Back from the blue

Aug31

Back from the blue

Tyler, it's so strange to have you back in my life again... after 15 years of on and off searching. The days of Wonder are coming back like vivid flashbacks. (more...)

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Aug30

Truth waits on eyes unclouded by longing

Truly, one may gain by losing;
And one may lose by gaining.
~ Lao Tzu

Something permanently changed in me tonight after I took this photo. I walked home in the dark instead of using the headlamp, with acute awareness of my footing, living the present moment, using all my senses, praying I wouldn't unknowingly squish any frog princes. All the vivid colours that come out at night would have blackened out with a light. I wondered, why do we automatically switch them on without realising this huge tradeoff?

A few hours later while sitting on a rock in the pitch dark, watching a massive lightning storm light up the bellowing clouds circling the volcano, I felt the click happen.

All these years I've been desperate for a sense of home, some soil to call my own. The desperation pushed it ever further from my reach until finally I was completely without even a place to return to.

(more...)

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Aug30

Moments of Relief

I just noticed that I only seem to suffer or long or hurt when I believe that the way things are, is not the way it's supposed to be. As soon as I accept things, the pain immediately goes away.

It comes back again, when I miss him, and then I remember this.

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Aug28

Bringing a World of Worries to Paradise

The water supply is still down after two days and I think I caught something really nasty yesterday, there's Guardiasis going round. But I was on it with Olive Leaf Extract and woke up just fine today. The many troubles on my heart and mind last night sweated away with all the toxins and the rainstorm and I woke up bouncing.

I've been thinking for days now about how funny it is that you can come all the way out to paradise, leave everything behind, travel across half the globe, and still all your worries follow you. Fretting about money and broken computers and boys and bills... I limit to a few minutes here and there, ever since I have become acutely conscious of this fact. I am here. Right now is what I have right now. What I have, even though it is at times quite brutal and hard to live out here, is AMAZING. I am living completely consciously for the first time in my life. Feeling everything. I haven't had a joint or a drop of alcohol since I got here.

Almost everyone has gone swimming. I was standing on the edge of the temple eating some pineapple for lunch, looking at the incredible view of the lake and volcano, the clouds swirling fast around it, the grasses sweeping in the wind. Chance is doing somewhat the same in silence. Munching on a slice that's just dripping sticky everywhere. The pineapple looked like sunshine and I imagined it filling my belly with its rays. I don't know why. But these days I just let myself imagine things that feel good and my body responds.

I'm thinking about how stupid it is to bring your troubles to a place like this, when you can just bring yourself.

"Paradise." I heard slip out of me.

"Yeah."

"I just realised... I have never been more broke in my life and I don't think I've ever been happier. Or more content."

"Neither have I. I have five dollars."

We laughed. Then went back to silence. (more...)

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Aug27

Naked in the jungle

The Internet has gone down but I have to document this for posterity and somehow get it up later. It's 9pm thursday night. A massive lightning storm has hit. The rain is so hard it's coming through the roof of the temple and blowing in from the sides. A search party went out to assess the situation. The roads are washing away. There is a river where the road was, so strong you can go rafting on it. We're on the side of a volcano. You can hear rocks landsliding boom boom boom! The lightning stretches across the entire horizon and is constant. It feels like we're in the middle of a giant version of those weird electric zappy balls.

We're all huddled in the centre laughing and hanging out waiting for the storm to clear a little so we can clean up the outdoor kitchen and go to bed. A scraggly joint is being passed around eliciting wild and amazing stories.

As if all this isn't strange enough, young, natural, strikingly beautiful women have slipped out of their soaked clothes and are running around stark naked in the rain trying to get a tarp up, laughing and squealing. And my belly is full of local dark chocolate and giggles. I LOVE this lightning.

I really am in heaven.

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Update: the roads washed away leaving canyons and boulders from the volcanic landslide. The "municipal" water pipes also got smushed so we have no water. But the Internet is back up! And Kalima made some beautiful art on me today.

"La vida no es esperar a que la tormenta pase... Es aprender a bailar bajo la lluvia"

(Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain.")

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Aug26

Kulula Sikeleli Africa

Kulula captains doing what appears to be a quick recap on their flight notes before a commercial flight...

Kulula is an Airline with a head office situated in Johannesburg South Africa. Kulula airline attendants make an effort to make the in-flight "safety lecture" and announcements a bit more entertaining. Here are some real examples that have been heard or reported:

On a Kulula flight, (there is no assigned seating, you sit where you want) passengers were apparently having a hard time choosing, when a flight attendant announced, "People, people we're not picking out furniture here, find a seat and get in it!"

On another flight with a very "senior" flight attendant crew, the pilot said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached cruising altitude and will be turning down the cabin lights. This is for your comfort and to enhance the appearance of your flight attendants."

(more...)

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Aug25

Running on Emptiness

I've been out here 3 weeks now and it has been gob-smacking. In the way you'd expect yes, but far more in unexpected ways. Every day I have to let go of control and the desire to control my life more and more.

My laptop, my tool of trade, died in the first week. I lost a wonderful client because the delay was too uncertain and too long, understandably. And along with that, the $2000 I would have earned out here and used to start a new life when I come back home in 3 months. That was my fantastic unstoppable plan! But now I have no plan. Some of you may not know this (more...)

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Aug25

When your relationship becomes your sadhana

So whenever your relationship is not working, whenever it brings out the "madness" in you and in your partner, be glad. What was unconscious is being brought up to the light. It is an opportunity for salvation. Every moment, hold the knowing of that moment, particularly of your inner state....

...Humanity is under great pressure to evolve because it is our only chance of survival as a race. This will affect every aspect of your life and close relationships in particular. Never before have relationships been as problematic and conflict ridden as they are now. As you may have noticed, they are not here to make you happy or fulfilled. If you continue to pursue the goal of salvation through a relationship, you will be disillusioned again and again. But if you accept that the relationship is here to make you conscious instead of happy, then the relationship will offer you salvation, and you will be aligning yourself with the higher consciousness that wants to be born into this world. For those who hold on to the old patterns, there will be increasing pain, violence, confusion, and madness.

~ Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

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Aug24

Paradise has its price

I just successfully navigated 4 faffing very grumpy, premenstrual women who doubted my sense of direction the entire time through thick and winding jungle in pitch dark, torrential rain, close lightning strikes and screaming, on paths that had become rivers and steep boulders to climb down the volcano for over an hour each way... to civilization and pizza. This was after I'd already walked 4 hours to the beach in rubber boots and rubbed all the skin off my ankles.

(Reminder to self: this is why I usually backpack and adventure with men.)

Though I have to hand it to them. They are all pretty brave for girly girls. Got muddy, sweaty, climbed through barbed wire fences and risked all for pizza. And I love them. I hang out with these people 24 hours a day and never get bored of them. And they're always up for a hug.

It's time to crash. I have an eyeball growing between my big and second toe and ankles to lick. I think saliva might help? Good night!

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Aug21

Manifesting a Dream

I found out tonight that I will be doing an Ayahuasca ceremony in a few months when I'm ready. I dont know where I'm going to do it, which country, what its going to cost or any of the details, but I do know I need to do this. My feeling is it would be a good thing to do about a fortnight before returning to the States. It will bring everything I have learned together, bring all my remaining secrets out of their lurky little corners of the mind so I can deal with them, purge me and prepare me for returning to the States.

Ayahuasca is a magical potion from the Amazon basin that produces a very powerful visionary experience. Indigenous people say that during their trance, which lasts approximately four hours, they enter the world of the spirits and communicate with them, while psychologists consider DMT to be one of the hallucinogens, or psychedelics: "substances which make the soul visible." I have heard this is not a fun experience. You don't take this brew to party. It is a very difficult journey that can take you to the darkest and lightest places of your mind, and so it requires presence and commitment.

I have felt called to do this for years but have never felt ready. Now I feel very close. Somehow this is going to happen.

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