i have had the most wonderful days. south america is coming alive! i have been more than content, in these recent weeks, to fill my belly in the market, shovelling down mouthfulls of bland boiled white rice..all the while entranced by the liveliness about me.. no longer do i crave the flavors of north america, no longer do i crave. the sights and smells, all precious small things percieved in greatness. cracked pavement. the flight of a pidgeon. my solitude no longer stands on its own to be percieved..as it merges with the movement of bustling streets.

it is as though my ´self´ has suddenly lost its brooding interest in its own existence, in capturing the dancing shapeshifting shadow figures it sees cast upon the mirror of consciousness by the burning light which without would not exist at all. the weight of all this internal activity has dissipated, and i am..floating, on a wave so pure. the current of life, the silent hand that moves in the leaves of those beautiful creatures we have so defined as ´trees´..to make them dance when i need most be reminded that the same hand moves within me..look up, up into the rustling green breathe, gold shivers of light.


out. in. this distance..i do believe has shortened, that veil becoming thinner, and thinner as days pass and i lose my ambitions


..where as once the undefined world was a cold and untouched being, that i must name, i thought, i must make it one with me. and in the only way this seemed possible- to create forms in which the intimidating vastness of all that lay before might reside, within my being and experience, certain and reliable as a basis to step further on to new truths...
and how painful it is! i thought, this division i must cross back and forth from, between two such different atmospheres, where must i be?


my recent state seems to have been preceded by a sensationless apathy, implacable even on a scale that would run from it´s extremities of positive to negative..i might almost describe this as a detachment from my ordinary orientation of being. no longer focusing my energies in putting into motion those changes in my state of mind i believed so vital, of such importance.


there is one day that shines most brightly to me now, it´s brilliancy penetrating through so many others in my memory. and in my acknowledging it´s insistent glimmer, as those half realized bits of dreams persist in the dawning light that they be completed, i wonder if perhaps something had been surrendered in that moment that i had not quite been aware of,considering it not much more than a rather trivial inconvenience.



it was still early enough in san borja that not a bead of sweat glistened on the brown faces moving about me, the sun´s golden morning rays adorning the grasses and arousing to light the spirit within, spared yet of it´s fierce heat.. and i was leaning against the door frame of the transport company´s office after being called in with the other 2 traveler´s whose origin i am not sure, who were also lingering about the terminal in anticipation of the day long journey ahead, to trinidad. there had been some miscommunication, of some sort, which was not clearly explained to us, but this much was clear to me

no transportation today. it will not be possible. there are no vehicules. tomorrow. tomorrow.


now how should i explain myself? there was something particularly dreadful, or should i say, there was a potentiality in that information to be particularly dreadful, on that day, under those precise circumstances, and in that town-frequented by any foreigners only for the purpose of breaking up the impossibly long distance between rurrenabaque and trinidad in bolivia´s tropical beni province...something particularly upsetting that i cannot quite in words give reason to..

i sensed a dark, heavy thing hung suspended above me, waiting for my reaction, which in turn would be its command, and i lingered briefly, between those two worlds..of time and timelessness, then slipped away, with near not a thought in my head, nor a twitch in my body that might signal reproach. and i saw the dark, heavy thing fall upon the other 2 and enclose them in misery....

and..that bed, that sad little bed with not a pillow nor set of sheets to disguise its meager offering as a place of rest, crammed in a room with 4 others, identical save for the bodies of each misshaped by human weight in slightly different forms.
i layed in that bed and dreamt. i lay still, and thought once or twice, i could sense the heaviness of time, spying on me, testing me, and my muscles jerked, once or twice, in its presence, but i would not let go, i would not be invaded or possessed by this illusory entity...i dont believe in you, i said, you have caused me great unhappiness... my concentration fixed on that of the gentle quivering motions speaking in syllables of light in midday heat, punctuating glory of my being.


i am in san borja today...i am in san borja forever, forever, forever


and that is it, do you see? this is what i´m trying to say.


san borja forever. and embedded in the palm of that day as i watched it unfold its infinite fingers, stretching across the planes of the universe in great tumbling waves, was, paradoxically, an awareness of the very impermanence of it.



i felt then i was at mercy to the wind, for my mind alone cannot, for its calculated desires, sprout limbs to move across this space, to put under its command the forces of nature..maybe this is what sorcerers do, but i do not wish to be a sorcerer..i am in this moment forever bound to the rising and settling dust, of the breathe of grazing cattle. desire for anything more than this has escaped me...

but that is not to say i do not want, because without this i am not sure what i might make out of this existence, but that is a different kind of want, a want not of the mind. it is here, at the centre of my chest, in my heart whose rhythm is timeless, and does not speak the logistical language of the mind..

this want is one with that of the hand..and for this i need not worry myself...because i know, in my silent prayer, i am connected.

goodnight.

OHMYGOD TITANIC IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER

these things are falling away from me now...words...
meaning of I
i have no desire to write...to utilize this site any longer
no desire to define
at least
this too
is dissolving

for the winds that sound within

i realize it´s been a little while..and i´ve been places, far beyond one´s words and further more what´s inside, this place having been born out of my own creative desire
hey, hey, wind. dreams, dreams, smoke and fire.
transformation.
i will make this simple.
i am in arequipa.
and i do not
feel
like writing

i have met a lovely being

now i feel i have yet another thousand words to tell and still have to retrace myself to that day in huacachina with julio. not that these tales are mighty significant but i like to feel i´ve done a sufficient job of the recounting of experiences.

i spent the next day similarily to that evening, in julio´s workshop, fingers working away knotting trails of string. i was buzzing on marijuana and felt intimate with the work my hands were doing, with my internal material, and with the space i was sharing with julio. by now i kind of had him figured out a bit better and felt amused, rather than threatened, by his method of pursuit for physical intimacy. it was that voice., i couldnt take him seriously in his ´character´ of the ´wise spiritual lover´. i drummed, we spoke. he drummed, we spoke. it felt like regardless of the idea i was attempting to get accross to him, what he was giving back was only ever a slightly different angle of one thing. it was clear that sex was on his mind and little else. no matter our position at the birth of an exchange, he managed to redirect the flow to a point where i had to say ´NO´. i dont think he was even conscious of this totally mindless repetition at all. at one point i was even in a fit of laughter at our communication, which exasperated him further because i could not explain why.

often during moments of emotional intimacy between myself and another, which might simply mean sharing ones self on a completely honest and open level, i feel i am experiencing the other person from behind a pane of glass, that there is still something dividing me from the other. i thought of this that afternoon, and wondered if i had ever had an experience with another human being where both of us were experiencing the exact same thing at the exact same time, completely in sync, completely one. i imagine this would be like merging into one light, one beautiful, divine light. sometimes i feel strange when i look in eyes knowing that i dont know how this person is experiencing this moment, that they dont know how i am experiencing this moment. i may feel like i am a spindel, all within me flying, spinning, in reaction to someone else,who is solid, who is not reacting with me. but also i have moments where my ego feels tiny, miniscule, and plays almost no part in an exchange, or my reaction. then i dont wonder about the eyes, i dont feel that strange lurch of suddenly becoming aware that i am not who i am looking at. then i am flexible, then dancing with all things my partner. then i am not aware of any divisions... this was brought to my mind because i think the idiomatic barriers amplify this sensation of being completely somewhere else when someone´s right in front of me.

i was prodding the web of words and expression as energy was exchanged between us as we spoke, with curiosity. there was some unspoken, and spoken, resistance, but i was approaching the situation with a sense of humor and didnt feel drained by it, at least.
the sun had already began it´s descent before i even realized the entire day had passed in that little room and i hadnt even eaten lunch.

i often wonder how it seems i have managed to manifest this pattern. its not like its uncommon to get pursued by local men here being a single white female, no matter what you look like, but i still feel like this must be due to something in my energetic makeup.
what confuses me is, i think, ok, in all these situations, i feel like i am being given something i wish for, an enriching experience. why does it seem to always come with a cost in the end? and what am i giving back? is this a balanced exchange? i think about how in each case what is wanted of me is to give my physical body,which makes me wonder of course...well, is that right? and is there something i might learn if i open my legs to this guy?! is it possible this is a positive opportunity the universe is giving me to join with another and explore love on the physical plane? i struggle to reconcile my physical and spiritual aspects of existence, and often i feel the two divide me, that they are not one in the same. is there something wrong with me? as i write this it looks so ridiculous. i think i only ask this, and question my own truth, because i instinctively want to adapt and be, fill the shape which is being presented to me.

that evening he had to work at one of the restaurants on the lake front. i felt he was very generous in letting me stay as long as i´d like in his workshop, allowing me complete access to all his things, encouraging me to continue drumming and creating. he was to be off around 10. all day he´d been trying to convince me to sleep in the desert with him, that we could create our own celebration (it was the week of harvest festival in ica) in honor of mother earth, so i had the visual of him and i in the windy, expansive dunes, chanting and drumming, dancing, drinking a bottle of wine. i told him there was no way i was going to sleep in the desert with him, but i was attracted to the other idea.
i´ve discovered my ´tribal´voice. when i am in an isolated spot, i like to sing, spontaneously forming shapes of sounds with no literal meaning. this is my true language. this is a universal language. sometimes they sound like chants, sometimes softer. i feel the rythym and my body yearns to be one with the music, swaying or in more abrupt form, like physical stocato. sometimes it makes me want to weep. i want my own drum so i can combine the two expressions. i want a grand celebration of being!
so julio and i loosely agreed to meet each other at his restaurant later on in the evening.
i gave his didgeridoo another try but could only manage a few pathetic squirts of sound, gave that up, and started feeling a little cooped up having been in that tiny room all day, so i left and layed on a dune for a while, in front of a cluster of trees, electric trees, i could see their colored sparks flying in streaks of light, faint, but something definitely seen. up into the sky.
around 1030 i was waving hello to julio as he swiped away crumbs with a rag on one of the patio tables at the restaurant. he wouldnt be off until everyone had left, and there were still several tables chatting, eating, and drinking. he invited me in though, and i ordered a beer. moments later he introduced me to two friends who had just walked up, one of them i had met the previous night, and the two men joined me at my table. so as the evening rolled on, i ended up having a fantastic time drinking beer with these two pretty eccentric, gay (i think) men who were celebrating jimmy´s birthday, while julio was swooning some other white chick at the table next to mine! what a dink! then i knew he probably just about had his whole spheel scripted, as i overheard snippets of their conversation-oh, i could show you a few pointers if you´d like (yoga) oh really? only 15 minutes to learn how to make that? (bracelet) and him quoting osho and whatnot, blahblah. i was thoroughly enjoying myself, and i got the feeling that the unexpected company (of i) made jimmys birthday evening feel a little bit more special to him. he was a little different, and i dont think he often recieves very warm attention from many people. so julio and i never spoke another word to each other, he left with that woman, and the three of us were the last to leave the restaurant, at that point drunk and dancing with oneanother to the live samba drifting our way across the lagoon. we danced all the way down to the source of music, which was catering to some kind of family social event of old people and one woman on the dance floor waved us over. she was clearly drunk also and having a pretty good time. we have an invitation! i yelled. so i grabbed whatwashisname and we were both shaking our stuff there, me in bare feet, laughing and ecstatic, until one real sour old lady comes up to me and goes, who invited you, and i pointed to the lady who waved us over and i said she did! and she just shook her sour old face at me and was trying to get the other lady to stop dancing with my friend, i´m guessing it had something to do with our appearances? i felt really affected by it and wanted to leave right away, i pretended not to feel hurt by it, i laughed some more and motioned that we leave. so they walked me back to my hostal where they caught a taxi back to ica.

