My ability to cope with life and everything it threw at me came from a deep-seated connection with the world around me.  And I mean literally the EARTH  around me.

I went through some pretty major early childhood trauma.  For all intents and purposes, Ecuador is what made me capable of surviving. Ecuador saved my life.   I have an affinity with it that I have never felt anywhere else, and I have never known anyone else to have this kind of relationship with a country.  It’s difficult to describe in a way that doesn’t sound completely bizarre.

I took my pain, the hurt, the confusion – all of it – and would, even as a very young child, go off to be by myself in nature and feel held by the mountains, bury my wounds in caves and quebradas, weep in the arms of the trees and let the streams and rivers carry my burdens away,or the lakes drown them for the moment. 

I claimed the country — the earth there: the trees, the clouds, the mountains, the sunshine, the moonlight, the dirt, the flowers, the rivers and lakes, the jungle, the wildlife, the rain … EVERYTHING — was mine.  It was my “support group” … it was my saving grace. 

The snowcaps, in my mind, have always had personalities (Antisana – an awe-inspiring angel with wings spread to enfold and to protect. Cotopaxi with a crocodile eye, always standing straight and tall, keeping a sentinel’s watch.  Cayambe – the mother, sweet, soft, protective, comforting… etc.)  The sound of the wind rustling through the eucalyptus trees was that of a gently comforting, “Hushhhh”of a mother holding her child … rain cried the tears I couldn’t weep… My feelings – feelings I couldn’t even fully identify – were expressed by nature.  The untouched, ageless wind- and water-sculpted landscapes magnified my feelings, reflecting them back to me, and I felt understood by that empathy in a way no person ever was able to communicate with me.  The mountains – SO huge and so beautiful were so much larger than the painof my life, that I felt safe, strengthened, and comforted, and being among them was my refuge:  Knowing that wherever I was in the country, one of my  mountains was watching over me, or a river, or a tree, or even the dirt beneath my feet, would connect me to the wholeof it and I could draw on its life — and breathe from and because of it.

I felt loved.  I felt safe.  I felt complete and secure.  I felt whole. 

Whenever I leave Ecuador, I feel like I’m dying.  It is as though my soul is being torn from me – left behind as my body goes away, until I get back again and am reborn. Reunited with my soul.  I feel like I stop breathing until my face feels the caress of the familiar breeze, my ears hear the distinctive sounds, my lungs inhale the high-altitude air, my feet touch the firm ground and I am once again…alive.  THAT is my Ecuador connection.  That is my home.  There is my heart.  That is the one place I find …

Belief, Trust… and Refuge.

The country will never hurt me.  People will, but the country itself – THE EARTH – won’t.

Sleeping at the foot of Tungurahua, (an active volcano – yes, I have done this) listening to it breathing heated fumes, hearing and feeling the tremors and rumblings of activity within it’s glowing ruby and amber core, I can relate to all the metaphors for which that situation could be used:  Anger, hurt, frustration, pain, stifled emotion…  I am not afraid.  I am excited and full of wonder and awe. 

The country in all of it’s nature expresses me.  It is me.

If I were to die engulfed in a volcanic eruption, or an earthquake, or a landslide down the side of one of those beautiful Andean peaks… If one of the rivers sucked me under for the very last time… I might be afraid, but at the very end, if I knew it was my last moment and there was no hope, I would be happy that it was there.  And in that place at that time, I imagine the final words I would willingly say would be “It’s okay.  Take me, because I’m already yours.” (and writing that makes me cry -not suicidally depressed- but acknowledging the truth of it, and feeling a deep longing to be home again)

Can you tell I feel strongly about it?  I cannot wait to go back, but those words sound trite compared to the feelings.  I hate being on hold.  I can’t wait to LIVE again.  Embrace life.  Feel complete.  Feel like I am once again surrounded by that which gives me strength, and finally feel at peace… knowing that I wasn’t just visiting, but I was finally HOME… to STAY, and if I were going anywhere else, it would be only for a visit, because my HOME is in Ecuador..

I love it there so much that even while I am there if I think of when I have to leave, I cry, feeling the loss before I’m even gone.  Ecuadorians tell me (many have) that I’m more Ecuadorian than they are because I love their country so much. I envy them their birth place and their blood bond.   I can’t even begin to describe it.  It is so obvious that even someone who barely knows me can see there’s something unusual there.  It is often misunderstood.

Anything negative that life threw at me was bearable because my support system was around me everywhere I went.  All I had to do was look up to the sky and on the horizon, and there I would find strength, permanence, solidity… and I could soak it all in and move on.

