SANTO DAIME FEITIO

Vila Fortaleza
10-12 January 2008



The feitio ritual for making the Santo Daime brings many things together. The leaf, vine, water, fire, music, work, people, friendship, nature, the forest, the place and the Doctrine all forming into a union that fashions a holy drink. The result is much more than the sum of its ingredients. It is something beyond words... a sacrament.



The following video weaves together clips from the several days of the Vila Forteleza feito. It begins with the bateção pounding the jagube vine into long fibers. Saturnino's maraca, the mallets and the voices all work together with the musical Doctrine presented in the hymns of Antônio Gomez (Nosso Mestre). Next comes the days of cooking and more preparation working with the hymns of Padrinhos Sebastião (Vem) and Valdete, and concluding with the final night of the hymns of João Pereira (Lá Vem a Minha Mãe).



Here are some photos















More photos here.

FORRÓ WITH DAIME
Encounter for a New Horizon
Vila Fortaleza January 2008




Forró is the popular dance form from Northeastern Brazil where Mestre Irineu was born. In its modern form it is a vigorous dance like a polka but more rhythmic and hip twisting and it has been remixed into forms that are currently popular throughout Brazil, and even in the USA.


In Vila Fortaleza it is danced mostly in the old-fashioned waltz style. Here are the words (in italics) of Padrinho Luiz Mendes recalling forró in the days of Mestre Irienu.


"He provided dance parties. Mestre danced a lot and his favorite dance was precisely the forró. He liked the forró. He was a good and beautiful dancer and was fun in a party. I happened to be in a party that lasted the whole night, but there was a time in the past where they danced for three consecutive nights. ....

"Drinking Daime at a forró… boy, it made a party of it...."



"It is a [spiritual] work. It is a work that gives joy to witness, to dance with your mother, drinking Daime, mirando [visioning], the most beautiful thing that one can appreciate. “Oh! But I don't know how to dance!” The orchestra teaches, the Daime teaches, placing everything in the right way as it should: dancing and mirando."








"There is an expression he [Mestre Irineu] used when he was going to ask a lady for a dance. It is a thing so rich, so rich, the force of this expression upon asking a lady for a dance.... He would stand up and say: “A lady made of silver to dance with a gentleman made of gold.”

"It is very pleasant, it is very good to dance with your woman, to dance with your sister and to dance, finally, with all the ladies, mostly the ones that also took the Daime, because in order for it to work is recommended that the gentleman drinks Daime and the lady also drinks Daime. But it is good, it is very good, it is like a dream that we are just remembering."




"And let’s dance, and let’s cheer up."


Saturnino singing a Luiz Gonzaga classic.

The song complains about the loss of good air, water, land and of Chico Mendes. At the song's end, Saturnino changes the lyrics slightly to include Mestre Irineu. Chico Mendes and Raimundo Irineu Serra both launched globally significant movements -- political and spiritual -- giving new hope to people and nature from the forests of Acre.

On this night most of the forró musicians (and many guests) were from the local township of Caipixaba which borders on Xapuri where Chico Mendes fought to save the rainforest from the ravages logging and ranching and was murdered in 1988. Across the last 20 years the politics of the area has become more progressive with Acre State programs of land-use planning and sustainable economic development. The old tensions between those who want to preserve and those who want to exploit are being eased in the process.

Today, of course, there are new pressures. Signs of globalization are everywhere. There is sugar cane being planted for ethanol





and even gas and oil prospecting (in northern Acre). The road to the west coast is being paved in Peru where, unfortunately, violence and murder have flared up again and illegal logging has penetrated onto Indian lands in Brazil.

The situation is more tranquil in Acre, for sure, but the pressure to develop economically through exports is great. Already, a new bridge to Peru has been opened connecting the roads of Acre and Brazil to Asia and the markets of the Pacific Rim.




On this night of forró at Vila Fortaleza another bridge is being built -- between local people from the rural ranching culture and Santo Daime visitors from the urban centers and abroad. Here, in tiny Vila Fortaleza, they are singing and dancing along the "inner road" of Santo Daime where the important "export products" are friendship and joy. Perhaps, this exuberance and happiness may also have global significance.



Here are some photos:

































View all the photos here.

NOTE: I think it's important to state that the Daime-Forró shown in this post is not a common experience along the Santo Daime path, and it is not presented by the Luiz Mendes group outside of the home ground of Vila Fortaleza.

Ayahuasca-based rituals involve a very strong psychoactive substance that is often purgative and extremely difficult. In no sense can they be considered as "party drugs." In order to achieve what is shown above, there must be a very strong spiritual container and many well-practiced people. Fortunately, that is what exists at Vila Fortaleza.

Resurrection of the Earth
seems like a perfect post for an Easter Sunday.

But, first I'd like you to consider an image -- a photo montage created by the Brazilian visionary artist and designer Guta.





I'm sure that Guta would have presented a much more professional-looking rendering of this magnificent image. (I simply "posterized" a poor photo of his work.) It captures the interweaving of two great Brazilian religious traditions -- Aparecida and Santo Daime -- both of which manifest the spiritual energy of this Brazilian and universal Goddess. And, now, I have an additional connection in mind.

Back in November I reported a newspaper article that said:

"God is Brazilian", said Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in response to his government's announcement that massive new oil reserves had been discovered offshore.
But, it turns out that there is more than one kind of Black Gold. The recent "rediscovery" of Terra Preta soils of the ancient Amazonian Indians may prove to be more valuable than off-shore oil. If God is Brazilian, She just might be Black.


This image is of the much-revered Black Madonna of Brazil, Nossa Senhora de Conceição Aparecida -- Our Lady of Conception Who Appeared.



The story is that a statue of the Virgin made around 1650 was somehow lost. Then, in 1717, some government people were traveling north to the gold mining region of Minas Gerais where the precious metal was called Ouro Preto due to a dark coating on the nuggets. Along the way fishermen cast their nets in a river hoping to catch fish for a big banquet. Instead of fish, they found the statue -- all darkened by years in the river bed. The travelers went on but the statue was kept in a little family shrine.

Soon the statue appeared to have healing and wish-granting powers -- at least for some faithful ones -- and a cult began to grow around it. As time passed, it had to be housed in larger and larger quarters and came to be venerated throughout Brazil. In 1929, the Virgin was proclaimed Queen of Brazil and its official Patron Saint. Today its Basilica, in the city of Aparecida near São Paulo, receives about 7 million visitors yearly and is the largest Marian shrine in the world.

From the first time I saw this great Black Madonna, this symbol appeared to me as more than an artifact of the Catholic Church. Indeed, it seemed even more like an icon of the power of the earth.

Nowadays, there is an emerging parallel story. As the world searches for solutions to hunger, fuel shortages, deforestation and climate change, Terra Preta soil from deep in Amazônia may be emerging as as a way to heal the earth. YES, biochar -- the modern equivalent of Terra Preta de Indios -- may be rising into our awareness truly as the resurrection of the earth.

And, yes, the Goddess is Black.



Can you imagine fighting hunger, energy poverty, deforestation and climate change SIMULTANEOUSLY?

Please stay tuned.