Protecting our Lifeways

Lushness and Complexities

 In Jan and Feb 2012 I visited the Zamora river basin for two months, to live with and learn from the indigenous Shuar people lifeways of sustainability.  While I was there, the peace, stillness, and incredible biodiversity of the region melted into my heart.  Going through my life there with a canopy above me, banana trees beside me - laughing at my size, the river rushing below me, the clouds about my shoulders, and the insects in my ears I found that a path of balance is possible.  In the beauties of the lifeway there, I encountered divinity.  In the hardships of the life, I encountered my human self.  People have been living in this land for thousands of years, and yet it remains as thus for me today, an incredible concept for someone from Europe.  

During my stay the quiet strength of the place became regularly interrupted by helicopters surveying the area in development of plans for an open pit copper mine (though I didn't know that's what they were for at the time).  The sound of the helicopters could be heard far off, and then they would arrive, flying so close you could almost see the people in the cockpit, back and forth across the valley.  The old ones would look, bow their heads, and get more quiet.  The young ones would run about yelling and pointing.  There was general ill at ease.  And then, without any explanation, the copter was off, another one to come again a few days later, and a few days later....

There are complexities at play in the developing world, where the race to join a global economic community demands product or industry for export, and where a lack of developed industry leaves nothing but raw materials to offer a hungry and impatient market.  While local communities love and appreciate the earth they live in just as I did while I was there, they also want access to schooling, technology, and opportunity just as we have in the West.  What I have come to feel from my time there is that different knowledge bases and lifeways have much to offer each other.  As we in the West seek to re-green our living spaces, to move into sustainable housing and energy production, and to redevelop ourselves in relationship to the land, the indigenous peoples have much to teach us.  As the indigenous peoples seek to share their knowledge with the world, they require effective tools for doing so, and the same opportunity to re-imagine new lifeways. 

The sort of industry of the past, which exploits the earth for raw materials in order to build and profit, is industry which is dirty, harmful, and without a long term future.  If we can set precedent with the mining industry in Ecuador, that exchange must honour first the earth and her peoples, then a model for future exchange has room to grow.  As the treasures of the Amazon are sought out more and more, we can say no to corporate pillaging, and yes to shared creation of new sustainable models for housing, schooling, healing/healthcare, community, and work.

Raping the Land

From my time in Ecuador, these photos show the beauty and richness of The Cordillera de Condor.  This land sits in the vicinity of the proposed mine and will be directly affected by it.   

This is what it's like to live inside this land.  

This is how an open pit copper mine ravishes the land.

Bingham Canyon Mine, Arizona

The Mirador Open Pit Copper Mine is set to be the deepest open pit copper mine in the world. The Bingham Canyon Mine, pictured above, is the largest open pit copper mine so far at a depth of at 1.2 kilometres deep. Mirador is set to be 1.25 kilometres deep and 4 kilometres across.

Bingham County Mine - Ariel View- Ren Shore

This is an ariel view of the Bingham County Mine - note the perspective of the site to the fields around it.  As a mine of this size the Mirador Mine would most assuredly displace the local population, permanently damage the 5,000 acres of land required to build the mine, and poison the water sources of not only the locals, but many more as The Cordillera de Condor is at the headwaters of the River Amazon.  

More on open pit mining.    The Mirador Mine factsheet.

Against the wishes of the Ecuadorian people and the Shuar Nation who inhabits El Cordilliera de Condor, the government of Ecuador signed a contract with investors Corriente Resources of Canada and mining co. CRCC Resources Tongguan of China to move ahead with the mine. 

In March of 2012 the indigenous people of Ecuador marched over 400 kilometres from the mine site in Zamorra to Quito, over two weeks, to show protest to this decision. This autumn, concerned members came together to push for legal action and bring international awareness to the situation.  At this time legal action has been filed in Quito.  On Tuesday the case was submitted to the courts re The Rights of Nature and the decision whether or not to proceed is now in the hands of the courts. We will get an answer within the week. 

The second case will be held in Zamorra on Feb 4th and this one is against the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples. If it is not accepted then the case will go to the International Court in Costa Rica who ruled against the Government this last April. 
We aim to get our petitions to the appointed judges and government officials before Feb 4th.

A call from the Shuar was put out this summer.  These people are ready to put their lives on the line for the earth and their community.  Let's not allow another corporate travesty in our developing world.  Let us stand with them.

