before the entrance

before the entrance 

to the underworld, the shaman

burns copal incense

Miguel, our Maya guide who works for AllTourNative, an eco-tourism company, drives our group to Ek Balam, a Maya village way back in the jungle, where the villagers live in thatch-roofed huts with wooden walls and speak only Maya and pidgin Spanish. After a delicious buffet of chicken, potato enchiladas, rice, black beans, squash soup, hibiscus tea and rice milk, we we walk to a small cenote, a freshwater sinkhole in a limestone cave. 

          Before we can enter the sacred waters, the village shaman, dressed in white shirt and pants, conducts a purification ceremony. Adolfo is short and compact, with golden brown skin, black hair graying at the temples, a thin gray mustache above a perpetual smile and sparkling black eyes. We stand in a semi-circle in front of the altar constructed of green branches, which holds offerings of squash, maize, beans, peppers, cactus fruit and flowers.

          Miguel explains that the Maya world view consists of the underworld, the middle world and the upper world. The cenotes are considered to be the entrance to the underworld and the purification ceremony shows respect to the aluxes, or spirits of the cenote.

          Adolfo lights copal incense, called pom, in a wooden chalice wrapped in vines around the top. Miguel explains that the copal, made from hardened sap, is for protection as well as purification. With Miguel interpreting, Adolfo asks each of us where is our home country, which he blesses during the ceremony. He waves a leafy branch in the four directions and chants in Maya, a sound that resonates pleasantly up my spine. Then he wafts the sweet-smelling incense over our heads.

          After the ceremony we take a shower and don climbing gear for descending into the cenote. The round opening is about 15 feet (4.5 meters) in diameter and the distance to the water appears to be about two stories down. We are given the choice to rappel down or be lowered down by two ropes. With my sore shoulder, I opt to be lowered. A man at the bottom gives us an inner tube, but I quickly abandon mine to swim about freely in the clear, cool turquoise water and explore the perimeter of the cenote. There's a low opening on one side that leads to the underground river which feeds the cenote, but we're cautioned not to enter. The last one to be hauled up, I emerge feeling truly purified by my immersion in the pure waters.

that mysterious

that mysterious

something that puts together

syllables and words

Mahasaraswati Day, Day of Total Knowledge. It's late January. In the early morning I creep into town on black ice to listen to a lady talk about Mahasaraswati, goddess of knowledge, science, arts and music. She says, "Maha means great, sara means pure silence of a still lake, swa means the Self, and ti means the dynamism of silence. Mahasaraswati is silence in motion, the flow of total knowledge."
          As she speaks I picture the painting of Mahasaraswati propped on a bookcase in my study, a spirit painting made by Mangku Liyer, a Balinese shaman-priest. Memory takes me back to the summer of 2001. I have just arrived in Bali, visiting my friend Robin Lim, and she takes me to an odalan celebrating the birthday of a temple in Nyuh Kuning, where Mangku Liyer is performing some of the ceremonies. Robin introduces me as a "mantra meditator" and he immediately invites me to visit him. 
          Some days later Robin takes me with her to his home in Ubud. She wants him to make a charm to protect her from a black witch. Mangku Liyer is sitting cross-legged on a mat outside his room. He is a tiny man with a big grin that reveals some missing teeth. After we visit for awhile, he shows me his spirit paintings. He says the images come to him in a vision and they have great spiritual powers.
          I am immediately drawn to one of Mahasaraswati. Unlike the Indian depictions I have seen of her wearing a white sari, she is dressed in Balinese temple attire and her peacock looks more like a turkey, but she has that same serene smile. I tell him that I write and paint, and he says it would be good for me to have this painting. Then he shows me another painting he thinks will help in my meditation practice. It is a strange figure of a man. After I gaze at it for a few moments, he asks me what I feel about it. 
          "The man has four legs," I reply, "so he is well grounded. His hands are pressed together in anjuli mudra, so he is full of devotion. His eyes are in his chest, so he sees with his heart, rather than his head. He has three flames in place of a head, representing the knower, the process of knowing and the known. His crown chakra is very well developed, and his physical body is surrounded by a wide aura of subtle energy."
          "Exactly," Mangku Liyer says, with an even bigger grin. He says the money for the paintings will allow his granddaughter to finish school, which makes me happy to know that the goddess of total knowledge is taking care of this girl's education. Mankgu Liyer arranges to have the paintings framed in carved wood and delivered to me in a cardboard case for carrying on the airplane, something I would never be allowed to do a few months later.
          Now the two paintings reside side by side in my home, their presence a reminder that the deepest knowledge comes from that silent place within.

by the half-moon door

by the half-moon door

lemony angel's trumpet

spiraling outward

These beautiful flowers grow wild on small trees all over the Andes. This particular tree is growing in a small courtyard of a restaurant in Puno, just outside the toilet with its half-moon door. The pendulous flowers in all stages of opening are quite enchanting, plus they also give off a delicate, slightly lemony fragrance, especially in the evening. Lovely to look at but they can be deadly to ingest. All parts of the plant are extremely poisonous for both humans and animals. Merely touching eyes after touching the plant can cause pupil dilation. Amazonian shamans ritually consume Brugmansia for its powerful hallucinogenic effects, but since the toxicity is variable, this can prove to be fatal.