The Templo Expiatorio del Santísimo Sacramento, Guadalajara

One last post for today (ach, it's well gone and yesterday now, I need to go to bed...) I have a backlog of things I want to post, I need to put some stuff up if I am ever going to write it all out..

And besides, I forgot to publish the very good news concerning my camera.

First, I am in Guadlajara. Which is itself great news.

Here's a map, zoom in and out as usual if you want. The marker is my hotel, the Expatorio, that I am posting pictures of here, is three blocks to the west, or left of my hotel:


View Larger Map

I've been here once before, back in 1997, when I flew down from Obregon (where I was then teaching) to spend the weekend with my father who was there to interview for the headmastership at the American school here. I remember it was grey, and grubby, but still more cosmopolitan and various than provincial Sonora.

I liked it then. I like it even more, now.

It's a great place. Vibrant, and more prosperous than I remember. These last ten years or so have been good for Mexico, it seems. The grubbiness I remember is mostly gone, and the old PRI stagnation (stale one party corruption that tainted everything, you could feel it, a certain monotonous lethargy, everywhere..) has mostly evaporated.


It must have been NAFTA that did it. Viva the ascendent neoliberal world order!


Right. Anyway, I came here hoping to replace my camera battery recharger that I'd lost in San Antonio. I was concerned, because I had been looking everywhere I'd hitherto been in Mexico, and even stores dedicated to photography do not carry the newest Nikon accessories (an EN-EL14 battery recharger, specifically) and I was a little concerned that my camera would be out of action until I got home, or that I would have to order it online from the States and wait at some hotel for it to arrive.. Not a happy prospect.

The first three or four places I went to were all void - Best Buy had a charger for older Nikon models. Could not order the newer ones. Other camera stores told me it would take 4 to 5 weeks to order. I'd given up hope after being told that three times. I noticed one more store (they group stores together here by speciality, like a Middle Eastern Bazaar or Medieval marketplace..)

I walked in, and asked just for the heck of it. And they had it. For 30 some dollars more than I'd pay at home, but I wasn't going to complain. I had my re-charger, and I was content.

Quel grand bonheur..

So, you shall all be also blest. I've been taking a lot more pictures. Which I will post forthwith.


I've rented a room for the coming week at a very groovy hotel. 30$ a night, which is less than Motel 6 at home. An American establishment in a major city like this would start at least 120$ - at the very freaking least.

It makes me very happy to be here. I am going to stay in this country. Maybe for a very, very long while.


And let me show you one of the proliferating reasons why. One only three blocks from my hotel. I did not even know it was there when I rented the room, I only discovered it when I began wandering around:

The Templo Expiatorio del Santísimo Sacramento.

It's one of the things that makes me happiest: a great gorgeous church that is always open, with frequent masses and an open confessional. There is perpetual - and I mean perpetual - adoration, and there are always a few dozen people at least in the nave praying.

This is why it is so great being Catholic. God found amongst us in the bustling midst of the polis, here attended by the people who clearly love him. It makes me cut from up deep inside with gladness, to be so privileged as to be one of them.


Here is the church, a very beautiful neo-gothic place built by the people of Guadalajara in the last century. The place is charged with warmth, the pillars' and arches' feminine lines pull your eyes and heart up and light and color flows from the great panes of stained glass, enveloping you. The melded scents of incense and candles and flowers charge the air, you can feel electricity of air pregnant with ions hit your skin as you walk through the great wooden doors..


And, of course, the symphonic wave of the presence of the Blessed Sacrament waiting silently for us, there.


Without any further comment, here are some of the pictures I've taken. There are a couple sets of near duplicates. I couldn't choose, I liked too many of them to decide:

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Conjunto Norteño: Somos Juntos Todos Nortes Americanos.. Somos Todos Juntos Humanos.

Tonight, before I go out, I want to bless you all with one of my very favorite songs ever. It's a song that I first heard fifteen years ago in Sonora. I was new to Mexico, and it was all so odd and fresh.. This music - Norteño - is Mexican country. Back then, Norteño - like country tends to - all sounded the same to me. It's takes some work to understand it, as a genre.

Except this song. This leapt out at me, and caught me right away.

I loved it immediately, and love it still.

It's meaning - like so many things in Spanish, which is nothing but a dialect of English, sabes - was understood from the moment I heard it.


Quiero saciarme en ti nada mas..


It doesn't get any more explicit and passionate than that. You don't need no damn dictionary to get that, ¿me equivoco?

