Koh Phangan, Thailand

And just like that, my four-week stretch in the Samma Karuna Awakening & Healing program is complete.

After cycling through the first three stages (grounding myself & reconnecting with my body, bringing to the surface anything that needed to be dealt with, and balancing the more sensitive & subtle aspects of my being), the fourth and final week of the program was all about RECONNECTING WITH JOY & CELEBRATING LIFE.

I spent the week doing my favorite things with my favorite people in my favorite spots.  Enjoying live reggae at Rasta Home and sunset jam sessions at Zen Beach……. ecstatic dancing with my fellow oddball brigade………watching monkeys scamper up palm trees for ripe coconuts……. eating vegan breakfast bowls at Pure Vegan (and changing my diet, temporarily, from 92% meat) ……. rake dancing with abandon……. and imagining swarms of mosquitoes’ thought processes as they descend upon mo-tion-less meditation classes.

all-you-can-eat blood buffet – party of 2000!

ON campus, I made sure to pop into one, last Reiki Circle (high-vibrational energy healing) and Biodanza Heart in Motion (self-development through music & movement) WHICH (luckily for me) ended poetically with my last Koh Phangan Cinnamon Roll (big, group hug where everyone holds hands & spins in the same direction around one person, layer by layer, making a human sweet roll).

OFF campus, I enjoyed many misadventures (per usual) like the time I diligently HUMPED my way to the end of a low-hanging palm tree (in two-inch increments) because I wanted to take an EPIC PIC……. only to get to the very end and hear a local cry out, ‘Oh no, Missss!  Missssssss!!  Jellyfishhhhhhhhh!’  I looked down and, sure enough, there were baseball & softball-sized jellyfish EVERYwhere.  (You’re not supposed to be this close to shore, silly!)  I whipped my dangling legs UP outta the water, awkwardly tuuuurned my body around, posed for two, horribly dark, petrified pictures, and then tried to heave my body forward, back to the crowd of onlookers, using only my arms.

the day that everyone pitied that stupid American girl for army crumping (army crawling + humping) her way back to shore

more successful

Or how about the time I tried exploring on my own and decided a scenic waterfall would be the perfect afternoon treat?  I pulled into the ‘Lost Paradise Waterfall’ drive (a forewarning I did not heed), parked my scooter (because the ‘roads’ were uneven trenches of rock, left behind by a category 4 earthquake), and started walking to my destiny.  Twenty minutes later, I’m hiking up a mountain and sweating and wheezing and two, nice locals in a pickup truck pulled up next to me and mime-asked me if I needed a ride.  It sounded like they said, ‘get in’ but neither one opened his cabin door, so I figured they must mean the cage thingy on top of the pickup truck where the monkeys sit?

One, bumpy-but-exhilarating ride on the roof of a pickup truck later, they dropped me off at the trail, I got lost three times, saw a FOUR FOOT WATERFALL, called it quits, found a deserted bungalow bar, and ordered a sprite.  The owner felt so sorry for me (and my 2-hour death march back to my scooter) that he offered to close his restaurant (let’s be honest: that place hasn’t had any customers since the 90s) and scoot me back to Mousety.  I was so overjoyed I didn’t even flinch when my left shin ksssssssed his motorbike exhaust pipe; I interlaced my fingers in his ribcage and off we went.  Chatting me up the whole ride, he offered to host me at his incredibly-vacant bungalow resort, promising that he would make me fruit saaaaalad and I’d have a nice viewwww, but mostly I was concentrating on not sliding into him so hard on the steep declines.  My ladybits were resting firmly on his back for half the ride.  Maybe that’s why he didn’t accept my tip?

you saved my life.

January’s Full Moon Party (the big, blowout party that coincides with the full moon each month) was the Wednesday of my final week (1/31) and I *thought* I’d want to go to AT LEAST people-watch the sloppy drunken messes, but by the time that day arrived………I wanted nothing to do with it.  Tourists had been POURING onto the island for the previous two days, all decked out in Ed Hardy t-shirts, ‘woo hooing’ and fist bumping and ready to rage.  Barf.  Jaran’s was hosting a special Full Moon Ecstatic Dance (much more my speed), and then a bunch of us went to the Dome (this psychedelic, outdoor herbal sauna) around 11pm for hot air, tea service, special cookies, and naked skinny bodies.

As my final order of business on the Thai island that had become my second home, I thought it would be a great idea to send myself off with a bang.  A few of my friends had partaken in an exclusive ceremony (the week before) aimed at opening the heart chakra and connecting more deeply with your emotions, the environment around you, and the ENTIRE UNIVERSE…….and they had nothing but glowing reviews.  (‘Taylor, my body was BURSTING with love!!’  ‘Taylor, you know what I’ve been thinking?  What if we measured peoples’ worth not by how much money they made, but by how much love they had to give to the world?’)  I HAD to check this thing out while I was surrounded by GOOD people in a SAFE space.  And that is how I came to book a private San Pedro ceremony, administered by a local shaman, for my last full day on Koh Phangan.

For those of you who don’t know what San Pedro is, fear not.  I didn’t either until a week ago.  It’s a sacred heart medicine (also known as ‘Wachuma’ or ‘Huachuma’) derived from a cactus native to Chile, Ecuador, and Peru…….and used for healing & religious divination in the Andes Mountains region for 3000+ years.  The name comes from the belief that just as St. Peter holds the keys to heaven……. the effect of the cactus allows users to ‘reach heaven whilst still on earth’.  Translation: I signed up for an all-day, mind-altering, hallucinogenic cactus trip.  Whaaaaaaaa

Before you judge me or close your laptop in disgust, I know.  This is outside of my wheelhouse too, but it had to be done.  When in Rome my second home…

Here’s the deal: meet up at a secret location at 930am; bring blankets, pillows, and an empty stomach.  12 people total- 6 men, 6 women.  (A couple ‘a Russians, Ukrainians, Italians, Spaniards, Thai, and this one woman from Denmark, named Lea, who was a cross between Katie Coleman, Ashley Berggren, and a warrior princess with warrior symbols shaved into the sides of her head.  I was drawn to her IMMEDIATELY; she felt like an older sister.)