the next day i was in paracas.
i feel a little bit silly, the last i´d written i´d had the date wrong, and on the morning of the 15th, i was thinking it was my birthday. it wasn´t until i looked at my bus ticket to the nasca that afternoon that in fact i would still be 20 for another day.

Paracas, Peru

this is my second day here in paracas, a very very tiny town which basically only exists as a kind of tourist trap for those of us travellers seeking a boat tour of the islas ballestas, the socalled poor mans galapagos (it costs 10 dollars. a galapagos tour averages in price at 1000!) so theres a strip of overpriced seafood restaurants and hotels, a strip of artesanial shops, and a small, smelly grey beach. oh, and the dock.
the morning i left huacachina (ill go into more detail later. oh, also, this keyboard sucks and seems to be missing some punctuation, so forgive me), i was feeling a little, ok, pretty hungover, but was slowly forcing my three white breakfast buns down at the poolside restaurant/bar. a nice guy (from edmonton!) who had just arrived asked me about breakfast prices, ordered one, and then sat with me at my table. we only spoke for a little bit, but i had yet another one of those moments where i am silently uttering, thankyou. and it was so simple. i knew i was heading to pisco that day, but had only a very vague idea of what the whole islas thing was about, i wasnt even aware that paracas was a separate town, that its best to stay here, etc, so in 15 minutes i learned everything i needed to know, recieving information at the exact moment i needed it. and he told me how to find the cheapest bed. (4.50!) i am appreciative of these moments because i feel that they are more than coincidences, although it would be easy to regard them as so. its harmony!
so, my bed is part of a dorm room which is not officially part of a hostal, and there are no bathroom facilities. the owner of the hotel across the street is the brotherin law, and so i was told i could use the shower and toilet there. its a little bit of a pain, and the room itself is like a brick oven. i have not been feeling very well, (at first i thought it was just my hangover, but i was experiencing some pretty uncomfortable stomach pains later on in the day, and i think its more likely something i had eaten.) i tried laying down for a bit, but it was impossible to rest, what with the paper thin walls separating me from a group of arguing constrution workers, and my bed was on the top bunk. i was absolutely physically inactive and yet there was still sweat pouring down my face. so, ive been overall, physically quite uncomfortable for the past 2 days, and why does it seem like my scampering talkative mind is so closely correlated with nausea? there probably was something bad in my stomach, but i notice the way my body reacts to a racing mind. i think i feel a little bit overstimulated perhaps. it is easy for me to get a little over excited when my social activity reaches a high level, and i forget what is most important, and become trapped in a whirlpool of wordthoughts instead of taking even a few moments to breathe and find my peace. and i think this definitely relates to my physical state of being.
this morning i took the tour to the islands even though i wasnt feeling 100 percent, since id already paid for it the day before. i could barely enjoy it though, as i was concentrating on not throwing up.i had to breathe through my mouth because the scent mixture of gasoline and rotten fish in combination with a rocking boat doesnt do much for the nausea. never have i, and probably not you either, seen so many birds in one place. the boat cruised through the islands, which were really nothing more than big rock formations, and idled its engine at certain spots to allow us time to appreciate the animals, which were mostly different types of seabirds, colonies of them, penguins (really! penguins!) and sea lions. i have to say, sea lions are probably the absolute wierdest creatures ive ever seen. in one spot there were probably a hundred of them, like fat slugs with flippers, singing. it sounded like i was in a monestary, listening in on a symphony of monks. very cool. on the way back we also saw some dolphins, though mostly just their fins, gliding through the sea.
i havent so quickly gotten so bored like this in a beach town before, usually theyre places that i end up spending more time in than id thought. and where did all these gringos and hippies come from? it feels a little wierd seeing so many other travellers in such a small, confined spot with such a halfhearted atmosphere. because of my physical state, i havent been feeling all that friendly, so ive taken a stance of avoidance. looks like ill be all by my lonesome tomorrow, turning 21, in nazca.

alright, huacachina.
since parting with the girls in huancayo, i was feeling pretty vibrant and social, and thought id give one of these so called party hostals a try, which ive avoided in the past becuase ive figured theyre probably utilized by a lot of characters that im just not interested in meeting. huacachina is a wierd place. its similar to the way i was describing paracas, only instead of an islands tour attracting visitors, its main attraction is a small, (and artificial, i found out) dirty looking lagoon, amidst sand dunes, about 10 minutes from the city of ica. why does this place exist?? i was thinking, this is so wierd. literally, one street, lined with a bunch of hostals and touristy restaurants surrounding the lake. and a whole lot of white people, who come here to sandboard and party. the hostel was ok, very popular. i used the pool for a little one morning, and saw that not only people of my stereotyped idea existed there , but i really spent very little time there, and didnt even meet a single person.
i was sitting on a sand dune that i had scampered up my first day there, anticipating the setting of the sun, and watching some groups of friends playing and taking photos in the dunes over a little from mine. i had noticed this guy trudging through the dunes in my direction. he looked slightly ridiculous, as if he had just emmerged into civilization after being lost in the desert. with dark brown muscles shiny in the heat, he was wearing a white ripped up shirt tied over his head and face like a ninja, and was walking with a big carved cane. he was talking to a group of dogs galloping around, and i was thinking, what a nut.
well, of course this nut needed to know the time, which resulted in him asking me permission to sit with me, really stressing that he didnt want anything from me, just to talk, etc. a long relaxed conversation ensued on the peak of the dune, both of us facing the rainbowcolored sky. too go along with his movie set desert gear, he also spoke in a way which sounded a little bit too rehearsed to be real, a little like keanu reeves, and i was amused.
i liked what he was saying. still, a little bit..suspicious, but he was different. he spoke of his deep respect for mother earth, for the woman, his love for the desert, (what? this is really considered desert?) energy, thats all we are, he said, each of us like a grain of sand. alright, i thought, ill give you a chance. he showed me his little workshop, again stressing i was under no obligation, where he had some jewellery for sale. AND 3 drums. which i immediately drew a lot of attention to, and he willingly gave me a little lesson, showing me a few patterns, then leaving me to expore the rhythms for myself. i was so excited. finally, in my hands! for about a month i had been visualizing a drum in my possesion, the texture of the skin beneath my fingertips, the wood held between my thighs, the rythym, the rythym. he also showed me his diy didgerydoo (spelling?) that he was in the process of mastering, and i gave it a try. a difficult instrument, and a little awkward...but maybe later on for me. i remembered the image i had catalouged one night not long before i left. me and jessjess were passing 17th ave one night and on the corner, amongst a throng of friday night bar hoppers, was a girl blowing on a didgeridoo that definitely looked like shed made it herself, seated on a big white pail, which she was banging on like a drum. i want to do that, i thought. i want that to be me someday.
he also showed me how to make a few simple pieces of jewellery. he smoked pot and drummed while i sat at the counter, braiding and knotting long colored string to make a bracelet, occassionally turning to him for direction. im wearing it now.
i was thrilled. here i am! im doing these things! i thought about how id fantasized about becoming an artesania like those id met in montanita, making my own jewellery and travelling with it, but thinking, oh that could never happen. well, its probably not, at least not at the moment, but it felt great to be learning something new, acquiring a new skill. no, two new skills! i was a little clumsy with the drum at first, but by the end of the night i think i sounded pretty damn good for a beginner. i was told its best to buy them in cusco, because they are cheapest there, and im thinking about buying one, though it will take a lot of practice before id be comfortable drumming in earshot of other people, and it could probably be a hassle to travel with, but i know there are many who do. and its my dreeaamm.
EXCHANGE. the theme word of this month, developing stronger views. harmony. looking for those exchanges in which dont involve money. to give, and to recieve. to attract those with something i want to recieve, be attracted by those who i may give to.

ok, i need to urinate, though theres a little more to the story, and im a little sad ive just missed a really beautiful sunset being here in front of a computer screen, so ill write more tomorrow.

