I am unfolding in the Sacred Valley of the Incas | #59

Learning to live with presence and sincerity

As our train trundles through the breathtaking Sacred Valley of the Incas, I reflect on the beautiful three weeks Alex and I have had in Peru.

This has been very different trip to the way I’ve travelled before. There has been more emphasis on slow travel, travelling as a team (with Alex, rather than alone) and most of all spending days in places people would not even spend a night in. We did have a few things planned such as a week long retreat with plant medicine in the Sacred Valley, four days on the Tambapota river in the Amazon jungle and a visit to Macchu Picchu. It has been marked by many pauses, many unplanned days and a deep trust in the unfolding. It has been deep, rich and meaningful in the things I appreciate but haven’t ‘allowed’ myself to enjoy while travelling.

Community

Despite being here for under a month, the way we chose to spend our time meant we dived deep into community pretty quickly. Our retreat was a small, intentional and intimate group with eight participants and six space holders. Spending a week being fully offline with this group, sitting in three ceremonies and intergrating each day led to pretty deep understanding and connection with each other. The facilitators were also locals and after the retreat ended, we saw them many more times. It really felt like we were part of a community and we were invited back to stay with them in the future. One of the retreat participants also travelled to the jungle with Alex and me so it felt like we had a continuation of the intimate container. It was precious to deepen into relationships with people in such a deep and authentic way. It felt rare especially on a short trip to a remote country but Alex and I truly felt that we could come back anytime to Pisac and feel a sense of belonging here.

Alternate ways of living

Two of the facilitators are married and Fiore bought land many years ago with the vision of a conscious community. During the pandemic her husband, Thibauld, designed and built the house they now live on. We visited the house after the retreat and was given a tour of the intentional way they built using thermal dynamics to heat up the house and to cool their pantry so they don’t need a refridgerator (aided by their vegetarian and vegan diet), and also the conscious choice to have a dry toilet so that water doesn’t get contaminated and they don’t let it flow into the river.

Since building their home, four other homes have been built on that land and a community is slowly coming to life. Being given an in-depth tour of his conscious choices expanded ideas and possibiities in the minds of Alex and me. We started to explore what alternate ways of living we could experiment with. (More on this when we are ready).

Picture above is Api Tusan where Fiore and Thibauld live. More about their land and vision here: https://www.apitusan.org/

Syncronicity

Alex had met a Canadian traveller before I got to Peru and they’d had a nice time. After dinner the night I arrived, Alex wondered out loud whether a band was playing live in a pub we walked past or if it was just Spotify because the singer had a very good voice. We decided to go into the pub to see which is was when we ran into Brodie the Canadian traveller. Of all the places we could have been at that time, the universe brought us together with Brodie that night. And it was a live band with a phenomenal lead singer. We said our goodbyes and headed for the retreat.

Two weeks later in another small town in Sacred Valley, we were having an afternoon snack and hot chocolate with Stef, who’d been at the retreat and come to the jungle with us, when Brodie walks into the same cafe!

Finding the others

I saw a poster on a pole in Cusco about organising in-person writing events so I decided to contact the person who posted it and we ended up having lunch with her on the way to Macchu Picchu. I was just curious to know about her writing and art journey from the corporate world of IT consulting which is a similar journey I’ve been on.

As our conversation unfolded, turns out she knew the folks who ran our retreat having done ceremonies with their teachers and as we told her about our Burning Man art build she mentioned having wanting to go to the burn once more. She’d been twice. She mentioned she was planning to be in the Nevada or California region for a couple of months in July or August and the timing works out really well for her to go this year. We invited her to join our art build and our camp and we will see if she ends up coming!

More on Bhavana here: https://www.bhavanagesota.com/

Allowing the unfolding

The coolest thing was that we let all of this unfold. We didn’t force the feeling of being engrained in a local community. There was no networking, no scheming or strategic smoozing. We didn’t have any motives with meeting Bhavana, we were just curious by her journey. And we didn’t think someone from the retreat would end up joining us in the jungle. In line with many of the themes I’ve been exploring since starting this newsletter titled ‘Becoming Caryn’ at the beginning of 2023, this trip has been me living each day with little expectation of what following my gut instinct will lead to.

Being in tune with my truth and what my feelings and heart says is a very powerful way to live. I have seen that it attracts people who feels my sincerity and are vibrating on the same energetic state. This is great because the more you attract similar people exploring similar paths, the more possibilities you start to see and the more your sense of ‘community’ and conviction grows. It also makes me have greater trust that the universe wants me to live my truth and will guide and provide as I do.