Tag: travel
Melaque Magic Update
“This is what you came here for, to change your life”. The Grandmothers
On the plane to Mexico on January 9th a strange thought crossed my mind: “I’m going home”. “What, I just left home”, I said to myself. I did not know what was coming but the magic began that very evening on the beach.
While most friends seemed to appreciate my profound experience of the first evening, when Don subtly emerged through the beach portal in West Melaque, I felt something was missing.
The spiritual experience of that evening set the tone for the next two months. The healing energy of the sand and water, listening to and performing music, meeting Mexican families and making new friendships all came together to catalyze my internal change.
My days settled into a comfortable routine: My morning ritual was a walk on the Malecon boardwalk followed by coffee under a beach umbrella, served to me by the lovely Tito, owner, along with his wife, of Tito’s Place, where everything began the night of my arrival. The sound of the waves hitting the shore and the fascinating soaring birds transported me.
Reviewing my journal notes from spring 2024, I noticed my guides had told me that my first solo Mexican trip that winter “was the start of a massive change”. The latest trip, I now realize, was a transcendent experience.
“A transcendent experience, however you arrive at it, is like a portal that opens, inviting you to walk through”, Anita Moorjani, known for her powerful near death experience, writes. Once opened, it never closes, Moorjani goes on to say, so the clarity of wisdom never disappears.
As my time in Melaque drew to an end it felt like time to return home, although I was not fully ready to leave this special place, the backdrop for transformation, where I discovered a sense of peace within.
Never have I experienced such a long and laborious re-entry from travels, not even after my first trip to India, where I have lived many past lives. This was a different experience, not so much an awareness of having lived in Melaque in the past as it was simply being caught up in the special energetic flow of the area.
During Don’s and my visit to the town in 2001 we made two brief visits to Tito’s for margaritas. Tito remembered Don from that time when he saw his picture. Because of that long ago time in Melaque I felt compelled to return this year and it proved to be an experience of deep healing. The peace I found there allowed me to dive deep into myself.
My open mic singing, (somehow encouraged by Don during the portal experience), was an important part of my spiritual shift in Mexico, and it took starting to sing open mic at the Legion here in Gibsons to finally bring me full circle, back to my permanent home.
A curious thing happened during my first Legion visit. Since I was nervous, I decided to pretend I was in Melaque, walking into the Legion, ordering a mug of Mexican draft beer and settling myself in the song circle.
My song choices were pieces I had sung in Mexico, “The Rose” and “They Call the Wind Maria”. I gave it my all, and received positive feedback from the other musicians. It was almost like I transferred my experience of singing in Mexico and the confidence and the energy of it to this new venue.
This week we sang The Rose at my ukelele group, and although not soloing, I had a similar experience…as if I was somehow channelling the energy of Melaque into and through the song.
Don came to the Melaque beach to help me move forward…to open more to life, I sense. He was very much with me in that beach community the entire two months I was there. His encouragement to take my music seriously helps me with my overall change.
Yet another level of our physical separation occurred, catalyzed by the portal experience. Our energetic soul connection will never be severed after many lifetimes together.
Melaque was not a “time out of time” experience, it was my life for two very real months. It cannot be reproduced…it can, however be built upon, a new starting out point for me.
Solo Travelling
This two month trip to Melaque Mexico was guided. I felt compelled to go there, to the place Don and I had visited so long ago in 2001. I did not know why I was going, just that I needed to.
I was nervous about the trip for several weeks before leaving, sensing something important was about to happen. My intuition was correct; the sojourn there was remarkable, more uplifting than I had ever imagined.
Beginning the first evening at Tito’s Restaurant on the beach in West Melaque, the magic never stopped. I wrote about my uplifting portal experience that night in a blog called Don Softly Returns and will write more about the depth of it soon. The experience nudged me into singing open mic inside Tito’s the next afternoon, something I had not done before.
My singing over the next two months, the many new friendships and the first night’s profound experience all made my time in Melaque a rich spiritual experience. The town is a special place where many folks return year after year. I sense the energy draws them, perhaps on an unconscious level. The West beach area is particularly uplifting, but the entire town seems to have maintained the mellow vibe we noticed on our first visit 24 years ago.
