O Samba do Brasil

February 6th 2012

Excerpt from journal of travels in Brasil 2012

Left to right: Danielle, myself, Lívia, Maria enjoying a Saturday Samba

Three days into my visit here in Sao Paolo and the felicidade (happiness in portugues) is becoming part of my bloodstream. Yesterday, we went to a feijoada and Samba.  This is a gathering at a very nice, quaint restaurant in an authentic part of the city. The street was filled with colorful buildings and smiling people enjoying their Saturday afternoon.

A man next door is in the barbershop getting his haircut meanwhile we are preparing to indulge in a typical Saturday Brasilian style lunch. Feijoada is a plate of rice, beans and pork served aside with flour of mandioca.  The beer complements the dish to perfection.  Fried banana and mandarin are also a nice touch.

The tasty food goes down slowly with the cervejinha (beer) and the Samba band is finalizing their set up.  Testing their many beautiful instruments, they all pass smiles, laughs and jokes.  When the first drum beat hits and the beautiful vocalist of African descent begins to sing, the people light up the room and start dancing Samba.  I had no idea how the steps were but my girlfriend took my hand and showed me slowly the steps. By this point the cervejinha has lowered any inhibitions I had to dancing in public a dance I'd never known.  The steps come easier with each beer and each drum beat.  After several songs, the whole restaurant and it's patrons are on our feet dancing together. The love being shared through this dance is like nothing I've ever seen. With every passing song, the samba eases its way into my heart and I'm in drunk, happy and in love. I so happen to look across the dance floor, aka the restaurant to see one other gringo dancing his life away. We catch eyes and realize that we are the two luckiest gringos on the planet to be experiencing this. It is impossible to be upset, stressed or angry while dancing samba with these fine, Brasilian people. The power of the drum beat and energy around the room encapsulates any fleeting thought of yesterday or tomorrow.  There is only this beautiful moment, with these beautiful people sharing this beautiful sound.

"O Samba é o pae do prazer, o samba é o filho da dor"

Translated: "Samba is the father of pleasure, samba is the son of pain"

Shhh. Listen to your body

Breeeeeeathe in 1, 2, 3

Exhaaaaale 1, 2

Heart pumping at a steady rate, the attention draws to my heartbeat and breath.  Finding a 3 second inhale and 2 second exhale sets my rhythm.  With a constant focus on my technique, my mind only drifts when I no longer am aware of my breathing. Five kilometers into the run I look back to see where my running partner for the day, Karri, has set back to. The Finnish soldier is about forty meters trailing at his own steady pace.  At the end of the 8.5km loop, I stretch and wait for Karri to get there.  My energy seems rather high on this Friday afternoon. After greeting Karri acting like I'm not even breathing hard, I confidently state my intention to run another loop.  He wishes me luck and rides on his blue cruiser out of the Eco Reserve on his merry way.  After a quick stretch, I venture back onto the trail at a slow pace.

The pain sets in not even 500 meters into the run. The left knee feels stiff and extremely sore all of the sudden. Now it feels like rusty metal bending in a heavy wind everytime I flex the knee.

This cannot be happening, not now.  Flash back four years ago, the same pain setting into the left knee. Flash back 18 months ago. Yup, I recognize this feeling.

The It band not only hurts on the outside of the knee but inside as well. I quickly walk back and hop on the bike back on my merry way.  Perhaps I was getting a little ahead of myself with this whole process. My mind wants to do one thing and my body stands it's ground with a purpose.

Flash back nine years and four months ago at the State Champion wrestling tournament in Denver, CO. My mind is poised for a state title run. My body, ribs in this case, gives me a dose of reality with incessant pain every time I rotate laterally or horizontally.  What is one to do? Perhaps I haven't learned a very simple, yet often overlooked, art form. Listening.  Not just listening, listening to my very own body. It has powerful messages that can not be disregarded.

Where to go from here...

Running back to life

Maratón Internaciónal de la Bandera en Rosario, Argentina awaits me, my legs, running shoes and heart. That's right, I signed up for a marathon, the full 26.2miles/ 42.9km. 

Am I crazy?  It'd be hard to argue that I'm not.  I haven't done distance running in two years. A nagging IT band injury stopped my brief long-distance running career.  For you non-runners, the IT band is Iliotibial band, the muscle that runs from your hip down the oustide of your leg. The pain is often felt in the hip and the outside of the knee, where I so often felt it. 

