Weekend Confession

I left town without really telling anyone so it wasn’t a huge surprise that my family kept calling me.  Nor was it surprising, considering the circumstances, that I didn’t answer.

People have a tendency to fear what they don’t understand and I’d be hard pressed to explain to my Catholic family how important it was for me to be present at a sweat lodge ceremony in St. Louis, Missouri the weekend before I move.

But, remember how I promised to be more honest?  In efforts to demystify my spiritual excursions and to gain understanding and respect for my beliefs and practices I’d like to share something I’ve never shared publicly before.

The sweat lodge is a native American/indigenous ritual of purification.  This purification comes in several forms: the physical: sweating out toxins; the mental: watching that smoking mirror of consciousness; the emotional: that release of what no longer serves us and finally, the spiritual: offering prayers in the form of sweat, songs and words as a community.

I cannot do the sweat lodge justice in describing the various symbolic meanings or the precise ritual.  These things are meant to be experienced rather than read about.  Each lodge can be different depending on who is running it and what tribe they belong to.  At best, I can merely describe my own experience and what it means to me.

I placed my medicine bag on the altar after being smudged with the sweet smoke of copal.  I humbled myself on my knees and pressed my forehead to the earth before entering.  “Ometeotl,” I whispered to the earth.  The lodge was shaped like a turtle – I crawled on hands and knees clockwise with respect to the fire pit in the center before reaching my spot.  Everyone else followed suit until we were a circle symbolizing that we were all equal once we entered the earth’s womb, the temazcal.

We welcomed hot stones warmed by the morning’s fire and were sealed in complete darkness.  We prayed as the water pourer made it hotter and the air thicker. 

It is in the darkness with the support of a spiritual community that I am able to enter a different state of consciousness.  The heat induces me to see my higher self more clearly as the physical, mental and emotional toxins release from my body. 

Every time I enter the sacred temazcal I feel as though I go in a dirty towel getting dipped in water and then wrung out.  I enter so that I may become emptier of negativity and old belief systems that no longer serve me to make room to learn new truths and save space for more love and joy throughout my mind, body and spirit. 

In this type of belief system we honor the earth.  We ask the earth for wisdom and pray for her healing.  We are able to see more clearly that the damage that is done to her is done to ourselves.  The damage we do to each other is harm done to ourselves.  We learn to be more conscious of ourselves and of our actions through the lodge. 

I leave you with a beautiful poem and apologies to my family for disappearing.  I’ll tell you where I’m going next time.  I promise.  J

 

Freedom Prayer

Feel the itch to

Shed some old skin

Live in the transformation

Let the Serpent back in

Watch as it coils around you

Until you can’t breathe

Your bones begin to crack

While your gender, age, height, race…

Those defining characteristics

Begin to deconstruct as your body condenses

Wrapped in the coils tight

The Serpent then begs the question

Of your identity

Before swallowing you whole

You’d be surprised just how seductive

That kiss of death could be

It strikes at you quickly

Without warning

Leaving you forever changed

The old you was far too safe

Too boring

Death comes in to set you free

Pray.

I am not my body

I am not my past

I am not my religion

I am not my sex

I am not my eyes

I am not my university

I am not my career

I am not my family
I am not even my poetry

If you could only remember

Death sits behind your left shoulder

What’s worth fighting for?

What’s left to cling to?

Comes a time

That you just can’t carry it around anymore

I pray to the Crows

Scavengers of the sky

I offer my body

If only to free my soul

Open my pumping heart

Satisfy their thirst

I am but my Father’s daughter

Came into this world with no possessions

This is all I have to offer

Tired of clinging to a false sense of autonomy

Freedom is the unhinged and unsecured

A floating leaf; subject to God’s will

The Wind’s doing

I’d lay naked before Her

This is how I pray

Lay bare enticing the Serpents, Crows

And Wind to come to me

I smoke the tobacco for all my relations

The animals too

Om

Aho

Hallelujah

And if I could strip down

Be delivered an empty vessel

For Spirit to live through

I would

Surrender completely

And watch how the Serpent saves you

A transmutation of DNA

An evolution of grandiose proportions

Don’t let the fear of death hold you back

For self preservation means nothing

Compared to this final sacrifice

I will never be anything more;

Anything less;

Than this.

