Mist hangs above the jungle in delicate swathes of silver. Beyond my narrow, single bed and the mesh canopy that fans around it, darkness is beginning to fill the cracks between the trees.  The jungle and its night time noises grow louder. And I—I grow lonelier.  I’ve spent two days with a group of people I do not know, and can not. We share space, hovering like ghosts at meal times, sitting in circle for meditation, resting soundlessly on cushions and couches that scatter the second floor lounge.  We’re here, but we’re not. We’re not here for each other. We’re here for ourselves. Typically, this would be a dream for...

“How whole are you?” I leaned back on the motorbike, as my sixteen year old Balinese driver pressed on with increasing speed through the winding jungle roads of Nusa Penida.  When I didn’t answer, he repeated his question— “How whole are you?” “I need a moment to sit with that, Echo.”  Surely, I thought, this must be a Balinese get-to-know-you question. In my own culture, it’s unusual to explore the depths of one’s wholeness at first acquaintance.  But, however nonchalantly he asked, it had an impact. How whole am I? After a few moments of contemplation and gripping the back of his bike for dear life, I said, “I am...

I thought I was coming to Bali to work. It turns out, this couldn’t be more far from the truth. Here in Bali, life is different. “Ati ati” is a phrase I learned from one of my Balinese drivers. It means “slow ride” [according to his translation]. When he taught me this phrase, we were on our way to Canggu and he was referring to road speed, but I took it to mean something deeper. “Ati ati,” I repeated to myself, looking out over the vivid green of the rice fields rushing past. Slow ride. Slow ride indeed. Here in Bali, there is nowhere to get to—there is only this...