The Sanctuary In Me

guest post one from Bali, Indonesia.

Welcome to the Life Is In Love With Me newsletter if you’re new. If you’re a regular recipient of these reminders of love, welcome back! 🌹🥭🌹🥭🌹🥭

---

As I mentioned, I am on my end-of-summer reading (and being) hiatus. During this time, I wanted to invite a few favourite writers of mine to share stories into the space of my absence.

Jourdana Elizabeth

is the first of those three guests.

When I received this piece, I was excited because of the several reasons that I usually am to sit with words from Jourdana’s mind: the patient weaving of her storytelling is otherworldly. Waterloo rd. with Jourdana Elizabeth feels timeless and timely all at once and it’s down to both language and a commitment to intentionality I think. I’ve come to learn that Jourdana and I have some common interests too. I’ve felt like her work is a mirror for me from the first time I read this essay of her time in India and then again, in this ode to the ackee tree. There is a subtle connectivity and joy of forgetting you’re a writer while reading another’s work, I feel this with Jourdana’s writings. In asking her to write a piece for LIILWM, I felt certain that the mirror would reveal something needed, for all.

Before sending out the last Friday unwind, I was figuring out what I wanted to write and in my drafts sat an essay that I couldn’t yet get to the end of. I titled it ‘Being my own sanctuary’. To receive this essay titled ‘The Sanctuary In Me’ only a few days later was a beautiful confirmation of how connected we are and a synchronicity that spoke so loud I had to share it with Jourdana and now you. This essay is beautiful and pours into this space so gently, I hope you enjoy it. 

Credit: Andreea CH

---

Any attempt I make to write about traveling leaves me with the inevitable truth that no words can fully describe any place. Wherever it is that fate, destiny has beckoned. The only way to articulate the indescribable impression travel has on us would be to share the story of how it has irrevocably changed us — how we are now different.

The spirit of the land lingers within and as we come back home we move with more fluidity maybe, a glow even, our speech just a bit more calm and collected but most importantly a new perspective, a shift in heart. That is our parting gift.

Every place I’ve been often feels like a bookmark holding together the contents of my other life until we meet again and Bali surely is one of the most memorable bookends of my life.

It was the precipice of my Saturn return. I hadn’t a clue of what that was but Bali and all its inhabitants assured me that I was on the cusp of maturation and I don’t think I could have found a better place to welcome womanhood — adulthood.

As most enchanted places are — Bali is an impossible destination. Two flights, 25 hours total but I hit the flight purchase button anyway. At that moment I didn’t have a care for its cost in time.  

I remember my first steps vividly as I carefully cascaded down the cobbled stone staircase to my villa. Each step released tension and invited ease to my chosen sanctuary. 

A little voice inside said “Freedom is mine. I earned this.”

Opening the rusted wrought-iron door to a paradise in the form of 300-count Egyptian cotton and welcome fruit. The surrounding forest invited itself in as the distant echoes of macaques, robins, and other unknown sounds of this foreign land grew close but I was not afraid. 

Safety resides here in this villa, in this land, in this heart. 

I didn’t realize how often life kept me feeling unsafe until I got there. That most of my behavior back home was to mitigate the weight of fear rather than trusting the love that exists. 

As I continued to explore my overpriced accommodation that only a job that requires escape could pay for, the sweet smell of lemongrass summoned me to my balcony. I sat back to make myself comfortable as for now it was home. This space became my anchor, my refuge of reflection. My window to see everything I could not in the strong winds of my life. 

The false life. The one I had worn and needed to take off for a moment. 

A place to lovingly ask myself,

“How can I live?”

This question led me on a drive out to the center of Ubud to witness a living my eyes had never seen before. 

Flowers of devotion laid on every corner.

Bowed heads in prayer.

Companionless women peacefully frolicking in their sundress.

Animals free to roam.

Families generations deep tending to their land.

A wind of curiosity swept over me as I asked the driver why there was no visible homelessness or mental illness on the streets.  I knew the question was rather odd for him and realized the sad reality that I lived in had frighteningly become my norm. 

His head briefly turns back to reveal his island glow and sweet smile to proudly say, 

“We don’t have that here.” 

He shared with me that Bali values family and their spiritual life more than anything. No one gets left behind because everyone holds tight. 

In silence, I meditated on his words and wondered what I was holding tightly to. Was it a lifestyle? To look a certain way toward my peers? To reach contrived metrics of where I should be at my age? 

I began to reflect on my own choices back home and the ways that I needed to take self-responsibility for the survival mode I allowed. 

Living in truth should never require a constant escape and my sanctuary shouldn’t start in the rice fields of Bali but must encompass the totality of my life.

I arrived back home with a new question. 

What are the new values and heart posture I need to become and reflect the sanctuary already present that I can’t yet see? 

A sanctuary that no longer requires I escape reality for a fantasy, and instead becomes a place where these two meet without me moving my feet. A divine life right here where I lay is my birthright. Bali was just a reminder that it starts with me.

---

Gratitude to

Jourdana Elizabeth

for sharing this mesmerizing story with us. Read more of her work on Waterloo rd. by Jourdana Elizabeth.

Prompts and Questions:

What does it mean to find sanctuary in your life?

Have you ever traveled far in search of something and found it within yourself?

What lessons did/is your Saturn Return providing you with?

Feel free to comment and discuss with others in the community. I’ll join the conversation as I return.

---

Thank you, so much, for being here. Many thanks to my most recent paid subscribers, your support means so much. I’m so grateful. These love letters and travel memories remain free, always. This is an attempt to keep this space as an offering and resource for all. For a while, I’ve reduced annual paid subscriptions to $48.88 (from $88). I am preparing to show up with my paid readers in a new way and in the meantime, I’d love to grow and increase the paid support for this space. Paid readers receive 111 daily affirmations and a travel backstory upon subscription.

Workshop on Enoughness and Black Women’s Writings- Sunday 29th September

The next virtual workshop is ‘Lessons from Black Women’s Writings: Enoughness and Creation’ on Sunday 29th September. Join us in this workshop created to embrace enoughness and it’s role in feeling worthy and creative. We’ll write and discuss four Black women writer’s from around the world in this session. Everyone is welcome to join, writers and readers of all levels and all parts of their journey to feeling enough. Come and let the words of Back women guide and embolden you while writing in community. Find out more about the session below:

The Easeful Place Community

The Easeful Place is a newsletter and resource for joining mindfulness with creativity. I created it so that writers, artists, journalers, mindful life-livers will find themselves at home and in beautiful community. Join to receive free writing and journal prompts, global paid and creative opportunities, inspiration, artist interviews, discounts on workshops, and encouragement as you centre wellness in all that you create and do. So, consider this your invite.

Thank you, so much, for being here.

Love,

Amara Amaryah