Within my first 24 hours in Ubud (the spiritual, artistic and cultural center of Bali) I knew I was on a different frequency.  Things didn’t work the same as I was accustomed to, in a way that is difficult to describe.  Less linear.  More fluid.  From a place of feeling rather than intellectual process.  It was very easy to let go and let things happen.  For letting go and doing nothing, a lot began happening deep inside me.  I experienced a wealth of adventure and much of it does not translate into ‘what I did on my vacation’.

Internet access was spotty at best and too weak to sustain a signal consistently.  What a godsend!  I had left my phone at home, did not communicate through my usual computer channels, had no TV or radio, and limited reading materials.  I did have my knitting (sock yarn projects are great for hot, humid weather), which the Balinese found both incredibly interesting and deeply respectable.  The Balinese value spirituality, creativity, and family above all else.  To encounter a tourist calmly sitting and creating art was fascinating to the locals and I learned to tolerate long bouts of inquisitive staring.

Samantha knits.

I made a solid swipe at learning the local language, which is only spoken on the island of Bali.  I learned the phrases to communicate on a basic level as well as the slang that would keep locals giggling with (or at) me.  I did my best to respect local cultural customs, particularly dress, kept my mouth mostly shut, and listened.

Packed away in my essentials were some packets of instant coffee as I didn’t know the coffee situation in Bali.  I drank that my first two mornings (bleah).  On the third morning I tried Balinese coffee….it was a real ‘come-to-Jesus’ moment!  It is simply outstanding, and I laughed at my previous hesitancy.  In Bali the locally grown coffee is finely ground like cocoa powder and hot water is added (most Balinese drink sugar and milk in it).  It’s not instant coffee.  The grounds sink to the bottom, leaving a rich but quite mellow coffee.  I am still drinking my coffee this way.  The Balinese find it hysterical to filter and process coffee.

traditional Balinese market

I made an early newbie error by ingesting the local water and ended up with a highly uncomfortable 12 hours, after which the ghost of all things gone wrong digestively stayed with me for another month.  I relaxed into this discomfort and rolled with it.  It became remarkably easy to deal with.  I was also far more careful with what went into my mouth.

lunch for 2 - completely clean and incredibly fresh!

Food was clean, fresh, and delicious.  The tropical fruit was wild in terms of variety!  I enjoyed not only eating the variety but also figuring out how to get beyond spikes, quills, hard shells, and the like to get to the fruit.  Durian in particular is a hard shelled spiked fruit that I had heard much about in raw food circles.  My Balinese friends offered to help me out with it, but were very evasive about eating it themselves.  The fruit is pried open with a machete or large knife and pulled apart.  Inside are large, white, soft, strong smelling pods of fruit wrapped around dark seeds.  I pulled the pods out with my fingers and popped them into my mouth.  They have a very strong taste to go with the smell. One of my friends produced some mangosteen ‘for getting the taste out’ of the durian. After eating the pods in a section of shell they showed me to pour water into the shell, swish it around, and drink it to rinse my mouth.  The mangosteen helped with the strong aftertaste of the durian.  (I later learned that many hotels and bungalows will not allow durian in the rooms due to the pervasive and persistent odor.)

Fresh chicken, fresh fish, fresh vegetables, and fresh juices rule the local menus.  It is overall fabulously easy to eat fabulously healthily.  Rice grows locally all over the island – this is a staple.  The local spices are complex; both in aroma and flavor.  Both fresh and dried coconut flavors many of the foods along with the spices.

plate of assorted fruits

Ketut Mawa asked me if I liked chicken satay.   I said yes, I was eating a lot of it,  but the peanut sauce doesn’t do me any good.  He laughed and told me that the peanut sauce doesn’t do ANYONE any good, but they keep eating it anyway.  The Balinese cook their locally grown peanuts twice – boiled and then roasted before use.

Motorcycles are the main mode of transport due to low cost,  low emissions, low use of petrol, and narrow streets.

