Punta Cometa

We walk behind James over red earth. He is barefoot. His white hair and beard flow behind him. I want to hand him a staff and cloak.

Early morning on Punta Cometa. Spring solstice. The rising sun already burns.



The view stretches miles in either direction to cove after yellow cove. The sea shines, a shifting plain of mirrors. The cliffs fall into the churning sea in dramatic angles.



The reflection of this place to the steep cliffs of Cornwall runs further than simply cosmetic, as I realise when James begins the narrative in his cinematic boom:



"Straight ahead there are over 190 degrees of sea. The next land is almost exactly due east. This is the most southerly point of Mexico. The end of the North American continent."



I grew up on Lizard Point, a peninsula in Cornwall that forms the most southerly point of the UK - one of the reasons why Punta Cometa resonates with me so much.



Luis told me that today was a special day and that I should take care to position myself at a 'centre of energy', to meditate and think about what I wanted. At the time I was not sure quite what he meant. It was only until James told us about the vortex that it became clear: life's flows had taken me exactly where I needed to be.



On the end of the point lies the cactus that I've been watching from a mile away on the beach. Close up it is enormous; at least thirty feet high and almost three armspans around. The lower arms have aged into bark so that the cactus has a trunk, like a tree. James estimates it to be at least 400 years old, although admits that he really has no way of knowing.



I open my arms around it and press my face to the bark. Ants crawl over my hands. I swear I can feel the energy of the cactus. My insides feel the same as they did when I stirred the Tibetan singing bowl - as if something inside me is humming without sound. I visualise becoming connected to the bark and allowing whatever flows within the cactus to flow within me too.



I come away from the encounter almost shaking. Whether psychosomatic or not, I am charged. The light glinting from the water looks even whiter.



I sit in the red dust and consider the situation.



Sometimes even the most bizarre of events can seem normal. When this starts happening I know I'm not paying enough attention to the now.



But it's so easy to get taken away with memories and thoughts and inventions and miss what is right in front of you. The trick is to centre yourself on the moment instead of the private world in your head. Otherwise you are never really where you are.



So. I am in a life where a typical day includes following a man who looks like Gandalf to an impossibly beautiful location, to listen to magical stories and hug a giant cactus.



Thinking this, I feel proud to have moulded my life in such a ridiculous form. Top points Ju, for making the stupid credible.



For this seems more normal to me, and so much more sensical, than enclosing myself in an airconditioned box, clicking my mouse idly and making the morning's tea break the highlight of my day. I can never go back to that; I know that now. There is a library of reasons, none of which really need explanation.



The essence is,` it can be very difficult to see when one's world is enclosed around the self and the self's actions. In London my world was a sphere, stuffed with action and friends and events. Full to the rounded edges until it became too full and burst and released me and all my stories into the ether.



Now I am an empty, open bowl.



I may have little, but I can be filled with new delights every day.



And I know I'm in the right place. In a way that could never be conveyed to those who have not seen it, Mexico is real. Raw. It is life, unfettered. I see all the things I missed in my city routine and know I cannot live without them.



Here, I meet people every day who shine with the confidence and tranquility that comes with feeling like they are 'on their path'. Every day I have real conversations, that delve excitedly into the mysteries of life. Every day the synchronicities descend. I may not be 'achieving' anything in the traditional sense of the word - I have been out of work for a year and have not really done anything that could be written down on a CV - but I have learnt more in this year than in my whole life. And most of what I have learnt has been achieved by just sitting still and shutting the fuck up.



To look, really look, is to gain wisdom. I am far from being wise but being humble is the first step.



I feel something inside me wanting to prove myself to James; prove my worth as a student and display my talents. But at the very least I understand that now is the moment for stillness. So, I make myself quiet and allow him to talk, and I make sure I follow every word. When my mind starts to drift, I slap it and bring myself back to the present.



The present is a redbrown spit of land and a foaming turquoise sea. The snaking arms of a giant cactus and the endless indigo of the sky. It is a natural energy vortex. A pair of men from opposite ends of life. A moment of meditation. It is the centre.



