On rain and dogs and coming home

Everything is wet now. The wet season has begun and almost overnight everything’s changed - from hot sweaty sun to overcast days with only occasional glimmers of sunlight. Yesterday it rained 6 times and our sunset kayake trip fell short of a sunset - obscured as it was by a dramatic blanket of clouds. (We had fun anyway.)

I am glad to be here to witness this huge shift from Nicaragua’s dusty dry season to its shiny green wet one before I go. Glad also for the opportunity to experience it still here on tropical Ometepe, where I am spending a few extra days away from the Inan Itah “commune” amidst the gardens of El Porvenir, alone again in a private room with a bed that has sheets and a bathroom with white towels (never mind flush toilet). On Chuck’s recommendation, I’ve asked for Habitacion 11 at the very end with windows facing the garden. There is a hammock outside my front door where I can still take a short nap if I want - though I think for a while anyway I am done sleeping in one.

I have worked out an arrangement to teach yoga for a few days at nearby El Zopilote, just 15 minutes up the road. Free morning classes in exchange for meals, including the woodfire stove pizza they serve for dinner 3 nights a week including this one - which will be my last. The yoga “studio” is nothing more than a brightly painted outdoor platform with a mesh screen above for protection against the sun - though not so much the rain. It’s rained twice during each class I’ve taught so far, and always during savasana which felt like perfect timing. The morning rain comes down as a light to moderate drizzle so not too distracting for relaxing the body and finding inner peace. On the contrary.

Kalena

Kalena came with me to class today. She followed me home from Inan Itah last night, after I had returned from kayaking with Tarin and Chris. It’s a hike on to Porvenir from there and they’d (so) graciously offered to accompany me with headlamps on the dark rainy ½ hour walk through the fields and down the hill. Kalena and her sister Lanka, 2 of the Inan Itah dogs, decided to come along. Then Kalena decided to stay. I tried to send her home this morning, pointing uphill through the gate in Inan Itah‘s direction, but she wouldn’t leave. So instead we shared some toast and eggs for breakfast and went to yoga.

It is nice to have sweet gentle protective Kalena‘s company on my last day on Ometepe. She is a loyal one, waiting patiently through the night on the patio outside my bedroom door (tempted though I was to bring her in!) then by my yoga mat in the rain during class. She’s been a welcome reminder how much I miss having a dog, that maybe it will be time for one again when I return home.

After lunch I will walk Kalena back to Inan Itah in case she’s forgotten where she belongs. I’m worried about her running after my taxi (yes I’m taking one this time!) and something bad happening if she’s around when I leave tomorrow or her just not finding her way back on her own. I know sometimes how tricky that can be.

Kalena on the mat

(More final Ometepe days photos here!)

Retreating at Inan Itah, Ometepe

I've decided to stay at InanItah. This was not an easy decision and I woke up in the hammock this morning (!) despite a surprisingly nice night's sleep still thinking I might move on to Fincan El Porvenir further down the hill. Perhaps this spiritual communal life just wasn't for me?



View of the temple from my hammock bed

I've come here because Gabriela had recommended it. After a month of dusty dry season on the farm, I liked the idea of going back to the lush green foothills of volcano island Ometepe to cap off my visit in Nicaragua. I was also intruiged about the 5 day silent meditation retreat I'd discovered InanItah would be hosting round around that time. Most silent meditations I've considered in the past have been at least 10 days. Being silent for a mere 5 - with views of Volcan Conception jutting out of a lake as my backdrop no less! - didn't sound so bad. 

But InanItah is first and foremost a spirital eco-community. Its residents and volunteers (who need to stay here at least one month to count) have come because they are either curious about or committed to the path of "transformational living." Add tantric-minded to the mix and you will discover that in addition to the sweat lodge located beyond the tent area there is also a love shack for anyone inclined towards free spiritual love. Nothing is imposed or enforced but it is not shunned either so as long as you are mindful and respectful and abiding by the principles of the community as a whole, you can be as you are. Down to hanging in the communal hottub or kitchen topless.

Which is totally fine with me, even if I am just a "visitor." Not only did I have some hint of what I might be getting myself into but the communal aspect of this experience was also what drew me here. I was curious to see what this was all about, how exactly it worked and also how I fared in it -after so much solo NYC living and independent traveling. I wondered if, like the Israeli kibbutz, I would find it as intruiging as I did appalling. Or, now that I was older, maybe just more intruiging?

Well Day Two and so far I know InanItah takes some getting used to. After last night I really did feel ready to leave. I felt like I had walked into a high school cafeteria and not yet cool enough to sit with the cool kids (ahh yes that age old feeling that never goes away). And there were so many chores! So many shared responsibilities! Caring for the garden, preparing meals, feeding the composte, roasting the coffee, making the mulch, oh my...

But maybe this bit that is so disconcerting is precisely why I need to ride it out. And most of the people, individually - when you get  around to talking to them not just in group formation- are quite nice. At first I thought I might even forgo the retreat as well, instead go find a nice farm elsewhere , practice on my own and be silent with myself, on a hike or kayaking in the lake. But Gaia, the woman with dreadlocks down to her knees when they are not piled high on her head and one of InanItah's co-founders, has structured a great program, full of workshops and teachings as well as silence, so I will learn about things like Osho and ecstatic dance and other ways to experience a deeper meditation, which I am also pretty curious about.

So this is me signing off for the next few days, hopefully with good news to report upon my return. At the moment anyway I am looking forward to some silence :)