My Point of View: August 2009

Monday, August 31, 2009

What the heck, Huck?

I've only been away for 2 weeks!...left you army crawling across my floor! What's this about shakin'n'movin'...AND...practicing standing? Where's my baby boy?

What's up?

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Home

It has been a wonderful experience...more than I could have imagined! I am ready to head home...thankful for new friends...knowledge...adventures...now memories I hold in my heart.

After a Mexican 2.5 hour taxi ride (an adventure in itself)...a 3 hour wait at MEX...a 2 hour flight to Houston...a 2 hour layover...a 4 hour flight to PDX...I AM HOME!

Time to do laundry...one day to unpack...repack...and off to Lincoln City...for a week at the beach with my Beloveds!
JOY!

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Closing

This is our last day together...we have become a CIRCLE...Wise Women Council...friends:

Ambi, Catherine w/Shanti, Sandra, Claudia, Whapio, Rachelle, Miriam, Karin, Anya, Dalia, Kelly, Reyna, Adriana

Barbara, Laticia, Lydia, Juno, Lamaya, Laura, Rachel, Christine

We have stood daily...for 3 breathes...in the Mizong Tibitan Yoga positions:

Sunday, the midwife (wise one originally, but changed for obvious reasons) gazes at the sun.

Monday, the midwife looks at the moon.

Tuesday, the midwife stands as a candle, a light to the world.

Wednesday, the midwife opens her arms to fly.

Thursday, the midwife holds the world.

Friday, the midwife stands in the flowing stream.

Saturday, the midwife holds the bag of rice.

We all brought gifts...precious...heartfelt...to share...placed on the altar.

We witnessed one another...our heart longings...to leave our 'littleness...to embrace a new self.
Mine...to leave in the fire...my belief in my unworthiness...embracing my part in this life...with joy! And each received a symbol...this mine.

Changing Woman

Friday, August 28, 2009

Chalma

Another afternoon...to explore...a small town...a few miles away.

Twenty five kilometers west of Cuernavaca is situated the pre-Columbian sacred site of Chalma. Now a Christian holy place it is the second most visited pilgrimage site in Mexico after Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe. While its early history is shrouded in myth it seems that when Augustinian friars first visited the area in the mid 1530’s they learned that local Indians were making pilgrimages to a sacred cave with the name of Chalma. The pilgrims would walk for days through the surrounding mountains, wearing flowers in their hair and carrying incense burners, in order to make offerings to a statue of Ozteotl, the Dark Lord of the Cave. This statue was said to be a large, man-sized, black, cylindrical stone reputed to have magical healing powers. The god was variously identified with a deity of human destiny or of the night, sometimes taking the form of a jaguar, or with the god of war, depending on different Indian oral traditions. The arriving pilgrims bathed in a river fed by a sacred spring and drank holy water before entering the cave. (These words are not mine :)