We amble to the end of the point and scramble down the cliff to a giant rockpool forming a natural jacuzzi at the end of the world.



Waves rush over a gap in the side and fill the pool with fizzing white, tossing bodies carelessly in its swirls of bubbles. Even in a world of freedom it is the most fun I've had in a long time.



Once again, the scene mimics the head.



I watch as a giant wave rises over the rocks and fills the pool, sending mini tidal waves right to the edges, to be reflected back in an endless, effervescent pendulum.

The accidental search

Before Michael arrived I was told to learn to heal with my hands by Marcos, who tells us he is a shaman even as he pours his first beer of the day at 11am.




Marcos gives me the name of a man who will teach me; James, who can be found on the beach at Mazunte, Oaxaca.



In the same week, Mike is given a scrawl of a map by friends, showing three places he should visit. He holds it up to the camera during one of our Skype conversations. Even through the blur of the video call my eye was drawn to a huge black arrow taking up most of the page. The arrow pointed to Mazunte, Oaxaca. Yet another coincidence in a long line of synchronous surprise.



So, after a few days in the backpacker's world of Puerto Escondido, we emerge on the beach at Mazunte. Line of yellow beaches backed by dusty cliffs and licked by fizzing turquoise. The sunset to our right is obscured by a long reptile of land reaching down to the south. My eye is drawn to a giant cactus, visible on the end of the peninsula; cupped hands scratching the sky in stark contrast to the bare rock of its surroundings.



The drama of the cliffs reminds me of Cornwall. But this is unmistakably small-town Mexico. The sand stretches to the road, where a small line-up of restaurants offering an eye-widening selection of menus forms what is known as 'town' to la banda.



Comedors offer cheap quesadillas and loaded tlayudas (huge crispy-barbequed tortillas filled with cheese, refried beans, meat and vegetables) under palm-leaf shelters and flickering candlelight. Fierce locals protect their village from the commercialism of the surrounding coast, shielding strong stems of individuality and quality in their establishments, that set this place in a different league to its peers. The mechanical squeaks of tropical birds blend effortlessly with the soft rhythms of tambor drums, somewhere on the hillside behind us. Mike itches to play; I long to hula hoop.

We run as far as we can to try and catch a glimpse of the sun before it disappears. We squeeze under a gate to get to the highest point we can and pause, giggling like drunks at the incredible view laid out for us.

We are captured.

The next day we hand over 1500 pesos - about 80 pounds - for a month's stay in a room on the sand that looks like the inside of an orange.

We are floored by contentment.

A fan, a bed. A doorstep of sand and a view of the sea. Faint memories of shopping for unnecessary crap seem inconceivable now. We can think of nothing more that we need, except perhaps a musical instrument for Mike to play.

I need to find James. We splash through the waves to the next beach, stopping on the way to talk to a man called Lorenzo. He sits, staring at the sea, jerry can of mezcal in his hand, sombrero proudly on his head. A self proclaimed "Noodist Booddist", voiced in the only accent that allows the two to rhyme in the singing manner of a mantra.

He has a drum. He agreed to fix it for its owner four years ago. He is leaving and wants to lend it to us.

As if this is not slick enough, it transpires the drum belongs to Shaman Marcos, who actually brought us here in the first place.

Mike's face lights up in amazement and I recognise the same light that has been shining from my own eyes. In that instant he catches a glimpse of that something beyond. I know his thoughts mirror mine.

Lorenzo brings out a Tibetan singing bowl. Seven different metals combined, bashed into a deep silver cave. He drags a small, metal cylinder around the edge and it hums with a stomach rumbling vibration that makes all those in the near vicinity turn towards us. He believes it resets any turmoil that might lurk inside.

I try it and feel my whole body respond to the vibration. The sounds is almost ancient. I am a bowl myself, singing, feeling the sound through me and a part of me, sifting and settling.

