the next day
over the water to the town of San Pedro we prepared for the wedding and welcome for Aliex.. as ever the boat ride is beautiful...
The hills are so steep we start walking and already, although it is early, the heat is so strong and we stop for a freshly squeezed orange juice before hitching a ride in the buggies that scream around the narrow colorful streets...
First we visited the local Dr.... Dr Pizza known by this local name for the pizza oven in the pic he was the first to introduce Pizza in the area and everyone came to eat his Pizzas before they learned of his great healing... Ah food the beginning of all healing...
Dr Pizza a most delightful man who upon hearing we wished to film him ran off not two mins into meeting and returned in his finest... I was immediately in love! :)
He is a renowned herbalist and teacher
The following pictures are his request that I film and document his book for all to see I hope the images are clear enough in his unlit hut to document his life work for him her on the world wide web...
even in tiny spaces he has a little patch of healing herbs...
soo cute he kept posing...:)
Out at his herb farm and home... hard for me to tell herb or weed... I think that is the point there really is no weed it just depends on the use for it...Everywhere on these steeps hills is a great view!
and he proudly showed me his certificates!!
Ok I know it was a lot... but I promised him and how could you let down that face!!
Next ....
Isabel and I are invited spr of the moment to attend the Mayan birthday celebration for the granddaughter of the Xamen Don Pedro. As a young graduate from university Isabel's agro tourism diploma in hand and planted in the hand of her prestigious heart doctor father... she hightailed it out of Guatemala to live with this family and work in service with them in the mountains deep and committed to the ceremonies and the native people's for seven years... so this is a home coming for Isabel and I feel honoured to be allowed to partake of the inner family and take these pictures.
The birthday girl adds offerings to the fire symbolic of the centre and portal of communication with the heart of the spirits. Her cousin, who's birthday they would do this all again for in two days time...chants to the protector spirits in unison with her movements. Both are Xamen in training, both very reverential to nature's life force. It is so wonderful to see this in such young people... but they are filled with purpose and a calmness borne of feeling the spirits I too can feel.
At the wedding the following day,once again they would play integral roles helping hold the energy of the 4 points of the compass so important to these ceremonies.
a little one visits and nothing is perturbed... the family life wanders in and out . It is not a formal stuffy feel but rather an acknowledgement of the ever present life force around us all the time and a pause in our reality to commune and say thanks.
Don Pedro leads the ceremony and they are all attentive to his lead.
The smoke is used to create a pathway to 'see the spirits' even the great tobacco cigar is not 'smoked' for the user to feel something but rather to draw the spirit to her. I too can feel the 'conversation' though of course I have no idea what they are saying in words for they speak not only in Spanish/ Guatemalan but in the native language of the ancients of Maya. Marina does not smoke cigars at all outside this ceremony and it is not at all a sensory tool like some rituals. These people use NO Plant hallucinogens like the
mexican peyote,psilocybin mushrooms, cannabis or ayahuasca of the Amazon to feel the reverie of the spirit.
As I too have only studied without ever taking any stimulants EVER in all my life either recreationally or in or in reverie, this is a way I can immediately interact with and indeed was to be a most profound experience for me. It was a strong communication they all felt with me and later was described just as I had thought and felt it just at the same moment it occurred though I had no awareness they could 'hear' my experience as to all intents and appearances I thought they were engaged in something for the little girl's birthday so I was amazed they had felt the communication I received.
Behind Marina are painted the signs of the Mayan calendar like our zodiac; each symbol is a talisman of the spirit that protects you and you were born under.
Don Pedro, a truly beautiful dedicated being and his lovely daughter and xamen also, Marina
It has been a long day yet again and we still have the boat ride and buggies to get home across the water in the dark.. Within minutes of the sun setting at 6, as it does year round, it will get cold so we do not dally too long...Resting after all our activities the locals, who know Isabel, come to sell their wares and share a laugh! We are waiting for Marina and the children to arrive so we can take them home with us for a treat for the childrens birthdays...
the beautiful Isabel such a tireless guide doing a great job!
The cake for both siblings was the highlight of the evening far outshining the feast I had prepared for them. At the last minute, Don Pedro did not come as he was called to perform another service that night and again in the morning.. Always at sunrise and sunset the turn of the planet when the energy is strongest... They do these for the whole community without request for payment you pay only what you feel you wish or can afford there is never any request.
Ah they move too quick for my low light and iphone pics! sorry about the blurry ones! but it seems it is always me doing the pics!!
She is so very well behaved and polite she appears as though her birthday cake sitting there at breakfast was nothing...
Her brother's eyes were not so restrained and when asked he lept at the chance to eat it for breakfast!
It is the morning of the wedding we are having breakfast and then will return our delighted guests to the boats to prepare for the wedding... it was a truly beautiful evening and start to the day! My teenage boys are still sleeping...!
they are blessed with plants
many many chants and blessings go long into the settling evening
and are led many times around the fire bound by ribbons and flowers
the bride's mother how lovely I am deeply touched by this ceremony known the world over for its uniting of family, continuance, responsibility and love.