Ubud was my primary home; I left the area only twice.  One of those days Samantha and I lost track of time on a perfectly gorgeous isolated beach.  On another day I roamed the northern side of the island with Ketut Mawa and his childhood best friend, Jaya.  We had a gigglin’ blast. Sharing language and culture, we visited temples and rice fields that Jaya had never seen himself.   Ketut Mawa asked me, as a tour guide, how to respectfully deal with Christians who pointedly demand to know where he stands with Jesus Christ – and I asked him to teach me about Balinese village structure.

with Jaya at his family temple

I was invited into a local ceremony, into several family homes, and met smiling faces anywhere I attempted the local language.  The Balinese love the attempt.  I mean, they LOVE it.  One young man asked me, via a Blackberry translator device, to help him find an American to volunteer to teach English at the local school.

isolated stretch of beach outside Candidasa

An angry monkey in the Enchanted Monkey Forest bit me.  After playing ‘human scaffold‘ for 5 others – one monkey DEMANDED a banana.  Unfortunately a freaked out Samantha ran screaming with the bananas (purchased just for this occasion)- and that last one, he was pissed.  He climbed up my body, sat on my shoulder, climbed back down and quickly grabbed my left hand and bit.  HARD.  Held it long enough for me to understand the situation very clearly.  When he let go I stood up and roared at him, he roared at me, and I walked away unwilling to keep arguing with the mind of a banana crazed monkey.  My souvenirs from the Monkey Forest were a swollen, bruised hand and valuable impressions of the monkey-mind.  I kept thinking about the unpredictability of monkey- mind and continued to let go of my own.

I was done with monkeys after that and definitively not enthralled to encounter them on the street.

I did a variety of yoga while in Ubud.  I started out with the mainstream, popular yoga at the Yoga Barn.  They offer a menu of highly attended trendy classes in their large studio. I left 3 unused punches on my punchcard of 10.

Guru Ketut Arsana’s yoga at the BodyWorks Centre is another breed entirely.  The tiny yoga studio can hold 8 students.  Guru Ketut teaches a vigorous Kundalini/Tantric combination with an emphasis on opening the tailbone along with the mind.  I felt highly resistant the first class (‘you want me to WHAT?  I can’t do that!  I have this blah blah that keeps me from blah blah blah and so blah blah…’) – it mattered not, as I was the only student that afternoon.  I was pushed and it changed me. After three classes I was losing track of both time and resistance. After a final 2.5 hour session I knew I’d never see yoga (nor my self) in the same way.

at the Bat Cave Temple

Sheri w/ Ganesha (knitting bag in hand)

Samantha had made appointments for the two of us to see a healer at the recommendation of a friend.  I showed up not knowing what to expect.  When Mr Arsana, a beautiful, friendly older Balinese man touched me on the shoulder, I felt an uncommon surge of compassion.  He led me into his treatment room and asked me “What is your problem?”

“Um,” I said, “I guess if I had to come up with one, I would say it is that there are so many foods that make me ill.  Wheat, corn, soy, dairy, sugars, all grain, nuts…it seems like a lot.”

“So what do you eat?” he asked me.

“Meat, vegetables and fruit.  And some seeds.”

Mr Arsana stared at me.  Then he roared “WHAT IS WRONG WITH THAT?”

We locked eyes and I felt a giggle start.

“Look,” he said, “Everyone different.  You know what keep you in balance.  Keep doing that.  Stay balance.  You know what works.  This big.  This enough.”

He looked at me again.  “No rice?” he asked.  “No rice”  I replied.   We regarded each other again and both burst out laughing and laughing.   This island is covered in rice fields.

Then he gave me a thorough, unusually intuitive massage and walked on my back.  At the end he pronounced me healthy.  “You have no problems” he reported to me “all problems are in the mind, anyway.  You have clear mind.  Drink coconut water for balance while here.”

Then he gestured at my heart.  “I did little, you know, thing, to help with that.”

I thanked him and floated through the next 48 hours not really knowing which end was up.  Samantha was in similar shape after her session. The next week I started taking his yoga classes.

