ANDEAN STORIES

Seeking the Magician:Experiences of magic healing with the masters.
The Magician Found:Results of a traditional therapy.
Mama Culture:The story of a sacred ceremony with Maria Charaja, an Aymara Yatiti, Lake Titicaca traditional healer.
Cross and Condor Align in Nasca:Experience in the energy grid of the Nasca Lines.
Third World Simplicity:At home with the simple life of the Andean People.
Monkey Tree Night:A night stuck in the rainforest swamp, an Amazon initiation.

I had come a long way to find that the master had died. A long way being from the States to Lima, Peru and Cusco too. Then it's train, boat and bus down to La Paz, Bolivia. From La Paz it is an all day bounce on a dusty dirt road in a rattling old bus as we climb the spine of the Andes to a pass at 15,000 feet above sea level called Puma Sani, the place of the puma.

This old Bolivian bus is a true luxury now. In the years past I made the journey flagging down, to ride in the open back, various farm trucks that were headed north to Ulla Ulla near the world bio-preserve. Dropped off in the night up on Puma Sani, with ice on my sleeping bag, I would wait for morning light to make my descent. The pass and valley, dropping toward the rainforest, frame the view of Mt. Aka Mani, the sacred peak and a main source of power for the Kallawaya healer magicians and the extreme beauty of these descents were well worth the frozen nights. Then, when down in the central village of Charazani, the warm greetings in the plaza, the hot springs baths and the salsa in Sophia's kitchen serve well to thaw the frozen traveler.

But now the sad news, Juan de Dios had died just after my last visit. The magician is dead, long live the memory of his magic!

This ancient tradition of healers, called the Kallawayas, are ceremonial therapists of all aspects of life. Through many millennia they have traveled from Panama down to Tierra del Fuego, healing and gathering knowledge of healing. During the Inca empire they were the doctors to the kings and the ruling class. Their knowledge is of many forms of natural healing, including the use of more than 1,000 herbs. However, today they are most sought after for their practice of ceremonial magic. The power of positive prayer best describes the work of the Kallawayas. Though they will build elaborate offerings and ceremonies that may last most of a night, it is their prayer that is in action. The masters have no doubt about their connection and it works.

Now Juan is gone, a Dios no doubt. The man had become such an important part of my life that I found myself at a bit of a loss. At first light I climbed a hill above the village to an ancient offering site. I went to pray, say farewell, to be happy for him and to cry just a little. When done there came a condor flying back and forth below my feet as I stood on the edge of the mountain. Someone unseen was holding my hand while, in a profound joy, I shed parting tears.

I was remembering one time that I had made the Charazani journey and beyond to the home of Juan de Dios. As I walked up the door opened up and Juan pulled me in. There the offering was all laid out and ready to go in specific detail, because in a dream he had already seen what was troubling me and exactly when I would arrive. That magician was well plugged in.

To try to explain, the Kallawayas see into the patterns of life. Where there is imbalance they build a new pattern through the focus of their prayer, then we call it magic. For example there was the first time I met Juan de Dios because the family of one of my Goddaughters had told him about me. They were concerned about a long term dis-ease I had suffered called 'soltero', meaning that I was still not married, which is a very strange state of being in this culture. Juan said yes, that he could see into me and that quote," I was not letting the feminine into the center of my heart". It was true that for some time I had been avoiding the trouble I had often found in relationships. I was quite amazed to hear such talk from a seemingly simple mountain man in the way outback Bolivia. Juan claimed that he could fix the problem and fix it he did! Suddenly I was being hit up for a lot for dates and or marriage! This opened the way for me to explore, in rapid succession, many of the fear based patterns that had been blocking me, multitudinous syncronisities testifying to the power of the magic. No need here to go into account of all the adventures brought on by his opening my heart to the ladies, suffice it to say that I became a fairly satisfied man.

Diagnosis will come through some form of clairvoyance, usually through the casting of coca leaves. Then they can offer their repatterning of most aspects of life; health, love, family, work, money and so on. When they first brought me into their training and initiations the Kallawayas near wore me out sending me up and down various mountains so I asked for strengthening through cleansing. The ceremony was made and then without any herbs or diet for two weeks I eliminated cords of 'unusual stuff'. Though I didn't feel sick I got well reamed out. The healers are working in traditions passed on by their masters before them and they by the old ones before them. Unbroken roots reaching back through tens of thousands of years according to their own histories. Having been proven and perfected through many millennia these practices, in the minds of the people, are a solid certainty.

In a small village, a climb over the ridge towards Mt. Aka Mani from Charazani, there lives another of my goddaughters. Her grandfather, Papa Pablo is a healer of a long and respected line of magicians and I also work with him. So I decided to go to the family for advise, if anyone they should know where to find another magician to work and study with.

One of papa Pablo's often voiced complaints and warnings concerns the many sham shamans (scam mans). There are any number who will say " Oh si, soy Kallawaya, pagame". "Yes, I am a healer, pay me". There are many who can fake the ceremonies but a precious few who truly work with the force. Most of the local people feel that it is too hard if not impossible to find a genuine magician. A strange thing about the women and men who are the most accomplished and powerful of the healers, shamans and magicians scattered through the Andes and Amazon, is how quiet they are. All that I have met show an exterior sweet and unassuming. Perhaps that they have been humbled is a sign of the enormous powers encountered during the initiation process. In Andean tradition it is thought that only the humble are open to receive, then share the Divine powers. There are some that we now work with that I had passed by unknowing for years. My only clue was a deep intuitive endearment. That's another thing about some of the wise ones here. At times they've been willing to first watch me for a few years. Only with the ripeness of time and evidence that I remain the good path, do they step forward to begin our work. As if there is no hurry because we really do have all of eternity.

So now how to seek a magician? Rather than wait for eternity's unfolding I decided on a more direct, even if hurried route. I sought the advice of another magician. Actually I first went to the magicians apprentice, my compadre, the father of my goddaughter. Together we went to Papa Pablo. They knew of a few and suggested some names but I could hear in their voices that the men mentioned aren't all that impressive and subsequent visits proved this to be so. They are OK but... well, Juan de Dios had spoiled me and that kind of magic is rare. Fortunately we still have Papa Pablo.

At the time of my seeking I had another task to ask of Papa Pablo, regarding a missing article. An artifact very rare and precious had been given to me by a High Priest in some way- outback mountains in the area of Machu Picchu. In order not to lose it to the U.S. Customs while crossing their border lines, I left in the 'safe keeping' of someone I used to work with. When I returned to the Andes he said that he didn't know where it was and continued giving that answer for next year and a half of my asking. So I requested Papa Pablo to look into it for me. Papa saw that the man had it and that maybe I could get it back but that I would need to go ask for its return three or more times. We then made the necessary ceremonial magic.

Right afterwards I 'chanced' to encounter the man holding the bag in a town other than where he lives. When I asked he said yes he had found it! When next I could I went to his home but he said that he had lost it again. On the third visit it had been found and now I have it, thanks to the clear sight and prayers of Papa P.

Some months later I was in the nearby rainforest and on the way out I swung into the magician's mountains to visit the family and share the news of the magical recovery. My Compadre told me that they had discovered another healer for me to work with. In the midst of ceremony Papa announced again that this man will be good for our work and they volunteered to go talk with him for me. Later as I was climbing the ridge to leave the mountains I happened to meet up with Papa Pablo and he was able to point out where this other healer lives. At that moment a condor flew by and circled back close, the third I had seen that day.

Signs of prayers answered? I'll find out this year when I return seeking the magician.

