Blog: Into The Unknown

I remember when Frozen 2 came out. Whether you’re a fan of the franchise, of the installment or not, the message of the film was clear; you have to embrace & chase the unknown to become who you’re meant to be. It was not my intent going into this blog to make it about the second film in Disney’s smash hit world of Frozen but I have been engaging with a book the last few days called The Pivot Year by Brianna Wiest & the stars ended up aligning with the computer animated universe in message.

If you read my last blog “If I’m Being Honest…” & saw my most recent Instagram post, you’ll know that lately I’ve been feeling rather lost & directionless in life & this feeling has been causing me mucho stress. I desperately wanted someone to come along & tell me which way I was meant to be going, what I was meant to be doing, etc. I was relying on an external someone I have now realized is irrational to think about & who I know is not coming. It’s also not someone else’s job to be that for me.

It’s now that I’d like to divert the conversation a little bit because apparently my last blog was not clear in my context. This is not how I feel spiritually, it is how I feel all around in life. In my thoughts, in my movements, in my motivation. I got a lot of “lean into God, lean into Jesus” comments & that’s not in the least bit what this is all about. I promise you, no one who is struggling with finding their identity wants to hear “you need religion” in any form. Apparently what we need is the hit Disney film, Frozen 2 released in 2019, starring Kristen Bell, Adele Dazeem, & Jonathan Groff…that’s a joke by the way, before you come for me in the comments section…

Back to my point.

This book, The Pivot Year, carries with it the tag line “365 Days To Become The Person You Truly Want To Be” of which there are 365 daily meditations for you to think about as you go about your business. Now, I’m going to be hyper realistic here & let you know with firm understanding or self, my ADHD will not allow me to get through all 365 days of this book. Just stating the facts here. I’m sure I’ll lose interest, or it’ll get put under something & I’ll forget the book exists entirely, but what it did do is remind me of the quantum mechanics in which the world functions.

I’ve stated this before & I stated it again earlier today in my Insta post, but we for the longest time knew the electrons of an atom existed not because we were able to see it but because we could measure its energy levels. It’s only recently that we discovered electrons, the physical negative charge of an atom that orbits the nucleus, exist in a quantum state. This means that they pop in & out of our ability to physical pin point them only at the point in which someone is trying to observe them. If we look at an atom, in its entirety, & don’t focus on the electrons of said atom, they won’t physically, visually exist to us. BUT if we turn our attention towards the illusive particle, they become precise before our very eyes. This is a phenomenon falls under something that we call the Copenhagen Interpretation.

I bring this up in part because it is what I have become. I have pinpointed the electron that says “I am lost” & therefore I am. I have become this thing because of a belief in its existence & the reaffirmation of its presence on almost a minute by minute basis. The daily meditations within The Pivot Year have help me to come to this revelation & to hopefully find a way forward by leaning into the unknown.

In the early meditations of the book it talks, as Joe Dispenza often does, about how the unknown is the opposite of a scary oppressive thing, but is in fact a chance for endless opportunity. Much as phrases like Carpe Diem try to express, tomorrow is not guaranteed, so why should the outcome be? If you have no idea what tomorrow holds why can’t it also hold the most positive, fulfilling thing possible? Why must we always view the vailed unknown with the fear of tragedy? What if we were to prepare for our future in a positive way instead the way we prepare for disaster to strike? Something akin to the opposite of doomsday prepping. What if I decided, today, as I write this, that I’m no longer lost? That I have purpose & drive & motivation to move towards the things that give me life? How quickly would a clear conclusion take form in my life?

If I can convince myself that I’m lost, that I’m not talented, that no one wants to work with me or help me or listen to/read my art, & have that manifest to some degree, then what would happen if I did the opposite? What would happen if I made myself believe that I am on the right path, that I’m abundantly talented, that everyone wants to work with me, support me, listen to my music, read my posts? Where would I end up?

What would happen if I leaned head first into the unknown & embraced it? Not as some dreaded thing but with wonder & as an endless stream of positive possibilities? I’m not saying to not be realistic, toxic positivity is very much a thing, I’m just thinking about reframing a mind set around the things we want, need, & the people we want to be. A mental ‘fake it til you make it’ if you will!

As always, much love to you all,

Thank you for reading!

-C

Travel Blog: Indonesia: Part Two- Why Do All Of The Good Stories Start Next To A Carpet Anemone?

Selamet Siang!

Welcome back curious reader! If you’re new here the class has officially moved on to part two of this specific adventure, but if you’d like to be caught up I’ll link part one just below this little bit of conversational pretext! Be sure to give that a read before continuing on here, context & establishment are important to storytelling after all!

---

INDONESIA

PART TWO:

Day Three

We start out this day in the usual way, rising early, grabbing brekkie, then going off to pack up for the full day of diving ahead. The only noticeable difference about this day’s breakfast was that I created my new obsession for the week; Toast with Raspberry Jam & Nutella, & I made a little Jumping Spider friend. I found her first climbing on my shoulder where I gently gathered her & set her aside on my chair, but no matter what I did she kept coming back to me in one form or another. Finally I just gave in & let her sit on my arm & watch me eat breakfast.

For all of you out there freaked out by this notion, Jumping Spiders are actually very personable creatures that have very interesting personalities about them. They will often even appear to look you in the eye & will, as witnessed above, watch people do things out of what seems like nothing more than curiosity. Though now that I’m thinking about it she may have been using me as a trap for the insects potentially drawn in by either my food or my blood. Either way, at the end of my meal, I set her on a leaf just off the dining pavilion & went about collecting my gear.

