February 17, 2010

February 17, 2010

I’m sitting in my hammock in the upstairs room which feels like a tower, with a window on each of the four walls that looks out over the landscape in every direction. Actually as I’m describing it I feel a bit like Rapunzel. The rain is tingling upon the ceramic tile roof creating a special kind of music. We’ve all just returned from a week long road trip which we decided on spontaneously the day before leaving last Wednesday. We were sitting on our porch with our friend Niarco, looking at some links on Triguerino’s website, when we discovered the information about a place called Serra do Roncador. You can read what we did below if you like- translated by Google translator…. Or click on this link to see a couple pictures- particularly the one of the bat: http://portaldoaraguaiaturismo.wordpress.com/misterios-da-serra-do-roncador/



Serra do Roncador is in an area of steep and rugged topography located in the middle of the Amazon rainforest in Mato Grosso, extending from the municipality of Barra do herons to the Serra do Cachimbo, in Pará State, the name "grunt" comes from the fact that the wind passing by the rocky walls at night, producing a bass sound that resembles the roar of a sleeping person.


Mysticism - Serra do Roncador, is an area highly valued by followers of mystical beliefs. It was there that, looking for the lost civilization of Atlantis, Colonel Percy Fawcett disappeared mysteriously, giving rise to many legends. It is believed that humans have evolved underground cities whose entrances are hidden in the middle of the mountain. The middle of the mountain is a lake called the "portal". This pond is mysterious because it has very clear water and has no living being within it. According to the esoteric belief, one must delve into this pond to get access to Atlantis. Another approach would be a huge rock crystal, clear and perfectly round, measuring 10 meters in diameter. The ancestors of the Xavante Indians used this rock as a mirror.

Mystics founded the "Monastery of theurgic Roncador," and they believe that there exists a portal, and that when there is alignment of stars, the portal is open, allowing entry. In this "world" people are highly developed, both spiritually and technologically and survive because there is an inner sun that illuminates the center of the earth. The sun measures 960 km and one day some of these beings saw the land to take possession.

People underground in the Serra do Roncador

The existence of intraterrestial beings who live inside the earth, the Serra do Roncador, in Barra do herons, MG, has attracted UFO and esoteric world, since the expeditions of the Royal British artillery, Colonel Fawcett in 1919


Installed in the region are Sixteen representatives of important mystical communities looking for contacts and signs of people underground, the survivors of Atlantis who disappeared and the Incas in Peru. Now being advertised through the book "My Life with a Vestal," Leo Doctlan, ed. Sananda, so that the desired connection with the underworld was done for 4 decades. And that to convey his teachings, the Masters of the Empire of Duat "an emissary prepared, physically and psychologically, from its 9 years.

The 'Vestal' lives protected by her guardian and husband, in Barra do herons, which instructs the first 7 started, following the instructions channeled his master. The belief in the underworld, inhabited by beings special and very advanced, it is common to almost all religious philosophical traditions, from anywhere in the world. In the last 15 days a group of Buddhist monks returned to Japan after a homage to the sacred symbol "Vestal and her husband, Sr.Armando Luvison, as the true guardians of the Serra do Roncador.

The mountain, which begins in bar of herons and extends to the Pará, is full of caverns and caves with prehistoric inscriptions, large galleries with stalactites, stalagmites and underground lakes of deep blue water limestone. One of these caves, near the Rio das Mortes, between parallels 14 and 15, is indicated in the book as the entrance to the underground city, where the girl was comduzida when he was 17. After having been subjected to a process of molecular change and mental records, called the abduction, it was revealed that his mission would end with the formation of 7 students and could go back and live with them.

THE intraterrestre originate from the sun

The book of Leo Doctlan, reveals that the inhabitants of Duat are remancescentes the Incas and the Atlanteans. Doctlan explains that the Incas are children of the mating of the inhabitants of the Sun with women Atlanteans, whose elite was enviaviada on ships to Machu Picchu in the Andes, Peru. Predicting the fall of the Inca Empire, some people went to the pockets of the Earth's interior, where there were the remnants of Atlantis, after leaving it before its destruction, 8 million years ago. These beings claim to have a structure different atomic physics, enabling them to live within the planet.

Léo Doctlan teaches that to achieve these people physically, we must raise the level of vibration of atoms and molecules. This is achieved through stimulation of glands located in the spleen, diaphragm and thyroid. With exercises taught directly by them and that will be the next book.

PARADISE IN THE CENTER OF THE EARTH

Shanbhama The book, "In Search of New Age," by Nicholas Roerich, recounts his search intraterrestre this paradise, where all Asians believe. In Prophecies it is seen as a physical place and as the arrival of a New Era, achieved without effort but only as a result of the "most noble and intense activity."

Legends and Mysteries of the Serra do Roncador

The history of the Serra do Roncador is marked by adventures, legends and mysteries, and attracts expeditions around the world. The origin of the Incan civilization, the 16th parallel, the Temple of Ibez, the path of Io, Agartha, Shamballah, the chakra of the planet, the Portal of Aquarius, extinct volcanoes, fossils of dinosaurs and flying saucers are attractive to scientists, curious and mystics everywhere. The city is known worldwide as mystical and metaphysical sanctuary.


The Serra do Roncador spans an area of over a thousand kilometers, and has several archaeological sites yet unexplored by researchers.


Mystical
Mystics founded the "Monastery of theurgic Roncador," and they believe that there exists a portal, and that when there is alignment of stars, the portal is open, allowing entry. In this "world" people are very developed, both spiritually and technologically and survive because there is an inner sun that illuminates the center of the Earth.

Ufologists

Some UFO researchers believe that the Serra do Roncador is the ideal place to make contact with extraterrestrials. There is the "Core Araguaia Ufology Research of Roncador, which always held vigils.

These are some of the questions that scholars try to answer:

Intraterrestre: According to the theories, are survivors of Atlantis and the Inca Empire. Both civilizations, foresaw disaster and losses, and decided to take refuge inside the earth. They are a people self-sufficient, with a large population and a high degree of mental and spiritual development.

Do they really exist? If there are, never visit? We can make contact? We live there too?

Cave of Pezinhos: Through a trail state park of the Blue Mountain, one arrives at the cave entrance, blocked by rocks. In this entry, both the walls and ceiling, several brands of footprints of animals and human, many of them with 6 fingers.

What do they mean? How they got on the walls and ceiling? Would footprints or markings? Why visitation is restricted by the Aeronautics?

Portals in Roncador: According to legend, there are many tunnels under Brazil, which is open to the surface. The most famous of them is in the Serra do Roncador. The opening of the tunnel is protected by the Xavante Indians, do not allow the approach of strangers.

What would be the portals of Roncador? Where are they? Where are you taking? Why do so many seek Atlantis or Shamballah the Roncador? What would be the crystal skulls that some people seek?

Enchanted Lagoon: The lagoon is in Indian territory and is very deep. Despite the immense amount of water, there is no life in it. It is located at the entrance of a cave, also very deep and unexplored. The Indians do not enter the pond by fear and the cave, only the chief is authorized, for they say that is inhabited by humans.

Who were these beings? Because no form of life survives in the pond? Because the Indians guarding the entrance to this cave?

Cave Dry: A large initial chamber opens into several tunnels and other cameras. One of these chambers houses a furniture stone very interesting, similar to modern. Another of them has at its center a formation of stalactites and stalagmites in the shape of huge tree, with a sort of parlor at the top and a tunnel you can not get to the end, because any form of lighting used is not quenched.

Who lived there? Where is the tunnel?

Col. Percy Fawcett: They say he was in the Roncador and found some. His great-nephew, Timothy Fawcett, was twice for tracking the paths of great-uncle, through stories of letters sent to his wife Nina. Timothy said that the official reports of Fawcett were different to mislead, and that the family knows the truth. At the end of your search, Timothy said that the last vestige of the great-uncle was in Cave Seca. What happened to Fawcett? Where was it? What would have discovered? What to tell their stories to the family? S. Stone S. Arraya, The stone which is now on display at the Port Pioneer has to do with the founding of the city, settled by prospectors attracted by the story of a bottle of diamonds buried under it, the bed of the Rio Araguaia, by miners who escaped from a attack of Indians. When they returned to check the bottle, the river was fuller and wrote in stone the name of one of them, for easier searching later. Interestingly, when the stone was removed from the river to be exposed, several other brands have been observed much earlier, several concentric circles, as the stones of Inca shrines. These marks exist in other stones in the river, in the same place where this stone was removed.

Who made the entries? Why? What connection do Araguaia with the Incas?

Indian tribes: The Xavante protect the region and consider themselves guardians of the "holy land". They speak for fear of great balls of fire in the sky or beams of light illuminating the sky of the village at night.

Why do they consider themselves protectors of the holy land? I wonder what they have seen and witnessed? What are these balls of fire? What kind of equipment would appear at night in remote areas?

Stones in disc format: Why in places where there are more instances appear several stones in the form of diskettes? What is its significance? How formed?
You can reach the Serra do Roncador in three cities: Bar Herons (MT), Aragarças (GO) and Pontal do Araguaia (MT).

Mysterious Lights

Lights flying in and out in the Serra do Roncador, move to the land of the descendants of Atlantis, or to another dimension, are some of the mystery and mysticism that attract tourists from Brazil and abroad will know that the municipality of Barra do Garcia, 516 km from Cuiabá, in Mato Grosso.

The Serra do Roncador is the cradle of all the legends and stories mystics. It gets the name because the Roncador against the wind with rocks produces a sound scary. However, some locals say the sound is coming from inside the earth, as others who are the sound of UFO that plague the region. The mountain has an altitude of 600 m and more than 1 thousand km long, starts in Mato Grosso and goes to the State of Pará

The numerous UFO reports and mystical inspiration, 12 years ago, Councilman Valdon Varjão create the Municipal Law No. 1840, enacted by former Mayor Vilmar Faria Peres on September 5, 1995 for the creation of a reserve with five acres for the construction of an airstrip in UFOs, the Discoporto State Park of Serra Azul, near the Serra do Roncador.

However, he has not been built the airport alien. What exist are painted panels and a spaceship made with steel plates that adorn the site to visitors. In addition, there are no records of visits by extraterrestrial beings in space for the Discoporto.
For the psychologist, president of the Mato Grosso of UFO research and Psychic (AMPUP) and consultant of the magazine UFO, Ataíde Ferreira da Silva Neto, Discoporto has the potential tourist attraction. "The councilman Valdon Varjão took the stories involving the region, embraced the cause and the law that created the space intended for the construction of Discoporto. He was called crazy and insane. But, thanks to him, Herons Bar was featured in the media, people around the world are coming to town in search of stories and reports, "says the psychologist.
Ataíde Ferreira commented that the news of Discoporto meant that the city received large influx of visitors, researchers and enthusiasts seeking information on UFOs. Interest in the subject so much that the city has many alternative communities as the Monastery theurgic Roncador, Sunrise Valley, Valley of Dreams, Rosa Cruz, Trigueirinho, Asociación Pro Evening Foundation, among others.

Naming

The name of the Sierra is due to meet the strong wind in the region with immense walls rise to a sound that resembles a continuous roar, and even scares some ignorant if they are alone in the middle of the night. It consists of plateaus, as a typical plateau, starting in the town of Bar reservoir, 500 km from Cuiabá, and extending to the Serra do Cachimbo in Para The place is an invitation to practice adventure due to its natural beauty.

It is a region with nearly 600 feet high and more than 800 km long, where you can closely observe the cerrado, in soils with impressive rock formations and numerous caves and caverns with large galleries, stalactites, stalagmites and rock inscriptions, and underground lakes of a blue color pool.