See the continuing story: The Magician Found

Return to: Kallawaya Healers

Return to: Alan Leon

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I have returned to the mountains of the magicians exhausted, barely able to respond to the sweet welcome of my friends in the plaza of Charazani, the small village deep in the Bolivian Andes. More than the tiredness from the five days spent in third world buses to get here, my exhaustion came from inner turmoil. Doubts and fears seemed to form their own entity to chase my travels, to question my quest, to see if I would be pulled off the path. At the hot springs I bathe in ritual absolution, soaking away the stink of my inner battle, the water is hot Mama's embrace.

In the morning at first light I continue climbing the ancient ascent, seeking the magician. To be embraced again in their gentle love I rejoin my Goddaughter and her parents, my Compadres in their tiny traditional village. Granted a days rest I lean over the patio wall, basking in the stupendous views. Above is the glacier clad sacred mountain Aka Mani, down valley begins the rainforest. On a ridge end I see the ruins of Cota Cota where we make magic and offerings.

There is a condor, this one larger than usual which is to say a huge bird flying. He circles the sacred site, then rapidly flies to me, close and overhead. He dips his wings a few times showing off his white banded back then flies back to Cota Cota and stays above it a long while until disappearing towards Mt. Aka Mani.

I would not be amiss taking this as sign and am deeply moved but what it signifies at this time I don't know.

I am seeking a magician here in the land of the Kallawayas, an ancient line of Andean ceremonial healers. The old master had shed his body the year before so now I seek for another.

Again at first light the next morning I am out walking, now with my Compadre. We are going to another village to look for a healer we have heard of and have gone only a little way when we meet a man and two burros climbing towards us. My first impression is an attraction, like me he is one of the little people, typical of so many outback Andean elders. Fine featured he is fair to look on and his inner light shines clear.

I delight in seeing people like this so I give a cheery 'Buen dia!' good morning, as I pass by. My Compadre stops to talk with him so I wait drinking in the view of Mt. Aka Mani gold glowing in the sun's first rays, I slipping naturally into prayer.

The conversation goes on, the burros wait and so I rejoin the men and get a hand shake along with the twinkle in his eyes. My Compadre explains that 'he' will not be at home today, that 'he' is going up into the mountains because he is needed for a healing and then will bring cargo down with the burros. He? Who he? Ay, Dios mio, is this he whom we seek? What strange luck is this encounter on the mountain path.

The burros and he have already continued on as my Compadre tells me that the magician, Don Pinto, said that it will be good for us to come to his home another day. Just now he is called to the village of Curva, high in the mountains. It is interesting that this old man, in his mid-seventies, is making a major mountain climb, ascending some six or seven thousand feet then back down today.

Also interesting is that in the past Curva was reputed to have the strongest of magicians but now it seems mostly to sprout scam artists cashing in on the good name the village once had while giving a bad name to the traditional healing arts. So old Don Pinto is who the people call for when they want a true healer. Well then, very well.

So Compadre and I return home and Grandfather comes to visit. Grandfather, Papa Pablo, is also is a Kallawaya healer, he has the alter cloth and I have brought the coca leaves so we can commence my yearly check up.

The Kallawayas diagnose various aspects of life by praying with the coca leaves then casting them to psychically read them. Right off he looks up and says "Siga, no mas". Which means go on as you are, nothing else.

This is good to hear because in the blues that had been chasing me I had wondered if I needed to find another lifestyle. But he says the work we do is good and right and not let anything deter me. Then he surprises me saying that I now have the vision and am empowered to make the magic as they do through traditional ceremony.

This is a most unexpected turn. In this culture there is no self proclaiming, it won't work to take an expensive weekend workshop then announce that you are a shaman. Here the apprentice may study decades while waiting to be struck by lightning or some other strong sign signifying that the power has been turned on in them. Or the master saying "Siga, no mas".

Papa Pablo explained that due to my years of pilgrimage and the sincerity of my seeking, ceremony and prayer, the spirits of many sacred sites had agreed together to put the power on me. Papa Pablo also names two allies from among these spiritual entities who will aid me in growing into this role, the sacred Mt. Aka Mani and Cota Cota where the magicians work.

Now I realize that somewhere in the grim pilgrimage that I had been crawling through to get into these mountains, while being blues tested to see if I would stay on the path or give up in despair, I had made the right choices and passed through a portal allowing initiation. Just the same I must confess that I am taken by surprise by this. I had hung out with all of these Andean magicians, priestesses and shamans for the past seven years just because I was enjoying being around these characters. I had no intention of trying to put on their powers, preferring to leave that to the masters, many of who have been in practice more that fifty years. Still now while I agree to proceed, it is only in great caution. Not wanting any of this to slip into make believe, fantasy or 'wanna be' anything other than I truly am. If I remain sincere in seeking I trust that the path will unfold me as it should.

Down in the town of Charazani I stop in to see Felizia, the daughter of Juan de Dios, the magician who had died earlier. I always leave money for Juan's widow. Even though I must maintain a fairly tight budget, even just four or five dollars translates into a lot of Boliviano pesos and means a great deal to a poor widow in the mountains and Juan had helped me enormously. Felizia with grateful tears in her eyes tells me that she knows that her father is still with me. Now it is my turn to get teary eyed as I know that she is not just making nice words, the simple mountain people know of the truth of these things, she is speaking what she knows. I remember feeling Juan holding my hand a few months after he had died.

When in Sedona, Arizona I am often in the home of one of the clearest psychics that I know, Ron Elgas. Recently when I was asking him about other matters he pops up saying that there is an Andean shaman around me wanting to pass on the power to carry on with the work. Leaving Felizia I take a quiet moment and chuckle thinking how perhaps poor Juan de Dios had no one else but this sorry gringo to try to pass on his power. At that moment Juan slams in a message override saying "No, not just no one else, you are the right one". A bit startling, both the message and the override.

Returning to the mountains I go to look for Don Pinto in his home, on this day I have seen condor three times, perhaps the magic is ready, am I? With dusk dropping into night by candle light the old magician casts the coca leaves to see who I am. He looks up surprised " You are a sabio, one who knows! You are to work the magic, your allies are to help you, they are here, Aka Mani and especially Cota Cota". He also sees my work in pilgrimage as right and strong. All just as Papa Pablo had said "Siga, no mas".

So the spirit of Cota Cota is to be my strong connection. We build the offering to make it so. At the ceremony's end we burn what was created in offering to the Divine Mother. Don Pinto holds that part of the offering dedicated to Cota Cota to my heart and then over my head praying. I feel a force slam me from heart to forehead. Then the top of my head sets up a tingle itch that goes on for some while. Is this just an emotional reaction or did I just get touched? I had experienced that crown tingle years before when an Apache had introduced me to some teacher beings from another world.

The next day I go to dance and pray at Cota Cota, Cota means lake in the ancient tongue of Aymara. Papa Pablo had told me that was long ago it was a village with lakes on both sides. It now lays in ruins on a knife edged mountain ridge, high and dry. Glacier born steams cascade past both sides of the ridge more that 1,000 ft below. How long ago were there lake up to these heights? How long ago were these lakes peopled?

What cataclysms so changed the land? How many millennia have the magicians been coming here to pray? Is this place then a connection with the highly advanced world culture that was destroyed by the ending of the last ice or crustal shift? Now Cota Cota calls me, what source is this that now taps me? Why me?

Again my thoughts turn to questioning, then to doubting. Is all this just make believe? This whole thing with Papa Pablo and Don Pinto? Right at the moment when I was wondering if Juan de Dios was really holding my hand a condor comes. She circles me three times just a few yards away, so close as to make point driven eye contact. The last time around she opens her beak wide in a silent scream, wind whipped feathers whistling and I in tears. "Come on Alan wake up!"

