Christmas at The Forest -- Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

It's the 28th. I've been at The Yoga Forest for two months now, and have witnessed three volunteers say goodbye and continue on their respective journeys. Rachel is probably gallivanting around the US mid-west. Blake might be on his way up Acatenango, camping out and waiting to watch Fuego erupt. And Bre (like the cheese)? 

She could be in New Zealand by now.

Kayla leaves the Forest tomorrow morning, bound for three days of partying and yoga-ing in Santiago at Cosmic Convergence. 

Yes. 

There is a festival across the lake called, "Cosmic Convergence." 

I'm not going. 

I will abide by the excuse that someone needs to hold down the fort (or Forest, as it were), but the real reason is that I'm thoroughly uninterested in Cosmic Convergence. I've had it up to my bushy eyebrows with hippie shenanigans, and believe that a festival full of ecstatic dancing, cacao, and probably other... umm... plant medicines, would push me a bit beyond my edge. 

Maybe one day. I think I would like to go to a festival like Cosmic and enjoy it. But I'm not at a place wherein I'd enjoy such a thing now. Now, yoga and meditation a few times a week is perfect. Maybe I'll throw in some Kirtan next month. An ecstatic dance every now and then. You know. Work myself up to a place wherein I'd be happy to go to Cosmic. Instead of half-terrified, half skeptical of it.

It's the 28th. Not only have I been at The Yoga Forest for two whole months, I've made it through yet another Christmas away from home. And I'm happy to say that it was one of the best. By far (although it is hard to beat spending Christmas with Santa in a Nepali village).  

Because The Forest is chocked full of Germans (I swear, I hear more German than Spanish these days), we exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve (which is real Christmas, for Germans). As we're a rather large group of penniless people, we each drew a name from a hat and picked an inexpensive gift for that person. I'd drawn Jonas, so I painted him a giant spider, got all the volunteers to sign the back of the painting, and promised that I'd try to squash fewer spiders in the future. 

I also gave him a certificate for a totally transferable massage. So that his very pregnant partner could annoy him about it. Because I'm a horrible human being.

Anna, Jonas, and Nele brought wine to German Christmas. Tammo and I brought local cheese and some bread that tasted like sawdust. Nele also filled the table with candles (Nele is the resident candle lady. Wherever there is Nele, there are also candles). 

 

Anna had been the one adamantly insisting that we have Christmas Eve dinner together, so we unanimously dubbed her "Christmas Fairy," and she took charge of passing out presents.
 

Tammo had drawn my name for Secret Santa duties, so I, of course, received a bottle of wine from my perceptive tent-mate. And some tabs for a happy song on the ukulele.

I don't know if it's possible for me to play a happy song on the ukulele... I don't think me + ukulele + happy go together.

American Christmas was just another normal day at The Forest. Morning yoga, papaya for breakfast, no cups for our tea because they were all being used for the retreat-goers to drink salt water. So they could force themselves to vomit in order to cleanse their systems before taking rapé. You know. As one does on Christmas.

(Rapé is not unwanted sexual contact. FYI. The accent over this particular "e" proves that accents are, in fact, very important. Rapé is a kind of tobacco so strong that it has mind-altering effects and has been used in the Amazon basin as tribal medicine for centuries)

The day after Christmas was beautiful. It was bursting with wine, cheese, and happiness (which might be redundant).

"Oh my god, you guys!" Anna gushed. "This is amazing!"

Just wait, I thought with a smile. You think THIS is amazing... just wait for the cheese. 
 
I'd reserved a table for ten, and they'd set us up in the same place Nacho and I had dined on cheese and charcuterie a month before.

Miss that guy. But he's off having fun in Australia somewhere. Talking to everyone. Telling ridiculous jokes. Doing things that people will never forget, like reserving a table at Cafe El Artesano with a sign that reads, "Best Yoga Teacher and Cheese Lover Ever." 

While we waited for Jonas and Ira (Jonas' childhood friend) to return from buying vomit buckets in San Pedro (yes. Vomit buckets. That's how we do at The Yoga Forest. Although, for once, people are not vomiting due to parasites. They're vomiting due to ayahuasca), we explored the cafe grounds.

As the Forest Frenchwoman, Kayla expressed her cheese enthusiasm appropriately.

Jonas and Ira arrived (and hid the barf buckets behind the bamboo fence). We told stories, we drank wine, we ate cheese, we moaned over cheese, and I took many, many pictures.

