Santa Tierra

Layers and layers of requests and offerings, hopes and desires made of out sacred clay. At the bottom is one I added of my own. Infinite requests taken into the folds of Mother Earth's skirt, it brings to mind this, from "The Book of Awakening" by Mark Nepo.

There is very little difference between burying and planting. For often, we need to put dead things to rest, so that new life can grow. And further, the thing to put to rest, whether it be a loved one, a dream, or a false way of seeing, becomes the fertilizer for the life about to form. As the well-used thing joins with the earth, the old love fertilizes the new, the broken dream fertilizes the dream yet conceived; the painful way of being that strapped us to the world fertilizes the freer inner stance about to unfold.

This is very helpful when considering the many forms of self we inhabit over a lifetime. One self carries us to the extent of its usefulness and dies. We are then forced to put that once beloved skin to rest, to join it with the ground of spirit from which it came, so it may fertilize the next skin of self that will carry us into tomorrow.

There is always grief for what was lost and always surprise at what is to be born. But much of our pain in living comes from wearing a dead and useless skin, refusing to put it to rest, or from burying such things with the intent of hiding them rather than relinquishing them.

For every new way of being, there is a failed attempt mulching beneath the tongue. For every sprig that breaks surface, there is an old stick stirring underground. For every moment of joy sprouting, there is a new moment of struggle taking root.

We live, embrace, and put to rest our dearest things, including how we see ourselves, so we can resurrect our lives anew.

El Pedimento

El Pedimento was in a cloud. As I walked through the shrine and out the other side I was stunned to see offerings everywhere, tumbling down the side of the mountain and high in the trees. Figures made out of clay, handwritten messages, crosses, banners, photographs and flowers. The mountain felt like the skirt of Mother Earth, decorated with a lace made by hand by the people who loved her.

Looking at the photos now, I can see that it might seem creepy, but it was actually very peaceful and mysterious. I looked for the perfect spot to make an offering of my own.

Cascada

Views from outside and inside the shrine at El Pedimento. I learned that Juquila's symbol is a waterfall. I remembered what the curandera Elizabeth told us, two years earlier, as the river near her home was swollen and crashing with fresh clear water. She told us that so much rain was unusual for that time of year, that it was new energy coming into the world, down from the mountain.

Llévame al Pedimento

By the time we arrived at our destination in Santa Catarina Juquila, the trip that was supposed to take four hours, took seven. I couldn't let that stop me though, I only had one night. I wanted to visit El Pedimento, a shrine on a hill in the nearby town of Amialtepec, where the Virgin of Juquila was first discovered. I found a taxi to take me there before the sun went down. The photos above are of my view from the passenger's seat.

The earth beneath the shrine at El Pedimento is dense clay, and is considered sacred and believed to have healing properties. People use the clay to sculpt the figures of little trucks, horses, houses, children, and body parts in need of healing. A pedimento is a small offering that represents what you hope to receive in the coming year. People make pilgrimages to this site to make their requests with a promise to return the following year to give thanks to the Virgin for favors granted.

Landslide

I was jolted out of my dreamy state when a collective gasp filled the van. We slowed down to a dead stop. When I saw the landslide I knew it was OVER. We'd already driven for nearly four hours, dodging burros and children and falling rocks, but there was no way past this one.

One by one, each car came to a stop, and people got out to stare at the enormous pile of dirt. A few people, carrying their belongings, started to walk over the newly laid mountain. This amazed me, as we were such a long way from any town.

I couldn't believe I had come this far and the trip had to end when we were so close. What were we going to do? We had to either turn around (and drive back four hours?), or a bulldozer had to show up (from where?), and move the entire pile of dirt out of the way.

I noticed something unusual, though, given such a huge crisis. No one was whirling around in anger with a cell phone glued to one ear. There was no swearing or shouting or pounding of car hoods. Other than a few sighs and mutters, it was quiet. Then, at all once, the men, using large branches as shovels or machetes they brought out from their trucks, started to work.

I thought it would take forever for them to move the dirt out of the way, but I soon realized my problem solving skills were born in the USA. When I saw the landslide I could think of only two ways through the dilemma. It never occurred to me that they were making a road to drive over the dirt.

