The Achuar Remind Us Not All Dreams Are Visions

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak directly with a Oscar Gutierrez and Jiyukama Irar Milk (the actual narrator of the video linked, not the name incorrectly attributed in the film) about dream interpretation in the Amazon. They told me that all the indigenous people of the Amazon interpret dreams regularly, however, there are two different kinds of dream. The first is the common dream, the second is the vision. Dream are important as they may carry a vision. The dream vision is prophetic and speaks of what will occur. Such a dream is a message from without, while the common dream is simply an internal component of one's personality. 

We also spoke on many other subjects including the use of Ayahuasca, which is a fundamental tradition in Achuar territory. In the old days, the use of Ayahuasca was preceded by three months of fasting (restricted diet), no sexual relations or any negative thoughts, and followed by the same. Nowadays, it is often a simple drink. This is another facet of disrespect for the Achuar and Amazonian culture. We are quickly drinking the sacred fluid of our Mother without thought to vision. 

Oscar, who quickly spoke to me as a good friend, told me that in life we have different food, we have the food we take as an infant, as an adolescent as an adult and as an elder. Just as in life, our spiritual food changes throughout life. I think this is mirrored in society. We need to move on from the food of fossil fuels to a new source of sustenance. 

Hear the Achuar speaking to Calgary in a full presentation VISIT MEDIA CO-OP

__________

With my stepsister and cousins, we traverse a riverine flood. The rich jungle environment encases us in a dense canopy. The sky is revealed through a slim corridor directly above. The river craft glides easily through a welcoming glade. As the river opens up, a mass of white fog blows with violent extremes into our unprotected bow. We careen at the edge of the river, where spindly trees and submerged bushes angle us awkwardly over the final brink of this newfound overflowing mass of storm-drowned winds. The impenetrable beyond, throws us sideways, with escalating velocity as we hold on to a mass of ant-festered branches. Others wildly match our weight on the other side in a chaos of organized adrenaline, concentrated at the core of our one human-bound vessel against the raw throat of nature, howling with supernatural emotion. The sight of the open river, where three massive tributaries open into the glory of the Amazon is a wicked sight to behold on this late morning of disastrous weather, an impasse into the lone being of nature, an uninvited resting place for her untamable heart, calling for the incendiary flood of the world to cry with her. We finally reach out beyond the swamplands. My sister exits from the boat first, muddy and soaked, yet unscathed. We find rest in the scintillating folds of a day passed under the thumb of her gorgeous rage. 

__________

Step-sister

"To dream of a step-sister, denotes you will have unavoidable care and annoyance upon you."

__________

This night, this life,
I have too many things.

In this society, that brings the free to seek
again
the wizardry of greed and foul upbringings of nameless increase.

Our lands, that strove for a scintillating hate
against the enemies of needless suffering.

Believing the want and designed haunts
of spells
of advertised gore.

Shaven religion
perfectly watching

Into the embittered ear
the strange gods of money.

Bastards from wars of holy judgment,
burning at the feet of a character flaw,
bleeding profusely from a nail

Shot, bridges hollow in the tooth of a filthy savior
trapped with anger and speed.

The rats of knives speak in the trunks of battered forests
flee into the naked feeding,
avenues of the poor
treating the flies to an ambush of praise
in the flat, rusted movie of dead order

Morbidity, for a war that drew earth into a mild farce
for the wicked and insane

- excerpt from "Of Sex and Intellect"