Leaving Guadalajara
I tell Dan that even if he doesn't leave tomorrow, I will. Three weeks inside the vortex of Hostelito Inn, Guadalajara, whilst enjoyable, is enough. I am well aware that I could stay here for months.
We get up at eight. At eleven we are still sitting around eating papaya and granola, idly stroking the dogs and talking about the unusual weather. Frank reminds us with his cheeky smile that we can always stay another night.
It's time to leave.
This is the fuel we need and we are soon on the road south-east, having collected another passenger in Catia, a tall, pale Canadian on a similar escape mission to mine.
We pass through Jalisco and into Michoacan, with dark hills and decimated lakes shadowed by clouds.
Last week I read two random pages of a book about 2012 - two pages that happened to be about England. This week I saw the same book and randomly opened it at the same page. At the top of the page read the lines - 'Ultimately, it boils down to what you, the observer, wants to see.'
The person who owned the book gave it to me because of this coincidence.
Dan drops Catia in Morelia, the state capital, and me in Patzcuaro. It is dark by the time I knock on the hostel. I have been looking forward to my last two solitary weeks. I crave my own company. I have asked the world for my own space, for a garden to hula hoop in, and for somewhere where I am forced to speak Spanish.
The hostel owner is called Haime. I've only met one other Haime and that was in Guadalajara. The hostel is empty. He offers me Spanish lessons. There is a huge garden to hoop in, and I have my own room for just 100 pesos a night.
I sleep fitfully under two hoodies and five blankets. The rain covers my dreams, all night.
It is now Wednesday evening. I have been here for 24 hours. It has not stopped raining in all that time. I keep myself warm with camomile tea and vegetable soup. I went out this morning to buy food from the market and talk to Mike for the first time in three days.
I agree to meet them both for coffee the next afternoon, where Luis stays long enough to invite me to breakfast the next day. I adore going out for breakfast, and it is clear he is going to pay. Of course I accept.
I am left alone with Raul, who takes me to another lake and buys me a fish dinner.
Once again he invites me to his house. Although I do not feel threatened sexually by him and have talked at length about my boyfriend's imminent arrival, by the end of the day I am exhausted and crave my own company. He affects my senses in the same way as would standing a metre away from a firework display. I say, no, thank you, I would like to go home.
He does not seem to understand why I don't want to go. He becomes persistent.
Again, I begin to resent the universe for sending me messages in this form.
I feel him sucking my energy, craving more of it, not wanting to let it go.
He tells me I don’t trust him. I tell him this is not true. Then he tells me it is because I am sad. That I miss my boyfriend. I tell him this is also not true. I try to explain that I am actually quite solitary – that while I enjoy the company of others, I need my own time in equal measure.
To this, he actually, unbelievably, says, “But you are a Leo! You love having people around you!”
There are few things I detest more than people telling me who I am. Especially when the assertions they are placing on me stem from astrology. As if trying to seal his fate, he tells me he plans for me to stay longer, so that he can show me all the wonderful places around Lake Patzcuaro, do some Shiatzu, and teach me more about natural healing.
He has it all planned out.
This incenses me.
I explode, my semi-comprehensible Spanish emerging fragmented, like broken glass. “Por Favor! Escuchame! Listen to me! I am not ‘a Leo’, I am Julia! I am on my own path and I want my own time. I have been with you all day and I want to be alone now – I need that balance. Please. Take me home.”
I feel the weight of it piling on to him. Take that, energy thief. You want to suck it from me? Have it all! I feel myself loading him with my throbbing frustration.
The emotion clearly communicates a lot more than the actual words. Despite my outburst, Leo I clearly am, for the claws that he has uncovered are enough to silence him as he drops me gentlemanly to the door. He tells me that although he would like me to stay, it is fine if I want to leave tomorrow, and it has been a pleasure being my friend. I graciously say goodbye, thank you, unlock my door with pursed lips. Slam it closed and lean against it to release the so-long contained tears.
I clean my room. My head is so full of things that I need to organise something externally to find order within. Jaime, the proprietor, soothes me with calmness like cool water, feeding me new phrases to help me cope. Eres enfadoso – you are bothering/pressuring me. Quiero ser yo misma – I want to be myself. Dejame – leave me.
