Horsedreamz

I arrived in Puerto Rico with no idea what to expect. Only one person that I had met had visited Puerto Rico and I believe it was a cruise stop off where they were whisked away directly to the Barcadi factory before re joining the luxury boat for a buffet dinner. Just the name Puerto Rico seems to be a mystery as 8/10 people I tell that i’m headed there reply “oh Costa Rica? I hear it’s lovely.” I started to wonder if in fact I had just been pronouncing Costa Rica wrong the whole time but a brief check of my flights with the google machine confirmed that it is indeed a different country, located in the Caribbean. From what I could gather it is unofficially the 51st state of America, which I discovered when upon arrival when my passport wasn’t checked, nor was a Visa issued leaving me in overstayers limbo. However I was allowed to roam free from the air conditioned airport and into the intense humidity of the Caribbean.

 To put this into context I should probably explain why i’m here. The past few months have been a whirlwind trip. I decided to fly to England to see the family and watch the Olympics, followed by a roadtrip from Los Angeles up the west coast of America to Vancouver. I worked in Canada for a month and decided that the time on the road had taken it’s toll. At the ripe old age of 21 I needed a break from drinking, socialising and doing things in general. Not yet able to apply for my retirement pension, the cheapest way to do so was wwoofing- a scheme where you volunteer on an organic farm in exchange for food and board. So with the promise of an organic farming retreat in the Caribbean to fulfil my newfound introverted and reclusive needs I booked a ticket. When people meet travellers they tend to throw around buzz words like “experience” and “free spirited.” For me this is quite the opposite. I came to Puerto Rico because I was tired from all the experiences and simply wanted to detox, read, write and live a simple life by myself for a month or two.

 

It seemed as if I had found the perfect hosts for me to do so as well. The couple hosting me told me from the off set that they aren’t in fact an organic farm but a luxury bed and breakfast, simply looking for some free labour to help do up their property. They said a lot of wwoofers were disappointed find that they wouldn’t be living a sustainable lifestyle, growing their own food and weaving dream catchers out of recycled materiel however this suited me just fine. In exchange for a few hours of work a day, I received free food, free access to internet, films and books and free accommodation right in the heart of the El Yunque rainforest. Perfect to regather my ever sprawling thoughts.

The only problem is that Latino culture is so damned intriguing, confusing, fascinating and just about any other adjective you can think of to describe these beautiful people. Right from being picked up from the airport I liked the way they did things. Traffic here is normally crazy but on this particular day it was election day. Cue hundreds of beaten up old vans crammed with locals in bandannas and megaphones screaming for their favourite candidate. Reminiscent of Homer Simpson the ‘cosmic fool’ bringing back to hippie culture to springfield x 1000. It made the front lawn placards of Orange County seem like the most mundane way to express democracy. The whole city was a buzz with a madness reserved only in western countries for sports. The big issue this election was voting for independence. Obama has pretty much said that if they want to become part of the states then he will continue to support them. If they want to be independent then they are on their own. My hosts reliably informed me that they will vote to become part of USA because they rely too much on U.S. funding. 

It seems that Americans are more than happy to move over here and enjoy the tropical lifestyle, however the majority do not like the natives. Most americans living here reside on the hills in locked gate communities and view a lot of the local ways with mistrust and bewilderment. I have been heavily warned against visiting the local bar as it’s ‘all drug users and prostitutes down there’ and to watch out for the public beaches because ‘the locals just play loud music from shitty cars, get drunk on the beach and mug tourists.

 

I spent most of today wandering the ‘ghettos’ and loved every minute of it. Not only because of my shortage of money do I tend to avoid the touristy areas, but in my opinion, you can only harp on with those travel cliches such as “experience” and “open mindedness” if you actually take the time to see the local culture. Not just drink a fruity “caribbean” cocktail at the hotel or take a guided tour of the nice parts of town, but see the real people of a country, their priorities, hardships and joy.