Our first dive site of the day was lovingly named “Hairball #2.” Why? Well, as it was explained to us, there are two separate explanations, the first is that the balls of netting/rope & the flora growing on the seabed resemble balls of hair, the second explanation was due to the abundance of Hairy Frogfish, of which we did see one, but apparently my camera did not. #MinimumFocalLength

This dive had an abundance, & I mean an abundance, of Mantis Shrimp of all sizes. Not only that, but you didn't really have to search for them, they were just kind of out, cruising along the sand or, in my case, attacking you. We’ll get there, we’ll get there.

I’m going to assume it was the scenery that lent itself to the plethora of decorators in the area as well, from Decorator Crabs & Hermits to Gorilla Crabs, it seemed every few feet near the top of our dive we’d find a new one. Additionally the Seahorse/Pipefish family came out to play as well.

Many of you know how much of a love for Seahorses I have, I used to raise them in my tank at home including, at one point, having an Erectus Male get pregnant & birth a clutch of fry in my tank! I’ve actually been flirting with the idea of setting up a specialty tank for them somewhere in my house as they don’t do well in big tanks with more aggressive eaters, but enough about my aquarium hobbies. All of that was a massively round about way of saying that I saw the. cutest. seahorse. I have ever seen. He had a bit of red macro algae growing just above his left pectoral fin which made it look like he had a flower in his hair. Simply adorable.

The site was truly a masterclass in what muck diving has to offer between the (in my personal opinion) horrifying Snake Eels with their heads popping out of the substrate, the pairs of Cardinal Waspfish, the numerous varieties of Shrimp Goby with their hovels in the sand, Lionfish, Trumpetfish, Carpet Anemones, & Snapper. But, let’s back up one step to one of those Carpet Anemones for a moment shall we?

Here is where I shall lay the chronicle of the viscous, subaquatic affront I received at the punchy mits of the afforementioned Peacock Mantis Shrimp:

So, I’m sitting there, filming a colony of Clownfish & Ghost Shrimp, doing my best to get the Porcelain Crabs as the current rolls up the sides of the anemone. I have my pointer buried around half a foot in the sand when all the sudden a hear a “thwack” & get a sharp pain in the hand holding onto my substrate anchor. I look over & there, puffed up in the sand, is about a three to four inch long Peacock Mantis Shrimp. It is presenting its antennal scales to me & keeps leaning in to go for another strike. What has gotten this Mantis so worked up over my presence? Well, I guess the fact that I’m a good meter+ from its burrow. It had come out a fairly long distance for an itty bitty shrimp from its defenses to smack my out of territorial spite. You can actually hear the smack, as well as my yelp, when it hit me on my GoPro footage. I was however fortunate with my Mantis encounter for two reasons. One, it was a little one, they can grown about a foot & a half in length. Two, it was a “punchy” variety, meaning that its raptorial appendages were blunted, not sharp like the alternatively “stabby” variety with their sharp appendages.

On our way back up we encountered a Male Ornate Ghost Pipefish, a Napoleon Snake Eel, several more Cardinal Wasps, & a Flamboyant Cuttlefish!

Our surface interval was once again supplemented by Tea, Coffee, Milo, Water, Papaya, Pineapple, & Cake. Dive spot number two was Jahir #1. I guess it’s worth noting at this point that a lot of the dive sites in Lembeh had numerical quantifiers as well. This is because a lot of them are the same towns, villages, islands, or locations, just different mooring sites & thus different entrance/exit points & therefore different dives.

Jahir was another muck dive that leans a little more on the sandy side. Here we found a whole host of Flamboyant Cuttlefish (including some eggs), Scorpionfish, Pillow Starfish, Blue Spotted Rays, Black Lionfish, Banded Pipefish, & the like. However there were two very distinct things that happened on this dive & I’m so excited to share them with you all!

The first made me absolutely geek out.

Maybe it’s the fish lover in me or my fascination with marine life in general, maybe you’ll also find this as cool as I did, please let me know if you do. Anyway, I was planted near yet another Carpet Anemone teeming with Clowns. Slightly above the anemone were a school of Cardinal Fish. Y’all I am literally geeking out typing this story simply because of the insinuations it carries. All of the sudden the largest of the clowns, the female, departs the anemone & makes for a piece of debris laying on the sand bed, It was just under a foot in size & looked kind of like a piece of cardboard or maybe a patch of dutch tape. Puri, our guide, immediately grabs my attention & motions to me to start filming, so I do. The clown drags the debris over to the anemone & stashes it right in the middle of it. She then proceeds to duck under it. After a few seconds she picks it up again & does the same, over & over. What was she doing? Y’all. This clownfish was fishing. It was upholding its portion of the symbiotic biological agreement between clowns & nems & trying to feed its home. It was using us, three big, scary, bubble making beings in the water next to the anemone as a tool implying she understands the basic nature of fish, specifically cardinal fish, & was trying to get them to swim under the debris & use it as “shelter” to hide from us, all the while luring them to their inevitable death. Wild. I guess it’s true what they say, the best stories happen around a carpet anemone.