It has a rich biodiversity with many types of animals, such as colorful amphibians, beetles, mammals, birds and unique types of plants. His mountain, like canyons, divides the waters of the rivers Araguaia and Xingu.

The Serra do Roncador is located in Central Brazil shrouded in legend and mystery as the appearance of flying saucers. Each year an increasing number of people who come to this region for contact with spaceships from other planets and extraterrestrials.

Serra do Roncador is considered by many scholars and mystics, as the birthplace of the Fifth Empire (already granted to the people of Atlantis), a period ruled by etheric forces in the future, will mark a new era in which spirituality takes precedence over the goods materials.

Members of the League Eubiótica - Brazilian community mystical specialized in studying and explain the great mysteries of humanity - warn that Brazil and abroad should look to Brazil as the centerpiece of a new civilization on Earth.

The existence of intraterrestre beings living within the Earth, in the Serra do Roncador, in Barra do herons, has attracted UFO and esoteric world since the expeditions of the Royal British artillery, Colonel Fawcett in 1919.

Sir Percival Fawcett, British explorer, lost in the Serra do Roncador, in Barra do herons, looking for a "lost city" of the people of Atlantis in the interior of Brazil. It is assumed that his disappearance is more related to the tribes of the region than with a possible discovery of a civilization Intraterreno. Anyway, Fawcett, his son and his boots disappeared in the Roncador and it has not been found.

It is known that the Roncador tunnel opening is guarded too tightly by the Xavante Indians, do not allow the approach of strangers. Indians Bats also keep those openings that supposedly give access to underground cities is home to a people of another dimension within the Earth.

An American explorer named Carl Huni, wrote in his diary when he visited the Roncador: "... The entrance of the cave is guarded by the Indians bats, which are dark and small but of great physical strength . Their sense of smell is more developed than the best hunting dogs. Even if they approve it and let you enter the caves, I fear that will be lost to this world, why keep the secret very carefully and can not allow those who can come out ... "

"... The Indians bats live in caves and come out at night to the forest but not in contact with the people who inhabit an underground city in which they form a self-sufficient community with a sizeable population. It is believed that the underground cities in which they live were built by the Atlanteans ...".

This is the great mystery surrounding the Serra do Roncador and attracts both scholars on the subject, as tourists from Brazil and the world.

Natural attractions:

• Finger of God - massive vertical wall and one of the main attractions of the place. The site is assigned to observation of flying saucers.

• Waterfall Pé da Serra - is home to many birds, has two sources, one of cold water and another of hot water.

• Waterfall of the Swallows - has 30 meters of free fall provide a beautiful sight to tourists.

• Cave of Pézinhos - One of the legends of the Roncador is that, in the region, lived in a six-fingered people, biology called polydactyly. On the walls of this cave you can see inscriptions in bas-relief figures like feet with six toes. It will be the proof of the existence of such people?

• Stone Bridge - There are two huge rock blocks that join at the tip forming a sort of bridge. Between the blocks there is a large opening with almost 250 feet high. According to some esoteric would be a gateway to the world of Intraterreno, and also a place of observation records voadores.É still considered by a powerful mystical power place where there are demonstrations of raw earth (the earth). The truth is that the same place makes a nice visual of all the Valley of Dreams.



If you’ve read all the way through the above, poorly translated but intriguing to say the least, you might understand why we decided to go visit this place and see for ourselves what mysteries we could find. It was an unusual group, Paul and I, retired Gringos, Niarco, a small mocha skinned man, the child of a gypsy mother, Paulisto father and grandson of an indigenous Indian, who looks very much himself to be purely indigenous, a young Argentian woman with one long dreadlock, a baby who looks more like her Columbian daddy than her mother and a small terrier. The six of us traveling in a little white 4 door Chevy arrived in the Serra do Roncodor after a day and a half of driving late in the evening just before dark. We arrived at the first small town, called Valley of Dreams, beyond the big city of Barra do Garcas, located perhaps 45 minutes beyond, to find the lights of a bus station, grocery store and luncheonette and inquired about the location of a nearby hotel or pousada, only to be told, this was it. Exhausted from a 12 hour drive that day, we drove around the back to a tiny room with 2 bunk beds – perfect for the 6 (including the baby and the dog) of us to sleep for the night after Niarco treated Paul and I to a Shiatsu massage, while the skies opened up and the rains poured down through the night.


I just found the following excerpt I wrote that day while riding along:


Feb 11


On our way to Serra do Roncodor. Arrived in Barro do Garcia now looking to find the alternative communities which are located here by the portal to the intraterrestial center. Traveling with Niarco, Uta, Olivia, Rocket and Paul, we’ve overtaken our turn north into what we think is the territory we are in search of. We’ve been driving for 10 ½ hours today, including of course a few stops to eat, pee and smoke- stretch our legs, unrattle our bodies from the bumpy road….. Yesterday we drove for 5 hours and stopped to spend the night in Pirenopolis. Fantastic travels; we are all staying very light and happy. The baby and the dog are great traveling companions. Though parts of the day have been excessively hot, the air is cooling now as we have entered the mountain range and the time nears 7pm. The vistas have been spectacular. There are so many Buritis here, a type of palm tree, new to me and now one of my favorites. Everywhere you see them you know for sure there will be water….



Later….

It’s 9:30pm. The five of us are in a hotel room. It’s a tiny room, just big enough for two bunk beds and space in the middle for one of the mattresses off the bunk where Niarco is giving Paul a shiatsu massage. Uta, Olivia and I have just come back from the shower next door and the two of them are on the bunk above mine where they are chattering away in baby language trying to get Rocket’s attention. Rocket is carefully watching Paul to make sure Niarco isn’t hurting him.


So we arrived at the town along the highway where the serra do roncodor begins at the southernmost point and took the wrong road through town continuing west rather than turning north


________________________________________________________________________



In the morning we waded through the mud to the plastic tables and chairs so common to the outdoor cafes located all throughout this country for a coffee before continuing on our way to explore the Roncodor. Not twenty minutes further up the road we pulled over to take a few pictures of some amazing rocks when we noticed the sign telling us we were at the Portal to the Roncador and returned to the car to enter the gate. Standing at the entrance, my eye caught the unusual sight of a huge rock with trees growing from it, upon which was suspended a white wrought iron garden chair minus it’s legs, with a view to the two vertical rocks which guarded the entrance to a long stone mountain. We waited while our one Brasileiro went to find someone to talk to. We found it easier throughout our travels to wait behind while Niarco scouted for information since he among us was the only native Brazilian. Some minutes later he returned with a very pleasant looking man, dressed in khaki pants and a collared polo shirt – quite unexpected in this part of the world. We were all invited in to a beautiful reception room and spent the next hour talking and getting acquainted before we were then given a tour of the buildings and later the forest and then continued to climb a path leading nearly to the top of the mountain. All this unfolded rather spontaneously and with such ease that my surprise to find myself suddenly on a rather steep rock face confronted by a rope encased in pvc piping as a handle by which to traverse a surface I might otherwise have declined if I’d known in advance. My friend Uta, walking in flip flops, alternately carrying her not yet two year old daughter and holding her hand as we all climbed the mountain, was not the least bit concerned or deterred at the prospect. As we walked this path through the most exotic landscape of trees and flowers and insects and other living things, the likes of which I had never seen even in story books, let alone imagined, we traversed areas where the water cascaded off the sheer rock walls hundreds of feet above our heads, a puddle the size of a small pond of bat guano, fossilized rocks and crystals and so much more now I can hardly remember to recount for you. Every few feet, Uta and I stopped to examine some new plant we’d marvel at in its magnificence, while the men were busy talking and covering ground at a much faster pace. At the top, just beyond the sheer sloping rock where I had a moment of vertigo induced panic watching Paul climb to the place I’d just gotten to, I found a shady nook to rest in while the others continued around a narrow ledge to the other side for a different view, choosing to regain my sense of tranquility and enjoy my vantage point. Paul as well chose to wait behind.


(It’s absolutely pouring rain! Droplets are coming in through my open windows. The sky has gone white. Only a few minutes ago it looked so pleasant I almost left my tower to go enjoy the back porch. Glad now I didn’t! The rest of the house is so quiet. I think they are all napping)


On the return trip down the mountain, Paul, Uta, Olivia and I were lagging behind as Niarco led the way down and was as usual quite a bit in advance of us. He moves at a much more rapid pace and moves like a young agile child even though he has forty years. (This is how age is referred to in this language. One is asked how many years they “have.” I like this so much! It distinguishes that it is not what we are, but what we have.) Our host and guide had quickly descended the mountain to try to catch some other visitors he’d been expecting whom he’d spotted from the mountain top, saying he’d return to lead us down. But Niarco had no trouble stepping in as our guide as he has done many times before. However with Niarco well in advance, the rest of us were alerted first by Rocket who barked at the sound of possible danger, as is his job. Moments later we heard the sound we’d read about, a hauntingly wild rumble of a noise – not what Paul will say is like the sound of any wind he’s ever heard in his 65 years, nor really the sound of a wild animal’s growl or grumble – but a mysterious sound like something coming from underground. We all looked at one another to inquire, was that what we thought it was, what we’d read about? Indeed we all agreed it was.


The trip down the mountain which at first was a bit harrowing, traversing that sheer rock by means of nearly rappelling, holding the sliding PVC piping which encased a wire cable. Watching Uta hand the baby down to Niarco was almost more than I could take. I couldn’t watch Paul do it and I myself was very frightened, but only suffered the scratching of my glasses which toppled from their perch, tucked into the collar of my shirt, onto the rock. But that was only a moment of rushing adrenaline while the remainder of the descent was quite pleasantly delightful. So many unusual things to see at every turn!


Before I continue with my story, I just want to share this link with you: http://www.irdin.org.br/trigueirinho/ing/inicio.html for anyone who might be interested in knowing more about Trigueirinho and do some research on your own…..


As you may have guessed, I’ve gone away from my computer for a few minutes and mentally left my topic, but in the course of restarting, I’ve remembered something I 1want to tell you. Though we didn’t see any of these bats with human faces, like the picture in the link I just added above before the translation, we did see something rather unusual. We saw a rather good sized lizard, maybe 10 to 12 inches in length, with the face of a bat! I kid you not. We saw it while we waited at the top, near what could be an entrance to the underground…


Continuing with my story….When we returned to the bottom it was nearing the middle of the day, perhaps close to four. All of us were quite hungry and with the two available restaurants past closing time for lunch, we drove into town with the guide who offered us the use of his kitchen to prepare a meal. We’d decided to spend the night in one of his chalets. He knew of a good place for swimming and offered to show us before we headed back. Driving through the small village, we criss-crossed the dirt lanes of the neighborhood, eventually turning down a long dirt lane through what looked to be someone’s farm, ending on a narrow lane bordering a good sized lake filled with Buriti trees. This now is my new favorite tree. It is a type of palm tree, which to me, epitomizes the tropical landscape. I love it. What we didn’t know was that the water here is thermal. The lake was filled with both cool streams of water and hot currents, making it a combination of warm and cool as you move through it. On the far side of the lake, Buriti trees were submerged in the water creating a small circle of earth on which to sit, resting your back against the bamboo-like trunk. The water around them was quite deep so I had to heave myself up onto the small base, with a little help from my friend Niarco who rested against the other side. On the far shore where our car rested in the shade of a tree, the others gathered at the edge, taking turns watching Olivia and Rocket who both wanted very much to swim, but had only a small shallow place where they could stand in the water before it dropped off to a deeper sandy bottom. Our guide stopped to talk with an elderly couple, his friends whose land this lake sat upon. Waved back by the others who were ready to leave, Niarco and I quickly swam the distance back to the shore, where we joined the others to return to the portal.


