Laura ****

Does Laura have some good points here in her criticism? Sound that way to you? Yeah? 

Let’s really look at what she’s saying. I’ll put my comments in bold. 

Allan,

While I found your terrorist/political rant interesting, I do have a few comments to make.

Clearly the physical effects of the moon cycle on your system are too subtle for you to appreciate. (Is this aimed at me personally or at all men? Not important, just wondering.) However, the “moon cycle” used to describe a woman’s menstrual cycle are not just a polite, new-agey thing. Put a healthy, physically sensitive woman in a natural setting (What does this mean? You have to move her from the city to the country for the moon to do its work? And what does “physically sensitive” mean? What does this have to do with gravity? If a physically sensitive female like Laura and some dumb brute female were both to step off a skyscraper roof, would they not fall at the same velocity?) and the gravitational forces will start to take effect. (As mentioned, the gravitational effects of the new moon and full moon are the same. So why does the full moon rather than the new moon control menstruation?) The body will completely respond to the new moon/full moon cycle, regenerating and sloughing an internal incubator on cue, in perfect synchronicity with the moon cycle, month after month after month. (I don’t think so, Laura. As a woman you should know better. A woman’s menstrual cycle varies enough that if you give her a few months from any given time of her period, she’ll then be having it on a different phase of the moon. “Perfect synchronicity”? Not even close. How come a guy, a presumably insensitive guy  me  had to point out this obvious fact about the female anatomy?) This is a physical, observable phenomenon, and has been for thousands of years. (In other words, a perfect example of what is probably an erroneous belief that has been around forever and is taken on faith, without question.)

(Also, given the “Place a… woman in a natural setting” statement, it sounds like if we took two stateside women and brought them down here, they would quickly be in menstrual synch with each other, since they both would be controlled by the same moon phases. Isn’t that a logical extension of Laura’s theory? Sure it is. Wait. Let’s bring them to two different “natural settings” (whatever the hell that means), since women apparently can effect each other’s menstrual cycles through sheer proximity to each other  this might skew our little moon study. I would submit that the two women would not come to be “in synch” with each other, in any sense of the concept. So, again, where does that leave Laura and her moon-synchronicity theory? 

Let’s face it. All Laura is really saying is that a woman’s menstrual cycle is approximately one lunar month. Here’s the leap she makes from that, I think (given her last paragraph, which I’ll deal with in a sec): I should therefore believe that the phase of the moon upon planting determines the health of a tree.

Pu-lease.

Laura goes on:

And, because it appears you lack anthropology as an influence in your knowledge base, (Well, if Laura were at all familiar with Cultural Anthropology, she’d know that an anthropologist is not obliged to believe in the myths and thought systems he/she reports on. In fact, it’s a bad idea, since it tends to skew objectivity. Does Laura think Margaret Mead pranced around naked in Samoa, banging every 13-year-old she could get her hands on?) I would encourage you to show a little respect for your native farmers in Costa Rica. (A logical extension: If I suddenly found myself transported to the time and place of Roman’s Indian ancestors, would I be obliged to believe that you have to throw a virgin into a volcano every month or the sun wouldn’t rise?) (As you mentioned, much of the world hates Americans as it is, you are an intruder on their land, (I can assure Laura that my many Costa Rican friends do not consider me an intruder. I have taken the time to learn their language (and continue to do so) and am very well thought of here. Laura may consider herself an intruder when she visits a foreign country  with that belief in her head she probably acts like one. Me, I treat people the same wherever I find them, with respect and courtesy, unless and until they behave dishonestly or with malice. Then they get some outraged shit from me in return and I don’t give a flying fuck if it is their country. In 35 years of living at home and abroad, this attitude has stood me in good stead.), and you are a surfer not a farmer… stick to what you know, you risk sounding like an ass otherwise.)

(Mmmm. I’m a surfer and that I should stick to what I know (presumably she means I know about surfing and nothing else). Okay, let me finish up with this, moon-wise: It’s now 6 AM. I’ve been up writing this since 3 AM. Why? Because in about a half hour the tide will be exactly right, in terms of producing the best wave shape, for the head-high south swell cracking out there. So I got up early to do my work: putting off my paying job as a screenwriter to communicate with Laura and the rest of my friends out there in www-land. In other words, I got up at 3 AM so I could surf the swell at the best state of the tide. The tide of course is determined by the moon: It’s phase and position in the sky. To wit: Although Laura may find some “cosmic” comfort in the illusion that a celestial body like the moon determines an aspect of her bodily rhythm and therefore her behavior, in my case it actually does. It does so in a beautiful, elegant and completely observable way.) 

How did Laura phrase it her email? “Clearly the physical effects of the moon cycle on your system are too subtle for you to appreciate.”

Really? 

By the way, I don’t have or need an alarm clock. When I go to bed, I tell myself what time to wake up and invariably do so within five minutes of the desired time. I wonder if Laura can do that. 

Or is she too busy running with wolves?

Who’s in synch and who isn’t?

#

Next day now, about 5 AM.

I set my mental alarm for 4 AM today, an hour later than yesterday. Why? (Most of you surfers are ahead of me here.) Because waves are still cracking out at the point and because our planet’s tidal rhythm falls about an hour behind each day. (Somewhat less than an hour, actually.) In other words, since the tide was just right for wave shape between 6 and 7 AM yesterday, it will be at that state today approximately between 7 and 8 AM. This is because the moon’s daily revolution around the earth takes about 23 hours, not 24, which is the time it takes for the earth to complete one rotation on it’s axis  our “day.” 

