Merry Christmas

Christmas is such an unfamiliar affair for me here in Mexico. It is nothing like the holidays I remember from my childhood, of going to church early to sing in the choir, or perform in a Christmas pageant, then coming home to cookies and advent candles, and barely falling asleep with eager anticipation of Santa's arrival during the night. I remember always "having to go to the bathroom" at about 3 am so I could take a peek out at the tree and see if he had already come, then calling out to my mom at about 6 a.m. to see whether we could get up. She'd always make us wait till she's turned on the heater and let it heat up a bit, and we'd lay wide-eyed, impatient, listening to the hum and rush of hot air through the register, counting the minutes till we could go see the loot that Santa had brought. Later we'd put on our snowboots and go look for evidence of Santa outside - prints of reindeer hooves in the snow. We never found any, but that didn't stop us from looking.

Well, here in Mexico, Santa doesn't come. No presents. Instead, the 3 Kings come with one gift - on January 6. So Christmas Eve is a completely different affair. First off, the Catholics don't believe in early church services the way the good Protestants of my childhood did. Mass is at 11 pm., so that we can be ringing the bells at midnight, as the clock strikes Christmas and it's officially Christ's birthday. Everyone brings their Niño Dios (baby Jesus) statues to mass, stripped of finery and laid out in a basket in his barenaked nascent state, and adorned with sweets and coins. The priest blesses them all, as they are "cradled", a surreal reenactment of the sacred birth scene of Christmas, as hundreds of people stand in line with basically the same statue repeated over and over again.

And once mass is over, that's when the party begins. Everybody takes their baby Jesus home and then gather the families together for a "birthday" hug and an all-night dinner party of turkey and pork loin and bacalao (cod) and other specialties particular to Christmas and somewhat hard to digest at that hour. The kids run around the streets going crazy with firecrackers at 2 and 3 a.m. The adults start drinking the ubiquitous tequila, and go on as long as they can.

On Christmas Day, everybody sleeps in, hungover or just plain worn out, then they drag themselves out of bed at noon or so, gather the families together again and start eating leftovers. Then they take a break to hit some piñatas, then eat again, then go light up some firecrackers, then eat again. And drink again. By dusk then, people start making their way back home to the tune of an occasional firecracker popping off here and there in the streets. That's Christmas for ya!

So you can see why it's a little loopy for me. I miss Santa Claus. I miss snow at Christmas (in concept anyway). This year we didn't even put up a tree really - in part because the baby would just try to eat the ornaments, and in part because our house is in such a state with the construction, we didn't feel particularly inspired. And it's hard to introduce my traditions into the house when the whole culture is to the contrary. How on earth am I going to get my son to believe in Santa Claus when all his friends will be waiting for the Three Kings, not to mention telling him that Santa Clause wouldn't come to a house with no chimney. I miss Christmas stockings! I didn't even make my usual sugar cookies this year, since everyone always looks at them funny, saying they're like the cookies the nuns make and sell to raise money for their convent. You see, they don't even have Christmas cookies here!!! I am a stranger in a strange land and it's very evident at Christmas time. But it's just another exercise in flexibility and adaption and letting go of attachments, because Christmas is Christmas no matter where you are, in the end. And it's all about celebrating the Light in the darkness.

Jumping off

I wonder if it's coincidence
that on the day the baby climbs out of his crib
hidden, unseen, to be found running around the house looking
for me, crying for his mama, that in that night I dream
of people jumping off a building
onto a tiny little mattress. When I ask
them how they survived, they say
"I just tucked and rolled. It was fun."
And I dream then that I am hunting through stores
and markets looking for a pendant of the Virgin
of Guadalupe and all I find is Lakshmi and Tara.
I find myself again with the refrain,
crying for mama,
"Where is She?"
"Where is She?"

The Basilica

We went to the Basilica of Guadalupe today. The whole family, little cousins and all, piled into a van we borrowed from an uncle, and off we went to Mexico City on a little pilgrimage. I don't think I've been to the Basilica in a year, not since we took Marco when he was 2 weeks old to present him to the Virgin. It was like coming home today. The Basilica is an oasis, a slice of paradise, in the seething polluted chaos of the city. The air might be brown with smog all around, but right over the Basilica, the sky is bright blue, crystal clear, as if She holds everything nasty at bay. The gardens are bursting with fuchsia bougainvillea in bloom, calla lilies, and the everpresent roses. Along with the cascading fountains and pools of water, you just feel like you're in heaven on earth, or as the Juan Diego himself called it, the "heaven-earth place." I am always inspired and moved by the pilgrims who come crawling on their knees to the foot of the Mother. Pilgrims come in wheelchairs, on crutches, with walkers, or parents carrying their severely disabled children. They come in indigenous clothes, with braids in their hair and with simple sandals on their feet, from as far away as El Salvador and Nicaragua. They come motivated with a devotion and faith that Americans can often not even begin to fathom. I have often told people that if they want to go see the Mother at the Basilica, that they should look into the eyes of the pilgrims, and see the Mother reflected there in their great devotion.

It was interesting going with the whole family, because it turned out that most of them had never really explored the grounds and all of the other sacred sites besides the "New Basilica." They've always just gone to see the Tilma, which indeed is the prime goal of most pilgrims, but the whole site is filled with energetically charged spots where Her presence is particularly palpable. We went up to the Chapel on the Hill, and down to my favorite sculpture grouping La Ofrenda, and into the Temple of the Well (Pozito) which is a total vortex, and then into the Church of the Indios, where Juan Diego lived out his life taking care of the tilma, also an energetically juicy spot. The kids totally got into it, feeling the energy, standing so open so sweetly in front of the Mother and letting her blessings shower over them. I showed them the Aztec offering stone outside the Temple of the Pozito, and told them to put their hands on it to feel the energy, and little Brian, who is 6, jumped up in surprise exclaiming that he could feel the stone buzzing under his hands.

For me, it was so great to be able to return to all of these places - when Marco was 2 weeks old we just whisked him in front of the tilma quickly and that was it - returning now I got to revisit the whole making of Marco. To come in front of the great statue of Archangel Gabriel at the top of the hill was so sweet for me, to show him my son, and show my son his namesake (Marco's middle name is Gabriel) - to tell him he wouldn't exist if Gabriel had not told me 4 1/2 years ago to go to Mexico. I also got to pass in front of the bronze Juan Diego statue in the Old Basilica, where I prayed umpteen times to conceive a baby, where I left milagros with my plea after months of trying and with my gratitude when I was finally pregnant. I took Marco in front of him today, and my little well-trained one year old Catholic touched the statue and then brought his fingers to his mouth in a kiss. I about melted, it was such a beautiful little moment between me, the baby, and God.

Peacock Feather

Snippets of light and word and image
move through my night space, and a voice
repeating "I am as is Mexico ..."
And our group is so big, we have to move
to the big Salon because we're doing
yoga, and the people are unruly, defiant.
One of them does magic tricks, but real magic -
sparks and fire shooting out of his hands,
as he conjures green silk, a midnight tuberose,
a peacock feather out of nothing into the air
in front of us. The awe of us has a sound, and I ask him
if I can touch it, and I feel the flower and silk - real.
Then Lee calls the group to attention:
Notice how easily your mind is hooked by the illusion
of what seems real, and the reality
of what seems illusion.

www.108nights.blogspot.com

I am currently participating in a grand dreaming experiment which you can see at www.108nights.blogspot.com - poems from dreams for 108 nights. Its taking me deeper into myself, something I've needed for a long time! My posts appear under author "Teotihuacana" - not sure why they appear with that "code name" but it's probably something I have to figure out how to change in some hidden nook of my profile. Other dreamers (and we all dream) are invited to join in the dreaming fun. Happy night poeming!

Pilgrimage

With the full moon illuminating
them, millions of pilgrims
sing Happy Birthday to Our Lady
of Guadalupe, and I dream:
in a huge palace-like library, I stand
in line waiting my turn at the top
of a long staircase. We are waiting
to see the miracle of Guadalupe's
image on the tilma. I ask the guide
are there any good books about it?
She says no and as I position myself
on the top step and take off sliding
down the staircase on my butt,
I holler out
Have you read the Aztec Virgin?
The staircase goes on forever, down and down,
darker with each flight, like a chute, and my butt
aches from bumping along, and I am alone
in the dark, looking for Her.
I wander the dim halls, knocking on closed
doors, looking for books or some sign, yelling
Where is She?
Where is She?

