Synchronicity

 

How much do we really understand of the universe around us? 

I had my heart set on partaking of an Ayuhuasca Ceremony this month.  Since my sincere desire to leave this life two months ago, I have clung to the idea that this heaviness that burdens me would at last be healed and lifted by breaking outside the barriers of my brain through this particular psychodelic experience.  I was counting down the days until, about ten days before, through a brief flurry of correspondences between myself and the ritual’s host team in Monterrey, Mexico, told me they felt I was not a good fit for their team, and my invitation was rescinded.  I suppose the 1,000 pesos deposit was also refunded, although I have not investigated that.

I was devastated.

Oddly, over the weeks of waiting, in my mind the date shifted.  My mantra was, just hold on until the 28^th.  The burden will be lifted then.

The actual reservation, however, was for the 25^th.

Today is the 28^th.  In these recent weeks I have been less interested in watching Netflix fantasy, and more tuning in to the voices of the spirit world that I have discovered on YouTube channels.  Today I stumbled across a Steven Clements.  This led me to a downloadable file on YouTube through his podcast on Patreon.  This is a new digital world to me, I do not have depth of experience with them.

Clements talks about his ‘team’.  They informed him that in December there would be a strong wave coming to earth.  They offered him, and me by extension, and you, a powerful guided meditation whose purpose is to prepare we clay vessels (my term, not his) to handle these very heavy waves of energy bound for the earth.

After my afternoon weekly meeting today with a handful of other retired ladies here in this tiny Mexican village of El Pozole, we are called ‘the third age club’ (Club de Tercera Edad) and sponsored by the State’s Social Services Department, I came home to listen to this recording I had discovered around noon today.

It expanded me at my core.  My intention is to listen to it again, and often. The claim is that this guided meditation is like training wheels.  If I listen often, I will be more prepared to be a vessel for these waves of energy, assisting my fellow humans to receive this energy and make the most of it when it arrives in December.

I am still reeling.  My body feels so grossly heavy, after coursing through the expansive, limitless  Emptiness of boundless light and love.

Perhaps I will add to the file as the weeks proceed. 

https://www.patreon.com/cw/InfiniteSourceCreations

Insight of the day

 Insight of the day

Starting with an aside, I am fast getting blinder from old age.  My left eye has always been unreceptive to correction, so now it is relatively worse too.  I actually found ‘dime store’ reading glasses at a strength of +4, which makes things clearer for the right eye, but as a set, everything is blurrier.  It makes it so much harder to read the computer screen.  This is just an added distraction.

What I am actually realizing is more along the lines of preparation.  Looking back since I sold my farm, in 2023, I have been downsizing.  This is not by selection; I have been systematically robbed, generally.  Which means, that which is occurring in preparation for my future is not by conscious plan, but rather because I am blind to the spirit and unwilling to surrender.

I now am living in a borrowed house.  I have been complaining about it since I arrived here.  It is way too cluttered by a dead person’s things, along with the next door relative who borrowed the place for a few years and left more stuff.  The electricity is old and cannot power a fast cell phone recharge (using a cable with two C ends).  When I plug it in, nothing happens.  If I start cooking in the kitchen, using for example a water kettle and microwave at the same time, the fuse blows for the kitchen power.  The kitchen sink water has very little pressure, and no hot water.  In fact, the hot water faucet has no water at all except at selective scheduled times; I have trouble remembering the schedule.  And so forth; the list is long.

What turned the light switch on in my head was making a good spaghetti sauce.  The counter work space is quite small.  Storage for china and dry goods is almost none existent.  I did manage to bring one of my own cupboards here; it is at the opposite end of the house from the kitchen.  I walk the distance often, when food or drink is concerned; fortunately, the distance is not great.  The work counter is so limited, that when I prepare a complicated dish requiring more than for, say, beans and rice, I just don’t have anywhere to put things; I am tempted to put on the floor the dish with the chopped onions while I am grating, or mixing herbs, or chopping.  The curious dogs threaten the hygiene of the process.  To make things worse, I decided to water a dry tray of a seed starter kit, rather than throw it away when it turned up in my packed boxes, too late in the season.  Now it is October, the tomato plants have green balls struggling to survive inside the house, not to die of cold.  The basil plants, which belong in a sunny kitchen window box, are crowded against the tomato branches as close as possible to the tiny piece of sunshine that enters in the morning; that is on this same crowded counter top.

Here are the steps to the denouement.  First, I am blocked from obtaining Mexican citizenship.  If I had that, I could receive a small monthly pension to supplement my subsistence social security check.  I could get a card at the local convenience store; this card makes it possible to transfer money around, like for buying things on line, transferring money to and from personal loans; and myriad other conveniences that I would discover if I had it.  Not having it gives the feeling that I am still an outsider; after 8 years here, most of it with permanent residency status.

