Medicine woman

I know from the moment I see Catalina I know I have to talk to her. Something about her seems familiar.

Seven decades of wisdom are concealed in long, grey braids and a still-beautiful face. I am slightly intimidated. I feel as if I know her. I don't understand her Spanish, spoken through lisping, wrinkled lips, but I sit below her on the garden steps with my morning coffee, attempting to follow her growling dialogue as she rules over her tiny, exquisite empire.

On the third day after her arrival I spend the morning picking capers to pickle from the nodding nasturtium plants crawling over her terraces. She does not see me.

That afternoon she calls me over to talk to her. She bends down to the nasturtium flowers and asks me if I know about the plant. I tell her about the capers and that I like to put the flowers in salad.

She tells me the leaves cure cancer.

Instantly I know she is the owner of the notebook I found on the shelf a few days ago. And before I even think about what I'm about to say, I tell her bluntly: "I want to know what you know."

She does not seem surprised. In fact, it is as if she expects it. I wonder what brought her to tell me about the nasturtiums in the first place.

Instead, she tells me she will give me her notebook, in exchange for a present. I ask, "what do you want?" and she replies again, "a present," with a shrug of her right shoulder and downturned lips. I understand that this is more that just wanting something new. She is testing me in some way; seeking my character. "Bien. Gracias." I nod. So she gives me the notebook.

This time I open it not with trepidation but with hunger.

I have been after this information ever since I bowed gracefully from the Rat Race early last year. Given the magic that has occurred since, I am not surprised that it has arrived in this fashion.

I am, however, slightly surprised at the turn things have taken. Ever since Marcos told me to learn to heal with my hands, back in Guadalajara's cloudy January, I have been the subject of a series of people who want to teach me. Guide after guide, I am sucked into hula hoop loops of wisdom, almost effortlessly.

From Guadalajara I travelled to Patzcuaro, where I met Luis, who told me I was a kind of shaman and that he was my chosen guide. From there to Mazunte, where James spent a month downloading his knowledge of energy healing and massage. From James to Cristina, who taught me about symbols and vibration as methods of healing. From Cristina to Catalina, who hands me a leather-wrapped pile of papers, tied with a beaded thong. I have barely input anything.

The next day I sit in the sun and the quiet to copy the notes. I understand about fifty percent of the Spanish. When she asks for her book back, I have still not acquired a present, but she does not appear to mind.

I go into her room anyway. I sit on the floor. She hands me a jar of honey and tells me to drink from it. I fill my mouth with the globby nectar of the divine, the taste of the mountains clogging my senses.

She begins to tell me her stories. She tells me of the time she cured Parkinson's in three days using leaves. The time she cured a child dying of gastritis. The time she evicted a dark spirit by speaking mantras into the person's eyes. I am beginning to understand her Spanish a little more but I still struggle, asking her to repeat things in her gravelly voice. She puts her drink down in a patch of sunlight on the floor. I know she is going to ask for my hand and I hold both of them out ready for her to read.

She tells me I am lucky. I am lucky in money, and I shall never want. In fact, I shall never want for anything, as I have Jupiter, king of the gods, looking out for me. He will always come when I ask.

She tells me I will get married twice, perhaps more. This discredits everything she has said, as I do not believe in marriage and believe it would be a mistake for my fickle mind to ever be joined with another. But then she goes on to say that I will not marry for love, but for documents. Perhaps to become a resident in Mexico, as she once did. Perhaps to give my own visas to another.

I raise my eyebrows. The truth of my situation - my desire to live in a country I do not belong to legally - reshadows her words with credibility.

She peers closely at my left palm, as if searching for something. She looks and looks and then sits back, satisfied that she has found what she needs.

She points to a tiny cross between my upper and middle horizontal wrinkles. She tells me that healers have this cross. As if to confirm, she asks for my other hand, and smiles when she sees the results. I have three crosses in a line on this hand.

She shows me hers. The three crosses on her palm perfectly mimic my own.

She tells me I need to charge for my healing according to the means of the person to be healed. I feel uncomfortable bringing money into something so pure.


But she tells me, "You have to eat too. I healed for many years before I was able to buy my land, my house."

And suddenly, it hits me. The similarities between us. It is as if she is me, fifty years ago. I look around at the terraced garden, the house, with its cosy refuge and space for a community. The kitchen. The plants. The peace. I cannot believe I didn't notice it before. But this place exactly fits the dream in my head. This could be the home I asked for on Punta Cometa on the 21st, and the haven that has occupied my thoughts ever since I left London a year ago. And back and back, perhaps even before I was born.


