"Walking Spirit"

Eduardo Guzman Chavez “Lalo” con amigo del pueblo Huixarica (Huichol) en Huirikuta

Dear Ones,

It is an honor to Introduce Lalo to you. A living bridge with the Wirikuta Desert and the Wixarica people. A guardian and shareholder of the common desert of Wirikuta. Lalo has been walking the way of the Huichols for over 30 years and lives in the San Luis de Potosi area. You can follow his creative work as custodian of this millenary and sacred altar @sincroniawirikuta on Instagram.

Story

I was traveling and touring through Latin America about 2 years ago. At that time I had a gig at a beach resort in San Agustinillo, Oaxaca. I was supposed to play there a couple of days later when I started to feel something wasn’t right with my stomach.

My hosts and acquaintances at the resort told me not to worry. I was in Mexico, they said and everyone gets a bad stomach. So they gave me a pill against parasites and told me I would be ok in a couple of days. The next day the pain got worse, and someone at the beach gave me a stronger antiparasite medicine. After three days, the day of my concert, I knew I had to cancel. My health was deteriorating by the minute. I could hardly walk from my hut to the bar… fifty meters away.

Casa Corazon, San Agustinillo - Oaxaca, Mexico

The sound system was quite loud, so no one could hear me screaming at the top of my lungs. I was in excruciating pain for a couple of hours. And the pain wasn’t going away. I called my sister - a doctor in NYC - and she said I should take a taxi to the hospital to get checked. I told her there were no hospitals or doctors in town, and I couldn’t lift my bags, I had no strength or help to do that. I was stuck in my hut with no possibility of movement. Thank God, a couple of friends came in for a visit. They called the only nurse in town, who arrived the next morning, and told me that I apparently had appendicitis and I should go immediately to the hospital in Pochotla.

I made my way - which by then was in slow motion - up to the bar to get some water and squeezed a passion fruit in it (the only food I could take in). My hosts had left for the mountains and the resort manager told me the hospital in Pochotla was very dirty and that the barman, Gabo ( Gabriel) was driving to Huatulco the next day, a town with much better health facilities.

Gabo helped me find an Airbnb there, as we drove to Huatulco. The other passengers in the car helped me download my bags into my room once we arrived. The owner of the property was Angel Gabriel. Before driving back to the beach, Gabo told me he had seen a clinic around the corner while driving in, and asked me if I wanted him to drop me off there. I said, “Yes pleeease!!!” I couldn’t walk anymore, and my pain was growing by the minute.

So I crawled up the clinic three steps and mumbled at the clinic’s reception that I needed help urgently. They brought an ultrasound machine, and the doctor checked me and said succinctly “ Senor, your appendix exploded, you have an extended infection… you’re dying, we need to operate immediately.”

As I was waiting for my operation in fear on the stretcher, I grabbed my phone, almost with no battery left - I had left the charger in the rented room - and posted on FB the clinic’s address “I’m in Huatulco, Oaxaca, anyone here I know? I’m being operated on, please help! Hope to see you on the other side”.

Five minutes later I got a message on a new WhatsApp group - as my phone was dying - called “Emergencia Gabriel” from the Sufi community of Mexico City. It read “ Don’t worry we have a darwish in Huatulco, she’s on the way to your clinic. Her name is Dulce Gabriela.”

She arrived charged my phone, called my sister, the doctor in NYC, and got me into the operating room. As I was walking in the room, I had to go over a weird step and then saw a dirty gauze on the floor. I was extremely scared, to say the least when the young doctor asked me if I liked music. He pointed to the speaker in the room, said they had Bluetooth, and asked me to choose a song on my phone. It was a song by the sweet Colombian singer Marta Gomez. The anesthesiologist with a deep and soothing voice said I had very good taste in m u s i c…and his voice faded out as I went deep into what seemed like an ocean inside my stomach. The anesthesia was zonal, meaning I was still semiconscious from my neck up. The operation was successful. It took four and a half hours. The surgeon said they had taken all the infection out of my system.

I recovered for three days at the clinic. Then at a hotel with room service and an elevator, funded by my dear sister Dodi, for a couple of weeks. I learned to walk again and Dulce Gabriela took care of me and visited every day bringing me a Coconut to drink from. I then continued my recovery for two more weeks at a retreat community in Costa Rica. I began playing guitar again with great difficulty and had my first gig two weeks later at a Wachuma ceremony near the border with Panama. I had to sit on a chair to play.

As I made my way touring, gigging, and visiting friends on my way South through Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil, I was praying to find a personal trainer and healer to get my body back to normal. I finally found him at a retreat community in the South of Bahia. I began working out and training intensely three times a week for 2 months, with 1 massage a week. Long walks on the beach, and dancing almost every day.

Now more than 2 years from then, I’m trying to get back yet again to my body. I have to admit I’m living in urban NYC as I hang out gladly and care for my elderly mom.

The good news is I just signed a contract for my book - loosely described as an autobiographical fiction of prophetic sorts - with Monkfish Publishers. And the work continues, to walk my talk, eat and drink less, and return to my body training routine.

Jabel Meliches, South Sinai.

What to Expect

I commit to delivering my newsletter “Once a Moonth” to you. According to the Hebrew calendar, it will happen the week of the new moon - once a month.

The new moon and its waxing is a time for the renewal of the Divine’s name (whatever this means for you) within all of us. Our monthly re-birth lies in sync with the tides of the sea, feminine ovulation principles, and even the accelerated growth of beards in masculine bodies.

In kabbalistic wisdom, each moon has a verb attached to it. These verbs are also called: senses. We shall follow these verbs as guides for each of these offerings as the moons progress throughout the year. There is a full moon short video song, a full moon gift each full moon for the pledged subscribers. Since the moon of Nisan (April 2024) we have begun a series of 30-minute audio conversations with friends and luminaries from around the world.

I have opened the monetization pledges to my subscribers here at Substack so that part of my basic finances can be supported while I create and share my gifts with you.

30-minute conversations with these amazing friends and luminaries from around the world.

Until now:

1 - Nisan: “Abracadabra the power of speech” with Sami Awad (Palestinian peacemaker and spiritual coach, founder of the Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem)

2 - Iyar: “ Grounding with the Earth” with Tiokasin Ghosthorse ( Lakota radio host, musician and elder)

Upcoming:

3 - Sivan: “Walking Spirit” with Eduardo “Lalo” Guzman Chavez ( Guardian of the Wirikuta desert, walking with the Wixarica people for 32 years)

4 - Tamuz: “Zooming in and out of Reality” with Julia Maryanska ( Polish Californian filmmaker and photographer)

5 - Av: “Listening louder” with Morley ( New York vocalist, goddaughter to Sufi Sheik Lex Hixon)

6 - Elul: “ Sacred Action” with Sabine Lichtenfels (co-founder of Tamera peace research eco-village)

7 - Tevet: ”The Challenge of Anger” with Amir Paiss ( Israeli musician and healer, living in Australia)

Huirikuta Desert

Invocation

Sivan moon of walking

the poetry of falling forward

the poetry of risk

May we do less talkin’ (Nisan) and thinkin’( Iyar).

and just walk the plans through.