I live in Bali but was visiting family and friends when Mt Agung first ‘woke up’. There was a real and imminent threat that it would erupt. I remained calm which is much easier to do when you’re literally on the other side of the planet! But I knew that there was great significance of this massive mystery of mother nature.
The last time it erupted was in 1963. It was devistating and killed over a thousand people with many more injured and sick. As I shared with my parents that Mt Agung was the same type of volcano as Mt Saint Helens, it trigged my dad to ask me if I remembered what happened during its eruption? I didn’t as it was 1980 and I had alot of other things on my mind. He reminded me that the north face of the volcano opened and it was a massive, unexpected eruption. My mother chimmed in that the ash fell in North Dakota which was a few thousand miles away. Hmmmm, so the reports of my village, Ubud, being in the ‘safe’ zone seemed a bit unlikely. Against their wishes to delay my trip home, I joyfully flew back to Bali. However, I was sensitised to the magnitude of destruction a volcano can have, especially on a small island.
Life back home in Bali seemed normal. Until one morning while talking to my friend in S Cal my chair started to shake at 5:55am. There was a jolt, a sway and ripples that couldn’t be missed. Wow, the power of Mother Nature became clear to me as I sat in awe of what just happened while also wondering if there would be an aftershock. Everything quickly settled but I was shook up as though a reminder was in order to not underestimate the unpredictability of what was happening below the earths surface.
I headed off to yoga that morning and saw the most magnificent view from the studio. It was the 21st of Nov and the peace that I experienced felt a bit odd after the early morning shake and despite the steam that was exiting the top there was serenity. On this particular day, the volcano was only expressing some burps with no drama of an eruption in the making. Then as I went through the movements in my yoga class, I had the most powerful experience with the energy of the volcano. It’s difficult to put into words but I can only say that there is so much more going on in the energetic matrix that most people can’t see and don’t know about.
It reminded me how small we are on the planet but how powerful we can be. How we can connect to source energy that is much larger than us and yet within us at the same time. A wonderful reminder that we can leverage the power of Mother Nature to activate our own super power.
Days later we saw a whole other side of the volcano that we thought was going to be much more than a burp. However, we still await the massive eruption that seems imminent.
BethBell.me
Originally published at medium.com