  

Activism and Linked Communities of Power

Here I would like to speak to activism as clearly embedded in local ecology.

The ecology of a community organism includes the emotional health and happiness of individuals in the community, connection of the community to the land and her resources, and flow between the community and the world's global sites - ecological concerns.  

When we fall deeply in love with any local manifestation, we become woven into the lifeways of that system, and as such share a responsibility for its total ecology.  Demonstration and petition by the developed West is vital to the health of local communities in all developing nations, in this way we form linked communities of power.  

Speaking to the global stretch toward modernity and progress, it is important to be out about our collective fears of being pushed back to the tribe - where life is simpler, harder, slower, where our access to change, communication, and the wider world can feel limited.  In short our fears of the natural world, of being confined to local spaces, and all that indigenous belonging represents.  These fears are false.

Love is not limited.  Our new lifeways must necessarily emerge in harmony with the land. Our technologies will not be abandoned, but will be put to better use.  People will continue to travel the world in communities small and large, and as individuals between communities, as they have always done. Do not be afraid of falling in love with communities again and again and again, of attending to the ecology of all that you love, and of championing the local wherever you may find yourself.  My life, your life, here in the West, is intimately tied to the local life of all indigenous peoples, and for me especially, the Shuar in Ecuador.  

From my heart to yours -  sign the petition started by local communities in Ecuador
And the Avaaz petition here.

And keep a look out for further action to take.  More petitions are to come.  A film is being produced to heighten awareness at the international level.  The people of Ecuador are marching and preparing for war.  And hundreds of light workers are in a constant state of meditation on this matter.  

These things together will pressure the governing bodies of Ecuador to protect the Nature within her boundaries and the people who inhabit that Nature.  

Thank you for being hearts in action.  

Protect Ecuador

The Council of Canadians supports the protection of Earth and her peoples in Ecuador.
Solidarity supports the protection of Earth and her peoples in Ecuador.
The International Federation for Human Rights supports the protection of Earth and her peoples in Ecuador.
CONAIE supports the protection of Earth and her peoples in Ecuador. 
The Citizens of Quito support the protection of Earth and her peoples in Ecuador.

Icaros

If I were to distill the last year and a half into one thought, one waveform which is shaping me, moulding the soles of my feet, it is this: Rhythm is Everything.  

There is a resonance which underlies the breath of life.  It is form and formless, cohering into nexuses of energy which then generate movement, or sound.  There is pattern to the coherence which expresses itself through all life.  

The ways in which we observe the pattern occur through the lenses available to each of our brain-bodies, resulting in the 10,000 things of zen philosophies or the multitude of manifest forms in Western esoteric traditions.  Some paint, some sing, some dance - some speak, some play, some teach - some _____.  The main point is that observation-expression is always undeniably creative.  This is what is called living the creative life, and it is available to all of us.  

Harmonic Resonance by Farb

Each nexus of waveforms that is every living thing draws initial resonance into itself, where it meets and is shaped by the histories and pathways of the life.  The resulting interference results in geometries of sound movement which are at once universal, in their impulse and connectivity, and unique, in their blueprinting and expression.  Levels of density express at differentiated frequencies, creating magnetism.  This magnetism draws likeness unto itself, forming groups.  Exchange within the groups further shapes and evolves frequencies and fields emerge.  Fields are stable over time yet continually evolving, allowing each living thing to rest within the shared patterns of the earth while continuing to individually draw down resonance.  Thus shared paths emerge.  In time, we view these as linear progression.  In space, as place.  In the mind, as thought trains or loops.  In the heart, as emotion.  Tides, flows, spirals, skate back over themselves deepening grooves which at once densify into codeable transmissible energies while always and constantly continuing to shift at subtle interfaces.  The basis of all expression is rhythm.  Rhythm is the horse upon which resonance comes to life.  

Untitled by Justin Totemical

When I was in Ecuador sound opened to me!  I have always been a dancer, sensing, feeling, moving rhythms through my bones.  I became big ears in Ecuador.  I learned to sing.

One night in ceremony my ears extended, they opened and spiralled out, and every sound was available overlapping in harmony.  Insect, upward thrust of plants, gentle mist, breeze, clods of dirt, logs heating and waiting to be burned, rise and fall of bodies breath, huff and heave of animal, hair follicles growing, spheres and angels.  A burning desire opened in me - to know the frequency which is this Hannah with fewer and fewer lenses - to observe in simplicity and detail the tone and lenses of all living things.  