I had no idea how I would make this dream happen, only the faith that somehow, knowledge and means would arrive. And now, slipping its folds around me with a finger over its mouth and a giggle behind its dancing eyes, the vision has arrived, so smoothly I did not even notice.

I think she has just told me how I can earn the money I need to make a place like this happen for myself.

By this time I have sunk into silence, content just to listen and continuing to concentrate hard on her low, low voice. She recounts stories that mirror my own. She left Spain when she was young, following the spiritual path. Had her very own Luis. Married to become Mexican.

Then she says something that makes me go cold.

"Do you know about the eagles?"

I didn't. Until two months ago, when I saw three eagles in a short space of time. Luis told me this was a sign. I asked him what the sign meant and he answered with a story.

He told me that they live for many years. After surviving for forty years in the desert, they fly to the mountains to find a place to hide.

There, they hit their beaks against the rocks until they break. They scrape their claws until they fall off. They render themselves unable to eat.

They rid themselves of everything that aided them to survive in their old life and they sit and wait in pain until a new beak and claws grow. When they do, the eagle is renewed. It is reborn, like a mage of its species. They go on to live another thirty years as the most powerful thing in the desert.

Luis said I'd seen the eagles because this is what I will have to do. I ignored him at the time, because I did not want to hear this kind of prophecy.

When Catalina tells me about the eagle, in relation to my palm, I suck in a deep breath. I hold it for the entirety of the metaphor.  I release it slowly. I look outside and see things crystallise in sharp corners. One of my possible destinies, presented to me clearly.

Catalina gives me one more key to add to my growing set. She assures me I already have everything I need to be a doctora naturista. In principle I can heal with energy, herbs, massage, and more.

Although I am cramped with doubt and self-belittling traps, everyone I have worked with tells me I have powerful energy. I have the knowledge; I just need to start practising. She tells me to start as soon as I can.  For now, my fear of myself keeps me contained.

When I leave I hand Catalina a necklace, beaded in the colours of the fierce Mexican sky. In doing so I feel I am completing a kind of circle.

Under the same skies, back in bleaching Zacatecas, that necklace was placed around my neck by Luis.

Flowers, clouds and clues

San Jose del Pacifico. Dogs are barking.

The sign on the door at Casa de Doña Catalina is peeling. I wonder if Catalina herself is dead.

In the garden her geraniums nod happily. I long to meet the carer of this paintbox of plants.

Sometimes we end the day in a cloud, an explosion through which the sun stretches dying fingers. We float away in our wooden boat in a wispy flood of white.

It feels as if we are lost.

Once again, a vortex of energy has sucked us in to a slow whirlpool of routine.

Over the last few weeks we have watched the sinking slopes of the valley ahead of us emerging and disappearing into clouds of a hundred different variations. We have explored the mountain trails through the pine forests, neon lichen and huge cacti like great, tentacled aliens, resting on the red carpet of the forest in surreal colour clashes.

We have continued to function without running water, pouring buckets of dirty dishwater down the toilet bowl and washing from a bowl of rainwater. Like so much of Mexico, Oaxaca state is not so far from seasonal abandonment for lack of water. Prophecies echo from state to state: the next world war will surely be over water.

Night rushes in, velvet skirts rustling and star-splattered. We retreat from the terrace to the cosy, low ceilings of Catalina's living room, walled in on all sides by psychadelic murals, bookshelves, musical instruments and brightly woven cushions. The lightshade is a carefully-arranged plastic bag. Against the window is a wide ledge filled with soft things for sleeping in.

In the other corner stands a bookshelf, with titles in a handful of languages, ranging from Carlos Castaneda to Madame Bovary.


The spine that grabs me belongs to a small notebook. I open it. The first thing I see is a piece of paper dated 1958. It is someone's Mayan horoscope. Whoever owns this book has the same energy as me: in modern Mayan interpretation, Yellow Sun, representing the Enlightener. In ancient readings, Kame, representing the beginning, harmony, vision, cunning.


The next page is a list of diseases.

It takes me a moment to realise that besides each of the diseases is a cure, encoded in Spanish. I wonder whether this belongs to Catalina. The looping script shows me my place and I feel I am prying.


I snap the book shut, but fail to forget.

After about a week we consider leaving and play cards for the decision. The cards tell us to stay.


That afternoon, Catalina herself arrives home from a month at the coast.

The cottage in the sky

From the land of the water in Mazunte, where we learnt to flow together again, we have moved to the land of the air. A time of thinking and of learning.