After over an hour squatting in the dust in front of him, listening to his stories, I remember the original purpose of our walk and continue onwards, asking wisened faces if they are James. The humming in our ears and the drum in Mike's hands give the journey a fated edge; it takes less than five minutes before we are standing on James' veranda, being welcomed like old friends.

James reclines in a blue hammock, wearing a pair of ragged shorts under a dark brown chest that is connected to the air with white wires. His face hides under a huge beard of grey. He must be almost seventy.

He pulls himself up from the hammock and I am dwarfed by his height, lost in an embrace, during which I feel energy pulsing gently from him.

He speaks as if he is the voiceover for a cinema blockbuster, intonation pressing heavy words into us, forcing us to question our reality. We pass the evening swinging in his hammocks, listening to his stories.  He offers to take us to explore Punta Cometa. Realisation dawns as he explains this to be the long point of land to our west, thought to be an energy vortex since ancient times. I understand why it has been drawing my eye.

He would like to teach us the stories of this sacred place. He would also like to teach me everything he knows about healing.

We sleep deeply, the waves in our ears, our new gifts painting dreams in explosions of colour.

Cytokinesis

Waiting in the airport arrivals hall I drink a pre-mix tequila cocktail from a can, clicking my fingers, tapping my feet. My teeth chatter. Each time the doors open to burp out another swarm of musty, wrinkled travellers, I push to the front of the crowd.  Stand on my toes.  Search for the face that has haunted my every hour since I last kissed it, almost four months ago.


Smiling grandfathers and baby-hugging mothers watch me with quietly concealed interest. I see their version of my story unreeling in their heads. I swear softly under my breath.


It's as if throughout my life I took a little of the emotion from every day and placed it in a bottle; every dreaded exam, fairground ride, sickening race, revealed secret.

I am now shivering with the side-effects of a cool gulp of this life-juice. I feel it coating my insides with its syrupy intensity.


The security guard asks me to step behind the line, for the second time. I tell him why I am acting the way I am, more to stop him and his uniformed mates from staring at me than for anything else. This doesn't work. I take my muttering self to the toilet to check my hair and wash my hands unnecessarily.


As I return, crushing my tequila can, I see Michael walk through the door. My walk turns to a stride and I push aside joyful families, throw myself into his arms.

My face feels like it is splitting.

His face is the sun, blinding me. I try to look at it but fail.

I bury myself in his shoulder.

We are both breathing as if we've run here. We don't know what to do. We don't even know what to say. He hands me a bar of much-missed Galaxy chocolate, as if this will replace a sentence. I hand him a cold beer and he looks so relieved he might cry.

We sit on the warm benches, sticky skin pressed into bumps through the holes in the metal seats, holding each other for over an hour until we feel strong enough to stand up again.


It is nine o'clock on a balmy Mexico City evening.


There is no need to rush.


***


For two people so known for our ability to "chat shit," we are surprisingly quiet.

We are shocked to relative silence by the strangeness of the other's face in three dimensions. He looks so different to the face I captured in snatches from my 50 square inches of computer screen. My mind is a peeking seashell, protecting itself, refusing to believe.


We walk around the hotel room, staring at each other from opposite ends, alternating the dizzyness of each other with the vertiginous view across the city from the eighteenth floor.


We stew ourselves in the jacuzzi bath and infuse the air with rediscovery.

We are in a perfect circle of water.

Completely coincidentally, it is exactly six months since we got together.

We get to know each other once more, this time with less urgency and more hunger. Our laughs carry the loud echo of disbelief.

We talk well into the night and fall asleep reluctantly, lightly, waking every half hour to footnote the last sentence.

Above the bed, imprinted in the plaster, another perfect circle haloes us in our bliss.


***


We are floating. El D.F. is so much brighter than it was in November. To all purposes, a different city, seen through another's eyes.

I see myself in Michael's face as his senses are blasted with Mexico's mighty vehemence. People, everywhere, shouting, laughing, dancing, crawling; pervading our perception with spicy spikes of colourful intrusion.  Street sellers invade our bubble.  Fierce smells burrow into our nostrils.  Movement tickles the corners of our eyes. 

