Monday, October 24, 2016

The poetry gourd

Dark and brooding, this morning's commute weather, and the car behind me clearly has retrofitted too-bright too-blue headlamps.  No doubt it will have a comically large spoiler on it's backside, too.  Overall, though, traffic is light this morning, the lights seem synced with my personal journey, and campus arrives in short order.


As all one of my regular readers will know, my morning cuppa is usually a "gourd" of yerba mate (mate, for short).  A quintessentially South American tradition, there is something very soothing about cupping the warm round gourd (in my case, a beautiful multicolored silicone gourd from Argentina) and sipping the warm earthy beverage up the metal straw (bombilla).

I've been working on mindfulness lately, and nothing is as conducive to that state as the simple satisfaction of drinking mate. It both gives energy (being a caffeinated beverage) and soothes. Like good poetry, it inspires reflection.

There isn't a lot of mate poetry, or at least not that I have found.  This rather surprises me, given its qualities.  But I did find this poem:
Mate is exactly the opposite of television: It makes you chat if you’re with someone, and it makes you think when you’re alone. 
Whenever somebody arrives at your house, the first thing that is said is, “Hello,” and the second is “¿unos mates?” (Would you like to drink some mates?).
This happens in everyone’s house. In the house of the rich and of the poor.
This happens among chatty and curious women and also among serious and immature men, as well.
This happens among the old people who live in nursing homes and among the adolescents while they study or get high. 
It’s the only thing that parents and children share without having arguments about it.
Peronists and radicals, they share mate without hesitating an instant. 
    - Lalo Mir, from Mate Is Not A Drink
And this one, too:
Flower of light and energy
Blossoms through the heart
Gently enveloped in fresh fruit and leafy tone  
An unfolding of nature’s secrets
Following patterns ingrained
By days and months and years
Of perfected work under the sun (shade). 
Inhaling this bouquet - classic, friendly…
World of taste, without exaggeration,
If you recognize that drinking
Is as much of an art as creating
You’ll let the vines penetrate
Their way through your veins 
   - from About Campfire Yerba Mate

Today's playlist:

  • Meet Virginia, Train
  • Dang Me, Roger Miller
  • I Don't Trust Myself (With Loving You) [Live], John Mayer
  • Bigger Than My Body, John Mayer
  • When Cicadas Marched, Jeff Johnson & Phil Keaggy

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