They call this town San Jose del Pacifico, because some days you can see the Pacific; a thin glint on a laminated horizon.

We are living in a bubble 2000 feet up, shrouded in nature's cocoon. The clouds rise and fall, an elevator between the valley floor far below and the comforting peak behind.

Our home for now is Casa de Dona Catalina. 200 pesos for a double bed in the dormitory at the top of the log cabin as well as whatever meals or drinks come our way during the day. 200 pesos for the two of us wanderers to become a valued part of the fizzing household, made up of a few long term residents and assorted drifters, who come here to socialise - in the most laid-back of senses - whilst sampling the botanical delights of the ethereal pine forests.


Each day the group changes, morphing its way through a rainbow of atmospheres. Each day brings more points of view, more shades of social interaction.

Dona Catalina is a witch. She understands plants and spirits. She is conspicuous in her absence - for the last month, watch over the land has been held by the residents.

When we walk in on the first day, fresh from a cloud-forest journey from Mazunte, the first person we find is Shaman Marcos. We sit down underneath a floripondio tree, otherwise known as angel's trumpet, with large orange flowers hanging from it like gramophone horns.

Marcos tells me the flowers are the dark side of hallucinogenics; without care, one can drive you mad. My eyes widen and I ask him if he'd ever taken them. "I had three this morning!" he cackles, and looks at me with kaleidoscope eyes.


The dark side indeed. Shaman Marcos has a wonderful heart, but his 'shamanic practises' have taken him so far beyond this world that I doubt he will ever return. 

I wonder what his coincidental appearance means for our experience here.

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.

Shifting Sands

One afternoon we sit in a giant tree.

We climb up to the palm of its branched hand to drink our way through four caguamons (1.2L beers bottles) and watch ants march up flaking bark.

Our tree becomes the perfect place to see through the shimmeringly hot afternoon. We bite into sun-warmed mangoes, burstingly fresh from the ground and watch an iguana flick along below us . When it becomes cool enough to move we jump down, bidding the day farewell with a swim in the crushing surf.

The time to leave has come.



We walk down the beach to stop in on James, swinging under candlelight in his blue terrace hammock, watching the stars through a palm-fringed window of sky above. We cook dinner there and eat in comfortable silence, listening to the crickets and the waves.



A month's study with Mazunte's Gandalf has taught me basic herbology, massage and a kind of energy healing that leaves my hands burning. I am glowing from my bi-weekly treatments and Michael is glowing from his experience as my guinea pig. We've spent a good few days covered in aloe vera, waving the spiky branches around like tentacles and moving stickily yellow and monster-like over the beach.



Yesterday I worked with a girl called Cristina. She has tumbling, shiny hair and a baby called Miguelito with a face to melt even the most intolerant of hearts. Together they are the image of Mary and Jesus- there is a light between them that will never come out in a photograph.



Cristina is the same age as me, but if I can achieve just half of the peace that radiates from her I will be content. She has travelled Mexico for the last ten years, learning indigenous methods of healing. While I am working with Cristina, Miguel thumps on a tambor and gives himself hysterics that bubble from his toothless smile and turn his eyes to happy slits.



I would like to learn more from Cristina. I feel a slight sense of loss as we say goodbye and forget to exchange email addresses. But the winds are moving us inland. Our month by the sea has joined us back together, after our stressful four months apart. We are ready to start the real travelling.

The road behind Mazunte leads to the mountains, seen from the beach as grey silhouettes against the sun. They call to us with cool breezes. While the sunrise over the beach is ethereal and makes me glad to be alive, it burns a hole in the day, forcing us to listless shade between 11 and 4. Activity is squeezed like toothpaste into small dollops at either end of the day. Even at night, a walk slickens sweaty sheen over darkened faces.

We will miss this place.

In the morning we leave on the first collectivo out, balanced on the back of the public pickup truck with tongues hanging out like dogs.

To the mountains.

Flowing into new moulds

Today is comfortingly familiar.




I had this day yesterday. And the day before. Back and back. For a lot less time than my mind has me believe.

But the familiarity is a sizzle of overwhelming ecstasy that pushes fingers into my brain and shakes it.

I am awake.



It is barely 11.00. I have already run four lengths of both beaches, splashing through the waves in bare feet, the sun peachily low in the sky. I wash in the cool, clear surf, cliffs rising through white sea mist, waves tumbling my body in bubbling spirals.

