We visited each of the women that Yasmin likes to purchase from. Baking soda and cinnamon here. Carrots over there. Vanilla and baking powder where kisses were a part of the buenas tardes greetings. Children run freely and play throughout the market. Some were helping their mothers (I assume) to mix the curry sauces that are offered for purchase in small plastic bags. Enormous bags of many different kinds of potatoes dwarfed the vendor sitting on her stool. Fresh juices were offered in a neighboring stand. One vendor had thousands of eggs stacked and prepared for bulk purchase.

We took our purchases and hopped into a small jeepnee/three wheel taxi to head to the home where the children live. Upon arrival, we were greeted with joyful faces, ready for carrot cake. Yamsin organized bowls, knives, forks, measuring cups (water glasses), and a big bowl for mixing everything together. The children were excited to teach us Spanish for words we don’t know (like “mixing”) and eager to take direction from us, even in our broken Spanish. For example, when adding sugar to oil, we took turns adding “Poco, poco,” so that everyone who wanted a turn adding the azucar would be able to participate. We could also say “despacio” or “rapido” for the stirring. Uno, dos, tres, came in handy when adding teaspoons of baking powder, soda, or cinnamon. And so on. In the end, I learned more Spanish, and they learned to make a cake.

While it baked in the oven, we did yoga poses: mesa, gato, baco, perro (bajo y arriba), balancing izquierda y derecho, arriba perro con uno piernes, position de paz, position de luz, position de chicas, and so on. There was a lot of giggling and great efforts to make the yoga poses! I showed them full back bend which produced a good 15 minutes of effort, tumbling, assisting each other, and exclaiming “MIRA! MIRA!” (LOOK! LOOK!).

One of our students, Marco, was quite adept at yoga and proceeded to teach us, step by step, how to do the lotus pose. He could also put his foot behind his head! (I was teaching “Pies a la ojo.” (Foot to eye pose.) he then gave us a demonstration of Kapoeira (I don’t know how to spell that!)

It was a lot of fun for all of us, and I stretched my Spanish in ways that were suited to how they had to stretch their muscles.

RENEWING SEE SAWS
Today we sanded and re-painted the rainbow color see saws at the children’s center. At every orphanage I have been to the playground equipment needs tending. This was a fun project for Ann and I as we watched the see saws transform before us. We also watched our hands turn deep red (rojo), in her case, and splotched with green (verde) and light blue (azul) in my case. Sadly, I can’t get the photos from my camera to my computer while I am here in Peru. Will have to post those later!

As we were painting, we were serenaded by an archaic version of the iPod: a transistor radio. In the background we heard the sounds of a brass (I recognize the trumpet!) marching band possibly playing for a football game. It was quite early in the morning for marching band music (if you ask me). We were also accompanied by the intermittent “moo” of the Rainbow Center cow. And the giggles of a small girl watching our work.

ART: A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE
The Rainbow Center is a school for special needs children, many of whom can not be cared for by their parents either because their parents are unable or unwilling. In addition, the center has a special home for 6 children to live together with a house mother.

Each day on our arrival we are greeted by joyful faces and kisses to the right cheek “Ola, buenas tardes, professora.”

We visited this home to get to know the children, teach yoga, make carrot cake (yesterday’s project) and to undertake art projects as well. As my background is in both art and art therapy, I felt a warm sense of integration between my youthful studies in graduate school and my life today as a woman with much more life experience. That being said, in my graduate training my clients spoke English, and we had ready access to art supplies. (In my placements and work situations, we often did not have any budget for art supplies.) Here in Peru, we use what we have available; and Yasmin, our coordinator, emphasizes that what we use ought to be readily available to the children even in our absence.

So, we combined plastic bottles (those are plentiful here) with the art donations from our group to make decorated planters. The children will have seeds to plant to watch flowers grow in their window sill. Tomorrow we will combine flour and water, newspaper and paper towels, and balloons to do a paper mache project. As we discovered today, t-shirts make great smocks for grown ups and children.

