Cloud Forest 06.24.15

Cloud Forest

06.24.15

We landed in Lima, Peru and deplaned into a new world.

It was only the second time I had travelled internationally

and that was so very long ago.

A trip in the 70’s to climb in the Alps.

Of the many mountains, we climbed there

Mount Blanc was the main objective.

Today we came intending to hike the Inca trail

which I had already envisioned
as being a world of new experiences.

I hadn’t expected the sensory overload

to begin as soon as we deplaned though.

So many people, most looking very different to me,

and the language so foreign to the ear.

Studied Spanish a bit with the Rosetta Stone program a year or so ago.

A help it was not, for this language

was spoken with the rapid fire staccato of a machine gun.

My poor ears strained to even differentiate single words.

So after a few days acclimating to the altitude we’d be off.

My five senses continued to be bombarded:

the culture, the cuisine, the terrain, the roads, the way they lived,

the styles they dressed in, the piecemeal way they built their homes.

As we started actually hiking on the Inca trail

I was again confounded by it all.

I had envisioned a lonely group of us trekking off into the wilderness.

The first day was anything but that.

When the national park was established in the late 70’s

the law was revised to allow any local residents to remain,

if they agreed to the restrictions of the National Park regulations.

So with all the tour groups starting the trail that day,

mixed in, there were locals:

living in homes within site of the trail,

herding animals, carrying supplies to their homes, riding motorbikes,

working their land or trying to sell snacks to the tourists.

We were told after the first day there were no more settlements.

Day two we would climb through Dead Woman’s Pass

the hardest day of the hike.

Along the way, we would see Incan sites

and climb into the cloud forest for the first time.

So off we went that next morning.

I really can’t explain the terrain it wasn’t forest early on

kind of open, trees and scrub brush here and there

ever trending higher in elevation.

We came into a clearing and saw

flocks of emerald green parakeets fly over us numerous times.

Our guide had stopped nearby for a rest break. 

As we neared him there was this incredible Incan site far below us,

stone ruins of homes on high and farming terraces stepping down

to a river that was wrapping along the edge of this ancient site.

Now these were the world of new experiences I had envisioned.

As we rested he explained the site

and closed by saying we’d be entering the cloud forest very soon.

We hiked onward and it was obvious

when we had actually entered the cloud forest.

All of a sudden we felt closed in and covered all around

by the canopy of the cloud forest.

  There was a raging glacier melt stream very near us

that we saw off and on

but the sound and mist in the air left it ever present in our senses.

The next thing I remember is rounding a curve in the trail

and entering a grove of very similar trees.

That’s when it moved beyond overwhelming my senses.
Into a Oneness.

Suddenly I had this “Knowing”

my whole body quivered with truth shivers, I started sobbing,

my eyes teared up and tears streamed down my cheeks.

The knowing came to me as these words:

“We’re with you every step of the way.”

My mind flashed with the recognition

that Jane the first wife I had lost so suddenly in 2010

and Philip our stillborn son in the 1980’s

were right there with me in spirit.

I furtively looked around to see if anyone noticed

that I had started sobbing and crying.

They had not, we had strung out
into a long line with some separation.

So much so I had to really hustle to catch up to Laura and tell her.

“They’re here Jane and Philip are here!

They are going the whole way with us!”

I blabbered through a convulsion of tears and sobs.

Laura knew exactly what I was talking about

and embraced me with her eyes.
My new wife is so very open and understanding.

I had told her many times of my spiritual experiences

with tears in my eyes, a wavering voice,

as the hair on my arms stood up,

and God bumps flashed all over my skin.

I hadn’t thought of my first wife for many days,

I had packed her old camera though.

I had wanted to bring something of hers along

and changed it to the camera at the last minute.

I hadn’t thought or talked of Philip in months and months.

As I write this I flash back to the early days of my grief.

When many spiritual events so rocked my life.

I had had ongoing discussions with my Hospice counselor

wondering if I was going crazy,

my logical mind, doubting so very much,

what I was experiencing as reality, could it be!?

So now I leave you, fully knowing some of you

may be wondering about me and this tale of that I am sure.

I now believe life is eternal.

We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

Keep an open mind, watch for signs,

and realize there are no coincidences.

If by chance you experience the Oneness,
that we all are, you will “Know”

you have experienced something well beyond your five senses.

You will know that there is so very much more to life than

what our five senses lead us to believe.

You will know that as you grow in spirit

you will experience that feeling more and more often.

My hope is that I have opened someone to a new view,

a new way of looking at things.

I believe that’s why we are all here.

To help each other grow in love and

raise our spiritual awareness.

It’s a journey to awaken to what we really are.

God blesses you and yours this day and every day, Keith 

“Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love,

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” 

― Francis of Assisi