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Tuesday, November 15, 2005

 

 

 

Dr. Paul:

 

You will probably remember me as a woman who met you and your father in the culture center of Lajitas.  You may remember that I said I had taught environmental education for ten years using puppets and other materials in a forest in West Pam Beach Florida. (I was also named Conservation Educator of the Year for the state of Florida because of my use of original songs and plays to teach children about endangered species, interrelationships between plants and animals etc.)  I also have a masters degree in Languages and Linguistics with a concentration on Spanish and I am ABD (all but dissertation) for a PhD in Latin American Studies.  I mention that since you gave me your short bio. 

 

You asked me to tell you what I thought you said: 

 

  • I believe you said you were the cultural director of (a new Land and Culture Institute) at Lajitas, that you were interested in having people learn to "be in the moment" and to experience the silence of the desert from such faraway places as Japan. 

 

  • I believe you said you were planning to install 100 special video cameras so that people could be in the desert through virtual reality.  You also said people would have the opportunity to receive materials from the desert to construct a hut, live in the hut and then put the materials back into the desert. (I was unclear as to whether they could do this virtually while in faraway places). 

 

  • When I mentioned part of my background you said the area could be a nature center for a day. 

 

  • You also said you were inspired by Herman Hesse's book, The Glass Bead Game. 

 

·            You also said you had an RV Park that was not really an RV Park.  I think you meant it was some sort of meditation center perhaps.

 

I mentioned to you that we were in more of a mundane, workaday-world mindset, just having left our jobs in Austin for a short vacation in Big Bend.  I will return to the IRS to my job in January and Bruce, my boyfriend and traveling companion has a music business involving songwriting, recording, karaoke and other aspects of entertainment.

 

I believe I understood some of you comments. 

 

Many years ago I read The Tao of Physics and also The Dancing Wu Li Masters.  I agree that on a subatomic level we are all made up of dancing light; and that we have been in existence for forever in some form.  There is a great deal of scientific evidence for that belief. 

 

However, I don't normally speak on that level.  I also have concerns for the reality I experience in this incarnation, this body, this lifetime.  That is why I have been both an environmental and a human rights activist.  I have found that if I talk in mystical terms this may detract from my immediate goals. 

 

We enjoyed the beer-drinking goat at Lajitas.  To our way of thinking that goat and some of his relatives has been the center of Lajitas "culture" for several decades.  To me, he and his predecessors are, in a sense, timeless.  They are reminiscent of Bacchus, the God of wine and revelry who was part goat.  Coincidence?  Perhaps not. I goggled the Lajitas goat and found that articles have been written about him by famed Texas humorist Molly Ivins and many journalists in other states including a writer from the Saint Petersburg Times in Florida. 

 

I had the feeling that Bruce and I were on some sort of Odyssey as we traveled the road and met various people along the way in the Big Bend region.  The trip was short but rich with experiences.  I hope to return some day. 

 

jill