fire and water

fire and water
heat and cold
good and bad
life and death
wood and food
work and heat
work and fire
fire and work
heat and work
loss of selfhood
loss of sense of space, of where I left my backpack, of where the trail was, of who's my own feet were.
loss of sense of time, losing interest in time, it was 4:30 am and I had no reference points with which to guess.
living a poem that goes beyond the constraints of language, temporality, subjectivity, sociality. Simply noticing its universal sense coalesce and vanish for ever after.
knowing that an attempt to capture experience would be absolutely futile.
being in control of creation
scanning for signs to make sense of, anything that will slow the interminable scanning, anything that the mind will hold in with its threads and sew to the meaning of... everything.

a cohesion of mind amongst members of the group with ideas, moods and vibes
an unabated joy at the marvels of unbound synchrony of mind and creation.
four minds dancing with each other in and out of, above and below, behind and in front of, beside and inside of the same plane.
the timeline of one's life plainly visible, yet blank, in front of you.
voices and footsteps behind, only darkness
a presence of a fifth person
a giver, a purger, a Nordicman, Zen, a mother
the forward march of reason, bum!-bubum!!-bubum!!!-bubum!!!!
a song, that went like ooooooooooooh-oooooooh-ooooooh-oooooooooooooh-OOOOh-aa that was irresistible, overwhelmingly emotional, and nearly absolutely beautiful (its eppitome), came and went at the will of its own life.

full body pleasure comparable to a constant orgasm indistinguishable of, an intrinsic part of, a result of, the fuel for visions of the most objectively beautiful scenes and images, unbound by the limitations of physicality that constrain the reproducibility of art: art that surpasses the limitations of dimensionality, color, animation (alive or dead), art that achieves with absolute precision the collective conception of the beauty. Living, irreproducible art that cascades with sheer meaning. Art that would manage to sell any capitalist product or idea to every living human being that has existed on the planet.
an overwhelming hyper-awareness of what felt like the five senses bleeding together enveloping our cardboard shack of consciousness and imbruing us with death's blood: life at the opposite extreme of death.

Light everywhere its wanted
Space can be rippled by wanting it to be
awareness of the nerves running up and down the legs, arms and back, all tingling with life.
Caressing a friend's feet, and forgetting that they weren't my own.
A yes to everything, capable of positing everything immediately after its utterance.
A lingering song that materializes itself and floats through minds like animate steam and comes to life during the collective chant. A song that exists without sound.

The processes needed for the survival of a human organism, uncomplicated, directly traceable from the fruit in the mouth, to the energy fueling the mind that knows its time to stock the fire.
Stalking a fire for no one but the group. (I)All for (I)all.
Collecting wood in pitch black woods, frustrated at its absence, gratified by the materialization of a stick or log at the tips of (un)blind fingers, another one, another one. The realization that after all, we're in a forest, there's enough wood for a bonfire to keep us warm.
creating heat within by creating heat for us
Losing my folded legs to grant someone still sleep, not knowing when it's supposed to hurt, feeling them reappear in an intense pulsating cacaphony of pain and pleasure simultaneously as I get up.
As she falls asleep, realizing that she's gone, and asking, "where did she go?" as her body shut down.
Imagining her gone, knowing the impossibility of fathoming the goneness of a loved one.
When death happens, you know it's happening, like knowing when that car is about to hit your moving bike, and thinking, it's ok...
at times ceasing to differentiate between warmth and light, and wet and darkness.
Drying off while being rained on
Warming up while being cooled down.
Hearing voices in the vaporized rain drops that hit our fire.
overcoming the night in a perfect cycle of circular opposites - cold - warm, darkness - firelight, wet clothes - dry clothes, afraid - confident, lost - vivid, alone - in synchrony, meaninglessness - excess of meaning, pleasure - pain, weariness - energy, dirtyness, cleanliness, cold - warm, alone - together, awake - asleep.
Noticing a barge increase in size as it rode down the Hudson, seeing a new barge appear with each increment of size, glance after glance. Knowing that if the barge were to disappear to my company, it would've never existed to me, as the condescending footnote in my high school history book noted to happen to the original American people when the Spanish boats (dis)appeared on the horizon.
Feeling the relevance of ritual, chant, tradition, event to being human. Understanding why absolutely misunderstood rituals have lived necessarily unchanged in the spirituality of many American peoples. Understanding (wondering) what a forceful lack does to us.
Killing and animating God simultaneously

lo que fui a traer a sur america

Colombia

http://picasaweb.google.com/hearken/Colombia?feat=directlink

Ecuador, Norte del Peru, Lima
http://picasaweb.google.com/hearken/EcuadorYPeru?feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/luisfogarty/ElViajeDeLos21Lima?authkey=Gv1sRgCNnLmvC97JiCfg&feat=directlink

