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I YAM WHAT I YAM




This is going to be fun.

OK, full disclosure: For years I have always hated my dentures which I experience as both uncomfortable and as highly constraining. The joys of taste and the simple pleasure of feeling the sensualities of my tongue roll across my palette are simply not available in a mouth full of plastic. And, besides, the damn contraptions no longer fit well and they've started to hurt. Indeed, I rarely use them at home – they just sit in their container waiting for me to grab them for my entry into the public world of presenting myself. I've been thinking about no longer using them for quite some time.

Two nights ago we performed a Santo Daime healing ritual called Os Chamados – The Calls – which are the healing hymns of Mestre Conselheiro Luiz Mendes. One part of the ritual is that as people line up for their first drink of Daime each receives a randomly-drawn card that indicates some virtue such as "truth" or "justice" or "harmony" – a good concept to contemplation during the ritual.

For example, this one says entendemento -- understanding.



In the spirit of what I had already been thinking about and of getting what I had asked for, the card that was "randomly drawn" for me said – of course! – COMFORT. Well, it didn't take much contemplation to realize that it was only vanity that stood between me and my healing. OK. I got it! One smiles with one's heart and not one's teeth. I decided then and there that my denture days had ended. So be it!

Yesterday was my first toothless venture into the world. I came into town to meet with Dande Tavares who is the World Wildlife Fund representative on Amazon forest issues. My mission was to ask him to be my local "teacher", to introduce me to people and projects of sustainable production and forest preservation. He has generously agreed, which is tremendously important for a newcomer and foreigner such as myself.

Then I prevailed upon him to be my photographer, documenting my toothless reentry into the world.


Photo by Dande Tavares

Dande thought the whole thing was pretty funny.



You know, as I have mentioned in previously posts, Saturnino likes to deliver a lecture at the conclusion of our healing rituals that says it is a misconception to think that healing involves suffering. Instead, he thanks people for sharing its joys.

It works that way for me. I have often thought, "Well, here I am at 71 years and I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up." Now I know. I want to be younger. I don't think that's going to happen in my body – surely not in my teeth – but it sure can happen in my heart and that's what I really want. With faith that one gets what one asks for, I know I will receive it.

PS: Around here they are going to start calling me Popeye Lou which is a word play with Papai Lu (Papa Lou).

Yup, healing can really be fun.