The second thing that happened was actually something I’d discussed with Simon, the resort owner, the night prior. I had inquired as to what Simon’s favorite Lembeh creature was, to which he said something along the lines of “it’s always changing. However, this time of year the Fire Urchins make an appearance & I think they’re something truly spectacular.” That they are. Towards the end of our dive we came up the slope back towards the boat & were immediately met by about twenty or so massive Fire Urchins! I wish the photos & video I took did them justice but they unfortunately don’t. They’re iridescent, they genuinely look to be ablaze with their dark red spines & bright red & blue bodies so luminous they appear almost like LED strips. A breathtaking species of Urchin to say the least! The way their spines move across their bodies offsetting the view of the farther parts of their body makes them truly look aflame.

Following dive two it was time for lunch. We headed back to NAD Lembeh where we were met with a lovely spread once again provided by Tommy, the resort’s excellent chef. Following our exquisite sustenance it was time, once again, to head back out for another dive.

Dive three was Nudibranch Falls. For those of you dear readers that do not know what a Nudibranch is, they are a family or shell-less mollusks with exterior gills that often feed on corals & sponges. They are often poisonous & thus come rather brightly colored to ward off predators & blend into their lunch. As for the name of the site, Nudibranch Falls is a wall dive meaning you’re diving along side a wall, pretty self explanatory. It is named as such because the ascending bubbles from the divers often knock the Nudies from their place of munch & send them cascading to the depths below. Thus the nudibranch falls.

While exploring the first bits of this site it became extremely dark out of nowhere & I’m talking like ‘felt like we should be in a cave or passthrough’ dark, therefore a lot of the pictures that will accompany this section will probably make heavy use of my flashlight, as will the following, but we’ll get there when we get there.

Around Nudibranch Falls is primarily rubbly reef; waves, creatures, boats,…divers…, etc crash against the corals causing them to break & fall to the bottom below where they either expire or continue growing, hence the rubble. The venue had many of your typical reef fish as well as, yes, many a variety of Nudibranch & Flatworm. The coolest incision of the reef however where the Sea Fans that played host to Pygmy Seahorses.

You shan’t be seeing any picture of Pygmy Seahorses from me seeing how the are, as the name implies, Pygmy & my camera could not for the life of it figure out what the hell I was trying to film. When I say these boogers are small, I mean it. I would say the largest was no bigger than the nail of your little finger.

I’m going to throw Sam under the bus a little here just because I find the story to be a tad humorous & it comes back around later. Sorry Sam if you’re reading this.

After viewing the seahorses Sam, my dive buddy & roomie, set about exploring the rest of the reef wall. Little had we all notice but the current had started to pick up because, as we’d come to find out, it was pouring rain above us, hence the darkness. Sam, having been blown backwards by current & not entirely realizing, was mere inches away from running her fins right through the sea fan containing the entire colony of pygmy seahorses. We all motioned frantically to get her to stop moving, which she did & Gigs, another guide, & I came over & pulled her away from the coral wall manually all the while she remained posed like an astronaut freshly sucked into space. She later had to save me from a similar situation where I was blown into a bunch of coral & could not move for fear of damaging them. In either case there was no harm, no foul. No corals or sea life were harmed in the making of this blog…by us anyway.

Another cool discovery on this dive was a Lembeh Sea Dragon, which looked like a mess of hair until we got close to it. Yet another thing my camera said “Focus? Who’s she?” to, the Lembeh Sea Dragon was truly no larger than a bit of wire & about the length of the pad of your thumb. They are apparently rather rare, hadn’t been seen by Puri in a very long time, & are exclusive to the Lembeh Strait. Even Googling pictures of them they’re barely in focus in each instance.

We made our way back through the rain, which I’ve got to admit was kind of fun to dive in. I took a shower to warm up, started downloading my footage, & took a wee nap. Post nap I hit the coffee bar for what would be one of my only coffees the whole trip. I went the LA Australian Cafe route & made myself an Iced Milo Latte, basically an iced mocha sub chocolate sauce for Milo! I took my concoction back to the patio of my room & continued to edit.

While I sat there a squat little crab scuttled out of the burrow it had made under our neighbor’s steps & began picking through the dirt for food. Once it noticed me watching it immediately retreated though not all the way back into the burrow. I sat & watched it remoisten its eyes & trying to decide whether to continue its forage or hide for a good while.

This would be the first day in which we had four dives planned instead of the previous days of three. Well, our boat did anyway. I guess, I forgot to mention that our group was so large they’d split us in two, each boat containing eight people & four guides along with the captain & the deck hand. Our boat went back out to Aer Prang around 5:45 PM when the sun had begun to set. By the time we arrived a mere ten to fifteen minutes later the light was minimal at best & the sun was all but gone from our view. This was to be our first night dive.

Now I’d never been on a night dive before & if you recall from my pre-Fiji blog, in which I thought we were going to do a night dive, I was just as nervous about it as I was my shark dive. Now I’m craving both. I’m far from being a Thalassophobiak, but there’s something about the inky black of the ocean at night that I found rather off putting. My fears were misguided both in this instance & in my nervousness around sharks.

If you don’t know how a night dive works you’re basically plopped into a dive site in the pitch black. The lights on the boat are set to red as to not mess with the wild life below & each person brings along a torch to light their way. Additionally different methods of communication are used.