During projects the children are amazingly focused, attentive and willing to learn from us. In spite of our language barrier, I taught them how to make “snowflakes” from construction paper and scissors. We decorated our snowflakes with paint, markers, and additional pieces of paper. In some cases, they made three-dimensional snowflakes! As they learned to make snowflakes, I learned to use more of my Spanish. For example, to stick the construction paper art onto the plastic soda bottle, one must push pretty hard with both hands. So, I roughly put together a few words: “Empuje con dos monos.” Which produced a lot of laughter! My pronunciation is not always accurate, and I did not realized that I had told them to “Push with two monkeys!” With coaching, “Empuje con dos manos.” To which the children replied in sing-song voice “Empuje, empuje, empuje.”

We had our photo taken at the end of our project:

Our travel group is planning to have a compilation of photographs. For anyone interested in a slide show, please let me know!

Throughout our time in Peru we’ve been hearing about some of the traditions of the Andean people. One of those is an honoring of the elements. We’ve walked the earth, high and low; felt the heat of the sun and the heat of ritual fire; and today, we communed with water.

Rafting, like yoga, requires us to acknowledge the larger forces surrounding and sustaining us. It also, like yoga, requires a kind of communion with and respect for these forces such that we participate with respect, focus, and appreciation.

With a skilled guide and focused team mates, we made it through the rapids, the slide, dancing in circles, and getting stuck on a large rock. We also managed to feel our experience in muscles, bones, breath, and heart. Much like yoga!

OLLAYATANTATAMBO
We hiked another ruin this afternoon. Our guides pointed to the rock quarry off to the other side of the valley, high up where the right kind of rock was found for these buildings. Gigantic, enormous, immensely large rocks were prepared at quite a distance. Expertly engineered to fit together with no mortar, each rock was delivered to be put in place piece by piece like a puzzle. To even stand near one of these incredible rocks and imagine the human force that would be required to move it is mind boggling. When you then hear that it was all done without the use of wheels, it’s even more shocking! (Wheels are round. The sun is round. And using a round object would have been considered disrespectful.)

We hiked up another series of very steep steps that once again made me question the height of the Andean people.

TRAIN RIDES & HOT BATHS
We were then whisked off to the train for our scenic tour into the Sacred Valley on our way to the overnight hotel for Machu Picchu. The train station was one of the most modern places we’ve seen, including espresso bar, snack shop, beautiful landscaping, and tourists smoking cigarettes. I tried to put together the concept of smoking a cigarette in this high mountain air, but it didn’t fit.

The train ride was exceptional in several ways. In direct contrast to my experiences in India and Ecuador, it was clean, comfortable, organized, includes complimentary food and beverage service, and as you can imagine, the ride is extraordinarily beautiful! It doesn’t escape me that this train is set up for tourists and is well funded by our presence here. I was amused by my own sense of relief. In general I had prepared myself to experience parts of Peru as I experienced much of India. The only similarity, in this case, was our exposure to the train fumes while waiting on the platform.

Another similarity to India, our arrival in Machu Picchu “village” reminded me very much of Dharmasala. Very international. Tons of shopping stalls selling “same same but different” stuff. High mountain terrain. Well set up for tourists. And terrific restaurants. Our rooms all along the way for this trip have been beautiful, more than comfortable, and consistently include amazing views of the land around us. This was no exception; and after the long day of river rafting, ruins hiking, and train ride, I was utterly delighted to take a hot bath.

MACHU PICCHU
I’ve been carrying this BLOG around with me on my little notebook computer. For days I have been wondering how to write about Machu Picchu. What to say? We hiked up to the top of the world (the hike that starts from Machu Picchu and goes more or less straight up). We sat on pointed rocks at precarious angles. I leveraged a second large rock to do some yoga poses (photos not available on this BLOG). And then we hiked down from the top of the world in awe-inspiring visages in all directions. We were 7 of 400 people up that specific hike on this one day. And 12 of thousands to visit Machu Picchu.

But, really, what to say about the ruins, the Wonder of the World? Today, I realized, I can’t write about it. Words are not coming. Perhaps that says more than trying to get some adequate words out of my body, heart, mind, spirit experience of Machu Picchu?

I can say it was a joyful, child-like delight that you can buy a vanilla flavored soft serve ice cream cone after hiking to the top of the world!

