Life as Ceremony

Sometime near the 17th or 18th of Jan.

Here we are in the heart of the jungle, having ceremony, endless esoteric conversation, struggling with ourselves, really being alive.  We have been at Miguels for 12 days now.  The flies and the mud are awful!  The food is so simple, white rice and potatoes or rice and pasta for every meal.  Occasionally we get salad, fried plantains, or fruit.  The mangoes, omg, pure candy, and the pineapples, pure sugar juice.  Being totally western, the kids and I went into town today and drank loads of coca-cola, ate fried chicken, found some cheap unsatisfying chocolate at a side market on the edge of the village.  It was good!  

At Miguels there is ceremony every night.  He has 12 children, 10 of whom still live at home, 2 with their husbands.  Two of his sons are training in the shamans path and assist with all his ceremonies.  One of the daughters husbands leads ceremonies when Miguel is away.  Other local shamans visit regularly and participate in the ceremonies too, playing their music, watching guard over the spirits.  I cannot tell you how much I love the interplay of the various shamans!  Some of them, their music is pure lullabies, it rocks me and soothes me and takes me on flights of fancy so childlike and sweet.  Some of them, they are powerful allies, and one night when I was vomiting particularly horrendously, I looked up to see one of them in the distance, with his staff, looking out over the river.  When he saw me look at him he walked over, and holding hands he sweetly led me/carried me back to the lodge.  His kindness in that moment was as healing as any of the visions.  

Miguel teaching us about medicinal plants

Piriri.  He laughs as he tells us, when using this one no carne, no queso, no sexa, no picante! :)

In addition to natem ceremonies we also had a rite of passage trek to sacred waterfalls.  We took no water or food with us, and only drank from water sources we found along the way.  We made our beds by cutting palm and banana leaves from the forest, and tended 4 separate fires through the camp.  The men and the women were taken to two separate waterfalls, and here we chewed fresh tobacco leaves, hiked into the waterfall itself, prayed for the help of the water spirits in our journeys, and hiked back down.  We then met the men back at camp, and all of us drank sacred tobacco juice at the rock designated for this purpose centuries ago.  We then went to bed, waiting for our visions.  If we had any, we were to go the sacred rock to meet the spirits of either the anaconda, the jaguar, the condor, or the eagle.  Yes, I had visions, yes, I went to the rock, yes I met a spirit, yes, there was a dramatic moment and it woke the whole camp.  After this Aurora got sick and I was instructed how to heal her.  That was a shaky moment because we were up high in the hills and I had to have complete trust in the shaman and the methods.  It worked.  Later in the week Mathias got the fever, and I again healed him with the shamans ways.  Then I got sick, and they healed me, with sacred lemon essences and prayers and smelling fumes I held in a kerchief over my face.  

Jaguar!

Female Jaguar!

in traditional dress

The natem ceremonies in the jungle, they are not like in Europe.  Europe is very happy clappy compared to what happens here.  It is major purging, major work for generations of people which happens in the space of one body, major work for the planet and its future, total surrender and self sacrifice are required.  Nine nights was too much for me!  The visions, they are a-ma-zing a-ma-zing a-ma-zing ad infinitum.  I will never forget them!  But they are not the main point here.  The main point is to wake up from ordinary consciousness forever.  Can I just tell you this is no paradise?  I am not really so sure I want to be awake and I am sort of hoping I'll return to who I was before I left at any moment….not likely.  I can just tell you that heaven and hell are not so dissimilar, and this is the basis of true human kindness.  

Here we bathe in the river, wash our clothes in the river, play with the monkey named Poncho and the pet parrots, bead in the traditional way, and nap.  Being a worker, I feel out of my mind sometimes!  The work is simply being.  And it is so what I needed.  And though it is a harsh and difficult lifestyle, it is good to experience it.  All of us who were born into the privileged lives of Europe and America must live in the dirt for awhile, interact with true indigenous beliefs, and become at one with more of the human race, with more of the planets eco systems and the huge variety of people systems.  One thought that comes again and again is that there is no going back.  The old ways, there are here, they will remain here, anchored by those who are born into them and will continue to breathe spirits into them.  The modern ways, they are here, they will remain here, anchored by those who must and who need to find a way to improve the design and flow of technologies for the future.  Synergy between these, this is key.  One day, we will have shamanic methods in our healthcare systems as a first matter of course, and the indigenous peoples will be honoured as they deserve.  We will also have clean water, adequate cooking facilitates, and easy methods of connection with the outside world available to those who live in the bush.  And the movement between will be that of harmonious respect and reverence.  Green everywhere, hands in the dirt everywhere, bare feet everywhere, real human kindness everywhere.  Life can and will be an endless ceremony one day, for all people.  It is in the way of saying hello, in all of the little exchanges.  Peace.

learning the beadwork

with parrots and beaded jaguar necklace

beading by the fire