December 22, 2009

Tuesday December 22, 2009

Just as Saturday morning’s meditation came to an end, Paul looked up and said to me, “You’re going to get some information today from a mother and daughter. Something just told me to tell Mindy…” I imagined it might be my friend Uta who has a baby that had something to tell me, mentioning this to him, he shook his head and said no.

I went alone to the market, leaving Paul in peace, sparing him the mental torture it seems to provoke in him when he goes at my encouragement against his better judgment. Like most other Saturdays, it was full of people with the absence of one friend who’s traveled south for the holidays and the addition of another new face who was shooting film footage of some performers in mime face. Tivani was there as I had hoped so I could make a connection to pick up the keys to the house for Sunday morning’s move. “I’m being interviewed for a documentary at the house at 2:00. Come by if you want and watch the interview and I’ll give you the keys after,” she said.

At two, I walked over to the house just as the camera woman pulled up with another woman, before Tivani arrived. I stood to the side, off camera while they filmed the arrival of Tivani and made some preliminary arrangements for the interview. Walking from the gate to the house, Tivani made an offhand comment about a mother and daughter team, which grabbed my attention considering Paul’s words that morning as I learned the interviewer was the mother of the camera woman, who together were making a documentary about the history of Alto Paraiso and the valley of the moon, a retreat center founded by the very same people who were early settlers of High Paradise’s spiritual beginnings. Allowing that revelation to sink in and wondering about the ramifications of information I might receive from them, I sat on the steps to the loft just behind the camera and watched the interview take place. At the end of the shoot, the camera woman questioned me about why I had come to this place, as both her mother, the interviewer and Tivani fell silent to hear my reply. Intrigued by my answer, the interviewer asked me if she could return to interview me for the documentary to represent the new people coming here and what’s next for this place. I was tickled to hear her say that she was off the next day to film Cidade Ecletica for further footage, which had me feel a real sense of connection to the events transpiring in my experience of Brazil thus far – a confirmation that I am indeed in exactly the place I am meant to be in this moment in time.

This vision Paul had and the knowing of its significance is a relatively new thing for him. It’s happened once or twice in his life, but the occurrences of this are increasing. Like seeing the rock quarry a few days before we went to Pirenopolis where he saw the very quarry he’d seen in his vision. I too am occasionally having visions of identifiable places every now and then. Most recently I saw a very distinct vertical rock wall. A day or two afterwards we went for a long drive to explore the area and I kept thinking I was seeing the very one I saw in that vision, but we saw many similar cliffs that day and every now and then I see others. I was sure it represented where we would live….. These formations are not common closer to town.

So now it’s Tuesday. We have been enjoying this magical place we have moved into since Sunday. Yesterday we sat on the back porch which overlooks a part of the valley with scrub and smaller trees, leaving a large open portion of the sky visible to watch the birds as they fly long distances between the tall trees. From here we can see the huge eucalyptus tree where all the parrots sleep at night, near our former house. Just beyond the fenced part of our new yard is another very tall tree about forty feet tall which serves as a landing place for the same birds who fly across the valley from the top of one tall tree to another. This tree is not as fully branched and leafed, making it easier to watch the birds as they land and rest before moving on. We had a toucan family come and stay for a while late yesterday afternoon, just before dusk. After a while several others from their community came by to get them and they headed off out of view. Two very large green parrots came by for a short while after they left. Earlier in the day I watched as a species of bird I do not recognize, which has quite a long sleek kite like tail, tipped in bright yellow on an otherwise deeply black feathered body, joined several of its mates enjoying the other smaller trees in our yard. But even more unusual and equally as delightful is a very strangely funnel shaped insect hive that hangs from the underside of the roof, just off the porch where we sit. It is actually shaped like a pastry bag that you squeeze icing out of to decorate a cake, with a long narrow funnel like tube descending from the bag. All around the outside small black insects move about attending to whatever it is they do. Every now and then, though, a very strange sound emerges which sounds as if the insects are moving as a morphic field in unison, creating a mechanical, robot sounding hum as if all body parts of each were moving in tandem like a well choreographed dance line at Radio City music hall.

It’s quieter here in this valley, though we can still hear the sounds of town, particularly the cement mixer that’s being used in construction not too far away and the occasional barking dog. And then there are those cars, so common all over South and Central America, that have enormous speakers and drive around with paid advertisements and REALLY LOUD music…….We can still hear them, even though they can no longer get very close. The road in is a bit trepidatious and only used by 2 other houses

Several days later…..

Saturday December 26, 2009

Hello dear friends and loved ones. We hope that your Christmas festivities were satisfactory and enjoyable. We had the perfect day, sleeping in, then alternating our time between sitting on our porch watching birds and watching google videos throughout the day and late into the evening. Dusk comes now after eight o clock here in the southern hemisphere where we are close to the longest day of the year with the summer solstice only 5 days ago. It was a really peaceful day. The usual noise that drifts into the valley from town was subdued as families joined together to celebrate Natal. The air was fresher than I remember since the day I stepped out of “Betty,” our conversion van, in Nova Scotia near Kejimkujic and I noticed air for the 1^st time in my life! There’s a noticeable absence here of chem trails and the air is most definitely fresh and clean here in the chapada so far away from any industry or cities filled with the exhaust of automobile engines. The most annoying thing here in this part of Brazil is the sound of the weed whacker motor, which is what most people use to cut their grass down in the absence of lawn mowers. One guy with a whacker starts at one end of the street and day by day makes his way down from one yard to the next. We actually have an electric lawn mower in the laundry room which I am gearing up to use one day soon.

So we are settling into this new place and are feeling quite good about being here. From the house you really can’t tell you’re close to town as you look around and see only open space, mountains and the back of one or two other houses. Our biggest news is that we will welcome into our life our friend, a young Argentinean woman of thirty five and her 19 month old daughter. Since we have a very large house, we have offered for them to come and stay here with us. We have often talked of wanting to help others and now we will be put to the test to see if our ability to share our private space which we hold sacred, will flow easily or be confronting. It is time now on the planet to put our principles which formally existed in thought only into practice and into action. I have not lived communally in any form other than with my own family for many years and the thought of it excites me with possibility. To see if I can let go of needing to have control over my environment, and in particular from an aesthetic standpoint, will be an interesting thing to observe.

This sense of aesthetics is a compulsory feature of my personality. It is quite amusing for me to watch Mindy as she obsesses over the placement of every object in a room so that it visually is in harmony. For two days after I moved into the house I couldn’t take my attention off a desk which sat in the wrong place in the room. I moved it from place to place looking for the “right” spot for it where I felt it “belonged.” It conflicted with the lines of the room where an open floor plan cried out for uncluttered space to enjoy the curved alcoves and windows to the view of the mountains outside. Eventually I moved it to a downstairs room, engineering the movement by myself of a heavy object to a difficult location. Paul couldn’t help me because of a bad back, nor would he have cared to exert the energy when he felt it was fine where it was. This is simply an illustration of where my attention focuses when I can not keep it under control. In my environment, everything must be beautiful and in harmony. It is really one of the few things that remain of my Enneagram type fixation. But I accept it and work with it to keep it from being a source of irritation. It’s easier when there’s fewer people involved. Years ago when I lived with my four children and former husband, it was a constant source of irritation for me- a pair of size 15 shoes left in the middle of a room could drive me to distraction! So again I will experience piles of toys and shoes in the middle of the room and be given a new opportunity to go with the flow and not let the little things ruffle my feathers……

New Information

As we expected, now that we are closing in on the end of 2009, we are coming in to some new information. Paul scans constantly to know more about events transpiring around the globe. It is the most compelling of all our activities, to know everything we can know about the agenda of the ruling forces. I don’t know if any of you have been following the breaking news of what is being called “Climate Gate” and the fraudulent conspiracy of global warming…. This was hard for me to accept at first – what do you mean there is no global warming? But what about this and what about that, I wanted to know? All to impose huge carbon taxes on developing nations to bankrupt them….. Well not only that…. But now, more news that changes everything. It’s too soon for me to write coherently about what I am learning but once again I am faced with the thought “….everything I thought I knew and understood was a lie.” The key piece to the puzzle which connected the dots of the big picture for us was the “extra terrestrial” element. The inter breeding of alien life forms with humans since the beginning of known history, our origins….. So much more and so much that explains how the blood lines of the 13 ruling families could commit such inhumane atrocities. Well now we are getting new information that the “story” we have been uncovering is being manipulated by the Illuminati to have some of us believe in a scenario that isn’t entirely true. The “Disclosure Project” for instance was deliberately controlled mis-information. It seems there are not and have never been any extra terrestrial life forms, what we thought aliens were. There are indeed inter-dimensional life forms and have always been. We can not generally see into the dimension in which they exist but they are here with us. I can not say more now because it makes me look like an idiot, something I’m getting quite used to actually, but I usually wait to divulge information like this until I have some certainty that I know what I’m talking about and can give back up sources and references. Now I can only say that if you are at all interested you can do your own research into this avenue of information. Google things like: UFO’s, illuminati, Conspiritus Remake, William (Bill) Cooper, Phillip Schneider, MJ12….

