Majestically poised 7000 feet high in the Sierra Madre Mountains, nestled amongst mature oaks and mighty pines, this breathtaking Lake Zirahuen showcases its crystalline water colors which range from a deep blue to a jade green; reflecting the surrounding ancient forests of pine, oak, cedar and fruit trees. Wild thistle grows alongside the road and luscious blackberries are cultivated in the region. On the shore lies the village of Zirahuen, known for its rustic wooden casitas called ‘trojes’, traditional structures which for centuries have been used for casitas, grain storage and small businesses.

Being at an altitude of 7000 feet with a moderately cool climate, Zirahuen is ablaze with colorful flowers most of the year including pink and red geraniums, explosive bougainvilleas, white calla lilies, delicate begonias, a variety of roses, wild flowers and petunias that all thrive in this climate. The shoreline is dotted with simple docks for fishing boats, mom and pop restaurants, rustic cabins for rent, and small shops. One of the most memorable visuals is a long wooden pier that stretches out into the lake waters. The pier is covered, and the geometric pattern of the wooden posts and railings artistically highlight the sunlight shimmering on this pure body of water. Along the pier lies a series of small shops and cafes, surrounded by a profusion of blossoms, offering such authentic fare as charales (tiny, whole, crisp-fried white fish) fresh caught lake trout, sopes (hand-made tortillas stacked with fillings such as black beans, locally made cheeses, chorizo and chicken) and sopa de hongos (mushroom soup). Notably, this village of fishermen and farmers has a fierce passion for music.

The bands of Zirahuen are famous thought the country for banda music. According to historian Eduardo Ruiz, Purepecha Emperor Siguangua ordered a rest house built near the lake, where according to the legend, the Princess of Zirahuen was transformed into moonlight by the sacred hummingbird who stole her soul. Yet another version of the legend has it that no woman has ever drowned in this lake, but the Princess continues to pull men down into its reaches. The lake’s contrasts, from deep blue to jade, hint at another yet to be debunked fantasy: that the lake’s deep inlets lead to the Pacific Ocean. No one has proved that they don’t.

Where to Stay

• Meson Maracuyá – Simple cabins with a beautiful view of the lake.
• Zirahuen Forest – Cabins that can sleep from 2-12 persons.  Activities like zip line, hiking, horseback riding and restaurant on-site.  Low-season rates start at $50 per night.

Close to Zirahuen

• Uruapan 40 km
• Morelia 70 km
• Santa Clara del Cobre 10km
• Patzcuaro 20km

Experience a refreshing change of pace and a slice of Nirvana.  Chef Juan Carlos Escalante has created a new, rare space for his popular Nirvana Restaurant, set in a high desert paradise just 10 minutes from San Miguel de Allende.

Nirvana Restaurant & Retreat provides quiet seclusion for a vacation of rest and relaxation with world-class cuisine.  The seven rooms are simple yet elegantly appointed with an emphasis on comfort!  Set on seven acres, the property includes a swimming pool, stables and well-manicured gardens.  The artwork of ceramicist, sculptor and painter, Mara, is featured in the restaurant and rooms and in surprising niches around the grounds.  Guests will find plenty of activities — yoga, tai chi, massage, horseback riding, hiking or swimming.

The restaurant serves organically-grown produce right from the greenhouse on the property.  The menu, popular with locals and visitors to San Miguel alike, showcases Juan Carlos’ flair for fusion cuisine.  It’s the perfect place to spend an afternoon with a group of friends!

Rooms are reasonably priced, starting at $100 USD per night.  Check with the hotel for day spa packages.

Restaurant hours:  12 to 9pm, Closed on Tuesday

Details: http://www.nirvanarestaurantretreat.com

For reservations phone: +011 52 415 150 0067

Sometimes getting away from it all is just the right way to spend time in Mexico. If unplugging from your computer, TV, or BlackBerry, settling down for five days of reflection in a rustic monastery outside of San Miguel de Allende and getting back in touch with what’s important in life sounds appealing, try the LifePath Silent Retreat.

The quiet days start with an optional chant in the small chapel at 4:30am with the resident monks, followed by breakfast. During the day, you’re on your own to read, walk, meditate, practice yoga, write or journal, participate in the chants in the chapel or just catch up on sleep. The simple contemplative lifestyle is a welcome break from the fast-paced world we live in.

When you leave the world of sound behind, it gives you time to think, reconnect… for some it’s a life-changing experience to leave the world so full of sound and commitment and background noise to return to the simplicity and rhythm of nature. The setting sun, the full moon rising over the mountains, a nap under the shade of a tree, the laughter of children in the afternoon or the crow of the rooster all remind you that there’s more to this life than turning on the computer and plugging in first thing in the morning.