I learned in Bali that no matter where I am in the world my body seeks equilibrium by waking up pre-dawn for my meditation practice.  I learned to feel the change in the air on my skin when the tropical sun rises.  I learned that when free of all the distractions of Western living I absolutely adore who I am and I enjoy my own company.

Ceremonial Temple built in the 1400's

The most challenging aspect of Bali is the sheer travel (9 time zones) to get there.  The recovery on the home side was intense but passed very quickly.  By the time the jet lag passed I felt not only internally transformed – but stronger and more rested than I have been in many years.

Shrine for Rice Fields

With the WordPress.com front page evolving into a one-stop shop for posting, exploring, following and reading blogs, it seemed natural to put your blog stats there, too.  Stats are becoming more and more about interacting with your readers and other bloggers.

You’ll still see your summary stats and chart on your main dashboard, and the full stats page in your dashboard will remain for a while, but the My Stats tab on the WordPress.com front page will soon become the home for the most comprehensive view of your stats.  Stats will also continue to be available by clicking on the sparkline in the admin bar at the top.

While adding the My Stats tab to the front page, we also gave it an updated look by making the panels regularly spaced, using rounded gravatars for your commenters, and giving it an overall lighter feel:

We’ll be adding even more features to your stats and the WordPress.com front page soon.  We’re working on adding country stats of your visitors, which many of you have requested.

If you’d like to attract more visitors to your site, check out these great resources on boosting your blog readership:

• Learn WordPress.com: Get Famous
• WordPress.com Support: Getting More Traffic

(Note to Jetpack users: Your stats will still be available in your wp-admin dashboard. However, you may still enjoy viewing your stats on WordPress.com.)

We’ve also brought the reblog button back to the toolbar that appears at the top of the screen when you’re logged into WordPress.com. Note that you’ll only see the like and reblog options while you’re looking at individual posts.

For example, you’ll see this on the left side of your toolbar while viewing http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/read-blogs:

And your toolbar will look like this while you’re browsing the home page of en.blog.wordpress.com:

How does reblogging work?

Reblogging is a quick way to share posts published by other WordPress.com users on your own blog. People have been reblogging others’ posts since blogging started, but our new reblogging system enables authors to retain greater control over their content.

When a post is reblogged, it shows up with a link back to the blog it came from, the first image in the post, an excerpt of the post’s introduction (if it contains text), and thumbnails of any other images that the post contains. It also shows any comments left by the person who reblogged the post:

Reblogs published on blogs you follow will also appear in your reader:

What happens when my posts get reblogged?

An excerpt of your post will be published on the reblogger’s site (with a link back to your original post), and you’ll receive a reblog notification in the post comments (you might need to approve it first):

You’ll also receive an email notification of the reblog.

Do I get credit when someone else reblogs one of my posts?

Absolutely! All reblogs contain a link back to your original post, so the more people reblog your posts, the more likely it is that you’ll attract new visitors (and perhaps new followers, too!).

What happens if I reblog a reblog?

If, for example, Stephane reblogs a WordPress.com announcement on his site and Lori reblogs Stephane’s reblog, Lori only re-publishes any comments Stephane made about the announcement. If Lori wants to share the original announcement, she should reblog the post from en.blog.wordpress.com, not from Stephane’s reblog. But if Stephane leaves a really clever comment, Lori might want to share it by reblogging his reblog on her site.

Can I edit a post I’ve reblogged?

You can go back and edit the comments you left when you reblogged a post, but you cannot edit any parts of the original post excerpt (including the post title). If you like, you can add categories or tags to the post. Reblogs show up under Posts → All Posts in your dashboard, and they can be edited the same way you edit your own posts.

Newsy is a versatile business and news-friendly theme that offers up to ten different layouts, four footer columns, custom link and accent colors, and a custom site header. Brand and content-focused editorial teams will love publishing with this theme.

Newsy: Home Page

Designed by Themify, Newsy comes with an impressive set of Theme Options that afford you a great deal of flexibility with how you choose to display your website. Easily control your site’s sidebar positions, home page and archive page post layouts, and navigation bar search box visibility.