All we know with any certainty or probability, is the agenda will likely include some staged event involving UFO’s and aliens. At first they will likely be introduced into public awareness as simply existing and eventually there could be some grand show. There may even be the notion that these are beneficent beings here to help. Seems most unlikely but some twist of fate will have them become malevolent with the only power to protect the citizens of the world a united one world government banded together to fight the greatest threat to mankind. Thus centralized control. It seems more likely that first there will be a great war in the Middle East involving nuclear armaments. And even more likely before that or simultaneously a total economic collapse, starvation and catastrophic disease – loss of many lives…. But first a false sense of economic recovery to take everyone off guard. Sounds absolutely horrible! Please let everything I just said be untrue. Actually I think we’ve done an outstanding job of diverting that business with mandatory flu shots (and the subsequent inoculations of hidden microchips) because enough people were hip to the plan, it couldn’t be carried out as it was intended. This can continue to happen with all their agendas if more people consider these notions to have some basis in truth and intentionality and take actions to reclaim their sovereignty. If we can unhook from the accepted norms, think deeply about everything, question what we’ve usually taken for granted and accepted without question, we have a chance to experience a more expanded awareness of life. First thing to do, if you haven’t already, and if you have any desire to expand your awareness, is to TURN OFF YOUR TV. Get unhooked from the hypnotic trance of mind control techniques. That is the WORST. Even televised sports events are working their magic (black magic) on you. Of course don’t take my word for it. Pull up a Google Video page and search mind control…..

I’ve felt it do its dirty deed on me. A year ago I spent a night in a hotel room and put the TV on to see what was being broadcast. It wasn’t long before the remote control in Paul’s hand was swiftly coursing through the available channels, searching for something that didn’t bore or irritate us. After three or four times around the channels I noticed we were both so plugged in we were getting frantic to find a channel that we could relax into and enjoy. Something made me grab the remote from his hand and turn the TV off. We both exhaled and realized we were magnetically being sucked into that TV and its vibration and it took a real effort to break the spell.

Last time I was in the States I went to a sports bar with my parents for dinner. In a place like that there are multiple TVs on every wall; you can not change direction without a direct view of a monitor. Everyone has to shout over the back ground noise to have any kind of conversation and even then, inevitably the person who you are talking to has their attention diverted to something on the screen. But there is a “fix” that people get from the vibration of the TV. It calms them down to hear the background sound of the TV, even if their attention is not focused on it. My dear mother for example doesn’t like to spend too much time away from checking in to see what’s going on. It acts as a stabilizer for her worldview and is a source of comfort. Many people knowingly use it as a way to relax and unwind from a hectic day. But I think it’s an addiction. My opinion…..

I hope you are still reading and haven’t given up on me and classified me as a certifiable kook. I’m not criticizing your lifestyle or saying anything you do or believe is wrong or misguided- maybe it is or maybe it isn’t….. I may be challenging some of your constructs – but maybe that is my job – to disturb the comfort zone and comfort the disturbance. For whatever reason I appear to possibly be doing that, you know I do it with love.

Monday December 28, 2009

Woke up this morning to the sound of Olivia’s voice happily beginning her day in her new house. First thing she said, her mother told us, was “Paul…..Paul….Paul…..” She adores him!

Rocket is in heaven because one of her favorite activities is feeding him. And he is getting to look like a butterball turkey – a round puntable football shape with legs. It will be difficult for Paul but we are determined to feed him less and slim him down so that he can nibble throughout the day and cultivate his new relationship with Olivia. At first it is taking the form of sibling rivalry as he competes for Paul’s attention with Olivia. Too funny!

A few days ago, we were given the okay to look through the books which belong to the man whose house we are living in and found much to our delight a book by Ianto Evans on building cob houses – The Hand Sculpted House. It’s just perfect as we have read his book on building small houses and knew about building with cob, but not how to do it. Now one of the things we most look forward to is getting a chance to read this book and learn how to use these techniques as we go about designing the house we want to build. Here in the chapada it is very apparent that people do not build with wood. Adobe is the material most commonly seen. With so much of the country’s trees harvested or burnt down to make way for pasture land to graze cows, it feels entirely wrong to even consider taking down a tree when so much effort is going into reforestation. (And there are ninety different species of termites competing for the wood.) So different from Vermont where there were so many trees and it was the natural choice for building materials. Here we have been shown how houses are constructed with adobe bricks which were made from the very earth the house sits upon at no expense other than the energy exerted to mix the soil and fill the brick shaped form. But time here is different from time there. I know this sounds erroneous, but time as you know is just a construct. In the US and many other places in the Western world people hold the notion that time is money. You have to charge for your time. Time is valuable. All your time must be used wisely. I could go on for a while with phrases that express our relationship to time and say much about how we approach life. It’s different here. Those same phrases aren’t necessarily thrown about off handedly without consideration. Probably there is a more natural relationship to time, in terms of sun light and moon light, dry or wet…… I’m still groking with it. I’ll let you know more later……

But speaking of time, let me just say a few words about night time here in this most bizarre of places we have landed for the time being. (There’s that word again) There seems to be another world that comes alive as the sun sets and darkness emerges. We have always felt something different about the night time here in Brazil. As if this is the land of the moon and there in the Northern hemisphere it was the land of the sun. I know I’ve mentioned this before. People start to think about eating dinner after 8 pm. If you are planning on an evening out or want to go listen to music or go to a party, it’s best to wait till after 10; midnight if you want to arrive when things are really happening. Maybe this is true there too if you are under forty? For a long time, eight at night was closing in on my bed time. (Man, I really give away my age when I admit to that!) For the first few nights we were here in this new house when darkness came we were thinking about locking the gate and all the doors and windows to be a little safer. I wasn’t going to tell this story but I will since it might help to explain why we felt this way. As you know I had my computer stolen, which made me more aware of the criminal element here. Seems we have a problem with crack heads among some of the town’s youth. Well just a few days after that happened, we were told about a woman who was murdered by her gardener. She lived quite close to the neighborhood where we stay. It was a gruesome murder and what was left of her body was discovered stuffed into her fireplace. Didn’t make us feel very safe and secure anymore knowing that. So darkness falls and we retreat to the inside behind closed and locked windows and doors. But, everywhere in the world, there are crazy crack heads who commit violent and insane atrocities, even on the street I grew up on as a young child. Well, I’ve been a little on edge since I heard that story – not my usual trusting open self. The other night though was a bit brighter under the 1^st quarter moon with no heavy cloud cover. Though the gate was locked, we left the glass double doors that lead to the porch open and sat out enjoying the night time breeze and the stars. It helped loosen the fear that has been holding me lately and allowed me to relax into the wonders of nighttime in Brazil. But this place is quite bizarre with its array of musical activities and sacred gatherings. Sometimes there are drumming groups and we know, though we haven’t attended one yet that there are several Ayahuasca churches who hold ceremonial rituals during the night. We often think we can hear them. The music is quite different. What we’ve been told by some is that the songs are given to people during the experience to be written and replayed for others. They contain sacred wisdom which changes you from a cellular level. Now no one actually told me that, but I happen to believe that can be true. Often at night we lie in our bed falling asleep to some music which lasts until dawn. At first it was disquieting and a little creepy, but now we are getting used to it. We will be happy though to move further from town where the night time sounds will be provided only by weather events and wildlife.

Well my dear friends and loved ones, this is as good a place as any to bring this newsletter to a close. Enjoy this last week of 2009. Paul joins me in sending our love….

December 12, 2009

Saturday December 12, 2009

Another glorious Saturday. I do love Saturdays. It’s market day. Here they call it the Ferias; perhaps I’ve already mentioned that? So many people to see and meet and talk to. Happy faces, pleased to see me. I love it.

Today I received an invitation to an Ayahuasca ritual tonight. A very special celebration with many people from many countries, coming together to acknowledge the survival of a friend who has suffered through fire with burns over 70 % of his body. He recuperates in California. The person who leads the ritual has returned from several months in Europe and stays now for 2 months.

But today we await the arrival of our friends who will join us here for the weekend, who come from Brasilia. So a ritual is not on the agenda this weekend. Perhaps an afternoon at the cachoeira (the waterfall)….

Still in the quandary of where to live next, we visited three places yesterday, one of which was a small house for rent across the street from the one we are in. It is an excellent price but again is available only for two months…. It is good to know that it is available while we await word on another much larger house in the valley behind us, which we might prefer.

The other two places were for sale, not rent. I’ll try to describe them as they were both quite spectacular and unusual in terms of anything I’ve seen in the States. There is a neighborhood on one edge of town which sits high on a hill and is mostly filled with very nice, more expensive homes and a few pousadas. It has an amazing view of the surrounding mountains which encircle the town. If you travel deep into this neighborhood there is a lane that passes through and out the other side which descends into the valley quite a ways. Though only 5 minutes from town, our destination was not at all part of town and ended at a river deep in the floresta and mata, the tall mature forest. At the end of the dirt road, we parked the car and walked across a very cool bridge from where we could see a lovely small cascading waterfall, at the bottom of which was a little pool. The sound of the water was enchanting and reached across to the other side of the river and up a small hill to where the house rested in the middle of very pretty gardens and an opening in the trees where there was a large circular fire pit, the construction of a sauna sagrada (sweat lodge) under way, another structure containing a wood fired oven and all purpose room of sorts, and another small storage building. The house itself was totally lovely, small but with room enough to have 3 bedrooms, a living room, dining area and kitchen. We liked that it was on three different levels, descending the slope of the hill. All beautifully hand crafted and very simple.

An incredibly lovely place but on a small piece of land, only 400 meters square… From there we walked down a well made path through and into the mata where the local herbario once lived and had planted with many herbs, plants and trees of all kinds. This too is now for sale. The land is much larger, very beautiful, lush and sacred in so many ways. In one secluded place in the forest was a bed of crystals. The house however which was once, although very simple and interesting in design an adequate structure, is now in disrepair and needs major reconstruction, but the possibilities are so enticing! Both of these places sit just above a river and are surrounded by beautiful forest. They are also just under a high ridge where the cell and internet towers stand, making it possible to have those services with no problem. Access in by car, however is not possible, so for us it would be like returning to the same problems we encountered in Vermont before we built the driveway which came up to the door, making our life 100% easier, particularly in snow and ice. Here we have only to be concerned with heavy rain, but a long walk in from the car especially returning with groceries, wouldn’t be fun. Still……. We are keeping all the possibilities open…

Later…

Speaking of possibilities…. There’s more. Speaking with an American woman at the ferias today about many things as we always do whenever we meet up, she is looking for someone to write her stories, of which she has many. I have been eager to spend some time with her to hear her stories, because Paul and I have an idea we’d like to delve deeper into…. And so it seems we will come together to work on this project. When is hard to pinpoint and here again my need to be very open will have to develop yet further and wait (waiting is a major developmental need for me!) until the time is right.

