Episode XXVII: Oljon - Siberia - Rusia

LAS MALVINAS SIBERIANAS

“Welcome to my country”

With these words in mind we came to Russia. When in January, the most difficult month for approaches, we were running by embassies of Buenos Aires doing the visas accordding to the countries we would visit, the Russian Embassy was the only one that told us: " If you are Argentine, just remains to say to you: Welcome to my country ".

It was great to hear that Argentina didn´t need a visa to get into Russia, and that the Russians were the first ones in giving us words of breath.

With this spirit we expected to tread on Siberian soil, a land that attracts us and many people, as something unique.

We approach the plane in Katmandu, and we thought, speaking about visas, that for some reason, China embassy had granted a double visa to both of us, whereas just one to Gaby and Maga… We realized that somehow it would be difficult for them to return to China, country in which we had two more scales after Nepal. Maybe it was all in a way trying to warn us that we would separate, on China.

Again from Katmandu, we had a stop in Chengdú, the city that we still had strange memories, and from where we made a trip to Beijing.

In the airport I told Diego: Its strange that with as much trip we never knew anybody to share as friends in another language, I always liked it!! It would be great!

Ask to the universe, and it will be granted to you.

When we raised the plane, we had to sit together with a girl of our age, very blond and white, dressed to the hippie style, and American as we knew because we had seen her passport in the previous flight.

We started speaking because something joined us: the disgust that gave us listening to the Chinese spit in the plane.

We spoke about the appearance that China reflected, and in spite of the fact that it was difficult to me to understand her English we began a long conversation about China´s reality.

She told us that no one wanted to accompany her, came alone to India and Nepal, and concluded: they aren´t places to go alone … it is necessary to be very strong and it cost me.

She came basically to China on business. Her family was from the north of San Francisco, California, from a valley called Valley Layer, and they had vineyards. Jamee, asked us what we were doing, and we ended up speaking hours of flight about bringing back our planet´s consciousness, religion, culture, beliefs, evolution… Jamee, poor woman, never had listened to anything, only in India where she learnt some chakras, but nothing else. Explaining everything to her in English, which was quite complicated, she finally told us that for some reason everything what we said resonated and had sense for her, although she didn´t know the reason.

I told her that we were going to go to California, to Monte Shasta, and she said that she had gone there, that it was approximately 7 hours by car from San Francisco … she thought for a moment, and said something that surprised us: " I am a small plane pilot, and my club possesses some that are available. It is necessary to pay a few dollars the hour, but if you don´t have how to get to Shasta, I would be charmed to take you in the plane and go there with you. "

It was brilliant and we interchanged e-mails to be in contact up to arrive to California.

Finally, we made ourselves a friend as i had asked hours before. We said goodbye with a great embrace in the airport of Beijing, and we prepared to make, alone again, the check in towards Irkutsk.

Remanents of the USSR

We arrived very early in the morning after 4 hours of flight, and we could observe this Siberian, cold, gray city, and rather abandoned appearance.

Maybe it was the normal appearance of the Siberian people, but with Diego we agreed that you can still feel the Soviet essence, in spite of the fact that the capitalism had given them a new color.

Many of the houses, as the airport, seemed to be left, and in most of the places we felt as in a cold war movie.

Elena, our Spanish speaking guide, was waiting for us.

The same day, we would go to the village of Lisvianka, 40 minutes from Irkutsk, on the banks of Baikal. Still we didn´t know very well what age what brought us to that site but we knew that it was the lake, and wanted to see it to line up with it.

Practically without sleeping, we were up to a snowed and frozen mount where a few aerosillas of fear took us up to the top from where we could see the lake and the river.

When we arrived there, we could see it, investor, white and frozen … the Lake Baikal still remained covered of ice in spite of having begun spring season. The only thing that wasn´t already ice-dressed, was Angará river. Elena told us that the legend, tells that the Baikal is a god, an old one, who has 336 children, who are the rivers that flow towards him. He has only one daughter. This daughter, one day felt in love with another river, and Angará decided to escape with this one. That´s why Angará is the only one river that goes out of Baikal instead of going towards him. Baikal got very angry, and threw a stone to separate from his daughter, who still can be seen between the river and the lake.

Despite, these are Russian histories that, as Elena told us, many guides tell the tourists who do not want to penetrate into the whole history of the region. This meant that Russian stories, often doesn´t have much to do with the Buriatas stories.

The Buriatas are the people from the north of Mongolia that spreads over the whole Siberia and that have taken the Baikal as the centre of their power.

