March 16, 2007

Cleaning up Bush's mess

Mayan priests to purify sacred Guatemalan site after President Bush's visitMayan leaders announced that priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate "bad spirits" after U.S. President George W. Bush's visit.

"That a person like [Bush], with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture," Juan Tiney, the director of a national association of indigenous people and peasant farmers, said March 8.
Can George W. Bush Be Purged?

Mayan priests purified their sacred land after Shrub scurried off. Can we do the same?Sage is always good. Or maybe lavender. Pine is nice, too. Dried, bundled, tied with string, burned with hot, divine intent. Would it work? Do we have enough to go around? This is the question.

I speak, of course, of ritual. Purging and cleansing and purifying and, truly, burning a nicely dried, blessed smudge stick can be a terrific slice of personal magic, to rid a space (or perhaps even your own body) of negative juju or vicious spirits or just to make way for the new and the moist and the good. You can smudge a room. You can create a divine smoldering cloud and then move through the smoke, invoke change, purge the negative, invite hot licks of yes. It is a thing to do.

But here's the thing: Can you smudge an entire nation? Do we have enough lavender for 300 million?

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