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