New Year, or Nyepi, in Bali is an event that lasts several days, and we were able to participate in all the festivities. A day or two before the actual event, members of every village on the island dress up in their temple clothes and, taking along their local gamelan orchestra and the small statues or masks that are sacred to that particular village, head to the sea for a symbolic cleansing ceremony and blessing.

Later in the afternoon, everyone gathers in the center of the village for a grand procession to chase the demons out of town. The demons are called ogoh-ogoh, and they represented by large, skillfully and imaginatively constructed statues of papier maché or sponge that local people work on for weeks in advance. With children leading the procession, women following with offerings on their heads, young men hefting the ogoh-ogoh on litters made of thick bamboo, and the clamor of drums and gongs, the procession winds through the village making as much noise as possible to scare off the monsters.

The following day, this year March 16, is Nyepi itself, a day of silence (even the international airport shuts down), so the demons will think that the island is deserted. The members of our small group spent the day much as the Balinese do: quietly, not going outside the compound of our small hotel, keeping the electricity off, reflecting. Towards evening we got together and had a long talking council to discuss the previous year--what we were happy about, what we might have done better, and what we had learned to prepare us for the year ahead.

The following day people visit relatives, eat, and celebrate. Some of the mountain towns of northern Bali, like Munduk, where we spent the holiday, have a tradition all their own. We met our guide, Nyoman "Mangkok" Sutaruya, at 3:00 AM and walked into the village, where families were cooking food in simple ovens made of piled bricks with a few sticks of wood shoved into them and a pot balanced on top. Since lighting fires is not allowed on Nyepi, this custom of cooking on the street is a way of gradually introducing fire back into the house. We ate breakfast with Mangkok's family as techno music blared from a boombox nearby, frogs sang in the rice paddies, small boys set off fireworks, elderly women squatted beside their braziers to roast chicken, and people greeted each other jubilantly.

In Bali, everyone is born with a guna, a gift of some kind. What makes this gift come alive in a way that exceeds even the best that a talented woman or man can do is taksu, the divine spark that must enter the person and ignite that gift, make it dance like fire. Balinese musicians, dancers, and actors are especially conscious of their taksu, for they need it to enchant both the gods and the humans who make up their audiences.

As Rucina Ballinger, an American-born dancer who has lived in Bali since 1974 and is married to a Balinese man (she is also our guide in Ubud, the artistic hub of Bali), writes in her book, Balinese Dance, Drama and Music:

"Taksu... has little to do with technical precision, as there are performers who are perfect in their execution but lack that extra something, while there are those less killed who are able to bind their audience to them. Taksu can be passed down from a parent to a child or from a teacher to a pupil. A performer can have taksu at one performance and the following night fall flat. A mask can possess taksu and assist the actor in making it come alive. An entire gamelan orchestra can possess taksu regardless of who plays in it."

Within every family temple there is a shrine to the taksu, and the family makes offerings to it each day. You can't take your taksu for granted.

On my Facebook page the other day, I wrote about taksu and asked when others feel their divine charisma flame. Here are two wonderful responses:

From Kate Forsyth (Maryland): "When passion fills me to capacity and overflows with something beyond love, beyond the physical, beyond symbols, it roars forth like the river I hear now outside my window and takes over and I'm so gone, gone, gone..."

From Maria Celaya (Spain): "Every day I find a new experience, or thing I see, hear, acknowledge some way that fills my Taksu flame for life."

Photo by James Samanen

The Global Earth Exchange is also attracting supporters. Nipun Mehta, who pioneered the idea of the Gift Economy, where people give to others out of joy and compassion without expectation of reward or compensation, and whose work has been written up in numerous publications, wrote me: "What a great project you're doing! We're going to send out links to your site to about 10 thousand folks subscribed to our social media channels."

Glenn Albrecht was profiled in a recent article in the New York Times Magazine for his coining of the word solastalgia to mean "the pain experienced when there is recognition that the place where one resides and that one loves is under immediate assault." He will participate in the Global Earth Exchange in Hunter Valley, southeastern Australia, where coal mining is causing pollution, extreme noise, and constant bright lights.

Our goal is to have 100 Earth Exchanges taking place all over the world on June 19.

You can join the network and call attention to a wounded place you love! See our website for details. You will receive a free T-shirt, Radical Joy for Hard Times flag, and other support and, most important, you will become part of a pioneering new environmental activism based on community, compassion, and creativity.

Creating a sustainable, thriving future on Earth depends on opening our hearts to the natural world in its brokenness as well as its splendor.

Speaking of taksu (see second story above), if you want to see it in action, watch this video of Hiromi, a young Japanese jazz pianist who plays as if her piano is her lover. She bounces up and down, reaches into the piano to mute the keys with one hand while continuing to play with the other. She whispers, she closes her eyes, she breaks into a grin.

In the interview, with NPR All Things Considered host Guy Raz, she plays one of her own compositions, "Choux a la Crême," a piece she wrote about eating a cream puff. She explains how the idea came to her: "Well, I was just walking down the street in France, and I was looking for a bakery. And when you're aiming for something that you love, your happiness level just goes up every minute. And when I find a bakery, it steps up again, you know. Then, when I find the cream puff itself, I'm so happy. And when I have it, I'm fulfilled with happiness. And when it's gone, I'm sad. It's quite an adventure."

This popular workshop, based on my book about love and desire and how we can bring it more consciously into our lives, shows you how the many different paths of love in your life are really all connected--and part of the dynamic inner force called the Beloved. You will:
 

• Connect with the archetypal Beloved in you, that knows how to say YES to what you love
• Discover how your past loves (including those that didn't work out) were essential in opening you up to a bigger capacity to love
• Learn to recognize the inner voice of the "loyal soldier" that wants to hold you back from following your heart
• See how
• fascination and allurement have led you all onto important paths

This year the workshop will be offered in five locations:

April 30-May 2: Cincinnati (contact Tom Rubens)

May 7-9: Gainesville, Florida (contact Martin Goldberg)

July 30-August 2: Seattle (contact Ruth Dow Rogers)

November 12-14: Schloss Glarisegg, Lake Constance, Switzerland (contact Silvia Figel)

November 19-21: Eschwege Institute, Eschwege, Germany

Endless Mountains Vision Quest

This four-day program, held in a secluded 400-acre nature preserve, is specially designed for those who seek a meaningful rite of passage in a beautiful, yet accessible place. You explore many of the same processes and practices as in the longer vision quest, but with a focus on reading Nature's lessons and discovering how they apply to your own path in life. For the twenty-four-hour solo you may choose from among diverse ecological niches: glacial pond, meadow, wetlands, stream, or forest. Minimal backpacking. $605

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