Birds, Bugs and Gecko Poop

Navigating daily life in Bali means encountering all kinds of critters. I'm not really a critter person so at first this seemed daunting,  Now I'm starting to get used to the milder of the beasties in my midst and am beginning to really enjoy the animal sounds all around me from first thing in the morning to the dead of night.

One of my favorite creatures is this rooster. He is kept in a pen in the field that's on the walk to my practice space. He crows throughout the day and to me his crow sounds like he's laughing. It's kind of a "rrr rrr RRR cackle guffaw rrr rrr tee hee." Then again for all I know that might be Balinese for shove off, but it's a really welcome sound when I get to hear it.

Monsieur le Rooster in his cage

There are always little geckos and sometimes bigger lizards climbing on every wall. The walls in the hotel restaurant, the walls in other restaurants, the walls in the lounge area, etc. Our practice space is an open air room with only one wall and a thatched roof. I have not seen the geckos that live in the roof but at certain times in the afternoon, tiny bits of gecko poop fall from the ceiling on unsuspecting yogis. Unfortunately it has happened that our meditation was interrupted by the scream of a participant who got beaned in the head with such an offering. Thankfully it hasn't happened to me yet, knock on wood, though since we are all one, maybe it has (yoga humor).

Little ants and big ants crawl all over the place on the practice space. At first I was squashing every one I saw but now I know they are harmless and don't bite. I think our class is fairly divided in the pro- and anti- bug squashing contingents. Some of us believe it's bad karma while others of us choose to let possible karmic implications of bug killing fall where the may. One of my friends finds it amusing that I have no qualms about killing the bug I can see but won't eat the cow, pig, or chicken that I can't see. I think it's funny that she shows non-violence to bugs but is a carnivore.

My practice space is in a huge compound called The Yoga Barn. Hundreds of visitors to Ubud take classes here every week, and we teacher trainers have a big room all to ourselves at the far end of the property. To get there we walk past the Ayurvedic center (where a spider once landed on my head), through the organic cafe, down some wooden stairs and underneath a grove of coconut trees, down more stairs to a huge wooden platform that is built over a gurgling stream, then down a dirt path past the aforementioned rooster. Along this last part of the trail, I have crossed paths with numerous salamanders wiggling their way across the road. It startles me every time.

The dirt path and my practice center in the background. The smaller thatched roof are the restrooms.

There are tall reeds that grow around the three exposed sides of the center that give us a little privacy from everything else going on near the compound. There's a school very close by and in the morning we hear little kids playing outside and they all yell HALLO! HALLO! to us as we walk up the dirt road after our first class. It's really sweet.

In the reeds are little white and black birds with yellow beaks and huge voices. It's not a QUACK, it's a QUOCK sound that they make. I don't know how something so little and cute can make a sound so big. Same goes for the cicadas which were out in full force today. When they're chirping it sounds like a buzz saw right next to your head.

Now I'm on my balcony and night has fallen. The daily rain has come and gone and I'm sipping a green tea feeling the heaviness of the air and listening to the sounds of animals in the rice paddy just beyond the hotel wall. I hear what I think is a frog croaking, insects chirping, and the occasional splash of fish from the hotel pond.

Bye from Bali,

Firefly Girl