I have no idea what day this is; time has become rather meaningless here, where another dimension asks us to become aware of its existence. I am beginning to glimpse, within this other dimension, a gateway to the mystery; of why we are here and what we are doing and what our true purpose is: The Game.

At the end of the day yesterday, I became aware of my mind quieting, leaving me in a very peaceful place. This morning, however, during my morning meditation, I witnessed my mind’s incessant activity again - even when I went outside to prune more of the dead flowers and leaves off the red geraniums down by the lower path. My thoughts focused on what I was doing, judging like an mad arbiter, wondering who was watching, what others were thinking. Do I look good? Isn’t this a nice thing for me to do? Blah Blah Blah. I felt insane. And then I had to laugh. I am not going to control these thoughts. This is what the mind does ... it produces thoughts, a constant stream of thoughts. Judging thoughts. Critical thoughts. Frightened thoughts. Sad thoughts. Happy thoughts. Confused thoughts. My job is to let them float by, like leaves on a stream. It is when I catch them that I make them real. Boy, do I have a long way to go.

Afternoon ... The village waiki’s welcomed us to join them late this afternoon in an impromptu grand fiesta! It was a visual burlesque for the eyes - like swirling fruit sherbet set to an ancient Andean beat.

This was pure magic. Gratitude filled my whole being to be so privileged to witness and participate in this precious Andean culture. I could feel the excitement build. I could also feel a level of strange, almost uneasy expectancy building all around me. Little did I know what was to come.

After the music was over everything, for me, got completely crazy. At least two hundred villagers showed up for the fiesta, nearly one-third were children. We brought out the gifts we all brought with us from the states and that which we had picked up at the market in Cuzco. Pencils, crayons, drawing paper, hair barrettes and brightly colored bands, thread needles, and lots and lots of candy. Caramels, orange crèmes, tootsie-rolls and large round suckers. Immediately the mood, (my experience), began to change - somewhat akin to a small riot. Riot by dark skinned, hand grabbing, yelling Peruvian munchkins, all wanting what we, the white waikis, brought for them in Ziplock bags.

While Americo and Marilyn opened the medical supply box to show the local nurses the respiratory equipment that was being given to them, the children starting pushing and shoving, sometimes crushing the little ones who started crying - loudly crying. It was pandemonium. Marilyn and I looked at each other with a shared, knowing look. This was not good. (Later, Americo would say it was all wonderful - a perfect example of how perspective/polarization works on the planet. I saw senseless pandemonium. He saw a jolly carnival. Same event.)

Seeing the frightening potential, the nurses quickly lined the children up in long rows, smallest to biggest, each waiting with hyper expectation, hands already extended for their lollipop. Starting at the beginning of the line, Angie and I held bags of candy.

"Me. Me."

In their native Qechwan language, they all started screaming, "Me. Me. Candy for me. Give me." What started as a neatly filed "schoolyard" row, quickly morphed into a munchkin mob. Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore and gave the rest of my candy to Angie to distribute to the screaming children. A call was made to assemble inside the housing area.

At the meeting we were asked to debrief. Taking that as my cue to let go of the anger I was feeling, I started first. "This was completely unnecessary", I said calmly, trying to hide the real extent of my rage. "I felt awful out there. What was a glorious celebration turned into a "rich-white-people-giving-to-the-poor-brown-people" fiasco. I didn’t like how I felt at all. I felt ashamed to have all this material stuff and to be hoarding it over those precious children as if they need it. They don’t need candy. They don’t need balloons and stickers or any of it. All this did was to bring up the emptiness of our material world."

After I was finished, I felt, well ... finished. The angry feeling was gone, out of me, no longer inside my body. Several others shared their perspectives, which didn’t resemble mine at all. All they saw was the celebration, the joy and the dance ... a completely different reality. It is all in our perspective, isn’t it?

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