Monday November 9, 2009
Alto Paraiso
I’ve been reflecting on what’s transpired in the last 9 days since November began. We have been about getting some stuff done, but also we’ve spent some time reflecting upon who we are, what we’re doing here and what kind of future we envision for ourselves.
It seems that just before we left to drive back to Brasilia, Cidade Ecletica and Pirenopolis on Wednesday to retrieve our suitcases, visit friends, extend our tourist visas and exchange currencies, I was contemplating deeper issues and concerns. We’ve both resumed our meditation practices after quite a bit of time away and I found myself asking the question “who am I?” Perhaps Paul’s quandary with similar questions provoked this line of inquiry for myself. Here we are in another life, on what seems like another planet and we no longer recognize ourselves or have any sense of identity with who we are.
Since February 17th, the day after returning to Vermont from our 1st visit to Brazil, we have been about “moving to Brazil.” Well we arrived in mid August, but it feels like our tip toes have just touched ground and we are waiting for the rest of the soles of our feet to feel solid ground. We feel almost at home, but not really. For Paul this has been a major adjustment and there is somewhat of a culture shock, freeze frame, out of sorts, uncomfortable bubble surrounding him. I don’t think he identified it as such but it’s funny that our friend Leide identified it immediately when he saw us. He described a feeling of being paralized when he landed in the States where everything was so different. There he was with his wife and 2 children all depending on him and he felt powerless to make his way in such unfamiliar and sometimes unfriendly surroundings. There is a fear that can set in and make you unwilling or unable to engage in life. This feeling was emerging around Paul and as he let his thoughts explore this he came up with an idea which completely intrigued me.
Laying awake one evening unable to sleep I asked Paul a question to which he replied, “ wait a few minutes I’m thinking through some archetypes.” A couple days later the topic came up again and I asked him to explain what he meant. You see, I knew a little about archetypes but not very much and not enough to know how one used them. Perhaps this is not even the way Jung intended them to be used but I thought quite clever and creative. Paul explained to me that there were certain features of his character that he would like to develop more strength with, for instance he wished that he had a stronger physical body with more energy to get through life, so he asked himself who he could think of that would embody that characteristic so he could envision being like that person in that way. Another example was finding a person he could model who had great confidence or the ability to promote himself. You see, the game being to model certain figures, whether they were public personalities or someone he once knew who happened to be especially great in a certain way. When I understood this, I found it a fantastic exercise to undertake and explore for myself too. Perhaps this led me to lay awake another night reflecting on who I am.
From the time I can remember I wanted to be a writer. It was the answer to the question what do you want to be when you grow up. I’m not sure what I envisioned that to mean and perhaps that too has shifted over time but I imagine being a writer meant being published and maybe paid for it though I doubt my mind ever really considered the financial aspects. Maybe it just meant I would write and someone else would read what I wrote. There was a time in my life when I actually wrote a novel, even though it’s true it was autobiographical. That was an exercise in self healing, if there ever was one. I even went on and started another novel and got 2/3rds of the way through before giving up on the project because I realized it had no point and no real story line, it simply meandered wherever I felt like taking it- much like this does. So for much of my life, though I wrote, I couldn’t say I was a writer, because why? Because I wasn’t published or being paid for writing. I have revised my criteria. Suppose this very thing is an example of everything in life. What if we wander through life wishing we were something that we already are but haven’t noticed? Are we what we always dreamed yet living unaware?
And this brings me to a question for you, my dear readers: who are you? Are you my loved ones or part of my extended family of brothers and sisters on this planet? Who, if anyone, is reading this? What are your thoughts, questions or comments? I would so much love to hear from you! Please do feel welcome to email me at my personal address:mindy.urken@gmail or respond to the group through the blog. I don’t really know how blogs work, but I think this format makes it possible to post your comments if you like. I think some of you know that my son Charlie who lives in Colorado is responsible for the creative and technical part of posting this blog and I think is doing a fantastic job with it.
Last weekend was a holiday in Brazil. Actually it was 2 or 3 different holidays. Friday was Childrens Day, Saturday was Halloween, though I’m not sure they actually celebrate that one except I thought I saw a group of kids in costume, and Monday was the Day of the Dead. In Ecletica they were celebrating the anniversary of the original founding members’ arrival and pilgrimage to the central plateau. Because of all the holidays we put all our business on hold and waited out the long weekend to make our trip back to the city to take care of business. It could be the same all over Latin America, though my experience is only with Brazil, but every other day is a holiday here! Don’t even get your hopes up to do anything that requires business or government because there is always a holiday being observed and everything goes on hold. Actually I like that very much! Reminds me of big snow storms in Vermont when the mail and other services stop.