Thanksgiving

I was having a particularly eloquent day on Thanksgiving 4 years ago, so I've dug up what I wrote, because duality continues to be such a driving force here for me. And I continue to be thankful, thankful for so much - my son, my husband, my family, a roof over my head and food on my table, incredible opportunities and incredible people who pass through my life. Thankful for water, and sun, and flowers, and rain, and all the magical stuff of Life. And here's what I wrote on that Thanksgiving Day 4 years ago:

Happy Thanksgiving to you all, my dear ones! As you are probably sitting down to a table of turkey and mashed potatos, maybe some pumpkin pie, the day here has passed as uneventfully as ever. Instead of stuffing and gravy, I ate chile-laden meatballs, rice and some mysterious green sauce wrapped up into a tortilla, all cooled off to a coagulated room temperature, as I have been a bit antisocial today and came an hour late to lunch. I`m often antisocial on major holidays - I`ve spent the past few Thanksgivings alone, begging off well-intentioned invitations to make small talk with the random relatives of random acquaintances. I usually try unsuccessfully to broil up a slab of turkey breast and a slab of butternut squash, not caring much one way or the other whether it turned out. So this Thanksgiving is in some ways a relief - it is a day like any other here in Mexico, where everyday is a fiesta, fireworks going off near and far at 2 am, 3 am, 4 am, where some tequila-saturated imbecils thought it would be a good idea to get either an early start or a late end to a party in honor of the fact that its Thursday. I often spend this day trying to get in touch with what I am thankful for. And sometimes its hard, but its a good antidote to antisocial behavior. Ordinarily I ponder my thanks from the flimmering dark of a movie theatre, which is a great place to be at 3 o`clock on Thanksgiving afternoon since everyone else is at home eating. Here unfortunately the nearest movie theatre is 45 minutes away, so today I pondered my thanks while doing my daily pacing in the sunny yard to thaw myself out from the old house`s interior chill.

I`m thankful for my feathers. I`ve taken to gathering feathers, having enough ceramic pieces to satisfy my inner archeologist. The feathers just began presenting themselves at some point, so I began picking them up and saving them - little gifts from the birds that sing and rustle about in the branches of the giant peppercorn trees that line the yard. Every day I wander beneath the trees as they wag their clusters of red berries at me, my eyes scanning the ground for lost plumage. There are usually a few - black ones with white tips, and the brownish red ones from the wings of my beloved mourning doves, and tiny downy ones floating across the grassblades. I fear I occasionally have the neighborhood cats to thank for the feathers, but that is the cycle of life, no? Its a "human run over a dog eat a cat eat a bird eat a worm eat the decaying corpse of the human who ran over the dog" world, right? One day, Panchito, the family parrot, gave me one of his brilliant bluish green feathers and I carried it reverently over to the other house to add to my collection. Its an exotic brushstroke amid the more earthy muted tones of the wild birds`feathers. I keep them all in a bowl on my altar, and I`m not sure quite why I have them, except that they are sacred to me, little reminders of the ability to fly. I probably have enough to make a whole bird. I suppose someday I`ll have enough to make myself wings and fly away. And then I think that perhaps I already have wings and I`ve just forgotten or haven`t noticed. Perhaps these are my own feathers I`m losing and finding again as if they were foreign. Perhaps I was on to something all those times I played at being a bird in First grade, flying around the school yard with that kid Matt Newman, gathering up piles of pine needles and twigs to build a nest. Perhaps I really can fly. And perhaps I can have a nest, a cozy little home lined with down, with a spectacular view over the treetops, someday. I am thankful for the birds.

I am thankful for duality. Why am I thankful for duality? Because the mere fact that I`m noticing it brings me one step closer to an experience of oneness in my reality. I scanned a mental list of things I love and hate about this place, and noticed that I place everything here in comparison and contrast with what I know from the States. I realized that not only do we constantly compare ourselves to other people, but we compare cities, countries, hemisperes, lifestyles. Ultimately, we compare every aspect of our lives to other aspects. Every single thing we notice or observe, we place in contrast to something else we have experienced, thereby instantly setting up duality. This is better, that worse, this is faster, that cheaper, this smarter, that prettier. No thing passes by us unnoticed, unjudged in some way. The duality of this place? Its in the way I can walk down a street, past a shiny new Ford SUV with the car alarm going off, and then turn a corner and be met by a running flock of bleating sheep, followed by goats and slower lumbering cows, herded through the center of town by some sharp dogs and a couple cowboys reining in their nervous horses, shying at the honking of an exhaust-spewing VW mini-bus. What`s left after the duality of this scene? A street full of shit. Not just from the animals, but in general - because I`ve judged and compared every aspect of the scene - the SUV and car alarm judged as familiar, similar to home, and at the same time judged as bad, moneyed, gas guzzling American imperialism, air and noise pollution. The bizarreness of a street full of hooves clomping on pavement - judged as charming and novel, how sweet, like in a movie, judged as backwards like what the hell, are we in a movie here? 21st century? Buncha hicks.

A million ways to compare San Sebastian to Oakland, a million ways to compare myself to some hardworking vaqueros, to compare this day to that day, to compare this house to that house, this goat to that goat, this life to that one. As I hunch over the cement sink with the washboard built in, and the drainage pouring right out the backside of the wall into the yard, scrubbing and kneading water through my laundry, I think why the hell do they use the same detergent to wash their clothes as they do to wash their dishes ? Back home, we`d yadayadayada and on and on and on goes the comparison. There are always two sides to the coin, never just one coin. I had this revelation that every time we set up duality, this contrast of opposites in our lives, what we`re actually doing is creating separation. Because if we place things in opposition, then something will always be separate from us, and we will never have to surrender into oneness. Even our perspective of oneness is tainted with duality - we both crave it more than life itself and yet fear it more than death, all the while blind to the fact that both life and death are innately part of oneness. Perhaps I`m just off on philosophical musings to try to justify what the hell I`m doing here, but on a day like today, a day for giving thanks, I have to think I`m on to something. I have to hope that someday the judge in my head will shut her rusty trap and gracefully make way for a little silence and a little union with all that is, thank you very much.

Some days I compulsively eat sugar to try to sweeten the bitterness that creeps up out of hiding from some internal organ, flowing now through my veins like a blood infection, seeping up to the surface of my skin like an angry rash that won`t be soothed. Beyond the genetic coding on this bitterness, I stop today between bites of chocolate to take a deeper peek at its source. There are whole lifetimes cooking in there - of feeling alone and unloved and rejected - of feeling like the sun shines for everyone but me. And today I see that the bitterness keeps me inside, hiding in the dark, never letting me step out to turn my face to the warmth of the sun who is a star, shining starlight especially for me if for anyone. I realize that one of the blessings of this place, of living with a family, living communally - I mean when`s the last time I lived like that? - is that I am noticing that I am really nothing but a collection of habits. Sometimes I wonder if I am any more than that. Someone told me I`d have some great stories to tell some day about living here. And I wonder if that`s why I`m here - so I`d have some great stories to tell. I am a collection of habits and stories -flowing in and out of this physical form like so many cells dying and regenerating and dying again. The tricky part is finding what`s left when you strip all that away. What will I look like when I peel back all the layers of the story onion? Will I become invisible? No more need for home or work or money or lover partner, all the things that we humans quest for if lacking and guard ferociously if not. Or will I become hyper-visible, larger than life, a glowing tower the likes of which this planet hasn`t seen since the Elohim? Or are those just more stories, more onion layers . . .

I am thankful then for the opportunity of this lifetime to ask myself these questions, to try to peel away the richly storied layers that life has built around me. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes when your chest is weighted by the pressure of heartache, or your tear ducts have run dry, parched and swollen eyes squinting into the inevitable continuation of days. But other times its beautiful, the process of this life. Its beautiful when you look up from your laundry and find 50 snails above your head, little twirled homes suctioned to the moist wall, riding out the dry winter in the damp shade of an old cement garage. Its beautiful when you find an orange fuzzy caterpillar booking down the dusty street faster than you ever thought a hundred legs could carry you. And its beautiful when Pancho twists his tongue into the earnest and foreign sounds of "Good morning. How are you?", grinning proudly after his English efforts. I can`t help but smile with my expected response of "I am well. Thank you." And I am well. Thank you.

And as proper observers of this day would pray, I pray also. For blessings to you all, in gratitude, in Christ`s name, in Quetzalcoatl`s name, in Mary`s name, in Coatlicue`s name, in Buddha`s name, in Tara`s name, in all the names the divine has been given around the globe, in the name of all that is, we pray. Amen.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am over at the Dreaming House, where it is bright and there is perky banda music playing on the radio in the kitchen. The sun outside is shining so crisply and the sky is electrifyingly blue. I had to come over to escape the damp cold dark hole of my own house, where the baby cries all day and I want to cry. I feel like I'm just waiting, marking time until the baby is old enough to be independent and I can get back to the business of my life. I'm not sure why I feel like my life is on hold right now - well, I guess its pretty evident, I always have a one year old clinging to me, and I can forget about painting, writing, meditating, or having a long adult conversation. My grand meditation is at midnight after the baby has finally gone to sleep and I have 3 minutes in the hot shower before the hot water runs out. I just stand there and breathe deeply and feel myself in my body and my feet on the ground. The meditation lasts about 30 seconds.

