dew

In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
K. Gibran

Overall, peace flows from the Creator, I sense it and am relieved, refreshed, enough to carry on, though I carry on in ways that are at times consciously unconscious, and momentarily imbued with deep clarity. Alternating. Just what that clarity inspires me to do is a question that goes begging. With dignity, rather than dignified, judgment creeping closer to the soul, the poison of humanity. Self-aware enough to know I have no self, only a soul. Humbled, yet not humble enough. Gratitude first, and last.

The season has well and truly turned in Arequipa, there’s a trace of moisture in the air, woohoo! January is the “wet” month, the rest of the year is uniformly bone-dry, warm in the day, cool in the evenings, typical high-desert conditions. Drought is a way of life here, particularly as global warming, combined with the appropriation of the source of clean water by agricultural companies growing crops for export (to the First World), and the poisoning of what other water there is by mining, threatens health and rationale.

Selling “my” house in Mpls was the highlight of 2014. The opportunity to re-connect with old friends, an ex-love too, for a couple of months in the Twin Cities, delightful. Going back to Zacualpan, Edo de Mx, back to the Sacred Fire that kickstarted my soul after chemo in 2011, equally nourishing. Real estate has come to be my Achilles heel, it’d seem. P’raps it’s simply a matter of attention, what one chooses to pay attention to, and to ignore, has to have consequences. Viewing that house as an albatross around my neck, the catalyst for the demise of the only relationship that lasted, the home my daughter ran away from, a place of heartbreak. It’s all well and truly over now. Who'd have thought that losing so much money on a deal could feel so good?

My mum and I have stumbled into another bad real estate deal here in Peru. Deeply aware that it’s as much about being attentive as anything else. She was desperate to buy, to own and not rent, and I went along with it against my gut feelings. When the person who’s selling you a property insists on wearing sunglasses while signing the contract you can’t help but wonder. Yet losing tens of thousands of dollars, again, doesn’t really matter to me. I’ve only ever gone hungry out of choice, and the prospect of losing everything doesn’t frighten me. The cancer and chemo ensured a clearer perspective on fear, and loss. If only my mum felt the same…she obsesses to a degree that’s impacting her emotional and physical health. Her daily rants are wearying; the holiday season came and went in a fog of anxiety, a barrage of insults, her world's turned dark and brooding. But even that doesn’t seem to be enough motivation for me to really care about losing money.

I spend my time re-living ceremonies, or fantasizing about future ceremonies. The image of Siddhartha, an old man living in a hut next to a river, boatman for travellers, subsisting on meagre rations of rice, enthrals. Content, living, breathing humility, apprehending the meaning of existence in the river. Or the Andean shepherd, roaming the mountains communing with nature, conversing with it, for Quechua is an onomatopoeic language of nature. There’s a village, Chiguata, further up the side of the Misti volcano that I’ve been riding to regularly since we came here. I met a group of cultural revolutionaries recently and we’re talking about converting a piece of land by that village, land that one of them inherited, into an organic farm, with a temazcal (!!!). Well over a year ago I stopped on my ride to Chiguata to sing a song of gratitude to the spring I saw. It turns out that same spring water irrigates my new friend’s land. Praying.

May you also feel peace, because of and despite of anything you may perceive to be occurring in Gregorian time. May you also find respite from the needless limits of linear thinking, and just be in the cycle of existence.

Blessings, blissings, and immense gratitude. I visualise your face, and heart, as I send this,