huancavelica, peru

SO, about my experience that night. it was not a very good one. there were several things right away that were telling me that it wasn´t right for me, but i ignored them, forcing myself to remain positive and optimistic. i didn´t like the man. i knew this moments after he greeted me. the atmosphere was dirty. there were lots of peope in the room. i think this ´shaman´might have even been drinking. i couldn´t believe the way this man was talking about ayahuasca in his conversation with ashuco, animated tales, which i only understood very little of, that were all based on crazy hallucinations and such. i felt like i was overhearing some conversation on a bus with some young guy being all like, dude! i was so fucking high! it was like whoaa, the pattern on the wall was moving in all these different directions, ohh man, dahdahdah. and during this time making almost no eye contact with me whatsoever. ashuco even tried to translate, but i was not amused. ¨heh. mmhmm.¨but i refused to allow myself to be disheartened by this person turning out not to be who i had hoped might finally be the wise man/woman that could tell me things about myself that i don´t already know, someone who emanates love, an experienced healer who is able to work with energy and to see beyond material reality. i was given a very different impression of him beforehand, and i thought, wow, he speaks 4 different indigenous languages, he has studied shamanism with a master for something like 7 years, and has been doing this since he was a young man.
well, whatever. i think he was an asshole and i should´ve asked for my money back at that point, but i didn´t, yearning to experience more of what i had that night in san francisco.
i was pissed off at ashuco too, for having said many things that had turned out to be misleading. i thought we were arriving at his house earlier in the evening so that the shaman and i could speak to one another, that i would share my perspective on life, and my reasons for seeking this plant, that he would be able to ´see´me, and know in which areas needing healing might require his focus during the ceremony. well, none of that happened.
here´s what happened that night.
absolutely nothing.
i couldn´t believe it. after he finally shooed away all the people in his living room, which turned out to be the place where i would be talking the ayahuasca, turned off his t.v., i drank it and he made what sounded like a totally robotic and insensitive speech in a native tongue, with his hand on my head. he shook some leaves over me and sang a chant. then it was silent, dark. after about 30 minutes, i felt absolutely nothing. an hour later, it was becoming pretty clear to me that this just wasn´t happening, so i said something. what? you´re not seeing anything? no. nothing. wait another 20 minutes. 45 minutes later and i just wanted to go to sleep. i told them once again that i wasn´t feeling anything. both ashuco and ´shaman´seemed a little baffled by this. they turned on the lights. he came over to me and prodded certain spots on my body where there was a pulse. ¨hmm, i wonder why not, why not..¨ it was the same amount that i had taken with roger. who knows, maybe it just hadn´t been prepared properly. but he seemed genuinely shocked that i was in a completely normal state of being, completely untouched. you are very strong, he said. you have a very strong spirit! i knew it was too late to ask for my money back, so i let that go, at that point feeling almost amused. oh well, nothing happened, too bad. i could have just left it at that, but i can´t help but search for a deeper meaning. ashuco and i left and he walked me to my hotel and he went to spend the night with some family he had in town. man, i do have a strong spirit, i thought, and my spirit is very wise. probably wiser than that douchebag, and this is why nothing happened. it knew the conditions were not right, that it would not have been an experience of healing, because it was not being guided by the right kind of person with the right intentions. perhaps what i would have seen, or experienced, if my spirit had surrendered, would have harmed me.
well, the next day, i took it easy back in iquitos. but as the day progressed, the more and more i thought about what the decision i´d made, and the more infuriated i became. i couldn´t get ashuco´s face out of my mind and each time i saw it i became more and more disgusted by it. i tried a meditation to calm my mind. it only took a few moments of stillness before i felt what i had been ignoring all day, my spirit, my self, my heart center. i broke down, i´m sorry, i said to myself. feeling like i had been protected, knowing i am loved, divine love. i will not do this again, i will not ignore what i know i know in hopes of an experience that will take me further within it.

i flew back to lima the next day. where i picked up my new bank card that my mom sent to the post office, who were holding it for me. i was so relieved it had worked. i forgot my card in a bank machine somewhere in february and had been using my visa to take out money. i forget why, but there were a bunch of reasons why this was not a very good system of taking money out. so it was a really full day. i made friends with my taxi driver that i took from the airport, and by the time he dropped me off at the post office i think he was just about ready to ask me out to dinner, and i felt good. i bought a bus ticket for the same night to huancayo, and caught about 3 quarters of the movie ´che´ that i saw listed in one of the theatre´s i passed by in the big commercial pedestrian walkway mall type thing before i had to catch my bus, and the following morning i was in huancayo.

i met a super awesome girl from the states in the hostal there, and another woman from canada. i was so grateful to have some female company after my week in iquitos, and they were so funny, and wonderful to spend time with. we had dinner at the restaurant across the street which has folklorica music and dance shows thurs-sat, which was pretty much exactly what i wanted to see, and hear. i´m telling you, there is something about those zampona pipes that just makes me spirit sing. by this time, i recognized almost every song from the radios i hear in restaurants or on buses. there isn´t a whole lot of variety when it comes to latin american music, it seems. after a few hours there, we were taken on a kind of nightlife tour by the man who owns a very profitable tour and language center, and i think the restaurant as well, who is somehow related or connected to the owner of the hostal we were at. we were taken to 2 other restaurant bars, where i watched some entertaining, albeit megga cheesy, musical performances of a slightly different genre. we were drinking the town´s famous ´calientito´drink, which is so sweet you already feel hung over the moment you´ve put down your second glass. i was feeling a little bit bored by the time we were at the third place, but i was still glad i had been able to get a little taste of peruvian nightlife, seeing as, travelling alone and all, i´ve never even been to a bar yet. you know what the great thing about this culture is? music and dance is so much more rich and important to their heritage. we weren´t at the youthful, ´discotecas´, as they´re called, which is like the equivalent of a night club, but i was watching crowds of mostly older, well dressed couples, dancing, drinking, partying it up until wee hours of the morning. i kept laughing at this one guy who was clearly in his late 50´s at least, passionately swaying his hips and arms, mouthing the words to the songs, trying to woo some younger lady. as i´ve heard, the band will play on and on for hours until the place starts to empty out. this does. not. happen. in northamerica. here every man can dance. and every man likes to dance! and it seems like everyone can sing too. it´s wonderful. the next day we went to the big sunday market, but i was a little disappointed i didn´t see anything unique that caught my eye. they do make very beautiful silver jewellery here though, that i could buy at a really amazing price compared to what you might pay in canada, but i don´t think i am really all that interested in silver jewellery.

talking has been feeling differently for me. less awkward. i vibrate with expression. words feel like new things in my mouth, like things i´ve just begun to discover. sometimes i´m even like, whoaa, where is all this coming from, am i even making sense? where are the brakes! i´m talking! more openly, and fearless.

today i am in huancavelica. i was disappointed the train rails are currently under construction, which was half the reason i wanted to come here, so i ended up taking a bus instead. i have yet to see a town quite like this one. i think i will spend tomorrow hunting for good photo opportunities.
oh, by the way, don´t feel too jealous, it is cold. i´m probably sitting in about the same temperature as you guys, only no building is heated here.

huancayo, peru

i feel like i´ve putting this off, putting this off, nagged by my knowinginkling neccesity it is to write about my experience but feeling overwhelmed by all the possible combinations of words and phrases, like beading a piece of jewellery of string that i will never see the end of, and wanting poetry of my bones over journalistic accounts of my doings and happenings of the mind and body interactions with world of creatures and energy. beautiful moments of peace and an unknown clarity that accompany full breaths of deep knowing i can´t touch what is deepest, but content, just simply to breathe. i feel close to my spirit. my future is full of love. reveling childlike grin in my love creations often repeated over many years of future self and partners, but real, then in near empty bus cruising headfirst into darkness, knowing what love is, and i love that i am now.
to get an idea of my past week, i´ll spit up some entries from my own journal.
morning i arrived in iquitos, i was totally bummed when i discovered a real scummy guy, who rushed onto board as passengers were disembarking, brushing up against people´s sides, doing this thing with his arms crossed in such a way to try to disguise fingers wiggling at any opportunity to grab, he´d got a little side pocket on my backpack halfway unzipped before i stepped onto the plank of wood. i saw this and i felt so disgusted, and hurt by it. even if his attempt had been successful, he would only have walked away with a little bottle of hand sanitizer, but this is not the point. i felt the same way i did when i got a woman with her hand in the front pocket of my bag in ibarra. it made me feel betrayed, as a human being. i tried to let it go on my way to the ´hobo hideout´s traveller´s hostal´, and a while later i was having a good satisfying breakfast at an american style restaurant (real coffee at last!). after paying my bill i walked over to the waterfront´s pedestrian stip a block away. very lowkey, nothing like the chaotic docks in pucallpa. large faded walkways with a few remaining flecks of peeling paint, zigzagging down to the swampy area of still water and distant wilderness, untouched, enchanting the view. i was approached by a young local guy who, after greeting me, told me first off he´d like to practice his english with me. i was, a little to my own surprise, totally warm, open, and accepting of him right away. he explained that he had just dropped off some documents for his sister that he had to pick up at the end of the afternoon and he had all day to kill, suggesting we walk towards the neighborhood of belen, ¨the venice of peru´, he said, which it truly is. a poor neighborhood which, during the high water season (now) is only navigatable by boat. it´s made up of hundreds of ´floating houses´. i waited in the market while he arranged for a canoe for us, watching women hunt for clothes at tables piled with clothes for only 1 sole a piece. then i was seated in the back of the old wooden canoe, while some guy paddled us around, and i took some amazing (fingers crossed!) photos. it was great to see, and i couldn´t have pictured that morning going any better. it was something i´d read about and was interested in doing, but felt unsure of the steps needed to make it happen. i consciously thanked, whatever you want to name it, mother aya! god! universe! thanks! because i felt like i was recieving the type of ´travel´that i have wanted, like i was ´in´the current. afterwards, we explored the market a little bit, which was absolute insanity. i thought it was so sweet, when in a serious, and accented, tone, he said, ¨i think, if you don´t mind please, i should hold your hand while we are here, because there are lots of bad boys.¨so i obliged. after emmerging from the bustling crowded blocks of market, where anything can be purchased, from medicinal barks to raw meat, he suggested we go to the zoo, where we´d be able to see a bunch of monkeys, birds and even jaguars. we caught a chicken bus and i enjoyed the 20 minute ride out of the city, observing the street life. i think he felt really important being able to knowledgeably tell me about different animal species as we wandered from cage to cage. my first sight was an amusing display of turtles sunbathing in singular file down a log. i was practically squealing at each animal we passed by. i felt a bit rushed by hime though, who was acting almost a little too formally as a guide, even saying things like, ok, let´s continue, after he thought sufficient time had passed at one spot. i swear, i could watch a cage full of monkeys for hours on end without feeling bored. i don´t know if i even like the concept of wild animals being locked up in cages for display, but i can´t lie and say i don´t enjoy watching them. i was vibrating. i felt like i was communicating the entire morning with wilson so openly, so articulately, clearly. my throat was buzzing. i was being me! there was a nice lake included within the zoo and we swam and i tanned, for a few hours. now i´m gonna have to whine a little bit. i guess he was very taken by me, and although he was generally a respectful guy, he became persistently whiney while we were swimming, because i didn´t want to be close to him. ok, our conversation was pretty funny, and i was amused by him, but he just wasn´t listening to me. oh kristina, i like you so much! ohh, ahgghh, whine whine. when we got back into central iquitos we went into the tour agency where some friends of his worked. he wanted to take me there because he thought he could get me a discount. and before i knew it, i had paid for a 3 day trip into the jungle that i´d be embarking on the following morning at 9. it sounded like everything i´d had in mind. i was a little uncertain how i´d find a group to join for a tour, since it´s not possible to go as one person, and it is low tourist season, so i felt lucky when i found out there was a couple going, from peru. not only that, but i did recieve a very generous discount through wilson. trying to seperate with him at the end of the day proved to be just as aggravating as i´d worried it would be. finally i told him there was a man that i love in canada. why didn´t you say so before? he said, exasperated. well, i didn´t think of it. it hit me that my entire day, or at least, following his first attempts to bring me into his arms in a little too more-than-friendly way, could have been radically different if i´d just been able to tell a little lie and say i had a boyfriend in canada. so simple, but i just can´t. so anyway, at least i can say this and not feel bad about it, it´s true! there are several men i love in canada! (i avoided mentioning that it was not romantically).

