Tessa Bielecki
Rancho Encantado Retreat:
January 4-11, 2007

I thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
e.e. cummings

I am on retreat with twenty-three other women at a magical place called Rancho Encantado in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.

I come to ground my spirit again in the earth and in my body: to be outdoors most of every day, to go barefoot, to wear as little clothing as possible, to swim as much as I can in Laguna Bacalar, sacred to the ancient Maya, who called it the Lake of Seven Colors because of the multiple shades of blue and green. I come to live only in the present moment, only here, only now.

Every night I sleep deeply and well, as long as my body wants. I awaken to the sound of coconuts falling from the palm trees, the harsh cries of snail kites and parrots, and the gentle waves of the laguna, lapping against the grassy shore, almost drowning out the traffic on the new highway above us. Reflections of the rippling water shimmer on the thatch inside my laguna casita as the sun rises. I open my eyes to the brown bodies of Mayan men in a mural painted on my wall. They wear elaborate headdresses and carry rattles, horns, and fans of feathers. I do not know what ceremony they celebrate.

Petals and Papaya

I walk to breakfast past hibiscus bushes and bitter orange trees, under an arbor of bougainvillea, dropping pink petals along the pathway. I gather the petals every morning and scatter them around my room, along with leaves from exotic tropical plants and pale turquoise limestone rocks from the lake.

Every meal here is hearty, healthy, and exquisitely presented by Dona Julia: homemade granola and yogurt for breakfast, organic free trade coffee and lush papaya drizzled with fresh lime juice. Lunches include freshly squeezed fruit juices and lavish green salads, black beans, thick guacamole, and one day a savory chicken-jicama concoction served in an expertly carved green coconut. Dinners of chicken or fish begin with lucious soups: garlic, lentil, cream of squash. The tequila is superb! With all the exercise I get living in the open air and swimming in the lake several times a day, I have a ravenous appetite.

The dining room palapa is beautiful: thatched, windowless, open to the wind and air, jungle scenes of plants and animals painted on the eastern panels. Fresh flowers decorate the tables and are brought to our casitas every day. We linger long after meals are over, talking, laughing, sharing intimately about our widely varied lives, discovering so many bonding convergences.

Prayer and Rest

Mirabai from Taos comes to breakfast after meditation, wrapped in her black prayer shawl covered with sacred Indian symbols. Marbie from Maui arrives in her red sarong, fresh from her morning swim. Vibrant Azima, the Sufi pianist from London by way of Bulgaria, wears her sky blue flowing dress from the Middle East and tells stories of riding camels in Sinai and the Sahara and living in a dark Scottish castle on the Isle of Skye.

There’s meditation in the morning and yoga in the evening as the sky grows dark, the full moon rises, and the geiko lizards make their “smooching” sounds in the thatch. Annie leads us in chants from various world religions, and Devi teaches us how to sing Hildegard of Bingen’s medieval music. We read and pray alone in brightly colored hammocks. On Friday evening we kindle the Sabbath lights, break bread and share the cup in the Jewish tradition. On Sunday some of us go to the Epiphany Mass in the neighboring village where the Blessed Virgin is surrounded by blinking lights. We meet the Three Kings and end our celebration by kissing the infant Jesus.

I nap the first few days, usually outside on the grass, listening to the gentle rhythms of the lagoon and the wind in the lush tropical trees. One afternoon I rest in bed, lulled to sleep by a gentle rain dripping off the thatched eaves. I am fascinated by both the shading-water-proofing function of the palm thatch as well as its soft beauty.

Boat Trip and Dzibanche Pyramids

We take a boat trip on the huge fresh water lagoon and motor up a narrow channel through the jungle, feeling as if we’re on the African Queen with Humphrey Bogart. We pass a group of children who tell us to beware of alligators – to keep us from invading their private swimming spot. Mirabai assures us that the gators are small and forty miles
away on the other side of the lake!

We journey as far as the “rapids”, lie down on our backs or bellies and float all the way downstream without having to move a muscle. We eat jicama dipped in salt and chili and more of that lucious papaya with fresh lime juice. We laugh and talk in the sun and spray, reveling like children in this playtime – and in our handsome young boat captain whom, we agree, looks half pirate and half angel with his curly locks! His wife and sister commandeer the second boat.

We visit Dzibanche, recently excavated Mayan ruins rarely seen by tourists. Mallina blows a conch shell and we approach in total silence, carrying sticks of incense made from copal resin. We place them around a tiny ceiba tree someone has just planted because it’s sacred to the Mayan people. Mallina invokes a blessing from the ancestors, the four directions, the spirits of the blue hummingbird, red chili, white crystal, and black obsidian. We each pray spontaneously in order of age, in utter gratitude for everything, including our wounds.

Then we climb the temple pyramid, sing another chant at the top and fall silent again. We are so at ease being quiet together, as if we have known each other forever. Negotiating the steps up is scarey enough for some of us who have creaky joints or a fear of heights, and the descent is even worse. We help one another down. When we’re all safely at the bottom again, everyone claps and cheers.

Doña Juanita and the Glory Bower

We have lunch at a nearby sustainable farm where Dona Juanita makes the corn tortillas herself because she cannot abide the store-bought ones. Harvested squashes lie in a heap by the woodpile. Dogs, chickens, and children roam the yard inbetween our tables.

I discover a bleeding heart glory bower vine blooming on the fence and marvel to see one growing in its native habitat. Mine at home is a healthy indoor plant I’ve nurtured for seventeen years, since Jessica gave it to me after my hysterectomy. I also marvel at seeing it exactly one year after Jessica died at age 90 and interpret this as another greeting from her on the other side of death.

