Brenda's Bicycles

I haven’t posted anything on my blog since August 19, 2014. It has been a wonderful break for me, one in which I focused primarily on my own personal healing journey. I needed the writing pause after more than five years of non-stop blogging. But now, I again feel motivated to fill in the blanks, and to at least summarize the magical events that have transpired in my journey of the last seven months.

But first, before I begin writing again, I want to catch up on a huge number of photos. Yesterday I sorted, organized, and labeled them, and last night I uploaded 951 photos that just want to be shared.

This post will be a short one, containing only 53 photos, consisting of a short chronology of events from August through October, 2014. Subsequent photo posts will be much longer.

Just as a quick reminder, I live in the town of Calca, Peru. It is situated at an altitude of just over 9,600 feet above sea level, nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains on all sides (except for a few narrow valleys / river channels). The valley is called “The Sacred Valley”, and it stretches from Cusco all the way to Machu Picchu.

As usual, the photos in this post are thumbnail images. Please click on any photo to enlarge it. The thumbnails leave much to be desired as far as colors and resolution – plus the thumbnails clip all of the edges. I use thumbnails for the post itself, because it gives people an opportunity to get a summary glimpse without downloading huge amounts of data for the high-res photos.

CLICK ON ANY PHOTO TO ENLARGE TO HIGH RESOLUTION

Playground Updates

These first twelve photos document a few of the many ongoing changes that are always taking place in what I call my “playground” – the magical space where I have conducted all of my healing ceremonies.

This is the view right outside my kitchen window, in early August 2014. The two fields in front of me are growing cauliflower, and the gardener is currently giving them a drink of water because this is the dry season. The water comes from the irrigation ditch that splits off from the river just upstream a tiny bit. The view from my kitchen is a gorgeous view no matter what time of year.

This is a zoomed-in view of one of the lower peaks of Mount Pitusiray (Pronounced pee-two-see-RYE) as seen from my garden.

According to Wikipedia, the highest peak of this mountain is 5,800 meters above sea level, which equals 19,028 feet above sea level. I’m not sure if I can see the highest peaks from my house, but given that the valley floor is already 9,600 feet above the ocean, it kind of distorts my perspective.

During my frequent healing ceremonies, when the weather is good, I almost always sit out by the river. One morning I giggled as I saw this old pot stuck in a shallow spot at the side of the river.

It really is just an old pot, but for whatever reason, it became a profound metaphor in my process that day, and I just had to have a photo of it.

This photo is taken from the same spot, without the zoom. The pot is down there behind the big rock in the middle.

You can see how low the water level is right now. Future posts during rainy season will show a huge change.

I love to get down here in the riverbed  and play in the cold mountain waters.

If you look closely, there are four boys downstream. They are searching for something in the river, checking in pools and turning over rocks. I had a lot of fun watching them.

I zoomed in to catch one of them removing his bucket from the river. I never did figure out what they are catching.

Meanwhile, on August 7, 2014, I became fascinated as I watched a large extended family gather across the river. At first they were just moving huge rocks like this one.

Then I noticed that they were beginning to plow the field using teams of bulls. Eventually there were six different teams of bulls out there at the same time, each pulling their own plow.

A closeup of one of the teams. A large wooden pole is tied to their horns, and then the long plow pole is tied between them. The young man in back guides both the plow and the team of bulls.

Eventually, the bulls were given a much deserved rest. The field had been plowed back and forth repeatedly, for most of the day. Later the older youth and men in the family had gone out to plant corn.

A view of the lower part of Mount Pitusiray, just above my kitchen.

A beautiful fly on my kitchen patio wall. He almost looks like a bee.

An Unexpected Gift

On August 29, 2014, just before 9:00 a.m., I was walking out toward my river playground to engage in another solo ceremony. As I did so, I briefly stopped just above the river to check out the progress on a new retaining wall that my landlord was building in the lower garden.

As I eagerly turned and began to walk back down a small sloping mound of grass, intending to continue out to the river, something very unexpected happened — something I can still, to this day, re-live in slow motion if I think about it. Out of nowhere, a little rock in the hard ground below me seemed to reach up and stop my toe with blunt force. Before I knew that was happening I was free-falling in a head first dive toward a deep furrow in the cauliflower field just a few feet below. My left arm was busy carrying my belongings, so instinctively, I reached out with my right hand to break the fall, and to protect my face.

As my right hand landed, my palm hit a rock at the bottom of the furrow, and with no pain at all, I heard a snapping/cracking sound. As I carefully moved to a sitting and then standing position, I quickly glanced at my right hand. I almost went into shock as I noted that the wrist bone appeared to be about a 1/4 of an inch up and over from where it should be. The pain did not start until later.