I thought I might like to live in Mazatlan.  Well, I knew I wouldn’t, but the trusted guy who has been robbing me systematically over a year, rented this apartment for me in Mazatlan, so I decided that maybe I was wrong, and I would give it a shot.  I survived there a few months before giving up. The landlord still owes me the initial month’s deposit, and supplies for agreed upon improvement.  I tried to change my drivers license from Durango to Sinaloa, where Mazatlan is, to comply with the law.  I could not, for lack of a certified copy of my birth certificate.

Mexican Federal and State laws use the Certified Copy of the birth certificate in many transactions.  I do not have a certified copy of my birth certificate.  I was born in New York State, but when I, over the past five years, have tried to get a copy of that document, using the established processes, I failed over an insurmountable technicality.  These requirements have been added to the process, paranoia lest some alien steal a native-born’s documents and use them for nefarious purposes.   I have gone through many steps.  First, following the on-line application with  instructions and forms.  Then going through the agency Vital Check.  Lastly, an Albany based lawyer.

When the Universe says ‘no’, it really is simpler to just hear it and accept it.  It saves time, energy and money.  And maybe this revelation to my destiny might have come sooner.

And in between my return from Mazatlan and my acceptance of this current tiny cluttered house, I trusted  yet another man here who, after looking at this house, said I would be more comfortable in an empty house he owns.  I believed him with little proof.  While he hired a worker to fix the house up a little, by remounting the water tank on the roof, and installing the solar boiler I had bought, I proceeded with the lengthy process of covering the crude and crumbling living room cement floor with granite, offered by such a nice man named Michael Angelo, right here in this same tiny village.  Granite does not come cheap.  The process took a month, and cost me USD$1,000.  By the end of the month, I would come to realize that the house was unlivable without thousands more invested in it.

By now all my savings are gone.  I am seriously contemplating selling the car I bought in Mazatlan.  A used car, I paid too much for it.  I do not think I could find a fool who will pay that much.  The car is five years old.  I do not know if the paint is the original, but it is terrible, and chips off easily.  In order to sell it, I will have to have it painted, which will probably cost $1,000 US.  I had a car, an SUV convenient for the life I lived on the farm, but now too big and beginning to need serious repairs.  I sold it to a nice man in Canatlan, who needed it for his family.  We made a deal, he would pay me 1500 pesos a month until it was paid off.  I don’t mind living like the other old ladies in this village, depending on younger neighbors with cars to help me get grocery shopping done.  Of course, these younger people are all related, and have a moral/social obligation to help these elders.  This is missing where I am concerned.  There is the bus, the schedule for which is unreliable as it is long-distance service, and a hefty walk back home from the bus stop with a loaded bag of groceries.  The money I gave to the orthopedist for a shot that he said would relieve my knee pain for a year was not well spent. 

Bless you for sticking with me through this depressing summary of my quixotic journey.

Here is my conclusion.  I am downsizing, and learning to live very efficiently, neat and tidy, preparing to move in with someone, or enter a community.  At last I will find a cohort.

I have been blocked from becoming a citizen.  My friendships have been ephemeral.  In spite of living in a house among a cluster of houses, I am still alone.  I try to get the reciprocal cycle of visits going, but no one comes to my door.  I am not included in community events, except when they need money.  These events often have a vague starting time.  Whether I contribute or not, no one ever follows up to make sure I attend.

I have not found suitable housing.  Aside from the clutter that prohibits my bringing in my own furniture, I am not being included in the communal society; I have lived among these people for eight years now.  In spite of my gifts, I have not found an area where I can be of service.  I feel excluded, shut out; I do not belong.

I do not accept that as what I had planned for the last part of my life.  I believe there is something more, a more fulfilling and engaged future.

Now I see the light, and I can with intent prepare for the future that awaits me. 

Let’s check back in six months, and see if this is just one more delusion. 

 

As above, so below

 

As above, so below.

 

They say it is a Chinee curse:  May you live in interesting times.

In which case, we are pretty much damned.

It is like, if you put tiny seeds in a glass of water, they float on the top until they are saturated and can’t take any more.  Then they drift down to the bottom.

Then the view changes.  From the bottom, you can see up to the top, all around,  and also see the water you are immersed in.

There is the outer world, the surface.  Emotionally turbulent, pulling and pushing us this way and that, precipitating us into this place or that, for and against, turning friends into enemies.  We long for peace, release.  Happiness and joy are found in a bottle, or in leaves, or in the senses.  For some, happiness is found in mashing others.  This world is a world of duality.  Good or bad. Yours or mine. Up or down. Brown or white.  Rich or poor.