Con un Padre en Peru (my favorite album)

http://picasaweb.google.com/luisfogarty/ElViajeDeLos21ConUnPadreEnPeru?authkey=Gv1sRgCNSU9_aIhsCN7wE&feat=directlink

Sur de Peru, Los Inca, La Paz, Bolivia

http://picasaweb.google.com/luisfogarty/ElViajeDeLos21SurDePeruLosIncaBoliviaLaPaz?authkey=Gv1sRgCOr9v9eJxLysvAE&feat=directlink

A couple weeks gone by in red white and blue, putting together what I think this trip did to me

Since I flew over America and landed at the heart of the United States, a lot has happened.

I got home, visited my sweet grandparents in Connecticut, moved into my cozy room and dorm, and began to think about about the actual doing of this coming school year. The ideas had to fade, and the doing began. It was a cool sensation to be back. I've heard sometimes its weird, but it was just cool to be back in the same place for second consecutive year. It felt mildly like being home again with a chance to start over and keep whatever I wanted.

So I began to construct my class schedule on google calendar, look for a cell phone provider (I found a blackberry), buy the extras for my room, buy food, do laundry (some that had seen the sunshine on Lake Titicaca), unpack my collection of goodies, buy books, and talk to people here.

Its unimaginable the amount of time and mental energy doing those simple things takes. Fortunately, I've got it all pretty much settled, and now the real good stuff starts: actually doing readings, posting responses, going to sections, ordering more books, finding a job or internship that looks good for the semester, going and doing things at the club meetings, as well as getting my brain back into normal school mode. These are all pleasant. I feel like I can't speak in class yet, until i've gotten my brain adjusted to the jargon of the class. I can speak spanish well. I've especially enjoyed going to the club meetings filled with mostly spanish speaking girls. (It has dawned on me about once a month every month I've been here that this community has an overabundance of gorgeous girls, its quite hard to believe.)

If I were to share with you the speakable effects that this trip has had on me, I would have to mention three things. They obviously don't coalesce like this in the mind, but in order to allow anyone to understand them, I've categorized them, like a good intellectual would do. The first one is communicating. After countless moments communicating with strangers, something in my head clicked. It's just easier now to get what I want respectfully and comfortably from another person. I want to say I'm better at reading people too.

The second thing would be an understanding of how I liked traveling best. I'm refering to speed, company, nature of the places, time, comfort. This trip was the one that will set the tone for the ones to come, and will be the one I think back to when I think of personal traveling.

The third thing that has changed noticeably is my independence. I can alomst confidently say that I can be stable and content while being completely alone, something I lacked when I began school (and which too many people lack here.) The time in solitude on the trip did this. I have doubted my retension of this skill during the first chaotic week, where my head at times nearly goes haywire and my productivity goes to crap, something that bothered me a lot last year. My Buddhism class will might teach me how to control this phenomena, I would have to call it a phenomena.

Despite the difficulty in communicating this, if there would be a forth general effect it would be to have acquired a better understanding of the levels (or moods, states of mind, phases) my mind enters when in a travel mode. (The travel mode has many similarities to the routine here, I think, therefore this might be valuable.) I can now identify them and begin to understand their causes and remedies. I think of this as part of getting to "know thyself."

So I'm going to take advantage of the lure I feel to the still mistical New City of York and go do something in Harlem before this Friday slips away. Check in with whoever you are soon.

From the Santiago Metro to the MTA

From the Santiago, Chile Metro to the MTA, I´ll be retracing my progress into the endless south along the Andes, to end up where I started three long, unforgettable months ago... home.

ive a lot in notes ill be putting up here soon.