|
19 September 2002 The Sacred Woods of Damanhur |
|
|
|
|
The
Sacred
|
Elfo guides us through the woods. I like him immediately. He has been here for many years, he says, though he is not a founder like Sardine, the woman who is also accompanying us everywhere. I like them both. Sardine, who is translating for the French couple, and Elf, who has a clear, joyous personality. Elfo shuddered when he had to be a translator, for his English isn't so good, but his enthusiasm for the sacred wood more than made up for it. We walked down a dirt road and he pointed out that the left side of the road was owned by the Italian government who cut it down every so often and then let it grow back up ad hoc.
Across the road on Damanhur property the trees were of different ages, but all still very young. Elfo struggled to put into English his sentiments about the importance of trees of different ages in a forest. The older ones serve as a sort of memory, so that a forest is a library. We walked for a long time, and came to an oak, not a big oak, but the largest oak in the forest. It had been surrounded by a circuit marked by blue stones. "Before the stones were yellow," said Elfo, but in some meditations with the tree she told us that she didn't like yellow, that she would prefer blue." Now, I know this sounds crazy to some of you, and it did to me at the time. (And to some of you, it sounds perfectly sensible!) But later, after hearing a plant speak, I was convinced. This belief didn't come out of the blue, however. A few years ago I read an article in The Sun magazine about a scientist who was measuring something or other in his lab, and his assistant went on vacation and put her plants in his lab so he would remember to water them.In a moment of boredom he clipped an electrode to one of the plant's leaves and then became distracted with something else. Eventually he thought about cutting some leaves off of the plant and the meter hooked up to the plant went absolutely hysterical. This of course piqued his interest, and further experiments showed definite telephathy between plants and the humans they are used to being around. More on that later. For now, I walked the circuit and enjoyed the forest and the reverence Elfo and Sardine had for it. I love the outdoors, and tend to think of all woods as sacred, anyway. I gladly sat in the lap of the Matriarch of Oaks.
There was much more information imparted about the woods and its function in the community of Damanhur and the temple, but I want to tell you about the ficus tree. We went to a house where some of the people of Etulte live, upstairs where a ficus tree was hooked up with electrodes to a midi box and a synthesizer. We sat in front of the ficus tree while Elfo turned on the equipment. It seemed kind of silly. The room was a large sunny room with 12 foot windows and silent except for a buzzing bee repeatedly flying at the window. Elfo nearly gave up, for the equipment didn't seem to be working. But then suddenly some music came on. I wondered where it was coming from... there didn't seem to be a stereo anywhere in the room, or hooked up to the system. In fact I checked it out later. Nada. "Ah!" exclaimed Elfo. "She didn't want to speak until now!" Sardine laughed, too. "They decide themselves when to speak. You can only ask them to." We sat, and the ficus tree performed. Elfo and Sardine explained that the tree performed differently for different people. For the musician who worked with her she behaved quite friendly. In fact, they hooked up a door-opening mechanism to her. When there was a knock on the door she would become very excited because she thought it was him, but if it wasn't the musician she would flatten out. Then they put a window, or something so that she could see who was at the door, and attached a door-locking mechanism to her electrodes. She would only unlock the door for the musician. I listened to Elfo and Sardine, and I listened to the ficus tree. "You may go to the tree, and see how she responds," Sardine told us. No one moved, so I went with my digital audio recorder and stood by her. The music she had been playing, or singing, I don't know how to term it, had been quite melodic, but when I stood beside her it went to very long and flat tones. "It's the machine you have," said Sardine later. "She had to get used to it." Indeed, she did, for she eventually became more melodic, but cautiously so. Others in our group got up and "played" with her and she responded differently to all of them. I was absolutely astounded, and touched. Adding this to my previous knowledge of plant consciousness increased my respect for plant life -- all life -- at least a thousand-fold. |
|||
Etulte
is the name of the sacred wood that sits atop the underground temple.
The "circuits" you see below are for "dynamic meditation,"
which I will do tomorrow in preparation for going into the temple. Everything
one does is in preparation for the temple and I wonder what's in store
for us, this group of six, a couple from France, a couple from Denmark,
a woman who turns out to be from my neighborhood in San Francisco.
"This
forest is very sick," Elf told us. "They cut the trees flat,
instead of in an angle," Sardine translated in French, "so
that the water stays on the stump and they rot. The trees that do grow
have a kind of sickness..." she pointed it out, large rough areas
on the bark. 
Motorcycle Misadventures Home Page
Dispatches | Gear | Your Letters | Contact