And then there came...

Eight months down the line, I'm done with large-scale wandering. For the moment, at least. The last few months have been a paintbox of thoughts, swirling vivid emotion through my days. I've hopped and skipped and last-minute-escaped so many towns that they are beginning to look the same.



Although I have no intention of stopping, and still pump the thrill of a long-distance bus journey through my heart at every beat, I sense the need for a purpose.


Purpose.


That dreaded word.


I remember proclaiming loudly and perhaps slightly smugly at my work leaving party, fifteen months ago, my need to experience life without a purpose. When asked by puzzled faces what on earth I planned to do, I replied easily: I plan to have no plan.


But the P words are pursuing me with persisting pestilence. I know deeply that something needs to change.

Unintentionally we seem to have made our home in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas.

The cheerily nicknamed San Cris hosts hoards of tourists, who come here for the quaint cobbled streets, rainbow houses and mountain-fringed vistas. They are helped in their explorations by organic coffee companies and delicatessens run by a high proportion of ex-pats - a.k.a. travellers who never escaped.


Under the too-clean streets lies a fractured past, marked recently by the Zapatista rebellions of the mid-90s in reaction to the large-scale governmental seizure of land from the huge indigenous population.


This land is much more like Guatemala than Mexico but there is something inherently genuine about it, as if it is more Mexican than La Republica.

We move between our friend's unnecessarily large, isolating house and noisy, centre-of-town hostels. We punctuate our stay with two-week long trips, during which we leave behind all but a change of clothes and our passports (just in case).

In doing so, we fall in love with Chiapas state.

Endless, deserted beaches. Tiny Mayan villages, high in the cool mountains, where life continues in the same way it has for centuries. Scattered emeralds and sapphires of God's jewel basket, twinkling in the Lagos de Montebello.

Steamy jungles hide the endangered Lacandon culture amidst deadly snakes and undiscovered ruins - just rocky humps in the knotted jungle. We eat lunch on a cracked Mayan calendar at lost Lacanja and swing on liandas in the Indiana Jones land of Yaxchilan.

We loop around dusty border towns ruled by cartels, who hop the river to Guatemala every time the police invade and stand there, waving under foreign safety.


We straddle the border ourselves to renew visas, then hop back when we realise how much we miss Mexico. There is a strange pull towards 'home'.


We return to find Nantzin in our villa.


Nantzin is a Mexican-American midwife. She is here on a volunteer mission, learning the ways of the people here - reconnecting with her roots. She has just been given a job working in a woman's refuge in town, taking care of mothers who have no where else to go.

I spy a book on natural medicine on top of a stack of interesting titles and understand why we needed to return.

Nantzin is a powerful woman to have by my side. She knows where she is going and what she wants to achieve. She has been in Mexico for less time than me but has achieved all of the things I dream of achieving, including apprenticeships to Medicine Women and volunteering with her healing skills. You can read her blog here.

From Nantzin I learn basic home remedies and share veggie food, experiences and giggles. She represents more than one part of me that I've felt missing in the last month or two. Not only is she a curandera to look up to, she is a friend. Watching the world pass by with her on the pedestrianised Real de Guadalupe makes my coffee taste that bit sweeter.

I see that this is part of the next step for me and at the very least a pointer to where I should place my attention. I feel this to be a further confirmation that healing is my path; at least for the moment.


Nantzin represents for me the beginning of the shifts. The persistence of possibility.


Perhaps, the beginning of Purpose.

The Void catches up

June brings a loss of direction. My world becomes black and white and blurry.



I plunge headlong into the Void.


I have felt it tracking me for a little while, catching me unawares with flashes of barely-provoked anger and periods of dizzying emptiness. When it finally slips itself under my feet, I fall, rag-doll-like, through its dank depths.


The Void has engulfed us all, once in our lives. You know it from the creeping shadows around your heart. The imps in its employ, sniggering on your shoulders, whisper insults into your ears until you believe them to be true. The tremors of uncertainty blurs lines between reality and nightmare.


This time it comes to me in a disabling lack of self-belief. The path in which I had so much faith seems to have faded.


My self-confidence, boisterous only months ago, has vapourised, leaving me achingly aware of how loosely constructed it must have been.