In our agenda, after the return of Olkhon's island, we thought to see a shaman, though we didn´t know neither how nor who. Shamans are known as prominent figures of the region, the same as Ortodoxos priests. In the region, shamans always existed, but when the Russian Cossacks came and conquered Siberia, imposed the orthodox religion. On the banks of the river, all traditions coexist: Shamanic, Orthodox, Hinduist and Buddhists, though none in the day of today is respected by the government in spite of the Orthodox one.

To uncover part of this history was one of our aims with the Shaman, though our meeting tried to find much more.

Transforming the Guides 

Since we began our route we drove crazy our tour guides. When somebody plans a trip like ours, possibly prepares the itinerary by years, but we didn´t. We took only 2 months for everything: organization, decisions, diffusion, projects, visas, proceedings, banks, legalizations, lawyers, travel agencies, to collect bottoms, to buy equipment, and of course, we didn´t have time to take this as an investigation trip, because we were only 4 days in each place, and sometimes less…

Felix

For that reason Jordi organized our trip the most comfortable and fluid way possible for us so that we don´t lose time looking for nothing… but no one of the guides who were in touch with us, apparently, had ever received someone who didn´t come for tourism.

Manoj

Our greater challenge was Felix, in Xian, as you may see, but we could share enough with others, like with Manoj, and now Elena, that in spite of being too afraid, cheered up to listen to and to share the things that we were doing. We spoke with her about our project, and we told her that we were interested in something of Baikal, an internet article about giant circles in means of the water in the South part of the lake. They were strangely armed when the ice was melted in the heat of winter. She told us she remembers the fact, that people spoke and saw that, and that they say that they were the lights that are always seen by the lake, she never saw them, but many people comment that most of them are introduced in the forests and fly over the Baikal. Flying saucers, said, much people watches them around here. But she was afraid to speak about it. Poor girl, Diego ended up speaking to her until about exorcisms. She told us that a friend felt that floated byher house, and when she bought a cat, it didn´t happen anymore to her.

Elena

We invited her to meditate with us. “I never meditated” said. And we taught her how to meditate: SIMPLY DOING IT. She was orthodox, and we told her that meditation was like praying but for inside and not for a God. She shared that vision with us, and she sat down between the trees of the forest. In spite of the cold, we felt hot there. With the sound of the earthen bowl, an acquisition we made in Nepal to be able to meditate with sounds as they often asked us, we leaned to be in tune with the region. Soon we felt a hard connection with the Earth, and returned happy speaking about these subjects but she was worried about how was she going to sleep that night. It was funny when she stopped in a store and bought three big relaxing tea boxes!

At the end, it wasn´t Maradona 

In the evening, we decided to go walking along Irkutsk. In China they had broken my suitcase, and I had to buy other one. Diego bought himself a new pair of shoes, since he wore them for years, and the ice forced him to throw them.

The streets and cartels in Russian language gave the environment an air of ancient movie. The broken buses, the sheet streetcar, the cars with steering wheel to the right or to the left side, people very sheltered or uncovered, but nobody was taking gloves in spite of the cold. We couldn´t get gloves anywhere.

Coming back to the hotel, we met Lenin's enormous statue. We were surprised… Lenin greeting in front of Karl Marx street, near an advertisement of Coca Tail, a fashion shop, and a shopping in the corner with snack food in the first floor. Russia changed.

In our way by the same street, we met a group of young people who were less than 17 years old, that listened our different way of speaking, in a language they may never listened there, and they approached to us.

When we said: we are from Argentina, we hope almost with resentment that they all said: OH MARADONA!!!!, but they didn´t … To The end, this little song we had listened in every street, every airport and business from South Africa (except for a taxi driver who named Cristina Kirchner and her portfolios), it changed in our ears when we heard: OH! ERNESTO GUEVARA!!!!

Our face changed. In spite of being not revolutionary, neither communist, nor anything, I felt relief and happiness to have listened that name. Even I dared to say … " … and Maradona … " to see the reaction … which was " Shtó??? " (What??? In Russian) and again the relief returned.

It was so big their emotion of speaking with us that they asked to take a picture with us opposite to … Lenin? Already I don´t remember. The only thing I was sorry is not to have asked them a picture with our camera also … but we were too much annihilated.

The way to Olkhon

Olkhon or Oljón is the sacred island of Baikal, the only big island in this lake. Shamans usually went there to realize their ceremonies. On the island, there is a spirit of incredible purity, and it is Burján´s territory, the rock of the Old Baikal.