BUFFET MEAL
Once down from the trekking around Machu Picchu, we were greeted by an enormous buffet meal at a restaurant called Toto’s. We’re certainly not in Kansas! The buffet must have been 50 feet long, and included anything you would want to eat in Peru, including fresh made potato chips. Though the buffet sign read “mashed potatoes,” these were definitely the deep fried kind that one craves after the tremendous exertion of hiking in hot sun. I can not remember everything I ate from the buffet, but I do remember something of a personal first: I enjoyed a piece of cauliflower (one of the five things I really DO NOT like to eat!). Perhaps it was because the cauliflower was deep fried?

YOGA and LLAMAS
Our morning yoga site was a grassy area in the eucalyptus forest up the hill from Cusco. I asked Dullio if Willie, our tour driver, would want to join us for yoga. To my heart’s delight, he did! This yoga was auspicious for several reasons. Willie joined us. Eucalyptus wafted through the high mountain air. The sun rose on our faces during surya namskar. And, part way through the yoga, a heard of llamas, young and mature, came walking through. Their llama-herder was a young boy on a mountain bike!

In my delight to have Willie join us, I tried many words in Spanish (also good preparation for teaching yoga to the children at the Rainbow Center). Many times a week, back home in Portland, I have the honor of teaching a person their first yoga class. It’s quite rare, however, that they’re listening in a second language, wearing jeans, belt, baseball hat, and sneakers, or have driven me around their homeland with the honor of exposing me to what is sacred in their country. I inwardly celebrated every effort Willie made. We shared a lot of laughter as a group because we were all stretching our Machu Picchu muscles too!

Later that night, Willie would stop by the fine restaurant at which we were having our last group meal. We asked him to come so we could give him his tip. When he arrived, I was magnetically pulled from my seat to arise and greet him with a hug. I have been so grateful for his service and constancy with our group, but there was something more that pulled me to this embrace. Aside from the group, to me he said “The yoga, I will never forget that, not as long as I live.” With that, he pressed his fist to his heart and hugged me once more. We both had tears in our eyes.

Willie then reached to each group member at the table and offered them a hug as well. I knew I was not looking forward to the inevitable good-byes of tomorrow.

Reflection: When the heart is full with gratitude and tenderness, culture, gender, age, life experience, and many other “differences” fall away. When we open ourselves to this, the heartbreak is one of the heart expanding, not collapsing. How will we maintain this openness? How do we become the “heart-herder” for our own heart’s awakening?

The Rainbow Center was started by a young woman of 23 yrs old from the United Kingdom during a visit she made to Peru in which she realized the overwhelming need for children with special needs. Just this one fact alone is enough to stir your heart. A woman from a far away land with a vision for these children set out to make a school which required her to take over the site which used to be a dump, learn how to oversee construction of the buildings (including running water to the bathrooms), raise awareness about special needs to the Peruvian locals (in some cases the families did not understand their children’s “disorders” and would raise them along side of barn animals), and to raise funds internationally (the government did not recognize her efforts when she began) to support this school.

As a fellow servant of social justice, I’d like to meet this woman! As a fellow person on the planet, knowing her story raises the volume of my passion for and commitment to the needs of all members of our family, the family of humanity.

What would make you come alive in this regard? And what would you be willing to commit to make it happen?

PARACHUTES and YOGA
After our tour, we played with the children. My personal favorite is the monkey bars! Swinging arm to arm across the bars was a favorite past time as a child myself. (Of course, swinging from anything was a favorite past time!) The youngsters that allowed Valerie and I to hoist them up and support them in their efforts, while non-communicative verbally, were joyfully communicative in laughter and the quick-moving excitement of tiny limbs finding their way to wrap around the bars (or us!).

Yasmin called everyone to the activity known as Brain Gym. We circled up for songs that included body movements. Adults and children shared the leadership from the center of the circle. My Spanish vocabulary was delightfully able to follow along! Every child was celebrated; and we practice applause, applause, many times.

We then circled round a large rainbow colored parachute and practice low, medium, high, slow, fast, rapid, as well as the names of the colors. Children were asked “Que colores?” And alternately shouted or mumbled “Verde! Rojo! Amarillo! Azul!”

Our group was introduced next and the children eagerly participated in our yoga instructions. Carol taught the lion’s pose, which they absolutely loved! My mother, Pat, taught the tree pose. Nicole showed them upward dog, and Ann demonstrated Cat and Cow poses, which included much mooing and meowing. I made up some poses, such as position de pescado, a variation on Warrior 3 in which the arms make swimming motions. I also demonstrated handstand, crow pose, headstand, and full backbend. This was a major catalyst for the children to show us their poses! Many of them, with the support of two staff people, enjoyed showing us their headstand or handstand.