But, I have good news. I have just returned from an inside look at the house behind me in the valley and I have seen that it is a good place for us and where I’d like to be next. So if it will be available, and today I have found out there is some uncertainty, then it will be the one. And if not, I have a back up choice in mind. Now perhaps I will relax and leave it go from my thoughts and my concerns until our return next week from the city.

So it seems like many of you I would imagine who are busy now with end of the year activities, we too will be very busy for the next week. After our friends spend the weekend we will travel to Brasilia, to Pirenopolis, to Anapolis, to Ecletica, back to Brasilia and then return. We have a few items to attend to, people to see, things to do and things to buy….. It will be a nice diversion from life here in the chapada. I’m happy to say that the rain has eased up a bit and we have seen the sun for a couple days. Funny, but you wouldn’t think that here so close to the equator, it could get so chilly, but the altitude keeps it mostly quite a bit cooler than other places. I was delighted to find that there’s a wood stove in the house we might rent. Paul has been yearning for one and I too have often wished for one on cool damp evenings. Evenings when some of those wool sweaters I left behind would be welcome.

It’s strange being an introvert and fairly shy, while craving connections and a need to be in the middle of everything, at least to know what’s going on that I’m missing, it holds me in a quandary – wondering where I want to be. All places all the time, everywhere at once – well it’ll probably happen after consciousness shifts. Again a need for patience. It comes up all the time.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

So tomorrow a new moon - new beginnings….

Today many things changed. This morning we woke up with the intent to make some sort of a plan. Over tea and coffee we got out the calendar and a notebook to make an attempt at figuring out our life- what exactly we needed to focus on, what we needed to prepare for, what was important… stuff like that, more or less. Here’s why: we’d had a plan, one we’d been several weeks in making. After our friends left for Brasilia, we were going to drive there and take care of some business. We set things in place to stay with friends, to go together with their help translating to take care of some stuff. But Dawbey and Marinia had plans to stay well into the day on Monday with us and this meant that leaving early to do our stuff didn’t feel right. I had anxious feelings all day Sunday about going. It didn’t feel right and I really didn’t want to go. When I voiced my concerns to Paul he listened to me and decided that if I was having strong feelings not to go, then we wouldn’t. He said it was important that I listen to my heart and that there was something important we needed to heed- perhaps an accident, or some other problem that might occur if we were to go in the face of this strong feeling making me feel very deeply that I didn’t want to go. So we called and sent emails, postponing our meetings until further notice.

This morning we woke up after profound dreams. Paul dreamed he was dreaming and had dreams inside of dreams. Puts me in mind of Chang Tzu dreaming he was a butterfly dreaming he was Chang Tzu (fantastic story! If you haven’t discovered Chang Tzu – treat yourself to the gift of reading his stories – here’s a link to Amazonhttp://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Chang+tzu&x=10&y=17) Anyway, his dreams were something special and mine, although I can’t say it was a dream I recalled or merely a knowing I woke up with that left me in a different kind of place that was far superior to yesterday. So now that our friends were gone and we’d had a night to sleep on it and process all that happened over the weekend with them, we knew we needed to regroup and figure out a new plan to replace the one we decided to scrap the day before.

So we sat with notebook and pen in hand, a calendar nearby but mostly blank minds that refused to project into the future and come up with a coherent plan. They just wouldn’t engage. And then with a little help from my friends, it occurred to me to draw a symbol that represented us today and another symbol that represented us in the future with our permanent visas in hand buying land and building a house. Another to represent us on February 8^th with no visa….. Hopefully you get the idea, as my brain is not cooperating in describing the full details, but suffice it to say that the drawing out of possible future scenarios depending on all the variable outcomes, revealed a clearer picture of steps we needed to take to plan for all the possibilities. Meanwhile, or more accurately before we’d even begun this endeavor, I picked up the phone and called the friend with the house in the valley I wanted to rent to find out about its availability, only to be told that just yesterday the call came saying that the people who might rent it were not going to come, but another person called to say they wanted it for a year and would sign a contract. In any case, she said, we could come over and talk to her this afternoon while she was there cleaning the house. So I shared this with Paul and we figured, well, no big deal we’d rent the other one because it was likely we’d have to leave the beginning of February anyway, but we’d go over later and have a talk. Turned out to be a good talk which lasted all the way into the evening (with a break in between) and covered many topics least of which was the fact that in spite of our uncertainty of the length of time we’d be able to stay, she wanted to rent the house to us. So on Sunday we will move. Paul and I are both quite delighted with this plan and actually very surprised it turned out as it did, particularly as we had finally arrived at the conclusion to rent the smaller, cheaper house, just before the visit.

During the time we left her to finish cleaning the house before she came by ours later to continue our chat, we went to return a video and noticed the ferias was open so we stopped to buy a loaf of bread. We saw another friend and stopped to say hello and she told us an interesting story. It seemed she had left yesterday morning to drive to Brasilia with a long shopping list. When she reached the top of the hill out of town, her car broke down and so she of course had to cancel her trip while her car is in the shop being repaired. (Sound familiar?) Then she told us that her son had invited her to go to Mato Grosso for Christmas and she really wanted to go but she had a strong feeling in her heart she shouldn’t go. She mentioned thinking of visiting her 84 year old father but he was too busy with his girlfriend and wasn’t interested in her visiting so instead she decided to go to Brasilia and do this long list of things even though she didn’t really want to go. Her decision to go in spite of the feeling that she really didn’t want to and having her car break down – the very thing Paul said to me might happen if we went ahead and went even though I had such a strong feeling not to go was a good reinforcement for me to listen to my heart and honor those gut feelings. Another case for eliminating the word should from our experience of life. But here’s the real kicker. If we’d gone to Brasilia yesterday morning as planned, the house in the valley would have been rented to the guy who was coming over after us and wanted it for the year.

So to sum up before I head off to bed for new dreams, today we figured out our future in so many ways. We have a house to move into at the end of the week and contingency plans for many of the possible scenarios that might unfold; not only that, but answers to many questions, new possibilities which before today didn’t exist that I will share with you tomorrow.

Thursday December 17, 2009

We begin again, a new moon cycle. This morning Paul suggested we pretend to get new super powers with each new moon. Why not? “Which ones,” I asked him, “should we get this time?” We’ve both forgotten which one’s we chose, except I recall something about better meditations and this so far has happened with this cycle. Well, we do have all new possibilities which I have begun to describe and will continue to elaborate on further.

But first, a little more about Paul as he is being rather delightful lately…. He is like a walking live musical. He grew up with a mother who loved show tunes and the radio was his best friend during those years before TV was so prominent in every house. He was whistling a tune this morning as we sat together having tea - he often gets the worst head runners and this was no exception! “I must have tapped into the smaltzy part of the universe while I was meditating today,” he said. “You open your mind and you don’t know what’s going to come in.”

We were discussing the effect some people have on us; the rate of their vibrations can be so different than ours that it often takes us some time to recuperate from being around them. You know we’re all just vibrations and electrical energy….. Our American friend Tivani is an eight on the Enneagram, a protector, and she talks so fast and has so much to say that it’s hard to keep pace with her. We’re still readjusting to our own speed after spending time together. That plus 2 and ½ days with our young friends from Brasilia; we’re still settling back down to prepare for what’s coming next.

So what is coming next? For starters we are packing up to move over to the house in the valley behind us. It’s a very cool place, hand built by its Dutch owner who will spend more time in California recovering from his burns. It has four bedrooms and so we will be in a position to receive guests quite nicely while we are there. But how long we will be there is the big question?

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So I received an email from someone who reads my newsletters on the blog. She is someone I’ve never met. She asked me what inspired us to come to Brazil and make this big life change, which was a good question to answer considering every now and then, Paul asks me what we’re doing here and if this is where he wants to spend the rest of his life. Immediately he knows that it is unlikely and rephrases it to where he wants to spend “the Armageddon” But that word is so strong, we like to rephrase it as the time when the shift in consciousness takes place. So I thought it might be fun to share my answer with you, especially those of you who may have started reading these posts recently and have not read the earlier entries.

For many years I have been wanting to live outside the US for many reasons which include my desire to live in different cultures which in my mind are much richer (not monetarily, but otherwise) than the American culture (more accurately, the American lack of culture) and my dissatisfaction with the government's policies and a feeling that I didn't want to be associated with that in any way.... You must travel outside the US to know that there are completely different worlds out here, because we are not really given any information about this, for a purpose!

With that in mind, Paul and I have been watching and researching what is going on in the world behind the scenes for several years- news that is considered esoteric or secret only because you can not get it from any mainstream media sources- so it must be sought out in books, on the internet, etc. At the same time we have each always questioned everything and used many tools to know more, for instance meditation, altered states of consciousness, psychological models of exploring patterns of behavior to know ourselves better and gain a broader understanding of not only ourselves but the world around us. (I'm trying to sum this up- bear with me...) So we came across a real deep knowing and understanding of global events that are in the process of unfolding and with this knowledge we felt very compelled to leave the US which is being used as a template for a one world government controlled population of dumbed down, consumer oriented, basically slaves to the system to further an agenda of the ruling families who call themselves the Illuminati. Now, I know this sounds completely crazy, but I am answering your question as honestly as I can and trying to do it as briefly as possible. With this in mind we were especially highly motivated to leave there and I think I've detailed some of our other reasons (financial, spiritual, etc) for leaving there to come here.

