HEADED FOR CHIAPAS

We rode the overnight bus cross-country, 

snaking our way from the coast up dirt roads, 

13 hours of hairpin bends threaded

up steep mountain passes like a tapestry.

You can only hold your breath for so long.

Near the Chiapas border we stopped at a pullout

to stretch our legs, while waiting for the engine to cool, 

clouds of fireflies circled us. We were so high up,

I mistook them for the stars overhead.

7/27/22 rev. 2/18

And when I don’t know which way to go, I flip a coin, freewrite (photo)

Yes, it’s come to this, flip a coin when stasis sets in. John the Ambiguous was always a great one for a coin toss. Have a kid, get married, whatever impasse flummoxed him was reduced to a 50-50 chance. 

A good thing that coins aren’t built like dice to increase the odds. Otherwise, we’d be all day setting up the parameters and permutations for radical changes in life. Or not. So once we were at Casa Bombeck in Chiapas, he flipped a coin either we go to the Lacondon, jungle, or, the Mayen village of Chamula. We chose our coins carefully. The Quetzalcoatl head came up on the antique five peso coin. Feathered serpent grinning at our feet. 

And so we rode green horses into the jungle, to the village in deep in the San Cristobál Mountains where gringos were still an anomaly. When I showed him the coin, the old man at the Mayan church took a shine to me, it must’ve been the aguardiente he was sipping—for strictly religious purposes. 

He gave us a personal tour of the church, which was once Catholic and the floor was strewn with pine needles. Their sweet smell unreproducible with chemical scent, the rafters draped with bolts of calico cloth, and all around the walls was an army of obscure saints all wearing smoking mirrors on their chest so that a worshiper saw themselves in the saint’s image. Self affirming. I recognized a few of the saints, but saw my face blazing on the pectoral mirror of each one.

The old man set up a small portable altar on a shoe shine box with Coca-Cola, copal and aguardiente. I put the Quetzalcoatl coin on the altar and he was pleased. We had somehow broken through the culture and language barrier. By that action, none of us having any language in common, other than the language of the oppression between us. All of this came down to a toss of the coin. The ringing sound of destiny on the floor. We never know what the wish was, or what it offered up.

9/10/2004 Writers’ Group

Harmonic Convergence freewrite

All this unexpressed rage, I’ve had too much of that lightly, so I’ll write in red ink. The vein is trying for blue, the color of blood returning home. Bluebloods. It’s true that blood is blue. The lonely wail of a train returning to the yard, like stock to the slaughter house. I am dwelling on the past these days, an artifact of the fall, merging towards winter, nothing to do with rage.

So I’ll switch ink, nothing to do with mood, or mechanics. Vito runs out of ink at the same time, must have something to do with the harmonic convergence, all those planets and ballpoint pens lining up to make the star of David before the eclipse. 

Last harmonic convergence, I remember was anything but harmonic. We were in Oaxaca, San Cristobál de las Casas, and I was being plagued by monstros in my sleep, the dead wanting voice and shape, my mouthpiece. All of them crowding into my dreams, what was I to do? I kept waking up, screaming and telling John they what they looked like. 

One he recognized as Kayla. Only I didn’t know Kayla so I described her. And she was saying goodbye to John. And then Dave Evans appeared, too. They were all crowding in, taking turns. I was a mouthpiece. I kept screaming to make them stop, to make them go away, but then something unbearably dark emerged, like unexpressed rage loosened in my dreams.

There was a being so malevolent I didn’t dare go back to sleep. It was a devourer, pre-Columbian, neither god nor goddess. Something larger, wanting voice, wanting mouthpiece. I said it had black blood in its veins. And so we crawled onto the roof, John and I locking arms, linked back to back, waiting for the dawn. Venus, beading on the horizon, dawn slicing up the sky like a mango. Thin boundaries, walking the dark hours before the dawn promising a deliverance that never comes after hours of harrowing experiences. 

(It turned out that both Kayla and Dave Evans had both died while we were in Oaxaca. Weirdly, no one knew where we were staying, yet John got a call from Alta or Jan that Kayla had died.)

11/7/2003 Writers’ Group

Mexico Journal, August 14 or 15? Living theater event, in the courtyard of an old hacienda

(I wrote this in my imperfect Spanish, probably because I couldn't simultaneously listen to the play in Spanish, then translate and also write in English, so this is a loose translation from my poor comprehension of the language. And since I'm transcribing these journal notes in 2017. I remember I fully entered into the drama, as it unfolded, and was transfixed. There were ghost characters interacting with the main characters. The playwright used personal experience to characterize the larger social issues Oaxaca is facing on the eve of revolution.)

