! Doing this might make you really happy

Add final sheet mulch layer of seaweed. water inyes we use a tremendous amount of mulch for this projectCover with a final thick layer of mulch everywhere

adding another 6 inches to the PathwaysThrough in about 200 millipedes to speed up break down.30 wheel barrows of materials later its complete

Add worm tea to inoculate the mound and speed the decomposition processBanana Circle will be ready for planting in a few weeks

Above is a development of transformational work being done on my friend Jeff’s home. I have produced many banana circles and still question the results that may arise from it. Yet, at heart, those doubts are miniscule to the feeling of love and adoration that I feel about how Mother Nature continues to surprise me in positive ways, affirming good results regardless of the mistakes I make. It’s as if love and divine intervention supersedes and intervenes with the perfect adjustments to allow for the transformations I see before me to unfold in unexpected ways. I humbly honor this process and find that the courage alone to break barriers and produce such an impact on people’s ways of living merits the financial output required to create such a thing.

Harmonizing with the fulfillment of projects being unfolded here in Miami and now in Alabama, I am aware of my own transformations. The transformation of letting go and embracing the divine source in the process. The transformation created when I give what I have to give with no condition to receive anything in return. The transformation within the mind, observing the delusion of pessimistic and impoverished thought patterns, while the heart and soul become the primary interpreter of the life I lead.

So lets talk about these transitions

The chance to amp up ambitions

We freelance and transendance with new visions

To revamp the mind, it’s divine to listen

To every word heard as gifts that gods given

For instance NOW, everybody breath it in…..

As were sippin’ pranayama

Hold, Mula Bandha

Uddiyana Bandha moving to the third chakra

Align your spine with your posture

Its time to find what your after

After all, all is one, one step at a time

Time will tell so tell everyone

All is well, welcome the sublime

The substance we in time come inline with

And bind with, integrate the shift

Right now is 2012, lets make the shift

Shift gears to 5th and lift your life to this

Sincerely, you bring my life to bliss

Do this or not, I love you regardless…

In Divine Transformation…

Deva

On My way back to Miami and I am in the exceptionally large Airport of San Juan. I am looking at all the infrastructure of the buildings and planes and towers for the airport and am very curious as to how much of it is based on ‘convenience’, ‘Visual appeal’,  ‘privacy and security’ and all the other society based mental convulsions.  How is it not blatantly obvious that we are striping massive resources from our environment, polluting and destroying millions of acres every single day in order to provide for our mental afflictions?  One deeply imbedded convolution of the mind points to the possibility of its continual perpetuation: Self –righteousness.  I choose not to be victimized by the recognition of our need to be right.  Also, I wish not to exclude myself from this possible cause of mental chaos. I only serve to implement an awareness of my experiences and awaken myself to these realizations my journey has given me in order to be able to serve the highest good to all earthly beings.

Jose Bastian is super knowledgable and very helpful!

The aging process of lime for better consistency

outside the service building.

amazing veiw from the Fort

showing me where the water catchment and cisterns where set up by army

The first amazingly humbling experience in PR is the masonry service of the National Forts of Puerto Rico.  The amount of energy dedicated to preserving the historic site is phenomenal.  And their process to understand the skills behind creating a site developed by workers over a 200 year period is unfathomable.  I listen sharply to the delicate differences put into each walls creation.  The use of certain sand types and organic materials are all based on the relative “edge” or eco-tones of the coastal weather there.  Being built almost half a millennia ago, the methods practiced by the builders are based on extremely hard labor, yet formulate construction that will last 450 years longer then our present day building methods.  Over time those methods have changed based on ‘convenience’, ‘visual appeal’ and the need for ‘privacy and security’. Actually when I think of it, the whole fort was mounted atop of 200 years of perpetuating self-righteous beliefs. Natural materials made into unnatural means of justification to what is right; producing war to protect what’s ‘rightfully mine’.  I could imagine what kind of infrastructure could have been developed for the country of Puerto Rico if righteousness was replaced with resourcefulness and connection to all beings.

Old San Juan Organic Market

Peace n Loaf.

flower and fruit vendor

Two great dudes and surfers living in PR selling rawfoods.

Farmer selling her organic goodness

yeah Man! Coconuts!

What if righteousness is just what we need?  Just the right amount; channeled in the direction to propel us into our passions of right livelihood?  I am presumptuous of this as I see the passions of many I meet along this journey. Before Leaving Old San Juan, we stop at the Organic Farmers Market.  There are a number of growers and creative people sharing their passions of a more sovereign Puerto Rico.  I am here making connections to put on a Permaculture Design course and Eco Festival in PR next year.  It’s heart warming how well received the idea is to come together and create something like this.  I am encouraged to learn Spanish and emphasize the Puerto Ricans own abilities to create this for themselves rather then outsiders telling them what to do. Guide them to their own wisdom so to speak.  This type of self- righteousness may lead them to individuality and personal connection for the redevelopment of their country.  Sounds ‘just right’ to me!

Amazing moth caterpillar

Looking around on Juans farm

Nursery full of fruit tree seedlings

Giant Lemon

Lemon drop Mangosteen. super good. like candy

cacao

Exploring and talking with David on his Nursery/farm.