At the top of the beach I run up the concrete stairs to our room, ducking under lines of fresh washing from the restaurant below, opening the door to find my man still dozing on his back like a baby. I join him, entangling limbs and pressing damp skin.

I listen to the soft rhythm of his breathing, feel his hair prickling my lips, savour the grind of sand between sheets and the undulating roar of the waves in my ears. He begins to wake and the spell is broken. We dance around the room for a bit, talking crap. The day begins its rolling pace.

I prepare English breakfast tea in the camping pan, looking wistfully at the dwindling supply of bags that, despite our obsessive rationing, will be gone before the end of the month. We sit on the bed, munching granola and fresh melon, feeling the cool breeze of the fan that has become one of the few fundamentals of our current lives.



Today is Easter Sunday. A month since Michael's arrival.



***

Yesterday I tried to work out the day and failed to get even a rough idea. So we asked. I still cannot believe it is April.

We have found paradise. I wake up every morning wide-eyed, shocked to see that other face, peaceful beside me.



We are caught in a swirl of being where time and event do not matter. We pass smoothly from vivid, swirling dreams into a vivid, swirling reality, where we circle each other like halves of a molecule, coils of DNA, turning and bumping, floating away and being sucked back in to our shared centre.



Two months ago I could barely think of this, avoiding the images in order to protect myself from the ache of not having what I craved.



Our minds have veiled that time and pushed it beyond the realms of recent memory. This seems like the only reality that has ever been. London is made up of the wispy sensations of dreams, barely clinging together in my mind, wandering in half-memories through my sleeping hours. Almost every day I get a pang of longing for the rolling hills of Cornwall or the love of my people, but I know now to let the nostalgia flow through my mind.



Instead, we practise being here, now.





The sea pounds through our days. A time of water, and of flowing.

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.

The duality of sense and bewilderment

After breakfast, I allow myself to be taken by Luis to the other pyramids at Tzuntzintzan, the ancient capital of the Tarascans, holders of the Lake Patzcuaro territory. The tip of my tongue trips and taps over the name in ingeminated, gratified triplets.

The pyramids are larger, more numerous and seemingly more alive than those I visited at Ihuatzio a few days ago. I wonder how to broach to this well dressed, expensively perfumed gentleman the fact that I very much want to meditate here.

Before I do so, Luis tells me this place is a centre of energy. He asks me if I know how to "charge" from it.


Taken aback, I reply, "Yes. I think so. Sentar y sentir. Sit and feel."

He nods, satisfied, and beckons me through the alleyway between two of the central pyramids. Then he points to a position on the crumbling stone. "Sit there," he commands. "On the third level up, in that corner."

Once sat, he orders me to uncross my legs and arms, place my palms on the stone, and close my eyes. Asks me if I have a mantra. The only one I can think of is the one contained within my Mayan Yellow Sun dreamspell - "I am that I am". He tells me to focus on my breathing and repeat that. He will tell me when to stop.

Slightly self-consciously, I do as he says. Within around five minutes I feel my forearms twitching. The visuals on my eyelids swirl excitedly and I feel almost as if I have pins and needles running up my arms.

After fifteen minutes, he whispers my name from his position on the ground, bringing me out of my trance. He tells me to stand and raise my arms to the sky, and then to climb down. He places the palms of his hands on mine and tells me to close my eyes.

His hands start to vibrate. For a moment I am flooded with fear, for it feels like I am electrocuting him, and he is so frail. When he takes his hands away, I open my eyes to see him smiling. "You have a lot of power, Julia," he says, with no hint of embarrassment. "Even before we came here I could feel your power. You radiate heat."

Once again, as so often, I am grateful for my poor Spanish; providing a convenient mask when I wish to remain silent.

We walk around the site in a circle, and I remember my meditation a few days ago at the pyramids of Ihuatzio. I have the urge to tell him about the red bird; for some reason I know he will understand. When I do so, he smiles that ever-more familiar quiet smile. "Do you know what that means, Luis?" I question, knowing the answer, knowing he is not going to tell me.

In the silence that follows his nod, I then get the urge to tell him about the stranger in England who told me I'd find answers in Mexico. His smile widens even more. "This is one of your answers."

I can't help thinking, But I don't even know the questions! But I remain silent, still thinking about the red bird and what it could mean. We continue to walk in circles in front of the pyramids.

I gasp. There in front of me is an identical red bird, darting between the trees. Behind it is a bright blue bird.

I stammer Spanish like an idiot, stating the obvious. "Otra pecaro rojo! Y un azul!"

Luis looks surprised for the first time. "Now you have two. Two red birds. And a blue. This is very special, Julia."

