Full Moon in Costa Rica
By Stella Knoxville
I had hitched a ride from a farmer driving through the countryside of Costa Rica. He was driving an open-air jeep and in the back was a dog and a cage with three chickens in it. Standing on the passenger seat was a small goat. After stopping to pick me up the farmer shooed the goat into the back with the dog and the cage of chickens.
In English, I told the farmer that I was going to the next valley over. The farmer nodded his head and began driving. He said nothing. I wasn’t sure if he understood me or not. I grew up just a stone’s throw from the Rio Grande in South Texas but I never learned to speak Spanish. I always regretted this.
To get to that next valley over we had to cross some forested hills. I love the forests of Costa Rica but the roads are not always in the best condition. This particular backcountry road was thankfully asphalt but there were numerous potholes and the farmer did not even try to avert them. He seemed utterly oblivious to them. It was a rocky ride.
To make matters worse, the dog and the goat were not getting along in the back of the jeep. I kept turned around to look at them. The farmer seemed oblivious.
Finally, I patted my hand on my lap and let out a short, faint whistle. One thing that I’ve learned from traveling the planet for most of my adult life is that whistles are basically the same in all languages. The goat was instantly in my lap.
Thankfully, it was a young small goat. The goat quickly showed me that she was a female. And I quickly noticed that she was too young to be giving milk yet. Too bad. Goat milk, wolf milk and giraffe milk are about the only kinds of milk that I’ll drink….not that I cared to milk a goat while I was traveling over a pothole-covered rural road in Central America.
The goat was turning round and round on my lap, digging its hooves into my legs. To calm it down I hugged her. I tried to pull her down into my lap so that she would be lying down instead of standing on me but she resisted. She enjoyed the hug, though, and responded by licking my face. I cannot even count all the different animals that have licked my face. It is one of the reasons I never wear make-up. What animal would lick a woman’s face that was smeared with toxic chemicals?
Looking over at the speedometer of the Jeep I noticed that the farmer was driving a steady forty miles per hour. I was wishing that he would be going faster but judging from the strange noises coming from the engine I was not sure the Jeep could go any faster.
I then asked the goat what her name was. She didn’t answer although the name, Angelina, popped into my head. This led me to think of Angelina Jolie, a supposedly intelligent person who had her tits chopped off and her female organs cut out all because she was afraid of getting cancer. The worst thing was that she was incredibly rich and famous and was a role model that many people looked up to and tried to mimic. She was telling untold thousands of women that if they feared cancer all they had to do was chop out the organs they were afraid of getting cancer in because of genetics. I have always wanted to send Angelina Jolie a copy of Bruce Lipton’s book, The Biology of Belief, but unfortunately I don’t know Angelina’s mailing address. And I’m not sure it would make any difference. Her fear seems to be too strong.
The goat was getting restless. That is when I remembered a trick I learned while staying at a farm in Azerbaijan. The owner of the farm was a 102-year-old woman who was perhaps the most wrinkled woman I’ve ever seen in my life. She had over eighty goats on her little farm. She’s the one who taught me how to milk a goat. She also taught me what to do when a goat is restless. She told me that the best thing to do with a restless goat is to softly rub their ears. At least I think that’s what she told me. I don’t speak Azerbaijani.
So I rubbed the little goat’s ears and sure enough she calmed down. She lied down in my lap and made soothing noises as I continued to rub her ears. Oddly, I found that rubbing her ears also soothed me.
I looked at the farmer driving the Jeep. He was wearing a sweat-stained straw hat and thick black plastic glasses. He had about a three or four day’s worth of beard stubble. I guessed that he was in his forties. He could have been a grandson of the Azerbaijani woman. He never averted his gaze from the road ahead.
I then looked off to the side of the road and noticed some monkeys swinging from tree branch to tree branch and this made me laugh (slightly). Monkeys are the comedians of the animal world. I’ve always thought that America was too serious and I’ve always wondered if this was because there weren’t any monkeys living there.
The road curved one way and then another. It rose up to a hill then fell away. Back and forth, up and down, the farmer maintained the exact same speed. And he never took his eyes off the road.
I continued rubbing the little goat’s ears and as I did so I became more and more relaxed. I felt reassured that I would make it to where I was going.
The Costa Rican farmer, the dog, the chickens, the goat and I then crested a hill and as we headed downward into a beautiful valley I was overcome with a feeling of euphoria. Up ahead I saw that there were several vehicles pulled off to the side of the road. All the people from those vehicles were congregated in a pasture alongside the road.
