A Journey into My Life – Emily Ren

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A Journey into My Life – Emily Ren

When King Lear asks the blind Gloucester how he sees the world, Shakespeare has him say,””I see it feelingly”.

Travelling through all these years, I found myself always attached to the nature deeply somewhere inside of me. It is not only about green mountains and the blue ocean. Even though I took a lot of time and energy carrying my heavy photography equipment, hiking miles after miles, waiting in the freezing night, just to take a picture of starry milky way. Whenever I look up at the countless stars in space, I would be always awed by the magnificence of universe and could not stop crying. The vast ocean of stars can always carry infinite imagination. How beautiful this great nature is, and how small we as individuals are.

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Goodbye celebration

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Lukas and Analee are leaving and they gifted us with the most wonderful divine chocolate mousse cake for their goodbye celebration. This was their last evening Jiwa Damai. We are so grateful for their presence and wish them all the best in their new life. They will get married in the USA. We wish them lots of love!

Learning a special form of intricate painting

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This was a first in Bali. A local priest and artist, famous for his sacred paintings and drawings of the various Hindu gods and goddesses, offered to teach our volunteers and participants of the Yoga teacher training the very special form of intricate painting. 

After he arrived, he first made some offerings at one of our temples. He then explained the symbolic of the pictures and the meaning of the various details of the gods. Our class was highly focused. As you can see, the result is breathtaking. The paintings will be taken home, framed and are highly valued in Bali as protection.

Volunteer life at Jiwa Damai

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Dave from the US and Bernardo from Brazil, our volunteers at Jiwa Damai were getting ready for the local Barong festival in our village Banjar Bindu. In order to enter the temple they had to wear a Sarong, just purchased in the market. One of our kitchen fairies, Nyoman showed them how to wrap it properly.

Find our more about our internship and volunteer program here. 

Visit to Jogjakarta mushroom grower

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Jiwa Damai is now experimenting with mushrooms and two of our volunteers went to Jogjakarta to visit a large mushroom grower. 

Here are some beautiful photos from their extremely interesting and useful visit! :) 

Christmas tree decorations

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Our Balinese team and our international volunteers from France, Spain, Japan, Austria and Germany decorated our Christmas tree. 

We are hanging some lovely ornaments on the Frangipani tree at the entrance of the dining area. We hope the strong rains will leave our beautiful decorations hanging :) Merry Christmas!

Working with the coconuts

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Kadek, one of our Balinese Team member is picking and packing the shells left after opening the coconuts in bags. We use them in our gardens or we sell them.

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Tyron is opening the kernel of the coconut and Sabine our Austrian Yoga teacher is harvesting the precious water which makes a most nutrient rich drink.