So while we were waiting, we did some exploring and took a trip back to visit a place nearby we really like, Sao Jorge. It’s a tiny village at the entrance to the national park. It has a dozen pousadas, a couple restaurants and a shop or two. We planned our trip so we could buy a lamp, visit a friend and eat at a pasta buffet we fell in love with last winter (which was summer in Brazil.) It was dusk by the time we were driving down the road towards home and as darkness fell we were still on the dirt road traveling through the Chapada. In the headlights we saw something quite large crossing the road and stopped to have a look at the biggest spider we’d ever seen. It stopped in the headlights and we were able to get fairly close to have a better look. It was as big as my hand and looked to be a tarantula, but the next day trying to identify it on line it looked more like a wandering spider and could possibly be one of the most deadly and poisonous. Lucky we didn’t go closer! Earlier that day we were fortunate enough to see a couple Emus as well. There’s no lack of wildlife here. Just out our bedroom window, about a hundred feet away is a Eucalyptus tree. It must be over a hundred feet tall. It seems to be a favorite resting place for about 6 different species of birds and when they come back from their day just before dusk they are incredibly social creatures and very outspoken. We wake to them in the morning too, singing exotic melodies. Often it sounds like gangs of schoolchildren playfully screaming in the yard.
While we’re on the subject of wildlife, last week we were visiting our friends in Pirenopolis. They took us to his mother’s house in the city to show us where he grew up. This street happened to be one of our favorites and we had been there frequently walking or at restaurants nearby, so we were amazed that out the back door of this town house was a jungle! We were standing under huge banana trees when a capybara ran by! This is the most amazing animal. Last year we saw several at the zoo, They are reminiscent of the creatures in the movie, The Princess Bride, called rodents of unusual size (ROUS.) Even though they are like giant rodents, they are actually quite cute. Thinking back now, being there also reminded me of another children’s story called The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. In that story, you entered into a magical land through the back of a wardrobe, behind the clothes. How was it possible to be in the middle of the city and have jungle out the back door? I still can’t grasp this!
We returned last week to Ecletica to meet with our good friend Gaudencio who continues to help us with our permanent visas, our dealings with the federal police to extend our tourist visas and our banking difficulties with currency exchange. I can not begin to express how incredible it is to find a friend like this so willing to take such time from his life to help us. He is like our own personal Ganeesh, breaking down barriers for us. Arriving in town, we pulled up in front of the hotel restaurant to find our other friends standing out front, so happy to see us. So strange, how it felt like a homecoming. There is so much love for us there it’s enticing. As much as we like this incredible place we are living in, we do not have friends here like we left behind in Ecletica and Pirenopolis and Paul is yearning for the comfort of that friendship to help with this difficult transition.
You know, speaking of difficult transitions, moving to a different hemisphere, to a country with a different language and culture is not an easy thing for anyone, less so probably for those of us over fifty, but we have an additional complicating factor to contend with. With Saturn and Pluto heavily squaring Jupiter in Paul’s natal chart, he is having to deal with heavy cosmic forces affecting everything in his personality, tearing down everything he knew himself to be. If ever someone had to experience a rebirthing, this is a doozy. It is a fearful passage through the birth canal to a new life. Imagine being born into a place with wild jungle sounds surrounding you and no mother’s arms waiting to comfort you. I’m afraid this may be his experience here in the Chapada, so the comfort of friends eager to help is calling him back while my intrigue with this place has not yet been satisfied. While we haven’t found our place here so far, I feel like with some patience we might yet.
The dogs of the village are howling in unison. So unsettling!
Saturday morning we had an unexpected meeting with our friends at breakfast to discuss our visas before heading off to Brasilia to do some shopping on our way home to Alto Paraiso. We were off to find an import market we’d been to once before but were confounded by the fact that every person who lives in Brasilia must shop at this market on Saturday mornings. We found ourselves in a line of traffic trying to find a parking space with no way out. The one lane journey through the market waiting to park took more than an hour at which point with still no open parking space or way to retreat we opted not to stay and continue on our way. The next stop was to be meeting a friend nearby for lunch but unable to find our way to her, the cell phone ceased working and driving through the city traffic lost, we accidentally found the highway around the city putting us exactly on the road home. It was a nice intervention from the Way getting us home well before dark. We had more than enough to unload with a full car of suitcases and shopping already loaded in.
