The Golden Cow- Part 3: Into the Jungles

Part 3: Into the Jungles

Far from Argentina B.A., deep in the countryside of Paraguay, Tomas and Sarah awoke in an outpost town unsure of where they were. Everyone they had asked had a different place to point to for where they were on the map. Wherever they were they liked it. It didn’t seem like being lost when they were enjoying themselves so much.

They had arrived at 3am the night before by truck, car, and bus. Having overslept and missed their transfer by over an hour, they decided to get off at the next stop. The concerned bus driver warned them of danger and pointed them up the road to a small police station. They weren’t sure if his warning meant go to the police station or stay away from it. But they went to it anyway, as it was the only building on the road with a light on. The two officers, who had been fast. There were no vacancies, but the owner Don Josef rubbed his sleep-filled eyes until he could make an exception and give them his niece’s bedroom.

They slept quickly and before long a neighborly rooster, who may as well been in the room with them, sounded off his regular report on the progress of the sunrise. This continued until Tomas found an imaginary hatchet and Sarah tied the noose. But when they opened the curtains to spot their prey, the beauty of the young new day and lush countryside hit them. A golden light poured into their room and awakened their road weary eyes. Outside their window stretched a backyard with no fence. Big boned trees climbed the hills back as far as they could see. The morning’s laundry stretched a short dark skinned woman out on the clothesline. A longhorn bull sauntered through grazing on grass. The adjoining cobblestone tin-roofed house sat patiently awaiting the completion of its half finished repairs. Everything looked so peaceful and content. They couldn’t wait to get out and see what Paraguay life was like.

Tomas and Sarah poured out of their room revived after a quick jump in the shower. They were exhausted but excited to see where their midnight mission had led them. Walking up the main street they saw a different story in light than they imagined the night before.

The town that seemed so tranquil was now named with armed guards dotting the roads. Everywhere Tomas and Sarah went stood guards--on the street corners, in front of the businesses and every well-to-do house-- armed to their teeth, with old fashioned automatic rifles, bullets strung like necklaces, pistols and long machetes on their belts. They couldn’t imagine what degree of evil existed in this peaceful little village to warrant this kind of response. Even the guards who stood at ease, leaning leisurely against the rusted iron gates, seemed to share in their inoculating disbelief of the true presence of danger.

After a walk around the marketplace they returned to find Don Josef sitting in a rocking chair on the stoop, sipping mate. Don Josef invited them over, calling his guards to get them chairs. He invited Tomas and Sarah to share the special mate he called TÉ Re’ Re’, which was served cold with some kind of mint. They drank it together passing around the same cup and metal straw over and over again in the traditional fashion, but what was unusual was the cup they were drinking out of was made from a hollowed out bullhorn. With their broken Spanish and his marbley Guarani they managed to catch 3 words of particular interest: thieves- steal- danger. The rest of the conversation was a mystery conveyed with animated hand motions, body language, fun loving smiles and full lettered laughter.

Except for the guns and guards the village felt peaceful and inviting to Tomas and Sarah. Everyone told them it wasn’t safe—there were thieves, but they never saw anything disturbing. The police said don’t trust the guards, the guards said don’t trust the police. It was a peaceful, friendly, generous village and whatever shady forces were out there kept their distance.

Instead of keeping to their plan of traveling north up the coastline through Montevideo towards the Brazilian beaches, Tomas and Sarah, via another spontaneous hunch, decided that adventure awaited inland. They skipped customs and skittered across the border on a backroad, sitting on bales of hay in the back of a pickup truck. They grinned beaming bright golden smiles at each other, astonished at their unending luck and the generosity and protection of everyone they had met.

After sharing tea and chatting, Tomas and Sarah went back out to explore. Stopping at a little art stand that caught their eye, they met a man named Senor Osito Oro. He was a beautiful old man who spoke a little English and understood Spanish. He was helpful, but as they learned more of thier common passions in life, the conversation became much more genuine and personal. He walked them to a nearby Brazilian restaurant that looked runned-down, but had the best food. They swapped stories about yoga, dance, drumming, traveling the world, the charkas, 2012, and beach friendly Caipirinhas. Senor Osito Oro shared about the essence of the rituals they held in their villaga, Jui Jui. He said the rituals were their lifeline to a constellation of forgotten ruins in the surrounding jungle. The ancient Energy Vortexes contained mysterious though measurable high frequency magnetic properties. They were profoundly healing and at times could present people with visions of either the past or the future. Senor Oro could tell they were interested and recommended a guide that could safely take them into the heart of the jungle to the ruins.