No. I'm not. Enjoy:





The Lyrics:

tu me robaste el alma,
tu me robaste el amor,
tu esa vez que te fuiste tambien
me dejaste sin mi corazon...
hoy que de nuevo te encuentro
quiero sentir otra vez tus manos sobre mi cuerpo,
tu alineto y tus labios quemando mi piel...
porque no pude enamorarme mas tu te adueñaste de mi voluntad...
en todo ese tiempo he guardado desceos
y quiero saciarme en ti nadamas...
ven a mis brazos vuelveme a querer escucha
lo que tengo para ti,
mi cuerpo te espera te quiero
deveras si tu no regresas me voy a morir...

Hoy que de nuevo te encuentro quiero
sentir otravez tus manos sobre mi cuerpo,
tu aliento y tus labios quemando mi piel...
porque no pude enamorarme mas
tu te adueñaste de mi voluntadad
en todo ese tiempo he guardado desceos
y quiero saciarme en ti nada mas...
ven a misbrazos vuelveme aquerer escucha lo que tengo para ti,
mi cuerpo te espera te quiero deveras
si tu no regresas me voy a morir..
porque no pude enamorarme
mas tu te adueñaste de mi voluntadad
en todo ese tiempo he guardado desceos
y quiero saciarme en ti nada mas...



Rough Translation:

You stole my soul,
You stole my love,
Then, with that you left me too.
You left me without my heart..
Today I'm still feeling you anew,
I need to feel your hands over my body once more,
Your breathe, your lips still burning my skin..
For I couldn't love you more, you own my will..
All this time I've kept wanting you,
I want to consummate myself in you, nothing more..
Come into my arms, encompass me, I need you to hear
All I have for you.
My body awaits you, I truly want you.
If you don't come back I'm going to die.



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Travel Notes: A Few Afternoon Sagacities from Guadalajara..

I've been traveling now throughout the world for twenty years. Tack on my three years of high school weekend trips up to Quebec City that we made say a dozen of back in those days

(we'd drive four or five hours up, three or four of us in the car, inevitably get harassed and have the car searched by Canadian customs ( we were straight edged hippies with long hair: so we *deserved* it. Canada: by far the worst migra in the world for US Citizens in my experience, and I've been to Bulgaria when it was still communist - Anyway, we then would spend the weekend in Quebec City on thirty or forty dollars apiece, including gas money. Slept in car, snuck into le Chateau Frontenac, where we'd wander the halls and steal uneaten food of from abandoned room service carts outside of rooms - then we'd go out to Chez Dagobert - the discotheque by the walls of the old city and get the ritual Fuzzy Navel - I was a near teetotaler back then, and did not get drunk, but every time I went to Quebec in those days I'd get a fuzzy navel, which is orange juice mixed with a couple ounces of peach schnapps, something I would never think of drinking now, but that back then seemed to me to be exotic and hopelessly romantic - there's simple pleasure in youth and idiocy.. Inexperience makes for revelation in everything. It's really one of the few good reasons to be young.. So.. In Quebec we'd go to the mall and try to meet girls - we'd meet them, speak excrebable French - back in those days I could barely deploy a sentence - and make awkward - and I think mildly charming fools out of ourselves.. )

and I can say that I've been tramping about the planet now for over two decades.

I've learned in my time some things. I've got my travel down to a near science.. albeit a science that I nearly always violate on one principle, that of parsimony in almost all things, knowing that I'll regret it mildly, but never truly repenting:

I almost always bring too many books with me. More than two books is alway too many. You need (maybe) a guidebook, and one good novel that you can read while on the bus or whatever. No more. That's all you need, but I rarely have the discipline to keep myself to that. This trip I am carrying three bags- a 46 liter main bag (carry-on size, but cavernous and very well built Osprey Porter 46 - 5 stars, tough, humble, pure in it's simplicity. If you need luggage, and want functionality and do not care about making a fashion statement, get this bag), a camera/laptop carrier made of tough canvas (carries both 13" mac and my Nikon, a bit tight, but adequately), and a daypack for my books and computer peripherals. That's it. I carry a convenient cloth sack to throw my book of the moment in, and snacks and drinks for long bus rides and things like that.

I'm slightly overpacked, but I can still walk-on to a flight and not have to check anything if I really wanted to.

It's a minor pain in the ass to carry everything, but not much of one. I can, and have, walked with my stuff for miles on several occasions on this trip.


Here is a list of things that I've decided that I will always travel with, that many people might consider extraneous.. But that I have been using over and over again with great pleasure here in Mexico profundo:


1.) a small spray bottle of alcohol. Cleans everything, and keeps my hands clean after touching uncouth things.

2.) several packs (when you plan on being gone for months like I am) unscented baby wipes. These are utterly crucial. Used to keep clean on buses, in nasty bathrooms, anywhere.

