La verdad.

"It is a good thing for the man who walks to walk", the storyteller relates this knowledge shared with him by the seripigari and continues, saying "that is wisdom, I believe. It is most likely a good thing. For a man to be what he is. Aren't we Machiguengas now the way we were a long time ago? The way we were that day in the Gran Pongo when Tasurinchi began breathing us out: that's how we are. And that's why we haven't disappeared. That's why we keep on walking, perhaps." (220)

He says this after relating his own personal experience, and another bit of wisdom from a seripigari, who claimed that "being born with a face like yours isn't the worst evil; it's not knowing one's obligation" which Mascarita, the storyteller, ponders. "Not being at one with one's destiny, then? That happened to me before I became what I am now. I was no more than a wrapping, a shell, the body of one whose soul has left through the top of one's head." (214)

And yet, the animals in Amazonia still kill their imperfect offspring.

Envisioning the world of the Jewish Machiguenga storyteller through the enlightened and entranced mind of Mario Vargas Llosa was a fascinating journey for me. As a writer, I cannot help but let my fantasy wander deeper into the forests of the Amazon and wonder what words were spoken in actuality by this unorthodox hablador; what paths led to which journeys and how our Mascarita manages to become one with a tribe to which he was not born; but the more I ponder, the more Llosa's insights and ideas on the matter display themselves to me as essentially flawless. Llosa is so well-researched on the subject and has obviously spent an incredible amount of time considering the topic, so much so that I cannot find any fault in his ideas and representations of a matter which no one could possibly fully and properly represent with any sort of certainty.

Llosa's comparison of Mascarita basically being a marginalized marginalized person - between his Jewish ancestry and his birthmark - helping him to relate to the Machiguengas and also that of the Jewish people walking, being pushed out time and again, and continuing to be who they are in spite of everything seemingly being against them being who they are spoke to me as obvious truth - though they were something I'd never before thought of in my life. And when problems arise in the Machiguenga culture, the answer is to walk, to remember who you are, to fulfill your obligation. Walk. Such a simple thing, but it really has been capable of allowing their tribal culture to survive for many years; as outside of Amazonia in South America, things change year by year as different political parties take over or different cultural influences are introduced and so on. And you wouldn't think something as simple as walking would be easy to forget. But we humans seem to forget everything unless it's shoved under our noses and stinks.

Mascarita's rebirth is something that I also think, though he takes it to the extremes, that most people can relate to on some level. Did your life have meaning before it had meaning? When did you learn to really see and know yourself and what you contribute to the world? Or do you contribute to the world? And do you know what you are? Sometimes, it seems, we may not really fit within the lines that our lives have constructed around us.

And if this is the case, are you brave enough to push those walls aside, and step without them into an unknown realm. I dare say most of us are not.

As the storyteller says "I had a bad trance, and in it I lived through a story I'd rather not remember. Nonetheless, I still remember it." (202) "But I haven't been able to forget and I go on telling about it." (207)

Maybe it's worth us telling about.

That, anyway, is what I have learned.

So it goes.

But what have we lost?

I am not about to try to advocate any of the initiation rites we went over in class.

And I think what we have lost is more than just these initiation rites.

Doesn't it seem to take longer and longer to reach adulthood these days? I know many people whose children are living with them, or on their dollar, well into their thirties. I suppose we live longer, so no big deal, but there was a time when getting married at fifteen wasn't child marriage and initiation rites were in place to prepare you for a merciless world.

Though it's politically incorrect and perhaps distasteful, I love the phrase "white girl problems". Really, most of us primarily have white girl problems in our lives. The majority of people in the U.S. today are not fighting daily for survival - for food, water, sex; against enemies, animals and diseases. I'm not saying we live in a perfect world, but most of the things that are problems for us, are not things that people used to even have the time to think about. As genuinely fucked up as many of the initiation rituals which we learned in class were, I believe there were/are even worse things going on outside of the communities' reach which could happen to the people who practiced these rites. They were raising their children to be strong for survival. And as brutal as those rituals seem to us; life can/could be even more brutal.