 

Then there is the seed filled to capacity, fed up, heavy in its own fullness, dare I say sorrow, as if a seed knows it has changed and dropped out, and as if it could feel that it is now different,

But in its saturation, something in it--a germ, a kernel--is starting to awaken and expand.  When it is saturated, full up, heavy, there is no where to go but up.  Change is inevitable; it is time to grow or die.

 

For those trapped in the cyclone of duality, the soup of emotions is a bitter one.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.  We were never meant to be that way.  Our nature, in its baldest form, is spirit.  We have emotions, that is our unique gift as earth dwellers, but we are not meant to be locked into them.    There is another way of being.

The true nature of that spirit is Love.  Not transactional, or soppy unreliable romantic love, heck no.  In the core of our being, there is love.  It brings with it an infinite ability to forgive; to give; to know joy as a quiet expansive filling of light and contentment.

Why would anyone choose to swim in that bitter soup?  Insanity.

I wonder what it is that people fear to lose, that they hold on to, like clinging to a limb hanging over a cliff.  Bats.

These are turbulent times.  Some ancient spirits say it is the worst.  

Everyone has heard that there is a myth around Atlantis.  Some may even know the name Lemuria.  These words are accepted like polar ice or earthquake. Not so.  The ancients tell us, those who have ears to hear, that these were real places, were humanity’s earlier attempts at this experiment. 

If you have a curious mind, you might wonder about these myths.  To learn the truth about them, first you have to believe that you are more than your body.  See through the myth that you are no more than some meat that, when a certain essence leaves it, rots.

It amazes me, it is stunning, the kinds of fantasies that people create around that myth.  The atheists take it at face value.  Those who have been indoctrinated to any degree of religious belief have a graded sense of a ‘hereafter’.    Duality still exists there.  They might wind up in the hot (hell) or the cold (heaven).  And so forth

The truth is simpler, more beautiful, and infinitely difficult to understand.  The Bible has a simile.  ‘I am the potter, you are the clay”.  Really think on that a bit, and you have to come loose from some of your illusions.  How can a lump of clay know what hands are?  What the mind of a potter is?  What thought and intention are?

 

No, this is too scary.  “I am not a lump of clay; I have hands, I have thoughts and intentions”.  Yes, dummy, but ants have legs, too.  An ant has intentions.  Imagine you are as an ant to something in the universe that is infinitely greater than you.

And that being doesn’t have legs.  It doesn’t need legs.  Imagine that.

And so we have been here before.  Yes, even We.  It is not impossible that we participated in this experiment before, in Atlantis or Lemuria.  It may even be probable.  And what have you learned?  Oh! You forgot.

And that is the point.  The trauma of birth, of trapping our great spirit being into this clammy messy ball of flesh, has wiped all memory from us.

So we drop down onto the glass of water, a dried up seed.  We bob around; the glass is shaken, we are tossed about.  But we don’t come alive until we have had enough and we drop out, drift down, and in due time awaken the germ within and begin to grow.

 

The high volume of negative emotions, the hate, the avarice, jealousy and sheer brutality is thrashing the water in that little glass.  The dead seeds remain; the fertile seeds fall. 

I speak from a place of bifurcated vision.  I sit here on the bottom of the glass, awakened and growing, but also seeing what is happening on the surface with painful clarity.  It hurts my tender shoots to be thrashed about; to see both the victims and the perpetrators.  The victims **terrified victims of war, with no safe home nor food supply; the victims of a ‘democratic’ bureaucratic system who cannot live by fairness and reason, but must conform to artificial structures; the domestic animals that are beaten, abandoned; brother fighting with brother, each fiercely defending an illusion of their own choosing, blocking out the sunlight of the love that is in their hearts for each other.  The perpetrators **Warriors grabbing land from peaceful dwellers; producers inflating the value of their product to stuff their own coffers;  Leaders stealing money from their trusting victim followers;  siblings depriving the weaker of rightful inheritance.

It is a heavy burden, with the eyes of a tender shoot, to see these sharp objects (violent emotions) slashing about.  It hurts, because we are One.  Our tender spirits that live beyond time are actually of one cloth.  Love is at the center of the universe.  Just as a spider feels movement at a remote part of her web, so our brothers trashing love reverberates in our hearts.  It hurts.  It signals that there is disturbance somewhere in our world, and we want to scurry there to feed or repair. This desire is strong; our heats are still made of flesh and blood, and so it hurts.  One day we will lose the flesh, and we won’t be affected in the same way.  Our individual selves will exist in an ocean of Love, and won’t have flesh that can be wounded. 

