Living light on the earth!  Walk your talk.  It all comes down to that, doesn’t it?  Trying to nurture this beautiful, amazing planet we live on for over 50 years, we have watched some aspects of our Earth’s ecology hit devastating lows; while advancements in technology give hope that when the consciousness of humanity changes we have the tools available to clean up the mess.

While traveling nonstop since 2003 we have made a conscious effort to live as light on the earth as possible.  Living with a tribe in a remote part of Africa or visiting the Waorani in the Amazon jungles quickly points out how few things we really need.  I mean NEED.  Happiness comes from within, not from our toys or accessories.  In the West many people are buying happiness through consuming more and more things!  But are they truly happier?  As George Carlin points out so clearly, it’s just Stuff!

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sctC_cuP-Hc)  

As you may remember we sold 2 houses in Hawaii in 2003, gave away or sold our stuff, with each of us squirreling away all our worldly possessions in 4 medium bins.  For over 20 years we have lived out of a 20 inch (50cm) bag.  Everything we needed right at our fingertips.  Life can be so simple, if we allow it. 

Sitting in the Middle East in a small guesthouse about 5 years ago we questioned what exactly do we have stored away?  During our next visit to Hawaii we sorted, expunged, condensed; amazed at what was no longer useful or desirable.  “Why in the world did I keep that?”  Once again we felt the freedom of giving our stuff away.  The remaining remnants of our lives were carted off to Asia, to use for the occasional longer stay of a few months.

As we traveled the globe we always had our eyes open for a place that felt like home, a place to slow down a bit.  Because guess what?  We all get old – if we are lucky that is!!   This plandemic changed everyone’s life.   Co  vid stopped even us, cold in our tracks.  Nine months in Sumatra and over a year in Bali kindled the spark to possibly make a little home base for the future in Bali. 

Already loving Bali, and knowing the culture and community from many stopovers here, we started looking at the possibilities. With 20+ years non-stop travel many complicated parts of life have become clear.  Traveling forces you into the present. We realize that the only time there is, is Now! We realize that making plans is important but inevitably life happens and knocks your ducks out of a row.  Since there are plenty ducks in the rice fields of Bali we decided to give it a try.  Loving the people, the climate, the culture, the smiles, the safety of living in a village banjar; a new chapter began.

I started riding around with a friend on his motorcycle looking at land to lease.  I would close my eyes and if I heard traffic noise the answer was, “no!”   Not easy in Bali, a beehive of activity!  Didn’t see anything quite right.  A couple days later I was supposed to meet with a real-estate agent to look at 4 parcels, but was thwarted by pouring rain.  My friend said let’s grab our umbrellas and go look at a property, “But I warn you – it’s a mess.”  We rounded the corner and there it was!  My Secret Garden.  I immediately was at home.  Pouring rain, roof caved in on the old house, jungle vines consuming every inch of land.  I stood on the terrace embracing the spirits of Bali and felt at home. I envisioned what was possible,

Possible but not easy.  Joseph immediately shared the vision. Way opened!  The lease of 20 years serendipitously was ending, the negotiations with the family land owners worked out eventually with the help of our friend Ketut, new government regulations were surmounted.  Having built 4 houses between us and with our combined knowledge, Joseph’s engineering expertise, and my stubborn perseverance we jumped off the cliff!  Let the show begin! 

In the Balinese-Hindu culture it is believed that you have to bless any land that is planned to be built on. They believe you need to ask permission to the ‘mother’ of the land and offer a blessing, the blessing acts as a cleansing ritual to cast out any negative energy and seal positive within the land to make sure you have good fortune in the future. The Mangku (priest) rings the bell which acts as a mantra to allow offerings to take place and also helps to rid negative energy from the land and promote positive energy.

We asked Mangku Adibuddha, as a friend, to do this ceremony, a simple healing, and purifying blessing of the land.  The big ceremony was done 25 years ago with first construction so this blessing was not really necessary.  Our blessing was just making the land happy, the spirits happy; inviting unhappy spirits to move on, everyone calm, peaceful and happy!  When the house roof was secure we had another house blessing, required before sleeping inside.  The family and neighbors came and that night an aura of peace surrounded our new land, continuing to this day.

Like on any project around the world, it is important to keep a careful eye on what’s going on.  Inferior building products are the norm.  Do your research.  Here foreigners are often viewed as walking ATM machines, but also Karma is on your side in Bali.   Keep in mind this is our new little home – and we want it done correctly, quickly; quality at a discount!  Our ‘street smarts’ helped many a time.  Reality bites. Another thing to remember is that anything that is done wrong can be redone!  And if something has to be fixed or redone remember you can either have big dramas full of emotion and still have to fix it; or just fix it!  Wise words from a friend who has built 16 houses in Bali (she has her own reliable crew!!).  

Finding a team of honest, trustworthy workers was an interesting process but in the end we were happy with our guys.  We learned from them and they learned from us.  Ketut, our site coordinator worked side by side with me until the end.  Couldn’t have done it without them!

