moving medicine

The Corn Is Ready. Are we?

On our last trip to Wirikuta, I learned two principles:  1.  I know nothing; that is, without help from the spirit realm, I know nothing, and  2. faith must be renewed.  That of course is why one returns to Wirikuta every year, if one can do so, but it is also true every day.  For weeks I had been watching the corn mature.  The plants sent up their stalks, the paired leaves waved out, the tassels rose and opened, the pollen bodies hung down, the gossamer corn silk filaments emerged from bulges in the stalk to receive the pollen, the cobs swelled and grew. 

What would I do about our first fruits ceremony, in which we make offerings to the Huichol spirits before eating the first ripe corn of the season?  In the past several years, we have always used the blood of an animal to anoint the offerings, in the Huichol tradition, but it never feels right to me, never easy or natural, and it is so far from community standards where we live that I have never felt comfortable in any part of the process.  In fact, the whole ceremony tends to alienate us from friends and family.  What to do, then, to feel that we are paying proper respect to and keeping a proper balance with the spirit realm, while also keeping balance with our own community?

The answer is a work in progress, but I followed my dreams leading up to the event, and we made a stab at it this year, by using our own new plum wine as the symbolic equivalent of the blood, and by straying as needed from other Huichol-type rules I had previously imposed on our ceremonial efforts.  I didn't feel any worse than I have on other such occasions, before or after the event--probably better--and I was generally less tense.

We made our offerings, I expressed my prayers and thanks to the father spirit of sun, the grandfather spirit of fire, the brother spirit of deer, the mother spirits of ocean and corn, and I explained to each of them why we were doing things this way.  Sandy parched our remaining corn from last year over the fire.  And the next morning, I impulsively reached out to our sons to come out on the weekend and eat corn and fruit from the rancho.  That same morning, I walked out to the orchard to gather fruit and discovered that our young satsuma plum tree, laden with fruit, had snapped off low down on the trunk.  I had to wonder, were the spirits needing a little bit more than what we offered?  Had they taken matters into their own hands?

Then, my oldest son and his family accepted our invitation, and they came out for the rare non-occasion visit, arriving after my two intensely busy market days.  We had a relaxed and intimate twenty four hours together, and I felt closer to my son than I had in some time.  By last night though, after picking up our middle son from the airport and delivering a car for him to use while he's in California, resting a bit and practicing fiddle a bit, then playing with my string group, I returned home thrashed, way behind in my chores and practices, heavy from the weekend's overeating, and disheartened by minor problems.  I ate dinner in silence, then I thought, "Faith must be renewed," and I decided that writing this was the best thing to do under the circumstances.

If it weren't for certain dreams that come at times of ceremony, pilgrimage, and need, it would be easy to lose faith, no matter how powerful the annual pilgrimage to the desert, given the normal diffculties of life coupled with my own imperfections.  But when, after a gap of a year or more, I dream of my teacher don Lupe before the ceremony and the dream speaks directly to my dilemma, and when I dream of my sons and our relations during those same preparations, then I know there has been learning from all of these years, even if the form of my life is different from what I might have anticipated.  I know at such times that those spirits are with me, alive within me.

The odd thing is, even if those spirits are my own construct, a crude Americanization of Huichol traditional beliefs, they give me an orientation toward life which I like and find meaningful, which keeps me honest with myself and true to my instincts, and which improves my timing.

Having laid words down, this morning it was back to violin practice and rancho chores, taking carrot tops and old grapefruit and past-it nectarines to the compost pile, along with ashes from our corn ceremony fire, then the overdue picking of black eyed peas for my customers at the Friday market.  Fresh blackeyes are not available in the supermarkets, nor from other farmer's market vendors, and people ask me about them early in the summer, knowing I sell some.  This year I planted more than last year, because when it comes to black eyed peas, people want to buy a bushel, not some cute little basket with a few pods in it.  Three weeks ago an elderly black couple came by inquiring, and I told them to return the following week, when the first pods would be ripe.  There were fewer ready than I thought there would be that next week, and though I sold them all I had, I could see the disappointment in their faces.  They said they lived in a town some distance away and had gotten up at 4 AM to come for the peas.  I felt horrible, and all the next week, every pod I picked was with them in mind.  Sure enough, the next Friday here they came, early, and I gave them two bags full, all the ripe ones available at the time.  The took them eagerly, appreciative that I had held onto the peas until they arrived, and marked one of the bags, which was bought for someone else.  Even then, I could see that they would have taken more if I had them

Today I got two bushels out of my two rows, before the bees came out.  They like to gather something they find in the joint between two pods.  Now a few ants are walking around the pods too.  There's something they like on the surface of those pods.  It seems to be bumblebees that do the actual pollination.   While picking peas and noticing all of that, I have plenty of time for thoughts to bubble up and to understand things a little better.

