Saturday starts 4 days with no activities at the Casa. When I wake up, first thing I pull out my small, bright blue journal (same color as the Casa) and write down all of my dreams. They have been rich and plentiful and I have been experiencing most of them since I’ve been here as lucid dreams. If you haven’t heard that phrase, that’s when you are in the dream state and have full awareness that you are dreaming, and can then manipulate the experience. It’s pretty darn cool. I’m writing them all down to see if I am getting some answers to bigger life questions that I have been asking myself. Like: Do I want to continue to live in Boulder? What meaningful work would I like to do in the world? What personal work do I need to do to obtain a deeper connection to the universe? What is blocking me from achieving deeper work? You get the idea. People here have talked. About signs they have received, and everyone finds them in different modalities.
Up and out for breakfast. As I mentioned earlier, all meals are included. I simply waltz in during meal time, make a plate from the buffet:
and take a seat in the sunroom:
or out in the garden:
I seem to be the only guest here on her own, all others are in groups and it seems that all the groups are speaking german, although from Austria (Joao was there in the end of March this year). After breakfast, I return to my room and rest. I still get tired easily and need to rest my back, or I just feel like I need a nap. Reading a good book passes the time too!
Marina picks me up about 2 and we go to the waterfall. However, there are a lot of people there and because of protocol, it will be well over an hour before we can get there. (Everyone waits on benches. Small groups of men and then women alternate. They are not allowed to be there simultaneously. Silence is requested, as this is considered a sacred spot. Each person is allowed up to 5 minutes under the waterfall, in order to give everyone a turn.)
So we decide to return later. I head over to Frutti’s to see Kaliah get her tile painted. There’s a man who takes a white 12 inch tile, looks at you, and then paints a scene on the tile using only his fingers and then presents it to you as a reflection of your essence. Hokey, but they are really beautiful and you really cannot believe how he does it unless you watch. I’m going to take a movie of him doing it to show the process.
From there, I walk down to a pousada in town where my friend Nancy, who I first met as the Boulder Hoffman facilitator, is staying, she is the person who first told me about John of God a few years ago and she leaves tomorrow after being here a month. We chat for about an hour – she shared with me some of the work she’s doing now, and it pushed the boundaries of things I can understand. Like astral planing and splitting her being into 100 smaller pieces of herself and going around the world to heal souls. But people around here are open to validating people’s different experiences. I’m still being exposed to so many things going on in this world that are totally foreign to me, and that is certainly one of the experiences that I am seeking.
Then Marina fetched me and we went back to the waterfall…and we are the only ones there! It is almost dusk, and we say a prayer of thanks before entering, proceed slowly down the path and over 3 rickety bridges to the small, but strong fall. We each strip down to our suits (no nudity allowed) and take turns under the stream. It was brisk, but I did not squeal (can you believe it?) I decided to surrender to what was and not fuss about what unwanted, why, there’s a lesson right there!
Back to the pousada to change clothes and met Marina and her friend and fellow guide, Anita, who hails from England originally. Chatted with her about all the places use has lived in the world and the pleasures and perils of being a guide for the Casa. Learned that Marina had a large boat that held 120 people that she used to run. For tourists down in Itapaci. You know, 4 beaches and picnic lunch kind of a thing. Interesting to learn how people choose to generate an income for themselves after they arrive. Now she’s building a rental guest house and thinking of buying a nice size price of land I. The valley about 15 minutes away with a river and natural spring on it.
Back for a couple episodes of The Sopranos (although that energy seems so contrary to what I’m doing here!) before lights out.