Month: May 2006

Todays Entry is so large I have had to break it up in 2 parts, this being part one…

On this entrys’ grill

Daniel Pinchbeck: ’2012 : The Return Of Quetzalcoatl’

A Story: Titlacauan Tempts Quetzalcoatl

Mayan Poetry for Quetzalcoatl

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This book seems to be generating some stir:Book of Daniel

Daniel Pinchbeck: ’2012 : The Return Of Quetzalcoatl’ Chapter One

In the popular culture of our secular age, the gods, demigods, fairies, and gnomes of the old mythic realm have returned as extraterrestrials. Our mingled longing for and dread of contact with some unknown consciousness or superior alien race has been reflected in a century’s worth of books, films, television, and radio plays. I grew up on Star Trek, The Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, ET, and 2001, on Ursula K. Le Guin and Kurt Vonnegut and Stanislaw Lem—as an adolescent, I loved the Silver Surfer and Orson Welles’s The War of the Worlds. The pleasure of these artifacts was in the possibilities they threw out, like so many sparks. They returned the cosmos to a capacious state of “what-if?” that our mechanistic science seemed to deny. The exploration of fictional worlds is a kind of dreaming while awake; the complex ecosystem of the cultural imagination may also have a protective function. Through such stories, we absorb ideas in sidereal fashion, perhaps readying ourselves, on some subliminal level, for future shock of various stripes, before it arrives.

After I finished my article on the crop circles, the images, and their implicit intent, continued to linger in my mind. I was perplexed by the rectangular Arecibo Response formation, dismissed by current SETI astronomer Seth Shostak as a “nice example of grain graffiti,” unworthy of further investigation. I was equally confounded by the “Face” that had appeared in halftones on the date of my daughter’s birth. Whether accident or synchronicity, this correspondence seemed like a personal invitation to visit what the writer Robert Anton Wilson dubbed “Chapel Perilous,” that vortex where cosmological speculations, coincidences, and paranoia seem to multiply and then collapse, compelling belief or lunacy, wisdom or agnosticism.

Considering the scientific evidence, gathered by Eltjo Haselhof and others, suggesting the phenomenon had some mysterious legitimacy, as well as the many personal accounts I absorbed while doing my research, SETI’s blithe dismissal of the Arecibo Response glyph, a direct response to a message beamed into space by SETI in 1974, seemed flat and unreflective. Shostak insisted that an alien civilization would not communicate in such a manner when they could simply leave an Encyclopedia Galactica on our doorstep. But how could we determine the means that an alien civilization might use to communicate? He was perhaps recalling the Fermi Paradox, which noted that any technologically evolved civilization on a nearby star system should have emitted radio waves during its development that our sensors would have picked up. The physicist Enrico Fermi asked, in the absence of these signals, “Where are they?” But the answer might lie beyond the limits of our present knowledge.

The SETI astronomer pointed out that the original Arecibo greeting was sent out to the M13 star cluster, over twenty thousand light-years away, and it therefore made no sense that it could have been answered already. It seemed equally logical to theorize that whoever—whatever—had crafted the reply knew about the original message as soon as it was sent, that they might have observed activities on our planet for a very long time. But even if one could imagine an advanced species watching the Earth, awaiting the proper moment to reveal itself to us, the Arecibo Response still made little sense. Who was meant to receive the transmission? And what were they—or we—supposed to do with it?

Small, big-headed figures with silicon added to their makeup and an extra strand of DNA, as depicted in the Arecibo Response, suggested the peculiar narrative, or evolving postmodern myth, of the Gray aliens. Over the last decades, the Grays infiltrated the global subconscious, through best-selling books such as Whitley Streiber’s 1987 Communion, the TV miniseries Taken, and T-shirts, plastic figurines, cartoons, and other mass-cult detritus based on accounts of abduction. I had never paid more than a glancing attention to the UFO phenomenon or to alien abduction accounts—it seemed like some hysterical symptom of our cultural malaise, adolescent and turgid, overliteral, and deeply disreputable. The notion that three-and-a-half-foot-tall cardboard-colored aliens made nightly invasions of middle-class bedrooms across the United States and the world to insert rectal probes and take sperm samples did not seem plausible, or the type of behavior one would anticipate from a futuristic civilization.

And yet, much like the surprisingly tangible evidence on crop circles, the accumulated data on UFO sightings and alien abductions reveals jarring levels of complexity and downright weirdness that do not allow for a blanket rejection of the phenomenon. Harvard psychiatrist John Mack, author of a Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of T. E. Lawrence, dedicated the last decades of his life to studying the psychological phenomenon of adbuction by “the visitors,” as Whitley Streiber called them. Considering the data gathered by a 1991 Roper poll, Mack thought it conceivable that as many as three million Americans had undergone an abduction experience. His study of abductees led him to conclude that the phenomenon had validity beyond any psychological mechanism: “There have been numerous psychological studies of these individuals; none has discovered any psychopathology in great degree that could account for the experience.” In many cases, abductees “have been witnessed by their relatives to not be present during that time. They are physically gone, and families become very distressed. . . . One of the things most difficult to accept is that this can actually have a literal factual basis. . . . Abductees may wake up with unexplained cuts, scoop marks, or bleeding noses.” Mack optimistically proposed that these experiences had some sort of therapeutic value.

The narrative of contact between modern culture and the UFOs has developed over a long period, beginning with mass sightings of mysterious “air ships,” like souped-up blimps, in the late nineteenth century. After World War II, accounts of flying saucers became rampant. “Between 1947 and the dawn of the age of abductees in the 1970s, there were at least six major UFO sighting waves,” writes Brenda Denzler in The Lure of the Edge: Scientific Passions, Religious Beliefs, and the Pursuit of UFOs. Each wave produced thousands of eyewitness accounts. Sometimes picked up by radar, the UFOs would execute impossible aeronautical feats, hovering, plunging, zigzagging, skipping across water, suddenly disappearing.

On July 8, 1947, the Air Force intelligence office on Roswell Army Base in Roswell, New Mexico, announced the recovery of a crashed “flying disc” in a press release published in the San Francisco Chronicle, among other places. “The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday,” the release began. The military retracted the information on the following day, explaining that the disc recovered by two intelligence agents turned out to be, upon further inspection, a weather balloon. Since that time, an entire industry of conspiracy theories has developed—books and films propounding government cover-ups, secret deals made with the aliens, issuing from that peculiar incident, and a few others like it.

During the 1950s, witnesses reported seeing saucers that had landed or crashed, with small, silver-suited humanoids standing around or working on them. Sometimes, these humanoid “aliens” would wave at the bystanders. Abduction accounts began to surface in the 1960s. The first famous report—that of Barney and Betty Hill, an interracial New Hampshire couple, whose abduction memories were recovered through hypnosis and published in Look magazine in 1966—established the template followed by the vast body of the tens of thousands of accounts logged since then. The “salient features,” according to Denzler, include “missing time, physical examination while on board the UFO, a tour of the ship, conversation with the aliens, and the use of hypnotic regression to recover lost memories.”

UFOlogist Jacques Vallee links alien abductions to ancient folktales in which humans trespassed or were cajoled into the realm of the fairy folk. Putting the episodes in the same category as Patrick Harpur’s “daimonic reality,” he sees them belonging to “the domain of the in-between, the unproven, and the unprovable, . . . the country of paradoxes, strangely furnished with material ‘proofs,’ sometimes seemingly unimpeachable, but always ultimately insufficient. . . . This absolutely confusing (and manifestly misleading) aspect . . . may well be the phenomenon’s most basic characteristic.” The visitors usually appear at night when the abductee is sleeping, often paralyzing them and then floating them out of their bed and onto a ship, where rapid, confusing, painful, and often repugnant events transpire.

Once selected, abductees tend to be picked up and tormented by the Grays again and again—and hypnosis often reveals that these contacts go back to early childhood. The visitors communicate telepathically, their tiny mouth slits and large black eyes never moving. They seem lacking in affect—although some abductees find them afraid or sad or amused at certain moments—and are puzzled yet fascinated by human emotional reactions. Their behavior is consistently bizarre and unpleasant, as if their actions represent a kind of mangled syntax, their true intentions concealed or distorted in some way. To take one of many examples, at the end of an abduction, the visitors exhorted one abductee, over and over again, to “eat only cow things.” In another account, a male Gray paraded in front of its victim wearing her high-heeled shoes. Another abductee described a group of “small Grays” (they come in different sizes) gathered around a Christmas gift they had found in her car, opening and clumsily rewrapping it. Their hectic movements and the seemingly senseless operations they perform give the visitors an odd, fugitive quality, somehow out of sync, like figures from an old silent movie.