Hypnosis in Calakmul

I wrote this when I was in an enlightened (the only way I can describe how I felt) state on top of Calakmul's 2nd largest pyramid.  Calakmul is a huge Mayan site located in the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in Campeche, Mexico.  The depiction below describes me in a state that I wish I could be in forever.  Time stood still, I felt as though I belonged to that place in that moment.  If the writing lacks description it's because the noise in my mind had silenced.  I needed to write this today to remember what it felt like.

The air tastes sweet - the smell of sweet Jasmine flowers perfumes the air.  I feel like I could stay up here all day - so in peace.  Maybe it's the hike it took to get up here or maybe it's the quiet and only the sound of birds and leaves rustling.  I'm in a hypnotic state almost so blissfully peaceful.  No body part bothers me; not even the toe that I broke or the blister on my right pinky toe.  Not even my legs that were sore from yesterday's hike; not even my back from hauling my 40 pound backpack in and out, up and down, out and around.


I feel as though each time the wind blows she's a hypnotist snapping her fingers and saying "deeper!"  I don't mind the ants crawling all over my body, nor do I mean being left here alone.  I take a breath and all the trees appear a lusher green than I had see before.  Colors dance before me and "deeper!" the wind blows once more.

More about Calakmul here.

Existential Crisis #75

“What’s the meaning of life?” I asked Angel over breakfast.

He laughed so hard he had to excuse himself from the table.  I started blushing, partly out of embarrassment for having asked such a “loaded” question and partly because there was so much truth in that moment.  The moment where I ask a question that philosophers dedicate their lives to, human beings try to grasp even slightly so that they can feel some comfort in knowing their lives are worth something, or the question that monks meditate over their whole lives on and my Mayan friend is away from the table on the beach just laughing at the joy and absurdity of it all.  Is that an answer in itself?  It might be.

He returns to the table holding his stomach and says, “It just is.  It’s this…” as he opens both hands and lifts his arms over his head gesticulating to our surroundings.  Okay, fine.  I can deal with the meaning of life being eating fresh fish on this gorgeous virgin island with the sound of the ocean and the warm sand caressing my feet forever, but let’s face it, I live in Chicago.  Does that mean that my meaning of life is trying to get from point A to B without freezing off appendages and constantly cursing myself and my family for living somewhere so cold?  That sucks!

“I can’t tell you the meaning of life because each life has its own meaning.” He says.  I nod, slightly annoyed.  “It’s just that I came here and it’s been amazing being here and tasting life in paradise and a part of me really doesn’t want to leave.  I feel happy here, but then if the meaning of life is to find happiness then why do I feel so obligated to go back, like this type of life is too good for me?  Or like I have to go back to the real world because this isn’t it?”

“I don’t know.” He says.

Neither do I.  

What do you think?

P.S. Of course we eat fish for breakfast in paradise because it's paradise and the fishermen bring in their bounty in the morning so its the freshest way to start the day.

Conversations with the Maya: 2012

My favorite Mayan site: Yaxchilan

"Hola Yenni!" A bicycle zooms past me as I walk back to town in the dark.  It´s the fisherman I met earlier that day.

"Whoa you scared me!" I exclaim.

"Haha, I know. That´s what I do." He says chuckling as he rides away.

I was on my way back to town after having visited a friend of a friend who lived on the island.

"You have to meet Ángel.  He knows so much about the Maya.  You two would have a lot to talk about."  Eli told me the night before I decided to spend my final days in Mexico on this tiny little island called Isla Holbox.

She had told me where he worked so I decided to go and introduce myself to him.

"Hola, is Ángel here?" I asked the waiter in the crisp white dress shirt.

