Hostels in Guadalajara, Hostel in Guadalajara, Hostels in Guadalajara!! That's for the webcrawlers to find this entry, because if you're looking for a chill, loving and beautiful vibe while in Guadalajara, this is your place.

Been here for about five days now, the next two are free, and the energy in this place is wonderful. Francisco (owner) is passing out free tattoos building his portfolio, David is painting upstairs, and we're all finding direction on where to go next from each other.. but Frank is the Encyclopedia Mexico!

Tomorrow night David Joel (LINK) is having an exhibition here and I'm planning my eventual return to help with some building projects in a few years time in exchange or a room. This is just a forward thinking, relaxed place, with 0% stress... it's a beautiful refuge in a city that I find to be sensory overload.

Hostelito Inn
Avenida Alcade 409
Guadalajara, Mexico
44100
01.33.15.92.38.29

paz,d

Saturday, February 6, 2010
Guadalajara, Mexico

Everything we have achieved in this life, everything we've acquired, all the things we've lusted after and obtained... eventually... we have to give it all back.

The morning after my last blog was clear... I had connected to my friend Julia who was hanging out at a hostel just north of me in downtown Guadalajara. I had just shot an interview with Santiago here so I thought it may be a good idea to visit Julia and capture some images of the city.

Julia's is also an interesting story, worth checking out at her blog. She's here touring Mexico, her man arrives in a month from England, and together they will tour, busk, and lose themselves to the wonder of Mexico and Central America... I'm sure our paths will continually cross throughout.

SlippingRoundTheCornerOfaCircle.
[After six years in London and twenty five years alive - enough to know that a Physics degree and grey-uniformed office were not at all appropriate - Julia exchanged the corporate world for a backpack, a notepad and a blue & orange hula hoop. "The plan to have no plan..."]

The city thickens up around me as I enter. The beautiful randomness of Mexico begins to take on the form of the Grid. People selling streetside, people to and from work, people sitting in the square, people, people and more people. What strikes me most about Mexico is the reality that people spend their lives out in the world. In the U.S. and Canada, for the most part, outside is a place that people pass through on their way home or to work. We do spend leisure time outdoors but we don't really LIVE outdoors. In Mexico so much happens out in the world. This is partly due to the climate, and smaller living spaces, but also just a matter of culture. Right now it's 10pm and people are dancing in the square down the street to a live band under the serene gaze of a monk statue.

It's so alive here, unlike in so much of North America where our dreams of McMansions sold us short on so much of the vibrancy of life. We have isolated ourselves to such a great degree that I wonder what will happen when we are forced to fall together once more.

So much of the traditional knowledge lays intact in the ways in which we live. In being together and being outside, we are forced to engage with REALITY. Real reality not the manufactured reality that we've built around ourselves to keep us safe and in control.

And that brings me back to the beginning... Everything we have achieved in this life, everything we've acquired, all the things we've lusted after and obtained... eventually... we have to give it all back.

I arrived at the hostel and fell into imbalance, then regaining my composure I decided to again let go of the fear and anxiety that tries to keep all of us down. The fear and anxiety that usually results from the fact that we've subscribed to and attached ourselves to a story rather than living purely in the moment. And in that moment, we are free, only free because there are no more expectations of what 'should be', and also free in the imminent realization that everything, including that particular moment, is fleeting.

One day we're all going to pass away, and nothing we've built up around us is going on that next incandescent leg of the journey. No house, no car, no fancy clothes, no husbands, no wives, no kids, no friends, none of it... only the light that shines inside us.

In may case my load just got a little bit lighter.. and it's kinda strange... how things happen. I've been in Guadalajara for three days now... ok I have to go back... I locked myself out of my van in last weeks rainstorm. I found my spare key stash, opened up and all was fine. I told myself to return the spares to their hiding place, but then forgot. I now have been in Guadalajara for three days, I've been parking at night in a garage for forty pesos and during the day parking streetside.

I agonized about where I was going and what I was to do, and the words of Stuart Wild came to me, "If you don't know, don't go." so I stayed put. All of a sudden this morning over coffee with Frank the Hostel Owner, my entire road opened up in a clear and beautiful route/vision. Charged with direction I bounced around the hostel ready to leave, but still not quite ready... ok Stuey I'll try your method and just sit.

