Rambling Roads 🏵

I want to peel off my skin Undress the worries and fears Stand naked in the insecurity of breath Fold back the layers to the space between the cells The air we share The thoughts we try to claim as our own But that are fragile, tissue paper thin, like butterfly wings. All I can do is stand still enough to let this moment land lightly on my shoulder whisper in my ear before it flies away again. I want to inhale it. Soak it in like the earth embracing the rain after a parched summer ground ravaged by the heat dirt cracked, split open.   I want to let myself be soft, wet, receptive. Swell with life. Allow it all to just be. Right now. No expectations.

I traveled to the desert to find your spirit still alive and breathing in the rusty rocks.   A cathedral of stones I walked through like prayer to find your searing look blazing through time to meet my eye.    A pilgrimage.    Back to Mexico, your self-styled Oaxacan sister in long, bright skirts dares us to pity her.   She reaches through the thick paint letting her pain drip raw and unapologetic.   She prevails defiant and unflinching.   The throbbing ache of her broken body, loss and betrayal only serve to fan her flame.  She rides the heat as it laps up higher, burns brighter.   This too is my heritage.  

I’m apprehensive as we crawl into the cave, cool and dark.   A stark contrast to the bright heat of the dusty Mexican summer outside.   The curtain swishes closed, and there’s silence.   Just the breathing of strangers like pulsing spiders on the walls.   Women I didn’t know just a few days ago.   Our challenge?   Pure emotion.   No stories, no spinning.   Just let the feelings flow through us without holding onto them.   Spontaneous chanting starts like a low hum, vibrating somewhere deep in my core.   Some are singing.   One woman lies plastered flat on the dirt floor.   I’m aware that tears are streaming down my cheeks as a gut wrenching sorrow envelopes me like delicate fingers.   I’ve seen this look in my eyes before.   Somehow the darkness reflects it back to me like a mirror.   LOSS.   An emptiness in my belly I’ve learned to ignore swells outward until I feel I might burst.   My skin pulls tigh...

I had a dream I was riding on the back of a black panther.    I could feel her strength like muscles rippling under the earth thrusting mountains into the air,  boulders and rocks tumbling as her padded feet silently brushed the ground.   We poured through the dark night, dried grass swishing, cool air in my face.  ** * In Teotihuacan, Mexico they recently discovered a new tunnel under one of the pyramids.   They were looking for a buried king’s tomb that would finally “explain” the origins of this powerful city.   But instead they found two stone female statues, conch shells, pyrite mirrors, cat bones, obsidian knives and mercury.     It appeared to be a complete recreation of the outside world but underground, deep in the earth’s womb, beyond the touch of time, where it all began. I’m reminded of the powerful Tonontzin surviving hidden in clear sight of the conquerors but shape shifting in the guise of the all co...