After wandering through hours of coconut and palm tree lined streets full of abandoned, graffitied houses, half finished buildings and stray dogs seeking shade under broke down cars I arrived at a strip of ‘kioskos’ running parallel to the beach. A long line of of garages and sheds filled with food an drink vendors catering to everyone from rich tourists to locals seeking $1.00 beers and fried meat. I chose the dirtiest, cheapest looking one and sat watching the melee of people. Outside the stores were a range of cars parked, one blasting very loud reggae ton, a latino type of club music. Large groups of families lined the beach barbecuing, drinking and enjoying themselves with all ages involved. The women, who would probably be deemed overweight by Amercian standards, were all dancingwithout worry for image or judgement and looked more beautiful than any of the pretentious plastics who line the beaches of Southern California.

When people say that islanders are lazy, I can see how a westerner, raised in a capitalist dog eat dog world could come to that conclusion. However what I love about the culture is the completely different priorities. The appreciation for things like music, laughter, socialising, family and friends seem to make working harder than you need to somewhat insignificant. The people in Puerto Rico are beautiful and I think even if I do get mugged then my opinion won’t stay the same. If they get stereotyped as thugs by the tourists and avoided in their own country then it would be rude not to buy into it.
After all, they are just leeching off America, robbing the overweight hawaiian shirts fresh off the cruise ship is simply taking out the middle man.

“I’m pretending to be Tiffany’s cousin because Brandy’s kids are super psychic and protective of her. If they found out I was her boyfriend I don’t know what hex’s they’d cast on me.” Brandy, Eli’s girlfriend is a witch with exceptional healing, psychic and magic powers that she has evidently passed onto her children. Tiffany, her friend is a wolf and they are picking up Eli to visit a local mountain that is renowned for being a powerful magic spot in California. The three of them continue to tell me how they have all had hundreds of intertwining past lives together in alternate dimensions including working on spaceships, being citizens of Atlantis, being part of the Illuminati and being vampires. In fact Brandy’s daughter actually killed Eli that time around I am reliably informed. The strange thing about all of this is that after the past week, none of it seems strange to me at all.

Eli is my room-mate at the moment. We share a cottage on an organic farm in the Santa Cruz mountains where we both work a few hours a day in exchange for free food and board from the family who own the property. I decided to do this for a few months to relax and get some peace of mind however a day after my arrival, when Eli turned up things took a turn for the weirder. I was trying to give the appearance of a man deep in the middle of cleansing the mind, body and soul, eating a fresh salad picked from the garden and attempting to read a book that was far too intellectual for me when in he stumbled. All 5 feet and 2 inches complete with a tousled jew’fro, oversized Hawaiian shirt and a fistful of crystals. Many of the great stories that I grew up with involve a certain magical character living in a human world. The typical twinkle in the eye of a child who never grew up hidden on a knowledgeable mature face that suggests somebody who knows so much more than we do about the world we live in. Think the old man from Narnia, Bilbo at the start of Lord of the Rings etc. For me and my story, this was Eli.

I like to think of myself as a pretty open minded kind of a guy. It usually takes a lot to weird me out or to provide an argument that I won’t see both sides of. But I’d never met someone who talked so openly and confidently about topics such as the power of crystal healing, alternate dimensions and magic. Not just sleazy guys in sequined suits and top hats doing card tricks on Cuba Street, but full blown Harry Potter magic. Naturally my alarm bells were ringing and I was skeptical. Within the hour he had already set up his crystal collection and had me holding different types, asking me if I felt the powerful and unique energies that each one emitted. Safe to say I didn’t. Although impressed with his knowledge of the names and properties of the hundreds of crystals, I couldn’t believe that a rock, pretty as it may be, could have the power to expand my consciousness and open my “third eye” to the mystical world around me.

I definitely didn’t embrace his world. But the conviction that he spoke with certainly triggered my curiosity. The next few days, while we worked in the garden I asked questions, trying to get my head around how someone so calm and well spoken could be so confident about such fantasies. I assumed that he was a kid who had o.d’d on acid at birth or was simply just a result of being raised by too many sci-fi tv shows. I listened intently, waiting to pounce on a mistake in one of his stories. Trying to catch him out as a liar. But the more elaborate his stories got the more they linked up. After a while I even found myself agreeing and adding my own two cents as he shared with me insights and explanations, both scientific and spiritual into the power of the human mind. Before I half heartedly considered conspiracy theories such as the Illuminati and governments keeping powerful technologies and contact with extra terrestrials secret from the public however the way I was talking to Eli, they all fitted perfectly into the puzzle of his reality.

