The Wild Mystery
In this video we share the three year process of creating our retreat centre in northern Spain.
updated 11 months ago
Music by Jesse App
An Original Story by Moss
Legends of La Buixeda
Part 7: The Hermit
Cárabo devoted his new life to Gavilana’s every whim and desire. He woke up early to make her coffee, he took her riding to her favourite groves, he read her bird stories under candle light.
And Gavilána’s heart shone like the sun for him and him alone. They were the chosen ones in an epic romance written just for them as they weaved their dreams and daily routines and personal peculiarities together into a singularly strange tapestry of a common life.
Cárabo was now the man of the castle: he supervised the guards, chopped the fire wood, stoked the fires, cooked the breakfasts, polished Gavilána’s boots, made sure no haunted entities snuck back into the castle at night and managed public relations with a town that wanted Gavilána’s head on a pike.
And yet… after a few months of the honeymoon phase Cárabo found himself weighed down and overwhelmed. He found himself dreaming again of simplicity, of wandering the world as a free spirit.
Gavilána noticed the heaviness in her beloved’s footsteps and she saw the bird caged in his chest… and so one day she opened the gates and sent him on a holiday.
After a few beers at the tavern followed by a street brawl and a hug with a stranger Cárabo wandered down to a river called Longing and followed its course for a few days. This river had no bridges to cross it for the kingdoms on either side despised each other.
One morning at the crack of dawn Cárabo blinked and rubbed his eyes at the sight of an impossibility: an old man was walking through the air across the river.
The mystic had a long white beard and a plain brown cloak, a twinkle in his eye and a staff in his hand.
And as he stepped onto land Cárabo called out and approached him: “How did you do that just there? Walk through thin air like that?”
As the old man studied the lad and saw the way fate brought them together he broke his silence of many years and spoke thus:
“Once upon a time a boy and a girl fell in love here, by the river of Longing. It was summer, the water was low, the turquoise pools were velvety and playful and passionate. The two lovers wanted nothing more than to be together forever. But when the autumn rains fell and the river rose and swimming became treacherous, the girl decided to go back to her side of the river for the winter.
As she said her last goodbye before swimming back to her side an old witch with a hooked nose, a wart on her chin and breasts hanging down to her belly, walked out of the water and spoke:
“If your love is true and pure I can teach you the way to build a bridge across the Longing.”
The lovers nodded and the woman of the water shared with them the secret of true love:
You must each start from your own bank
And build your bridge there
Faith must animate your spirit
Step by invisible step through the air
But beware
You must never look across to your lover
And you must never look down at the river
For if you do you will fall
And the river will take you away
Forever
And with that the old woman slipped back into the water.
The lovers kissed farewell
With the promise that they would embrace again
In the space high above the middle of the river
Where their bridges would meet.
Brick by invisible brick, step by invisible step
They built their bridge of love towards each other.
The days grew colder, shorter, darker. The winter waters raged below. Frost entered their bones.
One day as the migrating cranes flew above and the first blossoms opened, the boy carried another stone of faith across his bridge and placed It down. But this one was different. It touched solid ground.
And for the first time the boy looked up. The grass was green. The birds were singing. The blossoms in the tree were flowing through the wind.
But his lover was nowhere to be seen.
An original story by Moss
Legends of La Buixeda
Part 6: Gavilána
Cárabo and the ghost reached a town under the shadow of a haunted castle.
The townsfolk were all in black and there were no young men in sight.
Cárabo felt a clinking sensation in his pocket and reached inside to find three silver coins. The ghost winked at him and pointed to the tavern. “Go take care of your mortal needs. I have some business at the cemetery.”
In the bar Cárabo asked for a large ale, a large meal and a large room to spend a few nights. And he asked the barman the obvious question: “Why are there no young men in this town?”
“Dead.” The bartender said with a sad sneer as he slid a cold pint in front of the lad. “Gavilána, the lady of the castle, offered her hand to a man who could answer her riddles. They all failed and they paid with their lives.”
That night Cárabo awoke to a rattle on his window. The ghost floated in, excited.
“The maiden is possessed by the Raven Demon!” The dead man pointed out the window at the castle looming high in the darkness. “I can take you to her. You carried me, now let me carry you.”
Cárabo took the ghost’s hand. They floated above the village rooftops and hid on the castle balcony. Inside there was a golden fire burning bright. A young amber haired woman sat in front of the hearth, covered in vines and thorns. She stared into the flames, singing:
Release me from the Raven’s claws
Possessing my body and soul
Let me ride the wings of freedom
Unlock these chains and thorns
How my heart longs to shine
Like the sun above a storm
How my heart longs to love
And to be fully loved in return
As she finished a conspiracy of ravens came swooping through the far window with a gust of cold wind. The flames danced and swirled in the hearth.
