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.

 

Comments

[London Website Development]

Interesting,

This is very inspiring,

I would love to make a visit,

Thanks for writing, most people don't bother.