But why Brazil? A couple things: we had an opportunity to come to Brazil to use Ayahuasca which is a shamanic entheogen, a tea brewed from 2 plants which induce an altered state of consciousness for access to other realms and dimensions of reality that can not be experienced in normal waking consciousness. We worked on a research project with a graduate student who knew that we work with a model that measures stages of consciousness development (ego development) She hired us to score the protocols of people before and after using Ayahuasca. Brazil is one of the few places in the world where Ayahuasca is legal and there are churches here (a little like the Native American's peyote churches) where it is a part of the religious and spiritual beliefs..... While we were in Brazil we discovered a country where 80% of the people are very spiritual. It is a place where people are poor but very happy. Priorities are different. You can see it in little ways like the fact that Brazilians are never on time. Why is this? Because relationships are more important that keeping schedules, so if someone drops by to visit or you encounter someone you know on the street, the conversation takes priority over the appointment. Now is more important than later. There are many examples of ways in which the people are different and this more than anything called to us. In the 6 weeks we traveled through Brazil last winter we made more friends and encountered more people who saw the world the way we did than in our whole (very long) lives. We have always been very open but through the years we have taught ourselves to develop this quality even more, so on the last day of our travels we encountered a very special experience. On that day we visited a Spiritist Temple. We were lucky to have met an Argentinean man who spoke English and translated for us while we met with the mediums for passes. I wrote about this in my earliest newsletters. While Paul was receiving passes, he felt a vibrational shudder through his body and was instructed to get down on his knees and touch his head to the floor. He was told that his entity was very near. The medium who was working with him began to kiss his head and fell into a kind of devotional swoon and showered him with more love than he had ever experienced in his whole life. He sent someone away for a flower from the alter and carefully blew smoke all over the flower, blessing it before presenting it to Paul and telling him,” What you're looking for is here in Brazil. Not necessarily here in this place but here in Brazil. You have to make a choice between the material and the spiritual life. Keep this flower with you until you make the choice. You don't have to make it right away, but time is short. When you decide, bury the flower under a tree. Don't let anyone else touch the flower."

Well, you can imagine, that was a pretty special experience and one that could hardly be ignored. So to sum it all up, we chose a spiritual life. We went home to Vermont, sold everything and moved to Brazil.

More good news:

I have just received an email from our advisor who has communicated with the lawyer who is working on our visas. He assures us we have no cause for concern, that there is no chance the visas will be denied and that the worst possible scenario will be having to drive across the border for only one day. He has also advised us to pursue our plans to stay with no concerns. That is good news and now we can put contingency plans aside.

Cristal cachoeira

Monday we visited another waterfall close by while our friends visited. An amazing place, we thought for a minute we walked onto a Disney set- it was so perfectly beautiful that it seemed too good to be real. But real it was as it cascaded down the mountain in a series of waterfalls with pools at the bottom of each. A trail led along the side of the river with a spur off in ten or twelve places to reveal another spectacular fall all the way to the very bottom where the most spectacular of all falls descended straight down several hundred feet. The resident golden Labrador retriever took it upon herself to be our guide and demonstrated a swim in each pool all the way to the end and back. As we swam in the last pool the rain started and we climbed the trail back up the hill to the thatched pavilions where we sat watching the rain for a while. The snack bar which we could see by the signs, served acai was closed for the weekdays, and we had the place to ourselves – a fun way to experience the sights.

Until next time then we send our love your way…..

December 6, 2009

Sunday December 6, 2009

Very rainy day. Although we’d had plans to visit Vistara’s valley between nine and ten, we thought it little likely we’d go much before noon as it didn’t seem the rain would let up anytime soon. So we downloaded the next in the series of David Icke’s Melbourne lecture to continue watching in between our other activities while we waited for the rain to stop and Vistara to come by.

No idea what time it was, probably around noon, I left the office where the laptop sat on my makeshift desk in front of an open window, to make a cup of tea while the next part loaded in. Paul had left the table where he’d been drawing building designs, to check on the video and shouted to me in the kitchen, “Min, where’s the computer?”

“What do you mean?” I said and joined him in the office to see an empty space where the laptop had just been sitting, the modem and cord, detached and resting on the desktop. Not one bark from any of the 3 dogs who provide our security. No sound of a car driving off. Just an emptiness. My heart started racing as I ran out of the house looking to see if I could spot the thief, making off with my laptop. There was no one in sight as I ran in all the directions a thief could retreat in, but all that was there was an eerie silence among the raindrops and no one about. We jumped in the car and drove off to see if anyone looked to be retreating with my computer-but nada. So we came home and saw Vistara just on her way out the gate and told her what had happened. The three of us then drove to the civil police to file a report, actually the intent being to get help in finding the computer. Then headed off to the military police with a stop 1^st at the radio station, but found no one there this rainy Sunday afternoon.

Tuesday December 8, 2009

So I suppose there can’t be all good news without an equal amount of bad news, just because we traveled to the other side of the equator. Though calm and accepting of my loss on Sunday, Monday brought the full emotional impact of Sundays’ event into focus. The realization that all my photos from the last 6 months were gone with no back-up as well as all my writing, just added a bitter twist to the feeling of violation that someone would enter my home (even though it was just reaching in through the window)

where previously I had felt very secure and steal my stuff. Of course I realize it was like leaving a hot delicious fragrant pie on the window sill, just begging to be stolen, and I appropriately scolded myself for my stupidity, naivety and innocence, but it is contrary to my nature to be wary and distrustful. Now, I have had a hard lesson in the reality of life where some have while others have not, and even if I treat all people with love and respect, there are some who do not. I’m fairly certain my thief was a kid from the poorer side of town who wanted my computer to play games. But he didn’t take the power cord or the modem, so the computer will soon do him no good, once the battery runs out and he realizes the difficulty in obtaining a new power cord that will power it up. I suppose the passport protection could be overridden by someone with computer experience….

So this is where my thoughts have been dwelling since Sunday. Here and re-evaluating our future needs for security. I have been so opposed to the setup most other foreigners have employed, that of a securely fenced and gated encampment with a full time security person living on the property. Surely the benefits are great as this person can also be employed to help with gardening and construction projects, and perhaps domestic work. But this scenario is so unappealing to me in so many ways – it separates and puts value judgments on people based on who has more and who has less. There’s always big dogs…. But the last thing we want is to be prisoners of our home and our stuff, afraid to leave because someone might come and take it.

It’s hard to come back from an event like this and try to return to where you were before it happened – it seems to color everything…. Sunday morning I had written several pages for the blog – all lost now – but I seem to recall I was writing about how much I loved Saturdays here with the local market called the ferrias; I wrote about the really cool artisans we met there that day, shopping for a few holiday gifts and visiting the local herboligist…. It was quite good, what I wrote, full of insights and cool stories to share with you, but I can’t go back and retrieve it now and the mindset that wrote it has left the building, replace by a disappointed and somewhat sad one who can’t quite muster the enthusiasm for regaling you with fun tales of life here in Brazil.

Wednesday December 9, 2009

Ah my friends and loved ones, it’s been hard to return to the keyboard and write anything since Sunday. I’ve been fighting with the demons who control my emotions and feeling a mixture of sadness, loss, disappointment, loss of trust, confusion…. Not to mention I am sharing Paul’s laptop now, so when I use it, he can not. It’s been raining and gloomy for days as well which doesn’t help elevate one’s mood when it’s already fighting for lightness.

So Paul thinks this was a good lesson for me. He’s pleased that I will now face the reality that issues of security need to be considered and that I might stop accusing him of being fearful when in his mind he is being realistic and sensible and I have been naively in denial, trusting everyone to do the right thing and be as full of love for one another as I am. Okay. The Way always brings lessons, sometimes they are costly.

Meanwhile we come to a cross roads of sorts where we need to make change and decisions about change again. This has been preoccupying my thoughts even before the loss of the computer on Sunday. We knew when we rented the house we are in now that it would be only for 2 months because it was promised to another after that. As time gets closer to that date we are trying to locate another house to rent. It has been a little more difficult this time without our English speaking friend to assist us. He is undertaking the 21 day process to go without food in search of enlightenment or at the very least an end to his suffering over the breakup of his marriage. Our landlady, who is the one and only real estate agent in town and knows about everything, has been trying to assist us, but we are operating with a slight handicap because of our difficulties with language. And today another complicating factor has entered the conversation.

We have been given an extension on our tourist visas to stay until February 8^th. It has been hoped by all that we would hear something before then about the status of our permanent visas. As yet we have not. It is possible that we will need to leave Brazil at that time for up to 6 months before we can return on our tourist visas. So with this in mind, it affects our ability to commit to a 3 or 6 month rental – it may be only 8 weeks before we need to leave. With the holiday season lurking, there is a demand for rental houses here and the availability is diminishing quickly. I can not help feeling a little pressured and nervous about this scenario, though I know something wonderful will turn up and it would be better to stay calm and at peace – keep worry from disrupting my sense of well being. This is a dilemma I know we all face. Different circumstances but similar patterns of reaction and behavior. Today the sun is shining. I could be enjoying this moment, now is all that exists. If I fill this moment with concern, my experience of life is that, one of concern. I suppose I could wait, do nothing and let the universe bring me what it will and trust that it will be perfect, but I am too conditioned to believe that I must be proactive. If I do not take actions to insure that we find another house, what will become of us on the day we need to leave this one?