I have come seeking the magician and am grateful to have met Don Pinto, with him time will tell but what have those condors been telling me? And all the others? I must say that this is a bit hard to swallow, though the seeker has been sincere. It seems that he whom I have sought has been found and God help me, he is me.

Uh, now what?
I dunno.
No doubt the path will unfold the little pilgrim.

TOP

With a slow solidity, Grandmother Maria climbs the sacred mountain one more time, perhaps for the last time. The peak and the spirit who lives up there are called Atoja. Atoja is old, old, old; the village, Chuquito, laying between Atoja's feet and Lake Titicaca, had been the cradle of the lake culture perhaps before Tiahuanaco, the city of ruins, and just the upper, above ground level of Tiahunaco's temples have been dated back 15,000 years. The people of Chuquito and the surrounding country side have always known Atoja. Through many millennia they have climbed to the dual peaks--one side feminine, the other masculine--to build their ceremonial offerings. Grandmother Maria Charaja and Atoja know each other well, the years of good deep dialogue have made them comfortable old friends.

Maria.... her face is as beautiful and rugged as the hill she climbs; the bones of her frame are obviously built of the same material as the mountain. In a solid dignity, her back bears the load of the many items needed for the offering, wrapped in the blanket tied around her shoulders; they create quite a bulk. Up here, the next step and the next breath need to be very deliberate, we are higher than 14,000 ft above sea level, but Maria knows this altitude and this hill well. Since she was a baby riding on her mother's back and as a young girl, barely more than a toddler, following the sheep, or planting the potatoes to feed her children, all of her years Maria has been on the slopes of Atoja. Many years, many years....maybe this is the last time she climbs this old peak.

A precious treasure is Maria. Among the Aymara, the people of Lake Titicaca, it is rare now to find a woman Yatiti, or ceremonial healer. In the ages past many women served in the lands of Mamacota--the Mother Lake--which is what the Aymara called her before the Spanish conquerors misunderstood and applied the Inca/Quechua words titi kalka meaning puma rock which is an island on the lake. In the times pre-Inca, the ways of the feminine, the Mother Lake and the moon were well known. Then out of Cusco rolled the military might of those calling themselves "the sons of the sun"--Inca--claiming divine right to forcefully subjugate and to establish their solar cult on the island of the puma rock-, Titikalka--now called the Island of the Sun. In pre-Inca times the lake culture of Tiahuanaco peacefully spread throughout the Andes and Amazon, the good will of her neighbors won through trade and sharing of the ideas and sciences of this highly advanced peaceful civilization. In the era of Tiahuanaco, well known was the Divine Mother and honored were her priestesses. Patriarchal, the Inca sons of the sun, declared the women lesser. Those who would be priestesses were held under penalty of death in convents and called 'virgins of the sun'. Following the Inca, the Church of Rome brought centuries of bloody persecution to any one practicing the old craft. A precious treasure is Maria. It is a wonder to find any women left who carry the ancient traditions.

Maria is feeling the weight of her burden as she climbs old friend Atoja; it is a good thing her daughter, Salome, is there to share the load. At the top Maria settles herself into the shelter of a small alcove beneath a large boulder, a little womb to protect the offering she is here to create. Protection is needed, for the winds play freely this high above the altiplano, and the sun is fierce and bright. So much has changed in these times, now even the brown skinned people who had been in the sun all their lives are being burnt by the rays. There are some old prophesies about the burning sun and times of change.

Their many voluminous skirts form pavilions in the dust as Maria and Salome sink to the ground into the half-kneeling position that they will hold through most of the ceremonial hours. The blankets are opened and Salome makes her way through the many folded paper packets opening the first things needed. Maria spreads the colorful homespun, dyed and woven cloth that serves as the altar; in Spanish we call it "la mesa"--the table. So begins the 'Offering to the Mother'.

The feeling is of reverent expectation, but we haven't been bound under a list of 'do this don't do that's'. Maria is very sure of what she is doing, sure of the results and has no need to suck power by controlling the people around her. Her focus is on the ceremonial invocation and she is fairly unconcerned by what we may choose to do, take in the view, wander off, talk, sit and watch, do as you will. Sure, it's true that steadily focused intent can act as powerful connector to the energies being created, and this does seem like a good time to take the practice. Still...good Goddess...it's so freeing to be in a magical moment without someone trying to create spirituality by being uptight! Repeated experiments in this modality have brought about some fairly radical thoughts like: growth and experiential potential are directly related to individual freedom. When it comes to connections with the Divine, you've got to get your own. When you have your own divine connection you don't really need any of the props...but they can sure be fun, if you're into that sort of stuff, Then until you get your own, none of the props are going to do you much good anyway. Lofty thoughts, eh? Funny what altitude can do to your attitude.

Now the women are ceremonially invoking in powerful prayer some strong friends, there is a lot of energy available, it's up to us to tap in or not. Maria begins to call out her prayers.

"Pachamama, Holy Mother, please accept this gift". She waits for and hears Her answer (that says a lot!). She also talks with our divine Father.

"Achachila Atoja please help us". Achachila is the Aymara word for earth spirit.

"Mamacota (Mother Lake, Titicaca) please come here". Below our high perch her blue jewel sparkles, stretching to the horizon and beyond the curve she is one big Mama. Her presence on the mountain with us is a real attention grabber. If you think I just made that up ask Salome and Maria, when she arrives Mama has presence.

"Achachila Illampu please help us".

Across the lake, in Bolivia, shines snow covered Illampu at 21,000 feet above sea level. A powerful ally, Illampu means Spirit of Lightning.

Silently I join in "Apu Akamani please help us". Apu is the Quechua word for earth spirit. Under Akamani lives the ancient order of Kallawayas, this regions most renowned healer magicians. Maria would like to go there with me, as I go often, but to her 100 miles seems very far away.

Apus, achachilas, earth angels, nature spirits, ancient cultures around the world have always known them. Like elder siblings, our Divine Mother and Father have asked them to help us. We don't worship them, though their power induce awe. They can be really good friends and we get together often. Usually there is one with whom we are most connected like a best friend. For Maria it is Atoja; for me, Akamani.

Copal smokes on the embers; with the incense, prayers also rise toward the heavens. Maria receives the go ahead blessing for our offering. Salome has worked through a large bag of coca leaves, selecting the best for the altar as we chew mouthfuls. No, coca is not a narcotic in it's natural form. A highly nutritious medicinal herb, it is a stimulant with less kick than coffee. Mama Coca is a sacred sister. We pass tobacco, sending our prayers in the smoke. The tobacco in my pipe is natural leaf that I get in the Amazon, yumm! Wine and grain alcohol have been poured on the ground and thrown in the air. Sometimes we have chicha, the traditional fermented corn drink. Sometimes we share a bit of a nip, nobody does anything they don't want to. The mood is well set...

If blame need be given I suppose it's mine. If we hadn't shown up with this group of gringos seeking ceremony Maria wouldn't have needed to climb Atoja this one last time. If it wasn't for us Maria wouldn't be doing much ceremony work at all.

During the past era it was the men running the show and most of the villagers still don't believe that women can or should conduct healing or lead prayers. Maria's father was a renown healer and she learned by watching, not thinking of practicing. Then one night while scrubbing the pots after feeding her family, a blue light drifted in and settled on her. That's the way it works for these people, it takes a powerful external sign like being lightning struck or blue lights for the people to accept a healer. Self-proclaiming is not acceptable. Even with cosmic lights descending Maria was reluctant to face the disapproval of her village so only the occasional emergency needs of friends and family would prove her abilities. When I asked her if I could bring groups of seekers and pilgrims to visit for her prayers and healing she surprisingly agreed. Many of the Andeans are enamored with the western/techno culture and now the villagers see us with those techno-travelers knocking at the door of Maria's home. Our simply being there is a strong message for the village, the message of the worthiness of their traditional culture and Maria. Now her neighbors are proud of her and her work.

