Alto Paraiso
Dear Friends and Family
We have landed. After 4 months on the road we are at last no longer traveling but living in a house in the most unusual of places. I’ve been hesitant to write much about this place because all I have now are first impressions and there is so much more than meets the eye here. This is a very special place. So all I can do is describe what I am seeing and feeling as it is presenting itself, but I can see that there is so much more yet to be revealed.
Driving into this place, both last February which was our first visit and last Thursday, we saw what looks to be a nearly deserted sleepy “bedroom community’ and wondered WHAT……. What is the appeal? Was this a once thriving spiritual community not realized? Was this an eco tourism town which didn’t really make it? So quiet. So few people. So few shops or restaurants. Last February we arrived by taxi transport, three hours drive from the bus station in Brasilia where we had landed after a 10 hour bus ride in from Lencois, Bahia. We saw what I just described as we drove down the principal avenue on our way to a pousada on a quiet street outside of the center. We didn’t like it and left the next day headed for Seu Jorge, the village at the entrance to the national park 36 kilometers away. We fell in love there! Charming pousadas, a little village we could walk through….. But that day we met our friend Enrico who was our guide to drive us and lead us on a trek through the park to see several waterfalls. As we spent the day with him, we discovered the secrets of this place that are not apparent to the naked eye on arrival.
I have so many thoughts I want to share with you, I may have difficulty in staying with a coherent flow. Bear with me….
In the last few days we have been having some insights that shed light on this peculiar phenomenon. Paul has been expressing his thoughts with me lately that he feels we are in another dimension here, as if we have traveled through the looking glass (remember Alice in Wonderland?) This has been a theme which has been presenting itself to us over some period of time, this feeling that we have gone through the mirror to the other side. Everything that seemed real is opposite.
Forgive me; this may take some time to noodle through. I was feeling strangely uneasy. I couldn’t define it at first. It was like I had been running and had finally stopped but I couldn’t tell I was still – it felt as if I was still in motion. Or as if I had been searching for a long time and found something but was so used to searching I couldn’t accept that I had found what I’d been looking for and I didn’t recognize myself without this purpose. It occurred to me that part of my uneasiness was due to the fact that I was vibrating at a different frequency than the people around me who were completely relaxed and absolutely in the moment, present and in a state of joy and peace. I was feeling “nudgey” and “whiney” and just disgusted with my own attitude, complaining (mostly to myself but a little to Paul) about my discomforts. The ants were biting me and making me itch, it was damp and everything smells a little like mildew, all the rain and humidity makes everything seem dirty and moldy.( Really when I stopped to consider it’s not much different than mud season in Vermont.) There’s not a comfortable piece of furniture in all of Brazil, blah, blah, blah! But these little inner complaints were just a symptom of something much bigger. Everything about this life changing situation I have brought myself to is challenging my comfort zone! I think that’s important for me. It limits me being so concerned about my comfort. And I know that I will adjust with time and relax into all of this.
It’s not an easy thing, moving to a third world country having lived most of your life in a first world country. There’s less here in a material sense. Spiritually it’s far richer. But it’s the little things like trying to cook dinner in someone else’s kitchen when there isn’t a sharp knife to chop fruit and vegetables and you must make do with a butter knife. Peeling a cucumber presents a challenge, but it’s not so punishing and it can be overcome. These are examples of the little things there are to get used to. I found a sharp knife at the grocery store but it took 3 stores to find a spatula and a carrot peeler hasn’t yet turned up, I’m still looking. I had a feeling about stuff like this and I packed up a few things of this nature, but they remain in boxes in storage waiting to be shipped someday. But I am off track. I simply wanted to illustrate some of the little things that make the adjustment a little disconcerting, but not insurmountable.
But I think it’s important to look beyond the stupid little things that grab your attention to the message the universe is trying to tell you. After all we are here for growth and the expansion of consciousness. Nothing happens by accident and everything is designed to teach us lessons so we can evolve and be more. So here we are in a beautiful house with slate floors and windows that open with wooden shutters to tropical trees dripping with fruit, home to exotic species of birds and the sound of nature fills the air. Yes, the furniture is not comfortable – we sit on a mattress on the elevated floor, but half a block away is a yoga class three times a week. We suffer because we are old and stiff and inflexible and yearn for a comfy couch, but the way has brought us to a place where we can practice yoga to make our bodies more flexible so we can sit on the floor and be comfortable in our bodies.
We yearned for a spiritual life and wished to leave the concerns of the material life behind us, so the Way brought us to a country where there isn’t very much in the way of material things. Here you make due with less. Everyone says in Brazil the people are poor but they are happy! This is true, beyond question.
We’ve asked ourselves what we want over the last couple months as we’ve been traveling about searching for a place to land and the answers have not been forthcoming. My mind has mostly been a blank state in open wonder and uncertainty. But from time to time one of us will have an idea of what we do or do not want. Paul wanted to return to the states last week, to a place where he could communicate in his own language and function easily with small tasks we once took for granted that now present major obstacles (like making phone calls for instance, or going to the bank to get money.) So we landed in a place where 9 out of 10 people we meet speak English. We weren’t expecting that, even though people said this was a place where many Americans and foreigners have settled. But this is true we are finding out.
