Is it safe here?

It’s 7:32 pm on Tuesday November 19th.  This I am telling to myself because the days are blending together in a less than healthy way.  I’m, of course, in bed because it is pitch black and I’m living on a cliff so pretty much not anything else to do.  I know you think this sounds like heaven, but the concert below is going strong and I have 2.5 more hours of a heavy bass beat mixed with barking packs of dogs and crickets to endure.  The crickets I do not mind.

A little history of Guatemala so you can have some compassion for the nightly evangelical concert below:  The Spaniards came to Guatemala in the 1800s and brought Christianity.  They killed as many indigenous Mayans as they could and also destroyed their art, architecture and literature.  In the 1950s Guatemala had a functioning 20 year old democracy and some folks in America decided they wanted a vacation spot like the Brits…you know I think all the Brits go to the British Islands or something.  So with intent our government sent the CIA to Guatemala to destabilize the government.  They did a bang up job and ended up not only doing just that, but also massacring 600 Guatamalans (YES THE USA DID THAT) and killing thousands more.  They basically turned the Christians agains the natives.  In 1995 there was another uprising and genocide.  Again, folks wanted to kill off the natives because of their “heathen” ways.

Well the truth is Christianity here is odd because the old traditions won’t die off.  It’s very Evangelical.  So at 7 am every day, a preacher gets on the loudspeaker to start the entire community off with a morning prayer.  Then he pops back on at 2 pm.  And then they are back at hard at 7 pm – 10 pm.  Can you imagine living in a neighborhood like that?

In the kitchen at Yoga Forest are 4 – 6 lovely Guatemalan women cooking for us from 6:30 am until 8 pm.  They cook on a firewood stove.  They hand wash all the dishes.  At one point, one young woman asked our teachers why they don’t hire more people?  I mean it isn’t like staying here is inexpensive nor is the teacher training.  Our teacher explained to us that they can’t.  Only certain families will work together because their fathers were murdered by the other families.

I know, right?

We had a kirtan today and all the yogi people from down below came up. 90% white and mostly Americans.  These yogis are really taking over the lake buying up all the property and such.  I honestly don’t know why Guatamala doesn’t just close its doors to Americans after that terrible history.

I’ve had the question is it safe here or not.  I can’t really tell.  Yesterday when everyone else was on their Mesculine trip I was on my own and walked through the forest alone and into town alone.  I didn’t feel unsafe.  The people are very friendly and always say hello.  I don’t know where the violence is compared to where I am.  Driving 4.5 hours from the airport to get here I noticed the infrastructure was reasonable.  It is way nicer here than in India.  I did see poverty, but I didn’t see any shanty towns or anything like that.  I have to assume that most of the violence related to drugs and gangs is on the Mexican border.

I do wonder why Guatamalans make the 1,000 mile trek to the US border.  I would imagine it would be easier to hike deeper into the country and away from the borders or towns with violence.  And I’m probably missing out on something here.

SO CATCHING UP ON FOREST GOSSIP…

SWEAT LODGE:   The sweat lodge was on Sunday.  We all got in the back of a truck and stood up packed together like sardines and drove to some property owned by two Shamans.  On the property was a concrete circular structure with a roof and on one side a fireplace.  There was a door.  All were instructed to derobe.  (I wore my sports bra and underwear…bacteria sitting naked on some bench….yuck).  I made sure I was the last to go in so I could be by the door.  There were basically two rows of build in stone benches, one high and one low.  One of the Shamans sat by the chimney where the heat came to fill up the room and poured water on the hot pipe to make steam.

The other Shaman played a drum and everyone chanted to a lot of different things like Kali and Ganesha and others I don’t know.  I lasted about 30 minutes.  It wasn’t the heat thought.  When I sat down I noticed a HUGE spider on the wall.  It was lit up by a candle so I kept my eye on it.  About 10 minutes in the Shaman blew out the candle and everything went black.  So I couldn’t find the spider anymore.  And then my legs started cramping, but when I put my feet down I touched fuzzy stuff on the ground and decided it was covered in spiders.  (This is with good reason.  I’m not crazy.  You see when you go to the outdoor shower at night you open the door and shine your torch and all the spiders go running so you know there are lots of spiders in this concrete dark structure.)   And then I started to sweat a lot and the condensation on the ceiling started to drip and I decided there were spiders everywhere.  So I left.

So I once again failed to have an amazing spiritual experience which it appears everyone else did.  3 of us got a Tuk Tuk back to the forest.  A Tuk Tuk is like a motorcycle but it can fit 4 people.  Super fun like a King’s Island ride.  It was nice having the forest to myself.  I took a HOT shower for about 20 minutes.

AYURVEDIC CONSULT:  The next day was a day to myself and honestly It was much needed and most enjoyable.  I did have an Ayurvedic Consultation and Ayurvedic Massage.  The Consultation was pretty good and I learned a lot about why I have felt so low the last 14 months or so.  He did a pulse diagnosis and on a scale of 1 (being low) to 5 (being high) my Ojas (vital life force energy) was not even registering a 1.  So I need to do lots of rejuvenation and also ground the Vata in my Colon which is out of balance.  He insists I am Pitta/Kapha which is new news to me because every other person I have met with says Vata/Pitta as well as the quizzes I take, but I blogged already about childhood trauma and its influence on your dosha.

Pitta Kapha is a super sweet dosha so i hope he is right.  Mostly it is Pitta.

I’ve been reading Stephen Copes Great Works of Your Life which is about Dharma. I think a shifting Dharma is the biggest contributor to my imbalanced state.  I haven’t really enjoyed owning the studios for the last year.  They are a TON of effort and work with very little cash flow to me.  Over time that becomes a grind.  Luckily we are doing a lot of personal “flow” work here so I’m hoping to have a new strategy for EOM that frees me a lot.  I’m super excited Alex is opening Mt. Lookout and brining new energy to the place.  She will be key in me realizing my next dharmic phase and hopefully me in her realizing hers.

I really would like to lead a 300 ryt.  The entire focus on the Vedanta.  I don’t know about these 30 day programs.  I haven’t learned that much and we only have 18 days left …and I think we have 2 more days off and 2 more 1/2 days.  I’ve been studying the manuals a lot on my own though.  It just seems as soon as we get into anything the time is up.  I mean we haven’t practiced yoga with our teachers for 4 days now…  That’s a lot of practices to miss when you are trying to learn a new style and memorize a flow.

Anyhoo…I guess it doesn’t matter.  Our 300 will be in Cincinnati and probably take a year to get through just like our 200.

Well I’m just typing now out of boredom and I’ve probably bored you to death so if you are still reading then Sweet Dreams to you.  I’m gonna go find a glow stick and rave.

Sat Nam.