What, on earth, have I been doing? Why the hell am I here?


I have been out of work for well over a year. I have been rolling around Mexico for seven months. My money is drying up, like the daily puddles spat down on us by June's heavy clouds, and I have no concrete plan for how to replace it. I know I can't go back to work in an office and this thought, once so liberating, terrifies me.


I have had so much time, and yet seemingly done' nothing apart from convert tacos into spare tyres.


Michael encourages me as best he can. He reminds me of all the things I have developed that cannot be written on a CV, such as my healer's hands and my understanding of myself, as well as the things that can, such as my mastery of conversational Spanish.


He tempts me with ideas for how to turn my writing into a career, but I am shocked by my own lack of motivation. I just don't want to do anything. I just don't think I can.

My listless lack of a plan, once so peace-inducing, has become a growing emptiness.


It is during this time that we find ourselves house-sitting a three-bedroom villa (complete with the luxuries of fridge, hot shower, fireplace and beds with real duvets). I cannot remember the last time I was in a room with four walls and no holes.


I throw myself into my long-term passion for cooking, producing elaborate feasts for my boyfriend, who largely sits in front of his computer, working. Mikey, annoyingly, has it sorted. He gets paid for remixes on the road. He deals with them easily and with style. At the same time, he gets handfuls of offers for his new tracks.


His need for the computer and my need for safety means we spend most of our six weeks in San Cristobal indoors. I quickly realise how incapable I now am of doing this.


We argue frequently. Admittedly, the times between arguments are still idyllic and there is no doubt that we are madly in love. But I am strong enough to know that these moments of pain are indicators of deep knots in our lives that need to be massaged out for risk of becoming crippling.


I am also able to remind myself that this journey is and was always going to be about balance - particularly the yin-yang balance of positive and negative forces within my path.


So when I feel myself slipping, I recognise the signs enough to throw out a hand. I catch myself before I fall, like I have done so many times before.


And there, I swing.


I hang on to the edge for a long time, caught between fear of the nothingness below, and fear of the choices above.


You can travel as far as you want, but wherever you are, you will still be you.

A year of unusual events

Today marks one year since I left my job, my flat and my life. A year ago I ceremoniously left my well-paid job in London, surrounded by a faithful army of friends, my sister close by and a social calendar that still spears cravings of nostalgia through me at the most unexpected moments.


In celebration of this fact I would like to post something I wrote early last year. I find the juxtaposition of these words with my current position reassuring. No offence is intended to anyone left behind - I respect that each person has their own choices and the same situation for another person would have meant something entirely different. I also appreciate and value the fact I had the opportunity to live this kind of life, and the choice to realise it was not for me, when so many do not have the choice.  This is merely my opinion brought on from a soul-drowning job and a fire inside that needed to grow somewhere else.


I wake up full of a nervous energy. My insides vibrate as if I am listening to a deep bassline. But my room is silent. As the last tendrils of my dream slip away, I have the sense that I have been looking for something, fervently, all night.


The thoughts fold under themselves like waves in the multiple snooze of my alarm clock, and become lost in the rush of the morning. My fevered mind remains vaguely mesmerised by what, in the blurred moments of waking, had seemed the most important thing in the world.




Now I just feel a lingering sense of confusion and a longing to be back in that lost dreamscape.


I dress myself in skin-tight shades of grey, slick hair and shiny lips, masking myself with the strangling uniform of business. I take the bus in to the office, mechanically changing vehicles on the Euston Road, staring out unseeing at the concrete and the rush of occupied minds.




I say occupied here to indicate the fact that people in London seem to be shut off to anything that is not included within their own agenda. From the moment they wake up, their brains are full of tasks.



But occupied also means conquered, subjugated, dominated.


Under enemy control.




This dual definition is appealing. The word becomes stuck in my head. With no other thoughts in there to challenge it, it repeats itself incessantly for the whole of the journey, until it starts to lose meaning.



Occupied. Occupied. Occupied.



My day passes, as they always do, in a mundane blur of traffic and computers. I procrastinate on my task list until four, when I am able to cross off half of it in a flurry of hastily-dialled phone calls.


My job filled me with excitement when I first took it, 18 months ago. The people were bright and the company new, and every day had felt like opening a present.




