December 22, 2003 From Brazil via Florida to Texas, in time to drive my mother to Houston for the final evening of my sister's Christmas carol program at the Tallowood Baptist Church. Tallowood's choir members are first-rate musicians, which made the recital as delightful as expected. The choir's reputation has spread to the nation's capital, where on July 4, 2004 they will sing in the National Cathedral. Well done, Tallowood!

My mother & I spent the ensuing week enjoying Houston with my sister. At the Museum of Fine Art we wandered through an exhibit that displayed under one roof van Gogh's "The Starry Night," Dali's "The Persistence of Memory," and a whole passle of Picassos, Braques, Kandinskys, Dadaists, Surrealists, and a giant Monet "Water Lilies." At the Museum of Natural Science we took in the Pearl exhibit: thousands of pearls, salt- and fresh-water; white and black; cultured & natural; tiny and large; from oysters and from other mollusks, including conchs; nacreous & not; round, baroque, and blister; drilled and whole; on garments, in jewelry, and on their own. All hail Lord Moon, the lord of pearls!

After delivering a lecture at John Coon's new billet my mother & I returned to Wilson County and her garden's persimmon tree. My Uncle Charlie tells me that persimmons only really begin to ripen enthusiastically after a good hard freeze; and while December has already seen several nights of below-freezing early-morning temperatures, the strong frost that persimmons apparently hold out for hasn't yet materialized.

Their strategy seems a sound one, at least in this part of the world, for once the mercury drops far enough the cold will "burn" all the weeds, freeze-dry most of the insects (and slow down the ones that survive), and discourage birds, squirrels, and other potential persimmon eaters from emerging from their comfortable holes, nests or burrows.

The gentler frosts have instead induced individual persimmons to ripen day by day, which has been a boon given this year's persimmon proliferation. Despite handing out fruit to friends, relatives, neighbors, and friends of neighbors, clumps of bright orange globes continue to dangle from the now-leafless tree. Neighbor Hilda Bednarz offered me a persimmon cake recipe, which I tried out successfully (she also offered a couple of recipes for sauerkraut cakes, German inventions that I'll probably try one of these days). I took to eating up to half a dozen ripe persimmons a day, usually over the sink, to make their juices easier to manage. One day I observed a persimmon fast.

Most inspiring has been Persimmon Junior, a far smaller tree who lives just a few feet from its bigger sibling (or mother). The little tree, of uncertain age and parentage, accepted the challenge of its larger comrade, and produced five miniature fruits, each somewhat darker, and stronger in taste, than their senior companions. One saffron-hued sphere was left attached to sway in winter's bluster, a yuletide ornament for the garden's Christmas festivities. Noël!

December 7, 2003 Enchanted Mountain is so called for the beautiful woman who is said to appear there from time to time, carrying a pot of gold and the question - which she asks to whichever local she might appear to - whether he prefers her or the gold. Inevitably, greed causes each of them to chose wrongly - or so the stories go. The hillside that opens toward the ocean and hosts the retreat center is steepish, and hiking past the dining hall, the yoga space and its adjoining deck with homa kunda (fire pit), the stone bathing pool, and several residences, one enters onto a path of a thousand steps (made from old railroad ties) that leads back to the hill's crest, and into the lands behind. From the Montanha sprouts a great beauty that is generally serene (except for a certain variety of mosquito that bites during the day, leaving behind bites that recall those of black flies), and the majority (or perhaps all) of the buildings on the retreat property are built from materials salvaged from previous dwellings that have been degraded into shack-hood. The salad bar, for instance, is a former tapioca press - giant slabs of wood laid horizontally and vertically, intersecting at circular pressure pads.

My mother tells me that her paternal grandmother actually spent her childhood in Brazil - apparently this great-grandmother of mine had a father who was (like my mother's maternal grandfather) a rebel, and to whom emigrating to Brazil seemed more attractive, after the Civil War, than submitting to domination by carpetbaggers. It's not too clear to us precisely where these forebears of mine settled; possibly in one of the Brazilian towns that are populated even today chiefly by the descendants of unreconstructed Confederates.

In any event, Garopaba's part of Brazil, like most of Uruguay and much of Chile and Argentina, was settled chiefly by Germans and Italians, and there are still settlements in Santa Catarina (the state that contains Florianopolis & Garopaba) where German is the lingua franca. These settlements are about 3 hours from Enchanted Mountain, about as far as the giant ancient fern forest (whose photos I saw, with some fern trunks a good foot in diameter or more) and the canyon. Rather than bounce around on the highway, though, our group elected to invest our time on the beach. Scott insisted on giving me surfing lessons, and instead of wasting my time trying to stand up on the board I spent some enjoyable moments "belly boarding" ("body boarding"), which I'll certainly try again.

That the actual retreat was a success was due chiefly to Scott's yoga classes (and those of his wife, Chandra Easton), and to the lectures and ministrations of Dr. Carmen Frigerio, who had flown up from Buenos Aires at my request to lend a hand. Great blessings were also conveyed upon us by the lovely blond goddess Tara (daughter of Scott & Chandra, age 3 ½), who whizzed about enchanting all & sundry. Should you be considering a trip south of the border, consider www.enchantedmountainbrazil.com, and contact info@iytyogatherapy.com. Bom dia!

Link to News of the Past