Living theater event, in the courtyard of an old hacienda, Oaxaca.

The maestro de teatre introduced himself and gave a discourse on the premise of living theater. He said the function of theater is very important and the form is the total sum of the differences between the reality of life, and the grand passion of the Catholic Church. (Church and state vs. the real drama of life.)

The premise is of a mother and child from the campo, surviving in the city. It brings up the past, spliced with familial memories, and juxtaposes them with the present day reality. There is a proposition and the possibility that takes the powerful moments of life and juxtaposes them with the ideal situation where everyman too is represented. It's a very powerful message, defined by a life of possessions. And there is possession of the spirit  too.

The sentiment of the other function, the other arts, we communicate with this process. The function of class signifies everything, it is the reason for the arts, for music. And we quickly go with the rational process. It is not solely national, it is not solely based upon positive emotions. And I think it makes us want a more relevant God.

The maestro continues: I think it's very interesting, at 2 AM, the terror in the night comes. Yeah it is bad, it gets ugly for about 30 minutes. The emasculation of the cast. I very much would like the participants (you) to think of the motive, it's very facil, and it's revealed, little by little. The theatrical piece is ambiguous, with many profound ideas. (He breaks the fourth wall.)

He said: I look at the miracle of Brecht and think on the social structure, in the practicality of life. The plays of Brecht, I understand, but I don't do sentiment, exactly. The work is hard, and is socially profound. It is meant to be difficult. It's the theater of change, the theater of life. It is authentic theater.

(OK that premise was blowing my mind as I am a Brecht fan, and I have been involved with the living theater of Julian Beck, and have seen productions of The Committee, so, in a sense, it was old home week. Something I certainly didn't expect to see in Oaxaca, which I had labeled a provincial town.)

He continued: There are many controversies within the strength of living theater. For example the inspiration, in some cases, it's 70 years too late for change. The social context of the lands of the country has changed, for example Columbia, the tribulations of the country is interesting. Meanwhile there is much violence.

The Latino theater of the United States, the people get it, it's very clear and very explicit, it's curious, and relevant. It's all about the individual. The change is active and it brings out the commentary and the neuroses, it's also a very necessary social function. It preserves the political, and honors the land. It takes the cojones of imperialism of the United States, and adds the customs and the values of the people, this is the theater of Latin America—very curious.

The international theater focuses more on imported classicalism. And caught in the middle are the artists. We have to go back and look at the Mexican theater, it's very satisfying, and 80% of the people believe that it is a mirror of society. Focusing on the little houses, the microcosm, then it's just there. We have to look at the theater from the outside to understand the values or the strengths. It's a pertinent art form.

Yes, there are anti-Latin Americans in the United States but the process of art is also the process of life. It is the public personae. Though it is one language and it's ceremonial, but it's also factual. It includes contradictions, and it is very smooth. I don't know about the causes, all I know is the country. The situation of the campesinos is horrific, and you have to capture it and then process it....

(.....I'm bailing on the rest this piece because it's too hard to translate from my mangled Spanish.) He talks about the social context in various countries, Columbia.... Not sure if he's referring to the Zapatistas. But he mentions the violence. Which was palpable in Oaxaca. This theater movement seems important, the theater of change.... It was a memorable theatrical experience.)

Mexico Journal, broken camera, Oaxaca

My camera is fixed! It cost 10,000 pesos: 5000 for a light meter and then 5000 for fixing the lens. The camera repair man said the little eyes of the light meter are smashed beyond help, that the lens he packed with grease and he tightened and the advance knob fixed.

But the eyes of the camera, the eyes that read the light are smashed, and they are unfixable, he said. I am trying not to think this is a metaphor for things to come. I am so grateful, I could kiss his eyes.

I buy a used Weston light meter made in the 1950s, just like the one I have at home, which was my uncle's, for $10. Now I have two old light meters. A new one from another store, was $32 very expensive. Muy caro, I said. I learned to use the light meter. Finally. My darkroom co-worker, Phil Osborne, at The Paper, will be pleased.

Never drop a camera from a height of 5 feet onto a cement floor and expect survival. John was moving my things in the cupboard and didn't see the camera nestled on top. I feel extremely lucky. I was afraid the internal damage would be too extensive. But the Panasonic K-1000 bodies are built like tanks. But the Vivitar lens spits out  a trail of tiny ball bearings every time I zoom.

The eye take on a new form. The pineal eye that sometimes appears on certain species with no known reason, the light, how to view the world. The light.

no date Aug 15? also not sure where. Oaxaca?

