Beginning of Rainsong

We've been at Rainsong for 3 days now. Every morning we start with a 10 minute mediation. Today was the first day that Jason and I participated in that. It's kind of interesting. Our host, Mary, likes to have us manifest through mediation. So every morning we close our eyes we look into ourselves, connect with the prana of the earth and root ourselves, connect with the prana of the sky and open ourselves up to new possibilities and open our hearts to let out surround ourselves with a light of whatever color Mary chose and try to manifest what she requested. Today it was white and safety for the animals. There has been quite a few deaths here in the past week. The male peacock and at least one chicken was killed by a skunk, just their heads taken. And the female deer who was pregnant was found dead 300 meters from her pen with her throat ripped out. Our host believes that it was a Chucacabra. More likely it was a jaguar but it is strange that her body was not eaten. Luckily for myself I haven't witnessed any of this. Though I had met the female deer, Bambi, and she was so very sweet. She came right up and licks you and wants to be pet. Actually almost all of the animals here are tame. Many that have been released hang out around the farm and they are friendly. It's sad to lose any animals.

Let me tell you about the animals here. The sanctuary is divided into two parts. The main area with most of the animals and where Mary and her husband, Simon, live and the farm where there are birds and farm animals and where the volunteers stay. At the sanctuary there is: a white faced monkey, 3 baby howler monkeys, several parrots, two toucans, an iguana, parakeets and a few other birds, four turtles, two bunny rabbits, three red squirrels, a guinea pig, a kinkajou, three porcupine, a baby anteater and a larger anteater. Up at the farm there is: only one peacock now, several guans, pigeons, 4 adult goats and 3 kids, 3 horses, only one deer now, several chickens and chicks, 4 tepezquintles, a pig, and a one-eyed ocelot. Some of us come up to the farm and feed the animals here and the rest stay down at the sanctuary and feed and care for the animals there. Our day is split in half. 8 till 11 and then back to work 2 til 5. It's not hard to find things to do to take up the free time. Our first day we walked to a nearby waterfall. It's about a 20 minute easy hike. There's not really anywhere to swim because it's not deep enough. But it's really pretty and unique looking. The roots and rock have all been calcified from the water. So it's a really rough surface and the roots create small pools.

It's beautiful here. With a view of the water from the volunteer house and surround by rain forest. The morning the howler monkeys and of course, the birds wake us. I been doing yoga in the morning and I really find it easy to concentrate and find peace in my practice here. I'm not concerned with any of my surrounding unlike other places I have practiced.

Right now I'm surrounded by all the volunteers, everyone is reading, writing, playing music or visiting and I really love the atmosphere. We have started doing communal dinners which is working out really well and everyone is into throwing in and helping. I'm going to be really sad to part with any of these wonderful people.