3.) a 6' extension cord with a 3 plug end. This makes it possible to plug everything in at once (in Mexico the current and plugs are the same as at home) - I have a converter plug that I attach on it that makes a three pronged plug on my long mac cord (with the third round grounding prong) into a normal double pronged plug, as well. I can easily plug everything I need to in (battery rechargers, computer, clippers, whatever) simultaneously, even when (as is often the case in cheap Mexican hotel rooms) there is only one or two double pronged plugs in odd, inconvenient places in the room..

4.) a compass. This is useful everywhere, but especially in strange cities. I have decent sense of direction, but still can make mistakes. A compass orientates a map every time, with no confusion, which can save you time and many senseless walked blocks of frustration..

5.) a small stack of plastic cups. A small luxury in cheap hotel rooms without glassware, when you want to drink soda or tequila or wine or whatever. Very pleasant addition.

6.) A compact Swiss Army knife with only six things: a 2" blade, a bottle opener, a can opener, a corkscrew, an awl, and a short 1" blade. I also have a toothpick and slight tweezers in mine. This is the essential picnic tool. You can open anything, anywhere, and cut food to size. Essential. Just be careful to put it in your stown luggage if you fly, or they will confiscate it (Go Homeland Security!) .. It sucks having to pay a 20-30$ idiot tax every time you fly like I've done a few times.. I don't forget putting it in checked luggage, anymore. I carry a spoon and serrated steak knife with me, too. Eat anything, anywhere.

7.) your marine band harmonica, key of C. The best instrument in the world.

8.) your iPod with many books on tape on it, and the essential road mix.

9.) earplugs and eye cover for sleeping. I'm also carrying a 20$ compactly stuff able pillow (attached to the outside of my bag with a quality carabiner) and a sleeping bag liner, which acts as a convenient blanket on buses. Makes any uncomfortable situation much more pleasant.

10.) a half dozen good carabiners. Attach anything, anywhere, fast.

11.) packing cubes. I organize everything in a set of multi colored see through waterproof mesh bags when I pack. You find things much easier, and everything in you luggage is always in order by type.

12.) a good travel alarm clock that gives to the time in multiple timezones, illuminates, etc.

13.) I believe in fiber. I carry a small thing of metamucil, and take a teaspoon or two every day or so. Keeps the innards in order, no matter where or what you are eating.

14.) that's not it, but that's all I'm going to type this afternoon.

I have a sleeping bag stuffed in a compression sack (carabined to the outside of my large bag) as well as a 5 x 10' tarp with four stakes and lines, as well (and this was a big splurge in packing, one that I have yet to use, but know I will eventually) a small packed hammock. The sleeping bag has been key, and the tarp may be, if I need to sleep out. I debated bringing all of these, but am glad I have, especially the sleeping bag.

There. The hard distilled agave of many years experience. I'm going to look for some tacos, now.. Salud.



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From Catorce to Plateros: Wherein I Sketch My Grand Itinerary & Make a Few Final Notes on Catorce

Yesterday, I left Catorce after a week there.   I took a bus south to Cuidad San Luis Potosi and then north to Zacatecas, and from there to Fresnillo.  Early this afternoon I took a cab to the shrine of El Santo Nino de Atoches, which I will post separately on after this.

This a map showing the geographical relationships relevant to my wanderings in this part of central Mexico:

 (This is a Google maps link - I hope I've figured the technicalities of linking, if I have you should be able to zoom in and out to get the whole context of what I am about..  The bus route is a more circuitous route than that of the blue line here.  The bus goes further south to San Luis then north to Zecatecas, which is 63 km from Fresnillo.  But the blue line makes the relationship between the shrines of Catorce and Plateros clear:)


View Larger Map

I've decided to commit to visiting all the major shrines of Mexico, as I understand them.   Seeing as they are all basically grouped in this north central part of the country around Guadlajara and Mexico City, it's an easy itinerary to make sense.

These are the shrines:

Catorce (the statue of San Francisco), the statue of the Christ Child here in Plateros, the Shrine of San Juan de los Lagos just north of Guadalajara, the Shrines of the Mexican Martyrs and that of Our Lady of Zapopan in Guadalajara,, and (of course) the most visited Catholic shrine in the entire world, that of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

There may be one or two other sites that I'll add to that list along the way, if it makes any sense.. I may try to visit all nine of the World Heritage churches in Mexico, as well as the shrines of Puebla, the Shrine of Our Lady of Ocotlan and the Shrine of Saint Michael the Archangel there.  

After I complete my great Mexican pilgrimage, which (as is justo y neccesario) must finally end in Guadalupe, I will go down the Pacific coast and then cut inland to Oaxaca and then the Yucatan.  I may go even farther, but I will go at least that far.  