The maiden closed her eyes in disgust and then opened her mouth as the Raven shadows flew into her. Her hair turned black as darkness descended upon her.
The thorns around her wrists and ankles retracted and she walked to a bird cage nearby. There was a sparrowhalk inside. She unlatched it and said,
“Enjoy another day of freedom, little soul.” She kissed the animal and released it.
Night after night Cárabo went with the ghost back to the castle. And night after night he saw the maiden locked in thorns. And before dawn the Raven Demon would come again swooping in to possess her body. And then, as if part of an enchanted contract, the sparrowhalk was freed for the day.
On day Cárabo slept and dreamt of that bird, joyfully dancing through the branches and dipping her wings in the stream. She plucked a wild flower from a field and then flew through a window and placed it on a a sick woman’s pillow. He saw the bird perched on a branch, crying into the forest, and he saw that no one returned her call.
Such vulnerability, such power, such playfulness, such kindness. He felt that fragile and indomitable spirit.
When he awoke Cárabo knew that it was not a dream. There could be nothing more real. And nothing more beautiful.
And so he asked for Gávilana’s hand in marriage.
The gates opened and he walked into a great hall. The black haired maiden sat on a throne. Behind her were decapitated heads and skulls.
“Do you how this works?” She asked with a cruel smile.
“I do. You are waiting for the one who can love you fully and who you can love fully in return. It is I you are waiting for.”
She wasn’t expecting that. She stood up and walked towards him.
What a fool, she thought. If he only knew…
“What do you know of my heart’s desire?” she demanded.
“Does it not long for freedom? Does it not long to shine like the sun? Does it not long to fly and dance and play again? Does it not long to be caring and kind? Does it not long for its passions to be released and received?”
Something cracked open in her as silence descended.
“Wouldn’t that be nice…” she said whimsically.
She regained her composure and looked at her suitor.
“Who are you?”
“Cárabo.” His owl eyes were wide and fearless.
“That’s a strange name.”
“When I was a child I saved an owlet from a fox. I’ve been Cárabo ever since.”
She smiled widely: “I love birds.”
“I know, my lady.”
She darkened with suspicion. “How do you know so much about me?”
Black wings like knives poured out of her mouth and swirled around the hall like a hurricane.
The Demon Raven took the shape of a sharp shadow and sliced down through the air like a scythe, aiming to decapitate our beloved hero.
But another spirit came forth as well: a ghostly grey aura in the shape of a man stood in front of Cárabo with outstretched arms.
The black crashed into the grey as dark magic exploded in every direction.
The stench was putrid: shame, rage, guilt and fear burning and hissing like noxious gasses.
And through it all, Cárabo reached his hand towards Gavilána.
And Gavilána reached her hand towards Cárabo.
An original story by Moss
The three Brothers
Part 5: Cárabo
When the third son was just a boy Buxo made him a bow.
One night the little archer heard a shriek from the forest so he went quietly into the darkness.
The waxing moon shone through the branches, revealing a fox with squeaking feathers in its jaws.
The beast growled. The boy raised his bow, pulled back an arrow and shot.
Although unscathed, the fox dropped his prey and scurried into the darkness.
And the ball of fluffy feathers squeaked with relief.
A shriek from a branch above pierced the boy’s ears. There was a tawny owl sitting on a branch.
And the bird spoke thus: “You saved my little owlet. You have earned my favour.” The owl shook her plumage and a feather fell to the ground. “If you are ever in need, burn this feather and I will come to your aid.”
Since that night the boy earned the name, Cárabo, Tawny Owl.
After his father died and his brother disappeared with the treasure, Cárabo knew it was his time to leave home as well. He put his few belongings in a bag, stuck the feather in his hat and slung the bow over his shoulder.
And off he went in search of a life.
One day wandering and winding his way below a steep cliff he noticed vultures gathering above.
And then he saw why.
The body of a man lay sprawled out on the rocks ahead. An empty wine bottle by his side.
He must have fallen, Cárabo thought as he inspected the scene.
He deserves to be buried. I’ll carry him to the next town. The young man flung the body over his shoulders.
But as he walked with this heavy load the vultures circled closer and closer. Now these were not just any vultures. They were haunted souls of those who didn’t follow their heart’s calling during their lives.
And here they were, hungry and bitter and desperate for flesh.
