Travelogue 38, Glen Rose, Texas: The Quest!

                                                                                                        July 9, 2013
My Dearest friends and family,

                                                    

          The month longVirginia layover on the nomadic journey that is my life draws to a close this morning as I greet you from Gate A4 in the Norfolk International Airport. I'm off to Miami, on the cusp of another Cuba adventure. Heavy on my mind is this unfinished travelogue recounting what inquiring minds have most asked about, the Vision Quest! It’s not due to a lack of attempts that it hasn’t been delivered. I have starts on discarded envelops, soiled napkins, the backside of store receipts, the margins of plane tickets, even the back of my left hand. These travelogues usually “come upon” me without warning in spurts of images and phrases. If I don’t write them down as they occur, they are lost forever. The spurts around the Quest have been sporadic and short lived and thus, this installment will follow suit of the last and be heavy on the photos, light on the commentary.

         First, an introduction to questing for those who are not familiar with it.  The School for Lost Borders describes it like this:

          "The modern day vision fast [quest] is a border crossing practice. When one steps across the threshold and into the unknown wilderness, boundaries begin to dissolve and our vision begins to expand. Everything is pregnant with meaning, and nature speaks to us in the voices of rock, tree, and wind. Following the ancient pathway of this rite of passage, we step into our true nature and remember our home among the wild. We become who we were born to be."

There are three stages to the process:

1.    Severance-leaving your world behind, separating yourself from previous concerns and allowing yourself to be removed from all normal contacts.

2.    Threshold-stepping across the limitations of your former life (time spent alone in nature fasting)

 3.    Incorporation-returning from your journey and assuming the task of bringing yourself, your vision, your realization into the gross body of the world-for the benefit of your people.

            As for how a quest comes to be, one person (in this case, me) feels called to do a quest, the elder guides who are going to lead it “put it out there”, (both verbally and telepathically) that one is going to happen, the stars start swirling and the moon twinkling, and then the Universe pulls together a sacred group of souls to share the experience together. 

Once the group is formed and a date set, each participant writes a letter of intention to the elder guides so they can begin to pray around it. Here are excerpts from my letter:

… I remember clearly the exact moment of that calling: I had taken the manual about vision questing that Krystyna loaned me on a morning meditation walk and while sitting on a rock in the middle of a dry creek bed I read the introduction. It had something to do with a letter about a suicide victim and the bafflement around what had brought the woman who jumped off the bridge to take her life. I don’t remember the implicit connection between the suicide note and questing, but I assume it was that someone with a sense of purpose (which a quest can provide) isn’t likely to commit suicide. It resonated with me. 

My claimed purpose for going to High Hope [last August] was to read 30 year’s worth of diaries and write a book about my own obsessions with suicide and the depressions that feed them. I now see it as ironic that I came to a place called High Hope with my own “high hope” for a book to flow from me that would help my anonymous comrades in the trenches of depression to feel understood  and to offer suggestions for how to best support a loved one  during difficult times. That books remains in me and one of my requests of my Quest is to discover and address the block that keeps me from sharing with others my story via the gift with words with which I was born…

…what is my quest about? Fear, plain and simple. It’s about digging up and moving through mine, transforming their energy and no longer feeling disempowered by them. It’s not that I want to be rid of fear all together. It, like most things, is fine, even “good for you” in moderation (wine, coffee, chocolate! for example) I just don’t want it to inhibit me from living full throttle. 

I close this letter of intention with a quote from a diary entry dated August 22, 2012:

“My arrival here at High Hope will mark the rest of my days with the transformation I am undergoing. I am blessed with time and space for the divine answers to my Holy queries to soak in. Chandler and Krystyna model the wise soul I will be some day. I desire to give as they do from such a grounded place.”

So, that's how it started. The following pictures will narrate some of the highlights and process.

Back row: Fellow questers. Front row: Bodhi (ranch dog), elder guides (Chandler, Krystyna) and me

In-gathering night we were taught to read topography maps and were shown where our base camp would be on the 1,700 ranch. Next morning we were given compasses and sent off to find it.

Once found, we started setting up camp.

 

Near the top of the list of things to do: build a latrine.

 

Camp ready. Waiting for further instructions

Knot tying 101. As part of the prep for doing our solos (spending 2days/2nights alone in the wilderness) we had to learn how to make primitive shelters with a tarp and rope.