Strange are the twists and turns of the history of these women. Like the gnarly old roots of a tree chopped down that decides with the turn of the seasons to again send out new growth. Maria is not the only one, just now we are finding many more women who had been waiting, now willing, now working. Maria may not climb Atoja again, she doesn't need to, as she builds her offerings she sits in her strength on the dirt floor of her home and the Mama Culture again she grows stronger.

Cross and Condor Align in Nasca, Peru
by Alan Leon
copyright ©1999 - all rights reserved

I wait on a corner near Nasca, Peru because I had seen buses leaving from there in the general direction desired. Lucky from the first, a driver calls out "Cantalloq". Ah, si exacto. Vamos. We bounce over centuries old irrigation canals, the life blood of the tiny adobe built villages. At the farthest point, where the road loops back around, I ask to get off. The driver and several passengers suddenly concerned begin to offer advice that would take me back to where the tourists know to go. I smile my no thanks and explain that I am going to pray on Cerro Blanco. Well then, that's alright, now I am a perigrino, a pilgrim to the sacred White Mountain. The locals are appeased if a bit amazed that a gringo perigrino would find his way into the labyrinth of the desert mountains. The habit of following my heart often works out well.

Climbing off the road I first weave my way up graves left by the robbers looking for ancient artifacts. The locals compete with archeologists in this ghoulish habit. A pleasant morning's stroll among the pits and scattered bits of human bones, here a jaw, there a hip, along with scraps of ancestral long hair and burial shrouds.

Outside of the Nasca Lines protected zone I hike up a dry wash where an old road pretends to make its way to a primitive mine, long ago played out. No chance now of shade or water, in a decade this desert receives perhaps a half inch of miserly drizzled rain. In time enough to still be enjoying the early morning's heat I arrive at the hill I seek, a sacred site, in the old tongue a huaca. From here the desert etched lines radiate out in several directions. The Nasca lines were created by laboriously removing the dark upper layer of stones exposing the lighter soil below. Most of the thousands of straight, sometimes miles long Nasca lines connect and terminate at hills like this one. Some hills have so many lines radiating from them that they look like a starburst, perhaps there is good reason in the similitude. Many of the lines cross each other creating a vast web, a unique power grid available to those sensitive subtle earth energies. I do so deeply enjoy dancing my meditations in the midst of these, taking care not to step on or across the lines because the weave of walking destroys the straight line perfection in this sensitive soil. On this hill and others nearby are unusual stones arranged in circles of about 15 feet in diameter. The circles lay overlapping something like the pattern being called the flower of life. Also predominate here are the immense trapezoidal shapes, triangles stretched to an elongated point like giant needles in the dust.

No one seems to know now what the lines were created for, no one that is talking anyway. I enjoy entertaining the idea that these are energy collectors, amplifiers and transmitters. Perhaps they were originally aligned to astrophysical events. Imagine opening your soul in prayer at the receiving point of a trapezoid stretched across the desert, whose broad opposite end is aligned with the constellation into which the equinox sun is rising into the change of an age. Oh, YES!

A computer program was run to check this theory but it was only checked to the time of the later Nasca culture. This is something I consider a common mistake of the academic establishment. Normally bits of rubbish are carbon dated at the site giving us scientific data pin pointing when the rubbish was left but not necessarily the date of the site's construction. I prefer the histories as given by the wisdom keepers of the traditional cultures. In Nasca the native historians have stated that the lines were made by Wiracochas.

The Wiracochas are the stuff of legends. Tall, bearded and white skinned they were the builders of the city and civilization of Tiwanacu and perhaps of pre-Inca Machu Picchu and Cusco. They were able to shape and move many miles blocks of stone weighing in excess of 400 tons! Just the upper, above ground levels of Tiwanacu's ruins have been dated to be at least 9,000 years old, through the science of archeo-astronomy. Though depending how the game of numbers is played they may be 15-17,000 years old. This is information that opens a massive can of worms regarding the history of advanced civilizations. These are dates that place the Wiracochas before and just after the world cataclysmic shift of the last ice or crustal displacement -- time events which are upheld by Andean legend/histories. Andean legend also tells of the Wiracocha´s flying machines, which when applied to the Nasca lines makes sense.

Pre-dating the numerous straight lines on the Nasca plain are gigantic zoomorphic figures, some more than 600 feet long. Drawn with great artistic skill and beauty using only one continuous line, the patterns can not be fully made out from anywhere close to ground level. Twelve of these figures seem to fit well into the zodiacal constellations, at least no worse than the classic Greek/Summerian figures. The Nasca figures coincide with the monthly activities in the Andean calendar of planting and harvest, which was also a gift of the Wiracochas. Were these figures part of a gigantic calendar? Could they be marking important events of the past? Or like the messages pre-Mayan Meso-America and pre-dynastic Egypt that are just now beginning to be decoded perhaps they are pointing out important events in our future, if we could but develop the skills and open minds to read them. Perhaps if the computers would check the star patterns closer to the era of the Wiracochas a greater alignment would be found.

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So now I meditate on this hill connected with the vast web laid across the desert, too dense to read the greater message but sensitive enough to enjoy the energy bath. A few miles away on the grid are the pyramids of Cahuachi. A complex of temples that show signs of at times hosting some 50,000 pilgrims. Just recently a Nasca native had taken me there and we shall be returning with an elder to invoke again the ancient ceremonies. That their ancestors came through the desert on foot attests to the amount of respect they had for the power of this place. Me too, I am a far traveled pilgrim and am feeling well rewarded for my efforts. The natives on the bus also seemed pleased by my pilgrimage.

Behind me shines Cerro Blanco. All around are the stark dark hills of rock sun baked black with a desert varnish. Unique, Cerro Blanco the white mountain tops the hills of it's black base with a massive dune of pale sand rising 4,000 ft above the desert floor. The sand of the dune mountain is deposited by strong winds from the coast. Five years ago the Grandmother of the Nasca family that I was staying with told me that Cerro Blanco is the most powerful and sacred of the mountains overlooking the Nasca lines. A natural pilgrim and a sucker for sacred sites at first light I set my sandals in those sands. In the cool of the morning the sand was deliciously warm so the sandals soon came off, a barefoot pilgrimage is one truly in touch. The pureness of the dune mountain was broken only by scattered shards of pottery left by pilgrims of ages past. The ceremonial vessels usually carried chicha, corn beer, or sea water carried laboriously from far, honoring where the ancestors and Wiracochas came from. The pots were broken as part of the offering. One native told me of their ancestors' practice of mixing gold dust into the clay of their ceramics and on the sacred mountain I saw much gold fleck in the shards.

The heat rose with the day. Nearing the peak, for fun I jumped far off a crest onto a steep sand slope but the dune had been faced to the sun since the day's first rays and I sank up over my ankles in sand that was way too hot. There ensued a desperate shuffle slog as fast as I could across the unstable dune face, backsliding half as much as I gained in most unchristian manner. When finally I cleared the hot side the dance continued as I hopped about on my sand scorched feet. When I stopped there right before my toasted toes lay a four directional cross carved in white stone, nearly invisible in the pale sand. Perhaps my stomping around had unearthed it, how long ago had some pilgrim offered it to the mountain? Then came a condor, he completely circled giving me the eye, at eye level from just a few yards away. Well this certainly seemed like a good time to pay attention to the signs but while enjoying being awestruck, until later I didn't know what all this meant.