We finally trudged back to the dock at around four o'clock, all feeling incredibly full, immensely happy and moderately tipsy.

Which is a wonderful way to feel.

Because Kayla is a) helpful, b) crazy, and c) super buff, she carried most of the vomit buckets up the mountain to The Forest.

On her head.

And because she is d) a ham, she had me photograph the event.

We spent the evening around a bonfire, drinking mulled wine and savoring the final holiday moments together.

I'm gonna look back on this Christmas next year... the year after... and I'm going to remember this feeling, I thought as I stared into the glowing flames. This warmth. This satisfaction. This twinge of melancholy because, well, I'm NOT home. But this overwhelming gratitude, because I'm with people who've made me feel at home.

The Solstice -- Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

I'm starting this post from The Fifth Dimension (whatever that is) in San Pedro La Laguna. Tammo sits next to me on a couch that is far more uncomfortable than it originally appeared, and the water of Lake Atitlan shimmers in front of me. Two rather flimsy hammocks hang from the rafters, accompanied by a flier with hammock rules.

•  please remove your shoes
• only one person per hammock
• no unsupervised kids

A Buddha sits on the windowsill next to the WiFi password (which is veganpower36) and the walls are covered with art that looks like it was painted by someone on drugs I probably haven't even heard of.

I thought I was escaping hippie-ville... yet I find myself at a restaurant that has a kombucha/vodka cocktail. 

...

Just go with it, Bourget. 

One thing that becomes absolutely unavoidable after living in San Marcos La Laguna for a few months is an awareness of the moon cycle.

I chose a different chair at Circles Cafe the other day.

"Hey! Hey you! Where you going with my cappuccino?" I playfully yelled at the barista, who was walking towards my usual seat.

"You moved!" he started. "You're not where you're supposed to be."

"Must be the new moon," a bystander/total stranger chimed in. "New moon is coming. Bringing changes with it."

"That must be what it is," I replied, hiding the laughter in my eyes behind the giant cappuccino. 

Along with being in touch with the moon (and all the changes it brings), San Marcos is also in touch with the seasons. And solstices. And I'm sure a lot of other things I don't know enough about to even be aware of. The Yoga Forest is no exception, and although people don't tell me that the reason I'm sitting somewhere else is because the moon is waxing or waning, we did have a pretty epic party this last Thursday. A winter solstice party, to celebrate the shortest day of the year.

What did this mean for us, as volunteers at The Forest?

Lots of bliss balls. Lots of cleaning. Lots of chaotic organization. Lots of moving yoga mats from one shala, to a porch, to another shala, back to the porch, back to the first shala.

A shit ton of dishes.

The day started off like usual. The guests and volunteers gathered around the cafe bar, held hands (right palm down, left palm up. Giving and receiving energy. Don't be a greedy bastard and have both hands palms up, receiving all the energy. That's only what heathens like myself accidentally do when we're so excited for scrambled eggs that we forget everything else), and performed some manner of meal prayer/chant. Sometimes as simple as an, "Inhale to sigh, then inhale to OM". Sometimes as funny as, "Inhale to smell the food, then inhale to MMMMMMMhhmm." Sometimes as complex as, "thank-you worms, for giving us dirt! Thank-you dirt, for giving us food! Our daily bread, we're gonna get fed! Thank-you worms, for giving us dirt!" 

 

After breakfast, I scurried down the mountain, tripping over the toes of my chacos and nearly face-planting several times during the short jaunt. Which is normal for me.

"I stumble all the time," I told Tammo the other day. "But I never fall. I always somehow manage to catch myself."

That's my life in a nutshell. 

Kayla is a stage manager back in France. Amongst many other things, of course. So she felt right at home with her multiple radios, overalls and cup of instant coffee. 

I love watching people do what they do best. I'm sure Kayla has many amazing talents (I mean, I've already seen plenty of them), but this is something she does fucking WELL. And you can tell it means a lot to her and she takes pride in it. And it's inspiring to watch her step into these stage manager shoes. 

Kayla and Jonas managed the Solstice. Michelle answered mountains of obnoxious questions. I frequently checked the toilet paper status (there's never enough toilet paper. No matter how many rolls you pile in. It's never enough) in the one composting toilet readily available to about a hundred and fifty guests (we encourage peeing on the grass). Mollie taught yoga and helped sell bliss balls. And we all just tried to be around to help out where help was needed.