The farmer began slowing down and I immediately looked at him but his countenance was unchanged. He slowly pulled off the road and came to a stop. He then said something in Spanish. Growing up in South Texas I had learned most of the Spanish cuss words but that was about all the Spanish I retained. Since the farmer used none of those words I had no idea what the hell he said.
After turning off the Jeep the farmer got out of the vehicle and the dog in the back immediately jumped out and followed him. I, too, got out and the goat followed me. The goat and I followed the farmer across the road to the pasture where all the people were gathered.
“What the hell is going on?” is what I was thinking as I crossed the road. As I began walking down into the pasture (the goat by now was way ahead of me) I was overcome with a deep euphoric feeling. I felt that something profound and spiritual was taking place.
I noticed that everyone in the gathered crowd was looking towards the east. The sun had already set in the west and the sky was darkening but the horizon to the east held a faint light.
As I got down to the crowd of people who seemed to be mostly farmers and rural folk I smiled as I realized that they were all gathered to watch the rising of the full moon. I was filled with joy. This is simply not something that happens in America. I’ve experienced it in a few different countries but never in America.
My nose was suddenly filled with the smell of the smudge sticks the people were burning. Now that brought up a multitude of memories. I took a very deep breath and said in my mind, “I bless this. I bless this. I bless this.”
Looking towards the eastern horizon I forgot all about the farmer and Angelina the goat (if that was really her name). As the very first light erupted over the eastern horizon I stopped in my tracks. I stood facing the spectacle with my feet about a foot and a half apart. I took three deep breaths as I held out my arms at a 45 degree angle away from my body with my palms facing up.
I then primed the prism. I visualized a spinning circle of white light spinning furiously clockwise on each of my upturned palms. I then visualized a triangle between the two palms of my hands and my third eye in the middle of my forehead. I cleared my head of all thoughts and became as empty as I could. I felt the energy of the triangle and I felt the hole opening up in the middle of the triangle—a hole that corresponds with our heart. I then stared into the light of the full moon as it rose above the horizon.
I felt a beam of white light flow out of my heart directly towards the full moon just as I felt the light of the full moon flow directly towards my heart. I could then feel an extraordinarily strong beam of light and energy between my heart and the full moon. Energy and light were gushing in both directions between my heart and the full moon. Meanwhile I was taking all the light from the full moon into my eyes. As the moon rose above the horizon the energy connecting me with the moon intensified to extreme proportions. I was quickly vibrating at a very heightened level.
As a member of the international ultra-secret society of Rainbow Patrolers, this is what I do every time I see a rainbow. But it is also something I do when I greet the rising of a full moon. I’ve done it a thousand times, or so it seems. But this time, in this little valley in Costa Rica surrounded by peasant farmers and dogs and livestock was perhaps the most intense full moon experience I’ve ever had—and I’ve had many, many mind-blowing full moon experiences.
As I finally came out of my full moon trance I realized that the moon was already a good distance up into the darkening sky. Taking three deep breaths I looked around and saw that all the people were now milling about, talking, singing and celebrating. I also felt a wet tongue on my left leg. Looking down, I saw that it was Angelina.
I bent down and rubbed her head. I then stood up and looked behind me up towards the road. I saw the farmer sitting in his Jeep, the dog and chickens in the back. Looking down at the goat, I said, “Come on, Angelina, time to go.”
With this, Angelina and I walked slowly back to the Jeep. Once I was back in the Jeep with Angelina in my lap the farmer quickly hit the gas. As gravel flew, we sped down the highway. Stealing a glance at the speedometer I noticed that we were soon going over fifty miles per hour.
As I rubbed Angelina’s ears we drove in silence for all of ten minutes and then the farmer suddenly drove off the little highway onto a small dirt and gravel area. As the Jeep came to a stop I saw a small adobe house in the distance.
I had hitched a ride from a farmer driving through the countryside of Costa Rica. He was driving an open-air jeep and in the back was a dog and a cage with three chickens in it. Standing on the passenger seat was a small goat. After stopping to pick me up the farmer shooed the goat into the back with the dog and the cage of chickens.
In English, I told the farmer that I was going to the next valley over. The farmer nodded his head and began driving. He said nothing. I wasn’t sure if he understood me or not. I grew up just a stone’s throw from the Rio Grande in South Texas but I never learned to speak Spanish. I always regretted this.
To get to that next valley over we had to cross some forested hills. I love the forests of Costa Rica but the roads are not always in the best condition. This particular backcountry road was thankfully asphalt but there were numerous potholes and the farmer did not even try to avert them. He seemed utterly oblivious to them. It was a rocky ride.