It didn't go well for me. No matter how many times I listened to the instructions, watched the model and even had someone move my fingers, I couldn't get the S.O.B.s to turn out right. My "not good enough" issues came up and I got so enraged that I yelled out a “Fuck!!!!” that shook the tree tops. All the other explicatives in my lexicon followed that. My guides' reaction? "Good! We've got something to work with here." In that space of calm, I saw with clarity that my anger was about my belief that it's not OK to not be perfect. I was making erroneous assumptions about other's disapproval. I was expecting of myself what I would not expect of anyone else learning to tie a hard knot for the first time. It was a moment for learning acceptance and patience and surrender. Once I regained my composure, Krystyna suggested that I put the rope around my waist, close my eyes, get out of my head and tie the knot from intuition. Got it on the first try. 

SOLO CEREMONY--spiritual prep for two days/ two nights alone in the open wilderness:

After we step into the circle, we speak our intention to the guides, say to whom we dedicate our quest and what we would like for the elders to pray for us. Then we are saged.

It was a snot-slinger of a moment for me...balled like a baby. It wasn't that I was scared of being alone at night in the woods. It was more like a goodbye cry.

 

Departing with my buddy, Tana. For safety reasons, every quester has a partner. The two decided where to have their "buddy pile," which is a communication system to make sure that 24 hours don't pass without knowing that the other is OK. One comes in the a.m. to leave a sign (usually a rock taken off the pile) that all is well and the other comes in the p.m. to do the same.

Two gallons of water, tarp, rope, sleeping bag and warm clothes...that's it.

My  primitive shelter drying out.Rained the morning of the first day.

Goat Cave

Cactus Hearts

Sunset the last night of solo

On the third morning we returned to camp, broke our vow of silence and I let out a war-hoop...and then asked what in the hell is for breakfast!

Breaking the fast. Drink (Tana)! Eat (Madeline)! and be Merry (Sue)!!

Travelogue 37, Salem, VA: A Stay at the Mangus Hollow Rehab for Well Behaved Muts and Strays

Hello all. I've been trying for three weeks now to write Travelogue 37, Glenn Rose, TX: The Quest for Vision, and Sex!. After hours of false starts, I've decided to go with the flow of not flowing and create more of a photologue, which the overly-busy amongst you would prefer anyway. We are skipping Texas for the moment and moving on to my stay at The Mangus Holler Rehab for Well-Behaved Muts and Strays, located in my home holler’ of Mangus, in Salem, Virginia, in the Not So United States of America. 

You’ve heard mention of the MHR before, when Valentines Day 2012, Pop got really sick and I came home from Uruguay to be with him. I’ll skip the whaa-whaa-whaa-victim--victim--victim recap of how I was booted from the very home in which I was raised, in a snow storm, without a coat, on a Sunday and ended up on the front porch of my cousins’ house (a.k.a MHR), down the road a piece, shaking and hysterical...whaa-whaa-wha-ya-da-ya-da-ya-da-get-over-it. You can (re)read about it if you want ( http://geesplat.wordpress.com/?s=Rehab ), or not. 

Anyway, my cousins

have been taking me in ever since anytime I return to these mountains. I’m happier than a hog in sow slop to stay there. The Hound 'Hab sure beats the hell out of a hostel, 'cause they feed me real good, do my laundry, put on inspiring movies every night, are always in a chipper mood, laugh a lot, won't let me help with chores and the bestest of all, they make me feel so welcome and loved. Just follow the rules and all is cool: 

Rule #1:

Rule #2

Since you won't be peein' off the porch and must go inside, put down the lid when you flush, because the all-knowing and all-powerful "they" are now saying that commode water splashes up when you flush and it can get on the sink counter, where your toothbrush is, and Lord only knows what kind of germs are in toilet water,and then, when you brush your teeth, Lord only knows what kind of disease you could catch and then, well, you're teeth could fall out and your gums rot so bad that there would be nothing to Polygrip a set of chompers to and then you would die of starvation, which is a slow and horrible death, AND all of this could easily be prevented with a large attention to a small detail. 

