Reflection, Repentance, Forgivenes: El día de San Juan Bautista

By Guest Blogger Sandra del Castillo

“Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”  And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Mark 1:2-4

In the early 90’s my children and I lived in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán. One June 24th we were visiting a village around the Lake when we noticed youth throwing one another into the plaza fountain, amidst screams of delight and much laughter. They were also carrying buckets of water, which they splashed onto willing or unknowing passersby.

The children and I decided to watch from the shaded sidewalk. Doña Simona, an elderly indigenous woman explained to us that it was St. John the Baptist’s Day.

“Siempre le celebramos a San Juan con agua. Hay que bañarse en agua fresco or estar bañado!” she smiled. We always celebrate St. John with water. You either have to bathe in fresh water or get bathed!

Having lived in different regions of Mexico for over 14 years, I have found that no matter where you live, when el día de San Juan Bautista arrives, be prepared to bathe!

In case you’re not familiar with the biblical tale, John the Baptist was a harbinger of Christ. He wandered the desert in a fervor preaching repentance and forgiveness.

He lived off of honey, locusts, and carob and baptized in the river Jordan. Baptism promised forgiveness and the crowds flocked to the Baptist for their salvation.

As heralded, Jesus arrived one day to ask John to baptize him. John recognized him at once and replied that it was Jesus who should baptize him. When Jesus assured him that the baptism of Jesus by John was the way it must be, John agreed.

During the baptism, the heavens were said to open and a celestial light shone down. A white dove appeared above Jesus’ head and a heavenly voice was heard to say, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”

The Baptist fell instantly to his knees for he knew the one he had been heralding had arrived at last. Isaiah’s prophesy had been fulfilled.

The story reflects, in part, the power of baptism, humility, and how important it is to do what you were called to do.

In the opening passage from Mark, former president Jimmy Carter notes that the key words are repentance, baptism, and forgiveness. Sounds like a good summer recipe to me!

A St. John the Baptist Day Recipe
Add one tablespoon of self-reflection, two for repentance.
Add one heaping serving of fresh water, and two more for celebration!

The ritual cleansing with water was a universal practice during the summer solstice, which falls this year on June 21st.  Reinvigorating and renewing, it continues to be a joyful way to welcome summer.

This June I encourage you to honor San Juan Bautista with this ancient ritual. To repentance, baptism, and forgiveness, I have added the necessary ingredient, reflection. As el día de San Juan Bautista approaches, there is plenty to repent and ask forgiveness for.

As we move into the summer, let us take the time to reflect, and consider the devastation in the Gulf of Mexico. Though we may not be residents of the gulf coast region who have been suffering the effects of this fatal disaster since April 20th, what happens there affects us all. There is much to pray for.

A powerful tool, prayer has been scientifically proven to be particularly effective when shared in community.

As the oil continues to gush out of control and the “experts” prove unable to cap it, let us be steadfast in our prayer and intent.

Let us pray that the right people find their way to the depths of our ocean floor and stop the mythological beast that has been set loose. Let us pray for the families whose livelihoods and environment are being destroyed as a result, and for the wildlife; that they begin to move and migrate away from their poisoned habitats. Let us pray not just today, but every day until the disaster is contained.

After your prayers and meditation, immerse yourself in a fresh body of water. Regardless the form it takes, whether a clean river, a pool, your shower or a water balloon fight, allow the water of forgiveness to wash over you.

Feel it cleansing and healing your wounds and those you may have caused others. Imagine courageous heroes healing the bleeding puncture wound at our oceans depths with caring and expertise.

I close this prayer to San Juan by paraphrasing two powerful women, first the Chilean novelist Isabel Allende, “Envision not a better world, but “a good one.” and Russian Jewish feminist icon Emma Goldman when she said, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”Amen and happy summer!

A Tribute to the Spring Equinox

Spring Cleaning & Spring Equinox- equinox is the time of year when the length of the day and night are equal.

“Solo venimos a sembrar, solo venimos a cortar flores…” -Nahuatl poem

This year the vernal equinox arrives at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, March 20th. All over Mexico thousands will dress in white and go to the pyramids to greet the spring. People from all continents and walks of life gather every year at these remarkable pyramid-temple sites.

The indigenous do ritual alongside the new age. In clay chalices called copaleros, they burn the sacred resin called copal as part of a cleansing ritual. Tour guides offer their services, as thousands of tourists walk the grounds in awe.

The pyramids are indeed awesome in the original sense of the word. They are a step into the timelessness of eternity, and a memorable way to welcome the season of new life.

With spring equinox upon us, it’s a wonderful time to ally ourselves with the natural world and do ritual of our own. Spring cleaning is the best way to start, both inwardly and outwardly.

As we transition from winter to spring, many of us have suffered colds, sore throats, and/or malaise in general. Pesto is one of my favorite internal spring tonics. Wonderfully delicious, basil and garlic help knock out infections, and purify the blood. Combined with the toasted pine nuts, it provides protein and is also a natural energizer!

