Shamanic song

I am covered in darkness. I cannot see others, but I can feel their excitement mixed with fear. The air is heavy with anticipation.

I am starting to feel dizzy and I can hear the sound of chakapa, a rattle of bundled leaves, in the background. It is very silent, almost like it's the wind and not a human hand that is rustling the leaves. She doesn’t want to disturb us, but comfort us.

I cannot sit anymore, my body feels very tired and I need to lie down. I can hear Grandma’s voice, guiding me inside, opening new doors of perception. I lie down quietly and I’m falling through the rabbit’s hole - deep, deep down into a long forgotten part of me.

Image after image I see a film unrolling on the display of my consciences. My childhood. The heart burns and aches and I don’t know what to do with all these feelings. It lasts forever and all I can do is observe.

I become aware of Grandma’s voice again, she is in ecstasy and I can just feel the powerful life force that comes out of that voice. I can feel the strength of the woman who gave birth to 11 children, who spent her life nursing them, raising them and burying them. She pours all of that into her song, a shamanic song, a song, she told us, which the plants taught her. This is her gift to the world now, her gift to all of us.
I feel deep gratitude to her, to this remarkable woman whose life is so different than mine yet with whom I share one important connection – being a woman. I can feel that connection with every cell in my body.

I cannot remember how she looks, but I have this picture in my mind of a gray haired old woman in a rocking chair, whose face is wrinkled too early by the harsh conditions of life. I hear the smile in her song and I can feel she smiles because she is fulfilling her life’s purpose. She is giving everything away, but she remains full. She is a mother and a grandmother to all of us, a powerful, life giving, nurturing force.

Her voice cracks and I start crying. Not out of sadness, but because I am overwhelmed with emotions. I can feel inside of me the women of the world, all of their pain and all of their happiness, their births and their deaths, their dreams and their nightmares. All of it, in this one, heart opening moment.

Grandma’ stops singing and all I can hear is the sound of chakapa again.

And then complete silence.

She lights the candle to mark the end and falls a sleep on the floor.

I was never happier to be alive.