Mevlevi Taksim by Sinan Dogan

The fire of our heart is fanned by the rhythm of our movement.  As its resonance becomes clear the flames grow high.  The songs of the shaman clear the fields, open the lenses of our histories.  As they sing the flames of the fire brighten.  The flames lick the frequency.  Hearts blend.  

Guacamayito by Mira Jempe and Janicka

There, as we built the lodge, hard work, we listened to alot of music!  Pure joy! Beautiful sharing of forms.  And the music provided a thrust which offset the silence, thus making the peace recognisable.  

We Have Arrived by Matt Kirk

Do you hear/see/sense rhythm in your dreams?  Whose dreams are these anyway? 

                                                                                                                          

"Forget everything which did not teach you how to dance." Rumi                   

"Tie yourself to herds of mating camels." Hafiz                                                 

Ayahuasca Vision by Skyer

"Pick up a musical instrument." Rumi                                         

Dreams

Since I've been back there are these moments, moments when I am for a breath once again in Ecuador, looking through my eyes onto the places and people there.  These moments disconcert me, for they help me to realise how fast we forget, how in-the-now we can be in the spaces we inhabit.  Looking at photographs, this does not bring me back viscerally to the teachings and the qualities and the senses of my being-as-it-was there.  The photographs of my trip, while beautiful, just don't capture the realness, the liveness of any of it.  It is smells and conversations and ruptures in space which take me away, only to wake up here again 15 seconds later in a state of shock.  I am finding that the integration is coming in waves of rhythm.  

dervish abstraction 1

My relationship to sound and music has completely changed, new music is finding its way into my home and coming into my dreams.  The musical patterns flow through my brain and my body differently, I can see them as well as feel them, and I cannot stop dancing.  Music is all the time!  It is everything, the birds, the wind, voices, chimes, bells, bass lines, these are my favourite musics.  Party music too, funk and soul and swing and jazz and so much great techno too.  The rhythms of my life as well....quiet grounding pure high energy at my home in Cambridge and then I go into London and experience the waves of the city in ever expanding and sometimes harsh bursts.  
Last week as I was sitting in a cafe studying, wave upon wave of emotion swept through me.  Another girl was studying at the table with me, a drama student, and we were just angels for each other, talking about our fields and life in London and sharing amazement at the activities of the space....people suffering and needing help, like passing out on the floor and coming in with blood running down their face and stuff, and beautiful people there sharing intimate conversation and being real and heavenly.  

dervish abstraction 2

I've painted and done charcoal drawings and spent days in the library since I've been back in the Uk, and there is lots of artistic drive present.  I'm also just now getting tired a bit.  The beauty of being back, of having good public transportation and public swimming pools and food from every corner of the planet, of finding home and friends again, it is unravelling at the edges now and I am faced once again with myself, a little star in the midst of all that is.  
I begin to wonder things like, where do we find meaning in our lives, which moments are the ones which imprint and stick with us the most, who am I resonating toward and how best to navigate these new rivers of relationships, what do I ever really have to do, where is the most powerful witness?  I don't feel like dividing into paragraphs, laying out thoughts classified and organised by topic, or getting anywhere particularly fast.  I do feel like running joyfully for the hell of it, streaming thought and inspiration through any artistic formats available to me, loving deeply freely and abundantly.  I know the intimacy of myself as a woman now too.  Ayahuasca has that effect.  It is not my biology, it is the way I perceive and sense and respond to the world within me.  It is just womanly.  

dervish abstraction 3

I titled this post dreams, because I've been trying to write about dreaming for two weeks now.  I have several draft posts, and they just don't come out right.  So, I'm leaving the title, knowing all of this reality is a beautiful dream, and that somehow tonight I must have communicated something.  If it helps you or inspires you or causes you to reflect in any way then it is a worthwhile post.  I leave you in peace dear brothers and sisters, and go off to the kitchen to make some yummy cheese toast now.  Selam!

dervish abstraction 1...