To make a long story short, I spent the day in Cusco getting a cast on my arm, placed there by an orthopedic surgeon. The main forearm bone (thumb side) was broken just barely above the wrist. Six weeks later, the cast came off and I learned first hand how much agonizing pain can come from atrophied muscles and frozen joints. By the end of November I had finished the vast majority of self-administered physical therapy and all was mostly well, with just a tiny bit of ongoing stretching required to complete the therapy.

I will share the main details, and the profound spiritual significance of the event, in another blog post. Suffice it to say that the entire event was a magical process of emotional release, trust building, and spiritual growth. For me, it truly was an “Unexpected Gift” disguised as something that I never would have chosen.

These “broken arm” photos were all taken on September 11, 2014, thirteen days after I broke my arm.

This is me standing on the path where I broke my arm. I was walking down from the little mound from where my friend Anne-Marie is taking the photo. It is a few feet higher up than I am. My left arm is mostly pointing to the deep furrow where I landed.

A closeup showing more details of my arm. The cast went up and around the elbow. It was very humbling to ask for help. For the next seven-plus weeks, I could not even hold a knife to cut up soft fruit. My right hand was completely useless for the first four of those weeks. My landlord helped me replace my drinking water bottle (5 gallons) when it went empty, and I had my friends or a woman at the market help me cut up fruit for smoothies.

I learned very soon that I could form a hamburger patty with my left hand – and that soon became one of the only things I could cook on my own.

Standing in the actual furrow where my hand hit the rock.

Pretending to pout as I point to the exact spot. I did go through frequent processes of emotional release, but I can honestly say that after the initial shock, even before the cast was on, I never doubted the inspired nature of what was going on.

One last photo, showing my normal face during the whole process.

And one last photo showing the upper mound from where I started walking down to the lower path ….

The New Retaining Wall

At the end of August, Abelardo (my landlord) hired his gardener to build a new retaining wall above the river. The old wall had collapsed during a previous rainy season, and the new wall was necessary to keep the river from washing away his garden in the future. I had been watching the progress for days as Nicolas (the gardener) and his sons used branches and wooden ramps to move huge boulders and rocks from the riverbed. They tediously built what is at least an eight-foot wall using large rocks – doing so with manual labor.

It was when they were almost finished that I stopped to view their progress and then broke my arm early on that last Friday morning of August.

This photo is taken from my patio. If you look closely, you can see my landlord just below and to the right of the trunk of that tree in the middle of the photo. This was taken on September 13, 2014, just 15 days after I broke my arm. The wall was finished a few days earlier, and my landlord spent the last few days laying a row of concrete blocks on top.

Right now, in this photo, he is using a trowel to place a thin row of concrete on top the block wall. He seems to take pride in making his property look nice.

I used a zoom on this one. You can see the top of the wall with a row of concrete blocks on top. Abelardo is carrying another small trowel of cement to finish off the handiwork.

One final photo, like the earlier one.

More Playground Updates

These next 19 photos were taken on October 6, 2014.

In this photo you can see that the river is still quite low. If you look at the far wall, just above the dam, you can use that as a reference point to compare to my rainy-season posts that will come later this week.

I kept telling myself that one day soon (when I had my cast off) that I would get down in this pool to go swimming.

I ran to get my camera because I saw the farmer across the river again plowing his field. This time, he used only one team of bulls, and was actually guiding them between rows of corn. You can see that the corn is already at least a foot tall.

A closeup of the plowing process. It must have been tedious to make sure the bulls did not trample the corn.

… and from another perspective.

I took a break to visit the flower garden. I loved this magical pink rose.

And the irises are beautiful too. Right now, there aren’t many of them because Abelardo and his gardner keep picking them to either sell or display in their home.

A few cabbage plants growing along the path.

Looking from the flower garden back toward my house. The cauliflower is almost completely harvested, and is now surrounded by weeds.

Another view closer in.

As I walk back to the “arm breaking spot”, I stop to get a photo from a different perspective. I fell and broke my arm on the left side of the path, just before the darker green grassy area that climbs up to the wall on the right.

I had a hard time doing it with my left hand, but I finally drew a couple of little hearts on my cast.

A closer view of the wall from the garden side.

Looking from the wall, across the river, as my farmer friends take a break from plowing the new corn. The man in the red-vertical-stripe shirt is my neighbor. He will show up in future photos.

From the wall, looking back across the weed-filled upper cauliflower garden. Most of the cauliflower has been harvested and sold. Only a few young plants continue to mature.

