Dancing with life (Appendix A)...

Greetings beloved friends and family,
Due to a number of emails that I recieved in response to the blog that I wrote last week (Dancing with life...), I feel that I must clarify my intentions in writing that which I wrote. Apparently there was some offense taken at the content, and in this blog, I hope to make things right with those whom I have offended. I will do my best to be concise and compassionate while addressing the main points of contention.
I never meant to come across as ¨preachy and judgemental¨ against those who are working and trying to do things the way they should, nor did I intend to subject my loved ones to a ¨diatribe¨, and if this is indeed the way that I came across, I am very sorry. I will take this as a lesson in communication, and I will use this opportunity to reflect on how I can express that which I feel while being clear that I love and accept you all, and trust that your decisions are made conscienciously and in a spirit of goodness. In the view of one, I came across as thinking myself ¨so much more clever and earth-friendly¨ than everyone else, and if that is indeed the case, I apologize. I do not see myself as more clever or earth-friendly than others. I am trying very hard to live in a way that I can feel good about, but I could be doing so much more, and consuming so much less. In bringing up environmental issues, my hope is that we can work TOGETHER--that means helping EACH OTHER to be more aware of the ways in which we are part of the problem so that we may be united in our efforts toward solutions. I cannot deny the eco-destruction which I witness-- in which I am also guilty-- and I am growing less and less content with the amount of real earnest effort WE are putting into rectifying the problems. So from time to time, I venture to use my voice to speak to the issues. Hopefully, I don´t use my voice to often or to loudly, but just enough, in my turn. I also want to let you know that my ears are open when you speak.
A couple of comments that I made seemed to strike a nerve with more than a couple of people-- namely 30-year mortgages and health insurance. Please allow me to make clear that I understand that many wonderful people, whom I love, respect, and look up to have differing opinions on these controversial subjects. I truly respect that many of you are working very hard to provide your families with shelter and health care. My intention was not to judge or condemn you for this. Please, allow that my writing was far less a condemnation of your values than a call for more COMMUNITY and WORKING TOGETHER. Admittedly, it was a reminder (intended to be gentle), that while these institutions may work great for you and your family, they do not work for everyone. In my efforts to not be too wordy, I avoided going too deeply into the issues. If I were to elaborate, I would remind that much of the world, including those who were the inspiration for my last blog, do NOT spend 30 years of labour to pay for their shelter, but far, far less, having their homes built and payed for within a couple of years. Those Quechua indians of which I speak, live communally, helping each other in the construction of healthy, earthen homes, made from local, non-toxic materials. And, believe it or not, they are not only content with their lives, but JOYFUL. There are lessons which I believe that we in the USA, Canada or EU can learn from this way of life. Namely, that if we share housing with, say, two other couples, we can turn that 30 year mortgage into a 10 year mortgage. Likewise, if the size of our home is cut in half, we could be looking at only a 15 year mortgage. Not to mention the numerous benefits of using local, earthen materials for ourselves and for those whom we share a planet with. For instance, let those of us in Utah not forget that the more lumber we use in our homes, the more we are supporting irresponsible forestry practices that those of us in the Pacific Northwest have to suffer the consequences of. But the choice is ours, and there is nothing inherently wrong with choosing to spend 30 years of our lives in order to pay for housing. Personally, I believe that the sooner that we can have our housing paid off, the more time and energy we can put into other areas of life that are quite arguably more valuable, such as spending time with our loved ones.