"Yes, in the kitchen, just one moment."

A few moments later I see him.  He doesn't look like a shaman's son who has the answers to all my questions about the Maya.  Instead, he looks like a Rastafarian.  He has three long dreads in the back of his head while the rest of his hair is black and wavy.  His eyes look peaceful and sleepy with an inverted moon-like shape.  His nose gives away some modern day Mayan blood and he wears a fitted beige long sleeved shirt with slightly loose jeans.  He is younger than I thought, not much older than me, late 20s maybe.

"Hi, I'm Yenni.  My friend, Eli, told me I'd find you here.  She said that you know a great deal about the Maya, and I'm really interested in the Maya.  She thought it would be a good idea if you and I met."

"The Maya...What in particular interests you?"  He says while examining my face.

I had not anticipated this question.  In fact, I really hadn't thought about before coming here.  What was I thinking?  I felt so unprepared and I could feel him studying me. How often does some random American woman come to this tiny little island and look for some stranger they don't even know to ask about the Maya?  Am I crazy?  Then, on top of it, not even know what questions to ask.

"Well, everything about them interests me.  I think I am most interested in their spirituality and the Mayan calendar, the Tzolk'in." I finally say.

"I see; how long are you here for?"

"Three days."

"That's not a long time.  So what do you do?"

"I'm a writer and a traveler at the moment.  I live in Chicago."

He nods his head.  "I have to get back to work," He says glancing at the couple that just walked into the restaurant. “Come back here around 10p.m. with specific questions and we will discuss them then.”

The ancient Maya had interested me for many years.  I was intrigued with their society since studying them in anthropology classes in college.  So many things about them fascinated me: their mathematical advancements at such an early time in human history, their incredibly specific and accurate calendars, their astronomic knowledge, and their expansive civilization and modern day ruins.  They were amazing architects that were in tune with their environment and the Earth’s cycles; so much so, that they implemented many of those elements into their architectural design.

Chichen Itza

Four years ago I found myself around these parts of Mexico.  I was twenty-two years old and fresh from just graduating college.  I had planned a backpacking adventure for myself through southern Mexico, specifically the Mayan route.  I’d visited more than a dozen ruins, studied their architecture, and was wowed by the expanse of their empire.  I would spend all day at different sites noting the difference in the designs, in the Gods worshipped, in the purpose of the site.  I imagined women and men in white terra cloth trading jade and quetzal feathers.  I would envision the pyramids as they once were: colorful offerings to the Gods.  I could almost smell the copal incense smoke and see the turquoise stones ornamenting the figures of Chaac on temple walls.

Here I am again in the lands of the Maya.  I can’t seem to escape this region.  My dreams are cloaked in Mayan hieroglyphics that I can never decipher.  Were the books burning?  Did I forget the language?  In my dreams, I catch glimpses of memories I think are mine, but never quite sure.

Come back with specific questions.  His voice kept repeating this in my mind yet it was nearly 10 p.m. and my mind was a mess of Mayan words and symbols.  It was as though my head had shifted from this compartmentalized notion of a people to a hodgepodge of random thoughts fluctuating from the symbolism behind one particular God to the pronunciation of the word ‘corn’ in Mayan.

Questions..questions…so many…like where did they go? The ancient Maya are rumored to have just vanished suddenly.  Why do I feel so sick whenever I go to Chichen Itza? How did they view time? What was the obsession with the jaguar?  What did the women do in society? Why am I so obsessed with them?  Why do I keep coming back here?  Out of all the places I want to travel to like India,Thailand, Indonesia, Laos, China, why do I come back here? What is it about this place?

The time had come and I started walking back to the restaurant.

“Yenni!”  a golf cart zoomed past me.  It was Ángel.  What is it with these people and scaring me like that?  I thought to myself as I got into the golf cart.  He takes me to the beach and we sit on these chairs that lean back towards the sky.  We have a perfect view of the stars.  

“I thought about my questions,” I said.