Yesterday we were eager to be back in the car exploring the valleys and other communities around us. I’d had several days of messages and a vision of a place which I thought might be this place I’d kept hearing about, Moinho. It turned out to be a road we’d been on before but hadn’t driven as far as we needed to find the village. The valley was enchanting and all the way there I kept trying to not get my hopes up so I wouldn’t be disappointed. The village wasn’t what I’d hoped for but the beauty of the valley couldn’t be beat. Coming home we were flagged down by a young woman who’d stopped us one evening in town to sell us a dream catcher. That night I hadn’t especially been in the market for a dream catcher but there was something in her voice that told me I had to help her. Her plea for a ride back to town had the same quality.
It was an interesting conversation in my limited Portuguese and her limited English and we were surprised when she asked us what religion we followed. I can’t say anyone has ever asked me that before. We talked a little about Taoism and Lao Tzu and about Sufism and she had some opinions about Spiritism and Osho which were not as favorable. She told me she lived with her father who was a veterinarian and took Rocket inside to show her father his rash when we arrived at her house. Coming back out she suggested we go by the shamans to buy Arnica to treat it.
We left her and went over to the vegetarian restaurant which by the way is fantastic. Two tables of self serve buffet with delicious food and a huge thatched outdoor pavilion to eat on. We were surprised and delighted to see one of the friends we met here last February with her husband and have them invite us to join them. The conversation confirmed some of our initial feelings about the division of the town factions and some of the difficulties it is struggling to correct. We made a wonderful connection with them and I left there really hopeful that we would find friends here and a sense of community after all.
We had one more fortuitous meeting that day, actually two. The owner of the ice cream store came to talk with us, challenging Paul’s opinion that the local Brasiliero’s were not at all friendly here to foreigners. After which we encountered a woman on the street we’d met a couple evenings before when she came looking for a house to rent from our landlady Vistara. She too, like us, has been traveling a bit, looking for her place. She, though not a foreigner, is like many others here, a Brasiliero from other parts of Brazil. I liked her immediately when we met and felt we had very much in common. We talked for a few minutes and she told us of a place outside of town we might be interested in and promised to take us there next week after she moves.
These various encounters had me feeling very encouraged that we might yet find a place for ourselves here and a community of friends. We’re not feeling right about the place we are in and though it is lovely, it has a lack of warmth and love here. And it is very noisy. We think we’d prefer something outside of town, however I’m afraid Paul is yearning to leave all together and I am concerned and reluctant to be on the road again, feeling in need of home and community.
I want to end this letter with a funny story. While I was busy transacting business with the bank in Brasilia, Paul was sitting quietly by unable to participate. Later that evening he told me a funny thing. “You know,” he said, “ Today I didn’t have to talk. First I was instructed not to say anything while Gaudencio spoke to the Federal Police and then I couldn’t say anything at the bank, because I didn’t know enough Portuguese and you had handled all the transactions so I had a lot of free time to think. So I was thinking about when a bunda becomes a bundao.”
“You were thinking about that while I was working my ass off figuring out how to get our money!” I laughed, pretending indignation. You probably need a little explanation. At our first Portuguese lesson with Marta she wanted to share a little about Brazillian culture with us as well as language. She wanted to express the point that Brasilieros are very direct and will say anything and used the following example. Bunda is the word for buttocks and the women in this country have amazing bundas. They come in the most unusual shapes and sizes, mostly large and extra large but not unattractive, actually fascinating to look at. “But when they have a really big ass,” she said, “we call it a bundao!”
“So what exactly were you thinking?” I asked Paul, “Were you imagining different size bundas?” He said, “I was just wondering where the line was between a bunda and a bundao…”
How I wish my mind would occupy itself with thoughts as amusing rather than the mundane details mine wants to concern itself with. Life is so unfair.
Well my dear friends and loved ones, I await word back from some of you. Please let me know who you are and say hello. I miss you. Until next time Paul joins me in sending love and wishing you well.
One last note, if you have time there’s a good video we’ve been trying to watch but internet isn’t often fast enough, called The Calling by Max Igan. Look for it on You Tube.