CONQUER. There's a word you don't come across often nowadays.
It's a very disgusting word, that FILLS human history, and means:
"overcome and take control of (a place or people) by use of military force"
Conquer the BUILDING BLOCKS of a civilization --
such as its sense of Time, Language and Culture --
and that civilization is conquered.
The words with which I write, the slave-seconds
within I write them, and the culture that wraps them both,
are all deeply influenced by the most aggressive among us.
Because it is in their violent, dominating, over-ruling tracks that we tread.
But there is a living tribe of pre-Hispanic Indians in Latin America who were NOT conquered by Europeans.
They successfully resisted Spanish colonization,
and I desire to be indomitable, like them.
I observe that they maintain their connection with the naturalness of time,
the purity of their unbroken tongue, and the strength of their undiluted culture.
Their books can't be burned, because they are sung.
And even the most souless and wretched, have not yet discovered
how to burn songs that come from fire to begin with.
What would it look like to work out your own terms
for Time, Language, and Culture?
If it seems impossible to remove yourself from those established ways,
how can you seize more freedom, within those established systems?
For many of us, being digitally self-employed is a massive first step.
I have much more to say about this in future posts.
This past weekend I participated in a ceremony of healing
with Kauyumari, the Blue Deer.
The ceremony was guided by the Marakame (shaman or medicine man)
Antonio Carrillo López from San José de Cohamiata, Sierra de Jalisco, Mexico.
The Marakame Gave Me My Huichol Name
Q: "Guardian of WHAT place," I asked?
A: "Whichever place you are," I was told.
Together, we all ate Hikuri (visionary peyote cactus)...
...and gathered around Tatewari (Grandfather fire).
I gazed deep into the flames, and learned directly from their dancing colors.
I arched my back, looked up, and learned directly from the stars that throbbed
like a living grid of light, against black matte velvet. Transfixed. Nature knows and shows all.
From The Shamanic Wisdom Of The Huichol: Medicine Teachings For Modern Times, By Tom Pinkson, Ph.D.
The shamanic wisdom of the Huichol provides time-tested methods for opening the mind to a wider range of awareness than the materialistic-based understanding of the West. It offers an understanding of health and well-being based on ‘finding your life’ through an archetypal vision quest premised on the belief that you are a sacred being, not here by accident but with a sacred purpose to find your heart path as well as the power to walk it all the days of your life…Huichol shamans keep the channels of communication open to the spirit world by working reverently with Tatewari who reminds us that we are luminous beings with love at the core of our being.
The LANGUAGE and CULTURE of Huichol Indians is Wixárika
...which almost has my birth name in it.
Deer was my first power animal, revealed through a Bible scripture:
As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. (Psalm 42:1)
I later chose deer skin (and cedar wood), for the first hoop drum I made,
from a kit. For years, its deep bass reverberated strength to my heart.
And now, I have connected with Blue Deer, a sacred totemic animal for the Huichol.