Then on the peak I enjoyed hours of prayer, meditation and sacred dance. As I finished there came a large dragonfly and to make itself clear it repeatedly got right in my face. That one I understood as a reaffirmation of the magic I had been involved in with a woman of the Yaqui tribe in Arizona. That one was easy because she had told me that it would be the dragonfly, still it was astonishing that the connection would choose this moment to assert itself. When reading signs we especially pay attention when things act out of character. Here I was high on mountain peak deep in the dry, dry desert, that water loving dragonfly had traveled some unusual distance to deliver it's message.

Begging your forgiveness dear reader, the full scope of that message needs to be another story for another time. For now let me say that the signs of great change and greater hope are upon us.

As for the descent, have you ever enjoyed jumping down a sand dune? Imagine this recently highly inspired nature's child jump/skip/slide tumbling down, rolling in peals of my laughter for four thousand feet. Some fun!

That night I told Grandmother about the cross and condor and she was delighted. She said that the four-directional cross is pre-Colombian. With the condor the sacred White Mountain had shown it's acceptance, that I belong there. Soon after I was taken into the Bolivian mountains of the Kallawaya magicians and I learned that the white cross is the magic symbol of the traveler's protection. Goodly and rightful magic as I have lived in nearly continuous pilgrimage since.

Like this day, deliciously hot thawing my winter froze' bones while the stark raving beauty of the desert thaws my thought frozen mind. So strongly do I feel the wordless imprint of the vast web of these Nasca lines. Changes, changes, from here, senses enhanced I can smell them coming. In geometric beauty they are radiating out from the core of the earth, from the core of this hill. In agreement, mirroring the message of the stars the lines grounding on earth the consciousness of the cosmos beyond our skies.

Whoa, the little pilgrim is getting a bit too far out, so cosmic it's comic. I had better pull it in before I get too real or something and spoil the game. Yeah, I'm going to get off this hill and take a walk to try to get lined out.

Chao for now!

TOP

It's all in the attitude, it's all in the intention.

This attitude thing makes itself obvious, over and over, when in a single group there are those grateful for and blessing the experience while a few others wallow in the self created misery of the their complaints. On the other hand, some come feeling they have to be a martyr to attain spirituality. This kind of rigid self-denial (asceticism) was appropriate in ancient pre-Buddhist India. Now considered outdated, this type of "seeking out the misery" is not very pleasant for your travel companions nor your native hosts.

Cultural Anthropology made leaps and bounds when it moved from the sphere of observer to observer-participant. It's so much more fun! Set your intention. With flexibility, receptivity and kindness the heart centered traveler adventures in joy. To truly experience the ancient traditions of these lands we go to be in it, to be a part not apart. Those few days of close communion require that our minds and hearts be open. This is a condition highly conducive to receiving the blessings of the sacred places and the people living in their ancient ways. Often I have greatly enjoyed witnessing the travelers who have come, despite their fears of the unknown, only to find, after having shared the natural genuineness and open hearts of the native villagers, their fears melted by love.

TOP

Monkey Tree Night
by Alan Leon
copyright ©2001 - all rights reserved

I had only thought to take a short walk, to smoke my pipe in the rainforest before the night's dark. Our passengers had confined themselves to the tent due to the clouds of mosquitoes, so I went alone. The trail is wide and easy that leads from our riverside camp to a lake less than two kilometers away and that short-stroll grew longer, little by little, as my delight in the Amazon forest urged me deeper.

Having walked a while I saw through the brush a tree called a Renacu, no more than forty meters (think yards if you still need to, actually 3.6 yds) off the trail. Mangrove like the Renacu sends many dozens of trunks to root into the ground in areas that flood during the high water season. Amazon natives say that the Renacu have a Madre or mother spirit living in them, whose effect is calming, to be near or climb one is good for headaches or nerves, at times the insane are brought to her. With her many trunks it is said that she is especially connected to the Earth Spirit, well grounded. So I went over and climbed her, losing for the moment a few hundred, though not all, of the mosquitoes enjoying the walk with me.

My pleasure with the pipe is a pure native jungle tobacco called Mapacho that I can buy fresh there. Finished with my smoky meditation I climbed down and walked back seeking the trail, but at first try I didn't see it. Three decades of mountaineering have given me a decent sense of direction and over the years many months in the in flat rainforest have somewhat accustomed me to it's ways, so failing such simple a task seemed quite odd. The trail was visible from the tree I had climbed so I walked back to the Madre Renacu to try from a different angle. Still I saw no path, so once again I returned to the tree, this time I stopped to try and reason it out. I knew my climb took me to the opposite side from the trail and I knew which way I had faced when in the tree; I tried still another angle though it felt incorrect and again no trail was to be seen.

I then went on to commit myself to series of reasonable and increasingly nervous mistakes. Had I been less stupidly sure of myself I would have staid put and waited until dark when my rainforest born friends and guides would have come looking for me, but oh no, not this experienced wild child. It seemed embarrassingly silly that camp was so close but I couldn't find my way back to it. So I reasoned that I could just make a general aim towards the river and follow it's flow back to camp. A brief glimpse of a bright patch in the clouds gave me an idea of the sun's direction, confirming my feeling of the way to the river. So in full stride, even if slightly shaky confidence, I started away to race the coming dark.

My idea of the river's direction proved to be correct but before arriving I came to a wide stream. By then my sense of everything was a bit rattled but it seemed, by the course I had been following, that I needed to turn left to find the river. But the stream I faced was not flowing left; it was flowing to the right, which certainly looked wrong. Normally the smaller streams flow down to join the larger river, right? Nope, not this time. I stood a while with feeling and logic at odds until logic won the moment (very masculine of me, no?) and I turned wrongly to the right, following the flow to where I hoped it would join the river.

Time was passing; too much time and I should have been at the river already. Doubts feed confusion, with confusion stimulating the nerves.

"Oh man, I don't want to spend the night out here! Camp can not be very far away!"

OK I confess, so I talk to myself; hey, due to several years in wilderness hermitage I've been alone a lot. A wrong turn, a misfortune of guesses and I could wander my way to a long drawn out death in the Amazon wilds. While flying into Pucallpa, Peru, from above I had delighted in seeing the vast trackless stretches of forest, now I was hoping not to wander into one.

"Be still my thumping heart. Logic! Logic! Don't lose your head now kid. You made the logical choice. Don't run off scatter brained, losing time by turning around."

Resolve deepened I hurried along my decided course downstream. When the land began to turn swampy and again I stopped to seriously question my route. Here, in deep intent I turned to my prayer asking for guidance. Along with meditation, prayer is for me a daily checking in, touching the permeating reality beyond the limits of logic or emotion. My need was great and I fully focused on that well-known space. Strong and clear the answer was realized/heard.

"You'll be all right kid. Keep going in the direction you are."

There places in my spiritual life and ideas where I could be fooling myself but if so at least I am happily fooled. So it was that even with the possible dangers I felt profoundly correct and gradually there grew a heart centered calm. The gravity of the situation solidified the experience of inner connection. Even if I was playing the fool my attitude at least bolstered my physical strength with a natural high and I was enjoying the challenge.

Thinking that perhaps the water of the swamp before me could flow into low land before dumping into the river I splashed onwards, wearing the tall rubber boots that are common rainforest equipment. This was in the beginning of the rainy season when the waters return to cover much of the land. There were fish feeding in the areas newly covered by the rising water and as I walked near they would frantically work to get away with a great deal of splashing in the shallows. It was something akin having a bird fly up crying from under foot. Given the snake and alligator disposition of the swamp, the fish thrashing about always caused a sharp-eyed awareness along with a moment of sphincter clenching. Where possible I walked on dry ground, in one such area, while clambering over a large log, I stepped down over the skull of a caiman, the Amazon alligator. By the size of the skull it seemed that the 'gator' had been larger than I. Stopping a moment with the skull I kicked out a couple teeth that, with their roots, are as long as my fingers. Pocketing them I was hoping for some kind of talisman action. That caiman was dry but I knew I was not alone out there. Later I also saw a snakeskin hanging from a branch I was reaching for to aid my passage.

