The miracle is not to walk on water...

¨The miracle is not to walk on water it is to walk on the green earth dwelling deeply in the present moment and feeling truly alive¨ Thich Nhat Hahn Today was a challenge for me. I came to Manaus because I had to in a certain way. There was no other way to get to Sao Gabriel Coheria except by going through Manaus. Manaus a city of 1-2 million people big gritty with all the constant comforts and distractions of modernity everything that made it hard to be present everything I think I was trying to get away from. Higher speed internet, though not high enough that it isn´t still frustrating but high enough so that it grabs me and pulls me in. My phone works, inconsistently here, and today i had to fight with Bank of America to turn my card and access to money back on. I told them I was coming to Brazil but I guess they failed to note that so to protect me they left me in a rough city in the Amazon with no access to money. A place where no one takes credit cards. Thanks B of A for having my back and wasting half the day talking to your reps. The miracle is not to walk on water it is to walk on the green earth dwelling deeply in the present... I gotta get out of this place. So once the B of A problem was resolved I decided to try to get a fast boat out of dodge, or Manaus, I could only get myself in trouble here. I could stick around til friday. I met Alex the Australian Owner of the Hostel and one in Sao gabriel he is taking a slow boat up on Friday a three day trip. I think I´d like to get there a bit sooner and take a slow boat back down the river If I time it right maybe I´ll hit the new moon and have a dark dark sky to sit and watch the southern stars at night. So right now I am scheduled for a fast boat to Sao gabriel leaving at 3 pm tomorrow. enough time to do some food shopping and prep in the morning but not enough time to get me in any trouble. I have been thinking quite a bit about the nature of the self about who I am why I do the things I do why I am the person I am what can change how if what cannot; I have also been thinking of my shadow side as Jung wold call it. the part of me that is drawn to the darkness. Its funny I am beginning to realize the darkness isn´t where I would once have thought it was and the light isn´t where I once would have thought it was. Tonight I sat in a pizza place bright lights, bad food, a very sterile, corporitized space. You know them I am sure. every mall and fast food joint. Monsanto and GMO friendly exploited worker place. You know those family friendly places that serve nothing of nutritional value while blasting a television that is designed to distract, the sort of thing that causes brain clouds. I am thinking now of Pevas and Brilla Nuevo even of the chaos of Tabitanga and Leticia, I am thinking of Thoreau´s fantasy of Walden, and Grizzly Adams when I was a child. Some how the places that seemed to hold the unknown that seemed dark and scary perhaps like the Jungle now seem to be places that are easier to find quiet to know where I am and maybe who I am. The thoughts seem kind of cloudy still perhaps when the mud settles I will be clearer. Please forgive the corniness of this quite by Thoreau but it is where I am at right now... ¨I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately to front only the essential facts out of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when it came time to die discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was nt life. living is so dear, nor did I wish to practice resignation unless it was quite necessary> i wanted to life life deeply and so sturdy as to put a rout to all that was not life. To cut a broad swath and shave close, to reduce it to its lowest terms and if it prove to be mean why then get the whole and genuine meanness out of it and publish it to the world or if it were sublime to know it by experience and to be able to give a fukk and true account of it in my next excursion.¨ Henry David Thoreau And I will leave you one from the dark,"I caught the darkness drinking from your cup, I said, ´is this contagious?´ You said, ´drink it up´¨