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.

with the finest brush

with the finest brush

Oswaldo paints the Maya lord

of the wheel of time

At the Maya Village in Xcaret, a big Yucatan theme park, I watch Oswaldo applying brilliant color to a square of soft leather with the finest of brushes, the same type of brush I use for miniature gouache paintings. His attention is totally focused on making careful, tiny strokes, undisturbed by all the activity around him. His wife, Ascuncion, wearing a traditional white dress with floral embroidery, stands protectively behind him.

          The painting Oswaldo is working on depicts the Haab', the solar Maya calendar of 365 days, divided into 18 counts of 20 days with a count of 5 days at the end, which were considered unlucky days. This solar wheel shows the Maya lord of time at the center, supporting the burden of time on his back, represented by a glyph called ajaw, the name of the 20th day in the Tzolk'in calendar, and surrounded by the hieroglyphs for the 19 counts.
          The names of the 19 counts reflect aspects of the seasons of the solar year: mat, black conjunction, red conjunction, bat, watering time, dog, new sun, water, black storm, green storm, white storm, red storm, enclosed, yellow sun, owl, planting time, turtle, granary, resting of the year. However, because the Haab' does not take into account the extra quarter of a day in each solar year, the correspondence to the seasons would wander over the years.
          The Maya calendar is actually a system of calendars. The Calendar Round of 52 solar years includes the Haab' year of 365 days and the Tzolk'in, or Sacred Round, composed of 13 counts of 20 days, with each day having a unique name. For longer time periods, the Maya use the Long Count, which covers any length of time, past or future.
          This year the Maya calendar is getting a lot of attention everywhere because the Long Count of 20 b'ak'tuns, 7,885 solar years, will end on 21 December 2012. But rather than indicating a cataclysm, this is simply the day that the calendar will go to the next b'ak'tun at Long Count 13.0.0.0.0. 
          The cyclical nature of time was important to the Maya, who believed that each cycle had a particular character, which would influence events within that cycle, and the completion of one cycle and the recurrence of the next cycle was marked with ceremonies. So it will be interesting to see what influence the new Long Count of 20 b'ak'tuns will bring to the Earth and its inhabitants.
          I have a feeling that Oswaldo will celebrate on 21 December, and then return to his own cycle of painting.

at the mouth of the well

at the mouth of the well

of the wizard of water, 

a Maya woman 

hawks her hand-embroidered

floral handkerchiefs

The ancient Maya city of Chichén Itzá is now populated by hordes of tourists and Maya locals hawking their wares of hand-embroidered handkerchiefs, hand-carved masks, obsidian daggers and the ubiquitous T-shirts with the image of the pyramid of Kukulkan, the feathered serpent deity.

          The pyramid, constructed around 1050, was probably used as a calendar. The four sides face the four directions and each has 91 steps. Including the top step, this adds up to 365 steps, the number of days of the year. The step pyramid beckons one to climb its nine terraces to the temple at the top. Unfortunately, the pyramid has been closed for climbing since 2006 when a woman from California fell to her death.     

          Death was no stranger to the ancient Maya. The Yucatán peninsula is an arid region where all rivers run underground. When the limestone roof above a river collapses, it forms a sinkhole, called a cenote, which looks like a huge open well. In ancient Maya,  Chichén Itzá means "at the mouth of the well of the wizard of water." During times of drought, the people of Chichén Itzá made sacrificial offerings to Sagrado Cenote, the sacred cenote, which provided life-giving water to the citizens. Materials recovered from the cenote include gold, obsidian, jade, pottery, shell, wood, rubber, cloth and the skeletons of men and children.

