THE RETREAT

Ok, sports fans, I have completed the final week of hippiness and here, in short but gloriously compelling prose, I will attempt to relay the events that have led me to now be an all-seeing, all-knowing and spiritually elevated supreme being... or not. Read on and you decide...

THE JOB TEST
Firstly, it is important to note that, like that poor oak Job way back in the Old Testament, God saw fit to severely test my faith before the start of the retreat. Well, maybe not a class 5 testing like Job had, but the Big Guy still had some oak steal my wallet (as relayed earlier), then struck me down with a viciously destructive case of food poisoning that saw me shit liquids, have cold shivers and be grumpy with the dog again for about 48 hours. Just as I had recovered my bodily functions and my good humour and was digging into a jar of class peanut butter, the fucknuts that stole my wallet decided to a return gig was prudent, broke into my window and stole my cellphone. Initially I was quite pissed off and ready to pack my bags, but after meditating on the subject and reminding myself that I am now both holy and virtuous, and above materialism, I simply changed my environment (ie my room) to one that wasn`t by the fence. I then prepared myself with much calm, serenity and under my breath cursing for the last week.

FASTING, SILENCE and INTROSPECTION

The three legs of what we call the 5 day RETREAT, and I will just go into them in some detail.

1. FASTING... after some British nitwit overdid it on the last course, Chatty decided that we shouldn`t do a full fast, but have some fruit and vegetables. She was vague on the details, which left the system open to all kinds of abuse. Accordingly, in the first three days, and justifying my behaviour by taking into account my recent bout of deli beli, I had the princely total of three carrots, 6 tomatoes in the form of tomato soup, some instant soup, half a watermelon and two bananas (mixed up with some milk powder for class milkshakes). I suspected I wasn`t being faithful to the spirit of the process when I started to surreptiously dip into the peanut butter jar, and decided, in a moment of Maximus the Gladiotator machismo, to go absolutely cold turkey the last two days. So I sufficed for 48 hours on water, tea and the love of Flaco, and it was actually quite intersesting how aware you become once you break through the initial state of hunger. Couldn`t wait to wolf down a roll after it was done though, and the next day in Zela I broke sommer the beer abstinence as well in a big way with buddy Chris.

2. SILENCE... The idea is to spend the five days with yourself, and figure out whether you are a nice person or not. You happen to like your own company, fine, but if you are an asshole, then I guess you are pretty screwed. Me, I am a fine individual, so I had no issues with just talking to myself for five days. It was actually pretty neat, because you don`t read (except spiritual books) or watch movies, TV or anything, I had all kinds of time to cook up new book ideas, work on the current one, work on my Tarot studies, ace the Alchemist in Spanish... it was actually VERY VERY productive, not quite sure if that was the point, but hey it worked for me. We were supposed to do a blindfold thing the last day, that never occurred but I decided to do it to myself anyway, and had some fun trying to navigate down to the temple and back before Ben of Italy sneaked up on me and scared the living beejeesus out of me. So much for heighening your senses... But yeah, five days without a word. Those who know me know I am not a very talkative person anyway...

3. INTROSPECTION... The meat of the experience, and we essentially assessed our lives and where we are, where we are going, etc. You go into spiritual, mental, physical and emotional REALITY, IDEAL, OBSTACLES and INITIATIVES. You meditate on the lake, in the herb garden, in the temple, in your room. You light up some incense, do lots of lotus position, everything that happens to you takes on new meaning and your senses heightenes considerably. It is pretty cool, I wouldn`t say the week changed my life but it did ratify a lot of what I have set out to do, and gaveme some fresh ideas of how to execute towards my ideals. Also, I have some new perspectives on spirituality and it is nice to kinda open a new chapter of learning...

So the whole thing ended in the temple, loads of hoobly googly channeling of Spirits of Air, Fire, Water and Earth, Chatty speaking in tongues (as she does), sharing what we got out of the experience, loads of manhugs and goodbyes afterwards, and that was it. To confirm my newfound spirituality, I immediately set out to the pizza joint for a Caprese Salad, a beer and to watch X Men 3. Hey, those mutants are spiritual dudes...

GOODBYES

I was off the next morning on the early ferry while everyone else was still in yoga, my last saintly act was giving Flaco half my banana bread breakfast. I got a chicken bus to Xela, and arrived in Xela round about noon. Xela (Quetzeltanango) is one of Guatemala`s nicest cities and a Spanish School hub without being overrun by gringos. I got a minibus from the bus stop, but decided to walk it to the Spanish School La Paz after I decided they were not quite going in my direction. Now, the laws of physics dictate that after two hours of toing-and-froing down the wrong street with your backpack will start to tire and disgruntle you. As a matter of principle by this time I WAS NOT GETTING a TAXI, failure is not an option. Eventually by hitting the net again I figured out that there were two streets with the same name, I found the other one hidden away as it was and resident Dan the Man quickly took me to buddy Chris`s host family. After an Oscarclip slowmo reunion (more manhugs) we quickly got stuck into downing 3 litres of beer. Chris had a ton of Spanish homework, so I did my manly duty and escorted attractive co-student Terra to Salsa class in the meantime. Chris`s host family ( and now mine) are great, so I reckon I will stay here for two weeks. I also have a very nice teacher, there are a bunch of good people at the school, and we had a soccer match this afternoon (got our asses kicked). Aussie mate Joel who I met in San Marcos is also at the school, I reckon we might go chase some Guatemalan tail at the salsa club tonight...

Ok, that is it for now, I am once more eating meat, drinking beer and yoga is a distant memory. Didn`t take long... Still, the spirit is strong with the force, and that is what counts! As long as I have some Norah Jones on the Ipod to listen to, San Marcos will be with me forever...

Take care true believers!

Pedro - the Spanish student formerly known as Distant Mountain...