For the abductees, the most prevalent emotional response is one of extreme terror and violation—although some abductees, in what might be an extradimensional version of Stockholm Syndrome, come to believe in and trust their visitors, overcoming their initial reactions of horror. They convince themselves they are in league with the visitors—or were (or are) Grays in another life. They accept the claims sometimes made by the visitors, that they are here to salvage humanity and the planet from our destructive mania. Abductees often report rapes and procedures where small BB-sized implants are painfully deposited under their skin, deep up their nose or their rectum. In some cases, these implants have been retrieved and analyzed in laboratories—but they are of indeterminate origin and inconclusive proof of anything otherworldly.

In 1981, the abductions were declared an “invisible epidemic” by researcher Budd Hopkins, author of Missing Time. In the 1980s, Hopkins and other researchers noted the prevalence of reports describing the removal of eggs or sperm, and the compiled accounts began to suggest that the Grays were engaged in a massive “hybrid” human-alien breeding program. In dozens of reports, women are abducted, gynecological procedures performed, and then, back in their normal lives, they test positive for pregnancy. A few weeks later, their mysterious pregnancy disappears. Under hypnosis, they would recollect an intervening abduction and the removal of a tiny fetus. In future abductions—as revealed under hypnosis—the women would be shown developing fetuses, babies, or children and told that these were their hybrid offspring. A sordid ambience of accusation and guilt clings to these memories. In several accounts, abductees trying to escape from the tortures or experiments the Grays had designed for them were told by their captors: “Don’t you remember? You agreed to this.” As his captors inserted a needle into his brain, Streiber shouted, “You have no right to do this.” The visitors answered calmly, “We do have a right.”

The abductions have the ambience of intensely lucid nightmares, and some researchers suspect they are hypnagogic, chaotic, or nonlinear events that the experiencers reorganize into a more logical narrative afterward. To a certain extent, hypnotherapists may help shape the abduction narratives through subtle cues. Yet the similarity of encounters reported on different continents, the identical details picked up again and again, in thousands of reports from credible and often reluctant subjects around the world, suggest, at the very least, that something is happening that cannot be reduced to current categories of psychology, or fit into accepted frameworks of meaning. As John Mack noted, “What characterizes the abduction experience is that it is physically real and it enters the physical world, but it is also transpersonal and subjective. It crosses that barrier between the hard-edged physical world and the spirit/transpersonal world.”

Although perfectly willing to concede his experiences could represent something other than alien contact, Whitley Streiber wrote: “If it is an experience of something else, then I warn you: This ‘something else’ is a power within us, maybe some central power of the soul, and we had best try to understand it before it overcomes objective efforts to control it.”

In Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind (1995), an intelligent and honestly astonished account of the abduction phenomenon, New Yorker contributor C. D. B. Bryan crafted a physical portrait of the visitors, exploring their many anomalies. “The aliens’ bodies are flat, paunchless. Their chests are not bifurcated; they have no nipples. Nor does the chest swell or diminish with breathing,” he wrote. Culling from reports and his own research, he found, “The lower part of their anatomy does not contain any stomach pouch or genitals; it just comes to an end. . . . The Small Gray’s body appears frail, with thin limbs and no musculature or bone structure.” Some researchers assume they are less like biological organisms than machines, powered in some way we cannot comprehend, as they do not seem to eat, drink, or excrete. Nor do they have a slot for inserting batteries. Incongruous details abound: In Britain, the Grays are associated with the odor of cinnamon; in the United States, their smell is of ammonia, almonds, and lemon.

Bryan’s book offered no coherent thesis to explain the phenomenon. More alarming and pointed in his conclusions than Bryan was David Jacobs in The Threat: Revealing the Secret Alien Agenda (1999). A hypnotherapist and professor of history at Temple University, Jacobs believes that he has, after years of work, distilled a completely logical and entirely horrifying picture of what the Grays are doing and planning—and he is disconsolate over it. He describes the breeding program, including haunting details from abductee accounts.

Captured humans are often brought to play with the children of the visitors, who are described as melancholy and lethargic. The Gray children play with blocks, similar to the blocks used by human children. But the alien blocks do not have letters or numbers on them—instead, they emit different emotions when they are turned. Since they seem to be telepathic, the visitors have no need to learn spelling or counting. The toys seem to indicate, instead, that they are trying to learn how to feel. Could it be that this yearning for affect is one reason the visitors seek human contact? Does it indicate something of their intent?

“I can discern a visible agenda of contact in what is happening,” Streiber wrote in Communion. “Over the past forty or so years their involvement with us has not only been deepening, it has been spreading rapidly through the society. At least, this is how things appear. The truth may be that it is not their involvement that is increasing, but our perception that is becoming sharper.” Even the difficulties of retrieving memories of these experiences could be part of a process in which the visitors are slowly acclimatizing us to their existence, Streiber speculates.

During the encounters uncovered in Jacobs’s hypnotherapy sessions, abductees are often shown images, like propaganda films, of an apocalyptic event—nuclear war or sudden climate change—followed by clips of hybrid human-aliens walking arm in arm across a transformed earth, the sun shining down on them peacefully. The Grays state that their breeding program will repopulate the earth after the approaching cataclysm that makes the planet uninhabitable for our type of life. The alien agenda, Jacobs believes, has three stages—“gradual, accelerated, and sudden.” We are currently in the accelerated phase. Under hypnosis, abductees report being trained to operate the Grays’ saucers, and to help herd masses of people, like frightened sheep, into them, when the moment is right for the “sudden” phase.

Jacobs hypothesizes that the visitors’ frequently nonsensical and bizarre behavior is a way of covering their direct intent. Like cunning cartoon villains, the visitors have used our own propensity for disbelief to render us defenseless to their agenda: the incipient takeover of the earth. One abductee reports, “After The Change, there will be only one form of government: The insectile aliens will be in complete control. There will be no necessity to continue national governments. There will be ‘one system’ and ‘one goal.’” Jacobs ends on a note of dread: “We now know the alarming dimensions of the alien agenda and its goals. . . . I do not think about the future with much hope. When I was a child, I had a future with much hope. . . . Now I fear for the future of my own children.”

I found something wearying—not just foggy but almost smutty—about studying the abduction accounts. Almost from the first moment of pursuing it, it was as if a veil was falling down over my mind and my senses. Whether projections of our own mind or literal entities or both, the Grays call to us from a feverish twilit world of shades of grayness without clear definition. The path to understanding what may or may not be known about them by the government leads to an opaque barrier of reports of unverifiable authenticity, military and CIA panels with names like “Project Grudge,” “The Robertson Panel,” “Project Blue Book,” and “Majestic 12,” a plausible yet unreal history of covert operations, secret underground bases, cattle mutilations, alien crashes, possibly paranoiac accounts of former military personnel, and disinformation campaigns. The endless mass-market books on the subject include, inevitably, black-and-white photographs of disc-shaped objects and blurry streaks that look entirely unconvincing and somehow antiquated—a kind of 1930s idea of what a futuristic technology might look like.

But what if there was a literal truth to David Jacobs’s narrative? Was it possible that the Grays, as horrible as they sounded—as disreputable, somehow, as the entire enterprise seemed—were actually orchestrating an imminent evolutionary shift for the hapless human species?

Reading scores of abduction accounts, I felt a pitiful sense of helplessness against this telepathic, sorcerous, affectless enemy—“the bugs,” as many abductees call them. I thought about my disappointment with the human race, seemingly hurtling toward ecological collapse and nuclear disaster, unable to control our worst impulses. Was this all part of a process, to create the forced conditions for a transformation that would, indeed, be apocalyptic at a very deep level? And if this might be the case, then what would be our best response to “The Threat,” as Jacobs called it? Should we try to resist the visitors? Should we surrender to their morbid mastery? But then, why was there something so laboriously theatrical, tacky, and fraudulent about all of it?

In June 2002, I went with my partner and our baby to the opening of the Documenta11 exhibition, in the West German town of Kassel. As a journalist writing about art, I had always hoped to visit this exhibit, which takes place every five years. I associated Documenta with the hard-core cool of the conceptual art of the early 1970s, with the German conceptual artist Joseph Beuys, known for his neo-shamanic self-mythologizing and iconic displays of iron plates, felt, and fat. Unfortunately, by the time I finally managed to attend, my mind was filled with other, stranger matters.

We stayed at a hotel in the Wilhelmshöhe Bergpark, across the road from the city’s baroque castle. The castle had beautiful gardens, old gnarled trees, and a towering stone monument of Hercules clad in a lion skin at the end of a long reflective pool and fountain. The Brothers Grimm had lived near the park, and their house was a local attraction. During the day, we toured the exhibition halls spread across the city, in old factory buildings, breweries, and railway stations. Organized by Okwui Enwezor, a Nigerian curator, the exhibit was starkly political. It featured numerous Third World artists, and minority artists from the West. Many works addressed the destructive excesses of globalization, allegorically or directly. One film documented the bleak, monotonous lives of South African diamond miners, in bunkers and tunnels deep under the Earth. Sculptures mocked the modernist visions of utopia, parodied colonialism’s slave-driven delusions of grandeur. The exhibit was angry, inspiring—a post-Marxist assault on global imperialism.