I do not find out the answer until later on in the day, driving around the lake, enough time and mind-bending conversation having passed for me to know, with all my being, that something momentous is occurring.

He tells me that enlightenment and states of being are represented by the colours of the rainbow. Blue is love. Red is life. The highest form of being. I am seeing red because I am deep inside life right now.

As he tells me this, we drive over a large piece of bright red plastic on the road, next to a man standing at the edge wearing a red shirt.


I am caught between the wide-eyed silence of disbelief and the clamouring curiosity of the very young. I ask him question after question, processing the increasingly bizarre answers with lengthy stares into the shimmering lake. It does not take long before he mentions the principle of everything being the same thing, and in excitement I tell him about my tattoo.

He stops the car.

When he looks at it, a strange look shadows his face. I ask him why. To this, he replies, enigmatic as ever; "This has a very special meaning for me. I have been expecting you. I think it is you that has a message for me."

I can barely do justice to the events I've related, let alone relate everything that occurred that day. Of course, as will likely most who read this, I found it extremely hard to let go of my scepticism. How many times have I been warned about kidnappers, fraudsters, rapists, who here seem to be just that little bit more professional, that little bit more elaborate?

But I rationalise to myself that whatever he wants can have nothing to do with money, given the amount he seems to have. And I do not feel threatened. If this is a hustle, he has outdone himself.

Of course, I could be letting myself in for something extremely dangerous. But I have committed now to travelling on my instincts; following coincidence. And there were a great many coincidences that day. If I stopped because I was scared, I know these coincidences would stop with me.

When he asks me if I would like to travel with him for a few days, I say yes, before I have even thought about the reply.

An instinctive answer. And thus the correct one.

Later on, when my mind kicks in, I will suffer the paranoia and fear that is missing from this moment. But right now, in this car, I feel I have no choice.


Thus, I flow into the first stage of my entrenamiento.

Maybe it was me

Raul talks in singing Spanish, seemingly not too worried whether I can follow him or not. Within a few hours we have covered natural medicine, shiatzu, reiki, energy alignment, the truths contained within pyramids, and a concise and accurate assessment of my character according to the alignment of the stars on my birthdate. Then he starts to write down the seven laws of the Egyptians.

Number three is, Como es arriba, es abajo. As above, so below.


This is enough to weave me deeply into the knit of his words. We pass the Saturday afternoon by the sunny square, parrying a consistent stream of beggars and children selling gum, drinking our way through a succession of expensive beverages. He tells me to go to a place called Tepoztlan, another centre of energy near el DF.


This is the message I was expecting.


At five o'clock he receives a phonecall from a friend, Luis, an Ecuadorian-turned-Mexican, well-known in the town for his money and his kindness.

Apparently he does not call Raul very often.

Luis invites him to the cinema in Morelia. I hear Raul explaining that he is with a friend from England. Hear Luis invite me along as well.


At first I say no. After an afternoon of gunshot Spanish I am craving the peace of my room. But the answer does not sit quite right and, a few minutes after he has put down the phone, I concede.


Thus I meet Luis Soria de Silva. Slickly dressed but humbly disposed, with a wide smile and humorous manner. He is only forty-one, but a hump in his upper back, and his resulting shuffle of a walk, makes him seem much older.


The evening passes easily, popcorn scents and flowing emotions of the cinema balanced by stone-baked pizza and late night shopping centre. At the end of the evening I drip from the door of Luis' white Mercedes, drained but satisfied.


I spend the next two days with Raul, by the end of which I feel depleted. He likes being around me a little too much. I feel him feeding off my energy. Now that I have spent time with him, I feel obliged to meet him again.

To combat this, I pack my bags to leave.


The morning of my departure, I meet Luis for the second time, at a pavement cafe. Raul is not there. I don't know Luis, but he seems harmless and he wants to buy me breakfast, so I happily chatter away in the sun, amidst mouthfuls of chilaquiles and freshly-squeezed orange juice.


He asks me a lot of questions, about my life in England and about my current direction. He laughs when I say I want to write a book about my experiences; apparently one so young cannot amass sufficient stories for a bestseller. Feeling the need to prove myself, I become confident and direct, believing myself to know secrets that he does not. Speaking in Spanish, I am able to separate myself from my words, saying things that would be considered rude or arrogant in English.

I feel myself getting into the flow, enjoying talking about myself. I unpack some of my mantras for him, laying them out neatly and savouring his reactions.


