A Walk in the Woods, breathing and a new use for cigarettes

Photos are finally UP!


Greetings!!

I just returned from a walk inthe woods with a guide who pointed out many neat things! Yesterday I had a great massage, a ¨Mayan Massage¨ although i did not see the difference from other massages. Except that the man was great, although there were many times that I was almost taken over by pain and wanted to curse like a Newfie! He said sorry in a tone of voice that conveyed the message ´it had to be done and I will be doing it again soon'. (I had spent a week with a man from Newfoundland as my supervisor in Alberta, and the parts of what he said that I understood would shame me to write as my mother reads this! And he was just screaming at a computer non stop as he worked...for twenty minutes....if you cut him off on the road he may invent a knew language! Could new languages have arrisen by the ramblings of whoever screamed the loudest? If every time I see a tree I point at it and scream some gibberish, in a hundred years will trees be known as that garbble of sound? If you feel like trying this you can use any number of things, although abstact concepts would be harder, let me know how it goes and how the straight jacket feels...)
I like tangents.


Before the weekend he (the maseus) had given me some ideas to think about when dancing, involving feeling the ground and the sky and imagining their energy coming into me, possibly a Mayan way of trance Dance. When I told him the results after the massage he told me to come back in the morning. So this morning I went there and he said he would work on my diaghram. It is presernt in the general area of my body where I had told him I felt the energy from the ground and from the sky meet but not blend. (I have been focussing on breathing with my diaghram a lot recently and it made sense that it could use some recalibrating. (do you know how to breathe fully with your diaghram?? if you´re curious see below)) He had me lay down and take off my shirt, myabe i wasnt even wearing one, its hot here and i dont remember! Anyways he lit a cigarette and started pressing on my stomach and then held it very close to me! Every time I would inhale I was scared to touch it! I think he kept moving it closer very very slowly, and then when I couldn't take it and made a sound he would rub the area and move down a little and do it again! It was always on the edge but never over. He also dug his fingers deep into my stomach, and it felt a little odd. But there was no mistaking the effect! My hole body felt alive afterwards! I think he cleared some energy blockage becasue i was bouncing form my toes to my teeth! It was quite the deep experience, although I would inthe future prefer a coal or some incense to a cigarette!

After this I went for the hike, but this computer wont let me add photos so I will finish another time....

Now is another time and I am in San Cristobal reflecting on Palenque.

I found a guide to take me on a hike through the forest/jungle and to point out medicinal plants and other neat stuff. Its great to know that this plant when it flowers for these 2 months of the year can save you from a certain kind of snakebite...but not too practical unless you know all the other plants for the time of year they are right for. My guide's name is Carlos, and his grandfather was a chief in a Mayan village. He pointed out some plants that we ate, one like celery crossed with bamboo. Every now and then he would stop and sniff the air, and he said it was to smell animals. He was trained when he was young! This would be a practical tool if I had 15 years to spend learning.

Carlos took me to a yet uncovered ruin...maybe it never will be, and he spent alot of time digging in the mud. He kept finding peices of pottery, a peice of a small statue that was a pregnant womans belly and arm, and a big head, that he cleared off and left for other people to enjoy. He found a couple rotting mangos at the bottom of a steep hill, so we scrambled up and found the mango tree and things got squishy and juicy and yellow. It is fun to peel and eat a mango with your bear hands and nothing else. It is also the previous adjectives (adverbs?) as well. Carlo also found an object and was busy cleaning the mud out of a couple holes with a stick, and then played it! It was a flute of some kind, just a couple inches long but with a few holes. It was probably not played for 1200 years.

hoping to lay eyes on...the stangler fig. Atleast I am pretty sure its what it was. Its int he picture, it starts as a vine and grows up the tree, but it also starts to surround the tree, andI got to see a tree I was eventually the tree dies and termites eat it and you are left witha hollow fig tree! The picture zoome din on the leaves is the old home of a trapdoor type spider, the black hole is the inside of the tube!

We came across some other fruit trees with fruit either just starting or rotting and in many other states and some with none at all. The neatest one was cacao but it is not the right time to pic it. It is green and oval with smooth indented grooves from top to bottom or bottom to top, depending on your point of view (see pic). The weirdest part of the whole experience of the fruiting trees was that the fruits grew plentifully right out of the branches and trunks, not just up in the canopy. (Try to picture and apple tree like that, very different)

The next day I felt very much like swimiming, so after a yummy beany breakfast and finding some new books I hopped the collectivo to town. After learning some words from the driver he suggested a place for me to go swimming in a river, and of course for 40 pesos he could take me! I was enjoying talking to him so I went along with it. I got to a big bend in a river where there were a few people swimming and I waded in. There were many fish and rapids just after the bend. It was the closest I had come to cold water so far in mexico that wasnt in a glass and it was refreshing, and jumpy when a fish bumped my leg! There was a sign saying at the bend the depth dropped 7 meters, where the river was about one meter deep the rest for the way. Forgot to take pictures....

Leaving there I finally got a ride in the pickup truck collectivo that I had been hoping to get into for a while. Its a pickup with metal bars in the back and a tarp draped over it and a couple benches. It was me and an elderlyish lady bouncing along and hanging on for dear life. But is was 35 pesos cheaper then then 40 peso collectivo ride. There's a pic of me inside, and the truck with the green tarp on back is one of the same formthe outside!

In the afternoon I went back to the waterfalls I had visited last week and was blessed with some time there completely alone. It was surreal and real! even unreal too. But really it was swell. There's a trail that keeps going passed the falls and I climbed it a bit but turned around before I had to worry about the dark.

The next morning I happened to be up early and ran into a couple other people who also were awake and we decided to go follow the trail by the falls. We came across a vine over a foot thick going up not touching anything else for atleast 40 feet until it probably wound around some trees. It was old an gnarled but still alive. After choosing a couple smaller trails we found rocks that were similar to the ones that the guide had shown me. Then we came on more that seemed placed and soon enough we found some ruins. It was quite lucky and random, and litterally on the trail less travelled. There were two park warden/guards there who joked around a bit and took photos of us with our cameras. Then we headed back to the falls and jumped in before taking a bus to San Cristobal de Los Casas....


















A little about breath
Take a few seconds and feel your breath. What parts of you are moving?
Most of us only breathe into the top of our lungs. The first time I learned of this was from my bar mitzvah singing tutor cantor Subar. In the most kosher of ways he had me place my hand on his stomach to feel how he was breathing. Then I lay down and practised wathcing my stomach rise and fall. (the best way to do this is to be lying lying face down as you can feel on your body exactly where you are filling up with air. But anyway singing requires deep breathing and that was the beginning.
In yoga this type of breathing is one of the first things taught as it makes more efficient use of the lungs, delivers more oxygen to the body, can lead into meditation and can help keep up your energy.
Other animals breathe fully except when they are fleeing a pursuer or pursuing, or other extreme activites. Breathing only into the top of the chest brings oxygen to the extremities which are needed for the chase. The rest of the time they are breathing fully and relaxed.

The idea is to start by bringing air down as low as possible, then fill up the chest area, then the top near the clavicle, and exhale starting witht he bottom and working your way back up squeezing out the air. And gently! If you are falling asleep and you need to be awake...class or a meeting or anything else, this type of breathing will help! It helped me stay awake and focused in class...as it keeps you sitting straight with your head forward. The other thing to remember is to breathe through the nose... as it works like a filter and for other reasons I can't recall.
Thats my shpiel about healthy breathing, and there are many places to find more info.... i.e. yoga center, singing tutor etc...