Feb.28
i´m here at the lodge now. it´s made up of a series of simple, but nice, wood cabins. soon i, our guide, who has turned out to be far more gentle and knowledgable that i expected, and the older couple, who also, turns out, brought along their little daughter as well, will be visiting an indigenous community as included in the package. we did a short walk around the area and were shown many interesting things by ashuco, with his machete in hand, he continued to impress us by his knowledge of the uses, medicinal, gastronomical, and recreational, of different types of plants and fruits that lined the trail. he demonstrated how, in a certain large flat type of leaf, you were actually able to write or draw on it, with a certain type of bark, which he quickly shaved, even with the massive blade of the machete, into fine points to be used as pencils. it was like magic. he made a few marks on the leaf, and at first, nothing. 30 seconds later the color appeared and the mark was clearly visible! a beautiful shade of fushia, he gave us each one and on mine, later, i etched, AMOR (love) into it. now i think i will use it as a bookmark. later on he stabbed a tree, and a thick white liquied began pouring out of the stab wound and down the trunk. he let it dribble over his finger and then raised it to his mouth to slurp it up. the name of the tree was actually, milk tree! we did the same, and it actually had a nice taste, kind of sweet.
i feel myself connecting with nature on a familiar but amplified level. while i followed behind ashuco, i felt myself expand totally with joy and wonder while i looked at everything around me. every blade of grass a mircale, an expression of love, a mystery. i was connected. i think this will be a very quiet time for me, perhaps this is a good opportunity for me to practice stillness, with the beautiful energy here acting as my guide. i love the jungle! already thoughts have leapt forth, almost in a tone of urgency, of being here for a long time. if i could just meet me ´teacher´, i thought, i could see myself living and learning here, as there is so much this immaculate jungle can teach, about life, love, and healing.

mar. 2
i am now back in iquitos. i´ve just got a room at a real rundown looking place (an attraction in my eye) that wilson pointed out to me on our day together. it seems to me, often owners of hotels, restaurants, agencies, who know one another, kind of work together, each recommending the other. it´s only 2 soles cheaper than the other hostal i was at, but the cheaper the better, i suppose, when as long as i have a clean bed and a decent atmosphere, i´m happy. today i feel extremelely low on energy, but i´m trying to accept it as the current state i´m in and not let myself get frustrated by it. my enthusiasm dwindled the second day of the trip. i didnt feel the same connection with my surroundings, and communication was, felt, really off with ashuco, our guide. i found myself getting very impatient with his pidgin english, and wished he would just stick to speaking spanish, but i think he was under the impression that my spanish level was lower than it actually is, and that he was being a ´good guide´by making the effort to speak in my language. i wished i had been able to express myself totally in my own language, in which i also feel i can be more responsive, open, and relaxed. communication in spanish is still a challenge for me because it requires concentration, memory, what not and it´s easy for me to become withdrawn. i never even spoke with the couple from arequipa, aside from some very general acknowledglements of each other´s presence, i´m thinking about how i might feel differently right now if i´d given myself that little push to connect-if possibly i´d have more energy.
i felt kind of bad about it, but i was getting tired of all the silences between us, and i was growing more and more annoyed at him, in general. because the couple and daughter were there as their own family, it sort of left me and him together often, like during all our meals, which we had in the main lodge room. i didn´t enjoy the trip to the village, which you actually see almost none of. this was an indigenous tribe, that, for tourists, dress up in their traditional dress, which was skirts and tops made of long flat grass or something. the main guy did a demonstration with his huge blow dart, traditionally used for hunting, and we each got a turn. then, the most important part, of course, where we wondered around the circle of huts set up for selling mostly jewellary and other knicknacks, and were expected to buy stuff. this just pìsses me off and maybe i´m being insensitive but i just don´t believe this is a positive exchange, not when it´s set up like that. and then i feel guilty, when i have so much money, in comparison, and them so little. i sat down on the bench and was glad that at least i felt the pressure was off of me, since they could focus their attention on the little girl who was definitely going to be getting anything she wanted. i was further aggravated when the little kids chased after us while we were leaving whispering, tip! tip! (why were they whispering?) and i guiltily gave him some change, not knowing if this was expected or not. agh, everyone here expects a tip for anything. i am frustrated by this because i feel that the element of money can so easily taint an exchange between one another.
the next day was a little better, i got to see a portion of the rainforest that better fit how i had envisioned the amazon, and we were able to see a sloth, a giant tree iquana, and a little marmiset monkey, and some absolutely stunning butterflies. i got paddled around a little bit by ashuco in a portion of jungle engulfed in water. we glided through dark still water, showing glassy reflections of viney trees, with flowing skirts of leaves brushing the surface and shielding us from the sun above. it would have been so peaceful if i hadn´t been swatting away fierce mosquitos.
the next morning, we went on 3 hour walk down a trail that begun from the lodge. at this point i was feeling tired and not all that enthusiastic, but i made it through, forcing myself to say the pleasant things he was expecting, yes, you are a very good guide. thankyou very much. it was difficult to smile. i was glad when i was finally back in iquitos. ashuko talked to me about a ´very good´shaman in nauta, a village a few hours away from here, and that was another thing i´d intended to while in iquitos, so i thought. well, my connection with wilson led me to the watery streets of belen, through the market, to the zoo, and to a travel agency, the tour being the second thing i had intended to do. so that happened, and through the agency, i have met ashuco, who could lead me to a native shaman for another ceremony. but i told him i would think about it.

mar. 4
well, tonight i will be taking ayahuasca for the second time. the circumstances today feel less secure than they did for that first experience, and i did a little scrambling in my decision because there were options that i could have pursued, (scramling is bad! it means i´m looking too hard) but the way the day unfolded, ashuco happened to be the first person i saw, and i made a quick decision and we arranged to do this today. i felt bad about having been annoyed with him. i will be meeting the shaman in the evening. i see no reason for me not to trust ashuco, but i think because i haven´t been able to communicate with him as well as i´d like, it´s been difficult to really get a good feel for who he is, and i´ve been having paranoid thoughts. i was annoyed (ah, again!) when it became clear that i would be paying for everything on this little trip-which was not understood by me when we talked about costs. i reminded myself that i felt amazing after only being in the house of the shaman for a very brief time, where we were met by some girls i presume were his daughters, who were warm and friendly, and informed us we´d have to come back since he wasn´t there at the moment. afterterwards, in the pouring rain, we walked to the pond, homing many turtles and several huge and handsome fish. he wanted to show me that you could feed the turtles bread, so i bought some at a little store nearby-a class case positioned in a doorway accompanied by a standup chalkboard sign with ´hay pan´(there is bread) scribbled on it. i handed him the bag of buns and we stood there under the shelter of the overhang for about 10 minutes before the rain got a bit lighter, and soon we were seated on a wooden bench beneath a thatched roof of the pond´s bodega thing. i was annoyed at the way he was ripping off big chunks of bun and whipping them onto the surface of the water, bam bam bam, and that he got rid of the entire bag of bread without even asking me if i wanted a turn! not that i was really looking forward to it anyway, i don´t see bread being a very healthy thing for the stomach of a turtle (they´re accustomed to it! he had said, when i expressed my concern) but still. so anyway, sure enough, soon every turtle in the pond was dancing and nibbling. i discovered the rain on the surface of the water to be a more interesting point of ovservation. i forget about everything else, feeling beauty miracles of creation-sky water meets water of the earth in a connection of sound and image, bubbles spring up like diamonds and then pop! disappear, each drop of rain creating moving circles, so alive was the great pattern of movement! i thought about how i´ve been realizing that ´the language in which the sun speaks to the earth´that i had previously written about wanting to understand, is love! lovelovelove...i want to understand more of this existence, the world which is not visible to the eye. this is my intention for tonight.

..to be continued. sorry.