I have to go back again... About a year ago in Utah I found my next tattoo. I then followed it down through Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, Playa Las Labradas. The cosmic spiral. The flow of the universe pictured in ancient rock art around the world. There was only one problem, I don't have money for tattoos.

So here I am sitting, and Frank emerges with tattoo tools in hand, smiling. He's been doing tattoos for four months, and from what I've seen, he's pretty good. So I ask him about my idea, and sure enough he's game to drop some ink into my flesh. I am open to helping him build his portfolio and a free tat sounds wonderful.

Tattoo is ritual and I go through this rite as though it were a flesh offering for the next leg of my journey. As I lay there, a burning fire piercing the back of my leg, I stare... I stare not looking at anything, lost in thoughts, thinking about the spiral and its significance. The flow of all life, the double helix of DNA, the coiled snake, the journey inward or outward, forces of nature... all spiraling together, unstoppable, constant, and ever-present in creation, destruction, and impermanence.

Slowly I realize that my unfocused gaze is landing on the water flowing within the Hostel's interior water fountain, surrounding the fountain unnoticed till this point, is of course, tiles covered in spirals.

Water... what I love about water, is that it ALWAYS follows the path of least resistance.

Many of us have convinced ourselves that life is arduous, and unless we fight and struggle, we will find ourselves lost. I feel that it's the struggle that begets struggle. If we can let go and submit to the flow of the natural spiral, we become like water, and move in rhythm and harmony with what IS...
_____
After the tattoo, I grabbed my film gear and went to shoot/walk with Moses. I just wandered and ended up capturing some of the most beautiful images I could imagine. I can't even describe them.. ok I can try.. an old native woman in the square below the dome, selling giant bubble makers for kids, the light bouncing off the bubbles as she creates them, the dome lite up in the sun behind her... well I tried.. one day you'll see it.

I arrive back at my van, and it's been broken into in broad daylight. My Keltie backpack is gone... as well as a pair of jeans, some underwear, my toiletries, two Spanish books, my favorite North Face jacket... gone... Ughh... I rack my brain to think what else... thank god no wallet, no passport, no keys... KEYS... OMG! the spare keys to my van...

So now there are thieves somewhere in Guadalajara with the keys to not only get in my van.. but also start my van and... take my van... my life source. Well that's not going to happen... but, Oops!

I drive my van to a secure parking garage where it will be safe until I have a clear plan on the key situation. I then return to the hostel to eat some dinner and marvel at the sometimes agonizing beauty of the flow.

I was just forced to let go a little bit more, and rather than getting really upset, I'm actually grateful for the lesson not being too severe... I think it's important to give thanks in times like these. And nothing is ever really ours anyways, so what's the point in getting really upset about it?


paz, amor, y luz,
d

Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Location: Just South of Guadalajara

Happy Birthday Ma! Thanks for 34 years of being there as a wonderful mother, teacher & friend :-)

About a week and a half ago I was getting ready to leave PV on this next leg of my journey. The apartment I had been living in had just been painted, and to avoid the fumes I made a bed in the doorway to the back patio. There I slept half inside and half outside but in neither nor. That night I had a dream about bats, the next morning I read into the symbolism of bat and found that bats often represent or foreshadow spiritual death.

It's funny because at the time I felt as though I was dying, and since then a big part of me has been falling away in spiritual death. I feel I'm still in the midst of this death process.. I'm between worlds as it were. The old me through a process of letting go is making room for the new me.

It's only when we begin to let go that we find ourselves in that old familiar space I like to call now/here. In this space I think we have two clear options...

1) PANIC!!! Grab back onto the closest thing you can find that makes you feel safe and work your way back into fear and control.

OR

2) Remain Calm... breath.. and provide some space for reflection to see what emerges. In providing a space of emptiness we allow new forms and opportunities to arise and then present themselves to us. It's not always easy especially when you find after one day of remaining calm, nothing quantifiable has happened. That's when I personally usually start to favor option 1). But if we can simply NOT REACT and just accept what is we allow things to naturally return to the rhythm, pace, and place that they belong. In remaining calm we are actually creating a space in which our perceived chaos is able to return back to perceived order. In reality there is neither chaos or order as everything is exactly where it needs to be.