They swooped down and attacked.
Cárabo dropped the body to the ground and lifted his bow.
One vulture down. Another one. A third.
But there were too many of them. He pulled the corpse into a little cave in the cliff, looked at his dead companion and shook his head in defeat.
…unless…
He pulled the feather from his hat and burned it with the last match he had left: “Dear Owl, bring this man to his village so I can give him a proper burial.”
And as all prayers made with a pure heart are fulfilled sure enough the boy heard a familiar shriek. And then another. And another.
In fact outside the cave appeared a whole parliament of owls, shrieking and cooing and ruffling their honourable feathers.
They gathered around, picked up the corpse and took to the air. The young man followed behind, shooting vultures down as needed.
In the village the birds set the body down outside a church before disappearing back into the wild mystery of things.
Cárabo asked the bewildered villagers if they knew the dead man.
“Yeah, he was the village idiot”, one woman said.
“He was a scoundrel!” a young lady hissed.
A farmer simply walked up to the corpse and spat.
“Well he still deserves a burial,” Cárabo said firmly.
“And who’s going to pay for it? You?” It was the voice of the priest.
Cárabo reached into the bottom of his bag and pulled out his last remaining coin. He handed it over to the priest.
“How are you with a shovel?” The priest asked, fondling the coin.
In the Cemetery Cárabo dug through the hard clay until blisters opened up on his hands.
They placed the body in the earth and the priest said a few words.
Nobody came to the funeral.
On the way out of town Cárabo felt a tingling sensation on his skin, through his hair and down his back. He looked around and then behind, and floating a few metres back was the ghost of the dead man.
“You showed me more kindness and respect than I ever received during my life,” the ghost said.
They travelled on together. Through hills and forests, along rivers and old stone roads. The ghost talked and talked and talked. Cárabo listened and learned about that liminal space between death and life.
An original story by Moss
The Three Brothers
Part 4: Broken Bones
The middle brother snuck away from La Buixeda with a mule loaded with treasure. He made his way to the sea, bought a villa and lived like a prince. At least for awhile.
His newfound wealth became the glue that attracted people to him. But his self loathing, shame and guilt pushed them away again. He kept dark secrets, he told lies upon lies until only lies were left. He drank and drank, he spent and spent, until his treasure chest heaved with loneliness.
One day this poor looked into his chest. A single treasure remained. The most valuable one of all, he thought. It was a golden necklace with a pendant of a bird. He told himself it was a phoenix. It wasn’t. He put it around his neck and vanished.
From the marble balcony of that beautiful villa a giant vulture opened its wings.
Cursed to a life of scavenging through the remains of the dead and the scraps of the living.
As he drifted on wind currents between the hills and the mountains he picked up the scent of rotting flesh.
When he arrived the carcass was picked clean by other vultures. Only the bones remained.
He grabbed a bone and soared into the sky. He threw it onto the rocks below where it smashed upon, exposing the marrow for him to eat. He repeated this technique, over and over again. Day after day, month after month. And he became a master of his craft.
The other vultures called him Broken Bones.
One day a shepherd girl noticed him picking apart her dead lamb. The girl was wild, ugly, fierce.
She ran out of the trees like a ferrel animal and screamed, “That’s my sheep! Get away!”
Broken Bones took to the air with a bone in his beak and perched on a dead branch.
The girl sat by the carcass with tears in her eyes while the vulture looked at her with sadness and hunger. But not hunger for flesh. Hunger for something more human. And even subtler than that.
He tried to speak but only a shameful squawk bellowed from his beak.
The young shepherd looked up with curiosity and noticed something shimmering around his neck. She wiped the tears from her dirty cheeks and a bewildering silence descended between them.
They gazed at each others as shadows crawled across the earth.
There was deep magic in their meeting. They both knew it.
Many moons later the shepherd girl’s father died in their little hut at the edge of the wild. She didn’t cry, she knew it was time. And he wasn’t a good father anyway. If anything what she felt was relief. Release.
She opened the door and looked down: on the ground was something white and shiny. A bone.
But not any bone.
She picked it up and rolled it around her small calloused fingers. It had holes in it. How odd.
Was it a flute?
She remembered the vulture with the bone in his beak. She put it to her lips and let her spirit flow out through her lungs.
And let me tell you, it was so beautiful that Buxo himself would have smiled.
She dragged the body of her father into a clearing. Broken Bones circled above in slow descending spirals before landing nearby.
“You can have him.” She said to the vulture.
Books have been written about those four words. Like I said, he was not a good father.