Groups come and go here at the Dreaming House and I almost envy them, going out new and fresh into the glorious power of the Pyramids, dreaming and flying. I go in there only about every 6 months when I'm a "teacher" and its not the same for me - I don't let go and surrender into flight because I'm observing and guiding the flight of others to a certain extent. I want something new - I want to allow myself to be guided in an experience. I want to surrender completely. Meanwhile, I sit in my dark cold house babysitting a baby and a crew of construction workers who have already been wreaking havoc in my yard and overhead on the new 2nd story for 2 months, with no end in sight to either expense or loud noise day in and day out.

I'm complaining - I am aware of it. I just have this rising frustration within, and it builds every day, and I keep trying to breathe deeply each time the baby has another tantrum, and I can't seem to remember how I ended up here, and can't seem to find a pathway out of the corner I've worked myself into. So I just keep marking time, in limbo, waiting and expecting that one magical day it will be different. Of course I'm realizing that what I actually need to do is take action, bust my own self out of my inertia instead of waiting for it to happen on its own. But that's a brand new realization, so meanwhile I listen to the banda playing in the background singing "Yo no soy abusadora" and glean hope from the mere fact that I got myself out of the house and pawned the baby off on his uncle for a few minutes to sit down and write some thoughts. That's action, right? Cheers and here's to getting off my ass in the future!

Days of the Dead

We celebrated Days of the Dead this past weekend. It is my favorite holiday of the year. In the States I used to find Fall a gloomy season, with leaves falling from the trees and flowers dying, everything dark and darkening more, and a depression would always set in on me from October till Easter. But here, they have this great colorful light-filled holiday to break up the gloom. And it's funny, because you'd think it would be sad since its about the Dead. But quite the contrary - it is festive and aromatic and warm and light. If you think that the ancients of this land buried their dead in a fetal position, then you realize that death here is really regarded as a doorway to a new life. You don't just die, you are born into new life on the other side. So death isn't such a sad thing here. Sure, they miss the dead, but the dead have their special day once a year where they get to come back and play and visit and chat with the living. Like a grand reunion.

The Day of the Dead altar is filled with symbolism and it is an outlet for creativity. Altars are beautiful works of art. They are covered with marigold petals which are a symbol for fire - the fire lights the way for the dead to find their altar. There are purple flowers that symbolize resurrection, reincarnation, and white flowers called clouds that symbolize the celestial realm. There are mounds and mounds of fruit that cover the altars - guava, apples, oranges, bananas, sugar cane, all sweet things, sweet bread covered with sugar - because the journey for the dead should be sweet. There are chocolate skulls and candy skulls, with the names of your loved ones on little papers marking the treat for the arriving spirits. There is colorful papel picado for decoration, tissue paper cut into magical designs of dancing skeletons acting out all the actions of life. There is sweet copal and incense burning on charcoal in big clay goblets to clear the air of anything heavy or negative - cleansing the path for the spirits' journey! There are glasses of water and tequila and bottles of beer - because the dead are thirsty after their long journey!

So I love it!!! I love plucking petals off of marigolds until there is a bucket full of orange flouncy bits of blossom. I love making designs with all those petals, and marking a path with them from the altar to the front gate out into the street, making a line of light that helps the dead find their altar. We didn't do that part here at my house this year. We had to build the whole altar up high on a bookshelf and very small this year, because we have a one year old baby who would love to tear apart all of that pretty paper, knock over cazuelas of fruit, and eat marigolds! So we kept it small this year. But the groups over at the Dreaming House built gorgeous altars, with all the glory of flower petals and candles that the holiday deserves. They added in carefully marked lines of beans and corn and rice and chiles, all traditional ingredients of the feast. They brought photos of their dead loved ones and honored them along with the dead of this land, the ancestors of Teotihuacan. When you call in the ancestors here you can feel them show up and fill a room, taking in the warmth of the candlelight. I love this holiday!!!

We dressed Marco like a little dragon and joined Nikis' cousin's kids as they went "asking for skulls" which is their version of trick-or-treating here. November 1st is for the dead children, and the 2nd for the adults, so on the 1st the kids really go all out with wandering the streets and knocking on doors, asking for skulls from the altars. The living children show up as stand-ins for the dead spirits, as their representatives, and people give them treats and fruit off the altars. It is forbidden to eat the food off your own altar during these days - you can give it away to the kids, though, and they can eat it in their role as representatives of the spirits.

We ended up at the cousin's aunt's house, where she had a huge table set up as her altar, and it was covered not only with mountains of fruit and flowers, but also loaded with candies and milk and cookies and piles of toys and dolls and stuffed animals - all things for children. I looked closer and in the middle of her altar, next to the saint images and crosses, was a photo of a little baby. I realized she had lost her daughter at the age of 4 months, and here she was honoring her daughter's spirit with all the things a baby would enjoy - bright colorful toys and soft plush animals. There must have been fifty candles in front of the altar, and a heart and cross drawn out of marigold petals on the floor. We apologized for interupting her evening, since it was already late, but she fell all over herself making us cinnamon tea and bringing plate after plate of fresh tamales, saying "No, thank you for coming, we were feeling very lonely till you came to liven up our evening." We came with our little dragon baby to be the stand-ins for the spirits and give her that communion she needed, the fiesta with the dead. Our baby was acting as the representative for her baby's spirit. We had shown up at her house in perfect timing with perfect purpose. We were truly celebrating Days of the Dead, with all the sacred intention and love the holiday is meant to have. It was a sweet, bittersweet, but sweet evening.

1st Birthday

Marco celebrates his birthday today! October 30th! His first birthday! Everybody warned me a year would fly by, and you don't believe it at first, at 3 am, when the baby is projectile crapping or vomiting, but they were right - a year has gone by very fast. And this little man who used to fit all curled up inside my giant basketball of a belly is now learning to walk on his own, learning how to blow out his first candle, clapping his hands and babbling gibberish to anyone that will listen.

I wish we could have a huge party for him, but since we just had the big hoohaw for his baptism, its a bit much. We're broke from all the house construction we've been doing (which is a whole other story I'll have to tell here someday, when I'm more relaxed and not so ornery and stressed out on a daily basis.) Plus we're working today - 4 busloads of school kids out from Mexico City for their day of cultural enlightenment, plus 2 different groups of a total of 30 Americans for their week of spiritual enlightenment. So we'll be busy and can't focus on our little munchkin quite the way we'd like. But there will at least be cake and balloons, so that we can take some pictures and show him in 20 years that at least he got to blow out a candle.

I just wanted to take this moment to be grateful to the Universe for the miracle of Marco - what a blessing he is. I love him more than anything in the whole world, and I love him more every day. When I think back to what it was like on that operating room table a year ago, all my anxiety and fear, and then this loud sudden crying as a pink little being is whisked by me, I think what a miracle he is. What a miracle.

Revisiting the Light

As I have been sitting with the fact that I've been here for 4 years, I have been revisiting my old emails that I wrote about those initial experiences and impressions. I kind of blow myself away. I had such insight, being so fresh and open and walking in faith. I found this blurb about my journey in Teo that first week, and I am awed by my own experiences. I have since integrated the pyramids into my being in a way, and while I still continue to have mindboggling experiences there on a regular basis, I am still moved by the completeness with which I surrendered into Teo on that first journey of living in Mexico.

Here is what I wrote:

I have only a few minutes to update you all on what seems like a million years, so bear with me. I just spent 5 days in Teotihuacan with a lovely group of folks, just as I did back in July. Of course, different group, different me, different experience entirely, but just as mind-altering. The temples that called me for so long until I finally visited in July, that continued to hold me in their awareness through my move, have now allowed me to sink in to yet another level of experience. Being in Teotihuacan, doing this Toltec work, is both abstract and visceral. Every cell of my body feels the vibration from the stones, the air, the sun beaming down, or the gently misting rain. As physical and palpable as this experience is, it is also beyond words, certainly beyond words that any of us would understand with our linear minds. It is as if the walls of Teotihuacan breathe in my stories, swallowing them into nothingness, and then produce entire worlds of poetry upon exhalation. You could say that I don´t breathe, but rather that the place breathes me. I moved through the plazas and temples, praying, letting go, noticing all the chatter and hell in my mind, then emptying it, noticing again, emptying again, opening my heart, loving, loving, loving.

In the Palace of Quetzalcoatl, I looked into the serpent´s eyes, falling into their depth and ferocity, and felt the earth move up into me, connecting, until I became a flame from the very molten core. In the Palace of the Jaguar, I moved into silence, into becoming Xochitl, the flower of the next age, feeling my stem reaching for rich nutrients within the soil of the Earth, my petals opening to the code pouring down on rays of sunlight. In the Palace of Butterflies, I stepped into a dream and the residents rustled around me, dusting me with their spotted wings, opening my insides to the Light with the fragile prodding of their antennae. On the top of the Pyramid of the Sun, I saw the double helix of Life rising out of the Earth, and the vibrating flame of divinity flashing down from the Sun. I felt myself in the Great Pyramid of Giza, in a great Mer-ka-ba formation and on a boat through Orion`s Belt. All the sacred geometry that ever was flew through the air around me, it seemed. Yes, that`s how it was at Teotihuacan. Entirely beyond comprehensible words.