And our initiation rituals? Sweet sixteen, turning twenty one, getting a doctorate, or even joining the military - to prevent myself from further expletives I'll use the word I used in my last blog: cakewalk. Our lives - with, perhaps, the exception of those in the military - are so much safer and less painful, that our initiations seem to have fallen in step.

I think in a lot of instances we've lost our sense of connection with life as we have lost our bond with death and pain, but I'll take it. I'd much rather jump in a snowy mountain lake; dig my hands in the cool, black dirt; or race through the cold wind in the air to remind myself I'm alive than have to endure the hardships so many have before me.

Initiations

I had free choice on my initiation presentation and I chose to do it on the Heaven's Gate cult. I started by looking into cult initiation rites, but - surprise, surprise - there is little information to be found on the internet concerning the initiation rites of cults. I did, however, find a lot of information on Heaven's Gate.

I remember when Heaven's Gate was in the news, I was about ten at the time, and all I knew was that they had committed mass suicide. It stands out in my brain still, as something to do with a comet and the world ending, but the world didn't end! Once I started looking into them, I found the leader and the movement rather fascinating. I watched the first four sections of their initiatory video and would have continued had I more time. I included the first segment below for your viewing pleasure.




In case you have no interest in watching, the above man is Do. Do is, as he says, "the mind of Jesus" in a new contemporary flesh body. He goes on and on, but long story short, the world was ready to be recycled and Do wanted to help you make the journey from Earth to heaven before it was too late. All you had to do was shed your flesh body so that you could don your extraterrestrial body when you get to the kingdom level above the human level, i.e. heaven. And that's exactly what his followers did.

There are no initiation rites to get into the cult; they did not consider themselves a cult and welcomed anyone who wanted to join them and believe. However, they did require the greatest sacrifice in order to journey to heaven. And in March of 1997, 39 followers gave up their lives in order to initiate themselves into the kingdom of God.

The reason I believe this counts as an initiation rite, rather than what it appears to be to us, a death rite, is because these people genuinely believed that they were not committing suicide. They have information all over their website about how suicide is wrong and an act against God. They followed the proper steps and killed themselves just so, in the correct manner for the soul to leave the body, unscathed, and be able to continue on its journey. They took three days to do it, a few people at a time, helping each other along the way: cyanide and arsenic, followed by a barbiturate and vodka and a nice plastic bag to asphyxiate yourself.

Sure makes the Christian initiatory rite of baptism look like a cakewalk.

It's just so tedious...

... and I'm just so slow.

There are many tedious things which I do not mind doing. I secretly enjoy bookkeeping, paying bills, putting away groceries, and even doing the dishes so long as time is in on my side. Tedious schoolwork I enjoy, it's a challenge for me. And when, at work doing a hair color, I put scores and scores of foils in people's hair, they never fail to mention "that looks so tedious!" to which I reply "it's just like doing needlework". And it is, and I do genuinely love it. There is something to be said for the comfort found in repetition. 

That being said, there are some things that are tedious which I do not enjoy, and my most loathed of these is cleaning. I hate cleaning. I'm a messy person by nature who needs a clean house in order to keep a clear and sane mind. However, I absolutely hate cleaning. I move too slow, I'm too much of a perfectionist, I get distracted, and I'm allergic to everything so I sneeze and drip the whole time I clean. 

I've tried everything to make the tedium of cleaning less painful - cleaning with friends, listening to music, breaking it up, doing it all at once, watching movies while I clean, and on and on - and yet, though I always enjoy the feeling of satisfaction at the end, I cannot seems to figure out a way to hate cleaning less. Is there always a way, you think, to make yourself enjoy the tedious things in life? Perhaps time would help me, because that usually is the big stresser there - too much to do and not enough time so the thing you despise the most moves to the bottom of the list and you despise it even more for being there. 

You know my plan to someday rid housecleaning of its tediousness? Pay someone else to do it.