Fast forward to 2012 and I'm daring to go from zero to 100 with my running, much like my blog posts. I now have something that is a bit more exciting to write about. Plus, it's low season with bike tours so I have a bit more free time to put pen to paper.  Two weeks into my training I feel the IT band pain again, hmmm. Ok, it's time to figure this out. After some research, I've narrowed it down to either A.) I need new running shoes.  B.) I need to correct my running technique  C.) I'm just not a runner.

I'm vying for option B at this moment due to not wanting to spend more money on running shoes and I'm not ready to give up running.  So I've been working out my IT band muscle with many stretches and strength training. I've also taken up a new form of running called Chi running. I literally am re-learning how to run. My training sessions have been just as much mental exercise, focusing on every move and how my feet land, as physical.  It has become somewhat meditative, all I think about is my breath and every step in stride. It's a great way to forget about daily stress and problems.

Curbing stress and problems. That is why I like to run.  Yes I also bike about 30km a day around the city and play futbol twice a week. Those are both great forms of exercise. However, running is just different. The way I feel after a long run is unlike any other feeling. My mind and emotions are pure, clear and balanced.  My body? Exhausted and pumping blood at a rapid rate.  If you find a good stride in your run and feel no pain sometimes it's hard to stop, just ask Forrest Gump. I decided to get back into it because a good friend of mine down here is also running in this marathon. He was a J. Robinson wrestling camp attendee as well. Anyone who really knows me well, knows that those 28 days in Minnesota with J. Rob and company were the most challenging in my life.  I never thought I'd say it, but I miss those days.

My parents will question this marathon decision with memories of shin splints and hip problems that I had while running cross country in high school. My form was awful then, I knew nothing of good running technique which slightly makes me wonder if my coach ever noticed or cared. 

Nonetheless, I'm back at it.  I'll keep writing as my marathon training continues. June 24th is the marathon date. It takes place in Rosario, 4 hours up the river from Buenos Aires.

Note from my brother

It's not very often I receive long messages from family, especially my brother. We've always had a relationship of picking up where we left off instead of keeping in touch extensively. Today, I received an email from my brother about upcoming change in his life that inspired me and made me damn proud to be his lil' bro. Whether your beliefs differ from his or not, you must admire his insight and writing, thus I share with you...

Happy holidays! Happy new year... happy birthday Jesus... happy solstice! In all matter of reality, we should have based the calendar new year around the solstice. I demand calendar reform from this Gregorian bullshit. We could even pretend that Jesus was born on the solstice just to appease the Christians.

I'm looking forward to 2012 with great anticipation. I haven't been this excited and scared and intrigued by coming events in a long time. In fact, I've never felt the way I feel now. I'm living in madness right now. Not in a bad way, just general madness. I think about all the crazy shit I've done in my life and I still can't clear my head of the shockwave set off this fall by a casual spill on my bicycle. The most painful and mind-consuming traumatic injury of my life may be the best thing that ever happened to me. The healing process of the organism is incredible. It's like the awareness of self comes reverberating all around in everything I sense. It didn't happen all at once and it's not just me, but everything around me feels more alive.

As you all know, I've spent my entire life in cruise control. Lucky me, right? I learned at a young age how to tweak the system in my favor. I never cared for school and I definitely never learned anything, but I always did just enough to get by. I've used that same technique over the last decade to manage financial security and good health. But jobs are like relationships. It's no place to be if you don't want it. I could be the best chairlift mechanic in the industry, if that were what I wanted. If I really cared to own the situation, I wouldn't just work on the equipment. I would engineer every chairlift right down to the nuts and bolts to be more efficient and environmentally compatible. But I don't really want to. Basically, I can perform this sort of work, but I'm simply not a mechanic. It's time to be honest with myself and stoke that inner fire again. I've always been comfortable with life changes. It seems I am at my best in times of transition. It's the idea of job security which frightens me. It's the security which dulls the mind. But life transition offers the chance to sharpen the edges and focus on execution. But where's the passion? What to do? It didn't come to me as an epiphany. All I needed was a few seeds. Once the thoughts were planted, I watered them with research and life began to appear in a far more peculiar fashion. Never has anything so changed my fundamental perception of the world than the combination of a few seeds in the past year. Yeah, so breaking my face was a 'seed', or more directly a wake-up call.

Who are we to impose our values on the future

- Another 'seed' came from a speech at the Aspen Ideas Festival this summer. Aubrey de Grey is a prominent gerontologist who believes that aging is completely not necessary. Seriously, check him out on youtube. Essentially, he doesn't see any reason why we should just accept death and aging as a natural process when we have evolved to manipulate our way out of natural processes. He believes we can manipulate ourselves on the cellular and bacterial levels to refresh and re-up our bodies through therapy. What caught my attention wasn't the general subject of immortality, but rather the fact that he admits it may not occur in his life time. But he has dedicated the rest of his life to bringing light upon a subject that people today find not only controversial but demoniacal on many levels. "Who are we to impose our values on future generations." This was the line that got me thinking. This was a seed.