Now, as for my leaving Catorce yesterday morning:

The wake I told you about in the last post was still on when I left.  I wrote that post just before midnight the evening before.   There where dozens of people in the courtyard below my room singing and praying well past 1 a.m. when I finally fell asleep.  I had to use my handy earplugs to block the noise (the little foam plugs you use when operating loud machinery) which have come in handy over and over again on this trip.   I'll never travel without them, again.  When I left the next morning there were still people praying the rosary and dozens more filing through the side room off the courtyard where the body was displayed in a glass box, as is typical at Mexican wakes.  Many people were crying, even men, which I find interesting because it seems to run counter to what you'd expect given Mexican machismo. 

This was not my first experience of a Mexican funeral.  I'd been to another one back in 1997 when I was teaching English in Sonora.  A girl, in her mid- twenties, who was working as a secretary at the school fell off a galloping horse and was killed.  I'd had a passing acquaintance with the girl, who'd had quite a spunky personality.  That funeral, held in the small village cossetted by great irrigation canals and miles of agricultural fields, near Obregon where she'd lived, was an experience I've often thought of writing about.   It was like something out of Camus crossed with Octavio Paz..

This funeral in Catorce made me recall that one, as well as my recent experience at my friend Geoff's wake in Cleveland.  At that wake the only person who shed any tears that I saw was Geoff's mother.   Everyone else was at turns somber and convivial.  I was not at the "official" wake, and left before the internment, but spent a day and a half with the family, and saw no one pray.  I prayed for him when I saw his body the next day (a privilege that his family wanted me to have, and one I gratefully accepted), but silently.  His friends actually all commented on how the presence of a Lutheran pastor at the funeral home during the official visiting hours leading prayers and preaching a sermon was a false note, in that Geoff was not at all religious himself, and was in fact almost always skeptical and teasing or even mocking when it came to religion.  He had no qualms teasing and making fun of me about it.

The contrast with the wake in Catorce couldn't have been starker, in that sense.   There was no sense of celebration or  lightheartedness.   It was all sorrow for the loss, and intercessory prayer in the old school Catholic tradition.  No professional weepers like at a traditional Southern European funeral, but plenty of open sobbing, even a times hysteria, all the same.

This is the Ogarrio tunnel, that 2.3 km I walked through the night I arrived.  I took the bus out, this last  time.

Anyway, I'm still trying to figure out how to replace my Nikon's battery recharger.  Something that would be relatively simple in the Sates, here is going to require some logistical effort.  Since my battery is almost dead, I've been taking few pictures, and not spending a lot of time composing the ones I do take.   I'm still learning how to use an SLR, and don't have the luxury of trying many things each subject I shoot, like I usually do. 

So, my pictures will be crap - or more crap than usual - until I get a new charger.. Which I hope to find in Guadalajara this coming week..

I took some mediocre shots of the Shrine in Plateros this afternoon that I'll post this evening..

I'm composing my blog posts with the same care as I have been my pictures, see.  Crap, crap, all around.  If you've read this entire post it is true proof you love me.  There could be no other reason sufficient to wade through such a waft of indifferent prose..

You deserve a prize, an assurance of my undying regard and affection..



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A Funeral in Catorce

Today is Sunday.  I awoke this morning to the sound of singing.  Hymns.  Some of which I recognized by melody - very very old time religion, they were singing classic Catholic hymns composed by the likes of Saints Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas amongst others.  I laid in bed listening to them sing, glad for it.

I slept late,  I knew I had a late mass I could assist at, and so in my decadence I laid in bed until about noon, and then got up and farted around for a while.   In the early afternoon someone started crying hysterically in the courtyard just below my room in the hotel I am staying at.  I was a bit disconcerted, didn't know how or whether to react to it.. It wasn't just a question of my lack of Spanish.  I was uncertain whether I should try to interject myself into a stranger's misery and hysteria or not.   A hubbub of voices quickly arose, though, and the crying subsided.

Then, a group of girls and women began praying the rosary, interspacing the decades with hymns.  After a couple of decades, I found my chaplet and began praying along with them.  

They finished about ten or so minutes before the "last chance mass" (which these last twenty years or so has nearly always been mine, slug that I am) began at 6 p.m.   I made it, rosary in hand.

On the way home from mass, I stopped at a taco stall and picked up two hotdogs and a hamburger dressed with red and green peppers ("picante") and got myself a six pack of Modelo and a liter of Indio Negro.   I ran into this Mexican Hippie Rafael whose acquaintance I'd made the day before on the central plaza.  He'd been quite drunk.  He'd kept asking me my name (me llamas Carlos, Charlie, I kept telling him, but it never penetrated his haze..)   This afternoon he introduced me to a bunch of other Mexican hippies who where hanging out drinking beer on the plaza.   I gave them my liter, and then bought them another one in the spirit of the eucharistic feast.  They wanted me to hang out with them, but I left.