Sadhu and myself in front of his place

canon ball tree

We move on and head over to the west coast where we meet with many diverse growers of functional plant species.   The amazing body of knowledge within these growers is of fundamental importance to my trip and the connections that could be created and uplifted out of their participation in next year’s event.   I listen keenly to each one of their success stories and failures  (clearly due to lack of a permaculture based design) and imagine how this could lead to assisting future generations of growers into the ‘right’ direction.  I feel their guise of needing to be right progressively blocking any opening for me to give them knowledge to sustainable means for a new world. How do you tell someone after 25 years of spraying herbicides, ‘battling’ against nature by polluting our water ways and destroying diversity, that if they simply invested a few years in selectively favoring low lying dense ground covers (and other ‘work with rather then against nature’ permaculture methods) that they could have saved themselves huge monetary cost in labor, herbicides and a host of other interrelated cost like health by choosing these alternate methods. Not to mention the many other benefits that goes along with being a green entrepreneur!  To accept the personal responsibility of such faults can be difficult at best.  Then again, ‘just the right’ amount of heart warming love and acceptance from my self and others may give them the courage to make that change. And some are actually willing! They just need the ‘right’ amount of help!

Rincoln Organic farmers market

She started the Market with Magha

Magha! a wonderful permaculture Designer in PR

There is one phrase that gave me that courage and I wish to share it with you now. “I forgive myself, for I did not know then what I know now!”  Please repeat this to yourself and allow your past to be your past.  Let’s adjust to our ‘right livelihood’ to live lightly on this earth! And shall we do so by dropping all the baggage of the past that weighs us down in our own self-righteousness.  And this is exactly what is happening here. Another organic farmers market is taking place in Rincoln and I visit there as well, meeting even more self motivated loving individuals who are all for the Eco fest and Permaculture course.  I see there is a movement going on and this event next year could strengthen its ability to push forward.  All the materials are here to build solids grounds for a sustainable future for Puerto Rico.  And the vision grows and increases as I observe the potentiality of all the farms and places providing its means.

Traveling through the jungle

El Yunque

In the Jungle

@[1215270685:2048:Robin Phillips] is a great tour guide and amazing person! Highly recommend going on tour with him!

Divine rivers run through it. Check out some thousand year old petrogliphs in the rocks.

After a wonderful weekend visit in the west coast we head over to the east coast to meet up with some friends of mine I met the last time I was here. I am thankful to have connected with such beautiful souls the last time I was here. We visit the amazing Bio luminescent bay and spend the night at Skai’s rawfood retreat home.  We head out the next day to visit the rainforest of El Yunque with Robin. Every time I step foot into these natural surrounding I am deeply grateful and filled with joy to know that I have chosen my ‘rightful’ path to protect and expand this natural world into our places we inhabit.  Words can describe but not define, the feminine energy that lifts me out of time!  Thank you Goddess “Pachamama” who provides the wisdom and guidance within me.

Feel love in your divine Bliss!

One of my great teachers, Osho, explains that “knowledge is the barrier to truth”. Yet wisdom holds a truth unspoken. And I can hear this wisdom from the trees, the whisper in the winds, the glow of the dawning sun and all that becomes within our deep ecology.  I am choosing a truth beyond my personal afflictions and encourage all to do the same… rightly so.

Cause in the right way we write way beyond light.

Right when sight successively see waves ignite

The visual cortex percep’s bath our sight.

Slight deviance to the real essence we call life.

It’s like, we right the wrongs then turn right around,

Recite the same song despite the run around.

Its alright we say,

And then right away precepts fight the delay

Of the title waves as they recede from the bay

Before it hits you

The rigmarole jitters our whole ensemble.

On to the next entourage we dodge and dismantle

The channel that flows

Let it go!

You never know how the source flows…..

Fo’ Show!

Receiving an even greater gift then befo’!

Believe that life just might just enlight’!

I recite!

Recite who we are –

Cause you know we’re so Righteous!

We’re just right just,

We’re so righteous, right just right just…

It’s all right!

Wahe Guru. Rincoln beach

Till our next journey, right on!!!

Deva (Marcus Thomson)

Pointing to some land I intend to manifest

On one of my last nights here in Bali and I’m finally feeling to write a bit. A band named medicine for the people is jamming away in the background as I sit in a well manicured hotel garden which sits on the edge of a cliff looking over the ocean. I feel poised to be here as the full moon baths me in its healing light. All my wonderful new friends dance away in the hot / sweaty bar and I cannot seem to get myself to join them. I’m pretty much done here. Been in deep gratitude to be in the presence of so many awakening divine beings and caught up in the calamity of an environment begging for regeneration. Let me explain.

