Primarily a writing exercise, this dream journal-inspired blog is a quiet introspective sojourn into the process that we traverse in going from private dream to public art. I see our dreaming as an internalized mythmaking. As I philosophize and expressively exhibit dreams, both private and public, I encourage and delight in creative language as a way to practice experiential metaphors through a “public dreaming." Writing Theory: Creative Dream Fiction

Friday 9 December 2011

The Achuar Awaken the Modern Dreamer



Achuar Chief Peas Peas Ayui visited my city this month. He came to stand before the CEO of a company destroying his homeland, poisoning his children, and tearing from the riverine soils our one community of all Earthly life, the very biodiversity of the Amazon: OUR LUNGS.

Through Pachamama Alliance

The Pachamama Alliance noted that the Achuar have a "Self-Sufficient Dream Culture" who, "In all aspects of their culture reflect a spirituality oriented around dreams and visions. The Achuar have many ancient, and refined rituals to access dreams and integrate them into daily life." (source)


Based on a travel account into Achuar territory, we may learn more about the importance of dreaming:


For Information on the Achuar, Oil "Development" and the Perils of the Modern Dream
Go To AMAZONWATCH

4 comments:

  1. Arutam are like Aluxes, no?

    That is Peter Coyote, yes?

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  2. Although I did visit the Peruvian Amazon in 2009, I did not seek or find any knowledge or information related to "arutam." I did not visit Achuar territory. I visited mainly Cocama territory. In the late winter of 2009, I did, however visit a small Yucatec Maya village in Mexico. Specifically researching indigenous ecological concepts local to the village where I visited. I wrote in a school paper:

    The purpose of the Baal Cheh ceremony is to entice the alux forest spirits into communion with the mental will of the village. The alux are invoked in the ceremony as helpers or allies for the sake of promoting a positive relation to the milpa agriculture surrounding the Xmaben village residence. In the explanation of the alux, Liberato said that his mother advised him not to make animal traps with overly sharp sticks in order to safeguard the alux spirits whose job is to watch over the milpa. When the alux are not taken into account as important physical and spiritual entities within ceremony and daily agricultural practice the milpa will suffer a limited potential. One western ethnographer`s experience with the negative aspects of the alux is recounted in an early study of the Yucatec Maya.

    "As the little man went forth, I followed him with the fixed idea of getting him…I heard something running through the cornstalks, and a great noise just like thunder came from the direction of a large cave which I knew was there. I thought my last hour had come and that I would be killed by some unknown and mysterious enemies, undoubtedly the `alux,` and a terrible fear got possession of my senses…When I recovered myself a little I began to hurry from the milpa to my home. A strong fever struck me and I had to send for a medicine man to treat me…"(Steggerda 1941: 76)

    The perspectives of indigenous spirituality must be understood as a foundational aspect in the communal health of Yucatec Maya villages where forms of disease and danger are most appropriately prevented and cured within the indigenous ontological practice.

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  3. I may be inclined to edit and post these undergraduate research works in Latin America freely online in the future...

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  4. Gad, man, is there no place you haven't been?

    A friend of mine visited Yucatan and I essentially transcribed what he said here:

    Notes from El Yucatan

    Sounds like my kind of place. As for actor Peter Coyote, I thought that was his voice on the video, which would be good because he always seems to get involved in the best causes.

    Jerome Rothenberg's Poems and Poetics (which is where you found me - and I went to his 80th birthday celebration on Friday where they talked of some of this) has a lot on the poetries and arts of the indigenous South, especial Popol Vuh and Maria Sabina. My advice to you (not that you need any advice from me) is to put the Westernized training through the filter of a truly boundary-free perspective.

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