To make matters worse, the dog and the goat were not getting along in the back of the jeep. I kept turned around to look at them. The farmer seemed oblivious.
Finally, I patted my hand on my lap and let out a short, faint whistle. One thing that I’ve learned from traveling the planet for most of my adult life is that whistles are basically the same in all languages. The goat was instantly in my lap.
Thankfully, it was a young small goat. The goat quickly showed me that she was a female. And I quickly noticed that she was too young to be giving milk yet. Too bad. Goat milk, wolf milk and giraffe milk are about the only kinds of milk that I’ll drink….not that I cared to milk a goat while I was traveling over a pothole-covered rural road in Central America.
The goat was turning round and round on my lap, digging its hooves into my legs. To calm it down I hugged her. I tried to pull her down into my lap so that she would be lying down instead of standing on me but she resisted. She enjoyed the hug, though, and responded by licking my face. I cannot even count all the different animals that have licked my face. It is one of the reasons I never wear make-up. What animal would lick a woman’s face that was smeared with toxic chemicals?
Looking over at the speedometer of the Jeep I noticed that the farmer was driving a steady forty miles per hour. I was wishing that he would be going faster but judging from the strange noises coming from the engine I was not sure the Jeep could go any faster.
I then asked the goat what her name was. She didn’t answer although the name, Angelina, popped into my head. This led me to think of Angelina Jolie, a supposedly intelligent person who had her tits chopped off and her female organs cut out all because she was afraid of getting cancer. The worst thing was that she was incredibly rich and famous and was a role model that many people looked up to and tried to mimic. She was telling untold thousands of women that if they feared cancer all they had to do was chop out the organs they were afraid of getting cancer in because of genetics. I have always wanted to send Angelina Jolie a copy of Bruce Lipton’s book, The Biology of Belief, but unfortunately I don’t know Angelina’s mailing address. And I’m not sure it would make any difference. Her fear seems to be too strong.
The goat was getting restless. That is when I remembered a trick I learned while staying at a farm in Azerbaijan. The owner of the farm was a 102-year-old woman who was perhaps the most wrinkled woman I’ve ever seen in my life. She had over eighty goats on her little farm. She’s the one who taught me how to milk a goat. She also taught me what to do when a goat is restless. She told me that the best thing to do with a restless goat is to softly rub their ears. At least I think that’s what she told me. I don’t speak Azerbaijani.
So I rubbed the little goat’s ears and sure enough she calmed down. She lied down in my lap and made soothing noises as I continued to rub her ears. Oddly, I found that rubbing her ears also soothed me.
I looked at the farmer driving the Jeep. He was wearing a sweat-stained straw hat and thick black plastic glasses. He had about a three or four day’s worth of beard stubble. I guessed that he was in his forties. He could have been a grandson of the Azerbaijani woman. He never averted his gaze from the road ahead.
I then looked off to the side of the road and noticed some monkeys swinging from tree branch to tree branch and this made me laugh (slightly). Monkeys are the comedians of the animal world. I’ve always thought that America was too serious and I’ve always wondered if this was because there weren’t any monkeys living there.
The road curved one way and then another. It rose up to a hill then fell away. Back and forth, up and down, the farmer maintained the exact same speed. And he never took his eyes off the road.
I continued rubbing the little goat’s ears and as I did so I became more and more relaxed. I felt reassured that I would make it to where I was going.
The Costa Rican farmer, the dog, the chickens, the goat and I then crested a hill and as we headed downward into a beautiful valley I was overcome with a feeling of euphoria. Up ahead I saw that there were several vehicles pulled off to the side of the road. All the people from those vehicles were congregated in a pasture alongside the road.
The farmer began slowing down and I immediately looked at him but his countenance was unchanged. He slowly pulled off the road and came to a stop. He then said something in Spanish. Growing up in South Texas I had learned most of the Spanish cuss words but that was about all the Spanish I retained. Since the farmer used none of those words I had no idea what the hell he said.
After turning off the Jeep the farmer got out of the vehicle and the dog in the back immediately jumped out and followed him. I, too, got out and the goat followed me. The goat and I followed the farmer across the road to the pasture where all the people were gathered.
“What the hell is going on?” is what I was thinking as I crossed the road. As I began walking down into the pasture (the goat by now was way ahead of me) I was overcome with a deep euphoric feeling. I felt that something profound and spiritual was taking place.
I noticed that everyone in the gathered crowd was looking towards the east. The sun had already set in the west and the sky was darkening but the horizon to the east held a faint light.