Zoom Zoom

Well I've been home for two weeks now, and life is moving fast.  It's the year of the water dragon, a fierce powerful beautiful woman of a beast!  Everyone I talk to...their lives are taking off.

painting by Jessica Elwood

Occupy was evicted from two of their three remaining sites this week.  The movement is shifting.  With a fluid online system of connecting in multiple formats, the movement is far from dead.  Many of those who participated are moving into community....new squats are opening up full of people who connected through the efforts, others are forming farms and building sustainable structures on them, others still are joining already established communities across the country.  The ideals we hashed out, thrashed out, debated endlessly, they are becoming realities.  Realities free from the pressure of the press and the harsh conditions of camping out on concrete, realities with more intentionality, more space inside to coalesce transmissions of light. reflections from an activist


The children are back to school, enjoying the structure and remaking their lenses on the world from a new vantage point.  Listening to them, to the phases of wonder and delight which opened up in the first half of the trip, to the tiredness and frustration which settled in as the weeks wore on, to the new cognitive maps which are emerging bit by bit, has been such a teaching for me and such a joy!
And Ayahuasca, she reorganises the life.  Inner resonance changes, and the stream of people I love and interact with shifts as new possibilities emerge on a daily basis.  One of the major shifts for me in the last few months was the slow realisation that I must, that the only viable choice for my soul, is to commit completely to dancing and performing.  The work, it is flowing in!  And I am exhausted, over scheduled, and delighted at once.  A new set point for how much I can hold, how much delight I can bear, how much sleep I really need, is here. This is one of my favourite parts of spiritual journeying, is to observe the outer changes resultant from new horizons on the interior landscape.

loving the jungle

My garden also welcomes me.  She asks to be cleaned, sung to, planted.  I walk the fens and cycle over town and reconnect with the watery earthy energy of this landscape.  It is windy and cold!  The crocuses have come out, the snowbells, the daffodils.  I will burn a fire this weekend, at our coming home party, and the elemental reorientation will be complete.

beautiful welcome home!

Our pets are also happy to see us.  The guinea pig squeaks with joy when we come home and our lovely lovely cat just sleeps on my belly, purring through the night.  It has also been such a joy to whirl again!  The first practice back was precise and clean and high.  And the second practice was difficult and sweaty. And the first ceremony, what a challenge!  And a delightful one.  The whirling community here in London, it is one of my main reasons for being here.  Such a rare and beautiful practice!  Out of the few places in the world where one can train and enact the tradition, I am lucky beyond belief to have stumbled upon it, to know it, to have it weaving through the daily ins and outs of all I do.  The deepest paths I know of are whirling and ayahuasca.  They are my paths.  In time, I will write more about the connections there.  For now, I have hit the ground running, and the stillness which was cultivated in the last year deepened in the jungle and provides a springy delicious platform for being in the world in a new way.
Ohm.....

Tobacco

Tobacco is one of the sacred plants of the Shuar. According to their mythology, humans were a beautiful and relatively young species upon the planet. Beings from elsewhere then came upon the planet and introduced the first acts of violence. They taught us to eat red meat, and the destructive phase of fear and violence began. After some time, wise and gentle helpers for the earths consciousness felt the suffering of the Shuar, and gave to them tobacco. With tobacco the Shuar began to have visions. Thier necessary and mortal requirements became easier to bear: they could survive deep in the jungle on very little food, their bodies became cleansed, and they were given guidance for action and for life. Tobacco was not on the earth originally, it was a gift for our development and evolution. 


 Tobacco is sacred to all who travel the red road. It is smoked in peace pipes, carried in medicine bundles, offered to the four winds, and burned in the fire. It dispells negative energies, and demons flee in it's presence. Ceremonially, it is a necessary tool, and shamans from across the Americas will use it at key moments within the ceremonies specific to their traditions. 
The Shuar grow and cultivate the sacred tobacco around their homes. Preeceding an evenings ceremonies, fresh leaves will be picked. The shaman dries the leaves over the open ceremonial fire and then places them in a small bowl or a large pitcher. The number of leaves required is proportional to the use if tobacco for the evening. 
Once the leaves are cured they are folded and crushed into the appropriate vessel. Fresh river water is poured over them resulting in a cold infusion. The liquid is then either snorted or drank.  In Natem ceremonies it is said that the preparation and use of tobacco before the use of Natem itself is the most crucial element of the evening. It cleanses the nose and eyes for clear visions, and seals the stomach. It is strong. In my experience, the strength of the tobacco is proportional to the strength of the evening. It is part of the proverbial bitter pill, as spoken of in Tai Chi and Chi Kung, it strengthens us up for our journey. 

tobacoo flowers

 As I understood the story, the use of tobacco allowed the Shuar to hide out deep in the jungle during the invasion of the conquistadors, and in so doing to keep their mythologies and traditions alive untainted. After some time one of the Shuar, named Etza, began to gather the people. They revolted against those who had brought killing, hatred, and fear among them. There was a spiritual battle, and Etza was victorious. The outside beings either left or ceased to have influence among them. Their culture has been able to flourish, and they have for centuries been fiercely protective of it. 


