Santiago: We are the water, we are the wind which is the same thing, because the water goes up to the wind, to me those clouds that rise are ourselves, rising up to a purification from where it is sent in the form of rain, to water the plants and we too are the plants turned into persons because without these plants nobody could live. Our own body is like that, only the spirit is something that never dies because when we breathe our last, the body is the only thing that the earth has a claim on and it says, this is mine, but not so of the spirit. Our soul goes up. There are stars that attract it. When we die, the closest image I can think of is lightning to explain the force of which we are pulled upwards by other stars that have control over us. I know this from my own experience. I was once in the hospital and I was given a drug and I started to feel the effect of the drug and I was pulled upwards and I actually left my body and I went up as if pulled by a terrible noise like the noise of airplanes when they take off. It was like a dream but this experience was very much reality. I believe there are people in other stars because I saw people in other stars in this experience of mine. When I returned, I saw myself enclosed in a room. I was there standing having forgotten everything and I knew nothing about anything. I knew I was myself. I had that awareness but I had no ideas as to what I had done or any purpose for anything at all. I could not remember anything and I started to tell myself, “where are you going Santiago, what did you do, what are you doing here.” Then suddenly, my memory came to me and I started to remember and as I remembered the wall that was enclosing me all around started to recede, When I started to remember why I was there a door opened up and as soon as it opened I left the room but I had walked no more than ten meters out of that room that I started to look for my body and I didn’t have it, then I told myself, “Santiago now you are dead.”
Then I came to the house where I had fallen down and there on top of a rock I saw my blood but over and above that there was a wheel like a clouded wheel that spoke to me and said: “Santiago, that is still your light.” Then I went to my house and saw my family. I tried to speak to them but all I could do was see them. I couldn’t even hear them.
So I had my sight but I didn’t have my hearing. Suddenly I felt that something in my body pressed on me so strongly that I told myself wow, this may well be the drawer (coffin) where they put the dead people so as you see my mind was still working but I was already on the other side. I then felt that they put me over a cart and the road was very ugly; it had many rocks and holes. As the cart moved on, it swayed and I told myself this cart is going to break down. Then I heard a person speak into my ears saying: “get up Santiago, there’s a lot of work to do here” and then I heard one of the doctors say: “we won, we won. We will wake him up.”
Santiago: All I can do is speak a little bit of what I know, of nature. If we speak of the language of animals they too can speak like we can. We have a dialect a form of speech and they have theirs. And just like we can learn our dialect if we set ourselves to the task, we can also learn their dialect, their means of communication. There is an animal that always announces itself to me when the waters (rains) are going to come. That animal is the frog. There are many kinds of frogs all the way from the biggest to the smallest. When the waters are going to come the little ones utter a sound that is like ssst! That’s her sound. When the rain arrives there is another kind of frog called Gasparoca. It is a frog which is striped like gold nails on the body. These frogs live in openings of wood, in sticks, and they utter these sounds when the rain comes. Their sound is a little different.
My grandfather would tell me that there is this big plant that grows near where these frogs make their habitat and when there is a drought you cut up a piece of this plant from near where the frog sits. There you beg for rain and invariably the rain does come. This is a sacrifice. The sacrifice is to be done only when there is a real need—then the rain comes.
There are other animals that also announce the coming of the waters. For example, the hen. At the tip of her tail, there is a feather that tends to be oily, greasy and when the rains are going to come, a number of such chickens get together and start to pick at that particular feather. As they pick on that feather they pull at the feathers that seem to have this oily substance. This is a sign that the rains are coming. There is another animal that comes to forecast sometimes good news, sometimes bad news, its name is Tecoloté. When there is a problem that is approaching, this animal comes during the day: This is a warning of a bad sign. When the Tecoloté comes after 1:00 A.M. then it is of a good sign. When I make it known to the animal that I understand the message, then the animal just goes away. There is another bird that also communicates with me: The hummingbird. This bird announces itself whenever I am going to have visitors. By coming near the house and some how making it known through its chirping that the visitors are coming.
In their chirping they say, “They’re coming! They’re coming!” They also say; “Christ the king! Christ the king!” They also announce when the waters are going to come. They make a specific sound, drring! drring! drring!.
… going back to the phenomenon that you indicated; all of that was just a sign that a lot of water was coming towards us. The huge number of ants signals huge amounts of rain are coming our way. Possibly as big as to knock down all the mountains. (we all laugh!)
No! it is very likely that on top of the mountain where there are not very many trees the water will rush down, Sometimes when there are serious droughts and the trees upon the mountains do not have enough humidity they can’t withstand the heat, so they dry up and shrivel. When the rains come the trees don’t have the strength to withstand the weight of the earth, so they give and it produces landslides. Last year we had one, you can look around and see the mountains with all the be wounds. The earth will be very wounded this year.
Korn: Yes, that happened over by Jaime’s house.
Santiago: Yes and it’s happening because people very easily cut trees down. If we cut a tree in a humid period then with the rains the sprouts come up, but when it’s done in the dry season, there is nothing left to replace it. So all protection is taken away from the earth.
Korn: Are the patterns of the rains changing?
Santiago: This year we will have greater and greater amounts of rain and no problem with the trees. Ordinarily trees blossom but one time a year. This time they blossomed two times. Never in my life did I see this before. That’s a sign that there is a shift in the presence of the water. Perhaps it means that the ordinary dry season this year will be a wet season. But the change only occurs gradually. Nature does not reverse its pace so suddenly, never. I sometimes think also of the destruction, the destruction of all the species; we are destroying species, for example, sea species. We’re finishing them! Last year I went to Punta de Mita, where there used to be lots of oysters. I had gone there for the past seven years and had eaten a lot of oysters. But when I went back this time I couldn’t even find a teeny tiny one. Those of us who do business and make our money through these animals we do not even become aware of what we are doing or how we are destroying them. At present the government itself is not aware of these things and its actually collaborating on the destruction by setting up all along the shore everything that can destroy them. Already in the last two years we’ve been having difficulty in catching fish. Fishing boats go out at night and in the morning and they have put out chinchuras and fish are scared of them so they go off some place else. All the shores are presently filled with these chinchuras so we have possibly scared the fish away for good and when we are done with destroying all these species we’re going to need them and I don’t know what we will do then. Perhaps the way to stop this would be to limit the eating of these things to maybe, once a month or once a year. That might be one way for species to overcome their condition. As far as land itself we’re also going to finish with steer and with other animals that are very good to our organism. They give us rich vitamins to nourish certain parts of our body. With them too we will finish and when we are done with that, then we will finish with one another, ourselves, perhaps eating each other up.