I know most people would tell me not to spend the day with a strange man. But I am committed now to following my instincts and I still hold fast in that commitment. I still believe it is the most important thing to do. If I hadn't gone, I would have wondered. Despite this, the event makes me seriously consider whether I would like to go out with Luis as planned.
From this vantage point, high in the air, things become clear. The element air represents mind, thought, understanding. As in Guadalajara, this hostel brings us everyone we need to speak to and another raft of information about 2012.
It is becoming more clear to me that what is happening could be quite different to the armageddon painted by blockbuster disasters. They talk about unusual alignments of planets; a comet shower; a particularly fierce sunspot; a polar shift; economic collapse. While these things are certainly not out of the question and may well occur, they appear to be just possible side-effects of the greater occasion that will mean a fundamental change in the way human beings function as an organism.
What is happening appears to be a kind of 'zero time' scenario. We are close to the centre of a spiral of time and the transition to the other side looks to represent a transition from space-time to time-space. With this transition will come an entirely new way of being. This represents the elevation to a higher level of vibration, a possible division of worlds. The world on the other side will be exactly how we each believe it will be.
We tumble back in to the bright green log cabin, rosy cheeked and slightly breathless from an afternoon in the sunbeamed forest. Music plays from the open door to the silence of a sierra evening.
The roses around the door are shaded pink by the setting sun. Every night it plays out its drama in swathes of peach and violet, pouring dusty light over drifts of cloud. The mountains look fake, as if we are the actors on a blue-screened movie.
Once again, a vortex of energy that has sucked us in to a slow whirlpool of indulgent routine.
But once again we prove our hunger for this thing we call life, leaping into every day with laughs and patience. Our indulgence is directed positively.
I start each morning with yoga and meditation on the terrace, looking out over the magnificent valley. Then I sit down on the outside benches, on the table I helped to paint, to eat scrambled eggs, vegetables with tortillas and bean tamales, coffee made in a pan, fresh herb tea and water with mashed mango and banana. I haven't eaten meat since I arrived.
Mike challenges every new resident to a war of chess, usually emerging victorious. I start to hoop again in the relief-washing coolness of the altitude, teaching a flow of eclectically-clothed, long haired visitors the basic skills and perfecting my own in ever-smoother swirls of colour.
Together we pass hours staring at the sinking slopes of the valley ahead of us, disappearing into the clouds many miles away. We explore the mountain trails through the forests, each one a generous handful of new, dizzying views. We make music together, and add new scenes to the film we're making.
We practise our Spanish in soul-searching conversations. We read books that make us question.
And we continue to function without running water, pouring buckets of dirty dishwater down the toilet bowl. Unless there are some serious changes, either in the weather or in the groundwater, Oaxaca state will be ready for abandonment in just a few years. Things like this reinforce my belief and the belief of the indigenous that the next world war will be over water.
I watch carefully and scribble notes as the house chef makes me a master of south-country cooking. The other travellers hop between living room and mountainside garden, sharing vegetarian creations con toca Ingles. I have wished for the opportunity to watch a mexican master cook and here it is, handed to me on a steamingly enticing plate.
The only thing I can think of offering in return is a jar of capers, collected from nasturtium plants around the garden. No one here knows what they are, and watch closely as I pluck them from under orange flowers - turned transparent in the sun - and mix them with vinegar and herbs, faces falling as I tell them they will have to wait for the results.
Instead I hand them homemade soya enchiladas with chilli-chocolate mole sauce and crumbly cheese, served from an enormous pan and collectively looking like a giant brown pizza.
The sun works its way through the steep grounds, turning chilly mornings into burning afternoons and mystical evenings.
Sometimes we end the day in a cloud, an explosion of white, the sun stretching dying fingers through a tiny opening. A floating cabin in a wispy heaven of white.
It feels as if we are lost.
The dark, star-splattered nights are spent under the cosy, low ceilings of Catalina's living room, crowded by bookshelves, guitars and brightly woven cushions, strumming or drumming the evening's track.
Our contact with the outside world is largely restricted to herds of bright-eyed, wrinkled women. They waddle into Casa Dona Catalina offering tamales, fruit, artesian goods, all sold from woven baskets under encouraging smiles. Every day we say no, gracias to a stream of eager faces offering knitted mushrooms and woolen sheep; which curiously have come to symbolize the magic of San Jose all over Mexico.
The pine-furred mountains rising behind us and slipping away below could be Switzerland, or maybe Vermont, if it weren't for the huge cacti like great, tentacled aliens, resting on the red carpet of the forest in psychedelic colour clashes. The surreality is enhanced by neon green grasses and the pale glow of lichen, hanging from every branch. Plants grow on plants, the scaly bark of the pines broken with splashes of red.
I knew from the moment I saw Catalina that I had to talk to her. Something about her seemed familiar. I have come to recognize this kind of impulse as a sign to indicate where my attention should be directed.
In Catalina's living room is a jumble sale of bright, ethnic brikabrak. Low couches covered in neon Guatamalan drapes, a hammock seat, a light near to the wooden coffee table and dimmed with a plastic bag.
Unfortunately Catalina was not there to ask. But as if answering my unworded question, within a few hours she arrived, having spent a couple of months away at the beach. But her arrival leaves me nervous and I forget about the notebook, tucking it away back on the shelf and at the back of my mind. I want to talk to her but I understand very little of her Spanish, spoken with an Andalucian accent and a missing row of lower teeth.
On the third day after her arrival she calls me over to talk to her. She bends down to the nasturtium flowers, which days earlier I'd stripped of capers. She asks me if I know about the plant. I tell her about the capers and that I like to put the flowers in salad. She tells me the leaves cure cancer.
Instantly I know she is the owner of the book. And before I even think about what I'm about to say, I tell her bluntly: "I want to know what you know. Please can you teach me?"
She does not seem surprised at my question. In fact, it is as if she expects it. I wonder what brought her to tell me about the nasturtiums in the first place.
Instead, she tells me she will give me her book, in exchange for a present. I ask, "what do you want?" and she replies again, "a present," with a shrug of her right shoulder and downturned lips. I understand that this is more that just wanting something new. She is testing me in some way; seeking my character. "Bien. Gracias." I nod.
I have been after this information ever since I arrived in Mexico. I am not surprised that it has arrived in this fashion. I am, however, slightly surprised at the turn things have taken. Ever since Marcos told me to learn to heal with my hands, back in Guadalajara's cloudy January, I have been the subject of a series of people who want to teach me, to whom I have been sucked effortlessly.
From Guadalaraja I travelled to Patzcuaro, where I met Luis, who told me I was a shaman and that he was my chosen guide. From there to Mazunte, where James spent a month downloading his knowledge of energy healing and massage. From James to Cristina, who teaches me about symbols and vibration as methods of healing. From Cristina to Catalina, who hands me a leather-wrapped pile of papers, tied with a beaded thong. I have barely input anything.
The next day I sit in the sun and the quiet to copy the notes. I untie the thong and look down at a scribbled piece of notepaper, dated 1942. It is Catalina's Mayan horoscope. She is Yellow Sun. Same as me. Her like sign is White Mirror. Same as Michael.
These coincidences laid aside, I begin to write. I understand about fifty percent of the Spanish. But what I read is very interesting. She reckons she can cure Parkinson's, cancer, sexual infections, with simple ingredients many of which are not even specific to Mexico. While I have my doubts, I know that doubt is the single biggest cause of mal-treatment.
The next day she asks for her book back. I have still not acquired a present, but I go into her room anyway. I sit on the floor. She hands me a jar of honey and tells me to drink from it. The taste is the milk of the gods; food of the earth. I taste the mountains in that one, sticky mouthful.
She begins to tell me her stories. She tells me of the time she cured Parkinson's in three days using leaves. The time she cured a child dying of gastritis. The time she evicted a dark spirit by speaking mantras into the person's eyes. I am beginning to understand her spanish a little more but I still struggle, asking her to repeat things in her gravelly voice. She puts her drink down in a patch of sunlight on the floor. I know she is going to ask for my hand, and I hold both of them out ready for her to read.
She tells me I am lucky. I am lucky in money, and I shall never want. In fact, I shall never want for anything, as I have Jupiter, king of the gods, looking out for me. He will always come when I ask.
She tells me I will get married twice, perhaps more. This discredits everything she has said, as I do not believe in marriage and believe it would be a mistake for my fickle mind to ever be joined with another. But then she goes on to say that I will not marry for love, but for documents. Perhaps to become a resident in Mexico, as she once did. Perhaps to give my own visas to another. I raise my eyebrows. The truth of my situation; my desire to live in a country I do not belong to legally, gets the credit flowing back and I listen more.