 

There were yoga classes, and fluffy dogs abandoned outside of yoga classes.

Solstice guests were offered a choice between Forest food, and the extensive menu of a couple local caterers. Anna and Nele helped out with the menu, and I helped out by documenting Anna and Nele helping out with the menu (have I told you how very helpful I can be?). 

I've already forgotten the names of the caterers, but I will never forget their hats.

Or their pants. I want everyone who prepares my pizza to wear hats and pants like this. Holy bananas.

Tammo was technically more helpful than me, washing dishes as I photographed him washing dishes.

Pretty sure everyone is more helpful than me, right now. 

Oh well. At least The Forest will have some fun photos of the events. 
 

Tammo manned The Forest lunch table, while Mera and I (very helpfully) played ukulele beside him. 

After lunch, I popped down the mountain to the gate to see if I could help out Nele and Anna at the very official entrance desk. But ended up just doing a photo shoot instead.

Just as I had given up on actually helping out with The Solstice, I was plunked down behind the bliss balls and the last dregs of cacao. Which I very helpfully sold all of. 

At LAST! I am being PRODUCTIVE. 

The solstice ended in the Cave (an overhang with a firepit where most of the volunteers live) with music and dancing. Lots of dancing. In which I participated with carefree abandon (the beer I'd hidden in my water bottle helped) until a previous Forest guest laughed at me and said, "Aimee, you look like a clown!"

At which point a took my tired, bruised, clown feet (and clown ego) to the bottom of the hill, checked my bed for scorpions, and retired for the evening.

One of these days I'll feel fine about dancing like a clown/Mister Bean. But you know... today isn't that day. And that's okay. Today, comments still affect me. Today, comments can still make me feel like shit about myself. That's something that I can slowly work on. And part of that work includes not beating myself up for, well, feeling like shit. 

At least you danced. And sold HEAPS of bliss balls. Good for you, Bourget. Good for you. 

I'm Sad that it's Okay... -- Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

I haven't written in over a week because I've been busy. So busy with massages, yoga, and helping out with guided retreats that I've only had time for two paintings within the last few days. Which is unprecedented for me, as of late.

This is my 5th commissioned dog. I'm becoming amazing at noses (the rest is questionable). Holy bananas.

I've been busy and bursting with the myriad of emotions that rear their ugly, homesick heads around Christmas time.

This Christmas will be the fifth I've spent away from friends and family within the last six years. I had a Christmas in Copenhagen. A Christmas in Puerto Escondido. A Christmas in Istanbul. A Christmas in some remote Nepali village. And now a Christmas on Lake Atitlan. 

That's a lot of being away from friends and family.

And... and I guess I'm sad that being away is okay. I'm sad that spending holidays away from home feels normal for me.  

What does that say about me? About the kind of person I am? 

I don't know if I can answer that question. If I want to answer that question. If I can process the answer right now. 

I spent my last chill afternoon sipping a five Quetzales beer out of my green Hydro Flask and reading a Sci-Fi novel instead of my mindfulness books. My blue scarf drawn high around my neck, my grey hood pulled over my head, my knees drawn into my chest. Hiding my puffy eyes, tears, and the deep, sad lines digging trenches into my forehead.

I don't want it to be okay anymore. I... I want to feel tied to a place. I want to feel grounded enough to at least be called home for Christmas. 

Whatever home means.

Jonas noticed my sadness. He sat next to me on the wooden deck. Quietly.

"Let me know if you need to talk. If there's anything I can do. There seems to be a lot of emotions going around right now."

Nele noticed my sadness. She sat next to me on the wooden deck. Softly. I put my head on her shoulder, comforted by the pink sweater that looks like the Easter Bunny died to make it.

"Do you want to talk?" Nele asked.

No... but... but it will be healthy for me to get some of this out of my head. And Nele is a good person to help me carry this.

"I'm just really sad. I'm sad that it's okay that I'm not going home for Christmas this year. And I think that I've got this giant, awful melancholy in my life, and I can't deal with it. So instead of working through the real problem, I find little things to help me cope. And I get ridiculously attached to them. And then when they don't work out, I collapse. Like now. I wanted to paint this morning. I had in mind that I'd sit here, with my instant coffee and my watercolors, and would have this time to feel good and centered and relaxed. And that would help me cope with all the other shit. But I wasn't able to paint this morning, and now I'm having an emotional breakdown."