Time changes things.  Ecuador has changed.  People have changed it- populating previously unpopulated areas and filling valleys with buildings and highways… the mountains have lost some of their snow…

Friends say, “Well, you love those mountains, but what if they lost ALL their snow with the melting that’s going on down there?”

And I say, “Do you love a man less because he’s bald?  He’s still the same person inside!” 

That is how I see those mountains.  My mountains.  If the glaciers melt I may mourn the loss of snow, but the mountains are still mine.  I would never not love them. 

I wish I could climb to the top of Antisana and, at its highest peak, lay myself face down, arms spread out in the snow, and cry, and hold it - hug it- thank it for being there for me, and recognizing its part in the triumphs in my life:  Being healthy. Blooming.  Becoming wholly who I am supposed to be.  Being complete.

… and then, to stand up with my fist in the air and shout through my tears, “WE DID IT!!” and have it echo down the mountain, through the valleys, touching every other peak and snowcap,and every  river and creek and tree… every forest and cave and canyon that was there for me …. that held me when I was raw, and weak, and vulnerable.

Yes, I am passionate about my heart home. 

THAT was how I communicated with God:   Knowing God made it all, but also deeply believing it was all there specifically for me, knowing that without it, I never would have made it through any of the trauma I went through.  It felt like God created it and then when I was born… when I arrived in Ecuador the first time at two years old, He said to me, “Here it is. There you are. This is for you. This is how it’s supposed to be.” 

I believe that is also how God communicated with me.  Through nature, and specifically, nature in Ecuador. Far deeper and more meaningful than a book written thousands of years ago… Far more  understandable than the culture and dogma of fundigelical churchianity… Much more intimate and spiritual than anything else I’ve ever experienced and very much God-provided. 

Therein lies the core of my relationship with God.  My relationship with God was never based on books and words and rules and cultural trappings and never could be. I haven’t found that same feeling anywhere else.  I have found vaguely similar sites, or substitutes, but that is all they ever are to me.  Substitutes for “the real thing.” 

There is no place like home, and for me, home will always be Ecuador.  From God, to me.

photo credits:
1= unknown |  2= ©drc  |  3= ©drc  |  4= ©drc |  5= ©drc  |  6= unknown  |  7= unknown | 
8= ©drc  |  9= unknown  |  10=©drc  |  11= ©drc  |  12= unknown  |  13=©drc  |  14= ©drc    

In a natural disaster in Ecuador – be it via volcanic eruption, landslide,
flood, earthquake – some way that the earth there, takes me back. (Preferably quickly.
 Let me get the adrenaline rush but… Spare me the suffering?)   

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

Estaba pensando en hacer un calendario de fotos de flores, que tomé en el Ecuador este verano pasado… pero me quedé con 40 fotos de los mejores y no he podido escoger entre ellas… Aquí pongo unas cinco pequeñas de las cuarenta grandes …

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¡Me Encantaba Este Artículo!
I Loved This Article! LOL!

Ecuador wants military base in Miami

You go, Correa!
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander!
LOL!
 

Sabe a donde encontrar el choclo asi de grande,

o las habas enormes… o el queso de mesa

aqui en los EE.UU.? …
Desafortunadamente, yo no se…

  y tan ricos son…

Pido millones disculpas por no poner más fotos del Ecuador durante mi viaje.  Mi estado en mi país de corazón fue perfecto.  Ví a todas las montañas y los nevados completamente despejados, y vi a Tungurahua erupcionando, (y también a Sangay con humo, desde el avión en via a Cuenca).  Disfruté de mis visitas a todas partes.  Tomé más que 3,000 fotos, de todito… así que tendré bastante para poner aquí, poco a poco.  Espero que les gustan.

A thousand pardons for not putting up more photos of Ecuador during my visit.  My stay in my heart home was perfect.  I saw all the mountains, and the snowcaps completely cloudless, and I saw Tungurahua erupting, (and also Sangay smoking, from the plane on the way to Cuenca)  I enjoyed my visits everywhere.  I took more than 3,000 photos, of every little thing… so I will have plenty to put up here, a little at a time.  I hope you like them.

¿Cuanto tiempo desde que tú comías un helado de Salcedo?
How long has it been since you ate an ice cream from Salcedo?

©drc 2007

¡No hay como pasar por Salcedo sin comer un helado!
 You can’t go through Salcedo without eating an ice cream!

©drc 2007
Sabores de crema, mora, naranjilla y taxo.  
Flavors of cream, mora, naranjilla and taxo
 

Nadie puede disputar la belleza del Páramo,
No one can dispute the beauty of the Paramo,

©drc 07/24/07

o la majestad del Antisana cuando está despejado.
or the majesty of Antisana when it is clear.

©drc 07/24/07

¡Qué bello el hogar de mi corazón!
How beautiful, my heart home!