HEALING RECIPE LOADING…

Woke up at 6am coughing, and blowing my nose.

I’m sure whether it’s the air quality, elevation, Fabuloso, dust, or all of the above.

I got up and took a spoonful of olive oil with three drops of oil of oregano.

Boiled water, inserted two tiny shards of eucalyptus crystals, and sniffed on that concoction.

Felt better ex·pe·di·tious·ly.

Mind you, it hasn’t been twenty-four hours since I landed after a twelve-hour flight.

With all my clothes ironed the night before and laid out, school field trip style. I am prepared.

GETTING THERE

The mapping application suggests it will take roughly twelve minutes by rideshare and up to thirty minutes on public transportation.

I try to request a ride, but the app keeps spinning.

I head down several flights of stairs to find a literal parking lot on the street.

They are not interested in keeping intersections clear here. There is no way on god’s green that a car will arrive in time.

I dash to the metro station, or what I thought was the station.

I insert two hundred pesos, and the machine gingerly accepts the currency but spins for two minutes before returning only a receipt. No card, no pesos, no ticket. The transit agent allows me into the station. I get on the first thing smoking.

According to the map, the bus is veering away from the proposed route, but I see it will connect along the transfer route.

After showing the next transit agent the receipt, he directs me away from the exit. I explain via the translation app that I need to transfer. He writes back, “Stay here.” After a few minutes, my gut says you should exit and walk to the next station.

The transfer station’s shutters are down because it’s closed, and each bus that passes headed in the general direction is packed out.

I don’t have a pass, so what would I pay or say?

I called John and let him know, and he asked the tour coordinators how much time they had before departure and whether I should try to meet them at the first stop. They say to be here by “8:25.” It is currently 8:08…

John says, “You need to book it.” John is a friend who does not like being tardy for any party. I try my best to be on time to honor that because I know he does not do late birds. John loves a good schedule, and the Capricorn rising in me understands his Pisces propensities.

So down the expansive thoroughfare, I go running, walking, running, walking.

I should have tried to skip. The altitude and fatigue forbid momentum.

The map tells me to go left and then right.

I feel in my spirit that it is like Istanbul. If a clear path is not seen ahead then the footpath has moved underground. But this clicked well after the map directed me onto the auto-turnpike.

Bless God there was a bike lane.

I found the stairs to go underground and then turned onto the street. The tour buses are still there!

We are headed to Teotihuacán.

FIRST STOP Plaza de las Tres Culturas

Our guide Cristian explains a host of things to us. The same stones used to build temples for indigenous worshipers are used to construct Catholic churches. The Spanish deconstruct or demolish temples to build cathedrals next door.

Cristian explains that because of how the Aztecs treated other indigenous groups, the people were happy to welcome the Spanish as their new “rulers.”He said the Aztec gods divined to them in war terms, and they were a people of warfare. This is shocking to many of us who feel historically “rulers” were chosen for us. Please take a moment to reflect on welcoming with arms outstretched people carrying just as much hope as they carried germs. Folks eradicating a population through breathwork and bedding is just as bizarre today as it was yesteryear.

Our tour group filed into the church with the instruction to be silent. The locals are knee-deep in prayer while other tour guides orate an octave above their incantations.

We gather outside for more history. Cristian tells us about the Tlatelolco massacre. It was a horrific event that occurred during a university student protest. The country hosted the Olympic games just fifteen days later as if nothing happened. He maps out snipers on the top of buildings that no longer stand due to the subsequent earthquake.

The energy in that square is palpable.

We get back on the bus.

SECOND STOP: The Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe

I have always had a hyperawareness of worship styles. I may have mentioned I was born to an atheist mother, a Muslim father, and a Baptist grandmother. My grandad paid for private catholic school due to Oakland Unified’s... chile’ never mind.

Blind faith is a sight to behold. Faith without sight has the power to generate healing solely through high regard.

At the shrine, old folks arrive with their good dress shoes on.

Several decades my senior and ascending at an incline even I cannot foot. Pairs are holding hands, losing and gaining ground, three feet forward and one foot back. The sun is blazing down and beaming off the worn cobblestones, but they keep clamboring steadfast and devoted.

Gallery left to right: inside the basilica, the roses revealed, the dog sitting in our shadows for shade, poinsettias (my Grandma Mary’s favorite she was English, Irish, and Mexican I see these as her totem, love you grams), inside smaller chapel x2 (need to find a map), exterior, steps, another church at the top of the hill, why is the saint black holding a white Jesus, notice the colored folks are present but the whites are closest to the father, San Jose who knew?, gilded ceiling…

OUTDOOR WORSHIP

Cristian told us the Spanish often delegated cathedrals and outdoor worship areas specifically for indigenous people. This was not a point of segregation but rather to appeal to indigenous people’s customs before Spain arrived in the Americas.

