Return to Bali: Vision Quest Rebirth at Les Waterfall

I didn’t return to Bali softly this time. It felt less like arriving and more like being pulled back into something that was already in motion. Another layer of endings, deaths, and deep resets moving through me. That has been the nature of Bali in my life. The energy here doesn’t let you hold onto illusion for long. It strips, reveals, accelerates, and asks you to meet what’s true, whether you feel ready or not. And if you don’t listen, she’ll kick your ass. And when you do, she still will but she’ll hold you in her arms while you heal.

Since first coming here in 2021, Bali has been a kind of karmic portal for me. So much of my life has unraveled and reformed on this island. My honeymoon, then divorce, healing from burnout & addiction, financial instability, business & relationship conflicts, realignment on my dharma and the long, disorienting path back to my own soul. The pace of transformation here has never been subtle. It’s been fast, confronting, and at times very overwhelming, but has also deeply guided me back into my soul’s alignment.

Before arriving at Les, I could already feel that something significant was waiting. The last time I was there, about a year ago, I had channeled the vision for the REB:EARTH Festival in Los Angeles—a massive project I was deeply immersed in before meeting Cory. That project ultimately collapsed, becoming one of the biggest failures of my career and sending me into another cycle of burnout after nearly 10 months of building with a team spread across the globe. At the time, it felt like everything I had built my identity around was dissolving, and the parts of my past life I believed I would continue in event production revealed themselves as another illusion.

I’ve been to these lands so many times over the years. Whenever I needed realignment, the land and the waters would call me back home. There’s something so magical about that waterfall and one of my favorite secret spots on earth. I’ve always felt like there are angels there, like it’s one of the closest places I’ve ever experienced to source and the divine. I used to go there to water fast, to reset, to listen, to remember. And coming back this time, I knew it wasn’t just another visit but it was a return to something much deeper, something waiting to be completed.

When I left Bali last year, I didn’t think I would return. I moved to Los Angeles with a sense of finality, like I was closing the Bali portal for good. But looking back, that experience wasn’t just a failure but it was a death. A necessary unraveling of ego, expectations, and who I thought I needed to be. And in the end, the project collapse was the biggest form of divine protection.

Meeting Cory came on the other side of that. And being called back to Bali now, specifically back to Les, felt like completing a cycle. Like the land was calling me in for another initiation.

The land there carries an intensity that’s hard to explain. It feels ancient, mystical, deeply held, and alive. Almost immediately, my system began to slow down, to listen differently, to soften into a kind of humility that comes when you recognize you’re stepping onto sacred ground. That you’re being watched. By the land, the spirits, the elements, the plant and animal kingdoms. Being witnessed in a way that calls you fully into truth and presence.

The vision quest itself became one of the most powerful initiations of my life.

We were 11 women, held in a ceremonial container by our teachers, Anna Maria and Kirsty, who kept the main fire burning continuously throughout the quest. Their devotion anchored everything and was so inspiring to witness. Through prayer, through presence, through song, through tending the fire as a living center point for all of us. It was an act of service that you could feel in every moment and humbled my heart with so much appreciation for those walking this path.

The days leading into the quest were filled with ceremony and preparation. We continuously worked with tobacco in prayer, moved through many water and fire ceremonies, and sat in many singing circles together. Beneath all of it was a deeper preparation happening. An understanding that we were about to walk into discomfort in a real way, and that there would be no way out of it, only through.

Then came the vision quest.

It began and ended in a temazcal ceremony (sweat lodge). From there, we each entered 48t hours alone in a space we were guided to. I chose to dry fast—no food, no water, no tent. Just me in nature, staying within a 2’ x 8’ space without leaving. Through rainstorms, wind, insects, visits from spirts and the unpredictability of the elements, there was no option to escape or control the experience beyond what was right there in that small piece of earth, with the constant sound of the river nearby.

Once everything external is stripped away, the mind eventually quiets. It exhausts itself to almost the point of driving you nuts from trying to control or negotiate the experience. What remains is something deeper, more honest and almost impossible to avoid.

Nature teaches through contrast. The storm and the stillness. The darkness and the light. The discomfort and the beauty. The perfection and imperfection. You begin to understand that these opposites are not separate but they are part of the same cycle. And in many ways, it mirrors our lives. The harder seasons are what make the moments of clarity, peace, and truth actually land and so we have a greater sense of appreciation in those moments of bliss.

I have always felt connected to the elements, but this experience deepened that relationship even more. There were moments where I felt sustained but by life force itself. By earth, breath, hundreds of prayers, by the sun and moon.

It also brought me back to something I knew as a child. Nature was always my escape. My imagination. It was where I felt safe and away from the chaos I was growing up in. And in this experience, I remembered what it feels like to be in relationship with the earth again. Not separate from her, but part of her. The mother of us all.

One of the clearest realizations that came through was this: when you truly ask nature for truth, and you enter that space without distraction or an agenda, she will show you. And when she does, the illusions don’t slowly fade but they collapse completely.

This initiation also clarified something that has been slowly revealing itself over time. Bali is not where I am meant to ground, it is where I am initiated. It’s where I come to move through layers quickly, to be challenged, to be refined, to heal and expand but not where I build stability. I knew this when I left last year, but she brought me back to fully complete this cycle and bring clarity not just for me, but for my relationship. I’ve been coming here since 2021, and each time has marked a death and rebirth. But this one felt like a closing and a clear grounded redirection forward for us.

For now, Cory and I have decided to root in the United States at his home on farmland near Portland, where we can begin to steward something grounded and sustainable together. A different kind of work together focused integration, consistency, stillness, peace, and grounded building. A life in closer communion with the mother, tending to the farm and forest, where my heart feels the most at peace. Some of the earliest months of our relationship were spent there, and it remains one of the most nourishing and meaningful chapters of my life.

Bali will always be a place I return to when I’m called into that deeper process. But it’s no longer where I stay.

What also became really clear through this experience was a pattern in Cory and my relationship and my energy being spread too thin and inconsistent, and the field feeling chaotic. There were too many people, projects, and directions pulling at me at once. My energy felt wide, scattered, and very unfocused, and it was impacting everything around me and my nervous system.

I felt this especially coming out of Egypt. Being pulled across too many timelines, too many commitments, too many open loops. And coming back here felt like divine timing and a much needed intervention.

The field had already started organizing before the quest even began. Hard conversations, tension, things surfacing out of nowhere. And then on the other side, these strange but clearly not coincidental karmic patterns & people rising to be seen and cleared. During and after the quest, so many things naturally fell away. Projects, connections, dynamics that weren’t aligned anymore.

This whole experience felt like a pivot point. A full rebirth into a new cycle for me, for our union and devotion to spirit. Coming out of the quest and landing in Cory’s arms felt like a homecoming I’ve always been searching for.

A remembering of how to be in right relationship—with the earth, with the elements, with the unseen, with my beloved, and with myself.

Just me, the earth, the spirits, the healing waters, the plant and animal kingdoms, and the elements met in stillness, without distraction.

There is a way of living that exists there. And once you touch it, even briefly, you don’t forget. You just learn how to carry it back into your life and let it shape how you move forwards, how you listen, and how you live.