I also believe that every human being should be shown the greatest compassion in health care. Caring for our fellow human beings is a responsibility that falls upon the shoulders of all. I believe that, as a basic notion of humanity, health care can not be a commodity. There cannot be an industry that stands between one woman´s illness and her cure. A more-or-less healthy young man should not have to pay thousands of dollars every year to said industry in order to have access to, say, an antibotic cream that could save a limb in the event of an infection, or an Epi-pen that could his life in the event of an allergic reaction to peanut oil. As this is (rather disgracefully, in my humble opinion), the current state of health ¨care¨ in the USA, many of those who work just as hard as everyone else (farmers, artists, construction workers), and who may, in many ways be more responsible with their own health and cautious with their livestyle, are left without access to basic care, or are being subject to high prices, which are set on the assumption that everybody has health insurance. Without venturing to look toward socialist countries as an example, my suggestion-- and the lesson that I have learned from indigenous peoples-- is that we, who are uninsured for whatever reason, take a more pro-active approach to our own health, in our diet, in our use of herbs and fasting as remedies, in walking cautiously and conscienciously through life. This is also where eco-responsibility comes into play-- should an otherwise healthy man, who rides his bike everywhere he goes, have to pay for his medical bills when he comes down with a lung infection or brain tumor due to the smog from those who support, through their own habits and patterns of comsumption, the petrolium industry? That is just one example of how the current system fails people for attempting to be responsible while overlooking the causeof many of our illnesses-- pollution.
Again, I truly don´t mean to sound preachy, self-righteous, or more clever than anyone else, I just simply don´t know any other way to attempt to address these issues without actually speaking about them. Again, my ears are open, and I respect you and your opinions, and more importantly, I respect your choices.
It was also brought to my attention that I should promote hugging old dogs rather than puppies, considering the number of good ol' dogs that are euthanized every day, while irresponsible breeding practices continue in puppy mills. This is the part where I put in a plug for old dog rescue and adoption; If you are in a circumstance where you might have the means to care for a loving, well-behaved, full-grown dog, please consider adoption from a pound or shelter before buying a bred puppy. Dogs have a unique ability to enrich our lives, and full-grown dogs are usually much easier to care for than puppies. Not to mention the health benefits we recieve from petting dogs, lowering our stress, blood pressure, and the like. The whole pro-active health care thing.
Again, I want to reiterate that I love and respect you all, be you a real-estate agent, health insurance broker, puppy breeder, arms dealer, jailer, convict, doctor, herbal healer, teacher, factory worker, beggar, banker, or whatever-- for individually, we are no more to blame for our collective problems than the puppy who is bred to put bread on someone´s family´s table. I write to you because I feel connected to you, and I want to remain connected to you-- not because I want to preach to you. The problems are small in light of the love that we share. I believe in you, and I have so much to learn from all of you in your diverse occupations, perspectives, and places in this 7 billion-soul-strong blend of beauty and insanity, this mixed bag of responsibility and recklessness, this mass of energy and potential that we call Human Being. And for the love of all that IS, don´t be afraid to dance-- dance with your bicycle, your neighbor, dance right through your 30 year mortgage. Let every minute at work, at play, at rest be a Dance, for what are we but light dancing across the screen of consciousnes? I send my love and blessings from my end of the rainbow to yours...