Iquitos! Peru

well, where shall i begin? let´s start with my river boat journey. i was on deck by 4, and the boat was supposed to leave at 5. the deck, which when i had previously been there was bare of only one hammock besides mine, was now completely full. it looked more or less the way i had expected it too, based on the internet prodding i had done and rick´s description (the man from the yukon i´d met at the hostal in huaraz) hammocks were strewn ¨cheek to jowl¨ as he described, all along both sides of the main deck, and more, in the same fashion, on the upper deck, which was a lot smaller and open, therefore a lot breezier, and after realizing this i sort of regretted handing over my hammock right away to the guy on the main deck, who was one of the few people there at the time, who skillfully tied it up in seconds. oh well, i wouldn´t be sleeping there, or at least, wouldn´t have to, as i also had the luxurious option of bedding down in my coffin-esque cabin, which came equipped with a simple metal frame bunk bed dressed with flimsy dirty mattresses, bare of any sheets or a pillow..well, what could i expect? plus, the little room stank, horribly, and i actually chose to try out hammock sleeping for a night out of fear of feroucious bed bugs. naturally, as events such as these are ran according to ´peruvian time´the boat didn´t actually get moving until around 1 the next day, so i, along with many others family members who had been unluckily named as guardian of all personal belongings that had been loaded that day, spent the night on the still sleeping boat. i was happy i didn´t have to pay another night in a hotel, at least. you know, sometimes i´m a little amazed when i look at the laid-back, accepting reactions the people have to situations such as these. whereas in northamerica something like this, for example, would undoubtedly cause a whole lot of fuss and whining, it doesnt even seem to phase these people that something inconvenient has just occurred.
´pedro martin´, that was it´s name. the walls of the deck are all lined with simple wooden benches that also run all the way down the centre of the boat. so i´ve got more or less two options as to where i´m going to position myself. seated there, with my back against the wall, or curled up awkwardly in my hammock, which, i just want to add, aren´t quite as luxurious as you might have heard. or, i could stand up front and bare myself to the wind, body leant against the front railings overhanging the nose of the ship which is cluttered and packed with cargo. the bathrooms were..well, let´s just say, every time i felt the voice of my bladder cry out to me i tried to ignore it for as long as possible, putting off the inevitable..dread. i opted to go the 4 day stretch without a shower than to brave the conditions. i mean, it wasn´t quite outhouse, but it was more disgusting in other ways. i´m really not one to whine about stuff like that, but that´s just part of my description. that first night once the engine began it´s metallic symphony, i tried the cabin out, and was kept awake for hours by this strange clanking symphoney that seemed to sound in each of the four walls i was enclosed in, along with the fact that i was practically sleeping on a board of wood. this symphony i´m talking about, this was really something that characterized the entire journey in a kind of special way that can only really be kept to myself as a little secret pleasure, as it became so by the time the trip was over. what was slightly appalling, though not to be unexpected, was just how pulluted this river is. all garbage goes straight into the river with absolutely no second thought, along with all the sewage...and this is the water thats being sucked right back up that you might very well be baptized by if you decide to use the shower facility..a pipe right about the toilet that squirts out the murky brown water. i wish i had known that the kitchen would only be serving one meal per day, as i had the naive notion that i´d be being served breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and hey, maybe even a coffee or a tea in the morning! no way, they don´t even provide you with a plate or cutlery. i´m glad i figured that out when i was approached by a desolate looking woman offering me a piece of tupperware and a spoon for a ´very cheap price´, before i had even boarded the boat. i would´ve brought way more snacks. at least there is always the option of buying whatever randomly comes your way as a whole other kind of joyful symphony sounds the boat when its docked at some town along the way and village people, mostly women and their children, rush on with bags of fruit and drinks and sometimes bread and whatever else is in abundance in that particular place. i once ended up with this huge bag full of exotic looking fruits that looked to me like a type of orange, or mini mangos, and got laughed at by an elderly couple when they noticed how i was trying to peel the wierd fruit with my knife. turns out the slightly bitter peel is basically the only edible part of the fruit, as the rest is this big hard seed that i was trying to sink my teeth into..oh well. i gave them away to some kids, who seem to love the stuff. there were many families on the boat, and a good amount of crying to go along with it. it felt very intimate. that was probably my favorite aspect of the trip. the days wouldn´t get boring because there were always so many things to watch, so many touching interactions to observe, though i, feeling kind of quiet for much of the time, didn´t do much of that. on the third day i finally befriended the group of 4 american women that were shacking up next to me in the cabins. an intriguing group, with one of the young beautiful women being in a wheelchair.i learned they were made up of 2 pairs of sisters. the woman in the wheelchair was rehabiliting from a spinal chord injury that left her paralyzed from the waist down. she was recieving natural treatments in lima. i´m not exactly sure, but there is an ancient medicinal practice here that is generally unheard of in northamerica, entailing all kinds of herbal remedies. ¨sometimes western medicine can do more harm than good,¨alisha said. she had had enough of the invasive and abrasive procedures. ¨and have they helped you?¨i asked. ¨oh, definitely.¨¨and you do believe you will walk again¨i said. ¨definitely, i never thought, oh shit, this is the end.¨ it sounded like even her voice box had been affected by the snowboarding, as it was, accident, and her voice was soft and wispy. it was touching to hear her story. i sat next to alisha while she was gently massaging )i forget her name! the woman in the wheelchair)´s, back, head, and neck, where i noticed some gruesome looking scars. i had also seen this woman working with her hands the previous day. she had bright pure blue eyes and a light, warm personality. ¨you do healing work?¨i gently asked. ¨i do¨, she said, turning to me with those intense eyes and smiling, ¨but we´re all healers.¨ and from there it seemed that´s where the conversation was deemed to go, and i felt like synchronicity had just come into play. i´m not sure why, but i began to open up a little about my own journey, i was practically vibrating, almost shaking, as though they were the first words i´d spoken in a very long time. ¨what a wonderful thing to meet likeminded people,¨she said, and i think i was probably beaming when, after inquiring a little about my astrology, she mentioned that i might be one of the ´indigos´, or´crystals´. i think in that conversation was the first time i have said, with conviction, that i am interested in studying and doing healing work when i get back to calgary, a frequently asked question..but it´s also something i am hesitant to speak about, (although i think it´s important that i do, as a lot might be learned if shared with the right people) since it is still very new to me. i can only really focus right now on my own healing that is taking place!
that night we were hit by a fantastic wild storm that transformed our peaceful little ´lancha´as the cargo boats are called, into a screaming water world! one thing i like about a storm is the way they seem to unite and connect everyone who is together enclosed in the same space or seeking shelter when it hits. everyone, some frantically so, were quickly rescuing any personal belongings or baggage, or children for that matter, that might be in the line of fire- a fiercing blowing rain whipping down both sides of the deck drenching everything in it´s path. everyone was huddled together at the centre of the boat, and as lightning stung the sky and thunder rolled, i got into a long conversation with one very jovial man in the hammock next to mine which somehow ended up in (and i´m really not sure how, i kind of lost him after a while) receiving a book entitled ´the ten commandments´only in spanish. he even scribbled down a little note for me on the front page. i was happy that my last day on the boat i wound up connecting with a few people, laughing, and giving warmth.
i arrived at the dock in iquitos this morning, around 7 a.m...and what an extraordinarily full day this has been! i do not have the time at the moment, but i will soon write again. tomorrow, however, i will begin my jungle trek with a peruvian couple that i haven´t yet met, a 3 day trip that entails, oh i´m not even quite sure, jungle walks and boat rides and what not. i´m not doing any of the organizing, so i really don´t care! ciao, for now.