Now it just feels like it is stealing my life.


Every day it forces me into the synthetic, waxy mould of a corporate doll. My soul feels empty and I can’t do anything about it.


I am trapped.


Even the hours outside of work feel like they belong to someone else.


Sometimes I scream out loud, pulling at my hair like a mad woman, diving at the people sitting blankly in their desks and venting my frustration at this calm acceptance of a robot’s life. Then the world swirls back into reality and I realise I am in fact sitting quiet and accepting in my own desk, in a row of quiet, accepting people, and no one has even blinked.


One day I think I might actually do this.


I cannot wait for the day when I hand in my notice. I think of that moment at least once every hour. Perhaps more like three or four times. Some days it is all I can think about. I picture myself going into the CEO’s office, letting him wax falsely lyrical about my supreme consultancy abilities, trying to build my confidence so I seduce the clients more effectively. I imagine myself springing it on him mid-flow. Like flirting with someone for hours and then turning away when they try to kiss you.


I would thrust a letter in his hand which detailed methodically and unashamedly all the corrupt twists and suppressive rules of his beloved company. I would laugh at the blind devotion to a loosely-concealed totalitarian regime. This virtual furnace that consumes souls and spits out money. My words would reduce it to a pile of ash.


I just haven’t found quite the right ones yet.


The thing that pains me most is seeing the sparks of my co-workers (my love for whom still remains loyal enough to keep me here) condensed down to the same, standard-issue ambition as him. They will complain about the money-driven mentality, the repression and being told what to do by a self-centred, clueless manager, but they will remain silent.


The London in my head is an eerie toy town, operated by Stepford Wives, dolled up and twinkle-smiled and ‘yes of course, Sir, anything you want, Sir’.


They will be fucked up the arse until they bleed, and they won’t notice because their eyes are on their glittering futures; dreams grossly deformed by that pre-ordained framework we rarely dare to question.


As a child, we are consistently asked what we would like to BE when we grow up. Our entire lives, we relate our future job to the verb 'to be'. A career is part of our fundamental make-up. It is an apex to climb, in order to prove our worth as a person.


And thus, we dutifully tick the boxes.


School, college, university. Education, packaged prettily.


Job.


Soon we will have a great CV, that menu of clichéd attributes, and a fantastic social life that spans the breadth of London’s pretentious wine bars. A well-matched partner to take Sunday walks with, and a pile of savings which we will watch grow until they die.


All these people, building their career. A career that occupies them. Conquered and subsequently dominated for the rest of their lives. They will be promoted to managers and they will have finally made it after all these years. They will buy a house and have a lovely wedding in a country manor and end up with gammy-mouthed kids who will go on to do the same.


Security. They need to know where they are, otherwise they lose themselves.


This kind of thing terrifies me.


Isn’t your ‘career’ just what you’re doing right here, right now?


What I’m doing right now is utter bollocks.


Old people say life is what happens while you are planning your future.


I think we should listen to old people.


I think I’m so different. And yet still I put myself through the excruciating pain of getting out of bed at half past six every day to go into a place I despise.

Metamorphosis

Out of Guadalajara, Jalisco, and in to Michoacan. Closer to the heart, colder to the core.

Lake Patzcuaro has been calling me for a while.

Legend paints a place where the barrier between heaven and earth is thin. I can't explain the feeling but I am sure there is someone there I have to meet.

Dan's van is going to Morelia. When I look on the map, Morelia's proximity to Patzcuaro sends a jolt of electricity through my body and once again I feel in the flow of something far stronger than me.

"Vamonos!" And so we find ourselves, crawling south.

Dan drives his van with all the enthusiasm of a Canadian on a road full of crazy drivers, Moses the husky perched zen-like behind him, Catia the newly-arrived Toronto lass, glued to the passenger window. We stop for the night at a town that begins with M, chosen by vote with map-pointed fingers.

These towns are like secrets, existing, bustling, swarming under the camoflage of anonymity. There is no way you'd see this Mexico with your head in the Lonely Planet. The square conceals millions of birds, who paint the pavement white and screech in stereo sound loud enough to raise our voices.

Catia and I share a room that sneers in spinach green. We awake early, too cold to shower. The morning mist hangs expectantly.


