Iguanas seem to be everyone’s pet in Mexico. This guy had the run of the restaurant and Ricardo, the bar tender let him take dainty bites from the wedding center piece.
At another tiny bar, deep in the jungle next to a beautiful fresh water cenote, the proprietor kept a 3′, bright green iguana on the bar for the delight of the customers. Never mind that the iguana received better tips than the rather taciturn bar tender. In Mexico, not everyone could speak English but most everyone would smile. At the Tulum ruins, an man did nothing but pose with a 5′ iguana and pass the hat to the French tourists for taking his photo. He had enough money in the hat to feed his family or buy a large round of michiladas for his friends.
Tulum, Tulum. In the jungle, on the Carribean, an hour and a half south of the big city Cancun. For me a week in Tulum means that I will remain connected and engaged there for the rest of my life. Many years ago in my mid 20’s, a psychic told me that I experienced a past life as a Mayan artist and priestess. I neither believed or disbelieved it but my sense of connection with Mexico has run like an underground river through my psyche since my first visit to Mexico when I was 16. Here are the images I managed to produce during my full time in Tulum – more to follow.
Our guide, Pablo explained to us about the sacred palm. We were hiking in the jungle of Sian Kan, the biosphere park reserve near Tulum. ” The palm is sacred to the Mayan people. The palm is their roof, their shelter from the heat, the hurricane and the rain. A good palm roof can last up to 30 years if the palm is properly harvested on the full moon. At that time the sap is running and the plant is full of protective minerals. If the palm is cut at any other time and the sap is low, the roof will last three years, no more.”
The beautiful aboreal gold green Vine Snake eats mostly lizards; lucky for the nesting birds and thier eggs. I did not spot this well camofloged snake. I tramped through the Yucatan jungle and wisely stayed on the trail, keeping a sharp eye out for scorpions or snakes. Thor Janson’s book Maya Nature made me aware of the presence of pit vipers including the formidable Fer-De-Lance.
Map of the Journeying of the Ancestors Back to the Dream-time
I thought about how it is that as I grow older, I feel further and further away from my childhood and who I was as a child. If I think about it in a certain way, I feel lost, and that makes me realize what people mean when they say they are lost, that they don’t know who they are anymore.
In this picture, I am lost in a maze of trees, looking for my way back to who I am supposed to be, what I am supposed to be doing. In this picture, I am going the wrong way on the road back to the Dream-time. An ancestor grandmother in a long skirt is on the road back to the Lake with the Bluest Eye, and before her is a Conestoga wagon with our ancestors of yet the more previous generation. The Lake with the Bluest Eye is at the foot of the Mountains of Memory. Today, at sunset, the Dream-time Mists have cleared for a moment, and the light of the most distant sun lights up snowfields and meadows.
Since I drew this, the sun has set, the Mists have risen from the marsh around the Lake, and I am once again alone on the Cedar Trail.
