Christmas in Boquete, Panama
Reflections on Christmas Around the World
As December is a time of reflection for many, this holiday season I am reflecting from a mountaintop in Costa Rica. There will be no holiday bustle this year, no time with family or loved ones; just a quiet window of time to reflect and embrace the warm breezes of summer in Costa Rica, the sounds of nature and perspective to reflect on another year on this adventure of life and the great mystery of it all. I hope you enjoy a weekly post on Christmas’s spent in other countries through the lens of another culture.
Boquete, Panama 2021
The experience of Christmas in Boquete has not been so different from my experience of Christmas in Kyoto, just two years ago. In both of these very different cultures it has been much like the experience of any other day without the overlay of cultural conditioning and marketing around this holiday. Both cultures seem to acknowledge the season and the day, but there is not such an emphasis surrounding it.
When I lived in Kyoto, Christmas fell on a Wednesday and despite the odd month of December being filled with more Christmas music in coffee shops and stores even than America, the day itself was much like a normal Wednesday. I spent that day in Kyoto visiting the famous Golden Pavilion and eating KFC on Christmas, which seems to be a tradition in Japan.
This year I have somehow found myself living on a mountain in the small town of Boquete, Panama, mostly surrounded by the indigenous Ngabe Bugle people of the area, who know nothing about Christmas.
This morning I walked down the mountain, passing indigenous families on what appeared to be normal Saturday chores and activities. They smiled and waved as they did their laundry.
I caught the local bus on its way into town. Already packed beyond capacity, I made my way into the front passenger seat. Little did I know two more would pack in between me and the driver before the trip was over. As we made our way down we stopped and stopped and stopped, adding families, large women, numerous children. I could not see how they were packing them in. It was a Christmas miracle we all survived.
The town was empty for a Saturday morning. I walked to the Catholic church for mass but there were only ten people. It was the English service. I met a new friend from Russia for coffee. She had made some traditional Russian candies. We met our other Canadian friend for a beautiful lunch outdoors along the river.
On our walk back into the evening we crossed over the bridge as the sun was beginning to set.
“It was a beautiful evening in the valley, along the stream, the green meadow, so rich in pasturage, the clean farmhouses and rapturous clouds, so full of color and clarity. There was one that hung over the mountain with such vivid brilliancy that it seemed to be the favorite of the sun. The valley was cool, pleasant and so intensely alive. There was a quietness about it and peace.
As we walked along the narrow, grassy path through the fields, the mountains with their snow and color, seemed so close and delicate, so utterly unreal. The goats were bleating to be milked.
Quite unexpectedly, all this extravagant beauty, the color, the hills, the rich earth, this intense valley, all this was within one.
It wasn’t within one, ones own heart and brain were so completely open, without the barrier of time and space, so empty of thought and feeling, that there was only this beauty, without sound or form. It was there and everything else ceased to be.
The immensity of this love, with beauty and death, was there filling the valley and one’s whole being which was that valley.
It was an extraordinary evening.”
-Krishnamurti
View from the Road
The variety of birds in the area where I live in Ciudad Colón seems endless. I am next to a cloud forest and border an ecological reserve. Recently, I was sipping my morning coffee and spotted these toucans among the trees just outside my window.
“Few people understand the loveliness and beauty of this thing we call human existence.”
-Anthony DeMello
Field Notes
“This Christmas, if you buy and bring home a Christmas tree to decorate, remember that your ‘true home’ is not found outside yourself, but it is right in your own heart. We do not need to bring home anything for us to feel fulfilled. We have everything we need right in our heart. We do not need to practice for many years or travel far to arrive at our true home. If we know how to generate the energy of mindfulness and concentration, then with each breath with each step, we arrive at our true home. Our true home is not a place far removed from us in space and time. It is not something we can buy. Our true home is present right in the here and now. If only we can return and be present to it.”
-Thich Nhat Hanh
From the Archives
Please enjoy a Haiku 俳句 for Christmas from the archives.
Become a Founding Member or Paid Subscriber and access all articles from the past five years.
Subscribe. Donate. Share the Journey.
Zen and Ink Journals represents hundreds of hours of writing over the past decade, sometimes from a train in remote China or a coffee shop in Kyoto, a hammock in Costa Rica or a simple cabin on a mountaintop in Boquete, Panama.
On these pages, I share my observations of kindness and beauty from my adventures in the world and invite you to listen quietly for the call within you to explore the places that beckon your soul.
If you would like to become a regular subscriber, please consider foregoing the cost of one cup of coffee and a pastry each month ($8) and becoming a monthly subscriber.
If you would like to stop receiving emails from Zen and Ink Journals simply click the unsubscribe button at the bottom of this email.