Our destination is one of the four butterfly reserves playing host to millions of Monarch mariposas on their winter flight from Canada. Every year, they return to the same place.

It takes them five weeks to fly down here. It will take them three generations to fly back.


The eternally moving circle of life.


The journey is lined with ranches and shacks, weathered farmers waiting patiently for lifts. Their sombreros shine whitely in the morning glow. Horses trudge their way up pine-clad slopes. Sun tints yellow, clouds wash grey.


Now we are in Austria. Only the cacti and clamouring billboards give it away.


My journey is blissful. I hug my knees on Dan's bed, a back-of-the-van secret. From time to time Moses stands, turns, sits heavily once again; dancing to my reggae soundtrack. Why does "Eastenders" exist and yet "Vehicle Windows Around the World" does not? I sink back into the pillows and lean my forehead against the glass.

We pull off onto a dirt road and find ourselves at a square of coloured shacks, steaming with woodsmoke, where children surround the van, asking for pesos. I hand out hula hoops to squeals of self-conscious giggling.


We eat our breakfast next to a fire tended by a four year old with a runny nose. She gives us cinnamon coffee that has been boiling, bitterly, on a metal plate over the embers. We clothe Catia, who smilingly admits to having arrived entirely unequipped for anything other than Toronto life, and start walking, accompanied by a tanned, toothless guide named Salvador.


We fail to follow his lisping dialogue. The wrinkles in his face tell me the stories I want to hear.

The sun filters through the pines to illuminate fallen trunks; clues to February's uncharacteristic storms. Salvador mumbles about floods and mudslides.

It wouldn't take much to cut the village off from everything.

In contrast to much of the world's broadly blind denial of change, the Mexicans seem to know something is up. Rather than 'global warming', many seem to accept that we are on a time scale told to us thousands of years ago. I have met some people who say, with no shred of doubt, that next year will see snow in this country.


Rare is the Mexican house that is closed to the elements. If it snows, millions of people will die.


I don't want to believe it and yet the rains of the last month have rested heavy on my shoulders, coming down hard and unwelcome in the middle of the historic dry season.

For now, the sun continues to shine on the delicate black veins and saffron-dusted wings of the butterfly carcasses that have begun to litter the path; dappled warning of vulnerable slumber. They exist in a comatose state for weeks, shutting down completely until the sun is warm enough to wake them.

Salvador points up to huge dark pendulums in the trees, like giant wasp nests. Our eyes adjust like we've walked into a dark room and it takes a moment to realise these are all butterflies, wings closed, awaiting the sun's touch. Focus more and tune into entire trunks, covered in wings.


The valley hums in orange.


Dan and Catia take off with their cameras and I lie back in a patch of sunlight to look straight up at the canopy.

I never thought I'd appreciate the fact that someone stole my camera last month. But I am grateful now for the chance to simply sit and absorb.

Butterflies drift as if by accident. Scraps of orange tissue, blown in the breeze.

I close my eyes and join them, feeding off the warmth of dusty beams, fluttering my joy at the world.

These butterflies have flown almost as far as me.

I am learning to read nature. The transparency of its messages is surprising. Butterflies are a theme that has been following me for weeks. They represent change.


I am glad I am with Dan and Catia. A strange trio we make; each of us is in our own state of metamorphosis. Dan still coping with the hole his girlfriend left behind, but plowing eagerly on through his mindblowing, fated journey. Catia, dressed in mournful black and shaking with the shock of leaving her life, testing out her new legs and the arch of her wings.


Me, finding my feet and so much more. Undergoing change and preparing for more. Not only am I flying right now, but in my flight I am preparing to let go of my solo venture when Michael joins me at the beginning of March. I am simultaneously nervous and exploding with excitement. Either way, letting someone else in is enormous. It is not just the change of travelling state but the mental upheaval of entering a relationship.


I feel other, deeper shifts. I wonder who I will meet in Patzcuaro.

Like the butterfly, I will soon be released from my self-constructed cocoon; different shape, same being.

All three of us are butterflies, emerging from our pods. Wobbling on legs we didn't have before. Waving antennae in pine scents. Flying away.