I long for the day.

Towards the inevitable

 

Aug 13, 2025

World News is depressing, alarming and riveting.  A war goes on in Ukraine beyond expectation of endurance. Beleaguered President Zelensky clutches his rosary and turns a brave face to the world.  Mister Putin carries on his bullying unchallenged.  President Trump fawns over his old buddy Putin, impotently attempting peace talks. Putin demands that the Ukraine president be absent, remain on the sidelines, and Trump lets Putin dictate the terms.  The world looks on, pretending that something real is happening.  Or do we all know it is an illusion?

The Palestinians soldier on.  The world has forgotten the Palestine history.  Even more forgotten is the Ottoman Empire.  In my formative education, the name was barely mentioned.  Anyone who has spent any time in East Asia, in the eastern reaches of the Mediterranean, has seen the magnificent ruins of palaces and roads left from that era.  In spite of the vast reaches of the Palestinian people inherited from the Ottomans, a stubborn group clings to a tiny portion of that range of land, threatening to end the world-as-we-know-it with a savage war between great nations.  This small band of people ignore the reality of the Israel nation, who in modernity have been granted a strip of this land as their own home.  This, after these same Hebrews have been in hejira for centuries, chased, vilified and hounded.  Major art has been based on their story, Fiddler on the Roof telling the story of pogroms.  When pogroms came, the Hebrews packed up in the night and fled rather than being slaughtered.  But the modern band of Palestinians clinging to the land given to the modern Nation of Israel prefer to spit in the face of death.  They refuse removal.  Who wouldn’t?  The land they occupy is desirable seashore real estate.  Why should they lose this delightful spot, and trade it for a patch of desert elsewhere in the Land of Palestine?  No, pogrom is not for them.  Jordon, carved from that section of the Ottoman Empire briefly known as Palestine, already has a large community of Gazan relatives, but makes no effort to entice the dying to also migrate there.  And so their death spreads out across years of fighting, forcing our noses into the horrible stink of bodies under rubble, children dying of starvation, a narrow strip of land destroyed utterly rather than flight. Daily, for years now, news broadcasted into homes has harrowing effect on innocent people horrified and morally outraged.  Such horror requires answers.  How did this happen?  Why is this happening?  How can it stop?  Who should be stopping it?  The debates send people into political divisions. 

Netanyahu used to be a darling among many Americans.  He spent many years in America in his youth, and received his education there.  He felt like one of their own.  Along the way he lost some of his followers, by seeming to take a politically hard right stand.  Now he stands as a monster.  He is determined to end the Palestinian question by wiping out all who stubbornly cling to Gaza.  This tiny strip of land clinging to a 25-mile strip along the Mediterranean Sea and about 3  to 4 miles inland is being crushed to rubble.  It will be generations before any order and natural beauty can be restored there.  There is an active militant force, called Hammas, that holds up the opposing force of attacks and counter-attacks.  The mentality is, “If I can’t have it, no one can”. As long as that juvenile level of reasoning continues, the world creeps closer to a catastrophic war. 

There was a book written in the 1960’s by Hal Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth. It is his interpretation of the last book of the Bible’s New Testament, a book of prophecy.  In it, a war in Israel escalates, and draws in all the great nations, including China and Russia.  It is as if the world were itching for a fight, and this seemed the perfect challenge for all.  Except for the United States, according to Lindsey, which sits on the sidelines scratching its proverbial head.

The United States, meanwhile, collapses.  This lovely dream that endured for nearly 250 years, of freedom and equality of man and spirit, has lost its patina and frays around the edges.  It never was all that, having at its root enslavement of peoples from the continent of Africa. Built on such a double standard, it was doomed to fail from the beginning.  It did offer history a brilliant model of freedom and independence of thought and spirit.  The framework it established in its constitution, in its structure of a balanced system of government and citizen representation was a new take on democracy and was a vital force in the creation of a spectacular era of modernity, innovation and progress.  Perhaps it was even productive of something entirely new on the earth.  In this same prophetic book of the Bible we are told that all of this progress will end when the world is flooded with information.  This is what we see now.  Information flows from one end of the globe to the other with the speed of light.  This information is unfiltered, and flawed.  Instead of raising the level of unity, intelligence and wisdom, it sows doubt, confusion and division.  The foundation crumbles, weakens and falls.

