“This your
first pilgrimage?” I stage-whispered to a gal from my group. She giggled and
nodded. After four hours of solemn shuffling alongside men carrying large
framed images of the Virgin Mary lashed to their backs, my lapsed Catholic inner
child was feeling mischievous. Monty Python mischievous.
In my 20
years of practicing yoga, I’d never understood why people undertook
pilgrimages…but being someone who will try most anything once, I was willing to
learn. Motivation arrived in the form of a 12/21/12 getaway. The annual
Guadalupe pilgrimage was the first in a series of events led by Toltec teacher Sergio
Magaña Ocelocoyotl (coyote jaguar) in preparation for the Solstice.
“Devotional energy is the lightest, most refined energy on the planet,” he
said. We were to absorb this blissful note in preparation for becoming spiritual
warriors, or Quetzalcoatls, later at the pyramids. “This energy will help you to
make the shift in your own vibration from the 5th to the 6th
Sun.”
I
first learned about this Sixth Sun from Sergio, who expertly bridges the modern
world with that of his indigenous teachers and ancestors. There is no surprise
that he was born with both Castilian and indigenous blood in his veins. He
shares practices that align us with ancient, universal rhythms, which can evoke
deep, positive change in our lives…if we
do the work. He has been teaching in Mexico for over twelve years, and in
the US and Europe since 2010. Sergio has learned from great masters in the
Mexica lineage including Aztec Anubis, Xolotl (shadow dog) José Luis Chávez Martínez, keeper of the ancient
Nahuatl wisdom; and Hugo Nahui, a gifted scholar on stellar events and their
impact on our lives.
Winter
Solstice of 2012 marked an official goodbye to an old way of being and ushered
in the influence of the next “Sun” or era, the Sixth Sun. Each Era spans 6,625
years. While the Fifth Sun was an era of outer conquest and seeking wisdom and
happiness in the world around us, the Sixth Sun ushers in an era of inner
listening—of working with the wisdom within—and deepens until it is in full
control on 12/21/2021.
~
Before we
set off for our evening trek, I’d fretted over what to bring. Traveling light
was a priority. Paranoid of pickpockets,
I debated leaving my camera in the hotel safe as I stashed only enough money for
taxi fare in my bra.
My roommate eyed me worriedly as she neatly laid out a
matching TravelSmith outfit on her bed, “Did you know that at the 1954 Kumbh
Mela pilgrimage in India, 500 people were killed in a stampede?”
“Um, no…,” I blurted. I hadn’t considered claustrophobia or
crowd crushing until just then. Suddenly it was
1985…
I’d arrived
at the Providence Civic Center for a Kool and the Gang concert, and stood with other
earlybirds by the closed glass doors to the auditorium. The crowd swelled significantly
as showtime neared. Suddenly, far from me, a single door opened. The throng
surged, lifting me off my feet and pinning me like a bug against a glass wall.
Panic and utter helplessness washed over me as the glass gave, but thankfully did
not break…And then other doors opened and my primal fear subsided as I stumbled
in with the herd to see the show.
~
As we began
our hike in Tlaltelolco—site of the Templo Mayor, one of the main Aztec
temples—Sergio gave us each a pack of six black and six white stones. Over the
course of our walk he instructed us to assign each rock various traumas we’d
experienced in childhood or at each milestone in our life. These were our
prayer beads to ponder and worry throughout the evening, as we considered the things
that held us back in our lives. The stones would be offered at the basilica,
our destination, and the Virgin would release from us the heavy energy
associated with these traumas—mending the holes in our souls—in a simple but elegant
sycretization of faiths.
~
Hanging low
and swollen in the sky, a vermillion Jupiter was the first of many celestial
wonders that night—the perfect lantern
to light our way, as we hiked for seven miles from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. on
12/12/12. It limned our passage to the ancient Temple of Tonantzin Coatlicue, Mother
Earth and Goddess of Life and Death. The temple was destroyed by the Spanish and rebuilt into
the original chapel for the Virgin of Guadalupe.
~
“Don’t turn
down anything people give you!” Sergio instructed. “You’ll hurt their feelings, and these gifts are offered from the kindness of their hearts.” My first present was a card
handed to me by a calm smiling man. This being my first boon, I felt excited as
a kid who’d fished out the crackerjack prize. The card bore an image of the Virgin
of Guadalupe on one side, and a prayer to her on the other.
Soon, however,
my growling stomach reminded me that I hadn’t had dinner. With a pang, I
noticed a young couple from our group to my left holding SANDWICHES. They
seemed to be debating whether they dared eat them or not. I craned my neck left
to right like a starving baby bird, but soon became distracted by a
40-something local man dragging a wooden box by a rope with a rapt look on his
face. The regular appearance of men toting four foot crosses on their
shoulders—complete with grim Jesus—also took my
mind off my tummy. It was lucky
that I forgot about the treats so near and yet so far, because food was not to
find its way to me that night. I would arrive at our destination in proper fasted
form…
At one point
my food radar caused me to be in a perplexing place. Without thinking, I’d
accepted a very full cup of black coffee that…I realized a second later, I
didn’t want. As I hurried to rejoin my group, the obsidian liquid sloshed
dangerously close to the edge. The coffee giver had so enthusiastically proffered
his gift, and with Sergio’s directive drumming through my head…how could I
refuse? I debated being rude to the tradition… What would HAPPEN if someone
threw away their boon? I considered my
options. Cups, wrappers, and all manifestations of trash were piled high on the
sidewalk to my right and left. Dumping the liquid in the street simply wasn’t
an option—I would’ve wetted many pilgrim toes...including mine. My San Francisco
recycler mentality agonized over the spec of litter I’d be adding to the
tonnage that lay strewn everywhere. I finally found a space on the sidewalk to
set down the brimming cup, and bounded guiltily onward.