I needed to travel by myself, that was key to the spiritual shift that happened. Solo travel, while providing a certain freedom, is not for everyone. It takes a certain type of person, a particular personality if you will, to travel alone. I know other women who do this, they are in relationships and also travel alone.
“Loneliness is part of travelling alone” says a well travelled neighbour. Although I was encompassed by the soft, healing energy of the West Melaque Beach and enjoyed time with numerous new friends and acquaintances, I was at all times conscious that I was alone in a deeper sense. Thirty years of travelling as a family and later in a couple had not prepared me for this.
I have travelled alone before for shorter times. Last February’s trip to Bucerias Mexico was not meant to be a solo trip, however my friend had to cancel about ten days before the leaving date. That trip worked out quite well as my small, five unit casita was populated by friendly folks and I met a couple of other women in cafes. In Toronto, although alone, I have friends and relatives to visit with.
I learned a lot about myself and about others during this time alone. It took me a while, but finally I understood that in order to connect with others some commonalities may be needed. The small group that returned annually to the hotel were close friends over many years, some knew each other from 20 years in Vancouver. They were like a club, friendly enough, however I was the outsider, and the only single woman amongst men and couples during the first month of my stay. The multiple daily communal visits, involving for the most part male driven conversation, were not what I wanted I realized after trying to fit in for awhile.
I found my tribe through music, both with other musicians and the audience of family and friends, and with women with shared experience and interests. My friend from Texas, a holistic and spiritual woman, was a new widow, staying in a hotel near mine. A common art interest was shared with another new friend from the collage course at Centro de Arte y Cultura in the town centre.
At this point I am not planning to take such a lengthy trip by myself, although it’s hard to say, as plans seem to change rapidly these days.
My Small Melaque World
The small beach community I called home for two months extends in one direction as far as I can walk without going along the beach or onto the hot streets, past the karaoke venue around the corner from Hotel Bahia and ending at Leovy Restaurant with its bamboo and rattan umbrellas. In the other direction it reaches the top of the Malecon boardwalk, about one and a half miles long, I overheard someone say.
My morning begins with a walk on the Malecon, all the way to the end if its not too hot, then coffee under a beach umbrella, served to me by Tito…if Tito is there the restaurant is open.
I sip my morning java while listening to the waves and watching the beauty of the unfolding morning, staying until I become too warm or my body insists it’s time to move. Forty pesos is a miniscule price for this uplifting experience.
From time to time I venture down the beach or into town for music or to my favourite breakfast place. Melaque has retained its simple Mexican tourist town feel, although busier now. The town centre is bustling and fun, quite different from the West Melaque beach energy, the friendly folk at Tito’s Restaurant where we eat and where the open mic shows take place.
Towards the middle of February things begin to change. While a few Canadian and American visitors prefer a late vacation, the long term folks at my hotel begin drifting home. Fewer musicians appear at the Tuesday evening “Jack and Friends” open mic, and the audience shrinks. I keep performing, Jack’s glad to have me I think, some of the other women singers have left, returning to jobs in Canada.
Only a quarter of the rooms at the hotel are occupied now. Short term visitors, mostly Mexican weekenders, will occupy the place from now on the manager tells me.
Last weekend the controversial new “big city” Mexican hotel at the end of the beach was fully occupied by busloads of middle class looking Mexicans from out of town. Other Mexican visitors have settled in for the day at Tito’s beach tables, with carryalls of food and bathing paraphernalia and the ubiquitous giant Coca Cola bottles.
The six month visitors like my music mentor Jack and his partner are still in residence until sometime in April, and the transplanted expats remain. Another great winter season is coming to an end.
Singing Breakthrough
Part of the magic of my first night on the beach at Tito’s was that it propelled me into singing open mic here in Melaque.
Don has always loved my singing and encouraged me to do it. I have a strong intuition that part of the spiritual experience on the beach that first night involved music… that Don was nudging me.
It was no accident that someone told me about the next day’s open mic right there at Tito’s. I thought, “Why not!”.
I wanted to sing my current favorite song, The Rose, written by Amanda McBroom and performed by Bette Midler in the movie of that name. “That song would not work well with the band”, a kind singer told me. However her husband agreed to accompany me on guitar.
