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...