Broken Bones shook his head as his necklace shimmered in the sun. He hopped towards her.
She took a step towards him too and reached out and touched the golden pendant.
As it fell into her hand and Broken Bones transformed into the man he would become.
An original story by Moss
The Three Brothers
Part 3: Aguila
The eldest brother had the sharpest eyes. They called him Aguila, the Eagle. He was an observer through and through. He hovered above his family like a bird of prey.
As a child he watched his father work. He watched his father love. He watched his father sacrifice himself for their family.
And Aguila saw that something wasn’t quite right.
As if the wrinkles on his father’s face did not line up.
And what he saw he saw truly. For there was a deep, some might say beautiful, hypocrisy within Buxo.
In my book The Adventures of Musgocito, I tell the story of young Buxo, he was a wandering flute maker whose instruments inspired birds to sing. He fell in love with a water spirit named Buixeretta who gave up her immortality to share a life with this man. Their love was powerful, magical, legendary.
But laden with the responsibility to create a home together Buxo exchanged his flutes for rocks and logs and tools.
As the years passed his calloused fingers forgot the notes of his own spirit. Until finally one dark winter night Buxo threw his flutes into the fire of sacrifice, never to play again.
When Aguila was a boy he saw the musician without song. The poet lifting rocks. The free spirit with heavy feet. He saw his father’s smile and how it never quite reached up to his eyes.
The boy wanted to respect his father, he really did. But what he really felt was pity. And something even darker: disdain. It stuck to his feet like a shadow that wouldn’t let go. And it worked its way up from his soles.
I will never be like my father, he said to himself a thousand times.
But when Buxo died Aguila inherited the house, the vineyards, the ancient forests, the olive groves and even the labour of his younger brothers.
For awhile it was business as usual, except Aguila worked less than usual and his brothers worked more.
One day a well-to-do business man rode up to La Buixeda in a fancy carriage. Sharp eyes met sharp eyes as they shook hands. Caballero pointed up to the vast oak forests of La Buixeda. Forests that had been growing since the dawn of time. Full of the deepest kinds of magic.
“I will pay handsomely for your trees,” Caballero said. He picked up a bag of coins from his carriage and passed it to the young man.
Aguila’s eyes widened for a moment as he looked inside, but then he remembered his father’s wishes. The silence was heavy.
“You know, son,” The business man said, “My eldest daughter will be ready to marry soon.” He put his hand on Aguila’s shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze. “Our families could be prosperous together. Very prosperous.”
Something dark and resentful reached out through Aguila’s arm as they shook hands.
Like two men doing business with what could never have belonged to them.
And on that fateful day the moss in the forest turned pale. The birds gathered their feathers for flight. The fountain lost its lustre. And the animals saw themselves as prey for the very first time.
An original story by Moss
The Three Brothers
Part 2: Inheritance
Old Man Buxo lay on his deathbed remembering a life fully lived. He had known joy. He had known love. He had known music the way birds know music.
And he had known sorrow. The kind of sorrow where love and loss embrace within a single heartbeat.
He sacrificed everything for his beloved Buixeretta. And after she died giving birth to their third son, he sacrificed everything for his children.
He called his three sons to his bed one last time and said, “I am dying. It is time for your inheritance.”
He looked to his eldest son and said: “To you I give La Buixeda, with all its lands and titles and boons and burdens. You are now responsible for it all, so take care of your brothers and take care of the animals and the trees of the forests. Especially the birds. Especially the birds. You are their guardian now.”
He looked to the middle son with a creaky smile and said: “To you I give work. Don’t scoff, my son. Work will make you a great man. Work will lead you to mastery and mastery will lead you to prosperity and honour. Work hard and share the fruits of your labour and you will be the pillar of your family and your community.”
And then he looked into the eyes of his third son. It was the first time he had ever really looked into those eyes. Can you imagine?
The pain of losing his wife came pouring back. A sacrifice too much to bear.
The altar in his soul had long been covered with the blood of a thousand raw emotions.
But he didn’t look away this time.
And that poor boy, not yet a man, saw it all.
“To you I give…” But old Buxo stopped and swallowed.
He suddenly saw something else in those eyes.
He remembered just before Buixeretta died she smiled at him as blood poured from her womb.
He never understood that smile.
Not until now.
That smile, that glorious terrible smile, had pushed him off the edge of himself, had pushed him into the mysteries of God.
His prayers of lament filled the cathedral of the black sky.
Until one night, one moonless night years later, he saw that the stars were twinkling back at him.
Buxo was smiling too now.
“To you I give… everything else.”
