The Sun, the Moon and the Rain

San Marcos, Guatemala could very well be the one place that I have traveled to this year that I feel like I could live indefinitely. It is a peaceful place, with a very magical energy about it. It attracts travelers, but not so many tourists. Mostly people who are moving at a very relaxed pace and they tend to stay for 2-4 or even 50 weeks!




I´m stationed here for my final weeks of my journey. Every day in the Moon Course, I spend about two hours each in meditation, yoga, and equally about that much in class, learning about things like the tarot, numerology, reiki and medicinal plants. It´s about as healthy as healthy living comes here. I´m eating a totally vegetarian diet (nearly vegan), learning a ton, sleeping about 9 hours a night, and surrounded by amazing people. You see how people get stuck here? Oh, and this is my own private pyramid that I call home!


I didn´t realize when I sent all of my warm weather clothes home that I would be living here in the middle of the very rainy season at around 5,000 feet! Needless to say, it´s been a bit damp and dreary for the last few weeks, which actually has been good for my studies and personal time. I am nearly constantly chilled and spending a lot of time in the sauna, preparing for a balmy Seattle summer to warm me up!

That said, I did have a mystical experience the other day. The weather, being quite moody, brings with it a lot of thunder and lightning storms. This one was special... there was not a cloud in the night sky, the air was warm, the stars were shining, and lightning was flashing. A magical silence hung.

Before I came to San Marcos, I took a tour of a fantastic organization in Guatemala City called Safe Pasages. A couple of my friends here were volunteering there for an extended period of time, and I wanted to see what it was all about. WOW. It was started by an American woman around 12 years ago because she (then 25 years old!) was visiting Guatemala and wanted to see the ¨real¨ Guatemala. She went to the local garbage dump and watched in amazement as thousands of very poor Guatemalans work there, salvaging through the rubbish to find anything of value. An average salary for them in this filthy life is around $2-3 US per day. So she started Safe Passage in order to support the children of these families so that they would have a safe place to go during the day. It started with 40 kids, and now has over 800. It is a professionally-run, wonderful organization and I would love to come back some day and volunteer myself! Next trip...

I can honestly say that before I came to Guatemala I was wondering why I had chosen this place, so far from everywhere else that I would be traveling, to close my trip. I was questioning my ïnstincts¨ that had led me here in the first place. Now that I am here, I know without a doubt that this is exactly where I am supposed to be right now! Guatemala´s magical pull that got me back here (I first visited for 3 weeks in 1993) was just the magic I needed.

With love,
Pam