backpacking beauty.

Before embarking on yet another adventure in a foreign land (Guatemala and Southern Mexico), Lebn and I decided to explore the land that we call home. So we went to the closest place that resembled the forests surrounding Bellingham. And we discovered wondrous, magical beauty. It is about a half an hour from Portland, so lots of others were discovering it too.


It is called the Eagle Creek Tanner Butte Loop. Eagle Creek was the first Forest Service campground in the country. You can see little bits of why.












Walking through a waterfall cave tunnel.
Note the cable hand rail and tiny path.















See that little blue and orange speck to the right? that is little me. Holy toledo this is a big powerful tower of falling water.













In order to attempt the loop, we had to forge this river. note the rapid below. and imagine that the water is 35 degrees Fahrenheit. i am not made for cold things. i had a bit of a panic attack. oh jeez, can you imagine? river beds are slippery places. alas, with the gracious help of lebn we successfully crossed bags and all.









Where is the trail?

At 2800 feet, stupid snow ruined our loop. what a wild winter! snow in late June. we had a GPS and boots. yet we still could not quite find any resemblance to a trail. so we had to camp in the only flatish dry spot that we could. we made our first tent bed out of pine boughs. and the next day turn around.








back to the glorious waterfalls.

thank you Bend

Bend, Or. This is the first time that I have ever lived in a city that is a sentence fragment. Try google searching anything within Bend, Or and it often says something about "or" not being included in the search. I have been here for longer than I expected and longer than I perhaps would have liked. I made no attempts to make friends outside of Lebn's family, which is strangely peaceful. Sometimes I find great comfort in anonymity. As my time here comes to a close, my heart brain starts to unravel my adventures here. I am immensely grateful for my time here.

Some highlights:
~Getting to know Lebn's family and becoming part of it.
~Listening to nearly all of the Harry Potter audiobooks, the British version. Stephen Fry I love you.
~Lebn and NPR are my best friends.
~Falling in love with snow. Well, sometimes.
~I discovered Sivananda yoga. It is everything i have ever hoped for...everything i need. you are so beautiful to me. i now know what kind of yoga I will teach.
~i am a landscape designer and plant mommy.
~i am now a fully trained advocate for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault
~oh my gosh substitute teaching. at first terrifying. you remember how you treated the sub right? and now i have renewed inspiration to be an amazing teacher.






Lebn putting together Paulina Springs Books in Redmond, Or. Lebn's dad's new bookstore. Brad is his name.














One of the strange tasks given to Lebn and I in regard to the bookstore. Notice the porch and the ice skating rink. so good.










kaiya. this is the special doggy that has enabled me to love all other dogs. we had to put her to sleep a few weeks ago.












easter at the schuyler-smiths. and these are the mediocre eggs. whoa. egg dying is serious business around here. day long creative magical wonder and beauty.










we put in all of these bookshelves and then put the books on them. so i now have the strange skill of helping to set up a new bookstore. this was back in december. lebn and a man named brian. This is now a very well stocked and beautifully decorated bookstore complete with murals and occasional customers.















Bend. the high desert. it gets cold here. i am not made for such a climate. i need to make additions.




















Carolyn, Nick, and the miraculous head scratcher.
Lebn's cousin and her husband and our only friends here. ;)
They also lived with their parents. And this is only the beginning of the commonalities we share.











On a little hill hike.
Snow capped peaks all around.















love is all around.
even in lava rock.

Lebn, me, Randi, and Brad.

Welcome to India.

Kolkata, India. Kalighat. Kali Temple.

Kali is, to say the least, feisty, fiery, fearsome, fierce powerful female deity in Hinduism. A consort of Shiva. People go to Kali, make offerings, when they need serious protection, when they want to do "battle" on their behalf. She will slay demons, take down anything that may be oppressing you. She is most often seen with a necklace full of skulls, blood dripping, a man underneath her feet at his death. This is a deity you don't want to mess with, a lady you want on your side.