We return to find children still hula hooping. I play with them for an hour or so, encouraging the shy ones and exclaiming at the progress of the new professionals. I keep catching sight of the joy on their faces and laughing because it is me that has put that there.

When we leave I gift them my blue and yellow hoop. I have carried this hoop with me for three months, purely to lend to children, for everywhere I go there is a child who wants to learn.

I will need a new one for them now. But it feels right to leave it here.

The resulting light in their faces illuminates the way ahead.

Student of the Vortex

Fuck Spanish lessons. It appears Guadalajara is to make me student of other arts.

Because I'm 'not supposed' to be here, I feel like I should leave. So much for my disdain of cities. But in actual fact I have stumbled upon a centre of creativity, epitomised by Frank, who seems to be an endless source of energy - constantly producing, creating, literally singing his love for life.

Inspiration juices over my computer screen. I spend days in the hammock on the leafy terrace, attempting to record just a fraction of the information I'm receiving.

After a week and a half Dan arrives for a few hours, and like me is drawn in to stay for a further couple of weeks. Every time we try to leave we feel ourselves pulled back into the centre of the vortex, the flow so strong we do not even attempt to resist.

The hostel is small but it is a magnet for the people I need to speak to. I leave less and less.


Pecas, one of the helpers at the hostel, knows everything I want to know about the Mayans. He helps me understand the complexity of their calendar system. I plug him for information, pulling it out in long, savoury strings, chewing with unsated appetite, swallowing ravenously. When I finally digest it I will attempt to regurgitate it here, but for now I need to let it sit, slightly uncomfortably, in my stomach.

I am tattooed. An overwhelming lesson and a story in itself.

I meet a shaman, who feeds me even more information. His name is Marcos, and his Mayan sign is Cosmic Wind. Messenger from afar.


I feel like a human sponge, and wonder when all this started happening.


He gives me keys for my future journey - tells me to learn to heal with my hands, and correctly guesses that I have already felt the ability to do this without having been taught how.

He gives me the name of the man who will teach me, who I can find on a beach on the coast of Oaxaca state. We can stay there for free, and learn about self-sufficiency at the same time.


I will be with Michael then. I wonder if this will fit well with his own journey, whatever that may be. But then Shaman Marcos tells me there is also a collective of people there who make instruments. I can barely conceal my excitement when I talk to Mike, who has many times talked about his wish to record the sounds of the world. The perfection seems a little odd, even with my belief in all this.


Marcos makes my brain hurt. He is a shaman of three different cultures. Before this he was in prison for robbing a bank at gunpoint as a teenager, his head twisted by the images received as a 'body collector' in the Vietnam war. He heals the migraine of the only other hostel resident by placing his hands on her head for ten minutes. His right thumb is bent at an angle where he allowed a rattlesnake to bite him in a ceremony.


He spent years camping next to the Pyramids of Palenque before they were 'discovered' (Palenque is one of the Mayan sites that tell the prophecies - he was one of those who told the Mexican government about those famous glyphs; something he regrets deeply to this day).

He believes 2012 will bring the return of the Mayans through the black hole at the centre of the universe.

My brain is not quite ready to take all of this in.


I try to write down at least some of his stories. I wrestle with indecision over whether to put all of this in my blog, for fear of what people will think. But the indecision is momentary - of course I have to write.

I don't know enough to be able to comprehend what he means when he says the Mayans will return. Instead I focus on the more palpable information - what his people believe will actually happen in the next three years.

"We have dammed the rivers - the earth's life blood. We have moved mountains from one place to another. We talk about the future, when the Earth will be ruined by our mess, but little do we realise we are already at that point. We have destroyed it far more than we ever admit to. Look at Mexico. Every week there are protests because someone fell into a river and died, not from drowning, but from poisoning. How many rivers are there that can be swum in safely?

"The earth is in huge imbalance. You know enough about flows to understand that this is unsustainable. How can it continue to function in such an imbalance?


"Despite what we believe, it is infinitely more powerful than the human. Very soon, it will reveal this power. The Mayans knew that. We just don't want to listen. It may well mean the end of everything as we know it. And it will be a lot sooner than we think."