“Good.” He replied while lighting a cigarette.  There was something about him next to me that made my mind go blank.  It wasn’t anxiety, in fact, the exact opposite of that.  My mind had turned from a hodgepodge mess of God knows what to an expansive emptiness of nothingness and tranquility.  I stared into the stars looking for words because it had seemed that the ones I had were stolen from me or lost somewhere in that moment. 

Ángel took a long drag from his cigarette and stared into the stars as though expecting nothing from me.

“Tell me about you, how do you know so much of the Maya?” I asked thinking that this question might remind me of my own.

“I am a native to these lands.  Not this island in particular but not far.  I grew up in a Mayan town here in Quintana Roo,” he said.  “My father knows many things and my aunt is a curandera and heals patients with plants and herbs.  She has taught me many things, as my father has.  We lived near many ruins and the jungle.  Our town has always been very peaceful, looking to nature for answers rather than science.  People in my town don’t go to medical doctors when they are sick; they go to my aunt." 

"I have studied with many medicine men and learned as much as possible about the curative properties of plants as well as other things…” He looked away from me and back at the sky, “We spoke Maya at home, a language that has afforded me many lessons from the shamans in my village and other Mayan villages.  I have learned from those men who still keep the count in the Mayan calendar.  Unfortunately, my town is not so small anymore and much is being forgotten.  No one cares about the teachings anymore.  I fear they will die unless the young people come together to help preserve them.”

“What will happen in 2012 when the long count Mayan calendar ends?” I ask.

He took a long sigh.  “I cannot tell you this.  I do not know, what I do know is that the Maya have had four such endings before in the Tzolk'in.  They symbolized an ending to their worlds as they were but not an end to the world as a whole as many people say.  After all, we do know the Maya persevered and continued recording their history.  In many ways, the endings are symbolic of a specific age for them.  They utilized astronomy a great deal in this calendar.  There will be a cosmic event occurring on the 21^st of December in 2012 that is rare and has not occurred in a very long time.  Many of my teachers have said that this event will pave the way for the feminine within the earth to assume more power.  The feminine, after all, symbolizes nurturing.  Women feed the children and care for the families.  Many teachers say that this is necessary because the Maya regard the Earth as a female deity since she does many of these things for us: feeding us, clothing us, nurturing us...and now she is threatened by pollution and man is no longer in synch with her.  She must regain power.”

Caracol

“Remember though, Yenni,” he said, “To the Maya, time was always cyclical and not linear like it is in our society. That is why in Chichén Itzá the observatory from which they observed the stars was called ‘caracol.’” ‘Caracol’ means spiral Conch shell. Its shape can be best described like a snail’s shell. “Their sense of time had much to do with the stars as did their calendars. The caracol was sacred to them because of its shape.”

I stared at the stars wondering if this was the same sky the Ancient Maya looked at. “It’s getting late,” he said, “how about we continue this conversation over breakfast tomorrow?”

Howler Monkeys, Camping in the Jungle and Learning to Drive in Mexico

I woke up to the sound of howler monkeys in the middle of the night.  If you´ve never heard them you could confuse them with roaring jaguars or something even more frightful.

"Gibran, despiertate...escucha," I said to the dark of the tent.  I was in the middle of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve.  In other words, I was camping in a tent in the middle of the jungle.

The air smells like jungle sweat in the most delicious way.  It´s a humid mixture of moisture and this nut-like scent.  The birds chirp loudly and there is a constant insect buzz.  There is not a moment that you look straight ahead into the jungle and you don´t see something moving.  Insects abound and all species of birds as well, from vultures to sparrows to super noisy ones that I don´t recognize.  The squirrels here are a deep red and there are other small mammals rustling through the leaves at all hours.

I guess this is the part where I back up a bit and explain who Gibran is and what he and I are doing in the middle of the jungle sleeping in a tent.