Women prepare the fruit altar, men collect the firewood.  Everyone takes turns setting his or her intention for the day (in front of the group) and relaying his or her deepest fear (to the facilitator only).  The facilitator then gives each person an individual mantra to repeat (today and every day) to counteract the deepest fear, and then it’s time to drink the first cup of green cactus powder mixed with ginger juice and water from a local waterfall (as the shaman, who looks like a stoned cartoon coyote, waves a big feather in front of your face).

Four hours later, after a nap in the hot sun, a ton of soothing meditation music, and absolutely zero talking (as that would reduce the drug’s effect), we all drank our second cup of what tasted like that ONE green smoothie I tried to make with that magic bullet juicer I just HAD to have (and never used again).  I felt good (generally), but I didn’t know if I was ‘feeeeeling’ anything yet.  Then, I saw Lea the warrior princess out of the corner of my eye, thought to myself, ‘She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen’, and burst into tears.

I guess I was feeling it.

The rest of the trip went exactly how you’d expect:

• I could control my blood flow to certain sections of my body just by concentrating.
• The wrinkles on my fingers CAME ALIVE and kept moving around, and there were little flecks of red and blue DANCING all over my skin.
• My legs kept changing shape. What was that about?
• Then my fingers and entire hands kept changing shape. I probably stared at my hands for a good half hour.  They were FASCINATING.
• I couldn’t tell if I was touching something or if something was touching me. Is that the wind?  Is that an insect?  Is that my other hand?  Is that someone else?  Is that the ground?
• I had trouble figuring out where sound was COMING from. Is the girl next to me singing?  Is that a bowl?  Is that an instrument?  It sounds like it’s right on TOP of me!  Is it ME?  Is it ME?!?
• Everyone there was absolutely beautiful with these big, beautiful eyessssss so full of life and love and sincerity. Some of them (strangers, mind you) knew me better than I knew myself and said things that would strike to the core of me.  So much unbridled love in one space.  So much truth packed into someone’s gaze.  So much knowing transferred without saying a word.  Everyone was on their own ride, but we were all in it together.  There for each other.  Rooting for each other.  CoNNECTed to each other.
• I tried to take notes (my notes are ah-maz-ing) and one section reads, ‘My legs are shrinking. Singing like a biiiiiiiird.  Witchy Chai-ooooooo.  Let my body move itself.  If I try to move it, it won’t go.’

My singing voice is terrible (the reason I *never* sing), but on THAT day, I sounded like the most beautiful bird.  (Don’t worry- I won’t quit my day job……mainly cuz I don’t have one.)  After we went swimming and admired the BREATHTAKING sunset ELECTRIFIED with colors, I cozied up to one of the Russians by the fire right before stoned cartoon coyote man came around and gave each pair a dragon fruit and a spoon.  Then, this straight-laced, never-stepped-out-of-line-a-day-in-his-life, middle-aged, fit Russian man meticulously and lovingly fed me dragon fruit.

I know what you’re thinking and no.  It wasn’t sexual; it was more paternal.  I WILL say, however, towards the end of the night around midnight or 1am, the Ukrainian couple def-i-nite-ly wanted to tag me in for a threesome.  As soon as I realized what was going on (right about the time both of them started kissing me), I politely excused myself to the bathroom and hid in there for 10 minutes (giving me much-needed time to reassess my shape-shifting fingers).  When I emerged from the bathroom, I power-walked to my own blanket by the water (prime real estate) and who was already lying on my blanket but Lea, my older sister warrior princess.  Of course.

I laid down next to her; we turned towards each other; and we fell asleep listening to the waves and holding hands.  I can’t think of a better way to end my experience in Thailand.

Moral of the story: don’t do drugs, kids.

Wait until your 30s when you can really appreciate them.

Goodbye, Koh Phangan.  Goodbye to all the magical moments and the summer camp feel, with fast friends who I’ll remember forever.  To Cristina from Mexico, Elisa from Italy, Niki from Greece, Kiara from Germany, Eva from Holland, Carly from England, Natalie from France (tes sourcils sont magnifiques), Merjin from the Netherlands, Fanni from Hungary, Martina from Sweden, Neeve from England, Gokben from Turkey, Peggy from Switzerland, Isabelle from Canada, Iman from Malaysia, Natasha from Belgium, Shelly from Israel, Noi from Thailand, Soot & When on the maintenance crew, and Omar (that hunk of a man from Egypt who was a rockstar partner in Tao Tantra).  All of you made my first month abroad unforgettable and I appreciate you more than you know.

Thanks for being so gosh darn wonderful and for allowing ME to be exactly who I am.  Koh Phangan will always hold a special place in my heart = first travel, first stop on the world tour, first love.

(I’m gonna miss sitting here, stealing wifi from the restaurant next door…..)

NOW, the countdown is on………. will I wake up (from my drug-induced slumber party) by 5am in order to power-walk home, pack my belongings, shower, catch a 6:15am cab to the ferry, a 7am ferry to the island with an airport on it, an 8am cab to the airport, and a 10:25am flight to Hong Kong?

Will I make my flight?  Odds are 40:1.

Place your bets.