The second
step for me, was when Namkhai Norbu visited us in {Isla} Margarita. He had
already made the decision that the place we should look for was in Margarita,
because he had said from the beginning that it should be a place close to the sea,
and not far from an international airport. We had already searched more or less
extensively and Rinpoche was already convinced that the place for Tashigar
North was Margarita.
In that retreat that was organized in the
Miragua hotel, in El Agua beach, he knew that it was in Margarita and we had to
visit two or three lands and particularly the land that would be Tashigar
North, which he had found chuortor, thanks to his relationship with Mr. Ambrosio,
of whom he knew, that he was selling that farm.
Rinpoche when
he knew this, saw it quickly and agreed. We did not have to present other
possibilities (which in fact we had) which were numerous.
That day (one day at the end of the retreat)
we went with the Master to Tashigar North (which was still the farm); we went
directly to the plateau above the land, from where the beaches and our
agricultural land, the Tashigar North farm, are very well seen.
There a
bottle of wine was uncorked and an offering was made to the universal energies
- I mean- and we, those present shared a little of that liquor with the Master.
That was like a seal: "Here Tashigar
North is going to be built".
That was, I
think, at the end of {year} two thousand, December, or January of two thousand
and one. I don't remember well, but I could be wrong, but it was around there.
Being
finished, we knew then that our task from then on was to buy, to find the
conditions for the purchase.
Because it
was not a land where we could build a lot. It had to be transformed. We had to
increase the conditions of that land for its urbanization. Well, that was going
to be Gilberto's and my particular task.
To that
effect, we would have to live there. My first task after learning that we would
be living in Pedro Gonzalez, was to visit the town and little by little ask
around for a house to rent. I was able to find with more or less ease, a man
named Ruperto Mata Mata who agreed to fix up a small house that was not in very
good condition, so that in the following August, that is, in the summer, my
family and I could move to Pedro González. That little house is adjacent to the
prefecture, it still exists today.
So, the
next step is: August 2001.
That is to
say, my family: Carmen Teresa Rivas, David our son and I, we moved from the
high Mocúi of the state of Mérida, to the island of Margarita to the town of
Pedro González.
Imagine
moving. We had a Renault car, a station wagon, a little bit bigger than the
little one, and there we had all the things we needed to move, a little bit
hippy style... (Smiles).
A washing machine,
a carpentry workbench, the mandala (on the roof), and a lot of little things,
well, a whole move.
On that
trip, the relevant thing is that, when we arrived in Barcelona, before reaching
Puerto La Cruz, when we entered the first traffic light in Barcelona, the car
had no steering. I could turn the steering wheel as much as I wanted and
nothing happened to the wheels. In front, when the traffic light turned green,
I pressed the accelerator a little bit and the car entered a big fire station
by itself. We had just passed a hardware store, and I had a bunch of tools in
the car. I had a vision of what had happened, as I knew that days before I had
had the steering wheel fixed, well, changed from a mechanical to a more
sophisticated one, and the mechanics had apparently forgotten to adjust the
steering wheel bolts. Well, in less than half an hour we had it repaired, and
we headed towards the port.
I tell you
that when the car arrived at the port parking lot to get on the ferry, I almost
fainted. Because at that moment I could, in retrospect, see what could have
happened to us on the road, particularly in Uarico, where we were at a certain
moment when the road was full of trucks with gondolas full of sugar cane, corn
and other things. Narrow roads where it was very unpleasant to overtake or
cross those trucks in normal conditions, what would have happened to us if the
steering had gone in those conditions....
But well,
we got out of there, I at least with the impression of having revived.
Then, we arrived at our house in Pedro
Gonzalez, and immediately unloaded what was on the roof and went to the beach
to rest our bodies, which had come from traveling more than a thousand
kilometers on roads, not always of the best quality.
There,
while we were bathing, we turned to look towards what would become Tashigar,
where there was a large cloud on the mountain behind Tashigar, surely there was
rain and a brilliant rainbow appeared, followed by a second rainbow more
attenuated and at the end, we saw a piece of a third one that appeared there.
This was as
if these were enveloping the place where it was to be located {the gar}. We
already knew the valley from the previous year where the gar was to be located.
Of course, we wrote of all this to our
teacher. The reception of the rainbow and the risks we had taken on the road.