So if we find ourselves unhappy with our reality, first we need to recognize that it's likely the perfect thing for us right now. Since if it weren't the perfect medicine, we likely wouldn't have created it in the first place though all those choices we made along the way. Like the gurus say, the outer world is simply a reflection of the inner world giving us everything we need to become conscious and able to 'see' ourselves. Then once we recognize the lessons we can begin to shift gears into the next stage of our personal evolutions and make new choices that create peace, harmony, balance, & happiness.

Where was I going with this? In my space of spiritual death things have begun to emerge, first was a friend, then there was a surfboard, then there was an ocean, a good book, silence, and a joker named Bear... in the silence these all emerged and gave me the following: companionship in my solitude, balance, cleansing, teachings, meditation, and a renewed realization of the fact that we have to remember through it all.. not to take ourselves so Fucking Seriously!!! And Laugh at ourselves even when we don't think it's so funny...Haha!!!

With some balanced regained and laughter returning, I set off to meet a man I've been looking forward to meeting for a while. I arrived at Santiago's home in the early afternoon, whereupon I began to resonate with him, his wife Tisa, and son Daniel. We talked all afternoon over a beer, a meal, and then on and off camera... we shared so much in such a short time.. through a somewhat difficult language barrier. It's really incredible what can be accomplished when we step outside of fear and boldly forward. Here I was with no sense of where I was going, or where I would sleep.. having in depth conversations with people I've never met, ignoring language and speaking from the heart... It's amazing! Haha!! Really.. gotta laugh.. it's amazing!!!

Daniel upon meeting me and finding out that I shoot 8mm among other formats, left the room to return with a camera in hand.. "This is for you!" he said, having only known me for ten minutes.. a beautiful 8mm camera in perfect working order.. Amazing!!

Around only 8pm I found I could no longer process the Spanish being spoken and felt Moses needing a walk out in the van.. so I bade them all goodnight and took Moses for an hour walk. Santiago informed me that it was alright to sleep in the van in front of his home.. so we crawled into bed at 9pm full of paz, amor, y luz (peace, love & light).

It's been raining non-stop for three days.. non-stop.. and the roof in my van has a few small leaks. So there I was laying in bed, literally vibrating with the event's of the afternoon and evening with water leaking into my personal space. I couldn't help but think how water is a symbol of the sub-conscious and consciousness. Here I was in the middle of what I consider to be a process of spiritual rebirth and I can't stop the subconscious flow from entering into my life. There space has been created, by me, and the energy is coming as though it were a tidal wave... leaking into the cracks and filling the void.

In meeting with Santiago other doors have inevitably opened up, and my commitment it to walk through them to see what's on the other side.

Last week in Sayulita I met another man with sparking eyes and a smile so wide you'd swear he was a Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. This man was another doorway. Taking one look at me, for some reason he decided to share his knowledge of the Huichol Indians and his connections leading to a certain mountain Marakama (medicine man).

Tomorrow, hopefully it will stop raining, and I will go begin to explore these doorways that have opened up to me. It's amazing to me how we are all doorways to each other, into different worlds and different ways of seeing.

I'm grateful for the right people at the right time, past, present and future.

peace,d

Went out today for the final time to surf.. or in my case get eaten by the ocean. Lessons in humility, loss of ego, rhythm, ebb and flow... but not so much surfing ;-)

I feel cleansed by it all, by the ocean and it's power.

I came back in, sat and meditated for a while, and have a deep desire to do more of the same tonight.

Tomorrow I go to Guadalajara to meet a man, and I look forward to this next step of the journey.

paz, amor y luz,
d

My van got broken into a couple weeks back.. they kindly broke the small window... and stole my stereo and a bag of pens. The stereo was a 40$ deal I bought at a junkyard, and now it looks like there's even less to steal.