Meanwhile, lunch was being expertly prepared. We were served a drink made from purple corn and pasta with cooked vegetables. While the sounds of the school yard would be like any other school in America (or elsewhere on the planet), the incredible focus and silence during lunch was shocking! At the orphanage in Ecuador, where I was volunteering last Christmas, meals were times for fighting, temper tantrums, and crying jags. Here, the children sat at the long tables focused on actually eating their food.

Every child is welcomed here. Some come from homes where parents are primarily absent or unable to care for them. They each receive medical care, psychological evaluation and support, schooling, and life skills classes (for the ones who are older and higher functioning). There is structure to each day, including their classes, Brain Gym, and meal times. Some of the staff are mothers of the children, volunteering their time to support the successful socialization and education of all of the children.

Next week, I will return to the Rainbow Center with Ann for four days of volunteer work. Our crew arrived for our one day visit with suitcase loads of supplies from art to medical to kitchen utensils, and so on. If you would like to make a donation, send supplies or find out more about volunteer opportunities here, please visit the Rainbow Center web page:
www.kiyasurvivors.org/rainbow-centre

OUR OWN CHILDHOOD ACTIVITY!
The next adventure on our day was a bike ride through the mountains and down the valley. Dullio expertly prepared us with excellent mountain bikes, helmets, gloves and specific directions about how to brake on high-mountain, downhill gravel roads. The high altitude air gave a few people challenges initially, but, once acclimated, we road through the terrain and small villages with the glee of children. We were even given a snack during our mid-ride break: juice boxes, granola bars, chocolate and hard candies! The village children must have recognized this opportunity to be the recipient of candies because we were quickly surrounded by half a dozen eager hands!

On the last downhill of our ride we were informed about the sheer cliff to our right, from which we would see the Salt Pans. Dullio’s second guide, Yuri, who does downhill mountain biking as a competitive sport, adjusted my seat lower than low (certainly not a fit for bike commuting) and stuck with me for the descent. I tried to explain that I can not afford to fall on my one-year old hip, but the limitations of my Spanish, in this regard, produced only very quizzical facial expressions. Nonetheless, it was an exhilarating ride and I felt a warm appreciation for this professionally renowned, physically adept, well-respected bicyclist to make his way tenderly down the mountain with me “in tow”? behind his shouts of “like this,” “lean right,” “slow, slow,” and “yes, you made it!”

DULLIO
Our guide in Peru has been outstanding! He’s on top of every detail, including food allergies, lost luggage, a traveler who missed her flight in NY, and constant changes to itineraries. Dullio is also an expert in the physicality of all of our outings (hiking, biking, kayaking, etc); and he’s taken to the yoga like a fish to water. Because of his constancy and impishness (great combination), we’ve come to calling him Waldo, as in the character “Where’s Waldo?.” One minute, Dullio is scouting out the trail ahead of us; the next he is photographing us from a rocky ledge on the hike; and then he’s e-mailing the airline from 10000 ft looking for lost luggage. It’s a real treat to be with someone who is as passionate, committed, and on top of these details as Dullio is. He’s also got a great sense of humor; and is willing to teach me Spanish while I’m teaching yoga! See the links section at the bottom of this post to go to his website.

SALT PANS
From the stopping point of our bike ride, we hiked down to the Salt Pans. Five thousand or more expertly crafted “pans” are set up, tended to, and harvested by the locals. The practice of harvesting salt from the mountain water than runs through this area (which is quite salty) pre-dates Incan times. The pans sit on the side of the mountain. Ranging in size from 10 x 20 to 20 x 30, they are a few inches deep. Throughout the pans, water has been expertly channeled to feed a pan the water it needs before the owner of that pan closes off the water supply to allow for the evaporation that becomes the remaining salt. While water evaporates on its own, the pans need tending. They need to be built, mixed, watched over, stirred, and ultimately harvested at the first, second, or third grade of salt (this is up to the owner of a pan). To see it is quite impressive as most of the pans require a person to walk skillfully along the narrow edge of other pans to get down, down, down into the ravine where pans stretch out across several miles.