For some reason we felt that we had to go there. Something that we were tacking was the same plot that joined us to the Mother´s process, which we had faced in China, discovering that the antipodes of this territory is our country, and something that we had overlooked is that we shared the feet of these antipodes with the place we were going to. The centre of the Baikal, practically the whole Lake, was the antipode of Tierra del Fuego, and Big Rio, the most austral province of the world, of Chile and Argentina. Siberian land was the antipode of Chilean and Argentine south, from Comodoro Rivadavia in Santa Cruz up to Ushuaia and Cape Horn. And in the border between China, Mongolia and Russia: the Malvinas islands.

We began to think that our work there had to do even with those lands on the other side of the world, but we believed it was too nationalist on our part when we were actually making a trip for the world and its consciousness. We got on the bus that picked us in the hotel, a bus that rather than a bus seemed a large coffin on wheels filled with Russians.

The bus was small, and we had 5 hours of travel to the port where a ship would seek us to cross to the island. The bus had horrendous Brown lace, a smell of perspiration of days, and the roof was exactly like the lid of a coffin inside. The only thing we prayed wasn´t finish our lives already that way, because the routes were a hilarious disaster, in which we jumped all the time or crossed stones and rivers on all sides. With Diego we remembered that time in Salta when we had a car accident in the desert...

VWe were approximately 8 persons piled up behind and two in the front of the bus. We looked at face of those that they were sitting ahead, something that first seemed to be inconvenient. We were accommodating the texts of the blog, and speaking about our situation there and what was attracting from Olkhon, until suddenly, in a simple question, everything well-considered began to take sense.

The Lord which was in front of me, with a smile asked: "Where are you from?" but his tone wasn´t jus a tone. It was the best tone to ask for a cup of tea: it was Neil Simpson, of Bath, in the South of England. We didn´t stop talking during the 5 hour trip, practising that English tone that I liked so much and I always teach to Diego. Incredibly, Neil also knew why he had come to Baikal. He took a sabbatical year, and he was travelling the world. Olkhon called him deeply but he didn't know why.

Who started by being a simple paediatrician of England, ended up by being a traveller in search of himself, that incredibly was learning to meditate, and that INCREDIBLY had already prepared all his trip in June to do Santiago Way!!!

More we spoke, more our intentions and ways were interconnected.

For some reason we had met in a bus where … now that I think it, if we had every day a private

The welcome

In our way to the Port, something amazing escorted us for a while, maybe forging or celebrating a union, ours, giving us the welcome to the region, and saying that we were already united for our mission. An enormous rainbow surrounded the sun like an enormous aureole. A strange cloud approached the sun generating a kind of face painted with seven colours. During half an hour we could see those colours in the sky, and with a smile we were united on a trip crowned by chakras that opened from the sun.

STRANGE CLOUDS VIDEO

When we arrived at the port, we were with the strangest and impressive situation of the entire trip: the wharf was congealed, and the ice arrived until about 300 meters within the lake from the small port. The strange thing was when naturally, people began to descend and to drag her suitcases

and purses by the ice walking towards the inside of the Lake. The three of us were perplex, we couldn´t believe it, and as nobody talked to us, we had to interpret following them. We descended the slippery and sometimes crisped ice of the Baikal, and walked towards the place where the water could be seen. There we stopped, in the edge, with hope of getting a boat, that seemed an oxidized tin floating, embedded on the ice in front of us. We raised the suitcases and with fear of falling into the frozen water, we climbed up the end of the boat.

We were fascinated, and happy to feel that Diego and I were accompanied by a kind of character, the one that we estimate so much: Neil had an important air in his personality that he reminded us Mr. Bean.

His way of speaking, walking, being filmed to himself and extracting photos to every thing that crossed him, he made us remember the movie of Mr Bean's Trip.

Without being able to stop laughing and so surprised for the situation that we were living we came to the other side, to Olkhon's island, with more surprises … there, we stopped and walked along gigantic chunks of ice that were separated and were staggering in the water. With firm and rapid steps we followed persons' line and suitcases for other 300 meters of ice, up to the firm land.

Olkhon's island 

We needed another hour of bus to get to Huzhir, the village where we´d stay. Olkhon, in buriata language means “land of few trees ", and is something typical of the island. Extensive dry hills decorated a landscape of tundra up to our housing.

There exist very few settlements in the island, and Huzhir was the biggest one. There were hotels for travellers who normally come in Summer. In front of the town, there is the Burján rock, which as they say, is the Rock of the Shaman, where he did the rituals, in a cave in the centre of the Image of the Old Baikal, stretched out, for the form of the rock.

