Brazil - 20 February, 2006

As Kurt Vonnegut said in Cat's Cradle, "Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God." Today I'm dancing. But not like two nights ago in the all night kirtan. Not like yesterday in my first day of the Biopsychology course, learning about the Tantra system as taught by Prakar to Didi and Didi to me and a hundred others in this course. Not like my delight in getting to know my new roommate, the amazing Amalia Souza (a link - in portuguese - just to see her picture: http://www.amaliasouza.net/amalia.htm), deep ecologist, environmentalist, world traveler and recent host of Joanna Macy's tour). No, these peculiar travel suggestions are a more gut experience - as in a persistent and growing pain in my gut which by this morning i could no longer ignore. I am pretty certain it's a small unraveling of the repair done in September for a hernia that developed at the cancer surgery site. I am a bit bionic since they had to install a 6" square mesh in my abdomen to hold it all together, and I think that mesh isn't sitting right. But my normal strategy for physical pain - ignore it, the body is the great healer - has not working with this one and this morning it was strong enough that I had to let go of my floating bliss and get down to business. So people are mobilizing to get me some ultrasound and it is time to go. Besides this, I am having rich inner reflections on my favorite topic - freedom - and how it unfolds here. And I am learning a different way to teach from Didi. And portugeuse is flowing over me like a sweet river all day long, and more every hour enters my body and comes out my mouth. i was even able to explain my problems this morning to two brazilian docs who happen to be here for the course. It helps that I speak fluent Spanish and if I go slowly many people can understand perfectly. It's when they answer that it gets interesting.

Okay, one set of thoughts about freedom...
I am feeling very free here - a sort of happy, soft freedom that seems to come from being in such a loving, beautiful environment. For one thing, Brazilians are very physical - laughing, hugging, smiling, touching, speaking with bodies as well as mouths. The feel what they feel and express it. You who know me know I also carry a lot of expressive energy with me. It is, as with all personality traits, a blessings and a curse. The blessing is that I experience a lot of life, I get a lot done, I throw myself into work and play fully and with good results. The curse is that this energy can be a bit much for others. Some run for the hills when I show up, or just click their life energy purses shut with a firm snap, as if to say, "Don't you dare ask for an ounce more from me." I thought I was offering a hug, and they feel at risk of being strangled. One metaphor is that I am like a baby tiger who found herself in a litter of kittens. For a while we are all soft and adorable together, playing and being fondled. Then one day I play - just like yesterday, just like the other kittens - but this time my playmate screams in anguish and runs away bleeding. I often don't understand the impact of my play - how painful some of my gestures of affection can be. If you know the Enneagram, it is the blessing/curse of the 7 with a big 8 wing. Here I don't feel so vibrationally gigantic because everyone is a bit more out to play - I'm just one of the kitty pile.

Reflecting further on this, I realize that it is a combination here of love and trust. In the US, where we are just basically a lot less expressive and affectionate, we are also now, since 9/11 - more skittish. As a nation, we are making fear the dominant feeling tone and security the dominant need. Our gestures as citizens are less and less effective as the national government takes more and more "war powers" for the endless war on terror. As more national resources go into this endless war, and into the pockets of investors and corporations, less and less basic service is available for the general public. This increases the ambient frustration level; in environments of increasing scarcity, people become more competitive and sly. Even in my most gentle part of the nation, the Pacific Northwest, I think some of this national infection is spreading. We don't notice this as we live in it - but out here in Brazil, I can feel the lack of fear in the environment, and I feel it as freedom.

If you want to free another, cease to fear them. This gives them room to find their natural way. This lack of fear feels like the dance floor at the Deer Lagoon Grange where I do ecstatic dance every Wednesday, held by several phenomenol musicians. Not only am I free to move in that big space, but there is no judgement from others about how I move - and our dancing itself serves the drummers who hold us in melody and rhythm. It is that freedom of "One of these mornings, gonna wake up singing, gonna spread your wings, and take to the sky, until that mornin comes, nothin's gonna harm you..." Living in a harmless world - that is freeing. Here I feel this kind of free.

I talked with Amalia about the Brazilian dream, how it is different from the American dream. She said one of their national songs is a Samba! We laughed about what if Brazil, not America, set the tone for the world. What if the bottom line of any endeavor weren't the 'business bottom line" but "can you dance to it?" What if Brazilian freedom set the tone for the world, not the American freedom of I can have and do whatever I want - a sort of entitlement that our dominance allows us to feel as freedom because the consequences become invisible.

Ate logo, until later...