david. m gunson

Deep Forest:
Deep within the forest green a figure steps into the light
From shadows cast by buttressed trees whose cathedral columns of massive girth
Support a swaying canopy filled with varied, wondrous life teaming over every inch,
Much like coral reefs in seas abounding with diversity.
This place is home to his few kind, but something will stir his blood tonight.

His skin is reddish orange brown, his hair, pure black, is painted red,
Evoking thoughts of plumage blaze or Poison Dart Frogs’ backs;
A sign to others to beware? Piranhas also wear this hue...
His naked body, with skin unmarked except for tattooed face and hands,
Is hairless with no telling clue to mark the passing of his years.

Time has little meaning here, for here the rhythms are broad and slow.
No Winter's chill or Autumn's fall, no Spring's abundance or Summer's drought.
Protected by the wall of trees, this place seems holy, calm, serene.
But what seems calm may not be so, for living here is just as hard
As plodding out a nomad’s life upon a sea of shifting sand.

The forest soil is leached by rain and nutrients are quickly lost
Replaced each day by falling leaves and flowers finished in their bloom.
Moisture's denizens abound and break the mouldering humus down
Eking out their humble lot, another cog in life’s great wheel,
Until the circle is complete and what breaks down grows tall again.

Coastal dwellers know the strife of raging storms and boiling seas,
Rolling green with foaming plumes and shoals of flying fish in flight.
Forest folk would recognise this scene above the canopy
Where thunderstorms and lightning streaks light up clouds of wheeling birds
But forest folk know other strife that robs them of a longer life.

Bitter manioc is pulped and washed carefully for native bread,
On jungle string Piranhas hang, poisoned by the barbasco plant.
Cichlids roast on smoking coals beside air gulping Pirarucu fish,
But beaver tailed Manatees, Capybara and Peccaries
Are considered taboo as human food and excluded from the rest.

Poison Dart Frogs are keenly sought, death gleaned from their red/black skin,
The air is filled with bone chilling cries made by Piha and their like,
Garish Toucans brandish bills employed for snatching fruit or chicks,
The Hoatzin strut haughtily, showing off their punk coiffures,
Characters of outrageous flair crowd nature’s stage everywhere.

Macaws, communing on fruit-bowed limbs are plumed in scarlets, yellows and blues,
Herons parade in subtle greys contrasting the Egrets’ dazzling white,
Parrots claim the artist’s prize with colour palettes all ablaze
From palest mauve to cobalt blue and greens of every shade.
Few things here are subtle, mute, the goal it seems is to delight.

Baskets of the Oropendulas, hang like cities in the trees,
Flycatchers and Tanagers flit about, while male Manakins court in leks
Contesting females building nests. Orange Troupials, like tiny suns,
Blaze within the lowland scrub and Red Spinetails crowd the riverbanks.
Life in a million varied ways vibrates with expectant fecundity.

Red-eyed Thornbirds, Black-banded Woodcreepers hovering over army ants,
Buff-breasted Sandpipers and Piculets, Becards and Sooty Pants,
White-throated hummingbirds singing songs for no one but their own delight,
Orange and black, yellow and red, white and brown and golden-green,
Colour combinations dazzle the eye and confuse the mind with refracted light.

Darker denizens move stealthily through the shadows in search of prey:
Jaguar, Panther, Ocelot, Cougar, Anaconda, and Caiman wait
In ambush for the unwary; to relax can be a fatal mistake.
Wandering Spiders and Scorpions, Centipedes and Army Ants,
Wreak havoc in the undergrowth, a nightmare where a bare foot lands!

In this deceptively fertile world, vulnerable in its fragility,
Aritana stands pensive, still and listens to the waking sounds
Of one more day beneath the trees, a scene recalling paradise.
Our jungle man has been chosen chief of the Yawalapiti tribe;
Today begins his leadership; in his hands lie all their lives.

With babes in arms, naked women as hairless as their plucked menfolk,
Tend to daily rituals that mark the cycle of their lives:
Sweeping huts and tending fires, bathing children, grooming hair,
Pounding manioc by the stream, cleaning fish and gardening.
Talk is muted in early morn; the forest’s hum is mimicked here.

A meeting of the village men has been arranged for today
To discuss the first of many issues, solved through communal bargaining.
Aritana must receive each contribution brought to him
While teasing out the good and bad, steering ideas carefully
With tact and wit and confidence and always with diplomacy.

As the negotiators arrive, each one crouches passively;
Aritana does the same and embraces each man openly.
This crouching down into a stance of ritual passivity
Is a part of tribal culture, a respected tradition,
Avoiding the possibility for mistaken aggression.

Each man states his point of view while Aritana stands silently:
A plan to clear a garden plot, an overdue long-house repair,
A joining of two families, a gathering of sacred flutes.
When each man has had his say, Aritana thanks him formally,
Using words and phrases delivered diplomatically.

The group engages in lively debate, no man is denied his say,
Aritana stands and listens, reiterating in summary.
Consensus is essential and Aritana must assess what’s best,
Steering the group through contrary ideas, building communal trust,
Strengthening their village from collapsing into dust.

One young man stands nervously and recounts a tail that’s puzzling
About a fire spread by giants up river from their settlement.
These monsters roar and tear down trees,
And spray liquid fire from their mouths.
No one questions this nightmare scene; Aritana listens attentively.

