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...