The night of Tuesday, December twentieth, was the longest of the year; Wednesday morning, I joined several others at the top of Lottawatta Way to sing (and drum) up the sun, Earthaven style. As she rose, great and orange, over a mound between two ridges, we serenaded each neighborhood, beginning with the one at our feet: “Hut Hamlet, you are beautiful/Hut Hamlet, you are strong/So wonderful to be with/We’ll help you carry on/Hut Hamlet, hear our loving song.”
Wednesday afternoon, in the Council Hall, I joined about fifty humans – from Earthaven and beyond – to sing up, dance up, trance up an item on Kimchi’s bucket list: a collaborative, ephemeral painting experience, aswirl in a pool of music, movement, and prayer.
The gathering began with a despacho – a ceremony originating with the Q’ero people of the Andes mountains. Kimchi’s intention for this iteration – led by Gayle – was to channel gratitude to Mother Earth for the wild abundance of blessings she grants us every day.
First, Gayle made a circle of sugar on a large sheet of paper laid over a rug. Then, within the circle, she layered a wealth of offerings – raisins, herbs, incense, corn, branches, flowers, candy, a whelk, and so on – each one honoring a gift from our Mother, a node or strand in the web of life. Then she invited us to approach the altar (one or two or a few at a time) and breathe prayers into sheaves of three leaves and a petal, while Kimchi led us in a simple two-verse song: “Pachamama/Madre Tierra,” (repeated twice); “Tata Inti/Tata Inti/Tata Inti/Gran Espíritu” (repeated twice). Partway through this stage of the ritual, redmoonsong removed a spangled, gauzy wrap from her own shoulders and draped it over Kimchi’s – adding a touch of glitter, another layer, to her ever resplendent dress.
Before folding the paper over, to wrap the pile, Gayle issued a last call for contributions. I’d noticed she hadn’t added any chocolate; I happened to have brought some that I’d made (known as “crack” for its high cacao content) to the Council Hall. Did I want to offer a ball of it, to be burned along with the rest of the package?
Having read a couple books by Martín Prechtel, I was familiar with the Tzutujil belief that we must continually feed the spirit world – with music, food, poetry, beauty – if we’re to renew the flow of gifts we might be tempted to take for granted, if we’re to “keep life alive.” But I’d thus far shrunk from burning chocolate – or anything edible – as an offering. The thrift-monster in me roundly refused.
This time, though, I could sense the package as a feast for Mother Earth (source of all the chocolate ever made) – and what feast is complete without chocolate? So, after some hesitation, I did offer a black-gold ball for burning, just as Mother Sun offers her orange-gold body, for our light and warmth, every morning.
With the package wrapped and bound, Kimchi called our attention to the great swaths of paper covering multiple vertical surfaces in one stretch of the hall. For the next hour and twenty minutes, we would play on this paper, in paint and charcoal; later, in Gayle’s ceremonial fire pit, our work, along with the despacho, would burn.
I jumped right in, painting a spiraling, serpentine staff on one blank expanse, and a curvy purple “W” – a recreation of my only tattoo – on another. Then I stepped back to watch.
At first, the painters tended to spread out, leaving others’ marks untouched. But as the sheets filled, collaboration proliferated: A nude woman, stretching up from flames, gained a sun to stretch towards, a pink backdrop, a flock of birds at her fingertips. A clump of neat, round flowers became flower people. A tree’s bare charcoal branches grew neon green leaves. Down low, a toddler cloaked a graceful avian migration in a thick coat of red – in her own way, joining the dance. Meanwhile, I noticed myself hoping that my purple symbol, high in a corner, would be woven into the common fabric – and it was. Before long, I found a figure leaping from the W’s center, and the pinky of a purple handprint nested in its outer curve.
Watching the blanks fill, the layers pile, the interplay among artists and their marks intensify, I too felt moved to interact; on a sheet that needed red, I painted a smattering of red waves, dots, and lines. At once, I was wishing to enhance the whole, and heed the call of the fire pit: Let go.
Halfway through the painting session, Julia – the experience’s choreographer – called for forty minutes of no words. Conversation didn’t stop, in response, but it did change form. Kimchi, alight with mischief, drew eyes, nose, and mouth on an ochre swirl of crescent moon – then let a couple fellow tricksters paint a moustache and whiskers on her own face. While she was adding petals, in charcoal, to a round pink center, Paul appeared at her side and started filling the small circle on each petal with green paint.
A little later, on the dance floor, a snaking, waltzing line spontaneously formed; Kimchi, supported by a friend, danced with us, at one point kissing everyone in the line as we passed her by. For the last song – Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” which brought me back to the Eighties in Brooklyn, when a neighbor across the courtyard used to play it over and over – Julia invited us to form a circle, and come forward, one or more at a time, to dance for Kimchi. This we did, with boisterous grace.
A week has passed since the longest night, the shortest day. After a freeze-related hiatus, a tumbling abundance of cool, clear water is once again filling the tank atop Lottawatta Way. The despacho, and our paintings, have burned. Kimchi is still with us. The sun continues to rise.
For more of Helen’s writings, go to: helenzuman.com
Bonus video from the Despacho!
Click below if you want to hear and see a bit of the ceremony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-rXFdHAOEs