Someone asks Dona Juanita to say a blessing before the meal. Smoothing her apron and rapping her cane, she responds: “To have this food to eat is already a blessing.” We view the tiny kitchen where she cooks over an open wood fire, greet her large extended family, and take photos of her grandchildren. She would have no record of their growing up if it were not for Rancho Encantado guests with cameras.

Bodywork, Soulwork

I watch the other women emerge ecstatically from the massage hut on the dock. Then it’s my turn. I give myself an Epiphany present in the lavish spirit of the Three Kings and go for the “goddess treatment,” a real experience of gold, frankincense, and annointing with myrrh.

First I’m wrapped in hot towels soaked in an herbal infusion. Vicki massages a mask of fresh fruits, local clay, herbs and flowers all over my face. I smell lavendar and the omnipresent payaya. Then she rubs a mixture of honey, salt, and aromatic oils over my entire body. I jump into the lagoon and wash it all off. As I sit on the dock, she gently pours a bucket of warm chamomile tea over me, scooping it up with a coconut shell.

The treatment concludes with “hawaiian temple bodywork” called “lomi lomi nui.” This is more than a massage, originally done by two practitioners in pre-missionary Hawaii to bless royalty, women during childbirth, anyone having a birthday or going through a transition. I am amazed at the feeling of four hands on me all at once. (No wonder the Christian missionaries banned it!) Mallina and Vicki are so in tune, they move as one beneficent four-handed being.

At the end they work some magnificent magic with simple white sheets and leave me alone to savor the experience. I listen to the waters of the laguna lapping under the slatted floor boards and feel a tremendous sense of expansion and integration. I am overwhelmed with gratitude and a strong desire to pray. I do exactly that, remain still, and don’t speak to anyone for several hours.

What sacred nurturing! I wonder why we call this “body work” when it could just as easily be called “soul work,” since there is no split between body and soul. Plato and his followers misunderstood. The soul is not imprisoned in the body, longing to be set free. We are all embodied spirits, whole, unified, complete. Body-soul duality is a “heresy” in the Christian tradition. I feel that even more keenly after this experience.

A Circle of Women

In our spacious and leisurely “non-schedule,” we meet in circle twice, on the first and last full days. The thatched ceiling of the soaring Cathedral Maya palapa is over fifty feet high, making the place worthy of its name. An altar in the north is adorned with candles, copal, and fresh flowers to honor native Mayan deities and the Virgin of Guadalupe in the center. This is a sacred place, not because of the altar, but because of what happens here.

The first day we share tears, fears, and vulnerabilities over lost children and spouses, aging and dying parents, and life’s painful transitions, especially in mid-life. Leslie places a sprouted coconut in the center of the circle as a symbol of how green life grows again from dried up old husks.

On the last day we express gratitude for our shared experience of transformation during this week together. We look visibly different from the first circle, not because of our new Mexican garments and jewelry. We glow from a deeper place of friendship and resolution, of rest, renewal, and inner radiance.

Final Offerings

Anne-Louise weaves the adventure of our coming together here into an exquisite mytho-poeic tale. Leslie shows her watercolors of palm fronds over the laguna and the “madonna stump.” Cheryl gives each of us a tiny and beautiful book she made herself.

Rose from Sojourners reads her radical poetry. Lily, who designed the doctoral program in intercultural communications at Denver University, moves us deeply with her story of growing up in the “colonized” Philippines.

Pegge gives us a mantra she received the night before: “Tender, tender, tenderness abounds.” Judy and Kathy Morgan express gratitude in their unique ways and Judy promises hundreds of photos on “snapfish.” Sophy, Susanna S. and Mirabai read from their books. Kathy McCarthy describes how this gathering has stretched her.

Suzanna D. offers us her daughter singing “Shalom,” Stacey her love for Wyoming, Suzanne F. her tears. Natalie leads us in a listening practice, and Diane gives each of us a delicate snail shell from the lagoon. Lorraine shares haikus about the trip’s only real mishap: on the boat trip she was bitten by a mysterious insect which spread poison through her leg, requiring several trips to the doctor and anti-biotic injections.

I offer my tragi-comic song summarizing five stages of growth in the world: wonder, bravado, disillusionment, shattering, and glory. We all hold Aostre in our hearts because she had to leave the second day when she got word that her mother had had a serious stroke.

Towards the end of our circle, Marbie leads us in a “puja” where we gaze gratefully into one another’s eyes, moving around the circle as we sing “Amen” from Lilies of the Field. I am filled with so much joy and love for each of these remarkable women, I cannot keep the tears from pouring down my face. Visions of our wild dancing the night before fill my soul. The tears begin when I come to Annie, who shimmied so stunningly in her hot pink blouse! I am awed by the holiness of everything women do, however ordinary, and by our tender care for one another.

Emptying Out, Filling Up Again

My deepest personal desire for this unique retreat at the beginning of the new year was to empty myself of everything, especially the final vestiges of pain and darkness which characterized the last four years of massive trauma in my life. Emptiness reigned indeed! The daily cleansing of my body in the silky turquoise waters of the lagoon mirrored a far more profound inner purification.

This week was one of the most glorious peak experiences of my life. I feel reborn on every level because my shattering and dying were so complete before I arrived. The powerful words of e.e. cummings’ poem came to me on the last day at the Rancho. As I return home to my desert hermitage in cold and snowy Colorado, they remain etched in my mind and heart, in every fiber of my new being:

(i who have died am alive again today,
this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:…)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any – lifted from the no
of all nothing – human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

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