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Having spent most my life as a “city dweller”, I am still amazed to wake up in the coastal village of Yelapa Mexico without cars.  Our yoga terrace over looks the bay and sits in a spot where the pier arrivals and departures happen throughout the day. 

I often begin my morning yoga practice in the dark, listening to the night sounds of insects playing in harmony, the quiet sound of water lapping on the shore.  The sky is filled with stars and I watch the light come over the mountains as I face the rising sun.  I know the day has offically started as I hear the sounds of footsteps running to catch the early morning boat.  Life in Yelapa is marked by the coming and going of boats.  Each person and every thing held in Yelapa arrives on these water taxi’s.  The hummm of freeways has disappeared from my life as I find myself traveling less, needing less and walking more. 

My heart still sings on boat rides with fresh air blasting my face, feeling the boat connection to the sea and taking in the thrill of scenary and ocean life.  Magic filled my soul on the October full moon night as I joined friends for a late evening boat ride to bask in the moon light.  We sat in the boat waiting for that beautiful full moon to emerge from behind some clouds on a warm October night. The bright moon light reflected from the sun moved us to total silence.  Our group took a few moments to sit in a state of prayer as we absorbed the magic of the moment. Understanding the state of our current planet,  I know I am blessed to live a life so closely connected to the sea.  A life in a tropical world still so new to me connected to nature and shared with neighbors I had no idea existed.  The unfolding of Yelapa continues with all it’s challenges and all it’s magic. 

As I watered my plants this morning, I was surprised to see this big toad sitting in one of my small pots. He sat there for hours as I played with my camera taking pictures. I even sprayed the leaves around him with water and took more pictures.

The Joys of Extended Family

One of the delightful suprises for me living in Yelapa is being adopted by a local family.  The Cruz family invited us to live next door and basically took us into their family.  The experience of an extended family living close together rarely exists in the busy lives of Americans.  Becoming part of an extended family here has opened my heart to both the joys and struggles of family life. 

                                                                               
Sharing a wall of our house with the grandchildren living next door, Alexia, Miguelito and Sebastian, have become a part of my daily rhythm.  When I hear little Miguelito crying and unable to get to sleep, I pile him in a back pack and walk to the water til on my return he has fallen asleep and we carefully put him to bed. The little ones running in and out of our home, visiting our birds, playing with our dogs and coloring at my kitchen table became part of what I look forward to in the day.  We share meals, birthdays, babies’ first steps and the trial time of “weaning”. 

                                                                                 
While we were gone over the summer, five of the family members including little Alexia and Miguelito, crossed the border for a life with more opportunity. 
My heart broke knowing they were no longer going to be part of my daily life.  Now I understand the risks people take for a better life, the sadness of families broken apart without the chance to visit because of not being legal and the loss of not getting to see two children grow up who so strongly entered my heart. The loss of those spirits in my neighborhood is felt daily along with the acceptance of Yelapans that this is the way of life.  Every family around me has experienced this loss and separation. The young leaving for more opportunity and the government rules and regulations keeping the families physically apart but still sharing a deep love and closeness in spirit believing the time will come for them to be reunited again.

The Extended Family In San Jose 

Being a daughter of immigrants myself brought up fear about my Mexican family members crossing the border and beginning life in the north.  I projected my own experience of immigrant life onto their experience. As a daughter of Jewish immigrants whose parents survived the holocaust, life was filled with struggle.  The combination of parents who spoke no English, had no education, no professions to earn money and were without extended family combined with their battle with the effects of post traumatic stress disorder from the war made the immigrant experience a challenging road.  I did not want to see my Mexican family suffer the life of immigrants.

How eye opening it is to see first hand how easily the immigrant transition can happens in a tight community.  San Jose has a huge community of young Yelapans who have settled  there for a life with more opportunity.  The young Yelapans in San Jose and other cities in the States, support their families in Yelapa and ease the way for newcomers.  The wheels of movement from Yelapa to the U.S. are very much in place inspite of the new rules, regulations and walls promoted by the U.S. government. 

The flow continues and one community feeds into the next based on that deeply held thread of extended family. Miguelito and Alexia are doing well with their parents who are cared for by their strong community of both native Yelapans and North American Yelapans supporting and guiding their way into American life.  They are part of a Mexican American community sharing the same fiestas and celebrations they grew up with in Mexico.  The birthday parties, foods cooked from home and stories about their families in Yelapa hold them together as they slowly integrate into a new culture.   