My cousin openly owns her OCD, which makes it quite easy to live with. It's true that she rarely gets sick and will probably live to be 100, which will be a blessing to humanity because she is one of the kindest, most generous and most joyful people I know. Know why? Because she accepts and loves herself and others exactly as they are...no matter their peculiarities.

In defense of my frequent forgetfulness to close the lid, I must interject that I rarely get sick either, despite using wanna-be "bathrooms" that don't even have a commode to sit on, much less a lid to mess with. They don't have running water to wash your hands either. Furthermore, I've stored my toothbrush in the same ziplock bag for two years, in seven countries and have used it in dozens of bathrooms with lidless johns and my gums  are pink as a piglet and my teeth all originals. So, since I've suffered not from leaving the lid a-jack, it's hard for me to remember to put it down. I think that kind of thing has in be ingrained during potty-training, like with little boys raising the seat.

Rule # 3: Pick off your ticks and drown the bloody bastards before you come in the house.



 
(We live in the deep woods and the ticks are thick this year!)

Rule # 3: Remember your place in the pecking order. 

 

 Rule #4: If you are going to be out after the dogs' bedtime (9:15p.m.), find yourself another place to sleep for the night and we'll see you in the morning. 

Abide by those rules and the chocolate bowl stays full. 

Most of my time here is spent trying to sort out, emotionally and practically, the inheritance we’ve put off dealing with since Pop's death last June. I’ve arrived in the month that marks the one year anniversary, which has cranked up the sensitivity around issues. I wish Pop were here to guide us through the mess of an estate he left us, though, honestly, I don’t know that he would be of much help other than provide a scapegoat for the turmoil. 

Any time there was a disagreement about it before he died, he’d get mad and say, “If ya’ll can’t get along, I’ll just rip up the will and leave the whole damn thing to the church!” 

“Whatever you want to do, Pop, is fine by me,” I’d say. “Just because I was born the daughter of Samuel Earl “Squirrel” Austin, I don’t feel that gives me a right to anything. You do what you feel in your heart and I’ll love you all the same.” And I meant it. 

One time he was so bent out of shape that he said he would burn the f---in’ house down, if it was going to cause a ruckus. I personally saw no reason for a ruckus over asking the simple question, how are we going to keep the place maintained?, especially since it was already showing signs of decline. The "ruckus" that ensued the innocent inquiry could have made us millionaires on one of these reality t.v. shows. The drama lasted about fifteen minutes; there was a pause and then, as if we had just finished up a lovely cup of tea, the three of us marched single file into the basement to address one of the issues cited in the ruckus: the bare wires that had been hanging out of the breaker box for years and were either going to electrocute someone or save Pop the trouble of striking a match. We worked with the emotional sterility of an ambulance crew. My brothers called for a tool, I handed it to them from the toolbox and in ten minutes we fixed a repair that had been an accident waiting to happen for three years. All is well that ends well...until things aren't well anymore.

That’s pretty much how settling affairs have gone this trip—explosion, triage, truce, peace-pact, explosion, triage, truce, peace-pact...you know, totally normal dysfunctional family protocol. 

To medicate the inner disturbance such turbulence causes me, daily, shortly after dawn, I go lopping down the bunny trails on our 60 acre property, clipping and snipping all that impedes my way. It’s taken me a week to clear the old logging roads to the delta of Ginny Hollow,the magical paradise, where I read, write and listen for inner wisdom. “Lop therapy” I call it. Each brier clipped, each sapling snipped, each weed whacked, I imagine, metaphorically, is one less pain-in-the-ass cause of suffering I have to deal with.  

A concluding thought on family matters: One of my wise elders from the Vision Quest wrote to me in a text message: “The higher road is always the means to inner peace.” I'm a higher road kinda gal, but it ain't easy. Amen, anyway.

A P.S. concluding thought: If you are a parent, for the sake of your children, try to heal family wounds in the bud. They are never included in the Will, but they unavoidably show up in the inheritance. 

O.K. There you have it, another brutally honest 'logue of what's going on. I don't know how else to be. I promise we will back track to the Vision Quest, which many have asked about. For the next 11 days I will be at some other cousins', just as kind, on the VA coast and should have time to write.

Much love, G

Travelogue 36, Cuba continued: Mary’s Motor Miracle and SEX!

I begin with a random thought plucked from my journal: I want people to love me as I love Mary Karr, anonymously, without ever having met her…for using her gift to tell her story as faithful to true as she could, so that it might serve a higher purpose. 