In the hypersophisticated ambience of Documenta11’s numerous receptions and parties, standing amidst espresso-drinking aesthetes and stylish art dealers chattering in various Romance languages about museum shows and beach resorts and the latest art world gossip, I found myself thinking incessantly about the abduction saga, the postmodern myth of the visitors. Were these glamorous and well-heeled aesthetes soon to be fodder for an orchestrated alien takeover, doomed to explain Neo-Conceptualism and Post-Pop to short, affectless, hyperdimensional invaders?

One night, after a long day of art-going under the pouring rain in Kassel, I had a vivid dream about the visitors. In the dream, I went with two friends to meet one of the “Gray Alien” commanders in an Upper West Side lobby. The alien resembled a Chinese woman. She wore a red silk dress, had large almond-shaped eyes, and four fingers on each hand. She spoke as if we were going to make some kind of deal.

“It’s going to be great for you when we take over your planet,” she told me. “We can’t wait to help you. We want to show you around the galaxy.” She called for her assistants. They were hunchbacks with bulbous features, resembling medieval trolls. They put my two friends on their backs and gave them piggyback rides. The alien commander pointed upward, where cheap tinsel stars and planets were stuck on the lobby’s domed ceiling. She acted as if this were an impressive sight, and my friends did seem impressed. I was disappointed: Was this all they had to show us?

Confused, I left the lobby and went, alone, to a crowded, seedy nightclub where a long-haired weirdo came up to me with his girlfriend. They were “hybrid” human-aliens. The man laughed and put one of his four fingers deep into my mouth. Immediately, in the dream, I turned around and put my finger just as far into his girlfriend’s mouth. Then we all laughed about this almost obscene exchange.

I awoke from the dream and recalled the details before reaching for my notebook—over the last years, while exploring shamanism, I had developed disciplined habits of dream recollection. Wide awake, I reflected on the dream’s particular seamy, swampy ambience. Before I started to write it down, my partner, in deep sleep, suddenly sat up and leaned toward me. She opened my mouth with one hand. She brought her other hand to my face, and put one of her fingers into my mouth.

Startled, I woke her immediately. But she remembered nothing of it—or what she had been dreaming.

Later, I learned that the area around Kassel—an ancient area similar in some ways to the stone-circle-studded landscape of Wessex in England—is the center of German crop circle activity. Several new formations appeared in local fields on the weekend that we were there.

The doors of Chapel Perilous swung open to welcome me inside.

If you are interested in this book, you can order it here:

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Titlacauan Tempts Quetzalcoatl

Because of the Toltec’s great fortune, other gods became jealous of Quetzalcoatl’s success. However, after a time, the people of this land became slothful. They had so many large fruits and vegetables that they tossed away the smaller ones, in waste. They grew so easily that they had to work less as the land was fertile. Their paradise made them soft.

Three demons decided to ruin this paradise at Tula. They were called Uitzilopichti, Titlacauan, and Tlacauepan.

The demon called Titlacauan decided he would turn himself into a weak, little old man. No one notices an old man. He made himself pitiful and bent over, and he walked with a limp. He decided to travel to Tula to meet Quetzalcoatl, the pure. When he arrived at Tula, it was said that Quetzalcoatl was sick. No one could offer him relief. This set Titlacauan’s mind to plotting a trick.

The old man walked aimlessly around Tula so that people would notice his presence. His long white hair and his pitiful way of walking made the villagers feel sorry for him and many helped him from time to time. One day, one of the temple workers saw the man and asked if he could assist. The old man told him he wished to meet their great leader, Quetzalcoatl.

The man told his lord about the man, but cautioned him about the intent of a stranger. His men thought it could be an evil trap. However, Quetzalcoatl was a good man and wished to help the old man. Upon seeing Quetzalcoatl, the old man called him “grandson” and offered him a healing tonic. A potion he said he made for himself for his weary bones.

Quetzalcoatl offered the man his hospitality, but refused his potion. Quetzalcoatl then said he was tired and wished to rest. The old man again told him that his potion was miraculously soothing and intoxicating.

Quetzalcoatl refused it again, saying that he needed to keep his mind clear.

The old man tried to tempt Quetzalcoatl by saying: “There is another old man who can testify to the greatness of this elixir. He gave me his formula. You can be strong like you were in your youth. You can get it from him if you like. He lives in Tollan.”

“I have done poorly since I have saved this for you alone, I can make more and restore myself, but I thought that you would appreciate its power. Let me know and I will give its secret to your people, ” the old man promised. Quetzalcoatl said he was too weak to travel.

The old man told Quetzalcoatl a few days later: “Drink this potion and be of good cheer! You look very sick, this will help you feel better.”

Again Quetzalcoatl refused.

The old man/Titlacauan was getting angry now. Why can’t I get him to drink this? he thought. I have used every form of flattery and sympathy on this man. Then he had a new idea. The old man then asked: “Why don’t you just take a sip? If you don’t like it I will understand and I won’t bother you again.”

Quetzalcoatl didn’t want to insult the man anymore, so he took a sip, just to get him off the idea.

“Hmmm,” Quetzalcoatl smiled, “This is very pleasant.” With that he downed the rest of the brew. Quetzalcoatl then felt relieved of his ailment. He felt no pain.

The old man said he had more of the tonic in his knapsack. He again, offered it to Quetzalcoatl saying: “It will give your body strength, it won’t hurt you, it can only help.”

After drinking the second batch of the elixir, Quetzalcoatl felt very odd. The liquid was soothingly warm and medicinal tasting. A feeling he never had felt before. Then he noticed his balance and vision were altered.

“What was that elixir made of?” Quetzalcoatl questioned.

The old man gave a toothy grin and said it was made from a local cactus juice.

Quetzalcoatl began to weep, now realizing that he had been tricked by the devil. “Why did you trick me?”

The old man told Quetzalcoatl that this was a white wine that fermented in the teometl plant. Titlacauan plotted to give the formula to the entire village.

You see intoxicating drinks were only for sacred occasions, and vision quests, not for everyday. Old men and women were the only ones that were allowed intoxicating drinks for the pain of aging. To drink frivously was frowned upon.

Quetzalcoatl was ashamed. Titlacauan was happy. Now the people of Tula would learn to crave intoxicating drink, which was disguised as a rejuvenator.***

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Poetry for Quetzalcoatl

Yucatan Mayan Prophecy

Eat, eat while there is bread,

Drink, drink, while there is water;

A day comes when dust shall darken the air,

When a blight shall wither the land,

When a cloud shall arise,

When a mountain shall be lifted up,

When a strong man shall seize the city,

When ruin shall fall upon all things,

When the tender leaf shall be destroyed,

When eyes shall be closed in death;

When there shall be three signs on a tree,

Father, son, and grandson hanging dead on the same tree;

When the battle flag shall be raised,

And the people scattered abroad in the forests.

…from the Books of Chilam Balam (sacred book of the Yucatan Maya).

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I think people have a very narrow conception of what is possible with reality, that we’re surrounded by the howling abyss of the unknowable and nobody knows what’s out there.

Terence McKenna

(Ayahuasca Dream – Roberto Venosa)

—————–

Well this is certainly a day for info!

Gwyllm

On The Grill

The Links

Ayahuasca and Human Destiny – Dennis McKenna

The Sacred Hymns of Pachacutec – Ancient Inca Poetry pt2

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The Links:

Subtly Simpsons

Playground pentagram to go: Architect, officials say design wasn’t tied to the occult

Hail Xenu!

The battle over certainty

Scientists make water run uphill

Procession of the Species in Olympia Washington…

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(Thanks to Roberto Venosa for this)

Ayahuasca and Human Destiny – Dennis J. McKenna, Ph.D.

My good friend and colleague, Dr. Charles Grob, has extended a kind invitation to submit a contribution to this special edition of the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, devoted to the topic of ayahuasca, for which he has been selected as guest editor. I’m pleased to be asked and happy to respond, particularly since I have collaborated for many years with Dr. Grob and other colleagues who are represented here, on various aspects of the scientific study of ayahuasca. For most of the last 33 years, ayahuasca has been one of the major preoccupations of my life.

In that time, I have written extensively on the botany, chemistry, and pharmacology of ayahuasca, on its potential therapeutic uses, and on the need for more, and more rigorous, scientific and clinical investigations of this remarkable plant decoction. Working with colleagues such as Dr. Grob, my good friends Jace Callaway and Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna in Finland, my mentor Dr. Neil Towers, my late and beloved brother Terence, Dr. Glaucus de Souza Brito, and others, to investigate the myriad mysteries of ayahuasca, has been as rich and rewarding an experience as any scientist could ever hope for.

