Dive Into Your Imagination

Everyday we can choose the direction of life we want to explore. Most people do not realize they have a choice. Our lives expand when we realize that we have choices and if we take the time to listen to our intuition, the choices become easy. We do not have to drive our own lives. When we open ourselves up to the Universe, the Universe opens itself up to you.

A friend once told me, “Annie, Diving with sharks in the ocean is safer than talking with friends, family or living in our terrestrial world. Diving with sharks is more fun than any television show you can ever watch…I am more at home in the ocean than on land.” And this friend I knew I would have for life.

During the next two months I am going to introduce a few people to my ocean. You are going to be able to learn about them and their trials and tribulations as they learn to scuba dive. It is my intention to give the gift of breathing underwater to them because it is a life changing experience.

As a child I felt alive when I was in nature. With four children in our family, we spent a lot of time in a station wagon towing a pop up tent. We camped every three day weekend and usually spent two to three weeks on a trip during summer vacation. Whether it was sitting around a bon fire, night hiking to a hidden cave without flashlights turned on or pretending we were the people in mountain dew commercials rolling down a hill in an inner-tube into a lake, I came alive in nature. I also came alive at the zoo, when traveling through the city of Chicago on the CTA bus, when I read books, watched television or even when I formed my tree climbing club, I was alive when in nature. I was alive when exploring. And somehow I learned the power of imagination interspersed with nature, I was simply trying to survive life.

The problems with (us) humans is we don’t know how to enjoy our lives because we spend so much time in survival mode. It doesn’t matter whether you come from a family with no parents or those that are millionaires, we all have to go through the developmental process. We all have to learn how to survive, thrive and live life.

November 17 1991 I left O’hare airport in Chicago for Melbourne Australia. Before cell phones, before the internet I would use postal restante and the telephone for any communications. And one of my first journal entries penned these words:

“The only thing that keeps me going is the anticipation of the unknowing. I am sure my travels will be more than I could ever dream.”

And so I encourage everyone to EMBRACE THE UNKOWN!

I had been on the road for nearly two years when I first set foot in Indonesia. I bought a ticket to Australia, learned to scuba dive and sail and then spent the next two years working and living in Australia and New Zealand. I had looked at a girl’s pictures of Indonesia on a bus ride going to Cape Tribulation and knew I had to visit the country. Nowhere in my life do I remember ever seeing such beauty. A moment captured in my mind. And immediately after completing my dive instructor’s course in Auckland, New Zealand I went to the travel agent and turned in my ticket to America for a one way ticket to Bali, Indonesia.

I was going to go and either travel for two months the $1,000 in my wallet (all the money I had in the world) or I was going to find a job as a dive instructor.

Life was just that easy. “Do it while you are young kid, when you get to be my age you can’t climb the mountains you want to climb. You can only look at them in photos.” My Grandmother said. Travel brings freedom, if you are open to the road that unfolds as you go. If I would have left home to travel with the intention of going somewhere, experiencing something and returning, I would have missed glorious years of my life.

April 4, 2008
Annie Crawley
4:29 am Bali Indonesia
1:30 PM April 3, 2008 PST

“A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policies and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip, a trip takes us.” --John Steinbeck 1902-1968

The hot humid air hit me the moment I disembarked from the airport, Welcome to Bali. I knew not to mess around, get off the plane and hit the ground walking because going through the immigration lines can be long if there are other flights. Nothing can prepare you for the 95% humidity. Men lining the walk-ways perhaps trying to think of ways to help you and get a few extra dollars. In a land that should be one of the wealthiest in the world because of the rich natural resources, the majority of the country lives below world poverty standards. Indonesia just struck a deal with Japan to supply natural gas at a rate intended for 2012…the next fuel for the world!