 

whose feet I prostrate myself)She's hot.

End of random thought.

This post has got nothing to do with SEX!, by the way. I threw that into the title because a cousin-in-law confessed to not reading most of my travelogues, or at least not in their entirety. The last one, however, due to its title, “Blessing the Prostate”, got his attention and he saw it through to the end. He’s a retired minister, who I assume never had the honor of blessing a prostate. One would assume that curiosity about a familiar topic seduced him into reading, but I hold there is an element of envy in the mix. I’m sure I’ll hear about it, if he is a motor and sex aficionado and he makes it this far.

I was going to wait until the last sentence of the post to confess my use of SEX! as a carrot for the mule, but my conscience got the best of me.  Feels too much like false advertising…too sneaky. So, if you want to read a few more paragraphs of personal reflections, and then an account of Mary (from “Blessing the Prostate”, not the Virgin) performing a motor miracle, read on. If you don’t, go have sex or watch porn or masturbate…indulge in whatever about sex hooked you into reading up to this point and is, at present, more enticing than reflections and miracles.

Another cousin, who has been following the ‘logues since their inception way back in the early 2000s, said of my recent writing that I seem to be returning to my old style—telling stories that will make a grown man wet his pants and roll around on the floor holding his ribs. He says my writing went through a “dark period.” It wasn’t said, but I assumed, that one is more desirable than the other. I went all defensive inside, but said nothing. He meant no harm and I own the projectile dysfunction of inserting my own fears into a benign observation. Alas, there is progress. In the past I would have taken a comment like that as a criticism and stopped writing for months. I would have taken it to mean I suck, my writing sucks, it’s depressing and nobody wants to read it. All the guru writers preach that you MUST tell the truth, non-negotiable, and show up authentically. I take that to mean the whole you. It brings to mind a line I crafted in a recent letter to a writing coach I’d like to work with. I deem it one of the finest truths to ever pass through me: “Honesty heals. Authenticity endears.  The courage to embody both inspires.” As I continue to struggle with the call to write and the resistance to doing so, I want to acknowledge my gratitude to those who read my travelogues—the ones who can recount every last detail of everything I’ve ever posted (which drops my jaw) as well as the fair weather skimmers. I’m pickled in the paradox of audience: If I don’t have one, I’m not motivated to write; if I do have one, I’m scared to. These travelogues are a bully-free playground where I can mess around and get some relief from that voice breathing down my neck, "WRITE!".

Enough cannibalizing my creativity. On with Mary and the motor. Remember I told you that I’ll do about anything to make sure my clients go home with a joyous story to tell from their trip? Well, our last night in Cuba, after the farewell dinner, the local guide and I arrange for the participants to be driven back to the hotel from the restaurant in 1950’s convertibles. They always love it! To build the suspense before the surprise, near the end of the meal, I make a big fat lie announcement (which I do feel guilty about) that our bus has broken down and we are working on finding alternative transportation back to the hotel. I throw in a petition for advance forgiveness, if it’s needed, if all we could find are horse-drawn wagons or those cattle trucks that we’ve seen hauling herds of Cubans through the streets of Havana. Evil, I know, but for the enhancement of their own enjoyment. While my group finishes up coffee and dessert, I go out front to negotiate with the drivers, who are arguing over what route we are going to take and how much they’ll get paid. Well, this last trip, while I’m in the midst of all that, here comes our sweetheart of a bus driver, who has been hauling us around for six days, to whisper in my ear, “Gigi, you better fess up quick. Mary is in the bus, on her knees, begging God to heal the motor.”

I couldn’t leave the negotiations to go see what she was up to, but having seen her in worship mode at the prostate blessing, I had a visual of her walking the aisle of the bus, touching each seat as if it were a head in a round of duck-duck-goose and mumbling prayers of adoration to Jesus, son of the supreme mechanic of us all. When I finally rejoined the group at the table to confess the lie and announce the surprise, I only got as far as, “Well, I have some good news…the bus is working…”, because Mary jumped up out of her seat with the boing! of a jack-in-the-box, raised both hands to the heavens and shouted, “Praise the Lord!!!I knew He would perform a miracle!! I just knew He wouldn’t leave us stranded!!!” She was shaking her fists as if she had God himself by the shirt collar and was so impassioned with gratitude that she was going to lay a slobbery kiss right on his makeshift lips. You could have folded the silence that ensued and laid it over the casket of a fallen solider. First, all seventeen gazes of her fellow travelers turned toward her, and then toward each other, and then on me.