Partly as a result of our collective efforts, over the last few decades ayahuasca has become one of the most thoroughly studied of the traditional shamanic plant hallucinogens. We now have a firm understanding of the plant species that are utilized in its preparation, including the diverse pharmacopoeia of ayahuasca admixture plants, a shamanic technology unto itself that begs additional investigation. We understand the chemistry of the active constituents of its primary botanical components, and have better insight into its remarkable synergistic pharmacology.

We have identified potential therapeutic applications for ayahuasca and the role that it may some day find in healing the physical and spiritual wounds of individuals, if it is ever afforded its rightful place in medical practice. Ethnographically, my colleagues and I have made contributions to an understanding of the central role that ayahuasca already has in the context of Amazonian shamanism and ethnomedicine. We have described, and written about, its status as a window into the sacred cosmology of magic, witchcraft, transcendent experience, and healing that permeates and defines the practices of Mestizo ethnomedicine.

The visionary paintings of Peruvian shaman and artist Pablo Amaringo, brought so beautifully to the attention of the world by Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna, has helped to make that tradition accessible to many who would otherwise have seen it (if they were aware of it at all) as alien, exotic, and incomprehensible. To an extent, our work has shed some small light on the more contemporary role of ayahuasca as the sacramental vehicle of syncretic religious movements that originated in Brasil and now are reaching out globally, if incrementally, to embrace a sick and wounded world that desperately yearns for the healing that this mind/body/spirit medicine can offer.

The story of ayahuasca, and our evolving understanding of its place in the world, and of its significance for medicine, pharmacology, ethnobotany, and shamanic studies, is far from over, and in fact, it may have just begun. I would like to believe that is the case. But for the purposes of this contribution, rather than submit yet another dense and lengthy review on the botany, chemistry, pharmacology, &c., of ayahuasca, I have chosen to adopt a broader perspective, and to indulge in some reflections, and speculations on the past and future of ayahuasca of the sort that a scientist, probably mercifully, rarely shares with his colleagues or the larger world.

To those readers who may wish for my more usual nuts-and-bolts approach to the subject, I call attention to my recent review in the journal Pharmacology and Therapeutics (McKenna, 2004). In addition, a complete list of all of “my” publications on ayahuasca is appended to the end of this article; and I use the term “my” advisedly because these publications represent the work and creativity of many people with whom I’ve been privileged to collaborate over the years. They would not exist without them.

On a personal level, ayahuasca has been for me both a scientific and professional continuing carrot, and a plant teacher and guide of incomparable wisdom, compassion, and intelligence. My earliest encounters with ayahuasca were experiential; only later did it become an object of scientific curiosity, sparked in part by a desire to understand the mechanism, the machineries, that might underlie the profound experiences that it elicited.

As a young man just getting started in the field of ethnopharmacology, ayahuasca seemed to me more than worthy of a lifetime of scientific study; and so it has proven to be. Pursuing an understanding of ayahuasca has led to many exotic places that I would never have visited otherwise, from the jungles of the Amazon Basin to the laboratory complexes of the National Institute of Mental Health and Stanford; it has led to the formation of warm friendships and fruitful collaborations with many colleagues who have shared my curiosity about the mysteries of this curious plant complex.

These collaborations, and more importantly, these friendships, continue, as does the quest for understanding. Though there have been detours along the way, always, and inevitably, they have led back to the central quest. Often, after the fact, I have seen how those apparent detours were not so far off the path after all, as they supplied some insight, some skill, or some experience, that in hindsight proved necessary to the furtherance of the quest.

Just as ayahuasca has been for me personally something of a Holy Grail, as it has been for many others, I have the intuition that it may have a similar role with respect to our entire species. Anyone who is personally experienced with ayahuasca is aware that it has much to teach us; there is incredible wisdom and intelligence there. And to my mind, one of the most profound and humbling lessons that ayahuasca teaches – one that we thick-headed humans have the hardest time grasping – is the realization that “you monkeys only think you’re running things.”

Though I state it humorously, here and in other talks and writings, it is nonetheless a profound insight on which may depend the very survival of our species, and our planet. Humans are good at nothing if not hubris, arrogance, and self-delusion. We assume that we dominate nature; that we are somehow separate from, and superior to, nature, even as we set about busily undermining and wrecking the very homeostatic global mechanisms that have kept our earth stable and hospitable to life for the last four and a half billion years. We devastate the rainforests of the world; we are responsible for the greatest loss of habitat and the greatest decimation of species since the asteroid impacts of the Permian-Triassic boundary, 250 million years ago; we rip the guts out of the earth and burn them, spewing toxic chemicals into the atmosphere; at the same time we slash and burn the woody forests that may be the only hope for sequestration of the carbon dioxide that is rapidly building to dangerous and possibly uncontrollable levels. For the first time in the history of our species, and indeed of our planet, we are forced to confront the possibility that thoughtless and unsustainable human activity may be posing a real threat to our species’ survival, and possibly the survival of all life on the planet.

And suddenly, and literally, “out of the Amazon,” one of the most impacted parts of our wounded planet, ayahuasca emerges as an emissary of trans-species sentience, to bring this lesson: You monkeys only think you’re running things. In a wider sense, the import of this lesson is that we need to wake up to what is happening to us and to the planet. We need to get with the program, people. We have become spiritually bereft and have been seduced by the delusion that we are somehow important in the scheme of things. We are not.

Our spiritual institutions have devolved into hollow shells, perverted to the agendas of rapacious governments and fanatic fundamentalisms, no longer capable of providing balm to the wounded spirit of our species; and as the world goes up in flames we benumb ourselves with consumerism and mindless entertainment, the decadent distractions of gadgets and gewgaws, the frantic but ultimately meaningless pursuits of a civilization that has lost its compass. And at this cusp in human history, there emerges a gentle emissary, the conduit to a body of profoundly ancient genetic and evolutionary wisdom that has long abided in the cosmologies of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon who have guarded and protected this knowledge for millennia, who learned long ago that the human role is not to be the master of nature, but its stewards, Our destiny, if we are to survive, is to nurture nature and to learn from it how to nurture ourselves and our fellow beings. This is the lesson that we can learn from ayahuasca, if only we pay attention.

I find it both ironic, and hopeful, that within the last 150 years, and particularly in the last half of the 20th century, ayahuasca has begun to assert its presence into human awareness on a global scale. For millennia it was known only to indigenous peoples who have long since understood and integrated what it has to teach us. In the 19th century it first came to the attention of a wider world as an object of curiosity in the reports of Richard Spruce and other intrepid explorers of the primordial rainforests of South America; in the mid-20th century Schultes and others continued to explore this discovery and began to focus the lens of science on the specifics of its botany, chemistry, and pharmacology (and, while necessary, this narrow scrutiny perhaps overlooked some of the larger implications of this ancient symbiosis with humanity). At the same time, ayahuasca escaped from its indigenous habitat and made its influence felt among certain non-indigenous people, representatives of “greater” civilization.

To these few men and women, ayahuasca provided revelations, and they in turn responded (in the way that humans so often do when confronted with a profound mystery) by founding religious sects with a messianic mission; in this case, a mission of hope, a message to the rest of the world that despite its simplicity was far ahead of its time: that we must learn to become the stewards of nature, and by fostering, encouraging, and sustaining the fecundity and diversity of nature, by celebrating and honoring our place as biological beings, as part of the web of life, we may learn to become nurturers of each other. A message quite different, and quite anathema, to the anti-biological obsessions of most of the major world “religions” with their preoccupation with death and suffering and their insistence on the suppression of all spontaneity and joy.

Such a message is perceived as a great threat by entrenched religious and political power structures, and indeed, it is. It is a threat to the continued rape of nature and oppression of peoples that is the foundation of their power. Evidence that they understand this threat and take it seriously is reflected by the unstinting and brutal efforts that “civilized” ecclesiastical, judicial, and political authorities have made to prohibit, demonize, and exterminate the shamanic use of ayahuasca and other sacred plants ever since the Inquisition and even earlier.

But the story is not yet over. Within the last 30 years, ayahuasca, clever little plant intelligence that it is, has escaped from its ancestral home in the Amazon and has found haven in other parts of the world. With the assistance of human helpers who heard the message and heeded it, ayahuasca sent its tendrils forth to encircle the world. It has found new homes, and new friends, in nearly every part of the world where temperatures are warm and where the ancient connections to plant-spirit still thrive, from the islands of Hawaii to the rainforests of South Africa, from gardens in Florida to greenhouses in Japan. The forces of death and dominance have been outwitted; it has escaped them, outrun them.

There is now no way that ayahuasca can ever be eliminated from the earth, short of toxifying the entire planet (which, unfortunately, the death culture is working assiduously to accomplish). Even if the Amazon itself is leveled for cattle pasture or burned for charcoal, ayahuasca, at least, will survive, and will continue to engage in its dialog with humanity. And encouragingly, more and more people are listening.