By this time it was nearing dusk while Uta, Paul and I began to prepare the meal which was no longer lunch but now dinner in a somewhat primitive kitchen, during the course of which candle light was called for. Maurinho and Niarco sat outside in conversation and were joined by a small group of men while we cooked. As darkness came, the group of men joined now by Paul wandered off on a walk, leaving us to complete the cooking by candlelight. Completely dark when they returned, now well after 8 or perhaps 9, Marinho came and rigged up solar light inside the kitchen, carrying the candles to the porch where he carried a cattle transport section of a pickup truck to use as a base for a table, placing several planks of wood across the top, another plank of wood resting upon two chairs as a bench for the group of us to sit on, along one side of the table. Assuming the newly arrived group would stay for dinner, perhaps other guests of the portal, we prepared as much food as we could to feed the large group, but upon learning we were vegetarians, they declined the offer and departed – likely in search of what they considered to be real food for dinner- though possibly simply to be polite and not impose.


February 19, 2010


Continuing…..

It was a good meal in the shadow of the Roncador where the kitchen rested at the foot of the mountain – though by this time we were in complete darkness save the light from the candles and the solar generated electric light coming from the kitchen. Niarco washed up all the dishes in the tiny stream of water coming sporadically from the makeshift plumbing to the little sink on the porch facing the mountain and seemed quite content in the process though the time it took was fatiguing for the rest of us who longed for the bed and sleep. But at the end, after declining the viewing of a historical video, our host accompanied us to the dark chalet where he brought the battery which was providing light to the kitchen to our cabin, rigged it up and left us with some light to settle in for the night. Niarco stayed behind to visit a little longer, heading off afterwards to a different room for the night.


We slept that night under an open window, listening to the sounds of the Roncador, hoping to hear more of the unusual noises of the afternoon and wishing for dreams that might reveal something more. I awoke just as the sun was appearing over the horizon through the window and spent a little time in meditation before the others awakened. The other guests we’d been told would be arriving came in around midnight so we were not surprised to see a large group on the porch of the kitchen house that morning as we all gathered on the little porch of our chalet just before breakfast. Our plan at that point was to drive further up into the Roncador valley where there was a community of Xavante Indians. Niarco had been given the name of the chief by an acquaintance he encountered at the gas station leaving Alto Paraiso and then again the day before while we had coffee at the bus station. There a busload of Xavante Indians had disembarked and one of the men sought out Niarco to inquire what tribe he was from. The face of this man was so beautiful in the raw indigenous quality of his features, so different from our white skinned Caucasian ones. He wore a small bone through his ear, making him look almost foreboding, though he dressed no different than a Florida golfer. All the people from this tribe who disembarked from the bus were striking in their appearance, but dressed no differently than the stylish mode of the rest of the Brazilians of the day. But I digress….


Over cafe de manha (breakfast) we discussed a bit our plan for that day when we declined an invitation to join the others on a hike to a waterfall, relaying our intention to visit the Xavantes and ask permission to visit the enchanted lake where one of the entrances to the underground civilization was supposedly located. It was then that Maurinho told us of others who had gone before us only to encounter unpleasant consequences. He told that there are many chiefs, not only one, who require a lot of money from the visitors who wish to enter the region where the lake is located, each charging R$1000. While people are there their belongings are stolen. Apparently they can be very aggressive. As we listened to his story, the other guests who were there from Brasilia and spoke English confirmed for me what I thought I understood in his story which was told to us in Portuguese. Perhaps I have not yet mentioned the fact that our dear friends who we travel with speak very little English. We communicate with a combination of Spanish, Portuguese and English, but more through the intention of being understood and with the help of body language and facial gestures. So hearing a confirmation in English of what I thought I understood was quite helpful. It took little time and discussion to change our plans, opting for safety and tranquility over the danger of exploration.


What I’ve yet to mention is a revelation that occurred in yesterday’s interactions. Many people who we meet along our way ask us and sometimes ask our friends who are more able to communicate, why we are here. Yesterday Niarco was the one to speak on our behalf. He explained that ours was not the typical eco-tourist journey, but in a sense a spiritual quest, what he referred to as “buscar” searching….. He further explained a dream that Paul had recently had in which he was repeatedly given the message, one-two-three…not the second, wait for the third. This message was repeated several times. We questioned what third thing? Third location for land, third spiritual path, what? When Maurinho heard this dream he told us about three special places: the Chapada dos Veadeiros where we currently live, the Serra do Roncodor and the Chapada dos Guimares. These he said were the very special places of energy on the planet, located here on the 14th parallel. Immediately when Paul heard of this third place, he wanted to leave the Roncodor to visit this third chapada. It too would be the third of the chapadas, since we had previously visited the Chapada Diamantina last January. When we learned of the danger of visiting the indigenous people, his immediate thought was to leave the Roncodor and visit the third chapada which we were told was close by. Although we had left home with the intention of taking a three or four day trip, returning in time for Monday morning’s yoga class, this new piece of information was compelling and since we had driven so far to come to this place, it made good sense to drive a little further to see Guimares. It was a bit of a surprise later to discover that Guimares was not what we would consider to be “close by” as we drove hours and hours to arrive well after dark in the chapada which was completely booked up save one little room because this was the long weekend of Carnival.


Niarco went ahead to negotiate the room, abstaining from giving the complete information that we traveled not just as 4 adults but also had a baby and a dog, so we quietly and subversively snuck the two of them in after 2 mattresses had been brought into the tiny room with 2 twin beds. It was late and beginning to rain quite hard and for all we knew there was nothing left vacant in town for the holiday weekend. Not what we would ordinarily consider to be adequate accommodations but when on an adventure such as this, one must make compromises.


The next morning after showers, packing up and café de manha, we went to town in search of some friends of Maurinho who were followers of Trigueirinho. The town was filled with tourists and a huge pavilion was set up in the middle of the praca for the Carnival celebrations. While we waited behind for Niarco to find the address of these friends, the rest of us strolled through town to check it out. A meeting was arranged for later in the day to speak with a small group of Trigueirinho’s people. So we drove out of town in search of a quiet place to grab some lunch and found a restaurant at the entrance to a cave, but only had just enough time to eat before our meeting. The afternoon led to a long discussion at the house of a Japanese woman and her 85 year old mother with a few other people including one woman who was nearly 7 foot tall (I kid you not) who had once lived in Figuera, the community where Trigueirinho lives and works in Minas Gerais, a state south of here closer to Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. It was she who extended an invitation to spend the night at her house. Another man then took us to meet some other friends who lived in a small community of foreigners from around the world. Arriving at a large and very beautiful house just outside of town but on a lane surrounded by dense and exquisite tropical forest (mata) filled with monkeys and other exotic wildlife, we encountered a man I found to be fascinating. His house was filled with incredible Persian rugs and as I remarked on their beauty he regaled me with stories and showed me his collection, taking me downstairs to another room filled with more. In his bookcase he showed me books by Meyer Baba and told of knowing and working with Timothy Leary and others of equal notoriety whose names now escape my memory. While I was busy being impressed and fascinated, Paul was feeling contempt for the excessive wealth and presumptive privilege with which some live while others go without. His attention to the unbalance and poor distribution of wealth create such contempt inside him that he loses compassion for those who live in pursuit of more wealth and the acquisition of finer things. I feel torn at moments like this because I know and understand both worlds and feel a sense of comfort and familiarity in a world of more wealth. A part of me feels as if it belongs, while I agree with Paul at the immense error in this distribution. He would say and can back up the fact that if all the wealth in the world were distributed evenly, there is not a person in the world who would not have way more than enough of everything. While 10% of the world’s population has 90% of the wealth, with really 2% holding most of it, the rest of us are sharing the remaining 10%....and so many are living in poverty, starving. But I am not here to discourse on this right now.


After a couple hours of interesting discussion, we continued to the house of our host for the night, who as I mentioned is a strikingly beautiful very tall woman. She had dinner waiting for us and encouraged us to make ourselves comfortable. Two others were there as well using her place as a location for camping during the festivities of Carnival. A meeting had been set up for the following morning for an interview with the people of Figuera, the community of Trigueirinho, but this night we were enjoying the rustic charm of her house in the mata.


The next morning we headed off to this interview which I misunderstood to be something completely different. Niarco had been planning to film a mini series documentary, interviewing or rather in conversation with different people about the search we are all on and the various different paths in this very changing time. I thought this to be one of these segments so I was surprised to find out that what was scheduled to take place was an interview of us to determine if we should be given access to visit Figuera in Minas Gerais and live in the community working with Trigueirinho. Now I must preface this all by saying that though I have been very interested in knowing more about Trigueirinho and the work he is doing, I am not prepared to go there without knowing more other than to visit and learn what I can. Certainly we both considered that Figuera might be the third place of Paul’s dream: the first being Ayahuasca which we explored in January when we came for research, the second being Spiritism and in particular Umbanda at Cidade Ecletica and now this exploration of Triguerinho and the contact with not only extraterrestrial life, but interterrestial life as well as interdimensional life. Could this be number three? But this morning we learned a few other things including the fact that this community has many rules and this for us presents a red flag, always. You see as people develop through expanding levels of development, or said another way, as consciousness expands, rules become a hindrance to development and are completely unnecessary. To live in that kind of environment now, for us, is all wrong. We were more interested in beginning our long journey home than attending an interview for a purpose we were not behind, but when we arrived this I was still unaware of. By 2pm, knowing a bit more we began our long travels, ending the day late in the evening at Cidade Ecletica to spend the night before the last 4 hour drive home. The drive this day had ended with hours of being stuck in traffic and the eye witness of a possibly fatal motorcycle accident. We were more than ready for some rest. Arriving at the hotel in Ecletica to find no one around at close to eleven pm, we drove through the gate of town to find our friend Ganeesh at his house, where he and his family were watching the Olympics on TV. It was a nice visit with Uta and Niarco getting a chance to meet our friends there and learn a little more about the community of Ecletica.


When we arrived home in Alto Paraiso the next afternoon we were a bit road weary having taken 7 days for a 4 day trip, but happy to return and rest up before our next upcoming voyage next week.


Sunday, February 21, 2010


Well my friends and loved ones, here we are again in the midst of big change. I can not recall having mentioned our intention to drive Uta and Olivia home to Buenos Aires to visit their family and visit Argentina ourselves. As I write this today, I sit in the midst of my beginning to pack up the house, not just for this month long trip, but to leave the house. After much thought and debate, we’ve decided not to continue to rent this house upon our return, but to store our things with a friend and see what happens after we return. It made no sense to pay the rent on a place we wouldn’t be using and we suspect that we may be moving on when Paul returns from working in the States which he will do shortly after we return from Argentina.


My next letter may be from the road as we continue our travels through South America.

