How I Began to Create My Destiny: A Story in Ignoring the “Can’t”

I have always been rather over-sensitive. Even when I was young, I was prone to boredom, bordering on depression. Inquisitive, but unsatisfied. Somehow I made it through the rigors of high-school and its social life. Once I got into a good college, I proceeded to get more and more lax--after all of my hard efforts, I reckoned I deserved a break. Plus, I was tired of my good girl image and wanted to be reckless.

This mentality continued to dis-serve me throughout college. The harder I worked, the harder I played. During my sophomore year’s specialized program geared towards over-achievers, I had a huge amount of reading and paper writing every week. Rather than miss out on the Thursday fun of welcoming the weekend early, I would force myself to finish so I could join the revelers.

I suppose I needed that release too, since I put so much pressure on myself when sitting down to write. I fought tooth and nail for my very soul, the voice telling me “I can’t” bouncing around my head like a ping-pong ball. It was my first taste of panic, though I couldn’t name it at the time.

I continued to prove that voice wrong, every week. And it still haunts me from time to time. I found myself wondering where it comes from, and why it had so much power over me.

Like any grateful child, I prodded my parents for answers. More bluntly, I blamed them. I ran away from family obligations like my life depended on it. It might have, in fact. But in the course of the rupture, I became more and more broken. Even as I traveled the world and the distance between us increased, I couldn't face myself and my own tendencies, hereditary, cultural or otherwise.

Anger, resentment, desolation—they followed me like stowaways, surfacing during my darkest moments. My health suffered as a result, and I knew that unless I tried something drastic, I'd never recover. So I quit my job and began searching for solutions to my self-inflicted problems. I turned to creative writing in the hopes that one day I could share my story. I never imagined I'd actually have an inspiring story to share.

Now that I've unloaded all this garbage out there, I'll take a pause in the story. We have come to the juncture between the “before” and “after” of the makeover. For me, the turnaround point came through a program aptly named “Inner Engineering.” It was challenging, but fun. It enabled me to look at life anew, with a clarity I'd never known before. By the end, I was bursting with so much energy that I couldn't recognize myself. It was so powerful, so positive, that I needed to explore further; it couldn't be ignored.

After several subsequent programs and long stays at the Isha Yoga Center, I became enraptured by the new yoga and meditation practices I'd welcomed into my life. My health quickly improved, as did my relationships. I noticed my reactions to situations subtly changing; things that once bothered me didn't have the same effect. There was a distance between me and the emotions that used to over-power me.

In this space, I began to shift from unconscious reactions to conscious ones. In this space, I began to create my destiny. In this space, new possibilities emerged like phoenixes.

The old patterns of thoughts and emotions are still there to some extent, they just don't rule me anymore like in my life's previous chapters. I've discovered a bliss so pure that it keeps me wanting more, and knowing that I'm bound to get it once I stop paying attention to the nonsense. I've discovered a world far beyond my wildest imagination: one where I'm happy. And life's volume is just so loud, I simply can't hear the “can't” anymore.

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Interested in discovering more? You can get a discount on Inner Engineering Online, 7 online classes for self-empowerment, and learn a free meditation. Becky blogs about personal and professional explorations at Becky Blab.

Off the Map

I have pictures, bathed in light, from a land that lies off the map, and after I left, sparkling letters still reached me. They were letters written in such charmingly flawed English that it seemed a crime to correct them, even though the students begged me to.
I hope you are quite well. I am in the very pink of health. I would like to write so many about but my English is very poor. Therefore, may I stop here.
Even though it was some years ago that I visited, I still remember one day in particular. We start the day by squeezing into a Jeep that strains to climb a mountain. We cross wooden plank bridges and pass local people on bicycle and foot, toting burdens on their backs or across their handlebars. Our destination is a community of nuns who runs a distant boarding school high up in the mountain. The purpose of the boarding schools, with their dirt floors and outhouses and lack of electricity, is to provide an education for the most impoverished and isolated children in the rural areas, who might have no access to education otherwise.

“They’ll try to feed us, but I’ll tell them we brought our own food,” our guide tells us. “They are too poor to feed us.”
When we arrive, the nun who welcomes us at the door looks bewildered, and she says something startling.
“I didn’t dream you were coming.”
She notices our confused reaction, and explains. “I always dream when visitors are coming, and we prepare for them. But I didn’t dream about you.” She shakes her head, perplexed, as if her own mystical version of e-mail is growing unreliable.
“I’m glad you didn’t dream we were coming,” our guide chides. “Because then you would have prepared us a meal.”
The nun still proceeds to cut open some fruit for us, and children who attend the boarding school draw us by the hand and lead us down an overgrown path to the outhouse. This school is the most isolated and impoverished place I visit, and the crude bamboo structures and sweet children and hardworking nuns are even more diminished by the soaring mountains and roaring rivers that surround them. Struggling nuns and needy children seem to spring from this wilderness like fragile wildflowers, as unknown to the outside world as they are humble and holy.