"Its OK little sphincter, relax".

Of course the more present proof that I wasn't alone was the incessant intensity of the clouds of accompanying mosquitoes.

The swamp grew deeper until I was unable to find shallow water below the tops of my boots. So I gave in and let the warm water fill them and my workload increased as each step had to lift the extra water. For a while then I worked to keep my pants from getting wet up over the belt but a few water hidden holes and trip roots soon had me soaked. Keeping the main flow of the deep stream in sight got to be a lot of work as the swamp brush and bramble was getting thicker. Extensive and confusing detours became necessary. When I was no longer able to stay by the main flow I tried to maintain the general direction by sighting my way along tall or unusual trees in front of me.

At one point there was what sounded like barking ahead, delighted I hurried along hoping to find dry land and a camp with dogs. Instead I came to an opening of swamp dead trees with a few buzzards calling to each other in their hoarse barking sound as they roosted before the approaching night. When I splashed into sight they all turned to eye me, perhaps I had raised their hopes for a future feeding. Across the opening I could see an area of tall dense brush and beyond that a wide space clear of trees and again my hopes were raised.

Thinking that it could be the river before me I waded my way into the brush and found it to be a thorn bramble, a horribly formidable obstacle. As the water deepened I danced with the countless spikes adorning the tangle. Where necessary I climbed to teeter my way on top of a pile of the crossed branches, at times to be suddenly let down with a thorn-ripping splash. I was concerned not to twist an ankle or break a leg, to be immobile and alone and I would have been in a mighty bad way out there. Also, I really didn't want to start bleeding, besides for the obvious reasons, there are piranhas in those waters. Contrary to popular myth most piranha normally don't go around attacking people but like sharks, blood will get them excited. Where possible I waded through openings in the brush. But even there the criss-cross of the bramble was dangerous as the thorny branches hidden in the water, as well as those that I could see, pulled, poked and pushed me in every direction but up. Crawling over the obstacles my knees and thighs were jabbed as well as my hands and arms.

"All right now kid, recall the way of the flow. Maintain the centered dance. Non-resistance, remember?"

Still at times it seemed like a contest, my few soft limbs against the myriad, armed with thorns. It is hard to be delicate in a labyrinth of limbs that not only throw you but also stab you on the way down. Weeks later I was still working some of those thorn tips out of my flesh. Ahead lay my hope so I continued the tortured dance.

When I won my way to the bramble's edge I climbed a shaky thorn perch to see over the tall grass blocking my view. There I saw not the river of my desire, just a lot more tall grass and the deeper water of the swamp. Not a place I wanted to play. A ways to the right an opening in the trees showed another large clearing, probably the lake, confirming my feelings that the river and camp lie in the opposite direction.

"Ahh-ha", logic jumped in, pointing a pontificating finger into the air, " we can now deduce that the main river has risen due to recent strong rains and is higher than the level of the swamp. Thus the stream we followed is flowing towards the swamp and away from the river."

"Good work, Oh my wise logic", replied little Alan, now less lost, "we will be sure to use that information tomorrow. However now that we are at the edge of both night and deep swamp we need to plan for the night. No way am I going to crawl back through the thorns and forest in the dark, even if I could maintain the proper direction. While I'm at it," I continued, turning my query deeper, " Oh my dear Heart and Spirit, connection to my Soul One what is this about, directing me in full confidence away from camp?"

From Heart, where once was just an inner smile then came a full blown shit-eating grin.

"You are where you need to be," the grin replied.

"Uh oh, I've heard that before during other dire initiations."

Actually the message and even the grin were strengthening; perhaps there was purpose to my foolishness. My spirit was renewed and while in the mode I then knew that this would be a good night to remain in my heart, the situation creating an enforced meditation.

"OK Heart, now what?"

Looking the other way along the edge of the deep swamp I saw a grove of those calming Renacu trees, just the medicine needed. A while longer of dancing the thorn bramble shamble brought me to the blessed grove of Renacu Madre spirits. Free of under growth I easily waded my way though them, looking for a place of power, the spot specific for my quest to benefit from the night (Great attitude, eh? Better than totally freaking out).

Pilgrimages are the prayerful journeys of seeking, sacred sites, ceremonial focus and spiritual intent. There is a force born of the longing. There are powers and allies that respond to prayers, we are not alone. The sacred sites are strong points of conduit for Earth's feelings, expressed in pulse/flows of natural energies. The spiritual supplicant, consciously or not, will experience a resonance between themselves, the land and their prayers. The joining of these energy fields creates a harmonic heightening, a quickening of the supplicant's wave form through atunement. with greater energy bodies, granting raised vibrations that may be used into the next step of life's unfolding.

Ask any native shaman.

"OK, Lil' Alan, you're bug bit, thorn scratched and well soaked. Night is coming on and you are standing in the waters of a dark Amazon swamp, lets see just how cosmic you can remain."

Oddly, due to my prayer connection I was feeling a noble rightness in the situation. By now the evening had dropped down into more dark than light, I needed to roost soon. Having already passed by several Renacu trees I found myself by one that felt good, just as I realized the attraction a many voiced chattering started overhead. A family of monkeys had chosen that same tree to spend the night. I had experienced this elsewhere in the Amazon where there was certain Renacu Madres that I would regularly climb, often in the company of birds and monkeys who are naturally sensitive and attracted to the Madres. A monkey call pulled my eyes and looking up in the last of the light I could just barely see a Mama monkey with a baby on her back. Both were looking at me as they moved to a higher perch away from my intrusion. I then saw a set of root like trunks for me to snuggle into for the night.

"Thanks Mama monkey. Perhaps I am being looked after."

The monkeys would be an added assurance through the night, as they would surely sound the alarm if anything dangerous came to our tree. The slippery climb in the semi-dark started in the next tree over until I gained a place where the trees entwined and I could swing into my chosen Madre. She offered a nest where three root trunks grew together and semi-horizontal a few meters, forming a lap before her knees bent, dipping down into the water. I attained my perch and sat with a satisfied sigh, grateful to have found such a comfortable place. Below all was water and all around was a forest of thorns and trees far harder to climb while offering much less comfortable platforms to sit in. All considered I really was quite well off.

I emptied the water from my boots and wrung out my clothes, delighting for a moment many of the mosquitoes with me. Prepared for just a short stroll I had with me only a mosquito net for my head and a windbreaker whose hood I pulled up over the netting, making a nice shelter from the buzzing biters.

Also along for the night was my beloved pipe and plenty of tobacco. At times the Amazon shamans, when they have need to quest for certain powers or answers, will take pipe and tobacco to sit smoking three or four days with a Madre spirit tree. Per force I was then in a similar situation (like the Cheshire cat, Inner Grin gave me a quick toothy flash). The pipe is very much a thing of my pleasure. Especially satisfying with a fine whiskey, a sunset, after dinner or many other such moments of enjoyment. It is also a most excellent tool of prayer connection. The practice of pipe prayers I had picked up when I was cowboying with some northern tribes of Canada and Montana and I was delighted to find the Amazon shamans worshipping in the same manner.