Following my visit to Mother Theresa's home of the dying, my hands are tingling, vibrating, pulsing, unsure of where to direct their energy. "What to do?" as one of my favorite Indian sayings goes. The students and i walk into the courtyard of the Kali Temple.

Courtyard is entirely too polite of a word to describe the scene. People everywhere. All of my senses are ferociously assaulted with vivid humanity. Hindus waiting in some sort of line around the outside of the temple, pushing, shoving to get a glimpse, to make an offering to the inner sanctum where Kali resides. On the outskirts of this line, a man walks abruptly up to me and says, "shanti, shanti om" (in short meaning peace) while tying a vibrant red and yellow string around my wrist. promptly followed by a plea for rupees. yet, i just arrived in india and truthfully do not have any rupees to give. frustrated, he walks away in some form of disgust. i look at him directly and repeat his own prayer for him with, "shanti shanti om". This brings about a smile to his face and a visible release of frustration.
I turn to the right of me and notice a large goat fenced in, tied up, to what is respectively the front of the Kali temple. A crowd surrounds the enclosure and a man stands stands to the goat's side holding a decent sized machete. Another man holds the head of the goat while the executioner slices chops at the neck in one quick motion lacking any indication of hesitance. The body flails in the opposite direction of its beheader. Head still in hand. Blood squirting, spurting in too many directions for my heart to handle. My heart pains, twinges feels the soft warm body of life exit. One life leaves this world, enabling many more to eat. A ritual beheading to honor Kali, now taking place multiple times in a day primarily now to feed the poor, as it were.

The Kali temple thrives, beats, pulses, radiates all qualities of life. I look at the mob of people in line swaying together and against each other for their opportunity at Kali. I hand my shoes and my bag to Peg, commanded by some force to enter. I step in to this mass of pushing and shoving to come closer to an understanding of this urgency for this powerful deity. Me and my timid tall white girl self in a sea of swarming Hindus needing and craving to give Kali their offerings of Marigold garlands, incense, and rupees. I am swallowed whole by this crowd, unsure if i will ever get to see her, understand this Kali, or if i will ever get out. it feels like falling, floating, tripping-all must push all must shove chaos pushing shoving push crowd clumped lumped moving forward or left behind. floor dirty, feet sticky. i am almost there to the inner sanctum and yet i may never see her. i have no idea what to do, how to give, what is supposed to happen here. All consuming, crazy, spinning, loud frantic shove push crowd yell shout murmur of religious offering. will there be some sort of release? will i decide to find a way out or push harder? or remain here dazed?
a Brahmin priest gets my attention by a touch on my shoulder, guides me, enables me, moves me close to her. fire burning over the threshold, look up and there she is, all black with her third eye wide open blaring at me. Terrifying. There we are, Me and Kali. all else fades away. silence takes over. somehow stillness settles in to me. movement seems to cease all around or i stop noticing. Peace exits within the chaos. i know for what seems like the first time what peace feels like. breath. calm in noise. shanti shanti.
This lesson resonates with me daily in this place called India. With out is I may not make it here.
Welcome to India.

This could also be known as the adjective-fest. There are simply not enough words to describe India.

Let the burnining light glow.

i have been in India now for over 2 weeks. So, i have some stories to share. While my blog words seem to be back in Thailand I have very much been consumed by the orange hazy muted sun, infinite chaos, ancient wisdom, whirling spirituality, burning, stinky, full, overwhelming, beautiful misery called India. Oh this love hate relationship lacking any ounce of mediocrity --this traveling to India leaves me asking the question we posed to our students to answer in essay form, "why am i here?" Oh god why am i in india? And every time just when i am breaking in to multi-fragmented pieces on the sacred cow shit stained and urine smelling floor, screaming and pulling out hairs, she forces me to surrender. This tough loving mother India beckons me towards her lessons, her teachings. And i cannot help but to listen exposed and naked.