In parallel existence, the metaphysical world is being transformed.  A New Man is being formed on earth.  The notable Deepak Chopra even dares to put a date on it, saying this transformation will be manifest to all in twenty more years.  The dross of evil and negativity will fall away, drowned in an ocean of Love.  Those who have eyes, let them see.  Those who have ears, let them hear.  A new heaven and earth will reign.  Amazing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinians_in_Jordan

Wandering minus Wanderlust- Pozole again

 

As one wandering through the wilderness, I have grown weary and disheartened.  To pile on the clichés, the day seems darkest before the dawn.  Intellectually, I knew things would get better..eventually.  I doubted my weariness could be endured much longer.

In Durango for six months, I found nothing to lift my hope.  I endured, because of the animals.  The captivating Parrot who accepted my friendship;  the rescue dogs in the back yard cell; and of course, the steadfast loyalty and love given me freely by my dear Junior, these are what sustained me.  Meanwhile, I shared the house with the landlord’s ex husband, who is a burnt out heroine addict.  He no longer uses, but lives in a world unfamiliar to me.  I was still in transition, looking for a permanent place to live.  Most of my boxed possessions were with me in that house.  Systematically, his friends slowly stole away with some of my most valuable kitchen possessions that were boxed up in the front room.  My expensive Kitchen Aide was most notable and missed among the thefts.

In Mazatlan, I quickly discovered the Vinyard community church.  It is an oasis of English and northern culture.  The heart of the community is outreach, to spread the bounty that drenches the coastline and bring it to the less endowed among the greater Mexican Mazatlan.

I arrived in Mazatlan in January.  I enjoyed the spring months together with the Snowbird congregation at that church.  They were friendly people, joining together for an after-church brunch at a restaurant; a tradition very familiar to me in other places.  Then they began returning to their thawing lands to the north.  What is left is mere dozens of old retired white permanent residents of Mazatlan.  The community is held together by a handful of dedicated servants of the church.  The preaching couple; the musician who enjoyed a riotous burnt out life as a professional musician until he settled here, an empty shell.  There are a number of ministries that carry on year-round.  I have not taken the time more recently to arrive once a week at 7 a.m. to prepare the sandwiches that go out with the bus touring the dump and a few villages along the way, distributing oved 300 sandwiches twice a week.  Then there is the young man who has a heart for the animals, and has found a paid position in the local government to champion these populations.  He has little awareness of the life of an elderly citizen.  I proclaimed my dedication to his work, the weekly trips to the rescue center to walk the dogs.  He dismissed the value of my dedication; not even taking my phone number, a kind of de facto ‘welcome to the team’ gesture.  I was not included in special events, like a day of bringing adoptable dogs to a public community venue; or a parade of the dogs for whatever that celebration was.  When I showed up weekly at the ‘usual time’ for the walks, I did not see him. I did not take the long detour to the church to join him and whatever volunteers might come in a church van; I drove directly to the shelter, much closer to my home.  But I never again saw any sign of his ministry from the Vinyard.  I saw him at church, huddled with his younger cohort.  He never went out of his way to give me a Sunday morning greeting.  I did; but it never evolved into a conversation of what was going on with the ministry; just a cool nod.

And then there is Junior to be considered.  We are each other’s world.  In everything I do in my day, I must consider him, his needs and his security.  He misses our country home in Canatlan as much as I do.  He no longer has a few acres to call his own.  Now his security is wrapped up in the atmosphere of my life.  That is very small right now.  If I must leave him home, when I return he is almost hysterical with joy and relief.  I do not like to put him through that.  He accompanies me almost everywhere, even though many places in this world are not ‘dog friendly’.  This means he must wait outside when I enter a building, in whatever weather might be happening.  He sits on guard; he lies in the place where I left him.  He understands when I tell him he can get out of the hot car, but must wait for me in its shade.  Well-meaning dog lovers have seen him sitting outside a supermarket, being his friendly self, and took the time to read the phone number on the collar to call and tell me he was lost.  Now I either put a leash on him, or park him in a less-trafficked spot, where he obediently stays.  He does not ‘get’ leashes.  His ears go down, as if receiving scolding or disciplining.  He will not be seen prancing beside me, leashed, with a perky step.  He has learned not to be so friendly.  As an aside, I really do wish that stores would adopt a policy of allowing pets to ride in the shopping cart with owners.

Our bond is such that, if I must leave him outside the church door during service, my heart is very conscious of him and his well-being.  It is less stressful for both of us if he sits with me during the service.  But then we are subject to the self-proclaimed rules that are laid down by people who are given a little responsibility.  Like the lady who attends to the library at the back of the church.  She sees me walking in with Junior, and tells me he cannot come in without a leash.  She does not know me, apparently doesn’t care to know me.  But she has her sense of right and wrong, and this must be laid down over my dear friend.  So to appease her, we sit at the back of the church away from the congregation, lest anyone be offended by his lack of bondage.  Now we are without fellowship.  Of course, I should have ignored this officiousness, and joined my congregation.  Instead, I chose to play the role of the submissive obedient servant. 