All the houses are made of wood, and the appearance of the towns is of total abandonment. The stranger of each house, is that all windows and doors are painted and decorated of a strong way, celestial and white, pink, normally clear colours, but nothing related to wood. No house has internal bath, all the baths, seem beds of dogs with a septic tank, without a light. It was the first time in the trip that we used our lanterns in the head to go to the bathroom at night, to 5 degrees under zero. The people, as they are clearly Russian, have a form to communicate quite coarse, and the woman of our lodging, wanted to take care of to us with affection, but she seemed she wanted to kill to us whenever she offered the breakfast or some collaboration to us.

Neil remained in another site, nearer the lake. We did it 20 minutes walking from where we stayed, but something of him attracted us deeply and we knew we had to share our stay with him.

Next day early, the island´s chauffeur, Anatolio, a typical Russian, with his black cap of earflaps, hunter´s coat, moustache to Stalin's mode, but the nicest and loving man we met in the island, would search us. It seemed that anytime he´d extract a gun and shoot us, but even he gave us his food and shared moments with us. Many people in the island likes fishing, and proudly he showed us his last captures: it was clear that they all were Omul, a kind of fish that only exists in Baikal, and which we ate almost every day.

In a Russian in signs, we told him that we wanted to look for Neil. With Diego we thought that if Neil had to be with us, it wouldn´t be complicated to find him. As soon as we came to his lodging, he went out walking along the door. The three of us were surprised, and asked him if he wanted to come with us.

He acceded very gratefully, gathered his things and went away with us.

There are very few places to see in the island, but all of them are magic. We stopped to see a few small islands in the way, though our aim was to come up to End Joboy, the north top of the island, from where one sees the most extensive part of the Baikal getting lost in the horizon.

Elena told us that it´d be also interesting for us to know the oldest tree of the island: it is 500 years old and it died by a fort ray that divided it. And that would be interesting is if we could see some lake seals, since they are the unique fresh water seals of the world, although she said that we´d have too much luck to see them cause nobody does it so easily.

We told Neil that we were making a process of bringing back the consciousness of thousands of people all around the world, and that Baikal was from the beginning a doubtless place. We told him our discoveries in Xian, Bali, Japan and Australia, and that we were trying to discover now what took us to Baikal. We told him that when we arrive at the places we meditate to connect with the energy of the place and to receive answers and indications, and that it would be good is we´d make it together. He asked us what meditation doctrine we had. And we laughed. We explained to him that our method was flowing, and that he was invited to flow with us: whatever you feel you must do, that´s what you must do.

FUNNY VIDEO INSIDE CAR

The antipodes that attract us

In one of the points where we stopped, the three of us climbed a hillside among big rocks, where there was a tree in the centre. The tree, as well as some posts, were full of tapes tied to their branches that were flaming with the fresh wind.

These tapes were a shamanic tradition. It says that the desires and requests must be written in a tape and stick in a post or tree. Once done, the wind drags the words and raises them to the sky, where the gods read the requests and decide if it corresponds to realize them or not. 

"BURIATA" BELTS EXPLANATION

 There, underneath that tree, we touched our Nepali earthen bowl for the first time. Each one sat down where felt, and we aligned a little with the energy of the place. We went towards the north, while we explained to Neil our discovery of the antipodes and how we threaded that history with our encounter. If the territory where we were was the opposite one to a territory that was base of conflict in 1982 in the south of Argentina, exactly by a confrontation with England by the control of the Falklands Islands, it wasn´t a chance that across of the world, we have met two Argentineans and an English man to do a consciousness activation of treatment in the dark side of South American territory.

“The feet of the World”, as they told us in Fuerteventura “the eyes of the world”. There we had seen that Tierra Del Fuego is the province that represents the foot of the Mother, as well as Santa Cruz part from the legs until the knees… walking. And walking, advancing was hurt for several reasons. For centuries, by the conquest, about 200 years ago, by the scorn of the governors, but the nearest pain, was, for who don´t know what happened, last action of a dictatorial military government of Argentine. When this government saw itself defeated by its own weight and incredulity, believed it would recover its bravery and power initiating a war against a country that was more than 18 thousand km of distance, by a earth which we never worried before in our history: the Falklands Islands. 

