Los Nuevos Nietos de Bruce

Los Nuevos Nietos de Bruce or Bruce's new grand- children. That's what people here are saying. And of course like any new bundle of joy, everyone wants to hold and plays with them both. The exciting day was February 1, 2006, in Tlacotalpan, VeraCruz.

Jarana measured in at 23" and 4 pounds, Requinto at 22" and 4.12 pounds!
We are celebrating the new "additions" to the family Mexican style. The tradition here is for the grandparent to publicly introduce the new members of the family. Bruce is doing just that. He takes them on visits to friend's houses, to class, even to the cantina! He is having a special carrying case made for the two- in the meantime he carefully craddles them in his backpack, and off they go!
Felicidades Bruce!

photos: Tlacotalpan

more photos:Tlacotalpan

Trip to Tlacotalpan, state of Veracruz

I journeyed for four days to the small town of Tlacotalpan (Tlac..rhymnes with Clock..koh-TAHL-pahn)about an hour or so south of the city of Veracruz, in the state of Veracruz, on the east coast of Mexico,from Jan.28-Feb.2
Tlacotalpan is an Aztec name meaning "place between the waters". It used to be an island between two rivers, now it hungs alongside of the quite wide, Papaloapan river that starts in the Sierra Norte mountains of Oaxaca and empties into the Gulf of Mexico. This city served as a very critical alternate sea port for Mexico, when Veracruz was occupied and under invasion from the U.S. in 1847, and by the French in 1838, and 1864-67.
The streets of this slow, comfortable and humid city are small and with wide pedestrian sidewalks that border right up to the porches and front doors of houses.There are no large walls and facades that cover and hide the homes, as usual in many Mexican towns. Here, as you walk by, you can see right into the salons of the house through large screened windows and decorative wrought iron grillwork.
Tlacotalpan lives out the tropical side of it's personality. Much more casual than Oaxaca and other inland cities, Tlacotalpans behave in-time with the rhythms of living so close to the sea. Slow, regular beats is the tempo of the day, and the night brings on a quicker and highly social dance..cooled off by the evening gulf breeze.
And the people here are more at ease and comfortable with their skin. You see more of it, you see sandals, short skirts, men in T-shirts..and the skin has the characteristic Veracruz regional mixed color shades of the Caribbean and Africa.
The music is what what brought me here, and I will make another blog on that, but I also was there during the Festival of Candlemas, and this attracts many from the state of Veracruz.
The mass of candles, or Candlemass, comes out of the Eastern and Northern European Cathlolic traditions. Candlemass is the last festival in the Christian year that is referenced to Christmas. It marks the end of the Christmas and Epiphany. All the next holidays are referenced to Easter. The formal name of the festival is, Purification of the Virgin Mary, or Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. In Luke 2:21, the holy man Simon reconizes the baby Jesus and calls him " a light for revelation "...and so the tradition of bringing candles to the church to be blessed by the priests and then brought home. Now, there is an extension of this in Mexico, of candles and bringing favorite family saints and other memorabilia.
The music and dance in the region of Veracruz is often fast and free-spirited. Everyone, from musician to audience is likey to add in with a short improvished lyric or dance step.
The laughter is bigger here, the hugs are stronger. Perhaps just like the architecture here, with the new friends that you meet on the streets...you can see past their large, decorative smiles and right into the interior of the person, their salon..rather easily. They invite you right in. The warmth of the tropics perhaps.

Adios, Bruce

Twilight of our journey

As we walked across the fields, the sun dropped and lay like a great golden globe in the low west. While it hung there, the moon rose in the east. For five, perhaps ten minutes, the two luminaries confronted each other, resting on opposite edges of the world.
In that singular light every tree, every sunflower stalk and fence drew itself up high and pointed; the furrows in the fields seemed to stand up sharply. I felt the old pull of the earth, the solemn magic that comes at nightfall.
I wished I could be a little boy again, and that my way could end there.

Willa Cather

For Katy and I, our journey in Mexico is in it's twilight. Over half is gone, we have four months to go. With that singular fact, every adventure, each meeting with dear amigos Oaxaquenos...stands out and is cherished.
At times, we desire to start it all over again. Tempting to end our journey...by remaining here...and desiring to see the new dawn again of friends and family back in California.
These two luminaries confront one another. These two emotions must be lived out, as we live out the day and the night. Four months to go! Que un milagro!

Psalm 104:19 He made the moon for the seasons; the sun knows the place of its setting.