This, by the way, is why we have phases of the moon at all. If the moon’s revolution were in perfect synch (that word again) with the earth’s rotation, we would only have one moon phase, forever. Which to me would be a bit boring, aesthetically. (The tides would also occur at the same times each day.) 

Another thing about the moon, something odd. It’s period of rotation on it’s axis is perfectly in synch with its period of rotation around the earth. This is why we always see the same side of the moon  why there is a permanent “dark side.” 

The moon has been showing its same face to the earth since dinosaurs walked the earth, and before that. Isn’t that wild?

By the way, I wonder if Laura knows any of the above FACTS about the moon.

Okay. Tide’s right, no wind, I can hear the shore break out front and it calls.

#

Next day now. I don’t know how else to do this except to get right to the point.

Something happened yesterday after I finished working on this message and went surfing. Something that shook my little world. 

I went up to my property to do some stuff relating to the irrigation system I’ve had assembled  a hose running from a spring about a mile up in the rain forest and down to my land, affording me unlimited pure water, even during the dry season.

While I was up there, I noticed that one line of infant trees that had been planted along my fence line had died. Avocado, orange, and lime trees. Dead as doornails. The line of sproutlings adjacent to the dead ones were doing fine.

The dead trees were the ones I’d had Roman plant during the new moon, against his will. The healthy ones were planted during the full moon, which he had said was the correct time to plant. The experiment. 

I had to sit down. 

My little world had been shaken. Oh, yes.

Being a borderline normal human being, having my world shaken was initially an unpleasant experience. I didn’t like it. So my mind raced along, searching for an explanation for the dead trees that was in agreement with my previous world view; i.e., the phase of the moon has nothing to do with tree-planting, the future health of the trees, and so on.

All I could come up with was this: Roman had treated the new moon plants differently than the full moon plants. I recalled that he sometimes used herbicide on his own land (I don’t allow that). Maybe he’d poisoned the little trees. Then I looked over at Roman, working a few yards away, bent over and sweating, helping me to create something. Try as I might, I couldn’t picture him poisoning the trees, or even treating them differently. I’m convinced he’s a good man.

I suddenly had a rush of guilt, not only because of the bad thoughts I’d just had about Roman, but because I pictured him planting the new moon trees, bent over and sweating as he was now, only to have them die. The fact that Roman gets paid for his labor - whether the trees survive or not  didn’t seem important.

So I went over and apologized for doubting his word. He seemed embarrassed at this.

More moon stuff.

The fellow who is in charge of my home-building (again, this was written in the fall of 2002) is a local named Nano. Since his home is in another village far down the dirt track, he’s living with me in the house I’ve rented here at Pavones. Although, if I’m not living with a woman, I prefer to live alone, I don’t mind sharing my house with Nano. Aside from the fact that he’s good company, living with Nano has been a great help in my continuing quest to master the Spanish language  Nano speaks no English. From my point of view, we have become good friends over the past three months. I think Nano feels the same way.

Although he’s had only sparse formal education, Nano is very smart, and quick as a whip. And he can fix anything. I really respect this in a person. 

A quick example: A few weeks ago the electricity to my rental house was cut off due to the owner’s not having paid an old bill. Normally, it takes days to get re-connected. Plus an all day pilgrimage to the electric company in town. Well, Nano had the lights back on in minutes, connecting us directly to the Pavones main power line. He did this with a hammer, a nail and some bailing wire.

I mention Nano’s competence because it presupposes a knowledge about the way things work. Not abstract theories and hot air, like I’m prone to. Listen: I can’t fix anything. Ballpoint pens confuse me if you have to click ‘em to make ‘em work.

Nano and I are very much alike in one way, however. He, like me, doesn’t believe something because he’s heard it somewhere, and maybe it sounds right. He has to have proof. This sort of skepticism is unusual for a Costa Rican, as it is worldwide.

Last night Nano and I talked at great length, mainly about the strange things Nano had seen in his childhood and young adult years, when he lived in the rain forest with indigenous people. 

Just one example. Ten years ago Nano was bitten on the foot by a terciopelo, the deadliest of the Central American vipers. (“Terciopelo” means “velvet” in Spanish  a scary name for a poisonous snake, no?) Periodically the area of the bite would bother him; in fact, he noticed that this would occur about once a month. He asked an Indian woman about this and she in turn asked him if he’d been bitten during the new moon. Nano had to check a calendar. Yes, he had been bitten during the new moon. The Indian woman then predicted that the recurring pain only occurred during the new moon. This turned out to be the case. But this wasn’t enough for Nano, as it wouldn’t have been for me. He knew several other people who had survived terciopelo bites. Querying them, he found that none happened to have been bitten during a new moon. None of these people suffered from reoccurring pain. 

Last night Nano told me of many other examples of this sort of thing, most moon-related. Only things he had witnessed. No hearsay. 

Here’s another example of how smart Nano is. In our many discussions since I’ve known him, he never before brought up any of this aspect of his life; of his knowledge. He knew me well enough to know that I wouldn’t have believed him. He was waiting for my little world to be shaken. As he knew it eventually would be, living here.

Tell you something. I’m not sure that any of this strange stuff applies up in the United States. 

I’m thinking that maybe there is something magical about this place I’ve come to.

Maybe this is what Laura meant by “a natural setting.” Maybe she’s right about the rest of what she wrote too.

And maybe we should start throwing virgins into volcanoes, just to be on the safe side.