Synopsis: I have flown the lovely and talented Jocelyn to Bali to help me produce new poi DVDs and a whole lot of inspirational and tutorial videos for the website. We'll be here until mid-August, brainstorming, writing, plotting, researching, filming, etc. Did you know that I wish to slowly become a cult-celebrity filmmaker? Well now you do. I tend to learn by doing, so here we go.

How it happened:

Several people asked me over the course of the winter, "Are you going to make a beginner's DVD?"

For months my answer was, "eventually."

Their answer to my answer was, "You should do it sooner than later." This included important business partnerships and very smart friends.

There are many reasons for sooner rather than later. For one, my website currently appeals to a niche within a niche. The fact that I don't have beginner resources holds me back from many dreams, including the one where I make enough money to get my teeth fixed (long story... but basically I keep giving art priority over things like teeth, and that's got to change).

There are also reasons for later. For one, I have no money. For another, I have lots of other things I also need to do. For yet another, I'm still a little burned out from the past few years and I wasn't sure if I wanted to start another huge project.

And then I had a vision of working with Jocelyn and making this into a very interesting and multidimensional project. Visions are the winds that fill my sails. Whether they will blow me to new lands or onto the reefs actually has a bit to do with you, dear reader, but more on that later.

For a couple weeks I waffled about whether it "made sense," and eventually I realized that "reasons" weren't why I wanted to do it. I simply wanted Jocelyn to be here. I wanted an accomplice. I'm tired of doing everything alone. DVDs shmreeVDs. It was a deep spiritual knowing, darn it, just like the one that told me, "play with poi and they will come."

The next thing I knew I was sending Jocelyn my credit card information, cleverly embedded in a photo of my new hair. Six weeks later I picked her up at the airport with my mystic Driver, Agung. She immediately fit right in. Did I mention that I'm paying her? Did I mention that a big part of my dream is becoming the guy who actually pays artists to do their life's work?

Where is the money for all of this coming from, you wonder?

Credit cards!!!

Why the bank gave me so many credit cards, I'll never know. I do hope this is the last time I do a project like this on credit. Most days I'm fine, but I'm definitely having occasional moments of stress. The project is already going longer and costing more than I expected (trust me, double the time and cost of any project, really). Ultimately that's the lesson I want to learn anyway, non-attachment. I'm beginning to think that I'm going to keep giving myself situations like this until I learn to relax about them... so relaxing here I go.

Pray that this works out for us :)

In other news: Our other accomplice of late is Tigger. I needed a way to make it easier to find my motorbike amongst all the other motorbikes, and the obvious solution was to have Jocelyn bring a stuffed Tigger from LA. I had a Tigger when I was a small child, but that Tigger was washed away to sea. It's a happy reunion to have Tigger again.

Cakya Muna continues to be a very special place to live. Here are some photos of the river below and the stairs leading down. Rob and Rachel have such a vision for this space, and I think it might work out. More on that soon... but imagine both healing retreat centre and global digital arts hub rolled into one.

Meanwhile, my attempts to go neo-tribal via cartilage piercings went amock, and I spent a few days flouting the neo-tribal, ear-cyst look. It wasn't so sexy so I'm now on anti-biotics. So much for that. I might try again when I'm back in the northern hemisphere. Life is an adventure.

There is so much still to explore. We've only begun to see Bali. At first I was going to try to get the DVDs finished soon so I could still go to the festivals in Europe... but that would mean rushing everything. I want time to still explore and be a part of this place, so we're doing things at a pace that allows us to be humans, not just DVD producing machines. Bali is too beautiful to rush through, as is all of life.