Watching the locals work with their salt was a visceral experience of indigenous practice. I found myself transfixed by the process, though the nearest salt pan I could see was hundreds away. It’s intriguing to think about how I have to head home at the end of a day to make sure cats are fed and the garden is watered. These people have to head out to tend to their salt pan!

Reflection: To what do you go eagerly home to tend? Can we experience that to which we tend (aka our responsibilities) as joyful reminders of nature’s impressive power, generativeness, and beauty?

PISCO SOUR
Dullio’s parents own the Qawana hotel, where Kim and I are staying. (The rest of the group is down the road at the ten-person bed and breakfast, The Green House.) Many years ago, he was tending bar and managing the restaurant, while also taking guests out for kayaking, biking or hiking adventures.

It was during this time that he perfected the art of making Pisco Sours, a delicious and potent alcoholic beverage. Nicole, who has years of experience as a bar tender, was very impressed as Dullio made twelve Pisco sours at once.

I understood the craving people have for such a refreshing drink after a long bike ride!

Ingredients: Lemon juice, pisco, sugar, egg whites and ice (made from purified water).

Following the dying demonstration, we watched how they weave into fabric using a home-made loom attached either to a post in the middle of the courtyard or to the foot of a weaver. The patterns are created in their minds well before putting the yarn on the loom. Intricate and time consuming, I watched in awe of the patience, deliberateness and tradition that was displayed right before us. As the guide was explaining how the tradition is passed down from one generation to the next, orally, I was taken by surprise as the women whisked me up and positioned me on the teeny bench for the post-supported loom. They expertly wrapped the loom around my waist, put a traditional hat atop my head, and gave me the bone of a llama to set to weaving. (I would not call what I did weaving, but they were amused and I appreciated the chance to experience a piece of their world in my muscles and bones.)

One reflection: What traditions are we carrying downstream from our families? How do we pass these traditions on in our community? And what traditions would you like to re-awaken, either family or culturally?

BLINDNESS
Our next adventure included another ruin: Moray. A site where intricate use of land, wind, and water was harnessed for agricultural production. Moray was designed within an existing “bowl” in the land. Deep and round on all sides, the traditional use of terraced agriculture was at a high point here. The bowl was protected from wind and well-suited for irrigation from a reservoir higher up. Circular terraces were carved into the earth with enormous physical effort. To see it, one knows that the commitment of the community was an integral part of life in such times.

To move between terraces, rock outcropping steps were installed in the wall. Each rock was independent, with plenty of room for physical error on the part of the climber! While I struggled with many of the steps (there were pretty big drops in some cases and I found myself wondering just how tall the Indians of this time were!), I overheard excited encouragement coming from over my left shoulder. I turned to see something miraculous:

A young blind man was making his way down each step. With his walking stick, he did painstaking research on the depth, shape, and configuration of each stone. While he did this, his parents (I’m assuming) spoke in enthusiastic German, encouraging him without usurping his own efforts and courage.

I was witness to his entire descent into the base of the terraces. Enthusiastic German, stick tapping, toe touching, wall grabbing, and foot placing one step at a time. One careful step at a time. Slowly, slowly.

Despacio, despacio. Ornamented with excited squeals, in English, of his confidence building journey, we could hear him in the ampi-theater like setting saying “I did it! I did it! I made it!” His face shone and his voice rang out completely free of self-consciousness.

Reflection: What pilgrimage would you willingly, blindly make knowing you would have only your unseeing senses available to you? How would you “see” that which is ancient through your skin, ears, nose, or heart?

PISCO MOJITO
A group dinner outing offered me a life-time first: a pisco mojito. Round one went by with just a few sips off of Carol’s mojito. Round two, we went half-sies. There was no need for Round three!

Ingredients: Lime juice, mint, pisco, sugar, and ice.
Pisco: very strong local alcohol made from grapes

Savasana is the pose in which we practice dying. Translated as Corpse pose, it is a rehearsal of sorts, for our inevitable departure from this world. To internalize this while practicing here in the sacred valley of so much potent spiritual and cultural history transforms the experience. To what are we dying? What must be surrendered? And to what do we awaken when we arise from savasana?