Like they had done their entire trip, they decided in the lapse of a heartbeat and off they went with no regrets. They knew this trip had some divine being’s blessing as they kept making the acquaintance of just the right man or woman at just the right moment to lead them off on another astounding adventure. Never in a million years could they have planned a better trip.

Having finished packing, they stood for a moment looking at each other. “You ready?” Tomas asked softly as he walked over to her. They pressed their bodies snug together. Having spent hours of endless nights dancing, lifting, throwing, pushing, pulling, rolling on the floor, bouncing on the ceilings, nights and mornings blurred together, music passing through one long dance, their bodies could track the changes of each other’s music. The short, shallow rise and fall of Tomas’ breath forewarned her, his touch short and sharp, a subtle staccoto grated her sensibilities.

He felt her body questioning him, looking for a clue, suspecting the worst. The glow of hope stretched over her like a balloon to pop. He tried to hold still under the searchlight gaze, but inside he squirmed from the impending accusation. She pulled away slightly and looked up at him again. Their bodies close, she tried to hold onto him. She looked up into his eyes and found it whatever she was looking for. Some unescapable violent emotion reached up inside and bit her. She felt its atomic weight and saw every minute detail down to its particle core. Through his eyes, a corridor: red, possibly heat, flame flickering. A blowtorch melting metal into a fluid golden glow.

She pushed him back, startled. “Will you hurt me?” she rebuked.
“What?”
“Would you hurt me?”
--“Ahora! You… Americanos! Go.” A call from downstairs was heard. The truck was loading.

“I don’t know--what do you mean? How can I answer that?” Tomas shifted the bags around from place to place and looked up at her readying the backpack for her back. “Here babe, we got to go.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said annoyed at being interrupted at this crucial moment. Tomas’ violence would unglue everything forever she thought as she took the backpack on like the weight of the world.

She turned and waited for him to get his pack on and look at her. “I saw a dark spark in your eyes. I swear, a violence snapped back at me. It gave me the chills. It’s not just…I’ve seen it before. I’m scared of-- what I saw.”

“C’mon,” he looked her squarely in the eyes and turned to the door. “Say goodbye to our lovely room.” He said without a glimpse of the sarcasm he so drearily felt saturating his bones.

“This isn’t done Tommy.” She said to his quick disappearing steps as she followed him down the stairs and outside.

“Uh, huh just wait a sec, okay.” They gave a quick kiss on the cheek to Don Josef and his woman and opened out into the busy street scene. From one moment to the next Tomas experienced the peace and calm of his inner world totally flip flop into strained confusion and heart broken disillusion. He kept himself steady as best he could. “We got to get on the truck.” Spanish and the local dialect was being flung about them. A dizzying storm of street chaos enveloped them-- vendors selling anything they had gotten their hands on, armed guards gaffing the breath of day, amateur taxi drivers whistling them their way, little old ladies carting groceries and grandchildren up the sidewalk.

He looked softly in her eyes, “I like you” he said with a heavy emphasis on the loving aspect of the word like. “I will never intentionally hurt you.” And kissed her on the lips and calmly said, “Will you help me find Camion Viente?”

“Okay…” she said as the wild reluctance passed. “Vente, that’s 20, right?”

“Yup,” he said, biting the burgeoning smile on his bottom lip, while looking up the street for the right truck.

“We got to find our guide too,” she reminded him.
“Oh yeah. Hopefully he’s not still drunk. I’m gonna get some of those donut-things for the trip.” He said to her smiling. “Hungry?”

“Yeah!” she brightened up even more.
They found their guide waiting at Truck #20.