Spring cleaning of the home and community was an ancient tradition in all cultures. In rhythm with nature, it is a way of starting fresh. For me, it’s time to get out the broom, dust out the cobwebs, and recycle all the recyclables, including clothes I no longer wear and books that overflow on my shelves.

Once the house is clean, I burn copal and give thanks. Then I head to the mountains for a hike, alone, or with family and friends.

Having left Mexico five years ago, I’ve been living in Los Angeles and Griffith Park has become my backyard and holy grounds, as it were. This year on the mountain, I’ll leave an offering of Mexican corn in honor of la Virgen Guadalupe-Tonantzín. I’ll give thanks for the winter that brought us Angelenos so much rain and now, blesses us with so much green in these desert mountains.

I’ll give thanks for the amazingly, powerful songs of such wee birds, for the clucking of the ravens, and for the soaring red tail hawks, for the lanky coyote tricksters, and for the graceful antlered buck that my daughter and I saw this winter roaming these mountainsides.

I’ll pray for wildlife everywhere, and for our collective awakening as an evolving human family living in justice, peace, harmony, and abundance. I’ll pray for my personal needs and those of my family, and friends.

And like these cuervos tan escandolosos, I’ll cackle from sheer delight and the wonder that being in nature brings. This Saturday, where ever you are, I invite you to listen to the song of the birds and create your own life-renewing spring ritual!

Canto e invocación a la anciana ~winter solstice 2009

“La Anciana and the Solstice”

“Around her hearth is where she plays music and resounds- says, shouts and whistles, says. She is the mistress of the household says… Her voice and her breath are good, says. There is no problem nor any difficulty, says. There is no garbage, there is no dust- says.
Around her fire are the three stones of her hearth. Woman of the shade- says, woman of the doors- says, woman of the dooryard- says, …woman who dances- says, woman who shakes things up- says.
Bless her against evil whirlwinds and bad air- says, you are her voice and her breath- says.”
~Maria Aurora, Oaxacan healer

The mythopoetic chants of María Aurora were recorded in 1956 during a night-long vigil and healing ceremony, with her renowned aunt, Oaxacan shamaness, Maria Sabina. Like myth, the chants are metaphoric, healing, and alive. The imagery is that of an empowered woman. From her hearth, or place of power, she has the ability to travel between worlds, cleansing, healing, celebrating, and shaking things up in general. “Her voice and her breath are good.” She is honest and trustworthy. Protected from, she  protects against “evil whirlwinds” and mal aire. “You,” she says “are her voice and breath.” La anciana bestows her gifts upon the listener and reader!

As we approach the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, it seems appropriate to invoke la anciana, the elder, wise woman who brings medicine to the heart, mind, body and soul.

Among the ancient Mayan, turning 52 was a rite of passage in which one became an elder. 52 marks four cycles of thirteen and it is a sacred number to the Mayan. Respected and sought out for their wisdom, the elders, both, men and women, served the larger, extended family. They were intrinsic in keeping the larger community healthy and thriving as well.

Approaching my 55th year, I gratefully glean the wisdom of la anciana any and every where it happens upon me.  As we move towards an evolutionary shift in human consciousness, the voice of la anciana has begun to seep through the seams of our ailing society. Rising up through the cracks in our sidewalks, it glides freely in the whispers and echoes of the wind. It is found in the mythopoetry of indigenous healers, in the work of visionaries like Jean Houston and Barbara Marx Hubbard, who at 80 is a thriving force in the movement of “women on the edge of evolution.”

I find it among brave, single mothers and women facing serious illnesses, who still smile and laugh, cackle even at the slings and arrows of (seemingly) outrageous fortune.

La anciana’s wisdom is evident in the dedication of my sister Claudia, companion to my almost octogenarian mother, while working full time, (clearly a nominee for bodhisattvahood!)

I hear la anciana speaking daily through courageous, women journalists, storytellers, and professional women everywhere who are sharing their stories. Her voice is heard in engaging workshops and via fascinating tele-seminars by networking women and powerful Latinas like Aurelia Flores!

I find it among colleagues and am surprised and delighted when her wisdom surfaces among middle and high school students. I am blessed as I find her in my loving daughters whose wisdom and wit keep me laughing and on my toes, and whose tears bring to my knees.

This winter solstice on the longest night, I will take a moment to light a candle and go within, in search of la anciana. I want to thank her for the wisdom she has shared with me this year, for the courage she has given me to allow grief and move through it, and for the kindred spirits found in the unsuspecting nooks and crannies of our tumultuous planet, as one sun cycle dies and a new one spreads it seeds. I want to thank her in particular for the rich pages of the Powerful Latina where her wisdom and sabor have been duly appreciated and savored!

-Sandra del Castillo

Latina Leadership Lessons from La Bruja: A Different View of the Supernatural/ Spiritual Connection

From guest blogger Sandra del Castillo, mythologist, writer, and performance artist – a comment on Maria Sabina.

