God Flesh - Ernie Stanley

A shamanic verse of the famous Mazatec medicine woman María Sabina

“Because I can swim in the immense
Because I can swim in all forms
Because I am the launch woman
Because I am the sacred opposum
Because I am the Lord opposum

I am the woman Book that is beneath the water, says
I am the woman of the populous town, says
I am the shepherdess who is beneath the water, says
I am the woman who shepherds the immense, says
I am a shepherdess and I come with my shepherd, says

Because everything has its origin
And I come going from place to place from the origin . . .”

This chant was orated during a shamanic ritual after the ingestion of teonanácatl. Teonanácatl is “God Flesh” to the Mazatec , but to most it is called psilocybin or magic mushrooms. I find this chant particularly interesting, not soley because it is indicative of an altered-state but rather because it echoes a theme that we have explored in class this semester. Maria’s chant tells us of her encounter with existence. She is not separated from anything in her ritual. The chant, through her repeated use of “I am” shows us that there are no objects in her existence during this ritual either. She is swimming through existence, a part of it all, not just a separate object within it, as most people perceive themselves. Her being is not solely as the woman of the populous town next to the water, but rather she permeates throughout everything.

And further, it is not even Maria talking. It may seem odd to find that says follows everything in the second verse, followed by no object. It is existence saying these things, not an object. There is no I-it in Maria’s encounter, in the truest sense she is part of existence and in harmony with it not apart from it.

How interesting it is that she has arrived in this state through something demonized in the west.