This is the tropical version of New Mexico. Mountains, blue skies, vistas, streams, plants; the energy here is very similar, except it is wet wet wet. My hair loves the humidity. This is the end of the rainy season right now. Two days ago I felt so weird. My host went on and on about something I only realized later was barometric pressure. Yes, either high or low barometric pressure, whatever it is before it rains here, makes me feel like a zombie. Does barometric pressure even exist in Santa Fe?
I've learned recently, through the process of being asked many times where I am from, that I am from New Mexico. Not Ohio where I grew up or Oregon where I called home for 7 years, but New Mexico. This struck me as strange at first considering I've actually spent the least amount of time there of all the places I have lived. But, I think it is home because I have directly experienced the earth more there than in any other place. It's hard not to. There aren't suburbs or strip malls. (Well, maybe in Albuquerque, but I'm never there.) The earth is everywhere. The sky is unbridled too. Of course my home is a place untamed and expansive like my own heart. It doesn't matter that I have lived there as a permanent resident only one year. It is home, for now, even when I am unmoored from all my responsibilities and creations there. I wonder if it will continue to be home.
I've learned recently, through the process of being asked many times where I am from, that I am from New Mexico. Not Ohio where I grew up or Oregon where I called home for 7 years, but New Mexico. This struck me as strange at first considering I've actually spent the least amount of time there of all the places I have lived. But, I think it is home because I have directly experienced the earth more there than in any other place. It's hard not to. There aren't suburbs or strip malls. (Well, maybe in Albuquerque, but I'm never there.) The earth is everywhere. The sky is unbridled too. Of course my home is a place untamed and expansive like my own heart. It doesn't matter that I have lived there as a permanent resident only one year. It is home, for now, even when I am unmoored from all my responsibilities and creations there. I wonder if it will continue to be home.
Now I am home in the Santo Daime community and ecovillage that is Ceu do Patriarca, nestled in rolling green hills above the sea on the north end of Florianopolis. (see http://www.acepsj.org.br/ and translate with Google Translate) It is so beautiful here. On weekdays there is stellar lunch served in a communal kitchen, where the mosquitoes eat me for lunch. This is the rain forest of Mata Atlântica.
It's hard to go running in the rain forest, at least in this rain forest. There are only steep hills, and no flat ground. Hopefully this will serve to strengthen my knees, not break them.
Yesterday I found out why I can barely understand anyone since I've arrived. I thought I was just getting used to the high energies and intense itchiness. No, folks in the south don't use você and está, but a variety of shortened pronouns ta and tu and ti. Just when I thought I was advancing! Oh well. Here, I sound like a textbook when I speak.
Today is the first day I have not taken a nap in Brasil. It seems to be consensus that sleeping and showering are not once-a-day activities. Totally my style.
Travelling is stretching my ability to adapt and be comfortable. The comfortability I have here is not the familiarity of my things and my preferences, but an active surrender. Cake for lunch? No problem. Your house is actually a 12x12 room with a broken toilet? No problem. You want to put more sugar in my coffee? (yes, my coffee!) No problem. Television blaring super loud all day from the next room? No problem. Absolutely zero soap available without a lengthy list of chemicals? No problem. (Actually, this last one is a problem. I should have brought so much more soap) I should point out, these are not here in Ceu do Patriarca, except the issue of soap. That is everywhere I have been so far.
I am told it is illegal to make soap or other body products for sale without the inclusion of pharmaceuticals. There are no midwives here. It is illegal to home school. There is a lot of white flour and white sugar. I find myself wanting to personally give Brasil everything she doesn't have: knowledge of women's health, plant medicines, holistic birth, soap.
Maybe it is different in the North of Brasil. I am told that it is urban here. Here, away from the tourist areas, where a solitary sheep greets you at the bottom of the road, and there are just hand built houses and dirt roads and mountains and plants. I've seen people at the edge of "town" out walking their cow in the morning. I think the distinction of urban comes with the purchase of groceries from the store.
The light is gold after the rain. I wash the dishes for my hosts. I walk to the house of the woman who works with plants to talk about what we know that the other of us may not. Nothing to do here but experience this huge new world. And if you look at the map, I'm on the tiniest island of this enormous country, and just right here feels enormous itself. My new 9 year old sweetheart comes to show me and spray me the "perfume" he's made, I think from soap and rainwater. Sneezing now. Yes, soap and water; I just got the tutorial :)
It's hard to go running in the rain forest, at least in this rain forest. There are only steep hills, and no flat ground. Hopefully this will serve to strengthen my knees, not break them.
Yesterday I found out why I can barely understand anyone since I've arrived. I thought I was just getting used to the high energies and intense itchiness. No, folks in the south don't use você and está, but a variety of shortened pronouns ta and tu and ti. Just when I thought I was advancing! Oh well. Here, I sound like a textbook when I speak.
Today is the first day I have not taken a nap in Brasil. It seems to be consensus that sleeping and showering are not once-a-day activities. Totally my style.
Travelling is stretching my ability to adapt and be comfortable. The comfortability I have here is not the familiarity of my things and my preferences, but an active surrender. Cake for lunch? No problem. Your house is actually a 12x12 room with a broken toilet? No problem. You want to put more sugar in my coffee? (yes, my coffee!) No problem. Television blaring super loud all day from the next room? No problem. Absolutely zero soap available without a lengthy list of chemicals? No problem. (Actually, this last one is a problem. I should have brought so much more soap) I should point out, these are not here in Ceu do Patriarca, except the issue of soap. That is everywhere I have been so far.
I am told it is illegal to make soap or other body products for sale without the inclusion of pharmaceuticals. There are no midwives here. It is illegal to home school. There is a lot of white flour and white sugar. I find myself wanting to personally give Brasil everything she doesn't have: knowledge of women's health, plant medicines, holistic birth, soap.
Maybe it is different in the North of Brasil. I am told that it is urban here. Here, away from the tourist areas, where a solitary sheep greets you at the bottom of the road, and there are just hand built houses and dirt roads and mountains and plants. I've seen people at the edge of "town" out walking their cow in the morning. I think the distinction of urban comes with the purchase of groceries from the store.
The light is gold after the rain. I wash the dishes for my hosts. I walk to the house of the woman who works with plants to talk about what we know that the other of us may not. Nothing to do here but experience this huge new world. And if you look at the map, I'm on the tiniest island of this enormous country, and just right here feels enormous itself. My new 9 year old sweetheart comes to show me and spray me the "perfume" he's made, I think from soap and rainwater. Sneezing now. Yes, soap and water; I just got the tutorial :)