In normal light circumstances you give different hand signals to communicate with your fellow divers. In the blackness those signals are far from visible so they move from being off the body to being over your flashlight. Simple enough. Additionally when you want to get another diver’s attention in the light of day you make noise; bang your tank, carry a rattle, blow a whistle, click a carabiner, etc. Here when you hear a noise reverberation from the dark you have no idea what direction its coming from, who it’s coming from, or even if it’s a member of your party or another dive party. The solution? Wave your flashlight back & forth like a maniac in front of your fellow diver’s line of sight. I think this method often actually works better than the sound alternative.

So down we go, lights aglow searching for critters what dine on marine snow.

I’m once again going the throw Sam under the bus here, I promise this won’t be a trend in the remainder of this blog, nor part three to follow.

We get down to the bottom, I’m following Puri, Sam is following behind me, & I notice the light from her torch flash then disappear so naturally I think she’s trying to get our attention. I whirl around in search of her & she is no where to be found, lost to the darkened maw of the ocean.

I can hear some of you saying “check please, she got snatched” in your head, mine however didn’t go there until just now when I was typing this.

I continue searching for her, looking all around from the ocean floor to the water’s surface, no luck. Next thing I know I feel fingertips & a hand fiddling around the back of my neck trying to grasp the handle of my BCD (Buoyancy Compensator/Control Device). I look up from the arm now attached to me & there is Sam waving back at me extinguished light in hand.

So what happened? Well, Sam forgot to charge her dive light with full confidence in it & ironically it had decided to crap out at almost the exact moment we were all like “All ready? Okay, let’s go exploring.” Sam’s solution, which I’ve got to say was a smart one, was to grab ahold of my gear & basically hitch a ride with me the duration of the dive, which is the exact thing you’re supposed to do. Only I didn’t know that. So while I’m whirling around in search of her, she was whirling around trying to grab the back of my BCD to continue the dive. Fortunately the Eagle Scout in me came prepared & I had a second, smaller light, to give her so she didn’t have to play Remora with me the whole time.

Night diving is an interesting experience, it’s a completely different world. We’d dove the site during the day so I knew what to expect in terms of terrain & fauna but it truly is something to behold when the lights go out. A lot of the fish in the reef enter a form of sleep drastically reducing their metabolism while still technically staying awake to keep them alert from predators but during this state of stasis they basically go into a less reactive & mobile state. You find a lot of the fish that you would see during the day resting & they don’t stir or depart nearly as quickly at night. Sometimes you end up right up on them without them paying you much mind.

We stumbled upon many ‘sleeping’ Dwarf Lionfish, Pipefish, Crustaceans & Starfish that had come out to eat. We found our first Octopus of the trip, a long tentacle that would splay its arms out, following each divot of the sea bed, then retract them once it came up dry with nothing to grab onto & snack on. Additionally we ran into many snoozing Cuttlefish & a massive, meaty looking Blue Crab swimming about the shallows, hunting fish. You also get the microscopic critters that you miss during the day who are drawn to the light, darting in & out of the beam as you cruise along. (We’ll get more into them on the Black Water Dive in part three next week).

With our night dive concluded we made our way back to base where it was now dinner time. The groups who’d stay’d behind were already digging in by the time we returned but we were assured dinner would wait for us to return from our showering. The Tomato Soup & Indonesian Chicken Curry that were on the evening’s menu really helped to warm the bones as well & it wasn’t long before we were all sound asleep, zonked by the many adventures of the day, ready to face the next.

End Of Day Three

---

Day Four

Day four felt ripped right out of the archives of a nature documentary. There were so many observed happenings on this day that I don’t think for the entirety of the remainder of my days as a diver I will find another jam packed day such as this, at least where the circle of life is concerned. The day started out early, with breakfast. One thing I really appreciate about diving Lembeh is that you actually get to have the breakfast of your choosing because you’re not dealing with massive swells on the way to your dive site. I think, in this case, it was an egg sandwich day with bacon.

The first of the day’s animal encounters happened without even having to leave the shore. You see, each morning, on my way to the boat I’d stop to see which sea creatures had gathered around the dock over night. Day one it had been a Batfish just off the end of the pier, day two; schools of butterflyfish, but I think this morning took the case of coolest things spotted. Just off the main part of the dock there were a few schools of fish, that wasn’t the cool part. Amongst these shoals was a singular Cuttlefish, cool on its own, sure, only this Cuttlefish was hunting. It was pulsing dark & light colors over its body in an attempt to hypnotize the fish belonging to the schools. When it got closer it would extend out its two harpoon-like tentacles & snag one of fish. I watched it do this over & over until it had successfully snagged two or three fish & it was now time to depart from the shore to head out into the strait for the day’s dives. I promise you, this Nat Geo/Discovery Channel/Animal Plant-esque day was far from over as the remainder of this segment will surely show! Buckle up kids, it’s gonna get wild!

As the week moved on & my editing work began piling up more & more I began to get lazy with logging my dives. At least that’s the excuse I’m going to be using going forward for the fact that I lost track of some of the names of the dive sites going forward because the online log book required me to make a new entry with address (um…ocean?) & coordinates as well. So if I can’t give you the name of any of the dive sites on this here day we shall be referring to them here numerically.

Dive #1 popped off immediately & actually ended up being one of my favorite dives of the whole trip. This one, fortunately to us, dear reader, does have a name. It’s called Angel’s Window. Similar to the Cathedral of Lanai, Angel’s Window is the remnants of an old lava tube, supplying it with a number of pass throughs & caves. The “window” is a massive, 100 foot tall rock, that rests just below the surface of the water & is covered in beautiful reef. Where deep diving is concerned you always start the day off with your deepest dive & always start said dive off with the deepest depth, working your way back up.