Rafael kept telling them that I looked like a soldier, because I was so big and fierce looking.  I protested, telling them that I was un hombre de paz and no violento.  I never confessed to having been a soldier.  They had my number, anyway, though.  That's what you get for being an American abroad these days.  It's almost as bad as being German.  A few steps away from having the SS in our patrimony..  


When I came to my hotel at about eight or so in the evening, there was a station wagon hearse pulled up to the main entrance.  There was a crowd of people about, and a few women were crying.   


I got back to my room, and ate and drank.  


The crowd outside grew, and they began singing throughout the whole evening.  Hundreds of people have been coming into the hotel's central courtyard into a side room where the casket is. 

That's the view from my the balcony just outside my room.  There are easily two hundred people here, filing in and out of the room (the lit window opposite in the photo) where the casket is.  It's 11:45 and they are still singing.  


I am very impressed.  These people humble me.  All these little Indians, so compelling strange, so odd..  I like them all very much.  


Quite the opposite of decadent.  Not the slightest bit of cynicism or apathy here.  The difference both undoes and draws me.  So unlike us, but so much like what I desire to be..




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Real de Catorce: Magic in the Midst of Mexico

Last week - four days ago now - I hopped a bus from Ciudad San Luis Potosi to this place, Real de Catorce:

It's an old silver mining boom town founded in 1779 that used to be one of the larger and more prosperous towns in central Mexico, reaching a high population of 40,000 in the 19th Century.   The name supposedly comes from the fact that 14 Spanish troops ("Royals" hence "Real") met their end here fighting the local Indians.  I also read that the name came from 14 poplar trees that once grew here..  Whatever, it's an evocative name.   

In the early 20th Century, before the commencement of the Mexican Revolution and World War I, the price of silver cratered, and the population of the town fell precipitously, and the population fell to 250 and then became a ghost town.

Since the 1970's the place has been experiencing a revival.  It's no longer a ghost town, but rather a bustling little village  with a few dozen cratered out old buildings still at the edges of the place. 


I decided to come here because the church is one of the great shrines of Mexico.  It's dedicated to the "Purisma Concepcion" or as we usually say in English the the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  That is to say that it is dedicated to the grace that preserved Mary from all sin (as an incorrupt vessel, the Ark of the Universal Covenant) from the moment of her conception.   There's also a very famous (amongst Mexicans) early 18th Century statue of Saint Francis of Assisi here that attracts pilgrims.  The month surrounding the Feast of Saint Francis on October 4th is a huge carnival here, where some 150,000 people come from all over Mexico to camp out and venerate the icon and celebrate.  They eat and party, and have processions every day where they carry the statue about and fire of cannons, sing songs, play mariachi music and other groovy fun things like that.  


I've stolen this image (because I've been sparing my camera battery, I didn't take any pictures of the fiesta myself) and some of the information here from this site, the official website of the village.

I showed up the very end of this carnival on October 12th.  The place was still crammed with those sort of trailers and mobile homes that we'd associate with a State Fair carnies in the States, or gypsies in Europe.  A bunch of old 1970's and 80's vehicles in every corner and along every street of the place that looked like they've been wrapped together with twine and tinfoil.   But things were definitely winding down, which was fine by me.   I got to see the end of the festivities, but now have a much more tranquil and attractive (the street vendors really junked the place up and cluttered things) village to enjoy.

The bus climbs up in the mountains following 24 km of cobblestone road - that's right, 24 km of cobblestone, that's a lot of cobbled stone folks - shuttering and shimmying the entire way.  The bus feels like it's going to shake itself apart.  Most of the bus windows have hairline cracks in them, the windshield is shot all through with them.  They probably don't bother to replace it because if they did the new one wouldn't be free of cracks for long. 


When I got here, the bus dropped me off in a parking lot with only a few houses about.  I was confused, and tried to ask the driver in my broken Spanish "like where the heck's the pueblo?"   I was really confused.  At first I thought I'd missed my stop, and been taken to some little village in the middle of nowhere.  I asked the bus driver where Real de Catorce was and he waved his hand and spewed a bunch of unintelligible Spanish and laughed at me.  He said he was driving back to Matahuela (the place you switch buses for anywhere of significance from here) at 8 am the next morning.


It's one of the great privileges of being in Mexico, playing el Gringo Estupido.  It makes everyone laugh, including me.  


There was a little American busybody voice in my head that was goading me to lose my temper at him.  I told that asshole to shut up, and just laughed too.  In the middle of nowhere, and no hotel or restaurant or stores were immediately evident.  I felt a little insecure, too, because the stupid gringo voice in my head was spouting paranoia.. 

Great.  This is where I congratulated myself for my having packed my sleeping bag, sleeping bag liner, 5' x 10' green tarp and Army issue camo gortex bivy sack.   I'd been on the fence on all that stuff, but as soon as I got here I was glad for the sleeping bag and liner, because they are great adjuncts to hotel bedding.  They keep me all nice and toasty warm..

