Early January, 2005 – Sydney
I
arrived home to an empty bank account, but full of excitement and a
kind of disbelief that I had finally fulfilled my late teen’s
dream.
It
was in 1981 when I lived in Brussels (Belgium) that I became aware of
a strong connection to the Andean culture. However my dream of going
to South America took 23 years of watching the kettle on the stove
steadily heating up the water until finally one morning, the sound of
the whistle filled my body with the message that the time to go had
come.
And
suddenly it all became clear to me why I had been prevented from
making this trip sooner. Had I gone to Peru earlier, I would probably
still have had a wonderful time, but most likely without experiencing
the same spiritual depth that I did by going when “the mango was
ripe”.
I started taking the first small steps on the way to my spiritual development in 1991 and I haven’t stopped. Over these past years, a whole new world has opened up to me, or more honestly, I reconnected with an ever present beautiful “inner/outer” world that until then was simply outside my awareness. Through this reconnection I was able to recognise my inner calling and embarked on the new path of becoming a natural therapies practitioner. My Peruvian Pachamama (Mother Earth) was patiently waiting and watching my petals of spiritual growth opening up (at times very slowly) and when my bright yellow centre finally revealed itself, She knew that I was ready to come; ready to heal a very old issue that took place on the Andean land many lifetimes ago. But it is not the experience of this particular journey that I wish to share with you on this occasion, so let us return to the opening paragraph.
My trip to Peru did have one other plus. It gave me enough extra Frequent Flyer points to book a ticket to Thailand for this coming Christmas. But here comes February and my plans for Christmas are being challenged! It seemed like an ordinary day until I received a strong message from the “Big Boss” (God, Creator, etc), or to be more precise, an order: “You are going back to Peru for this Christmas.”
“What!?”
I said, followed by my rather assertive and daring “If you want me
to go back, you will have to pay for it because I have no money
left.” From my past experience, I knew that this message was too
strong to ignore or even to negotiate, so at the earliest opportunity
I went to organise my trip to Lima with faith in my purse.
Well,
I needed more than faith and I needed it sooner than I thought, as I
had to pay for my ticket in full within seven days of booking.
Fortunately, the seven days got extended as my travel agent was
waiting for the release of departure tax fees for December 2005 to
finalise the sale. As more than a few days went by without any
response from the airlines, she decided to phone them directly. After
obtaining the required information she fortuitously felt a need to
reconfirm the price of the ticket before debiting my credit card. To
her disbelief my ticket price was $1300 less than originally quoted.
Without any delay she finalised my purchase and could not wait to
share this exciting news with the comment: “You definitely have
someone looking after you!” “I know” was my reply and I quietly
thanked the “Big Boss” for his first instalment. I was sure that
by now my name was pretty high on the “difficult souls” list.
A
day later, a conversation with my herbalist after returning from my
first trip to South America came to my mind. He had commented that
Thailand seems to be much more healing for my spiritual body, and for
my physical body … Peru. To which I replied, “Maybe for the next
holiday I will buy two lots of tickets—one for my spiritual body to
go to Thailand and another one to Peru for my physical body. The
travel agent will probably suggest a trip to the psychiatrist.” We
both laughed. Little did I know that a couple of months later I was
going to have two sets of tickets with a departure date to Peru only
a day ahead of my trip to Thailand.
Now
that my trip to Peru was confirmed, I started to question its
purpose. Seven months of searching for possible clues went by. The
few doors I opened left me waiting with false hope for further
directions. Furthermore, my follow-up emails were unanswered. With
only ten weeks to go, my acceptance of “not knowing” was tested
for trust and patience once again. I even made a joke that maybe the
“Big Boss” was planning to disclose his mysterious plan for me
only upon my arrival in Lima. But as I felt my joke possibly becoming
a reality, I started to wonder if the “Big Boss” had changed his
plans. It felt like a good time for an ultimatum. “If you have
changed your mind, that’s fine by me, providing that you arrange
for a refund of my non-refundable ticket. If not, you will have to
tell me the purpose of my trip pretty soon.”
Another three weeks went by without any success with obtaining a refund or any clue about the purpose of my trip. And then, one afternoon about seven weeks before my departure, a message shot like an arrow through my mind: “You are going back to ...
To be continued in two weeks ...
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