It may be too late. I have no illusions about this. Given that the curtain is now being rung down on the drunken misadventure that we call human history, the death culture will inevitably become even more brutal and insane, flailing ever more violently as it sinks beneath the quick sands of time. Indeed, it is already happening; all you have to do is turn on the nightly news.

Will ayahuasca survive? I have no doubt that ayahuasca will survive on this planet as long as the planet remains able to sustain life. The human time frame is measured in years, sometimes centuries, rarely, in millennia. Mere blinks when measured against the evolutionary time scales of planetary life, the scale on which ayahuasca wields its influence. It will be here long after the governments, religions, and political power structures that seem today so permanent and so menacing have dissolved into dust. It will be here long after our ephemeral species has been reduced to anomalous sediment in the fossil record. The real question is, will we be here long enough to hear its message, to integrate what it is trying to tell us, and to change in response, before it is too late?

Ayahuasca has the same message for us now that it has always had, since the beginning of its symbiotic relationship with humanity. Are we willing to listen? Only time will tell.

+++++++++++++++

McKenna, Dennis J. (2004) Clinical investigations of the therapeutic potential of Ayahuasca: Rationale and regulatory challenges. Pharmacology and Therapeutics. 102:111-129.

Dennis J. McKenna (1999) Ayahuasca: an ethnopharmacologic history. In: R. Metzner, (ed) Ayahuasca: Hallucinogens, Consciousness, and the Spirit of Nature. Thunder’s Mouth Press, New York.

Callaway, J. C., D. J. McKenna, C. S. Grob, G. S. Brito, L. P. Raymon, R.E. Poland, E. N. Andrade, E. O. Andrade, D. C. Mash (1999) Pharmacokinetics of Hoasca alkaloids in Healthy Humans. Journal of Ethnopharmacology. 65:243-256.

McKenna, DJ, JC Callaway, CS Grob (1999). The scientific investigation of ayahuasca: A review of past and current research. Heffter Review of Psychedelic Research 1:

Callaway, J. C., L. P. Raymon, W. L. Hearn, D. J. McKenna, C. S. Grob, G. S. Brito, D. C. Mash (1996) Quantitation of N,N-dimethyltryptamine and harmala alkaloids in human plasma after oral dosing with Ayahuasca. Journal of Analytical Toxicology 20: 492-497

C. S. Grob, D. J. McKenna, J. C. Callaway, G. S. Brito, E. S. Neves, G. Oberlender, O. L. Saide, E. Labigalini, C. Tacla, C. T. Miranda, R. J. Strassman, K. B. Boone (1996) Human pharmacology of hoasca, a plant hallucinogen used in ritual context in Brasil: Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease. 184:86-94. McKenna, DJ (1996)

James C. Callaway, M. M. Airaksinen, Dennis J. McKenna, Glacus S. Brito, & Charles S. Grob (1994) Platelet serotonin uptake sites increased in drinkers of ayahuasca. Psychopharmacology 116: 385-387

Dennis J. McKenna, L. E. Luna, & G. H. N. Towers, (1995) Biodynamic constituents in Ayahuasca admixture plants: an uninvestigated folk pharmacopoeia. In: von Reis, S., and R. E. Schultes (eds). Ethnobotany: Evolution of a Discipline. Dioscorides Press, Portland

Dennis J. McKenna, & G. H. N. Towers, (1985) On the comparative ethnopharmacology of the Malpighiaceous and Myristicaceous hallucinogens. J. Psychoactive Drugs, 17:35-39.

Dennis J. McKenna, & G. H. N. Towers, (1984), Biochemistry and pharmacology of tryptamine and ß-carboline derivatives: A minireview. J. Psychoactive Drugs, 16:347-358.

Dennis J. McKenna, G. H. N. Towers, & F. S. Abbott (1984) Monoamine oxidase inhibitors in South American hallucinogenic plants: Tryptamine and ß-carboline constituents of Ayahuasca. J. of Ethnopharmacology 10:195-223.

Dennis J. McKenna, G. H. N. Towers, & F. S. Abbott (1984) Monoamine oxidase inhibitors in South American hallucinogenic plants Pt. II: Constituents of orally active Myristicaceous hallucinogens. J. of Ethnopharmacology 12:179-211.

Dennis J. McKenna & G. H. N. Towers (1981) Ultra-violet mediated cytotoxic activity of ß-carboline alkaloids. Phytochemistry 20:1001-1004

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The Sacred Hymns of Pachacutec – Ancient Inca Poetry pt2

O Lord

fortunate, happy, victorious Wiracocha,

merciful and compassionate toward the people:

Before you stand your servants and the poor

to whom you have given life and put in their places:

Let them be happy and blessed

with their children and descendants;

let them not fall into veiled dangers

along the lonely road;

let them live many years

without weakening or loss,

let them eat, let them drink.

———

O, my Lord,

my Creator, origin of all,

diligent worker

who infuses life and order into all,

saying, “Let them eat,

let them drink in this world:”

Increase the potatoes and corn,

all the foods

of those to whom you have given life,

whom you have established.

You who orders,

who fulfills what you have decreed,

let them increase.

So the people do not suffer and,

not suffering, believe in you.

Let it not frost

let it not hail,

preserve all things in peace.

———–

Prayer to the Sun

Lord Wiracocha,

Who says

“Let there be day, let there be night!”

Who says,

“Let there be dawn, let it grow light!”

Who makes the Sun, your son,

move happy and blessed each day,

so that man whom you have made has light:

My Wiracocha,

shine on your Inca people,

illuminate your servants,

whom you have shepherded,

let them live

happy and blessed

preserve them

in peace,

free of sickness, free of pain.

________________

Have a wonderful weekend…

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Yep, Changes.

Turfing is sometimes an all day affair. I usually put in at the very minimum of at least an hour, but usually far longer.

I have decided to put some advertising on, to cover bandwidth etc, and to try to tempt people to purchase (and therefore) support some of my favourite writers, poets, musicians (we will be putting up albums as well that get played on Radio Free EarthRites) and Films that we find moving… Earthrites/Turfing of course gets something out of this.

I will never put up something for the heck of it. I have to read it, view it, or listen to it for it to be sold on Earthrites/Turfing.

If nothing else, it will be an experiment in capitalism as far as it goes. If it drives ya batty, let me know.

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As to todays entry: We will be continuing close to the theme from the last couple of days, but moving south into Peru for a day or so, visiting the peoples of the High Andes.

Enjoy your day!

Gwyllm

Wot’s On The Grill:

The Links!

Todays’ Story: THE SHEPHERD AND THE DAUGHTER OF THE SUN

Poetry: The Sacred Hymns of Pachacutec – Ancient Inca Poetry

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The Links:

The Gay Agenda (old but funny…!)

Dating to Save People from Hell

King Tut’s Penis Rediscovered!!!

Goin’ at it like rabbits.. 8o]

Hyperactive….

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THE SHEPHERD AND THE DAUGHTER OF THE SUN

from “The Incas of Peru” by Sir Clements Markham, London, Smith Elder & Co. 1910 pp. 408-415.

IN THE SNOW-CLAD CORDILLERA above the valley of Yucay, called Pitu-siray, a shepherd watched the flock of white llamas intended for the Inca to sacrifice to the Sun. He was a native of Laris, named Acoya-napa, a very well disposed and gentle youth. He strolled behind his flock, and presently began to play upon his flute very softly and sweetly, neither feeling anything of the amorous desires of youth, nor knowing anything of them.

He was carelessly playing his flute one day when two daughters of the Sun came to him. They could wander in all directions over the green meadows, and never failed to find one of their houses at night, where the guards and porters looked out that nothing came that could do them harm. Well! the two girls came to the place where the shepherd rested quite at his ease, and they asked him about his llamas.

The shepherd, who had not seen them until they spoke, was surprised, and fell on his knees, thinking that they were the embodiments of two out of the four crystalline fountains which were very famous in those parts. So he did not dare to answer them. They repeated their question about the flock, and told him not to be afraid, for they were children of the Sun, who was lord of all the land, and to give him confidence they took him by the arm. Then the shepherd stood up and kissed their hands. After talking together for some time the shepherd said that it was time for him to collect his flock, and asked their permission. The elder princess, named Chuqui-llantu, had been struck by the grace and good disposition of the shepherd. She asked him his name and of what place he was a native. He replied that his home was at Laris and that his name was Acoya-napa. While he was speaking Chuqui-llantu cast her eyes upon a plate of silver which the shepherd wore over his forehead, and which shone and glittered very prettily. Looking closer she saw on it two figures, very subtilely contrived, who were eating a heart. Chuqui-llantu asked the shepherd the name of that silver ornament, and he said it was called utusi. The princess returned it to the shepherd, and took leave of him, carrying well in her memory the name of the ornament and the figures, thinking with what delicacy they were drawn, almost seeming to her to be alive. She talked about it with her sister until they came to their palace. On entering, the doorkeepers looked to see if they brought with them anything that would do harm, because it was often found that women had brought with them, hidden in their clothes, such things as fillets and necklaces. After having looked well, the porters let them pass, and they found the women of the Sun cooking and preparing food. Chuqui-llantu said that she was very tired with her walk, and that she did not want any supper. All the rest supped with her sister, who thought that Acoya-napa was not one who could cause inquietude. But Chuqui-llantu was unable to rest owing to the great love she felt for the shepherd Acoya-napa, and she regretted that she had not shown him what was in her breast. But at last she went to sleep.