I hold lightly any forms of ceremony or worship, allowing for the feeling of the moment, beyond the 'I should' or 'must' of spiritless repetition. My forms of natural practices are those known from ancient times to the shamans of the rainforest and the mountains. When I feel moved to do so my tobacco prayers begin by cupping, with my hand, the first cloud of smoke back over my head in a cleansing action. Then I blow the following smokes and turn the pipe stem in the general direction of what or whom I am considering. Down to our Universal Mother, up to our Divine Father, in the two-way love of family relations. Through direct encounters I have come to know that there are many forms of beings, 'spirit entities' that inhabit the earth with us, some that are a part of the identity of the land. In a respect and the enjoyment of camaraderie I offer smoke to the area I am in, heightening my sense of reality with a good dose of grounding. Also there are entities of extraordinary powerful places that figure prominently in my life and love swells as I often connect with them. This includes where I was born; our souls have reason for the place of our arrival. Also included are a few archetypal pals that are a part of the forever family. I often go to them with questions and current events to compare and fit my energies into the clarity of theirs. It is only the One Creator, with our Divine Mother and Father, that I worship in prayer, with all the others it is more like a gathering of friends. With my weird life, my early years of Northern Rocky mountain hermitage and now in near constant pilgrimage travel, it is especially precious to know at times that I am not so all alone. So I smoked with family and friends, asking for help, being greatly uplifted within the expanded reality, heart drawn high by their loving responses.

The night began moonless, thick clouds blocking even the faint starlight. In cave-like black even my hands were beyond my vision. Total blindness heightened the alarming effect of repeated loud splashing, sometimes awfully close, nearly under my dangling feet. I knew there were many fish down there that would be jumping for bugs but normally a fish will slap down with one splash sounding. What I was hearing was prolonged furious thrashing in the water. Over a few hours I heard this several times. The thrashing could have been the caiman 'gators' wrestling with their night's meal. The teeth in my pocket said it was possible that they were around. Also for a while there were loud hoarse growls, low rumbling roars challenging back and forth from the deeper swamp. It could have been some kind of bird or perhaps a frog in magnificent voice; maybe it was something larger, I don't know.

Some year's prior, I had enjoyed many months of play in the forest of the Napo River, a few hundred kilometers down river from the swamp I was in for the night. In the Napo area, as well as many other places through out the Amazon, the natives will talk about certain Cocha Brava, danger lakes. They say these lakes are inhabited by colossal sized freaks of nature, anacondas that are forty meters long and twenty-meter caimans. I've heard at night very loud shotgun like sounds mixed with a low rumble, coming from one such Cocha Brava. The natives would look serious and say it was the Mama anaconda lunging at prey. Because of my tree climbing skills, my associate at the time wanted me to try getting up a tree near the Cocha Brava to photograph the Mama. His idea was to send me with a shaman to tell me if things were safe or not. For some reason or other I never got around to that adventure. That associate turned out to be not so good for business either.

In the swamp where I was stuck for the night the natives say that there are no freak Mamas; although they claim to have seen 30-meter (more than100-ft) Mama anacondas on the main river. I was sure hoping there were none around that night, my perch was only about four meters above the water and even the normal sized the caiman are fantastic jumpers. Gigantic or not I was hoping not to be in the way of any passing snakes. As it was I was just grateful not to be sitting on a through way for ants. They often end up in the trees during high water and can sure raise hell with an intruder. Sharp pain pinches are awfully distracting when trying to maintain a hold on slippery branches. Some of those little soldiers pack a toxin in their bite that will go on hurting for days. But enough of this fear stuff, I really enjoy the rainforest and at that time I was feeling deep down good. Through the night the monkeys in the tree with me were assuring as they sometimes calmly murmured among themselves. One more concern though, I knew my companions back at camp were worried and I was sorry for that.

After a few hours, the moon, a few days past full, rose into a break in the clouds. Now I was certain of my directions and where camp lay (back the other way I had come from). The water reflected light rippling through the Amazon trees was awesome beautiful and again I was enjoying the situation. My meditations calmed into sleepiness. In the cradling three branches there was a place where I stretched out and happily drifted off, into sleep that is, not the branches. I don't know how long I slept but the bliss was ended by a close-by crack of thunder and I awoke to the first of cold raindrops.

"Wake up kid, you'll miss an excellent night's questing if you are asleep!"

I crawled up close to the main trunk, head on knees, offering my back to the storm. Nearby I heard the rapidly approaching roar of torrential waters hitting the trees. Then the rainforest proved its name as in swept a hard, hard rain, dense and cold. I've enjoyed exposure to many high mountain storms, extreme winds, snow and ice but this was for sure R-A-I-N! The Renacu I had climbed was sweet for the easily accessed nest but the foliage right there offered little cover. The rain struck my back intensely and I was soon a wet little babe lost in the woods. It was time for a new phase into my meditations. As I settled deeper into the shining void I found where I AM. That I AM didn't mind much being wet and cold so I decided to hang out there for the time being, kinda' fun actually, as the adventure rating went up several points. After some while the rain stopped and I was able to uncurl. The kneeling-on-branch yoga is a highly specialized skill, one I hadn't entirely readapted to yet. Grateful to stretch, I pulled out my pipe and again smoked in pleasure and prayer.

Cold winds had arrived with the storm and the rainforest night was no longer warm; neither was I. Again I heard the approaching roar of rain striking the nearby trees and I crawled back to the trunk to assume the crouching wet-cat-in-tree meditation pose. If there had been any part of me dry before, that ended as the next wave of rain crashed over me. This time the rain went on and on. So again I entered the enforced meditation. It took a while to really get all the way in; at first I would periodically interrupt the process by shaking with cold or would need to move my aching knees. Thinking on it now, I could have moved back to my comfortable perch, I would have been just as wet there as where I was. But there was some comfort drawn from being close to the strength of the main trunk and I remained curled over to hold what warmth I could in my vital organs. Sometimes I would use isometric flexing to get my blood pumping and generate some warmth. I knew I wasn't going to freeze to death in the Amazon but I did become somewhat hypothermic.

When I had been at it long enough the meditation took over and I much enjoyed the place within and without. Again a feeling of profound correctness was experienced and expanded. Something right was happening; I was indeed where I needed to be. Within this knowing I experienced a life-love bond with the environment. In two-way acceptance I am not just an alien visitor, I am nature's child. Given the potential discomfort of the situation my agreement with 'What Is' was exceptionally profound. While words will only go part way to describing this experience, I can say that lil' Alan enjoyed a time transcending the egocentric in an eco-centric oneness.

The rain remained a steady constant, so much so that I wondered if the water would rise to where I would need to swim my way out of there. Elsewhere I've seen the Amazon waters raise more than a meter overnight. Meditation hours became moments stretched timeless, until they were punctuated by the bird's first predawn calls. In the Amazon the different sounds of frogs, bugs and birds call out the time of night. Later the growing light released again the super hard rain, a common occurrence due temperature differential as the sun's first warming rays squeeze down into the cold of night. With light's return it was time to resume my seeking camp. In the fat drop incessant rain I descended from the tree. Giving her a paring pat of appreciation I slid back into the swamp; relived to find that the water had not raised much and compared to my rain soaked chill, the swamp water was still deliciously warm.

"Chao monkeys, gracias. Adios."

A grateful survivor I waded off into the day. From the start I still needed to be sure off my way, straying off into the trackless wild continued to threaten if I allowed even a little confused wandering. Again I sighted my way along tall trees to maintain a steady line of direction while weaving my way around the jungle brush. Here too I maintained the Heart connection for guidance; Heart still had on that silly grin and carried the treasure of the meditation of small-self transcended in natural 'Oneness'. In a while my wading brought me to firm land higher than the rest of the swamp, I cannot exactly call it dry land; the long-hard rain remained.

Soon after I came to what I hoped was the same stream I foolishly followed in. By then I had fairly clear ideas as to directions and where camp was, none-the-less I was immensely relieved to find the stream again but this time my wanderings had brought me to the other side of the flow. I followed it in forest that grew free of undergrowth and the way came to be relatively easy going. At one point my inner voice cut in and reminded me that I would need to cross the stream to make my way back to camp. Body was not pleased with the idea (the Buddha likened our thoughts to a village of voices). Even though I was already rain and swamp soaked the idea of swimming to make my crossing was non-appealing.

"For one thing", body whined, " these smaller canals can be the habitat of the electric eel".

Of course my chances of getting zapped were about one in a zillion and the eels stay mostly out in main river rapids but such are the ways of phobias. So I continued following the stream until I came to where two trees entwined over the flow creating a rain-slicked bridge for the climbing. My heart grinned its approval and again the adventure rating went up a few points. When I slid down the trunk on the other side of the deliciously challenging climb the look on my face mirrored the all night grin-from-within and off I strode through the non-stop rain.

Soon after, blessed be, through the trees I saw the light of an opening and came to the longed for river. I recognized the area from having paddled by it a few times in our dugout canoe. In the mountains of Montana, I used to guide with an old cowboy from the Cree tribe. He delighted in scaring the dudes in our care by telling them that he had never been lost in his life; confused for three or four days at a time but never lost.

Following the river was a little harder as the brush grows dense along its light filled edges but quickly thereafter I saw camp some 100 meters away in the river's bend. My shouts and huzzahs went unanswered so my arrival came unannounced. The first to see me back in camp was the old shaman traveling with us. He gave me a sweet and knowing smile, asked if I was all right and then quietly slipped out of the way. I saw that as a wise move when I turned to my travel companions. My greeting from them came as a sharp voiced asking where I had been and before I could fully answer came the accusing statement that they had been worried. I agreed and told them I was sorry for having put them through that. That did nothing to relieve the hard looks I was getting from the one woman who was talking, the other was so furious that she wouldn't even look at me and very pointedly kept her back turned. The one man with them kept his silence, perhaps wisely, though I would have really appreciated some support if not warmth.

At that moment neither warmth nor care was forth coming from my Gringo travel companions as I stood there soaked to hypothermia, scratched, bitten, tired, hungry and thirsty. Perhaps I looked too happy to elicit much sympathy. I stood in the pouring rain and the mosquitoes debating if I should just go away but what I really needed was to get out of my wet clothes and into my blanket. The dry tent with the displeased was the only place I could do that and I realized that my testing wasn't over yet.

"OK Alan, now face the wilderness of human relationships. Regardless of what is coming at you how far is it to your own center, will you maintain or do you merely react?"

Thinking that I had been happier in the tree with the monkeys I forced myself into the tent and out of my wet clothes to shiver in my blanket. Then to try again with the women I apologized for their worry but they were not to be mollified and this only brought another tirade against me from the one that was talking. Her main point against me was that I failed to be responsible for them by allowing myself to get in a position where I could lose my way.

"Humm, bad little servant, eh?"

Common to mindless tourism is the idea that people in service are bought for the money and thus lower in status, no longer fellow humans. Naturally I rebel against this and take care that none of the native people working with us are subjected to degrading treatment. Now I had the feeling that my suffering and danger was not important; they worried not for me, rather they were worried that they would have to worry and that they wouldn't be taken care of. In truth it was the native guides who were caring for these people; their lives did not depend on me. This journey was a freebie anyway, a give-away I wasn't profiting from. I had not been bought and here, I thought, are my thanks. But this line of thinking was not going to help my relating to these people.

Then my friends, the native guides, who had been out looking for me returned. All of the people that I work with, through out the Andes and Amazon, are like family and it showed in their joy at seeing me.

"Gracias a Dios you are here. Are you all right? What happened? Would you like something hot to drink? I'm so glad to see you!"

One of the great treasures natural to many South American Latinos is their genuine warmth and caring, especially among the natural country people. At times in North America I am saddened and a little lonely by our separateness. When I explained to the Peruvians how I could not find the trail they agreed knowingly. The night before the old shaman had said that I had been caught by one of the forest gnomes, a trickster spirit that makes trails disappear and leads the confused into the woods. The leader of the guides confessed to three times having to spend nights in trees when he was unable to relocate trails that should have been easy find. I was so grateful for these dear men who not only had no need to make me feel the fool but they actually understood and included me as one in their experiences of the brotherhood of bushmen.

Greatly heartened I was able to continue to try to relate with my fellow gringos. The woman with her back to me was a real case. She was still angry from the day before when we had visited a nearby native village. A few times in her exuberance I needed to give her pointers on how not to discomfort the quiet people there. This is very much my responsibility in creating these situations of cross culture contact. Honestly, I had made conscious effort to be gentle and keep things light but I was not to be forgiven. I pleaded with her back to tell me what was going on and she angrily told me she had decided I would have been rough on any one of them if they had gotten lost. Now it is true that I take my turns at being a gnarly little ass but her pre-judgment was not my truth. Six years in Northern Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue had given me an intimate knowledge of the suffering of the lost and a knowing of their physical needs. It is normally not in me to be cruel to those I see already hurting. However, so I was to be judged and ostracized by their anger. My testing continued and the night in the tree had been the easier part.

What I chose then was to find those places, where in truth, I could agree with the women's thoughts and make an effort not to waste time in most likely fruitless defense. I have to admit that there was also a voice within me, that I was able to quell, recommending that I tell these women where to stuff it and be rid of them as soon as possible. Sadly I apologized to the back-turned woman, I was sorry if I had been too rough in correcting her and I made an honest promise to try to be extra careful with her in the future (walking on egg shells comes to mind). And yes, I agreed, with the other woman that I need to take extra care not to risk my fulfillment of responsibilities. Our travelers need not worry about suffering similar mis-adventures; native guides always accompany them into the forest. There ensued a semi-mollified silence where I was sad and lonely in the company of my fellow Northerners. I have no doubt of the genuine spiritual life of those good people but at a moment of pressure compassion was not to be their guiding virtue. Nature's child had returned triumphant from the questing tree to find his companions willing to try shaking his hold on that high place.

We needed to break camp so the movement broke the stalemate, each in our personal pains. The man with us had been suffering from a strange fever so I realized that he was a bit out of it. As he needed to get up to pack he gave me a silent hug and smile, warm flooding for a moment my saddened heart. Then later the woman willing to talk said she was glad I was back. I could see that the women were hurting in their own ways and this was how they expressed it. So I sigh and do my best even if not good enough.

From the Latino guides, my peers back at the lodge and in town the grins at my getting lost continued for the next couple days as my friends had fun spreading the story. Loving teasing I can handle and know it as a form of caring. From my cowboy days I know this as a sign of being included and I happily shared the laughs even if a bit embarrassed. One of the first noticeable effects of the night's testing came from Peruvians in town. I am obviously a gringo but some six times the next day people in town asked if I am a Peruvian national, confused by a feeling of familiarity even if I look different. Actually this has been an often-repeated experience; at the passing of a variety of initiations regularly I have seen the native peoples open up with various forms of recognition.

A few nights ago I returned for a couple of months in North America. Here I seek to maintain and share the connection of the monkey tree initiation. Here the people can be much more complicated and our hurting hearts cold and separated, myself included but I'm building a door though my walls of protection to invite the loving folk in. There was something vast and profound in that feeling and knowing of being nature's child when the quest brought me into agreement with the Amazon forest. I will now seek such an agreement socially. I enjoy walking around with one of the caiman teeth in my pocket; I reach in sometimes to touch it and feel not so all alone.

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