Their guide pointed them eagerly to the last empty seat on the truck. They were in the back row, their guide had to stand he told them it was okay. The guide met the stir of curiousity with a smile and said “Americanos”.

After eating the chipas. Sarah turned inward again as her thoughts gobbled her up.
“What’s up babe? You’re in your head.” he tried to tug her out from under it.
“I heard something in your voice before.”
“Maybe your hearing things!” He said as he started to nestle his nose into her underarm and tickle her side.
She betrayed her feelings with a scratch of a smile. “Serious.”
“I’m seeeerioooouss.” He said rolling his eyes mocking her and tickling her more.
“No, Tomas the Peking.” She said half serious, but with none of the heavy, self-flagellar dread. “I want to talk about this. There’s something I have to say.

“I saw your anger back there. Like a demon, smoldering back at me.”
Tomas couldn’t deny that he had felt something, maybe, but he wasn’t sure what. The anger was so feint he couldn’t grasp it fully, and as quickly as it had appeared it was gone again.

Oh shit, she realized. “My father had this anger too. It’s the same. What he did to me and my mom was inexcusable. His anger got worse and led to his dark, despairing depression—a star falling upon itself, pulling our whole family down into the black hole with him.”

He saw a whirl in her eyes, her mind racing, gnawing at something, calculating future parameters. Sarah, the oldest sister, bore the brunt of her father’s collapse. He was the lonely captain going down with his ship. How she picked up the pieces for her mother and held the family together, he could only imagine. It made her strong beyond her years, but Tomas saw the course she plumbed, still sailing that submerged ship with her papa.

“Hey,” he touched her arm. She jumped out of her busied, buzzing stare, scared, defeated and heartbroken.
He knew nothing he could say would reassure her, nor could he deny the blood that pushed through his veins, the elemental parts of who he had become--the alphabet that he had learned and from which created a language. “Anger is as natural part of who we are. It has to be expressed”—he paused, “in healthy ways or… it -it –it” another pause. “I mean you can’t suppress it. It just gets worse, like a cancer… like depression.”

“Nooo…” she says, twisting the vowel into a worried knot.
“Hey, I am here for you and you are here for me, right.”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you accept me for all of who I am?”
“I don’t know.”

“I have seen anger too, you know. I have seen it twist people up like they’re mangled in a barbed wire fence, living out their lives, trapped and bleeding- cutting everyone they touch. I’ve been caught in it, hanging midair, in a tanglebrush of barbwire. Trapped and bleeding. Every time I tried to move or say a word it cut deeper. The only way I could escape was to shrink and crawl away.

“We’re so clumsy to love.”
He pulled her towards him and held her tightly.
“There will always be anger, emotions it’s just energy. Can you trust me--can you trust what you feel?”
“I can’t handle it.”

“I’m afraid to lose you.” I’m afraid I am losing you, or may have already lost you, he thought as his hands trembled with the truth. “But I have to be honest with you and true to myself. I’m not perfect, but I’m trying everything I can. I hope you can accept that.”

“I know. I just feel bad that you’re disappointed with me.”
He didn’t think she was ready for a full-on relationship. Something was freaking her out. Hell, it freaked him out too, but she didn’t let her self feel the pain, the fear, the resentment, she only wanted the lighter side. Keep moving. She wanted to love, but every time she would get into any conflict she’d get pulled out in the current, floating out to sea in a wash of overwhelm, lost in a gutter of guilt. She wanted pure bliss iridescence, on her terms irrespective of the corresponding pain that would be triggered. She had no idea how to get beyond the guilt that anchored her to the same hotspot no matter what country she visited. Endless preparation and unavoidable folly-- Guilt claimed its place, as her master teacher, in the doorway to the lasting peace she desired. It would stick around as long as necessary.

This wasn’t the first time he’s had this sinking, doomed feeling, but watching her agonize like this, he knew or thought he knew that it would take time, maybe a lot of time and doubt crept in, “after all is said and done would she be able to handle a relationship? Is this really what I want? Can I put up with her disappearing act?”