Likewise Paul’s thoughts have gone slightly further into the future to coming up with a plan for leaving Brazil in February should the need arise, where we will go and what will become of Rocket. There is the possibility of some work for him in the States and he is considering returning for a short time to do the work. Travel with Rocket does complicate matters. There are many different rules concerning travel with pets and depending on where we go and for how long we stay, many options need to be considered and much information needs to be gathered.

From our studies in ego development, we know that living in the mystery and uncertainty is not only tolerated but preferred by those who have obtained a higher perspective, and though there are certainly times when this is true for us, there are also times when our sense of security cries out for certainty. Where will I sleep in two weeks time? I’d like to know, I can’t help it. Wish I could just let it live in the uncertainty and not feel a need to know…..

Later in the day…..

Home again, computer is once again free…where was I???? Contemplating change…. I do love change, so does Paul. In fact we both thrive on change. Some years ago I believe it was 1999 when I left Boulder, I decided I would set for myself a 5 year plan to see and experience as much of the world as I could. I thought then that if I liked a place I would stay up to 5 years before moving on to another. It’s been like that more or less since then, 5 years in Florida, 5 in New England – with 2 on Cape Cod and 3 in Vermont. Paul, on the other hand has a 3 year plan. After 3 years in one place he feels ready to move on. We’ve been discussing this as we imagine ourselves buying land and building a little house. There are two factors at play, well more than that actually, but I’ll start there. Traveling is great and we love it, but it’s also so important to have a home base. If for nothing more than a place to leave some of your stuff, though that’s not the whole of it. A kitchen is critical after a while. So while there are still many places we want to explore and experience we both agree we need somewhere to call home and this place right now appeals to us in our most positive of mindsets. In our perfect scenario, we can envision a beautiful valley, plenty of water, fertile land to grow our food, friends or family there to share our life, a well designed house that meets our needs, dogs to love and to scare away intruders, chickens for eggs and to keep the snakes away… An idyllic life, safely away from the fray of too many people and too much noise. In this perfect life, we can leave whenever we like and go for as long as we like, knowing that our friends and family are there taking care of things, loving the animals, enjoying the life that we will eagerly return to when the call to travel has been satisfied… I have no question that this is possible. But there are a few obstacles to overcome to help it manifest. For starters we need family and friends to be with us, living this dream. And of course the visas would go a long way towards making it happen.

We had a similar dream in Vermont. But it’s different there. Everyone we knew was enrolled in their own dream, there wasn’t much byway of shared dreams. I think cooperative living is so necessary for many of us to realize our dreams. Shared resources are vital. So we couldn’t produce the kind of enormous quantities of money to make that kind of thing happen there but here we can.

I have to be honest with all of you. I fear for what could happen there and happen soon. We have time and the intense interest to seek out information about things and you all know, that is what we do. I try to keep you informed to a small extent about things I think you really need to know, but I know that most of you have little time for researching information, even the time to watch a few videos and read an occasional article. You each have a wonderful and very full life, friends and family, jobs, houses and lives to run. It’s more complicated there and it takes so much more to keep up, I know, I too have lived this life. I’ve chosen something a little different and it is quite a bit simpler. It’s not for everyone, though I like to share a little about what it’s like so you can consider if it’s a viable option. You see, you don’t have to be trapped in a life you wish to be other than it is. I was for many years before realizing I didn’t have to be. But my real point is, as I started off to say, things will likely be changing there. It may not be life as you have always known it. At first the change may seem subtle as little things may seem unconnected before they form a big picture. I like the way David Icke explains it as connecting the dots. These isolated events don’t seem that big of a deal but connected into a whole picture, it’s monumental. Somehow, Paul and I were lucky(?) enough to be able to step back enough to find a better observation point and see how it all fit together. You may likely see a total collapse of the economy. Getting good food and good water may become a problem. There is a good chance that some major event will be staged that enables martial law to be instated. More and more losses of personal freedoms will become apparent and visible in a way that is now still less apparent. Travel in and out of the country could become restricted. Our psyches will have become so tampered with through the use of genetically modified foods, prescriptive medications, (god forbid) implanted microchips, fluoridated drinking water and more that we will no longer be in control of our own emotions or thoughts. It sounds scary and I don’t want to frighten anyone, only to awaken you to the possibility that this could happen and in fact may already (is already) happening. It’s not too late to stop it if enough people stop going along with it, in a state of denial that anything that bad could really happen. It can and it is. I remember way back in the 80’s hearing that this product or that product caused cancer. Remember that Joe Jackson song with the line “Everything gives you cancer?” Paul (my original Paul) used to say, screw it, if I stopped eating everything that gives you cancer I’ve have nothing to eat. We heard then, but we ignored the real truth of it because everything is and was inundated with harmful effects. Only those of us who could afford to take the warnings seriously and buy only organically grown foods or grow our own, could have hoped for better health than most, but even that couldn’t protect us from disease because it is programmed into everything. Over population has been a problem for a long time according to the few ruling families who control everything and Planned Parenthood wasn’t their only solution. Wars, genocide, aids, cancer, childhood immunizations are only a few measures created to depopulate the planet.

“Don’t tell me this,” my children all want to say to me. “I want to have a life with some promise of a happy future. I don’t believe you. You’re crazy.” I want that for us too. I just don’t want us to sleep through our only chance of having it. There’s still time to prevent Big Brother watching us from our big screen TV’s in every room of our houses, lulling us into being consumer slaves with no ability to think for ourselves outside of the program. Did you ever see Woody Allen’s movie “Sleeper?” Great movie. Watch it sometime soon.

Well my dears, now that I have sufficiently frightened you or brought your attention to these harsh realities, but of course you must already have known if you’ve read this far into my newsletters, I should like to tell you something good. Well. There is a great outcome at the end of all this suffering. Consciousness will shift on the planet. People will no longer live divided and at war with one another fighting for survival. Peace will reign again. Fear will be gone and love will rule the day. We’ll get through this and show these creeps that we’re not going along with their plan to be dominated into submission, eliminated and reduced to total mindless subservience. Our beautiful children will grow up to be pioneers of the new ways. It’ll happen.

I suppose this is as good a place as any to end this letter. I hope to report good news in the next one. For now our wishes go out to all of you for warm homes (we hear there are big storms about) and happy times with loved ones during the holidays and the close of 2009.

Big hugs – Mindy and Paul

Oh yeah, one last thing… If you have time, try to watch Jill Bolte Taylors video about her experience, suffering a stroke. As a neuro scientist, she witnessed herself having this phenomenal experience and was able to report back on some amazing findings. It’s been on the web for a few years; in fact Edy found it and sent it to me back then. If you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend it.

December 3, 2009

Wednesday December 3, 2009

Dear friends and loved ones,

So we’ve come around again to the last month of the year. We’re hoping that in each of your lives there have been rays of light and love. Yet I know this has been for some a year of incredible loss as well, as I join my dear friend in the sadness and loss of both her parents and her husband. But as 2009 comes to a close, I give thanks that more of us have awoken to the reality of secret agendas designed to harm and eliminate more of us and are changing the tides of their proposed outcomes.

Reality?

One of the things that Paul and I do is watch videos, both for information and for enjoyment and entertainment. We have an interesting video store here in town. As well as a selection of videos, they also sell an assortment of books on topics suitable to a graduate course in transpersonal psychology, go figure? Their selection of videos are not all that much different from those you’d find in any independent video store in the States, if you could still find an independent video store there, though all the titles are of course in Portuguese, even those which are originally made in English. So we go every few days and pick one or two to watch in both English and then in Portuguese, always with subtitles in the pursuit of a better grasp and understanding of the language. But there’s something we discovered a few years back that I wonder if any of you have also discovered? In the genre of films called “science fiction” are hidden truths and esoteric agendas of the powerful “elite” who are orchestrating life on the planet. Just watch a few and see if you agree with us. They are alarmingly real, many of them.

A few days ago we picked up a video called “Thirteenth Floor.” Normally I fall immediately asleep a few minutes into the video as some of you know. But this one held my attention and was one of those rare films that I wanted to start over from the beginning as soon as it ended. So I am recommending it to any who are interested. It deals with the topic of reality and time travel….

More recommendations…..

Last week we watched a You Tube video called The Esoteric Agenda- the final version. Although this is not a new film, it gives an interesting review of history and a summary in the last couple sections that’s quite good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvp5BcICsig

But the one we are highly going to recommend for everyone to see, even though we are still only on part 5 of 46 at the moment is David Icke’s live presentation in Melbourne in April which is now available in 46 (10 minute) parts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHk5fnDk8r4

Unlike his older talks, at least thus far into the talk, his emphasis is more on consciousness than journalistic reporting of events. If our internet connection was better, we’d drop everything to watch it straight through, but as it is we have to wait to load each section in when the internet speed allows.

So I know, or at least am guessing, that those of you who are reading this are thinking, “I don’t have time to do that! I have a busy life. I have a job, stuff to do….” Am I right? Please, take the time. You will be happy in the end you did, because it could change everything. What if you could have a life that wasn’t so busy? What if your job and your responsibilities didn’t take up the majority of your time and you had more time to do the things you enjoy, which bring you pleasure, peace and joy? Or how about having time to simply be - not do? It is possible, you know.