Now I wait for that telephone call, to hear the stories about Alexia and Miguelito, wait for the pictures and as their family in Mexico, we all talk about how their new lives are going.  There’s an unspoken missing of them we share as a family.  I, on the Mexico side of the border, am part of a community waiting for the stories of my family living in the North and holding the dream that someday we will all be reuited. 

I laughed as my container for holding the raffle tickets grew all summer while I tracked donations from Florida to California and Washington, Canada and Mexico for our Casa de la Imaginacion Raffle Fundraiser to support Yelapa’s new Cultural Center. Meet the center and the children www.yelapa.org .

On the day of the raffle drawing, we decorated the Two Dog Yoga Studio in Seattle with Isabel Jordan’s Huichol Art Show. The energy in the room came alive with the spiritual visions of Huichol Indians expressed in colorful beaded figures and yarn paintings. As I brought out the tickets (drum roll please), we placed them in Annie’s crystal healing sound bowl. The suspense built through the night until Isabel announced that it was time to begin drawing the raffle winners.

With great excitement she covered her eyes and one by one began drawing for the 5 locations offering A Week’s Stay In Yelapa. The Lucky Winners Are:

Hotel Lagunita: Joel Summerhill
Casa Isabel: Esme Freedman
Casa del Sol: Darcy Sharpe-Mead
Oasis: Aucht Reddy
Casa Pedrana: Maritza Ravelo

Our Biggest Winner:
LA CASA DE LA IMAGINACION: Yelapa’s Cultural Center
From a dream to reality: thanks to the network of nurturance and support rippling from our small village in Yelapa Mexico and reaching around the world. The intellectual understanding of our web of inter-relatedness has now become the reality of a community of hearts woven in action. Thanks for all the hearts joining to beat as one in this creation! These funds will run the center in the coming year, offer more programs to the village, buy the tables and chairs we are in desperate need of for children and adults and install running water in the center.
Muchas Gracias to:
Our Landlord: Chon who rents us his 2 story building and prepared it for opening.
Founders: Luis & Wendy
Program Director: Carolina Reyes Gomez
Casa Staff: Daly
Staff-Volunteer Coordination: Vero
Casa Board of Directors and Advisors: Luis, Wendy, Vero, Alicia, Brad, Alicia R., Maritza, Kathryn, Judith, Carolina, Cliff
World Volunteers: Visitors from Spain, Korea, Romania, Japan, Wales, Luxumberg, Germany, France, U.S. donating thousands of hours of love and energy.
Volunteer Housing: Brad & Vero
Raffle Website Design & Promotion: Brad & Judith
Raffle Prize Donors: Hotel Lagunita, Casa Isabel, Oasis, Casa del Sol, Casa Pedrana
Drawing Location: Annie Stocker of Two Dog Yoga in Seattle
All Who Bought Tickets: Thanks for buying, selling and promoting
Ticket Sale Management: Carol Rush, Nana Simone & Cody Sontag
Casa Seed Donor: Sam Harrison
Executors of Seed Donation: Isabel, Maria, Patty
Special Donors:
Bob McCormick, John Reed, Nana Simone, Tom Duke, Carol Rush, Larry Blake.                                                                                                              Material Donations: All Yelapa Visitors who bring supplies to stock our shelves.
Our Sister Program: St. Paul’s Church, Seattle Washington
Teachers: Sports, Art, Yoga, Puppetry, Music, Dance, Language, Ecology, Finishing High School Ed, Teen Talking Circle, Ocean & Dolphins Communication.
Hands On Help: painters, gardeners, cleaning crews, supply organizers, trash schelpers

I’ve always dreamed of a blog style website and here it is! Now I have a way to share stories and pictures in an on-going way about Yoga and Yelapa. Scroll down to read about: Raffle Results, My Return To Yelapa, My Yogi Lesson and Meet Our Yoga Dog Luna and Website Designer, Brad. To receive updates from my website, simply add this page to your “favorites” and check for new postings. I’m looking forward to sharing with you.

My new offering listed above: A Yoga Eco Vacation invites you into the heart of the village. It’s 8 days, all inclusive in Yelapa Mexico for only $885. This package based on economy and ecology offers you a new way to experience yoga. Enter the culture, meet and explore the village while sharing yoga and the beauty of Yelapa.

