Past blogs of my journey are here http://people.tribes.net/damianleuthold, pictures are somewhere around here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=11967&l=5a278&id=548684413)
Intro
It's been months since I've sent an update, and here it finally is. The rumours of my falling off the edge of the earth are false. Columbus was correct, the world is round. More appropriately you could say Zheng He the great Chinese eunuch fleet admiral who lead the first expedition circumnavigate the globe in 1423 (see the book I just read http://www.1421.tv/the_book.asp) was correct (Columbus and Magellan were following Chinese maps, western science had been ignoring the accumulating evidence for quite a while). I've seen this for my self now, and have learned the secret handshake of a globe spinner, ha! But that's old news.
Mazunte beach
During my last communiqué I was headed off to the beach after a week of Spanish classes in Oaxaca City. Oaxaca City had been beautiful and interesting but also loud and polluted. Going to the beach was just the right thing to do after all that hard work.
I went to Mazunte beach, a beautiful tranquil beach town on the Pacific shore. There were just two Internet shops there, a few little stores, and a half dozen simple beach hotel/hostel/restaurants. The beach was lovely white sand between rocky jungle and, unlike many of the other beaches in this territory, you could actually swim here without being battered by the surf or drowned by rip tides.
I spent my days there wandering up and down the beach looking unusual and distant, just like my Israeli teacher, practicing playing my kanjira using the techniques he had taught me in Egypt; swimming; and trying to communicate in this strange new language, Spanish. This totally freaked me out and set me back to my pre-silent meditation days of troubles communicating. Eventually I gave up trying to connect using Spanish, and got to know a fun group of travelers from Spain/Portugal, using English.
Oaxaca
After a couple of weeks on the beach I went back to Oaxaca city for more Spanish lessons and to see what that city had to offer for the day of the dead (their Halloween), a very different celebration. They actually honor their friends and family who have died directly during this celebration by going to the cemetery. There they decorate the graves, eat, drink (a lot), and dance with full mariachi bands with the dead. It's quite a scene. I went but then left early, some friends of mine stayed and got, uncharacteristicly, REALLY, passing out, drunk that night. Quite a celebration.
They had a number of great dance performances in Oaxaca that I got to see. One was performed with the dramatic backdrop of an old cathedral and was the story of a traditional folkloric group that were performing one of the dancers died. They all processed to the cemetery, and buried him only to see him and his fellow zombies rise again. After much confusion and staggering around the living and dead started dancing together. It all ended with a visit by Dead himself with sickle in hand to quiet things down and a bunch of fire works. That was great.
I also saw a contemporary dance performance in a cultural center where the audience was lead around by a dead guy. He told stories of the dead then lead us up or down some stairs or overlooking a courtyard to where some dancers performed the death scene. We would all be craning our necks to see the performances in these spaces, as there were way to many people, or not even get to the viewing space until after the performance was done. I loved seeing this all from these unusual perspectives, much more fun that sitting in some dry auditorium or theater.
San Pedro
Off then I went to Guatemala. My Guatemala adventures started on a bit of a sour note. On the border a group of Mexicans used my height and exhaustion (after 12 hours of travel) to my disadvantage by distracting me while a kid went through my bags, which were at my feet. He got a good water bottle that my sister gave be and my Leatherman multi-tool.
My next misadventure was in the town San Pedro on the shores of the beautiful volcanic lake Atitlan a few days later (I found out later there's a heavy drug influence there). I arrived there by chance with a group of three Swedish ladies I had originally met in Oaxaca (I was feeling pretty lucky). We booked some rooms together, double locked them (with our own lock), and then went to dinner. I was the first to return and found that a thief had broken in to the room through a window and stolen my laptop computer (probably prompted by a kid who had seen it earlier) and a backpack, money, and an MP3 player from one of my friends (not so lucky).
We were up until early morning discussing this when a local appeared saying he could get our stuff for us for just a little money 'for his friend'. He led us to some back alley where the stuff was supposed to be then ran with the money (about $13).
Interestingly, I was quite calm, sober, and happy through out this adventure (just not very smart). If I had been more street smart, of course, things could have turned out quite differently, as he took quite a risk coming to us, we all saw him and could have tackled him or taken his picture so the police had something to go on. Also, it was stupid of us to follow him, or give him money.
San Marcos
My luck was about to change as I entered the town of San Marcos, the 'spiritual' town of Lake Atitlan. This magical town is hidden amongst huge jungle trees on the northern edge of the lake, with wonderful views of the 4+ volcanoes (one, a distant one called Fuego, that erupts regularly). Right next to town there is an area by the water called ´the Rocks´ that is the best place on the lake to swim, hang out buy the water, and jump from. Once I found ´the Rocks´ I realized that San Marcos was finally the place I could stay a while (it turned out I stayed for more than 2 months).
Some of what makes San Marcos magical is that it is centered around an esoteric meditation center called 'the Pyramids'. In this center they have one large, and a collection of small, wooden pyramids where people stay if they want to participate in a retreat there. These retreats last from one to three months, and are called the moon and sun courses. Participants attend daily classes in meditation, yoga, and esoteric teachings (REALLY esoteric) in things like lucid dreaming, astral travel, the Kabalah, and Tarot.
What also makes San Marcos magical are some of the characters who inhabit it. There´s Merlin, who used to be a French computer engineer, and is now a wizard. He created amazing stained glass work out of old bottles; does healing energy work; studies the Mayan calendar; communicates with the Pleatans; almost never eats (but does drink coffee with an inch of sugar at the bottom); is very sweet; and comes complete with lots of white hair and a house that looks like a huge dream catcher. Another lanky old white haired man/magician is Keith, who is the healer of healers, and gives chocolate ceremonies modeled on the Iowaska ceremonies. Then there´s Arturo, an other French man that had spent a decade in India in silence as a spiritual seeker/beggar who still says, despite all he´s seen, ´In every action there is love´.
Practice
During the first year of travel I was trying to absorb as much as possible as quickly as possible. Now that I had made it to San Marcos absorbed as much as I needed and now was in processing and giving mode. As much as possible my days were filled with practicing my music on the lake shore (between dips in the water), giving massages, and trying to bring people together in interesting ways (mostly thru classes).
Drum
Almost every day I would spend hours by the Rocks practicing playing my darbuka (switched to my other drum). I had, of course, decided to develop my own technique for playing the darbuka, rather than just accepting what I had learned in Egypt. I decided to try to merge a balanced split hand technique, coming from the kanjira, with darbuka technique.
The time I spent developing these very specialized reflexes may or may not pay of for me by my being able to be more expressive/versatile/interesting as a musician. This point was emphasized for me by a Jazz drummer I met in San Marcos who was not very impressed with what I could do (I´ve had this reaction before from Jazz/Kit drummers). He lived in the world of rhythm and poly-rhythm where he can play something different with each limb. I, however, had an instinct for specialization and kept on being drawn to working on my single voice technique (for the last eight months I´ve basically been playing the same rhythm with just one voice).
Still, I really enjoyed the process of developing these techniques, so that was it´s own reward.
Massage
A year after college I went to school at the Rolf Institute with the idea of becoming a body worker. When I returned at started to practice I found that I wasn´t ready emotionally to do that kind of work, and my dreams of becoming a healer drifted into the background as I continued on the computer worker path. I tried to revive these dreams by studying more body work in my first month of travel in Thailand. After this I was, once again, stuck for what I really needed was practice, not more study, and I still wasn´t bringing body work practice into my life.
Finally, in San Marcos, the mix was right and I found myself practicing regularly. The approach I took was to set up the room I rented so I could us it as a therapy space. I then put up fliers offering my services for donation or exchange and started networking. This worked well: Using my hotel room meant I wasn´t paying someone for each time I gave a massage; the exchanges helped me get to know the large body working community (lots of competition) in San Marcos; the donation option helped me be willing to explore and learn, as this helped me not feel expectations; and my clients often appreciated choosing the price.
I was trying to develop my own approach to body work (once again blazing my own trail). It was a working on the floor (Thai massage style) contact improvisation influenced connective tissue manipulation kind of body work. I was enjoying trying to use movement and touch to understand the structures I was working on. I would then try to use that understanding to open up the constricted body. Our bodies are very interesting and difficult puzzles.
I gave a few sessions, people liked what I was giving (saying pretty complimentary things, like ¨best massage of my life¨), word spread, and I quickly was giving as many sessions as I wanted. I was so happy that my work was appreciated. Also, I found that by doing one session a day of 1 to 3 hours I was more than matching my daily expenses. This was a much better work to play ratio than my old life of the eight hour day at the computer (ok ok, it was often 7). Plus, I was working with the physical and social side of life, where I´m trying to grow, rather than the mental technical side, where I´m taking a break.
Giving Classes
The other major activity for me at San Marcos was giving classes. What got me started was that I saw a friend in San Marcos that I had met in California who teaches dance. We decided to teach a contact improvisation (CI) dance class together (I would not have done this alone). We did it, it was a great success, and it was the first time I really felt comfortable teaching CI.
After that I tried to bring people together in many of the different strange and fun ways that I´ve been collecting during my travels. These included:Monkey Chant - joining Hanuman´s monkey armies in rhythmic chant and movement; Blindfold movement explorations; Laughing Yoga - laugh until your sides hurt (this is my favorite group practice now, so easy, fun, and powerful); Angel Walk - float between two lines of people sending you loveing kindness. This was all good learning and exploration for me, though some of these experiences worked, or were attended, better than others.
Chocolate Ceremony
The only major new group activity I attended at San Marcos were some chocolate ceremonies. During these ceremonies the healer Keith fed us a very strong cup (or two) of a special local variety of raw chocolate. He then encouraged us to meditate for hours and went around giving individual advice based on his impressive ability to sense where each person was and might go.
During these ceremonies I was following my instincts and curiosity and happily exploring the practice of Continuum. Continuum is a powerful somatic sound and movement self healing practice I encountered in LA at a somatics festival in September. In it you: activate the water in your body by making certain sounds and through touch; feel the results in the tissues; and allow the tissues to release their restrictions through movement. It was quite a profound internal journey, externally it looked more than a bit odd, I was flopping around on the floor making strange sounds, not your standard cross legged meditation position. It´s so nice that I´ve become comfortable with being weird, it´s opened up the possibilities so much!
During the last of these ceremonies I helped a friend who was letting out some deep painful stuff. She was crying, laughing, screaming, and growling. I was right there with her supporting, encouraging, and inciting, trying to help her find it and let it go. It was great fun for me, I didn´t take any of it on, I felt kind of like I had performed an exorcism. Afterward she was weak and grateful and said she had no idea she had that in her.
Picaya Volcano
I left San Marcos a few times during those months. One adventure I had was to travel to the top of an active volcano. At the top we got as close as we wanted to to a live lava flow (not in the letigious US any more)! It had newly forming boulders calving off of it every few seconds which then bounced down the slope to our feet. We had to be careful not to melt our shoes. It was quite amazing to be so close to a hole in the not as solid as we think earth. This was more of a touristic experience than I usually participate in, but it was well worth it.
Family
During the week of Christmas I was honored to receive a visit from my mom, step-dad, and sister. We stayed at a guest house across the lake where we were the only guests and were treated like family. We had a great time exploring the lake by tuc-tuc, public boat, and sea kayak. We got to reconnect, shop, have dinner with the German Ambassador to Cuba (who flew in by helicopter), and I got to show them San Marcos. It was great to have the family come to visit during my travels, I felt we connected more strongly in this foreign environment than we do back home.
CI Dance
I also spent a week away from San Marcos in an other town on the lake, Santa Cruz, at a Contact Improvisation dance retreat. It was in a resort that was a bit to high class, and expensive, for me (they charged $80 a night there, I was paying $5 in San Marcos. I went with a friend from San Marcos (it was nice to not come alone), and we decided to stay nearby in a cheaper spot. The instruction was good but for beginners. It turned out that I was there, rather than to learn more dance, to reconnect with the CI community, get some dancing in, and watch how the course was being taught. It was a bit of a expensive way to reconnect with the CI community.
Rainbow Arrival
My exit from San Marcos was with a group of four others who where headed to the intergalactic rainbow gathering in Mexico. We made our way, quite efficiently to the gathering. One interesting point was when half the group got lost during the Mexico-Guatemala border crossing. An other interesting time was when we were a part of a group of 18 rainbows that had slept overnight on a chicken bus in the middle of nowhere wet rainy jungle. At five in the morning the bus needed to return and we were having to face the choice of back tracking a couple of hours with few prospects for making it to the gathering or waiting in the rain. We were wishing that a bus that would appear with room for us that was heading to rainbow, when, out of the rainy night, it appeared! It was a Canadian couple that had just traveled two weeks straight from Quebec to get to the gathering. We all piled on.
Rainbow Refuge Camp
After all that effort to get there (3 days of travel) the Rainbow gathering turned out to be not quite what I was looking for. It was in a beautiful jungle clearing with a river on three sides (with mountains in the distance). Unfortunately, it was muddy rainy sickness tic season there (the river had flooded just a few weeks before). The rainbow spirit was strong there, with much wonderful music, song, and great food, but conditions were miserable. I set up a nice camp on the hill with my San Marcos friends (my strongest most connected start to a rainbow gathering) but in the end I fled to the beach because I just couldn´t open up to all the wonderful people there under survival conditions.
Oaxaca Beach
So now I´m back on the Mazunte beach planning my jump into SOUTH AMERICA! I´m excited that I might finally find the dance community I´ve been looking for on this other side of the world, (the first other side of the world having some great stuff for me, but not a strong dance community).