well, today´s the big day. my boat is scheduled to leave around 5, but i´m under the impression that these things never leave on time. i paid for my passage, got my bags locked up in a cabin, bought a cheap hammock and got some help from a dude on deck to string it up for me, 5 litres of water, and survived the tiringly endless attention from all the men loading cargo at the dock. i have found this to be the worst here that i have ever encountered, and i can´t lie and say it doesn´t bother me. it´s worse than just the looks i´m accustomed to, it´s disgusting kissing noises, the kind you make when trying to coax a pet towards you. alex wasn´t lying when he told me the people in the jungle are friendly, sure! the men all want a piece of me. every corner i turn i hear a, hay-loo meez! for the first few days here i felt extremely threatened by it, but i constantly have to remind myself that it doesn´t mean anything, they´re not trying to rape me or rob me, they´re just being, well, latin men, i guess.
there seems to be an imbalance of the sexes in this city. i noticed it my first day here, while orientating my self with the city on my initial customary stroll. for every woman i´d see there were 15 men! this is not even an exaggeration. this is especially true along the entire strip along the docks, where there are almost no females whatsoever to be spotted.
i´ve spent some time there, on the short cement wall that lines the garbage strewn slope to the waterfront, watching the shipping action take place, and a few cloudy but nonetheless fantastic jungle sunsets. the sky is usually at it´s peak beauty around 6, when faint shades of red and luminous gold animate thick heavy clouds in those dramatic moments before dark encompasses the city. to the right of the clocktower, which chimes every quarter hour, a small rowdy circus of mismatched tents of faded blues and reds boast a show of makeshift restaurants serving tables of dirty working men on the muddy shore. there are a few ´floating´houses just a few meters off, with small rickety canoes being utilized as bridges.
the small park at the waterfront has meandering sidewalks rippling outward from the clocktower, here too i see mostly men leaning against the cement divider in clusters, or single men solemnly stationed on stout cement benches smattering the grounds, casually lifting a cigarette to the lips, brown sheen of leathery faces, and character is undecipherable when my eyes meet with those dark and untelling. icecream vendors slowly push their carts along the walkways in the scorching heat burning sun, practically mumbling with tired lazy mouths, at anyone who shows the slightest sign of interest in purchasing. just making eye contact with a street vendor usually turns you into a target momentarily, then must proceed the shaking of the head and mouthing the word no.
i arrived here around 5 oclock in the morning from huanuco on a cramped and stuffy bus with seats that barely reclined and almost no possible way of stretching out my legs. we passed through the country´s major coca growing region, thereby making it one of the most dangerous routes, especially making the passage overnight, when frequent hijackings and armed robberies have taken place. this fact was reinforced when a guard equipped with a rifle and a bullet proof vest strapped onto his chest boarded the bus, made some kind of little speech, and took a seat up front by the driver. i couldn´t help but feel a little on edge for the first hour or two, but i soon let go and fell into a sound sleep. my eyelids fluttered open to the city flashing by my window ignited by silent lighting bursting through the cloudy sky.
on my second morning here, i awoke with a little more energy than i´d been feeling in a while, and i was in a good mood. the day that would follow was more fluid and rewarding than i could ever have hoped for. it felt like each time i needed to step in a different direction to reach my destination, there was someone to point somewhere that would lead me on. around 11 i easily nabbed one of the thousands of rumbling mototaxis that rule the streets, and was bounced and jostled in the storm of flying dust for the distance to yarina, a small town on the lake yarinacocha. i asked my young driver with slick sunglasses if there was a place i could find a guide to tour me around the small indigenous communities along the river that i had read about. he didn´t know but he pointed towards a big shop on the plaza, an artesan coop for the shipibo community, where i browsed the beautiful handembroidered fabrics and felt that kick of shameful lustful fashion urge, (ah, i need this, i want that) for the rustic looking skirts and tops with traditional shipibo patterns embroidered on the natural fabrics. i hadn´t seen any crafts so far quite like these. i resisted buying for the time being, but asked one of the numerous friendly women in the shop who were practically following me around while i gently looked at everything for sale, if there were guides to the communities. communication was a little off, but one of the ladies walked me down a few blocks to the docks where a bunch of little colorfully painted boats, each boasting thier own name on the front, were bobbing up and down along the shore. you are trying to go to san francisco? she said. i shrugged my shoulders and said yes, guessing this was the most well known of the communities. a few were full with people, and one of these she pointed to, it was a ´colectivo´boat that would take me to the community about an hour down the river for about 70 cents. i sat down in one of the few benches that had space left, bumping my head twice on the very lowlying roof, recieving a round of careful! from observing passengers. a few minutes later the boat pulled away and the motor began to chug. a girl next to me, in a pink shirt and a sweet voice, asked me what my name was. we talked a little bit, covering the usual ground, where are you from, how long are you in peru, which places have you been to in peru, when do you return to your country, and, without a doubt, if she had been a man, i would´ve got, single or married? as well. then the noise from the motor became too loud to hear each other´s soft voices. as soon as i had stepped into the boat i got such a different feel from what i´d felt tormented by in pucallpa. it was as though i had stepped into a family where i was unconditionally included in, everyone knew each other and were laughing with each other. there were women in their traditional dress with children on their laps.
after i paid the fair and stepped up unto the dock, walking towards the lightcolored dirt road, unsure of where to go or what to do, karla, the girl from the boat, approached my side. how old are you? 15, she said. and you? 20. oh, i thought you were 18. (i get that all the time. everyone thinks i´m at least 2 years younger than i actually am, i guess it´s my face) she guided me around the community, first stopping at her house, where she set two glasses on a little wobbly table outside, and we shared a bottle of water. it was exactly what i needed. i met some of her cousins and her sister, friendly and curious, and i thought- finally, among women. then we passed by the much smaller and barer version of the artesan shop i´d been in earlier, past her school, and then to the little plaza, at it´s center, a little area that was roofed by a sculpted turtle. we sat there and had conversation that was slow and gapped with silences, but she seemed content to be spending her afternoon with me, though i felt a little bit awkward. you are my first canadian friend, she said, i have met french, german, and japanese, but never a canadian. then she mentioned that her father was a shaman, and that foreigners came to a place, in which she pointed the direction, where they could stay and take ayahuasca. she told me that there had been a group of japanese guys that had been there for 6 months studying this, and natural medicine, with her dad. hmmm, i was thinking, maybe....i´m hungry, she said. i was too. we´ll go to my house and cook together, she said. her house was divided into three sort of huts, built with wood and thatched roofs, one for cooking and eating, and the other two with bedrooms. i was sort of surprised by such modern cooking utensils that were there, like the brand new ricecooker gleaning in the barebones room. first we sliced plantains that she cut off from a gord lying against the door, nearing the end of it´s days, only a few greenish fruits still clinging to it. my slices were awkward and knobby, with no consistency in the width, well i´ve never been good with knives, while she quickly and efficiently slit the plantains into perfect slices. she assigned me the job of rinsing the rice. i had to use water from the large basin at the side of the sink because there was only running water between certain hours in the morning and the evening. she also assigned me the job of frying the plantains in a skillet with about 2 inches of oil. (man, no wonder i´ve put on a little weight) while she took care of the rice in the cooker and prepared the lemonade. after i awkwardly fished out the plantains from the jumping spitting pan of oil, she fried the eggs. once the rice was ready we sat down and had our meal.i was grateful because i hadn´t had breakfast that morning and thought i would get something to eat there, but i learned that there were no restaurants. this little angel was taking care of all my needs!
i, forcing myself to put forth a little initiative, washed all the dishes, albeit a little awkwardly, slopping bowl fulls of the basin water over them to get rid of the green grimey soap, while she disappeared for a bit to use the bathroom. we sat outside for a little bit as i delightedly discovered a cat in the yard and brought it into my lap.
¨i was thinking,¨i said,¨ i could come back tonight to take ayahuasca?¨
¨yes, sure. you can collect your things and then return, and i will meet you here, and introduce you to my dad. he is in pucallpa right now. his name is roger. and you can sleep here¨
she told me when the last boat was to san francisco, which would be just in a few hours, so i had to leave right away. i thanked her very much and made my way back to the docks in the beating heat, where a boat was moments away from departure. unfortunately, i lost the money that i had already spent on that night for my room, but i was too excited about the opportunity that had risen that day to care.
i don´t have to go searching for opportunities, it´s true. this is one of those things that underlies much doubt that i find difficult to look past and simply be in what i feel to be is true, what i want to be true. all i have to do is ask, to be clear in my intentions, keep moving forward, and the universe will assist me. i become frustrated and, as i have learnt, vulnerable, when i put myself into that ´search mode´for any given experience or opportunity, that strips me of my boundries, as i look for something other than my own will, which feels like a burden in those times when it struggles to reconcile the internal with the external, to embrace me and carry me along. i have been having a hard time understanding how i fit into the reciprocative nature of things, how my will and desires fit into this system that i feel left out of. after i emerged from that bout of crippling anxiety i had experienced in huaraz, i had a bit of a clearer understanding of how choice is so key, how there is really no ´wrong´decision that can be made because i am activily creating my path with each choice i make, and in that line of thought i can kind of ditch the infectious concept of ´fate´. i am sort of thinking of it as thought opportunities are like these holes that open up, are opening up all the time in every moment, that follow the rules of linear time while at the same time belonging to the shapeless eternal truth. like holes that are only open to step through for a certain period of time until they shrink back into blackness and another opens up 2 inches away, they are opening up all over the place, but the chances of ´missing´out on something is probably pretty slim, because the chances are you`re going to find yourself in more or less the same place no matter which one you step through because you´re you...alright maybe that wasn´t even worth putting in there, but, hey, just a rough idea. i´ll get on with the story.
it was perfectly timed, as the sky began to darken i had a seat on one of the last boats to san francisco with my backpack on board. for the entire duration of the ride we were blessed with the most gorgeous sunset over the outlying jungle, completely free from any obstructing buildings. when i arrived i was met by some guy who wanted to carry my pack for me, some converstation followed where i was a bit confused by his intentions, and then finally got that he was karlas uncle who she had sent to meet me at the docks. (the accent here is different from the rest of peru, and it´s incredibly difficult for me to decipher words.i feel like i´m back at square one again, every sentence spoken to me is usually met with squinting eyes, a scrunched forehead, and an exasperated, what?)
i was greeted by karla at her front steps, and was introduced to her entire family. i was invited inside and had a short conversation with her dad, defying any stereotypical ´shamanic´image that i had in mind, wearing a basketball jersey and a pair of shorts, and explained to me how the evening would go. i think because i had expressed some worry to karla, earlier, about some stories i´d heard about malintentioned shamans who violated women once ´high´, she said something in the shipibo tongue and then her mother told me in spanish that she would be there, and karla would accompany me as well, just to make me feel safe, since there would be no one else with me during the ceremony. i was so thankful for their generosity and kindness. a few hours later, we were all piled into a mototaxi and i was taken to the special space their family had constructed for this purpose, where there were a few rooms for guests, and a larger communal space with a huge mosquito net protecting the circle from any insectintruders. the sky was immaculate. it felt like i could see every star in the sky, even the milky way was clearly visible. they would prepare everything and we would all rest for a few hours, and then i would take the ayahuasca.
and so...
when it was time, i was seated on a mat facing roger and his brother, who assisted him during evenings such as this, and karla and her mother were wrapped in a blanket off to the side, sleeping soundly. it didnt taste any worse than the san pedro i had in saraguro, a little to my surprise. we sat in silence for about 15 or 20 minutes as i awaited the affects, them smoking tobacco out of a big wooden pipe. i had been so technical about it all, having been so careful earlier to state my intentions clearly, and trying to keep my nerves calm by sitting and breathing in a meditative form on the mat. what would follow was not what i had expected based on everything i had read about other people´s experiences. purging inner demons? i saw nothing even the slightest bit frightening. i was brought home..
first i began to feel a swirling pressure at the centre of my forehead, or the 6th chakra, which i have often been experiencing on a regular basis at random times, only now it was accompanied by the same kind of pressure on the sides of my temple as well. kristina? hmm? he asked me if the visions had started. no..i said. he scooted up towards me and began singing. he blew the tobacco over the top and past the sides of my head. he continued singing. then i felt my stomach lurch. and a few moments later the hallucinations had begun, and dimensions were no longer familiar. using the same substance that i recognized from my previous experience with shamanic ceremonies, he gently sprayed the strong smelling liquid from his lips onto my face, i felt nauseous, burped, and grabbed the container at my feet and wretched and vomited, only for a minute, and the nausea was completely gone. now roger too was at my side, gently singing...it´s hard to describe what i felt. i kept my eyes closed for most of the time, because when i opened them i was blown away by the figures of roger and his brother, i couldn´t tell their exact positions in the room, it was as though everything was made up of these energy panels, and they existed in each on of them, and the same with their voices. my perception of my body was much the same. i felt as though i was perceiving everything in a triangle. my mind contained the entire universe and my body was present everywhere. my visions were all shapeshifting designs of every color imaginable, beautiful patterns that i couldn´t even really ´see´because it was changing so rapidly, nothing ever once tangible really but perceived only, felt sensed. and i began to weep, crying uncontrollaby, and i didn´t stop until i began to come down and return to my regular state. i was crying with absolute joy, absolute gratitude to my creator, for the simple truth that i am, and absolutely full of love. the aspect of spiritual boundries being dissolved were much more meaningful than any of the visionary effects i was experiencing. this is what is most hard to describe, because it was a connection which allowed me to understand god. it was a meeting with my creator. so silent, so beautiful, so simple, and yet so, so powerful. i was practically laughing at myself for thinking i might meet with something alien and frightening to me. i know this. it is this awe-some love that heals. thankyou so much, my mind was uttering. thankyou so much. this is all that ever needs to be understood, this is all that matters. there are no words..there is no need for words...when this is truth. when truth is love..when the tears let up i laid down and my body became familiar again, and there were certain faces of those present in my life that came to me and i was blown away by my own, now raw and flowing, love for those very special people that have brought light into my life. i sensed that everyone else was asleep now, and i gathered my things and sort of wobbly made my way to my little room, let down my mosquito net and arranged it around my bed frame, and slept well, until woken early that morning, by a husky female voice speaking to me through the screened window, kristina..ahh,hmmm? that was your first experience with ayahuasca...your second time will be..pffhh, heheh, making a gesture with her hands. i was sleepy and my responses to her were generally just sounds, they were leaving now to go to pucallpa and i had to pay her. we thanked each other and i fell back into bed and slept until the early afternoon.
there was a man from france who was staying in one of the other rooms there, studying the plant. ¨he is a philosopher,¨ the brother told me, ¨and he writes on his lap top¨ ¨about his experiences with ayahuasca..¨¨yes¨ (nice job...) afterwards it made a whole lot of sense to me, i can see why people might stay here for long periods of time, studying the plant, and it´s affects, as a healer of mind, body and spirit.
another day of blazing sun, a slight breeze tickled the blankets and sheets hung up on lines to dry, while a woman and a child softly spoke with one another, and a man came over to speak to me, he was another brother of roger´s. ¨how was last night?¨he asked me. all i could say was, ¨incredible,¨and i smiled and hoped the look in my eyes would communicate everything. he showed me the way back to the community, walking me halfway, than shaking hands as we parted and i headed back to yarina on boat. i felt calm, and i could hear the voice of the river, the voice of the swaying trees, in a special way.
i do not mean to give the impression i had found a miracle. my mind is unchanged, and my perspective is not now magically transformed into thirdeye vision or something. i sort of thought i would experience something that would make everything clear to me, to recieve a vision that transcended everything i have ever percieved as reality...well, not so. but i was able to directly experience the nature of God, the nature of love, and that is something...that is really quite something.
now i really must get some lunch, and make sure no one´s moved my hammock!
i love you all, thankyou for keeping me in your thoughts and hearts.

