Golden Bay Archives - Thousand Petals Project

This is almost impossible. Almost. But for the Divine, nothing is impossible and the improbable is hilarious.

I got to Pohara Beach yesterday, (just outside of Takaka) and I like it here. Being alone has given me the gift of slowly reconnecting to my faith. That sounds Christian. That is not at all what I mean.

Faith is essential in yoga, and if I follow any written rules, it’s those in the yoga sutras¹. Clearly, brahmicharya² (abstinence) has been a problem for me recently. Faith in a higher power, ishvara pranidhana³, is the last in the list of 5 niyamas⁴ (observances) that tell us how to take care of ourselves in order to enjoy yoga (union).

This is how we align our inner moral fibers so that they, as well as our muscles and nerves, can be an efficient conduit for God. Everything doesn’t have to be aligned perfectly for the spine to be a divine superhighway, but the more of your being that is set straight and smooth, the more inviting of a pathway it is. It’s just a matter of allowing enough linear space within you to let the river flow. It took me a decade.

That superhighway, once built, has always been there for me, but it can be difficult to access if you allow the weeds and brambles of the world to obfuscate the path. It’s best to keep it in good repair with daily maintenance: yoga, meditation, oil massage, time in nature, correct eating and sleeping habits… All these observances take up about half of my time, money, and attention. Just so that I can get high from feeling a strong current of God pulsing through me.

Is this wrong somehow? It feels so good to carry a live current in my spine. Feeling heaven must be wrong.

Ishvara pranidhana is when you surrender to being the wire and you let your life whip wildly across the cosmos as that live current sizzles home to itself.

Where did it start? When I made the decision to go north to Takaka last week? When I decided to extend Pup’s life by a year with evil surgeries? When the great human chessboard of the Covid-19 Lockdown was set into position in March? When I slept with Moshe in April? Is this because I made a wrong turn back in Nelson two days ago and ended up at a hippy crystal shop buying weirdo crystals like vanadinite and apophyllite?

This morning, I spent an hour searching the internet for my next safe haven. Following the path of least resistance (well, more accurately, of least investment), I found a very inexpensive room in Westport on AirBnB. There’s always a very good reason why a room is inexpensive, and at the peak of winter in the South Island of New Zealand, that reason was often a lack of heat. That wasn’t the case with this particular room – the host specifically mentioned a space heater. I scoured the listing. A kitchen, an indoor bathroom, a comfortable-looking bed, access to the washing machine… I kept scrolling down… where was the reason? Perfect reviews… a pleasant suburban location… the page ended with a profile of the host. His photo had been taken from a distance, so his round face occupied no more than 24 blurry, brown pixels.

Nevertheless, my heart lifted and I smiled at the certainty of our confluence. Yes. That One. And I knew that was the reason. There’s always a reason.

The room in Westport wasn’t going to be available until the following night, though, so I had to find shelter in Takaka one last time.

Did God take the reins today in the café at noon, when I read an ad for discounted accommodation at a local hostel? When I decided to have the half-price chocolate-hazelnut croissant that has given me no end of belly cramps? As I smoked a mostly medicinal joint in the alleys between route 60 and Motupipi Street? When I rolled into the parking lot of Takaka’s tourist information center⁵ around 2:34pm? Did I make even one single decision today? Ever?

Carmen’s wheels hadn’t even settled into the parking spot I’d chosen before a dented mustard-yellow caravan pulled into the lot. It parked near the pay showers, and I thought I saw a familiar face through the windshield. Impossible.

I tried and tried for a better look as I walked up to the tourist information center, but all I could see was a pair of eyes watching me over the caravan. I couldn’t be sure because it was almost impossible. I mean, the odds are so slim. In this exact town, at this exact time? Highly improbable.

As I spoke to the woman at the front desk about my options for accommodation tonight, I found it hard to remain the dutiful tourist. The woman (Yvette, if her name tag is to be trusted) had a bright, earnest presence, like a high school girl friend that could keep any secret. Nervous with the impossibility of this moment, and excited by this rare chance to converse with an intelligent, friendly woman, I kept peering out the window to confirm the impossible. I think the isolation of the Covid lockdown was my excuse for telling kind Yvette every detail of my amorous adventures in Otago. Everyone was hungry for interaction. It was so exciting to tell my story and to be able to point out one of its characters in this very parking lot! He hid behind the caravan for a thousand years, rooting around for showering supplies until I gave up. Then I saw his face for a moment when he came around to the back of his caravan – yes!

It was him! It was Moshe from the Lodge! I’d travelled almost 800 kilometers and almost 11 hours to get away from my lovers in Lake Hawea. The one Israeli that I slept with during the lockdown was somehow a few dozen steps away. And he seemed to be avoiding me.

Clearly, the universe wants me to have sex. I can’t escape my dharma. Neither should he.

Doubt and that old fear of having a twisted and untrue perspective came up to my surface. Do I accept this dance from the universe? Or is this another cosmic joke?

“The bay has a way of bringing people together,” Yvette said, as serious as a witch. She was lovely and young, and she had this job because she has experience in this town.

I want to understand how it works. How do certain places hold and direct energy? Does it have something to do with astrology or geology or our own flawed search for meaning? I struggled with my determinism as well as Moshe’s, and asked Yvette whether or not I should approach him.

Yvette told me that I’d only seem creepy if I came from a creepy place, so I squared my shoulders, opened my heart, and went outside to talk to him. It appeared as though Moshe was in the shower. There were two outdoor stalls along the back edge of the visitor center parking lot, just to emphasize New Zealand’s thoughtfulness. They cost more than the showers we’d had at the Lodge during Lockdown, so I imagine that Moshe was taking every advantage of this luxury, as it appeared that he’d been living in his van. If he ever did emerge from the shower, he’d probably feel a little vulnerable. Waiting for him would be creepy, so I dared to leave a cheerful note under the windshield wipers and drove off.

And fuck if he didn’t call 3 minutes later. I almost didn’t answer, but I did. We chatted vaguely about our adventures over the past month. Moshe had explored the eastern edge of the South Island and was heading west, like me. Because I told him that I was staying in Takaka that evening, he assumed that I’d be there indefinitely. It wasn’t necessary to correct him. Moshe was on the move, and I felt a sense of relief that our relationship was so tenuous.

We’d had almost 2 months to form a bond during lockdown, but our age difference had made it easy to escape into our own respective languages and cultures, so that bond was slender and weak. I wanted a nice Jewish boy! But Moshe is really still a boy. He’s almost half my age, and frankly, he’s boring. Although I knew that it would make him infinitely more delectable, it would be unkind to show him the darkness and decay of maturity. There was really nothing else to say. I imagined him shrugging his wide, young shoulders as he closed with the hope that I might see him in a few days when he drives back through Takaka.

I won’t. That ten-minute conversation resurrected an ancient distrust of God and His Plan. As far as I can tell, the Plan involves continual mistakes and misinterpretations on my part in order to entertain the jaded Divine. This cosmic game, this lila⁶, has no object… How can I have faith in such devilry? It seems like allowing God to direct my life has run me headfirst into a brick wall.

Yvette seemed to think that there was unfinished business between us, but I think Moshe’s instinctive response to this afternoon’s chess board configuration was actually the wisest: duck and cover.