Shamanism

Happy Halloween motha lickas!

Yesterday I woke up to a message from Sahil and by 8:30 we were walking to catch a bus to Boudhanath Stupa. The mini van transport took around an hour and we were crammed into the seats like sardines.

The Stupa was massive and we made a clockwise rotation around its exterior. People offered to write our families names on prayer flags to be hung later that day while others performed a repetitive prayer motion that resembled a condensed sun salutation. Next door to the Stupa we visited a monastery. One monk chanted from a scroll and others ambivalently carved clay items. One of the statues in the room showed a god holding a small item that resembled a hollowed out, triangular hand weight. Sail explained that, in the religion, this object contains all the power known to mankind.

After, we followed Sahil down a side alley and stopped for paretha and tea. The side alleys near the national monuments have treated us well… many charge from $4-$15 just to enter. Luckily for us there’s almost always an unmanned second entrance to the attraction.

In the afternoon Amit arranged a meeting with a shaman in a shamanic healing center outside Kathmandu. We took a car through Kathmandu traffic to arrive by 2 pm. There we met Subim, the gentle, easy natured owner of the center. Over tea Subim shared some of the ideologies behind Shamanism (interconnectedness of all things, symbioses between the living and dead, praying to the five elements: water, fire, earth, air, and ether) and the history of the center. Submit described a ritual performed in Eastern Nepal where a Shaman puts herself into a trance and bites the heads off of chickens donated by each family in the village. To our surprise, he whipped out a video of the clinical beheadings on his iPhone. Twenty chickens peacefully bided their time lined up on an elevated platform. A woman dressed in all white shook and vibrated in the center of the frame. One by one, she grabbed the chickens by the chest and effortlessly removed their heads with her teeth. It was one of the strangest videos I’ve seen to date.

We entered the shrine inside the center and sat on cushions on the floor. Deities from around the world stared back at us. I was the first to go.

Subim motioned for me to migrate to the front of the room to face the Shaman. The older woman lit a short spun wick, waving the smoke around my head and leaving the burning thread on the alter as a small offering on our behalf. The woman reached out and took my wrist into her hands. I was shocked at the strength with which she controlled my fingers and sapped my pulse. As she chanted a guttural, pleasant tune, her arms vibrated with my wrist before she erupted… a brief yell and a quick, violent shake of my arm. She repeated the process for my left wrist before sitting down and conversing with Subim in Nepali.

Subim explained that the shaman detected disagreement and disharmony with my ancestors that was affecting my life today. Thus began part two of the ritual, the healing. More wicks were lit and the thick voiced shaman repeated the chant. Spices floated under my nose and the woman grabbed and shook my head with an outburst. The ceremony concluded with my facing the door, feet extended, and the shaman aggressively wiping down my chest and legs with a primitive broom.

While the shaman chanted, I tried to focus my energy on the generations on both sides of my family that came before me. Initially I struggled to get my mind past my great grandparents. Then my mind opened up slightly, and I visualized my legs as two tree trunks representing both sides of my family. The roots of each side sunk deep into the earth, representing the thousands of connections and ancestors that have allowed me to exist today. I floated between trying to maintain this mental image and peeking my eyes open to keep an eye on the ceremony happening around me.

The shaman repeated the ceremony for Sam and Avi. We played in a brief drum circle before thanking the shaman for her time and leaving a $10 donation. Outside the center, Amit explained that its common for shaman to detect ancestral imbalances in Westerners. He attributed this to our focus on living relatives vs. those who came before us and the lack of cultural rituals to honor the dead. I’m not sure I’m spiritually open enough at the moment for shamanism to affect my life dramatically in the present tense. Nonetheless I do love seeking out the voodoo side of cultures.

For dinner we walked back to a Kathi roll place Sam spotted the day before. The greasy meat, veg, and egg filled rolls were the tandoori infused equivalent to a western burrito. I scarfed down two, bringing my total food tally on the day to two samosas, three kathi rolls, and five oreos. I’m the picture of health.