Until then, we send our love and wishes for your continued well being and joy in the life…


beijos e abracos

February 1, 2010

February 1, 2010 Monday

Land Search

Last week we traveled the chapada to visit the Vale Dourado where we knew of some land for sale. On the road that leads from Alto Paraiso to Sao Jorge we left the road which travels the top of the mountain to descend into the valley. Since arriving here on the central plateau, this seems to always be the case. How different from the landscape I was accustomed to where the highways and even the minor routes are located in the valleys and one climbs to the tops of the mountains. Here it is almost as if you don’t notice you are so high in altitude; it would seem so often you are on level ground, more or less. But I suppose that is the illusion of this land form, the plateau. None the less, I am always surprised when traveling anywhere, to turn off the main road and descend for miles into these lush, exotic valleys, one so different from the next. This particular valley was entirely in preservation status; a place where not only the flora is protected from harm or change but also the fauna. This was evident when we saw a deer cross our path. We have not seen many of the larger animals, as the parklands are vast and they have no need to be in populated areas. Turning off the road, we saw a large conical mound and knew that we would drive around to the other side where the land we were going to see was located on the far side of the Couros River. I expected the landscape to be relatively level but sloping on the other side but was amazed to find that we entered a range of rolling hills as we descended into a landscape more exotic than any I’d visited in the chapada before. There were several different parcels of land with different owners, but one after another they were posted with signs declaring them protected lands. At the very end of the road was a private reserve open to visitors along a section of the Rio dos Couros where there were sand beaches along a very broad and fast moving river. The only way to the land which is for sale was through the river holding a rope strung between trees on each side. This day after many rains, the river was very wide and deep with a strong current and we decided not to attempt the crossing. A substantial bridge needs to be constructed to access this land, which is being offered at a good price for this very reason. In a week or two we will return to explore it further.

Yesterday we traveled to a place where there are several thermal hot springs and spent the day lounging in pools of warm water. Not as hot as the hot springs I was familiar with, but invitingly warm, so much so I spent hours enjoying them. That morning at the gas station we spoke with the attendant about some land near there that is for sale and were given an invitation to visit on Wednesday. The thing we are encountering now as we narrow our search for the perfect spot is the difference in temperature with the various altitudes. Here on the 14th parallel, we are fairly close to the equator which makes the lower altitudes very hot. However at the altitude where Alto Paraiso is located, we have cool mornings and nights while the day time temperatures even when hot on sunny days are bearable. I believe we are somewhere between 1300 and 1500 meters. Here in the chapada the altitudes range from 500 meters to 1600 or 1800 meters. We are determined not to live below the 1300 range as the temperatures can get unbearable.

Last week we encountered another opportunity. We took a drive to a place nearby where we were told about some land. There was a field of chuverinhos which was more magical than any plant I’ve ever seen. Looking across the field, these blooming flowers look like sparklers, with their umbrella of tiny white flowers showering the ground beneath them. They grow up a twisted stalk, spiraling as they prepare to bloom, before exploding into an umbrella shaped sparkler. Wow! After walking through the field and along the river that passed through it we stopped at a pousada which is located near the end of the long valley to enquire if they knew the location of the land for sale. Turns out the pousada itself was for sale and we were given a tour of its 16 rooms. Many of the rooms were located inside a round building and were uniquely shaped into the vortex of the building. Included was a therapy room for massage with a woodstove for heating stones and oils and a small individual hot tub. There was also a small ecumenical temple, perfect for meditations or small group seminars. The pousada was set up with a very nice restaurant, swimming pool, dance floor and so much more. There was a time when I considered owning a pousada, but these days I don’t think it’s really what I want. It’s a great opportunity for the right person, should any of you, my readers, be interested… Could be a good investment and a really great lifestyle.

Meanwhile this morning we went to start a yoga class with a new teacher. It was a small class today with just one other student who we stopped to chat with after the class. She too is an American woman who has been living here for many years. Once a well known fashion model living in Rio, she left her profession for a different kind of life and has been a strong force in the development of this town. It was interesting to hear her talk about some new developments that are happening here. She believes new life is coming to this place which has lain somewhat dormant for the last ten to twelve years. She spoke of some projects in the works which sound like a positive change to this sleepy town which at first seems almost like a ghost town until you get to know it. I can feel it being on the brink of change, but unlike the so called change of progress I’ve witnessed in places like Boulder, I think the changes that will come here will make this a better place. I see so much opportunity here for the right people with the right vision and values.

Tuesday February 2, 2010

Lazy days of summer here. Sometimes it’s so hot, you only want to sit in the shade and not do much. Yesterday’s yoga class wore me out. Actually, not sleeping through the night is probably more the cause; the aching back is just contributing to the laid back rhythm of today’s mood. Later I’ll visit the museum where there is an ongoing class until March, where we are learning to make paper. I’m looking forward to learning how to make it from the fiber of the banana tree. Paul chopped down a twenty foot banana tree in the yard with his machete last week. Each tree only produces one bunch of bananas (although quite a large bunch) in its lifetime. After, were told, it’s better to take the tree down to give more energy to the new shoots. So we have a bunch of bananas hanging in the house waiting to be eaten and a lot of banana fiber standing outside drying to create art. There is a group of artisans who get together every week to create all kinds of different products from the banana fibers. They are called bananeiros. I’ve seen them produce book covers, placemats, wallets and purses and so much more…

I’ve been a lot more interested in artistic endeavors since coming here. Everywhere I look I find interesting plants and seeds and flowers and feathers and stones, which inspire me to create something from these found objects. Dream catchers are big here. I always thought they were kind of dorky or too magenta pixie to take much interest in them, but maybe now that I’ve allowed myself to be the hippie I always was, I’m appreciating them again. And I’ve seen some here that are very unique. So I asked Uta one day to show me how to make them when she produced a huge box full of vines and yarns. It was quite fun to fashion, but the best part was having a structure from which I could hang a collection of spiraling vines and feathers.

Speaking of found objects, one only has to walk down the road almost anywhere here to find crystals. The sun reflects something sparkly, you reach down and scrape aside a little dirt with a stick and uncover sometimes perfectly formed multi sided crystals. We are sitting upon a huge underground crystal. NASA once photographed by satellite a huge light emanating from the ground very close to here. My new friend Jato just said to me last week to keep my thoughts high, only positive because everything here is amplified on top of this crystal. When thoughts are negative, these too will be magnified.

This place does have a special energy. Many people say, and I believe this is true because I can feel it, that this place calls people to it. Not only that but it strips people of their material things and sometimes it sends people away who don’t belong here. It’s a fluid place. Even in the short time I am here I can see this. People come and go, so it is always changing. I suppose this is also because this is a tourist town, being a national park. But more than that because so many people come and then stay- sometimes for a long time and then leave.



So what my friends do you see happening out there in your world? We still follow all our news sources on the internet and we hear more talk of upcoming staged terrorist attacks. Likely the date will be significant, because the Illuminati always operates symbolically. Astrologically events could transpire mid June through August, but I can’t say with any certainty. Can you feel any change economically or otherwise? We still have concerns that more freedoms will disappear and that martial law be imposed. The disastrous earth changes, like the earthquake in Haiti, which has been proclaimed to be caused by explosives, so that the US could send in more strategic military placements. Their moves are becoming more bold and transparent. We do hope that you are taking the time and initiative to stay informed with reliable sources other than the mainstream media whom we hope you are not still trusting. Alex Jones continues to be a reliable source and though he covers only a part of the whole story, we’ve yet to find anything he’s covered to be erroneous. For some his style can be a bit abrasive, but one can hardly find fault with the intensity and indignation with which he pursues to disclose these atrocities happening with more velocity daily. We continue to appreciate the voice of David Icke though he is busy in the completion of his current book and has not released any video taped interviews lately. It may not be long before we lose the access we currently have to the internet and its resources, as laws have already been passed allowing Obama to shut it down at will, should he deem it necessary. Australia has been fire walled off like China. Last I heard, New Zealand as well. The US could be next. When this happens, our best source of information could disappear or we could be simply limited to a set number of sites we’re allowed to access or charged per our usage. As far as we can tell, Brazil is not in danger of being shut down yet.


As for Brazil, it’s a good place for a person who wishes to live a more spiritual life. Not because there are more spiritual groups or activities to be involved with, but simply because the material life seems less important and is less available. When I said this place takes things away from you – I meant it literally. If you have stuff, it’s likely to be stolen. Unless you want to construct high walls, hire a security person or have ferocious dogs to keep thieves away. The simpler solution for me is to have less stuff. And I think another tact is to live far away from the cities. The farther you go, the more difficult it is for thieves (who are usually teenagers without cars) to take your stuff. Paul thinks it’s a small price to pay for the absence of police enforcement. Of course one can continue to live like we all did (or do) with fine things and many comforts. Many people ship huge containers with their furniture and electronics and then live in communities with security and dogs. It’s a lifestyle choice, certainly, but not really mine at the moment.


Last week we heard about an eco village which is in its initial stages of forming. It sounded intriguing and we almost went to visit it. It’s in a beautiful place up against high cliffs, surrounded by virgin forests. The plan is to have a large community horta (garden) to feed all the residents, a holistic health center and homes for about 30 residents. All this for only R$30,000 which is about $16,000 at today’s exchange rate, including the construction of your house. We might have gone to see but it’s quite a bit lower in altitude there and we suspect too hot for us. But I share this with you just as an illustration of one possibility that might perhaps replace a life of struggle to work to provide an income that supports expenses upwards of $5,000 a month and a 40 year mortgage to a bank to live in a home that may not even be to your liking, let alone fulfill your dreams….. In this place there are so many opportunities to create small businesses that could provide the kind of income that one needs to live a great life doing work that can be limited to less hours in the day, leaving enough time for bathing in the river on a hot day. It’s not my intention to persuade, only to provide a window of alternative possibilities for you to consider.


February 4, 2010


The moon was full this past Saturday night. It was a good weekend for a trance party which was held at a pousada in the valley of the moon. Never having been to a trance party, I wanted to go to see what it was like. I was surprised at how mellow and laid back it was – not so many people or even high energy. The grounds were open for camping. A kitchen prepared meals and a series of different DJ’s played music for chilling during the day and dancing at night. Of course these kind of parties really get good long after I’ve headed off to my bed for the night and I was not interested in ingesting mind altering entheogens which make it possible to do those all nighters, so I contented myself with a late afternoon and evening to check it out, leaving around eleven before I imagine the party really got going, but not before I spent a little time on the dance floor with my not quite two year old friend Olivia.


A couple nights later, we found ourselves sitting on the back porch late into the evening watching the stars. The night time sky is amazing here. There are more stars than I’ve ever seen anywhere in the northern hemisphere and brighter too, here in this place with less city lights. There’s a constellation that looks similar to Orion’s belt with a row of three stars, but my friend Uta tells me they are called the three Marias. They are easy to pick out so I notice myself watching them change position in the sky so quickly that I can see the movement of the earth spinning in the sky. It really makes you aware of your insignificance on the planet when you are reminded of what a tiny speck of consciousness you represent in such a grand design. We watch the sky a lot here on clear moonlit evenings. There are so many shooting stars; never in my lifetime have any of us seen anything like this! We lost count the night before last as one after another had us catching our breath in awe. They were so bright and traveled long distances across the sky; one in particular traversing an almost horizontal path. We’d rented a video to watch but no one wanted to leave the porch, the star gazing was too compelling. So there we were and someone started humming the tune “When you wish upon a star, makes no difference where are; anything your heart desires will come to you.” Thinking about that I decided to test it out. After all, here we are on top of this giant crystal. Everyone knows that whatever you think and feel here gets amplified, so why wouldn’t your dreams come true? I like to keep my wishes open ended so I don’t limit my requests to only what I can think of, so I ask for something better than I am even able to imagine. And this wish was directed to finding the perfect land to begin to create our new homestead.