It's okay to feel this sadness, Bourget. It's okay to feel this melancholy. Try not to deny yourself this experience. What can you learn from these feelings? Are your priorities shifting? 

You don't need to answer any questions now. You don't need to have solutions. Just... just be gentle with yourself and be present to your feelings. Whatever they happen to be. 

Even though I feel melancholic about not being home this time of year, I'm grateful that I get to spend Christmas with Jonas and Michelle. With Kayla and Nele and Anna. With Tammo and James and Blake. We're filling the holiday season with dance, music, Secret Santa, cheese (we're all going to El Artesano on the 26th), and I have elected myself to be in charge of the mulled wine. And there will not be a small amount of mulled wine. Nor will it be weak.

In other news, I now have a tent-mate. Long gone are the despondent nights of sharing my circus tent with only the scorpions and spiders. Now I share it with a delightful German chap named Tammo (and the scorpions and spiders). And we've named our tent at the bottom of the stairs "The Submarine" (no prizes to guess why).

We're going to decorate. As soon as I finish my last commissioned animal, I'm going to do a watercolor of a yellow submarine to hang outside the tent flap.

No prizes to guess why. 

Discombobulated -- Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

I'm starting this post from the dining room area of the Yoga Forest. I hear the ubiquitous flap-flap-flap-flap as Victoriana makes corn tortillas, shaping the bicycle ground corn into delicious discs between her adept hands. The flap-flap-flap-flap stands out this afternoon, because it's... 

... quiet. Sweet, satisfying silence.

Sure, I can still hear the street dogs barking all the way down in San Marcos. Sure, the fireworks still go off every half hour or so. Sure, there's still the occasional guest who huffs and puffs their way up the hill to ask about the four pm yoga class...

... but both retreats have departed. The students of the 300 hour training were awarded their certificates, packed their bags, and glided down the mountain on Tuesday (most yogis glide. It's only the occasional dysfunctional yogi such as myself who "bumbles"). The students of the 200 hour training were awarded their certificates, packed their bags, and glided down the mountain on Thursday. 

So now The Yoga is populated by a couple of guests and a myriad of volunteers. And it feels like family again. 

It's so much nicer when we can all fit around one table for meals. When I know everyone's name and all the faces are familiar. 

All the teacher trainees were wonderful people, but most were caught up in their own intense journey into the world of yoga, and were somewhat difficult to connect with. Because when they weren't in class (which wasn't often), they were studying. When they weren't studying, they were contacting family down at Circles Cafe. Other than that, they were sleeping. So they'd have enough energy for the classes, the studying, the hiking up and down the mountain. 

With the teacher trainees, there was such a distinct separation between them and the volunteers. But it never feels that way with guests. Which I love.

My last few days have felt... funky. I've been out of sorts. Discombobulated. Frustrated. My mornings usually start out beautifully... because, well, with this kind of sunrise, how can my morning not be beautiful?

Communication has been unreasonably difficult for me, as of late. My Spanish classes proceed at an exceptionally sluggish pace, as I bashfully struggle to construct the simplest of sentences. Gigi (my Spanish teacher) smiles and laughs and tells me for the seventeenth time that "caballo" is "horse" and "cabEllo" is "hair." So I probably don't brush my caballo every morning.

... 

If it was simply Spanish that I struggled with, I'd be slightly less disconsolate about the whole scenario. But the bits and pieces of Spanish collide with the bits and pieces of French, Italian, and Turkish all floating around in my head, like garbage in outer space. Mix this with the fact that every time I sit down to dinner, I hear German, Australian, New Zealand, South African, American, French, and British accents, and you might begin to grasp the depths of my conundrum. 

My brain desperately tries to attach meaning to anything and everything it can. And it reaches to the first piece of floating space trash it can get its grubby little neurons on.  

"Where's Taylor?"a guest asked about his girlfriend. 

"Oh, Kayla's working out in the cave," my brain misheard. 

"I want to stay in this same constellation," Jonas said around the dinner table the other night as we discussed our Christmas plans.

"What do you mean?" another volunteer asked.

And my poor, addled brain heard the word, "disconsolate" instead of "constellation." So I spent the next two minutes helpfully explaining the definition of disconsolate to the non-native English speakers. Before Jonas kindly interrupted me. 