Four petals on a flower

I've been here in Mexico for exactly four years. An unnoticed anniversary but an important one nonetheless. Four years have passed like petals on the famed fourpetaled flower of Teotihuacan, of all of MesoAmerica, of Guadalupe's belly button - the 4 petaled flower that means "Life" to the indigenous people of this land. Four years like the four directions, the four elements, the four tezcatlipocas that make up the four quadrants of the universe. Interestingly enough, I spent Monday afternoon with a Toltec group that had come to the Dreaming House to visit my father-in-law and look at his obsidian sculptures, and I had the opportunity to share my story with the group. My friend Maru invited the group into the Salon to see the Virgin of Guadalupe mural I painted there and told me to tell my story, "including the love story" she said.

I've told the story a million times it seems, to visitors and groups, in Spanish and English, and everytime the story is a little different - I highlight different points, emphasize the Virgin's story more, or tell more of mine, depending on how the energy flows. On Monday, I talked about how the cogs and wheels of the Universe came together to bring me here, how I said "Yes" to the opportunity Life was presenting me with, how my faith was tested, and how saying yes ultimately blessed me with my wonderful husband and baby, a path I never imagined in this lifetime. And I talked about the blessing of the Divine Mother, who appeared here in Mexico almost 500 years ago, and offered a promise of new life to the people, to the new mixed race that was being created, how she showed them the secret symbol of the 4 petaled flower on her pregnant belly and said I will show you the way, if you follow me. And telling the story of her and how she has been a presence in my life, I realized that she said follow me, and she has always shown me the way. She asked me to paint her image on the wall at the Dreaming House some 4 years ago, and when I asked her to guide my hand, she did. She is now asking me to reconnect to her.

Just a couple weeks ago, big chunks of the ceiling right over the mural fell down for some inexplicable reason, and scratched up the mural on the way down. So I am faced now with the rather daunting task of restoring my own mural. I can only think that she's calling me back into the folds of her garment, since I have been very distracted of late. I have to sit down in front of her again and ask again that she use me as her vessel, and give thanks again for gifting me with this mural that I have been able to share with so many others. I have to give thanks for my blessings again. When I look back at my openness and faith 4 years ago, I see I am so blessed for where my path has led me.

Here is what I wrote upon arriving 4 years ago:

Sent: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 Subject: Travel installment No. 1 - Mexico City - sushi and world peace

Hello dear ones - just wanted to let you know that I made it! Travel was relatively easy yesterday, in spite of getting randomly selected for all the security searches I possible could have. Everyone was rather interested in my suitcase full of art supplies, and I practically ended up giving a lesson in linoleum block printing to the folks at the Mexican customs - all in good fun though! I think it served to distract them from the turkey jerkey and dried mangos I was smuggling in! I arrived in Mexico City to a cool but humid soft rain, just enough to make the asphalt glisten in the street lights. Post-work traffic had cleared out enough to allow breezing through the spaghetti of roadways, crisscrossing every which way. I wondered how people learned how to drive here, how they ever learned the roads, but the taxi driver was confident as he grooved out to some old disco tunes beneath the swaying of his rosary beads dangling from the rearview mirror. I was a bit punchy and in shock from suddenly being deposited in this place that I´ve been working my way toward for so long, so when we passed the glowing orange structure of a Home Depot, I didn´t take it as a symbol of American consumer imperialism but rather as a bit of comfort and familiarity.

Arriving at Casa Gonazalez, the lady who greeted me was also familiar - I remembered her smiling face from July, and she graciously helped me struggle with my bags to my room. I´ve already learned a new word - pesado - it means heavy, which is what my bags were. My room is simple, but I love how even in the cheapest simplest rooms, the Mexicans will decorate with lovely painted tiles -little cobalt scrolls and curls to brighten up an otherwise dim and mildewy situation. When I ventured out for dinner, I was so thankful to already be familiar with the streets. I headed down a few blocks to a little pedestrian zone filled with waiters calling me into their restaurants and I decided to take the feeling of back-home comfort a little further and went to Mr. Sushi. A little udon noodles, avocado rolls and green tea can go a long way! I think Í´ll eat there again tonight, and maybe give the tempura a try. Hey, I´ll have plenty of time to eat tortillas in the future - got to make the most of Japanese while I have it!

Today, I awoke under the full effect of altitude sickness. I felt like there was a truck parked on top of me, with a dose of dizziness and queaziness along for the ride. I forgot that I was suddenly at 7000-something feet, which is a walloping for my little sea-level body. When I finally rallied up around noon, and managed to get myself out for a cappucino with cassis liqueur in it, I finally hit the metro for the purpose for which I had come - to visit the Basilica of Guadalupe. I had the same experience I had back in July with being the only blonde on the entire metro system. If they weren´t checking me out overtly, then the locals were doing a little furtive sideways glance, probably just asking themselves what the hell I was doing there. I have yet to figure out how other foreigners travel about Mexico City. At the basilica, I was pretty much also the only foreigner there, except for a few photo-takers. I always have a bit of an internal conflict when I enter a Catholic church, feeling like an imposter in a place where perhaps I shouldn´t be, not knowing whether to go through some parroted motion of crossing myself, or just do my own sort of prayer of asking for entry. But then if I don´t cross myself, my mind thinks that then I´ll be revealed for who I truly am, that somehow I don´t belong. So I always hesitate at the entryway, but once I cross over and feel welcomed into the sanctuary by the powers that are beyond my mind´s questions, well, then it doesn´t matter anymore. I lit candles for everyone I know, for all the little prayers and big blessings, and I lit a candle for everyone I don´t know, for the vision of peace blossoming out across the globe, praying that it come soon, during our time here.

I began my slow climb up the hill behind the new basilica, up to the cerro where Guadalupe appeared, where the Divine Mother has lived in the center of the Earth since the beginning of time and through all the passing cultures who have recognized her there. I walked past vendors hawking polaroids and rosaries, past young couples shielding their new babies from the sun in thick blankets, made my way up the curved stairs to my friends the Archangels who guard the top, who gaze out upon the world as sentinel and messenger of the Divine. Ah, there was Gabriel, who was my guide this whole time, who brought me here with strict and gentle coaxing. It was like seeing a brother again. As I approached the very top, the blessed church with the most amazing mosaic ever, where I had been enraptured, besprinkled with holy water and visions last time, I discovered to my dismay that it was closed! A big neon orange sign was handwritten and crookedly taped to the door - Cerrado por remodelar! I wasn´t sure what to do at first - here I was approaching one of my most holy of holies, with milagros in hand for offering and thanks, and I find a massive door in front of my face. I guess Source is always testing us, so I just stood right in front of that door, and imagined myself inside, imagined the mosaic dove beaming its light and life blood upon me, imagined myself in the Center of all the power of La Virgencita. And wouldn´t you know it, it worked. La Virgencita is after all larger than any stone walls or sparkling decorations. She is at the source of life itself. So after quite an altering experience, I humbly left my milagros on the rim of a stone font to the right of the door, not having anything to which to pin them, and wondered if pigeons would be attracted to the gold and carry them away, carrying my prayers into the wind, to be better heard I suppose.

Well, it is sushi time now, so I must depart (also because this ain´t California anymore, and people can smoke wherever they damn well please, including in internet cafes!). Tomorrow I will make my way to Teotihuacan, where the real work begins, you know, of letting go of my stories and mental structures, and reclaiming the true essence of who I am - just a little light effort, that´s all! Wish me light! So much love to you all, and I will be in touch when I can!

Blessings and love, Emily

Friday morning in October

The light was so beautiful this morning. It felt like Fall and the light was golden, the air was cold in that eardrum-burning, nose-tingling kind of way. I underdressed and was trying to curl my hands up into the sleeves of my sweatshirt to no avail. I'm not a morning person by nature, so I often miss out on them entirely because I can easily stayed under the warm covers curled around the baby until 9 or so. I really want to go for a walk in the mornings and get some exercise - just to feel alive and meeting the day. I always miss those walks because my husband always gets up to go jogging bright and early, so its my job to stay and take care of the baby in the morning. But last night, when my husband announced that we would go jogging today at 8, I said no, its my turn now. I want to go for a morning walk, and get some exercise, too. He said, ok, you go at 7 and I'll go at 8. I said no, I'll go at 8, and you'll stay home and take care of the baby. OK.

It was hard to get up and peel back those warm cozy blankets, and sneak out the door without waking the baby. But what glorious light the Fall morning has to offer over Teotihuacan. I took the back way around the cobblestone periphery road to stay in the sun. There were a few other walkers and joggers out, mostly diabetics whose doctors have prescribed exercise to try to stay a step ahead of the disease that kills so many here in these villages. I had my camera, and I stopped to take pictures of the needles poking out of a nopal cactus, of a caterpillar clinging to the stalk of a weed, of a black and orange mottled spider that always comes out in October in time for Days of the Dead. I walked up toward Gate 5 and peeked through the chainlink fence at the backside of the Pyramid of the Sun. The guards looked at me as if I was a lost tourist with a screw loose, wondering why I didn't just come up to the gate and buy a ticket. Nobody ever imagines that I'm just someone from one of the villages getting my morning exercise.

