SOUL WORK IS NOT A HIGH ROAD. IT'S A DEEP DIVE INTO AN UNFORGIVING DARKNESS THAT WON'T LET YOU GO UNTIL YOU FIND THE SONG THAT SINGS YOU HOME.

McCall Erickson

I am drawn back to Pérez Zeledón, in the middle of the country, situated on a plateau, where cows graze and are surrounded by mountains, one of which is the Chirripo, the 3,800 m high roof of Costa Rica. Pérez Zeledón. Fritz says it sounds like a place where Gandalf would go on vacation. I think he nailed it. It's masterful Reiki, as he describes the energy of this place: This is where the hobbits passed through, and Gandalf is vacationing here because the mountains offer protection, because the mists around the mountains are always visible, and because mist is the first mystical form of manifestation of matter from nothing. Here I describe for the first time that the essence of wildness is innocence, the eternal being in the present moment that does not sin because it is 100% in unison, in harmony. The wildness that vibrates in the rhythm of nature and that would never force anything that is not part of the divine plan of love. 

I threw the round stone from Finca 6, which had been in my apartment in Düsseldorf for six months, which had activated my home and whose little sister is still with me and pulsating, this round Finca 6 stone, into the wilderness at the spot where I saw the puma three days ago. Immediately afterwards I threw the apple after biting into it twice: once for each of the starry skies. I leaf back through my diary. These two starry skies were a magical dream image from my dream in the airport hotel in may 2022. I spent the night there after we were stranded on the Lufthansa plane in San José and I decided to fly back to Puerto Jiménez to see the birder, the guide with whom I saw the first puma.

The first starry sky was beautiful, but pale. Then the second starry sky flew in. It was magical. Crystal clear and immeasurable, it came towards me, flew into my dream and then completely enveloped me in its brilliance. Under the impression of the first, pale starry sky, I got up at dawn and set off for the inevitable rendezvous with the guide. I still puzzle over the significance of the second one to this day.

So much for the two starry skies, and for the Eve in me who bit into the forbidden apple twice. 

But this is not about the two encounters with the two pumas, but about the last coffee I drank in Costa Rica. I met the real estate consultant under the pretext of having to drink this coffee that he had raved about the last time we met. I wasn't sure what I actually wanted. Something about this place, about this man, still needed to be clarified. His paternal grandfather is 100% indigenous. Perhaps a relative of Gandalf. There is an understanding between us on a Shamanic level. There is also a lodge nearby where spiritual retreats are held, a Waldorf school has been built there and the place looks like a hobbit village designed on a Feng Shui drawing board. Academic. 

When I arrive, I am not disappointed. I am shocked. There are no trees. I've landed on some kind of golf course. This is certainly not where Gandalf would have vacationed. Although he would have slept in a fun tent, drunk very fancy matcha kombucha lime something or other from homemade pottery and enjoyed spectacular views of the surrounding mountains from suspended armchairs. But I'm digressing again. 

So we drink coffee at this organic coffee farm. We talk about plots of land and discover that this coffee is distributed to Düsseldorf, of all places, as a European point of contact. We decide to visit another property right afterwards, but I have to see the coffee farm first. I pay for both of us, after all, he is dedicating his free time to me, and whether I buy anything here is written in the stars. It's just not Osa. As I stand at the till, in front of Katerine's open laptop, who presents me with the bill, I notice a kind of small sculpture between me and the laptop. Someone must have left something here. I take a closer look: it looks like a representation of a bird. I look even closer: it's a bird. It's dead. I make a sound: Katerine closes her laptop and now she sees it too: she screams. A dead bird with a yellow belly. The real estate consultant says: Too stupid. They let themselves be fooled again and again, fly in front of the window and don't make it. It's their undoing. For me it is the manifestation of the end with this birder. For 1.5 years I have seen this guide in every bird that flies past me. I wish every time that this Bird carries my longing across the Atlantic into his heart and that it comes alive. But this heart does not come to life, and it remains light years away from innocent wildness. Now this dead bird lies before me. I pay. I leave.

Exactly 24 hours later, I'm sitting in my cousin's backyard in Santa Ana, waiting for my Uber to take me to the airport. A bird with a yellow belly flies up and sits on the back of the chair next to me. Then it flies onto the roof of the neighbor's house. It emits two loud cries. The whole magical scene is designed to make sure that I notice this yellow-bellied bird. I notice him, thank you dear universe, that worked, and the message is clear: there is no longer a spark of this birder soul in this living bird, his dead heart lies buried once and for all behind the laptop of Katerine, the checkout lady. This bird here is something new, something completely unknown. The cab rings. The bird with the yellow belly chirps happily from the bottom of his heart and flies on. This is my soul song. The fog over the mountains of Pérez Zeledón begins to manifest itself.