The incident led me to the conclusion that I do not really have a role to play in this group.  After three months of attending these Sunday morning services faithfully, no one in that building sees me.  I am still invisible.  They must be very worn out and weary, after hosting the large Snowbird population for half the year.  Many among the Snowbirds are yearly visitors, and assume leadership roles in the many outreach ministries during their winter stays.  Now who are carrying these roles?  I wanted to be among those who do.  However, first I must become visible.  I guess I have myself to blame.  In the turmoil of my life since arriving in Mazatlan, with Oscar and his erratic behavior, and Melissa and all she put us through, then trying to buy a car and get it legal (insurance, registration, license) and I won’t iterate the rest here, I failed to go weekly at 7 am along the miles in commuter traffic to help make sandwiches.  Had I done that, I may have become more visible.  I will try that in the few weeks I have left here, to exonerate the church from this negative description of the congregation.

Oscar teased me with other suggestions of places I might live in Mazatlan.  He would drive me around a neighborhood flooded with ‘for rent’ signs, and tell me the rates were low.  I expected him, then, to arrange to show me one or two, but he wanted me to do that leg work.  And in the following days I would, only to find out that the rents were in no way lowered, but still could be asking as much for one month’s rent as my monthly pension check.  How naïve am I that I continue to fall for these false hopes.  That is just one small example of how fond he is of leading me on.  I have come full circle now.  I choose to no longer fall for any of his games.  He owes me money, proceeds from the sale of my house, but he will never pay me.  Instead, he would take me on as his ward, being my insurance policy against indigence until my death.  I have seen enough of how he takes care of me, and decide that I no longer choose to be held in his careless hands.  Even without that remaining money, I can get along just fine on my own, as I have already for 80 decades. 

I needed a break from all this emotional upheaval.  On impulse, I drove back to Canatlan, where I lived for seven years.  I would try once again to find a home to rent there. 

This time I have better luck.  A house I had pursued a year ago has finally come within my grasp.  In Pozole there are three houses side by side, built by three sisters, in the center of the tiny cluster of homes in El Pozole that make up the little hamlet.  One of them had been the center of drama for a number of my years in Pozole.  The daughter of one of the deceased sisters wanted to update the house.  She put the task of doing it to her husband.  Their marriage was pretty much dead, and she was happy to have him spending so much time away from their home in California.  He is an alcoholic and pot head.  Because he speaks English, and is so gregarious, I became acquainted with him, and eventually with her, too.  Until their house was complete, over two years, they lived next door in the middle house.  The wife, Vanessa, did not spend long periods of time there, except to come occasionally and give her opinion on the many decisions that had to be made.  They fought over that project as much as any other in their lives.  Now the house is done.  I have not seen the husband there, but Vanessa comes for months on end and spends time getting to know her cousins again.  The third house was occupied by Tomasa, until her death.  I liked her a lot and spent more time there with her than any other place in Pozole.  Her house is large and full of windows.  The front room is so large, I imagine pushing the furniture aside and having a square dance, or the Mexican equivalent, there.  Tomasa never was that social.

More than anything I wished to rent Tomasa’s house.  I have fond memories of her there, and the brightness of the house gives me a psychological lift.  But alas, whoever has it entangled now is not letting it go.  If I move to that village, I will learn more about who that is.  I only know that the house is empty most of the time.

That leaves the middle house.  It is small.  It needs updating and renovating.  I hear the roof has problems.  I spoke with the ‘heiress’, who lives in California, last year.  I don’t remember the details of why I could not rent the place.  Now the young lady is more amenable.  We are to talk this weekend by phone, and see if we can come to agreeable terms.  This seems my only hope of returning to a familiar, home-like place.  In the intervening time, the energy, Fifth Density that is bringing about universal change towards a higher awareness of the power of love, has brought changes about in me, and I think I am now better prepared to live among the old ladies of this hamlet.

Has my wandering finally come to an end?

 

 

Distressed Ocean Dog

 An afternoon visit to the RV Park at Punto Cerritos

I went at sundown.  I sat by the pool, in a chair upon the cliff.  Three larger figures and two smaller ones caught my attention,  in the surf.  I kept watching until the smaller figures disambiguated themselves.  One, a child, soon left the three larger.  Other family adults lifted it out of the water.  What was the smaller remaining object that seemed to pass back and forth among the three?  It was a dog!  The dog would swim to one, he seemed to prefer the more matronly figure.  She would push him off towards one of the other two, males; one looked to be a teen of perhaps 14.  The latter seemed to enjoy dunking the dog below the surface of the water.  Then the dog would swim to the shelter of the woman.  She would not hold him for more than a minute, before his four little legs would be paddling off to one of the other.  The dog must have been swallowing water.  I don’t see how he could have avoided that, given his dunkings, and his swimming in rough choppy sea.