She finishes on the most interesting of all. She peers closely at my left palm, as if searching for something. And then sits back, satisfied that she has found what she needs. She points to a tiny cross between my upper and middle horizontal lines. She tells me that healers have this cross. As if to confirm, she asks for my other hand, and smiles when she sees the results. I have three crosses in a line on this hand. She shows me hers. It is exactly the same.
She tells me I need to get a room in the nearest village. I need to put a sign outside, saying Natural Healer. A woman is going to come. I am to tell her that I want 200 pesos, to heal her in three days. I may not know what she has. If this is the case, I am to hold her hands and ask her to let her head hang. In my head I will ask what this woman needs. And I will receive the answer. I will write her a prescription and I will receive 200 pesos. The woman will be cured and I will write the cure down at the end of my notes, and I will continue to use that cure.
I am concerned about the idea of earning money for my gifts. I have spoken long and to many about this. I believe that if I have a gift it should be free for all to receive. I believe that if I am able to heal it is only as a result of giving myself up as a channel to some other energy, rather than some mystical ability that I need to rent out. The introduction of money is the introduction of impurity, for a society based on money is a society based on virtuality and profit and such a society will never make room for the changes it needs to make. Whenever I tell the world my dreams, Law of Attraction in mind, I lay it out as "Please can I have just enough money to do what I need to do. Not lots - just so that I can achieve the things my heart is drawn to." Part of the attraction of having my self sufficient, permaculture refuge is in being able to leave money almost entirely behind.
But she tells me, "You have to eat too. I healed for many years before I was able to buy my land, my house." And suddenly, it hits me. The similarities between us. I look around at the terraced garden, the house, with its cosy refuge and space for a community. The plants. The peace. The kitchen. I cannot believe I didn't notice it before. But this place exactly fits the dream in my head. The home I asked for on Punta Cometa on the 21st and that has occupied my thoughts ever since I left London a year ago. My place. I had no idea how I would make this dream happen, only the faith that somehow, knowledge and means would arrive. And now, slipping its folds around me with a finger over its mouth and a giggle behind its dancing eyes, the vision has arrived, so smoothly I did not even notice its arrival.
I think she has just told me how I can earn the money I need to make a place like this happen for myself.
It is as if she is me, fifty years ago.
By this time I have sunk into silence, content just to listen and continuing to concentrate hard on her low, low voice. She recounts stories that mirror my own. She left Spain when she was young. Began to follow the spiritual path. Had her very own Luis. Married to become Mexican.
I tell her about Luis. Then she says something that makes me go cold.
"Do you know about the eagles?"
I didn't. Until two months ago, when I saw three eagles in a short space of time. Luis told me this was a sign. I asked him what the sign meant and he answered with a story, He told me that they live for many many years. After surviving for forty years in the desert, they fly to the mountains to find a place to hide. And there, they hit their beaks against the rocks until they break. They scrape their claws until they fall off. And they render themselves unable to eat. They rid themselves of everything that aided them to survive in their old life.They must wait until a new beak and claws grow. And when they do, the eagle is renewed. It is reborn, like a mage of its species. Once this stage is achieved they can go on to live another thirty years, the most powerful thing in the desert.
Luis said I'd seen the eagles because this is what I will have to do.
So when Catalina began to tell me about the eagle, in relation to my hand, I sucked in a deep breath. I looked outside and things became oh so clear. This, precisely this, was one of my possible destinies, presented to me very clearly.
Since becoming more clear and more confident of the Law of Attraction, I have focused on a place just like this, for my own. I do not yet have the money, therefore I also wished to be given the means to make this vision happen. And, if I am not mistaken, Catalina has just given me the keys. She tells me I already have everything I need to be a doctora naturista. I can heal with energy, herbs, massage, and indigenous methods. There is no room for doubt here; everyone I have worked with tells me I have powerful energy. I have the knowledge; I just need to start practising. She tells me to start as soon as I can. For this is exactly what she did to earn the money for a place exactly like the one in my own head.
JIYA JULIA
Jiya works in the field of self-empowerment, particularly through creative expression, helping people to identify their challenges and fulfill their full potential. A founder of international organization Kula Collective, Jiya offers her retreats around the world.