A different kind of life

Some time back I talked about how it feels to us like we traveled through the looking glass – like we went to the other side of the mirror, so to speak. In this place in particular it often feels surreal, but here it is very different from other places in Brazil in that regard. For some of you this might not be as good a fit as it seems to be for us. But allow me to paint a general picture for you:

In the US, like many people we lived a very nice life. We had a cool house, two good cars, comfy furniture, great food… we also had a mortgage that cost in the neighborhood of $1500 or so a month, health insurance that cost upwards of $650 a month, but that was only because we were lucky enough to purchase it through our business account and would likely cost more than twice that much for a couple not lucky enough to own their business, food bills that ran somewhere around $800 a month, electric bills, phone bills, internet bills, trash service, hmmmm, lots more but I’m not remembering. Luckily, a few years ago we eliminated all our credit card debt and stopped using credit altogether, switching to only using debit cards and spending only what we had. Granted we still had a hefty student loan and super high medical bills, but all the others we’d been able to eliminate.…….

Fast forward to February of last year…..

When we decided to move to Brazil, we sold almost everything. There where things that couldn’t be sold, children’s’ photos and artwork, books, a few favorite clothes – the stuff you just can’t seem to whittle down any further – and those went into a storage locker with the intent of retrieving them at a later date. But when we sold the house, we were fortunate to recoup the down payment we invested when we bought it. That, more or less, is the extent of our “nest egg.”

Fast forward even more to now….

So…. With this nest egg and a minimal retirement income – here’s the kind of life we can have:

We can buy enough land to provide our own clean water, grow most of our food and live peacefully in a lovely little house which we will design and have built with the “nest egg,” – NO MORTGAGE. We have no need of health insurance. Here, if we need Western medicine, we can go to a private doctor (sometimes without an appointment) for about $80, or we can wait and for much less (maybe free) go to the public hospital. But better yet, we can see one of many alternative health care providers who can treat our symptoms with natural plant medicines that have no counter indications. And these are not new age remedies, but ancient and sometimes shamanic wisdom traditions that have healed and cured people through the ages. (More on this topic later on) For less than $1000 a month we can live very comfortably – even paying rent on a very nice and large house. Once our house is built, we think we will actually be able to save money every month from our social security income. Though we lived well but somewhat modestly in the States, it cost us in the neighborhood of $7000 every month!

We don’t have to WORRY all the time about how we’re going to pay the bills. What if there’s no work???? We don’t have to rush off every morning to go to a job, that even if we love what we do, takes us away from each other for the whole day- bringing us home tired to begin the task of preparing a meal, washing the clothes, paying the bills and then maybe with the little time that’s left over, enjoying our loved ones or sitting down to a good film or a good book before collapsing exhausted into bed for a fitful sleep, only to wake up and begin again the same routine.

So granted, we are lucky enough to have gotten ourselves out of major debts and we have lived long enough to be old enough to collect a little social security retirement pension, but let me tell you about the young people who live here….

On Saturday mornings at the local farmers market, Uta who has a two year old baby, brings two trays of homemade pizza to sell by the slice for 1 real each, 3 if you get a bigger piece. She spends Friday afternoon making it. With that money she can buy the groceries and things that she needs for herself and her baby for the week. She lives in a really cool house with a Buddhist meditation “temple” which her friends are welcome to come to anytime to meditate together.

Barbara and her boyfriend have opened a room in the house they rent as a restaurant for dinner one night a week and lunch one afternoon. They have a great life….

Just two examples, but the point being that it really doesn’t take much more than a little ingenuity to create a way to earn enough money to support a really great lifestyle here or in many other places throughout South America. Rents cost about $400 a month for something REALLY nice, and even less for something simpler. In parts of Brazil, north of here, we hear the cost of living is considerably less.

I tell you this, not to show you what we have done, while you have not, but to invite you to consider that this example of the costs of living are available to anyone who chooses to change their life. This is possible. If you’ve never left the US for more than a travel vacation, it might not occur to you that a different kind of existence is possible; that you don’t have to be a slave to money so much. This is just an example of one place you could be and have a different kind of life; there are many others and we are happy to share our experiences in an effort to help you along the way to find your own piece of paradise, whether here or elsewhere. You CAN step out, you can disengage, if you want to…..

Think about it! When I was young and had young children, I missed out on being with them, getting to really know who they were. I was too busy! If I wasn’t working, I was cooking or shopping or paying bills or doing laundry or simply too tired to engage in actually being with them. Is it the same for you? Have you had to wait to get to know your grandchildren instead or maybe you’re still too busy? Or maybe like me, they live too far away!

I just feel totally ripped off about this. I feel like a big part of my life was stolen from me. I look at families here in Brazil and I am so envious of how close they are. Still together, 2 or 3 generations, all helping each other, completely in love and joy… In my greatest fantasy I imagine all five of our children here with us, with their own families, watching my grandchildren grow up, sitting together under the stars enjoying meals together…. But likely our current reality has them so busy they can’t even take the time to sit and read such a long letter and they strive daily to find the love that was missing when they so desperately needed it as children, but we as their parents were too busy to demonstrate.

Sucks, doesn’t it?

Well……..Enough of this for the moment. I shall go for a walk with Rocket to the river, before the afternoon rains return and see what else springs to mind that I can share with you. Until then, I carry you in my heart……

Adventures in Rocket’s land

Back…. So we didn’t exactly beat the afternoon rain, but it was mighty refreshing to be out in it for a little while.

Rocket is so much like Paul, it’s a little scary! He has to know EVERYTHING! When we walk he always wants to explore more, go further. But he so much wants to please and be with us that he always stops, looks back and if we’ve changed direction, he follows. Three gates were open today, areas he hasn’t be able to explore before now. Even a small crack in the gate was enough of an invitation today to go snoop around and see what was there. Funny! But he’s so fast, one look up to check in and he quickly zooms to catch up as he did when I got back to our gate and he zipped past me to be on the inside, not left behind. Once he came up to the gate from the outside when we were inside, the day he escaped from his babysitter to come home to find us where we were. That day was an experiment to see how he’d do, to be left in the care of someone else. He stood patiently and expectedly, waiting to be noticed so he could return to his “pack.”

Maybe you were wondering about Paul and I have neglected to tell you that he is completely recovered from his treatment. Wow! That was scary, but the end result, though not worth it in his words, is fantastically clear, beautiful skin – like a baby! No sign of any pre-cancers that were lurking below the surface waiting to show up next year or the year after. The stuff seems to have worked. But yikes, it was too hard and too painful and we wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. When our friends came by and saw how ravaged his face was, like a 3^rd degree burn, one said, “With all the natural plant medicines here, why would you use a pharmaceutical?” Well in our defense we thought the Brazilian products would be less toxic.

So maybe this is a good time to say a little more about Western medicine and the pharmaceutical companies and health care in general. What a lousy system! And boy were we trapped in it. Our medical bills were outrageous. All that money to the health insurance companies and they still didn’t pay for anything like a test ($1000- no matter what the test was looking for.) Western doctors prescribe medications. Medications are manufactured by pharmaceutical companies and I feel safe to say that their business model would be ruined if everyone got healthy from their products. Health is not their business – I am sure they never said it was. Down here it has been told to me by more than one person that they hesitate to buy anything from a pharmaceutical company because all manufactured medications come with a thing called counter – indications. This is a list, and sometimes quite a lengthy list, of systems that could be or will be negatively affected while this medication is attempting to cure what is wrong. Did you know that to patent a pharmaceutical it must be proven to have a positive effect in only 5% of the test cases. Not cure 5%, but simply have a positive effect; the other 95% can have no effect or even a counter effect (thus the counter indications). The counter – indications simply need to be listed. (In food products like aspartame, these ill affects do not even need to be listed see… http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=David+Icke+on+aspartame&search_type=&aq=f or http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=aspartame&search_type=&aq=f for multiple sources of information about the ill affects. For other general information about health issues, visit Dr. Rima Laibow’s website:www.healthfreedomusa.org).

Although they do have drug stores in Brazil and you can get the standard manufactured medications, many prefer to use remedies that have been made up by locals who grow the plants and produce the products with care for the “personality” of each active ingredient. At this point we feel comfortable that for most illnesses, the locals have a cure and for major catastrophes medical help (even Western medical help) can be obtained that will be within our budget.

But back to Paul…

So he is back at ‘work’ (wish I had a better term) writing the article he began last month. He, as he likes to remind me, writes totally differently than I do. He thinks about what it is he is trying to say; he knows before he starts what the point is and how he will take his reader there from start to finish. Much of the time, his process of creation happens before he even begins to put words down on paper (or more accurately, on the computer screen.) AND there is the factor of new information constantly streaming in, changing the direction of the outcome!

He is truly an artist. Not content with mere “wall decorations” everything he creates, in his mind, must have substance and significance. We learned something recently. I can’t recall its source. Some people’s life purpose affects its outcome in small ways or in the present time frame, in the immediate now. Other people’s life course is to affect a greater range of outcome and happens over a long period of time – maybe not in their lifetime. We think his path might be this latter course. Another new piece of an ever unfolding puzzle which we have just recently uncovered, is that for some people, they can only muster the energy and life force to forward something really big and momentous. Paul thinks this is true for himself. He just doesn’t have it in him to engage unless it seems really worthwhile on a grand scale. We are so different, he and I. If I can save one small fish, I am happy with the endeavor.

As you know by now I’m sure, my writing style is completely different. Though I sometimes start with a point or two I want to explore, often I just sit with a blank mind and start writing whatever occurs to me in the moment. Then, the thoughts flood in, often too many at one time. He calls it stream of consciousness writing…. As if it’s a bad thing! But I always review with him what I write before I send it to Charlie to be posted and he encourages me and thinks I’m doing a good thing – that I end up redeeming myself in the end, even when I write about really boring topics. Occasionally he points out my redundancies or reminds me of small things I’ve missed. And he doesn’t seem to mind when I talk about him, which totally shocks me – mister very private person!

So I am pleased, his life force has returned after that unexpected month long ordeal. I think we both learned a big lesson about what to trust without question…..