He doesn't seem surprised by anything - only committed to continuing my soliloquy. When I say that I believed someone in Patzcuaro had a message for me, he immediately asks me what Raul's message was.


I am not sure. It could be a number of things. I tell him about Tepoztlan. However, my usual credence on these matters is absent. Deep down, I know this means I was wrong.

Luis looks at me with deep eyes and says, with absolute confidence, "Do not go to Tepoztlan."

I am startled.

"Why?" I ask. He replies, "Now is not the time for you to go to Tepoztlan."

I nod. Not going to argue with that. Then he says something very strange.


"On Saturday, I invited Raul to the cinema. This is very unusual, but I received the impulse to do this and so I followed it. Raul told me he did not want to go. I started to drive away. There came a point where, if I turned left, I would be at the cafe where you were. If I turned right, as I was just about to do, I would be on the carretera out of town, and the moment would have been missed.


"When I was at this point, Raul called me and said you'd changed your mind.


He looks at me seriously, piercing my eyes.


"Thus I met you."


I look at him with new interest. "So... Maybe it was you I was supposed to meet?"

He nods, slowly, and smiles a quiet, knowing smile. "Yes. Maybe it was me."

Pyramids and Perfect Persistence

Everything in Patzcuaro is perfect. The town threads tiny streets up steep hills, whispering tales of pre-colonial Mexico in terracotta facades and delicately-formed handcrafts.  The lake, like an accidental mud puddle, seemingly living its last days, shows itself in magical glimpses through the clouds outside my window.

The hostel is like my own house. I am the only person there. It rains solidly through my first three days but I happily curl under five blankets, hatted and gloved, chewing my way through neurone-popping books.

On the second day I meet a man in his forties called Raul, twitching, mouselike, mouth crowded with teeth.  He instantly invites me to stay with him for free. He talks about natural healing and energy points within the body, something that rings deeply with what I've been recently coming across. He also talks about the Mayas.


Nervous and protective of my vulnerability I refuse, concealing my answer in a smilingly-delivered "I'll think about it". On the rain-soaked rush home I can't help feeling worried that I have ignored a message of some sort. Is he the person I knew I'd meet? I reassure myself with the thought that if it really is meant to be I will see him again.


When the sun comes out on Friday I borrow a bike and pedal furiously north round the lake, through splashing puddles and villages half-asleep.


I don't know where I'm heading, but after an hour a sign points me towards the ruins of Ihuatzio. The road unfolds before me, steaming away the freezing altitude with shimmering mirage. Dead dogs rot furrily in the gravel; as usual, vulture-like zopilotes the only birds in the sky.


By the time I arrive my legs are shaking.



The only other people here form a group that appear to be chanting whilst sitting in face-to-face pairs. I chain up my bike and creep past them.

At the end of a field of dried grass crouch two small pyramids, sides almost vertical. The Sun and the Moon. Grassy mounds perch quietly nearby; as yet uncovered shells of a previous life. I wonder how many other hills nearby camouflage sites that do not yet want to be found.

Around the edges of the site runs a steep, thick wall; remnants of an elevated road. I check to see no one is watching and clamber quickly to the top, pouring pumpkin seeds into my mouth as I go.


The sun is impossibly bright.


It takes my heart a long time to calm itself. I sit cross-legged, squinting even under my sunglasses, breathing steadily. Close my eyes and allow my mind to slip away with the place. I meditate for twenty minutes or so before inexplicably opening my eyes to see a small, bright red bird, darting among the nopal spines ahead.


Once more a feeling I can't explain; a knowledge that this is a sign for me. I know traditionally red is a warning, but this does not feel like a threat.

The bird follows me back to my bike. Its iridescence is almost gold in the sunlight. I think about it all the way on the gruelling, dusty journey home. I think I have overdone it, but I just can't ride a bike slowly. The 4km hill from the Lake up to Patzcuaro town stretches me almost to breaking point and it is perhaps the only time in my adult life I buy a Coca Cola.

For the first time since my arrival I am warm enough to brave the shower. Afterwards I collapse on my bed listlessly. I am completely useless. I can't even focus on text. Despite the exhilaration of my day and the tingling in my hands from the pyramids, I feel the loneliness creeping in. Before it slams its deadening plank into my exhausted back I force myself out of the door and down to the market, to feed my craving for guavas.


There is Raul. Again, he talks about exactly the sort of thing I have been thinking about. Again, he invites me to stay.


Again, I nervously say I will think about it.