Gibran and I met in Oaxaca City last April.  I was alone walking through the Zocalo and saw him drawing.  We started talking and for the whole week I was there, he and I were inseparable.  He was studying art there.  I forgot he had school and he did too, I think.

He heard I was coming to Mexico again and so we agreed to meet in Campeche City.  He arrived after a 15 hour bus ride.  I proceeded to somehow convince him that we should leave Campeche City, rent a car and then head to Calakmul.  He had no idea what he was in for.

First of all, most cars here are stick shift.  I only know how to drive automatic (although I doubt that will be the case for long) so Gibran has had to drive the whole way, letting me practice on some open roads.

Second of all, we are camping in the middle of the jungle getting woken up by the horrid sounds of howler monkeys (all my idea, by the way).

My whole reason for wanting to go to Calakmul is because it isn´t just a natural preserve.  Deep inside the jungle there exists one of the most amazing Mayan ruins.  Calakmul is rumored to be one of the largest ancient Mayan cities with an estimated 60,000 habitants at its peak.  It has the tallest Mayan pyramid and more stellae than any other ancient Mayan site. Atop of this pyramid you can see its rival Tikal in the distance (with binoculars).  In addition it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

More adventures to come in the coming days when I have a moment to get to a computer but until then remember that:  La vida es un placer.  Life is a pleasure. Besitos!

The Mayan Legend of Sac Nik Té

This is a legend I learned about on my visit to the ruins of Uxmal.  I resonated with the Mayan princess, Sac Nik Té and have taken small liberties with the legend as it was told to me.  I hope you enjoy it.

I stared at the House of Turtles under a full moon.  Uxmal - the sacred land of abundance.  We are a university city.  The teachers wear turtle shells on their chests as a testament to their longetivity.  One must be at least 50 years old to teach here.

I am Sac Nik Té, White May Flower.

I am to be married here in three days to a prince from Mayapan to strengthen the alliance with Uxmal, but I am love with the prince from Chichen Itzá.

My prince is a brave warrior of the Toltec-Maya city of sacrifice - Chichen Itzá.  I spend my nights sleepless praying to the moon goddess, Ixchel to give me the strength and will to forget my dear prince from Chichen and to marry the prince from Mayapan, a testament to my people and my love to them.  A righteous sacrifice for them.

This ambivalence keeps me roaming the governors palace in search of solace.  I haunt the courtyards at night pacing as my heart battles my mind and my mind only exists as the swallows above flying circles amidst a night sky.  I stare at the Great Temple, dedicated to Chaac, and think about how his power lives inside my eyes that swell with his grace - the same way the clouds swell before he sends down water.

"Shh..." I whisper to my busy mind and unsettled heart and fast asleep I fall.

The wedding day has arrived.  There's fresh rabbit meat for all to eat and bulché for them to drink until they are full.  Evening has come and the public is joyous and drunk at the union of I, Sac Nik Té and the prince from Mayapan.  I hear warrior cries in the distance.  It is my dear prince from Chichen and seventy-five of his feircest warriors.  Our city is no match for them now that we are fed so well and drunk.  I am taken into his arms as the city cries and wails.  I go willingly and do not struggle against my prince´s hard chest.  My heart sings.  My mind remains heavy, tortured and burdened by the cries of my people. 

As I run into the night with my love at my side I cry for my people.  This is the beginning of bloodshed.  Mayapan and Uxmal will retaliate against Chichen Itzá.  Peace will not exist,  Many will die.  We do not return to neither Chichen or Uxmal but remain lost forever in our love and in peace in the jungles of the peninsula.

My heart will never live in peace.  I have forsaken my people.  Kukulcan, Chaac, Ixchmal!!  What horrors have I done?!  What heavy a price is paid for love.

At times, I stare across at my brave prince thinking it was all worth it to lie at his side, but I am no goddess for whom lives should be sacrificed.  I am merely Sac Nik Té, White May Flower and have only wanted peace for my people but now there shall exist none.  My people are at war as is my heart and mind.  I shall remain in these jungles in exile for the rest of my life.