Well, dear friends and adored ones, I think it’s best to bring this newsletter to a close. We are so honored to be a part of this grand awakening which is taking place on the planet now. Thank you for sharing in our experience.

With hearts full of love….

Mindy and Paul

November 28, 2009

Saturday November 28, 2009

We visited another piece of land today, this one with a small house. It sits in a valley next to a screened in vegetable garden, and is surrounded by newly planted fruit trees with a vast view over wetlands and cerrado and the distant mountains. It belongs to a man from Germany who lives with his wife and 3 year old son on a parcel containing 110 hectares, where he has built a large and very beautiful “California style” house on top of the mountain with a 360 degree view over nothing but open valley enclosed in the distance by a ring of mountains. I was quite impressed by the fact that he had walls of glass windows, affording a pretty magnificent view, because here in Brazil you so rarely see glass windows of any size. But I learned that the giant sheets of glass were shipped in from France to be fashioned here into windows. This was a place with an elaborate infrastructure of very good roads, internet capability and solar powered electricity which of course has its appeal, but like many others of its kind, needs a full time security person living by the gate and maintaining the gardens and grounds, a scenario we both tend to shy away from at the moment. Its location was quite good, only 15 km from town, 5 on highway, and 10 on very good dirt road leading through relatively flat and open cerrado, paralleling the road to Seu Jorge.

I enjoyed being in his big open house looking out giant picture windows, with a large fireplace in the sitting area, high ceilings and an open floor plan, but I don’t think this is the vision I imagine for us. Our thoughts keep returning to Vistara’s valley.

Monday November 30, 2009

Sunday morning I left Paul at home, still recuperating from his pre cancer skin treatment and returned with Vistara to her valley. I wanted to have some more time there to see if it is indeed a place I’d like to build my new life. It was just the two of us this day and so I was forced to spend the day communicating only in Portuguese which proved to be no real problem although challenging while driving over roads filled with potholes and speed bumps, which require one’s full attention.

As we drove closer to the land, I learned that the partner who had wanted to sell her half was no longer sure that she did and that the rest of the 18 alqueres (almost 180 acres) that comprised the valley could only be sold in full, not parceled out. This led to a disappointment on my part because we do not have the money to invest in the whole valley as much as we would love to do that. But as the morning went on, my understanding of the conversation led to other possibilities which might allow for either another portion of land not previously being offered where we could perhaps purchase 3 alqueres or even a possibility that if we would purchase a minimum of 5 alqueres at the beginning of the valley, it might be possible to divide the valley there at a natural division. So we stopped the car and walked the land where it might be available in a 5 alquere section. Not a terribly long section because here the land begins at the very top of a steep mountain on one side, opening to the gently sloping and then relatively level valley, gently descending to the river and then level again until the base of the very steep rocky cliffs to the top of the mountain on the far side of the valley. Here the terrain is mata, not cerrado, where the growth is dense and lush floresta. On one side the growth is only three years old where it was cleared by tractor for former pasture. But in three years the trees are already about ten feet tall. On the other side the trees are more mature, providing great shade. Unlike in the other part of the valley where it is cerrado and very rocky with sandy soil, the soil in the mata is deep and richly fertile and will grow anything. One can hear the sound of the water springs emerging in two places high up the rock wall, sending water cascading down the vertical cliff on its way to the river below. We were able to walk through the tall dense forest to the river, but not much beyond to the other side where the growth was too dense to pass. Here in this place it did feel very much like jungle and there was no question I was in the tropics. Although the point in the river we made our way to was not a wide opening with clear water creating a pool to bathe in, this place was a bend where the river took a turn in direction. Further downstream I believe there are places suitable for cool dips on hot days and I would imagine and was also told, there are several places like this along this stretch of the valley.

This 5 alquere section begins just past an area still being farmed and rests just beyond one of a series of gates built to keep the livestock contained. After walking a bit to explore we returned to the car to continue through the valley to the end where the two sides join together to form a sort of cove where Vistara’s own piece of paradise exists. There the grassy fields, nestled under more softly sloping mountains gently roll down to the river at a fork where two rivers meet to form a series of little pools under tiny bubbling cascades. Happy to be out of the heat of the sunny morning, we relaxed in the water watching the butterflies, birds and a monkey climb through the trees and talked more about this place and life as I questioned her about how it was she came to be here. I do so love this valley with its perfect peace and sounds only of nature – the birds singing, the water emerging and rambling over the rocks. I think I’d be content to live out the rest of my life in this place.

After a while the clouds rolled in and we knew it wouldn’t be long before the heavy rains arrived so we made our way back to the car, parked just on the far side where the river lasts crosses the road making it unable to pass further. Driving back through the long narrow valley, I contemplated further a future here as we passed through the change from cerrado to mata to pasture and then through the farm with its cows, horses and chickens, through several gates, some of which needed to be opened and closed and at last off the farm and out to the dirt roads winding their way around the hills and back up onto the highway back to town. Driving back the highway we detoured to stop and visit friends at quite an interesting place, which I’d like to describe. Called “pesce paga,” which means paid fishing or something like that, I’ve seen many such road signs through my travels through this part of Brazil, but never before stopped to visit any. Three ponds stocked with fish, fishing poles for rent and a Pescaria which was a restaurant serving fish, of course. Here under a large circular cone shaped roof with open sides facing out to the ponds, we sat at long wooden tables to have a lunch of fish and beer. When we first arrived Vistara’s friends were not there but their two daughters were preparing fish behind the open bar, regaling any who would listen of the enormous fish someone had just recently caught and which they were preparing to serve. After the first carafe of beer we questioned where our lunch was, much to their surprise as they thought we had simply wanted beer. Another carafe arrived as the afternoon wore on and we awaited the basket of deep fried fish, more delicious than any I’ve ever had. Along with the fish came rains so heavy there was no thought of leaving anytime soon as did the arrival of several carloads of people who all proceeded to join us at the table. Four hours later we left after quite a festive gathering of friends and three generations of family members, an invitation to join in the family meal and plenty more beer; an event I know Paul would very much liked to have taken part in, but would have to suffice in just hearing about.

Home again to Paul and Rocket, a short late afternoon stroll and Sunday night dinner out at a newly discovered restaurant for wood fired oven baked pizza, another week in Brazil came to an end. As we struggled to order drinks, tired from the long day when the Portuguese language becomes just a little more difficult to get your tongue around, the woman at the next table jumped up and came over saying in perfect English, “May I help you?” As do most Brazilians who speak English, she was happy to come to our rescue and offer any help we might need, but this night we were simply tired and really didn’t need to accept her offer. Later when we realized she was the proprietor of the restaurant we had a conversation learning that she and her two sons had recently created this restaurant only 4 months ago as a way to earn a living in a small town where the jobs are limited. They had created a place between their home and a small building next door, under the cover of a roof between the buildings, candle lit in front of a beautiful adobe brick oven, providing the glow of firelight to add even more ambiance to the lovely patio. Soft and lovely music played and two Christmas trees were lit in colored lights adding an even more surreal twist to the atmosphere where Christmas seems so out of place in the warm evening of a tropical night in Brazil. She told us of growing up in Sao Paulo with a Scottish father who sent her to a variety of schools, alternating between an American English school and a Brazilian school, such that her writing skills are completely confused. Yet another meeting of someone from Sao Paulo who has relocated to Alto Paraiso, making a total of 6 for the day; eight if you add in the 2 people who finally moved here from Brasilia after visiting for 30 years.

I’ll leave for now to attend to other pursuits as we begin our 6^th week here in the Chapada and head into our fifth month in Brazil.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Rainy season on the high plateau in central Brazil brings yet another grey drizzly morning to the chapada. It’s quite delightful most times, especially since the patterns vary often bringing long sunny days and heavy rains at night providing music to sleep by. But when, like this week, the rain comes in the morning, day after day for several at a time, I can’t help feeling just a little blue and unmotivated. Here life is simple and laundry, for example, is hand washed and hung to dry. The daily rains provide an extra rinse and often it could be days before the clothes finally dry enough to bring in and put away. Two days ago I thought a sunny morning a good opportunity to catch up on the pile of dirty clothes, thinking the sun would last through the day, but today they still sit on the line having their sixth or seventh rinse.

This morning I walked with Paul for a coffee on the way to the gym where he has resumed working out and found a small segment of normality and familiarity in the midst of a surreal and exotic new life. It’s a short walk to the main street from our house, but somewhat disconcerting in places when Rocket joins us, as we walk past a number of fenced and gated yards with barking dogs on the inside wanting to challenge him on the outside. Having a big umbrella seems a good idea in the event we might need to jump in and rescue Rocket from the clutches of a much larger and ferocious dog. It’s happened, but not here. The sky was grey and a light drizzle felt refreshing, but the umbrella wasn’t needed for any purpose this morning.

Rocket and I returned after coffee, leaving Paul to go on his way, while we returned to the daily routines of breakfast clean up and life such as it is. We’re still testing the waters here and finding our place. We haven’t yet gotten involved in any charitable projects though we have a couple on the horizon we are interested in exploring. Our living arrangements still need to be attended to as the house we are renting is not available during the month of January when it was promised to another, so my attention has been on locating another. I have been reluctant to settle in as much as I would have if there was no future date which I knew I’d need to pack up and move again. This gives me an unsettled feeling. Though I know that it is a sign of development to live in the mystery of the unknowing, I still desire some aspects of certainty, at least an ability to project out a few months ahead and know where my bed will be….But I don’t pretend to be enlightened – there were only those few moments after Ayahuasca last January, but they so quickly faded away.