As filled with ritual as the Andean practices are, yoga also utilizes ritual. If you ritualize your savasana and practice it with heartfelt relationship to these questions, there is a powerful transformative opportunity.

To what do we die? We die back to the immensity that sustains us now. We die back to the earth, the sea, the sun, and the stars. We die back to the deep quiet from which we were born. On a daily basis, savasana is also an opportunity to die back to Love; to dissolve any perceived barriers to the immense presence of Love as the force that sustains us. In this regard, savasana becomes a meditation on dissolving. The more we practice, and the more heartfelt our practice, the deeper the recognition of this Love. Ultimately, we then become able to drop into this immensity in waking moments, in conflicted moments, in joyful moments.

What must be surrendered? From a yoga perspective, we surrender our self-centeredness, our self-referencing, our perceived separateness, and our sense of isolation or alienation from Love itself. Savasana is also a time to actively surrender our conflicts, complaints, and habits of contraction. (You can always pick them back up again after savasana!)

Here in Peru, we’ve already committed to the surrender that international travel requires. We’ve surrendered tending to most of the life we live back home (ie I hope the garden is doing okay!). We also surrender too tightly held attachments to the way an activity unfolds (or be disappointed, miserable, or frustrated). While this surrender isn’t limited to Peru or any other destination, travel can really amplify this practice. The teachings of yoga tell us that surrendering our likes and dislikes, grasping and aversion, desire and resistance, leads to equanimity and freedom .

From this surrender, we awaken to experience a state of radical acceptance. Wide-eyed curiosity. A heart open to the world as it is showing up just now. A mind clear and available to what is right before us!

TREMBLING
Today we visited the Pisac ruins. For five hours, we hiked the steep mountainside (starting at 10,000 ft, up and down elevation changes of 1000 ft) . Eyes open, heart beat accelerating, lungs pumping the thin air in response to our body’s altitude driven demands. While the physicality of this could overwhelm, simultaneously, the heart is magnetically aroused by the landscape in ways that one can not anticipate. Certainly, my legs were trembling with many of the downhill steps, and a surge of apprehension arose. Yet, the surge of my heart was more a fountain of awe: awe that each of us is such a tiny spec in the universe for such an infinitesimally small blink of time. Trembling thigh muscles were a pale distraction, a whispered reminder that every step on the journey of our short and precious lives is important; while the vaulting rise of mountains around us and the cascade of the deep valley below hauntingly reminds us that we belong to a much greater presence than we could every conceive. My personal prayer: to experience this presence embodied, to learn to love and be loved, to live in uninterrupted respect for all that is precious, and to abide in quiet humility like these mountains.

FLUTE PLAYER
While we alternately reveled in and struggled with our mountain climb, a local man galloped over the pathways, often appearing on a rise above us, seemingly out of nowhere. The impressive thing about him wasn’t just that he was so light-footed, so quick and delicate, but that he played the flute along the way. Quite beautifully!

We would be struggling with a steep turn, cliffs on both sides, and be suddenly and sweetly serenaded. A reminder to soften and re-commit to the awe of the moment.

On the steepest, longest descent, we could hear him getting closer and closer, the sound growing in our ears. A realization that he was at the bottom of the ravine, when he’d previously been up above and behind us, was a pleasant and quizzical surprise! My trembling legs appreciated the haunt of his music. As I arrived at the bottom of the ravine, he offered me a flute to play.

In spite of my well-worked lungs, with his expert positioning of the flute to my mouth, something akin to music came out! I now have a flute that will play three octaves? Kind of like the height and descent of the hike!

DOGS and WINE
Following the physical challenges of the hike, we drove through the sacred valley to our next destination: The Green House Bed and Breakfast for the group and the Qawana Boutique Hotel for me and my roommate. Upon arrival, we were greeted by Dullio’s (our guide) dogs running alongside the van with the excitement of dogs seeing their human again after many days. At the Green House, three more enthusiastic dogs awaited our arrival. The sweet-eyed small blond dog melted into any opportunity for petting. The smaller red-haired dog showed off her new slipper covering a recent injury on her foot. And the black lab did what black labs do: soak up affection and ask for food. Over at the Qawana, Kim and I were greeted by a puppy with an interest in yoga.