Now, though, that bivy and tarp were going to truly save my sorry silly chilly ass.  I'd been accusing myself of over-packing.  Not so, not so.  The bivy sack is never a bad idea, not when you're tramping like I am..  You never know when you'll need or want to sleep rough.


I walked 100 meters out along the road away from the houses and the noise of the people.  It had been dug out of the mountainside, rock wall uphill, and the hillside dropped away precipitously downhill.  I found a little place where there was a little flat ground not far (maybe 10') from the road hidden on the hillside in the shrubbery and darkness, put down my bags and made myself snug.  


I pulled my Lonely Planet Mexico Guide.  This is the first time I've gone traveling with a travel guide in about 15 years, because I've always preferred to go off the beaten path, and flee the Baedeker bearing masses.  Just snobbery, really.  I've decided that I'd stop acting such a twit, and bought a guide my last night in San Antonio.

I found the three pages about Real de Catorce (which I had not yet read) and bending over it with my reading glasses and flashes I read..


That the bus drops you off in a parking lot on the east side of a 2.3 km long tunnel that had been dug through the mountain in 1903.  There you need to take a mini-bus to the town on the western side of the tunnel.  The town is on the other side of that tunnel, which I had not seen on the other side of the houses.


There.  25 $ (U.S.) spent on the Lonely Planet Guide there and then justified in spades.  


I'd missed the mini-bus.   Har.  Har.  Good times.   I ended up having to hoof it with my bags through the tunnel.



Real de Catorce, and the 2,300 meters of tunnel to it, are 2,750 meters (9,000 feet, 1.7 miles) above sea level in the Sierra Madres.   

Long time readers of my blog will remember that  when I was in Switzerland I discovered that even relatively low high altitudes (like that experienced ski randonee'ing up San Gotthard's and Bernard's Passes which are only 2,000 and 2,500 meters above sea level) make me sick..  


I kicked that tunnel out anyway folks.  I impressed myself.   The tunnel is flat, and well lit.  Twenty minutes and one brief break later,  I was in the village. 


I again used my guidebook to find a cheap - 150 peso, which is roughly 12 US$ - room.  Clean. With wireless internet.   No hot water, but for 12 bucks, I'm not complaining.  It's more comfortable than sleeping on the mountainside.


Besides, it has a terrace.  This is the view:

 

This is the extremely impressive and (for the village as it is today, less thousands of pilgrims) large and very baroque parish church:

I also took a tighter more detailed shot of the sanctuary.

This is during Thursday afternoon adoration.  The famous statue of Saint Francis is in the glass case on the left of the sanctuary.  There's a cool statue of the Immaculate (Most Pure (Purisima) Conception - which is to say the Blessed Virgin) directly above the tabernacle behind the altar.  The monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament is on the altar, but it's a small one, and in this shot it's hard to see.  I didn't want to take too many pictures while we were all at prayer, because it's rude, so this is all I've got:

This is the view from my hotel balcony looking away from  the church and tunnel toward the West (note sunset behind the hills) from the balcony of my hotel:

You see that the town is nestled in a cusp at the top of these mountains.  The mine shafts are all about in the hills here, and there are a large cock fighting and bullfighting rings.

The upshot is that I've been hanging about here, eating at the couple good restaurants in town, and relishing the place quite a bit.  Now that all the Mexican campesino pilgrims and their trucks, stalls and campers have gone, the locals, some European residents (there are Swiss and French who have bought property here, and own some of the businesses in town) a few dozen Mexican hippies and at least one couple of Italian hippies with a dog, and a few older - and obviously prosperous and retired - American tourists are left.

The hippies are here for the peyote, which this place is famous for.   The evening I arrived I was propositioned by a local just as I got through the tunnel and had thrown down my bags to rest and celebrate, asking me if I wanted to buy some.  Right, Ese.  The last thing I need is to take a peyote trip here, in the middle of the desert, alone.  I thanked him, and told him I'll stick to the cerveza. 

Which like the food, is pretty good here in the middle of Mexico.  God Bless Mexico and her people.  it's good to be here among them..


San Francisco y la Purisima Concepcion, Rosa Mystica, Ruegue por Nosotros.



And so with that, I think I've typed on too long.  Time to stop.


Goodnight everyone:  Buenas Noches, todos.



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And We Have All These Questions to Make Us Go Roam..

And we’ve got all this distance to make us come home.
As the sun burns, a child learns, the tide churns, the world turns.


When I was in Chicago the week before last I was taught a new singer and a great new song by my two and half year old niece, Shunie: Antje Duvekot, Merry-Go-Round.

