In the Vortex of Beauty and Decay: Koh Samui, Koh Phangan
My Rage, Quantum Encounters & Reflections in the Lost Paradise
7.17.2025
As my angel Jolie sent me this excerpt of a book about Desire.
“Desire is a longing that can never be fulfilled; desire manifests as a lack, a hunger or an emptiness.”
Spending 4 full months in HK, I had a burning desire to seek space once again - something I, and many people, haven’t had the opportunity to experience in Hong Kong.
I found a home in Koh Samui to stay for a month. A balcony deck overlooking the ocean, 2 rooms. That’s the kind of space I am looking for for me and Mountain! Some room to breathe.
S p a c i o u s n e s s. Thank you.
My whole body-mind-soul is exhausted. 118 nights of sleeping on the floor and couch in my mom’s place. By day, navigating the emotional density and samskara between me and my mom. By night, traversing through the psychic realm and energetic noise. Among all the dense energy in HK, I shut down in the last 3 weeks. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t create, think, or even just be — a recurring pattern I have with HK.
In Koh Samui, I yoga every morning on the deck in the blasting sun, or swim with dogs & fish in Lamai beach at sunrise. I was pretty confident that I could create my own little safe bubble here, but something’s not quite right. The White Lotus vibe was real, but I wouldn’t expect it’d be this bad.
From the moment we arrived, I could feel it right away.
The island is covered in toxic masculine energy - aggressive drivers, non stop motorbike accidents, bizarre sex tourists gaze, hyper tourism, spiritual bypassers, and, yes, lots of colonizers. My senses are so heightened, I picked up on the rage, the sadness and the resentment from the locals. And I became angry too.
A week gone by in this energy vortex. The shadow unraveling personally, and interpersonally with Mountain, amplifying and surfacing quickly. By Mountain’s birthday, I began seeing wandering spirits, catching quantum dead animal smells, seeing spiders everywhere. And on the physical plane, I received tons of very urgent emails from Airbnb, urging us to relocate, due to an incident involving a privileged white karen person and our local Thai family host.
Universe says, time to go!
Many car and boat rides later, blessed by Shakti, we reunited with Linda V in Koh Phangan. The island was much softer and warmer, like a big exhale after the chaos.
Yet, the pattern plays out here too: another Southeast Asian island caught in the same fate - land colonized through foreign capital and hyper spiritual consumerism. Waves of settlers arrived, allegedly sparked by the Russian & Israeli mafia networks, followed by a surge of post-covid digital hippies, broadcasting curated joy found in the Lost Paradise.
(If you are curious, I’ve linked some reports on the island’s mafia-style operations at the end.)
Here I am, a familiar anger rose within me. The one I know so well when I lived in NYC maneuvering daily racism and micro-aggression. The need for Justice. To speak out.
Linda, being a great guide, asked softly, “what do you want to do with this anger you have around colonization?”
I began to reflect, one of the greatest challenges that keeps coming back to me —
how I’ve spent years learning how to articulate myself. In a language not native to me. As my energy container grows, so does my own leadership of my heart - my openness, viveka, understanding, forgiveness, and love.
I’ve come to another check point, to deepen —
How do I speak & deliver my messages in graceful ways? In ways that I am embodying Divine Feminism, not just as a concept, but as an expression of empowerment, truth, and beauty? How do I offer insights in universal resonance, and transmute the leadership of Self into a living, growing transmission of Self?
This trip started the deeper return to my own femininity. The toxic masculine I once carried from prior survival and conditioning had been purged and worked through over the past years.
Now, how do I move forward, rooted in the place of love?
The islands are showing us the duality viscerally - beneath all these illusion, greed and violence, their truest innermost nature is immensely beautiful. Their beauty will never go away, no matter how the external forces try to distort it.
On the 4-hour ferry ride leaving Koh Phangan for Bangkok, I came across someone’s diary blog “Koh Phangan Tales” from 2001. Pure fun and curiosity are felt through their words. It also talks about how Koh Samui and Koh Phangan are near the Earth Grid energy points.
til next time
Further materials on criminal and extractive networks operating on the islands - these reports document how Russians and Israelis groups operate and feed into the pattern of exploitation and modern-day colonization:
https://thethaiger.com/news/national/illegal-work-hub-17-foreigners-arrested-in-island-raids
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/829116/prawit-orders-island-mafia-crackdown