Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart_ A Novel - Alice Walker [74]
Grandmother told me I needed to live in space for a few years. Yolo, my partner, painted the house. My neighbors think it is not earth-colored.
It is blue, planet earth, said Armando, surprised, and as if this should be obvious. Do you realize this probably helps us avoid assaults from space neighbors who are warlike? Because we are blue, like space is blue, we have disappeared from their screen. Anyway, he said, the truth is that at a certain point in one’s spiritual development living in a blue house is imperative, whether Grandmother suggests it or not. It is a color that suggests the infinite, and the soul wants to live there because it is the most free place to live.
There are in fact three colors that the evolving soul encounters and must eat: the color of earth, literally dirt, which includes all the browns and tans and yellows; the color of menstrual blood, which includes the reds, oranges, and maroons; the color of water and space and eternity, which is blue.
You will see when you travel, said Armando, that in every community someone will be living in a blue house. That person you will find is somehow different.
Among Buddhists, blue is the color of healing, said Rela, speaking for the first time.
What does it mean to “eat” a color? asked Kate.
Oh, said Armando, think of how you feel when you enter your gate and feast your eyes on this color. There is a joy that you feel, no? A lifting of your spirit?
Yes, said Kate. I certainly do feel that way.
Well, said Armando, it is as if your blue house is a big cake and your soul, seeing it, takes a big delicious bite. It must be awake to eat the color; when it is awake enough to eat the color, it is a healthy soul. Many people cannot eat the color blue; and they haven’t digested their reds and yellows either.
A pharmaceutical company is trying to patent yagé, said Charlie, when Armando finished speaking.
Patent Grandmother? said Kate, incredulous.
Yes. Well, said Charlie, they have stolen everything else indigenous people have developed for healing.
But to patent Grandmother, said Kate. It would be like patenting a human being. Or life.
They’d like to do that, said Armando. But we are optimistic. We will go to Washington and talk to your leaders. We will make them understand yagé is a sacred substance. It is inseparable from spirit. It is also inseparable from us, the people who are its neighbors, who have lived and interacted with it for thousands of years.
By now the other male shamans who did not speak any English, and very little Spanish, had moved off the porch and were walking about the yard. Looking up the whole time. The woman shaman sat quite still, watching them.
Yolo looked at Kate and raised an eyebrow.
Then it occurred to her: These were men who spent most of their time in the jungle, hunting. To them her large oak and fir trees were canopy; they were watching her squirrels.
One of them said something; all the men, including Armando and Charlie, laughed.
What did he say? asked Yolo.
He said, said Armando: Where is that blowgun when I need it!
Kate and Yolo joined the laughter. It was hilarious to think of eight serious shamans/hunters fantasizing about her plump city squirrels.
Armando and Charlie and Rela explained they hoped Kate would write a letter saying she knew Armando and also knew the value of yagé to its people. They would take this letter with them to Washington, D.C. Kate said she’d be happy to do it and went immediately to her study.
While she wrote the letter, Yolo invited everyone inside, and Charlie, who had worked with the shamans for many years, helping to preserve their medicinal treasures, showed a video of a meeting of all the shamans and South American elders that had taken place a few months before. In this video, some of the wisest people on the planet shared their views on the ethical use of such a powerful human ally as Grandmother. After Kate finished her letter she