La Fortuna, Costa Rica/Arenal Volcano

Poas Volcano in Costa Rica has been spewing ash and gases so that wasn't on the agenda to visit. People were being evacuated from the area. Arenal Volcano, however, hasn't erupted since 1992; for a volcano trip this was safer, but it isn't dead, just sleeping. There's a national park around the volcano, or rather the whole volcano appears to be protected by the Costa Rican government. It's approximately 3.5 hours to walk/hike on the designated paths, up to a higher vantage point to see Lago Arenal, and down through the rain forest, through a silence that was loud with rain drops, birds, some howler monkeys, lizards with yellow stripes down their backs, and flora and fauna as some Costa Rican friends have said. I have more pictures in my mind but here are a few. The swimming pool is at our hotel, Hotel Bijagua, a small place in La Fortuna. Did I tell that we rented a car and I drove to La Fortuna from San Jose...yes! I can pass cars and trucks on mountain roads with the best Costa Rican driver.

Panama City, Panama

Mark met me in San Jose, Costa Rica as we had planned. We explored the city a little then decided to go to Panama City since we were so close, a short plane ride away. I've wanted to see the Canal my whole life; Mark also was very interested. We saw the Canal and more; a new section is being built and should have been completed in 2015, but it looks more like it will be 2016. There were huge ships waiting at either end to go through the passage; we saw several from start to finish from the Miraflores lock. All I can say is, "Wow!" My jaw is still hanging down from the sight. The last two pictures are from viewpoints in the Ciudad Vieja/Old Panama City. I like this city, too.

Saturday's Reiki workshop

I'd heard of Reiki as a healing experience; Saturday, a 10-6pm workshop was scheduled which I attended. It was held in a yoga classroom up the mountain at La Colina lodge. There were ten of us in the workshop including the leader, Karen, and another yoga instructor, Etta. It was a meaningful experience for me and well worth the money. Lunch wasn't bad either...pasta with pesto sauce, coffee or sweet tea, and gluten free cookies (yes, the anti gluten fad has infiltrated Costa Rica.)

Here's a brief description of Reiki; enjoy reading it and think about attending a Reiki I training and/or experience a treatment at a local center.

What is Reiki? A Brief Overview Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing. It is administered by "laying on hands" and is based on the idea that an unseen "life force energy" flows through us and is what causes us to be alive. If one's "life force energy" is low, then we are more likely to get sick or feel stress, and if it is high, we are more capable of being happy and healthy. The word Reiki is made of two Japanese words - Rei which means "God's Wisdom or the Higher Power" and Ki which is "life force energy". So Reiki is actually "spiritually guided life force energy." A treatment feels like a wonderful glowing radiance that flows through and around you. Reiki treats the whole person including body, emotions, mind and spirit creating many beneficial effects that include relaxation and feelings of peace, security and wellbeing. Many have reported miraculous results. Reiki is a simple, natural and safe method of spiritual healing and self-improvement that everyone can use. It has been effective in helping virtually every known illness and malady and always creates a beneficial effect. It also works in conjunction with all other medical or therapeutic techniques to relieve side effects and promote recovery. An amazingly simple technique to learn, the ability to use Reiki is not taught in the usual sense, but is transferred to the student during a Reiki class. This ability is passed on during an "attunement" given by a Reiki master and allows the student to tap into an unlimited supply of "life force energy" to improve one's health and enhance the quality of life. Its use is not dependent on one's intellectual capacity or spiritual development and therefore is available to everyone. It has been successfully taught to thousands of people of all ages and backgrounds. While Reiki is spiritual in nature, it is not a religion. It has no dogma, and there is nothing you must believe in order to learn and use Reiki. In fact, Reiki is not dependent on belief at all and will work whether you believe in it or not. Because Reiki comes from God, many people find that using Reiki puts them more in touch with the experience of their religion rather than having only an intellectual concept of it. While Reiki is not a religion, it is still important to live and act in a way that promotes harmony with others. Mikao Usui, the founder of the Reiki system of natural healing, recommended that one practice certain simple ethical ideals to promote peace and harmony, which are nearly universal across all cultures. During a meditation several years after developing Reiki, Mikao Usui decided to add the Reiki Ideals to the practice of Reiki. The Ideals came in part from the five prinicples of the Meiji emperor of Japan whom Mikao Usui admired. The Ideals were developed to add spiritual balance to Usui Reiki. Their purpose is to help people realize that healing the spirit by consciously deciding to improve oneself is a necessary part of the Reiki healing experience. In order for the Reiki healing energies to have lasting results, the client must accept responsibility for her or his healing and take an active part in it. Therefore, the Usui system of Reiki is more than the use of the Reiki energy. It must also include an active commitment to improve oneself in order for it to be a complete system. The ideals are both guidelines for living a gracious life and virtues worthy of practice for their inherent value. The secret art of inviting happiness The miraculous medicine of all diseases Just for today, do not anger Do not worry and be filled with gratitude Devote yourself to your work. Be kind to people. Every morning and evening, join your hands in prayer. Pray these words to your heart and chant these words with your mouth Usui Reiki Treatment for the improvement of body and mind The founder , Usui Mikao

