I have started to take vitamine B12. I went to see Dr.Getulio to know how I was. He was amazed. He a non believer considered my recovery a miracle. He attributed it to my enormous desire to live. That seemed funny.

So I asked him about vitamine B12. Did it work against mosquitoes? Obviously he asked me why I was asking that. I told him, what I have always told, it is because I want to leave Sao Paulo. He knew that.

Jules, where on earth are you going this time?

Deep breath… he knew I was about to go back to Asia, and also that there was nothing he could say against it.

So I guess, he was surprised that because my family were so concerned that I wanted to return to the place where I almost died I changed my plans.

” The AMAZON!””

“Julieta, I hope you take me also as a friend now. Take B12, but also take the whole B complex. I never understand why you like these places!”

“Getulio it is the most amazing ecosystem on earth! How can you not understand that? Every time they take a new sample more than half of it is of things they do not know! Does B complex work?”

“It is true. It is beautiful. What can I say, I always prefer you are close. But go! Enjoy it. It is beautiful! B complex works!.””

And so for the past weeks I have been planning my trip. Alone, as I have learned that it is better to trust those you have met on the path.

Of course, he asked me when I would return. And I was honest.

“I have no idea. ”

The reality is that I have a vague sketch in my mind. But I am realistic enough to know I know nothing of the north, nor of the northeast of Brasil. I could get tired of the humidity and the heat in a day. I could get sick. I could wish to fly back home anytime.

I know many people get concerned. And I am thankful, but I need to go. Even more importantly I need to discover this country were I was born in and know so little of.

Most people who wonder the world know way better some countries they visit than they know their own. So, I want to know this one a bit better.

Someone told me these days something I always think about. Through the path you hear things and sometimes you don’t understand them fully. Much later you do.

I became buddhist last year. I never speak of that really because I did not plan it, and I consider I know so little of Buddhism. Yet, I had the priviledge to sit in front of HH Dalai Lama, Karmapa and Lingtrul Rinpoche.

Rinpoche explained just before he called me to become Buddhist

“A Lama does not accept anyone to be their followers. When someone comes to a Lama he looks, and he says yes or no. When they say no, it does not mean they dislike the person.”

Tibetans have a very different conception of life. They believe in many lives. They believe in the non existence of self. More importantly they believe once you say yes to someone, all of their actions will be theirs. So they observe and when they say yes they believe that all of their actions will be interconnected.

I don’t believe they say yes to people they feel are perfect, rather to those who are in a path to become better people. I understand that to be better, it is not to be rich, or successful, etc. It means to be more compassionate, more responsible of their actions, more patient.

That day I heard it and was moved by it. Yet I believe it only belonged to Lamas. Suddenly I realised it did not.

I have said Yes to all that has come towards me. I have felt betrayed, abandoned, hurt. Yet, one day I understood I should simply import, care for those who search a better path, a more compassionate path, a more patient one.

I also realised that I had to say no to many things. I realised that saying no was sometimes more compassionate than to say yes. I understood that things had to be differentiated. As they say “to recognise things for what they really are”.

I have kept lots of people aside on that decision. Which does not mean I wish them harm, I simply do not want to be entangled. But ironically this decision never came from selfishness, yet from a deep desire to not contribute to even more negative synapses in the world for the other.

I also understood that there was a great difference between guilt and responsibility.

More profoundly I understood that I was responsible for all that has happened to me. I even lament the fact that I have put my ex-boyfriend in a position that made him be his worse version.

I used to pray to die. Now I pray that if I am ever in his place that I should be stronger, more compassionate. I never imagined that would happen but today I feel compassion towards him. I am sorry I have put so many in so grave emotional state.

Yet I discovered that we are always responsible for whatever that we feel. Abandoning this responsibility, blaming the other is the greatest loss we can endure.

I am sure many of you might get this email and immediately get concerned. Why alone. Where are you going? What are really your plans.

Alone because I need to. I ll start in Manaus, and from there I have no idea. I ll attempt to write from my phone like now. I will attempt to discover what is that unites these people we actually do not know. Maybe on the path I ll rediscover what makes me from here.

with love,

Jules