It was a small dog, I could see that.  Perhaps the size of my Junior.

This activity went on and on.  Ten minutes, fifteen minutes from the time I first spotted them.  Eventually play time was over, and they all struggled back to the rocky land.  The young man had the dog in the crook of his elbow, and plopped him on a high rock.  The black dog just stood, as if stunned.  He did not shake the water off him.  He was scooped up again and carried, I could not see where because of the cliff ledge blocking my view.  One thing was clear.  This dog was exhausted.  I sent prayers his way.  Was this abuse usual for him, or did this family have ways to coddle him and care for him in the course of his daily life.  By the bulk of his stubby shape I sensed he was not a puppy.  Did he enjoy this game of keep-away? Does he feel more loved because his family includes him in these water games? 

I am left to wonder.  Clearly, I was witness to a dog in distress; I cannot get the picture of it out of my mind.

Ocean breezes

 

It is a struggle to find a home when the pension is at subsistence level.  I am not alone with this problem; I know it is worse for seniors trying to live in the States.  I did not even try the States, knowing it would be impossible without additional help, like family support emotionally if not physically.  I had a modest savings account from my years of teaching in China.  I invested it in a non-profit development in Mexican countryside, that proved ephemeral.

I sold my Mexico farm home of seven years for much less than my investment in it.  Since then I have been somewhat subsidized by the new friends I met while the property was on the market.  For almost a year now I have been trying to find a less stressful environment for me and my dog, Junior.

Mostly I hung out in Durango, with the help of these friends. Throughout the years, I had visited Maazatlan as a possible retirement home, because I thought it would be nice to have access to the American culture, through the large number of snowbirds and smaller number of permanent retirees.  Each trip ended with the same conclusion.  There was no place for someone in my income bracket.

Then one day Oscar, one of those new Durango friends, announced that he had found and rented a house in Mazatlan for me and his new girlfriend.  Splitting the rent suddenly made it affordable.

Yet my life was not yet stress-free, nor relatively so.  The house was on a very busy street.  Junior, now four years old, was not used to city living and city traffic.  He was learning that when we crossed these busy streets, he had to watch me for his cue that it was safe to cross. As weeks went by, he became a little cocky, and would sometimes make the decision on his own.  I must say, he was usually right in his assessment, but there was at least one heart-in-the-mouth crossing.

He was developing ‘bad’ habits, like eating discarded food from the ground, and insisting to come with me whenever I got in the car.  He was canny in picking up cues like my carrying a handbag as I headed towards the front door.

The house had no trees growing in front.  It was one door down from the busy boulevard, and on a street subject to heavy traffic accessing the whole development.  Cars would whip around the corner on a red light; there was always danger of my car getting clipped by one of these reckless drivers as I pulled into or out of my driveway.  The public bus stop was in front of my driveway.  Noise, pollution, wall-to-wall concrete best describes life in this house.  I was growing to hate it.

The sharing arrangement lasted two months.  As we got to know this girlfriend, we discovered that she was not wholesome to have around.  Having a passive resistant-type personality, she was sweet to my face but uncommunicative.  Apparently, she would rather have the house without me as baggage.  Behind my back, she would call the landlord and talk trash about me.  She left, at m request, but then the full burden for rent fell upon me.  On a day when, fortunately, Oscar was visiting from Durango, the electricity went out.  He scurried around looking for a failure in the line, but I was still in the dark when he returned to Durango.  Next day I drove to the utility office to sort out the problem.  Turns out, she never paid the bill in spite of receiving money from Oscar to pay it.  I paid it, plus a fine.  Power was back on when I returned to the house.

Oscar had made a deal with the landlord to secure the house for us at a reduced rent.  He promised he would ‘fix up’ the house.  Maintenance had been neglected for some time.  Faucets leaked, the sewage system wreaked, the paint on the walls was blistering from the humidity.  His idea of getting things done usually involves coercing someone who was indebted to him in some way to do the work for Oscar, as long as it took.  This does not usually involve riding down the mountain from Durango to Mazatlan and sleeping over for three nights.  Experience taught me that the results, the quality of the work, could never compare with the job done by a professional.  I told him to hold off on this solution, to give me time to get to know the local market of professionals.  Nevertheless, he arrived late one afternoon, with a worker in tow.  He then took off to attend a prearranged meeting, leaving me alone with this guy.  I was to put him up in the spare bedroom.  This had a king-size mattress, and I had no sheets for it.  What ensued over the next 16 hours is a tale on its own, better treated separately.  They went back to Durango the next day; no improvements had been made.