LifePath Silent Retreats take place in small groups, no more than 5 or 6 people and a facilitator to make sure everything runs smoothly. The retreat center is simple, set on the grounds of Our Lady of Solitude Monastery just outside of San Miguel de Allende in a small town and world heritage site, Atotonilco. For more information, visit www.lifepathretreats.com.

For Day of the Dead, consider mourning and celebrating the parts of yourself that have died—or need to die.

To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.
- John Henry Newman

For two weeks, a cluster of mom-and-pop vendors in the Plaza Civica in San Miguel de Allende, a few blocks from our house, have been selling human skulls, fruit, bones, plates of food like tamales and enchiladas and chicken molé, and skeletons in coffins—all in pastel colors and made of sugar, and all no larger than the palm of your hand.

These are tokens of Day of the Dead, one of the most solemn and, paradoxically, one of the most cheerful fiestas on the Mexican calendar.
The candied food goes onto home altars; real food, tequila, Coca-Cola, candles, and armloads of orange marigolds and chamomile are taken to the family plot at the cemetery on la Día de los Muertos. They are placed on gravestones with pictures of the departed, and everyone sits and reminisces about—and with—the dead person. All day, with candles blazing, children running around, and people quietly chatting and chuckling, the dead come alive again.

The pervasive religion of Mexico teaches that one lives a good life, and then one goes to heaven to be with God and the angels. But Day of the Dead is about the dead returning to earth and gathering with the living in the most inclusive and complete of family reunions.

The specific Christian feast is All Soul’s Day, directing the faithful to pray for the repose of those who have gone before us into eternity. Its sensibility, though, is pre-Christian, perhaps prehistoric. This is ritual rooted in a tradition that transcends religion, and goes to a kind of universal “earth spirituality.”

We can join in this most mysterious commemoration by internalizing its essence. In this way, Day of the Dead can become for us an occasion for reflecting not only on our own mortality, but on how we can “die” each day to the personal past of ourselves and be reborn into a new, higher sense of Self.

This year for Day of the Dead, I am considering building an altar not to a dead relative, but to myself—the part of me that has already died or needs to die. I am thinking about making an altar for all the dead dreams of the past and for the past itself.

On my own Day of the Dead altar, I will be placing a number of never-fulfilled aspirations, laying them at last to rest. In with the candy skulls and sugar-fruits are going those two manuscripts that never got published, the friendship that never was cultivated and finally died on the vine, the relationship of my early years that somehow never reached a proper closure. Among the photos of my mother and father and brother—all in heaven now—I will be setting the illusion of chatting in a TV studio with Oprah about my newest book, the fantasy of explaining the differences between religion and spirituality to Larry King, and the daydream of impressing Charlie Rose.

There with the candles and marigold petals and the shot-glass of tequila will be my musings about winning the lottery, touring the temples of India, going on a cruise to Alaska, seeing a Shakespeare play at the Old Vic in London, dining on the Orient Express en route from Paris to Istanbul, being recognized by Brad Pitt with a tight handshake and a big bear-hug, flying first-class to Rome.

Into the little sugar coffin I will set my dreams of slipping easily into a pair of size 32 Levi 501s and of swimming laps for 30 minutes without stopping to rest, and of growing two inches taller. Mingled in with the plates of imitation enchiladas I will be laying my regrets over past failures, my irritation over having to wear reading glasses, my frustration with the arrogance of literary agents, my depression over not having been asked to stand up in public and receive the applause of my peers for my obvious and stellar accomplishments, my sinking disappointment that my cousins, all the family I have left, do not stay in closer touch with me.

All these things I am releasing may yet come to pass in my life, but they haven’t happened up to now, and holding onto them in a kind of personal fantasy future only makes me feel sour and brittle. Letting go of them is liberating and, ironically, seems to open up the possibility of having newer, ever better things come flooding into my experience.

The wisdom of Day of the Dead is that all things—us included—have a season; when the season is over, the leaf needs to fall and the spent flower needs to dry up. But its additional wisdom is that the ‘dead’ flower contains a seed that also drops to the ground to become the glorious story of the next season.

And the miracle is that the seed will create not just another flower, but a whole bush of flowers. That is a future—not a fantasy—that we can count on.

About the Author
Joseph Dispenza is a founder of LifePath in San Miguel de Allende. He is the author of several books, including God On Your Own: Finding a Spiritual Path Outside Religion, and is a Spiritual Counselor in private practice. joseph@lifepathretreats.com

There is only one journey – going inside yourself.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

San Miguel de Allende offers visitors seeking an adventure of the spirit a unique opportunity for personal growth. To refresh your soul, inspire your heart, and expand your inner horizons, here are ten exciting activities to connect with in San Miguel.

• Attend a Full Moon Meditation. If you are in San Miguel during a full moon, local shaman Alicia Mayo conducts a special meditation that celebrates our nearest cosmic neighbor and draws the moon’s feminine energy to down to earth. Check the English newspaper, Atencion for days and times.

JOSEPH DISPENZA is the author of The Way of the Traveler: Making Every Trip a Journey of Self-Discovery and eleven other books. A former monk and university professor, he lives San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where he is co-founder of LifePath Retreats — 6-day hero’s journeys to living a more meaningful and satisfying life. Reach him through his website: www.LifePathRetreats.com.  Email: joseph@lifepathretreats.com

Life in San Miguel may be a prototype of how everyone will be living in the future.

Today, after more than a century of electric technology, we have extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned.

Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964
Forty years have passed since media philosopher Marshall McLuhan predicted that, as a result of communications technology, we humans would soon be able to live globally and locally at the same time.

McLuhan’s concept of ‘the global village’ was simply this: living anywhere on the planet and yet enjoying the ability to communicate interactively with the whole wide world –– as if the entire globe had the intimacy of a village.

Here in San Miguel de Allende, the future McLuhan foresaw has come to pass. San Miguel is a global village –– in more ways than one.

Those of us who have gravitated to this beautiful town from many corners of the planet are finding that we can live here and still are able to enjoy the other wonders that the world has to offer.

Let me give you a few examples from my own experience. When I go to my office in el centro every morning, the first thing I do is check my email. There are communications from family, friends, former students, and people I’ve met on my travels. The emails are from Melbourne, Tokyo, Barcelona, Auckland, Rome, Toronto, Palermo, and several cities in the States –– New Orleans, San Antonio, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, New York…and my hometown, Ashtabula, Ohio.

Email letters from far–flung places are not only filled with newsy updates, but also contain photos, which I can download and enjoy. One or two of them usually contain links to interesting articles, video, or sound clips that spice up my morning.

Then I check my Internet–connected phone to find out if anyone has called and left a message. We have one of those phones that allows us to call the US and Canada free of charge (well, we pay for the monthly service), and the rest of the world for pennies. I answer calls, and make a few of my own.

The Internet itself keeps me posted on everything –– and I mean everything –– that is happening all over the place, including the places close to ‘home’ that I have asked the Internet service to keep tabs on: the weather in Ashtabula, the local news in Santa Fe (where I lived for a quarter–century), and trends in the publishing industry (I am a writer).

While I am surfing the Internet, I am listening to one of three radio stations –– the public radio station in Kent, Ohio, close to where my brother and his family live; the station at USC in Los Angeles, which has day–long classical music and public affairs programs; and a station in midtown Manhattan, which keeps me up to date on local happenings in New York City, our Big Cultural Hub.

In the evening, I return home to satellite television, which offers about a zillion channels of movies, sports, news, and the rest. I signed up to receive local East Coast stations, so nightly news programs are local in nature. Sitting in front of the TV, it’s as if I am right there in New York, Washington, or Philadelphia, getting the low–down on traffic patterns and weather forecasts.

All this technology is available to virtually everyone, anywhere. The wonderful thing about having it at our doorsteps here in San Miguel is that we are able to live in one of the world’s most beautiful towns –– and still be connected in a fundamental way to the rest of the planet.

Life in San Miguel offers us the best of both worlds. Here we are in an enchanted 17th Century Spanish Colonial mining town, where donkeys amble by loaded with firewood, knife–sharpeners blow their whistles in the streets to announce their presence, and corn vendors call out in the most melodious ‘songs’ imaginable. A tranquil town that has no traffic lights.

While we enjoy the richness of life here, we also feel connected to the rest of the world. In that sense, we have achieved a kind of planetary citizenship –– something our human species has been yearning for since the dawn of time.

Life in San Miguel may be a prototype of how people will live in the future, with one foot in the charm and beauty of a simple, quiet town, and the other foot in the sophistication and stimulation of the vast world ‘out there.’ For those of us who live here or visit here frequently, the future is now. We have become the global villagers Marshall McLuhan dreamed about.

JOSEPH DISPENZA is the author of The Way of the Traveler: Making Every Trip a Journey of Self-Discovery and eleven other books. A former monk and university professor, he lives San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where he is co-founder of LifePath Retreats — 6-day hero’s journeys to living a more meaningful and satisfying life. Reach him through his website: www.LifePathRetreats.com.   Email: joseph@lifepathretreats.com