In the palace there were many richly furnished apartments in which the women of the Sun dwelt. These virgins were brought from all the four provinces which were subject to the Inca, namely Chincha-suyu, Cunti-suyu, Anti-suyu and Colla-suyu. Within, there were four fountains which flowed towards the four provinces, and in which the women bathed, each in the fountain of the province where she was born. They named the fountains in this way. That of Chincha-suyu was called Chuclla-puquio, that of Cunti-suyu was known as Ocoruro-puquio, Siclla-puquio was the fountain of Anti-suyu, and Llulucha-puquio of Colla-suyu. The most beautiful child of the Sun, Chuqui-llantu, was wrapped in profound sleep. She had a dream. She thought she saw a bird flying from one tree to another, and singing very softly and sweetly. After having sung for some time, the bird came down and regarded the princess, saying that she should feel no sorrow, for all would be well. The princess said that she mourned for something for which there could be no remedy. The singing bird replied that it would find a remedy, and asked the princess to tell her the cause of her sorrow. At last Chuqui-llantu told the bird of the great love she felt for the shepherd boy named Acoya-napa, who guarded the white flock. Her death seemed inevitable. She could have no cure but to go to him whom she so dearly loved, and if she did her father the Sun would order her to be killed. The answer of the singing bird, by name Checollo, was that she should arise and sit between the four fountains. There she was to sing what she had most in her memory. If the fountains repeated her words, she might then safely do what she wanted. Saying this the bird flew away, and the princess awoke. She was terrified. But she dressed very quickly and put herself between the four fountains. She began to repeat what she remembered to have seen of the two figures on the silver plate, singing:

“Micuc isutu cuyuc utusi cucim.”

Presently all the fountains began to sing the same verse.

Seeing that all the fountains were very favourable, the princess went to repose for a little while, for all night she had been conversing with the checollo in her dream.

When the shepherd boy went to his home he called to mind the great beauty of Chuqui-llantu. She had aroused his love, but he was saddened by the thought that it must be love without hope. He took up his flute and played such heart-breaking music that it made him shed many tears, and he lamented, saying: “Ay! ay! ay! for the unlucky and sorrowful shepherd, abandoned and without hope, now approaching the day of your death, for there can be no remedy and no hope.” Saying this, he also went to sleep.

The shepherd’s mother lived in Laris, and she knew, by her power of divination, the cause of the extreme grief into which her son was plunged, and that he must die unless she took order for providing a remedy. So she set out for the mountains, and arrived at the shepherd’s hut at sunrise. She looked in and saw her son almost moribund, with his face covered with tears. She went in and awoke him. When he saw who it was he began to tell her the cause of his grief, and she did what she could to console him. She told him not to be downhearted, because she would find a remedy within a few days. Saying this she departed and, going among the rocks, she gathered certain herbs which are believed to be cures for grief. Having collected a great quantity she began to cook them, and the cooking was not finished before the two princesses appeared at the entrance of the hut. For Chuqui-llantu, when she was rested, had set out with her sister for a walk on the green slopes of the mountains, taking the direction of the hut. Her tender heart prevented her from going in any other direction. When they arrived they were tired, and sat down by the entrance. Seeing an old dame inside they saluted her, and asked her if she could give them anything to eat. The mother went down on her knees and said she had nothing but a dish of herbs. She brought it to them, and they began to eat with excellent appetites. Chuqui-llantu then walked round the hut without finding what she sought, for the shepherd’s mother had made Acoya-napa lie down inside the hut, under a cloak. So the princess thought that he had gone after his flock. Then she saw the cloak and told the mother that it was a very pretty cloak, asking where it came from. The old woman told her that it was a cloak which, in ancient times, belonged to a woman beloved by Pachacamac, a deity very celebrated in the valleys on the coast. She said it had come to her by inheritance; but the princess, with many endearments, begged for it until at last the mother consented. When Chuqui-llantu took it into her hands she liked it better than before and, after staying a short time longer in the hut, she took leave of the old woman, and walked along the meadows looking about in hopes of seeing him whom she longed for.

We do not treat further of the sister, as she now drops out of the story, but only of Chuqui-llantu. She was very sad and pensive when she could see no signs of her beloved shepherd on her way back to the palace. She was in great sorrow at not having seen him, and when, as was usual, the guards looked at what she brought, they saw nothing but the cloak. A splendid supper was provided, and when every one went to bed the princess took the cloak and placed it at her bedside. As soon as she was alone she began to weep, thinking of the shepherd. She fell asleep at last, but it was not long before the cloak was changed into the being it had been before. It began to call Chuqui-llantu by her own name. She was terribly frightened, got out of bed, and beheld the shepherd on his knees before her, shedding many tears. She was satisfied on seeing him, and inquired how he had got inside the palace. He replied that the cloak which she carried had arranged about that. then Chuqui-llantu embraced him, and put her finely worked lipi mantles on him, and they slept together. When they wanted to get up in the morning, the shepherd again became the cloak. As soon as the sun rose, the princess left the palace of her father with the cloak, and when she reached a ravine in the mountains, she found herself again with her beloved shepherd, who had been changed into himself. But one of the guards had followed them, and when he saw what had happened he gave the alarm with loud shouts. The lovers fled into the mountains which are near the town of Calca. Being tired after a long journey, they climbed to the top of a rock and went to sleep. They heard a great noise in their sleep, so they arose. The princess took one shoe in her hand and kept the other on her foot. Then looking towards the town of Calca both were turned into stone. To this day the two statues may be seen between Calca and Huayllapampa.

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The Sacred Hymns of Pachacutec – Ancient Inca Poetry

The Sacred Hymns:

Oh Creator, root of all,

Wiracocha, end of all,

Lord in shining garments

who infuses life and sets all things in order,

saying, “Let there be man! Let there be woman!”

Molder, maker,

to all things you have given life:

watch over them,

keep them living prosperously, fortunately

in safety and peace.

Where are you?

Outside? Inside?

Above this world in the clouds?

Below this world in the shades?

Hear me!

Answer me!

Take my words to your heart!

For ages without end

let me live,

grasp me in your arms,

hold me in your hands,

receive this offering

wherever you are, my Lord,

my Wiracocha.

———-

2: Prayer that the people may multiply

Creator

Lord of the Lake,

Wiracocha provider,

industrious Wiracocha

in shining clothes:

Let man live well,

let woman live well,

let the peoples multiply,

live blessed and prosperous lives.

Preserve what you have infused with life

for ages without end,

hold it in your hand.

———-

3: To all the huacas

Creator, end of all things

root of all

Lord of the Lake

active diligent Wiracocha,

Lord of Mountains

Lord of Prayers

Lord of Rituals

Lord without measure,

Creator, end of all,

who rewards and grants:

Let the communities and peoples prosper

and also those who journey outside or within.

_____

The hymns of Pachacutec Inca Yupanqui, composed for the Situa ceremony around 1440-1450, are among the world’s great sacred poetry.

The eleven hymns, or jaillis, in Quechua verse, were sung to the accompaniment of instruments during the annual Inca ceremony of the Situa Raymi, held at the first new moon after the Spring equinox.

Pachacutec, considered by many to be the greatest Inca emperor, transformed Manco Capac’s vision into Tawantinsuyu, Land of the Four Directions, the Inca empire. One can compare Manco Capac – legendary Inca demiurge, mythical founder and bringer of civilization – with King Arthur, Prometheus or Quetzalcóatl; one can compare Pachacutec – historical leader of an expanding new socio-political world order, a new Weltanschauung – with Charlemagne, Alexander the Great, Napoleon or Mao Tse Tung (another extraordinary poet).

In appreciation of the sacred Inca hymns, the great Quechua scholar Jesus Lara writes, “Among the hymns… there are fragments of profound beauty, interpreters of a high level of spirituality reached by the Inca people. Many of them seduce by their transparent simplicity, for the elemental gratitude in them for the deity who creates and governs, who grants sustenance, peace and happiness. Many captivate by their elevation contiguous with metaphysic. All by the emotional force that palpitates in them.”