The council considers what should be done; none doubt the man’s veracity;
A forest fire is each man’s dread; they’d seen villages razed this way.
A hunting party is proposed to assess the nature of the threat,
The best means would be by canoe, the fastest way they had at hand,
But upstream is outside territory, they might encounter unfriendly bands.

The shaman in deliberate fashion rises and all in deference wait
To hear words from the one who sees the world with gifted sight.
The iatamá’s dark eyes fall upon the chieftain standing there
And one word silences the group: Ayahuasca, the sacred serpent,
Ayahuasca the spirit vine; the Ayahuasca potion will show Aritana the way.

The members of the council nod to confirm that they all agree;
Aritana must call the spirits that see and hear everything.
But there are dangers in this path and the spirits are not guaranteed
To welcome all into their realm, this journey could end fatally.
Aritana and the shaman must prepare the way cautiously.

The chieftain and the iatamá step into the forest’s grasp
Climbing over buttressed roots, navigating strangler figs,
Avoiding the dangerous influence of evil spirit’s haunts,
Wary of rampaging army ants and great webs hung like fishing nets.
Their goal is the Banisteriopsis vine and a pharmacopeia of sacred plants.

By the time they return to camp the sun has set behind the trees.
The jungle’s song, one hundred voices strong ascends eerily,
As if the spirits of the night are calling out in expectation
Of what is about to occur: the Ayahuasca ceremony.
The other men within the council play sacred flutes solemnly.

A pot is placed upon the fire and river water brought to boil,
Vines and leaves are cut and crushed and boiled for hours continuously
Until the water turns muddy brown, an oily, reeking brew.
All the while the shaman purifies the potion with mapacho smoke
And shakes sacred chacuruna chakapas to keep bad sprits away.

The chief and the iatamá drink deeply from a wooden cup
Holding back the body’s urge to purge the foul tasting muck.
Within a short while both men shake as they begin their journey
Into the realm of spirit ghosts and portentous visions;
A journey that could end both their lives, if they show indecision.

Aritana stares at the moon, a great iridescent river stone
Then trembles as the frozen light illuminates his bones.
He gazes at his internal parts as flesh and skin grow paper thin,
All organs, blood and beating heart now exposed within.
Even thoughts, in cloudy pools, are visible for all to see.

Dark shadows on the mottled surface of the moon begin to writhe
And rise up from their dwelling place to swim down to the buzzing earth.
Giant bats flap outstretched wings that beat with a familiar pulse;
Aritana recognises the rhythm of his own life’s force.
The sacred flutes begin to chant the name of those with winged feet.

Something dark and oily black emerges from the turbid brew,
The shaman calls the spirit forth, the spirit of the ayahuasca vine.
Eyeless, mouthless, the greasy serpent moves with purpose towards the chief
And slithers up his naked leg until it finds his opening,
Causing a gasp from Aritana, the spirit serpent enters him.

The plummeting earth falls away and Aritana finds himself
Immersed in the inky sea that fills the night sky firmament.
Looking up he perceives his shoulders clasped by giant claws
That hang beneath a lunar bat, swimming like a manta ray
Towards its cold forbidding home, as if to steal his soul.

The iatamá begins to sing, by now a thousand miles away,
Yet Aritana hears his voice calling out into the void:
“Make the great bat lose his grasp and I will catch your fall”;
Aritana understands and with all his strength, reaching up
He wrenches both claws from his flesh and sinks into the pall.

Sinking, dropping, forever down, Aritana falls through night
Sucking in the treacle air that fills his lungs with liquid life.
How can he breath beneath this sea, so deep it blocks out every sound?
His heart and lungs and head and ears are straining and begin to pound
As if he is about to burst, when with a thump he falls to earth.

Lying on the dark, damp soil Aritana’s body begins to change,
His arms and legs shrink out of sight, his torso writhes in shiny coils,
His flaccid tongue splits in two. Ayahuasca is now in control.
Ayahuasca has changed his mortal form! He is now the serpent spirit
And glides towards the cold black river, to see the truth up stream.

Swimming against the river’s current, Aritana makes his way
Past sleeping shoals of Piranha fish and Cichlids ghostly opalescence,
Navigating half sunk trees and over dozing Manatees,
Startling Caimans from their lair, the moon’s glow glistening along his back.
The Ayahuasca Anaconda glides unchallenged on his trek.

Some distance from his starting place Aritana’s eyes behold
The shocking scene he’d feared to see: a devastation of the land
Beyond even his darkest dreams: the forest reduced to embers,
Scorched by fire fed by men riding on the backs of toads
Whose mouths turn forest into roads to bring more toads and men.

But Aritana sees something else that brings a shudder through his frame
More destructive than the giant toads, more contagious than any fire.
A jungle spirit has been disturbed from where he’s dwelt a thousand years,
Dark and evil, his spores are spread like dust upon the toads and men
To take back to their city camps where soon a terror will descend.

Aritana returns downstream, called by the iatamá’s song,
Reverting to his human form he retells what he had seen.
The shaman explains he’s also seen the forest spirits reek revenge,
For every plant and rock and thing has a soul that keeps it strong
And men who ignore the spirit world pay dearly in the end.

The iatamá and the chief call a meeting the following day
To explain the meaning of what they saw is happening not far upstream.
They tell their people that time is short and their time will soon end.
All their culture will be lost, destroyed by the ignorance of men
Who, through their own violent acts will bring their own destruction.

David M Gunson
29 April 2007

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