Life is an amazing dance…
And like all good dance, there is structure; but what makes it so special and different and your own, is the level and quality of personal  improvisation within the form.

Twenty years ago I arrived in Bali to start living my vision… to make jewelry to empower the ‘light workers’ of the world.

I have struggled from the beginning…
I have had no training in this life, how to run a business… I have never been to school to find out how you are supposed to do this ‘properly’!  In the long run I feel this was of benefit to me.

Under these circumstances… because I had no ‘box’, I was expecting everyone else to fit into, I was open to new thought and new ways of doing things.
Since my arrival in 1988, I have been creative in all my endeavors.

The company of over 100 souls, runs itself because I have built it on the model of Social Business.

This means, my aim is to empower people; educate and encourage creativity and responsibility within the group and always remember it’s about the quality of our life, not the state of our profit margin.

I have never laid people off in times of crisis… and there have been many!
I have lived through the ousting of Suharto (A dictator for 42 years), the financial crisis that devalued the currency overnight and had us all in a spin, the election and consequent riots of the first new leader since Suharto…

I have married, given birth and divorced since I have been here… and more recently there was the bomb the year after 9-11-01 and the recent bomb in Jakarta… all acts of powerless men craving attention for their cause…

What have I learned in thinking about the last twenty years?

I love my family.
My children and my family of Talismans of Power.
I feel honored and blessed to have been a part of their life for so long.

I know they love me as unconditionally as I do them; we are blessed to be in the dance together.
I believe this is the energy that shines through all our work together and why the value of what we produce will continue to grow in the future.

This knowledge keeps me healthy and emotionally balanced where ever I am in the world… to know I am loved… and will be protected against the dark night should that moment arrive.

To go to sleep at night, knowing we are still a family of light despite the dark times surrounding us… keeps a smile on my face.

Despite the current challenges, all the gang are smiling. As we were preparing for the party, we were completing the prayers for Saraswati, the Goddess of Beauty, music, wisdom and jewels…. it was her sacred day and all my staff and I spent the morning praying in the garden by the temple… it was a sublime experience and reminds me of why I came here and why I will never give up and run away…

This is an important part of my personal commitment to my extended family in the third world. Their safety, joy and evolution is just as important to me as my own or those of others in more salubrious locations.

Life is a brilliant adventure… and for those whose hearts hear the music, the tickets are free for the dance…

Blazing tales of wonder…. S xxx

Let’s talk about success…

In the dictionary success literally means: “the thing that comes next” as in succession…

That makes sense… so when did ‘success’ change from ‘the thing that happens next’ to ‘more money, power and achievement than others’?

In terms of this new definition of success, competition is ingrained… and life has become a race. The winners end up losing their humanity, health and friends along the way…

Somehow we have agreed as a culture that money, power and achievement are far more valuable than health, humor, friendship and the quality of our internal life, in fact, generally it is not held in high esteem to be at peace with yourself, to have something to share with others, to care enough to help our families and friends, to have the time and inclination to want to make a difference where it is unseen… at the heart of the matter…

Recently, I asked the Universal Mother through prayer, if she would please arrange a few big Plumeria trees for the garden I am creating in her service….in Australia we call them Frangipani and in Indonesia they are called Kamboja — a universal tropical/desert plant, that survive against the odds…

This plant really engages my imagination and inspires me… the way it conducts itself as a member of the plant kingdom… large branches, when removed and laying beside the road can be resurrected… they can live without earth or water for over a year if they have access to moisture through the air. Their flowers are sweet smelling and delicate… often used in the hair or to make the famous Hawaiian Lei.

When you break them they bleed sticky white blood and if you plant them before they are properly healed, they rot from the inside… and eventually die a long slow death.

In my heart they represent myself and everyone who is asked to ‘live on thin air… survive abandonment, heal ourselves… all the while, looking and smelling beautiful while we’re in the process!

As I said, I asked for a few trees, branches discarded by an enthusiastic tree lopper perhaps…

A friend called me, said she was closing down a furniture factory in Kona and asked if I wanted the broken  pieces they were discarding for my art project, of course I said yes!

On our way to pick it up along a road I rarely travel, there they were — the Plumeria branches laying beside the road, waiting for me to discover them and bring them home to sacred space so they could start their new mission.

At first glance I saw a small pile of branches and felt wonder at the spontaneous answer to my prayers, then I stopped and examined the situation more closely.

There is amazing abundance all around us, we simply have to change the way we think.

In the end it took two days and four trucks to pick up all the Plumeria branches waiting for me on the side of the road and down in the ditch behind the highway…

That was three weeks ago. The locals thought I was insane when I stood them all up with rocks, a plantation of sticks standing for all to see on the cross roads of Orchid and Seabreeze.

Yesterday, they began to flower! By next year it will be a landmark.
All from a small prayer for a few branches.

Right place, right time, right action, then everything falls into place.

Someone else’s problem can become your solution…
That’s the new ‘success!’… the thing that comes next.
True success, is in loving the earth and her people in all the different ways we have at our disposal.

Bringing in the light to the darkest place, can be achieved by a small candle, even a small idea… with enough love and imagination it can lead to a new experience of bliss on earth.
Come and see my trees some time…they will amaze you with their tenacity and forgiving spirit.

Blazing tales of wonder
Remembering all we have ever been and are about to become
Your sister through chaos and comfort …
Shankari the Alchemist… ever learning, always growing…
Hokulani
Hawaii