It’s cooler here in the mountains but it’s still hot for a thick northern fur-skinned lady like myself. I get out enough but i miss the long runs thru the BC forests, the fresh northern smells, but what can you do. We just came back from a few months on the beach in the Yucatan. I made lots of friends there and some became really good buddies. I got to swim in the gulf of Mexico when ever i wanted. It was hot there and getting hotter. A few street dogs tried screwing me a few times but other than that and some angry expats dogs, life was free, good, and Sasha and Patrick took great care of me. I’m a year and a half now and i feel almost mature most of the time. I think the heat can do that, makes you mellow and lazy at times, strangling a few threads of my puppy nature.

My great excitement here in Orizaba is that we live beside a river-waterway that has a zoo a few kilometres all along its walkway. All the animals are from closed-down zoo’s throughout Mexico, a refuge of sorts. I mean wow, really, there are tigers, lions, coyotes, monkeys, giraffes, to name a few. None of them were aggressive towards me and i respected them all, especially the coyotes. They were something else, a strange erie feeling i felt around them. They never made eye contact and never came sniffing around for a lick or two, not like the hippo, now, wow that was awesome. When he yawned his whole face was nothing but mouth and throat, a weird tunnel dipping down to who knows where. He could have been a great buddy, i could feel it in my heart.

Kachi makes friends with the most peculiar. She has a way of softening the hardest minds, the most vicious teeth. The Benga tiger and her would run along the distance of the cage every morning on our walks along the river-way-zoo. Sasha and i would rub the scalp of the tiger as he would push his head up against the gage like a purring kitten. Strange feeling with that power that could tear your head apart in one swift swipe of its paw, claws the size of fingers, so gentle and so fierce, the dichotomy of life, death.

It was sad to see them pondering back and forth in their cages like a psychotic in an insane asylum and at other times with a restless contentment no different than so many of us. We could hear the weary yelping of the coyotes every evening and morning with their deep biological connections to their kind. Most of these animals and birds would be lost and death would surely follow their every move if left out in any wilderness. That seems to be what so many humans are so eagerly frightened of; to leave their safe closets full of their sacred beliefs, so they ponder back and forth like a caged animal in and out of the popular mediums and news till death comes and drags them away like a lost soul searching for a heaven to sleep within. Caged beliefs looking for a way out. Been there, at times am there, leaving there.

We left Orizaba and headed for San Miguel de Alende. That is where things came alive, the spring time desert and where the magic began.

It was sad to move on from Orizaba, a special place and very few expats and gringos. The tourists are almost all Mexican. I prefer that myself. Sasha likes a few more of the other. It does bring in other conveniences, but then you end up like San Miguel, or Puerto Valarta, Cancun, the list is increasing daily, tourists everywhere where often arrogance tags along. That is the nature of man, no wonder some one dreamed up a great reset……..who knows…what’s right? All i know is it is a great big universe and i’m one little spec in this eternal passing of time, so stay connected to the creator, it is a great mystery, be good, be true in the heart……….that is all you need to do, as J Lennon said, ‘All you need is Love, …. it’s easy’.

Kachi is teaching us to move on with grace. She is terrifying if necessary but always attempts the passive approach first. I am still learning that soft approach, after so many years, i still struggle with that simple way. Kachi may have been happier left in BC with the forests but she wants to be with us. That is clear. We move on.

The next post will be about our stay in the desert, the sweat lodge, peyote, the streets of San Miguel de Allende and our connection with Arleta and Brian, her fifteen year old son Diago, her land, her welcoming and helpful energies helping to heal a little more within our ways.

Images and Writing by Patrick Wey