"Umm... I said constellation." 

".... oh." 

I was waiting in line to use the toilet the other day, and one of the local women cut in front of me, holding a towel. 

Fuck. She's gonna clean the bathroom. And I have to pee so badly. Blurgh. 

"Umm..." I scanned my brain for pieces of my miniscule Spanish vocabulary. "Por favor," I motioned to the toilet. "Yo...uh... muy rapido..." 

"Solo necesito poner esta toalla en el baño," the Mayan woman patiently responded. 

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN???

"Ach. Por favor," I tried my best to look desperate. Which wasn't hard. 

The poor lady just smiled helplessly, understanding the total futility of the situation. 

The Scotsman in the bathroom emerged a couple of minutes later, the awkward smile on his face letting me know he'd overheard the whole exchange. 

"Eh.... it's all yours." 

The Guatemalan woman strode into the bathroom, quickly hung the towel on the towel rod, and then walked out. 

She didn't want to clean the bathroom. She just wanted to put a new towel in there. 

These are times I hate not being able to understand.  

"Oh... uh.... gracias," I hung my head in embarrassment as I closed the toilet door behind me. 

I try to speak less these days. Speak less and listen more and better. But this approach doesn't appear to be helping much. The time I spend not speaking, I usually spend beating myself up for all my communication failures. 

Which isn't very productive. 

Try to be patient with yourself, Bourget. See if you can smile and laugh at all this silliness the way Gigi does. 

When I'm not grappling with humiliating communication blunders, I'm finding ways to incorporate my passions into my work exchange at The Forest. To find ways wherein what I want and love to give is what The Forest wants and needs to receive. 

The Forest needs help with social media. So I've been taking pictures.

After six years of on again, off again traveling/on again, off again volunteering, I've become much more set in my passions. Much less open to work I don't find meaningful. I want to make art, teach yoga, practice massage therapy, cook, and maybe do the occasional exchange which involves horsemanship. 

I want to minimize, as much as possible, whatever falls outside of these categories. Part of me feels selfish for thinking this way. But most of me feels like I'm simply, you know, maturing. Understanding what kind of footprint I want to leave in this world, and actively trying to leave that kind of footprint. 

And the moment I discover that what I want and need to give is not what The Forest wants and needs to receive, I'll leave. I'll go somewhere else where I can find more harmony. I'll be super sensitive and make sure I don't become a drain on this place. That I'm meeting needs that genuinely must be met. Oscar Wilde says that selfishness isn't living how one wants to live -- it's asking others to live as one wishes to live. 

I won't ask anyone here at The Forest to live how I want to live. But I will unabashedly focus my energy on the passions I have that contribute to this place.

I'm finishing this post from Circles Cafe. The WiFi is experiencing a rare, fleeting moment of not being absolute shit, and it's the one day I don't have a skype date scheduled. 

Aimee. The universe is not against you. 

Life is just hilarious. Like your Spanish. That's all. 

We hosted a devotional concert at The Forest last night, after which all the volunteers and guests built a fire, drank alcohol, and ate junk food. 

And my body is now in balance.  

I kept quiet around the bonfire, not wanting to mishear and misspeak for the twentieth time that day. But I did ask if I could open the wine. 

"When I buy my own wine, I get the cheap kind with the screw top. Because that's all I can afford. So that's what I know how to open. When other people buy wine, they buy the nice kind with the cork. And they open it. So I suck at opening wine with corks. Regardless of how much I love wine with corks. I need to get better at opening them." 

"Oh, I can show you!" Anna beamed from across the flames. "I'm a sommelier." 

"What?" I said, sure I'd misheard for the twentieth time. 

"I'm a sommelier!" Anna beamed again. 

"You took the test?" I asked incredulously. 

"Well, of course I did!" Anna briskly replied, as if just about everyone takes the sommelier test on Tuesday after coffee. 

"Holy bananas," I had nothing else to say. 

I took photos of kirtan this morning, and it felt good to slide into the role of photographer again.

Mollie and Anna. The display looked lovely, and I complimented the ladies. "Oh, I was an event manager in Austria!" Anna beamed. I now think Anna's done everything.

I've been in Guatemala a month and a half now. I'm finding enjoyable ways to contribute to the Yoga Forest and really feel at home here. 

Awesome. 

Next goal: stop saying "I'm brushing my horse".