The message to me... time for some silence and contemplation. The universe is so kind ;-)

peace,d

Friday, January 29, 2010

So where have I been. Well after Liz left back to Colorado I headed back out to Yelapa where I stayed for a few days meditating and thinking about my film. I met some great people there who gave me some perspective and took me on a great little trip up river to the waterfall. I brought my camera’s along to shoot some footage but mostly I just sat uninspired. On the second to last day I took a hike back into the jungle and captured some nice footage of old guys carting firewood on donkeys.

There are so many images down here. So much to capture and share, but I’m proceeding slowly and with caution, feeling things out, being careful not to offend.

I found myself stuck in Yelapa by a rough ocean that prevented me from taking a panga back to Puerto Vallarta. I made it out the next day and packed up my stuff and left the city behind heading north to Sayulita. That’s where I am now, chilling in a campsite waiting for a meeting in Guadalajara on Tuesday.

What strikes me most about Sayulita and Puerto Vallarta is how Americanized they are. They are pieces of American influence in Mexico. On many levels it’s a real shame, since they were probably much more beautiful once. However, like always, there’s no black and white and with America have also come jobs, money, and 10$ cheeseburgers. The Americans (and Canadians) just keep on coming, it reminds me of a guy I met way back in Costa Rica who, as we watched a bus of tourists unload, exclaimed Carne Fresca (fresh meat). And if it weren’t for cool little surfer hangouts like this, most of them would probably never come in the first place… whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing, I’m in no place to judge.

peace,
d

pics: yelapa

I feel like I’ve returned to an old hermitage up on a mountain that I left a while back. If it were to be a real place I’d say it’s a small humble quiet shack built with a frame of sturdy beams and a solid rock foundation. But now as I return, I see that while I’ve been out on pilgrimage gathering new tools and firewood, some things have fallen into disrepair, there’s a few nails to hammer back into place, and although the interior beams are still solid, the rest of the structure needs some tender love and care. And there’s only one person who is able to do the work… me.

When I was younger I had a really great teacher who used to tell me that whenever we dream of buildings they represent the self. So that’s where I’m going with this. I have returned to my hermitage on the mountaintop only to realize that there’s a bigger mountain next-door and before I can head out on that next quest this hermitage needs just a little more work.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Not a word… Not this time around. They say silence is golden, so let there be silence… not only around us but also emanating from deep inside our being, outwards into the world.

I was watching today, laying in a hammock, watching people chatter on the beach, me being disconnected, removed, and alone. I’ve been working to reconnect to my own personal silence, away from it all, back outside the circle for the first time in a long time.

Quite a few people have remarked that the past month has already seemed like an entire year. It almost seems as though we’re cramming more and more into each day as things continue to speed up all around us. It’s not that the world is speeding up in terms of economy, job stress, or errands to run… to me it seems like there’s a sense of urgency in the world that is beginning to grab hold.

Studies have been done of why people aren’t reacting to the threat of Global Warming, and it’s been found that human evolution has hinged on our fight or flight instincts. We’ve evolved to react to immediate threats but not to those further down the line. This is the reason why, although the world as we know it may be slowly ending, we all continue with business as usual.

But I feel something. It seems there’s a sense of urgency that IS actually beginning to get through to some people. It seems there is a increasing sense that every action DOES count and EVERY thought or intention may hold the potential for dramatic affects down the line. It’s time for us all to get REAL and do it NOW since how we behave towards one another and most importantly how we treat ourselves likely holds the key to the future.

So how do we get real? I’m reading a book that talks about how everything is exactly where it needs to be. Every action, reaction, pattern, or belief is all an expression of divine perfection. So given this realization, one would think that we don’t have to do anything… AND THAT’S EXACTLY RIGHT!!! But the problem is, we’re all so busy getting in our own way, not to mention the way of everyone around us. Everything IS perfect but our patterns and behaviors (mostly in the form of desire and attachment) can tend to interfere with that perfection. So what do we do?

Let go.

It’s really the only answer. We need to let go of all of our programming and experiential knowledge that’s taught us how the world really is. Because frankly the world IS NOT what we usually tend to think it is. It’s actually so much more. It’s a living breathing flowing magical singularity that doesn’t need us to fix it, set it straight or meddle in any way. What it really needs us to do is have faith, and let go. Not just pretend to let go, but actually let go and fall into the perfection of the flow.