Adopted into a family in Maine, USA he soon knew he hasn’t like other kids, cliché as it is to say. Even his adopted family was a bit unconventional. The parents were hippies who had “sold out” to provide their kids with a good education but still maintained their core values. His sister was a super eco friendly green kid who was beginning to explore the spirituality of the divine feminine, while his brother is currently attending ‘mystery’ school and is a powerful healer, mind reader and magician. As a kid he saw and conversed with spirits regularly and spoke of previous lives however was discouraged from such things by teachers at school. This led to a troublesome phase of his life. He lost touch with the fantasy world and as a result started to wreak havoc in the classroom, discovering a passion for fire starting and arguing with authorities. Not to say the magic left him completely. In 1996, at age 12 he came out of a fit to find a pen in his hand and a drawing in front of him depicting the New York skyline complete with two planes crashing into the world trade centre. It was captioned “9.11.2010” The prediction of the year may have been slightly wrong but the prediction was there nonetheless. As he describes it, “certain spirits feed off certain types of energy. I had a lot of anger as a child, and therefore bad spirits would possess me when those emotions came across me. It has happened all throughout history and is still currently happening. I believe Hitler was possessed by a dark entity, feeding of the negative feelings in early 20^th century Europe. As we approach the end of the Mayan calendar, many spirits and other world things are showing an interest in earth. Some feeding off negative energy, others feeding of the positivity and open-mindedness in the planet as we shift from the masculine, competitive, individualistic age of Pisces to the more open minded, co-operative age of Aquarius. This year alone, the space ship sightings are happening more frequently, crop circles are springing up and all sorts of super natural beings are being sighted by man as we open our consciousness to the possibility of life outside of our physical realm.  .”

He progressed to experimenting with drugs and alcohol in college, where his hallucinations became far more regular but have a slightly more understandable explanation. Safe to say, with the help of a few chemicals his third eye was well and truly opened up to the other world dimensions and spirits in our world and he began to once again converse regularly with angels, pixies, tree spirits and the like. All this occurred throughout college until he found himself with double pneumonia in hospital. After recovering and coming clean, he began to have visits from Athena, the Greek goddess of knowledge in his sleep. She visited him every night and taught him everything from science to math, history and spirituality. The dreams were so clear and concise that he was able to totally recall all of her teachings the following morning. To check, he would google her lessons from the night before just to be sure that this was real. This carried on for 100 consecutive nights, until her visits stopped. “That” he says “was the moment I realized that dreams aren’t just something you do in your sleep. They are a window to a new reality that is totally accessible if the mind is ready and willing to accept it.”

From then, Eli has spent the last few years researching and delving into the depths of his mind. He has travelled, studying a wide range of materiel and expanding his mind. He can now, fully trace memories of past lives and can see and connect with spirits at will. He sees his role in this world as a messenger and a trigger. This has always been the case, even in previous lives and it is how he justifies his ability to speak on such far out topics with such confidence. “As we come to the end of the Mayan calendar and the consciousness shifts to a more open minded liberal world, I am here, sharing my knowledge and questioning authority, hoping to trigger people’s minds into a new place.” Following this realisation, he was contacted by Brandy via Facebook. She told him of the past lives they had spent together and how she had been watching him, waiting for him to fully accept his role in life. He could now feel her energy and accepted this fate. That is what brought him to Santa Cruz and how he came to cross paths with me.

While I’m still not sold on many of his beliefs, I am warming to some of them. One quote that stuck with me was when we were discussing great fantasy story writers such as Phillip Pullman, J.R. Tolkein, C.S. Lewis etc. and how so many of their written views of reality link with his. Many of them also share similar principles to a lot of indigenous tribes around the world in how they relate to the power of the human mind and its ability to penetrate new dimensions outside of the physical realm that we all live in. “I guess anything that can exist in our imagination must exist in some dimension. Whether we perceive it as reality or whether we choose to expand our consciousness and invite in the magic of the spiritual world to our mind.”

Either there is something in all of this or they all just stumbled across the same theories thanks to a few hallucogenics. At the moment I’m keeping an open mind to the whole affair and will be stoked to be in Mexico for the New Year, the heart of where all of this is expected to take place.