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Day 4 and 5 - The Calm before the Storm

Belinda Kate


Day 4 - Magic

Breakthrough.


My newly constructed habits must have been supporting the container into which creativity and joy is flowing.


Yesterday was full of the practise of the habit of breathing out when unwanted thoughts intruded in my space. Today they floated away without resistance, reminding me that they no longer had a place in this story. My story. Today joy has been slowly seeping in.



I rise in the morning to birdsong in the palm trees and emerge from the cocoon of sleep on a folded towel that serves as a yoga mat. By the time the 20-30 minute yoga lesson is finished my body is stretched and strong and my heart is grounded in gratitude. Then I dance. Corny 80’s and 90’s pop tunes blare in the coconut grove a small way down the island and dance until I am dripping with sweat and gasping for breath and fear that I will expire in this wet hot island air. I am alive, I am alive, and I am living deeper in this body than I have in years. I am so grateful I think that my heart might explode. There’s a huge warm space, a white light, in my chest and it hums with joy. I walk into Day 4 holding this light. My back feels strong and straight and I feel grounded in the warm sand.


Dinner on the water's edge

Who knew that magic could work so quickly?!



How, in the early hours of my flight into darkness could I have doubted that the inspiration would come?


I wrote the rape scene in my novel. I had been afraid of writing this, I thought it might tear like a knife, sending me backwards, deep into the depths of a woman’s pain-body, but it flowed forth without hurt. I think it was very well written. If I can figure out how to flow the story between the key scenes I think this will be a valuable work. If not for others’ in society, then certainly for me.





I can’t go past Day 4 without sharing this last evening we all had together. I begin to look forward to when the day tripper leave and those on the island can come together like family. The drunken kiwi and I asked about a bonfire on the beach and the boys collected driftwood for us and built a towering pyre. We were but few guests this evening and as the sun set in a shower of spectacular reds and purples the islanders set a table right on the water's edge.


Beach, bonfire and guitar

Following dinner the kava mat was laid on the sand and the ritual commenced to strumming of island guitar. I meet the eyes of Lagi, the ringleader, the musician, the fire dancer, and his eyes look straight through into my soul and I feel so alive.









The calm before the storm

I am lost in the beauty of this night. Connection runs through us all as we sit on the matt woven of coconut fronds and the guitar flows through time like the wavelets on the shore. The kava is passed with reverence, shared equally amongst islanders and the tourists who drift in and out of the sacred circle. Mouth momentarily gentle tingling, cheeks awash with sensation and after maybe a dozen I can’t suppress the irresistible urge to laugh deeply after each additional draught. Drunk kiwi plies everyone with alcohol and I nearly split my sides laughing at his dry humour and guileless manner. There is wine flowing freely now too, served in half coconuts, but I prefer the softness of the kava, the lulling of the limbs in the music and the island breeze, heart as full as the starry sky.





Day 5 - Wholeness


My heart is full. In its fullness I almost find no reason to write. I want for nothing. I am complete.


Habit 1. Today I am grateful for;

- Laughing until my sides hurt,

- Finding my voice amongst the harmonies of the islanders. Singing from the depths of my soul and being more surprised than anyone else around the fire that I have a beautiful voice.

- Shooting stars and phosphorescence.


Habit 2. Hold the space on my heart and breath out all unwelcome thoughts. I have none. My inner voice is silent.


Habit 3. I wake each morning on the yoga mat and set my daily intentions and do a round of gratitudes. Habit 3 has been extended and each morning bar the first when I ran around the island, I have done 30 mins of high impact dance cardio following the yoga. I take my little boombox into the coconut grove and rock out, shaking every part of my body until I am dripping with sweat. Dance like no-one is watching, and then collapse in a hot mess in the clear shallows.


I hang suspended in each moment as it arrives, feeling deeply the warm wind caressing my skin, wild hair of smoke and salt, and my heart beating with the rhythm of the island. Isn't this feeling the whole reason for meditation, the whole reason for the practice, any practice, of mind control, just to be still and whole and immersed. The space I have been creating in my heart is trembling and full. It is no longer a space to be carefully protected to keep out the negative thoughts that seep into an uncultivated void, but when I seek the nature of energy that fills it, I find nothing at all. My heart is full and it is not a memory, a hope, a circumstance or a place in the future. It is the beat of the island, the throbbing of the sun, the sound of the islanders calling to each other as they go about their tasks and the thousand hermit crabs scuttling across the sand. There is only the present moment.





Another show of fire and dancing but somehow this time it is a completely different experience. We know them now. We know Kini, of Beqa island, who walks on fire stones and spins the machete blindfolded. He has a son, and was widowed three years ago. He is always smiling. He shouts to me Bula Bella! from across the resort no matter what tasks he is carrying out. As I write he sits behind me in the coconut grove shelling the flesh from the brown nuts collected from the ground. He will take the bowls of white flesh to the open air kitchen nearby for the ladies to cook for our lunch. There’s Paula, black tribal warrior paint across half his face, rippling abs and oiled skin, you can see he loves the movements of the dance because he catches our eye - Lily* (drunk kiwis wife) Drunk kiwi and myself. He is laughing with us, winking at us even as he performs. His mother also works here on the island. Nasa and Tui come from the village nearby, and then there's Lagi, the leader; he entertains the daytrippers and seems to lead the dance and the crew, his deep voice calling the movements as they stamp and twirl fire and warcry to each other. I hear his laugh and his voice on the breeze even now. He seeks me out with his eyes across the heads of the crowd and smiles. These islanders move in a way white men forgot centuries ago. Their masculinity is apparent in every stamp of their feet in the sand, in the swish of the grass skirts around their hips and their calfs in the rhythmic rocking of their hips to the drums. Lily and I giggle to each other from our front row perch, that we are weak at the knees, more so, so much more so, as we have come to know the men, their stories and something of their characters.


Another night of guitar under the stars and driftwood fire on the beach; drunk kiwi and Lily, the islanders and few drifters. We laugh until I think my sides will split. The sky, void of cultural lighting, is milky with pinpoints of light and dozens of stars shoot across the sky leaving a trail of sparks. We pass many hours with our feet buried in the sand, the guitar and voices harmonising, the fish jumping in the shallows leaving phosphorescent splashes on the otherwise dark ocean surface.


I forgot what else happened in moments gone before. I almost forget to write. I am entirely within each moment as it presents and passes. I tingle with life.


*Name changed for privacy

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