About two weeks back I arrive in Bali with the intension to stay for a longer period of time. The first place I arrive to is hosting a Kirtan in a beautiful and lavish home tucked away within the rice fields. I meet and greet old friends as I am introduced to new ones. The people here are very happy to see me back. I am caught up in the surreal feeling of being back! Woah, across the world once again with now the taste of familiarity. I’m not sure how to accept the love being shared for me. My heart is locked into the humbled feeling of gratitude, not willing to receive any praises at the moment. As the days progress into the festival, I am overwhelmed by the feeling of bewilderment. Meeting so many people who left their entire lives from different parts of the world to reside here permanently. Why? More affordable? Better weather? More personal freedom? The Balinese culture? I’m sure many of these apply. Yet what am I applying for? What are your intentions Deva? Can they be manifested here as so many others seem to be finding that as there truth now living many months or years even in the little city of Ubud? Give it a few weeks and find out.

It only took a few days for things to be quite apparent to me. No. This is not it. Just another location on planet earth devastated by the need for economic growth. Human and environmental exploitation at its best. I am baffled at how everyone can just carry on with there lives with an atrocity happening right around them. I’m saddened and sickened and thankful and happy and the feeling repeats itself as I make the best out of the higher vibrations that are here.

The festival is sold out to a majority female tribe from around the world. Guys and girls alike are ultimately enjoying the yoga and dance during the day and music celebrations at night. Hmmmm, this is not easy to write happily. The smell of chlorine from the “epic” pool draining off over the cliff by the ocean is now being bombarded by drunken smokers on vacation here. My lungs in my chest are ‘exhausted’ literally from all the scooter driving this week behind all the other carbon monoxide spewing vehicles, clouds of smoke from burning plastic garbage with the toxic smell of fried foods in the air. I feel anger building up within me from the onslaught of pollution. I have grown to be quite sensitive to environmental pollutants which in turn drives my fierce desires to do something about it. Even the burning of incense in the air for me is like a full blown assault to my eyes, nose and throat! So you could imagine the challenge since all day every single day the Balinese are burning 3-5 incense in every single home, store, shop and street corner of Ubud! This feeling of anger and frustration arises from my desire to choose to be fully present and connected to the experience and people that I am happily sharing space with. Yet I feel ultimately compromised by the constant blowing of my nose, the inability to breath deep, exercise and a multitude of desires I am aspiring towards; yet unable to attain in this environment. Blissed out one minute and bogged out the next, my stay will end up being shorter then I hoped.

Party has now move down the cliff into some caves where the ocean water is crashing in. Naked bodies dance, swim and sing “we are blessed” with love and laughter as I am sitting at the stairs listening in to their tribal sounds. I do not join them. I am still finding my place in this. Kinda feel like the Australian explorer observing an indigenous tribe learning through observation our similarities and differences. They are getting exceptionally louder now. I admire there ability to let go and just be. The ego would beg to differ. I am frequently visited by a thought process once used in my past that no longer suits me. It’s more like a under garment then a whole wardrobe as it once was. Yet I feel I’m getting to big for these britches. I regularly jump right out of them when I get to express myself! Being able to share my passions on stage once again was an experience to embrace for sure. Many give me joyous feedback of their experience during our music show and I am still at difficultly receiving. The gift to share in the ways I can are fundamental to my being a genuine person. Specifically being genuine to myself. I could also just be blocking any form of stardom and need to realize I could still be me regardless of status.

It’s getting late so I left to a villa this wonderful women offered me. It is absolutely stunning. Wow! It has certainly been a continuous experience of powerful manifestations. I am so amazingly well taken care of everywhere I go. I feel slightly embarrassed by it. Like I’m not nearly doing enough for others. It’s inspiring to say the least and I dream of the day when I can give back the same if not way more when my place is prepared to receive visitors! That’s actually the whole plan from the start. We spent many years looking for a place we can call home which will provide an absolutely pristine environment for everyone to enjoy! Clean air, clean water, clean food and a non toxic home to enjoy life’s greatest gifts.

A gift that so many equally deserve. I spend time with Chakra a Balinese permaculturist who equally pushes to produce such a thing. We travel way up into the mountains to a place called yoga city to see about setting up a waste water system for their retreats. The day after, I head to another mountain village to speak to a local farmer interested in changing his practices to be more organic. He shows me the super toxic chemicals all the farmers in the area use. He wishes to stop using them and build a demonstration site for other farmer to see then hopefully change to. I give him as much information I can as I walk through his property and I am compelled to come back and hold some workshops that will hopefully fund more of this well needed change. Its so apparently obvious the solutions. Just needs to be taught and applied.

I leave there and happen to stumble upon an area that is just loaded with fruit and spice trees. Its is a tourist attraction of organic growing coffee and cacao tasting. There is a wonderful food forest feeling about the place as I walk through the well developed mix of perenial plant species. A great example of the possibilities for Bali. And with some very keen design planning, it could be potentially a dramatic shift in development of Bali’s future.

I don’t want to drag this note on any longer as there is so much to express about the time I had here in Bali. I write this as the plane touches down in Thailand preparing for an environment more suitable to my desires. Gonna head to a little island and detox a bit. Bali has been a place for me where I have shared my deepest luv connections in so many ways and I certainly will continue to cherish them. Yet it has also catapulted my desires to seek and create a world without compromise. It is a distinctive truth to say if you are not apart of the solution, you are apart of the problem. I’m finding my solutions inherent in the problems we face and embracing them with the courage to stand out, not be numb to what’s right in front of me and be the change I choose to see. Be well, Bali. Fare well…