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The Road Less Traveled

A Mystical Trip to Mexico
by Barbara Hilal

Spell of A River Town
by Diana Moes VandeHoef

Schmoozing in the Smokies
by Sandy Summers

Getting There Can Still Be Half the Fun
by Chandler Perdue

Discovering Bhutan
by Anna Stewart

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Archives

The Road Less Traveled

A Mystical Trip to Mexico
by Barbara Hilal

My offerings are not for the temple at the end of the road,
but for the wayside shrines
that surprise me at every bend

-Tagore

As soon as I got settled at the hotel and had dinner there, I ventured out, walking to the dig. I had a deep-rooted feeling of belonging there, not like it was foreign or strange. I arrived at the dig, saw a line and took a place in it. I was disappointed; I was hoping the dig would be from a much earlier civilization than it was. All my life I have wanted to find the origin of everything: language, music, poetry, drama, and even civilization. I never felt it was fruitless.

I wanted flying saucers to be real so that maybe the beings, if superior to us in knowledge, could tell me these things. I came to feel that belief in their existence, even if seen or thought to have been seen, was still just another belief, not knowledge. I preferred confidence to faith and as Mahatma Ghandi was purported to have said, "If you put a pot of water on the floor and believe it will boil, that is faith. Knowing the laws of nature and assisting hereof, I put it on the fire. I have confidence it will boil." Yes, knowledge brings with it confidence.

I wanted to see the painting of "The Virgin of Guadalupe" that the Catholic Church believes was a miracle. The story is told that an Indian man went into the hills and was gathering flowers for his sick relative when he saw a woman who claimed not to be the virgin but the mother protector of the American (north and south) people. The name she gave him was an Indian name, but when he told a priest later, she was given a Catholic name, which was added to the original name. The woman told him to relate what she said to the priest and not to hurry to his relative, that the relative would be cured. When he reached the priest and let down his robe where he had gathered the wild flowers, roses fell to the feet of the priest; in their place on the robe was a painting of the virgin. It was displayed in the church frame under crystal, where it had not deteriorated for hundreds of years.

When I went there with the group tour, I saw the original church, but as Mexico sand eventually sinks all of its most expensive and sacred buildings, the church was sinking. They built another modern church in the shape of a mandalla. The Catholic peasants would come there, knees bloody from walking on them for miles, to receive blessings from the virgin.

I was disappointed again, as when I saw the painting, that it was not of divine origin; it was obviously painted with man made material, which looked like tempera or gouache or perhaps an old mixture they used at the time for frescos. The style was definite; it was of an art period.

I was beginning to think my visit was to be commonplace when I had expected it to be magical, when I met a hotel tour guide talking about a first time visit to a "Female Pyramid" and an Indian market that no one had visited before. He had found a group of teachers that wanted to see it and I jumped in enthusiastically, immediately sensing or hoping for a magical element.

We were on our way in a bus, all excited, all trying to talk in many different languages. I ended up reading Tarot cards on the bus to the delight of all of them because I gave them free. We went through a cornfield because there was no road and the farmers chased us, cursing and indignant.

On the side of the pyramid the bus veered twice, perilously hanging over the sides of road. We all fell backwards and then in panic, scampered to the front to regain our balance and traction to get us back on the road. Finally, the bus driver stopped, exhausted, and said, "This is as far as we can ride."

There at the pyramid, the top being the highest elevation in Mexico, we saw a mountain climber's flag. Much of the snail-shaped pyramid was hidden beneath a settlement of Indians who were living very primitively, isolated from society. One of the young tour guides remarked about seeing ruins of pyramids throughout Mexico, that the Catholic Church had built churches on top of them, purposely to forbid their excavation. The poor peasant people invested much money in the church, and the church didn't want to risk a return to older religions.

The others seemed content to remain there and began to eat their lunches. I put my lunch aside and started climbing the pyramid. As I went up, there was a feminine voice in my head. I silently asked who it was and the voice said, "I am the protector of the Americas, not actually feminine, but as people see the earth as feminine, I appear as feminine." She said that long ago the Indians spoke to rocks, lakes and all of nature and received replies from their own bodies because they were a part of nature. But as man began to develop, he spiritualized nature and de-souled her so that now she was known as the virgin, Eros, spiritualized.

She said, "This was done in order to civilize man and to enable him to live in large societies of people controlling his emotions. It had however, taken away his regard of nature, which needed to be redeemed."

I had always been afraid of heights but continued up anyway, having now to put my feet sideways, as the steps were smaller. Facing the pyramid, one cannot see the height he has climbed. I reached the top and saw the flag. Printed on it were the words "Teo Tenango."

I looked down and the whole settlement was visible, all the fields, miles around and there was the tour guide, like a dot, screaming at me to come down. He was saying breathing at that altitude would be difficult.

She was with me and I needed her for that walk down, but I have not had a fear of heights since that moment. I picked a few flowers, the only vegetation there, and when I got down, the tour guide, after scolding me, said," My god, violets from the top of a pyramid? They only grow in the shade."

"What does Teo Tenango mean?" I asked. The tour guide replied, "Ask the soda pop vendor; it is Indian."

He turned and handed me a soda saying it means the same as Bethlehem. It means, "Home of the Mother, the mother goddess, the earth mother."