With each departure I feel the pull to stay and the pull to go. The journey ahead is again unknown and begins with negotiating a fare with the tuk tuk driving brother of my hosts at Vegetable Garden House. “Seven or eight hours drive”, he says. I offer forty Dollars, he counters with seventy and we settle on fifty-six plus I’ll buy lunch en route.

We climb past the sparkling lake. The temperature goes in the opposite direction. Tea plantations form stairways to the moon. And Buddha stands watch above it all. The Empire turns in its tepid grave. Despite the attraction I can neither ignore or negate the shadow side. What is seen as a lake is in fact a dam for tea irrigation; a pool of pesticide run off and an unnatural pool depriving the villages and eco systems downstream.

Whilst most folk deny their shadow in favour of their light, I err on the side of the opposite. I don’t curate; I mine. I unearth diamonds under layers of coal; seeing all facets is my superpower.

We descend the stairways of rice paddies, returning to the heat of the day. Far from hell, I consume the variegated landscapes for lunch. Sense doors are gateways to my soul; the only relevance of the external is my response through the portals of sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. To find that sweet spot of reflection and integration it is important to not mistake resistance for discernment and to recognise that aversion and craving brings neither respite nor the fulfilment of desire. If pleasure cannot give life meaning then the lack of pleasure cannot take meaning away.

The dots of the puzzle can join in a multitude of ways; A to B is not always obvious. Like the precariously poised hillside stalls, adventure brings teetering between groundedness and flight.

The driver chews betel and spits russet saliva. A wave washes over my foot. He drives faster in the rain. Dogs flee. Ganesha removes no obstacles. Shiva with his cobra necktie looks indifferent. Betel alkaloids can stimulate adrenalin or euphoria … he’s not euphoric. The roads aren’t worthy of a map and the tuk tuk has the suspension of a hobbled rodeo bull, so bumpy my phone logs mileage. The journey is long, but I learn to recognise that interesting is more important than speed.

A wall of water; I arrive in the rainforest. And all is calm.

New Year’s Eve is just another Sunday. No pressure and anxiety or pretending to resolve to be a better version of myself. No contrived celebrations to shed some old me that likely will still exist tomorrow. No hedonistic and redundant rituals laying pathways of expectation and failure. No false festivities and empty intentions that negate the reality that tomorrow will be just another Monday.

Instead there is the forest and the river and the rampant wildness reminding me of life’s constant flux of endings and beginnings. Nothing is ever the same. So I chant and I meditate and I climb into bed listening to the lullaby of it all. My intention with the ending of today is to use each and every night as an opportunity to assess and recalibrate so that each and every morning is a new year, a new day and a new me … to use each and every exhale as a letting go and every inhale as an invitation to the new.

Be mindful of this moment; this moment is your life … said someone.

I wake in the still darkness, hungry … for a cold shower, for meditation and chanting, for a swim in the waterfall and for perfumed fruits and real coffee. All is satisfied in that order. And just as an added bonus, a leech attaches itself to my wrist. I want to keep it there for a while. Always fascinated by the ancient healing technique of bloodletting, it feels part of the cleansing ritual. My host sprays salt water on it and it drops to the ground. There will be more where that one came from.

It feels as though I have slipped dimensions; through a crack in the continuum … as though someone else is living my comparatively normal life back home and I have escaped the constructed reality that had me chained.