Check Out, Check In
I have been in Bali for three weeks now. I thought if I didn’t move around too much, stayed in the same villa, I would have lots of time to write and make progress on my book. But unlike an artist colony, there has been a feast of stimulation. The food, the climate, the culture, the foreign commerce, the rituals, the colors, the clothes, teaching my children to be good at traveling, getting them into surfing, meeting new friends, and learning new systems of local transportation. It has been very full. Instead of working on my book, writing, and visioning, Bali has created distance between me and all of my projects. All of my pursuits are impossible to hold in my head while navigating this country and culture. I was here sixteen years ago while I was developing my show Okeanos, diving in the north mostly. So much has changed. It is busier, more populated, and faster paced.
This trip, Bali has been about letting go. What if I had no career? What if I had no art projects? What if I had no businesses to run? What if all I had in my life were my kids and the world?
When I come back to my usual life, I will have the special opportunity to meet my projects again and ask myself, does this energize or drain me? I can prune.
This deep letting go is rare for me. In my usual life, I can hold the vision for more projects than I can well pursue. While in this rich foreign environment, I can’t hold anything in my mind besides what is right in front of me. This is a perfect place to check out.
An artist's colony or artist retreat is the opposite. It takes about an hour to get oriented and a day to adjust. Then for the next four weeks, or so, there is nothing to do besides explore your own mind and projects. It is very repetitive and boring in a way, so your mind creates all these colors and plans to entertain itself. Without trying, I make art. This is a perfect place to check in.
When I come back to my usual life, I will have made progress on my projects, gone deeper, and evolved the work. I have committed.
The creative psychedelic experience is both. It is so full of images and massive shifts in perspective that you check out for a while. It melts the construct of your life and fills you with a new take on everything. When you return to yourself, you check in very deeply with who and what you are about - what is truly meaningful to you. And all of this occurs in about twenty-four hours.
It will take many months for the effects to be fully realized in your life. Travel, artist retreats, and Creative Journeys all have this in common.