I begin to get angry. If the universe or whatever it is wants to teach me something, why does it have to present it to me in the form of a man and an empty house? I don't want to go! I don't want to stay with a strange man! Why can't I meet someone who just wants to go for coffee?!


I become totally overwhelmed by all the things that are going on. There seem to be currents taking me somewhere and I am scared. I don't want to have to deal with any of this. I miss my country, my family, my friends. I miss mundanity. The void inside takes over the consuming joy of the last month or two and makes me call home, seeking comfort in the familiar.


I sleep fitfully again that night, as I so often have in Mexico. My aching legs the next morning keep me in town, wandering without aim amongst the closed, cobbled streets.

I am just about to go home when I walk past Raul.


He is sitting at a pavement cafe, drinking coffee.

With a barely perceptible nod of thanks to the powers-that-be, I ease myself into the chair next to him.

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.

As Above, So Below

I have been thinking about my tattoo design since 2001. I always knew the perfect design would arrive, and the key was not to put any pressure on it.

When I went travelling to New Zealand and the Pacific Islands in 2004, I was so taken with the Maori culture that I designed my own tattoo out of elements of various greenstone carvings that meant something to me. The design was beautiful. But I never got the tattoo. I couldn't decide where to have it and by the time I left the area it felt like the moment had passed.

A few weeks ago I watched my friend get her first tattoo in Puerto Vallarta. It was very small but it had a lot of meaning for her. I was as nervous as she. We got pissed on tequila and laughed the whole way through, before spending the rest of the night riding high on endorphins to take on the city.

I felt her liberation and kept the thoughts in my mind, circling slowly.

When I was in Vallarta the next time, I spent an afternoon in tattoo shops, looking at fonts. While I was there, a girl came in, about to have one down her spine. I asked her what it would say.

She replied, 'You have to lose yourself in order to be found.'


I left that tattoo shop with a mark not on my skin but on my mind - of that girl and her truth. It mirrored what was going on at the time. From the lost wilderness of my first weeks emerged the familiarity of myself. Shortly afterwards, I found myself sitting on the beach in Yelapa, wondering where the hell all this perfection arrived from.

Sure enough, my peace and patience paid off. When the coincidence occurred in the bookshop - the coincidence that led me to the Law of Attraction book - I knew the words As Above, So Below would soon be tattooed somewhere on my body.
Not only would it be a physical representation of that amazing memory of swimming in San Blas with the phosphorescence, but also a hats off to the techies up there that gave me the later coincidence.

On another level, there is the basic physical nature of it - that I am claiming my body as my own, maturing, changing, but in the same time recognising that it is just a body, and it is mine, so I can do what I want to it.
But more importantly, in those four words lie the truths I commit to. My beliefs in the unity of everything, the Law of Attraction and the ultimate connection of everything to everything else. The words represent it all for me.
Everything is the same. The things that you find above you are the things you find below you. That which is within, is also without. The stars are made of the same thing as the earth, the same thing as the sky, the same thing as ourselves. The physical manifestation of the world is exactly what is in your head.

Everything is made of the same energy - the omnipresence of consciousness.

All you have to do is tune in, and I feel like I have done that as much as I can for the age I am and the experiences I've had. I am at the stage now where I am truly feeling everything that comes along - seeing energy patterns in things and directing flows, or rather, flowing with them. I feel somewhere that this is a point in my life that will transpire to be very important. I am leaning against the proverbial milestone, catching my breath, darting my eyes around this new tierra to navigate the best way forward.

This is my journey, and these words express that perfectly.

And there is another reason. More and more, I feel like my purpose is to spread the word. The people I meet seem to be bringing me messages along these lines. In Mayan prophecies I am Yellow Rhythmic Sun, which means my life's purpose is "to enlighten". Even in Western horoscopes my charts tell me I am to "shine a light" in order to lead the way.


It is easy to be sceptical, particularly when I blush self-consciously at saying something so far-fetched and potentially arrogant. But what matters is what you feel inside. Without being daunted or condescending of this prophecy I feel myself shouldering it and preparing for it. My instincts tell me it is true. In stepping along this journey I know I'm stepping towards that purpose and I am in the process of submitting to it and simultaneously grasping it.

I say all this in a vain attempt to explain the reasons why I decided to tattoo my stomach yesterday. There are many reasons. Some much deeper than others. I am no longer going to bother postscripting my thoughts with caveats and excuses for those who think I'm being carried away with hippy nonsense. Take the one that most rings with you. I am simply being honest.

They tell me to be the change I wish to see in the world. A tattoo is a ritual, and for me this ritual comes in a poetically beautiful format.