On the way down the mountain, the Jeep breaks down three different times. Each time it clanks to a disappointing stop, we pour out onto the road. The final time we emerge, it’s growing dark. We’re on a narrow road in lush forest, and the mosquitoes are starting to hum. A folk remedy for malaria involves scraping the flesh on the neck until raw, red stripes decorate the sufferer’s throat.
“Why do you scrape your throats that way?” I ask.
“The pain of this scraping experience causes you to forget about the fever of malaria,” a student cheerfully explains.

This “remote rural region” is absurdly busy. Passers-by on foot and bike, instead of passing by, stop to inspect our plight. An increasing number of men gather around the Jeep’s engine, poke at it, and make conversation. The women and children gather around us. I can’t understand a word anybody says, but everyone smiles a lot. I have no idea where all these people live, because there is only forest all around. After a while, a man and his elephant walk past. The elephant is draped in chains, and I wonder if it could tow the Jeep. The elephant, though, disappears from sight, heading into the mountains in the gathering gloom. At some point it is agreed that this time, the Jeep is not going to budge. Our journey is stalled.
We are stuck in the mosquito-ridden jungle with our only means of transport a majestic, mournful elephant that is headed in the wrong direction. I’m haunted by the disappearing elephant because I know where he’s going. I’m aching to ride into the mountain darkness, into that nun’s dreams—because anyone can see she dwells with God. As an outsider, with virgin eyes, I saw immediately that this nun was a shining treasure in God’s heart. But the nun and I are separated by an impossible distance—for one thing, I have volunteered to be here. She has not. I’m just flitting through-like a bird, or a bug. She is more like a sheltering tree--this is where she was planted, and this is where she will die. Still, just by passing through this place, I’ve caught a glimpse of God-- the God who dwells on mountaintops with struggling nuns, who dwells with hungry children, who dwells with the abandoned and the forgotten. It’s time to hike out of the jungle, so I turn from the mountains, and we start walking down the road to town. Also posted on Strange Islands

4 years in India, 2 years of Shambhavi, 1 wandering woman

This September I’m commemorating the fourth anniversary of living in India. I don’t say celebrating, because it is a bittersweet landmark. Four years of intense soul-searching and questioning of life’s very fundamentals.

I can say with more confidence that I am celebrating my two year anniversary of attending the Inner Engineering program and being initiated into Shambhavi Maha Mudra, which has catapulted me on yet another journey–this time a never-ending inner one, facilitated by this and my other Isha Yoga practices. I can also saw with certainty that had it not been for this initiation, I would not have made it this long in India! Below, you can read more about this rocky journey…

“I don’t want to go,” I said as we were on the plane to India in July 2005. That was the first of many trips. But alas, there has been no turning back.

As I awoke this morning, the same nagging “I don’t want to be here” tormented me. I have a very strong escapist urge: to go back to the comfort and convenience of the West, where I’ve been for a mere two months.

It’s baffling to me how, before I left in July, my attitude was so different. I was as settled as I ever have been here. My mom says it’s human nature to adjust; people even got used to living in concentration camps. The parallel, though controversial, is somewhat appropriate. I’m both victim and agressor.

I spoke to Savira, a fellow blogger and yogini from Living Laughing Breathing, who is also re-adjusting to life in India. She aptly said that there’s a battle waging within me between the part of me that wants to be here and that which doesn’t. I’m not sure the two sides can ever be reconciled! This culture shock has taken me completely by surprise–I would’ve thought I was beyond it by now and nothing about India could phase me.

But it seems I’ve gone soft, lost my defences. The smells, the noises, the fear and utter disgust all bombard me like I’m back to square one. How can I actually be choosing this life over other, more sheltered, more straightforward ones? Even I’m baffled and can’t provide a rational answer.

Maybe my life should go back to normal, whatever that means. Maybe I should settle down and stop seeking more. Maybe I should start having clear goals. Maybe I should know what I want out of life and have a clear plan of how to get it. But I don’t know. Is that such a crime?!

This article is also published on my blog. Hope you join me there...

Water and Forgiveness

The Loy Krathong song begins, “In the twelfth month on the full moon…”
By the Western calendar, the festival actually takes place in November, but by the Thai lunar calendar it’s the twelfth month. Not only are the months counted differently, but here in the village it’s actually 2542, since the original Year of the Buddha occurred 500 years before the first Year of Our Lord. I feel as if I’m a time traveler who has been transported 500 years into the future.
Loy Krathong is the second-most important celebration on the Thai calendar, and this presumably means the village will go all out. But when the celebration begins, I’m surprised at the dignity and restraint of the celebration. Unlike the prolonged and frenzied partying of the Songkran holiday, this harvest festival chiefly involves launching floating candles across the water to carry our sins away. No Las Vegas-like stage shows, no throbbing outdoor movies, no wobbly carnival rides.
Instead, after dark, we carry our modest krathongs (floats made of banana leaves and bearing flowers, candles and incense sticks) down to the village reservoir. The vast, placid reservoir is already fringed with flickering krathongs, which are bobbing near the shores from which villagers have launched them. It’s a windless night, so not many of the village’s sins have floated out into the middle, except where villagers are splashing and making waves to send them on their way.

Floating our boats of sin away is actually only one of several explanations I’ve heard about this festival. I’ve also been told that the festival involves giving thanks for the rains that irrigate the paddy fields. And in a combination of those two strains—expressing gratitude for the rains and asking forgiveness for sins--I’ve heard we are specifically asking pardon from the water gods for polluting the water. That’s a tad ironic, since the festival involves littering the waters with dozens of krathongs, some of which have come to include Styrofoam.
Still, it’s undeniably a lovely sight when the rivers and lakes of Thailand become oceans of flowers and fire this one night of the year. Perhaps the most spectacular celebration takes place in the ancient city of Sukothai, but the nearby Mekong River becomes a stream of candlelight as well.
But for this festival, the village has plenty of water and floating beauty. And of all the different explanations I’ve been given for Loy Krathong, it’s the asking-for-forgiveness explanation that I like the best. For me, this makes the ritual of Loy Krathong something like a sacrament, a visible expression of God conferring invisible grace. Or, as one definition says, “a rite in which God is uniquely active.” Amen to that. So I silently ask Jesus to forgive my sins before launching my krathong. My Buddhist friend, Maliwan, is crouched beside me, and she pauses before launching her krathong as well. “Now,” she murmurs, “we pray.” She bows her head. Our candles burn with remorse, our incense sticks send up a fragrant plea for forgiveness. Our sins set sail softly, sadly, but when our sin and regret stall a few feet from shore, we smack energetically at the water, sending the floats outward on concentric ripples of water. All my students are milling around, exchanging greetings and smiles. The whole village is out, and the feeling of a fresh start is in the air. It’s a beautiful sight, as dozens of candles flicker on the dark water.
Later, three of us from the village straddle a single motorcycle and ride to Ban Dung, where a krathong contest is being judged. Here is the lavish celebration I have grown to expect in Thailand. These krathongs are not modest—they are huge and elaborate, constructed of hundreds of tightly woven banana leaves, sculpted into royal birds and royal palaces and bedecked with festive lights.
But not only are the floating beauties of the water being judged—local beauties of the human variety are also competing for a crown. Beauty contests are another feature of Loy Krathong, and one young woman after another parades across the stage. As she crosses, pauses, and twirls, each woman’s measurements are pronounced over the loudspeakers to fervent applause.
Also posted on Strange Islands