big city, peru

this is my second day in lima, and i hope not to be here any longer!
i do not have the creative energy to write, but felt i needed to update my whereabouts. i´m planning my trip into the jungle now. i´m taking the ´adventurous´route. i think i´ll be taking a bus to huanuco tomorrow, (not sure if it´ll be overnight or not) and from there to pucallpa, where i´ll be taking a cargo boat to iquitos, the jungle capital which can only be reached by boat or plane. the trip can take anywhere from 4 to 7 days, i´ve read of other´s experiences and talked to a man who did it, seems the quality of experiences vary, but overall an unforgettable one, and i´m gonna do it. then i´ll fly back to lima.

i don´t think ever in my life i have felt so lost as i have this last week or so. i have felt heartbroken and confused, weak and lacking energy to do anything. i have literally made myself nauseous with anxiety, throwing up a fruit salad that cost me 10 soles.
i have not much else to add, but i sense today that i am recharging. and i think this upcoming leg of my journey will require me to be very strong.
i might not feel like writing for quite some time, but i think my email is clearly accessible here for anyone to contact me?

rambling bus mindvisions, the hours are ploughed away. chimbote, flyby city in the night, i will never know your streets, will never know their names. slick roads, rattling glass, we move on, on, on through the night. sleep comes in waves, nearly here nor there. fabulous dreams of color huaraz, huaraz, mystic rocks on a desert horizon... approaching, great red dawn red sun halfway born into the sky, with strange tubes of rays transforming before my eyes, now great skeletal sun, then shattered, swept away, eyes blinking open, time after time dream after dream, to a condenscating windowpane showing bleak dreary outlooks of passing walls of rock, grey in the cloudy light.
damp pantlegs from virgindew grass, long fingers of earth, knees drawn into my chest. hoarse breath of bus, passengers snoring, grunting, shifting bodyweight in confining seats. cajamarca-trujillo 8 hours, 2 hours in wobbly blue plastic chair of the station, cheesy latin television drama, plastic bag full of snacks, and shared eyestares of fellow travellers pale of skin. from trujillo-huaraz 10 hours, arrived disoriented and legs wobbly from all night scrunching, greeted by strange brown faces of hotelpushers and taxidrivers expectant of their estranged family memeber being i and having forgetton i was on my way to the reunion. all speaking to me at once, oh please pick me, pick me their eyes say, and i'm almost laughing as i say, yes..i need. a taxi. new city take a look so cold and early in the morning, dont know why he had the window rolled down all the way, and american 80's radio, i almost clap my hands together in the wakeupdawn disorientation of self and disarranged personality inhibitions, to cry, bruce springstein! and kade flashes through my mind, dancing in the dark as my body twists at the knees climbing backwards into the trunk to retrieve my book for an adress for the driver.
here at caroline lodging, a nice little hostal, i have a dorm bed and free breakfast, internet, book exchange, dived straight into the motorcycle diaries, and people to talk to. like a quick instant family together from all parts of the world, a girl from france, one from belgium. a guy from germany, identical in glasses to john lennon or harry potter, a handsome guy from bosc country which technically is a part of spain, and i, the only native english speaker, awkward self done haircut and janis glasses canadian.
we grouped together, all having arrived the same day, and set off for a little adventure. first to the market place for some fruit and snacks, then to the street advised by helpful hostal staff to hire a car up to pitec where our little trek would begin. 6 soles each and i'm balancing on belgiums lap steadying myself with hands on back of orkatz seat trying not to grind my boney butt into her fleshy legs, head being bumped into the roof of the car as it slowly makes its way forward steering around deadly potholes and portions of dirtroad eaten away consumed by rain. villagers stone faces almost dramatic movielike poses as our eyes meet separated by glass, sombreroed heads turning slightly as the vehicle outreaches their view. brightly skirted women in colorful leggings, little feet snug in dusty dark shoes, chasing their in-transit sheep and sad looking cows off the side of the road to make room, strange bumbling car of funny white faces a top torsos of raingear.
pitec the climb starts, deserted bare wilderness reminiscent of the belovedrockies. out of breath and panting, but i got into a rythym and soon i was practically bounding from rock to rock, the body always finds a way, its natural, not much thinking needs to be done bout where this foots gonna go and where the right ones gonna go after. the boys ahead, the girls behind, im always in the middle, no one by my side. then climbing vertically and bosc man gives the ladies a hand, splitting waterful of glacier ice, cold hands whimpering on the slippering rocks, mud splashes inside shoe. over then, the lake comes into view. deep blue and emerald hues, foggy blanket of skyclouds and distant snowy peaks. so much energy i feel, jumping from boulder to boulder to get the best view, ahead of all the others, but they soon follow and then all of us seated together opening last minute lunch efforts, pitying lennon's slapping together pathetic sandwhiches of flimsy white bread and 'cheese'. me with the 'energetic food' as boscman comments, walnuts and raisins and dried apricots.
i have the tendency to postion my ears closer to the guys, both speaking poor goofy english swapping stories and jokes, corrupt peruvian police, false papers, i learn the rules for slipping a police man a bribe without offending, always making me laugh, belgium and france chatter away in french and of course i dont understand a word. boscman travelling on motor bike, started in buenos aires zooming through chile and bolivia, now working his way up to columbia, then through central america and eventually canada. yes, i tell him, do it. you've got to see the west coast.me dreaming secretly of doing this myself, buying a tent and a fake license and a used bike somewhere and mabye finding someone who can tell me how to work the thing, burning lonely planet in a personal firey ceremony and then setting off on a totally new and unpredictable adventure through south and central america.
food consumed, sky drizzling, coats zipped up, and then back down to the trail, careful on the slippery rocks.
the next morning a man arrived from dawson creek, canada, old guy retired and fluffy white hair, age tired and worn skin of life experiences. along with 2 girls from britain, the 4 of us paid for the tour to the ruins of chavin de hauntar. long tiring bus ride packed with peruvian tourists, i of course picked the seat which would soon be neighboring whiny kicking children on fleshy laps, and felt annoyed and sad the whole way there. the day dissapearred into the hours. more rambling mind visions only so melancholy and uninspired. the ruins were not fascinating but worth the tour, keening ears tuning in to the boisterous guide, absorbing enough to feel expanded but not so much i could relay the information to anyone else. here and there words catch my attention and give me faint ideas of something ancient and discovering, black and white, male female, sun, numbers, calender, rocks, solstices and equinox.
in the evening a glass of rum in the common room and once again find myself the only female in a circle of men, more stories now with my fellow canadian included, all talk of culture and countries, i have learned more about and gained more interest in europe in those few hours than ever before. rex, an employee here from holland, oh the places hes been, and he will be living like this for the rest of his life. 'after a year, you know the only thing that had changed', he says in his lofty accent, 'was me'. emphasizing that with his entire body. 'and i couldnt get along with anyone anymore.' and hasnt been back since. i learn there are people doing round the world trips on bicycles with 4 year old children, an irish girl doing the same thing on motorbike. now dreaming of turkey and france, india and egypt. motorcycles and bicycles and gypsy vans and thumb jabbing the highway.
today to a trout farm, no official tour, but teo one of the owners drove us out 40 minutes in a van, old and dustsmell like the oldsmobile from my childhood,and the great beastly red and white thing that we rode all the way down to guatemala, snap back ashtrays, and stinky interior.
beautiful countryside, andean farmland, peace at last. one moment of joy, overflowing with it as i watch a small herd of ducks waddle down the bank towards me. great mother earth, creation. in all its curious and beautiful diversity. life on this planet, creator earth, all things growing and giving life, all things nurturing and being nurtured, all things passing away, all given back into the cycle. i wasnt interested in listening to all the fish talk so i wondered off trying to lure stubborn and independant dogs towards me, but to no avail.

here now, completely in pieces. many stormy nights have passed.
why cant i keep it, why cant i have this! crying and pushing inside.
i dont belong here, like this. i belong out there. out there. i belong to the wind. oh great mother, am i not too in your care.
everything goes, truth goes, truth present in all things and all things being reborn every moment there is nothing for me to hold on to. i open the palm of my grasping hand only ever to find skin shed of a light now gone, moving on, i feel deformed in this body, broken and lost. crying in my war of words, i declared battle the day i understand them as symbols and nothing more. but years gone by and i feel naively dependant on these illusionary creatures of the mind, i know no other way to myself. i cannot let them go i cannot let them go! is it fear of the serenity, to blink my eyes open to a scenery where nothing is caught, nothing is found, or described.i dont know the difference between love and fear in these moments of thunder, my footing is swept upwards and away in the storm. i know nothing.
i do not become anything, i am only forever becoming.
throughout ramblingmind journey i try to break it up when my arms are flailing sorrowfully and my voice crying to no one, try to bring myself someplace real by snapping my fingers, signalling stop sign--this is temporary. sometimes for a moment i loosen my grip and i watch what was tying me up in knots disassemble and float away, but time after time my mind launches forward once again into my drama, broken and lost to this world that has forgotten its divinity, all human beings illuminated that might not ever find out, and me, in my poor farsighted vision it comes and it goes, at times vivid like the sunrise of heaven, but mostly somewhere far, it feels far far within me. life feeling like a game of remembering and then forgetting

no birthplace, and no point of termination. every moment born anew....