Energetically, the two islands represent in front of the country two eggs or two foetuses that the Mother isn´t yet prepared to develop. Both are in front of their legs and feet, implying that they are in the way of her future. But Argentine Nation wanted to obtain and to control something that didn´t own, at the same time England, own these lands, without being of it. As any child or fruit, doesn´t belong to anyone, but to everyone. Thinking it from a global perspective, if the south territory of South America, represents the pregnant mother of a new consciousness, what it is developing, has been despised and controlled, wished most of the times in a incoherent way, with anxieties to be owned. Malvinas have become, from years 80, a karma for this land. The Mother cannot walk because her darker side does not allow her due to her wishes of controlling what represent in certain forms her progeny… Then, what were two Argentineans and an English man in Siberia doing together speaking about Falklands…?

Neil was paediatrician, and we were trying to heal the children that this earth will develop. It may seem that for many countries this history has nothing to do with them, but if we watch again without limits, governments, national histories nor conflicts between themselves, geography is shared by everybody, and therefore, the history that counts, too.

For those who´ve been following the Way of Harwitum for a long time, we can take already into account that Argentina is developing something that we all want to arm together, without concerning the nation. We couldn´t do it without Chile, without Bolivia we wouldn´t have the spirit to carry it out, without Brazil we would not have strength, and thus each region offers its contribution to this New Consciousness Earth and Human conception. That´s why a karma in

Mother´s feet and legs because she wants to control her future children is a problem bigger than between two nations. If we don´t release a part, the rest cannot be released.

Joining lands between brothers

We understood in this moment, that Universe had armed a strange scenario in which from another side of the world, in the "dark" part, that is to say, the opposite one of this American Patagonian south, an Englishman in conscience, would give the hand to an Argentinean in conscience, and together we would do a judgment in which we would extract part of this force joined in the darkness, to begin a different message about Malvinas, and what they represent. 

The ceremony was just as we said to Neil: fluid and each one would do what he was feeling. We touch the cavity, and the three of us were connected with themselves as a whole, in the edge of the End Joboy opposite to the white Baikal, aligning our frequency with the lake, and crossing our conscience up to the opposite side of the world, where we would connect with the frequency of Argentine and Chilean´s south. We explained to Neil that Chile, our sister nation and energetic support, implied in 80´s also a pain, because helped England granting bases where to land and to refuel during the war. The territory where we were and up to the mountainous horizon in which we lost our sight, included the same Chilean, Argentine and island lands whereby the universe took us there.

In this moment, Diego did two small heaps of land where we deposited Soledad and Great Malvina´s consciousness. Around it, he placed 7 stones that represented the karma of the islands. While we meditated, the three of us took one by one, showed them to Baikal and joined them to the others. I played the role of a judge, without having thought it, receiving the stones that both gave me, and placing them in the cavity. There, I made them sound, and the stones vibrated with a metallic horrible sound while the sound raised its negative frequency.

Our conscience was put in these stones representing the pains of the territory to 12 hours of difference, as a symbol of what began to be cleaned. Only it was enough to begin a diffusion of this fact, in order to expand conscience and the network of thousands begins to cure the karmic bow of pain of the Mother´s feet. Finally, Neil and Diego shook hands strongly over the land that represented the islands, still in meditation, supporting all the energy of the sound and what had been done, as an agreement of union on the territory that represents the opposition of the Patagonia. Both took some land and joined each one a bit of it. Diego told Neil that a part of this land must be spread in England, whereas we would do it also once we arrive in Argentina.

  

The interesting of our meeting, was that there, in the most sacred and pure Plexus, in the Russian Siberia, the energies of the Heart and the Eyes of the World joined to prepare the Crown. It was necessary that the Heart could see with our Eyes, and that our look returns from the Heart. Only this way, we would recognize our internal Truth, and might activate our maximum planetary conscience. One saw all that in a second, and the sign was big: far in front of the End, during all the time in which we meditated, three gulls were flying circled on the ice, but even more, we saw fascinated how a small group of Seals were resting on the ice. We placed a tape with our desire written in them, in the post at the end of the island, and parted thankfully. 

… Amazing …

MEDITATION VIDEO

The trees that spoke

Our driver was looking for that millenary tree, but he couldn´t find it. Turning back, we went through a thick forest, without leaves, and stopped in front of a tree that had been partied by a lightning bolt, and strangely, the top had been introduced at the bottom. He said that it was possibly that. I caressed it, we surrounded it, but we didn´t feel it was the one. Anyway, we walked through the forest, and suddenly a sound called my attention. I remembered that Sabri had told us that in Argentina the trees began to speak to them with strange sounds that were coming from their inside. I could feel the same thing, and we approached them. Then I stopped hearing it, and when I saw myself surrounded by a circle of high pines, my legs began to weigh me very much. I fall on my knees, and entered suddenly a stranger been of meditation.