When we would be riding about the city in the Honda mini-van Shatay and Matt would always have groovy folk inflected kids music playing. No Wiggles like crap amongst us, thank God. That stuff is simply obnoxious. I firmly believe that music should be shared across generations. All this "generation gap" crap is mostly nonsense now anyhow, especially now that the great technological revolutions (in film, video and recorded sound) are essentially complete. We all own Elvis these days, and the interim is all in color. The past 40 years is more intimate to us now than the 50's where to me when I was ten (that's in 1981, 20 something years before). When you've lived through everything from Black Sabbath, the Clash to Nirvana, the power of music to shock and divide is pretty much null, anyway.

That's just to say that I have the same stance toward the Wiggles as I do Lady Gaga: they both suck because their aural and visual (and hence spiritual) aesthetics are ugly.

Anyhow, I was really pleased to hear the music that Matt and Shatay have been playing for the girls. A lot of old folk songs and children's classics, but done in a groovy modern folk style that really impressed me.


Shunie's a precocious 2 year old in that she's talking in full, complex sentences. One of the most loquacious two-year olds of my limited acquaintance. She also really likes music. She's like a little general, too, in that she's not afraid to tell you when she likes, dislikes, or wants something. When a song she likes ends, you'll immediately hear her pipe up from the back seat "Again!" And Shatay, Matt or I (if I was the only one there) would be expected to hit the repeat button, and play that particular song again.


This song is one of her particular favorites. I'd never heard it before, and when I heard it immediately fell in love with it. It has apparently been used as the soundtrack to a Bank of America commercial. The singer and composer, Antje Duvekot, needs cash on the barrel head just like the rest of us, and isn't above selling her poetry to scummy usurers, or performing on cruise ships to the delectation of the besotted petit bourgeois, as the video clip I'm posting here proves.

It's a great song, in any case, even if one or two of the lines are false. The truth is never worthless. No one should ever lie. Notice how she loses her breath at that very line in the performance here? Just so. That line's crap.

Those few quibbles aside, I have say that this song is great, and that like my very discerning niece Shunie, I can't get enough of it. I keep hitting play, over and over again.

Hope you like it, too:

Lyrics:

Someone is tossing petals in a stream,
Somewhere someone is standing at the foothills of their dreams.
Someone got a paintbrush, is painting over doubts,
Someone opened up his eyes and saw the sun coming out.
Someone was captive and found the courage to get off,
Throw a boulder in the well, somewhere the rain has stopped.
Someone is finding the place where they belong..

Well, everyday is summer somewhere in the world,
And the summer boys are headed for the falls to kiss the girls.
With their impatient hands groping honey breasts and curls,
They are filled with desire.
And high in the hills there's a baby being born,
As forgiveness and peace wash over bruises and sores,
People bridging the distance over nettles and thorns.

Everyone aboard on the merry-go-round,
Some things will rise up so that others come down.
If the devil don't dance, heaven won't shine.
It's a mighty thick haze and it's a pretty thin line.
If the facuet is tightened up the love won't flow,
If the love isn't bright enough the corn won't grow.
If the night isn't dark enough the moon won't glow..

A rich man counting money, a tired man counting sheep,
While the safe man counts his blessings, the hungry man has beans.
There's a million people praying, raising up their eyes,
To what turns out to be the same god, the same sky.
We are slightly scared of death, a little bit afraid,
So we celebrate everything we can think to celebrate.
We shall sing out loud to keep the hounds away..

Everyone aboard on the merry-go-round,
Some things will rise up so that others come down.
If the devil don't dance, heaven won't shine.
It's a mighty thick haze and it's a pretty thin line.
If the facuet is tightened up the love won't flow,
If the love isn't bright enough the corn won't grow.
If the night isn't dark enough the moon won't glow..

Prisons will crumble and governments will fall,
It's the order of freedom to be preceded by walls.
'Cause the truth would be worthless if no one ever lied,
So we carry our shame in the interest of pride.
And we have all these questions to make us go roam,
And we’ve got all this distance to make us come home.
As the sun burns, a child learns, the tide churns, the world turns..

Everyone aboard on the merry-go-round,
Some things will rise up so that others come down.
If the devil don't dance, heaven won't shine.
It's a mighty thick haze and it's a pretty thin line.
If the facuet is tightened up the love won't flow,
If the love isn't bright enough the corn won't grow.
If the night isn't dark enough the moon won't glow..


[As a note and aside,  Antje kinda looks like Shatay.  Similar personal vibe, too, like in this clip especially: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eji97jgOgFw  ]



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This Past Month & a Half: Florida, Cleveland, Chicago, San Luis Potosi..

A few people have asked after my blog.  I've gone tramping again, as is my wont, and had promised I would write about it all for those who might care to keep tabs on my peregrinations.