You also have the ability to change your site-wide link and accent colors. A few quick adjustments via the options panel will truly have the effect of individualizing your site and making it stand out from the crowd.

Newsy: Accent and Link Color Examples

Up to ten different layouts in Newsy can be achieved by simply altering your widgets and Theme Options. A wide sidebar, narrow sidebar, and two mini sidebars come rolled into Newsy, as well as additional post display and sidebar alignment options.

Newsy: Wide Sidebar Left, Narrow Sidebar Right Option

All of this is controlled either from within Appearance → Widgets or Appearance → Theme Options. The goal with Newsy is maximum flexibility without the headache of manually configuring a thousand theme options. In this case we really can say that less—well, fewer (options)—is more.

Newsy is a premium upgrade for your blog at $85 for a lifetime subscription. Read more about its features on the Theme Showcase or dive right into previewing it on your blog from Appearance → Themes.

Fresh & Clean utilizes Featured Images to help you to easily transform your blog into a stylish online portfolio. There’s a featured slider on the front page that highlights Sticky Posts that have large Featured Images. All other Featured Images appear as prominent thumbnails next to their respective posts.

Not looking to build an online portfolio at this time? No problem, Fresh & Clean is great as an all-purpose blogging theme! Take a moment to read more about Fresh & Clean and its features on the Theme Showcase.

Forever makes it easy to welcome your family and friends to your blog with a dramatic personalized home page. The design is bold and clean with lots of room for large, colorful photos of the happy couple (that’s you!) in an optional featured post slider and home page excerpts.

You can also easily customize the color scheme and get Forever to match your wedding colors with only a few clicks. You can update the background color (or add your own pattern) from the custom background page in your blog dashboard and even change the color of the all the links from the Forever Theme Options page.

We also built in a special Guestbook Template that lets your guests take over a page of your choice with their best wishes for you … and maybe a few embarrassing stories … as comments.

And, of course, Forever works seamlessly with all the other WordPress.com features you love; emails sent to your blog followers every time you post, contact forms (perfect for RSVPs), custom domain names (like robandlaura.com instead of robandlaura.wordpress.com), customized fonts and CSS with the Custom Design upgrade (great for changing your blog title to a handwriting font), and everything else.

Forever with a custom background, custom font, and custom link color

And it works especially well with our new Milestone Widget.

Save The Date!

Forever also sports a custom design for a new widget we call Milestone. You can find it in your blog dashboard at Appearance → Widgets and it’s pretty easy to use. Just pick a title for your event, a date and time, and a special message for the big day, and you’re ready to go. Now you have a special save the date widget for your Wedding on every page of your blog.

The Milestone Widget in Forever

If that sounds pretty awesome and you want the Milestone widget available for your non-Wedding blog too, you’re in luck. We’re also making the milestone widget available to every theme on WordPress.com right now.

Enjoy Forever

To find out more about our new Wedding Theme, Forever, check out the demo site and visit the Forever theme showcase page. Or just go ahead and activate it on your brand new Wedding blog.

Here’s to your wedding and your wedding blog on WordPress.com. Cheers! (That means you have to kiss now.)

Our previous space upgrade levels have been increased without any additional cost for you as follows:

• 5GB → 10GB
• 15GB → 25GB
• 25GB → 50GB
• 50GB → 100GB
• 100GB → 200GB

If you already subscribed to one or more of these upgrades ( yes, they are cumulative ), your total available space has been automatically updated as you can see in your Media Library.

If you don’t have a Space Upgrade yet, or need to add more, the new levels have been implemented in the Store section of your dashboard.

The Space Upgrade of course gives you more space to store your photos, and docs, but it also enables you to upload audio files, which makes it perfect for podcasts, MP3s, or any audio format.

We don’t even limit your bandwidth, and we’ll keep your files as long as your blog exists.

If you want to learn more about these upgrades, feel free to visit our space upgrades support page.

But wait, there’s more…

For those of you with a private blog, we lifted the previous limit of 35 users allowed to access it. From now on, you can add as many authorized users as you wish, from the Settings → Privacy section of the dashboard.