When I walked back into the village, still gleaming with the morning rays, I saw an old man with an old donkey attached to an even older cart. The man was shoveling gravel onto the cart, while the donkey just stood there chewing and glowing in the soft bright light. I so dearly wanted to stop and take a picture of them. But I'm not a tourist. This is my village and if I start taking pictures of its inhabitants, they'll all clue into the fact that I'm studying them in my little sociology experiment. They've just gotten over me being an alien, and while the novelty of looking at me and my blue eyes doesn't wear off, they've at least gotten used to me enough to not stare me dead on in the face every time I walk down the street. So no photos of man and donkey. At least not today. Perhaps I can seek him out in some other village some other day. Or some day I'll be brave enough to just not care what the equally alien people of this village think of me playing tourist.

Perhaps I could say things more quickly. I used to be a poet -with words and with images. Now I just run around after an almost one year old who grins at me crookedly while dangling from a piece of furniture, a bookcase or a cupboard. I get two seconds in between adventures, before he dumps AllBran Flakes all over the kitchen, eats a battery or craps his diaper again, to write a couple words. I don't get to go very deep, not in the way I'd like. I tell stories about the funny crazy events of Mexican life, but I don't have time to tell stories about how I really feel living this life I'm living. I want to go deeper. With words and images.

I am often inspired by my fellow blogger friends and their insight and sight into their worlds - www.princessknowitall.blogspot.com and www.ivapeele.blogspot.com are two gorgeous examples - and I crave that same sort of digging into the depths of myself and my creativity to find both the stories and truths that lie at the heart of myself. I almost wish I'd had my baby 18 years ago when I had the chance the first time, just so my kid would be off to college by now and I'd have free time to write my blog and paint some pictures. But of course that's crazy talk and my baby now is in perfect timing and I wouldn't trade him for all the world. He's a miracle. I just need to write faster or be more concise - I need to return to the precision and sparsity of words that poetry used to offer - that amazing ability poetry has to capture whole worlds of ideas in a couple words, a couple lines. If I could write a couple words of poetry while the baby naps, and I've mopped the floors and washed the dishes and thrown in a load of laundry, and I have 5 more minutes before baby comes squawling awake again, then I could chip away at my need to go deeper with myself.

Could I tell the story about the construction of the second story of my house in a poem?
Cement drip, and banging hammering and laying block upon cinderblock to raise walls, these men with caps pulled low to shield their brown cheeks from the sun say good morning every morning. Climb the ladder and I hear their scuffle and banging hammering over my head all day. They ask for a pitcher of lime water and I pass it up the ladder to them and hide out again
in the house hoping their banging hammering doesn't wake the baby and hoping they build it right.

Baptismal Feast

I was baptized in a dowdy little Lutheran church with nobody but my parents in attendance many moons ago. I was Protestant. From preschool on, we went to the Congregational church where there was a plain wood cross above the altar and funky geometric designs in the 70's style stained glass windows. There was a Noah's ark jungle gym in the backyard. I went to Sunday school and youth group and sang in the church choir. Sermons were basic, songs were sung from the hymnal tome and we read prayers from the program the ushers handed out. I try to explain Protestantism to people here in Mexico, and they have zero frame of reference. I refer to European history - Henry the 8th? Martin Luther? John Calvin? Church reformation? They don't teach European history here in the schools or if they do, it doesn't include the Wittenberg Theses. So they think I'm a Jehovah's Witness, which is the only other religious option in the village, if I try to press that I'm not Catholic.

So I have spent the past 4 years pretending that I'm Catholic. I'm pretty good at it. I love the Virgin Mary - I always have, and it was one of my big beefs with Protestantism - how could they relegate the Divine Feminine to a side character who only appears in Christmas Pageants?! Here I get to revel in the Divine Feminine - Mary is almost higher up in the hierarchy than Jesus here - they love their momma in Mexico! And I love the saints - all their attributes and symbolism and fancy shiny lacy clothes that everyone kisses, their dreamy eyed gazes as you pass before them - what's not to love about a saint? And I love the ritual factor of the Catholic church - incense and bells and robes and gold chalices - all wonderful holdovers from pagan times ... However, in general, mass is boring as hell. They say the same stuff everytime, chant the same out of tune songs, and pound their chest saying "por mi culpa, mi culpa, mi culpa" - its all my fault and I'm a sinner. Or something along those lines. But, I've learned to mouth the words I don't understand or can't remember and I can fit in with the Catholics, and nobody is the wiser. I don't get to take communion due to the sin of not having married in the church, but otherwise, I don't think anyone has clued into my imposter Catholic status.

So I have a baby now. And every baby in town has to be baptized in the Catholic church. And I gotta act Catholic so I have to follow the traditions. For the past year, the big question everybody has asked is so when are you going to baptize the baby? We've put them off, in part because having a baptism means having a giant party to celebrate, which translates into mucho dinero. We thought we'd just sneak off to the Basilica, where they do quick and dirty baptisms with no requirements, just wham bam thank you god! And nobody would be the wiser and we wouldn't have to have a party. But then my father-in-law had this bright and generous idea to design a baptismal font carved out of fluorite on an obsidian base for the church here as a gift for the fiesta of San Sebastian this past January. It's beautiful. It also left us in the sticky position of having to have the baby's baptism here in San Sebastian, so as to not offend my father-in-law, who of course had his grandson in mind when he donated the font. And baptizing the baby here in the village meant having to have the whole giant fiesta to go along with it. And having a fiesta means you have to invite all kinds of people you wouldn't ordinarily associate with just because they invited you to a party once and you don't want them to be offended and gossip around town about it. Okay, so maybe we can cut the invitee list down some, but the family is still so huge, by the time you've invited all the aunts and uncles and cousins from both sides of my in-laws' family, your guest list is already at a hundred. Add the various and sundry family friends and compadres, and your guest list is at 200. And that's about how many folks showed up!

The preparations gave Nikis more grey hairs than he already had. The menu was our biggest worry. I hate the dead sheep that is always served at every fiesta, so I put my foot down. We settled on dead pig instead. The only problem with that was trying to find pigs. This isn't the kind of deal where you just go to your local butcher shop and buy a kilo of pork. No, we had to feed 200 hundred people remember - so that's like 2 pigs! Nikis and his parents hunted for days, calling their cowboy relatives with pig connections, but each time it would be like, oh no, they just sold their pig, or the pig is too small, or the pig is too expensive, or that lady feeds her pigs blood and guts instead of tortillas, you don't want that pig! Finally my in-laws found us 2 good pigs at the right price - 22 pesos a kilo. They tricked the pigs onto a pickup truck and took them off to the slaughter man. He did his thing, and they took the pig parts back on the truck to the old man who cooks them. He did them barbacoa style, coated with chile sauce, layed in maguey leaves, cooked in an underground oven. They came out heavenly, moist and soft - pigs in heaven. We completed our menu with poblano chile pasta, salad, quesadillas, tamarind water, and my all-time favorite - chinicuile salsa. Chinicuiles are bright red aromatic worms that live under the maguey plant. They're like caviar - rare and expensive - a true delicacy. They only come out during the rainy season, when there is thunder and lightening, so you can occasionally see people out collecting them during a wicked storm. We bought them live, about 10 dozen, at 10 cents (one pesos) per worm, and ground them into the salsa. I cannot find words to describe the smell or taste of it, but let me just say that it is one of my favorite things on the planet. I can take a cazuela of that salsa and sniff it like junkies sniff glue, and I'm happy as can be, flying from what it does to me. Its like sniffing life, earth, soil, lushness, rain, vibrancy, the planet, air, life, life, life - it's the greatest smell there is.

But before all that food, there was the actual baptism ceremony. The whole thing was finagled a la Mexicana. We're not even allowed to baptize our kid in the church here officially, because aside from me not being Catholic, we're not married in the church, and neither are the godparents, our lovely compadres Lee and Meaghan McCormick. But you know how it works in Mexico - a little connection here, and little money there, and tada, everything is arranged. We had to go to talks at the church a week beforehand and I was worried because the baby was such a screaming wriggling spaz, and I thought he'll never make it through mass. He didn't. When the priest welcomed us into the church, mouthing the answers to the questions he asked us (He asks, "what are you requesting of the church," and as we stare at him blankly, he mouths "el bautismo." Oh yeah, we're here requesting baptism, duh..), the baby already started wriggling. You see, he spent the morning wide awake as I decorated the party tent with balloons, and then he fell asleep about 15 minutes before it was time to dress him for church. (My comadre Mee came over to dress him per the tradition and it took the two of us to wrestle him into his little white suit and pin his bowtie on him). So by the time we were standing in front of the priest, he was cranky from no sleep and uncomfortable in his get-up and snotnosed from a lingering bug, and just plain not into the church scene. The priest asks us to make the sign of the cross on his forehead, and he bats our hands away.


