Story Series: Xavi vs. the Waterfall

Hey, sovereign beings. I am so behind on this. I have really wanted to highlight some of the stories you all have shared on Ryver and with me personally. Michael wrote a song, Deneen has a dream, Karen shared her grandness through vulnerability, Xanthe graced us with her grace. To start the series off, here's a grand tale from Xavi, who recently met up with another Center of Being soul, Letizia, in France. I quite loved the story, and I sense you will appreciate it too. If you have a story to share, please send me pictures along with it. You can put it in any form you would like, but it saves me so much energy if you create titles and formatting suggestions like Xavi did. ENJOY!

"I thoroughly enjoyed laughing with the writer as he clung onto life by a thin thread. Nothing like a near death experience to thaw your cold, cold heart" - Cheeky Critic Review

The Matcha Chronicles of a Macho Man

I was driving peacefully back to my town when I realized how relaxed I felt after the trip and how my energy had changed since the beginning.

Letizia invited me to spend a few days at the Super Green France Mountains to share good food that she cooks, good conversation with a good wine, eight cats in the house and the hikes around.

The last day of the hike I was climbing a mountain to waterfalls formed by the spring thaw. According to the signs, it was a five-hour trip. On the way she stopped a lot to rest and admire the landscape barely without dealing with words. So I waited. This dynamic of stopping every few meters occurred throughout the ascent.

The trip was getting slow and heavy for me. I had not realized it yet, but I had lost sight of the meaning of it all. I had become obsessed with reaching the top, at any price and as quickly as possible. Hmmm, do I sense a metaphor here?;)

She stopped once more, so I waited for her sitting on a large rock a few meters above. I could observe a movement by my peripheral vision. She was moving, only on that occasion if I did not see her pass, I would not know she was ahead of me.

This was when my male anger began to manifest itself more. I had been pitifully climbing the whole way carrying my poor tired body and without strength, using perhaps too strongly, my walking stick. Every step I took, I rammed my rod harder and harder into the rock-strewn ground.

After that she stopped again, and as it seemed to me that the waterfall was close I decided to go ahead and not wait for her anymore.

I arrived at a detour where I could go down to the lowest part of the waterfall. The water was raging and I still felt the call of adventure. "She sure would," I thought, so I skipped a couple of rocks to get in the middle of the river and take a good picture of the waterfall in front of me. See above picture...

It was then that I looked back when I realized how dangerous it was. A false step, a slip, and I would have fallen down the river by a descent slope full of rocks ready to crush me.

I started to turn around and it was here that common sense prevailed: "If I go back by the same rocks that I came and I slip, adios, I'm dead." So I jumped to a rock that was to my left and ... said and done I slipped.

I fell like a sack of potatoes in the icy waters of the thaw, only to save me from death because I changed the place to return at the last second. Suddenly I was soaked to the bone. I went back to where she was, I told her what happened. I warned her that there was still a long way to go, and I warned her how dangerous it was to go where I was because of how slippery it was.

She told me: "Oh do not worry, I'm fine, I do not need to climb to the top".
This is when I understood it. It is not about the destination, but about the trip.

She has been enjoying the whole ascension trip without even worrying about whether it would end or not. It did not matter. Only the experience mattered. And it was a great and beautiful experience for her to connect with Mother Nature in her wildest and purest state.

Later I had thought about taking my clothes off a rock and drying it, but as if the mountain did not want me there, it started to rain and the feeling of cold began to increase. I decided that I would go down the mountain in a hurry to warm up and dry myself in the car.

So the fuel of anger carried me back down in a sigh. I took off my boots, put on the heater and relaxed to wait lying in the backseat of my car.

Once a Master said that Mother Earth could be ruthless, and just as my energy was in the ascent I was not very in tune with her. With each new step I took, my anger increased, because of the hardness of the trip. Now seeing the experience in perspective, all the merciless thing that she did with me was to throw myself to the safe side of the cold waters. And believe me, there is nothing like a romp of cold water to conquer the coldness in life. 

The next morning was the time to go back to my city. She told me that she had noticed a change in the energy of the house and now the eight cats felt relaxed without fighting each other.

A part of my angry masculine energy stayed in the icy waters of the thaw.

​Au revoir France. I'm returning a little better than I arrived.

Part 2: The Matcha Man Anecdote

Matcha Tea is a type of Japanese Green Tea powder that I had taken for my trip and that I usually drink every day.

​One day before I was climbing another mountain. Here the snow had not melted yet. The idea was to reach a lake in the upper part of the mountain. It had become an impossible climb since because of the snow, the ascent was very slippery. We took another safer path and climbed into a forest.

There she began to dance and sing in the middle of the mountain with a Madonna song that played on the speakers of her mobile phone. You could not see anyone else for miles around. While she expressed herself I stayed, uncomfortable, looking at the horizon, waiting, for the dance of feminine life to end.

This is the anecdote of the macho man. The macho man does not dance to express the joy of being alive. The macho man is an almost inexpressive male.

When we came back later that day, in the kitchen she bothered me with what happened. With my phone, I played the song Village People Macho Man and started singing it.

"See, this song I can dance and sing on the mountain," I said.

She replied laughing: "You are a Macho Man ... no, a Matcha Man, and every time you listen to this song you will remember it".

And we both laughed.

Enlightenment is what happens naturally when you are living your life - Sar'h