Market Friday: a special ceremony for local guardians and land spirits.

Recently we performed some special ceremony to pay respect and thank our local guardians and land spirits. Since the plandemic and the first lockdown two years ago, our annual ceremony to pay respect to those invisible beings on our land had been cancelled. We used to have a gathering of the elders from the village at our house as they had the knowledge of old traditional ceremonies which had been passed down from older generations. Most of the elders had passed away during the last three years as they were all over eighty years old.

My old friend who used to be the head of the village over ten years ago became ill and had an operation. Some members of his family had been fully vaccinated and experienced adverse vaccine effects. My old friend’s wife was suffering from rashes as a result of the shedding from fully vaccinated members of her family. This elderly couple used to look after the plants and garden for me during the early years. So, I had to find out how they were recovering from the illness.

My gardener told me all the details about the operation and the old grandpa’ s recuperation process. I was quite concerned that the free medical service by public hospital would offer only minimum level of health care. So, I brought along my ‘medicine bag’ and some herbal tonic to help with speedy recovery. They were quite pleased with my surprise visit. We had a good chat that gave me more details about the grandpa condition; the grandma told me she suddenly had rashes all over her body which wouldn’t go away. I told her to stay away from those who were fully vaccinated as they probably were still shedding. I had the same rash from traveling on trains full of vaccinated people. But I had my antidote with me, so I gave her some of my medicine.

My gardener didn’t know that the grandpa had first stage of testes cancer; I knew straight away after he told me of the symptoms. He was recovering from the operation and didn’t have much encouragement about getting well quickly. So he had no energy to do anything except sleeping all day without eating much. He lost a lot of weight and didn’t have much appetite. The grandma showed me the prescribed pain killer tablets. I told them that I brought them some of my supplements and special tonic water which had been guarding me from getting the coronavirus infection during these years. My supplements kept me healthy and detoxed heavy metals from my body.

They decided to take my advice and follow my recommendations. My gardener told me that the grandpa became much stronger after three days; he got up and went to work in his garden. He got carried away and worked too hard; the stitches became undone so he had to go back to the hospital. They had good news about the healing of the wound and the doctor was surprised by the healing process. The grandma was quite a psychic as she could read my mind; I wanted her to spray the tonic water on her rashes but I didn’t have any suitable spraying bottle in my house. She just poured the tonic water on some cotton wool which she placed on her rashes. I also gave her some supplements to be taken weekly; her rashes had disappeared in one week. My gardener told me on the phone that the grandpa has been working on his land everyday and he wanted more of my medical supplements.

During the past year, I had done lots of reading on Thai herbal plants and medicine, including alternative Western medicine and supplements for maintaining good health. I did try out everything before I gave some to my gardener and her family. The results had been surprisingly positive and they all got much healthier. My gardener’s blood pressure has become normal after years of being rather too high. Although I was quite happy for them, I was a bit worried that I might have interfered with their karmic lives.

Being a Buddhist, I knew that illness or accidents were rooted in the consequences of accumulated karma. All debts had to be repaid so we couldn’t escape from the results of our negative karma which could manifest in illness or accidents. One day, I told my gardener that I had interfered with the karmic destiny and those owners of old debts were not very pleased with my audacity. We needed to have a ceremony to pay respect to the local guardians who looked after our well being and to ask for forgiveness from those whom we had wronged in past lives.

My gardener and the grandpa contributed towards the ingredients of offerings. The local spirits such as tree spirits and Nagas were vegetarians as they followed strict spiritual rules to get to the higher levels of reincarnation. My gardener took this ceremony very seriously and prepared more than five kinds of sweets and fruits for the offerings. She took banana leaves to make into natural containers and picked some white flowers for the ceremony. We had two sets of trays full of sweets and goodies; one tray for the local guardians and the other for the spirits of those whom my gardener and the grandpa had offended in their past lives. Being a medium in her younger years, my gardener understood my concern and intention very well.

Luckily the sunshine was not very strong so the heat was much lowered than we had expected. But the gentle breezes were strong enough to make it very difficult to light a candle. We had to pay respect to guardians and land spirits at the shrine near the back of the garden. Then, we could proceed to the riverfront to perform another ceremony of asking for forgiveness and paying respect to those spirits who might hold grudges from past lives. The day was surprisingly still and quiet, the lighting quality was rather surreal.

As soon as we started walking towards the back of our garden, strong energy went through me and I had goose bumps. My gardener appeared very quiet and solemn while doing her prayers and asking the guardians for their blessings. I told her to say nice words on behalf of the old grandpa as well, he did contribute towards the offerings. It’s quite surprising to see my gardener taking my words seriously. She often thought she was a famous village’s medium with special psychic ability; there were only a few mediums left in this village.

The ceremony by the river was very nice and peaceful. Time seemed to stop for a moment while the invisible beings arrived to partake in our ceremony of acknowledgement and asking for their forgiveness with respect. The sense of eternal peace and love seemed so readily to merge into our material dimension. We spent a long time sitting quietly there and the clouds came to give us nice shade from the glaring sunshine. So, they were pleased and accepted our symbolic gestures of repentance for previous wrongdoings many lifetimes ago. We were very peaceful and we calmly walked back to the house, back to routine tasks.

Life continues to teach me new things everyday; so I have to remind myself to let go of what I think I know. The unknown could be reached only with an empty mind without pride and egoistic attachment. This is a tough lesson to practice on a daily basis as old habits die hard. Reminding myself of my breathing, a meditation technique for mindfulness, I straighten my back and my mind would become alert and attentive. The flow of compassion is everywhere, I just have to be mindful and empty for receiving this special vibe.

( #marketfriday by @dswigle )
Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.

Stay strong and cheerful.