Our hosts at the Green House served us a gourmet dinner of home grown salad, baby quiche with asparagus, a chicken and quinoa dish that included bacon, and apple crisp with ice cream for dessert. We were also offered red or white wine.

Funny how dogs, wine and ice cream can make people feel right at home!

Of course, with travel (and with yoga), we’re encouraged to feel a sense of home on the planet wherever we are.

A short walk to the village this morning replaced one item taken by the TSA: body lotion, with vanilla. Last night’s ritual fire, led by the Andean Shaman, lingers on my clothing, while my clean laundry blows in the vigorous winds of the afternoon, raising the smoke of the neighbor’s burning project like incense gone wild. Eucalyptus trees line the dirt road and the ‘forest’ around us so abundantly that the air smells of their fine scent. Being at once over-dressed and then under-dressed for the changeable chill or heat of the day’s cycle produces the ‘mingled with sweat’ in the bouquet description!

Another inevitability with group travel: we accept these things with humor and grace.

RITUALS
Today, we experienced an Andean ritual for the four directions. We’re ensconced in our lovely bed and breakfast, like an oasis of sorts. The ritual leaders, DjonnaMaria and Hetty, clearly live their lives with the teachings they share. As a person with a long-standing allergy to inauthenticity, I’m relieved to find myself in the company of their clarity and heart. We were exposed to the teachings through ritual for each element.

The earth represented ‘to want’ or desire. It is the equivalent of what I would call Holy Desire, in yoga’s teachings. The Upanishads tells us ‘You are your deepest driving desire.’ If you don’t know what that desire is, a look at your life can tell you. It’s critical to be honest with ourselves in this. If our deepest driving desire is to live in compassionate wakefulness, for example, it’s critical that we ask ourselves, what percentage of my time am I truly devoting to this? How much focus, energy, and will am I committing here?

We spoke to the earth of our Desire. We listened for her response. After a long while of quiet communion like this, silence, knowing, and ease came.

Water represents this silence. It is the silence and mystery of water to which we ventured next. Much like we used the Ganges for ritual in India, we went to the water’s edge here in the valley. The river is strong and clear. I sat for some time watching the water move, rolling over itself. Several times I tried to hold my eyes still and just let the water move through the field of my vision. It’s amazing how programmed we are to follow activity (like following thought!). While I could not hold my eyes still, I was able to maintain a soft focus of about a four-inch viewing space. It produced a tremendous amount of personal quiet with great respect (once again life teaches us this!) of how impermanent, fleeting, seemingly random, and oddly impersonal life is. When I say impersonal, it is not meant to imply a kind of lack of caring from life itself. Rather, my experience is of great benevolence and humility, through which, I experience a profound relaxation of most of my Western conditioning! (Hooray! Even if it is briefly lived, it’s still quite impressionable.)

After lunch (which in my case includes the daily luxury of resting according to Ayurveda’s suggestion, today also included bathing, laundry, body lotion to remedy the intense vata here, and some time in the warmth of the sun), we worked with the air element. Air, in this ritual, represents Knowing. Insight, knowing, integrated, visceral depth of experience. To explore this, we scrambled up what wasn’t quite a path on what wasn’t quite a hill (more like a mountain) exclaiming in our various means our fear of going down. I find this compelling: as a group, we were not, by and large, fearful about going up. We went up in crocs, chacos, sneakers, a sun dress, and some yoga tights amongst us. We were more frightened of getting back down. Yet, today’s teachings also suggested we expose ourselves to the underworld where our fears and anxieties, judgments and anger live. Hhhhmmm? Certainly more frightening to go down into that stuff than to scramble up a mountain in search of Knowing!

The wind at the top of this scramble was worth it. We were told to let it blow through the throat most of all, as our leaders sense that Westerners often don’t say what they want to say, need to say, wished they’d said. While water was to support us through unresolved grief, air was to support us in unresolved anger. We stood atop the dome of our hike arms stretched wide and hearts open.

The hike down was something else altogether! If we were in America, we would have been trespassing tourists in trouble. Fortunately here, ‘ayuda!’ won the attention of the gardeners working on the estate through which we decided to make a safer descent. So, oddly enough, through our Andean ritual, we hiked down through the estate of a person with much material wealth. I wondered what part of the underworld we were walking through!