We piled back into the van and La Divina Concepción was egged on by cheers and applause as her wheels spun through the mud and over the hill, and saints danced from the rear view mirror to the sound of grinding gears. The bottom photo is of the first car that made it over the newly carved road. Just above the bumper, it was Juquila that led the way.

La Divina Concepción

Two years later, I woke up early in the morning to follow an address written on a scrap of paper. It led to a small bus station where I found La Divina Concepción, the mini-van that would take me to Santa Catarina Juquila. As our young driver pulled out of the station, with our luggage piled high and his girlfriend at his side, I knew there was no turning back from this journey toward the mysterious, miraculous Virgin. Windows wide open, mariachi music blared and saints jostled from the rear view mirror as La Divina Concepción navigated the broken roads that led away from Oaxaca City.

Halfway through the trip we stopped for lunch at a comedor called Juquilita. Without a menu, I pointed to someone else's stew. I winced at the fate of the chickens that raced around my feet, at least I knew it would be fresh? I sat silently with the other passengers, eating caldo, tortillas, and that beverage I never drink at home but always tastes like nectar when I'm abroad, Coca-Cola. We were on a pilgrimage, and without the language to discuss it, we watched out for each other, with smiles and nods and little gestures like passing napkins and bottles of chile.

It took several hours to wind up the narrow road into the mountains, avoiding donkeys, chickens and falling rocks. Hawks soared in the sky, jungle plants and desert plants intermingled in every shape and shade of green. Nestled in my seat next to the window and behind the driver, I felt safe and happy riding along with my temporary Mexican family. I can't believe it, I thought, as I gazed out at the clear blue sky, this journey is actually going off without a hitch.

And then...

El Regalo de Juquila

In pre-Hispanic Mexico the native people worshipped Mother Earth. The temezcal, similar to a Native American sweat lodge, was seen as the womb of Mother Earth, a place local indigenous people ritually entered for healing, purification, and rebirth. During the Spanish conquest, images of the Virgin Mary were placed in the sacred places of Aztec female deities. It was through this imposition that the two assimilated, and why the Virgin Mary receives such great devotion from the Oaxacan people.

In talking with Elizabeth, she told me that the Virgin of Juquila is una puerta, a door through which to access the divine. This was a concept with which I was already familiar. For years I’d been noticing the common patterns in spiritual paths. I could no longer see Christianity in opposition to Hinduism or Buddhism, but rather the connection between all things. Halos, hand gestures, silence, light. With prayers, scriptures, symbols, and an enlightened master to help illuminate the path.

My observations were later confirmed when I read in the "Kundalini Vidya," by Joan Shivarpita Harrigan, "When the varieties of mystical/religious/spiritual experience and methods of individual people and religions are categorized and meta-analyzed, outstanding patterns and themes emerge. This is because the human subtle body functions the same in a Buddhist as it does in a Hindu, Christian, Hopi, or Jew, or an atheist or agnostic, for that matter.” And, “While religious instruction to the many caters to cultural preference and style, allowing seekers to begin on familiar ground, the teachings of the realized ones are of the same voice, and they are universally relevant.

This reflects what a yoga teacher once told me, that the many Hindu gods and goddesses are simply different aspects of the one Supreme Being. That these gods and goddesses offer a human like form that we can relate to, call to. That God/The One/The Universe/The Supreme Being is so vast, infinite, and all permeating that the individual gods and goddesses help us to focus. And that we are most drawn to the one that best reflects us. Harrigan writes,“By whatever title, gender, race, or dress all are Kundalini Shakti. The name and form are of little consequence except to attract and focus the seeker more easily.”

The Virgin of Juquila who survived a fire, una puerta. Yes, of course.

In our course in Oaxaca we learned that the role of a curandera is not to cure illness, but to restore balance, the balance between the mind, body, and spirit. This too is the role of Shakti, who moves through the body, clearing her pathway through the mind, body, and spirit in her unyielding determination to unite with the divine.

When speaking of Shakti, the divine inner presence, Harrigan writes, “It gives us awareness and talent and drive. It is the essential source of desire, and it is our spiritual director. With our free will, we choose what we do with that holy, gnawing, burning fire within, and it is that pivotal ongoing choice that makes our life sacred or profane or unremarkable."

When we returned to Oaxaca City, I returned to the antique store for the picture in the pressed tin frame.