hooded merganser

hooded merganser

with wounded wings flees from my

inept rescue attempts

This story begins and ends with a small white feather. I find the first one lying on golden pine needles, then a few more scattered along the path through tall pines on the west side of Pleasant Lake. Seeing so many feathers, I surmise that some bird ran afoul of a four-legged predator.
          After I cross a little wooden foot bridge, I catch sight of movement in the bushes, some kind of brown bird, awkwardly thrashing through the undergrowth. At first I think it must be a baby that can't fly yet, but it is rather large. The bird keeps flopping and falling over, and when I get a clear view I see that it can't fly because its wings are broken, the left wing ragged and bent forward, the right wing nearly torn from the bird's body.
          The bird has a striking crest of cinnamon feathers on top of the head like an open fan, a long, pointed black beak, round golden eyes, black feet and a short tail. Her plain brown color suggests that she is a female, but I've never seen a bird like this. Later, my birder friend identifies the bird as a female Hooded Merganser, a small duck native to North America. Short-distance migrants, they move north in the spring as the weather warms up. Mergansers are monogamous and this female probably has a mate and a nest, though hopefully containing only eggs, not babies.
          As I continue to follow the mysterious bird through the brush, the frantic duck, driven by fear, rolls down the muddy bank of the stream, falls into the shallow water, and flounders with her head sinking under, unable to right herself. Afraid that she will drown, I rush over, lift her up by her feet and place her on the bridge. She just lies there quietly, the raw red wound of the torn wing painfully obvious. 
          What to do? In a flash, I remember the Bird Lady at Morningstar Farm who rehabilitates raptors. Years ago I brought two redheaded woodpeckers to her after I found them on the highway. The one with the broken wing survived and the Bird Lady was able to release it, but the one with the broken leg had been down too long. I feel a surge of hope that this duck, injured recently, might be rescued. But how to get the bird to her? 
          I'm afraid to just pick her up because she will struggle out of my hands. I figure I'll wrap the bird in my jacket for protection. But as I start to take it off, the duck flops off the bridge into the stream and disappears under the bridge. Now what?
          We play hide and seek for awhile, the duck popping out on the opposite side of the bridge from where I'm peering. Finally, I withdraw up the path for awhile. When I sneak back, she is huddled on the path on the far side of the bridge. When she sees me, she starts hobbling away into the brush and down the creek. I give up trying to chase her, feeling helpless to help her. 
          But I walk away feeling guilty that I didn't do enough to aid a living creature in distress. Her chances of survival are pretty slim. She's in shock from the wound, she can't fly and she can't dive for food. After I'm far from the bridge, it occurs to me that perhaps the humane thing to do would be to put her out of her misery. But I can't bring myself to do that.
          The next day I return with a towel and a box, but the only evidence I find of the Hooded Merganser is one small white feather on the bank of the stream.
          My wise friend says that the mind holds onto guilt, whereas the light of love just wants to enter through the back door of the heart and flood it with forgiveness. It will take some time, she says, so just stay open.

a room for men to rest

a room for men to rest --

deadwood around a live tree,

signs of an artist

Not far off the path in a little grove of trees on the west side of Bonnefield Lake, someone has cobbled together a little hut from deadwood piled up around the pillar of a live tree. Pasted on the trunk are little slips of paper neatly printed with words pertaining to relatives: father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, niece, nephew, lover. And on the ground is a collection of miniature watercolors with titles like "Knee on heart, I love them all," "Florescent Bulb," "Way," and below a faded sign advertising MEN'S RESTROOM BASEMENT, "a room for men to rest." It's certainly a cozy place to rest, with a couple of logs beside the remains of a fire in front of the hut, polka dots of sunlight pouring through holes in the grass roof, and a clear view of the lake. Yet how many people pass by on the path and don't even notice, let alone take time to rest in the little room?

spring at Bonnefield Lake

spring at Bonnefield Lake,

wild plum humming with bees,

couples everywhere

Early April but it feels like July, 88 F (31 C). I'm sweating as I walk around Bonnefield Lake after lunch. Passing a thicket of wild plum in bloom, humming with bees drawn by the sweet scent, I spot a pair of bikes lying on the path. Their owners, drawn by the water, are perched on the bank. Completely engrossed in each other, they don't even notice me passing by. A pair of ducks do notice me before I see them, flying off in a flurry of splashing water. And a pair of snapping turtles, sunning on a dead cedar tree a few feet from shore, slip into the water when I approach. 

back to a blue wall

back to a blue wall

a man in blue jeans reads

the morning paper

Early morning, Calle 8 Norte, half a block from the beach -- a man in work clothes, quietly reading his paper, looks up at a tourist looking back at him. The smiling tourist reflected in the glass door seems to be thinking, "What a colorful local character." The man's resigned expression seems to say, "La temporada turistica."