So I thought to myself, what if people from millennia past foresaw the future and left warnings in place to tell us that our way of life is wrong. Some people may say, 'yeah, you're right let's go back to the old ways.' But I think most people would defend their lives. If the past generations altered things to the point which current time were effectively and fundamentally different, we wouldn't be here. Our families, our cities and all the things we know would be gone. Would you allow past generations to alter our evolution in such a manner?

I truly believe that nothing but recyclable matter exists after death. All life occurs within the realm of respiring cells in the ever-constant process of decay. A friend of mine once questioned the enduring sadness of this position. She even accused me of being a depressive and hopeless being who should have more faith in the simple joys of life. Sadly enough, she is missing my point. In theory, all life concedes to the perpetual cycle of the next generation. Whether an afterlife exists or not, I have no interest in what lies beyond. What could be more liberating than living for this life, and this life only? Why rest any hope on going to heaven when heaven is here on earth? This is it. Love it, respect it, study it, own the experience. To me, life is religion. God didn't make man in his image. We make god in our image. Again, evolution. We can become masters of our own destinies. We won't be around for it, and we won't always be rememered, but life in some form is immortal. I do believe this.

Right Now-

Worship? Why not worship the true creator of all life as we know it. I dig our world's creative relationship with the star in our daylight sky. Creation is due solely to the nearly improbable events of the last four billion years. The chances of this particular experience of life in all it's odd and unusual forms is nearly infinite. The connection is perfect in it's way simply because of the reality that it even exists. That is to say nearly impossible, one can only guess at the sum of trillions of a trillion billion chances at this exact outcome. Earth is a cell in the universal sea of outer space. Just like the first single-cell organisms which appeared in the shallow tides and the volcanic soils of the young earth, we appear in microcosm wading through the cradle of life. Simple prokaryotic cells born of base elements, electrified by ultraviolet radiation, who photosynthesized for over one billion years just to release enough oxygen over the surface of the waters to create an ozone membrane and allow for an oxygen-rich atmosphere. The evolving complexity of organisms over the next two and a half billion years, along with the complexity of atmospheric cycles has given way to a species whose dashing attempts of conquest and desire for understanding had driven all life to the brink of fatal pressures. Our greatest imaginations cannot comprehend the rarity of our current circumstances. There are so many questions and endless mystery to life. There is so much we'll never learn so much we'll never know, but we'll never stop asking the questions. We will never cease to uncover the mysteries. I just want to live like heaven is here on earth. This is it. I want to draw the most accurate connections to natural world. I'm going back to college to study biology. I hate academia, but right now it is going to provide the right framework around my self-education. I need to surround myself with like-minded people for once in my life. People seeking truth in life. So there you have it, back to school next fall. That's all I've been trying to say here. CSU or CU Denver to burn up my GI Bill for a couple years of undergrad core curricula, then on to grad school and an everlasting life of continuous education and research.

Sorry I had to drag that out so big, just trying to get the idea across.Let's skype soon, Love you bro!

Love you too hermano, suerte en 2012 :)

Blissful moment

Tense, all tense muscles remind me I'm not breathing properly. My shoulders, my neck, my face all tight and caught up in the world of responsibility. Managing a tour business in high season, based on level of service. Keep our service level high, keep our friendly faces smiling, keep our name in the right light. So many thoughts, anxiety level inclines until I remember to inhale.

I stretch the legs, set aside twenty minutes. Emails, you leave me alone for a minute. Phone, shut the hell up for just a minute, maybe even twenty. People, give me this moment. Take it easy, just for this moment, shhhhh.

Hamstrings stretch, quadriceps stretch, breathe in... breathe out. Gluteus maximus, stretch to the maximus, so tight from the pedaling motion. I'm sure lucky to be complaining in my mind about a job that I absolutely love I think in each stretch.

My position transfers to lotus, stillness. Just... breathe!

Inhale 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.... hold... exhale 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Email the accountant, respond to Alejandro, call Ingrid...

The thoughts make their way quickly to the moment of stillness. Invited or not, thoughts find their way in the backdoors and sidedoors of the mind, even the doggy doors. My awareness stops them in their place, then lets them pass.

Remember to update finances, check bike maintenance log, go buy a few onions for dinner...