We met a woman who settled here twenty seven years ago with a large group of followers of Osho who used to be Rajneesh before changing his name. In her perfect American English she told me, “This is the end of the road. You’ve arrived. There’s no where else to look.” Twice I heard someone say that – the end of the road. When I mentioned this to Paul his eyes lit up in recognition. At first his reluctance to be here was so apparent. He frowned and made disparaging comments from our small room in the pousada for three days before we found the house. “There’s nothing here,” he said, “there’s no doctor, there’s no veterinarian. What if one of us gets sick? There are no restaurants….” So we inquired. There is a vet who comes to town once a week, or is it once a month? I asked a woman we met who told me she learned how to make herbs to cure her dogs herself because once he was very sick when the vet was not here. She learns the cures during rituals. Another told me, this wasn’t true, there is an exotic animal doctor – she called her the panther doctor, and said when I inquired that she treated domestic animals too. I met her at the farmers market on Saturday where everyone gathers as their social event in addition to buying their supplies for the week. She was fascinating to look at with 3 piercings down the center of her face, but she had been away for a while and was just returning.
When we asked about doctors we were told there are many alternative practitioners here and one who is an Indian shaman who treats from the plant medicines of the cerrada. And as to restaurants, I was just commenting to Paul at dinner on Saturday night, “What if there aren’t lots of restaurants to choose from but the best vegetarian restaurant is here and the best ice cream place is here – do we need more?” As it turns out there really are a few more than just one or two, but they open only on weekends and holidays when the tourists come. Seems like new places keep popping up open that we weren’t at first seeing. But they seem to open when they feel like it. That’s my kind of way of being in business! I’ll be here if I feel like it – or I may just put a sign on the door – gone fishing…”
As his reluctance dropped away, he surprised me on Saturday afternoon when we saw the house and immediately decided to rent it. It’s the end of the road, he said. I’ve been given a gift of the perfect place to be to watch consciousness expanding on the planet. They’re living the new way here already. We get to watch and be a part of it.
There seems to be two parts of this town – the local native Brasilieros and the transplanted new-agers. They’ve been here for a very long time, close to thirty years, so they are just as much a part of this place as the rest, but there are two distinctive parts to town with some areas of overlapping. On one hill on the side of town you can walk down the street and see one unusual vision inspired hand built house after another. A Mandala Spa with practitioners of several disciplines, a yoga space, a meditation space, a house built in the style of a mosque or a dome…., each more interesting and beautiful than the next with a view over the tropical valley to the next group of hills and mountains, covered in lush vegetation and filled with wildlife. Yesterday I discovered a part of town which looked like many other Brazilian towns, filled with people and little shops mixed in with simple houses, quite distinctly different. I also passed six or seven different religious and spiritual houses of worship, if I can use that word. So I am finding there is more to this place than I first thought.
Ahhhhhh there is so much I want to explore with you in more depth but for now my thoughts are jumping from one point to another to be sure I don’t forget.
The first few days after we arrived we were spending much time with Enrico and his friends and learning about this place first hand as we sat around the house talking and meeting the friends that would drop by. “It’s different here in Brazil,” Enrico said, “No one calls, they just drop in.” At fifty and sixty something it hasn’t been like this so much for us but back in the day when we were twenty, it was. I wondered if this was something to attribute to youth or to this place. From Enrico’s house it seemed we were surrounded by young people. This is great in so many ways but there usually comes a point at which you question, do I fit in here? Is it weird being so much older? And then I had two insights. One was that we were being given an opportunity to observe the new way- the new consciousness that is coming to the planet. These people are living the dream they wish to be in the world. These are the ones who will lead us into the new way of being. And I thought, no this isn’t weird, it’s perfect to watch and be a part of this. We have so much to learn from each other. But it wasn’t true that it is all young people here. On one occasion a friend dropped by who had as many years as we. On several occasions I have had the opportunity to meet women my age. Remarkably, Paul pointed this out and reminded me of both an astrological solar return reading and a comment made by a psychic who said this will be a time for me of kindred spirits and close relationships with women. Already in this short time I feel I am meeting women like this.
In this place there seems to be a common theme of sacred ritual to alter consciousness to access a higher self and open avenues for gaining wisdom and insight. This is done in many forms and as part of spiritual seeking following different traditions of various spiritual and religious teachings from around the world – not only from an indigenous source. From some perspectives it looks like kids wanting simply to get high with trance parties, while from other perspectives you can see a much deeper source of exploration, and it is not limited to young people. There is something strong driving an expansion of consciousness here and there are many forces and many different paths being followed in this process.
And speaking of forces at work, there is something strong happening here calling to some very special people from around the world to come here. We are a perfect example. We were lead to this place through a series of events. Everyday a few more people are arriving as we are. I asked someone about this, remembering how this didn’t fare well for my former home in Boulder, Colorado when suddenly many people from California moved in. It changed the character of the place in a way that was not positive in my estimation. It grew too fast and its concerns changed. But it’s different here. The doors are open and the arms are open waiting to kiss and embrace those who come because they know there is something bigger than they calling people to come. They hope the newcomers will breathe new life into this place and that its growth will be only positive and I feel in my heart they are right.
This is a place of social projects, Enrico told me, while his friends all nodded their agreement. There are so many things that need to be done. You don’t have to look for ways to help, they just come to you and you know what to do. This is a beautiful thing and what makes this distinct division of kinds of people work, with the new comers or new-agers working to help the children whose poverty keeps them from realizing a better life. No one is out only for themselves; it is everyone for each other.
We are here with open arms to receive those who wish to join us. We send love and eagerly await your news.
Blessings and love
Mindy and Paul