Soon I listened without words to the energy of what the trees were telling us:

" The Wise Old man has already gone away, today we keep his message. The Old man knows that this island is an engine, is a wheel that regenerates the energy of the world, and they must make it turn.

To continue in the Way, your bodies must have the firmness, strength and flexibility of a tree, but they wont be able to achieve it if they do not take the time to do it …

Be a tree … "

I remembered what i always say in the workshops and i asked myself, what did I actually do? Did i follow my own advice? Something removed my thoughts, and suddenly, I felt, i could lose the notion of time, and in that huge Siberian silence, we went trees during some time. Diego and Neil, were as i am, scattered through the forest, lying, connected with the trees, each one in their own way, but in harmony, silence and network. :

The trees supported us. When I woke up i felt

" A message of the Wise Old man:

A stone waits for them in Burjan,

This stone has the energy of Baikal,

of transforming and purging the world.

It must go away with you to the following step”

I understood that this stone, was destined to be thrown in Hormuz's Strait as an spotlight of transmutation. Maybe getting there we´d find it.

When we woke up, we felt a great need to embrace deeply the trees. While we were making it each one by its side, we all suddenly surprised: our chauffeur, with a great smile, was also embracing an enormous tree with all his being.

"WITH TREES" VIDEO

The cave of the shaman

We got to Burjan, that beautiful and impressive rock and we walked on the ice around it. Elena had talked to us about a cave, where the shaman performed their rituals, and climbing between ice and rocks, we could find it. We sat there for a moment, and while the bowl sounded, the three of us meditated in this place so sacred by many thousands of years, and among so many stones, on the ground, I could see the Rock that we´d carry with us.

It shined in some parts and it stood out between the others. I took it, brought it over to the cavity that Diego was touching, and honouring and being grateful to Burjan, we guarded this stone that would be delivered where the energy should be transform.

We said goodbye to the Sun in a way we never thought: on the ice, inside the lake Baikal, close to an enormous crack where the Sun reflected in the most beautiful way we have ever seen.

The following day, we would meet Neil, since it was the moment to deliver the Key to the Old Baikal.

The coldest key: the English one

At 9 a.m., we searched Neil at the shelter, since it was a few meters from the coast, and the three of us went away walking across the slippery ice. His fearful steps made us remember Mr Bean again. The trek was very funny, since Neil did 5 steps and stopped. I had already walked approximately 150 meters ahead, looking for an opening in the ice where to deposit the key.

In the way, Diego slipped and fall down with chamber and everything squarely in the ice, then Neil, was increasingly slow. When I met Diego near the crack, i approached to see how deep it was, and suddenly a scare ran all over my body: under my feet the ice began to sink! This layer was

created the night before, and was soft and not firm at all. I decided to launch myself on the ice slipping back to escape.

 We began to laugh, but my feet remained very well marked in the ice … After this, Neil stopped 100 meters behind us saying: I'm Ok here!

A BIT OF ENGLISH HUMOR VIDEO

When we manage to convince him to approach the firm part of the crack, we prepared to call the elementary ones and to wake the great Baikal and Burjan up with the cavity. I crossed the crack and took charge of the sounds. We called the four cardinal points, to the sky and to the land, while Diego and Neil meditated concentrated on the key and on the gratitude for the place.

We explained to Neil that we were connecting the conscience of the world and the sacred places by means of a few small keys of copper, since every site we visit is a portal and needs its key. I explained to him that the key is a symbol that allows us all to be connected in spite of only seeing it, with all the sacred places in which we have put one. The keys are from everyone, that´s why we have prepared ourselves to deliver them for all. At the moment that we knew that someone more was joining his conscience to the way, that person would be the one who delivers the conscience. Diego offered the key to Neil. With a great smile and honour, in complete meditation and respect, Neil approached the crack, and softly he dropped the key, which vanished falling down in spiral.

We honour the beings that surrounded us, and we said good-bye to the Baikal. 

10th KEY DELIVERY VIDEO
(click cc for subtitles)

With a big hug we said good-bye to Neil, with hopes to meet him in England or in the way of Santiago. We are confident that the three realized now the reason we travelled to Baikal, the only lake that never ages.

BLOOPER IN THE LAKE VIDEO

"MOMENTS IN OLJON" FUNNY VIDEO

Valentín, the shaman

This time our departure from the island was more glamorous. Diego and i were alone, and the ice was more melted this time, despite having spent only a day. For this reason, a boat slider came to take us out of there, something incredible that slides on the ice and water. On the other side, we expected Elena, and on the car, the shaman. When we saw him, our surprise was great.

