Jungle guru and the search for embodiment

Grateful to rediscover this forum. A lot is shifting, oozing, and rearranging in my being, and it feels right to share. Self therapy to feel very dear and distant friends out there witnessing me.

One month ago I flew to hawaii with a dream of wildness, warmth, and simplicity. I spun the key to all this would unfold on the golden being of my friend Lucien, who breathes the jungle of pangaea, takes care of the trees, and visits the warm ponds by the ocean every day to do watsu (underwater massage) and eat sprouted cocos rich with ocean minerals.
When I arrived back to the west coast from Kauai in July I was already halfway in pangaea, and though I LOVE DANCE, theater, and spectacle, I was prideful and judgmental of the way it gets compartmentalized onto stage and dance floors. I felt that the very point of dance and expression is to blend with and decorate nature in beauty and gratitude, that this dance is meant to take place on windy bluffs and rolling rivers, not in an environment tainted with ambition and who-have-you-studied-with, which-chakra-is-alighting-now boom Chaka boom Chaka what the hell does jai ambe mean anyway?
So I thought, I have figured it out. All I need is my own embodiment, a jungle where I can be wild, warm waters to make love to. I have found the simplicity of being beyond all the madness of the world.

I didn't realize how prideful I had become, how much I looked down on and pitied folks who live in cities. How I pitied that they would never be fairies and mermaids.
In arriving to the island though, this all came up for me. Lucien turned cold and universally judgmental. I woke up everyday singing a prayer my friend wrote

We are the gold flames of violet blue black light
Warming hearts, lighting humor
Spirit, knowledge and wisdom shall kindle our own love
Free darkness
And we dwell at last in the light of the sun
And we dwell at last in the light of the sun

Singing as I whacked cane grass to poison the fire ants. Feeling an emptiness in the core of it all. A strangeness in the young drummers and old farmers drawn to this Land of lava, fruit, and dramatic cliff. Deep beauty and loneliness. Highs and lows of emotion spurred by a diet of only fruit.

I couldn't be around Lucien any longer so I decided on a whim to go to kipahulu, the mystical far out side of Maui that I'd happened upon with my dad three years ago. That was right before I went to brazil, when bao family were at the height of our bukaka spat here revolutionize being through bdsm and magic phase. I had found kipahulu where "all is one" and back then been kind of snarky. I imagined that this time I would come and allow that merging of the micro and macrocosm to envelop my being and bring me peace.
Surprisingly I found the same questions arising for me as did three years ago; something felt superficial about the sunny raw food picnics along the ocean and spiritual songs. I ended up spending most of my time alone swimming in the amazing waters, foraging for food, writing songs, brushing off the various corners of my being.

I feel I came to Hawaii in order to leave it. I am flying back to Los Angeles today and am actually excited about it. Excited about taking butoh and African dance classes, about meeting the community there, about allowing myself to enjoy a city despite the packaged food and cars. I know I want to spend my life in nature, and I also know I love culture as deeply as nature. I have a lot to learn and want to be active, growing, serving.
Excited for whatever is about to happen next. Happy to have shed some degree of pride, though I'm sure the lion will rear its head again and again this lifetime. Happy to realize I can carry the wildness and simplicity of embodiment inside me wherever I go.