Continuing on the Mayan Theme… We have a couple of stories… more poetry and the lot. Beautiful days here in Portland.

Had a nice night with Andrew (my nephew) and with Mix Master Morgan who stopped by for a chat. It ended in everyone having a great meal together (Thanks to Mary!) of Shepards’ Pie, and fresh baked bread…. ummmmmm.

We have been battling a rodent infestation, killing 2 rats in the garden on Monday, and setting traps on the roof for the ones we hear up there. The whole neighborhood is affected by the little blighters. I really dislike having to kill them, but they trash a place. They got into my garage and ate up T-shirts, silk screens and the lot. It took several hours to clean up after them….

The Garden is looking good. Changing things out, getting the plantings in…. I love this time of the year!

G

What’s on the Grill

The Links

The Coyote and the Hen

Vukub-Cakix, the Great Macaw (From The Creation Cycle)

The Mayan Poetry of Ah Bam -The Songs of Dzitblaché Part 2

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The Links:

Endgame for the Constitution

Breast Cancer Has Made Me A Criminal

Sorry old Bean, the apes got there first

$50.00 Reward for Terrorist…

Bumps in the night spook workers

Mexican police shoot at striking miners

Police shoot and kill two striking workers in Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, Mexico

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The Coyote and the Hen

Once upon a time a hen was up in the branches of a tree, and a coyote came up to her:

“I’ve brought some good news for you. Do you want to hear it?” asked the coyote.

“Do you really have some good news?” the hen asked.

The coyote answered: “It’s about the two of us.” Hear this, the coyote and the hen have made peace. Now we’re going to be friends and you can come down from the tree. We’ll hug each other as a sign of good will.”

The hen kept asking if it was true what the coyote was saying: “Where was the peace treaty approved, brother coyote?” The coyote answered:

“Over there by the hunting grounds on the other side of the mountain. Hurry up and come down so that we can celebrate this moment of peace.”

The hen asked: “Over there on the other side of the mountain?”

“May God witness that I am telling the truth. Come on down from the tree,” insisted the coyote.

“Maybe you are telling the truth, brother. I see that the dog is coming to celebrate the fiesta with us, because you and he are also going to make peace. I see him coming near, I hear him coming. He’s coming fast and he’s going to grab me, now that you and he have made peace. Do you hear, brother coyote, do you hear?” asked the hen. She was very happy and came down from the branches of the tree.

The coyote accepted this explanation and ran away. As the hen said, the dog was coming, that’s why he left. The hen didn’t want to come down from the tree. She didn’t fall in front of the coyote; if she had, he would have eaten her. She realized he was just telling her lies.

Thus ends the story of the coyote and the hen.

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Vukub-Cakix, the Great Macaw (From the Mayan Creation Cycle)

Ere the earth was quite recovered from the wrathful flood which had descended upon it there lived a being orgulous and full of pride, called Vukub-Cakix (Seventimes-the-colour-of-fire-the Kiche name for the great macaw bird). His teeth were of emerald, and other parts of him shone with the brilliance of gold and silver. In short, it is evident that he was a sun-and-moon god of prehistoric times. He boasted dreadfully, and his conduct so irritated the other gods that they resolved upon his destruction. His two sons, Zipacna and Cabrakan (Cockspur or Earth-heaper, and Earthquake), were earthquake-gods of the type of the Jotuns of Scandinavian myth or the Titans of Greek legend. These also were prideful and arrogant, and to cause their downfall the gods despatched the heavenly twins Hun-Apu and Xbalanque to earth, with instructions to chastise the trio.

Vukub-Cakix prided himself upon his possession of the wonderful nanze-tree, the tapal, bearing a fruit round, yellow, and aromatic, upon which he breakfasted every morning. One morning he mounted to its summit, whence he could best espy the choicest fruits, when he was surprised and infuriated to observe that two strangers had arrived there before him, and had almost denuded the tree of its produce. On seeing Vukub, Hun-Apu raised a blow-pipe to his mouth and blew a dart at the giant. It struck him on the mouth, and he fell from the top of the tree to the ground. Hun-Apu leapt down upon Vukub and grappled with him, but the giant in terrible anger seized the god by the arm and wrenched it from the body. He then returned to his house, where he was met by his wife, Chimalmat, who inquired for what reason he roared with pain. In reply he pointed to his mouth, and so full of anger was he against Hun-Apu that he took the arm he had wrenched from him and hung it over a blazing fire. He then threw himself down to bemoan his injuries, consoling himself, however, with the idea that he had avenged himself upon the disturbers of his peace.

Whilst Vukub-Cakix moaned and howled with the dreadful pain which he felt in his jaw and teeth (for the dart which had pierced him was probably poisoned) the arm of Hun-Apu hung over the fire, and was turned round and round and basted by Vukub’s spouse, Chimalmat. The sun-god rained bitter imprecations upon the interlopers who had penetrated to his paradise and had caused him such woe, and he gave vent to dire threats of what would happen if he succeeded in getting them into his power.

But Hun-Apu and Xbalanque were not minded that Vukub-Cakix should escape so easily, and the recovery of Hun-Apu’s arm must be made at all hazards. So they went to consult two great and wise magicians, Xpiyacoc and Xmucane, in whom we see two of the original Kiche creative deities, who advised them to proceed with them in disguise to the dwelling of Vukub, if they wished to recover the lost arm. The old magicians resolved to disguise themselves as doctors, and dressed Hun-Apu and Xbalanque in other garments to represent their sons.

Shortly they arrived at the mansion of Vukub, and while still some way off they could hear his groans and cries. Presenting themselves at the door, they accosted him. They told him that they had heard some one crying out in pain, and that as famous doctors they considered it their duty to ask who was suffering.

Vukub appeared quite satisfied, but closely questioned the old wizards concerning the two young men who accompanied them.

“They are our sons,” they replied.

“Good,” said Vukub. ” Do you think you will be able to cure me?”

“We have no doubt whatever upon that head.”

answered Xpiyacoc. “You have sustained very bad injuries to your mouth and eyes.”

“The demons who shot me with an arrow from their, blow-pipe are the cause of my sufferings,” said Vukub. “If you are able to cure me I shall reward you richly.”

“Your Highness has many bad teeth, which must be removed,” said the wily old magician. “Also the balls of your eyes appear to me to be diseased.”

Vukub appeared highly alarmed, but the magicians speedily reassured him.

“It is necessary,” said Xpiyacoc, “that we remove your teeth, but we will take care to replace them with grains of maize, which you will find much more agreeable in every way.”

The unsuspicious giant agreed to the operation, and very quickly Xpiyacoc, with the help of Xmucane, removed his teeth of emerald, and replaced them by grains of white maize. A change quickly came over the Titan. His brilliancy speedily vanished, and when they removed the balls of his eyes he sank into insensibility and died.

All this time the wife of Vukub was turning Hun-Apu’s arm over the fire, but Hun-Apu snatched the limb from above the brazier, and with the help of the magicians replaced it upon his shoulder. The discomfiture of Vukub was then complete. The party left his dwelling feeling that their mission had been accomplished.

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The Mayan Poetry of Ah Bam -The Songs of Dzitblaché Part 2

THE MOURNING SONG OF THE POOR MOTHERLESS ORPHAN DANCE TO DRUMBEATS

I was very small when my mother died,

when my father died.

Ay ay, my Lord!

Raised by the hands of friends,

I have no family here on earth.

Ay ay, my Lord!

Two days ago my friends died,

and left me insecure

vulnerable, alone. Ay ay!

That day I was alone

and put myself

in a stranger’s hand.

Ay ay, my lord!

Evil, much evil passes here

on earth. Perhaps

I will never stop crying.

Without family,

alone, very lonely I walk,

crying day and night

only cries consume my eyes and soul.

Under evil so hard.

Ay ay, my Lord!

Take pity on me, put an end

to this suffering.

Give me death , my Beautiful Lord,

or give my soul transcendence!

Poor, poor

alone on earth

pleading insecure lonely

imploring door to door

asking every person I see to give me love.

I who have no home, no clothes,

no fire.

Ay my lord! Have pity on my!

Give my soul transcendence

to endure.

———–

THE SONG OF THE MINSTREL

This day there is a feast in the villages.

Dawn streams over the horizon,

south north east west,

light comes to the earth, darkness is gone.

Roaches, crickets, fleas and moths

hurry home.

Magpies, white doves, swallows,

partridges, mockingbirds, thrushes, quail,

red and white birds rush about,

all the forest birds begin their song because

morning dew brings happiness.

The Beautiful Star

shines over the woods,

smoking as it sinks and vanishes;

the moon too dies

over the forest green.

Happiness of fiesta day has arrived

in the villages;

a new sun brings light

to all who live together here.

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Listen To:The Beltaine Celebration on Radio Free EarthRites

Argh. Insomnia. Up until 5AM this morning than I just forced, forced myself to sleep. Don’t expect great coherency from me for the rest of the day….