Slowly we began our decent down the side of the rock, taking in the fish & corals before we reached the first cave. There a school of Squirrelfish had taken up residence & their reflective silver & red scales flashed the light of our torches back at us lighting up the cavern. Directly below us the rock had a vertical pass through that let out right at the entrance to the actual window of which an Angel, either by name or title, possess. I should mention, the above pass through is where Sam had to save me from bumping into the reef, so we’re square. On the other side of the window we came our to find sand bed waiting for us. Much to my joy, off in the distance I could see the ‘sway & snag’ of a colony of Garden Eels.

I love garden eels, I absolutely adore them. They burrow in the sand in clusters, popping their heads & a good portion of their bodies out, & collecting zooplankton as it drifts by. They’re very, very shy & this group of Spotted Garden Eels was no exception. I did my best to sneak up on them to no avail, but that still didn’t stop me from squealing at the glimpse of them that I had been fortunate enough to gather.

Back to the rock we went where we began to spiral our way up & around. I did glimpse another cluster of garden eels down on the other side of the rock but I ended up distracted by Octopus #2 of the trip.

This was a Day Octopus, a close relative to the GPO or Giant Pacific Octopus. You know, that octopus that comes to mind when we all think of them. Solving puzzles, squeezing through tiny spaces, tucked up by the glass in your local aquarium? Yeah, that one!

It was tucked & hiding away so we moved on quickly running into a rather large Moray Eel, several schools of Box Anthias whose colors seemed to glow neon at depth, & a rather aggressive Damselfish who came careening off the reef to attack my fins. Though after what happened next, I’m not surprised that it wasn’t a fan of divers.

On up the rock we found a rather large school of Klein’s Butterflyfish pecking at the rock. Puri pointed out that they were eating fish eggs, specifically the fish eggs of the Damsels on the reef. I was fascinated by them swarming the rocks but Puri urged me on. Noticing me watching them as we swam away he wrote on his pad “they will follow us.” A little lost I chose to trust & continued on after him. Sure enough here they came, the entirely of the school of Butterflyfish was now following us. The damsel below was just a precursor, a foreshadowing of events to come it you will because the butterflies had learned that the damsels would much rather defend their clutch from something large, more likely to wipe out the spawn, than a school of fish. They used our being there to draw the damsels off of the reef & would then swoop in & pick off the eggs left behind leaving the damsels to fight off the butterfly fish frenzy.

Don’t feel bad for the damselfish, please. The entirety of this trip I had probably a dozen or more damselfish try to pick fights with me just for swimming by. Even in my own home aquarium I had to evict my Staghorn Damsels because they were killing my corals to lay eggs in the middle of the tank & then would fight all of the other fish the came within feet of the nest. They’re a-holes.

The butterflies followed us for a good while, feeding along the way, taking the piss out of the damsels but departed from us when we swung around the north side of the rock & found the current.

I’ve always kind of enjoyed a slight current while diving, the sway back & forth reminds you just how small you are & its exhilarating to start in one spot, kick to ride the current where you want to go, & then sweep back just a little bit. I was distracted by the immaculately vivacious Sun Coral colonies to notice that Sam had completely disappeared. I signaled to Puri asking where our dive buddy was & he simply gave me the gesture of “the boat.'“ Turns out while I was reveling in the current, Sam was developing sea sickness. I scouted the reef for a few more minutes before returning to find Sam applying Dramamine patches behind her ears.

Angel’s Window sits near the top of Lembeh Strait, hence its oceanic influences. That meant we had a bit longer of a trek back south to get to our next dive site. Just off the shore from a small town, dive #2 was a full on muck dive, hard contrast to the morning dip. We sat & watched a small Indonesian girl & her father training their dog how to swim while we loaded up on warm beverages, water, fruit, & once more, cake. Once it was time to dive & Sam’s Dramamine (Samamine) had begun to kick it was time to dive once more.

We spent a good while doing simple observational tasks on this dive. We found a set of Sea Slugs ‘racing’ towards one another & sat to watch them & see what they’d do. Initially we were all taking votes on mating but it ended up being only coincidence & the slugs recoiled immediately when they finally made connection with one another.

I managed to film my second “feeding” of the day as we descended down farther when a Lionfish chased a Boxfish off the mooring line where it was perched & consumed it out in open water above me. Probably was that Lionfish’s last meal as Boxfish are poisonous.

Our dive into the muck included many Hi Hats, a massive school of Shrimpfish, Sand Divers (yes, they are as the name suggests), Porcupine Puffers, several types of Frogfish (Hairy & Painted), a Seahorse, several live Sand Dollars, & a Queen Conch. We even found another set of the same variety of Sea Slugs inching their way towards one another, only this time, they ended up mating! Post dive it was once again time to head back to the resort for lunch.

After lunch I sat editing, milking a Pacori Sweat while editing. All of the sudden I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. There, above me, pilfering through the rafters was a slender brown & grey snake. It was darting around looking for food amongst the roofing. I asked one of the staff what kind of snake it was & I was informed it was a Brown Coconut Snake, probably looking for geckos to eat up there, though normally they stick to the trees. I sat there editing & watching the snake for a good while before it was time, once again to go dive.