And with that the old man closed his eyes.
And a new star was born.
The Three Brothers
By Moss
Part 1: The Beekeeper
There is an old beekeeper who set up his hives at La Buixeda. He told me his bees are happy and productive because the air here is clean and free of pesticides, so the rosemary honey is delicious.
Too bad I’m allergic to honey.
The beekeeper has had a relationship with La Buixeda since before I was born. He is very old now, he’s suffered a stroke, a heart attack and cancer. And yet I sometimes find him walking from town—3kms away—to check on his bees. He’s a remarkable example of the resilience and inner strength of the people of his generation who live around here.
When he comes through I like to walk with him and talk with him. He tells me the stories of the way things used to be.
He remembers a time when all the forests were burned to the ground to make coal and lime. Back then there were three brothers who lived at La Buixeda.
The two younger brothers went out felling and burning trees, as per usual. The forests were nearly bare. There wasn’t a songbird in sight.
They would dig around the trees, one by one, and uproot them with the help of a mule. It was hot, hard work.
One day as the mule pulled hard against an old oak tree the roots flew up into the air. Something caught the youngest brother’s eye in the root hole. Was it a wooden chest? He dug it out and opened it up: it was full of treasure, ancient, enchanted jewelry and gold. He called the middle brother over to show him. They laughed. They cried. They began to dream.
The middle brother said to the younger one, “Let’s feast with wine and food and enjoy the most glorious siesta of our lives. In the afternoon we’ll meet back here. But keep this between us. Don’t tell our older brother or he will certainly lay claim to what we have found.”
The younger brother obliged, and they went back to the house in glee.
In the afternoon the younger brother went up into the hills again.
The treasure was gone.
And so was his brother.
I’ve mulled over the beekeeper’s tale so many times. I’ve taken it out into the forest—yes the forests have grown back since then, and splendidly so. The songbirds have come back too. A beautiful reminder of how Mother Nature forgives the fires of man.
When I look out at the vast wilderness here I can’t even imagine that these hills were burnt to the ground.
But they were. The scars of the brothers remain. Deep in the woods I found the scorched black earth clearings where the trees were set ablaze to make coal. In one of the clearings Selva birthed a labyrinth, where we sometimes bring groups to feel themselves on the earth. In one of the lime ovens we created a temple for storytelling and rites of passage.
It was there where the story of The Three Brothers reached out to me again and said:
I am not finished with you yet.
fotografías de Esther Naval
#retreats #meditation #spain #labuixeda #awakening #retreatcentre #mentorship #regeneration #transmutation #alchemy
• Selva: organización, coordinadora mercadillo de trueque y kirtan
• Sam: inscripciones y acogidas
• Moss: apertura, karma yoga, video
• Esther Naval: fotógrafa
• Silvia Sampere: musica, paisajes sonoros y edición gráfica
• Paula Oliva: paseo botánico en familia
• Mariona Martínez: arteterapia silvestre
• Anabel Castillo: círculo de escritura
• Jara María Sol: pausa gozosa
• Marta: paisajes sonoros
• Mar: coordinadora de cocina
• Loyola: coordinadora de karma yoga en el huerto
• Todos: círculo de canciones, karma yoga, apoyo en cocina, y mucho mas
videos by @selbasana
They lived surrounded by bears and cougars and deer, completely off grid.
It was one of the most beautiful and challenging experiences of his life.
Paradise on the Little Qualicum River
Active Meditations, Yoga, Zen Nature Excursions in the Pyrenees, Vegetarian Cuisine, Affordable Accommodation and lots of love
For more information: www.padmayogahealth.org/ayurveda-massage
With Regression Therapy we can affect change in our current lives by revisiting these memories and integrate the real lessons locked away in there. We can understand how and why our lives have been influenced and conditioned the way they have been, but more importantly we can release the unconscious programming which no longer serves us. This empowers us to experience healing, freedom and presence, and create the life we want to live.
We can explore and release emotional and mental patterns with this technique using the breath as the door to the unconscious. We often experience visions and messages from our higher and deeper self.
In day to day life our breathing is usually shallow, using only a tiny percentage of our lung capacity.
Since early childhood, we have learned to restrict our breathing and suppress our vitality to conform to what we think is expected from us. This creates tension in the body, represses our emotions, prevents our life energy to flow naturally and creates unconscious behavioral patterns.
While rediscovering our own natural way of breathing, we relax and accept ourselves. This acceptance provides the soil and nourishment for joyful celebration of life and greater awareness.
A breathwork journey will last about two hours.


