Dancing Spidery Thoughts on an Ocean of Calm - Candidasa, Bali

A Candidasa Morning

Stumbling out of a darkened cottage: a few feet away, an infinity pool, blissfully calm in the morning light, overflows to meet a sea of inks and aquamarines — soothing pastel ointment to bleary eyes. I wonder why some people only describe the ocean in one colour. Time for words seems to be a luxury these days.

Between the verandah and the water is a grassy lawn. A stone Ganesha reclines languidly on the steps of a villa, contemplating the view. Is it the stone or the perception of a higher power that exudes calm? Maybe we don’t look to stillness enough.

What's Your View?

Cream & Jam

Lobster Claw Flowers

It’s pretty here. There are evergreen hedgerows of acanthacea and blossoming tiny white flowers with jammy purple centers; off to one side, elegant bird-of-paradise plants flap gently in the morning breeze — red lobster-claw flowers hang heavily from some. In every flowerbed and margin, short waxy-leaved shrubs shine a deep glossy green, and some sort of lush vegetation creeps in a carpet up the gentle slope to my verandah.

Everyone loves nature in tame doses. If nature were a relationship, how much time would you spend on it?

Stepping off the porch, rough pebbled tiles meander in little paths running past villas, past areca palms that catch the sunlight, and around coconut trees heavy with neon yellow fruit. A couple of slender-leaved spider plants seem to run out of the hedges — I can see where the name comes from.

Out on the bay are more arachnids — water-spider fishing boats dance on the gentle one-breaker ocean. The boats are skinny, supported by spindly curved legs jutting out as ski-like projections. Beyond the boats, fat ferries lie like drowsy seagulls tucked up on the sleeping sea, waiting for the day to begin.

Of Spider-Boats...

... And Crocodile Tails

In front of this hotel there is no beach. The water comes up in gentle waves to lap at the rock face on which the edge of the lawn ends. Long stone jetties like armored crocodile tails peek just above the rising water level. I’m imagining enormous mythical beings living under the resort, slumbering under some spell.

I clamber onto the little elevated hut perched at the edge of the garden and lay down on a padded mat. There’s a gentle sea-breeze and welcome shade here. Staring upwards, bamboo and thatch form hypnotic patterns and run to a point from which hangs a strange metallic ornament. It looks like a dream-catcher with a ring center, but instead of colorful feathers, it has pointy metallic orbs that look like medieval morning-stars. One of them is completely cocooned in cobwebs, and the others float suspended at different lengths above me. If I saw this in a gallery, it would be “art”.

The Balinese breeze lulls and the ocean soothes. I have time to dream and wonder. Time to think of words and be serene.There’s a harmony here of myth and reality; of warm sunlight and cool, moist breeze; of silence except for the gentle crinkle and crush of the waves; of the smell of the sea as the smell of nothing; of spiders in webs under thatched roofs, plants that run on lawns and water-spider boats out to sea. Of crocodiles lulled to sleep under an island on which I dream, with other happy souls, whiling away another tropical day. Removed from city-life, peace feels like it’s always just there. Maybe we put too much into being faster paced.

Slow Down