Night of the Grasshoppers

The night of the grasshoppers begins at Khruu June’s house. Villagers start showing up with lamps strapped to their foreheads like miners, hauling empty bamboo baskets. We climb into a pick-up driven by June’s husband and set out through the deepening dusk. The sunset is spectacular, with thunderheads glowing an icy pink-and-blue in the darkening sky.
The truck rattles past the reservoir, leaves the lights of the village behind and heads out into vast, dark fields of Thailand. After a while, even in the dark, I can see that the fields we have reached are full of sugarcane. Abruptly, the pick-up shudders to a halt and everyone pours out. A gate that leads into the sugarcane fields is tightly padlocked. The truck can go no further. Everyone begins to climb under or over the gate, so I do, too. On foot, we pass a shack with no electricity. The three children who live there are standing out front in the pitch dark, silently watching us slip past by like a throng of ghosts rustling the sugar cane. We pass a pond, and we are still tightly clumped together. And then, as if a secret signal has been given, the group scatters in all directions.
The sugarcane towers above us. Most people wear headlamps or carry flashlights. Some carry flickering candles, which they hold up to the sugarcane stalks, in search of grasshoppers. When a grasshopper is spotted, it is plucked from its perch and thrust into the basket. Sweat pours down my body and heat lightning flickers in the distance. The basket I carry grows noisier as the night goes on, rattling with the sound of grasshoppers hopping madly inside. Somebody’s candle starts a small fire which somebody else stamps out. Among the boys, there seems to be a competition for who can capture the most grasshoppers. We roam the fields, which seem endless. After a couple of hours, I begin to feel claustrophobic, trapped among the towering sugarcane, yearning for open space, for a place to stop moving, to rest, and cool down. I’m wondering if we will ever find our way back out again.
Then a quiet young village girl comes and takes me by the hand. She leads me gently and doesn’t bother speaking, as if I am a deaf-mute. Now she parts the sugarcane stalks, bends over and peers inside. She turns and smiles up at me, beckoning. I bend over and peer into the thicket of stalks. Three baby birds are nestled in a row on a stalk, serenading us in the night. We pause in our attack on the grasshoppers and listen to their delicate, trilling chorus.
The reward for all this labor comes later, back at Khruu June’s house. It does not involve money, but food. Baskets upon baskets of grasshoppers are dumped into woks sizzling with oil. The taste is salty and crunchy, similar to popcorn. Some of the villagers won’t eat the grasshoppers until they’ve pulled their stomachs out, because the stomach tastes bitter. I learn, after a few tries, that I won’t eat them until I’ve plucked off their razor-sharp legs.
Also posted on my blog Strange Islands

Milestones: Three years in the pink city

Not all of Jaipur looks like this...

Recently, I keep starting out my posts with numbers. Perhaps it helps me to establish the landmarks, to measure my success on this uncharted path. For me, these three years are the longest ever time that I've been settled in one place since I graduated from high school in 1999. I'm discounting the four years of college because I moved a lot from year to year.

True, I haven't been in Jaipur for three years straight, either. I have left for at least 2 months every year to visit family, and last year I was hardly home since I spent almost half the time at the ashram or travelling. It's probably the only way I could've survived.

Nonetheless, three years with my stuff in the same apartment, with or without me. Three years of having Jaipur as home base, ready for me when I return. Three years of pigeons as my closest neighbors.

It was in April 2007 that we came here. I want to be able to say something very insightful about my experience here, a neatly packaged byte of wisdom. But in my stupor of disbelief that I've made it here this long, I'm struggling to make much out of it.

Actually, perhaps the real motivating force behind writing this post, behind even the realization itself that I have been here for that long, is that we are most probably leaving Jaipur. I hesitate to give more details because that deserves its own post. But the impending departure certainly has made me recognize how settled I've become here, and dare I say it? Attached.

To be honest, I can't think of things off the top of my head that I particularly like about this place, but to do Jaipur some justice, I will put some effort in and make a list:

1. Central Park
2. seeing Nahargarh Fort from my window

Ok, the list idea is pointless. It's sounding horribly negative, which has nothing to do with Jaipur in itself--it's more to do with my own perspective and judgements.

While now I can say that I'm in a positive frame of mind, much of my time here has not been spent in that way. Furthermore, I can say that I've come to terms with my previous negativity, and have reached more of a state of acceptance of life, of being here, all the pros and cons included. It's been a sacrifice, but has held certain advantages. They've pretty much cancelled each other out.

Pros include low cost of living, nice apartment, being close to in-laws, being close to Delhi. Cons: difficulty in going out (weather & logistics combined), weather, lack of social circle, weather, being close to in-laws, weather...

Dear Jaipur, you're too hot and I can't think properly. You've made life difficult for me, but I forgive you.

Nahargarh Fort, which I can see from my window

(also posted on my blog, BeckyBlab)

Night of the Raining Stars

Today in the village I hear discussion among teachers about a star that’s falling on Thailand tonight. I envision a giant meteor racing toward the earth, headed straight for--by coincidence--this tiny village. It can’t be true. No star is going to slam into Boonsong tonight. I’m sure I’ll still be here, trying to teach English, tomorrow.
“Oh, yes, it’s true!” Khruu Aria insists. “It’s coming tonight. Everyone is going to stay up and watch for it. It happened last year, too. We saw it with our own eyes.”
Wait a minute. You mean this meteor has crashed into Boonsong before?
“Yes,” Khruu Aria replies. “Stay up tonight and watch for it with the rest of us.”