It begins w/an excerpt of her chants during the velada ceremony and concludes with a very brief overview of her work, from a mythopoetic viewpoint

María Sabina: March 17, 1894- November 22, 1985,
Huatla, Oaxaca, Mexico

“Holy Mary, says
She is the Morning Star woman, says
She is the Cross Star woman, says
She is the Constellation of the Sandal woman, says
She is the Hook Constellation woman, says
I am the little woman of the great expanse of the waters, says
I am the little woman of the expanse of the divine sea, says
Holy Father, says
She is a saint woman, says
She is a hummingbird woman, says
She is a humming bird woman, says
She is a woman with vibrant wings, says
She is a woman of good words, says
Of good words, good breath, good saliva, says
…I am woman who looks into the insides of things and investigates, says
I am a woman of sap, says
I am a woman of the dew, says
I am a green woman, says
I am a woman of clarity, says
There is nobody who frightens us, says
There is nobody hovering around, says
I am a woman who cleans, says”

-María Sabina during a velada

The mythopoetic chants of the beloved Mazatec wise woman María Sabina are timeless, their healing power, transformative and palpable. Deemed transmissions from what Henry Munn referred to as the mushrooms of language, the shamaness explained, “Language belongs to the saint children. They speak and I have the power to translate.”

Jerome Rothenberg further elucidates this phenomenon in his preface to the remarkable book, Maria Sabina Her Life and Chants, by Alvaro Estrada, translated by Henry Munn; with a retrospective essay by R. Gordon Wasson, “Her qualification of each line with the word tzo - “says” is testimony to that: that it isn’t María Sabina but the unspoken he/she/it whose words these are.” He goes on to say of her chants, “here is language as medicine, its ancient function: for, as she chants, “with words we live and grow,”… and “I cured them with the language of the children.”

María Sabina called the Psilocybe mushrooms the saint children, as well as many other terms of affection. “I take Little-One-Who-Springs-Forth,” she said, “and I see God.” The mushrooms were ingested during the velada ceremony, an ancient Mesoamerican healing ceremony. Practiced at night and in secret for over 500 years after the arrival of the Spaniards to the Americas, the velada ceremony was brought to the attention of the non-indigenous western world in the 1960’s. The Beatles and Bob Dylan were among the many diverse seekers that sought out this great wise woman for her remarkable and profound healing gifts.

Sandra del Castillo is a language teacher, soon –to-be grandmother, writer, and passionate student of Mexican and Yoruba mythology. She formed and directed her own informal theatre company during her 14 year stay in Mexico called Teatro Azul, Dreams, Myth, and Legends - where she had the privilege and honor of working with professional actors, dancers, musicians, archaeologists, and shaman. She is currently compiling Mexican legends to publish and bring to life through theatre and film.

La Llorona de Michoacan

La Llorona, the wailing woman, remains one of Mexico’s most prevalent legends. A version not so renowned comes from the state of Michoacán. In Purhépecha lore, the Llorona archetypes were called Auicanimes or Naná Ku-Kú.  These were women who died in labor, trying to give birth to their first child.

Having observed their plight, the benevolent earth mother Cueraperi, bestowed upon them the status of warrior goddesses. She then transformed the Lloronas into stars to serve the new moon goddess Xaratanga, patroness of childbirth and the farmers, who planted with her cycles. At Xaratanga’s side, the Lloronas became celestial midwives, as it were, aiding the new moon goddess safeguard pregnant women throughout gestation and childbirth.

Legend has it, however, that on the dark of the moon, in particular, grief would sometimes overcome the Auicanimes, and they would return to the earth via the waterways which acted as portals between worlds.

Seeking their lost children, the Lloronas appeared as women in mourning, pallid ghosts dressed in beautiful huipiles and wrapped in the traditional rebozo, reflecting the night sky. Roaming alongside rivers, lakes, and wells, the Lloronas wandered, seeking their lost children, wailing their piercing lament to the long, black night.

Evoking profound fear, particularly for their children, the Purhépecha had specific rituals for the Lloronas. They burned the resinous copal incense and prayed in order to coax them to return to Xaratanga, to perform their midwifery duties, insuring that other pregnant women not suffer their fate.

Over the centuries, the Llorona has metamorphosed into a modern-day “bogey man” and to this day, in small villages children are still warned not to stay out late and to stay far away from bodies of water, so as not to be robado por La Llorona!

-Sandra del Castillo
Sources: “La Religión Prehispanica de Los Purhépechas- un testimonio del pueblo Tarasco” – by Francisco Hurtado Mendoza,  Morelia Michoacán, 1986

“La Relación de Michoacán- de las ceremonias, ritos, y población y gobierno de los indios de la provincia” -1541- preliminary study- Professor José Corona Nuñez, University of Michoacán, archaelogist of the National Institute of Anthropology of Mexico