Look!

Some more images of the recent escapade...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/45IyRZG9eduHBvWz2

....and Cacao

From Oaxaca, in two days and one night on various busses, coaches, tuktuks and other vague forms of mobility, I once more decended over the craters rim into this wonderful catastrophic crack of a hole in the ground that is Lago Atitlan. Beautiful as always, it quickly lured me back into that San Marcos lifestile of tantric cacao infuzed, panoramic, quasi spiritual and especially languid life that I knew all to well from the year past, before the whole American chapter, the European episode and the Venezuelan challenge.

View from the Tribal Village

I struck down at the Tribal village, where I had already many footsteps laying low in the soft mossy grass. A friend from Amster town dwelled there now, and it was the first outpost of San Marcos that I came upon. It turned out to be a partial home, at least for my stuff until the start of the Cosmic Convergence festival that was to start in about a weeks time, while I got my life set back up in the village. But first, there was the Fungi Cristmas party, from where on the rooftop, one can see the fireworks going off all over the lake, a spectacle to behold. And than there was the Eaglenest cacao dance, pulling it off every week now, but finding myself in their hot space there, I had one of the best sauna expiriences of my life! It's  built in a complete dome shape, or like a bell, where one enters the hotroom through the floor, so that all heat stays in and audiable reverberation is at it's best. A great place for humming! Outside a cold pool built into the rocks, and a tunnel under the whole thing. Beautiful. Or was it the Cacao...? 

Meeting many old friends from last year, yet definitely missing also those that I rememberd, but that are now walking other roads, have gone back to studying or dwell in the other lush havens on this planet.

Than I got a call from the Festival, that I was wanted, and I left at first chance. Three days I helped building an amazing organic corn inspired dance stage. erecting huge corn house high cobs and dressing the whole set with various woven and macrame'd artsels that resembled to more or lesser extent the Lord Imix, the Mayan god of Corn.

Imix Stage at New Years Eve

It was a good festival. Ofcourse. It's always weird when on the saturday night lots of townies arrive and give the whole place an alien crazy feel. So on new years I just huddled close to the sacred fire where mayan elders made tobacco and incence offerings and Shantaram, a friend from San Marcos tried with all might to play over the bizarly weird sounds that came from the nearby world stage after midnight, with absolutely no-one watching but for one drunk dude, and all of us at the fire cringing. Anyway. There were so many beautifull faces near the fire, and they inspired me greatly. Just be in peace, radiate peace and happyiness, intense love and intensity, and be present. Hold the space for all these fluctuating energies, it is important. The two times that I told myself that I had to go walk around and see what was going on I found myself back at the fire within 20 minutes. The night came to a close being cuddled by my 3 favourite women on the festival at the same time. Oh what a lucky person I was!

I did not stay for breakdown, but swiftly made my wy back to San marcos, where I was to start a daily practice of Tai Chi at the magnificent Tao Temple the next day. I moved into a cute little adobe house in the upper part of town, with two floors and a little kitchen, just enough for one large person, or maybe two humble ones. My landlord was called Lucas Panabaj, and old mayan man with the signature white plastic cowboy hat, and life was good. Starting at the temple was not always easy. Getting up at 5 am, walking the dark empty streets up to the hill where the temple stands. Doing 2 or 3 hours of very zen (not really applicable in a Tao Temple, but you get the idea) Tai chi, with lots of very slow and simple movements repeated beyond count. As the sun rises I am often distracted by the crazy mountain of fire Fuego, spitting out a plume or two, or even some magma glowing red when the dusk still lies low. There is a grandiose vieuw over the lake from there, much bestilling, but I don't even look at it that much. Keeping the attention to what is being thought, to all the different points in the body, and the breath is occupying enough to make the hours glide by, even if the body has to adjust to this sudden vigorous regime of exercise.

The garden vieuw from my window at Panabaj

For a wek I lived in this fasion. And though my life quite organized. All the while I was talking to my beloved over in California, if perhaps she would not come down and join me on the lake. Than, by surprise, suddenly she got on a plane, and a few days later, we embraced eachother under the big tree in the center of the village.
My life took a dramatic turn, as she moved in to my little adobe house and we once again started sharing our life together in the physical form. Needless to say I was overjoyed, we both wer, often still unable to believe that this was actually happening. I got to see San Marcos partly through her eyes, she inspired me to visit new places and eat things I had not tried before. I took her around, culminating in together leaving the lake for a few days to go and climb Volcan Acatenango on her 30th Birthday.

That, now, was a proper adventure! leaving the crater and heading over to Antigua where we stayed one night. Than early next morning we got picked up by a van and headed into the hills from where this 4000 meter Titan rose up above anything nearby other than Fuego Vulcano nearby. Fuego had been very active of late, and I had been eagerly looking at it during Tai Chi the days before trying to decipher it:s rhythm or logic of eruption, if any.