This happens once in awhile, has all my life. I get to contemplate it all, in the silence of the night…

Some nice stuff today, all based on the Maya…

On the Grill:

The Links

The Story: A Mayan Tale/The Jaguar and the Little Skunk

The Poetry: The Songs of Dzitbalché / by Ah Bam

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The Links:

One of those Days…

A little something from my friend Tomas!

Nude, but Artistic…?

Best Buy…

Xian Birthing Fun… Do the numbers!!!

and least we forget… “The Advice Bunny”!

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The Jaguar and the Little Skunk

Once there was a gentleman jaguar and a lady skunk. Mrs. Skunk had a son, who was baptized by Mr. Jaguar, so Mrs. Skunk became his comadre. And as Mr. Jaguar had baptized the little skunk, he was Mrs. Skunk’s compadre.

Mr. Jaguar decided to go looking for food and came to Mrs. Skunk’s house. “Well, compadre, what are you looking for? What have you come here for?” the skunk asked the jaguar.

“Comadre, what I have come to do is to look for some food,” said Mr. Jaguar. “Oh,” said Mrs. Skunk.

“I want my godson to come with me so that he can learn to hunt,” said Mr. Jaguar. “I don’t think your godson ought to go; he’s still very small and something could happen to him. He better not go, compadre,” said Mrs. Skunk. But the little skunk protested: “No, mother, I had better go. What my godfather says is true. I need to get some practice, if I’m going to learn to hunt,” said the little skunk.

“But if you go, you’ll be so far away,” said Mrs. Skunk. “I’m going, I’m going. Come on, let’s go.” So they set off on a long walk. “We’re going to where there’s a river. That’s where we’re going,” Mr. Jaguar explained to the little skunk, his godson.

“When are we going to get there?” asked the little skunk. “We’re getting close. Follow me so you won’t get lost,” said Mr. Jaguar. “All right,” answered the little skunk. They finally came to the river. “This is where we’re going to eat,” said Mr. Jaguar to the little skunk. “All right,” said the little skunk.

“Come on over here. I’m going to sharpen my knife,” said Mr. Jaguar. “All right,” said the little skunk, looking at his godfather. Mr. Jaguar sharpened his claws, which he called his “knife.”

“I sharpened my knife. Now you’re going to be on guard, because I am going to sleep. When you see them come, wake me up,” said Mr. Jaguar.

“All right,” said the little skunk, “all right, godfather.” Then Mr. Jaguar told him: “Don’t shout. Just scratch my belly when they come. Scratch my belly, so I won’t alarm them. But don’t wake me up if just any little old animals without antlers come along, only when the one with big antlers gets here. That’s when you’ll wake me up.”

“All right,” said the little skunk. Then the one with the big antlers came, and the skunk awakened Mr. Jaguar. He scratched his belly, and pointed out the deer to Mr. Jaguar, who attacked the animal with big antlers. He went after him and seized him.

“All right, my godson, let’s eat. We’re going to eat meat,” said the jaguar. “All right,” said the little skunk. And so they ate and ate. “Now we’re going to take whatever leftovers there are to your mother,” said the jaguar. “Since we are full, we can take something to your mother. Your mother will have meat to eat, just as we did. We will take some to your mother,” said the jaguar. When they came back to the mother’s house, he told the lady:

“Look at the food here. Look, we’ve brought you some food, the food that we hunted. Eat your fill of the meat, comadre,” the jaguar said to Mrs. Skunk.

“All right,” said the skunk, and ate the meat. “I’m full,” she said. “It’s good that you’re satisfied. I’ve seen that you are, so I’ll be leaving now,” said Mr. Jaguar to Mrs. Skunk. And so he left. After the jaguar left, the little skunk stayed with his mother. When they ran out of meat, Mrs. Skunk said to her son: Dear, our meat is all gone.” “Yes, the meat is all gone. I better go and get us some more food,” said the little skunk. “How can you, son? Do you think you’re big enough? You’re very small. Don’t you think you’ll be killed?” asked Mrs. Skunk.

“No, mother, I already know how to hunt, my godfather taught me how,” replied the little skunk. “I’m leaving now.”

He left, and Mrs. Skunk was very worried. Her son came once more to the river, the place to which he had come with his godfather to get the meat.

“This is how my godfather did it. Why shouldn’t I be able to do the same thing?” said the little skunk. “This is how you sharpen a knife,” said the little skunk. He sharpened his “knife.” “This is the way my godfather did it. I’m not going to hunt the little animals, I’m just going to hunt the one with the great big antlers. I’m going to hunt one for myself just like the one I ate with my godfather. I have my knife here and I’m going to sleep for a little while.” The little skunk lay down to sleep, but then he awakened. He was waiting for the one with the big antlers, and when he came, he attacked him, thinking he was as strong as his godfather. But he just hung from the neck of the one with big antlers. His claws had dug into his skin. He was hanging from his neck and was carried far away and fell on his back. He was left with his mouth wide open.

Since he had not come home to his mother, she wondered: “What could have happened to my son? Why hasn’t he come back yet? Something must have happened to him. I better go and look for him.” And so Mrs. Skunk went as far as the bank of the river. She was looking everywhere for her son, but couldn’t find him. She began to cry when she found the tracks where the one with the big antlers had come by running. “They must have come by here,” said Mrs. Skunk, and began to follow the tracks. She came to the place where her son had been left lying on his back. When the mother caught sight of him, she noticed that his teeth were showing and shouted at him:

“Son, what are you laughing at? All your teeth are showing,” she said to him before she had gotten very close. When she did get close she told him:

“Give me your hand. I’ve come to get you, but you’re just laughing in my face.” She put her hand on him, thinking that he was still alive, but when she noticed that he was already dead, she began to cry.

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Ancient Mayan Poetry: The Songs of Dzitbalché / by Ah Bam

I WILL KISS YOUR MOUTH

I will kiss your mouth

between the plants of the milpa.

Shimmering beauty,

you have to hurry.

BIN IN TZ’UUTZ’ A CHI

Bin in tz’uutz’ a chi

Tut yam x cohl

X ciichpam zac

Y an y an a u ahal

————

TO KISS YOUR LIPS BESIDE THE FENCE RAILS

Put on your beautiful clothes;

the day of happiness has arrived;

comb the tangles from your hair;

put on your most attractive clothes

and your splendid leather;

hang great pendants in the lobes of

your ears; put on

a good belt; string garlands

around your shapely throat;

put shining coils

on your plump upper arms.

Glorious you will be seen,

for none is more beautiful here

in this town, the seat of Dzitbalché.

I love you, Beautiful Lady.

I want you to be seen; in

truth you are very alluring,

I compare you to the smoking star

because they desire you up to the moon

and in the flowers of the fields.

Pure and white are your clothes, maiden.

Go give happiness with your laugh,

put goodness in your heart, because today

is the moment of happiness; all people

put their goodness in you.

————

LET US GO TO THE RECEIVING OF THE FLOWER

Let us sing

flowing with joy

because we are going to

the Receiving of the Flower.

All the maidens

wear a smile on their pure faces;

their hearts

jump in their breasts.

What is the cause?

Because they know

that they will give

their virginity to those they love.

Let the Flower sing!

Accompanying you will be the Nacom

and the Great Lord Ah Kulel

present on the platform.

Ah Kulel sings:

“Let us go, let us go

lay down our wills before the Virgin

the Beautiful Virgin and Lady

the Flower of the Maidens

on the high platform,

the Lady Suhay Kaak,

the Pretty X Kanleox,

the Lovely X Zoot

and the Beautiful Lady Virgin X Tootmuch.

They are those who give goodness

to life here in this Region,

on the Plains and in the district

here in the Mountains.”

Let us go, let us go,

let us go, youths;

we will give perfect rejoicing

here in Dzitill Piich,

Dzitbalché.

———–

FLOWER SONG

The most alluring moon

has risen over the forest;

it is going to burn

suspended in the center

of the sky to lighten

all the earth, all the woods,

shining its light on all.

Sweetly comes the air and the perfume.

Happiness permeates all good men.

We have arrived inside the woods

where no one will see what we have

come here to do.

We have brought plumeria flowers,

chucum blossoms, dog jasmines;

we have the copal,

the low cane vine,

the land tortoise shell,

new quartz, chalk and cotton thread;

the new chocolate cup,

the large fine flint,

the new weight,

the new needle work,

gifts of turkeys, new leather,

all new, even our hair bands,

they touch us with nectar

of the roaring conch shell

of the ancients.

Already, already

we are in the heart of the woods,

at the edge of the pool in the stone

to await the rising

of the lovely smoking star

over the forest.

Take off your clothes,

let down your hair,

become as you were

when you arrived here on earth,

virgins, maidens.