I was told to arrive at 12:15 to sign up. Arriving at noon, I was way down on the list but determined to sing.
A neighbour from Gibsons came to support me, bringing several of her hotel friends with her. They cheered me as I went on stage, and she made a video of me singing. There was a lot of noise in the room, but I could still be heard, both live and on the video.
Highly motivated, I went to the next live mic three days later on Tuesday evening, also at Tito’s, by Jacks invitation. There, I learned that Jack and his wife sponsor both the Saturday and Tuesday events, donating all proceeds to help the most poverty-stricken Mexican families.
Over 10 days, I performed five times at live mic, including one karaoke performance with an amazing young woman from the Canadian Navy. I met her right before she left town, and we sang “I’ll Fly Away” together, with me singing harmony at my request… Such fun!
After that, I took a break for 10 days, realizing intuitively that the singing marathon, although incredible, had been intense and took lots of energy.
I began again fresh on a Tuesday night, singing at the smaller Jack and Friends venue. The time off helped me, and I felt I had hit my stride, singing two solos and Why Me Lord with Jack, a song I’d wanted to sing for a long time with a male singer, as I lean toward music with broad spiritual contexts.
Jack has been amazingly helpful, encouraging and mentoring me; I would go so far as to say. Last Wednesday at karaoke, he told me I did a good job of Dolly Parton’s Wildflowers; however, I needed to practice lots to teach myself to stay within the confines of the karaoke music. (Karaoke is harder than singing open mic with Jack and Friends; the music does not slow down or speed up to follow my tempo; I must follow it!).
I’ve begun my karaoke “homework”; however I’m looking at it as a long-term task as I am on vacation after all… And my goal here on the beach with its energy portal is healing myself spiritually.
When I returned to Canada, I look forward to hitting the ground running, singing at least twice weekly, participating in every opportunity that appeals to me.
“Buenos Dias”
Finally, I managed to squeeze a blog out of myself! Everything seemed to pale after the experience of my first night here. I have tried a few times to no avail, but this morning, I felt the muse while sitting over my coffee here on the beach at Tito’s restaurant, where it all started.
The town of Melaque is a typical Mexican Town in the sense that it is quite traditional. Although built up since our visit in 2001, it is not gentrified like Barra de Navidad around the bay. Even in 2001, we found Barra too chi chi for our liking and shifted to Melaque, where we secured a room in a Mexican hotel right on the beach for fewer pesos per night.
I go into the Town Center two or three times a week. It’s a good 20-minute walk, longer for me, hard on my body, and since I do not ride a bike, I take taxis when I go, at a cost of $15 Canadian round trip, including a generous tip.
There is a somewhat wider selection of food in the Town Center than in the Beach restaurants, but I’m still not able to get the amount of vegetables, etc, that I aim for on my new, cholesterol-lowering diet.
I see my Gibsons’ friends, who have rented a beautiful house at the far end of town from time to time. They are struggling with repeated injuries, mostly from falls off their bicycles, incurred while riding on the bumpy cobblestones!
Volunteer work has been challenging to find, as was the case last year in Bucerias. I don’t follow the common methods like paying an organization to volunteer. What is that about? We always ask ourselves, both here and in India.
I branch out on my own, seeking individuals and small organizations that may want my help. Two sessions of ESL with our hotel housekeepers were good… challenging for them as they have no English, and it was hard to book times. One of them has left now, so that is over. Fun while it lasted.
My second volunteer job is at CENAC, the Western, almost one woman run Art Center in town. I have been in once to send a group thank you letter to donors who have contributed to the building of a second story upstairs, a valuable goal as it will offer more art and dance options to children from all economic stratas as well as adults.
That volunteer job is also a challenge; the manager is spread very thin and quite disorganized.
I spend some time with my American friend from Texas and hotel folks, but I prefer to be alone on the beach as much as possible, soaking in the healing spiritual energy of the portal that is centered here at the west end of Melaque Beach.
So there you have a glimpse of my current daily life – more to come as I continue to unravel the past and the future.
Locked Out
First, it was the flood in my apartment; a washer overflowed from the unit above me and then migrated downward to the suite below. I was out of my home for four days, a relatively short time. It could have been much worse, only the walls and ceilings of my bedroom and hallway were affected, soaking the insulation. Thankfully, there was no water under the floor.