At 3900 mt. 6 in the morning, -5 Celsius

We were equipped with our own breakfast and lunch by our tour guides, taxied to the actual foot of the mountain, and than left to scuffle up the very dusty and gravel laden trench of a path that led, often almost straight, uphill. There were many stations and rest areas going up, luckily, and also our being in a group slowed us down considderbly. At several points we managed to break away though, Peace and Me, from the main horde, and walked in simple silence or cheerfull chatter on this beaufifull ash heap of a volcano. You pass different climatic zones on your way up. From arid semi-tropical, to cloud forest, to pine groves badly damaged by the pine beetle, but full of ferns and wavey grass, and at last, to the death zone, where the entire slope is nothing by coarse gravel and dust, so much dust, and some foolhardy shrub trying to eke out a living in all this devestation. 

Before we came to the deathzone though, we made camp for the night at 3600 mt. A camp was already set up there on a shallow ledge directly facing the now very close Volcan de Fuego. It rumbled as we emerged from the low altitude clouds and we imidiately got our first taster of flying rocks.

Somehow Peace and I got ourselfs into the tent with the most bomb ass vieuw, and  made our bed with great contentment. Casually watching the volcano as the sun went down, the much anticipated cold decended, and we rested our legs. Not really trying to socialize with our group companions, we did eventually gather around the fire for a warm meal and hot Cacao, before hitting the sac. 

Much sleep we did not get however, because THIS..........

KKKRRRAAAGGGHHGGGAAOAOGHH BOEOEOEMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

....KEPT HAPPENING!!! Everytime the wave of sound hit us we would quickly lift our heads and see the fire sprout from the mountain, it's slopes covered in glowing cinders, and we moved by the might of its sound and proximity.
It was an unforgetttable expirience, and doing it together with my love was all the more Magic.
At 4 am we got back on our feet and climbed the last 300 odd meters to the top of the mountain we were on. That was hard, but not as hard as I had imagined. It was bloody cold up top though, and in the end we were happy not to hang out there longer than needed. We witnessed the sunrise that broke in many shades of orange and turquoise, and the clouds were like a sweet blanket covering the world. We stuck close together in the bone chilling wind, and now looked at Fuego slighty from above, as Acatenango stands a mere 100 meters higher than it's close neighbor.

All the other mountains around are life hills to us now, even far off mountain ranges in reality big and mighty. Even the Atitlan lake could be seen, and the ocean assumed to the west.
Decent was really quick, ofcourse, and we discovered a new way of moving ones body that lay between running and jumping and sliding down the gray dust with lots of it ending up in ones shoes, or in my case, in my sandals. We made it back to the bottom and even to the lake that day, happy to rest our tired heads once more on the sweet cottons of our little adobe home in the village.

The weeks moved on, and still Peace was by my side, in my life, and in our home that we shared together. More and more expiriences we shared. Visiting the various towns on the lake for their colourfull market days, or sipping Cacao in our own kitchen, or at some crazy luxuburant event or other, of which there is one almost every day in this village. 

I started teaching a weekly Shiatsu Basics workshop at the La Paz Eco Hotel. That was a great learning expirience, and enabled us to go and do some more fun stuff. 

Tai Chi became more and more interesting as I learned the moves by head and Heart, so that they started integrating with my being, and less thinking is required. It becomes an almost holy activity to go there, and learn with those soloms, blue robed monks at the temple. And I love it a lot.

That´s why I decided that, after that first month was up, I would continue for another, and see how deep this rabbithole goes...

And what is more, Peace has joined me at the temple. Well really, she is not joining me, but walking her own path with Tai Chi, but in this time and place, we are walking it together.

It is beautiful and challenging to live together, it is rewarding and sometimes very comfronting, it peels layers of my heart, and pours in expiriences that are invaluable. 

She is also staying another month, and we will share our lifes together for that time, in whichever way feels right. 

For nine days though, after the completion of my first month at the temple, I decided to go and explore a bit. To discover some of the parts of Guatemala that have always deluded me, and gain insight into what all af this means. To take some distance from my love, so that I may see what is real, and appriciate her again even more when we re-unite.

Perspective about the life in that strange town that is San Marcos. And know what it means to me.

What I have already learned is that. Yes, the community in San Marcos is amazing, and the lake is so beautiful, and it's great that the Mayan woman wear their traditional dress there, but I do not love it there. I do not particularly enjoy the climate or the nature there. Where as here, in the jungle, Nature speaks to me. It breathes me and I breath it through all my pores. I live to a different degree here, and my heart sings of joy. 

There is wind, there is the lake, there is fire on the mountain, there are magical events all the time, and ofcourse course, there is Cacao....