 

I took plums to market

I took plums to market last week, along with the tomatillos de milpa
which spring up in profusion each year here, and I had customers
waiting for both. There was also a superabundance of squash, newly
ripe very sweet pink grapefruit, Anaheim chiles, green apples,
arugula, basil, garlic, onion. I had my biggest produce day ever,
and finally had enough variety so that people could actually shop
with me, buying some of several things I had to offer.

My old farmer friend Ric, who I met the first day I ever set up a
stand at the market and who has supported and helped me ever since,
returned two weeks ago to operate his booth after an absence of
nearly four years. Ric has rules, which he freely imparts and
reiterates. He used to tell me that we must charge seven times the
total cost of production of a given item in order to make selling
worthwhile. That was when he thought my prices were woefully low.
Now, returning from his absence, and after only two market days, he
has a new rule. He must make $100 an hour for each of the four hours
of market, and if doing so forces him to cut out the time to chat
with customers, then it is time to raise his prices. I mentioned the
rule to his wife, who had come over to deliver some salad greens in
exchange for the chiles Ric took from me, and she said, “Yeah, he’s
always got rules.” I go by a wholly different set of rules, or more
likely, no rules at all.

After my Saturday market, a nap, and a quick violin practice, we went
to an excellent Lebanese buffet restaurant with our friends Dan and
Leila. It was our first social event outside of the bimonthly music
get-togethers we have for more than two years, in which he plays
piano, Sandy plays recorder, and I my violin. They were dying to ask
how we had gotten involved with the Huichols, and we told the stories
of our first encounters with the Huichols more than forty years ago.
I mentioned an anthropologist, Tim Knab, who wrote a book about his
experiences with a Huichol man whom he referred to as Mad Jesus, in
which he noted in passing that when the Huichols get to know you,
they “colonize” you. That hit home, for the very first thing I did
on meeting the stunning and powerful looking Huichol couple, on the
bridge over the river at the entry to San Blas, Mexico, was to buy
from the woman the beaded medallion she was wearing around her neck,
depicting in blue and red the figure of Tau Werika Uimari, young Sun
Eagle mother. And the next thing we did, a couple of days later,
walking through the market in Tepic, was to buy several yarn
paintings, an art form which we had never seen before. And now,
forty one years later, I’m selling beaded eagle medallions and yarn
paintings out of a farmer’s market booth. I was colonized good.

I never tire (so far) of picking plums and other tree fruit, which to
others might be an onerous and tedious task. There’s something
supremely satisfying about it, as though I were snatching something
valuable for free, because it is so freely given by the tree on which
it grows. People often ask if I grow this or that, and generally I
say no, I don’t grow it, I just pick it. The earth and the sun and
water grow it, I’m only the lucky beneficiary. Aside from the
picking itself, there are the pleasures stemming from the rhythm of
harvesting, plucking what’s ripest just when it ripens, leaving the
rest to ripen further and enlarge from the now reduced competition
for resources, extending the harvest and refreshing the supply. Add
to that the satisfaction of moving the harvest out o its recipients:
ourselves, family, friends, neighbors, customers, food banks, even
our neighbor’s crocodiles, who love squash, which is abundant at the
moment.

Standing on a ladder within the plum tree canopy, a kind of bliss
fills me, and I feel grateful for and appreciative of the gifts of
life. In this final stage of ripening, bees come to the fruit, and
this year also fig beetles, which don’t have as much access to the
peach trees, their usual haunt, since I had Pedro cover them with
bird netting . Sometimes I’ll find a fig beetle and bees sucking
from the same fruit; when I surprise the beetle, it flies up making a
noise loud enough to startle me off the ladder. Here’s what I
thought. The bees are responsible for pollinating most everything
here, and look how moderate they are exacting a return for their
favor, sipping from so few fruit. Mostly they go for the ones fallen
to the ground, the skins slashed open from the sudden pressure of
hitting the earth and the pulp thus accessible to the bees. On the
tree, they have to wait for a bird to peck open a plum. As I move my
ladder around the tree, hundreds of bees are buzzing at my feet, but
they don’t bother me, involved as they are in their own business of
drinking plum juice. This year, I pay special attention when I move
the ladder, so as not to disturb them.