We hope you’ll enjoy these new features, and we wish you and your WordPress.com site all the best for 2012!

Would you post photographs of your favorite place? Interview different people from your hometown? Create a new piece of art each day?

Here are eight unique blog projects (some are updated every single day) to inspire you to kick off 2012 with your own Project 365:

Blog Radstone

RichardRadstoneBlog.com

The goal, every day for the next year, approach one stranger, photograph them and promptly blog the experience. Rain or shine, hot or cold, healthy or ill, no days missed. I’ll do my best to create interesting photos, and for the sake of entertainment, work to get myself into a sticky situation from time to time. It’s a huge commitment. I’m sure there will be some hero photographs and some not so magnificent ones. Let’s see what happens!

The Creative Panic

TheCreativePanic.com

The project right at this moment is to illustrate something (anything!) as quickly as possible every day.

36ixty5

36ixty5.WordPress.com

Each day a new image will be uploaded with a small caption, phrase, quote, poem or whatever.

Everything Burger

EverythingBurger.WordPress.com

I created 365 pieces of burger artwork for a year from May 17, 2010 until May 16, 2011.

An Afternoon With

AnAfternoonWith.com

This is a project about people. It is a project about our space and the things we keep and the things we don’t throw away. It is a project about looking for and finding connections we all have. It is about seeing yourself in these spaces. Every picture is a portrait of the owner – be it a room, an object or a view. Every portrait in the end becomes a self-portrait. So in the end this is a project about me.

Footballists

Footballists.WordPress.com

I often walk around the city in my beloved Liverpool FC jersey. I never miss to notice every other person wearing a soccer shirt, no matter how big the crowd. I’ve decided to approach and meet them, and photograph. Here are my brief encounters, far away from the pitch.

A Drink with Chicago

ADrinkWithChicago.com

Since making Chicago our home, we have found that all it takes is one great conversation over one drink to create a long lasting friendship, change your outlook or learn something new. We have had so many of these experiences that we thought we’d start to share them as we continue getting to know the many fascinating people around our city. Join us as we sit down and have a drink with local entrepreneurs, chefs, celebrities, socialites, artists and athletes who all love Chicago as much as we do.

{365} Breakfasts

OneBreakfastADay.WordPress.com

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. A blog to celebrate this is worth it.

So, do you have any ideas for your own Project 365?

For tips on choosing a topic, check out the Learn WordPress.com tutorial on Getting Focused. You can also find writing ideas, blogging tips, and photo challenges at The Daily Post.

Happy New Year from all of us at Automattic!

So what’s new?

Brand New Look

The Dashboard

We’ve completely redesigned the look and feel of the app, now placing the actions you want to make with your blog all in one place: The Dashboard. You have one-tap access to create new posts and pages, upload media, view your stats, read blogs and more! There’s also now a beautiful comment count ribbon to show you how many comments you have in your moderation queue.

The Action Bar up top allows you to quickly get to other areas of the app as fast as possible. You can tap the blog name to switch blogs, refresh your content, and call up the dashboard from wherever you are in the app at the time.

New Editor

The post editor has been enhanced with many great new features.  A formatting toolbar has been added that displays above the keyboard as you type, allowing you to easily format text and add links and media. The post editor also goes full screen, giving you as much room as possible to create your posts while on the go.

Media attachments have received an awesome boost as well. You can now insert images among the post text wherever you’d like. Tapping on an image will bring up many new options you can set per image, including Title, Caption, Placement and Size.

Tablet Support

We paid special attention to tablets for this release, adding special layouts just for Android Tablets. From Galaxy Tab to Xoom, we’ve got you covered.

Download and More Info

You can get the app for free in the Android Market.

If you’re hungry for more details on WordPress for Android 2.0, check out the launch post over at the WordPress for Android blog and follow @WPAndroid on twitter.

What do you think of the update?

Balinese Ceremony

Ketut Mawa and Sheri Lynn

Village Warung (store)