Into my mind floats an image of the earth as a dozing dog, having its hair plaited and its paws rearranged by bullish children. It waits patiently. But how much time is it going to be before the dog becomes so uncomfortable that it has to jump up, suddenly, shake itself violently? The plaits come loose, instantly. Buildings, dams, the construction of our lives, all razed to the ground.


Dan brings it back to reality: "The real question is, what will we do if the economy collapses. What will you do if you can no longer buy what you need from a store?"

All I can do right now is become the messenger. Enlighten by reflection.

One day I wake up and know it is time to go. By this time, I am armed with everything I need for a final two and a half weeks alone before Mike's arrival.

January's gifts - leading to a rant on possessions, Faith and Choice

1. Book about 2012

2. Underwear

3. New backpack, huge

4. Clothes, various 

5. Obsidian crystal, iridescent, heart-shaped

6. Wire, to make obsidian into a pendant

7. A painting (left - entitled Hula in my honour -
see more of Dave's pics here)

8. A pair of poi

9. A tattoo

Most of the above followed me saying (largely to myself - thus most are coincidental) that I wanted that particular thing. On every occasion I have found exactly what I need. I am possessed with a confidence that everything is borrowed and there is no need to become possessive over possessions. They are just possessions. In Dan's words:

Everything we have achieved in this life, everything we've acquired, all the things we've lusted after and obtained... eventually... we have to give it all back.

Worrying about them not being there simply manifests insufficiency. I know that I will get everything I need, in time. I simply need to relax about it.

Everywhere I go I receive the help that I need. Even today, I am trying to make new hula hoops to give away to Frank and Tracey, at every stage of the operation someone has either done it for me or given me the help I need without me having to ask.

I feel myself mentally putting my hands up in surrender. I am letting go to whatever forces affect life and seeing where they take me and what they bring.

Travelling has given me the time and space to observe what is going on and also to take me away from the pulls and pushes of daily routine, necessity, time deficit. By observing all of this I find a new peace, knowing - not just believing, knowing - that I will get what I need.

People describe me as 'lucky'. I say wholeheartedly that it is not luck that brings me these things but faith and choice; in combination: intentionality. I choose what mental state to maintain and what to listen to, and I have faith that my choice, because it is a product of my intuition, will bring me through.


When I left England, the vast majority of people said something along the lines of; "You're so lucky and I'm so jealous! I wish that I could do what you are doing." All the time, I was thinking; How is it 'luck' that takes me from my well-paid job and 'secure' surroundings to the other side of the world, with no plan, no idea of the future, no guide, little savings? I put my whole being into this. I didn't go out for months. I didn't buy myself a thing. I wound my friends up by refusing to even pay a pound for the bus across town.


I have nothing to go back to. I even gave away most of my clothes. I remember the look of my boss when I told him I was leaving to 'go travelling'. There was no way he could hide the incredulity and condescension over my decision. 'How irresponsible, to leave, in the middle of a financial crisis and just when you are getting somewhere?!' He didn't even try to argue, for in my declaration I had simultaneously demonstrated myself to be just the sort of person he didn't want in his straight-jacket of a company.


Luck is the easiest way we can describe the visible pattern of someone doing well. I believe we use the word luck to label the events of a person's life when that person is in their flow. It is inconceivable to many people how one person can have so much 'luck' and another can be stuck in a seemingly everlasting series of misfortunes. The reality is the mental state. When things go right, the person grows into the mindspace of things going right, thus elevating them to an energy space that attracts good things. When things go wrong, a person feels like the world is against them and consequently attracts more misfortune.


I do not mean to say that people deserve misfortunes, but that by changing an attitude, you can change your life.


It is choice - choosing to buy a plane ticket instead of a new iPod, choosing to live from a bag, eat sporadically, experience poverty, exist in transience. Choosing to listen to the intuitions I receive.

And with the choice comes faith - knowing that I was right, knowing deep enough to really let go.


I knew the world I was in was stifling my spirit, and that I would find what I was looking for, as long as I made myself free to be steered by the winds of the world. A position where I am able to listen to the clues that have been provided, and do what I need to do to follow my instincts, instead of hemming myself in with constraints brought on by the need for a routine, for possessions, for security.