“….it never was broken down….”, I said, finishing my interrupted sentence.

Mary dropped into her chair with a heavy “Oh…”. She took a moment to recompose and then looked up at me like an obedient puppy waiting for the next command.Talk about an awkward moment. Like a sacrificial lamb, I soaked up as much of the embarrassment for her as I could, while at the same time managing a room full of rolling eyes.

I smiled big and held it until the sniggle in my throat crept back down from whence it came.

“All we could find,” I said “are those old cars you see out front,” opening my arm toward the street like Bob Barker inviting the audience to gasp at the grand prize behind the curtain.

All of the non-believers boinged! up out of their seats with the same zeal Mary exhibited at the thought of a motor miracle.

“Really?” they asked.

“Yes, no lie…this time,” I answered. They were like kids on Christmas morning waking to a hay ride pulled by Santa, himself, and his eight tiny reindeer.

The end. I’ve got to work on how to end these nonclimaxical anecdotes. It's all about the description. Now, you are absolutely sworn to secrecy about the old car surprise. The chances of you knowing someone going on one of my trips is slim, but if you do….and you tell….well, I’ll gum up your motor mouth with moonshine. And then....well, I’ll just keep loving you all the same and never send another birthday card.

I really want to start getting these updates out with more regularity. Cuba was April and now we are in June. I’ve got to catch you up on my excursion to the gay bars in Dallas, the Vision Quest in Glenn Rose and  my stay at The Mangus Hollow Rehab for Well Behaved Muts and Strays, where I presently reside (See Travelogue VA 24 for a description of MHR). I’ll try to tone down the perfectionism and just crank 'em out! In the mean time, everybody always wants to know, “Where are you off to now??”

now-June 28 Salem, VA to navigate the murky waters of settling Pop's estate

June 28-July 9 Portsmouth, VA to visit more cousins (And, no, I am not taking a Greyhound—see Travelogue VA 10,  if you don’t know why)

July 9-19 Cuba for a training trip

July 19-Aug 1 Oakland, CA to visit long time friend

Aug 2-9 Easter Island, Chile to kinda train for a tour itinerary I hope to lead with HE Travel, I've been wanting to go there for a long time anyway

Aug 9-?  wherever I find a tour to lead or a friend to visit or a place that draws me

As always, with much love and gratitude for you, G

Travelogue 35 Cuba: Blessing the Prostate

When it comes to giving my clients an experience they came for, there isn’t much I won’t do. If it’s legal in Cuba, and I have the means, I’ll make it happen. Such was the case for a pair of parishioners I had on this last trip. At first they went quietly about their religious business, joining hands, bowing their heads and mumbling before every meal. I didn’t think much of it, other than it made me feel like an ungrateful hog for ripping into my food without pause. I do recall thinking at one moment that I admired their devotion and wished I had the presence of mind to remember to give thanks for the vittles before me, as well as the confidence to not worry about what others might think.  I was raised near a barn, not in one. My brothers and I were taught to say the blessing before meals, but somewhere along the way the habit was forgotten, as were the words themselves. When Pop died last summer, we tried to recall his blessing, the one we heard seven days a week from birth to adulthood, and on holidays after we left the nest, but we could only piece together parts of it.

 Joseph and Mary (to give the religious couple false names) were very obedient, not just to the Lord, but to their tour director (i.e. me!), so one day when we were doing a walking tour in a small town and I realized the husband was missing from the pack, it worried me. Daily I had to fall back and light a match under the tails of some of the others to keep them up with the group, but never with this couple. I found him three blocks behind, peering through the window of a 7 Day Adventist church in session.

“It’s not our denomination,” he says, “but we would love to attend a church service here in Cuba.”

Ding, ding. I had before me an opp to bring joy to the lives of others. Going to church is not anything I would in a million years spend my precious time in Cuba doing, but it’s all the same to me. As long as what I’m delivering does no harm and brings happiness to someone, I’ll be any decent person’s mule.