As I got down to the crowd of people who seemed to be mostly farmers and rural folk I smiled as I realized that they were all gathered to watch the rising of the full moon. I was filled with joy. This is simply not something that happens in America. I’ve experienced it in a few different countries but never in America.
My nose was suddenly filled with the smell of the smudge sticks the people were burning. Now that brought up a multitude of memories. I took a very deep breath and said in my mind, “I bless this. I bless this. I bless this.”
Looking towards the eastern horizon I forgot all about the farmer and Angelina the goat (if that was really her name). As the very first light erupted over the eastern horizon I stopped in my tracks. I stood facing the spectacle with my feet about a foot and a half apart. I took three deep breaths as I held out my arms at a 45 degree angle away from my body with my palms facing up.
I then primed the prism. I visualized a spinning circle of white light spinning furiously clockwise on each of my upturned palms. I then visualized a triangle between the two palms of my hands and my third eye in the middle of my forehead. I cleared my head of all thoughts and became as empty as I could. I felt the energy of the triangle and I felt the hole opening up in the middle of the triangle—a hole that corresponds with our heart. I then stared into the light of the full moon as it rose above the horizon.
I felt a beam of white light flow out of my heart directly towards the full moon just as I felt the light of the full moon flow directly towards my heart. I could then feel an extraordinarily strong beam of light and energy between my heart and the full moon. Energy and light were gushing in both directions between my heart and the full moon. Meanwhile I was taking all the light from the full moon into my eyes. As the moon rose above the horizon the energy connecting me with the moon intensified to extreme proportions. I was quickly vibrating at a very heightened level.
As a member of the international ultra-secret society of Rainbow Patrolers, this is what I do every time I see a rainbow. But it is also something I do when I greet the rising of a full moon. I’ve done it a thousand times, or so it seems. But this time, in this little valley in Costa Rica surrounded by peasant farmers and dogs and livestock was perhaps the most intense full moon experience I’ve ever had—and I’ve had many, many mind-blowing full moon experiences.
As I finally came out of my full moon trance I realized that the moon was already a good distance up into the darkening sky. Taking three deep breaths I looked around and saw that all the people were now milling about, talking, singing and celebrating. I also felt a wet tongue on my left leg. Looking down, I saw that it was Angelina.
I bent down and rubbed her head. I then stood up and looked behind me up towards the road. I saw the farmer sitting in his Jeep, the dog and chickens in the back. Looking down at the goat, I said, “Come on, Angelina, time to go.”
With this, Angelina and I walked slowly back to the Jeep. Once I was back in the Jeep with Angelina in my lap the farmer quickly hit the gas. As gravel flew, we sped down the highway. Stealing a glance at the speedometer I noticed that we were soon going over fifty miles per hour.
As I rubbed Angelina’s ears we drove in silence for all of ten minutes and then the farmer suddenly drove off the little highway onto a small dirt and gravel area. As the Jeep came to a stop I saw a small adobe house in the distance.
The farmer turned his face towards me and said something in Spanish. Sadly, I didn’t understand a word he said. But I knew that it was time to get out so I did, placing Angelina into the passenger seat all by herself. In her goat language, Angelina said something to me, too, but I did not understand that either. I reached forward and grabbed her head, giving her a kiss squarely between her eyes. With this, the farmer peeled out, as they say, and the Jeep was quickly back on the pot-holed highway driving away.
“Good-bye, Angelina,” I called out after the departing Jeep. I then looked at the little adobe house. Was this the shaman’s house? And, if so, how did the Costa Rican farmer who spoke no English and who never received any directions from me other than the fact that I was going to the next valley over know this was the shaman’s house? How did he know to drop me off here? Goodness, gracious, was this just some farmer’s residence out in the middle of nowhere? It was dark now and there wasn’t another house visible in any direction. How on earth could this be the shaman’s house where I was headed? I took three long, deep breaths then looked up into the night sky at the full moon, which was now even higher up in the sky. I then thought, ‘How could this NOT be the shaman’s house?’ I then proceeded to walk slowly towards the front door of the shaman’s house. Copyright by Stella Knoxville. All Rights Reserved. |
A zany thrill ride through the bizarre world of a devout Rainbow Patroller. The outrageous Bernadette Safari is a unique mojo-practitioner who thrives on nature, animals and naked nature spiritual quests. Follow her to the ends of the earth in her endless search for rainbows. Learn her mojo secrets and find out how you, too, can benefit from Rainbow Mojo. This novel is a rip-roaring page turner.
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