Cajamarca, Peru

today i am faced with a decision, and trying to come to an answer through a balance of logic and intuition overwhelms me to the point where i am wishing i were not a person in this moment. to make a decision completely based on my intuition would be ideal of course, but this is something that might take time and time before it comes natural to me. if i could have it my way, this day, i would be, just a body of senses. i could just spend all day sensing things. just recieving things. i would be moved by the current around me, introducing me to new colors to explore, scents to savor. this is perhaps in fact the reality of the moment, but it is difficult to let go of my rationalizing aspect of mind. i also feel very low on energy, and i am searching for the cause. this also is affecting my decision. and i´m not feeling very articulate, so this entry might unfold in kind of messy icing job of cake.
lets see, also my sense of time is out of whack, and i have to concentrate to know where and what i´ve been doing in the past 2 days. i awoke at 5 oclock to catch my bus to cajamarca. i arrived at 130 the following morning...which was yesterday? or..im not sure.
the road was stunning, absolutely stunning, winding and curving through the mountains with a steep deadly drop inches away from the wheels. but the conditions were bad, as is typical of all unpaved roads at this time. it was supposed to be a 13-14 hour trip. and it ended up taking us about 18? there were several landslides that had to be cleared for passage, and so at one point we were stuck for about 4 hours. at least the sun was shining.
we stopped for a breakfast at a basic village community restaurant. i watched a little boy gutting a guinea pig in a big blue basin under a tap of running water. they eat guinea pigs here. yes, it is actually quite popular. i will never. i could not. would not eat a guinea pig. to me, these are cute little animals that live in little cages in homes and get fed by little children who love them and pet them and have named them. actually, i am finding it increasingly difficult to eat any meat at all, perhaps this is becuase of the way it´s prepared, just barely so. when i ask for a dish with chicken, there it is. i can see it. i see the chicken, i dont see food. the dimply skin, a wing, it´s neck, it´s spine even. the other day it was like, i had this little baby chicken on my plate. the whole thing without it´s head. and perhaps also there is another reason that is tied to something deeper which i cannot really explain at this moment, but it is a shifting that i am feeling all chocies and reasons being affected by.
everyone eating greedily sloppily and quickly shovelling spoonfulls of rice and beans and licking chicken grease off fingers. i just asked for a soup. chicken noodle. i recieved a bowl of broth with a good hearty serving of spaghetti and a big, fat leg of chicken, yellow and pink and dimply. i sat at a table with the boy with a thick wavy head of hair and deep slanting eyes. his head was down in his plate but i felt that we ought to talk to each other. for the first time ever i spoke the first word to someone. this sounds so obvious and simple, but i am discovering how awesomely good it feels to just do or say something when i get that little impulse to, instead of saying no to myself. and when he noticed me struggling to separate a little piece of meat from the bone with my spoon, he said, in english. ¨it is better you use your hand.¨ and i just laughed and said yeah. and just left it alone. i wondered if the ladies would put it back in the pot.
we continued to talk on the bus, he asked me permission to sit next to me, and he, boy, he was not so shy as i had thought! he just went right into life, his perspective.
something funny that seems to happen all the time is, when i´m in conversation with a native spanish speaker who is able to speak english, well, he wants to speak in english for me, and i of course feel i ought to be speaking spanish, because how else will i ever learn? it just happens, and so the conversation goes like that, both sides speaking in a language which is not their own. and i think, perhaps it is better this way because this way we are more on the same level, and equal in ability to express things. although i have to admit his english was better than my spanish. well anyway, we got into talking about ayahuasca and his experiences with it, what he has learned about univeral love. he showed me a rock that he kept in his pocket. it was in a roughly shape of a cross, with a spiral sort of fossil looking imprint something in the centre. he traced his finger over the spiral.¨this is the birth of the universe¨he said. ¨and sometimes i play my guitar to these rocks, and i sing. it is worship. in these rocks are the spirit of our ancestors, in the mountains are our ancestors. very powerful.¨
my voice became soft as i listened and responded with my physical body. and i felt, as it is very rare for me not to, that i had been pulled away from my centre, and i was floating, somewhere in between myself and himself. and as positive as the interaction was, i felt drained of energy, and i wondered, and maybe sensed, that eventually he felt this also. i have yet, ever in my life, to recieve any sort of clarity on the way i experience other people. i have experienced moments where i remained connected to myself while totally engaged in someone else, i know this is possibe. but i cannot figure out what happens to my world when it must open to another, and i have only ever created metaphors to express this to myself or others.
while we waited for an enormous piece of rock to get cleared off the road, bus stalled behind a build up line of other vehicles, we got out and stretched our bodies. sat at the edge of the cliff, gazing out into the valley, and the on and on, and i only have a limited repetoire of words to describe nature, it is not that easy for me, and i have probaby used them all up already in this entry, so all i can say is. magnificent.
he was crouched next to me, we watched two yellow butterflys playing with each other down in the tall swaying grasses of the slope, chasing connecting then separating, flittering fluttering beautifully and real. ¨it´s love¨he said. and i knew exactly what he meant, because i saw it too, and i wondered, if maybe i saw even more. i also, am learning about univeral love, i told him. and maybe, the way i phrased it, it sounded more like, i also, am learning how to love the universe. but it´s okay, because the meaning is the same.
i fell asleep on the bus and was jostled awake hours later when finally the bus´s engine started up and we slowly inched and bumped our way forward. raul was back in his own seat, and the rest of the ride was quiet, as the sky darkened the air got cooler. the moon was bright, oh the joy, when it is not hidden by nighttime clouds in the infinite sky, it shone irridescent finger nail clipping, mysteryjoy of the sky. the bus halted at a roadside something, i dont know, some kind of fruit factory where women and children were yelling and screaming out names of fruit holding bags bulging with round ripe limes and oranges and mangos and apples and cheapcheap cheap and everyone rising from their seats, hungry since breakfast, and sliding open bus windows with heads popped out yelling out names of fruit with bills and change in hand, ready for the exchange, me laughing, a bursting moment full of noise, raul asks me excitedly, you want anything? an orange! i cry. naranja! naranja! he shouts out the window, and moments later a pink plastic bag fat and full with oranges comes to the window and into my hands, and i put one sole into his hand. thats all it cost me, 5 oragnes for one sole. thats like, a third of a dollar. and then everyone energized as the bus moved onward into the night, conversations all around me trading fruits as sweet juices oozed and got hands sticky, fingers peeling, and the guy a few seats back yells out to me if i need a knife, proud with his big shimmering blade, me, alright, carving away the tough green peel with my little red pocket knife. raul, still up on his knees in his seat, passes to me a piece of fruit ive never tried before, never heard of, i forget the name. it was delicious like a thick red watermelonmango, and i worked my tongue around the big long strange seeds and flicked them out the window.
i fell back asleep, into those kind of moving car dreams where you´re so barely asleep yet dreaming, and slipping back and forth in a confusing way that you dont know what you´ve dreamt and what really happened, and i was startled and my heart jumped when i became aware of raul bent towards me in the seat next to mine, shhh, he says. ¨if you like, you can stay with my family, there will be a spare room for you, and then you can look for a hotel tomorrow, because at this time, trying to find a hotel...¨ in the moment i could find no reason to protest, and so there i go, shacking up with strange boy i met on a bus, but i knew his intentions were not harmful and that his heart was kind. and so i tied up my shoes which had migrated all the way up under the seats in front of me which i had to awkwardly fetch because the seats were almost fully reclined backwards into me and i pulled on my poncho and followed him down the aisle as he spoke to the driver, telling him where to let us off.
the home of his aunt and uncle was quite nice, and i could see they were a family well off. there actually did not happen to be a spare room for me but i gratefully accepted the couch anyhow, this his sleepy cousin prepared for me. i closed my eyes and i could hear the scrubscrubbing of teeth being brushed in the bathroom down the hall after raul said goodnight to me and disappeared.
for breakfast, sat at a little table with his aunt who had the same slanting eyes and those sparkling of his lighthearted uncle. there was a thick warm drink that tasted sort of like a rice pudding which apparenty was made of the same thing that beer comes from, he said..hmm. wheat? it was very tasty and filling and i also gobbled up lots of little white buns, slopping spoonfulls of jam into the crumbling space torn through with knife. and i thanked her very much, and oh what a sweet boy he was, truly honest and kind. and i took a nice warm shower there in the blue tiled bathroom while he scrubbed his dirty clothes outside in the washing station in the yard, and soon afterwards, he accompanied me in a taxi to the centre of the city where i paid for a room and where i spent the night and today i do not feel like laying out this decision i have to make which contains things like carnaval, an ayahuasca ceremony, geographical route, and time, going and returning. and possibly twice to here and it doesnt make any logical sense and i feel like i need to choose between the ceremony next saturday with raul´s shaman, or carnaval towards the end of the month, which is the very best here in this city than in the whole country, and i think i would choose that, but also i wonder if this is even something i actually have to decide and will it not just work itself out without my scrambling mind?
well, thats all for now.