Visiting a volcano...maybe with Mark when he comes to CR next month.

Four ways to be killed by a volcano

Pyroclastic flow boiled the brains and vapourised the flesh of Herculaneum's inhabitants

Active volcanoes are dangerous places. They can wipe out whole cities and kill large numbers of people.

The ghost-like casts from the Roman city of Pompeii are a reminder of the lethal eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79, which killed thousands and preserved their bodies in the position of their death. But it wasn't red-hot lava or suffocating clouds of ash that killed them, it was something far more unusual. Lava flows, or the molten rock that oozes from shield volcanoes moves far too slowly to be truly deadly. The real killers are much more frightening.

Here are four ways a volcano can kill:

1: Cooked by super-hot waves of gas

The Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were annihilated on 24 August AD79 when Mount Vesuvius erupted explosively, sending fast-moving waves of superheated gas down the sides of the volcano at hurricane speeds. These 'pyroclastic flows' contain gas, ash and rock and can travel up to 450mph (700km/h).

The first wave hit the nearby Herculaneum with temperatures as high as 500 degrees Celsius. The searing heat was enough to boil the brains and instantly vaporise the flesh of its victims so that only blackened skeletons remained.

But how the people of Pompeii died has remained a mystery for many centuries. Volcanologists have now discovered they were killed by a later wave of pyroclastic flow.

What objects did people take as they fled?

Pompeii's wave was significantly cooler than the one that swept through Herculaneum, so although the victims bodies remained intact, the heat 'cooked' their flesh instantly. They were preserved by the falling volcanic ash and some of these can still be seen in Pompeii today.

Pyroclastic flows are arguably the most deadly volcanic event because they can travel for miles and are impossible to outrun.

They are produced by explosive 'composite volcanoes', which are made up of alternating layers of lava, ash and rock. When a composite volcano erupts, the rock layer is smashed into tiny dust particles. These particles mix with the hot ash and gases to form a giant mushroom cloud.

As the eruption weakens, this cloud can collapse under its own weight. It then cascades down the side of the volcano as a pyroclastic flow - destroying everything in its path. But that's not the only way they can cause big problems...

How devastating could the next Mount Vesuvius eruption be?

2: Buried by fast-flowing mud

In Colombia, 1985, a volcano called Nevado del Ruiz erupted. As pyroclastic flows exploded from the volcano they melted the glaciers on the mountain.

The melted water mixed with the volcanic ash, mud and rock, causing four enormous hot 'lahars' to speed down the mountain at 40mph (60km/h).

Armero: Only a few houses were left standing after hot lahars swept through the town

Lahars are concrete-thick mixtures of mud and water that slide down mountains like avalanches. They can be extremely destructive because they travel with enough force to carry huge boulders at high speeds for up to 50 miles (80 km).

The lahars from Nevado del Ruiz flowed into the six major rivers at the base of the volcano before engulfing the town of Armero - killing more than 20,000 of the people that lived there.

3: Suffocated by poisonous gases

Pyroclastic flows and lahars are dramatic events, yet volcanoes can also be silent killers.

When a volcano sits beneath a lake, gases from the magma can filter through cracks in the Earth and become trapped under the water as carbon dioxide.

Silent but deadly: Lake Nyos in Cameroon, Africa

Violent movement, from an earthquake or landslide for example, can cause the carbon dioxide to rise rapidly to the surface of the lake - a rare but deadly event called a 'limnic' eruption.

One of only two limnic eruptions ever recorded happened in Cameroon in 1986. A landslide disturbed a deep lake called Lake Nyos which sat within the crater of an inactive volcano.

More than 80 million cubic metres of carbon dioxide was released and surged into nearby villages; suffocating more than 1,700 people and thousands of animals and livestock.

Hear a survivor's account of the Lake Nyos disaster

4: Annihilation from ash clouds?

Poisonous volcanic gases, lahars and pyroclastic flows are deadly to almost anyone who gets in their way. But the devastating effects of a volcanic eruption can be even more far reaching.

In the Philippines in 1991, Mount Pinatubo exploded in a cataclysmic eruption, blasting 22 million tonnes of ash particles and sulphur dioxide 12 miles (19 km) into the atmosphere. Fierce winds from a passing typhoon blew the ash in all directions before it fell like thick snow on nearby buildings. Many roofs collapsed under the sheer weight; killing 300 people in their homes.

Ash rises as a plume from Mount Redoubt in Alaska

Explosive eruptions like this are so powerful that lightweight ash particles can be lifted as high as the lower stratosphere by convection currents. When ash and volcanic gases spread across the globe after Mount Pinatubo's eruption, they reflected some of the Sun's radiation back into space.

This caused the global temperature to drop by 0.6 degrees Celsius. The cooling effect only lasted for two years. But some scientists think that volcanic activity like this may have caused a change in climate which contributed to the Permian mass extinction - an event which saw a staggering 96% of all the species on Earth perish.

Could a new giant volcanic eruption produce enough ash and gas to trigger extreme climate change that might threaten all life on Earth?

The conditions of a solitary bird are five:

The first, that it flies to the highest point;

the second, that it does not suffer for company,

not even of its own kind;

the third, that it aims its beak to the skies;

the fourth, that it does not have a definite color;

the fifth, that it sings very softly.

- San Juan de la Cruz, Dichos de Luzy Amor

Mark sent this lovely poem to me because he knows how much I love poetry. It will be the basis of a lesson in the classes I'm teaching when we get to poetry as a literary genre. Speaking of classes/school in Costa Rica...I'm struggling with "singing very softly" as an American teacher in Latin America. I came into school two weeks late of student/teacher classes, four weeks late of the inception of the school. My classes were being taught by an Art teacher who is also the mother of one of the fourth grade students. A fair description of the third grade class was made by the Chicago native acting as curriculum/principal who said they were hanging from the ceiling wearing silly things on their heads, loud, etc. After observing three days, the current teacher got sick and had to stay home...I was thrown into the melee at that point. I set up class rules, enforced them, meted out consequences both good and bad, and the class began to be that, a class where learning could begin. I had no grades from last year, no reading levels, no idea of the reading system that was said to have been administered three times a year, the class looked like a dumping ground for anything broken or not in use, you get the picture. Still, I continued. One child said I was too "strict." Another, that I acted like I was her mother. Now, after meetings upon meetings, these two students are my BFF's bringing me food, pictures, and giving me hugs. Their parents greet me warmly in both Spanish and English, asking after my health, my family. Most of the students seem to like to be able to learn. Then, there are some of the other teachers who have been at the school over two years and know more than I do as a result, they think. I've been told to close bathroom doors, told that a student who went home ill was really "triste," told to do this and do that until my level of cultural awareness and acceptance has been met. This may be yet another short time placement for me. I am an American teacher with over thirty years of experience and training in the U.S. plus additional years of experience teaching internationally. It's not this "solitary bird's" first rodeo to use a Texas phrase. Tomorrow is another day, another dollar...oh wait, I think this salary works out to be around $.50 a day.

Another beach in another country

Playa Samara is where I chose to go on our 3 day weekend. (We got Friday off because all teachers were required to participate in the Independence Day parade on Monday.) I'm staying at a small hotel, SolSamara, located a few kilometres from the centro de la ciudad, Samara. I can walk the beach to town or take a taxi, or...rent a motorscooter which is what I decided to do. Did I write that I rode a horse down the beach yesterday? The motorscooter, however,  allowed me to ride to Playa Carillo, too, and have a small picnic watching and listening to the waves. The ocean was a little "hungry" so I didn't go in beyond the shore because of the strong pull outward. I do love the Pacific Ocean!

Monday, the 15th, was Costa Rica Day of Independence with another parade. This started with everyone in town, it seemed, meeting at around 7:30 for music, speeches, music, more speeches, then the parade at 9. Our school had a heavy presence with two bandas, groups of girls doing fans, batons, tipica dancing, and lots of teachers monitoring and walking the parade route, too. It was fun at first, then got a little hot for small children to walk with uncovered heads, and then it ended. I bought two tamales...very yummy...went home for a nap, then had a pedicure and went swimming at one of the luxury hotels in Monteverde.  All in all, I like this independence thing, but independence is tiring (as Mark said.)