cliodhna’s wave

Life

I went to Teotihuacan recently for a ceremony for the death of an old shaman woman named Sarita. Her son was there and his sons and wifes and all the people she had touched during her life whether directly, through the people she had taught and healed or indirectly like me who had never met her but felt it was important to be there.

The reason why this is in the life part is that death is not a dissapearing rather a passing onto somewhere else. The reason I went is not that I was sad she was dead but to honour her life here and the teaching that she passed onto others including me. She passed it onto her son (Miguel Ruiz, he wrote the ´Four aggreements’ you might have heard of the book) who passed it onto the teacher I work with who is passing it onto me. This teaching has been around since before the aztecs, way before that and went underground when the spanish arrived here in mexico. Each generation gets it, changes it slightly and then passes it onto the next one. The essence remains the same however. Knowledge of self, stalking the self, to be in your own centre and power with your own connection to the heart. It was great to be there.

Death

I had my principals tested the other night. I have been bemoaning that fact that we kill anything we see that is slightly dangerous to us. Spiders, scorpions, snakes, wolves, bears, tigers, rats, all get squished under the heel of the human fear of death.

The other night wandering around the house with a torch to see what I could see (counting the scorpions on the wall outside, the bumbling june bugs in their season of dying, the praying mantis waving back and forth doing its best to look like an innocent twig swaying in the wind) when in the corner of the kitchen shiny black, with the ever so familar bright red hour glass shape on its belly was the classic spider of all the spiders…. the black widow. I looked at it for ages and then thought “I suppose I should kill it” The idea of going back to bed with it still in the kitchen didn´t appeal to me. I was still looking at it when it ran back under the cupboard. I went and put on boots and got the broom, checked the corners and turned the cupboard over. Got a towel and squished it. I really didn´t want to but I suppose I discovered that a black widow spider outside is one thing but a black widow spider in my kitchen was another thing entirely. I thought of catching it but to tell the truth I was kind of nervous about it, my mind was telling me about death and bites and poisin and generally creating fear. 

Just checked on the net and apperently they are not very deadly, their venom (15 times stronger than a rattlesnake) produces severe muscle cramps (very painful) for about three days and hospitals generally prescribe morphine for the pain. The anitvenom actually kills more people than the venom. Old, sick, pregnant and children are most at risk of dying. Maybe the next time I won’t be so scared and catch it instead of killing it. One of the mine workers got bitten by a Violin Spider in Chihuahua and he is still in hospital with operations on his arm. I guess its easy to be idealistic about thiese things when you grow up in a country which has no dangerous anythings what so ever…. not even ants that bite!

all the other stuff in between

the dogs got their injections and the puppy shrieked and yowled for about ten minutes. Puppies are such babies. Went to the vet the next day and got pipettes to give it by the mouth, much better.

and now go outside look up at the sky and see past the blueness of the sky and think about the fact that we are on a spaceship of green and blue and things growing and dying but always changing, in the middle of nothing sailing round a huge ball of light and warmth. We get so lost in our little fears and desires. We don´t actually have to do anything except be here and live and learn how to be happy and let it all flow until its time to go, time to leave this place and go travelling again. Thats my hippy thought for the day… man

x clio