Meanwhile, Paul is continuing to have what I consider to be prophetic dreams and the other night he had another of these with a strong and repetitive message about the third one, the third place…Anyway, yesterday we picked up the guy who works pumping gas and rode with him back to Agua Quente (Hot Water) to visit his Uncle’s land which is for sale. This ride takes you from Alto Paraiso over 50 kilometers of stunningly beautiful landscape, past deep lush crater-like valleys, hills shaped like whales, the garden of Maytreya, the little village of Sao Jorge, climbing and descending maybe 1000 feet through the mountains ending in a place where thermal waters spring from the ground. Turning from the main dirt road off onto a smaller one, we descended into the valley past a place called Eden to the home of the Uncle before continuing on to visit the land. I loved the fact that this place was nestled into the surrounding hills creating a circular area of 60 acres hidden behind hills in every direction. We walked a well made trail to see every border of the land which was filled with mature native trees producing fruits of several varieties, medicinal properties, unusual pods and seeds for making useful artisanal products and more. I’ve been thinking about it since then, wondering if it will be our next home though we have a couple more places we are waiting to see before we decide.


Tomorrow we have accepted an invitation to spend the weekend in a remote valley where a small group of people have a retreat center. This valley which I’ve only seen in photographs is over 9 kilometers long and must be reached by an hour long hike and a short passage by boat. However once there, the lodge looks spectacular and it is surrounded by sandy beaches and high canyon walls. A small group of friends which include many Europeans and some other Americans will be the weekend guests. I’m told we’ll be opening the place for the season and may need to sweep away some creepy crawly critters from the rooms before we sleep the first night. We’ll catch a ride with an entourage of four wheel drive vehicles and explore this place which sounds to be fantastic. I’ve heard many stories and seen dozens of pictures including some on their website but now I will have a chance to experience it for myself. I’ll say more next week…they are hosting an ayahuasca retreat in May if anyone is interested in coming to it, you can check out the invitation on their website:


Monday, February 8, 2010


Hello again. Seems a long time since writing as I re-read what I’d previously written. Life changes so quickly here and the changes of heart are so dramatic, I wonder if I’ll ever continue very far down any path I begin…..


Our visit to the valley of Osho’s Lua didn’t happen this time as the crowd grew quite large and the vehicles filled up without us. Just as well, as neither of us was really up for a large weekend party. As we were leaving the house Friday morning to walk over to the bank, our friend Niarco dropped by, so we returned to the porch where we spent the rest of the day visiting and exploring a myriad of fascinating topics in the course of which we spoke of pursuing some travels together. We are both very interested in meeting a teacher who has a community south of here where many people are working together and learning from him. As well there is another location not so far where we understand there is an entrance to an underground community. It’s more bizarre than I can even begin to explain in this letter. Perhaps more on that later on… In addition to these areas of common interest we learned that Niarco teaches yoga and practices Shiatsu and he gave me some asanas that can help me in my practice and then demonstrated his abilities with Shiatsu which helped me more than I ever thought possible.


Meanwhile we are ……..


Wednesday February 17, 2010


My friends and loved ones, it seems I have let life’s adventures take precedence over my writing and left off in the middle of a thought last week. I’ve decided to wrap this up and begin anew so I can keep you posted a bit more regularly than I’ve been. More coming soon………..

January 23, 2010

Saturday January 23, 2010

Babylon

This is what we call the program and the system that’s been all we’ve ever known. More and more we are ridding ourselves of the Babylon that’s still left in us. This place is cleansing us of those concerns. There’s very little to comply with, but this week we attempted to be compliant with the system, stay legal in the eyes of the government, here in Brazil. Brazil has more than its fair share of bureaucratic nonsense. In fact I think it would be fair to say that here it is excessive. The difference seems to be that the people here don’t get ruffled by it too much; they just go through the motions of compliance without the emotional impact of frustration, anger and disgust. So I’ll tell you about our experience just for the purpose of the example.

On Tuesday morning we drove to Brazil where we needed to visit the Federal Police, which is located at the airport. Last week we spent two days also in this pursuit of obtaining a Brazilian drivers license. After the first stop at the Detran (the drivers license bureau) we were sent to a different location where they process licenses for foreigners. There we were handed a printout listing all the documents we’d need. At this time we’d been told that the US Embassy could translate our American drivers licenses, because the international ones we came with were not acceptable for this purpose even though they are written in Portuguese. We also learned that after 6 months, the international license was no longer valid and that we would then need a Brazilian license. We were then sent back to the Federal police at the airport for a necessary form. Leaving the Detran we headed back to the airport, only to find that the federal police end their workday at 4pm, just minutes before we arrived (for the second time that day.) Deciding we’d return there on our way back home to Alto Paraiso the next day before returning again the following week, we missed any signs leading to the airport in the midst of a torrential downpour, driving through the city. This brings us up to Tuesday morning. After a longer time than expected getting a car wash, we left an hour later than we’d intended, found no signs to the airport, driving circles past unmarked roads which we thought might get us there by following an inadequate map, we finally got close enough to find it without enough time to arrive once again before closing. So again we opted to put it off till the following day and instead visit the embassy to check off another item on our list. At the Embassy gates we were turned away by phone, told that the embassy does not offer any translation services contrary to the information supplied from the Detran. At this late point in the afternoon, we thought we’d at least try to reach one of the official translators from the list provided by the Detran, only to find that our telephone would not work. So we continued the drive through the city, out the other side to Ecletica where we would spend the night and pick up our friend Ganeesh to help us complete the process the following morning. Exhausted yet? Well, Wednesday morning the three of us returned to Brasilia. At the airport, the federal police told us that they do not provide the form that Detran sent us to retrieve. From there we visited a translator to drop off our American licenses, before returning to the Detran where we were told we would need to provide our birth certificates. From there we returned to pick up the documents from the translator. Leaving there we drove the hour back to Ecletica to return Ganeesh and then headed back home 3 ½ hours away to get the birth certificates. Little did we know that the highway home was closed in our direction to accommodate rush hour traffic leaving the city and the traffic was diverted but without any signs to alternate routes. We then attempted to wind our way back to the highway, thinking it was simply closed for an exit or two because of an accident. It was only later that we realized the rush hour closure. Meanwhile what would have taken 20 minutes to travel took over 1 ½ hours, which made our return home a 5 hour drive. The next morning we got back in the car to return to complete the process, however our birth certificates lacked the necessary documentation of our parent’s names. Seems that in the 10 year period when we were born they didn’t find it necessary to put the parents names on birth certificates! But in lieu of this I had discovered two forms in Portuguese with this information, which I hoped would take the place and eliminate the need to again pay the official translator to rewrite the birth certificates. I’m actually exhausted in simply the retelling of this ridiculous process, so I’ll skip ahead to the end to save us both the time in the recapitulation. When we returned to the Detran with all the photos, copies and documents they requested, we met with the manager who explained that in the end we still couldn’t have drivers licenses because on our passports was a date allowing us to remain legally in Brazil until February 8th, so there was no way he could issue us a license to drive beyond that date. Now several hundreds of dollars later after covering the cost of gas, hotel rooms, translators fees, some assistance to our friend for his time, copies, photos, etc we were told the process would have to wait until our permanent visas were issued, driving with our international licenses until they expire in May or leave the country for a day and re-enter again so that we could legally drive for another 6 months. Problem is and the very reason we attempted this nonsense to begin with is that Paul’s US license expired on his birthday, last week. What an utter waste of time, money and energy! And I even left out some of the details of the process to spare us both the recounting….

So now it is several days later and we have recovered from our unfulfilled efforts. It reinforces our opinion of the futility of complying with the ridiculous laws, rules and regulations that are here for what? To mentally enslave us in a dew loop of utter nonsense.

I’m ready to give up on so many of my old ways. All my technology has been stolen or broken or simply ceased to operate any longer. I’m having to recreate who I am and what I do. That’s okay; I don’t think my old ways of being were really working anyway.

Tuesday January 26, 2010

So one last thing about all that before moving on, the good news is we now have a piece of paper from the Federal police which allows us to stay indefinitely in Brazil until a decision has been reached on our permanent visas.

___________________________________________________________-

We spent a little time this week talking with an analyst of human design, a system that combines astrology, the I Ching, the chakra system and the kabala. With this system you can see a genetic map, coding the aspects of your self in this incarnation. It appears to cover more than your personality and automatic behaviors and we both found the analysis very insightful. At this time I really can’t say more because I am just beginning to assimilate what I learned.

January 29, 2010

Greetings my dear friends and loved ones. I am writing to you from my new lap top computer, which arrived on Monday. Happily, now that the mercury retrograde is over, my tools for communication are coming back into my life. Perhaps I will be more prolific in my writing again?

I had a strange and unsettling experience, which completes the cycle of the old computer leaving and the new one returning. It coincides with an astral event, which had Pluto squaring my moon. During this transit I read that I would have to deal with issues from my childhood that were never resolved adequately. When I learned that my new computer was waiting at the post office to be picked up, I went immediately after the opening, only to be told that I would have to pay an import tax of 60% of the declared value. This amounted to over R$500. I was very distraught and angry at a world that would steal my computer and then charge me so much money to receive my new one, which I had paid to replace. I began to cry while standing in line at the post office and then to complain about the government and country of Brazil, venting my frustration into the post office and the clerks behind the counter. This is a behavior more suitable to an emotional child, which I was famous for being in my youth. It was inappropriate for a woman of my advanced years. And typical of my childish emotions, they included embarrassment as well as anger, disappointment and frustration. I must admit that as well as never resolving my issues around being overly emotional, I retain unresolved childish issues around money. Not surprising that I would have an inappropriate emotional outburst during this transit. Meanwhile a woman approached the clerk and inquired why I was so upset. Funny thing is, before I began to cry at the news that I would have to pay taxes to pick up my package, the clerk spoke with me only in Portuguese, even though it must have been obvious that I was struggling to converse, but after my outburst he switched to English, which was actually quite good, so he was able to understand my story of the stolen computer and my outrage that I had to pay taxes so high to receive what was in fact mine- paid in full. He explained my saga to the woman who inquired. A few minutes later the clerk turned to me and said, “You have two guardian angels.” He was smiling as he told me that the two people who waited behind me in line had offered to pay the tariff for me. They quickly left as I stood in a state of complete shock, my heart flooding with love and gratitude and a million more emotions simultaneously. They were gone before I could even react to thank them or decline the offer. He informed me that they would return later after which I should come back to retrieve the computer. He was very kind and explained that the policies of the government were beyond his control and was apologetic for the need to comply with them.

I left, not having that much money with me anyway to take the package. I was so distraught, I couldn’t function well enough to go to the bank to withdrawal money, so I went home to have breakfast with Paul, Uta and Olivia and make an attempt to pull myself together. All thoughts of money and anger gone, I could only feel the love of these two complete strangers who offered their help. I knew immediately that I would decline their offer, but I wanted to find them and offer my gratitude for their offer of assistance.

Saturday January 30, 2010

Only days before, as I previously mentioned I spent some time with an analyst of the Human Design system. I was amazed to learn that I am not, what is called in the system, an emotional person. My emotional center is completely open. This means that I amplify the emotions of everyone around me, so it appears as if I am much more emotional than anyone else. I always knew that I absorbed other people’s emotions but I thought it was in addition to the emotion I was already overly experiencing. Now I find out that all this time none of the emotions were actually mine. It’s a bit of a mind blower for me to learn this. Paul, it seems, is an emotional person, so for the nine years we have been together, I have been magnifying his emotions! I think hearing this piece of information took some processing for me and on Monday morning I woke up feeling overwhelmed with emotion. I recall that I was really missing my family- especially my children and parents, but put those thoughts aside when I learned that my computer had at last arrived, thinking it likely never would. When I arrived at the post office all the feelings surrounding the disappearance of the computer, the actions I had taken to replace it, the long wait and frustration over it’s not arriving for more than 6 weeks after it was promised to be delivered, all flooded within me and the last piece of news that I needed to come up with another R$520 was the last straw that broke the camels back, to use an old worn out expression.