Through the sidedoor perhaps? My awareness becomes scissors and cuts the tangle of thoughts invading this moment, cut them away... they float away in pieces.

Inhale 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.... Hold.... Exhale 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

The muscles begin to relax a bit after several rounds of uninterrupted breathing.

Hmm, rice, veggies and chicken or pasta? I'm hungry, what's for dinner?

Just breathe, be here, be now.

But my stomach is growling, listen to the body right? I need to call my benzinha tonight and email my family.

Inhale 1-8... Hold... Exhale 8-1.

I feel lighter, with each exhale the muscles loosen and the tension gives way to slack.

More thoughts arise, this time, I don't fight them as I usually do. Accept the thought, observe it, embrace it fully. This thought is here for a reason, it snuck it's way through the windows of my mind and I greet each one that comes through with a smile and a hug.

Poof... stillness... bliss.

Moments of absolutamente nada proceed, no thoughts occur, sneak in, nor ring the mental doorbell. I've embraced them and they're gone.

Inhale 1-10... Hold... Exhale 1-10. Light fills my bloodstream, each blood cell is a particle of light. I'm not longer physical matter but rather a field of energy. Energy connecting with other forms of energy, all flowing on different wavelengths, but flowing nonetheless. The bird chirp outside the window, the honking in the distance, the smell of eucalyptus from the candle are all inside of me, the world is inside of me.. why? Because it's in my head, it's my perception. This eucalyptus candle may smell different to you, the honking and bird chirps may come across your ears differently, but it's your perception, in your world. Breathe in, let it go.

This moment is bliss, this moment is peace, this moment is meditation. And just like the moments of stress, tension and dis-ease... this too, will pass.

Happy Holidays, may they be filled with moments of joy, peace and love.

Confessions of a 26 year old

Here I sit practically in my own pile of vomit, what have I just ingested? Where am I?....

Quién soy (who am I)? My mind races at a rather calm, curious pace. The ants crawling around in this dark liquid that was just in my tummy make me question if these ants were just in my stomach. What just happened to my life?

It's October 1st, 2010, three days after I turned 26...

I observe my surroundings, the tree above me blows lightly in the wind and the hillsides in front out in the distance show off their greenery. The chant of shamans fade in and out. "Yaaa haaayy ayaaahh," they echo from high and low in this state of continuous observation. No judgement arises, no level of curiosity falls. Suddenly, I am connected to the universe in and around me. Brief moments of simplicity and beauty somehow justify the fact that I'm sprawled on a grassy hill with my insect buddies taking in the scenery across the rolling Colombian countryside. About forty minutes prior, I ingested ayahuasca, a drink made from a vine native to the Ecuadorian/Colombian region of South America. Widely popular among indigenous people of this region, yaje (ya hay), it's local name, is used as more of a spiritual experience to purge the bad energies out of one's body. It literally purges you, causing you to vomit all of the parasites out of your stomach. A friend in our hostel invited us to come along and here we find ourselves, surrounded by Shamans burning sage and incense chanting away.

I gaze at the beauty around me and begin to reflect on my life as if I'm on my death bed. I first think of family, every single one of my family members and what they mean to me and how they've shaped me. I want them to be here with me, experiencing this. But, I know this is an experience I must keep as my own. I have never felt so close to truth. With my mind at peace, I enter my own little confessional...

Twenty six revolutions around the sun and I reflect.

I've tasted the sweet nectar of a freshly-squeezed maracuya in Bogota, papaya in Cartagena and Acaí in Rio de Janeiro. The smell of a woman's perfume has knocked me upside the head and silly before.

My heart has been broken, repaired, broken again, and now in the process of becoming the heart Neil Young was searching for... made of gold. I've broken the hearts of others, I've made others cry only to bring about my own tears. I've made peoples' days while making others sick to their stomach. I've found that it's not worth it trying to have my cake and eat it too, only so many calories of greed can be had in this life before it turns into heartache.

I've lied, stolen, cheated and have felt the consequences of all three.

My sight and hearing have worsened while my intuition has improved.

I've seen some of the most beautiful landmarks this world has to offer, yet I've seen so very little. I've come to realize, the more I see, the less I know.

I've preached to the choir and have practiced what I preach, at times. I'm human, I too have made many mistakes and have been hypocritical.