He had been in her shoes, stuck, worried, overwhelmed, lost--not wanting to be alone but not knowing what to say. Looking back he had chosen to break off a relationship and try to work on his self alone. Now here he was on the other side of the fence and the grass wasn’t greener it was a black charred fever. He swooned loopy sea sick. He could feel this Carnival Cruiseliner sinking inch by inch and he wanted to puke.

I have hurt for too long, she thought to herself. I can’t take it anymore. He is too good for me. Smarter, faster, stronger, older, wiser. He is a thoroughbred, my teacher. I love him and so soon just as I asked for. But it’s too much. I don’t even know what I want…

What do we do when our parents don’t even know what to do? They got it all mucked up & then just ignored it, denied it, acted like everything’s okay. Are they really this out of it? This gone? Where’d they go? And leave me like this…

I can feel it in them, the despair, unease, broken-leaky heart beats. Right at the tipping point. So hungry. And they gorge on junk food tv. And try to stuff stuff where stuff doesn’t belong. Is it really that hard to look me in the eyes? Touch, hug, be face to face. With no deflection. When two people touch completely, raw, exposed with nothing in between. No protections. We’re all like untouchables in my family. This thing with Tomas is exactly what I have been asking God for.

“On my first flight,” she began to speak again after several elongated moments doused with fire-spinning, hurried thinking. “Leaving home to begin my year long journey, I sat in my seat and wrote out everything that I wanted to learn and experience on my trip. I wanted my freedom, wisdom, my childhood joy, my innocence. I wanted to know what to do with my life, to know my calling. I wanted to break free from my parents, to heal myself and I had to get out of that depressing relationship with my boyfriend. I wanted to live my life- not the monotony and misery all around me.

“What the fuck! I’m like a magnet for depressed people. My dad, then my boyfriend. My ex. He was my first. Somehow he’d give me all his sadness. I could feel it just seep into my body. I’d leave feeling nauseous for days afterwards. You know? I’d get this sick feeling every time we’d have sex. It felt like he was spreading his depression all over me curdling in my skin like off-dairy creamer. I wanted to help him. But…

“I don’t know, of all the things I wrote down, still something more remained, what I wanted most of all, but I wouldn’t let myself ask for it. I thought it without forming the words.

“Whatever I end up doing, all this I’m learning, all these magical places I am visiting, there’s still the face of this little Sarah, who’s eyes are shining back at me, reassuring me, reminding me…”

They walked to a small clearing in the jungle that lay at the foot of a steep canyon wall. Their guide stepped aside, pointing and mumbling something. He idled pensively at the edge of the trees as Tomas and Sarah headed in towards the stonework. They were told this set of ruins was the crown temple used sacred ceremonies of cosmic positioning. They saw a fallen obelisk and two large oblong stone blocks that could have been altars. A circle of smaller stones ran along the edge of the tree line. A stumbling stone staircase reached down the canyon wall like a giant tongue licking the stone circle.

“Man, I’m tuckered out,” Tomas said. It was the third day of their trek through the thick, steamy jungle. With their guide Juan De Juan Juan they had explored several sets of undiscovered ruins. They remarked how fortunate they had been to have met Senor Osito. “I can’t believe how our paths keep crossing with all these amazing people. They just pop into our lives and here we are!”

“Yeah,” Sarah replied, “We didn’t even know we needed them and then here we are in the middle of this magical, unbelievable adventure.” This final leg of their trip together was filled with so much beauty and discovery- flowers and birds… crawling creatures and tree hugger things and not a sign of the panther that is said to feast in this area.

Tomas bent down touching the grooves and circular markings in the stone. “We should make camp soon.” The moon started to rise above the canopy. “Yeah, should be easy with this big ol’ moon shining for us,” Sarah said as she knelt looking at the markings on the other side of the stone. Then suddenly she looked up startled, “Tomas!”

At the opposite end of the trees something stood glowing. An animal of some sort with its head down nibbling the grass. “Where’s Juan Juan?” Sarah asked tentatively as they scanned the tree line for their guide, but he was nowhere to be found. In a glowing edy of mist and soft radiant light stood an indistinct four-legged creature. They couldn’t make out what it was in the shroud.

After grazing for moment, it started to walk towards them, awkwardly ambling along. They gazed at the incandescent shape curiously and didn’t know what to make of it.