The inside of the church gets eerie sometimes, especially for someone who loves kisses from the sun. The great outdoors is where I feel and have always felt God and what I now know as the ancestors (the good bunch, plants included).

I read days later that the first people folded other cultures’ worship into their own seamlessly. Foreign objects became familiar through shared meaning, usage, and reverence. They expanded their pantheon and simultaneously offered new things to existing deities. The text suggests that most had no objection to Christianity. Jesus just became a part of what already existed, seen as if he added value. New things are seen as additive rather than disruptive.

THIRD STOP: FOOD AND DRINK

Sorry, I forgot the name of the restaurant. The tour guides gave us the choice of tequila tasting or food and in which order. I prayed folks would raise their hands in favor of coating our stomachs first. Queue the compromise we received church offering cups of pulque. I like that Pulque ba·by. It tastes like a richer cousin of coconut water and, although it’s fermented it tastes nothing like beer or kombucha. Not sure why I thought it would have the consistency of rhume (French for snot or a cold).

The sun feels hotter in Teotihuacan. I was leery of drinking more than the first Sunday communion cups. I wish I would have consumed more because it tastes good and it does not have high alcohol content.

BOTANY

The maguey plant is the cousin to the blue agave plant. After six years, the plant matures, and the cultivars kill maguey by extracting its sap. The byproducts of one plant are pulque, maguey worms, paper for cooking (original foil/plastic wrap), sewing needles, textile fibers, mescal, etc.

Top: The maguey plant is seven or eight feet tall by my estimate, needle and thread are from the plant and the tread is dyed with floral pigment I think geranium… Bottom Left to Right: maguey paper used for cooking, floral pigment, maguey needle and dyed thread

STONES MINERALS

Can I get some South American jade? I’d like that as a keepsake. Wearable, I don’t want to hang it, I’d like to wear it. Green is one of my favorite colors. How would I know if it was genuine? The rainbow and black obsidian can be sharper than steel. The stone is mined for its healing properties. I thought about picking obsidian massage stones, but it’s too heavy to cart back…

Shout out to Sahel for the photo concept, a photo taken through a piece of black obsidian, the orange circle is the sun, thank you!

CHARISMA

We loved our guide, and I forgot her name. I’m horrible with names, but I can remember every other detail about a person. She’ll remain in my memories for a long while. I couldn’t decide what to buy. I gave the money I would have spent to our tour guides. An expression of gratitude, returning something for the knowledge exchanged.

LAST STOP — Teotihuacån

It’s the way the word sits in the mouth for me: tay·uh·tee·waa·kaan.

Babacar has been teaching me about the Anunnaki. Honestly, that is all I can see here. This place reeks of extraterrestrial influence. “Give Jackie jacket” as Pier says which means give credit where it’s due. I cannot diminish the extraordinary actions of the humans who receive messages in dreams. I do believe all things are made possible through the Creator, but which creator are we talking about?

I can barely remember names, and you mean to tell me the human brain functions according to its own will and at this architectural/structural pace? Substances and divine assistance had to have been involved.

Cristian said babies were sacrificed and buried upside down…What? (Russel Westbrook voice). The number of people sacrificed here points to an energy source that we don’t have common knowledge of… this was and is some secret society sugar honey iced tea. I do not believe this energy has expired, it is very much alive and well today, but not as evident.

Teotihuacan is a space for master architect ish. Either way, this place is mesmerizing.

You know you’re looking at it but can you perceive it?

Mind blown.

Gallery Left to Right: Don’t have my bearings not sure if that is the Moon Pyramid, the homes were mostly used for sleeping and covered at a point in time, they dug a pit inside for some reason, the small pebbles in the mortar are signs of restoration x2, the Moon Pyramid, the Sun Pyramid, us gawking x2, the side of that thing is wild, the Moon Pyramid, the clay dirt in the parking lot (maybe I’ll write about the vision I had years ago)…

COLORS, SYMBOLS & SIGNS

Snapple facts in no particular order because I didn’t take notes. I was trying to be present and test the hippocampus. Cristian showed us how pigments for paint were derived from flowers and stone fragments. The color blue is associated with the rain god and he wears goggles. The flowers represent the cardinal directions. The square shown below had water in it and reflected the stars at night. I wish I could see something or recreate something like that in this lifetime. Imagine what that was like in the absence of light pollution.

imagine water in the basin, the moon illuminating the stars, just wow!

GRATITUDE

Glad to be in the number and with friends, thank you John for introducing me to your peeps.

Thank you Sahel, Hank, and Kevin for being so welcoming.

Thank you Jasmine for revising this via Grammerly while trying to keep the coloquialims and your personality in the writing. How do you write properly and develop style? According to the application, there are forty-two advanced issues with this, patiently widdled down from 75+.