Finally, we’ll have the fire ceremony. Fire represents forgiveness. In a couple of hours we will gather at the fire pit before dinner and explore this critical energy. (and, no doubt, I will have yet more nuance to my personal aroma!)

As the electricity has been on and off here all afternoon, I am hoping to send this to my office in the little window between the gusts of wind. The VATA is totally outrageous here! We will harness it tonight in a chanting session after dinner.

A BIT OF THE MUNDANE
It’s always terrific to get out of one’s patterns, whether in the mental or physical sense that yoga suggests; or even in the mundane encounters that travel requires.

The shower floor makes a terrific ‘washing machine’ for laundry. After washing hair and body, drop dirty clothes to the shower floor. Add soap. Stomp around. Be precise where needed. Rinse. Turn off shower and wring clothes out. Hang on line in 80 degree heat with vigorous winds. Voila!

Olive oil is a terrific substitute for body lotion. Also great for the inside of the nose when high altitude dryness threatens to disturb your sinuses.

Toilet paper is not meant for going down the toilet. When you consider it, it actually makes perfect sense! And is practiced in India, Thailand, Equador, Costa Rica, Mexico, and, yes, Peru (at least these are my real life experiences with such).

Electricity should never be taken for granted. There are forces more powerful than man that can interrupt us at anytime!

Climbing the stairs at 8000 ft is an aerobic work out. Until you acclimate. Then you scramble up a gnarly hill for glimpse of the valley, which leaves you breathless in more ways than one!

We’re in Pisaq surrounded by giants, the mountains, and gently nestled in the valley at Paz Y Luz. We hear the silence of these great mountains under the vaulted and impressively dark night sky, though just down the dirt road the local village hums with the night life of motorcycles, children playing, dogs running, and carts of street food such as papas fritas.

The path of yoga requires us to embrace paradox and to see through apparent duality into the underlying unity. A Shaman welcomed us this afternoon in an Andean ceremony. While he spoke his own dialect during the ceremony, we were told, through loose translation, the meaning of the ritual objects. We welcomed the masculine and the feminine, the earth and the sky, the wind and the rain.

Like this, yoga also teaches us to explore these powers as energies that can be harnessed for the power of awakening. Shiva and Shakti. Restraint and Immersion. Discipline and Non-attachment. Force and Surrender.

I think back to the Miami airport, cluttered with travelers entranced in the culture of our ‘modern world’; and I contrast that with the simplicity we were reminded of throughout today’s events. Alpacas, llamas, weavers, field plowers, mothers with children wrapped to their body with brightly colored shawls. While I recognize the paradox towards which yoga points us, and I even well understand and implement these teachings into my own life, I find that in the presence of life that is in harmony with the simple rhythms of nature, my own restlessness dissolves. I am more immediately aware of la gracia de dios, the grace of God.

In the Miami airport, the hustle and isolation of so many people who have conditioned themselves into forgetting la gracia de dios stirs my despair for whether or not humanity will awaken. The pendulum seems so far out of balance. Yet, I know this: this pendulum has swung and will swing for eons. There has been the age of darkness, the age of enlightenment. An age of repression is followed by an age of renaissance. And, each one of us has our own pendulum swinging. Which is where yoga empowers us to explore our own awakening, out of our personal trance, into la gracia de dios.

While in Miami, I did experience the halting of time and self-absorbed thought, much like the night sky here tonight. Two travelers with broken English approached me for help. My computer became our office and the tasks at hand were accomplished through my broken Spanish. After one hour of this meditation, they had reservations for a hotel in JFK, contact with their sister in Washington, DC, and an update about an ill father in Columbia.

I told my friend later that night, “I was paying it forward in the Miami airport today.”

On this trip, I expect we’ll be graced by the support of countless people, both seen and unseen. This afternoon’s Shaman, for example, is from many generations of Shamans. We were supported by the giants, the mountains, as well as the other giants, the spirits, and a lineage of giants: his father; his father’s father; his father’s father’s father; and so on.

May we, through yoga, through auspicious encounters with other humans, or through the impressive awe of nature, know our own lineage. May we see ourselves in the larger stream of life, surrounded by giants, by grace, by each other’s capacity for awakening out of our trances.

Tomorrow, we begin with yoga and then head into a day of Andean spirituality workshop!