Then, too, up there among the brittle plum tree branches, I can’t
help but appreciate my in-laws, who planted those trees forty years
ago and who made my current pleasures possible. At the market, I
like saying that such and such a fruit comes from forty year old
trees, which to my mind at least adds a certain dignity to the product.

When I was in Mexico, in early June, the green plums were ripening in
the village where my Huichol friends live. Joaquín and Federica have
a tree in their compound. Here, the Santa Rosa plums are done for
the year, and the Satsumas are coloring in on the tree I planted two
years ago. I’m hoping the Santa Rosas I picked this week will hang
on till market day Friday. This morning, I plan to siphon the plum
wine I’m brewing into a glass carboy with an airlock on top, and I’ll
pick the few good plums remaining on the tree. I’ll gather more
almonds too, which I’ve been plucking daily; the ones I’ve gathered
so far are drying in net sacks hanging from the beams of the patio.
Each nut I get is one the squirrels did not get; after eight years, I
am finally winning the almond competition. I say to myself that,
after eight years of effort, I am finally as smart as a squirrel, or
perhaps more importantly, as persistent.

This morning, I picked the last Santa Rosas I’m going to harvest.
The bees and beetles were even more in evidence, their sound more
insistent, almost threatening, as if to say, “You’ve gotten enough
now, the rest is ours.” Maybe I was only saying that to myself, but
in either case it’s true. It’s all yours now.

plum wine

I’m mostly ready for tomorrow’s farmer’s market. The truck is loaded
with my canopies and tables and Sandy’s pottery and my gourds, along
with Huichol jewelry, beaded figures and yarn paintings. I’ve picked
the produce but haven’t loaded it yet, because at 8:15 PM it’s still
85 degrees out, and I want to keep it fresh.

For tomorrow here’s what I’ve got: oranges and grapefruit; plums;
summer squash; tomatillos; Anaheim chiles; bell peppers; fresh
shallots and onions; garlic; arugula; basil, mint and rosemary. I’ll
also put some Thompson seedless and Concord grape plants in the
truck. I picked the peppers and tomatillos and squash early in the
morning when it was still cool, so the evening picking was relatively
quick. The plums were already in the house, having been picked over
the last three days, but I’m not happy with the plums. For the first
time, a big branch broke on the tree that produces most heavily, and
the plums are not ripening quite right on the tree. These are the
kinds of things that worry me; what is wrong, and why, and what can I
do about it?

In fact, last night was worry night. I had decided to initiate
winemaking with plum wine, as we don’t preserve our plums in other
ways, and it was time to get acquainted with the winemaking process.
Our friend Dennis, down from Washington state for a few days and
staying with us, had accompanied me to the wine- and beer-making
supply store, where we picked up the ingredients for the plum wine
recipe I had Googled: a glass carboy and airlock and siphon tube;
tannin and yeast nutrient and acid blend and Montrachet yeast and
corn sugar and peptic enzyme and Campden tablets, all of them foreign
to me.

Plunging in headlong as usual, I decided to make three gallons,
rather than a more reasonable one gallon. That meant too much plum
cutting and pitting, and it resulted in filling my plastic fermenting
tub more than three quarters high. In the middle of the night I
realized that fermentation might cause the brew to spill over, and
furthermore, I had only assumed that I should triple the ingredients
(the recipe was for one gallon), without verifying it. That led to a
mental monster parade of all the ways I’m heedless and impulsive and
not careful, as I lay awake from 2 to 3 AM and beyond. In the
morning I took hold of myself and reduced the brew by one gallon, in
one decisive stroke thereby significantly improving my self esteem,
if not my character.

Monday at dark, Dennis and I stayed by the fire late into the night,
using the Huichol medicine to see things better. I had been
struggling to find a way to make our little corn ceremonies more
communal and less fraught with tension and grimness. Trying to play
out the Huichol fiestas without a Huichol community has been
problematic for years. In the night I was able to glimpse the
possibility of a better way.

I received a nice note from Robert Forman after my last posting. He
is an American artist who seriously studied Huichol yarn art and
incorporates it in his work, and he knew my old mentor don Lupe and
his family. Daughter in law Simone, my web expert, is linking our
website to his, glueyarn.com. I also got a call back from my old
friend Eliot, who first introduced me to don Lupe and whose support I
wanted to enlist in getting Pachita to eventually move into a house
in Joaquín and Federica’s compound. We agreed on a course of action.