First and foremost... This looks like fun, unfortunately I'm not in a position to hold the perfect Australian weekend. Perhaps somebody else could... this is part of an email I got from the Rights at Work Campaign - a hell of a group:
Give Howard a Roasting with a Rights at Work BBQ!
Get your pack now for $40 (suggested donation).
Dear Michael,
We all love a BBQ with friends and family during our hard-earned time off. Kicking back with a beer or two, some snags - the perfect Australian weekend.
The only thing that would make it better is if we could give Howard and his IR laws a roasting at the same time. Pricking the Howard Devilled Sausages with a BBQ fork, dousing some Non-Core Promises Spicy Beef Patties with some Truth Overboard Sauce... you get the picture.
Well, if this is your idea of a perfect weekend, here's how you can relax and help the Rights at Work campaign at the same time!
Hold a Rights at Work BBQ! Order your Rights at Work BBQ pack online now www.rightsatwork.com.au/campaigns/bbq
Yep. The other thing I want to mention is my hell of a time in the hills on Tuesday and Wednesday.
I took off my clothes in the "chosen field" just outside the "sacred circle". They doused me in insense to purify my body. I offered Coca leaves to the earthfire, kissed the ground outside the Temezcal (Potlatch, or Baño de Vapor or Sweatlodge in that primitive English tongue) and then crawled inside. With over 20 bodies in a small space, soon to be filled with heat beyond anything I've ever felt before, I was, to say the least, feeling quite some trepidation.
This temezcal was one of many rituals held over three days in the hills of Cochabamba as a continuing collaboration of traditional cultures between the Mexican and Bolivian indigenous cultures. It was all so incredible and exactly what I needed I reckon.
The Temezcal focused mainly on honouring the four directions, the four elements and to create a power within to bring into existence our hopes and desires.
I didn't have any transcendental experiences (you are supposed to start getting into that state in the third quartet...) but I plan to follow this group up as they have a permanent temezcal set up for the ritual every two weeks in Cochabamba someplace.
On Tuesday night I was witness to fire-walking (over hot coals). I chose against it. I meditated after the temezcal and realised I wasn't prepared for it initially. (I really didn't know what was to follow when I was invited up into the bush. Some music, some dancing, some chicha perhaps). And when I was offered the hot coal walking, part of me said "you have to do it, so you can say you did it" but when that is my reason for doing something, I try my best to choose NOT to do it. I realised that I really had no reason at the time to do the hot coals thing (you offer the coals coca leaves too, asking for permission to cross unharmed), and I really didn't feel a connection with it regardless of knowing its significance in accepting that fire is merely vibrating energy that can co-exist with our bodies, which are simply essential vessals of a higher awareness... (thanks Kate).
I talked at length with one of the conveners (he spoke English!) and what a rich cultural tradition it all is! So much about respect for the earth, the sun and beyond, to the sun's sun and so on. Universal awareness, depth in simplicity, truth, happiness and so on. And so on...
We danced into the night...
In the morning, by 6.30 we were dancing in the sacred circle, around the fire (in the inner circle) like "Indians" and I was SOOOOOO tempted to start yelling "woo woo woo woo" and patting my lips with my open palm... But I didn't need to. The other facilitators were doing it to communicate with us. Pretty cool stuff.
But, yes, 6.30, freezing cold, stony ground, dancing barefoot for two hours greeting the sun and all the gods we could muster up. I couldn't feel my feet when I was putting my socks back on. But when, at the end, the final offering to the earth with more leaves, we were to give our prayer to the energies we'd created, as far as I could interpret... So I did. Then we all got a feather of *he's making this bit up* of awareness?
When the very Mexican guru Shaman looking convener was solemnly giving me my feather I was smiling a little and he seemed to have to smile back. I wonder if we had a moment of "geez this is all pretty silly in the end isn't it?" I was tempted to wave my hands at him and say "and a booga wooga to you too!!"
Goodness I'm sore. And a little sick now (backdoor trots, driest of dry throats...)
My feet still hurt, and the hill climb (there and back) still causes terribly satisfying pain to my unfit calf muscles. I say now that I want to do it all again. At the time though I remember saying to myself once or twice "get me the ... *ahem* goodness gracious sakes out of here!!!"
Now, English class. Pay the electricity and water bill. Spanish class. Post some birthday cards. More classes. All a bit banal after "wwooowoowowoo"ing all over the place.
Michael.
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10 comments:
Maybe a better way to explain the sigificance is the opportunity it presents to transcend the illusion that we a merely a physical body......
What if you already are beyond the illusion that we are only a physical body (I've decided that our bodies deserve far more credit than a "merely" label)? When you know that we are all able to transcend physical limits (possibly merely another illusion) and you still feel disconnected to the events at hand, what then? I don't think it was my body telling me to protect itself. I don't think it was my mind telling me to be scared. I just looked at myself and felt it wasn't "me" to be running over hot coals. I felt closer to my spiritual forces this morning when I decided to jump up and down for 5 minutes before breakfast.
Hot coals, schmot schmoals.
Jumping is fun!
I dreamed last night that I commented on this blog when I know for a fact that I had not. So now I will.
I have always wondered if I would have the nerve/incentive to walk on coals. I have to admit that the American in me wanted to see pictures of you at this event. But the spiritual side of me is glad you did no such thing.
The only hot Coles I've seen you walk over, is the 24/7 one on full-moons looking for rich discounted chocolate cake.
Rups
I have nearly seen Michael walk on coals at an easter camping trip but instead he chased a bloody kangaroo and ended up at another campsite with people he didn't know.....bloody good time
Love ya
Yes, Easter camping trips. In between the glorious drunken beer bottle pyramid building and the insignificance of Easter to most of humanity except the devout (the cult of which I devoutly decry) they were about as far from a transcendental spiritual experience one could get (of course that bloody kangaroo... I swear I was at one with it. I WAS the kangaroo. It didn't know it of course, so that's why I had to chase it around in the middle of the night, trying to explain things to it...
So did the Kangaroo come to experience the perfection of your union? Did the Kangaroo transcend its mind/body to know of its eternal communion with the all and the everything????
Yep.
You did look really funny chasing a kangaroo but it wasn't as good as been bait for the fish.......ROTFLMFAO. I still laugh about with tears in my eye again.
Lya
Was that the time Leighon caught me from behind him casting out? Or when I thought I was shark food in the river when my shoe got stuck in the muddy waters? Or was it when I fell into the water off the slippery rocks trying save that hours-worked-for bucket of bait...?
Foder.
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