InTheTemazcal

The trail just above New Mexico State University at Alamogordo, NM. Image from My Track app, on Google Maps satellite image. My most productive and enjoyable days at work include a hike. My workplace, located in the foothills of the Sacramento Mountains of southern New Mexico, affords me the opportunity to hike a trail just above my workplace. It's the closest trail and makes for a reasonable 30-35 minute work out. The Benefits of Hiking During My Work Day Hiking during a break in my work day has benefits for my work goals and my personal well being. Here are a few of them... Improved Focus.  This particular trail has a few stretches of unstable rocks that will roll under the feet of a distracted hiker. I've actually sprained my ankle on this trail once, and I've taken a hard, headfirst fall while hiking there on another occasion. The rough trail conditions force me to practice focus (or suffer the consequences I just described). I focus, especially on t...

International organizations use the Banner of Peace as a symbol in celebration of a Day Out of Time. "Where there is peace, there is culture. Where there is culture there is peace." - Nicolas Roerich Today some South Americans celebrate the Mayan culture's celebrates Day Out of Time, which marks the end of the Mayan 13 Moon Calendar ( Tzolkin ) year. The day falls outside the tallied days of the calendar, as a day of reverence and cultural appreciation. Thirteen 28-day months make up the Tzolkin calendar, corresponding to the 13 revolutions of the moon around the planet within our solar year. As a calendar based upon the lunar orbit, many cultures associate it with the feminine, cyclic aspects of our world and life as two-legged ones. Twenty-eight days also corresponds to the average length of the human menstrual cycle. I like Ellie Crystal's  description of the celebration of the Day Out of Time . She wrote, ... "The Day Out of Time is celebrated...

As a young man, busy paddling my canoe, studying, building my curriculum vita, getting my name in front of my influencers, and testing social limits, five minutes of mindfulness practice took a tremendous effort...a confounding irony in itself. My mind was excited and full of ideas and curiosity; my body was full of testosterone. Chaotic People on Charles Bridge in Prague Photo by Viktor Hanacek, on picjumbo.com With age, the ideas have joined the wind. The once red-hot ashes of curiosity have long since soaked into the earth to green the grasses of someone else's summer. Testosterone has become a number, rather than an incentive. Today I slip into a mindful state much like the the muscles of my legs adjust to the trail slope, without convincing them to do so. Mindfulness gets easier with age for several reasons: Practice Makes ...  I started consciously practicing mindfulness, specifically, as a student at Northern Illinois University , in DeKalb, Illinois. An of...

I wore this pendant, a gift from El Oso, which reminded me of the red road on which he led me. While today I mostly write of the temazcal from memory, at one time I lived it, attending twice a week and giving my time and effort in service as often as my work and energy allowed. I had become accustomed to the Circulo de los Osos (the Bears' Circle) and its caminantes as my family. Although I spent only a few years with them, those years coincided with important new apertures in my mind and material world experiences. A professional change in my life provided motive to move away from that group. Although I made the move willingly and thoughtfully, I found myself in my new world with little external emotional or spiritual support. The Coping Tools I Used Not long ago, when I rejoined my hermano , or brother, from the Circulo de los Osos , Oso Hector, he asked me to share with the others of his temazcal ceremony the answer to the question, "How did I endure my move...

Eduardo Gomes–Manaus International Airport, Manaus, Brazil. Source: Wikimedia. As the circle continues, Jordan returns from Manaus to his family and home, in the Midwest. May the jornada , or journey,  home give him time to reflect, and may he take the opportunity to experience his present and enjoy the wonder of travel in a world of technology, bringing him home safely to his loving family. On my part, I awoke at four in the morning just in time to see the waxing moon ... a sliver away from the full moon, in a clear sky, through my window. I thought of Jordan and his jornada and of his father's request that I've fulfilled through my thoughts each day during his journey. I'm grateful to have participated, and I'm glad to have done my part, so far. I'll be looking for a message to let me know that he has arrived safely, and I will provide my thanks then. ...con todas mis relaciones!

Catedral Nossa Senhora da Conceição - Manaus, Brazil. The night of the second Sunday of Jordan's travels, finds the waxing gibbous moon of mid-July two nights away from the full moon. Today Jordan and his group celebrate their holy day ... Sunday. I'm guessing that they will attend mass ... perhaps a mass dedicated to thanksgiving for the fruits of their travels and the time they've spent together practicing English and celebrating the gospel. I'm guessing that they will revisit, in their minds, the human bonds that have formed during these days. Here, to the north, my wife and I celebrate our morning with rest, and I give thanks for rest from the week's work. I'm thankful that Jordan too has this day of rest and wonder how he'll spend his day. Happy Sunday, Jordan. ...con todas mis relaciones! 

I asked Osa Lety of the Circulo de los Osos , on the western edge of the City of Durango, Mexico, to remind me how we began each temazcal . She wrote, in an abbreviated version,... "Ancianos y ancianas de la tradicion sagrada,  te pedimos permiso para inciciar nuestra ceremonia de temazcal,  agradeciendo a la Madre Tierra,  a los cuatro elementos, y a los guardianes de este lugar." That translates, approximately, to ... "Ancient ones of the sacred tradition, we ask your permission to iniate our sweat lodge ceremony, thanking the Mother Earth, the four elements, and the guardians of this place." In the temazcal ceremony our guides, Osos, Lety and Mario , began with this humble petition, addressing the ancient ones, or the elders that came before us. They would ask their permission to initiate the ceremony and gave thanks before anything else occurred in the darkness of the lodge. As I recall the petition, which has come to mind in my ten day dedicat...

