It's 12:30 on Saturday afternoon. Michelle sits to my left, typing lickety-split on her macbook air, probably quite eager to finish her work and hike back to her cabaña at the tip-top of the Forest.
I still can't believe this woman is seven months pregnant and HIKING up about a hundred stairs every time she wants a freaking nap. Michelle is a superhero. If I ever made a baby (which I never will), I would hope to be half as active and awesome as Michelle during the pregnancy.
Maile (a new volunteer from Switzerland) will be ringing the gong soon, summoning all us Forest dwellers for lunch.
I wonder if I'll start salivating when I hear gongs after six months at The Forest. I wouldn't be surprised.
I'm not heading to lunch today, regardless of how delicious the smells wafting through the office window are. I will do my best to resist the urge to taste whatever magical meal the kitchen ladies have whipped up.
Bourget. You ate breakfast two hours ago. Calm down. You do not need food again, I glare at my belly, already pleasantly bloated with pineapple, papaya, and french toast.
Hey. Hey you. Calm the hell down. Nobody wants to listen to your grumbles.
Breakfast was late today because Tammo and I decided to take a morning jaunt into town. So I asked James to set aside food for the two of us, grabbed my bathing suit, sarong, mountain of Spanish flashcards, and meandered down to Del Lago.
Sometimes I still have trouble believing that this is my life...
I've tried valiantly to settle into something resembling a routine at The Forest, but I've had to give up the idea of routine for my sanity's sake. Routine will never happen in Guatemala. Routine will never happen at The Forest. So I simply set priorities these days and occasionally try to meet one or two.
Photography is a priority. I've been focusing on that.
Actively participating in Forest offerings has been another priority. There are so many opportunities to grow in this space, but I usually just brush them off and go to the hammock area to read a Jim Butcher novel.
Which is a very productive way to spend your time, Bourget. Props to you.
But I did manage to catch a New Moon reading from Maile and Severin. Which, regardless of how much truth I believe astrology to hold, is a fascinating new world for me.
Priorities have also included hanging out with volunteers more regularly. So Nele and I escaped the Forest and tumbled down the trail to Shambala. To sit in their glorious hammock chairs and drink chai.
"Isn't it amazing?" Nele asked, gazing dreamily over the brim of her cup.
"I mean, I'm comparing it to the chai Ama made me in Nepal... so... it's not that overwhelmingly good," I said, trying to be honest, but also not sound like a jaded prick. Which can be quite the challenge, turns out.
Then Nele stole my camera and took her own photographs. Of me not enjoying the chai nearly as much as I'd enjoyed Ama's.
I'd planned to hike San Pedro (a nearby volcano) with my friend Joe (this fellow I volunteered with back in Germany four years ago. Who just happens to be in San Marcos), but I woke up Wednesday morning with giardia burps and farts.
Which is, quite objectively, one of the worst ways to wake up. For myself and for whoever is unlucky enough to share a tent with me.
"Tammo," I belched. "I was supposed to meet Joe and Simone at the dock at 6:30. But -- " I swallowed sulfur and grimaced, "-- but I really don't think I'll be able to go."
"Do you want me to go down and tell him?" Tammo groggily asked from his bed.
"That... that would be great," I grumbled. Then ran up a hundred plus stairs to heave into the composting toilet.
Fuckballs. I just had giardia two weeks ago. And now it's back? This must be a joke. A sick joke.
...
hahaha...
So Tammo jogged down to the dock to tell Joe and Simone that I would not be joining them on their 4000 foot elevation gain hike to the top of a dormant volcano. Whilst I stayed snuggled under my blankets, barf bucket close to my face, trying my best to keep absolutely still.
This is where all these yoga folks would tell me to "surrender to it."
Blurgh.
Okay. Surrendering. Commence waving white flags. You hear that, giardia? I SURRENDER. I KNEEL BEFORE YOUR MALODOROUS FARTS AND EBULLIENT BOWL MOVEMENTS.
Take that. Heh.
I spent the rest of the day surrendering on the cushions in the common area. Making the occasional, frantic sprint to the nearest composting toilet. But come afternoon, I gave up on giving up, and wandered over to the climbing wall. Where Tammo and Anna were scaling the craggy rock face like champs.
GAH. I wish I wasn't ridden with nasty parasites right now. Climbing would be heaps of fun.
I felt much better the next day. Just weak, trembly, and a bit gassy.
Huh. Maybe there is something to this whole surrendering business.
I briefly considered hiking San Pedro with Tammo, but decided that tackling a volcano the day after a giardia outbreak would not be the most prudent decision I've ever made. So Tammo and I just went to the town of San Pedro instead. Where we bought SIM cards, drank tea, explored some abandoned, gratified concrete buildings on the lakefront, and read our respective books at a lakefront cafe.
And Friday.