Arrival in India. Kolkata.
Kalighat. Nirmal Hriday: Mother Theresa's Home of the Destitute and Dying.
Enter. People lying all around as near to death as living beings can be. Rows of beds, cots in hallways. Full. Sisters and volunteers serving, working together, caretaking. Death. Sickness. I have no idea what to do here, how to act, how to support. I was never taught what to do with death, we seem hide it away in the United States. Strangers dying, lying together, yet somehow alone. We enter quietly, slowly, all of us uncomfortable, unsure, compassionate yet distant. I find myself walking upstairs, away from the patients, relieved almost, gathered with our group of students reading Do's and Don'ts of volunteers.
#29 Do not give anything special to any particular patient. Love and serve them all in the same manner.
#30 Work in the presence of God. Kalighat is not a place for socialization.
Mother Theresa was here in body, in mind, in spirit. Her heart, her love created this place of care of support, for the last moments of life. I could volunteer here. You could volunteer here. Oh God, but could I? Do I have it in me? I realize, i am uncomfortable with sickness, with the dying, with this kind of unknown, with strangers this close to the end of their lives. Walls of my heart build up as i pass through this space due to an inability or ignorance of an action to take. we are only here for an unforgivably short amount of time. the students and i walk down the stairs, towards the door, headed for the Kali temple. The bulk of students may be more uncomfortable than i and i am guiding them.
Mother Theresa is here though. Her presence vividly remains. The walls speak her voice both figuratively and literally. As i hastefully walk out through the rows of human bodies human beings ready to transition, i read the wall in front of my eyes: "Let thy hands heal thy broken body." My hands instantly tingle, vibrate, pulse. Balls of flaming firey energy radiate from my palms. The words on the wall transform directly into me, forcing me to walk with outstretched hands.
And now i cannot tell you why i walked out that door. why i did not reach my hand out to any one of those beautiful souls and put their hand in to mine and sing all of my love and compassion to them. i cannot tell you why and it is with this shameful regret that i must learn. i have the power to nourish, to give, to provide some form of healing to others and to myself. We all do. Human touch is love healing power. I need not walk out on that ability. i want to embrace it and listen. love is an action.
"Let the burning light of our mother's spirit glow in Nirmal Hriday for ever."

here are some more things for you to know about the karen. look at them.

a major karen (knu) leader was assassinated in his home in mae sot, thailand shortly after I left (on the 14th), this little video sums up the situation fairly well, and not just for the karen. http://antidictatorship.wordpress.com/2008/02/17/assassination-of-pado-mahn-shar-lar-phan/

this video might make you want to cry. it is okay to cry.
you don't even need to understand karen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zaidqwq9Y0

from the border of Burma and Thailand

Living in the village of Mae Way for a week my eyes were opened and widened to a new heights and levels. And yet i have only touched on a small fraction of understanding the situation of Burma and the people affected by it. A special part of our microhydro team, were a group of young Keran engineering students in their early 20's learning and building with us. Many of them live in a refugee camp called Mae La near Mae Sot along with about 50,000 other refugees. This is the oldest and largest in Thailand, here since 1984. This group of students are very blessed for they have found a way to get out of the camp sometimes through their engineering program and through BGET. Freedom of movement throughout a country or the world, something in which a refugee is not personally familiar. The beauty, joy, hope, and resilience thriving in these humans that i came to know is something that i continue to carry with me each day. Thank you for that.

Below are some resources given to me by a friend, an advocate and ally who worked and lived in Mae Sot. Maybe you are interested in learning more. These links and words are for me as well as for you.


Here are some resources:

www.karenvoice.net -- This page rocks and just keeps getting better!!!

http://karenrefugee.livejournal.com/ -- Same guys that do the karenvoice.net

Article about what needs to be done by the international community to make for change in Burma:
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/EDIS-7BDNRU?OpenDocument

Chris's website: http://www.palangthai.org/ -- Regional Energy Information
BGET site: www.bget.org

Border news:
http://www.irrawaddy.org/
http://www.mizzima.com/
http://www.shanland.org/

Mae Tao Clinic (Dr. Cynthia's Clinic): http://www.maetaoclinic.org/

Borderline Shop:
http://www.borderlinecollective.org/
http://borderlineshop.blogspot.com/

Karen Womens Organization:
http://www.karenwomen.org/news.html

Karen Refugees in the US:
http://www.state.gov/g/prm/rls/fs/82822.htm .