We go into the church, and then Nikis and I and the padrinos Lee and Mee are all lined up at the very front of the church, right under the very nose of the priest who can surely tell by now that I don't know the words to the prayers, or how to cross myself properly. Nikis holds the baby and entertains him with a keychain. My purse full of toys is somewhere in a back pew. The box with the candle and the ritual water shell and towel is forgotten under a bench outside. Lee and Mee's daughter is crying for some reason. The baby starts writhing and letting out earpiercing shrieks. We pass him up and down the line to see who can entertain him. He is sidetracked for moment when he sees Pancho in a pew and he starts cackling at the congregation. The priest puts his hands on his head and he bats them away. I'm am mortified. The priest is mellow and doesn't care. We hold the baby over the famous baptismal font the started it all, and the baby keeps trying to turn over so he can stick his hands into the holy water. We all pass on taking communion and I think the priest knows we're all sinners, heathens, unmarried, liars. He doesn't seem to care, though, because we slipped him some extra money. The baby is deemed official, part of the Church, blessed, welcomed into the bosom of God, so it's all okay. We can take pictures and go have a party. The priest actually comes to the party, looking like Joe Schmo Anybody, in jeans and a sweatshirt, drinks a couple tequilas and lets the guys in the band poke fun at him.

Nikis said, God is with us. He/She truly was, because it didn't rain. We had a mild afternoon where the kids were able to play in the inflatable castle, the adults all danced to the trio and to the band we hired, and everything was perfect. See, the following day, it poured cats and dogs, and the entire party tent flooded, full of deep puddles, and the castle was under water. Imagine if that had happened the day of the party! But God was with us, the food was fabulous, the music was great, everybody danced and drank and ate cake (even Marco had a taste of whipped cream). I was so honored to have my new compadres by my side - my compadre danced the "turkey" dance, and my comadre the "sexy" dance, per the instructions of the band, who were talking about the turkey long after the party ended and they were packing up their equipment. All these crazy gringos made an impression. The baby who was so fussy all through mass and all through the party wouldn't let anyone carry him except for me, so I had to have him attached to my hip all night, until he finally fell asleep dancing, me twirling him around and bobbing him up and down and boom, he fell asleep in the middle of his own party. (Of course he woke up again later and was wide-eyed till about 11:30 when the music wrapped up.)

And of course, God is with us - we have the miracle of this baby Marco. God has blessed us with his presence in our lives. And we have the miracle of having been able to have a rip-roaring party for him. Even though it stretched our wallet to its limit to throw the shindig, it was a classic Mexican example of having faith that you should spend your last cent on a party, and that God will provide for you afterwards. Indeed, we'll be eating leftovers for weeks, so we don't need to go grocery shopping at all. I've always been both befuddled and intrigued by that Mexican tradition - throw the whole house into the party, even if you don't have a pot to piss in the next day. The party is more important than anything. The ceremony and the party. Who cares about everyday life,when God blesses you with a reason to have a party. And so we did it a la Mexicana - we baptized our baby, which is such an important rite of passage here - joining the baby to God - and we had the big party to go along with it, which is a rite of passage for us as parents. We threw our first fiesta, albeit with some help from Nikis' parents, but we still did it. Our compadres had a rite of passage in becoming godparents, which they did so gracefully. And we are so grateful to them, to our baby for blessing us, to our family, to everyone who came and partied with us, grateful even to the priest who knew how to work around the system. I guess you go through these rites of passage and throw the whole house into the party so you can feel gratitude afterwards. I've always said that nothing opens the heart faster than gratitude, so here we are with empty wallets, open hearts, and God is with us!

Sacred Diapers

I should be sleeping, but who could, what with a classic oompa banda-style band blaring from the plaza behind my house where they've set up their stage. From a field half a block the other direction there is a crappy garage rock band of snot-nosed teens screeching out raw-voiced tunes. And intermittently, some pyromaniac is shooting off firecrackers. The ruckus started at 7 a.m. this morning with a loud volley of fireworks sending us all leaping out of bed. That was quickly followed by church bells and the snippets of cacophanous out-of-tune "singing" that always seep over to our house on the morning breeze. Ah, wait, the church bells are ringing again with another insane round of fireworks right now as I write - 11:30 on a Sunday night. Why? Because it's another patron saint festival in our village - we have 3 a year, and this is a minor one, but they still had to haul out with a riproaring party in her honor. La Divina Infantita. I love her - it's Mary when she was a baby. How cool is that? We always think of her as the Divine Mother. But at some point, she was the Divine Baby Girl as well, before she grew up to be the Divine Mother. I love the reminder that even the most sacred beings have passed through all of life's cycles, and that we all contain the elements of those passages within us. Like we still contain who we were as babies within us. We still carry the innocence, the trust, the simplicity and pureness inside of us.

Someone handed me a prayer card in the church, which I was amused to see mentioned her "sacred diapers." Something along the lines of "We give praise to her divine body which was wrapped in her sacred diapers, to which give our humblest gratitude, and to her holy crib where she lay blah blah blah..." Hmm, I don't know that Mary was so immaculate that she didn't soil her diapers like every other baby ... she should come over and get a whiff my diaper pail ... but nonetheless a sacred diaper is an interesting concept. It's almost like what these pure baby creatures take in as nourishment is processed efficiently and what they don't need they let go of with no attachment. I'm really reading a lot into it, but how can you not begin to analyze the symbolism of "sacred diapers" - it's loaded (haha)!!

So anyway, any patron saint deserves a big party. The whole town is out to go cross themselves in front of the saints in the church, not just la Divina Infantita, but all the other saints that neighboring villages sent over to join the party. Its a whole line up of saints, and you have to say hi to each one, touching their robes and crossing yourself afterwards. There are about 20 of them This time, I had to do it twice for each one though, because I had to cross the baby as well. What a rigamarole these Catholic traditions are! Here I am the baptized Lutheran pretending I'm Catholic so that nobody finds out - not like they even know what Protestant means - they'd just think I was Jehovah's Witness since that's the only other religious option in town. So I'm down with the church ritual part of the saint party. It's colorful and swathed in gold and light, and I just can't resist those dreamy-eyed saints smiling gently at me. And I'm down with the carnival aspect of the saint party - the vendors selling freshbaked bread, corn on the cob, and peaches and cream, and homemade potato chips - the vendors selling dime store tschotchkes and pirated CDs - the rides on rickety old mini rollercoasters and rusty bumper cars. If it weren't for the baby having to get a bath and go to bed early, I'd be into the castillos -the looming steeple-high towers set up in the plaza that are rigged with wheels and spinning panels loaded with colorful fireworks. They are a jawdropping sight to behold - works of pyrotechnic art.

What I can do without in honor of the saint are the loud bands, and I can definitely forgo the loud gunshot and grenade-sounding fireworks - that are all noise and no color. They're like bottle rockets or something, rigged on bamboo sticks. The guys just light their cigarette to them and shoot them off one after another jsut to create noise. I guess the effect is supposed to be like one of those cannon salutes. The idea is that the louder it is, the more welcome and loved the saint will feel. Personally I think the saint is probably deaf by now from having to listen to those damn things for so many years. I took the baby to a mass especially for babies and little kids in honor of La Divina Infantita the other day, and some dip shoots off a bunch of those things at the halfway mark and the end of mass. All the babies were howling and crying, scared out of their wits. Like hola ..... it's a mass for babies - fireworks are not appropriate, duh!

Anyway, viva La Divina Infantita! Tomorrow is Independence Day here in Mexico, so the whole loud ruckus from fireworks to bands will be repeated tomorrow. The town drunks, of which there are many, are getting in 3 days worth of bingeing- Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Viva Mexico!

So soon I got my gratification! We went back to Tecamac with my in-laws today, and I got to have my Ben & Jerry's! A scoop of chocolate brownie and a scoop of cinnamon bun. Heavenly!

In other completions, the baby limpiezas seem to have worked, as weird as they were. I guess Nikis was right - you have to have faith!

The Ben & Jerry's ice cream I didn't eat

Writing posts is becoming more and more difficult for some reason - well, not just for any old reason, but for a reason called Marco. I'm trying to type while he's climbing all over the place to get at the computer. He's like a monkey. While chewing on a plastic bottle in the shape of Guadalupe (intended for holy water, not baby drool), he figured out he could climb up on the bumper of his walker that I have blocking access to the corner where the computer is. Once on the bumper, he realized he could use it to squeeze his way around the back side between the walker and the furniture. I finally just put him in the walker and sent him on his merry way - he's rustling around in the kitchen now up to who knows what mischief.

