hot
The Origins of the Sauce
Ever Since I can remember I have been on a spiritual path. I had no choice really. It was like I was wired that way. And so, even the sauce came out of that pursuit.
How the hell can hot sauce be connected to a spiritual path? It’s a legitimate question really. The answer is this: my entire adult life I have spent in the pursuit of one thing – absolute enlightenment, the realization of the mahamudra. Everything I did in life was to take me to this goal. There are many stories and as many poems which I have written which speak to this journey but in this entry I will only share one of each.
The sauce came to me after I went to see Chokyi Nyma’s son (his name I can’t recall) teach at the Portland Shambhala Center. It was a potent and direct teaching on the creation and completion stages of the tantric path through Gampopa’s chant:
Grant your Blessings so that my mind may be one with the Dharma
Grant your Blessing so that the Dharma may progress along the path
Grant your Blessings so that the path may clarify confusion
Grant your Blessings so that confusion may dawn as wisdom
The teaching was an empowerment for me I was soon to discover. The next three days I found myself in a profoundly altered state of mind. The energy cruising through my system was like lighting. I was lit up entirely.
At this point is in the story it is important that I take a step back with you to the Portland talk. All through the talk the teacher spoke of good and healthy food and he repeated over and over – maybe ten times – is any one recording this? Is anyone taking notes? Is anyone writing this down?
It seemed strange at the time. Both seemed strange really. I had never heard a teacher talk about food or have such a need to have their words recorded. But in my altered state in the days after the talk this made a great deal of sense. In my heightened state I completely rearranged my house and restructured my shrine. I also made my first batch of hot sauce.
I had a general recipe I had been given by a member of the Sacred Works Management team (thank you Jonathan) and the teachers words resonated clearly in my mind as I made the sauce. In the midst of the lightening storm of my mind I kept hearing, “Is anyone recording this? Write it down.” With those words as really my only reference point, I wrote down the specific recipe which later became known as the sauce of the serpent and the spider (another story for another entry).
The sauce made, I wrote an invocation which I will close this entry with. It was read over the first batch of sauce made at Oregon Hill Farms not so long ago.
Mama’s Fire Supplication
Royal bindu bliss
Perfect amrita
Ekajati milk
Mahakala ambrosia
Tara’s fearless balm
Come to this realm
Fearlessly enter
Mercilessly heal all
Indiscriminately
Vajra bliss, welcome
Come in
Join us all
Met us all
Mama’s fire
Bodhi mix
Witch’s brew
Magic stew
I beg, I plead
Let the empowerment manifest
For this lowly yogi
Let the wave be released
