Absolutely Pooped!

I'm sort of dead. It's Saturday afternoon at about 4:30 and I am sitting at my desk. Just came in from a walk around the yard. Checked out the rebuild on the chicken coop that friends did--fantastic--and stood on one of the two bridges that cross the seasonal creek and thought about how I should paint it again, and soon, before winter sets in. But then I thought, no, I am too pooped for that. The why of my exhaustion was the appearance of a lot of guests at my doorway the last three weeks. Two weekends ago I had a medicine weekend here, where former guests of mine from the jungle get invited to three or four days of feasting, fasting, and medicine work. I think 9 showed up, all of them fantastic, but still a little tiring, if just from trying to get and keep the house clean, buy and make food for them, do a couple of ceremonies and such. They give much, much more than they take, but it's still tiring.

Then, three days after most of the guests left, a new guest came in to take my course on Sapo, a 10-day intensive course on the ins-and-outs of the indigenous Matses' medicine, sapo, frog sweat. On her heels came a reporter friend who was also staying for the duration, though she wasn't taking the course. Both of them were exemplary guests: They washed, cleaned, helped out and did a million things I normally do myself. But it was still tiring because I was concentrating on the course for all those days. And on the last two days of the course, 14 people came in for treatment with the medicine--all invited, but still a bit tiring.

They both left late yesterday and I had a good, deep sleep. I let myself stay in bed till 7 AM, pretty late for me. And now I'm lonesome with no company, exhausted from all the company, and lonesome because no one is needing me now. No one is looking forward to what I'm gonna cook. No one is here to show me how to turn the darned television on. No one is here to serve cat food or dog food.

So I'm pooped. I hope to break out tomorrow, because everybody left a lot of great energy here for me to use. Thanks all. It's been a helluva three weeks!!!