In February, JoJo, Aimee, Megan, Lindsay, and I all met up in Bali, Indonesia.  It’s such a magical island!  I have never seen a group of people so blessed with creativity!  They live with such a constant sense of spirituality… making offerings every morning and evening in ornate rituals and ceremonies.  It felt like every day there was some sort of holy day, but it is just how they live.  They all learn traditional art forms such as dance, painting, or stone and wood carving.  Every inch of Bali looks like a shrine or museum piece.  The people are so friendly even despite the recent suffering that has come from terrorist attacks in Kuta.  I was struck that you almost never saw a police officer on the island!  I asked how this could be, and they replied, “We live as community… if some one does something wrong, we all know who!”
As you can see in some of the pictures here… one night we went to see the famed “Kecuk” dance, which is the performed by a circle of 100 men percussively chanting and throwing up their arms (you may remember it from the movie “Baraka”).  It depicts a battle from the their mythology where the monkey warrior Hanuman fights the evil King Ravana.  Some how, I got pulled up out of the crowd into the performance and got swept away with the energy of the moment!  Here I am, dancing with the Monkey King and two demons!  Fireballs were flying across the stage!  I was chasing Hanuman around the ring!  It’s really hard to put into words how bizarre the whole thing was.  I got video.. I’ll show you later!

 


Now we are in back in Thailand, which is also going through a very tough situation as well.  This normally peaceful country is on the brink of full revolution.  There have been 40,000 protesters downtown Bangkok trying to pressure the government to dissolve for a month now.  The situation is at a boiling point, but I really do pray that the Thai people will resolve this peacefully!
Love, Murphy