I don’t know what made me ask the hotel van driver if he knew of any churches. The couple and the church members said it was the Lord, I say the driver just happened to be standing there when the question came to me. In either case, when it turned out that Baracoa’s only Pentecostal church was located right in the van driver’s very own backyard, I was declared a divine channel for the fold, though a wayward one. Actually, I wouldn’t exactly call it a church—it was more of a thatch-roof, open-air, dirt-floor structure with pews in a chicken yard—a humble space, which they apologized profusely for. Anyway, doesn’t matter. It’s not the habit that makes the nun.

At first they thought I was one of them, since the only words that came out of my mouth were those of a believer. The couple spoke no Spanish and the congregation spoke no English. I was not only a divine channel, but an anointed translator. The first half of the gathering went along beautifully from an interpreter’s standpoint—the welcome, introductions, songs and prayers were a piece of cake since I have the familiarity with the topic to do a to-the-T translation. Unlike most teens who escape the pains of parental oppression with drugs, sex, and rock-n-roll, I rebelled with the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. From grade 10-11, I was an evangelical Bible-thumper…until the pendulum swung my senior year.

The translating turned to toil when they started into that simultaneous whooping and hollering characteristic of a Pentecostal worship service. I couldn’t keep up with the cacophony of praising. It was like trying to translate the bark of every seal in a pack of 50 at a sardine convention. Finally, I just gave up, raised my hands and let the “Praise Jesus”es, “Glory Be”s, and “Halelujas” flow out of me in the language preference of the Lord.

The second translation snafu occurred when the terminology turned anatomical, not because I didn’t have the vocabulary, but because prudence made me bashful. Apparently, the van driver’s wife is an appointed-by-God healer and she wanted to show off her powers. She asked the three of us if we were in need of healing. I piped up that my back was killing me and neither massage nor Santería had done a damn thing to alleviate the pain. The wife asked for help with impaired vision. The husband passed on the offer.

We were encircled by the congregants and the healer commenced a laying-on-of-hands ceremony. She started with the wife, touching her face and placing her palms over her eyes all the while pleading to God with fervor for a miracle. She started in Spanish, but then bust out in a language I could make neither heads nor tails of.  I knew what it was though, she was speaking in tongues. I had witnessed it before in that Holy Roller stage of mine.

Finished with healing the blind, she moved onto hubby, even though he had complained of nothing.  She went back to Spanish, I went back to translating and she must have preformed a Superman, x-ray vision C.A.T scan on his midsection, because she started praying for Joseph’s ailing prostate, in detail. In those prayers she kept interjecting, “Everybody keep your eyes closed!” as if having them open would annul the whole healing process. Well, about the third repetition of that command, I opened mine to see who was peeking.  It was then that I saw the reason for her insistence--she wanted some privacy as she laid hands on that infirmed prostate to bless it and the surrounding areas. Lord, help me Jesus, I kid you not, she had one hand on his backsides and the other on his fronts and hallelujah, a resurrection occurred!

 As for my back pain, I really did have a coconut farmer’s Santeria medicine wife give it a go, AND another Cuban massage (see how desperate I am?). Perhaps I’ll recount those in the next installment, along with Mary performing a bus engine healing miracle.

Regressing to the previous ‘logue, several have asked about the rehab…it was fab, as fab as a rehab can be. I keep calling it a rehab, but it’s actually more of a center. Not everyone who goes there has a mental illness and certainly no one is kept against their will. It was established by an Australian spiritual teacher, Isha, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4kkYgZnVN0)  who has a very non-mainstream approach based in love consciousness. I think it the best route, first, because it doesn’t treat symptoms; it goes to the root. Second, it addresses every aspect of wellbeing: body (detox diet), mind (recognize and detach from thoughts that cause fear and aren’t loving), emotions (express the ones that do us harm and replace them with love consciousness) and spirit. It’s all natural. They don’t encourage or discourage the use of medications—whatever you need in order to practice the system is fine.

It can be brutal. There are no distractions—no t.v., internet, etc. It’s just you and your baggage. And your emotional shit will come up. (Taking away my coffee is enough to make me as raw as a diaper-rashed behind.)You are out of your comfort zone and all the things we usually turn to (alcohol, food, shopping, technology, etc) for escape aren’t available. It feels like a face it or perish situation…if you decide to stick it out. As I said before, you can leave at any time. They have a staff of well trained teachers available 24/7 to support you through it and you come out on the other side feeling so empowered.