From the wall, looking upstream back toward my river playground in the distance. If you look closely you can see a bridge across the river in the background. The dam is just in front of that bridge.

Looking down over the wall, at the river below. It is about eight feet from here to there. You cannot really perceive the height in the photo.

Also standing by the wall, looking back at my house. I live on the bottom level, and that is my kitchen with the blue-green walls on the right.

Some beautiful little flowers along the path back to the house.

Just outside my front door, on the street side, the city recently began to resurface the road. They dug it all up, brought in new soil, and then flattened it back down, leaving it as a dirt road. For several weeks, I was getting a lot of traffic and construction noise during the daytime.

Hungry Bulls

A couple of weeks later, on October 18, 2014, Nicolas (the gardener) brought in a bunch of bulls to feed off of the cauliflower and weeds that had now taken over the field in front of my kitchen.

At first I was a little intimidated by the bulls, but soon learned that they are actually quite docile when treated with respect.

These photos are taken from my kitchen area. At first the bulls were tied up in the upper field. Each has a rope around its horns and is staked to a different spot so that they won’t roam freely and eat what they are not supposed to.

Another view with the bulls in the upper field (it is hard to see most of them).

As I was back in my kitchen for the evening, I decided to snap a photo of my bouquet from the flower garden. I decided that if everyone else can pick the flowers, then I can enjoy them too.

The next day, on October 19, the bulls were moved down to the lower field, right by my kitchen. There were about six bulls in total.

One of them really enjoying the weeds and cauliflower.

A couple of other bulls doing the same. Later in the day, one of them got loose from his rope and was having a good old time eating things that he shouldn’t … trees, herbs, vegetables, etc…

I felt bad, because the bull was having so much fun and seemed so excited … but I finally used a stick to gently (and carefully) nudge him back to where he belonged. Then I contacted Nicolas’s family. His son later came to the field and tied the little jail-breaker back to his stake in the ground.

I got a lot of profound emotional processing out of the experience. I had helped to put that bull back into his restrictive ropes – and I used the metaphor to explore all of the mental ropes that were given to me by others, and that I have then used to keep myself tied down within “proper behavior” boundaries.

I believe this is the bull that was temporarily exploring with excited freedom.

Unexpected Candid Processing

These last two photos are very special and sacred to me. I did not even know these photos existed until a few hours after they were taken. Please do not use these photos in ANY way without first receiving my permission.

My friend Jeanette came to visit me for a month. She arrived near the end of October and stayed for nearly all of November.

At the end of October, just a day or two before we went to Machu Picchu, Jeanette and I shared a ceremony together out in my river playground.

I will write full details in a later blog, but at one moment when I was quite giggly and happy, Jeanette felt guided to ask if I would like her to do a little energy work on me. As she placed her hands near the back of my neck, I was suddenly shocked to feel a wave of old sadness and grief beginning to rage through me. She had not caused it — she had simply helped me to access what was already in me, what was quite hidden and buried.

I have learned in my emotional healing journey to never repress what wants to come up, so I fully surrendered to the wave of emotion, and before I knew what was happening I was sobbing uncontrollably for nearly an hour.

What is beautiful is that I intuitively recognized the emotion as it began to flow. It was me, as a very young child between the ages of four and six. I have very vivid memories of me being extremely emotional during this time. Quite frequently, I would be lying in my bed while sobbing uncontrollably, with my mother kneeling on the floor beside me as she compassionately tried to comfort me and help me stop crying.

But, prior to this day, I had absolutely no memory of WHY I had cried so much as a tiny child. I only remembered these frequent times when I had. On this day (end of October, 2014) I regressed and became that child and realized that as I sobbed and sobbed, that I was feeling the emotions that I, as a tiny child, could not feel. They were emotions of deep grief over having lost (or losing) my connection to my higher guides and angels, my source and connection to divine guidance. In my heart, I absolutely know this to be true.

The whole process was sacred, profound, and intense. It took all of the strength I had not to get lost in the emotion once I began to give it permission to flow.

Later, when Jeanette told me that she had felt guided to snap a couple of candid photos without me knowing about it, I was eager to see those photos.

Even now, on March 12, 2015, as I prepare this post, I can still FEEL the emotion as I look at my contorted expression. WOW … it was so profound.

Viewing this photo in full size helps me remember the experience more deeply. Click on it with your mouse if you want to enlarge it.

This concludes this first photo post since August. Again I want to request, Please do not use these last two photos in ANY way without first receiving my permission.

Copyright © 2015 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved