The past month, the next 5 months, and love.

Hello. I love love.
I study it, live it, take as many classes as I can on it, read books about it, practice it, recieve it and see it in every moment of everyday life.


Love. Wild wonderful crazy true blue giving taking through and through goes away and then comes back to you makes no sense and then always shines clear and bright when you are ready to receive the light always there always ready it is what you make it make it little make it grand make it short nurture it to a lifetimes span make babies make memories make jokes make fights make love.


make love.



Trip to Colonia Uruguay to renew my visa.
Plus it is a beautiful peaceful getaway town
 just an hour boat ride across the Rio de la Plata.



Hello. I love Love.


If love were a major it would be mine. But it is not offered as such at this moment in space and time so I study people and society to better understand love and study education so one day I can spread love to the future and help offer them the skills to build such in their own lives.


The way I see it, Life is Love. Love is Life.


I have played with this in my own life. Gone through many mindsets and experiences and daily I add more to my encylopedia on the topic. The beauty of it is that it is everygrowing and everychanging. Each interaction, each day, by each person is a different expression of the same concept.

 What is love?


This is a wildly unanswerable question that I will live my whole life finding answers too. And then changing them, again and again each time I see it neccessary to change my outlook on the subject, in relation to my own course in life´s journey.


The sweetness is in the simplicity. As a sweet soul friend of mine told me while describing the marijuana trade in california and how it has the power to transform our entire socierty from the roots up "It is simple. It makes sense. If someone is trying to describe something to you and it makes your head spin round and round trying to figure it out- something is off. The truth is simple and will connect with your heart. You will understand and you will see."


What is Love?
Simple. Truth. Seeing.


Starting with one well known source, the bible says
"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." (1 John 4:8)
God is Love


The Greeks had 5 ways of explaining it...

Affection love (Belonging) = eunoia 
Friendship love (cherishing) = phileo
Desire love (attraction) = epithumia
Erotic love (longing, romance) = eros
Selfless giving love - Greek word= agape


Answers.com says this:
" love is a part of life that has a life of its own. Value and nourish it, and it will grow and become deeper and more valuable. Find it, give it no value and forget to nourish it, and it will die. Simple as that." 


Old colonial road:
"Calle de los Suspiros" Street of the Sighs
Used to be the gathering place for prositutes.


So nearly a month has gone by with no blog entry. What have I been doing? One may wonder.
Well, I would say I have been loving. On others, on this country and on myself.

So much so that I decided it was time to start another blog solely focused on that four letter word.

"A Love Story a Day."
kyrialove.blogspot.com

For the meantime, Argentina is wonderful. I have learned a bounty of new spanish words and grammer forms, can hold my own on the streets (even give directions if it´s a good day) and... I have been learning life. My life and this world via my eyes. What a joy and special opportunity to simply allow myself to just be... floating free in and out of the streets, dialects with friends and thoughts of my own. I can spend the whole day just thinking and writing about anything and that is ok. That is great actually. There is nothing else "I need to do." To do lists are close to non-existant here.

Two weeks and it is all over. Well that sounds dramatic... it is not ALL over but yes, classes are over. Wild. That went by fast.



Las Cataratas

This coming week of class and then my program and I head to Las Cataratas aka Iguazu Falls. Upon returning from the largest waterfalls in the world, I have my final tests and then- Fin!


 I was thinking about why I haven´t written for so long. This is what I came up with:

1) Time
I have been so enjoying living in the moment here and spending my time with friends and with myself. I am embracing this special freedom that I have. Other than a couple exercises of spanish grammer for homework and 3 hours of school each day. I don´t have to do anything! That is insane. Anyone who knows me knows tha I have a pocket book calendar the size of a back-pack calendar and it is usually filled to the rim with color coded responsibilities. And I love it. I enjoy being deep in my classwork, active in multiple clubs and living my social life. But here, here in Argentina, life is defferent. At first I found all sorts of ways in which I could fill up my time and then I decided "No thank you. I am going to try it different for a few months." So here I am. When all I have is time in the world, I somehow lack the time to write about it.

2) Novelty
As in any relationship be it scholastic, romantic, or traveling in another country, a lack of novelty leads to routine. Novelty is critical in keeping our lives and relationships up and active, exciting and new but...
sometimes it is nice to be down and peaceful, comfortable and familiar.
When I first arrived here I wanted to go and do and see and try everything. While I am still experiencing new things every day, I have begun to sink into my life as a porteña. I am delighting in my relationships here with friends more than anything else. Something so special about all being in this same wild situation of picking our whole lives up (at least the small materialistic things that can fit into a suitcase and add up to under a 100 pounds) and moving to another country and all being plopped down together in this never sleeping city for an X number of days!

 It took some time, but no doubt I am blessed with a sweet circle of sisters and brothers in which to delight in this time together. I think that is what it all comes down to in the end- LOVE. My friends here to now know how often I think about, see examples of, relate and observe nearly anything and everything to that special "L" word. The novelty is exhilerating, but there is true joy I have found in just BEing. And being around those I love and those who love me.
 

Tree in Colonia, Uruguay



3) Substance
While I have often thought, "hmm, it has been a while since my last blog" and I have started a number of them I didn´t have any stories of gold searching, dragon hunting, cave exploring or something similarly adventurous to write about. Recently I have been itching (literally: thank you mosquitos, figuratively here...) to write. Writing is a release for me. A way to analyze, organize and share my own thoughts. A way to transform my wildly 3-dimensional life into black and white symbols nicely orgainzed in a linear pattern on this computer screen. Mmm... now it is all settled. Nice and neat.
So I gave into the itch and began to write, remebering that life isn´t always full of Indian Jones like moments, but that the simplicity and divinity of living: walking, cooking, eating, laughing, massaging, loving...is beautiful. It cannot be bought in an all inclusive tour package nor is it in my "Things to Do in BsAs" section of Lonely Planet. But, as I have experimented with letting my heart lead the way, this is where I am. Simple and sweet.

4) Distractions
I feel as though I am in this crazy semi-home semi-vacation state of living. I do feel at home in the moment and then... I think about 2 weeks from now. It has been about 4 weeks since my last blog post (that went by fast) and in 2 weeks (based off the sensation of the last 4 weeks will probably go by at a lighting rate) my program here ENDS. Wow. Over. Done. Signed sealed delivered as Stevie would say sing.
Yes in 2 weeks May 7th, my time at the University and living here in BsAs will have come to an end. El tiempo pase muuy rapido.
With this looming in the back of my mind, like a storm I can feel but has not exposed itself yet, I have begun planning my post-BsAs life.

.......................

Where I am at now:

I am so excited for all that is already on it´s way (perhaps the "looming storm" analogy wasn´t the best choice) and I am also so looking forward to these last few weeks. Although I really love my friends and life here and am learning a well amount of spanish, I know I will miss this place and time. A truly remarkable opportunity I have right now to just BE. The fact that I am in another country away from friends and family and all my belongings has given me the chance to explore myself all the more. With nothing other that the bag of material possesions I saw as uselful to bring, I was able to build my life anyway I choosed.  I love my life and I love myself so there was not a 180 personality transformation that took place, but my mind and heart opened so much that I really really lived. I AM (present tense) really really living.

Openness leads to vulnerability and vulnerabiltity leads to growth. My friends and I were discussing how beautiful relatonships are and the simple wonder of honesty and act of being vulnerable with another. At times daunting at first and then so often incredibly rewarding after. The only way to allow someone else to let you in is to open yourself up first. Just like taking a leap of faith and trusting that something sweeter will catch you as you land. a gamble at times sure, but worse case scenario you end up in a new place with new opportunites awaiting and a differnt perspective on life than you held before.

old to new

The exciting question now is "What will be next?"
After these next couple of beautiful weeks of building memories with special people in those last minute places I have yet to venture to, I will have a little over a month to explore solo. What an incredible time. I am playing with different ideas as to how I will spend my 5 weeks in south america. I can do a hostel type travel, hopping around to different cities or I can spend more time in fewer places, building relationships, creating a connection with the environment through volunteering or WWOOFing. As of now I am looking into living on a permaculture farm in the mountains of Córdoba, then meeting up with extended family in paraguay before volunteering at the only organic ice cream farm in Sao Paulo Brasil. There is only one thing I need to do and that is arrive at Rio De Janerio in mid June to meet my girlfriend at the airport.

We will travel through Brasil and Peru for 26 days. The two of us will then spend a week in Rio with a local friend before flying off to Peru to expose our eyes to the sights of Machu Picchu and our eyes to the sounds of the Amazon rainforest and our toes to the beaches!

Then...we will kiss our goodbyes as she flys back to the grand US of A and I fly to the pura vida Costa Rica for my yoga certification training course.

By the end of July I will be back home. USA home.
Then I have a month to work work work or...
I can travel around and see my american friends I have missed so over the last half of year.
Any recommendations?
Is it time to work, or should I keep on playing?
I have gotten pretty good at it over these past few months...

Then off to SB for my final year of school!

Whew. Feels good to have my whole life figured out. Well at least the next 5 months. Well at least part of the next 5 months...

As for this past month of Argentina life, well that will just have to remain a mystery. To the future, and beyond!

Lots to look forward too. Lots to plan. and Lots of fun to be enjoyed right now.
I suppose the trick is finding that balance between living right here right now all for this moment and... taking a step back from the here and now, to invest in my future of tomorrow.

"So beautiful when she says goodbye, I love to see her go.
And then before I arise, she will return and wake me with her glow."