To enlighten the self is to enlighten others.

As above, so below.

By the time I arrive in Guadalajara I have just a rudimentary blur where my tattoo should be, but I know, really KNOW that I want this. I have the words but no shape, the curve but no position. The intention but no artist. When I turn up at the Hostelito Inn, casually mention my fondness for the owner Frank's body art, it does not surprise me that he says he will do mine for free.

Ask and she shall receive. Who am I to resist a flow such as this? Of course I say yes.

But now the decision is made, more decisions arrive. Where to have it? Do I want it to show all the time, or do I want it private? Do I want just the words, or do I want a shape as well? I have toyed with the idea of having spirals or circles, for these too hold a heavy meaning for me. Everything is cyclical, the world moves in circles. I slip round the corner of one.

I even meditate whilst hooping in a blurred cylinder of blue glitter.

A circle is notoriously difficult to draw, and on the wrong body part could end up missing the point. But I want it, so badly. I need those words on me.


Up until the day before I have it done, I struggle with indecision over where to have it and what it should look like. Dan shows up, a welcome addition to the pack and with artist's eyes and comforting presence helps me to find the perfect font. I know it is the one the moment I see it. Words looping in circles and spirals, letters emerging from the swirls shyly but firmly. And with that comes the decision to have it on my side. Partly on the front, partly on the back. Above, below, across my core.

I drink a couple of tequilas and lie prostrate on the bed upstairs, a crowd of well-wishers having a party in the sun outside the door, shouting encouragement.

I am scared.

I'm not sure quite of what, because when I think about it I am not scared of permanently marking my skin. I know it is going to hurt, but I want it to be a journey and it wouldn't be a journey if it was easy. I trust Frank and I know that the words are exactly what I want. I come to the conclusion it is just the energy of the event infecting me.

I breathe through the nerves and ground my fears.

There comes a point when you just have to let go. Trust the hands you are in. That point comes as I am examining the stencil. I could stand in front of the mirror for hours adjusting the position, but in the end I just hold my hands up and submit to the charge of Frank. Frank of the single braid and spiky hair, Frank of strange Mexo-Anglicisms, Frank of morning singing and afternoon doobies. What a legend that man is. Despite knowing he'd only done 40-odd tattoos, I trust him completely. I know this is going to be good.


So I plug myself into music fit for an imaginary world of light and inflection. Close my eyes. Lie back to feel the burning pierce of the needle.

It hurts. A lot.

All across my ribs, down the side of my stomach, to the scarred remnants of my appendix, just inside my right hip. They did tell me it was going to be hard.

But because of the significance of the words, I want to really feel what is going on. This is not just a branding of my skin, but a branding of my life, my persona. It is a declaration to the world of my beliefs and my vow to commit to those beliefs for the rest of my life. It is a declaration of my story, of the path that has led me here and the core trust in the synchronicities I've experienced.

Instead of having a body as the physical means by which the mind is transported, I am bridging the two with a physical manifestation of what goes on in my mind.

I want to etch the deep ink of my beliefs into my tattoo. So I focus on them.


I meditate, for five hours, on the meaning of those words, the significance of circles and spirals. The endlessness of life, symmetry, the journey in and the journey out, the double helix, getting young as you grow old, everything as one. I etch my intention into my skin.

All at once I feel both the unity and the difference between my physical body and my mental body. On the physical level, I lie on the bed, helpless at the hands of my artist, pain stabbing deep into my being. I feel the vibration inside my rib cage.


On the mental level I am a hum of energy, with an apex of intensity over the needle into which I pour all my positivity and awe at everything I've experienced. Those five hours take me to places and experiences usually only achieved with the aid of psychadelic substances. I am in a trip of the highest form, rushing off the exhilaration of the physical and the challenge of the mental.


It is a five-hour long, full body physical and mental orgasm.


I enjoy every minute. I am by no means exaggerating when I say it is one of the most monumental experiences of my life.

I become the music and I become the needle and I become the ink deep inside my skin.

In having the words branded forever, I experience first hand what they mean. As above, so below. As within, so without. What may be outside is also felt inside. My mind is all around.

When Frank taps me to signal the end, I feel a wave of disappointment that this moment, this perfect moment is over. But then I stand up and take my first look at my new body.

I didn't know what I wanted, but when I see it I know it is perfect.

All over my body my skin tingles, like I've been scrubbed.

It takes me a while to gather my mind from the corners of the room. I pull myself together just enough to stumble downstairs to bed.

I am exhausted.