So that was Monday. When I returned home that morning, I stopped the car in the yard and burst into a full out crying spree. Flooded with an array of every emotion I could imagine: anger, frustration, relief, joy, love, gratitude, embarrassment, disgust, confusion, and probably a few more that I can’t recall at the moment, I could do nothing but have a really good cry and try to flush it all away so I could resume some normal sense of functioning. Paul was angry with me for my behavior and lack of control. I think he was embarrassed because I am so much a part of him that it was as if he had stood in the post office making a big scene crying like a baby. Uta was simply offering love and understanding and hugs, what I actually needed – not anger and disappointment, that and insightful words of wisdom. Paul scolds me when I cry and fret over money. Uta reminded me that nothing in this material world, like money, is worth crying over. But what remained in my heart was so much love that the people of Brazil who more often than not, do not have an extra R$500 to give away, would offer it to a complete stranger.

It took me a whole day to recover from that flood of emotions and another day to come up with the plan to bake some brownies as a gift of thanks, but Wednesday I went to find my two guardian angels and offer my gratitude. Uta and Olivia went with me to help me with translation. They invited us into their home, served us tea and we spoke for a couple hours, finding that we had very much in common and were traveling the same path. Though they moved here 8 years ago from Sao Paulo, they followed the wisdom of many of the same teachers we admire. They said one thing that I’d like to share with you. “We are not separate, we are all one. When one suffers we all suffer. When you give, you receive threefold. Money has no significance, it is not worth trifling over.” They were grateful to God for bringing them new friends in the three of us who came into their life and into their home. The next day, Jato rode his bicycle over to our house and brought us a gift of 18 CD recordings filled with teachings and messages from mutual teachers that we admire. How could one doubt the perfection of this life when things like this happen?

Since I write so infrequently now, I’ll end here and send this along to the blog to share with you. Know that each of you are always in our heart; we carry you with us. All love…

January 9, 2010

Saturday, January 9, 2010

A new calm and quiet pervades. People come and go, the energy changes, but the overall theme is one of tranquility. I haven’t lived with friends since the early 70’s when I was much younger. I like Uta’s energy. Her vibration is so complementary that it’s good to have her here. The people who come by to see her are good people and always it’s been a pleasure to have them pass through, stay for a while and move along. Paul and I keep saying that this back porch behind our house which is shaped like an open curve feels like a stage that has different actors appear from time to time to take part in our play, with us as the main characters (probably since we rarely leave the stage.) I suppose, looked at that way, we are performing for the vast insect life that fills the air around us. Rather than the audience marveling at the activity taking place on the stage, we the actors upon the stage marvel at the audience – the birds and insects who appear in our arena from time to time. The set changes with the light and with the weather patterns as they roll across our panorama. An occasional person appears walking down the lane or planting a tree in the field across from us, but more often the characters appear from off stage to the left where just around the corner of the house, they enter the fenced yard through the front gate, grown over with tropical vines.

I’ve been noticing a magnetic pull drawing me from the plastic chair, which believe it or not is the most comfortable piece of furniture around with its reclining back, even though a large chunk of the front of the seat is missing, pulling me down to sit on the wooden planks of the deck which look weatherworn from the frequent rains. The wood soaks up the sun and though looking like a source of danger from splinters is actually smooth and seductively inviting. It calls me to its natural element and reminds me what a pox plastic is to the planet. Each plank of the deck, cut to fit the uniquely curved shape of the c-shaped porch, warped to a different height and slope with perhaps two or three in a row, level with each other. It makes finding the perfect place for the large wooden rocker a bit of a challenge to find a spot level enough to accommodate both rungs for a smooth rocking experience. Each morning we bring the two chairs out because there’s no where we’d rather spend our time than here soaking up the sun or resting in the shade with a view out over the valley encircled by far off mountains, blue in the distance, waiting for a couple toucans to fly close by.

The birds are certainly magnificent as you might imagine tropical birds to be, but the thing that really astonishes us is the insect life. Bumble bees the size of a child’s fist, tiny beetles that look like Egyptian painted armor, enormous lapis blue butterflies, unidentifiable flying objects (not your typical ufo’s) which have you wonder whether they are a small bird or a large insect as they leave your field of vision nearly as fast as they enter….And then there’s the flora! Outside my kitchen window is a medium sized bush, or perhaps it’s a small tree. I never took much notice of it until a few days ago when these enormous fluted, bell shaped orange flowers appeared. Uta told me they are a hallucinogenic flower that only the indigenous Indians know how to use properly. Peri confirmed it a few days later when she related a horrible experience ingesting them with friends on one of her travels somewhere in India (?) We also have the Ayahuasca vine growing in our yard. But not only entheogens grow here, but also coffee beans and bananas, and that’s just in our yard! When you walk down the lane to the corner there’s a huge tree dripping with avocados. We never pass by without stopping to pick up the avocados that fall into the street below it. My former landlady whose back yard faces mine has been busy planting 50 new fruit trees this year. Already in her garden are many ripe trees loaded with different fruits. I walked over the other day to see if I could take a few lemons to make a tea for my sore throat. “Of course, help yourself,” she told me whenever I want. This morning Paul came back from the market with a new kind of fruit for me to try. On the outside it looked something like a hard strawberry. To eat it you peel off the hard outer covering, which is prickly, to uncover a large slimy grape-like fruit which you then suck off of a smooth pit. Olivia saw me eating it and cried to have it. At not even two she knows this fruit which is one of her favorites, even though it looks to take the skill of an adult to know how to eat this fruit properly. Paul simply wanted an excuse to give this new friend a little money by buying some fruit from him in the market. He comes by to borrow Uta’s bike and scours the surrounding area to find fruits to sell at the market for a few extra reals. This is a land of abundance in that regard. The fruits are there for the picking for anyone who walks by. And what is not an edible fruit is likely a valuable medicinal herb or a tea! Here in the cerrada the biodiversity is greater than in any other land form and it is the birthplace of the waters that create the Amazon rainforest.

Whenever we visit land someone tells us there is a spring where the water is “born.” Three of the largest rivers in Brazil that travel through several states begin here and as I’ve undoubtedly mentioned before in my accounts of this place, the waterfalls are magnificent and plentiful and each uniquely different. We returned to visit two of the other towns which are a part of this Chapada (the large preserved national parklands) a few days ago. I was impressed again at the larger size and scope of the mountains there with steep vertical rock cliff faces. There’s something about them which really call to me, maybe because of seeing that picture so clearly in my mind some time back. I still think it was trying to tell me something and I’m drawn to places with this land formation. We stopped once again at the gate where we saw a for sale sign to check on the phone number for an enquiry and encountered a man who lived beyond the gate next to the sitio (small farm) that was for sale. He pointed us in the right direction and invited us to pass through the gate to see it closer up. What was so cool was that we drove straight back from the road towards the very cliff (I thought) I saw in my vision. At the end of the lane we ended at a really cool farm up against the mountain with a view of surrounding mountains for 360* Our friend Peri called to the man sitting on his porch to ask about the place and when he finally answered her call and came over we found out we were not indeed at the farm which was for sale. But further down the road we encountered the one that was and snooped around a bit since we were told the owners were in Brasilia. What was cool about the place was a small river just beyond the fence with a white sand beach surrounded by palm trees.

There’s no doubt this place has a mysterious beauty and charm and is loaded with possibilities. Funny though, the other day when Vistara came over with a survey map of the 50 acres we were thinking of buying in her valley, and we saw the true nature of the narrow band-aid shape of land between the mountain tops and knew it wasn’t right for us. In the absence of that consideration, all possibilities opened for us once again. Now we are back to considering things that had left our view screen as viable options and the possibilities have again expanded. In fact today at the market, a friend found Paul to say that he’d like to come over and discuss some ideas about including us in their land search, while yesterday 2 other friends explored some ideas for travelling through South America together.

So we sit a lot on our porch, feeling the fresh air, thinking about things, discussing ideas and concepts and pondering what the future holds – but more and more enjoying only the present moment. Freedom is an experience we have each sought our entire lengthy lifetimes but have come to find we are truly in the presence of now. We are free to sit and “do” nothing. There is nowhere we “have” to be and nothing we “have” to do. No one has any expectations of us. Today Paul realized he is having the perfect hippie retirement. I’ll leave you readers to your own interpretation of what that might be like. I don’t have any guilt about the fact that I’m not “working” to contribute to our income. What a trap anyway…. Here we have everything we need and a little more so we can help one or two others.

About a half hour ago Uta returned home with Olivia sleeping in the baby carriage. She parked her in the yard just outside the door to their room and off the porch where I was writing and went in the room while she slept. Rocket, oblivious to the thought of keeping quiet while she slept, came running out of the room behind me, where he was napping with Paul, in full barking mode at some noise he must have thought was threatening our safety (as that is his job- to protect us from danger.) Of course Olivia awoke to his barking sat up in the stroller and looked around, catching sight of me, she smiled before the realization that her mommy wasn’t also in view and began to show a sign of worry. Now a few minutes later, sitting on the porch with a cup of yogurt, happily feeding herself, too busy to notice the stream of pee pee running down the porch from where she sat, her mother notices and brings the garden hose over to wash things down- the porch, her hands, her face, her little bottom….too cute! And now some minutes later this naked little Colombian-Argentinean girl is riding her big wheel, happily in conversation with herself and now and then with Rocket. I love this baby energy! She is just delightful. I might have left this porch today, but I have a bad cold and just didn’t have the energy to go anywhere. Had an invitation to join friends to walk to the river for a swim, another to go to a waterfall, but the Way wanted me to stay home today and rest up, get rid of this miserable cold- so another day will present other opportunities- today rest.

Friday January 15, 2010

Today, a solar eclipse of a new moon…..

So, without a review of what I’ve already written, I shall continue…. This was a rough few days for me. I got sick with a sore throat which continued into a cold. My body needed simply to rest and do nothing for several days. Funny but I’d just been reading about a transit which predicted that an illness could likely occur. We postponed a trip south to Brasilia to get Paul a Brazilian drivers license (before his expires next week) until I would hopefully feel better and left this Monday instead. Our dear friend from Ecletica accompanied us to Brasilia where we met with our lawyers to follow up on our visas and then continued to the various necessary places to accommodate all the bureaucracy which was required. At the end of the day, we realized another day or two would be required.

Ganeesh (the nickname we have given to our friend) told us about a sudden illness he had been stricken with the day before Christmas. As if possessed while sitting in his easy chair watching TV, he began to violently vomit and suffer from diarrhea, losing use of the movement in his limbs for several days to follow. Calling to his friends for help in healing, they came saying that he had been on the edge of death and had called none too soon, as serious dehydration had overtaken him. The entities which had come to heal him spoke of the possibility that he had been taken to a war stricken battlefield to aid in the transition process of lost souls on their path between lives. Stories like this which once would have sounded too absurd and impossible to believe, coming from a spiritist are common place. To incorporate spirit entities opens one to more damaging effects as the absorption of negativity energy is inevitable when they are healing another. The gift with which they endeavor to garner is the ability to invoke protection during this process and quickly cleanse themselves of these negative energies. This is why you always see the mediums giving each other passes before and after they offer this service.