Wade

--Okay, Wade, no more talking, only music...

Dancing with life...

There ARE some cacti with which you can dance. There are others which you should only dance near to. But the important part is to dance. Never stop dancing with life. This is the lesson of the cactus, unlikely as it may seem.
There is plenty to dance about here in Tawantisuyu, the Andean kingdom once ruled by the Incas. It took us a couple of weeks to gain the strength to dance, after a nasty bout with the trots, picked up while in Lima, the capital of Peru. Which isn´t a particularly nice place to have the trots, considering the importance of sitting still, not being bothered by being shaken and the like-- Peru is incredibly prone to earthquakes. So prone to earthquakes, in fact, that, much of the coast-- being one of the driest deserts on earth-- has seen many earthquakes since the last rain, and undoubtedly will see many more earthquakes before the next rain (in many places, there has never been a recorded rainfall). We trotted slowly and carefully down the coast as far as Nazca, the site of huge, mysterious, brilliantly created artwork, only really seen from the sky...
Turning inland, we began to ascend the Andes, taking our time, traveling only by day, stopping for as long as we felt in whichever little town seemed interesting and beautiful. How quickly the landscape, terrestrial and cultural, can change in a matter of hours! From the dry, hot, humid desert of the coast, with the polluted, modern, dangerous, third-worldy cities, to the high, spongy plains (at 11,000 feet in elevation), in which llamas, vicunas, sheep and other grazing animals are watched over by Quechua-speaking Indians, with their huge smiles on their small bodies, living close to the land, in homes sculpted of earth, nurtured by crops of quinua, potatoes, corn, and of course, the omnipresent coca.
Coca, highly controversial due to it´s ability to be manufactured into cocaine, is THE sacred leaf of the indigineous people of the Andes. Nutritious, safe, non-addictive, it gives the Andean people energy to run up and down the steep mountain sides. It cures altitude sickness, it aids digestion, it is a local anesthetic used in village operations, healing wounds, and preventing infection. It was an immensely important component of the Incan empire´s ability to create unbelievable cities from stone, and to terrace and work the steep hillsides, creating the largest pre-Columbian civilation in the ¨New World¨. And after, in the name of Christianity, being enslaved and forced to work for days at a time underground in mines, it gave the workers the energy to labor without food or drink. Coca was held by the Incas to be more valuable than the gold that turned the Spanish conquistadores loco. Legal in Peru and Bolivia, it is still chewedconstantly, and is present in nearly every ceremony and ritual, especially those of pre-hispanic origin (of which there are many), and is constantly used as an offering to Pachamama, the Earth Mother. No longer an ingredient in Coca-Cola, it continues to be used in tea, candy, and soft drinks. May the Andean people long have the freedom, unencumbered by intense political pressure from the US, to cultivate and use coca in the traditional way.
We have so much to learn from the native peoples of the south America, and the plant medicines that they have used for thousands of years. These friendly, forgiving folks are an invaluable source of herbal knowledge and wisdom. Savy in business, as well, many ´shamans´ have discovered a secret to bringing back the ´gold´, charging foreigners large sums of money to participate in ceremonies involving the use of certain plants, such as ayahuasca, that are perfectly legal, and produce immensely intense, long-lasting pysedelic effects, much stronger than LSD. Still many others, recognizing these medicinal plants´ value in transforming the human consciousness from the materialistic, ego-driven, reptilian mind-- prone to violence, deception, and greed, without a care for Pachamama-- freely share the medicinal plants to foreigners that the modern world might just ¨get it¨ before we destroy ourselves and the planet.
Now here we are, exploring the Sacred Valley, constantly yearning to climb higher, we are learning much from these people and these mountains. The major lessons that have been appearing for me, over and over: Share, for life is about giving. Work together with your community, not for money-- which has little real value, and is controlled by a centralized banking system that relies on oppression and eco-destruction in order to expand its reach of power-- but for that which really matters, food, shelter, and spending time with each other. Work with the sun, the real source of energy on this planet. Get out of our boxes, sleep under the stars, pattern our brains with the sounds, the smells and the sights of nature. Don´t poop into water. Spend as little time as you possibly can using the computer (I´ve got to get off this thing), it´s bad for you.
As a matter of fact, get off the computer right now, go for a walk, be in the sunlight, the moonlight, spend real time with loved ones, start planning your garden, cuddle a baby or a puppy, sing, play music, dance with a cactus, a vine, a flower, a mushroom, whatever it takes. Just dance. Never stop dancing with life, with love, with laughter. I´ll do whatever it takes to make you dance, I give myself to the cause of you and your happiness, your enlightenment. And likewise, I need you. I need you to help me to remember to dance, to laugh, I need you to help me be enlightened. We are a community, and we need to start living more like it. We need to work closer with each other. We need to laugh more, and be in the sunshine together. Please, let´s grow food together, let´s free ourselves from the slavery to 30 year mortgages, life in toxic homes, eating toxic food, producing mounds of toxic waste. Let´s learn to heal ourselves and eachother, lest we become slaves to our own fear of not having ¨health insurance¨.
Enough said, let´s start by getting off the damn computer. These things are bad for us. Being so far away from my loved ones, it is hard not to check my email, my facebook, whatever, every day. But my goal, which I will stick to, is no more than an hour and a half a week. So please forgive me if my emails are short, and few and far between. But let´s still be in touch, with brief loving notes, it makes me so happy to hear from all of you...
Peace, love and light to all...Wade (and Cara and Nathan)

Cruzando rios y montañas lejos de mi pueblo,
Que bellos recuerdos los que llevo a ti,
Yo nunca te olvidare, un dia regresare,
Aymaras, Quechuas, Amazonas siempre,
Levantan Wisfalas, del Tehuantisuyu...