Please Feel Free To Share This Website With Others

Re-entering village life, we arrive on a beautiful day after many strong storms and 2 hurricanes. It’s 89 degrees, clear and sparkling with astounding green growth lighting the landscape. The refreshing breeze is still clearing the air from the humid build-up to a frenzy of strong storms. This is a dramatic change from the Seattle we left this morning - rain and dropping temperatures bringing color to fall leaves.Crossing our fingers after we collect our 2 large suitcases, 2 filled to the brim large pack backs, 4 tubs duct taped closed filled with toys for kids, coffee supplies, our stuff and gifts for our neighbors. PV has a red light - green light immigration entry system and our mantra is “green light” please or else we are stuck with a customs agent as we try to explain why we are entering with all the items( in our broken Spanish and body language). Our energy soars as the men carrying our boxes get the green light and we pass without inspection into our Mexico home. Alejandro, Cody’s birding buddy is waiting for us driving a huge eco tour van. In five minutes we fill his van and head to our stored van. Our nerves rise a bit wondering if the car will start and we cheer as the engine humms on the first try after four and a half months of storage.

It’s late afternoon and we have no idea if we can catch a boat taxi to Yelapa. With vegetation on our left side and the sea to our right, we travel the coast 45 minutes to an inlet where locals catch the water taxi to Yelapa. Our eyes drink in the beauty of the rainy season’s delightful abundance as every living plant explodes with color and growth as we luckily arrive in time to catch the last boat of the day. A local man who always helps us carry things warmly greets us and begins carrying our heavy luggage to the small fiberglass boat taxi. Loading the boat, we feel the warm sand under our feet and bask in the summer sea water’s temperatures matching the air of this season. With moments to spare, Cody and I sit on the beach having a cool glass of bubbly water with lime, taking a moment to relish our “Green Light” entry experience from the moment we stepped off the plane. ALL SYSTEMS WORKING, Houston,we’ve made it again!

Returning to our village, so different from life in the north, taking us back to a time we never knew and are coming to love. After many days of stormy seas, we travel the calm waters in the afternoon breeze, boat loaded with all our stuff and locals heading to Yelapa. This familiar ride we’ve taken many times feels fresh from the barren, dry coast we left in April thirsting for moisture. Water, the life giving precious commodity we prayed for before leaving the village as it faced days without in the dry season, has now  transformed into a new coastline drenched in green rich flourishing abundance so spectacular to our eyes. Even the sea water is higher as we stop at local villages to drop off travelers. Waterfalls pour from the hills and the word tropical takes on new meaning. My heart races as I realize we are nearing Yelapa.

The late afternoon boat ride takes longer than usual as we move directly into the afternoon wind. Our driver heads across the small Yelapa bay towards the pier as we take in the beauty of hut like homes diminished in size with vibrant foliage abounding. This level of lush is new to my eyes as we get closer to the pier. With water higher than usual at the Yelapa pier, a group of children play falling and diving in the water. One of them spots us in the boat and cries of “judi, judi, judi” are heard at our distance of mid bay as the children’s excitement of our arrival begins to travel in the village even before we arrive.

Young ones anxious to help us unload begin wrestling with luggage larger than themselves and older kids run to get a wheel barrow. Familiar faces and calls welcome us home each step of the distance from the pier to our front door. Short ones dragging suitcases and older boys proudly carrying our containers move us quickly with much excitement.

Seeing the growth in the children and plants litterally growning out of cement in our front yard, I realize the vegetation and the children have grown to unrecognizable proportions. The potted plant’s leaves next to our front door are the length of my arm and little Suzanna is missing a middle top front tooth as she smiles and with two fully grown new bottom teeth in place. She’s grown from a small girl to a big girl and she’s glued to my side as we take a walk to the village waterfall followed by a train of children.

The fall trickling before we left has taken a palm roof off the nearest house and is pounding the pool and the river. As we walk back, the children fill me with their summer stories of adventures including being shown all their boo boos and injuries. Much of what they say now, I understand and what I don’t doesn’t seem to matter. The love and attention heart to heart bonds us in this fabric of village life in which I have become apart.

Our casa is filled with excited children and neighbors as we ooh and ahh over every child’s growth. Our birdies are tweeting happily with excited calls and our dog Luna, watched over by our neighbors, is jumping for joy and reunion. Being welcomed home by a village is beyond what I could have ever imagined. My heart, like the waterfall, is over flowing. Preparing for sleep in our own bed after four and a half love-filled months with friends and family in the north, we listen to the symphony of night sounds more alive than any other time I remember and I’ve come to understand the words It Takes a Village in ways I never could have imagined.