Wild Child
Life is so bizarre sometimes. It really is unbelievable. Or maybe it's just very very predictable. I'm not sure. Do I sound confused? Flip-flopped and upside down? I feel a little bit so. Today I will spend my day with students, with coworkers, with yoga gurus, with bartenders, with friends, and with family. I will also spend a lot of it alone, in my perfect little apartment, packing up as much, or as little, as I can for a trip into the Amazon Jungle.
Life is so bizarre sometimes. It really is indescribable. Or maybe it's just very very amazing. The last few months have been interesting. Maybe it's the changing of the guard, the new year. Maybe it was running away to Europe for the Holidays. Maybe it was time indulging in yoga, or the time I took away from my practice. Maybe it was learning to be okay with my hearts inconsistencies, with my heart always seeming to win out over my head. It's been a couple months full of maybes. Lots and lots of maybes. Maybe too many maybes?
It's that odd time of year when some days are dark and gloomy and seem like night lasts forever. And some days it's sunny. Rainbows even. It's mid-winter, sometimes
spring, sometimes what season is it? in San Francisco. It's that time you hunker down and get cozy and dream of spring. It's wet and cold and basic cuddle up in a down blanket weather. Yet, in 24 hours I will be in Quito, Ecuador. In 48 hours I will be in Banos, exploring an active volcano with a group of nearly 20 (over 20?) students and parents and educators, all of whom are hungry for experience, for something exotic, for something new, for something natural. In 72 hours I will be in the heart of the Amazon Basin. I will be swimming en el Rio Napo. I will be eating palm heart soup. I will be doing sunrise solo yoga under a palapa that overlooks trees, and the river, and life. In 10 days, I will be home. And I will be the exact same, and maybe a little different. Maybe a little better.
I have done this trip before. This area, this itinerary even, is not new to me. Yet every time I return to this experience (as it seems to be always continuing, never ending, always breathing fog through dense dense leaves somewhere inside of me), it is as if I've never been before. Rudyard Kipling once said that the first thing to do to explore a foreign country was to smell it. Ecuador smells like plants, and life, and people, and dirt, and raw. The amazon smells rich and full and humid and takes up all the empty space inside of you. It pushes you into the earth, it pulls you up through vines, it drowns you in the constant flow of air and water and breathe. I really don't know how to describe it any other way.
My friends often wonder how I ended up this way. This love child full of glorified "hippie bullshit." I am this way because my parents believe in love. Because I was given unstructured play time in a creek. Because I have lived every other year for 10 days in the Amazon Rainforest since I was 10. Because I have "friends" in the jungle, who greet me every time I see them with an invitation to their homes, who ask me to come and stay and visit alone sometime. Who let me hold their children and
try not to pity me for not having made my own family yet. Who have known me since I was 10 years old, even though they don't know me, but yet they get to see me when I am doing something that I believe in most. Every time I visit the rain forest I come back better, more in touch with myself. And maybe it's because when I am there, in the midst of it, I am so close to this pulsing and constant and intense and crazy dizzying dance of a heartbeat that reminds me of all that is *real* in the world.
Life is so bizarre sometimes. It really is unbearable. Or maybe it's just very very perfect. In 24 hours I will be back in Ecuador. In 48 I will be swimming in hot baths that are heated by lava. In 72 hours I will be lost among the life in the rain forest. In 10 days I will be back.
To all those I hold in my soul, city-kids or jungle-earth-babies, and to your lives, that are - even though you might not know it - oh so intertwined,
Rio
Somewhere deep in the jungle lives a wild child with the moon in her eyes.
Somewhere in the jungle lives a lonely hearts terror with no need for lullabies.
Deep, deep in this jungle, amidst the trees, this wild child swings from the leaves.
Life is so bizarre sometimes. It really is indescribable. Or maybe it's just very very amazing. The last few months have been interesting. Maybe it's the changing of the guard, the new year. Maybe it was running away to Europe for the Holidays. Maybe it was time indulging in yoga, or the time I took away from my practice. Maybe it was learning to be okay with my hearts inconsistencies, with my heart always seeming to win out over my head. It's been a couple months full of maybes. Lots and lots of maybes. Maybe too many maybes?
It's that odd time of year when some days are dark and gloomy and seem like night lasts forever. And some days it's sunny. Rainbows even. It's mid-winter, sometimes
spring, sometimes what season is it? in San Francisco. It's that time you hunker down and get cozy and dream of spring. It's wet and cold and basic cuddle up in a down blanket weather. Yet, in 24 hours I will be in Quito, Ecuador. In 48 hours I will be in Banos, exploring an active volcano with a group of nearly 20 (over 20?) students and parents and educators, all of whom are hungry for experience, for something exotic, for something new, for something natural. In 72 hours I will be in the heart of the Amazon Basin. I will be swimming en el Rio Napo. I will be eating palm heart soup. I will be doing sunrise solo yoga under a palapa that overlooks trees, and the river, and life. In 10 days, I will be home. And I will be the exact same, and maybe a little different. Maybe a little better.I have done this trip before. This area, this itinerary even, is not new to me. Yet every time I return to this experience (as it seems to be always continuing, never ending, always breathing fog through dense dense leaves somewhere inside of me), it is as if I've never been before. Rudyard Kipling once said that the first thing to do to explore a foreign country was to smell it. Ecuador smells like plants, and life, and people, and dirt, and raw. The amazon smells rich and full and humid and takes up all the empty space inside of you. It pushes you into the earth, it pulls you up through vines, it drowns you in the constant flow of air and water and breathe. I really don't know how to describe it any other way.
My friends often wonder how I ended up this way. This love child full of glorified "hippie bullshit." I am this way because my parents believe in love. Because I was given unstructured play time in a creek. Because I have lived every other year for 10 days in the Amazon Rainforest since I was 10. Because I have "friends" in the jungle, who greet me every time I see them with an invitation to their homes, who ask me to come and stay and visit alone sometime. Who let me hold their children and
try not to pity me for not having made my own family yet. Who have known me since I was 10 years old, even though they don't know me, but yet they get to see me when I am doing something that I believe in most. Every time I visit the rain forest I come back better, more in touch with myself. And maybe it's because when I am there, in the midst of it, I am so close to this pulsing and constant and intense and crazy dizzying dance of a heartbeat that reminds me of all that is *real* in the world.Life is so bizarre sometimes. It really is unbearable. Or maybe it's just very very perfect. In 24 hours I will be back in Ecuador. In 48 I will be swimming in hot baths that are heated by lava. In 72 hours I will be lost among the life in the rain forest. In 10 days I will be back.
To all those I hold in my soul, city-kids or jungle-earth-babies, and to your lives, that are - even though you might not know it - oh so intertwined,
Rio
Somewhere deep in the jungle lives a wild child with the moon in her eyes.
Somewhere in the jungle lives a lonely hearts terror with no need for lullabies.
Deep, deep in this jungle, amidst the trees, this wild child swings from the leaves.
This post! you! Ah. I never knew you did this, but I am truly with every ounce of my body jealous you are headed back there so soon. I loved this entry, you are coming back totally different. I am sure of this.
ReplyDeleteHave the best time