~
Over time,
the parade my group had merged with bottlenecked from a 20-shoulder-across street
to a 5-across pedestrian walkway in the middle of an avenue. Diminutive police
officers stood on bollards lining the thin causeway every 10 feet, providing a constant
presence. The gateway to the Vegas-lit basilica complex allowed just three-shoulders-across
entry. Once inside, we were reduced to a singular serpentine shuffle.
~
Inside the
compound, the press of devout seekers covered every square inch of pavement. I
stepped carefully over the feet of family after family camped out on the steps
of the church, clearly exhausted after their long trek from their home village
(some had walked for months). Not a single baby cried among seven million
pilgrims. My mind staggered with the enormity of that many hushed children…and
where were the bathrooms?
A trust and gentleness pervaded as
families slept atop blankets they’d placed on sidewalks, stairs and street corners….any
place out of the immediate flow of foot traffic.
I soon realized
my earlier paranoia of pickpockets, stampedes, and crowd crushing was totally
unfounded, as all the men I passed, bumped into, or witnessed were
peaceful, reverent, and deferential. I was never pushed or regarded
suggestively the entire evening.
~
We climbed
up to the Temple of Tonantzin Coatlique, past Virgin dioramas one could pose by
for pictures. At the top we were greeted by domed rooftops and breathtaking
views of the snaking streets below feeding the devout into the basilica. Joining
the rapt, upturned faces of the devout, I entered the chapel. A sweet, light
energy filled the high-ceilinged edifice, which was tiled in blue and white and
bursting with flowers. The circa 16th century statuary backed by
suns, moons and stars—and especially the Virgin statue, sitting atop a crescent
moon and containing complex indigenous spiritual symbolism that Sergio had
explained to us—pleased my inner Pagan greatly.
I exited
into the strobe-illuminated night to see fireworks create a number “7” in the
sky…Aztec symbol of healing. With that auspicious omen, I tossed my stones over
a low stone wall, beyond which was a grassy hillside—sending my prayers, and my
traumas to the Mother’s healing. I descended the stairs. At the base of the old Temple, I felt suddenly
washed with a lightness and release. It reminded me of hucha mikuy, the Peruvian shamanic method of transforming heavy
energy into light, refined energy. Or, if you like, the transubstantiation done
with a chalice at either a pagan ritual or a Christian mass.
As we milled
slowly around the main basilica yard in the out-stream, I followed many pilgrim
arms pointing to the heavens and gasped.
Hovering low and large over the modern basilica, soundlessly flashing a
green oval of lights, then a white one was something extremely nonordinary. Occasionally the spectre darted with
impossible speed to the right or left. It seemed to be studying this
epicenter of human empathy for its uniqueness and beauty in stark contrast to
all the other nastiness on the planet; hovering for the longest time over the
basilica. I blinked and it was gone. “There are many OOF-ohs here tonight, eh?”
Sergio laughed, pointing out additional UFOs for our wide-eyed entertainment as
we waited our egalitarian turn to exit the compound.
My gaze traveled
to the gold-framed, original tilma in
the modern basilica—the cape of Juan Diego—to whom the Virgin had appeared, and
with which he had carried the impossible Castillian roses at the Virgin’s
request to the local church, to validate his vision. The image of Mary had remained
on the cape when he shook the roses out. In 1951 photographers discovered a
reflection in the Virgin’s eyes, which on magnification, revealed all 14 witnesses
present when the tilma was first
revealed to the padre in 1531, including a small family. Interestingly, Hernán
Cortés , the conquistador
who overthrew the Aztec Empire in 1521, was from Extremadura, Spain, home to
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Extremadura, one of three black madonnas in Spain. Was
her well-timed Mexican appearance a political move or a miracle? The tilma has
not been studied scientifically since 1982.
~
Our return
trek created a feeling of expansiveness as personal space once again emerged.
The inbound crowd became threadier and younger, more exuberant; many of them
high-fiving or waving to the tall men in our group who were risking loss of
blood to limbs by maintaining upraised arms to signal our group’s edges, and not
lose any weary trekkers.
~
Back at the
hotel room, my head hit the pillow as heavy as an obsidian tecpatl blade. After sleeping in quite late, I cracked open the
window and gazed out into a smudgy, sunny sky, unrolled my yoga mat and flicked
on some kirtan music. Suddenly, just a few notes into the first song, exquisite
ecstasy flooded my body like a megadose of endorphins… And I got it… Why people
take pilgrimages. Why they immerse themselves in bhakti…in that devotional
bliss. That same vibration can be triggered so easily afterwards! I marveled at
how sweet it felt. My heart expanded as if an inner sun were shining within
me. Just like those pictures of Jesus I’d seen but not understood as a child.
Or like the Sufi symbol of the winged heart. Could I perhaps be ready to
embrace the 6th Sun now? To become a spiritual warrior…a
Quetzalcoatl? The flowering serpent—symbol of heaven and earth combined. I
began my Ujayyi breathing and let the feeling deepen as I stretched into my first
pose…and felt like I’d got what I came to Mexico for.
Bhakti…Once
felt, it is never forgotton.
No comments:
Post a Comment