Mexico Journal: Aug. 14, Oaxaca postcard

(To my cabinmates at Celli Cabins)

Well, it rains like hell here. Summer is the wet season. Thunderclaps loud enough to scare the wits out of you. Big zags of lightning, mountain valley., Zapoteca Indians, mosquitoes, and ruins. Monte Albán. Numerous sacred sites, some still in use. A sidetrip to Puerto Escondido. The Pacific, warm enough for a hot tub. The coral, bright fishes. We found paradise at Hotel Santa Fe for $20 a night. Muy caro, very expensive, however the open air restaurant facing the sea, the palapas with their thatched roofs and Spanish tile work, and a pool and the architecture, well worth it. We've made a serious dent in the pulpo,  the octopus population. Octopus with garlic is $4-5. A bathing suit here is dress-up. If you really want to wear shoes, well sorry. Next stop San Cristobál de las Casas. for the Harmonic Convergence on August 16. Have you been reading your Doonesbury lately? PS this card may arrive in September. Save the card for me please.

Mexico Journal: Aug. 14, Friday, back in Oaxaca, Casa Arnel

14 Friday Oaxaca:

We're glad to be back at Casa Arnel. Afer two bad days of turista, aches, fever etc. and then it's gone. The dead man brought it on, I think. The extra days we stayed in Puerto Escondito, were spent in shock. And I was too sick to travel. I think my camera is beyond repair.

I've discovered the people on the gringo trail all seem to be alike. Or is my tolerance just way down? I can't stand it when John goes into guide-bookese speak, partially because I'm really tired from the turista. Nothing like a good bout of tourista in paradise.

I think I like being mute, preferring the solitude that Spanish lens. Me, because I understand more than I can speak. And no one knows, not even John.

The woman brings the parrot out on a broom. For once Michael is mute. But Ruby wants his fried egg now, he says in parrotese. The small birds come and steal their food. The canaries are silent, still under wraps.

I like the poem Denise Levertov wrote about the dying woman's garden. Better than her Oaxaca poem.

The cat, missing her kittens, is quiet with milk fever. The Señora comes in from marketing, she's carrying roses. All the roses they sell here. There's nowhere one can sit without the flower sellers swarming you. Chiles and more chiles. A weeks worth of chilis—more chilis than I could use in five years.

The parrots clatter on. And we joke about feeding them chilis. There are so many people living here, I can't figure out the connections. Who is family and who are the servants? A foolish pigeon with  missing tail-feathers, struts close to the cat. The cat rolls in the morning sun. I peel off a perfect replica of my nail, a thick plastic layer of nail polish.

We are on the Gringo Trail, on the way to the Harmonic Convergence, the first globally synchronized meditation event. We are converging from all corners of the globe all because John's friend, poet Ivan Argüelles twin brother José, said so. OK, so he invented Earth Day, I'll give him that. He's an interesting painter.

But this is BS and everybody's cooing over it as if it was the next great thing. What if we awaken the Mayan gods, then what?

Mexico Journal: Aug. 14, pots at the museum

Descending lizard pot. Fat dog pots. Foot cups, leg cups, hand cups. Cups for every part of the body. Yes, that too, drink from the spout of the penis cup.

An old woman with a few teeth, gladly welcomes us with outstretched arms and hands, she bows. Wrinkled and flaccid.

A comical man wears his sandal straps between the middle ring toes, ouch! The pouch around his neck is empty. He wears leather wristbands with key latch knots. His tongue is out, is he chewing on a cigar? Is he lacing his tongue with a scourged rope? Bloodletting?

A mask of a corn god with his eyebrows raised, his smile is slightly askew. He's very much a human individual, he is not stylized. The model is at hand.

The fertility god has ropes across his body. A trinity of ear and lip plugs distort his face. He's kneeling, a sacrifice?

A flock of three-legged pots look like they'd like to all run off but aren't sure how far they'd get. Running in circles. What was stored in them, cacao?

A codice with tiny footprints lead the eye from the story frame, to the story henge. One codice of a mission, and one of an Indian priest sitting down on his throne outside.

One notes the styles of headdress, another depicts a thatched hut, or na, that demonstrates how the fronds are attached. An encyclopedia of daily living.

Several parrot heads are painted on a frieze. All the little footprints lead out of the na, the house, to the garden. Ceiba trees, and in the garden, there is maize, and peppers, sapote and cacao orchards, and thousands of frogs.



no date, no place, I suspect it's a museum in Yagul, or Oaxaca.

Mexico Journal, August 14, the ball court mural

Jugando de Pelote mural

At the ball game of life and death there are three players on each side of the court, and 26 viewers, with four at each end. The high priest stands in the middle. A referee.