It can be hard to do that. Of course I am in the fortunate position of having no ties. Or rather, I was able to cut myself off from everything. My family is self-sufficient and exists in separate worlds to me, and my friends have their own agendas. I did not own a house, a car, a husband, a child.


I did meet someone after I bought the ticket but again he, like me, has made the choice to follow his intuition and join me. He arrives in three weeks. He has chosen to redirect his life and abandon himself to the flow, because he felt, even though it is a huge and terrifying change, that it was the right thing.


And as if to encourage these theories, the synchronicities are already rolling out the red carpet for him too. Ever since he made the choice to come, information, gifts, inspiration and business fortune have come his way.


In short, he has become very 'lucky'.


I'm not really sure where I'm going with this as I hadn't really intended to write about this in the first place. For those of you looking for another episode of Julia's nice story book, I apologise. I merely wanted to thank the world for bringing me all the things I wrote in the list and all the other blessings I haven't.


But I guess on reflection I am not-so-subtly trying to encourage everyone that reads this to have faith in their instincts and the courage to make the choices they need. It may not be travelling. But it will definitely involve tuning in to the 'greater power,' i.e. whatever your guts are telling you. The more you resist it, the less malleable you will find your situation. The moment you abandon yourself to the flow, the "coincidences" will pour out of you and you will draw everything you need to you like a magnet.

Abandon the self, and there you are.



1 was given by Taylor following the coincidence described in Breaking Boundaries. It is siezed upon excitedly by companions everywhere I go - Dan has even admitted to wanting to follow me travel or as long as it takes him to read the book.



2 was given shortly after a private soliloquy of frustration at not having what I needed



3 was given by Dan. Bag packing had become stressful enough to reverse even the most loving of moods, my bag being at least 20 Litres too small for all the things I'd collected. I know I am a true traveller when fitting my camping pan and hammock actually inside my bag is enough to keep me flying high all day.



4 were bestowed on me by a variety of people. Dina wanted me to hula hoop in her dress. Dan watched me break my shorts and released his favourite, beaten jeans to replace them with. And Carrie gave me an entire outfit to wear after she told me to remove all my clothes and throw them in with her laundry.



5 is an iridescent gold/black stone that is meant to absorb bad energy. It was given to me by nomads who spread out their collection and told myself and Dina to pick one each. Just days before, I'd commented on a piece of obsidian on a friend's neck and said I'd like some. I wanted to put it on a pendant but did not have the means to, so Catia, a girl at the Hostelito Inn, bought me 6 when she saw it in a shop. This was immediately taken out of my hands by Frank who just happened to be trained by artisanos, who after several 'chinga mi perro, hijo de putas' strung it neatly on a necklace.



7 was painted by Dave from Seattle, an artist who stayed in the Hostelito Inn for a month to exude his creativity in sprays of colour and strange form all over the hostel. Each one was an explosion of different mediums - paint, pen, dripped, sponged, sprayed, splodged. I've never really thought about buying art before but if I hadn't been trying to conserve money, and if I had a place to hang it, I would definitely have bought some of his. I asked him if he would do me a doodle on a piece of notepaper. Instead he gave me a beautiful canvas that will forever remind me of the vibrancy of that place.

8 was given to me, bizarrely, by a shaman. He saw my hula hoops and asked me if I could spin poi. I said no. He gave them to me anyway. Now I have to learn.

9 was undoubtedly the most emotional, the most significant and the most life-changing of these gifts. So significant in fact that it deserves its very own blog entry.

N.B. A NOTE ON FOOD. Food is something very important to me. It is received with shiny-eyed gratitude, always. The day when I just don't want to cook, someone offers to cook for me. The day when I'm ill in bed, someone delivers me pills, water, a meal - whatever I want. And then there is the food that amusingly and sometimes unnervingly follows my cravings. The day I wished for grilled fish, the world's response being that I was invited to a free house with an enormous Sarandeado Red Snapper cooked on an open fire. Eva and I looking at our dinner of crackers and maizena and saying 'what we need is a rich old man who gives us a free dinner but doesn't crack on to us'. Few days later being given a free dinner and cocktails in the best restaurant in town by a rich old man that treated us like daughters (thank you for coming, safe travels, go separate ways) with the bonus of being incredibly interesting to talk to.