Yesterday I visited a house to rent, only to find upon arriving that the roof was leaking and the owner had decided to stay for a while to attend to its repair and didn’t think it could possibly be done before the 25^th when we need to move. But this house was fantastic. High upon a hill overlooking a valley, on the edge of town and just down at the end of my street, this house sits in the middle of thickly forested land, but peeks above the trees to an incredible view. A rooftop terrace out the upstairs bedroom, which unfortunately is the source of the leakage problem, affords an amazing platform for a peaceful vantage point over a large meadow surrounded by hills.

But I do love exploring and considering all these possibilities, even when they are withdrawn at the same time they are presented. My landlady wishes to assure me not to worry, that she will find us something or offer us the small chalet next to this house until the house is free again in February. And I do know there’s no need for concern but with so many really cool houses here, I like the idea of finding a place that suits me even more, where I could settle in and stay until the time comes when we have built our own place outside of town.

As we walked back up the street, she tried to tell me something about the land she wishes to sell to us, but my understanding was poor and I can only guess at understanding that she had found some other people who might like to purchase part of the valley too, making it possible for us to have a smaller piece. Though we think it best to not rush into anything, our hearts are telling us to move soon. It’s hard to wait, though we know we should, especially without the permanent visas yet.

So these thoughts occupy far too much of my thoughts lately as I seek a place to make a new home. How I wish that some of our children or friends would come and share this life with us, find a valley where our own piece of paradise could embrace and nurture us together. Wishes can come true……

So, leaving the outer life behind for a while, some thoughts on the inner life….. We have met several people here who are involved with an instrument called the Human Design System. This has peaked our interest as psychologists and explorers of the inner realms of being. From my small vantage of understanding thus far, I’ve been told the system combines the science of Astrology, the Enneagram, the Kabbalah and the Chakra systems to form a genetic map, used to help understand the individual patterns and tendencies of each individual. As I write this today, we have a formidable teacher and analyst of the system reviewing our “maps” so that he can explain his findings and perhaps, we hope, provide more insights for us. We are eager for the meeting to learn more. Many of you know that we are fond of tools such as these systems for the depth of understanding they provide. The Enneagram, for instance, was instrumental in causing enormous development for me as I uncovered unconscious patterns and tendencies that were causing so much suffering which I have been able to recognize and deconstruct. Not only does it provide deep understanding of the self, but also provides insight into the psyche of others, allowing for an opening of unconditional love to emerge in the place of misunderstanding, resentment and unacceptance. The science of astrology, which has been marginalized and discounted by so many for so long, is an ancient body of wisdom and knowledge and very much used by the elite powers for insights and control. It paints a perfect portrait of cosmic understanding that can be used as well to explain the higher forces affecting us as individuals as it does the collective consciousness, and can also be used as a guide to direct our paths along the course to our fullest potential and purpose. These two systems we are familiar with and hold in the highest regard, while the others with which we know less, we respect as worthwhile bodies of wisdom. Combined, how could it be anything but insightful?

The Polo

Some time back, you may remember me writing about the Open University polo, or meeting place, where we go once or twice a week for conversations with the students to assist in their learning of English and ours of Portuguese. This past Monday night we met a new group of students. Each new student who discovers we are there for this purpose is so happy for the opportunity and greets us with so much love and appreciation, it delights me. There’s something about this reception that has been simmering in my mind for a while. Unable to define what it was that was more than just an eagerness to develop their English skills, late last Monday in conversation with our friend Frieda who set this up, she revealed to me something I’ve been pondering but unable to define. We seem to be bridging a culture gap. These students are graduate students, professional adults in diverse professions: taxi drivers, store proprietors, accountants, legal assistants and more. They are mostly long time residents and natives to this slowly expanding community which was not long ago a tiny village without paved roads. For thirty years, people from the big cities like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, foreigners from around the world, and others have arrived in this place in pursuit of an alternative community. I feel confident in venturing to say, all seeking a less materialistic and more spiritual way of life. And here there are many paths to the divine or expanded states. Not just followers of Osho or seekers who use ritualistic and shamanic practices, and not all with psychoactive plants, but also followers of Eastern, Western and indigenous religions and spiritual sects. I’ve seen Spiritist centers, churches of several Christian denominations, Buddhist temples and more.

But these two groups of the old and the new have remained somehow separate though living together in the same town. Like everywhere in the US, where you find one neighborhood of Italians, one Black, one Jewish…. Or substitute any other ethnic group; here too there are neighborhoods which emphasize a preponderance of one group verses another. I felt a strong sense of division when I came. It is illustrated somewhat in the Europeans use of eco-communities inside gates, with the shared expense of a security person (always a poor local Brazilian family.) It just feels wrong to me! I came to this country because I love the Brazilian people. Never before have I met so many people like this with such an open heart, fun loving, musical, happy, giving…. I don’t want to be separate from them!

But when a person has so much stuff that they need to protect it and keep it from others, they have to keep fear present in their hearts, and a sense of danger. They must feel a sense of separation, mine from yours, us verses them. But this is part of the reason we as a species are all in this mess to begin with and what we’re all here to learn in our unique and individual way.

So my friend Frieda said to me, “You know, it’s more that you’re doing here than you think. You’re giving them an opening to relate and communicate with the others that they’ve never had.” When she said that, I knew that she was right. It was what I’d been feeling but couldn’t articulate. They tell me, each in turn, how afraid they are to speak English because they don’t want to make a mistake. Many of them want so much to communicate with foreigners who speak English, but their fear of not being articulate, looking stupid or bad in the eyes of others, has kept the separation in place. I think it is the same for many of the foreigners as well. I know that I myself at first felt a reluctance to attempt to speak Portuguese when I know that I was speaking incorrectly, in the wrong tense and even at times in the wrong person. Language is the prime separator. It’s frustrating if you can’t say more than hello, how are you, my name is Mindy and doesn’t make good grounds for a true connection.

This line of questioning is just expanding exponentially. It brings up so many thoughts simultaneously; I don’t know where to start. But I guess you could boil it mostly down to the division between fear and love. What everyone wants is love. But each off us has to first overcome the more prevalent force of fear. Fear of being wrong, fear of looking bad, and fear of being rejected…. Any of those things we associate with the loss of receiving love and repress to avoid suffering. So I was delighted to feel as if I could play a role in bridging a culture gap, bring factions of people together to live more harmoniously. When one group of people is reluctant to interact, for whatever reason, the other has to protect themselves from feeling rejected and hurt by turning the other cheek, so to speak and feigning indifference. So you have people who want to know and love each other but are too afraid of being hurt to overcome the obstacles. Shitty scenario. No wonder so many people were so thrilled at the opportunity to come to the polo one night a week and learn how to communicate, feel accepted and move beyond the limitations of fear to experience love.

I think this place is a training ground for the new consciousness to be born and for all people to go beyond their differences to discover their similarities, a womb for the birth of unconditional love. People are sure coming here to find their peace, however that looks to them.

So I told you earlier about Pesce Paga (not sure I’m spelling it correctly,) but what I didn’t mention was the fact that the family who owns it and the huge farm that it is a part of, are the parents of, the daughters of and the wife of the mayor of our little community. Though I didn’t personally speak with the mayor or his father, I learned that his mother came here from Rio close to thirty years ago and adopted many children, created a school for them and continues to care for many. The paid fishing ponds which they created, which when I first heard of the concept considered an abomination, that someone could profit from what should belong to everyone, actually provide a great recreational activity as well as a source of food for the people who use it at a nominal fee. Considering they have to purchase the fish to stock the pond, how could that be bad? Not two weeks earlier, driving past the farm on our way with a friend to see his land, he shared his opinion that what they doing was harmful to the environment, growing crops for profit that altered the eco system. Hearing his point of view, I judged them uncaring and out only for profit at great expense to the environment. Yet two weeks later, I met them, learning their perspective and can find little fault where I once had before.

Isn’t this true of most situations? Different perspectives- not one right, one wrong – just different sides of the equation. We as human beings are so quick to form an opinion, judge something right or wrong before considering all the angles. So, once again, I remind myself how easily I jump to forming judgments and wish to eliminate that practice from my repertoire. Yes, perhaps eucalyptus groves would be better planted elsewhere and a more eco friendly crop would be a better consideration, but to blanketly judge someone a pox to the environment and out only for profit is as closed minded as the next person who only considers his own benefit. Yikes! I begin to sound like I am preaching morality – sorry!

The Ecology of the Region

Since we veer so close to the topic, I’ll end this version of today’s blog with a little lesson on the ecology of the region.

The Brazilian Cerrado eco region is recognized as the most biologically diverse savannah of the planet, with the presence of various diverse habitats and eco systems and a very rich flora with more than 10,000 catalogued plant species, 4,400 being endemic to the eco region. The Cerrado fauna has 837 bird species, 67 mammal species, 150 amphibian and 120 reptile species, 90 species of termites, 1000 butterfly and 500 bee and hornet species. The Brazilian Cerrado has just over 19.15% original vegetation preserved; 80 % has been occupied by agriculture, pasture and urbanization and 0.85% are protected areas. The Cerrado eco system covers 25% of the Brazilian territory. The Chapada dos Veadeiros has 98% of highland Cerrado (above 1200 meters elevation,) representing the largest continuous tract of preserved Cerrado highlands.

The Brazilian Cerrado eco system is divided into six categories: Campo Limpo- open fields, Campo Sujo- open fields covered with shrubs and small trees, Campo Rupestre- fields with surfacing rock formations, Vereda- humid fields (bordering streams and spring lands,) Mata de Galeria- gallery forests which grow on river and stream embankments and surround water springs, Cerrado ss- typical Cerrado vegetation covering most of the eco region, composed of varied blends of trees, shrubs, herbaceous species of grasses, lichens and mosses.

Reprinted from Guia de Turismo da Chapada dos Veadeiros

Until next time, we wish you all peace and happiness and lives filled with love