For months we looked for information about the shamans of the island, and what we found was news and interviews to a Buriata shaman that had six fingers, Valentine. It was incredible for us to be with him. 

He was willing to do ceremonies at sacred sites. We only wanted to ask him a few questions, but we were glad to see that we received more. Valentine is a great defender of Buriat people and traditions. When Cossacks arrived, they were put in a very distant place, and until today they weren´t recognized by the government. Shamanic culture is very important in the Siberian region of the Baikal, although shares its space with Hindus and Buddhists from Mongolia, and with Orthodox, from Russia.

He expressed his sorrow and indignation at the lack of respect that Russians have about their traditions and sacred places. They say that in schools was removed the teaching of Buriata language to replace it by English, and that as they don´t own any church or temple, as their centres of worship are natural places, people don´t care for such spaces. He recovered the ancient games which were carried out around the sacred mountain called Deiord, and that´s why they gave him people´s decorations. He fights for the rights of the people and traditions. Talking with him showed us once again as the news only tells what interests them, since they spoke only about the rites and his six fingers, but never about the reality of his tradition and its message.

Tradition said that a shaman must have something strange in the body to be called shaman: in his case, he had an extra finger, which made him important to their culture, and that was why he became a shaman. The interesting thing was when he said: "They say that to be a very good shaman, it is better to have born with a bone of more, overlay to another" when he said so, Diego tells him that his mother's family has certain shamanic roots, and in addition, he, has a bone of more.

Diego showed him that the shaman in his chest, at the height of his heart, had that bone of more, on a rib. This made the shaman happy, and said to Diego that if he wanted to learn how to be a shaman, he´d be willing to stay and teach him. The shaman was very pleased to see that Diego had one of the symbols that his culture considers important, and he opened more with us.

First shaman: a woman

Valentine wanted to bring us to three places, but the first one was obligatory.

In the middle of a plain between mountains, we stopped in the open land, and there was a smooth rock that could be seen white in the centre. When we were close, we saw clearly that it was a marble phallus of less than a meter of height. He said that this place was like a portal for its culture, a fertility symbol. I remembered that in Rome, Greece and many other cultures also had phallic marble sculptures in the entrance of its towns, as a symbol territory´s control, something that announced the enemy: here we are brave, taken care of us.

Valentin touched the drum to the carved stone, and scattered milk by his surface. According to buriata people, the purest part of the body is the annular finger, and the purest food, is milk. For that reason, to request fertility and permission, we had to sprinkle the milk with our annular finger. He said words in another language, and before following he explained to us that since he remembers it has there been. Buriatas didn´t put it there, and nobody knows who did it, they only know that it´s something very sacred and they respect it.

We followed some more km entering us in mountains, and the shaman told to the driver to stops. He spoke, and Elena translated to us. He said he never brings anybody to this place, but as it is so stranger that two young Argentineans come from so far because of consciousness up to here, decided to take to us to know it. When we arrived it was amazing: cave paintings. Those paintings counted a history that Valentin narrated to us more or less thus:

“At the beginning, the man was like another animal, had hair by all the body, eyeteeth, claws, and coexisted with the other animals. Before, Siberia was similar to Africa, with elephants, rhinos, tigers… but there was a time in which the man got tired of this situation. Man complained to the Gods in the sky because he became bored in the Earth, and one of the Gods got upset because he didn´t respect the times, then this one removed to the man everything he had: the claws, eyeteeth, the hair, and left it as it is now. The first men who were created this way, didn´t come from Africa but from Asia, and in the East, 55 gods made get down the new man from a bridge of Rainbow.

The first one was created by clay, and was different from the animals.

The moose was the animal that complained to the gods, questioning why they gave intelligence to the man, since now man would kill them all. But the gods didn´t notice the moose, and man began to kill. One of those 55 Gods, wanted to give part of his powers to men, so that they could remain connected with the Universe. This one became an eagle and flew by the Earth, until he saw somebody laid down resting and it approached. This human was a woman, and he gave her all the knowledge of the Gods on the earth.

This way it began the matriarchy in the world. While he was showing us the paintings, told us the history, appearing clearly the moose, the wild man, and the woman shaman opposite to the moose. He said that this painting was of the matriarchy´s time.

The matriarchy lasted a lot of time, up to one day, the woman got tired of governing and gave part of her power to a man, and this way it began the time of the patriarchy.

Today, the man continues governing, and because of this he kills everything around him.

