Training in Guatemala

So far, Xela is my home base. I train Ashtanga pretty much everyday, at 2,330 meters. Mondays and Wednesdays I go to grapple for two hours, and maybe add an evening Hatha class, though, because I've been trekking on Saturdays, sometimes I just eat and sleep.

I'm trying to break that habit, and wake up early. Today, 2 minutes in, is my 28th birthday, and Christmas Eve. 

I have to take a 7am bus to the Retalhuleu Department to spend Christmas with my grandma and my cousins in her village. She makes Christmas tamales and sometimes they make this amazing broccoli lasagna I love.

It's always been a special day for me, but as I come to know myself more spiritually and closely, I realize day may not be so much about what it means, but who I am. Who I am for others, for myself, for my family..

I've always felt a connection with the world around me. But, because of this profound connection, I have always felt kind of a bit dissonant from it as well. Always looking from within, out...

But, when I'm on top of the mountains, and I've reached the summit, there is this sort of silence that takes place. Whether it's windy, or still, when I find myself alone in nature, all of a sudden, I feel this universal connection that seems unbreakable.

As I walk through the trails, I realize I have been on this land since my grandmother's birth. Since her mother's birth. It is impossible to find a moment when I wasn't there. My ancestors walk closely with me and they tell me stories when I touch the grass. When my feet are in the earth or when I drink the water that helps me swallow my vitamins, my ancestors hold me up.

This profound and unbreakable connection I have with them is what gives me my strength. My fathers of mothers, and mothers of fathers are all shared with me by own brother of my earthly mother and father. This connection is profound and unbreakable.

This is why he is my best friend. Because, there was never a time in our childhood when we did not share the most core of memories, and the blood wrenching dog teeth that is life that tore us away into our own traumas seem to dissolve in the waters of salt and purity. We seem to have been redeemed by own who sacrificed Himself. The peace of our Creator became our own salvation, and for that I am grateful.

My birthday no longer marks another year that I may disappoint or fail to live up to expectations, but an eternal reminder of the promise that has been given my family.

So, I walk. I walk from the suffering, and I remember the illness that almost took my life time and time again. Like the full moon that guides me on the tallest peak of my ancestral lands, I no longer fear the dark nights of the wild. I feel at home, at peace, and breathe in the familiar scents of a land lost to time.

No longer do I fear conflicts or separation.

I walk for peace. 

The world is my home and her children my siblings. 

For millenia, apparently, children have knocked their bunions together as they learned how to run and felt the raw sensitive nature of their own mortality that they must overcome.

This is why I like to walk barefoot in the grass, or in the soft dirt, if the trail permits.

No longer do things seem massive or distant. I know the pace at which I walk, and am reminded that being crippled is not a disability, but a hindrance only if I let my mind be weak enough to accept it as such.

I find peace in my holy land, in the name of those who came before me, and I breathe in the incense they left behind for me in stories. 

Feeling not the insecurity of one who is illiterate, but the glorious memories of she who has always killed herself to speak. Speak the truth, to speak kindness, and to speak the wrath of God that she felt inside of her.

Her sobriety came from the sobering moments when humiliatingly, her humility fooled her and held her back, causing her to lose the one she loved.

She did not speak up then. She did not walk away. She gave in to the tital waves of neglect and mundane acceptance, and for that, she lives in a constant state of bliss and meditation.

How I felt about myself for years was one who was capable, and yet, fragile enough to become silent. The Earth will be my silence, and the wind my breath.

Even in the lightness of low oxygen, my body was made to be strong enough to continue on. 

The mountains and volcanos with their peaks and points, do not seem mysterious to me anymore.

Today, as I turn 28, remembering 10 years ago when I was with the love of my life lost forever, except for the moon, she who stood behind us whenever we forgot to look at her, still exists in a universe where you do not, any longer, yet, as I turn 28, I find that my youth has only just begun, because only now do I find myself free of the juvenile restraints of a limited scope. A frail perspective that I am not capable of anything. 

Today, I realize with pure dignity, that I can do anything I set my mind to, and that I will not fail to remind others of the same, as I had been inspired to believe all of these years.

The act of kindness, the color of ones robes, the smell of incense and the bright luminescence of insects can indeed engrave in ones mind the ability to awaken, and illuminate the world around them..

Kumbaya. 

🕯️ 

Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays.