Last year, I attended a workshop with Mexican healer Sergio Magaña at the Open Center in New York City. A portion of this two-day workshop focused on the Mayan/Aztec calendar. Like some of you, I followed the hype around 2012 with its myriad books and scary movies about how this was going to be the […]
Category: latin america
Our Underworlds and Mexico
Mexico, what do you think of when you hear this word? Perhaps it is tacos and tequila that comes to your mind, or maybe an enjoyable vacation you took there by the beach. Or it could be that you think of drugs and danger, poverty and violence. Maybe images of some Hollywood movie comes to […]
Singing at the Border
A dream about the US-Mexican border
Honoring the Mountain, Honoring the Water
Imagine partying non-stop for a month, as a sacred act. That’s what goes on throughout much of the Ecuadorian Andes starting on the summer solstice. In a tradition that extends back to long before the Inca in this part of the globe, communities and villages celebrate Inti Raymi, or the sun festival long and hard. […]
HEALING WITH THE HELP OF IMBABURA AND COTOCACHI
Mama Maria climbed the stairs of her two bedroom concrete home in the small town of Iluman, Ecuador to get something. What could it be? I had arrived to her place half an hour ago. It had taken the taxi a few minutes to locate her clinic, since the sign announcing she was a “yachak” […]
COMPLEMENTARY DUALITY
Complementary duality is one of the central precepts of indigenous Andean and Aztec/Toltec wisdom and spirituality (as well as many other spiritual traditions and cultures). In the origin myth of the Toltec, our world was begun by two beings (not one). Colloquially translated as “Mr” and “Mrs” – they are believed to together have created […]
HEALING AND POLITICS
Published in the Monadnock Shopper News – February 8-14, 2017 This column is supposed to be about healing and often we are told that talking about politics or anything that could be confrontational and divisive is not healing. But I beg to disagree, especially now given events in the political arena that seem to be […]
Apu Mt. Monadnock
In the central Andes, where the second highest mountain chain makes their imposing presence viscerally felt, the indigenous people have since time immemorial venerated their mountain peaks. Quechua-speakers (the language of the Inca Empire) call them Apus. Certain Apus are designated sacred mountain peaks, based upon teachings of the wise ones. Typically these sacred Apus […]
Apu Mt. Monadnock
In the central Andes, where the second highest mountain chain makes their imposing presence viscerally felt, the indigenous people have since time immemorial venerated their mountain peaks. Quechua-speakers (the language of the Inca Empire) call them Apus. Certain Apus are designated sacred mountain peaks, based upon teachings of the wise ones. Typically these sacred Apus […]
ANDEAN RITUAL CLEANING – From my monthly column in Keene, NH
I am writing this article from Otavalo, Ecuador, after a visit with the shaman Jorge Tamayo who recently carried out a ritual cleaning for me. Don Jorge, as he is known, is a gentle spoken man of an indescribable age who speaks Quechua and a spotty Spanish. About five feet tall, he lives with his […]
SKYE'S WRITING 