With this story fresh in my mind, coming home to High Paradise I was eager to visit the Vale da Amenhecer who have a branch nearby. Having visited the main location on our very first trip to Brazil, I was excited to visit the local branch here and have a healing from the mediums. I’d been shown by a friend when we first arrived here where their Temple was and I knew that they held a service twice a week, but hadn’t yet found the right opportunity to visit until Wednesday night when my two friends accompanied me. Ganeesh tells me that Vale da Amanhecer and Ecletica’s mediums operate in very similar ways and once thought to join together and work as one but decided against this since both techniques were quite effective in their own way. This Wednesday night when Uta, Peri and I arrived at the start of the service we were led to a bench from where we could observe while the mediums sang prayers for a while before ceremoniously smoking the space inside of the temple as well as all the people with incense before gathering around a special table where they worked to usher lost souls to the world beyond this one in their transition from this life to the next. This lasted quite a while and there was not much to see during this process as our seats were nearly around a corner from where this took place. When this ended the mediums came directly in front of where we sat to another room filled with special benches made for two to sit side by side, each with a red upholstered banquet placed in front so that it resembled booths in a diner in a strange way. Pairs of mediums sat together as we watched one of each pair incorporate a spirit entity, after which we were each invited to sit next to the medium while their helping partner stood behind. The helper spoke with us and encouraged us to ask whatever questions we had. As I sat next to my medium, she chanted praise to very many different saints and priestesses, giving thanks to each while she held my hands in hers. Though I could not understand well what she spoke because of my language comprehension, with the help of her partner who could speak one or two words in English to try to assist me, I heard her say that I had a very big heart and that I would be able to easily understand her. When I could not think of a question to ask her, she said I needed only to hold the question in my mind and she would know what it was.

After this part was over we returned to our benches for a short while before being called to another room in the temple where we each laid down on a table, like you would find in a doctors office or for a massage, under a sheet with our head facing towards the medium for a healing while the mediums helper stood next to us. I could not actually feel much during this process but when it was over and I followed the person who was directing me to the next place in the temple where I was to wait, I noticed I was a bit dizzy. The man sitting next to me on the bench commented that he too felt this same way as we awaited the others to come and join us. We were a small group attending the service this night, probably only about 10 people, compared with 100 who might attend the service on a Wednesday night in Ecletica. When we all finished this healing we were taken to another inner chamber of the temple where we sat on a bench in the center of the small room while the mediums stood around the outside walls surrounding us, all engaged in singing a song. The music was enchanting and the energy in the room was palpable. The mediums standing behind us then came forward to stand close behind us while one passed their hands above each of our heads, touching our forehead and then lightly tapping our back three times, repeating this process several times. It was a very special energy I could feel with each touch and later Peri told me that she felt this too. From this room, we left to another part of the temple where we were again instructed to take a little salt and place it on our tongue and place a drop of water on each temple before entering a room where we were to stand before three different mediums for passes. In this room, the mediums giving the passes were deeply in trance and many were speaking in tongues, unintelligible even to Portuguese speakers I think. All but one of the mediums were dressed in brown skirts or trousers with a white vest covered with different patches over a black shirt, while one wore all white signifying a special status. I mention this because as we stood waiting to enter this room, she incorporated an entity who spoke with a very deep mans voice. This was startling and quite intriguing to watch and listen to. While I stood before an Indian looking man with long black hair, who was deeply entranced and speaking heavily in tongues, Peri stood next to me in front of this woman in white and later said how powerful the energy was to be healed by her. As each part of the process ended we would be taken to another area with benches where we would wait for the others to finish. Uta who carried Olivia in her arms, occasionally nursing her before she eventually fell asleep, was the last to finish each process, though first to enter the room of the singing mediums. As we waited for them to come from the last room, Peri and I were taken to a place where we were each given an empty bottle and told to pray for what we needed as we filled them with water, being told that the entities would fill the bottle with just what we needed. We continued around the circular path of the temple to wait for Uta and Olivia and then departed, walking the path through the gardens and back to the car.

Like my first visit to the Vale do Amanhecer, this was more bizarre than any experience I’d ever encountered, though now a year later I have some understanding of the intention behind the rituals and continue to be fascinated by them. Spiritism does not hold the same interest for me as it once did in that I no longer wish to study to become a medium myself, but I still desire to know more about it and feel quite drawn to the experience. I like to be in the presence of the entities and feel that energy, though I am more cautious about being where they strictly work with light forces, knowing now about the forces of black magic.

Tuesday January 19, 2010

Just a quick note today before I wrap this up. We’ll leave in a few hours to return to Brasilia to complete the necessary bureaucracy for the driver’s license. Again it will entail some help from “Ganeesh” who will assist us in locating one of the preferred physicians for the medical exam required to get the license. There are times when we do not require translation and can get by on our own, but getting around Brasilia itself is quite a challenge still. Upon my return I will resume our travelogue as new possibilities are emerging that I will share with you.

Until then, we send our love and wishes for your continued well being and happiness.

December 29, 2009

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

I’m getting a real feel for rainy season now. It seems to present a familiar pattern that lasts for several days and then changes. For the last several days we have had cloudy skies all day, intermittent sunshine, late afternoon rain followed by all night rain. Next week it will likely change and rain consistently in the morning only or some other such pattern and just when you think you can expect more of the same, it will change again.

Funny how quickly one adjusts and forgets how things used to be. I just received a response to a question I posted on the Gringoes website about moving to Brazil and what to bring. I posted that question months before moving here and had completely forgotten even about the website for information about moving to Brazil. I could easily answer that question for another American now making a similar move and so I did send along my thoughts on his similar questions.

I don’t know if this is true for any of you, but for me I get so grounded in my current experience that I quickly forget how it used to be before now. Sometimes only a day passes and I’ve forgotten how only yesterday it was quite different. I’ve gotten so used to living in this house I’ve already forgotten what it was like in the last one. At the moment my back is so covered with itchy mosquito bites I can’t remember what it was like before without them (stupid example- but I was distracted by the itch!) I’m feeling house bound at the moment because I haven’t seen the sun in several days for more than a passing moment. I suppose many of you are experiencing wintery snowy and cold conditions at the moment and missing out on summer days? Even though it’s officially “summer” here, it’s not really like that. We have two seasons in this part of Brazil, “rainy” and “dry.” Rainy season is actually cooler than dry season when it can get quite hot. And then there’s high season and low season because I live in an eco tourist area. I am learning the ins and outs of this phenomenon too. July and August apparently bring the most people to the region, when hikers can be assured of a good dry day. We’ve never been in this place during high season, so we have no idea how much it will change. I imagine we will find that more restaurants and shops will be open for business. Yesterday we learned that lots of people usually leave this time of year to go to the beach and return around March.

Many people we met only a few weeks ago have left to travel to the coast of Bahia where there is a huge “trance” festival on the beach just north of Salvador. It’s called “Parallel Universe, but of course in Portuguese its Universo Parallelo or something quite close, (forgive the inaccuracy of my details, please.) I think it’s something similar to the “Burning Man” festival in the States. If you are in that age group and inclined to that persuasion, wherever you live in the world, that is where you go for days of great music and mind altering psycho actives to alter your consciousness. Never having been to a festival of this nature I can not really comment on the activity. Seems to me, and I know I could be very wrong, that using psycho actives in this environment is more for the activity of “partying” than expanding consciousness, but it would be erroneous of me to judge something I’ve never personally experienced. There’s a part of me that would love the experience and a much larger part of me that recoils from such large crowds. Way too much energy for me.

Even just the other night I had a very insightful experience of this similar nature. My friend called to tell me that a bunch of people were going over to the bar to listen to a good band. Never having been to that bar, I was curious and I always enjoy good live music so I accepted the invitation without even consulting Paul and told him we were going. Big mistake! He hates things like that. When we got there our friend was not yet there and typical for the introverts we are, we found a table in the corner we could observe from and wait for our friend. Meanwhile we felt the uncomfortable feelings so common to introverts in a completely extroverted environment while all our energy was being sucked out of us by the extroverts in the room who simply get “juiced” from being around lots of people and frenetic energy and activity. It wasn’t long before I agreed to leave and Paul was relieved to not have to stay a moment longer. He was not only ready to leave the moment we arrived but he didn’t want to even go in the first place. For me it is like a moth being drawn to the flame. I want to go and be there but I don’t really want to be there. I finally understood why. Being an introvert is a big part of it, but being open is an even bigger factor. As open as we are, we have a tendency to pick up all the vibrations and energies of the people in the room around us. In a bar, of course there is plenty of alcohol and that affects people in a myriad of different ways but generally in some rather negative ways. All those vibrations have a tendency to make us feel confused. Often it shows up like inadequacy or low self image; for example one might ask themselves the question, “Why does everyone else always have a good time and I never do?” or “how come everyone else seems to know everyone here?” or something along those lines….. Have any of you ever been given any education or information about the differences between introversion and extraversion or considered the features of those different personality traits? I never was. Unless you’ve taken an interest in psychology, why would you know about the Myers Briggs personality trait system, for example? It’s an interesting study if you have an inclination towards deeper understanding of yourselves or even other people. Instead of the usual assumption that there must be something wrong with me, since “everyone else” is having a good time, it’s reassuring to know that extroverts thrive on being around lots of people, lots of activity and get their energy from other people while introverts feel drained by the very same environment. Those damn extroverts are sucking out all our energy for god sake! Just kidding all you extroverts. For you, unless you can get out into all that activity, you feel drained, unrealized or bored…. It takes a long time to figure these things out, because no one actually bothers to explain this stuff to us when we’re young and deeply suffering through these seemingly normal things.

It’s quiet today. A good napping day- cloudy afternoon – Uta and Olivia have gone off to the Bamboo Praca, a square where there will be a 4 day festival during which many artisans will sell their crafts. Uta is preparing the area where she will set up her space to sell her banana leaf crafts. They are quite beautiful works of art, wallets, book covers, small purses and various other objects. She is quite a good artist. I’m looking forward to the event which will also include meditations and yoga, informational sessions on medicinal plants, music and dance. This I think is where we will celebrate New Year’s Eve.

I haven’t left the house much since I moved into this valley. It’s ever so peaceful and lovely here. I’ve no desire to run around town, shopping for this or that. I’d rather just swing in the hammock, sit on the porch watching the birds, cook something……life is good at the moment.

I’m starting to think of being alone in Brazil for three months while Paul returns to work in the States as it is looking likely he will. We’re hoping that we will have purchased land by then and will have begun building. I’m inviting you (if you are indeed the right person, you will know it) to come stay for a while, keep me company, help me build. I think it’s going to be an incredible experience to fashion this house from cob or from adobe. An incredible creative and grounding experience. And the valley where we think we’ll be building couldn’t be more peaceful and beautiful with the river to cool off in on hot days……

Peri came over to visit this morning just as we were having coffee and homemade whole wheat tortillas fresh off the stove. She is a good friend of Uta and I appreciate conversations with her and hearing her perspective. A Belgium woman, she travels alone while her boyfriend visits his family in the south of Brazil. She like so many others is a traveling artisan. They simply travel the world selling their arts and their crafts. Seems to me back in the late sixties and early seventies, when we were quite young, Americans did this more than they do now. But lately or perhaps I’m simply out of touch because I’m in my fifties now and we (in this age range) don’t do this sort of thing any longer. Still it seems to me that we Americans have been too frightened to pick up and travel penniless around the world, hitch hiking and staying with people we meet along the way, going from place to place, wherever the wind blows us. Used to be if we were of a spiritual nature, we might travel to India to study with an ascended master. Doesn’t seem to be like that so much anymore. Too many years of mind control, scaring us into staying put inside the country where we’re safe and know the language. What a rip off! No ability to speak multiple languages so we’re afraid to travel and see the world around us. Such a limited perspective! Well maybe I’m wrong and it’s only me who was too scared to do that or too busy with a different kind of life to consider it…..I have so much admiration for these young women who travel alone. I was much too timid to do it and still am, actually. Give me a travelling companion and I’ll go almost anywhere, but not alone…..