I didn’t make too much of this, although leaving my relatively new home and staying in a hotel took a toll, I realized in retrospect.
I was promised the restoration would be done while I was away in Toronto in September, and that happened, although with the unexpected hurdles of an incompetent strata insurance agent and my contractor going dark due to a phone issue.
I’m glad to be home this time, unlike my return from Mexico in January, when Gibsons was the last place I wanted to be. The weather is sunny and cool; hopefully, we’ll be fortunate to have a beautiful October if the fall rains hold off.
After enjoying only two of nine nights in a lovely historic boutique hotel in Parkdale, I was locked out of my room with none of my belongings for twenty-four hours due to an unusual electronic lock issue. The complementary meals, wine and toothbrush I was given did not make up for the lockout.
The trip to Toronto was wonderful yet challenging. Toronto is not easy. Being with my Tibetan sister in Mississauga to the west of the city at the beginning and end of each trip is restorative. Although the shadow of Don’s absence hangs over our visits, but less so with time.
Meanwhile, back at home, I had managed to secure an identical computer to replace the one that kept crashing. When my techie began to download my data onto the new computer, he was plagued by crash messages; there was something wrong with Windows. On my return, I took the computer back to the place of purchase, and it worked perfectly. Multiple diagnostic tools could not reproduce the problems experienced by my tech guy!
Without a functioning computer, I could not jump back into my work on my grief memoir. Suddenly, I realized, in that knowing third-eye way, that I was not meant to be writing the book at this time. The work, although valuable in processing my experiences during Don’s illnesses and transition to spirit, was re-traumatizing me and keeping me in the past when my spirit and intention were to move into my new, solo life more and more. It keeps that life with Don alive. It keeps him alive.
Although working on the book is satisfying, the writing is hard work and painful. At least twice, I had considered ceasing. But I kept pushing ahead, feeling a need to complete it for myself and possibly to help others who had lost their soulmates.
Was I being locked out of my current life so that I could focus more on my burgeoning new life? Is the writing serving as a distraction?
What is to happen next? Perhaps it will be time to restart the book when I am farther along in my new, joyous life. Maybe in the spring after Mexico? Whatever transpires in the months to come, I didn’t come to this conclusion entirely by myself – I had to be hit over the head by the Universe, by circumstances.
Arrival in Dharamshala
McLeod Ganj, Upper Dharamshala
Our morning flight from Delhi to Kangra Airport, fourteen kilometres southwest of Dharamshala, was uneventful, but on arrival in McLeod Ganj I discovered that I’d left one bag on the airport luggage belt, necessitating a speedy, (read racing), return taxi trip down the hill by my steadfast partner.
As we travelled north from Delhi we began to fly over the lower foothills of the Himalayas, landing in the green and luxuriant Kangra Valley, sheltered by the Dhauladhar range, after one and a half hours. The Kangra Airport, at almost 2500 feet in elevation, is about half the elevation of Upper Dharamshala.
The first time we flew into Kangra in 2015, I was quite nervous. It was February, a season of unreliable weather, with plenty of rain and fog. Several years earlier I had read Mick Brown’s Book, The Dance of 17 Lives, about the seventeen incarnations of the Karmapa, the third highest Tibetan Buddhist incarnation. In the book the author described his flight to Kangra during the month of February in bad weather. His seatmate, a monk who happened to be one of the Dalai Lama’s brothers, was petrified, constantly repeating a scary mantra: “Maybe today we will die”, unnerving all around him. We were fortunate, our weather conditions were fine for both our 2015 and 2017 trips, and we never flew over high mountains, as Brown’s book seemed to imply.
Settling in at Pema Thang Guesthouse came easy, as we had stayed there previously, and the staff really make you feel like you’re home. We had the good fortune of moving into the best room in the guesthouse after our initial two nights, with a discount, as a large party of Danish students had booked all the less expensive rooms.
Our view was superb, and we could observe the activity at the Dalai Lama’s temple any time, day or night. It was an excellent November and barely a drop of rain fell during the entire month we were in McLeod Ganj. Temperatures did not drop significantly at night until mid month.