Anyway, we went Sunday driving today to Tecamac, where we heard there was a new mall. A mall of course is no big deal in the States - they're a dime a dozen. But here, it's a big deal, especially for me - malls give me a little taste of the States when I'm feeling homesick and need a dose of American-style consumerism. They're even laid out like American malls, with the anchor stores and the food court and all. We usually go to a mall called Las Americas, and the name of course totally conjures up American shopping for me, and one of its anchor stores is Sears, which unlike its American counterpart is a totally shishi place, fancy, designer, expensive, and no appliances! Las Americas is about 45 minutes away toward Mexico City through crazy roads and traffic. So we thought we'd check out this new mall today and indeed it's somewhat easier to get to, if you know where you're going, because it's all about bumbling around on back country village roads, over about a million speed bumps until about a half hour later you magically meet up with a major avenue where there is: tada! A mall! Plaza might be a more accurate description for it because it has that sort of California suburbs-ish open air kind of design.

The malls most impressive feature is its "Fun Center" which goes way beyond video arcade to include a super schwanky bowling alley, an iceskating rink, mini golf course, and real carnival rides. The baby was looking around like he'd just dropped acid. Blinking lights and loud dinging noises. It was like Baby Vegas. We had a blast watching Mexicans trying to iceskate. The baby was also very into the bowling balls - I had visions of him taking off and crawling down one of the lanes and then getting scooped up with the pins, so I kept a tight grip on him. Other than that we strolled around the stores as best we could - the stupid thing about the suburban open-air plaza design is that they don't take the rainy season into consideration. And of course we had a wet one today - I guess that what with hurricanes blustering around the carribean and the gulf, the rain inevitably is going to make it inland. So we mostly shuffled around the 3 of us under a big umbrella with the baby bundled in the middle. And suddenly I spotted the jackpot, the end-all-be-all of my American consumer indulgent mall existence, somehow beamed from one of my past lives in the U.S. right through a timewarp into my present Mexican reality. There in front of me was a Ben & Jerry's ice cream shop. Vermont's Finest! Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and Brownies and god only knows what other kind of decadent flavors only over-the-top Americans could invent. A far cry from the local Michoacana where prune popsicles and watery mamey icecream are the norm. Whereas the Americans like stuff, so they put lots of stuff in their icecream as well! You know, chunks and chunks of stuff! Like chocolate chip cookie dough!! I have no idea how they plan on selling all that stuff to Mexicans, to whom chocolate chip cookie dough is as foreign as sheep eyeballs are to us, but hey, I'll buy it meanwhile!

So I'm all amped up to get some Ben & Jerry's icecream when Nikis says are you freaking loca? Its raining cats and dogs and cold as all bejeezus, and you want icecream? There's a reason why the shop is empty! You don't eat cold things when its cold out! Loca loca loca! I, of course, being premenstrual, had to backlash - well, according to Mexican superstition logic, you can't eat icecream or anything cold when its a hot day either because it'll supposedly give you a sore throat! So when can you eat icecream? We argued back and forth and by the time he finally relented to my premenstrual fury and said go get the damn icecream, I had to not get it now just to spite him. Like, well, my appetite is ruined now - you ruined it! Aaauuugh! I'm so irked at myself for not rising above my PMS and allowing myself the indulgence of that soft buttery cookie dough and the crunch of chocolate chips embedded in creamy coolness melting on my tongue.

Nikis promises to take me back on a sunny day so I can finally satisfy my craving, not to mention just put that Ben & Jerry's band-aid on the big raw wound of homesickness. I had to paint him the picture of oh say, you've been living in the States for a few years and you just can't get a good taco, and you go to the mall, and suddenly you see a taco stand run by a real Mexican, with all the stuff you love - hey you get to go off and have the cow eyeballs and the bunny tongue and the pigs feet and the sheep testicles, but then I suddenly say, what? Are you loco? You'll get indigestion! You can't eat that! And you're pissed not just because I won't let you eat something but because that something reminds you so much of everything that once was near and dear to you, but now is so far away. It's hard to understand if you've never been away from home and never missed anything.

The baby limpiezas

Well, in the spirit of documenting Mexican village superstitions, I suppose that I should tell you about the purification rituals I put my baby through. See, the baby has had a problem for months in which he wakes up in the middle of the night hyperventilating, breathing erratically, sounding like he's freaked out or had a bad dream or something. My personal opinion is that it's probably some kind of baby sleep apnea or something more physiological, but everyone insists that he does it because he's had a "scare," which is as frequent of a given cause for disease and disaster as "air," which I'm sure I've gone off on in some past blog. In any case, a "scare" opens you up to being inhabited by evil spirits, which then can cause all kinds of ailments, especially diabetes (sure chock it up to a scare instead of a lifetime of eating fatty foods, refined sugar and booze, but I guess you could blame your behavior on evil spirits - they made me drink the tequila!) Now, if you know me well, you know that I'm totally down for spiritual stuff - I'll be the first to rid you of spirits if you want, but somehow it's the phrasing of the problem, not to mention the cures, that just really get me here.

So enter the ever-famous Bisabuela, who also happens to be the town curandera. I finally agreed to take the baby over to her and see what's up. Having some notion myself of healings and cleansings, I expected some sort of ritual or ceremony or burning of copal at least. I'd been told to go to the pharmacy (I love that the pharmacies sell this stuff here!) beforehand to buy "Espiritus para untar" and "Espiritus para tomar." Each came in a little 40 cent plastic bottle and contained what seemed to amount to rubbing alcohol in one and holy water in the other. So we showed up at Bisabuela's house and after a half hour of obligatory gossiping, we handed the baby over, and she plops him on the couch, take off his clothes, briskly slathers him with Ponds cream and gives him a rough quick massage on his belly and his back. Then she pours the Espiritus over his feet , his belly, his back, his hands, his head, all the while rubbing and rubbing with her broad wrinkly brown hands, marking crosses, and all the while muttering prayers and calling "Marco" into his ear with a weird raspy voice that sounded more like the spirits Marco was supposedly possessed by than anything. The whole thing took about 2 minutes, and then voila! Done. Cleansed. His clothes were all drippy with Espiritus, stained by the liquid. The final step was that he had to drink Agua de la Gloria (holy water from a particularly holy day), which he seemed to like mostly because he was thirsty.

She pronounced that he'll need a more deep cleansing at our house the next two evenings before bed, so she gave me a list of things I needed to get at the market - basil, rosemary, Santa Maria, ruda, pirul, toronjil. I made a tea with the toronjil, and gave it to him before breakfast with some mysterious powder she gave me. I wait for her the following evening with my herbs in hand, still thinking she'll show up with copal or something more in depth and ceremonial. She comes with an egg - ok, that's cool - I'm totally into egg cleansings - very effective usually. She also has a bottle of some kind of curandera brew, that smells like Latin American superstitions - it has some kind of cheap eau de toilette in it that reminds me of witch doctors in Peru and Bolivia and well, Mexico. I don't know why they attribute magical qualities to "toilet water" but it must have some kind of mojo to appear so consistently in these brews. Again, we spend about a half hour chitchatting, gossiping (and she is really up on the gossip, given that she spends her days going around to people's houses doing "cleansings"). Then we get the baby laid out in his diaper on the changing table, and she does her cream and Espiritus rubdown, then she takes the bouquet of herbs, dumps her witch water on it and brushes him down with it, then takes the egg and quickly brushes that over him, and dumps the herbs and the egg in a plastic bag and closes it. Again, the whole process takes maximum 3 minutes. And she doesn't stop gossiping the whole time - in between the prayers and raspy-voiced calling into his ear, she's still chatting about so-and-so who is sick with such-and-such.

I don't think the short time was so weird for me - I realize transformation can happen in an instant. I think it was more the form in which the "cleansing" was done - without much attention or sensibility. I was trying to detect some sort of sensation of energy moving, some connection to the action, but it just seemed about as rote as washing the dishes. Well, I'm still open to seeing the results - I'm willing to admit the ritual and ceremony aren't the end-all be-all of being "cleansed." But it still seemed so bizarre - the baby just looked bewildered in between crying because "espiritus para untar" got in his eyes - what is this crazy lady doing, rubbing an egg in my hands and whispering religious sweet-nothings in my ear? Why do I reek like eau de toilette? The Bisabuela hollers at me to cover the baby, cover him!, so I put him in his jammies, which instantly stain with the Espiritus and toilet water, and he's all sticky and stinky and has basil leaves stuck in his diaper.

The next morning, everyone asks me expectantly if he slept better. No, after two cleansings, he still wakes up every couple hours crying, and he had another of his hyperventilation episodes. So they suggest that the whole house probably needs a cleansing. Yeah ... If my baby's hair smells like cheap perfume the day after a cleansing, what will my house smell like? I continue giving the baby the tea and mystery powder, which he mostly gags on because it's like eating sand. And the Bisabuela returns for the third and final night of cleansing. Same ritual as the previous 2. She rushes off afterwards this time, though, because she has to go check on some lady with some ailment and pick up on the latest gossip (we're not such good fodder for gossip here afterall).