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

We’re watching Gerald Celente on Alex Jones TV 1/4 "Obamageddon!!" on You Tube. He is a trends researcher. They are talking about the botched terrorist attack in Detroit and commenting on the measures that have been put in place now with full body scans at airports. He has been predicting large scale terrorist attacks like 9-11’s Twin Towers in 2010 and the closing of the banks with the subsequent devaluing of the currency to at least half. And now we are hearing about war in Yemen. Get ready for a wild ride. Whatever you are doing, I am suggesting making some sort of contingency plans for a total economic collapse. Do you have a place you can go where you can grow your own food and get pure water, if the need arises? Can you put enough money aside to get there? Not to be afraid, but think about worst case scenarios just to have a plan in place and be prepared for the worst. Then it will be easier and less frightening if things get bad. Find communities who are working together to live without government systems and who support one another with the new ways (the old ways) of living independently. Brattleboro, Vermont has a fantastic group called Post Oil Solutions who sponsor workshops on teaching people how to relearn how to feed themselves and so much more. It’s a good model for other communities to learn from.

I think this is a time when we need to find people interested in banding together to help one another with the simple arts of survival independent of consumer corporate and government systems. Sharing resources, helping raise the children together…. One common garden can feed many families. Several people working together can build shelters where everyone can live a comfortable life. I’m learning about building with cob- a combination of clay, sand, straw and earth, packed into a mud pie. Relatively easy and free and will be standing centuries from now, even after earthquakes and catastrophic weather events.

New Years Day

January 1, 2010

A shift has taken place. I don’t know if you can feel it? I can. Yesterday, the last day of 2009, was a lunar eclipse of a blue moon. This is a significant event. For those of you who do not know, a blue moon occurs when there are two full moons in one month. The second full moon is called a blue moon. A lunar eclipse of a full moon on the last day of the year brings many things to fruition. It was particularly impactful for both Paul and I.

All day it rained here. The town has gone to considerable lengths to create a 4 day peace celebration in a plaza on the edge of town which they call Praca da Bambu, the Place of Bamboo. At the end of the main street and around a bend, five streets converge around what was a quiet little park with a large stand of bamboo. For several days it was transformed into a festival site with a series of large circus style tents, a stage and dance floor, giant video screens, bon fires in the park, some vendor tents, play areas for the small children, softly lit by gourd lanterns….and so much more…. I was impressed that this modest and humble little town could produce something of such professional quality and decorate it so artistically. Incredible! My friends who are both artisans have been busy constructing part of the vendors’ booths all during the week leading up to this weekend. The rains have been unrelenting, but true to the nature of most people in this place, they went with the flow and waited out the rains for breaks in the weather.

By half past three the rain eased up and we began to prepare to go for the pre-party celebration ceremony to close out the end of 2009 in advance of the opening ceremonies scheduled to begin at 8 pm. My Italian friend had dropped by the house the day before to invite us to attend this unpublicized event led by an Amazonian Shaman woman. We arrived a bit late, after last minute preparations to leave the house after a day in which it seemed the rain would not let up, to find the group encircling the dance floor involved in contemplative prayer like ritual and decided not to join in but to instead observe from a distance while our friends began to set up their displays. After a somewhat cynical review of the process which was by this time nearing its conclusion by our friend Tivani, we returned to the house to rest up for the evening ahead, thinking it wise if we were to usher in the new year.

Rocket was a muddy mess when we got back, having walked through several puddles and being the low rider that he is, needed a bath before being given free range of the house and in particular the bed where we knew he would head the minute we did. In the process Paul wrenched his back, gaining the perfect excuse to opt out of the evenings festivities and remain behind later when I eventually returned with Uta for the party.

Not long after we returned to the festa, the skies let loose once again with a deluge, corralling everyone under the main tent and off the open areas of the park where various other activities were taking place. At this point in the evening several different groups were presenting various things which I was at a loss to understand, as my Portuguese comprehension declines quickly as the night wears on. And also (just as a side note) my ability to understand compels me to be entirely focused on the person who is speaking directly to me and intends for me to understand, it requires eye contact, body language, context and concentration- so a public performance still goes mostly over my head (and comprehension.) I think there was a peace prayer to usher in the New Year and then (I was told) some chanting from the Hare Kristnas. When the rains began to increase, I went to the car to pull out Olivia’s stroller for Uta when I saw my friend Tivani sitting in her truck with the window down waiting out the rain. It seemed the perfect place for me to participate in the festa from a dry observation point in conversation (in English) with my friend. She didn’t have a very favorable opinion about the Hare Krishnas and lamented the wait for the rock and roll band to begin and in her opinion the party to get underway. This you see is a typical illustration of the people in this town with so many various groups of religious, spiritual and philosophical varieties and interests represented! And the rock and roll music was just the beginning of the different kinds of music to follow. I quickly made my way through the rain drops back to the stage to get a closer look at the new scene that was happening since the Hare Krishnas left and the rock and roll began. A starry sky was painted on the ceiling of the tent, lighting worked its magic and artistic mobiles dangled overhead while projectors screened a Cirque du Soliel trapeze act on one wall and people crowded the dance floor in typical New Years Eve style. As my friend danced her way toward the musicians on stage, I opted for an early retreat to join Paul back at home to usher in midnight. Uta and Peri decided to join me in a more serene and dry location and get Olivia from the stroller and into bed. Still pouring, we were really glad we’d decided to come by car this time instead of walking as we made our way back to the crazy lane which leads to our house. Peri is staying beyond our house where the lane winds past and up the hill to the top over looking the next valley, a part of the lane restricted to 4 wheel drive vehicles where my car will not go. But she wanted to quietly bring in the new year with us before considering the long trek up the muddy hill and then later accepted our invitation to stay overnight with us.

Home only a few minutes, Paul called us to the window where he stood watching an excellent display of fire works, when we noticed the rain had stopped the moment we arrived home, just in time for midnight. Turned out we’d found the perfect observation post to watch the fireworks show and mother nature had cooperated in clearing the skies just in time. The people who remained at the party were blessed with four more hours of clear skies and the campfires were re-lit while the music played long into the morning.

I’m writing to you now from my desk at 2 am New Years Day because I can’t sleep to the heavy boom of repetitive music with no artistic merit (just my opinion) that is still playing (day #2). I’m wearing headphones to drown out the annoying heavy bass beat. Sounds a little like Rap music when I remove the headphones to get a better idea. No idea how Paul is sleeping through it! Last night at least they were playing really good music; it didn’t matter so much I could hear it so well from my valley more than 6 blocks away…..until 4 am….

Ahhhhh, at last the music has ended. I can only hope that it is not just a break between bands. Now perhaps some sleep………

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

I suppose you could say that we are returning to a more normal sense of reality with the holidays behind us and life back to routine, but that’s not at all the case. It gets more and more surreal. Afraid I got a bad cold with a killer sore throat and ceaseless headaches so I am laying low. But honestly, since I arrived in this house on the 20th of December, I haven’t wanted to leave my back porch much. Its quiet (during the day when the music isn’t playing all night long) it’s beautiful and there isn’t anywhere I’d rather be. Just this morning after breakfast we were sitting there with a cup of coffee when 2 toucans flew quite low across our vista. “Wow” is about all you can say. No matter how many times you see them you can never really get over how incredible they are.

The festival is over and I thought maybe when that happened it would return to the way it was before, but no, it’s different yet. Last night Paul, Uta, Olivia, Peri and I were just about to sit down to a spaghetti dinner which Paul had prepared when Uta’s friend Torrio came to the door. We asked her to join us and not long after her 3 travelling companions all showed up at the door with several backpacks and suitcases. We were worried for a moment that they all intended to camp out at our house and we were not at all interested in that prospect. Just then Tivani and her boyfriend showed up and were quite concerned that we would allow them to stay. You see Tivani is renting this house to us and concerned that we would have things disappear from the house. But fortunately they were all just passing by and before long the house returned to its former serene state as all but one visitor left and we settled in for the night. Torrio, who spent the night here with Uta and Olivia, told us of her travels to Uberaba in Minas Gerais where there had been 45 straight days of rain, flooding and mudslides where one village was completely destroyed. She arrived sick with a cold and backpacks full of wet clothes. This horrendous flooding all over the south of Brazil was in the news months ago when we last travelled south and saw the televised news during our visit. Apparently it is still happening. I haven’t been keeping up with the local news so much without television here or even newspapers – only the world events which we follow religiously on the internet.

The rains have stopped during the day for the last three days, giving us a well needed break and some sunshine. On Saturday we returned to paradise valley where we are looking at some land we might invest in and build ourselves a home. Two friends of our realtor joined us to interpret and share with us their vision for this valley. Everyone here, or so it seems, has some sort of vision or project for the future involving buying land and starting small communities. Each one is just a little different. These three friends, the realtor included, have a vision for this valley in which they all will own a small piece. It is a dharma project. They intend to invite three Buddhist llamas to come to the valley from time to time to give dharma talks in a retreat setting. They have set aside 100 acres in the center of the valley to build this small retreat center to have very small groups come for short times- perhaps 6 people for up to 2 weeks at a time. In the rest of the valley they each intend to build a small house where they will come from time to time. It seems that we might be the only people in the valley who intend to live there full time. Although there is still one piece of about 50 acres next to where we are looking that is unspoken for….

Well, we were charmed once again to return to this enchanting place where the valley rests between two somewhat steep mountains with a small river through the center. At the opening end where we would be, there is a vertical rock wall with a spring emerging, cascading water straight down the rock face, an open field, dense forest and a meandering river, views far into the distance in one direction of cone shaped mountains jutting from the farmed plains and the rest of the secluded beautiful valley, nestled in between the gradually sloping hills in the other. But our friend Tivani says, “Why buy 50 acres there when I can sell you 500 acres for the same price if you come further from town to my valley?”

Her valley, she tells us, consists of 9 kilometers of rivers and waterfalls, pumas and 5 foot tall monkeys. Though we haven’t seen it yet, we know that it is remotely in the jungle requiring a hike in for 1 ½ hours. It sounds intriguing, but I’m not so sure I’m ready to be that remote.

So its 5 days into the New Year. There have been parties and celebrations and rituals here since Christmas. From our open (and even closed) windows we can hear everyone’s music. Sometimes we enjoy it when we like the music, while other times it can be troublesome, particularly at 4 am when it’s a repetitive drum beat or an eerily strange Ayahuasca song. But just a night or two ago when the festival was still going on, we sat outside on the back porch watching a sky full of more stars than I’ve ever seen, listening to a really great band playing at the festival 6 blocks (more or less) away. There are 2 other houses in this valley with us. You can not really see them from here; they each sit over the hill in a different direction, but access their way in past our house. It seems that in one, they were making the Ayahuasca tea, a ritualistic process itself, during which special music is played day and night for about 3 days. So strange! So different than my former life in the mountains of Vermont. At last, it is quiet – no parties, no music, simply the sound of this computer as the fan cools the workings….No one’s home, no one’s visiting…..

Ah, speaking of visiting, no one does it like Brazilians! Yesterday we had visitors non stop. We had one item to attend to on our agenda for the day – a trip to the grocery store. About 4, our 2nd visitor left and we started out the gate when our 3rd visitor showed up so we came back in to visit once again. I think we got to the store about 6 o’clock. What a life, huh?

Well my dear friends and loved ones, I shall end this 1st newsletter of the new year with wishes to each and every one of you for a blessed 2010. Live each day as if it were your last, surrounding yourself with love. Until next time…………….