It’s midnight, and I’m ready to rise and join the rest of the village. They have made a believer out of me once again. Ghosts, dragon fire, hurtling stars—the villagers are usually right about all of it. The problem almost always lies in my incomprehension. In this case, it’s my incomprehension of Thai grammar—in particular, the lack of plural nouns. Fon tok means rain. Daw means star. Khruu Aria wasn’t telling me about a single falling star. She was telling me about a night of raining stars. She meant the Leonid Meteor Showers. It really is Khyyn Fon Daw Tok, or the Night of the Raining Stars.
I shuffle across the wat grounds like a ghost. It’s completely dark and silent. The entire village is supposed to get up and watch this, but I don’t see signs of anybody else up but me. I step onto the dirt road, and a single dog in the nearest house barks. I walk past the next house, and that dog barks, too. Soon my steps are accompanied by a chorus of frenzied barks. I have awakened every single dog in the village, but where are all the people? I feel a strange tingle on the back of my neck. Why have all the people—though, oddly, not the dogs—disappeared? Or maybe I’ve disappeared and I don’t know it yet. Maybe the dogs are barking at me, and I can’t see a living soul, because I am now a ghost, ala The Sixth Sense. What a fate that would be, to join the throng of ghosts that haunts Thailand—underwear ghosts, banana tree ghosts, dead lovers, dead snakes--and hang around the village, in spirit, forever.
I arrive at my friend Yooping’s house and knock lightly on her door. She opens the door, carrying a flashlight. No one anywhere seems to be stirring for the impending firestorm. We climb down the ladder of her house together and walk to her sister’s house. I’m tiptoeing and trying to whisper, already feeling sheepish about having agitated the dogs, but Yooping begins to bellow: “We’re here to watch the raining stars!” She thunders repeatedly, at the top of her lungs, “We’ve come to watch the raining stars! We’re here! Come down! We’re here to see the stars fall!”

Gradually, lights flicker on and we hear voices. A small crowd filters down, armed with pillows and blankets. They turn on the outside fluorescent light and settle down beneath blankets to socialize. The glare from the fluorescent light makes it difficult to see any stars falling from the sky. I follow everyone else’s lead and kick off my shoes before stretching out with blankets on the raised wooden platform beneath the house. We wait patiently, chatting, but nobody sees a single falling star. All I can see is the humming fluorescent light. After two hours of this, I give up. My ears are tired of trying to track the conversation, and I’m cold. I reach under the platform for my shoes, but they’re not there.
“My shoes are gone,” I complain. This news leads to a flurry of exclamations and an excited search. Did my hosts move my disgusting sandals—which are rotting here at the end of the rainy season and which stink to high heaven--to a more suitable place for shoes? Maybe I still don’t understand everything about shoe protocol. But the other star-watchers search dutifully and discover their shoes are missing, too. We’re all confounded. Finally, one lone shoe—mine—is recovered, half-gnawed, from a dog’s mouth. While we gossiped and stargazed, industrious dogs carried away our shoes. Why they would do that, I have no idea. I stand to leave, too tired and cold to care. Strangely, in the distance, other dogs begin to howl. Everyone chuckles and says to me, “When the dogs howl, the ghosts come out.”
I limp home wearing only one shoe. I’m unafraid of ghosts, but glad to be living in a village that dispenses warnings about them. We will all live to see another day without being crushed by a meteor, and I’m glad about that, too. And at last, as I reach home, I see one bright shining star streak across the sky. Also posted on my blog Strange Islands