We wasted no time; knowing we might not return to Dharamshala, we began connecting with our dear friends the day we arrived in town. Dr. D., my “Tibetan sister” came to our room with her young daughter that afternoon, with the usual arrival gift of fruit and khata welcome scarves. The next morning we visited K. and T., an older Tibetan couple who live near the temple.
This trip was memorable due to our deep connections with individuals. We built on already established relationships with very exceptional people, some of whom we have known for ten years over our many visits to the town. Their deep spirituality, their love and generosity, allowed us to connect heart to heart at a new level. Over the years we have come to know and appreciate each other in many new ways.
Dr. D. administered to our medical needs with her powerful Tibetan medicines, invited us to her home and took a road trip with us. There was a particular reason for visiting Dharamshala this fall. The family is leaving the country, moving to the west, and our time together was especially poignant.
Our dear friends K. and T. a deeply devout couple, have taught me much about love. They and all their children are full of light, what I perceive as pure love. Being in their presence opens my heart. Formerly comfortably off nomads in Tibet, their life both in Tibet and in India has been spent in devotion to Tibetan Buddhism and to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. Twice each day they visit Namgyal Monastery, close to their apartment, circumambulating the temple grounds, (ie, moving around a sacred object or idol on foot), during the morning visit, a 45 minute journey, uphill for the last part. At the temple they do multiple prostrations.
We do not shared a language with our friends, but it does not seem to matter. Their son, a monk who disrobed in order to support his family, joined us from Kathmandu on WeChat video during our first visit and interpreted. Dr. D. accompanied us on one visit, but we went alone on our final visit, enjoying ourselves as always, miming what we needed to say to each other, and eating the delicious Tibetan food, K insisted on feeding us.
Our hearts and souls know each other; it is not necessary to speak. Once I asked T., through his son, what he thought our relationship was in the past. His clever reply was “The Buddha knows”.
During the final weeks before we departed Canada to journey to India, many times I felt an urgency to leave, and heard a voice in my head saying, “I have to get to India, I have to get to India”. Having reached Dharamshala and begun reuniting with the town and our friends, I felt content to be home once again.
Ellen
Copyright Ellen Besso 2018
Next: The Dharamsala International Film Festival, (DIFF)
Fall Again…new beginnings
The days are warm, the nights cool. I sit on my back deck surrounded by my friends, the giant conifers, soaking in the afternoon sun, squeezing the last drops of heat from the thinning sun before it sinks behind the trees.
The monsoon season is almost over in Dharamsala India. The weather is cooler this fall than usual I’m told. It’s been close to a decade since I discovered McLeod Ganj, Upper Dharamsala, home of the Dalai Lama and tens of thousands of Tibetans in exile, but every year at this time, I long to return to the place where a part of my spirit permanently resides.
A prediction was made more than one thousand years ago by Padmasambhava, also known as Guru Rinpoche: “When the iron bird flies [airplanes]…the Tibetan people will be scattered like ants across the world, spreading [their culture and Tibetan Buddhism].”
Perhaps next fall, or the next one, we will go back to Dharamsala, before more of our Tibetan friends leave. They truly are spread around the world: France, the US, Australia, one waiting with hope in Toronto for permission to immigrate with his family.
This year my partner is winding down his survey business, preparing to retire at the end of the year. I am returning to my creative and spiritual pursuits, restoring myself after intense immersion in another sponsorship program, this time with Syrian refugees.
As our planet, and we along with it, moves deeper into the vibration of the fifth dimension, I renew my goal to be in connection with spirit continually, participating in activities that feed me and spending time with folks I have deep connections with.
My year’s experience attending the powerful Divine Love prayer circle and the friendships developed there have helped me tremendously with my spiritual pursuits. So has my relationships with the devote Christians on the Working Committee for the Syrian sponsorship, a local church sponsorship, and my time with our two Christian Syrian families.
Maintaining contact with spirit is simple, if we allow it to be so. I am slowly learning this truth. Angels are around us all the time, and the more we acknowledge this and ask them for assistance, the stronger our connection becomes to spirit.
“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself, [herself], in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.”
― Albert Einstein
Eclectic Spirituality 