Friday, I did San Pedro.
San Pedro the cactus, not the volcano.
Jaya and Saraswati generously offered to guide all the volunteers on a San Pedro journey. As a way to thank us for our work at The Forest and as a way to connect with us.
This is exactly what I needed. To feel closer, more connected, more on the same page with the owners of this place.
San Pedro is a cactus that grows in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru. It has been used throughout the Andes as a ceremonial, spiritual medicine for 3000 years. The plant received its name when conquistadors tried the medicine, had such an intense, enlightening journeys, that they then named the plant "San Pedro." As Saint Peter is the one who holds the keys to heaven.
San Pedro was how one could gain access to heaven whilst on earth.
The active element in San Pedro is mescaline, a mild psychedelic. It's known as a grandfather teacher, a gentle, playful, wise medicine that sends people on extended (up to twelve hours) gentle, transformational journeys.
Jaya and Saraswati went all out, setting up the space for us.
We sat around in a circle, sang together, and then voiced our intentions.
"I want to receive guidance," one volunteer spoke up.
"I want to embrace the lightness of life," another volunteer chimed in.
"I want to explore forgiveness. For myself and for others. I want... I want to feel my past soften a little. To feel some distance from it," I added my intentions to the mix.
Then, one by one, we sat in front of Jaya as he prepared our drink, listening to Saraswati sing and gazing out at the breathtaking lake in front of us. We reverently drank a goblets full of bitter, slimy, grandfather medicine, returned to our cushions, and continued to listen to Saraswati's beautiful voice fill the shala.
It's hard to describe the sensations of San Pedro. I didn't hallucinate, but my senses were all heightened to a degree I've never experienced before. Time didn't lengthen like it did on mushrooms. It didn't shorten the way I does when I'm having a great time with friends and feel like the evening flew away from me.
Nope.
On this grandfather medicine, I felt so deeply present that time simply became irrelevant.
At three o'clock, Saraswati and Jaya released us high hippies into The Forest, asking us to take time alone, to receive whatever insights the grandfather had for us.
I grabbed my journal and scampered up to Lakshmi (where Michelle and Jonas live. At the tip-top of The Forest). I watched the tall grasses dance in the breeze, feeling deeply content that nothing was more important than watching the tall grasses dance in the breeze. Eventually, I opened my journal, took a few deep breaths, noticed the speckles of sunlight peeking through the leaves, and then began to write.
Living here at the Yoga Forest with so many people who are intensely focused on spiritual growth has been triggering for me in a lot of ways. I think that I associate spiritual growth with physical absence. With people so focused on this other plane of existence that they no longer invest themselves in the world around them. I associate spiritual growth with a close-minded search for the truth.
Not with an open-hearted search for A truth.
But do I want an empirical life forever? Or do I want to search for something sacred?
Did I lose my sense of meaning when I lost my faith? Is that one of the reasons I've been hobnobbing around the globe for most of the last six years? Because if I keep myself this freaking busy, this stimulated ALL THE TIME, I won't be bothered by an absence of meaning?
Maybe that's why people stuff their lives with so much clutter. Physical clutter, emotional clutter, mental clutter. Because clutter fills the painful void created by a sudden loss of meaning, a devastating loss of identity.
Is traveling the way I fill that void? Do I continually move from place to place, from life to life, so that I can't be bothered to search for new meaning? To actually feel the profundity of its loss?
Maybe.
My reverie was broken when Jonas tromped up the stairs, escorting a new guest. And I figured that the guest would rather not have her first moment at The Forest be spent witnessing a lady riveted by tall grasses. So I closed my journal, skipped down to the Submarine, grabbed my towel, some warm clothes, and headed to the shower.
Saraswati said to find our favorite place in the Forest. And my favorite place is definitely the shower. So I'm gonna shower, boy howdy.
I practically flew back up the stairs. And on the way, I noticed the pounding of my heart. How laborious my breath had become.
But it feels distant. Like it's something that's occurring... outside of me. Or, more precisely, I'm outside of IT.
Maybe that's how I need to feel about my past. It's still there. But I'll allowed to feel distance. Space. I'm allowed to be outside of it.
Then I hopped into the shower. And it might have been the best shower of my life.
At four thirty, we all gathered together in Shakti for a late lunch, more singing, and sharing our experiences.
What a beautiful, sacred space these people created for us. I can now much better understand and appreciate why people use plant medicines. The feeling I experienced running up that hill... if I can just tap into that sensation whenever I'm feeling bitter... whenever I'm feeling angry or hurt... I think i can live a much freer, more expansive life.
We closed the ceremony by sitting around a bonfire in the cave, making more music and sending offerings of gratitude into the forest.
And I loved it.
Okay, Bourget. If you don't cool your jets, you're going to be a full-blown hippie in a few weeks.
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