Speaking of Strange Islands

We made the mistake of taking the slow boat, thinking it would give us a leisurely tour of the spectacular island-strewn waters of Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. Leisurely it was, so much so that after hours of winding our way among sharp, jutting rocks and lush green islands, we were now sitting in the pitch dark on a creaking wooden boat that had no running lights—well, that had no lights at all. Instead, a boy had climbed to the front of the boat with a flashlight that seemed to have faulty batteries. There were no lights anywhere around us, either, except for our own lonely light, which the boy had to shake occasionally to revive. The islands and rocks were invisible in the inky blackness until we were already upon them. I was recalling warnings in some of the guide books about pirates occasionally preying on tourist boats in Ha Long Bay. If there were any pirates in the area, we were surely easy pickins—although they would have had to locate us in the dark first. I wondered how much the captain of the boat could see—did he have cat vision, or bat vision? I could only hope he knew this area like the back of his hand, because floating dreamily through a labyrinth of tropical green islands by day had turned to navigating menacing rocks by night.
Full Disclosure: You can also (perhaps wisely) hop a fast boat and reach Cat Ba Island in one hour. The island has seen a dramatic increase in hotel construction in past years, mostly funded by overseas Vietnamese. But at the time we visited, things were still a bit more rustic, which made for more adventure as well.
Ha Long Bay (which supposedly means Descending Dragon Bay) in north Vietnam is dotted by, according to some estimates, 2,000 “islets”—which is to say, miniature islands of widely varied shapes and sizes. The scenery is stunning, and gliding through it on a slow boat can be an otherworldly, hypnotic experience. Our somewhat rattletrap wooden boat chugged along with a small number of passengers, including my sister and myself, as well as a French family. The boat operators used the small on-board space efficiently, cooking up a meal for us in the engine room as they piloted the boat. Old tires were scattered about the boat which appeared to be our life vests. On the way to Cat Ba Island, we passed floating fishing villages where entire communities spent their lives living on the water. After it turned dark and the boat plowed blindly on, a French passenger timidly asked, “Is this safe?” At that point, it didn’t really matter—the only way left was forward.
When we fortunately reached the island, a bus arrived to take passengers to our various hotels. Whenever the bus stopped, the driver put a cement block in front of it as a parking brake. When we finally entered our hotel room, ready to collapse after a long day, we noticed the sheets were dirty…as if someone had slept in them with muddy shoes. When we inquired about this, the proprietors responded by taking us to another room. The only problem was that in this hotel room, somebody’s possessions were still there. Unnerved at the prospect of other guests returning in the middle of night to find us sleeping in their beds, we requested a third room. In this room, the only problem was a non-flushing toilet, but otherwise it was clean, and completely empty of extra guests. I remember looking out the window into the alley below and seeing a sleek, fat rat the size of a medium-sized dog devouring something (probably a medium-sized dog.) Maybe it was some sort of water rat/native creature, but whatever it was, it was huge.
As you can tell, at that time, Cat Ba Island wasn’t about luxury accommodations. However, it was and still is about dramatic scenery: waterfalls, forests, hills, cliffs, caves, lakes, and sandy beaches tucked here and there among the otherwise rocky coastline. But the best part of Cat Ba Island is probably the breathtaking and nerve-wracking experience of getting there.
Also on my blog Strange Islands

Mystery Island

Somehow, in the middle of this wide, landlocked plain, we have made our way to a tropical island.
An Italian volunteer named David is visiting the Thai village where I teach English, and he has come with Pen, Kanjana and I in search of this strange little island. I’m on the back of Pen’s motorcycle and David is riding with Kanjana. We’re tearing along back roads, surrounded by acres of rice paddies. We’re like ants struggling to cross vast, green tracts of earth. Pen and Kanjana have both been trying to explain the significance of the island to me, and I am struggling to understand their Issan-laced Thai as they shout over the sound of motorcycle engines and wind. David, meanwhile, is shouting to me in his Italian-accented English. I’m shouting back to him, in American-accented English, passing along whatever spotty information I can glean about this elusive island we are racing toward.
Kanjana and Pen shout a mile a minute over the wind and flood me with tantalizing, incomprehensible details about the mysterious island. David says to me, “What did they say?”
I reply thoughtfully: “I have no idea. Something about an island.”
Pen steers her motorcycle off the road and we putt-putt to a stop. Ahead of us is a small wooden bridge, which we’ll cross on foot. And I see that all that they have been shouting about is true: In the midst of this barren plain sits an oasis, floating like a dream. We dismount the motorcycles at the edge of a serene green lake. In the middle of the lake is tethered a compact little island, every square inch of it bristling with towering palm trees. The palm trees that cloak the island are unique, Pen and Kanjana explain. They grow only here, on this small island, in the middle of this desert, in the middle of nowhere.
“This is the only place these trees can be found,” Pen insists. “They won’t grow anywhere else. They have tried to transplant them elsewhere, but they failed.”
The impossibly tall trees look thick and ancient and strange, nothing like the youthful, slender coconut trees I am used to seeing scattered gracefully across the rice paddies. What they are trying to tell me, I realize, is that this island is a mystery. These trees are a miracle. Why does this thicket of trees grow only here and nowhere else on earth? Of course, I have no way of verifying the fact that the trees grow nowhere else. It seems a little suspect, but I cheerfully agree with them and enter the realm of the mystical.We leave the motorcycles in the parking lot. We cross the footbridge whose handrails on both sides, I notice, are a long, unfurled serpent complete with scales. But serpent handrails are not an uncommon sight in Thailand when leading to temples. The naga (which I believe was a 7-headed cobra) is widely revered for sheltering the Buddha while he meditated on his way to enlightenment.
Pen lowers her voice and passes on another mysterious bit: A story about a Thai man who was hired to show outdoor movies on the island all night long. The crowd who gathered to watch the movie was silent and odd. The man showing the movies had to be out by 4 a.m., he was warned, or he might never leave the island. When the man went to leave the island, he had trouble finding his way out. He eventually made it off the island, and the strangely silent movie fans, he learned afterward, were ghosts. I’ve heard many American versions of the encounter with the stranger who turns out to be a ghost, but I like this Thai twist on it.
We step onto the island and instantly sink into hushed, dense forest. The light above us filters weakly down. A Buddhist monk slips silently past us, and Pen, the lone Buddhist among us Christians, leads us reverently along a twisting path deep into the trees. At the heart of the island pulses a silent spring. Here is the heart of the mystery. The four of us lean over the deep, green pool and peer in. The water is murky, and the well is, perhaps, bottomless. I can’t be sure, but I am looking for the giant snake that dwells therein. In Buddhism, of course, snakes don’t have the sullied reputation that they have in Christianity. In fact, they often represent the sacred. A giant, sacred snake dwells in this pool, and there is a whole, elaborate story about how it got here. Pen is unraveling the tale and I’m struggling desperately to understand her Thai. I hate the way the details escape me. Who knows what I’m missing?
But I understand this much: This is why the miraculous trees thrive in this arid plain. And this is why the water in this well contains curative powers. Because of the special, sacred snake coiled down below. Pen leans forward and cups some of the water in her hands. She drinks it deeply, and anoints her own head as well. She urges us to do the same. But I can’t help it: I’m not afraid of the snake—I’m afraid of the murky water. Pen’s immune system is up to the challenge of local water, but mine is not. Maybe the waters really are mystical. But I am not Buddhist or even Thai. So will these opaque waters heal me or afflict me? One part of me is intrigued by this spooky spring, and the strange story, and the unsettling possibilities that this whispering island contains. But I am also feeling intensely practical, so I decline to drink.
Long after leaving the tiny island and the village, I learn (or confirm) the details. We had visited Wat Kham Chanot วัดคำชะโนด. It’s considered an “entrance to the water world”, or maybe the underworld--the dwelling place of a sacred serpent. The monks inhabiting the island are devoted to revering the special serpent, and the locals do indeed consider the area sacred. My memory of that day is that almost no one else was around except a stray monk or two. The flat rice paddies surrounding the island were also empty. There was indeed something otherworldly in the air, although maybe the moody atmosphere was due to the dense forest and deep well.
Some say the serpent has a “hiding place” on the island. On that day, Pen and Kanjana clearly believed the snake was hiding at the bottom of the well. Or was the well the entrance to the underworld? No matter—I comprehended their Thai well enough to get the picture, and the eerie locale is still with me to this day. This post also appears on my blog Strange Islands.

