I have been traveling for 9 months now. This is a summary of my year to date. I lived in La Paz Bolivia for 3 months, initially staying with a friend from yoga teacher training, then sharing an apartment in downtown La Paz with another healer. I studied Kabballa at a local healing center and I taught Kundalini yoga classes too. I learned Spanish from a book and just practicing in the street plus watching movies in Spanish with Spanish subtitles. I even watched a bit of What the Bleep do we Know in Spanish!
Then I lived in Mexico for a month, on the coast south of Cancun. Things are more Americanised there and about four times more expensive than Bolivia too (but still less than USA). I went on a shamanic retreat and did meditations at Mayan pyramids. And went snorkeling in the warm Caribbean sea. I also found a yoga school and taught some Donna Eden and other healing methods there. (I highly recommend Donna Eden's 5 minutes daily energy clean up routine - you can find on YouTube - I have been doing it since January and it has really helped me deal better with all the shifting energies that are happening this year).
In May I went to Peru for another shamanic and magic workshop - and to visit a magical place called Cusco! I really got into the swing of doing morning yoga, working a few hours, eating a relaxed and healthy lunch, chatting with new friends and hiking in the mountains around the city. The streets in the San Blas neighborhood are cobbled and cars don't go there much, which I like! I also joined South American explorers club http://www.saexplorers.org which I found full of resources and a great place to meet interesting people. Though them I discoverd Healing House Cusco which is a group of healers and yoga teachers living in a group house. I thought about moving in but they were full. Now I think I don't want to base myself in a town that so heavily depends on American tourism for income, because in the event of a financial crisis the economy there will be in serious trouble. I am currently looking at Chile and maybe Paraguay where there are towns that are pretty self sufficient and not so connected to the American economy.
The magic I learned in Peru - Jaden Phoenix's Holographic Healing - has been very powerful for both healing and for manifesting what I want. She has a book out called Beyond Human which both full of useful way to do magic and also is easy for a beginner/skeptic to get into (Jaden used to be a skeptic and mildly depressed when she started her magically journey as she shares in the book).
I went to Kundalini yoga Summer Solstice in New Mexico - which was a wonderful, spiritual experience. I used the Holographic Healing to make meditations and yoga poses that were hard for me to be easy and give me the lesson that I needed to get from them being hard too! Then I drove 4500 miles across the beautiful American West = to San Francisco to see a girlfriend and a shaman then to the Rainbow Gathering in Washington state - near mount St Helens. Spirit helped me find people to ride share with and the whole journey was easy and fun. I have been to six Gatherings now and this time stayed at Green Village which was about back to the earth skills such as wild plant eating, mushrooms for eating and healing. I went swimming in the ice cold mountain stream (well for about 20 seconds anyway!) and just as the bears do shit in the woods. Which all is good preparation for living in a farmhouse near Desaguadero Bolivia on the shores of Lake Titicca without shower or bathroom!
I went thought a lot of growing this year - both workshops and living in new places/ways to shift my stuck patterns. Also about ten healing crisis that I got a lot of help from Glory and Sandra and others on. I think (and other people have told me) that I have grown wiser this year - more calm, more accepting. I certainly hope this is so because as we move to 2012 I believe that living from my heart rather than my head is where I need to be. I have heard this idea from many places - yoga, Shamballa, Matrix Energetics, Holographic Healing, Dromelo Makezidek. Now I am living it more often than not. And don't get so attached to the thoughts in my head. Don't get me wrong, I love my mind and it is a great tool for living smarter. But the "I" is in my heart and I can make good decisions from chaos on my intuition and with the help of spirit.