 The Shuar, like many indigenous peoples the world over, recognise that now is the time of the great mixing. A return to indigenous mythology, sacred use of the plant medicines, and the formation of one human community - tolerant conscientious powerful and sexy - is the story of our era. Who will our Etzas' be? What symbologies and new thought forms will be the tobacco for our current global situation? What universal landscapes will open from this mixing? 


 As I became, throughout my stay in Ecuador, increasingly frustrated with the shape and contour of Euro-Indigenous mixing, it is the use of tobacco which grounded me. The depth of lies we have been sold by our cultural conditioners is immense. Like the vilification of the serpent or the wolf, the sacredness of tobacco has been contaminated with chemicals and tars. I will be planting tobacco in my garden in the coming weeks....may the deva of the baccy be my companion now, as it was in Ecuador. *In Love*

Abuelita

Hello. I write this from Quito, the capital city. We are here for several days on our way out of Ecuador. What an amazing journey this has been! The deep deep healing for myself, my children, and my family line is worth about 10 years in therapy and I am so incredibly thankful for it. Then the visions, so astounding in their embodied colour and vibration and light, so rich in organising this life's purpose, so enormous in seeing the dreams of our new earth! It will take some time to integrate and share them - poco a poco - little by little they will bubble forth from the interior. Two of the lessons I would like to share tonight.

volcano goddess Pele Honu

The first is that of the love of the father. Miguel, in his teachings during ceremony, spoke often of the love of the father. Ayahuasca is known by many names including Natem and the vine of death, and it is also known as the father. We have many ideas about fathers, and what a fathers love can or should be, which vary widely culturally. In our present time many people also refer to concepts of god as a heavenly father. And for my little family father issues have been huge of late. With the passing of my dad 1.5 years ago and the reorganisation of my marital status 2 years ago we've had alot of soil to till so that fresh seeds could be planted. My father was not the most present nor the most kind person in my younger years, and it was in his later life when he came into his own deep healing and sought to change the inheritance he left his children. He became terminally ill in 2002 and this was his ultimate salvation. Freed from work and other responsibilities he began to volunteer in the community and set portions of his life enrgetically right. This included work memorialising fallen Vietnam soldiers and deepening his relationship to his faith through taking an active role in his church. It was also at this time that he began to meditate, going on long deep personal journeys, and to speak on the power of forgiveness. Involved in my own upheaval and managing two young children, I didn't have the space to listen to him deeply then, but I did take note. And now, today, I begin to understand his late obsession with forgiveness.

When we have gratitude for the life we have been given all that was once seen as negative becomes a blessing. Gratitude is the alchemical intervention which shifts us out of the script we were handed and allows us to take full responsibility for our lives-thus becoming co creators. We see that our very own soul has been guiding us all along. The love of the father is a gift of thankfulness which both protects and strengthens us so we may live in freedom. As my own children now begin to address their own concerns with their father the best gift I can give them is to be thankful for their lives, their curiosity, their incredible resilience and love. As I become the mother-father figure I am called to be I find the strength of all my fathers, both mortal and spiritual, there to lift me up, to raise me on eagle's wings so that the curses of generations past become blessings for generations now onward. In my recent jungle quest I find the father to be a steady speaker of truth, a giver of wisdom and grace, and a massive hug from every direction. It's not as cozy as a mothers nurturance, yet in this love I can stand up tall and do everything I need to do.

Andean women

The second lesson is the love of the mother. Here in the jungle I experience her and I become abuelita. Abuelita is the one who looks sideways down..faceless..without ego. She is the one walks out of the picture frame with flowing grace..who holds baskets of fruits and vegetables while quietly singing to the mountains. She has seen the horrors and the wonders of the world dancing together in harmony, and she surrenders. Like the great she who is Latin America, she gives an enormous amount of abundance and passion, and she expects an honest heart in return. She will not save you from life's pain, she will ask rather that you let it wash through you, adding a deeper resonance to the song which is your being. She will want to hear your song with all her heart and will quietly wait for the day in which it springs from your heart unique and fully formed. She accepts nothing nothing less than your authenticity shrouded in a shawl of humble glory. She embodies peace.