Let go and fall into the perfection of the flow. I like that… I should put it on a t-shirt.

So on this end, things have been difficult, since I'm re-examining the road I've been on, but rather than resist that difficulty I’m making peace with it and accepting it. Letting go of how my ego thought things were supposed to be. Letting go of the program I myself wrote, invested in, and then became attached to.

“Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.” –John Lennon

So in the wake of all this letting go I’ve been struggling a little. The ego keeps resurfacing and grabbing at me. But I think I’ve found a solution. Since my mind and my emotions have been a bit out of whack, I’m working on creating a space of true silence and getting back in the body. The body is easy, since as you push, it grows and becomes stronger. I rented a surfboard and have been sitting in waves trying to regain my balance. And when I haven’t been sitting I’ve been paddling working out my shoulders and strengthening my core. People invite me to have a drink and hang out… but I just read, meditate, and surf. It’s what I need right now before I get back on the road to Guadalajara to my next interview… I’d like to be balance when I meet this man.

The reading is also important for me, since I don’t have all the answers, and never have. At a young age I guess I was lucky to have self-help books all around me… the right book can make all the difference in how we see and approach the world. And why not, why should we as individuals have to recreate epiphanies that are often hard come by… why should we have to lose everything to gain perspective, when others have already gone through those cycles and grown and then written about it. The book I’m reading now, The Dragon Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is the perfect example of the right book at the right time. Sometimes they come to you by way of other people and sometimes it pays to just get over our egos and go spend some time in the self-help section of bookstores until they jump out at us… or call our name as books often do.

But there’s still always the other option, to trudge along and figure everything out for ourselves… but as far as I’m concerned, why waste a perfectly good lifetime struggling when the answers to many of our questions lay in waiting. They wait in meditation, they wait in friends, and they wait in a few good books.

I guess to sum up, what I’m trying to say is, now is the time to get real, let go, take responsibility and take care of ourselves in the best way we know how, because when the time comes, it’ll serve us well to be ready. It’s not up to US... it’s up to every single one of us… it’s up to me... and it’s up to you.

peace,d

http://www.eatrealeatlocal.ca/

It's nice to see big companies putting their energy behind the fundamental truths of our current predicament. I'm grateful for my pops for sending me this video.



peace,d

So what have I been up to? I've been spending time with Liz talking about the nature of the universe and discussing our personal patterns and processes, while taking in some sunshine, and doing everything we can that is virtually free (which isn't much since this place is a tourist trap). So we spend our days in the market buying fresh produce and fish that comes cheap, and window shopping for all the things we would buy if we actually had money. On a few occasions I've haggled with vendors and talked them down as much as 50% and bought some items, still feeling I've been taken for a ride on the price.

Last week we decided to get out of Puerto Vallarta yet again this time to Yelapa, a small town just down the coast by boat. There is no way to get there by car and the town only got electricity six years ago. So it's pretty much a virgin of high-maintenance tourists and fancy storefronts. The town is a maze of small cobblestone and concrete walkways between buildings built from the land or concrete brought in by boat. Mostly the homes are palapa style open to the ocean breeze and the elements. We rented a small place with two friends who came to visit from Denver and from there we explored, played cards, or just hung out in hammocks.

The pace of Yelapa is completely in line with my view of how reality could be. It's a vision of a world without cars and the speed the technology brings with it. In Yelapa you still see trim healthy boys carting stuff across town with wheel barrows, older men leading donkeys loaded with concrete, women baking bread while their ten year old daughters care for the babies. Back at our palapa we cook in a open air kitchen, have to clean and put everything away for fear of racoons, lizards, and who knows what else.. and then lay in a hammock reading by a sparse arrangement of lights.

This place seems to be a favorite for fire spinning artist poet hermit types from around the world as we met quite a few during our short stay. They have ample people to entertain as the water taxis run all day bringing in Carne Fresca (fresh meat..ie tourists) for day trips.. but all in all it's mostly just free-ky people trying to get some solace from their daily lives back in wherever it is they've come from.

Liz and I are talking about going back for a few days if we can swing it before she leaves.. I'd like to do some actually filming there and maybe even an interview or two about the merits of living without car cares.

peace,d