“Woh! What the fuck….? I think it’s a cow but its ass is glowing and shit.” Tomas asked. The long knobby legs, a rectangular body and big ears, “Tomas! This is serious. I mean, we don’t know. I think it’s a baby cow, but you know, it could be like, an alien,” she said. “But why is it glowing?“ The calf continued to walk casually in their direction, pausing to feed on grass. With each step its image morphed in light and bright blurs. It was shimmering, brighter than the moon, in silver and gold sequences. In the alternating pattern of lights, its shape flickered like a candle. Along with the stunning hypnotic array of lights the thing emanated the most sublime feeling that instantly affected their mood.

“Do you feel that?”
“Uh, huh.”
A grace and mercy overtook them. They sat down next to each other staring in awe at the calf as if they were watching a fireworks display. They wrapped their arms around each other and gazed into the gentle mesmerizing light. The dancing hues rippled outwards like the surface of syrupy lake. All their worries and resentments melted away.

The calf rubbed its nose up on both of them, sniffing curiously and nudging them, (go ahead tell her/tell him, reveal your deepest longings). The glowing golden calf’s voice, sounding just like one of Tomas’ own thoughts except brighter and more promising, reverberated in his head encouraging him to act on his wishes. The light emanating from the calf shimmered with the voice, (It’s okay, she/he will hear you.) “You know, I think this thing is trying to tell me something… I am eternally grateful for this time with you Sarah and whatever happens between us just know that I am changed and forever thankful. I know there’s a lot of pressure on you right now with your family, but … just know that, I want to say, let you know that I, uh love you.

“There is too much magic between us to just sluff it off as nothing. In whatever way you can after your trip I want to continue to stay connected. I know how people drift even though they say they will stay in touch.”

“Me too. Its hard for me I know this. Its like I’m too shaky inside can’t hold a measuring spoon for a teacup. I need my container to hold better. For you, for me, for us. I got a leak in this old building. Older than time. and I need a better…you know, I don’t know. I just don’t feel like me most of the time. I feel like the calf is telling me something.”

“Yeah right, its like our couples therapist or something,” Tomas said.
“For real!” They laughed and reached out to touch the calf’s neck. The calf coos rolling its head to the side, letting its tongue dangle, “Oooooewhhh!” (Forget about the past.)

“But I feel hopeful. This can work. I love yew-tew. There’s nothing means more. Just my family has plans for me. But I heard something click inside my heart.” She looked straight into his eyes, “as shaky as all get out, it’s going to work.”

Tomas pulled Sarah over to him and looked directly into her eyes, letting his eyes speak before issuing the words. “All we need to know is what we feel, what our heart desires most of all. The how it will work out is not as important, just that we know it will if we really want it.”

The lights of the calf defied the laws of nature. As if alive, they danced with a whimsical personality. The lights shifted and folded in patterns that spun and wrapped around shapes in the air that matched the markings on the obelisk. The calf’s image also strangely shifted and bent in a kalidescopic hall of mirrors. The light and symbols coalesced around them and started to weave in closer until they touched their bodies. As the ebullient luminosity moved through them bodies they giggled, “It feels like we are in a carwash, moving down the conveyor, getting washed by Mr. Rainbow.”

The calf rubbed against Tomas and then Sarah. Its hair felt delightful and danced in their fingertips. They both laughed. “It tickles,” Tomas said squirming. Tomas leaned into Sarah with his shoulder and she started laughing uncontrollably, “Your STONED!” he said and they laughed for what stretched into several minutes. The glow lit up their faces. They looked into each other’s eyes and saw each other’s beauty burning brighter than ever before.

The calf pushed deeper into their reaching hands, their last remaining reticence. They felt the calf shudder and steadied themselves focusing all their attention on the squirming calf. The intensity built a towering skyscraper of force up around them. The wind picked up and all the surrounding trees swayed in towards the center of the circle.

