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 20^th 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 2^nd visitor left and we started out the gate when our 3^rd 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 1^st 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…………….

December 22, 2009

Tuesday December 22, 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

Several days later…..

Saturday December 26, 2009

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

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

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

New Information

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

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

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

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

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

Monday December 28, 2009

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

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

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

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

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

December 12, 2009

Saturday December 12, 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

Later…

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

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

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

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

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

So tomorrow a new moon - new beginnings….

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday December 17, 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More good news:

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

Cristal cachoeira

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

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

December 6, 2009

Sunday December 6, 2009

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

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

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

Tuesday December 8, 2009

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

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

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

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

Wednesday December 9, 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

Later in the day…..

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big hugs – Mindy and Paul

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