Did he sleep better? Not really. Nikis says I need to have faith. Probably. When the baby is able to get through several weeks without breathing weirdly in the night and not waking up, then I guess I'll believe in the cure. Meanwhile, its one for the my book - another loopy moment in Mexican culture. Last week I was shopping at the mall in the U.S. - this week, I'm getting limpiezas from the curandera in Mexico. Now that's duality for ya!

Going home

The spirit teachers from the Place of the Elders having been telling me for several years to "take up my position in the Northwestern quadrant," a fancy way of saying "go home." Go back to where you came from, the great Northwest, the land of your birth and your youth. I guess I finally paid heed to those often-invisible ancients that wander the plaza, grinning at me with gray braids and tiny wiry little bodies robed in white. I went from the embrace of teaching in Teo straight to the airport and home. I hadn't been back to Montana in 10 years. It's hard to even find words for how surreal it felt. My parents' house is unchanged, except for a new hookup to the sewer system and trees that have been chopped down over the years. But the big pine tree still looms in front of my parents' bedroom window and rustles and creaks in the wind. The same carpet is there and the same plates and spoons and glasses are still in the cupboards. The same green wallpaper and green clock are in the kitchen. Same as it has been since the beginning of my memory. A time capsule that I left for myself in my childhood, thinking I'll come back here someday, and the memories will come rushing back. And it was like that to an extent. Like, whoa, I remember that little tschtochke or that picture or that book - blast from the past. But more than that, it was like visiting somebody else's life. Everything felt neutral. I guess enough time has passed and I've talked to those invisible spirits in Teo enough that I didn't feel tripped out by the blast from the past. It was like things that would have had some big emotional charge around them 10 or 20 years ago don't anymore. Instead, things were neutral and interesting and new. Charming and humorous. Not charged. Not in the past. I felt like I was looking at everything through the eyes of the present, not the past. What a relief! Maybe you really do become a different person when you grow up, because I felt that the person who used to live in that house in that town oh so many years ago no longer exists. I was looking at her stuff, but it was the stuff of someone else - not mine.

I went to my 20th high school reunion - that's always interesting. It was great to reconnect with a couple old friends, but other than that, I had the same impression of many of my old classmates - that they had been the classmates of another person - some other Emily who existed 20 years ago, rockin out in all her angst and malaise in 1988. Who was she? Perhaps its not that I'm a different person than her, but that I integrated her into some layer of myself where she no longer has to be so much trouble. Some of my old classmates apparently haven't integrated much - one who shall remain unnamed (not that she'd ever read my blog, but she is the type to google herself to see what comes up) got so drunk at the reunion that she sat down on a downtown Missoula sidewalk late that night and pissed her pants. At the picnic the next day, she was hungover and looking for all sorts of lost possessions. Thank god angst-ridden Emily got that kind of thing out of her system quite a few years ago, so that I don't have to try to waste my youth at age 38 anymore -I wasted it successfully when it was age-appropriate! But again, there wasn't a charge around any of it or what my old comrades were up to - it was simply interesting. Humorous human beings doing what they do.

Marco was a dream baby through all the traveling and toting around in airports, airplanes, cars, 107 degree heat, blustery rainstorms, malls, and mom crying in the chocolate aisle at Target, because there is just so damn much chocolate to choose from and not enough time in a lifetime, let alone a week in the U.S. to eat it all. He made friends with everyone from super nice flight attendants to old ladies at Macy's, from hippy chicks at the Butterfly Cafe to burly jocks on airplanes. And the gods (Quetzalcoatl probably) really was looking out for us, because we had the row to ourselves on virtually every flight, so Marco could bounce around without disturbing anyone and with plenty of space to stretch out.

Missoula, Montana is a really swell town - I've always said it would be a great town to live in if one hadn't grown up in it. Now I say, it would simply be a great town to live in ... maybe if it didn't have winter. But it is such a clean, mellow, beautiful, friendly town with so much going on culturally. My parents think the traffic is horrible - but by my standards, it was peaceful beyond measure. Like 10 cars on the road. And there are galleries and a childrens museum and a world renowned children's theatre and a gorgeous riverside carousel. Maybe someday, Nikis and I will be inspired to apply for that famous alien spouse visa and we'll go live there. It seems farfetched, the mere concept of me returning to Missoula, but weirder things have happened in my life (like moving to Mexico, getting married and having a baby!). I'm sure my parents would be thrilled to have Marco around - they had such a good time with him, and he loved his Oma and Opa! It was so good being together with them and sharing with them the bubbling life and laughter that Marco brought to the home of my childhood. I've always been open to where destiny sends me, so we'll see what those gray haired spirits in the Place of the Elders tell me to do.

Teo in my heart

I love Teo in the rainy season. It's green and vibrant and bursting with grassblades and bugs and butterflies. Wildflowers wag their delicate colorful little heads at every step I take. It is Life! The glory of Teo in its green splendor reminds me of what a privilege it is to live next to the pyramids, and to be able to go into that realm whenever I want. I'm working with Lee with a group right now in there, and I am privileged to be able to share my connection with this Life with others. What an honor. I know I am sometimes flippant or cynical or frustrated in my descriptions of what my life, ie little human life, is like here in this village, but all I need is a good dose of "pyramids" to get me back into connection with that Life that is so much bigger and of which we are all a part. Ah glory days ... Next week, as soon as this group takes off, I am heading back to my hometown in Montana, US of A, where I haven't been in 10 years. Heck I haven't even been back to the States in 2 and a half years. It will be a shock to my system I'm sure, but I think there is some reason why I'm here in the pyramids in the days leading up to it. Hopefully it will help me revisit my roots (and everything that inevitably triggers) with a mindfulness and a love and an honesty that I wouldn't otherwise ordinarily be connected to. I hope I can carry the peace of Teo with me in my heart as I go on this other journey "home." And, of course, where is home really? In my heart.

Playland of the Poet King

We went Sunday driving again yesterday, this time with the whole family. We tooled along through the countryside, the rain having painted pastoral landscapes for us in broad strokes of green. Hundreds of wildflowers dotted the shoulders of the highway and billowy California peppercorn trees were draped along the ridges of the hills. If it hadn't been for the maguey and the nopal cactus, I would have thought we were driving somewhere in Europe, for all the rolling green hills and precious vistas with church steeples poking up in distant valleys. We headed out toward Texcoco, one of the larger cities around here, and one that used to be on the edge of a very large lake that has sadly dried up in recent centuries. There are just a couple of brackish ponds left as evidence of its bygone glory. If had been a clear day, which it rarely is, we also could have seen the snowcapped peaks of the volcano Popocatepetl to the east, and we could have imagined the old city during Aztec times, wedged between towering volcano and expansive lake, home to the famous king Nezahuacoyotl. Nezahuacoyotl is one of Mexico's most famous historical figures - in the century before the Spanish conquest, he fought a war to regain power of his rightful kingdom of Texcoco, which had been usurped by an enemy tribe, and once he reestablished his rule, he worked hard to make his kingdom a just and wonderful place to live. He instituted "divided rule", a revolutionary concept of having separate ministries of war, of finance, of justice, of "music", ie culture. He was most famous for his emphasis on culture, and his kingdom was later quoted to have been the "Athens of the Western World." He himself was known as a great intellectual, a sage, a poet, an architect and designer, an astonomer. He built a huge library of books and codices, all of which were unfortunately destroyed by the Spanish who arrived a mere 47 years after his death. His poetry, having been passed down orally, however, is still quoted today.

On our drive, we bypassed the city and instead headed up to Tlaminca, which was basically like his weekend getaway or summer home. It was certainly his place for inspiration and creativity, as he surely gleaned words for his poems from the very air around him - it is set high up on a hill, with incredibly romantic views in all directions (in his time, the view of the lake must have been stunning). The site is most famous for its baths. Water was conduited from a spring via aqueducts all along the lengths of the ridges of the mountains, contained in reservoirs, and passage through canals and tubes was opened to fill an elaborate series of baths built at strategic vista points. One bath was for the King himself and his contemplation. Another was for the Queen. Yet another was for his concubines, of which he apparently had hordes (producing over 100 children!). We spent the day wandering the grounds, smelling the lush flowers and medicinal herbs growing all over, climbing around on the ruins of temples and sitting in prehispanic jacuzzis, imagining that we were ancient royalty. Climbing up out of the Queen's bath, I swear I could feel the water running off me. Either I was really tuned into the energy or I was really tuned into my imagination, either of which would have been right up Nezahuacoyotl's alley. My father-in-law carried Marco in the babypack on his back the whole time, singing to him, chanting to him, charging him up with energy, and all the while looking for interesting rocks and fragments of glittery mica and pebbles on the ground. Marco loved it! Didn't complain once in 5 hours of up and down climbing in the sun. And it was just such a beautiful place, I'm ready to move there!

We topped off the day escaping a sudden rain shower by dodging into a quesadilla shack, that inevitable Sunday afternoon Mexican standby! So what the hey, cheers to the poet king, with a few huitlacoche quesadillas and a gordita!