I catch his hand, force him to slow down.

Back then, I blinked away the flood with my loneliness.  Now, his disorientation is grounded with the gentle kisses of companionship and the sanctuary of our hotel.

Our two days together in the city are are necessary exploration but an unnecessary symphony of distractions.  Once again, I crave bland beauty.

I introduce him to Mexico's famous night bus.  Our instincts point South.

We curl up in our seats to await the new world of the morning.  In twelve hours, Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, will materialise from the darkness.  Our souls cry out for the sea.

Desert sun bleaching

I say goodbye to Luis, the quiet bringer from afar, almost two weeks later.

We have lived in the desert of Zacatecas.  This last, unplanned stop in my journey, although a whole day's drive away from where I met Luis, is reassuringly just a short drive from my first destination, Real de Catorce.  This does not surprise me.


I have lived the life of the chosen one, treated to presidential suites, gifts, tours; waited on hand and foot whilst being inducted into the Ways Of The Light. In just a short time he has become a father of sorts. From the centre of my pile of presents I feel much younger than twenty-five.
Like a sparkling snow dome, the information he places within my swelling skull needs time to settle before I am able to see my way through.

A delicate network of carefully constructed threads is forming, a throbbing organism, extending primordial limbs -- fleshy tentacles that incarnate my innate knowledge and seal form in a giant web, designed to catch even the tiniest wisp of instruction blown my way.

I feel simultaneously mighty and helpless. In our weeks together he has mentally skinned me alive and left me prostrate, my bared innards glistening juicily, pulsating, vulnerable and exposed in a way I have not experienced. I react with erratic waves of rage and exhileration, swooping easily through everything in between.

It is a complete mental scrub.

I cannot sleep.

When I do, my dreams tease me with half-formed shapes and moody premonitions. I long for next week, when my long-lost love will arrive with a suitcase full of normality and eyes widening with that warming resonance. My companion, my other half. I long for his company to share all of this with, his strength to walk by my side.
And yet I do not want this time to end, for I feel myself resonating with a clear harmony that I have never felt before.


When Luis and I part, it is under the knowledge that our separation is only temporary. At some point in the future, we have a journey to make. Only I will know when the time is right for that journey.

In the meantime, I have been instructed to empty my head before bed, slow my already lilting pace, and stay completely connected to the things around me.

As long as I relax, and carry on as I am, everything will unfold, just as it should.

I spend the last days before Michael's arrival in a Holiday Inn in Morelia, Michoacan, paid for by my new benefactor. I eat books with the same zeal as I had when reading Alice in Wonderland at the age of four. I must be the only guest ever to spend every evening alone in their room, dogmatically preparing salads in a camping pan with a blunt knife nicked from the downstairs restaurant, rinsing chilli and lime remains away in the shower.

I am a shaken champagne bottle. Any moment I feel I might explode, fizzing love over everything around me. My bottle would be refilled a thousand times over, never depleted, an eternally regenerating source of life.

I cannot remember ever being this happy.

I look down at my neck, where two silver amulets glint whitely in the sun. Purchased in shining Zacatecas, the desert oasis; salmon stones, windows glinting, raw scents of life in a barren earth. El serpento y el caracol. The snake, half of winged serpent Quetzalcoatl in a spiraling figure eight, representing oneness and connection with the earth; the snail, home on his back, undulating with sticky strength, slow enough to sense everything in the smallest gust of wind.

As I place them around my neck I am reminded of my words, borne from the depths of my loneliness, back in November:

"The snail's head of my intrigue retreats back into its shell, leaving only feelers, slowly waving."

Now my antennae extend powerfully ahead, muscled extensions of my senses. Nuance shades my perception in a thousand rainbow colours, the sun pressure-washing my mind, blasting away a crust of unnecessary memories, bringing innate sense into sharp relief.

For my last night alone, I return to Mexico City and the same hostel in which I started this looping journey.
 
Mi viaje solita is bracketed. The circle is closed.