A mother with babe in arms, and friends, many lovers gather round. A child, looks off to the back of the courtyard. The woman with the baby in her arms, is gossiping with a man. She is not paying attention to the game.

Another woman sits with knees cradled in her arms, staring with frank approval at the men. A tired child rests on his father's shoulders, who also isn't paying attention to the action.

The players in woven jerseys, are broad shouldered, they square off, and bluff it out. Player A is guarding the ball. Player B is standing at the ready to intercept. The goalees are alert for a skirmish.

This is a ball game that was important enough to be reported on the temple walls over 500 years ago. We will never know which team lost their heads.

No date, no location. Probably Yagul

Mexico Journal: Yagul, the Valle de Tlacolula, Mitla, Oaxaca (photos)

I've lost nearly all the photos of Yagul (Yegüih), in the Valle de Tlacolula, the camera opened when it fell from such a height. Photos of the largest ball court in the Oaxaca Valley, fretted stone mosaics—gone. Also many of the photos of  Monte Albán, one of the earliest cities of MesoAmerica (500 BC), gone. But I will never forget los danzantes. Like Matisse's dancers, carved in stone.

We climbed out of the precipice, even there, pre-Columbian pottery embedded in the walls. They must've broken many pots and deliberately put them between the stones and adobe. I imagine the pot breaking ceremonies we used to have in Thano Johnson's ceramics class. We hold pottery that is 500 to 800 years old.

Yagul is half-way between  Oaxaca and Mitla. Yagul, from the Zapotec, ya (tree) and gul (old), or old tree. Yagul, aka Pueblo Viejo (Old Village), was considered a late site, on par with that of Mitla, and was first settled ca. 500-100 BC, but most of what survived is from 1250-1521 AD.

The name Oaxaca is from the Nahuatl, Huaxyacac, from huāxcuahuitl, (Huaxim in Mayan) referring to the guaje trees, aka mimosa, wattle, or acacia (scourge of California), the leaves and pods are a staple food, and forage legume (another name is horse tamarind.) 

We hiked down the spine, there are acres of corn 500 feet below us, like verdant lakes, reminding us that Mitla is the homeland of domesticated maize. The guide takes us back into the labyrinth, to the throne. We step on the displaced round stone stairs that leads to a ball court. John describes the game in lurid detail. A high-stakes game where you don't want to lose your head. Literally.

The labyrinth of the six courtyards still has its original stucco. Each room has its own tomb.

A jaguar and morteros, holes filled with slimy green water on the bluffs where the constant breeze took the chaff away. An abandoned metate, and mortars near the path as if someone had just stepped out for a smoke.

This is the first place I felt the presence of the gods, or at least what it was like to live there. Mitla's palaces are less imaginable to live in. Amazing, the stonework, where we had lunch in the museum, I want to paint and paint.

Not sure of the date but I have a postcard dated 13 Aug. so I'll go with that.

ON THE WAY TO THE HARMONIC CONVERGENCE

In Mexico City, on the third day of August
flaming horses fell from the sky.
16 Argentine gods fell on scores of people
waiting in line for the bus on their way to work.

In Puerto Escondido we watched
them pull a drowned man from the sea.
His heart stopped but his watch
was still keeping perfect time.
And the children screamed at the horror
of this hulk that once was a man,
their father, now a frothing deadweight
as they tried to raise the dead.

We swam in the blue depths with the fish
and saw the last things a drowning man sees.
Those children will grow up hating the sea.
What it took from them.

The tourista takes me in
with fevered images along with real ones.
Who could have forseen flaming horses
falling from the sky like that?
The dead man was hefted up,
a slippery weight upon the shoulders
of his bumbling rescuers.

I've broken my camera.
This place cries out to be photographed.
I'm a one-eyed bandit
creeping after form and color,
light and shadow,
trying to memorize the light.

In dreams the oracles begin to speak
through me. I try to memorize what was said,
but the words are always gone by morning.

11 or 12 Aug. 1987

Mexico Journal: Tule, Oaxaca

The Tule Cypress tree at Tule (Santa María del Tule), the stoutest tree (33 feet across)  in the world, with a circumference of nearly 140 feet, is about 2 to 3000 years old— older than Christ.  Only our redwoods match it in venerable girth and age.

El Árbol del Tule is often called the Sabino tree, or el ahuehuete (āhuēhuētl, old man, or drum of the water) in Nahuatl. Some say that the Montezuma bald cypress (Taxodium mucronatum), was planted by a priest of Ehecatl, the Aztec storm god.

Whatever you prefer to call it, El Árbol del Tule is the sacred tree of the Zapotec creation myth. The tree has long since outgrown the church plaza, they say it is slowly dying. Though it is drought tolerant, the tule springs that once fed it, and kept its roots wet, can no longer quench its thirst.