One day a lady showed up at the door, with her daughter.  As it turns out, this is the actual owner of the house, with the most recent resident in tow.  They were curious as to what had really been going on in their house, and wanted to get to the bottom of it.  They were concerned over interactions between Oscar and the presumed landlord.  They suspected that Oscar was deliberately confusing the old man, and manipulating him.  What ensued over the next few hours was a fascinating conversation, and ended with the ripping up of the old contract and writing of a new.  The old contract did not have my name; only Oscar’s and his new girlfriend.  We ladies took charge, and removed the men and his plaything from the situation.

We ladies had a series of meeting.  They de facto lowered my rent, and I stipulated a five-month commitment, not six months.  I really wanted to get out of that place.  I figured I could get the maintenance work cleaned up by then, and will have found an affordable space, if one existed.

As I have said elsewhere, the center of my new life in Mazatlan is the Christian church, The Vinyard/La Viña. This is most likely where I will find my community, in my again-renewed retirement life.  On Sunday I asked around about information regarding housing.  I was passed along to this American retiree, Douglas,  and his Mexican wife.  He looked off to the distance and said, *finger snap* “I may know just the thing for you.”  We made a date to meet out at Punto Cerritos.

He failed to mention that he was the unofficial but exclusive agent for the property, which I would later discover after I had found a viable option for sale and tried to pursue a conversation with the lady who was eager to sell.  He sent me a message indicating that any future communications between me and her were to go through him.  She and I continue to try to communicate through WhatsApp, though I was having trouble finding her in the app.  She only has a US number. 

This Douglas, in our initial meeting at this for-sale unit, was answering all my questions about costs in terms of dollars.  My brain functions in pesos, so I was constantly converting, and clarifying; this is in pesos, or dollars?  I found the man to be pompous, officious, and annoying.  I did not understand why I needed his intervention.  I guess he is used to dealing with foreigners who are helpless in a Mexican financial environment.

This new opportunity comes in the form of an RV park.  I had heard of it, I had in previous searches over the years come across information about it.  Efforts I had made to learn more, to visit it, were thwarted.  Now that I meet Douglas, it occurs to me why.

 

It is on a twenty-foot bluff overlooking a rocky shore and rough surf.  Regulations stimulate that all roofs much be palapa, like the one in this picture.

The park has about five rows of lots, at their core is a concrete slab or 'apron', four or five per row.  Each unit consists of an RV on one half of the apron, and a concrete slab on the other.  Each seems uniquely designed, although walls to north and south sides seem universal.  The other two sides might have a half-wall barrier, or may be totally enclosed.

About four years ago, the whole place went up in flames.  Nothing was spared.  The unit currently for sale was rebuilt four years ago.  The RV hauled and put in place has no motor.  It will never move again.

It is a beautiful location.  No matter how hot the day, there is always a cool breeze blowing under the talapa roofs.  I have heard that, in the evenings, residents assemble at poolside and socialize.  I have not verified this rumor.  Especially now, as the season closes, there are not many residents remaining.  This is a popular resort for the snowbirds.

To buy out a current resident, the price will vary depending on the degree to which the living space has been developed.  The current prospect is asking $47,500 US.  That is a one-time expense, subject to wipe-out in event of a fire.  Of course, insurance is not an option here.  Then there is the ongoing expenses of garbage, water, sewer, grounds keeping, security guards, pool maintenance, whew.  That amounts to $450 US/month.  Are these people so certain in the exchange rate?  They seem not to consider the fact that it fluctuates.  Anyway, at the current exchange rate, that is 9,000 pesos.  I am currently paying 7,000 pesos in this house. 

There are vacant, undeveloped aprons.  I wonder what it would cost to find an old RV, move it in place, and pay for my own palapa roof.

This is my dilemma.  My quality of life would greatly improve.  Good bye traffic noise, pollution and cement.  Hello ocean breezes, flowers, and corrosive ocean air.

As much as Oscar annoys me, sometimes being my Angel, other times my Demon, I want very much to discuss all this with him.  I do not trust the American, Douglas.  I want Oscar to go in there and talk with the actual owners and caretakers.  But Oscar is not available these days.  As often happens, he has gone incommunicado; this can last for a month.  He has, after all, a 'vast' financial empire to maintain.

Trailer Park Punta Cerritos

Av. Sábalo Cerritos 3500, Cerritos, 82112 Mazatlán, Sin.