On day five of the new moon of the beginning of July of 2016, during the waxing crescent, Jordan began his journey from the Midwest to Manaus. Today, on the seventh day of his trip, the waxing gibbous moon will shine its twelfth day on both of us. "And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done." Genesis 2:2, New Revised Standard Version I wonder how he rested today, and I wonder how his church will rest tomorrow, on its holy day. As I, myself, rest today, I give thanks that Jordan is enjoying this opportunity with the  Christ Community Church Brazil Go Team! I'm thankful for Hung's attention to frequent invitations to participate in important events in his life. I'm thankful for the news I hear, off and on about the health and union of his immediate family and all of his relationships. I'm thankful for interacting with him and my opportunity, health, and willingness to ...

Part of my friend Hung's success comes from prudent spending. We joke about it often, when we talk, and he told me that his son, Jordan, learned to play the drums by practicing with cardboard boxes. I admire that, and I admire that Jordan has become quite the drummer (I saw a video that Hung sent me) by beginning his practice on boxes. I think that it's good for us to learn to achieve our goals without investing first in the material aspects of those goals. I wondered, today, why he had invited me, and I know that it's because we're friends. But, I also thought about his time and effort and material expenses. I know well that he would not spend 50 or 60¢, plus time and effort to send me an envelope if he did not expect a response. But, what was he thinking? What could I have to offer Jordan? I've wondered that every day since I began planning this task of daily praying. What benefit could Jordan possibly receive from me praying for him every day? I know...

On day 13 of July, on the Gregorian calendar, on this waxing quarter moon, and five days since Jordan arrived in the Heart of the Amazon, I wonder... How has his trip gone? How is he doing? How are his father and mother doing? Is Jordan feeling the accomplishment of what he has set out to do?  Neither nor his family have word from him; that is part of the plan. The only thing we might do is try to relate our world to his. From here, in the northern reaches of the Chihuahuan Desert, I imagine him, in a gigantic city in the middle of the world's largest tropical rainforest. I have traveled and worked in the tropics of Latin America, so I can relate to his environment. I have seen the photos from his last trip, and I know that he has a free, vibrant spirit, from what his father has told me. I know that his father and mother feel pride in him and his sister. I know the town where he grew up...changed as it has, surely, since I walked the night streets there. I close my ...

The medicine wheel in my back yard. Having missed yesterday, due to illness, writing a post dedicated to Jordan's mission in Manaus Brazil, I decided that it was time to visit a medicine wheel that I had made and frequented near my home. The Oso Mario, in Durango, Mexico, had introduced me to the medicine wheel, and I read about it in John G. Neihardt's book, Black Elk Speaks .  During the waxing moon of mid-June, when I returned to Durango, the Oso Hector asked me, in the temazcal, to share with the fellow caminantes how I dealt with the four years away from the temazcal while in the U.S. Hector knew that I had moved from Durango to a small village just below the Mescalero Apache Reservation in the foothills of the Sacramento Mountains, in southeastern New Mexico. There, the Apaches, my brother, Kelton told me, do not traditionally practice temazcal , or sweat lodges, as they're known in most of the United States. Because I had no nearby caminantes with who...

Jordan's previous English Camp Jami (mother), Jordan, and Hung (father). Jordan's father, at my request, provided me with photos that helped me visualize and appreciate Jordan's mission. It's all about relationships and sharing: knowing others. Relationships and sharing through ceremony take us to new people and places where we interact differently from how we interact with the beings around us on a daily basis. Different interactions in a different setting challenge us to find new solutions...again, to see with new eyes. ... con todas mis relaciones.

Oso Mario, from whom I learned much of the ways of the red road, was, when I met him, the guide of the Circle of the Osos. On the foothills of the Sierra Madre Occidental, just on the outskirts of the City of Durango, Mexico, upon drenched, gritty clay-sand floor of the temazcal of the Osos, Mario and Lety, I listened, in the darkness, as he would request a prayer from each of us. I recall, one day, discussing with him my lamentations of having become separated from my family. I told him of my suffering and pain in my new world. We talked of circles and cycles, and he told me to pray. I had told him that I practiced no religion and had no beliefs beyond what logic told me was real: things I could understand through my five senses or my rational based upon information from my senses. He said that it did not matter and again suggested that I pray. "When you kneel, in the morning, to put on your sandals, or when you kneel, to lay down, in the evening, kneel a bit more, and pr...

Satellite view of the Amazon Rainforest, the destiny of Jordan's jornada today. Source: Wikipedia Commons, created by NASA, with modifications by the World Wildlife Fund. Today, a young man, Jordan, the son of a friend, travels on his evangelical mission to Manaus, Brazil, and twice, since learning of his endeavor, we have sung after speaking his name in the temazcales of Durango, in the Valle Guadiana of Mexico. I accompanied my brothers and sisters, including el Oso Hector, Oso Margarita, Goyito, Antonio, Martin, and others in the steamy heat of two ceremonies, during the waxing moon of mid-June. In the temazcales of Durango we speak of “todas nuestras relaciones,” or, “all our relationships,” or, sensu lato , “all of my relatives.” The “guia,” or, “guide,” during each of four doorways may ask the “caminantes,” or, literally, “those who walk,” to speak, pray, or reflect. Caminantes generally focus prayers often focus on those with whom each caminante has relations...