Prayer of a Mayan chieftan:

Grant me Lord, a little light, be it no more than a glowworm gives which goes about by night, to guide me through this life.
This dream, which seems to last but a day, wherein are many things on which to stumble, and many things at which to laugh.
And others like unto a stony path along which one goes leaping.

Angels of the Family

The angel of the family is Woman. Mother, wife, or sister. Women is the caress of life, soothing sweetness of affection shed over its toils, a reflection for the individual of loving providence.
Moreover, for everyone of us she is the initiator of the future. The mother's first kiss teaches the child love, the first holy kiss of the woman he loves teaches man hope and faith in life; and love and faith create a desire for perfection and the power of reaching towards it step by step; create the future, in short, a link between us and the generations to come. Through her the family, with its divine mystery of reproduction, points to Eternity.

Guiseppe Mazzini

Here in Mexico, I have been awed by the force and culture of the woman. Emotional and spiritual love abounding...huge part of the soul of this country. Huge.
Que un milagro, Bruce

Feb. 14: Gracias, Amor

I cannot promise you very much.
I give you the images I know.
Lie still with me and watch.
We laugh and we touch.
I promise you love. Time will not take that away.

Anne Sexton

gracias, Bruce

Heart to Heart

It is not the level of prosperity that makes for happiness, but the kinship of heart to heart and the way that we look at the world.

Solzhenitsyn

photo: Don Lazaro and Dona Sofia
San Bartolo Coyotepec, Oaxaca

married 61 years.

Weaving: pueblo- Todos Santos, Guatemala

With the decline of painting and drawing in recent years, in favor of hands-off processes like video recording...I worry about further withdrawal of the body with increasingly depersonalized creativity in our computerized age. It is already a given that many young architects can't draw, relying on circuitry to do their imagery for them. Nor can many model, never having built things with their hands as children, and felt the pliancy and fragility of structures..the interelationship of empty space and solid mass.

Edmund Morris

Weaving: Chiapas/Guatemala

In Mexico and Guatemala, textile production and trade have been the core to the life of the Maya. Weaving was the woman's territory until the introduction of the treadle loom by the Spanish colonialists in the 16th century. Mayan women comtinue to weave on the pre-conquest backstrap loom. This is not as fast as the treadle loom, but the parts are inexpensive and the loom is portable.
Simple technology means that almost anyone can own a loom. Mobility for indoors or out, at a friend's house or marketplace, or while watching children at home. Mayan women usually wake up at dawn to care for children and livestock, grind corn and make tortillas and food for the family. Then after this they start their weaving for the day.
The act of weaving textile crafts yields functional objects like clothing, socializes children, and helps shape inter-generational relationships. Girls usually start at 7-8 yrs. old. And as toddlers, Mayan girls are given a weaving stick in a ritual. Later they practice kneeling in the weaver's position as they play nearby. Girls are told to pray for inspiration for designs.
The Spanish also taught Mayan women embroidery and Catholic symbols that they blended with traditional Mayan designs.
We bought a table-runner from Senora Lorenza in the pueblo of Zinacantan, just north of San Cristobal de Las Casas in Chiapas. We had a tour of her simple home and were shown sweet hospitality, smiles, and serious handmade art forms.

Gracias, artistas.

Origen of Coffee: Mayan legend

Coffee was found by a goat who was in the livestock yard. The owner took the sheep out each day and they stayed around close by, but the goat went straight to eat coffee in the hills.
And it ate and ate and ate the pure fruit. And then it goes back to the yard and craps and craps and craps. And so, people began investigating what the seeds were that they were finding.
So, what is this seed?..said the owners, Now we are going to watch! The goat went out and the owners followed, hiding behind it. When the goat arrived, it began to eat, and they saw that there was a tree that had ripening fruit on it..and that was what the goat was eating.
And so, they went back, still hiding. And when it was dawn again, they had around them coffee seeds. So they began ivestigating and studying it. And the result was coffee.
Coffee arrived in the mountains, coffee owns the mountains, and it's been that way ever since.

The End.

The origins of coffee seem to be from Ethiopia, Africa.
Coffee came to Mexico in 1790.
60% of all Mexican coffee is grown by Indigenous people.
91% of Indigenous growers cultivate on 5 acres or less.

More praise of Chiapas

So green are these hills, and so round and so many, that they suggest the massive tumuli of some gigantic and immerorially ancient race of man. I have walked upon them and extracted from their timeless earthiness the profoundest peace, which is possible to know.

Alan Devoe