The language/cultural/experience barrier added a whole different dimension.  We spoke English while the guys spoke mainly Balinese, Javanese and Bahasa Indonesian.   We Google translated, drew pictures, collected examples on-line and in general just kept at a project until everyone understood.  Someone had to be watching at all times.  Not easy.  A couple of funny examples of language snafus: when asking our guy on Java “When will our 3000 roof tiles for our Joglo be delivered?”  The translation he got was, “When will the 3000 sweet potatoes for our Pyramid be delivered?”  or  The ambience invoking name for our lime paint was Calm Clouds – Translated in Clam Clods!  In the midst of the chaos I tried to learn a little Bahasa.  Early on I proclaimed to the crew, “Sampai Jumpa, Bakso!” – instead of Besok (tomorrow).  I had just said,  “See you later meatballs!”  This became our standing joke for months to come.  You just have to keep laughing!!

Demolition, septic, gutters; all boring but important.  Here is where building in Bali veers off into artistic creativity.  20 years ago while visiting here I told Joseph it would be fun to design and decorate a home in Bali.  Déjà vu!

I tracked down the artisans themselves and commissioned them directly.  What a fun, rewarding experience! Lamps listed for $800 to $1400 in Galleries in Europe and the US, I bought direct for $10 each.  We visited the Terra Cotta area of Bali and worked with the family to create our floor – one lump of clay at a time.  The pool was lined with local green stone, outrageously expensive anywhere else.  The ceramic tile for the kitchen was handmade, painted and fired. Glasses hand blown, dishes hand painted and fired.  Our sofa was reupholstered – in fact our whole house was recycled!

This is where it was time to walk our talk, put into practice our years of learning about ecology.   We are listing eco-friendly aspects of our building project in hopes of inspiring others to try the same.  The house is an old recycled joglo, over 100 years old, from the mountains of Java.  It was taken down, put on a truck, hauled across on the ferry and re-assembled.  Not a single nail was used originally, as joglos and limasan teak houses are built to move.  Much of the work was done with hand tools. We hired a carpenter and carver on Java.  All furniture was made only from photo examples, from 100 year old teak, replicating Javanese and Balinese antiques.  At this age the teak is like stone and to even hang a picture you have to drill a hole first.  This also means no termites – just too much hard chewing!! 

When it arrived it looked like a pile of wood ready for a bonfire!  Years of painting had left bright pink posts, yellow, green and blue walls, black ceiling boards in the wood fired kitchen.  Luckily no wood stain was used because once they planed off the paint the existing teak was beautiful!   The wood was then sprayed with eco-friendly – but effective termite spray, which I had to import myself. (avoiding the carcinogenic chemicals usually used).  Finally it was coated with one of 2 different products making it lighter or darker, and then sealed with an eco-friendly sealer.  The floors were sealed with eco Italian sealer. 

The electric meter was put on the far back perimeter wall, along with the router to cut down on EMF.  We chose Ethernet cables rather than wifi signals filling the house. The back wall is handmade red bricks covered with hemp/lime plaster and lime paint.  We recycle 80% of our waste and are working on a worm farm to take care of our 1 gallon of fruit and veggie scraps daily.  The pool is all natural, like swimming in a clear mountain stream thanks to our devised system of koi pond UV lights and a copper/silver ionizer.  The handmade lamps will have old fashioned incandescent light bulbs as long as we can find them in old electric shops in town. We have a small yet very effective solar system to supplement the electric and for emergency.  Our bore well is 280 ft. down into pure plastic free water and we filter it with a Berkey gravity fed filter.  We continue to do our best to eat organically, use only organic products in and out of our bodies, in our garden and around the house. We happily recycle all plastic, cardboard and glass, have a tiny bag of garbage weekly, and most goes in the compost pile.

And the frosting on this low impact eco house, are our Zen organic permaculture gardens and food forest; between us and the wild jungle and river below.  Vegetables, herbs, avocado, lemon, lime, pomelo, mango, papaya, Surinam cherry, mulberry, star fruit, bananas.  Flowers of every color to the delight of the bees and multitude of colorful butterflies.   All happy and healthy.

We did everything we could to live light in Bali and for this we are excited to share.  We provided good jobs for many workers and still have a couple helping us once a week.  We patronize local businesses and artisans and buy all our fruits and vegetables from the nearby local organic market every Saturday.  We contributed to the local banjar/village.  They are very welcoming to us and we are happy to be part of their community.  

Our hard work, patience, perseverance and holding of positive energy paid off.  Keep your wants and needs simple.  Still we are free because we now own a house – it doesn’t own us. We have friends staying and helpers watching our place while gone.  The local village Banjar keeps a strong arm on comings and goings on the one road into our village. Recently when returning from Kathmandu and Kashmir we left the chaos of the world behind and walked through the gate of our own home, for the first time in over 20+ years.  The peace and serenity of our Secret Garden warmed our hearts.  Waiting for us to retire here.    In the meantime we just  rest, relax, re-charge our batteries in preparation for the travel bug to bite and off we go to explore yet another far reaching corner of the globe! When taking our nightly walk through the rice fields we are grateful and thankful! Life is Great!!

And so it goes…………………………………..Next unraveling Easter Island, Rapa Nui, a dream from our bucket list.  Another anomaly, an ancient secret of forbidden archeology on our planet!   Until then remember to live light on the earth.  It is up to each of us to walk our talk!  Take care.  Love hearing from you!

Love, Light & Laughter, 

xo  Nancy & Joseph