The bottom line is to take responsibility for your own happiness, to stop being a victim of your past, present and future, to cut ties with the dependencies we have on outside approval, to let go of judgementalness, particularly of ourselves and to go within for the answers.    Anyway, I could go on and on about it, but the important thing is it gives me hope that I can maneuver through the dark periods when they come. I don’t set myself up by believing that there is a cure for them. Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t. What matters is that the fear of them and the shame associated with them not paralyze me. Believe it or not, it was much easier to come out of the closet as gay than it has been as someone who has a mental illness. I have chosen to include mention of it recently in my travelogues precisely to confront that shame.

What’s next? Thursday I depart for High Hope ranch in Glenn Rose, TX to begin preparing for the Vision Quest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_quest) that has been in the works since last August. I’ll be going into the wilderness, alone, for 3 days with only water and my wits for a period of fasting and prayer. It’s mostly about overcoming the fears that keep me from living uninhibited, full-throttle, maxing out my highest potential.  As an extension of that, I’m asking for help with removing whatever it is that has me blocked as a writer.  For those who are into this sort of thing, hold me in the light May 22-29. For those of you who aren’t, airlift me in a pizza on May 27. Tell the pilot to drop it where he sees the buzzards circling.

As always, with gratitude for taking the time to read this and with much love, G

Travelogue 34 Chile: Eco Yoga Park My Ass

I greet you as I so often do, reflecting out a bus window. Today I’m in route to Costa Azul, which you have probably never heard of, because it is a tiny little stop on the Uruguayan coast. I’m checking myself into a sort of rehab for the suffering there with the hope of making peace with these damn depressions that knock me to my knees out of nowhere. I suppose damning them doesn’t get us off on the right foot, does it? Well, I can’t say as I fancy how they show up uninvited, wreck the place and then wear out their welcome to top it off. I’ll scratch damn and replace it with one of Pop’s expressions, “dat gum their sorry hides.” That’s about the best I can do until they show their willingness to negotiate.

Sometimes people say to me that I was courageous to quit my job, get rid of my material possessions and walk the trail my heart lays before me. Maybe, but to me, the decision to “commit myself” to a rehab takes more. To admit that I need that degree of help and to go to a place where I know they are going to ask me to feel to the fullest extent the pain repressed deep inside of me is much scarier than uprooting my life of security in the U.S.. Anyway, that’s the truth of the present moment.

We’ve much backtracking to do given that I haven’t sent out an update in three months. I’ve forgotten where we last left off, so I’m sure you have, too. Oh, right, Chile…I was at that hippie commune where I recounted my nasty kitchen, cold shower, deadly spider adventures and reminisced about the recycled pig pen project. I was just about to move along little doogie in search of more hospitable conditions. Here’s exactly how the last T-logue ended:

Next I’m off to Eco Yoga Park, which is somewhere south of here and near the coast. I know little about it except it has HOT water, they serve vegetarian food, it has HOT water, one class of yoga a day is included in the price, it has HOT water and the pictures of it on the internet look pretty. It came up when I Googled, “spirituality retreats Chile.” Kind of like playing Spin the Bottle with your vacation, isn’t it?

On the 13^th I’m off to Miami for my first solo tour to Cuba!!

Here’s where the next one starts:

Eco Yoga Park, my ass! A patch of land with a few big rocks, scraggly trees and a dried up gold fish pond 50 yards off a major, roaring interstate does not constitute an eco-park. The one remaining koi in the stagnant mud puddle they call a pond was swimming cocked over on its side trying to keep at least one gill moist. I wanted to bring the cat down there and get the poor fish out of its misery. That was the eco disillusionment. As for the “Yoga” part, burning incenses and doing a few back bends and toe touches does not constitute yoga.

I’ve gotten ahead of myself and need to back up to my arrival to “the park.” I was told by the person I had been emailing with that I would be picked up by someone from the EYP holding a sign with my name. Five, ten, fifteen minutes pass and I see no such sign. Finally, a strangely dressed woman with a dot on her forehead approaches me and asks, “Are you Gigi?”

“Yes, I am.”