In my journeys with abuelita this summer here in Ecuador I lay down by the river and weep. I sing out a strange pentatonic song and find that it becomes the chorus of angels. I let go of my own bones and become a vessel of earth, a vase upon a spinning wheel painted with quiet power and the bright colours of earths people at work and play. After a long while in stillness, I dance through my new bones, she dances me.

an abuelita

May the love of the mother-father fill your lungs with grace, your feet with assurance, and your eyes with clarity. I wish this blessing for each one of you, for this life which is me, and for my children. I wish this blessing for all beings on the planet. Inside such a structure - peace and happiness have room to play. Thus is beauty born.

(posted-sent from my beautiful hostel via cellular phone.) Xx

Bohemia

Jan 30th

We are back at Miras now.  There is a whole group of us visiting him at this moment!  We are from London, Prague, Bulgaria, Spain.  We are here for the medicine.  And the medicine, it is strong and sweet and powerful at once.  What a community!  We spend our days working on the house, managing laundry and children and cooking, and being in stillness.  We often take time for our practices.  For me, that is the mix of chi kung, deep stretch, ballet, hip hop, and contemporary I am currently enthralled with.  This week I hope to start whirling again, generating currents that will help bridge the space and peace of this place into my life in the UK.  We sometimes draw pictures, do beading, drink mate, dance silliness, or watch films screened on a canvas drawn tight between bamboo poles.  The men hike way up into the forest to gather baca (palm leaves) for the roof.  A couple of times the children and I have hiked part way, enjoying the canopy, and then come back when they are tired.  There is a waterfall I can see as I sit here and write, a beautiful cascade cutting through the hillside with curvilinear simplicity.  Here are some photos of the life.

Finji practising Tai Chi

Dushar tying up baca leaves

Hannah flowing with her Padmapani dance

Roman practising Sacred Geometry

Here we dream the visions for our lives.  Staying anywhere from  one to three months, we return with new dreams, dreams free of the ego.  We return as servants to divinity, to live our lives alongside jaguar, serpent, eagle, and condor.  Roman and Snowflake have decided to move here and are looking for land.  Centres and more centres of peace and love and fire, connected internationally, in a family kind of way. 

life is beautiful!

Friendship is a beautiful thing, may it grow in beauty for all time.  *love*

Hummingbirds

Jan 30th


In the mornings of the natem ceremonies we were sometimes asked to share our experiences.  With experiences so rich, so deep in their cleansing, so powerfully visual and visceral, how does one even begin to speak?  Thus enters symbolism and archetypes.  The human journey is mythical, we are all the creators of our lives, of this shared life on the planet - in the cosmos -.  Story upon story has been written, we are the gods of Olympus, of Ephesus, the oracles of Delphi.  We are the ones walking the road to Santiago, sitting in the temples of the sky.  We spin the wheels of fortune, zoom through stardust, rock babies, harvest vegetables, dream, laugh, sing, cry, and make love.  On the first morning I was asked to share, the story that came forth went something like this:

Once there was a family, who lived in the garden of eden.  
The feel of the wind against their cheeks, the sun on their bones, the water as if fell from the sky, and the colour of the world around them was so beautiful that it hurt like a knife.  They walked in harmony and trust-love, practising fearlessness, dreaming.  
Then one of the people began to feel that they were better than another.  They hurt one of themselves, and a surge of power rushed through them.  Mistaking this power for courage and strength, they hurt again, and again.  Thus a cycle of hurt and pain was established that has carried through time.  
This family is now healing the wounds of that hurt, purging the pain and violence.  They can correct the misunderstanding, they can dream a new way through love.  The power of the heart, our glorious inner fire, can generate in every action kindness strength and understanding.  
This is how we fly in the light of beauty, this is how we become the hummingbirds.

