Past Life Lotus: A Journey of Self-Love and Remembrance
February 14, 2025
Valentine’s Day & The Practice of Love
This morning, I felt the familiar ache of self-judgment. Valentine’s Day. A day of love, and yet I was struggling with love for myself. 143 days symptom-free, and still, the thoughts creep in. The body-image spirals. The questioning. But today, I chose to move.
In the yoga shala, overlooking the North Balinese villages, a hint of the sea in the distance, I moved freely. This—this reconnection to my body, to breath, to presence—has been one of the greatest gifts of this retreat. I am finding my flow again.
After practice, I grabbed a few bites of lunch before heading on an excursion. I never ask where we’re going. I trust that whatever awaits will be what I need.And today, it exceeded expectations.
We were told we’d be taking the “big car” today, so I expected maybe a larger SUV. Instead, I turned the corner to see a massive trolley, sitting right at the end of the block. Our twenty-year-old driver was already inside, casually steering the giant open-air trolley through the narrow, winding roads of a tiny Balinese village—while also on the phone. I had to laugh. The absurdity of it. The trust it required.
There were six of us on this adventure—myself, Ernest, Alex, Athi, and the new couple. We bumped along the village roads, the warm air whipping through the open sides of the trolley, the occasional motorbike zipping past at impossible speeds. I had no idea where we were going, but I was along for the ride.
Past Life Lotus Memories: A Blooming That Transcends Time
We arrived at a Buddhist temple, where we met Guru Made. It was breathtaking—dragons, architecture, lotuses. And then, the birds. They landed on my head, my arms, my body. Fitting, considering my poem.
Inside the temple, we meditated. As we sat, more people trickled in. They must have thought we were crazy, sitting there in silence. But I was elsewhere—wrapped in a thread of past-life memories, especially when we arrived at a small Avalokiteśvara temple seated upon a lotus.
I have always felt a connection to the lotus, but lately, I’ve begun to realize—it isn’t just admiration. It is remembrance.
It’s woven into my skin, inked into my body as a tattoo, but also into something deeper—something beyond this lifetime. It pulses through my veins, revealing itself in moments of déjà vu, in the whispers of temples and the quiet spaces between breath. In Avalokiteśvara’s presence, in the sacred stillness of a lotus upon a pond, in the silence of Bali’s rain.
Sitting in the Avalokiteśvara temple, something in me unlocked. The same way my poem had started to take form, almost as if it had been waiting—written in another time, another place, just now finding its way back to me. (See next post)
This isn’t just a poem. It’s a thread of past-life recognition, a tapestry of karmic echoes, weaving through the cycle of birth and rebirth. It’s a glimpse of something I can’t quite name, yet I feel it as surely as my own heartbeat. (See next post for poem)
Perhaps I have prayed to Avalokiteśvara before. Perhaps I have sat beneath the shade of temple walls, tracing the lotus with my fingertips, whispering words I no longer remember. Perhaps these memories swim through my veins, rising again, like a lotus unfolding—seeking the light.
Maybe the past is not something we leave behind. Maybe it’s something we carry, hidden in samskaras, in poetry, in the breath between exhalations.
Maybe the lotus has been guiding me all along.
Avalokiteśvara had been on my vision board last year, placed at the center where Kali had once been. Compassion. That’s what she represents. Perhaps she is the missing piece in my journey right now—the perfect counterbalance to Kali’s fire. Compassion for my body. Compassion for my past. Compassion for the becoming.
Kali had always been my guiding force—the destroyer, the fire of transformation. But Avalokiteśvara represents something softer: the patience to hold suffering, the gentleness to meet pain with love, the boundless mercy of one who stays even when the cycle of rebirth could end.
I thought about my journey. My battle with my body, my mind, my compulsions. My desire to push, to purge, to perfect. The fire of Kali had burned away so much of the old, but now? Maybe now was the time to practice self-compassion, to meet myself not with force, but with grace.
Could I be gentle with myself? Could I choose love instead of punishment?
The Holy Hot Springs: A Baptism in the Waters of Memory
After the temple, we made our way to the holy hot springs, hidden away like a secret whispered through the trees. The moment we arrived, I felt something shift—the energy of the place, the warmth in the air, the way the water seemed to hum with something ancient.
The springs were layered, cascading down in three levels, each pool with its own unique temperature and rhythm. The lowest level was my favorite—a natural massage, the force of the water pouring from the mouths of Barong dragons, pressing into my skin like hands dissolving tension, like the weight of lifetimes being stripped away.
I moved through the pools slowly, letting the heat work its way into my bones, letting the steam wrap around me like a second skin. My body felt different here—less like a thing to be judged, more like something to surrender to. I thought about my lotus memories, about the cycles of life and death, about the karmic waters we all must wade through to reach clarity, to reach freedom.
Before I left, I wandered into the warmest pool, where Alex sat, soaking in silence. She looked up at me and smiled, then reached down, brushing her fingers along something on the stone ledge.
“I have a gift for you,” she said. I swam over, curious, and she placed my hand onto a small piece of moss—but this wasn’t ordinary moss. It was the softest, silkiest texture I had ever felt, like velvet woven by the earth itself. I pressed my fingers into it, sinking into its warmth, and for a moment, there was nothing but stillness.
I sat there, stroking the moss, watching the Barong dragons pour their endless stream of water into the pool. Barong—the great protector, the guardian of balance between good and evil, the force that ensures harmony.
And suddenly, I thought of my DMT visions—the swirling patterns, the dragons, the dissolving of form into light. Had I been here before? Had I bathed in these waters in another time, another body? The thought flickered through me like the flame from Trataka meditation, something I couldn’t prove, yet felt deeply in my bones.
Maybe this was a baptism of sorts—not a cleansing of sin, but a cleansing of illusion. A reminder that healing doesn’t always come from fire and destruction, but from warmth, from gentleness, from allowing ourselves to be held by forces greater than us.
Maybe this was why I was here. To remember. To soften. To let the waters carry me back to myself.
Balinese Dance & The Migraine: A Lesson in Surrender
That evening, there was a Balinese dance performance—a rescheduled one from earlier in the week.
Three little girls from the local village, dressed in intricate costumes with painted faces, performed alongside an older woman. The movements were mesmerizing—graceful yet powerful, telling stories through every flick of their wrists, every precise step. It made me want to learn. To tell stories through my own body.
But my migraine was building. The heat, dehydration, the sensory overload. It went from dull to sharp, pressing behind my eyes. I made it back to my room just as it reached its peak. I tried to eat some fruit, but I went overboard. The discomfort in my belly mirrored the pain in my head. In a moment of panic, I reached for sugar-free sucking candies, anything to soothe myself. But I knew. I knew they would make it worse.
I doom-scrolled until my eyes couldn’t stay open. The migraine pulsed, an ice pick through my skull. I had painkillers, but I avoided taking my Ubrelvy. My supply was limited, and I wouldn’t be able to get more for the rest of my trip. So I sat with it. I felt it.
Avalokiteśvara teaches that compassion begins with ourselves. To be patient. To hold pain—not to fix, not to run, just to be with it. So I held space for myself. For my migraine. For my body, my hunger, my healing.
And maybe, just maybe, the magician is at work.
Maybe the work is in presence. In trust. In choosing self-compassion over self-destruction.
With love and compassion,
kali grayce aka eve
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