Willing to Wander

I’m a big believer in pilgrimages—whether it’s to the Mekong River to watch for “dragon fire”, or a mountaintop in Spain where the Virgin Mary reportedly appeared, or a dirt road in rural Missouri where a “spooklight” dances, or the deep silence of the woods around a Trappist abbey in rural Oregon. My own understanding of a pilgrimage is that of a quest—I try to take a route I haven’t taken before to a place I’ve never been before, where an answer to a question may or may not be waiting. I’ve discovered that risk and openness usually bring a surprising gift.
When I visited the Trappist abbey recently, the weather was perfect, the hiking trails lush, and the sounds of forest creatures and burbling streams and wind sighing in the tree tops a welcome relief from the concrete and traffic of Seattle. The monks started singing at 3:30 in the morning, punctuated the rest of the day with prayer and singing, and finished at 7:30 pm. I tried to sleep as late as 6:30 am, but with bells ringing and other retreatants rising early, it was difficult. It’s only a place you should visit if you’re willing to enter into the “monastic rhythm”—and it’s a little jarring at first coming from the hyperactive outside world. My favorite time of day was the 7:30 pm prayers and songs in the candlelit chapel as a monk pronounced, “Brothers, we are now one day closer to our eternal home. ”That comment sent a shiver down my spine, reminding me that we are all pilgrims, and each day is another mile in the journey. Every day is a new mile we haven’t traveled before—and we don’t really know where our wandering will ultimately lead or what our destination city will look like. I guess that’s what travel used to always be like. Now, we tend to be fully informed and completely connected over the internet before we even take our first step. Yet adventures still await those who are willing to wander. After departing the abbey, I just started driving in the general direction of the Pacific coast. Along the way, I spotted hand-made signs and arrows proclaiming simply, “Monastery.” Naturally, I had to follow. The signs led me along deserted stretches of two-lane highway. I was just about to turn around when I reached another arrow pointing to an unpaved road. The unpaved road dead-ended, and when I stepped out of my car, a beat-up old tom cat came racing out to greet me. Maybe the monks’ silence left the cat starved for conversation. I had arrived at the only Brigittine monastery in the world, where cloistered monks chanted and made chocolate. I took a few moments to pray in the “Our Lady of Consolation” chapel and, of course, I bought some chocolate. For some reason, the winding roads on this little pilgrimage kept depositing me on the doorstep of those hidden ones who are devoting their lives to praying for the rest of us. Apparently, there are even cloistered cats.
Also posted on my blog Strange Islands

