Monday September 7, 2009
Cidade Ecletica
Today is Brazillian Independence day, Sete de Septembro, like our 4th of July, when Brasilieros celebrate their independence from Portugal. There was a ceremony around the flagpole this morning at 8am. We arrived as it was ending and saw the scouts dressed in their scouting uniforms standing in a group with Elpidio, the number one Elder dressed in scouting attire as well with a dashing red beret.
The schedule for breakfast at 8am in the hotel restaurant restricts our movements at times, offering up the choice of activity or eating. We’ve been opting for eating. Inconvenient, to say the least, when a kitchen of our own would eliminate that particular problem.
It’s quite interesting to live in a place right across from the radio tower where announcements come any time, day or night regarding a myriad of subjects of information as well as musical numbers designating starting times or occasionally random interludes as far as I can tell. Just last night Paul was commenting that he liked it so much he never wanted to move too far from the reach of its sound.
Yesterday was the first attendance for us at Umbandu class, where we along with several others began the study of mediumship. We are joining in a class in progress, so we’ve no idea how far along the other students are. We did notice that some people in the class were wearing what looked quite similar to a lab coat, knee length, belted and with big red buttons. It’s like an intermediary version of the Ballandrou, the full length robes (generally all white – but different colors for different occasions) that the mediums wear during ceremonies. Once or twice the 2 teachers stopped to ask us if we understood, whereupon we both replied “um pouco” (a little) but in actuality that was an exaggeration as I for one understood VERY little. Paul on the other hand was understanding much more. His ability for understanding is much greater than mine while my ability to speak in Portuguese exceeds his. Together we are getting by, but for me it is an extreme source of frustration in a time when more than anything I want to understand and communicate!
The best thing was that we found our way to class, were accepted and will be expected going forward. I imagine our comprehension will increase proportionally.
After class we went to the Temple where a healing service was in progress, just in time to walk to the front of the line and go before the mediums for healing. This is an experience that I am at a loss for words to describe. But I shall make an attempt. Two mediums stand facing each other a couple feet apart with just enough room between them for you to stand facing the one medium who is incorporating a spirit entity. The other medium remains unincorporated to act as a helper. This one will hold your things if you are carrying anything like a purse or your glasses during the process, and is standing by to assist the other medium in case they stumble or start to fall from the energy they are withdrawing from you during the healing passes. Most will place their hands just inches away from your head to start and trace the outline of your body, often stopping to snap their fingers or wave away negative energies that they are pulling from you. Occasionally they will keel over, nearly falling to the floor with the vibrations or bending over from the waist and knees, lowering their heads to the floor. Then shake it off and resume. Often the medium will place her hand over my heart while placing her other hand over her own heart or behind her body. Sometimes she will start with my hands or at some point place my fingertips in her palms and sometimes pull my fingertips downward as if flicking off the energy she is removing. Often she will place a hand over my belly as if to feel any problems I might be experiencing there. After this energetic healing in the front, she motions me to turn around and then repeats a similar process in the back before returning me once again to the front.
Each time this is different and with different mediums the process can vary a lot. Some will speak and ask me questions which I often don’t understand, although occasionally I will have Gaudencio with me interpreting. Some mediums speak while they are incorporating and some don’t. Some entities like to snap their fingers a lot, some not at all. In general women and men are separated, with women seeing women mediums and men seeing men, unless it is a special healing which is quite different than the public services that take place on Sundays, Wednesday and Friday nights.
The experience for me as the recipient of the healing can vary but in general feels often very energetic. I can feel a cleansing happening. I can feel an increase in tranquility and peace and well being. Sometimes I can feel a very deep connection between myself and the entity. There are times when the entity seems to recognize my entity and questions who I am and quite often asks me who I am missing as they were sensing a feeling of loss and emptiness in my heart in the beginning but not so much now.
I believe this healing process may sometimes be referred to as magnetic passes. I would guess it is similar in some regards to Reiki, which is an energetic type of healing process. There are mediums here however who incorporate various entities, some of whom are doctors and can prescribe homeopathic remedies which have cured illness’ as grave as cancer and aids, cured blindness and lameness. Now I must stop here and first clarify that any attempt on my part to describe what is happening can in no way come even close to illustrating this phenomenon. You really have to experience it yourself to have any idea. In addition there is so much background information to understand before one could comprehend the magnitude of this spiritual healing process, that I in this meager attempt of a news like letter can provide. One has to believe that we are not only a physical being, but a spiritual manifestation temporarily living in a physical form. That this is not the only life, but one of many lives designed to provide lessons in the growth of our soul or spirit entity, which does not cease to be when we die. For many who are reading this letter, I imagine that what I am saying sounds like utter nonsense and you might think me really crazy or insane as there is no context with which you can relate to this, so you would have to go on total trust because you love me as a friend or because I am family. So be it. I can only make some attempt at illustrating these most bizarre of experiences.
