She has come from space! Maybe there is something in the old legends. . . The Virgin of Guadelupe here is represented by a Dancer in a handwoven huipil. She appears from outer space, enclosed in a mantle of light, dancing with and offering the first three ears of sacred corn from the harvest. Four open white flowers in the four directions represent the souls of ancestors who are now stars. Being a virgin goddess she is shown dancing in the sliver of the new moon, as it appears in Oaxaca.
As a good nursing student ought, I have taken my anti-insomnia pills and immediately headed for the blogger. I could be doing worse. I just wanted to take you all back to Oaxaca with me for a moment. Rather, we will ascend to the top of the mountain Pikachu in Spanish or Guie Betz its rightful name in Teotitlan, on a crisp morning under starlight and moonlight before the sun arose. Guie Betz means brother rock and there are some stories about a mysterious white light glowing at its peak and a voice speaking to the people. Don't really know if that's true, but I definitely don't discount its improbable possibility. There are also legends of travelers hiking through its beautiful land seeing strange beasts and strange men that are not from earth. And there are some stories of traveller's getting lost, entering another dimension through a porthole, never to be seen again until they reappeared weeks later unaware that they had been gone at all.
Our tale begins with a trip to the Presa on a lovely summer twilit evening. I went to Las Granadas (bed and breakfast run by Josefina and Magdalena where the ladies are all happy, the men are all weaving, and the expats sit on the open rooftops balconies reveling in drink and tacos, and making their lonely way into varying states of disconnect from the hard unwanted lives they have previously lead- baggage is properly stored, all is washed clean in the basin in front of the bathroom door, and the cares of your previous life slowly fade away as you lounge with new but very good friends in a hammock, eating fresh pomegranate that ripens on the tree in the courtyard).This group of folks loves to go to the Presa- the big dam on the northern part of the village. We had traversed the sides of the mountain, walking through lands were goats nibbled on grasses amid slippery shards of rock, picked several star flowers- delicate stems, pure white leaves with a sweet musky smell.
A group of us- a young teotilano couple, an old codgery artist from Nebraska who was house sitting up in the hills for the summer, a Scottish photographer of underwater tropical fish, myself, and my best traveling friend, Luzi, a German girl who has been living in Australia for 6 years studying naturopathy- made loose plans to scale the beautiful Brother Rock the next day to see the sunrise over the valley. The appointed time was 5am to meet at Las Granadas, see who would be ready, have a little tea, and head up up up in the predawn darkness. Only Luzi prevailed. The others were sleeping and we left them to their dreams. Together with some trepidation, we walked to the edge of the village and up past houses to the rocky road that leads to the trailhead. Lit somewhat by the village lights below we began a trip under the foliage of cacti and trees, and large boulders. To our surprise and consternation we found no porthole nor mythical creatures from a different planet. We did see an owl that scared the piss right out of me.
We finally got to the top and realized that we would have to jump the fence that had been erected to keep unwanted hooligans such as ourselves from our prize. Easily done.
On the top of the cliff face we found an altar constructed with two green crosses above it and a candle which we lit.It was beautiful moment before the sun peeked over the mountaintops.
We proceeded to watch the entire village and the Presa light up with the rising sun. and I did some yoga. It was not easy, but I finally got balanced well enough to extend into Queen dancer pose. Not my best extension, but considering the terrain I felt pretty successful, not to mention bound with body, mind, and breath. Awaken spine and let the kundalini flow within you and through you out into the valley below!