Dragon Fire Festival

Hello Writers Rising!
My name is Lynne Walker, and I'm a new contributor, invited by Katherine Jenkins, one of my fellow writers in our Seattle writing group. I'm interested in all kinds of writing, from fiction to non-fiction, including journalism. So I thought I'd start by posting a short travel piece about an unexplained mystery in Thailand. I've been catching up on what you've been writing, and I'm looking forward to reading more of your blog postings in the days ahead.

The Dragon Fire Festival
The full moon often scalds the Thai landscape with strange surprises, and I find myself holding my breath to see what crawls from the shadows. Who is this emerging from the fields at this dead hour of the night? What is that strange shriek, in a place where no shriek ever has an innocent explanation? I have become a believer--the countryside is riddled with ghosts. And in a small town not too far away, dragon fire erupts from the Mekong River, but only in October, and only when the moon is full.
The fire-breathing dragon apparently spends the entire year resting on the bottom of the Mekong and emerges just once, to show off, on the banks of the chosen town of Phon Phisai. Thousands of locals turn out to wait for the dragon’s breath to rise from the Mekong River. Pink lights burst out of the river on this one night and arc silently into the sky. The town celebrates the dragon’s spectacular display with Bung Fai Payanak (บั้งไฟพญานาค) or the Dragon Fire Festival. The Dragon Fire Parade drums its way down Main Street during the day, and at night a river parade of lighted bamboo floats glides past, to keep the dragon company. This legendary spirit, which some say shielded the Buddha from the rain and sun while he meditated, stirs to life each year at the end of the Buddhist Lent, breathing celebratory fireballs into the sky.
When we arrived in Phon Phisai in the afternoon, the boardwalk along the river was already bustling with people. Vendors hawked dried squid, speckled bird eggs, cotton candy, balloons, grilled chicken, soccer-sized grapefruit, roasted bananas, beer and soda. Wooden boats dotted the tranquil waters of the Mekong, and opposite us shone the lush green coast of Laos.
After eating, we staked out a spot to sit on the riverbanks, and at dusk we heard a piercing whistle. Was it the sound of the dragon rising from the murky Mekong to breathe fire into the sky? No—it was only the introductory fireworks for the evening. In fact, the entire evening was filled with fireworks, from start to finish—enough to frighten any lurking dragon away. Once it was dark, the river parade of floats began (this also can be viewed in Nong Khai). White lights, and in some cases dozens of candles, covered bamboo structures designed to look like ancient Oriental sailing ships and other marvels. Vendors moved through the packed crowd selling noisemakers and coiled dragon puppets with red battery-powered eyes. Paper lanterns drifted higher and higher into the night until their fiery glow vanished. To add to the mystery, the electricity powering the vendors’ stalls along the river kept going off throughout the evening.
I asked one Thai woman if she “believed” in the dragon fire we all were waiting to see.
“I believe,” she said cautiously, and then cracked a sheepish smile.
A group of Thai schoolgirls handed me a survey in English. Do you believe it’s a spirit? the survey asked. Do you think it’s fireworks? Natural gas? Do you think it should be researched?
“By all means, research it,” I agreed.
An excited roar suddenly rippled through the crowd. People stretched and craned their necks to see.
“Mai mee arai,” people murmured all around me in Thai. “Nothing, it was nothing.”
“Do you believe?” a Thai woman inquired, turning the tables on me.
“When I see it, I’ll believe it,” I replied, and everyone around me burst out laughing.
It was wall-to-wall people and a spirited roar swept through the crowd every time a light—any light at all—feebly flickered. A deep rumble began to grow as the crowd pointed and shouted. At last, I saw it—small red lights, arcing into the air like emergency flares or Roman candles, minus sparks or smoke or sound. I zeroed in on a tall American with a camera.
“Oh, sure, I believe,” he said enthusiastically. “It’s definitely something.”
But why were the searchlights from a motorboat in exactly the spot where a pink light had erupted a moment before?
“Police inspectors,” one local told me. “They are making sure no one else is out there. They are inspecting for fraud.”
This quirky detail-- inspectors in motorboats racing about to certify the dragon fire-- seemed completely in keeping with the good-natured spirit of this festival which celebrates an authentic Thai mystery. (posted in greater detail on my blog Strange Islands)