We do often feel like we are living in a science fiction movie, especially when we hear a voice coming from the giant loudspeaker attached to the radio tower, delivering some new piece of information, which we are currently at a loss to understand.
We sit in our hotel room tonight awaiting the arrival of Gaudencio and Aspacia who will come to take us to their friend’s house or their daughter’s house for a holiday celebration dinner.
Tuesday September 8, 2009
Last night we went to Elliana and Arnaldo’s house. These are the daughter and son in law of Gaudencio and Aspacia. They live just next door to Gaudencio’s best friend Presiano who will be our teacher for Umbandu class. Gaudencio was given a gift of fresh fish by someone recently which was more than he could use and so he shared with his friend who has been keeping it in his freezer. The occasion for last nights dinner was to come together for a fish fry and the occasion of a holiday provided the perfect venue.
Gaudencio showed us around his daughter’s house pointing out where he had removed the roof of the original house and raised it several feet to create a very spacious house with high ceilings for his daughter’s new family as a wedding present last year. It was a very festive evening with the 3 families, Gaudencio’s other 2 daughters, Elliana’s son and Presiano’s wife and 2 children along with Arnaldo’s brother and Presiano’s nephew who came by and played music on the porch while everyone sang along. We drank some wine and beer and later tea and felt very welcomed and included.
This morning we had breakfast with a beautiful young Italian woman who came to town yesterday to visit Ecletica. We reaffirmed our thought that listening to a non native Portuguese speaker as well as people from Rio de Janeiro are much easier to understand as they seem to enunciate each word, use less idioms and generally not slur the words together or use too heavy of a Brazillian Portuguese pronunciation which changes the sound of d’s to g’s and t’s to ch’s.
Today and for the rest of this week we will focus on opening a bank account to begin moving dollars to reals, begin shopping for a used car and buy a TV to help us with learning the language.
Contrary to my deepest belief that television is a curse and a tool simply for mind control to hypnotize and dumb down the population, I am in agreement with everyone who tells us that it is the best tool for learning a new language. So we will go against our strongly held notion that watching TV is harmful and prevents consciousness development and start watching Brazillian TV to develop our language skills.
We have been thwarted in our efforts to secure a house to rent as nothing seems to be available at the moment and each possible lead has fizzled out. Paul is more than happy with this lifestyle of living in the hotel suite while my frustration and utter disappointment of last weekend’s no show of the owners of a house we thought we’d be able to move into, has subsided into a begrudged state of acceptance that the Way is not ready for us to make this move just yet. Patience is and has been an area for me that needs development so I will continue to work on this developmental need. Meanwhile we will begin to purchase a few items that will have us feel a little more at home, the TV for one and a way to make a pot of tea for another, while perhaps another go at consolidating the suitcases so we are not still living out of all 5 of them at once.
Yesterday afternoon while we rested in the room, reading and writing, a knock on the door brought a visit by thirteen year old Teresa and her friend Sue Ellen. They asked to see the photos of winter I had mentioned I had on my computer, so I invited them in. Paul was working on his computer writing an article on an aspect of consciousness development and continued to write while we three girls looked at pictures on my laptop. The girls were so curious about the expense of laptops in the US and seeing my camera and it later occurred to both Paul and I to be more cautious about people coming in our room and seeing what in their eyes is extreme wealth of material belongings, which for them is only an unobtainable desire. It separates us.
This is not so for everyone here of course as many of them have chosen a life in which they prefer the simplicity of having less, of having a life where money is something they prefer to be without as it brings too many problems. But this choice brings with it days of no food or little more than bread. This is the biggest difference in lifestyle between our two countries. What we take for granted that each of us is entitled to as basic necessities of life, our food and housing and clothing needs for example in comparison with this much poorer country is extravagant and excessive. I want to explain this in a way that is not judgmental or insulting as this is merely an “is.” The comfort level is simpler, in other words less is adequate. Perhaps this might serve as an illustration: We are staying in a hotel “suite.” It is simply a large room with a double bed, a single bed, a night table, dresser and a coat rack and a bathroom with shower. It is nothing special by American standards, but probably deluxe by Brazillian standards. (Please note that in Rio and the southern states it is entirely different and more European in nature and generally fairly wealthy) This room costs $30 Reals a night (about $15) compared with a simple room at the hotel which costs $10 Reals ($5) For many, this fact alone separates us as being people of great privilege and wealth. But most of them just accept that as okay and understand that as Americans we are used to different standards and do not judge us. It still feels as if we are accepted and welcomed to be here. It seems that they are happy we are here and that we want to work with them as mediums and many recognize that we may have a gift to offer in that the entities we might attract could be very good entities who can help many people.
