During the rainy days when Hakka [Taiwan native] men did not do the farm work, singing mountain songs and playing instruments with friends were their major activities. . . . The ideal lifestyle for Hakka people in the early days consisted of farming and studying. Therefore, a famous Hakka phrase which represents Hakka life is "Chiny-geng Yu-du" (in Mandarin). That is, "Do the farm work on the sunny days, and study on the rainy days."
-- Apricot Hun, "Brief description of the characteristics of Hakka culture"
Aukland is much like Vancouver in size (1.4 million), climate (moderate and cloudy), and ethnicity (British and Asian). I didn’t find much to do there except research tour options, the most efficient way to see the country in a short time (10 days).
Hobart, Tasmania’s capital city, at 40,000 is a pleasant, laid-back city, kind of a cross between the BC cities of Nelson and Victoria. One of its electoral ridings has the highest Green Party vote in Australia. The drum group I played with, Tumba, was featured on World Music night at the Lark Distillery, a monthly engagement for them.
The act we followed was a one-man show, a talented musician who played two didges, various wind instruments including sax and clarinet, keyboards and synthesizer, and HandSonic--practically all at the same time, and with some great pure jazz licks. He joined us for some inspired accompaniment for our closing piece.
A philosophical digression . . .
Which brings me back to today, finding my center at rest again, if only temporarily. Today in a café at the Treaty Grounds I read a couple of chapters in Arthur Koesler’s The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man’s Changing Vision of the Universe. The long account of the career and personality of Nicholas Copernicus was rather dry and academic, but came to an explosive and inspiring conclusion:
Once the apparent daily round of the firmament was explained by the earth’s rotation, the stars could recede to any distance; putting them on a solid sphere became now an arbitrary, unconvincing act. The sky no longer had a limit, infinity opened its gaping jaws.
...
The universe has lost its core. It no longer has a heart, but a thousand hearts. The reassuring feeling of stability, of rest and order are gone.
...
The Golden Chain was torn, its links scattered throughout the world; homogenous space implied a cosmic democracy.
...
Homo sapiens had dwelt in a universe enveloped by divinity as by a womb; now he was being expelled from the womb.
...
A.D. 1600 [following Copernicus] is probably the most important turning point in human destiny after 600 B.C. [the time of Buddha, Confucius, Lao-Tze, Pythagoras].
There were several Greek thinkers following Pythagoras who put the sun at the center of the revolving earth and planets, but it took nearly another 1000 years for that vision to take hold again in a fearful, repressive medieval Europe, whose scientists and citizens tried to take comfort in a stable, earth-centered model of a fixed, limited, mechanistic universe ordered under a hierachical Chain of Being.
Now, nearly 1500 years after Buddha and Lao-Tze articulated their exquisite models of human liberation, it seems most of us (myself included) are still stuck for the most part in a similarly limited view of human nature and human being. It is as if we have recoiled in existential fear from the implications of a boundless universe with no definitive shape or body of laws for humans. Sartre’s existentialism was not freeing but "nauseating." In the face of an expansive and dissolving vision that began with Copernicus and has been elaborated by relativity, quantum physics and chaos theory, we continue to retreat into the ego-eggshells of our personal identities and social roles, seeking solace in our creature comforts and primal (whether reptile- or primate-driven) relationships of economics and emotions. Lacking the supporting structure of lawful divinity, we have replaced "Father, Son and Holy Ghost" with "I, me, mine."
It is not that this condition of separate individual identities is unhealthy or obsolete in itself. We do after all have our "animal nature" to take care of, and even enjoy, as an ongoing part of our "human nature." Rather, the point here is that to be too confined or stuck within the boundaries of the individual, physical-emotional-mental-social self can deny us the opportunity to enjoy the boundless freedom of our "cosmic nature" - which implies also connectedness with one another and all beings, and empathy for the suffering entailed by physical existence.
Buddha and Lao-Tze didn’t bother charting the heavens; they bypassed the star charts to map instead the polarities and epicycles of human consciousness and psychology. Whether we choose the outer route of finding a definition for human being in the observable cosmos, or the inner journey toward joy and peace of mind, there is an option for us that goes beyond both the blind denial and obedience of the medieval mind, and the reflexive withdrawl of the modern individual into self-concern. That option is to open to the concept of universal energy not only as a vision of cosmic science, but also as a field of loving play for the human psyche.
In the more central area of Lovina there once was a thriving tourist industry. Charming lanes with guesthouses, restaurants with local character, brick walkways along the shore now are deserted, except for the locals hanging about, waiting for you to appear with your sunglasses and camera and traveler’s wallet. 
Ubud was a lovely attraction, complete with a sacred “Monkey Forest” full of mossy dragon temples and tame macaques, nightly performances of gamelan music and dance, shadow puppet theatre, fire dance, and Kecak “monkey chants” as seen in the film Baraka. All that on top of a wealth of art galleries, music and bookshops, and trendy cafes like Bali Buddha and the Jazz Café (offering nightly live jazz).
I spent just two days in Padang Bai, one each at the two small charming clear-water white-sand beaches, but fell into my usual funk with the “small town” syndrome. Not enough people around to be anonymous and blend into the background (like Kuta or Ubud); and not few enough people to have real solitude (like Lovina). Sort of a limbo in between, where to fit in, you really need to have or make company with the few familiar faces around you. 
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