Bienvenidos! Welcome!

Thanks for visiting Daughter of Corn. I hope you enjoy the essays and thoughts about the journeys of a writer in San Miguel....who ends up in Iowa City!

Monday, January 31, 2011

Spring Equinox Begins

We arrived to a plateau half-way up the steep mountain.  There were hippie-like people wandering around a house that looked like one Joni Mitchell used to own in the Sixties--- a round, peaked Berber hut, only set in sunny Mexico.  Since it was getting close to 11:00, we scrambled out of the SUV and quickly followed the owner of the House of Angels up a steep trail.  My friend Yvonne, who was in much better shape than I, deftly followed the man.  I had to pull on any available branches and sometimes crawl.

When we got to the top, an astounding sight greeted us.  The Mayan had chosen this particular place because of its pre-Hispanic history, and to the left, on a higher peak, I observed a stella surrounded by some ruins.  A few people were standing or perhaps meditating at its base.  However, what I wasn't prepared for was the whiteness of it all.  Almost everyone I saw was wearing white--white pants, white skirts, white tunics and huipiles.  The Mayan, in the far distance, was dressed in modest white as well.  I looked down at my green top and bluejeans, somewhat chagrined.

There were little stands selling pre-hispanic ceramic whistles and incense, as well as crystals and bottles of water.  Most of the people were silently pacing a large labyrinth laid out on the flat ceremonial space, but there were a few centers within the labyrinth, also.  One was a type of healing/purification center, where people were receiving treatments.  I noticed one woman smoking a large cigar, and blowing smoke into people's faces as she randomly shouted.  Another  center consisted of a small group of people doing tai-chi and other movements.  On one side of the circle there appeared to be people sitting in a meditation daze, and yet another group was making noises with whistles and drums and champaign glasses half-filled with water.  After taking this all in, I decided to sit next to a woman who looked like a middle-aged, well, Joni Mitchell in fact, with thick blonde braids, remarkably blue eyes and a cigarette stuck between her fingers.

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