According to Einstein's definition of insanity (doing the same thing and expecting different results), I've been insane more than several times in my life. I've walked like an Egyptian to Cyndi Lauper and done the walk of life to Dire Straights. My fondest memories are road trips with my family to California listening to Canned Heat and CCR. Memories of eating dinners at Uncle Donn and Jerry's made me feel never too far away from family while at college. Through it all, I've been one lucky dude. Maybe it's the red hair or maybe from some good deeds but throughout the years, I've been very surprised at how lucky I am in this life. I realized it when I was volunteering in 'villas' outside of Buenos Aires, when I was talking to a man with no legs in the streets of Bogota and when I ride my bike past people in wheelchairs. Not everyone starts with the same set of tools in this life but I've seen some do more with less and some less with more. In the end, it's up to us, each and every one of us to shape our own life. I just realize, I've been lucky to have received a good set of tools in my life, not literally speaking. I'm one of the least mechanically inclined people I know.

My family has been the rock that has propelled me into this great, big, scary world of opportunities. I've felt what it's like to be on top of the world, only to then be in the gutter. I've felt like a King at times and a failure other times. I've come to know that feelings are only that, feelings and nothing else. They come and they go. But one thing remains certain, as long as I'm human, they'll always come back... the happy, the sad, the disappointment, the envy, the content. Each and every one of them will come and they'll go.

Through it all, I've come to see that there is only one thing eternal, this moment. This moment, right here and right now is all we really have control of. I've come to see that this is easier said than done. My realizations have also led me to belive I still know very little than what I'll know in the next 26 years, this intrigues me.

I've come to believe all we are is energy and information. We transform energy in different forms and gather information through our own conditioned ways. I've come to believe in technology but adore the ways without technology. Letters, phone calls and personal visits go much further today in a world of texting, emailing, tweeting and facebooking.

Through it all, I realize that the first 26 years of my life has been one hell of a rollercoaster and I have no regrets. Every moment has taught me something and brought me to where I am today. None of this would have been possible without the support of my family and friends. The biggest revelation I've had in my first 26, now 27, years of life is that I am just a human being with as many faults, aspirations and desires as the rest of you. I like to recite Lynard Skynard's words, "I'm a simple kind of man." When I start making things complex in my life, my happiness goes away. To a point I enjoy challenges, they push me to be a better person and expand my vision. I have also come to enjoy the simpler things in life; sitting on a porch with family watching the day pass, eating fruit, taking a bike ride, whistling a favorite tune, listening without interrupting, 'being' rather than always 'doing' and most importantly saying "I love you."

Because in the end, that's all we really need right!?

Today I turn 27, it's been a year since I had that spiritual experience with the Shamans in Colombia. It will be one that was good while it lasted and shaped my search for truth in everything.

Turn the page, to the next chapter in life.

Coffee & a Cigarette?!

Strolling down the cafeteria-filled streets of Buenos Aires, you're bound to see los Argentinos sipping cafe and smoking a pucho, Argentine slang for cigarette. This country has one of the higher rates of cigarette consumption in South America. The people of Buenos Aires, porteños, also make a habit of visiting their psychiatrist, is there a correlation? Maybe, maybe not however my experiences being a resident here over the last several years confirms one thing, these people stress a lot. You see it in their faces on the public transportation and walking down the streets. It could stem from any number of things, but one thing is for certain, their stress leaves for brief moments when sipping their cappucino and smoking their cigarillo.

I was walking down Avenida Santa Fe the other day and I realized that everyone sitting in front of the Parisian-styled cafes had a cigarette and a cafe. Two very active stimulants turning their stressed frowns upside down. I for a brief moment wondered, what's so great about this?

My addiction is more on the healthy side, yerba mate and riding my bicycle. However, I wanted to be Porteño for brief few moments and see what this is all about. I had an extra 8 pesos in my pocket to spare for a cafe con leche (coffee with a splash of milk), so I ordered at the next cafeteria I walked past. With an extra 30 minutes to spare in my daily tasks, I indulged into the more toxic stimulants to feel a little bit more Argentine. Or maybe I was looking for the ultimate teeth-staining experience. Either way, I was missing one thing... a pucho. It didn't take me long asking the old man at the table next to me, "me regalás un pucho por favor, señor?" He gladly allowed me into his world of stimulants. With a flick of the lighter, I was one shrink short of being fully porteño.

To be honest it wasn't as bad as I expected, I could see how these people can become so dependent on these fixes. I can just see my parents back home now saying "noooooooo, don't you dare pick up drinking coffee.... nor puchos!"

Not to worry, after exactly 23 minutes of people-watching, pucho in hand and sipping cafe, I felt a little buzz but was looking for water to rinse out the disgusting after taste. Well, that was fun being porteño on Avenida Santa Fe for a brief moment. It was a good moment but one that confirmed that I have the right addictions. Time to go back to being a gringo on a bike,