Here is a link to a great report from UNC Chapel Hill on the background and lives of Karen refugees in the US: http://www.state.gov/g/prm/rls/fs/82822.htm

heart full.

i don't know what day it is. i do know that it is night time.
i am in a karen village in the northwest of thailand. Mae Way. near Mae Sot. about 50 families live here. family made complete with grandparent, father, mother, babies, children, chickens, hogs, kitties, puppies, lizards, and a wide variety of spiders. As i write this i lay above hogs squealing and scratching, roosters nesting above my head, puppies sleeping at my feet.
some images spring to my mind.
One man hands another a small pile of dead rats, possibly cooked.
I look up and i see a spider the size of my hand.
No privacy. we sleep together, bath and wash clothes together in the river. eat together.
Freshly slaughtered pig, boiling water poured over its skin in preparation of skinning.
We come to a rock cave in the path. there is a snake track wider than the width of my foot.
I am in the jungle.
overflowing with fertile abundance.
the rhythms of life in this village. i sit and watch and listen to them expand and contract throughout the day and night. all with the flow of the river.

we came here to help put in a microhydro system with an organization called BGET.
the result far surpassed electricity.

heart full.
full heart.
i am in love. true as it has been before. on fire. spicy. vibrant. glowing flaming ball of light.
i am in love with life and all that it contains. my emotional capacity is a seemingly endless bundle of wonder. the beauty, the pain, the magic, the humanity that i am able to feel invites me to make noise. scream, yell. shout, squeal. belch. mmmmmm. ooh and aghh and all of the other nameless sounds. those noises so spontaneous that they only exist coming out of me in that moment of feeling.
Feeling what being alive really means. Connections vast and wide. far and near. connections with those that were strangers only days before. now the thought of their voices and faces in this world brings me joy to that of tears. my tears, the intensity of emotion too great, brimming out of my physical body through my window to the world.
oh yes. oh yes. i am in love.
everything seems to make sense amidst the confusion and frustration of governments and border lines who decide who belongs and who does not.
Thai, Canadian, Karen, American, Burmese. Australian-- that is how we have grown to view the world. yet here is this village all the bullshit fades away. i feel that it has. Despite language barriers, ways of living, spiritual beliefs, terrain...we are livings beings who feel, who love, who look into the eyes of their babies with an unrelenting force of powerful love, able to breathe, able to laugh, able to share. I can feel it. we are all drops of water splashing together in the same vast ocean. Let this night, this moment, this time, in this village be the example that you might need to understand. we are one. let the rest fade away. see the other. and know that the other is you. what matters is love.
oh love. i am in love true as before, this time with the feeling of new discovery.

The Thai Palace and Wat Po

me.



here is my crew minus 2.
the college and high school students both.
this is about as touristy as we get. we have to wear socks and skirts or long pants to enter the palace grounds. i don't know about you, but i feel goofy.

on this day we were present in the palace the day that Thais were mourning the loss of the King's sister. Hundreds lined up all in black to pay their respects.







the girls.
...and an amazing artist inspired by the murals painted around the entire inner palace walls, which depict the entire story of the Ramayana.

















the hall of Buddhas.











the palace and temple are saturated in detail like this.










i am growing this succulent at home.
this photo is basically showing off my new fancy camera and of course the incredible beauty of plants.

biting an eel.

