The Church was filled when we started the White Table Work. The singing was beautiful and strong, the medicine powerful as well. After consecrating the space my sister, who was leading the Work, asked me to read the call to the doctors. She looked at me wondering how I was doing. The medicine was very powerful. I turned to page 58 of White Table of Healing and Esoteric and Mediumistic Studies, Professor Antonio Jorge, updated by Padrinho Alfredo in October 2000. and began to read.
Calling the Phalanx of Doctors and the Fluidization of the Water
We ask of you, Father of infinite goodness and justice, the graces of Jesus Christ, through Bezerra de Menezes and his legions of companions.   Let them help us, Lord, in consoling the afflicted, healing those who merit it, comforting those who are passing through their trials and atonements, clarifying those who want to understand, and helping all those who appeal to your infinite love.
Jesus, divine bearer of grace and truth, extend your giving hands in comfort to those who recognize you as the faithful and prudent giver. Do this, divine example, through the consoling legions of your holy spirits, so that faith can be elevated, hope increased, good expanded, and so that love can triumph over all.
Bezerra de Menezes, apostle of goodness and Peace, friend of the humble and the sick, send your benevolent legions to help those who suffer, in body or in spirit.   Holy spirits, worthy workers of the Lord, pour grace and healing over suffering humanity, so that all creatures become friends of Peace and Knowledge, of harmony and forgiveness, planting all over the world the divine examples of Jesus Christ. Amen.
My sister’s intuition was correct. Something was happening to me. I could feel a presence behind and around me. She had just said, “I thank You, Oh God, for this space is filled with Your Presence” when I began to read. And as I read the call infusing the water with healing, much as we do in the Native American Church at Midnight Water time, I felt some warm, caring and healing presence merging with me. It felt calm and knowing, kind and gentle, aware of another dimension merging with our own. I could see white wings out of the corner of my eyes, my guide the White Eagle was there, but there was something more. As we began to sing Padrinho Sebastiao’s hymn about the Beija-flor, which merges the hummingbird’s healing abilities with those of Jesus Christ, a very strange light began to flow into me.
We were singing about Juramidam’s sending Sebastiao to “recall to mind the memories of the salvation of love.” I could feel something behind me asking me to turn around. Since I was sitting at the corner of the table, I couldn’t see what was happening behind me. I turned.
My son looked into my eyes and directed his gaze to the stranger, who had joined us. The man, who looked to be in his late thirties, was standing with eyes closed on the edge of the current. My son is telepathic. He was impatient with me, referring to the foreigner, “he’s been calling you for an hour. Why didn’t you turn around?” I lit my stick of palo santo, picked up my white eagle feather, and left the table.
Our new brother was waiting for me. As I began to fan the cedar smoke over him, he acted like he was familiar with this form of cleansing. He lifted each bare foot so that I could place the smoke under him, where he is supported on Mother Earth. He opened his shirt so the smoke could touch his skin. I fanned it where he directed. He wanted his heart, throat and head treated and then he turned for me to do his back. Although this guy was European, obviously not an American, he was more indigenous than anyone there. When I finished “doctoring” him, he shook my hand and then embraced me. This too felt native, but the length of the embrace spoke of a culture very secure in its sexuality, perhaps French or Italian. When he released me, I returned to my seat at the table and continued to sing.
Everything continued smoothly until the second glass of Daime was drunk and we started singing the Healing Hymns of Cura II. That’s when people began to get well. The Guardians were on the ground. We got up from the table and supported them. My young friend was soon crouched over a bucket purging. I stood behind him. I only knew his name. None of us had ever seen or heard of him before. The Current was so strong that the people carried all the hymns. It didn’t matter who was going through a difficult time, there were lots of us singing. It seemed as though the Work had a life of its own, as if the Divine were singing through us, and the Doctors were doing their work unseen. When my young friend finished purging, he waited for me to get the palo santo and clean him off again. I knew he followed the Shipibo tradition, the ancestors who taught Mestre Irineu.
The power of the condor was present in this man demanding its traditional respect. I gave it. When he returned to his seat, he leaned back exposing his chest and throat. I remembered my friend, the Canadian medicine man tell me after a peyote ceremony, “that flicker feather fan is a scoop. Learn to use it. You can take anything out of a person with it. Just scoop the sickness up and throw it into the fire.” I went to my cedar box, got out the fan, and scooped up the “stuff”, flicking it into the fiery vortex above me. Then I used the fan on his face and throat, again discarding the energy, returning him to a more balanced state.
We were singing the calls to St. Michael. As we started singing Padrinho Valdete’s Papapaparue, everyone began to stand up. I reached down and pulled my brother to his feet. He seemed very weak at first, so I put my arm around him to hold him up. I guess the psychic surgery was too intense. I thought he might fall. But he held onto me like a child holding his father close and regaining his strength. As we sang Isabel Barse’s hymn Sete Cruzes da Sao Miguel, joy and love were welling up inside us and my young friend began smiling. We were both singing in Portuguese as if we knew the language and the song. My feathers and hinario were in my left hand, which was trembling with the power of the medicine. My friend and I were singing to each other the verses of the hymn when the Guardian spoke to me. “Hey guys, this is the Santo Daime!” I turned toward him and sang to him in Portuguese “Esta e a casa de Deus, Sou luz, sou luz, estou aqui pra te libertar.” (This is the house of God. I am light, I am light. I am light to set you free.) He immediately backed off and said, “Oh, you get it. OK!” At the end of the hymn I hugged my friend and returned to my seat. He continued to look at me occasionally for reassurance throughout the rest of the Work. I could feel him and would turn and smile. After the Work was over I found out what was happening for him.
He was indeed following the tradition of the Shipibos. He had studied with Jacques Mabit, MD who has run an addiction center in Peru called Takiwasi for the last twenty years. I heard Mabit’s lecture at the MAPS Conference on Psychedelic Science 2013 in Oakland. He said, “within the context of healing rituals with psychoactive plants, traditional Amazonian medicine addresses the physical, psychological, and spiritual dimensions simultaneously.” The cross around my new friend’s neck came from Takiwasi. Since it was a circle quartered by the cross, at first I thought he must be Greek Orthodox, since that is the shape of their cross. But when I spoke to him in Greek, he didn’t respond. Turns out he’s French and he’s done many years of therapy to heal himself. He had recently been wounded in a very serious accident with a sharp object which pierced his eye. That’s why he had his eyes closed so much of the time. The pain was excruciating. But the Daime and the Doctors healed him. And the Divine Spirit reconnected us from a previous lifetime. My old, new friend and I talked for hours and spent the next day together catching up on this life-time’s experiences.
I talked with the leaders of our church about all of these things. My sister’s remark summed up her take on everything, “It’s the Eagle and the Condor” (the prophesy is fulfilled).
Just to tell you how much I liked this post. While reading it I felt all the presences you talked about like I was there. Eagle and Condor is something I am so connected with, and it had such a powerful effect on me reading it, that I drank Daime without actually drinking it. Thanks!
Juanita http://www.juanitadiascosta.com/ http://juanitadc.tumblr.com/ http://judecopacabana.blogspot.com/
________________________________
[…] is my custom to attend the Mesa Branca White Table Works each month. I am a member of the Church Council and typically sit at the table with the other […]