“HIRA KRISHNA!!” she declares excitedly, and kisses me on the cheek.

“Well, Merry Christmas to you, too!” is what came to mind to say, but “Hi” was all that came out.

Hira Krishna? There was no mention of Hira Krishna on the webpage. Eco and Yoga are pretty non-denominational to me.  It’s not that I have anything against HKs. I dig that they are vegetarian and burn good smelling incense and sell carnations, but it would have been nice to have known that before signing up so I could prepare myself. Honestly, as my short time there unfolded, this surprise felt more like a sneak attack recruitment strategy than a spiritual getaway.

Immediately after greeting me, Lakmu or Lashuk or Lahhum or whatever her religious name was, (I never did pronounce it right and resorted to calling her what they all called each other and me: “mother”—No matter what had or had not entered and exited our vaginas, we were all thrown into the same pot--mother)….anyway, Mother said we were going to the Temple down town. “Temple? Down town? I signed up to stay at a nature reserve where they teach yoga, grow their own food in an organic garden, recycle and shit like that,” I responded, or something like that, minus the cursing.

“Oh, don’t worry, Mother,” she said, “Calm down. We’ll get there.”

From the temple she dragged me through the streets of Conception shopping for the supposedly “organic, home grown” ingredients for the meals we were to have. Many of these purchases we made at Chile’s version of SAM’s wholesale in the frozen foods section.

There were five of us mothers going out to the park from the temple that evening. 

 Since we didn’t get tickets prior, we had to board the bus last and travel standing. I’ve been on some crowded buses before, but this one was over the top. Mother1, Mother2, 3 strangers and I had to stand in the stair well, sandwiched between the door and the toilet. (This was one of those double-decker buses that has the door and the john smack dab in the middle of it.) For forty minutes I had my nose tucked in the armpit of a Uruguayan soccer player as he held on to rail above us and I held on to him. Really, I didn’t need to do much holding because there was only a 3 inch margin of empty space to fall anywhere. Every time somebody got on or off the bus, all the stair dwellers had to unload and then reload.

Don’t you know I was ready for a HOT shower in a spider-free bathroom. Not what happened. To heat the water, they had attached to the showerhead a metal contraption  that looked to be a coffee can with electrical wires strung up through the ceiling. Even if I could have figured out how to turn the thing on, I wasn’t about to and get the shit shocked out of me. As for the spiders, I walked in the b-room the first night to brush my teeth and in the 5 inches of space between the sink and the wall, a Ricon big as a chocolate-chip cookie had built a mammoth patio off its doublewide in the wall and was defending it with great fervor. So, I dry brushed and swallowed the toothpaste, which isn’t so bad, if you can work up enough spit to get it diluted down to a milkshake consistency.

Despite all of this, it turned out to be a wonderful experience. I met one of the coolest people of my travels to date—An Aussie named Alice. Poor thing had been cohabitating at the EYP with the Mothers and their husbands for over a week, not knowing any Spanish beyond “por favor” and “gracias.” The HKs don’t know any English beyond “Whut iz ur name?” and “Were ur jew frum?”  Was Alice ever thrilled when I showed up! 

Though both of us had committed to staying through the weekend, we conspired to bail before the day was through. Using her daddy’s credit card, she made a reservation at a 5 star hotel in Concepcion and invited me to  share the room, insisting that I not pay a dime. (See how these random acts of generosity come to me? ) 

Well, you know exactly what the first thing was that I want when we got checked-in. A hot shower! No, actually, I didn’t want a hot shower…I want a bubble soak in a tub of water just short of scalding for two hours. No, F-N-way! You are not going to believe this. The boilers at this five star hotel went out and they wouldn’t be able to fix them until tomorrow! What have I done to deserve this? Is it karmic payback for dumping a bucket of ice down my softball coach’s shirt? I packed up my stuff and decided to take the overnight bus back to Santiago.

From there I spent three days in Valparaiso, which is jockeying for number one on my list of best towns to visit in Latin America. It’s so bohemia and groovy.  After that I was off to Cuba and will save those adventures for the next one. The company I worked cancelled two of my trips, so I’ve been hanging out in my beloved fishing town in Uruguay. Off to Cuba this weekend and then to Dallas for the Vision Quest.

Sorry, no pics this time.

Much love,G