There is a wonderful book that speaks simply and clearly about the archetypal portion of the ayahuasca journey.  The Four Insights: Wisdom, Power, and Grace of the Earthkeepeers by Alberto Villoldo.  I highly recommend it.  ~with love~

Happiness

This was a week ago, whatever day that was, and this was the happiest day of my life.  The natem ceremonies had ended, the great purging felt so good, the fresh subtle sweet space in my body was intoxicating (it still is actually).  The sun was shining, and we were in the most heavenly landscape you could ever imagine!

paradise

Butterflies softly caressed my skin with the breezes of their fluttering wings, filtered light through banana trees washed my face as I stood knee deep in the small eddies of the river, children laughed and slid down slippery rocks into the water, we painted hearts and animals on rocks with other rocks that write.  Later, I danced and danced with my pink scarf there on the open hills, surrounded by people full of love.  We ate mandarins off the trees.  We smiled.  Men chopped down the overgrowth and women harvested pineapples.  It is truly a beautiful life, a life imbued with peace and whimsy and faerys.  We are the faerys, in harmony with heaven.

in the waterfalls

Mathias, Tsunki, and Aurora sliding down rocks

Tsunki does a cannonball

We had travelled an hour in the back of a pickup truck packed with fresh chickens, chica, gardening tools, pots and pans, boxes of supplies for the community centre, and laughter.  We then hiked at least 2 miles, maybe more, to clearing in the jungle.  Once there the women defeathered the chickens, gathered water, dug up yucca roots, chopped down plantains, and built the fires.  We hung about for an hour or more while chicken soup (with the head and feet and everything in it) boiled on the open flame.  Rice and yucca and plantain had their turn on the fires too, and in the embers were seeds and fruits wrapped in banana leaves.  Once ready, we all sat down to the table with more banana leaves as our tablecloth.  Plantain, yucca, and salt were laid straight onto the leaves, bowls of soup and rice were handed out, and hardly anybody used a spoon.  Later the seeds and fruit were served, and we spit the seeds onto the floor and licked the juice off our hands.  We then smoked cigarettes and made jokes, and even though I didn't understand a word as it was all Quechua, I laughed just to be laughing.  

the table is being set

Every Sunday dinner should be so charming!  My neighbours back in the UK will be talking I'm sure ;).  xX

Cooking

20th Jan 2012

Well here we are, its 2012, and where is the apocalypse?  Hehe  it's inside of us sillies.  And so is new earth.  All that goodness, all that darkness, it's boiling in the same cauldron, the one stewing on the fire of our hearts.  

Natem Cooking

During our semazen training, to become whirling dervishes, we are referred to as chickpeas.  We are boiled, smashed, beaten, refined, and smoothed into a delicious puree.  In short, we are cooked.  Rumi has a long refrain about the chickpea in the Mathnavi, the sacred text of the Mevlevi, in which he says many things to the chickpea…they are poetically beautiful to ease one into the toughness of the message, which is to let yourself be beaten, smoothed out, refined, and to not complain.  This of course does not refer to subjugating oneself to unloving manifestations, it is esoteric conversation and it can be found in many religious traditions.  It refers to unwrinkling the ego.  When the ego goes, poof, so does the comfort of boundedness which lets one know what is real and what is not.  I experienced this in my training, the disintegration, the annihilation, of every thought form which created me.  I felt death lurking about, at times I even smelled it, tasted it.  And that was unreal.  And very real at the same time.  And the new life which was created out of this annihilation is something beeeauuutifuuul.  mhm.  

Then Rumi also writes, "I have beaten you from one direction to the other, yet why do you complain?  I have given you two wings to fly, not one."   Perhaps we are given thousands of wings.  Ceremonies, plant medicines, dances, songs, endless potentialities for creation.  We, the feathered ones, the winged parrots of paradise, simply walk about with our beautiful shining wings.  We choose from the thousands of feathers and our colours are blended, the patterns of our wings designed in situ.  Sometimes, in moments of bright stillness like today, we see the wings of our friends fluttering about them as they walk, we see the blended hues of those faraway in visions which dance upon the sunbeams and the mists, we catch a glimpse of our own cacophony as it is unfurled in the reflections of those around us.  What a glorious day!  

and, while i hate to inflict more bad poetry upon you, it seems to be the way of the embodied ethnologist.  a significant part of the ayahuasca process, experientially, goes something like this:

The heart of the earth, she is me

The heart of the cosmos, he is me

The heart of los plantas, they are me

The heart of humanity, it is me

beating drumming stamping out 

~our song~

can you hear it?

that joyous cacophony?

inside out now

you are me

hearing that sound

for i am 

with you

trippin' our hearts diamonds

turning upside down now

funnels of love

deliciously cooking ;-)

Women's group at the waterfall

preparing the natem

We are the medicine.  We are the natem cooking.

Ohm Selam Buenos Tardes Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu de Alim 4eva eva...

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