This history resonated too much to everything we´ve been speaking. The Woman as the first connector between sky and the Earth, matriarchy, the bridge of Rainbow, everything got sense in Siberia again. He said that shamanism was born from the woman as a form to know oneself, and that the it exists everywhere in the world, because their Gods are the same ones.

His explanation was: the religions are born in one place and they expand taking or imposing a belief of something that happened in a concrete place, with concrete people, adoring people who many might don´t know. But the shamanism doesn´t do that, the shamanism honour everything we all share:

Are there mountains in Argentina?, he asked. Are there rivers, trees, lakes in Argentina? He asked us. Yes, we answered. Then as much there as here we can adore Gods, because they are the same. And our parents gave us the life, just them. He showed us that in his chest, as well as the

Christians take the cross, they take a pendant with the photos of their human father and mother. “They are those that gave the life to us, then it is necessary to honour them” He told us that a year ago, Latin America shamans had come to visit him; of Mexico and Peru met in Baikal to share his history. The shamanism honours life and the form to connect oneself with the life; more than a religion, is a way of life. This form of life was born in Siberia, thousands of years ago, and it moved to the Americas by the Straits of Bering. We could say that we were with the parents of all shamanic cultures that we own in America. This was quite showy, because recognizing that ancestral cultures of America, the spiritual essence of the earth that we own, were born in Baikal, it was something important to recognize. That place was very sacred. From here we followed until the sacred mountain of Iord. The interesting thing of this mountain is that it seems more like a knoll of stones and earth than a salient mountain… it is in the centre of a small valley, and when seeing around, with Diego we shared the same emotion. We felt like in New Zealand. What we saw weren´t simple hills, but ruins of millenniums of antiquity. Iord, in fact, seemed to be some kind of Xian pyramid, but small and done of stones. For some reason she was sacred during thousand of years, although not so impressive. There we sat down, and he got ready to make a ceremony… the best ceremony. The unique thing we did was to sit down in the slope of the mount and touch the earthen bowl. We relaxed and we opportunely got ready to meditate. In silence, we were in connection with the place, sometimes we played sounds with the earthen bowl… but I returned to feel like a tree. 

Then, the shaman took a deep breath, and he touched his drum. When he stopped, asked us: what questions did you want me to answer? 

We spoke of several things, among them, told us that for Buriatas and Mongols, the famous Chingis Khan, was very important and it continues being. We noticed it, because he put a statuette of this one on a rock. We could say that this Mongol emperor would consider nowadays like some kind of Hitler, somebody who wanted to unite and to put order on the Earth, but for doing that he generated a genocide. They are proud of the emperor that managed to extend his empire until Bulgaria and Turkey, India, Siberia and Japan, even Cambodia, consequently was an enormous Empire in which he tried to bring the greater peace. With pride he also told us that the Chinese Empire was very hard, reason why didn´t have to take shelter of any army nor town, but of one: the Mongol. That´s why they constructed the Great Wall which, for Mongols, more than a wonder it is a dishonour of the Chinese people. 

There he shared the Buriata reality´s vision, and some histories of their origins. It was interesting to know that they think that beings came from other worlds and that they are still around there, giving returned in their ships, but that they´d never consider Gods, because Gods cannot be seen, and they are visible.

An interesting history that complements ours, was that long ago, there were problems in Baikal, and much people became ill. For that reason, the Gods decided to send their children to the Earth to help the humans; it says that they lowered and began to live between us, and that they still continue being here. 

All the histories of the World fit with the other, all the realities, legends, myths, thoughts, are joined more and more closely. It is doubtless already to doubt from where we come and towards where we go, and how our histories around the world and the galaxy were interlaced.

VIDEO WITH VALENTIN

Which is the message of a Buriata shaman to the world?

The message is simple, its the same message that any religion, thought, philosophy, belief or social movement could give us:

" We are at the edge of a step all the human beings, it is a time to decide if we go down, or we continue rising. To continue rising, we must respect the gods of the nature, honour our ancestors, love the fellows, and don´t wish to the other one what you don´t wish for yourself. And specially: be happy and enjoy the life. "

With desire to turn back and meet us again some time, we left and said good bye affectionately to Valentin who contented sang a traditional song to us in front of his house and he introduced his daughter. He told us that only two things are remembered in the history of the people: The Wisdom and the Feats, and that we were expiring both, when sending us to the world, so far from home to show the world from inhospitable places the reality of consciousness and human history to remember again who we are. He said he was thankful to us for that reason, and that he would remember it. With those words of shaman´s spirit, we followed our way to Irkutsk, where we would prepare our things to go towards the nexus where a new Way would arise in Harwitum: the Straits of Hormuz.

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