Our afternoon dive was at the Island just across the strait from the resort. In the water we went, ears adjusted, down through the muck where I excited discovered a large Crete, or Sea Snake below us. We all gathered around but found ourselves a bit puzzled as it wasn’t really moving. Our collective though seemed to be that maybe it was snoozing, resting, or trying to burrow after food, but upon closer inspection the snake was missing its head. 40 feet below the surface, a quarter mile off the coast of an unsettled island this discovery still perplexes me.

Abandoning the dearly departed we continued down the island’s slope til I came upon a Black Ribbon Eel. Many of you saw the moment I’m about to describe on my Instagram or TikTok but I’ll be more than happy to describe it to you all here! This Juvenile Eel was buried deep in the substrate, swaying patiently in the currents, passing the water through their specialized nostrils that act as antennae picking up the scent of any passing prey. P.S. I knew it was a juvenile because it was black. The adult males are blue, the females, yellow. In our passing we had startled a small cluster of Cardinal Fish close to the eel’s den. (Truly we are a terror to the safety & security of the cardinal fish). The eel immediately stopped its swaying & closed its mouth, looking now more like a blade of seagrass sticking out of the ground. Puri noticed this & motioned for me to lay low, stake down, & start filling, which I did. The group of cardinals, disoriented by us, had scattered a bit & were still paying much more attention to the three black clad monsters in the water with them than the seemingly innocuous blade of grass at their rear.

The fish population of Lembeh are clearly opportunists, many adapting to use human influence to their advantage, case in point. This eel used our presence to hone in one a singular cardinal that had drifted a little too far from the flock & had found itself very much in line for an easy lunch. However, the cardinal was not entirely unwise. It narrowly avoided the strike of the eel but, I guess stuck between a rock & a hard place of us or the eel it wrongly chose to stay in the proximity of the eel who creeped in for a second strike, landed it, & drug the wriggling fish back into its hovel.

Farther down the slope we encountered a pair of Chocolate Chip Starfish before Gigs, one of the other guides started banging his tank to get us to come over to see what he & his group had discovered. Enter octopus #3.

Gigs had found a Blue-Ringed Octopus, only about the size of your thumb, the Blue-Ring is one of the most venomous animals on the planet & it isn’t afraid to show you that it is not to be messed with. This blue-ring, in the typical fashion, was fairly mundane looking, that was until it decided we were a threat & it was in danger. These octopuses, as the name implies, are covered in a series of blue rings. What the name doesn’t tell you is that these blue rings aren’t always there but instead are used in mating & as a way to flash at predators, or in this case us, to back the eff off. The electric blue rings are extraordinary almost appearing to have a turquoise luminescence to them. Never one to waste its venom, the blue ring quickly slinked away to a hidey hole after it realized we weren't going to watch it & that we weren’t fooled by it pretending to be bubble algae or just another rock so we let it be & departed as well.

Farther up the slope was came across a reef with some of the most amazing Bubble-Tipped Anemones I’ve ever seen, massive mounds of Galaxia, huge Feather-Duster Worm colonies, Maze, Bird’s Nest, & Torch Corals. We found Juvenile Sweetlips squiggling around the bottom, a colony of Venomous Coral Catfish dive bombing the sand, & many a Filefish, Cleaner Wrasse, & Puffer tucked in the rock along with a Crete, only this one was alive.

The rest of the evening played out as usual; shower, editing, dinner, more editing, bed. I kept finding myself reminiscing about just how incredible the day had been & couldn’t fathom how Lembeh was going to out do herself, boy was I wrong.

See you all in part three! Have a great weekend!

Much Love Always,

-C

End Of Day Four

---

End Of Part Two

---

Blog: Sympathy Vs. Empathy

A few weeks ago I was part of a songwriting workshop with a few of my fellow songwriters led by Leena Regan. One of the first things she started out with on the very first day of the workshop was reiterating the importance of trust & vulnerability in the co-writing space. It is often very hard to be vulnerable with people if you don’t trust what they’ll do with the information you give them after all. We as writers, or I guess even as humans, tend to paint the broad strokes of our stories & negate the little intimate details that personalize the story to you. I think a lot of us have been taught over the years that broad strokes equal more of a mass appeal & I’d argue that’s a false belief.

Think of your favorite artists, think of your favorite songs. Are they broad or are they very specific to the story being told or the life of the artist/writer in question? I’m going to go ahead & guess that, for the most part, they’re very specific. These are the songs we should all be trying to write, those that are personal to us, those that convey emotion not only in the listener but also in the artists themselves. Ever watched an artist try to sell a song they have no attachment to? It’s painful.

So what’s my point in all this? How does this relate to all of you non-writers out there? How does this apply to your life? Leena’s next point in fostering a creative space conducive to specific art is to approach the write, the story of life you’re being told, with empathy.

I think most people assume that they’re empathetic humans, I’m not arguing that you’re not, but I would like to highlight, as Leena did with us, the importance in the differences between being sympathetic & being empathetic. I think a lot of people assume they’re synonymous. That sympathy & empathy are one in the same, but at simply is not the truth. Let’s break it down by definition first.

Dictionary.com defines sympathy as ‘feelings or impulses of compassion.’ Well then what is compassion? It is ‘a feeling of deep sympathy & sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.’ Meanwhile the definition for empathy reads ‘the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.’ Notice the difference there? Sympathy boils down to simply feeling, it does not seek to equalize, it simply exists as a separation. You feel this way & I recognize it, but I want to fix or change it. Empathy on the other hand is the equalizer. It is identifying something within yourself that can relate to the other person’s experience. It does not seek to repair or alter, it seeks to humanize & understand.

