As the caption says, that's the Saman de Güere, a historically important tree in Turmero, a town near Maracay, the capital of Aragua state in Venezuela. It's been on my mind for a while and when I first visited Maracay last year, I felt its calling and knew that I had to place carved Runes around it as an offering, so I made a promise to visit it later to do that, but the opportunity didn't come up until this Friday. This tree was considered sacred by the native tribes living in this valley before the arrival of the Spanish colonizers. According to the famous German botanist Alexander Von Humboldt, who studied it in the XIX century, the tree may have already been no less than 1,000 years old and its branches covered an astonishing 180 square meters. Simón Bolívar once took his troops to the valley and over a thousand men could easily rest under its shade, horses and all. Some traditions say that the Saman (now a petrified stump as you can see below) is the material expression of the Spirit of God of Venezuela, and I thoroughly believe this.
My promise was a debt that I needed to clear as revealed recently by a few readings, so last week I prepared the stones that you see below and carved them for this purpose. I'd chosen Friday for this visit because it was the 8th anniversary of my dad's passing, but many more coherences and interesting situations sprung up throughout my process and journey.
First, I had a strong dream that very day where I saw the tree's stump within a large church and placed the first carving right atop the stump, but then a multitude of people started entering the church and sitting on balconies as audience for some sort of spectacle and I thought I wouldn't be able to place the other carvings unnoticed; the balconies, however, were covered by curtains and, as more people were arriving to the church, I took the chance to hide my carvings in small ponds surrounding the stump, but these were filled with stagnant water which somehow got on my face, forcing me to close my lips to keep it out of my mouth. When I finished placing all the stones, I went out to find clean water to wash my hands and face and found various stores where sweets were being packaged, traded, sold and even stolen. Then I woke up.
As I left my home, I could've waited for my sister to return to our floor after retrieving the plumber downstairs, but I went up instead to call the other elevator and was still waiting for it when my sister got back up. Then, when I took the bus to Turmero, instead of asking the driver for directions, I chose to trust the word of an older guy who assured me that the Saman was near his own destination, and ended up south of where I was supposed to be. Finally, back in Caracas I took the subway from a location that I knew would leave me precisely in front of the stair that I needed to take in order to transfer platforms properly and yet, when I got there I sought a different stair and had to go back, therefore missing my train. Moreover, I came across at least ten mute people in the subway, which is beyond rare and appeared to mirror the experience of having to keep my mouth shut tight in my dream. These things were all significant in some way and, to me, they added to the great magic of this mission.
At the national monument of the Saman de Güere itself, I began with a prayer of release and gratitude, because this tree had been at the epicenter of at least two major oaths made by military leaders of the country and probably a few more further into the past, oaths that are already fulfilled and must be left behind. My prayer was therefore on behalf of the entire country and its citizens. I then placed my carvings in various places around the stump, now petrified and surrounded by the living children of the tree. Since I didn't see signs of any other offerings in this place, either I'm the only one who has done this in a while, or the people who care for the monument removed previous offerings.
After I was done placing the last carving, the Patrimonial Guard walked into the area and greeted me. I told them the reason for my visit and one of them shared the history of the Saman and its declaration as a monument. I was astonished to find that this declaration took place on September 18th, 1933, so I was only three days late for the 90th anniversary of this event. Juan Vicente Gómez, Venezuela's longest ruling tyrant, was the one who elevated the tree to its current status and had a shrine built for it with five original cannons from the days of the country's independence wars arrayed around it. He also made an oath upon it but the contents and nature of this oath are unknown to me. Later, in 1984, Hugo Chávez, the second-longest ruling tyrant in the country's history, uttered a famous oath upon it whereby he swore to free Venezuela from the chains of oppression; it was this particular oath that I went there to release. I strongly feel that Bolívar himself once made a promise by this tree, but that's even less likely to have survived to our days than Gómez's.
The guard who talked with me also told me about the slave trade in Aragua's coasts when the Spanish wrestled them from the natives. Indigenous peoples were then considered better workers than the African slaves not just because of their build but also their knowledge of the territory. He went on to explain the context in which Turmero was made into a Catholic parish and other tidbits of fascinating information. I ended up doing a Rune reading for him and the other three guards that were there, blessed them and left.
I was supposed to meet someone before heading to the bus terminal in Maracay but he was delayed. As I arrived at the terminal, I was thinking that it was also the birthday of the woman visited there last year, that it was exactly a year since I'd been there last and that I was probably meters away from her as I took the bus back to Caracas. More significant connections. I'm now far more thankful to have met her because of what I learned and the necessary knowledge that I needed to complete this specific task. My relationship with Aragua and particularly with Maracay will probably continue to expand after this.
I kept my word to the Saman and immediately felt the energy release. I'll doubtlessly start seeing the product of this quest from now on. The next mission, it appears, will take me to a famous mountain called Sorte in Yaracuy state, where the main shrine to María Lionza is located, but that's a story for another time!