From the reading I have been doing in the Spiritists literary volumes, I am learning that mediums who bring with them the gifts of intellectual comprehension, for example, attract a higher level of entity because it is easier for the entity to express and communicate through such a medium as they are able to relate to and understand the material wanting to be expressed. So it is possible that Paul and I offer a great deal to the community here by virtue of the experience we bring with us in terms of previously acquired spiritual and intellectual knowledge. I don’t wish this to sound haughty and presumptious, just merely making the point that our particular educations in the areas we have chosen to investigate, lend themselves to a greater level of understanding perhaps than some here who come from entirely different educational backgrounds – sometimes no educational backgrounds… The fact is that 50% of the people in Brazil don’t read and write. This being said, it may be that we will provide a great service by bringing through some more highly evolved spirits who are in need of a medium to communicate through. Sorry I know this makes me sound rather full of myself, and I don’t mean to do that, but I’m having difficulty making the observation in a more modest and humble way. It’s not that we ourselves are so much more intellectual or intelligent, it’s the exposure we’ve been drawn to explore.
I think it helps that we are replanting the hospital’s kitchen garden and many seem to acknowledge us for doing something to help out on the physical plane. These are hard working people!
Just yesterday morning when we were talking to Alini at breakfast, she told us that she was going to clean house for a woman she’s worked for thirteen years on her one day off from working in the restaurant. We expressed regret that she wouldn’t have a day off and she said NO, she was very happy to work! She told us she’s been working since she was 8 years old. This is a young woman of 29 with 3 children who is always happy.
Wednesday night September 9, 2009
Sittting in the hotel room listening to Paul play Maleguena on his guitar; beautiful! Tonight was a healing night at the Temple as is every Wednesday night. I always feel such a sense of tranquility and well being after the passes from the mediums. I love being around all the spirits in the Temple. I can’t explain it, but I feel such serenity and a break from the chains of normal waking consciousness, sort of. It’s not an altered state, it’s more of an in between both states or a window into another dimension. I can’t personally see into that dimension yet, but I can feel it.
I’ve yet to describe the ceremony that happens before the mediums incorporate their entities for healing. I’ll just say a little now and describe it in more detail later. There is a point at which someone sounds a buzzer after the people have begun filling the sanctuary. Paul is adding his input just now as I questioned him on what the signal is, and he adds that the buzzer is disconcerting and out of sync with everything else that takes place during the ceremonies. It’s the only thing neither of us likes, as it is jarring in a setting that is melodic and tranquil. But after this signal is given, about 70 or so mediums fill the front of the Temple and form concentric circles, by joining hands. A medium holding a device that swings from a chain and creates smoke, walks around the spiraling circle of mediums who now have their arms crossed in front of their bodies in a protective gesture, and fills the room with smoke. He does this in a beautiful pattern, at first standing in the very center and then addressing the corners before passing through the rows between the standing mediums. As he walks with this brass smoking pot, he taps a substance that burns as would tobacco into it to create more smoke and it sizzles and crackles as he does this. Once the room is adequately filled with smoke to create a welcoming atmosphere for the entities, they all begin to sing an enchanting and slightly discordant song. To my great disappointment, I do not understand the words to the song, but merely catch one or two. It is quite beautiful to hear so many singing together. About ¾ of the way through this song, some mediums begin to incorporate their spirit entities. Many of them bend forward and go to their knees or sit on the floor when this happens. Some begin clicking or snapping their fingers and others may wave their hands in the air, while some show no signs of the incorporation. By the end of the song, all the mediums return to standing once again and then disassemble into a new formation. At this point 4 men and 4 women form a human bridge by joining hands and lifting them to create a tunnel. The other mediums are strategically placed at both ends to create a logical passage for the other people to walk through this healing tunnel. And this is where the audience participation begins.
First the children walk through, followed by any others who would like this extra burst of energy healing. Afterwards, the people in the “audience?” (this can’t be the right word) okay how about “congregation” are directed when and where to go for their healing “passes” with the entities. They are sorted into groups, such as first timers, passes with entities who speak and those who don’t, members of the temple or of the community, visitors, etc. I don’t yet understand all the designations or the reasons for them.
So this is the point at which I earlier described what the passes are like. As I understand or experience more, I will write in more detail. But I will leave it at this for now.
As always, Paul and I wish you all well. Thank you for joining us in this great adventure by reading along. We welcome hearing your thoughts or questions and if you or someone you know is in need of long distance healing, you can send your (or their) name and complete address and we will take it to the Temple on Friday nights.