Here I am. I made it. We made it. The Shanti lodge, Bangkok, Thailand. In a car, a train, two planes, three movies, and a van. Across the international date line, 15-hours in to the future. The length of the journey there to remind me just how far i am traveling. From frigid, icy thin air to sweltering, wet heat, so thick that it is a noticable presence you can almost hold in your hands. This heat forces humans to a greater awareness than ever before that we are made of 80% water, for this air turns our bodies into a sponge squeezing seemingly every last drop of liquid out of our cells.

i learned something yesterday. forced into it actually because of this fluid sucking heat.
on my first excursion with the high schoolers minus the guidance of the experienced trip leaders, to the Bangkok weekend market on a city bus with 12 in total. heat sucking, sun beating, people shopping. that is when the headache began accompanied by some nausea. yet i had already drank 3 liters of water and a big ol fruit and veggie smoothie that morning. agh, but this feels like dehydration. but how could it be? continuing to drink still more water, the pain in my head progressed as we waited for the students and then the bus. back in my bed the pain disabled me from movement or rational thought. justin to the rescue with an emergen-c packet and some wise words. you see the the filtered water here at the magical sanctuary in the city known as the Shanti Lodge is purified, clean and safe for us delicate Americans to drink, yet in the process it has also become null and void of any minerals. thus no electrolytes. essentially the water i have been filling up on is hollow, not able to be absorbed into my body. slowly, slowly, i chewed down some fresh fruit, more juice, more mineral water and my body returned the favor by releasing me from the grips of pain. no idea why this never happened to me any of the 7 other times i have been here. there is a first time for everything and now i know. should have brought the Tang. i took the day off today, my students are exploring the ancient Thai capitol city of Ayuthoya (with justin and colin of course) and i am in the shade drinking a variety of fluids. ooh and i just took cold shower number two of the day. Thais usually take about 3 a day.

Me, a trip leader, a guide, a facilitator of youth in Thailand and India. whoa. Am i actually ready for this? yes. I am here. I have to remind myself that I am supposed to be here. The joys and passions of my life culminating into one. A world traveling youth worker. my dreams wrapped up into one.
Student becomes teacher. Teacher is always student.
i send gifts of gratitude out into the world. With these new students and their fresh eyes, i am aware of my own broad and intimate vision expanded. able to see, able to feel, able to hear far greater things than before in this traveling space. i am more grounded in my heart, more saturated in who i am, more comfortable with the cells in my body. my awareness has become able to see more. with that, i suppose i am ready.
Being a trip leader is definitely a bit of a terrifying experience. ultimate responsibility for 11 lives in a foreign country. It is what I imagine being a lifeguard is like, except for all the time and in a country that is not our own, where we do not speak the language. Constantly counting heads. Needing to channel my inner Dalai Lama, able to be aware of all of my surroundings broad and close, of all living beings near and far. I am having to confidently jump right in to the things that i am personally still timidly nervous about. Maybe this is what all adults feel like, not really knowing exactly what to do, but acting as though everything is under control...because really it will all work out. i always thought i would really be an adult when i took a group of youth on a van field trip. i guess this really makes me an adult. although i still feel like an adolescent in the realm of trip leading.

the first full day in Bangkok, one of the students decided to eat a live eel, bit its head off and started chewing. This was of course after he put his steri-pen in the water to purify it. he was surprised and disgusted by the taste of blood in his mouth. i think there is still some eel blood on the wall. it is probably on YouTube already if you want to check it out....And we are off to a great start. really all of these students are absolutely amazing and i am thrilled to watch and support their continuous growth and learning. woooooo

the Z on this computer is actuallz the Y and vice versa, verz confusing. and quite funnz.

tomorrow we are off to our friend's house, Wan Pen, in Erewan National Park. An organic farm that supplies much of the fantastic food at the Shanti. mmmmhummm. yes, finally out of the city and into the farm community. hooray!

squishes and squeezes.
love,
jessica.

no, snow? know snow!

previously in my life i was down on snow. meaning, it was not my friend. it is cold and wet and people usually like to throw it at you for fun. i didn't get the love affair many other people seemed to be having with the cold white stuff. but, i'll tell you, i fell in love. yes it is true. it all happened with some very good looking mountains, some snow shoes, and lebn.

although it may seem that the white distant object is the moon, it isn't it is a bit of snow. it was freakishly windy and quite possibly the coldest i have ever been in my life. the moon however had risen in the sky and looked just like this, only on the other side.