There’s an excellent video from Brené Brown that was shared along within the lesson, in it she shows that often the sympathetic seek to divert. “I lost my house.” “At least you had a house to lose.” “I failed out of college.” “Well, at least you could afford to go in the first place.” Where in the empathetic would approach “I lost my house” with something along the lines of “I’m so sorry to hear that, I’m here for you & I’ll do my best to meet you where you’re at emotionally” or “I failed out of college” with “do you want to talk about it?” It does not seek to repair or override someone else’s life experience or emotion. I’ll link Brené’s video below, she explains it a lot better than I do. It’s also a short video that I promise it’s worth the watch!

I have said quite often in blogs of the past that I feel we as humans sorely lack empathy. I think it is one of the biggest things dividing us as people. So many of us strive for empathy but stop at sympathy, we do not bring ourselves into the experience of another to the best of our ability, instead we simply seek to divert & adjust. In the writing space beautiful art is born from a space of empathy, in the corporate world employers begin to understand their employees, in the political world we begin to recognize & acknowledge those we marginalize & belittle. Empathy is the key to all of it. It takes the selfish angle out of the picture & instead strives for human understanding. We could all use a bit more empathy, we could all show a bit more love & understanding.

I write all of this from a place of love & with a desire to unify, not alienate, but I hope the next time someone comes to you with their pain or troubles that the words “at least” don’t appear in your response. Treat your peers, your family, your loved ones, your colleagues, your grocer, your gas station attendant, your etc, with empathy not just sympathy. We each deserve to be met where we are not passively rushed out of our strife.

I hope you have a great weekend & remember be loving to one another.

-C

Blog: Be Kind, Remind(er).

Tis the season once again, the holiday season & with it comes all the ingrained stress. Lines get longer, the gifts we wanted to give or the ingredients we needed to make that one special dish get more & more scarce. Tensions rise & often with it, so do tempers. We often get lost in the capitalistic frenzy of “I need, we need” that we forget about the people we interact with on the day to day basis. Having spent some time myself working in customer service space; from being a barista to driving ride share, I can personally tell you when the weather turns cold, so do the people, at least where November/December are concerned.

This blog actually came at the request of a dear friend of mine who basically wanted me to use this platform as a PSA. She works as a barista & for whatever reason people think it’s okay to treat those hand preparing a beverage for you like garbage. I know the feeling, I’ve been there. People can often make you feel dirt low simply for the dumbest of reasons. I don’t know what brings people to the point of being completely & utterly devoid of empathy but I guess that’s a question we try to answer each & every election cycle as well.

I guess the point of this PSA style blog is simply to remind you to be kind. I know for many of you that isn’t necessarily a problem, but I feel the point needs reiterating. You have to understand that the people preparing your coffee, ringing you up at the gas station, running around returning the mountains of clothes that have been tried on, restocking shelves, waiting your table, driving you home, etc. are exactly that, people. They are, as you are, flesh & bone. They have their own lives, their own desires, their own struggles, their own disappointments, & their own thoughts that are equally as valid as your own. You do not out rank them in humanity simply by being a customer.

I truly think one of the most harmful practices we as humans have engrained into the customer service space is that “the customer is always right.” The customer is most definitely not always right. Let me say that again. You, as the customer, are not always right. If you make the customer the one & only priority as an employer you completely negate & dehumanize the needs of your employees. In addition to being better people to one another in the customer exchange, I think the current state of The US in general is also emphasizing the need for employers to do better.

You don’t need to be an asshole to get your point across, if anything I’ve found that usually ends up getting you farther from your goal. If you treat people with the respect & dignity they deserve you are 1000% more likely to get what you want or need. And maybe that’s the key to my super power, maybe that’s the key to getting a reservation anywhere you go, not being an asshole about it & genuinely taking an interest in the wellbeing of the people you interact with.

This is all a long form way of saying, be kind. Tis the season of giving; thanks, gifts, love, so give kindness a shot. You may find it makes you feel better as well. To quote a dearly departed mentor of mine, Billy Block, “if you see someone without a smile, give them yours.”

Much love to you all,

-C

Blog: I’m Neurodivergent & You Can Too!

Yesterday I received confirmation in the form a diagnosis for something that I’ve been fairly certain of for a while now. I truly hope this wasn’t something that I manifested into my life by believing it to be true, nor do I think it defines me, but it is what it is. No, I’m not dying, no, it’s not a physical ailment. In terms of physicality, with the exception of a hyperactive allergic response system, my body is a-okay! Yesterday, after several months of formal testing, interviews, & the like, I was diagnosed with ADHD.

At first I was over the moon about this information, I finally had factual evidence to back up the thing that I have a strong feeling was there all along. It felt a tad like an “I told you so” moment, where I got to sit back & show the truth to those who had doubted me for years & years, including those in the medical field. I wanted to email or call up everyone that denied me & show them the extent of how wrong they were (I scored an 87/100, the threshold for ADHD being 65), but that’s just being spiteful. Then that feeling began to shift. You see, in addition to my newly minted neuro-divergence I was also diagnosed with consistent moderate depression, but we already knew that didn’t we? (See the plethora of blogs I’ve written in regards to mental health.) However, depression does this lovely little thing where it likes to seep into everything you do, for the most part I’ve gotten pretty good at blocking it out, but last night was different.

