A natural diet may lead to a light and present disposition. A stock of deep breath, a deep time framework and a a geological vocabulary. A list of tweets and twangs to describe the sounds. Screeches and hums, glistening magic, animism and sacrality interwoven into the wakening of the senses. Aroused, on edge, eyes begin to glaze, as I feel my body slip into a state of blurred edges. Hazy feelings and succinct adjectives make for a wonderfully abstract realistic painting.
Verbs that follow the breath, and outwards and back in, following the contour of a spiral, closer and further from the origin with every beat.
Qué es el rezo? Es la conciencia de las bendiciones, es nuestra interpretación florida de la vida. La manera en que recibimos el mundo. Nuestra entrega. Es el parteaguas que dirige nuestras manos y pies. Es el corazón reconociendo e intencionado su lugar.
And suddenly my mind encompasses the earth. Every twig a niche of my soul, every lump in the ground a massage undoing my ego. Every breeze an awakening to the limits of my body.
Dealing with my insecurities, my rigidity and my lack of purpose I have found a home in nature. Through the kindling of a sense of curiosity I continue to explore my natural surroundings. As I find grace in silence, in the colors, smells and sounds of the Earth I shed distractions and expectations. I find the forest to be my greater skin, the river to be flowing thru my veins. With this awakening gratitude for finding myself within nature the fire in my heart leads me to devotion. The air stirs my limbs and inflates my lungs, leading me to dance and song. The expressive constellation of life drives me to share my prayer.
Guavas are tropical, little and round. In the Dominican Republic they are larger and didn’t look very tasteful. In my region of Mexico the most coveted are pink- they are the sweetest. I assume there are pink guavas in Hawai, as I saw a movie in which a pink-guava mimosa was served, it looked delicious. Very high in vitamin C, you can find them in candy, with cheese as a desert, as juice, or even as my favorite flavor electrolyte.
The town I live in proudly declares itself World Capital of the Guava. I have not found the official number, but every night trucks drive their loads to the highway where the boxes, or guacales are loaded on to semis to make their way to the central market in Mexico City. It’s a perilous affair. Risks include dirty traffic police and distributors’ arbitrary prices. I try not to bite the seeds because they’ll get stuck in my teeth for hours. Guavas don’t stay fresh for very long, so every day hundreds of tons get thrown out from la Central de Abastos. Juice manufacturers offer measly prices for third rate product – barely worth the gasoline to drive them the fruit.
We make jams, and while they’re successful amongst our guests we have a whole storage closet full of them. Some friends for a while made a craft-beer out of guava, but out here in rural Mexico there was not enough of a market to sustain their business. There are larger guacales to collect soursop, mangos, mamey, zapote and ciruela when they’re in season but 90% of the farmers have guava trees. They say the first ones came from Peru. One of the evidences used to theorize that the Purépechas from Central Michoacan are actually descendants of the Quechuas from South America. A south-north migration. Others say these theories are nonsense. And yet others have told me the elders say so themselves.
I work in tourism and take city-dwellers out into guava fields and talk about the life-cycle of the tree and colloquial beliefs about the harvesting even though I’m new to the scene. Hijo de la guayaba (son of a guava) is a national saying, and it refers to the harvesters being exposed to a certain pheromone when picking the fruit that incites baby-making mood when back home. I’ve fallen in love with the scenery – perhaps due to the hormones – perhaps due to the lively green scenery of this fertile land. Water springs and mild weather allow for growing just about anything.
The path from the hot springs to the waterfall was part new, part ancient. We were sitting by the waterfall the other day when out of the jungle three hunters materialized. By the look of their ragged clothes, ancient rifles and smudged faces, they were very poor. They were looking for iguanas. Just for fun? Or to feed their families? I have been appointed guardian for this space, and yet, this may be a millennial need I be confronting. How to ask them not to hunt on the property when it’s what they’ve been doing for generations? Only talking to them. I only got in a quick question as to were they were heading, before getting a grunted, ‘beyond this place’ to reassure ‘el güero’ they were leaving, but a longer conversation is needed.
A week later I was walking a group of elderly ladies down this same path. They were fascinated with every nook and flower. A solitary hibiscus found on the trail got tossed into a girl’s hair. Knowing we wouldn’t be able to hike for very far or long, we trudged slowly around the big garden, getting a close look at everything we crossed. I’d never realized before that what we call Red Flame, are really bracts- or specialized leaves- and the actual flowers spurting from the red are white. Littered along this trail are passion fruit, fallen from the overhanging vines, Granada flowers giving way to the fruit, and spectacular Golden Orb Spider cobwebs. This part of the trail is on private land. Once you cross the road, the path becomes a public walkway used by all the community to visit the waterfall.
Although less flowers were to be found on this section of the trail, butterflies were abundant. Giant White Morphs floating softly thru the air, Silkworms suspended in the air amassing their string as they crawled back up from the overhead branches, fluttering Sulphurs, Whites and Yellows, Swallowtails flashing their pink and yellow dots, Zebra Longwings dazzling their stripes. Perhaps a lack of iguanas?
I’ve never seen a lizard on this trail. We’ve seen MotMots, ringed-tailed cats, and fire-fly larvae on the stream banks. The passion fruit trail is lush and perhaps in danger. Every rain season rocks come a tumbling. Foam aggregations give a sense of human discharge and soap remains. Plastic and waste have to be fished out weekly. Perhaps, our trail is not in danger, and I am but a rookie conservation-enthusiast. Truth be told, I don’t have the slightest idea of tell-tale signs of erosion, water quality, and animal populations. But base markers have to be set.
If you’re ever chased by a crocodile on land, run in zig zags. That’s one of the lessons you learn growing up in a tropical country. Lush green and cloudy grey Panama. High-rise PTY, red diablos buses blasting raging plena. Spanglish spoken begrudgingly due to an American invasion in 1990 to protect its economic interests. A banana Republic that had severed its cultural and political ties with Colombia, because of foreign interests to build a canal – first French and then American.
Of course, I didn’t really perceive all of this when we moved to Panama when I was eight. As a kid of an affluent family, we were choffered to school, to karate class, to check out cds at Arrocha. You don’t really walk much in a country this close to the equator. You move from one air-conditioned room to another via a closed-windowed car. My bubble was both environmental and social. Perhaps all those closed windows, shunning neighborhoods that had been bombed in the invasion, never really having to learn the language to get by, all contributed to my seeking refuge in books.
I did most of my reading in a hammock we had on the porch of a weekend house in the surrounding hills of the capital. Laid at the edge of a lake, surrounded by rainforest, we always joked about sweet water crocodiles and anacondas, but everyone once in a while we did hear packs of howler monkeys in the close distance. Swarms of ants and other exotic insects were a frequent part of our habitat. Dehumidifiers and fans did little for when the clouds rolled in – my favorite time to take one of the kayaks out for a spin on the lake. Absolutely no visibility beyond a couple of feet, a real challenge to the nerves, and a complete delivery of trust to the lake.
We attended an International School, with friends from India, Chile, Taiwan, Japan – mostly diplomat kids – all finding commonality in English, MTV, Harry Potter, and occasional introductions to Panamanian culture, like arroz con pollo , field trips to the jungle, and art projects about tropical birds, whales and dolphins. In Middle School I was befriended by the cool kids – the Panameños – kids of the most affluent domestic families. Entitled, mostly quite snug, often riskier or more prone to mischief, because of parental neglect.
A crew of four, me polishing my Spanish – decided to enter a long-standing canoe competition. Begun by Boy Scouts, this race ran the entire length of the canal- from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean over a span of three days. For this intense three-day travesy, crews trained for months in advance. After school we’d head to the hangers just below the Bridge of the Americas, hitch the trailer with our cayuco and navigate it into the water. There were days we practiced capsizing, other were’d we goof around with other crews, jumping off the buoys that marked the path for the cargo ships and cruiser transversing the canal any given day. But the real challenge was training for the lake stretch.
The Gatun Lake lies between the two oceans and the locks-systems that make up for the different elevations. 33 km was paddled in just under 3 hours by the best crews. The only real way to advance properly in a cayuco is to coordinate balance and pace with your other three paddlers. The pacer, or first position, sets the rhythm and switches. 12-16 strokes per side, before switching. Power strokes to overhaul another cayuco or for a home stretch. Second in the dugout canoe: power house, strongest paddler, never stops. We’d stick tubes through cut out holes in gallons of water, so as not to have to stop paddling to hydrate. Bailer, has to bail out the water if too much has swept over the sides. And finally, the navigator corrected direction. Tape for blisters, foot rests to adjust for back pain.
Finishing a lake run has to be one of the most satisfying feelings there is. A successful test of gliding endurance. Of a youthful milestone of joint effort. A sporty reenactment of how our ancestors travelled waterways. Young men confronting the wild, skirting crocodiles and manatees. Facing the boiling sun, the hardships of saltwater, and growing biceps starting as young as fourteen. To finish one of these sessions meant to crash exhausted in the afternoon, cold fruit and frozen chocolate bars being a special delight.
When we finally finished the race, as a team of all-fourteen year olds, we were the youngest crew to have ever accomplished this feat. At one point it felt like the entire crowd, both on the shore and in the surrounding motorboats were only cheering us on. 7 hrs and 32 minutes to cross that lake. To this day, I stretch my shoulders out in pride at the memory. *
I have never stopped reading, but after this, I began to go to parties, to ask out girls, entering debate clubs and student councils. My childhood bubble was burst one paddle stroke at a time. The foreign feel of a tropical backdrop became my watery playground. The exotic Spanish became part of my vernacular. To become a master paddler became the dream. A broken dream, whose story, is for another time.
Overflow of the river has moistened the banks, a turmoil of mud and branches, a haven of flies.
Expanded with the rain, can this pounding be cleansing? Or is it an escape valve for overburdened clouds?
Runoff, surplus, remnants of plants’ needs – off to feed the horizon.
Water is renovation, hope to continue purer, closer to my dreams.
How many others sit at the banks of this river as it curls its way down. How many ranches, how many towns does it transerve? How many more falls can be accounted for by the remaining 1300 meters to reach sea level?
How many lovers come to soothe their quarrels by the flow of the water? How many will enjoy the sound of bubbles and eruptions on this overcast Sunday afternoon?
To this spot I’ve brought those who don’t think twice about plunging into the water; those who’ve brought offerings and prayer; those who need reminding to pick up their trash; those who are reminded of better times; those who begun to meditate.
Vivo entre dos ríos… vienen de bajada, acariciando la topografía, a veces suspendidos en el aire, a veces solo un murmullo.
En donde vivo, se refuerza el río, tomando fuerza de los manantiales, agarrando vuelo del brotar de la Tierra.
Si uno se deja, todo revive aquí. Aislado entre los cerros, las ideas y las emociones se alientan en una bolsa de humedad, me deleito en un enclave tropical. Aquí los colores son más turbios, la vegetación más cerrada, el sonido del agua rebota en la densidad.
Las flores son reflejos de las mariposas. Este revoloteo inspirador de colores ayuda que cada momento en este bosque sea completamente único, cada pensamiento fresco y emoción renovada.
La inmersión a la cañada es un encuentro con las entrañas de la montaña, la mirada se alienta, va hacia adentro. La piel se extiende, el alma se reconoce, juega en las grutas, busca el flujo del agua, las copas de los árboles el pétalo de la flor, la cima del cerro.
Coming to the beach is difficult for me. The waves wash away all thoughts, but it is not a silent contemplation or a romantic reminiscence – there is no uniform drone, but a constant crash, a constant pull back to the now. You have no choice but to face what is stretching to be released – pain, poetry, disillusion.
There are wave patterns to the sea, a sense in the maritime ecosystem, but amongst this there is a storm of sand, a battering of noise, a randomness of crashes. So it is within me as I recognize my controlling side, my defenses twist and shout, lash out and look for another victim.
Dulled into the expansion of the ocean, and yet battered by the constant waves- am I awake? I am here. My soul has just begun to reveal itself in this new environment/form and already it is time to go.
Is there enough of me to fill this grand sky? Do I need to at all? Is it sheltering? Is it an invitation to wonder, to forget myself, to just be in presence, in admiration, in reception, devotion.
Corresponding, I can perhaps find the words, the color, the sentiment. Bring the turmoil in me down to a simmer, find a little of me that is able to respond, to recognize the awakening. Ah! To be barefoot for a week. To move around from lounge chair to hammock to bed. From book to sky to horizon. From sand to water. From food to yoga. From games to drinks.