Someone tells us to look for the six dwarfs, the jaguars, the giraffes, and the elephant hidden in the gnarled folds of the trunk. What ever animals you see in the folds of the trunk, it is a party animal, and has its own annual fiesta the second Monday in October.

There are six other massive cypresses in town. Valle de Oaxaca must've been a marshy lake-bed at one point. Even the native acacia trees here are old and venerable.

 

No date. Written near Aug 9 post.

Mexico Journal: Mitla, Lambityeco, Oaxaca

In Mitla, the colonial church constructed atop the pyramids, is not a pyramid but is similar to the governor's palace at Uxmal. Mitla was the main religious center, so the church had to obliterate the claim.

Mitla, in the upper end of the Tlacolula Valley, has the grandeur that other Zapotec, or Mixtec structures lack. Not a korbeled arch, but lintels are carved in the famous  Mitla design, mosaic of waves and cloud patterns, the column of life.

Settled about 11,000 years ago, Mitla his the homeland of domesticated maize around 3-2000 BC. Natives ate maize, beans, tomatoes, chili peppers, squash/gourds, and chocolate.

It was hard to see the sculptures of the dancers, but there was a wonderful Jaguar tomb. Mitla, from the Nahuatl, was called Mictlán, the nine underworlds of the dead. Sort of like Dante's Inferno.

At Lambityeco, we followed the path down to the creek, and found good examples of pre-Columbian pottery including including a leg from a small breasted pot. It was three legged with a hole in it to keep it from exploding during firing.

---

Lambityeco is a part of the larger site, Yeguih, or Yagul which either means small hill or old tree. You pick. Lambityeco is a Zapotec word for hollow hill (salt mines), or, still mound—a good thing when gravesites are involved..

The guard showed us his collection of stylized polychrome shards, jade beads, obsidian arrowheads, granite axes, etc. Later, some young boys approach us and offer to sell us a small Tlaloc or Chak-mool sculpture, but we decline. I am torn by the duality of their wanting to preserve the past, but their need to make money off it in the present.

There are also good 3D examples of stucco clay sculptures over the two entrances to the tombs. I am agog.



No date. Written near Aug 9 post.

Mexico Journal: Aug. 9, Puerto Escondido, Puerto Angél

Aug 9 Sunday

Puerto Escondido: finally we're in paradise, I am so thankful to be in the tropics at sea level— after a rough morning. Dropping my camera on the cement floor like that, I am without my eyes, and that she bitch on the other side of town, made it the way all to the plaza before dying. People walked around her, thinking she was asleep. And in death she achieved the escape she sought.

Would they understand if I had put her out of her misery? The slow lingering death of a dog one tropical summer afternoon. Her bony hips like a blonde mountain. She died silent, not noticing the change from day to night.

Without eyes, my mind frames photos all over the place. We're staying in the best hotel in town, at $23 a night, but it's worth it. Yesterday with no room reserved we went to El Jardín, only to witness the patron stash a few ounces of grass outside our window.

I'd had bad vibes about the place since we first set foot in it. John was saying, Any port in a storm. A shitstorm waiting to happen. And we got it the hell out of the place with fear in our eyes.

The first hotel we wanted, Hotel Santa Fe, suddenly had a room available. The gods were with us. But sleep was fitful. I kept waiting for the masked entrance of a murderer.

In all of this traveling, I've lost a few days. Here in Mexico, only a week; I feel like I've had three vacations. First in Mexico City, second in Oaxaca, and third one here.

---

Gabriel from DF (De Effe), Mexico City, is translating some North American poets Lowell, Whitter Bynner, etc. He gets to stay in paradise for a month. God, that restaurant facing the sea, barefoot, enjoying cafecitos. Eating pulpo al mojo de ajo every night, and putting a serious dent in the octopus population. Ah, to have a palapa in Yelapa.

---

The geckos have come out, hunting moths as the gray sky fades to obscuridad. Too bad they don't hunt mosquitoes too. A gecko nearly shits in my dinner. Beware of small foreign objects falling from the ceiling.

Pulpo al mojo de ajo—octopus and garlic. Divine.
Yesterday, a man walked from the surf carrying a small octopus.
Today's dinner?

---

Puerto Angelito

Snorkeling in murky water, angelfish dark and rise in a multitude of blues. A boxfish eyes me. Blennies and wrasse everywhere. Blennies, with their suction mouths, move away, the wrasse follow the path we break in the water, nibbling on extra tidbits kicked up by our passing.

If I hadn't put Sunday in my journal, I couldn't have dated this entry.