It cried softly “Ewwwhhhhwww!”
They all started to quake. Tree branches rattled. The obelisk came alive.
Something started to happen with the calf. The skin and the light pulsed more brightly.
The calf cried again and licked Sarah’s hand.
The calf leaned towards them and pushed its neck and shoulders against Sarah’s legs.
“I can feel the light,” Sarah cried in a shaky voice. “It’s vibrating up my legs, through my body!”

“Yeah, I think I’m gonna throw up--” Tomas shouted over the rumble of the jungle and looked up at the sky. He felt faint and realized, “no one would know if something happened to us.”

The moon stood over them at its zenith, practically covering the entire sky. His hand on the calf’s back stuttered with the vibration.

With all its weight the calf pressed its head against Sarah’s legs. The tension unfastened the jowls of its face and with one last push the rest of the skin on its body pealed back and away. Into the air, the skin ignited like sparks of fire crackling out into the darkness. The glowing embers drifted slowly, pulsing like electric snowflakes falling to the ground in a pile. “Uhm?” Tomas looked at Sarah for answers. She was standing, smiling like a proud parent, or someone knitting a precious scarf, or someone looking at a priceless work of art. She thought she may never see this unexplainable thing again except in the warehouse of her memory at the depths of her sleeping dreams. Not taking her eyes off of it, “Tomas its so beautiful!”

The calf translucent and dark like its own shadow stood calmly wobbling a bit, looking around unsure. The skin- its past form—laid discarded, unneeded, still emitting a lonely light, called out like the blinking beacon of a fog light. A loud ever present click sounded, giving way to a swirl of wind. The calf looked above itself, kicking its legs in wild anticipation. The sound of stone sliding against stone roared as light peered out from a doorway above the calf spilled downward, bathing the calf’s muted form with light. The calf took a few steps up as if it’s ascending an invisible staircase, first its nose, head, shoulders, and then body, with each step, disappeared up into the opening.

The rectangular light of the door started to seal shut in sequential squares that gobbled each other up, forming into a tiny glowing dot that whisked off as daybreak dismantled the night sky.

Tomas and Sarah in a mix of shock and elation stood next to each other holding hands, their bodies shook as they peered into the vastness of the dawn. They looked into each other’s eyes and felt a soft warmth. Tears streamed down their faces. Tomas cupped her cheek in his hand and caught her tears on his chin. She moved closer and let down her last, long-held reservation.

They looked over to the glowing light where they expected to see the skin aglow, but instead saw a simple campfire burning. Juan de Juan Juan was bundled up in his sleeping bag next to the fire. Not a sign of what just happened had remained. Knowing they couldn’t have both just dreamt that, Tomas said, “This is it!” Golden flames lapped at the morning air, swallowing the silence and consuming any remaining distance between them.


“Reassuring me, reminding me… deep down where I’m afraid to look, there’s a voice. I still hear it whispering back to me… ‘for Love.’

“I remember what you said to me Tomas, ‘This journey, life, is irreducible from love.’

“I am… and know I’ve already found it. But I still have 6 more months to go. I don’t know what to do. Tom, I’m scared…” her voice trailed off into the unfathomable distance, through an encoding and decoding communications thresher.

Time, twinged into a timelock, clasped around the moment standing still, was it 6 months more or 6 months ago. “Hello?” He looked at the vidscreen, “Fuckin’ Skype!” And again checks the earpiece for sound.

From his empty eardrum, the seed of his curiosity chased the signal back to Source, through the earpiece, through the high-speed lines and telecommunication relay towers, toward the night’s sky, along satellites, busying through space and returned bouncing back to some distant continent on the other side of the planet. Love raced after the signal through the open line like a plow ripping thru the hard clodded soil. The signal ghost, traveling faster than the speed of light, loyally initiated the disconnection, allaying the worries and distractions of her family.

But even had the signal’s backtracking ghost outpaced his unwavering pitch and closed the line in time, his reaching cry and her pleading scream, might still have met and punched a doorway through space, eliminating all concepts of linear time and distance forever. The moon too might have still tilted and the tide shifted with the gravity compensation. They had seen this possibility in that warm, reflected golden light. Now with courage and renewed urgency the prescient seeds awaken to their choice. With the future’s present in clear relief they step thru the doorway into each other’s arms.