Road to Rio.

It was early morning and I was sitting with Betty in Praia do Forte when the Captain and his Brother Cayo walked past on their way to the surf. I joined them and immediately it was like we were old friends, and with all that had happened over the past year and a half, I didn´t doubt it to be so.

We are all made up of the same energy. This matter that makes me is the same matter that makes you. It is the earth and the trees, the animals and the stars. It is all around us, all the time. It has no beginning and no end. We are all here right now with our own unique constitution of this energy. But all that energy has been here long before this time and so it is possible for an existing being to possess the previous energy of another existing being, or vice versa, and that´s how we sometimes have special connections with people we don´t know - we share or have shared the same energy in the past.  

Antonio ‘the captain’ and I met in another lifetime, not as myself or as himself specifically, but as small parts of our own current energy, as atoms. 

And so we became friends once again.

We welcomed in the new year with open hearts and travelled together with Betty to the magical island of Morro Sao Paulo, where we met Lieutenant Gustavo from Bello Horizonte, a city 5 hours north of Rio in the state of Minas Gerais. Together we three spent the week in Morro and began a very special new friendship, planting seeds for the future and making the most of this incredibly beautiful little island paradise south of Salvador.

Antonio and Gustavo continued south to the surf town of Itacare.

I returned to Salvador for the long awaited arrival of my oldest friend from back home, Mr. Jack Macartney. Jack had retired from his job selling sailing boats in Sydney and had come to join Harley and I for the last chapter of our journey together - the road to Rio for Carnival.

From New York only a few special friends have joined to share with us the life philosophy that has been formed since - a need to rediscover lost knowledge about ourselves and our place here in this universe, to reconnect with the energy of earth. To realise that happiness is simplicity. That everything we need right now is everything we have ever needed and everything we will ever need. The basic necessities of life - food, water, warmth and shelter. If we can all begin to be more aware of this then we can start to bring back some balance and harmony between ourselves, each other and our environment.

Not to live abundantly. To tread lightly on the earth. To be conscious of our actions. To realize that how we all live day to day as individuals has a huge effect on the future of our existence as humanity.

We need to become more sustainable. Produce a little more, consume a little less.

Be conscious.

It was an amazing gift to have Jack join us at this time.

We spent the week with Harls in Salvador and then made our way south for Rio, where Harls would join us 1 month later for Carnival.

When we arrived in Itacare we discovered the Lieutenant sunning himself in his budgie smugglers on the golden sandy beach of Tirricia. He had been waiting for us. The Captain had gone back home to Rio to prepare the ship for Carnival and Jack, Gustavo, myself and Betty enjoyed the incredible beauty of Itacare for nearly two weeks before making our way south together.

Along the coast through Olivencia, Trancoso and Regencia, Lieutenant Gustavo proved himself a very worthy crew member, in actual fact, the man is a living legend, an inspiration, and he was just warming up for Carnival…

Surely this party could not be that good?

Gustavo then returned to his work in Bello Horizonte and we would all rendezvous 10 days later in Rio.

It was a surreal time. 17 months ago we had left New York City. Now we were on the doorstep of Rio.

How could you say ´17 months´? What did that mean exactly? 68 weeks? 416 Days? How could you define this moment of our lives with a number? A measurement? For us it transcends time. We have re-discovered things about ourselves and our universe that have always been with us - before the creation of time - before the evolution of man, things we as a community have slowly forgotten, things that we all need to start to remember again. 

We are all one and the same. The same energy flows through all of us; through the mountains and through the seas, through the sky and through the earth - we have only forgotten how to see it, how to feel it, how to let it heal us. It is the most ancient common sense of our universe that no longer makes any sense, for we have created another world that functions on a different kind of energy - an artificial one, one that now all but controls us. Every part of nature flows together as one, except for us. Somewhere along the way we strayed from that path and contsructed our own reality that now exists at parrallels with our primary reality. We walked so far in the wrong direction that soon we lost our way and forgot from where we had come.

We need to reconnect with the primordial energy of the universe if we are to maintain our existence.

Not to condemn technology or development, as this is an inevitable part of our modern world and to a large extent the vehicle for our solution. We just need to steer it in the right direction. In the direction of harmony instead of destruction. Technology is a critical tool, used wisely it can help us to achieve balance - used continually as it is today, it will be our end.

This is the end of a journey in a life time - one travelled through experience, one lived with the elements. It is the beginning of something new, where everything we have learnt can be applied to our normal lives, our other reality. It has taught us so much about ourselves and our universe - but the greatest piece of knowledge we can have is the knowledge of our own ignorance - all the knowledge in the world is worth nothing without humility.

On Friday the 13th February, 2009, Betty arrived in Rio De Janeiro.

Across wide open farm lands, through deserts and tiny towns, over snowy mountains and by the big blue ocean; past cities and deep forest, raging rivers and waterfalls, hot springs, volcanoes and jungle, Betty has seen a lot.

She has seen what it is to be poor. She has seen what it is to have wealth. She has seen happiness and she has seen sadness - sunny days and rain. She has seen the light of the earth fill the sky and then fade slowly away into darkness, when the tiny stars always come out to shine. She has seen hope and she has seen death staring up at her from the gutter. She has met the wise and the beautiful, the crazy and the sane, the honest and the desperate, she has learned that we are all one and the same.

Heaven is right here, right now in this very moment.

I am God.

You are God.

God is the mountains and the seas.

God is the sky and the earth.

God is the sun and the moon.

God is love.

Be happy with who you are, where you are and what you are doing - that is the way it is supposed to be.

Find your heart and follow it, it beats to the sound of the universe.

LOVE.

“We made it!”

It’s time to party…