She Is The Crone

The band, the horrible band, played last night until four a.m. right beneath us and people partied all night long and it was pretty funny, especially when they did Jimi Hendrix, but sort of horrible too.

Well, we were awake at midnight.

Today the sea is beautiful and that's a happy new years right there. May it always forgive us, this sea. May we all be forgiven our sins, no matter how large or small, even if the sins are not really sins, but small omissions and commissions, and may we find peace.

I dreamed the other night of my basement full of the ghosts of the Titanic and all of their clothing and jewelry and everything, just as it was the night it sank, THAT dream, and I went down and I yelled at all the ghosts to leave and I called someone from a history department to come and get rid of everything, EVERYTHING.

I don't know if that means anything and right now I don't know anything but what I do know is that I don't have to know. And as soon as I am quite sure that I have uncovered a truth, it is revealed to the sand under the shifting water, always moving, always changing, but beautiful in every weather, or at least it is if I perceive it to be so.

Guess what I learned yesterday at Las Ruinas? That Ixchel, besides being the goddess of everything almost was also the giver-of-writing to people.

The moon, childbirth, weaving, sex, the sea, writing.

That she is portrayed as the young woman with the rabbit who lives in the moon, as the mother, and as the crone.

Guess which one I am?

They partied until four here, people. They danced and they sang and they ate and they drank and they blew on noise-makers and I laid in my bed above them and I did none of those things because we were tired and had driven around the island and walked the ruins, my feet walked on the sacred white way of the sacbes and I saw the altars to Ixchel and I was the crone.

For Rebecca

Ixchel pours water
Crone-goddess balm for my heart
Parched, I long for her.





Rebecca, over at the beautiful Recuerda mi Corazon, is inspiring us to do a Haiku My Heart Fridays. I don't usually participate in things like this but
1. Rebecca
2. Haiku
3. Love everything about it.

Here's my first sleepy Friday morning attempt. I have been thinking (dreaming) of Cozumel, the island sacred to the Mayan goddess of the moon and the sea and childbirth and all the things I honor the most, feeling her pull me back to the home of my heart and so this is what came out of that heart this morning.

Here and There, Both Perfect

Some days are just so damn beautiful that they'll break your heart. Today has been one of those. One of those perfect fall days with cool air and sunlight pouring out of a blue sky to paint all the leaves in silver.
Ah. It's enough to just be alive today.
And as my son pointed out in his most recent blog Thursday's Child Has Far To Go at http://tallyhassle.blogspot.com/ , changes in the weather can throw us into deep nostalgia for places we've been, things we've done. Fall especially, I think, has a natural tendency to do that. It's a time when we start to draw into ourselves more, to think and to feel.
My son thinks of Atlanta when the weather turns cool but I think of Cozumel, Mexico. Sometimes, the brush of cool air, the way it smells on these early fall mornings, throws me completely back to that small island in the Caribbean where my husband and I have spent so many anniversaries. Our first trip there was in 1987 and since then, we've probably been back eight times. More or less. Mas o menos. I can close my eyes and see the little town of San Miguel, smell the garlic grilling as supper time approaches, feel the sidewalk under my feet, hear the sounds of mopeds, the waves hitting the shore, the bread man banging a metal pipe to announce his wares as he pedals his cart along the street, see the way the sea goes from green to blue to violet, all of it crystal clear, like a fabulous jewel, and I can taste the Ixnepech, the ubiquitous fresh salsa that tastes perfect on everything from the morning's eggs to the evening's fresh snapper. Most of all, I can see the Mayan people, small and brown and always smiling, ever-patient and gentle, always eager to talk about their island and their families, always curious about where we live, always eager to help in any way.
Cozumel is my magic place. It is the place in the world that besides my own home, I feel safest and most in love with my husband. Every one of our trips there has been a honeymoon. There isn't a whole lot to do beyond snorkle and explore and watch the sunset. And it's such a small island- thirty three miles long, eight and a half miles wide. It was sacred to the Mayan goddess Ixchel, who was the goddess of childbirth, the sea, the moon, seashells and weaving. Mayan women were expected to make a pilgrimage there during their lifetime and I guess I've made enough trips there for several lifetimes, but somehow, it's never enough.
I have to admit that the over the course of twenty years, the island has changed considerably, mostly due to the fact that it's become a port of call for cruise ships. Don't get me started on that subject. Just...don't...get...me...started.
When we first visited, it was still a sleepy place, a diver's destination, "discovered" by Jacques Cousteau. It was, and still is, a place where actual families lived, where people worked and lived and raised their children. And oh, what beautiful, so-obviously loved children!
But since the cruise ships have taken over, so much of the island seems geared to catch the folks vomited off those monstrous boats as they take their six hour shore leaves and sell them jewelry, cheap trinkets, Kahlua, and T-shirts, and send them back drunk on bad tequila. The cruisers love to eat at places they know so Ruby Tuesdays and Margaritaville do booming businesses while the restaurants that families own and which have served delicious meals to thousands for decades stand empty.
Oh yeah. I got started.
I'm sorry. That's not what I meant to write about. What I meant to write about is how this time of year, my heart yearns to go back there, cruisers or not, to feel that soft air blow over my body, to walk down the seafront and say "Buenos tardes" to the people we pass in the evening and to hear them say it back to me. I want to go to the Zocalo on Sunday night and watch the families dressed in their best, walk around the square and dance and eat and I want to hear their voices. I want to stand on a balcony with a drink of rum in my hand and my husband by my side to watch the sun go down. I want to hear the liquid notes of the Mexican blackbirds as they gather at dusk and call their contentment with the day. I want to watch the lights come on across the water at Playa del Carmen. I want to see images of the Virgin of Guadalupe everywhere and hear the street musicians play the Cozumel song.
I guess I want to make another pilgrimage and I know it won't happen this year.
But I know it's still there. I know that time and even cruise ships can't destroy all that magic.
But I yearn, oh how I yearn! Even as I am content to be exactly where I am, there is a part of me that is there, right now, this very second. That part is wearing a dress and silver earrings and she is discussing with her husband where they should eat their supper. She is smiling. Oh, how she is smiling! And she is happy.