As it began to permeate my thoughts I began to think about my past, to think about all of the years I asked psychologists or therapists if I could get formally tested & they denied me. All of the sudden all of the symptoms in my life that I had jokingly brushed off as a part of my assumed ADHD became very real & cemented themselves as fact, not just a feeling I had. I suddenly found myself starring into a valley of grief & regret that I could not for the life of me escape.

I thought about school, how it could have been different if I’d been diagnosed &/or treated. I thought about my career & all of the times I knew I should have been doing things but could not for the life of me bring myself to do them, sometimes these blogs included. When it comes to ADHD it all boils down to one thing, following the dopamine.

So why wasn’t this caught earlier? Why did it take me til the 2nd half of my 29th year to uncover a truth I’d always known? That boils down to masking.

In addition to the ADHD, depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, bipolar, etc. panel they also had me do an IQ test. Much to my ego’s delight, I scored in the “highly intelligent” section which is a lot of the reason my neurological nature went unnoticed. People who are different, those of us who grew up queer, depressed, social awkward, have attention variability dysfunctions, etc. learn to mask. We learn to camouflage our differences because we feel it either helps us to fit into society better or we don’t want to burden people with having to cater a response unique to each of us. My intellect got in the way of a lot of my symptoms because I overcompensated for my differences or didn’t voice my struggled or misunderstandings. I also lacked the physical hyperactivity of the traditionally stereotypical ADHD kid so I guess I can’t blame those in my childhood for not noticing.

All of this led to my grief; I mourned for the “could have been, would have beens” even though they may never existed anyway. I went through the spectrum of emotions until I could process them no longer & my brain felt fried. I called my parents & my mother reminded me that lingering on the past is a lost cause, what’s written is done & moving forward into brighter things is the only option.

I have begun believing more & more in divine timing. I think successful relationships happen only when we’ve put in the time & the work to be ready for them. I think advances in career do the same thing, so maybe there was a reason I wasn’t meant to have confirmation of this information until now. Maybe it’s a reason that I have yet to see or understand but in hindsight will appear perfect. I don’t know. All I know is that’s what I’m choosing to believe, I’m choosing to create a new start going forward further understanding who I am as a person & what makes me tick under the hood.

Far be it from me to think ADHD is a death sentence or like there’s something wrong with me, I actually think down the line we will all progress towards neurodivergent brains especially as technology advances & our focus continues to divide. I think it’s a natural part of our evolution, society just hasn’t caught up yet which then sends those of us who think differently spiraling into depression as we fail time & time again to fit in.

If you have a feeling about yourself please don’t hesitate to consult someone about it, especially if it’s medical. Be firm & insistent on getting the testing & treatment you need but also be aware your thoughts have power to them. Sometimes the things we dread become us but other times they were already there. This diagnosis does not define me, it doesn’t change who I am as a person, it just gives me more context into navigating the world going forward & for that I am grateful.

I love you all dearly, know that I see you & value you as a human being. Keep pushing on & remember to be kind to one another & yourself.

-C

Blog: Thankful!

Happy belated thanksgiving to all my American folks! I guess also a happy super belated thanksgiving to my Canadian folks as well! I hope it was a safe, civil, calorically dense holiday for you all!

I think it’s time I got back to blogging, the US election is over, a lot of us can breathe easy now & for that I am thankful. In fact, in the spirit of the holiday, I thought I’d make a list of things this year that I’m thankful for. I know we’ve had a hell of a year & for a lot of us, myself included, gratefulness seems like a taboo subject at this point. This year has been beyond exhausting for a lot of us, especially living in Tennessee, especially those of us in the entertainment industry who feel like our job is impossible right now. I wanted to take the time & reflect on the aspects of this year that are bright points in my life!

I’m thankful for time, thankful that I’ve had the privilege of reflection, thankful I’ve been able to slow down & find answers within myself as well as externally.

I’m thankful for answers, I’m thankful that my health issues are finally being resolved & that the cause has been discovered & the remedy is being administered.

I’m thankful for strength, I’ve battled some severe moments of depression this year, those disheartening moments when you find out the people you love aren’t who you thought they were & look out more for themselves than those in need.

I’m thankful for love. I’m thankful for those who care for me through my valleys, through my bolder moments, though my pain & my shortcomings.

I’m thankful for introspection, for all that I’ve learned about myself. I’m thankful for the courage I’ve unearthed in myself. I’m thankful for the self acceptance I’ve developed.

I’m thankful for support. I’ve thankful for those who have stood by me over the years, for those who have gone out of their way to help me achieve my dreams. I’m thankful for those who listen to my songs, who read this blog, who watch my videos.

I’m thankful for contentment. I’m thankful for finding peace in the hurricane, for learning to live in the uncertainty, I’m thankful for patience.

I’m thankful for progress, not only internally but also in my career, despite the COVID conditions. I have my first ever label release coming up, I’m thankful for that!

I’m trying to live a more grateful life & not get caught up on the little things. I’m trying to be a happier person, to not be so angry at the world all the time, something I’ve really struggled with especially over the last year & its political season. I’m still learning everyday, still trying to grow & be more “me” day by day.

All love to you all, I’m thankful for you & wish you well during the holiday season to come.