First,  I did in fact finish my grand tour of Florida that I was blogging earlier here.  Because I am a veteran, the State of Florida issued me a free entrance pass to all state parks.  I decided that I wanted to see the state, and used the parks as waypoints along that way.  My parents visited all 120 parks in three years, and I decided that I would do the same feat in two months.  I actually made it to 119 parks in seven weeks.  I saved the last, Silver River SP in Ocala for last, because it is 45 minutes from Lady Lake, my home base.   I thought I would jump up the last week, and do a quick drive by.  But I never did..  Until week nine.    Two months and one week after I began, I finally garnered my last stamp in my nifty Florida State Park Passport, which I can now send of to Tallahassee to get a free Florida State Parks license plate for the front of my car.

Which I am selling.  Emma and I have had some good times together, but I've decided that I want to simplify my life, and that she has to go.  Anyone interested in buying a 2010 VW Jetta TDI Sportwagen can email me.

Anyhow, I was going to write a post on how much I've learnt about, and grown to like Florida (it's really a very interesting place)  but I never got the inspiration.  

I've felt rather listless, depressed this last month.  

Even before Geoff killed himself.  

An old Army friend of mine, who used to comment frequently on my old Swiss blog, committed suicide two weeks ago by overdosing on sleeping pills.  There's a story behind that act, one that belongs to him, and that I won't tell here.  Nothing lurid, just pain and a faithless woman.  

I was shocked and devastated by that news, and decided that I was going to alter my previous plan of heading to Chicago last week to visit my brother, so I could attend the wake and funeral of my friend and be with his family in Cleveland.  

Geoff's was an Irish wake.  Stories, jokes, a few beers, barbecue and a gluttonous repast of sushi.   I hadn't been able to eat for two days before I got there, I was so upset.  Being with them was catharsis.

This is a picture of Geoff's dad feeding beer to their dog.  

In true Brachvogel style.   Geoff always made me laugh.  


I then went to Chicago to spend the week with my brother's family.  These are my nieces, Shunie and Skaya:

I then left for Mexico.   I took the train to San Antonio, and then threw a metaphorical dart at the map of Mexico.   I needed out, no matter where.

That's how I serendipitously ended up here:

 

San Luis Potosi.  The very heart of Mexico.  Over one mile high in the Sierra Madres.   Settled by Franciscan missionaries in 1593, it has a storied history.

Lots of baroque churches and verdant plazas.  A very pretty place.  

I've been here a week, just being a gringo in Mexico.  My heart is becoming calm.  I like it here. 

That last image is what you see when you lean out the window of my (very cheap and quite fine) hotel

room.   La Plaza de Armas and the city's cathedral.   There is singing in the streets every afternoon and night, and the food is great.  

I accidentally left my camera's battery re-charger in my hotel back in San Antonio.  I have to buy a new one, and nobody sells Nikon accessories here.  This means I probably need to go to Guadalajara to replace it..

Pictures will likely be scarce until I resolve that issue..

There.  There's a lame post for you all.   I'll try to get back into the swing of this thing.  No promises, though.

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Say I Can Say Words Only Simple, Say I Can Say Words Only Clear..

lyrics:

Sunlight fall down on the fields.

Sunlight fall down over me.

Work all day, be all that I can be..  yeah-heh.

Say I can say words only simple,
Say I can say words only clear.

But, oh, I can feel your heart is beating near..  yeah-heh.

Haunted love is all that I feel, when you're passing by,
Haunted love is all that I see, it's there in your eyes..

And I say..

No, no, no, don't pass me over, 

No, no, no, don't pass me by..

See I can see good things for you and I,

Yeah, good things for you..

Give I can give love and attention,
Give I can give all time away.

Only to one heart I can give today.

Be I can be man full of color,
Be I can be man black or white.

But only to one heart I can be tonight.

Haunted love is all that I feel, when you're passing by,
Haunted love is all that I see, it's there in your eyes.

And I say..

No, no, no, don't pass me over, 

No, no, no, don't pass me by..

See I can see good things for you and I,

Yeah, good things for you..

Haunted love is all that I see, it's there in your eyes.

And we see..

No, no, no, don't pass me over, 

No, no, no, don't pass me by..

See I can see good things for you and I,

Yeah, good things for you..

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Glossarium: Thoughts On the Humility of Truth

As I'm driving about and finishing my grand tour of the peninsula, I've been thinking about this here blog, and all the things I've created it to say.   I've said virtually none of it yet, because of the overweening aspect of it all.    


Throw my thoughts upon the void impassive..  Strew my pearls..  


It needs to be said well, if at all.   


So far I've been coy.  I've been amusing myself that way, but also unsure of how - or even whether - to begin being explicit.   I want to start gently, and give my testimony in a way that the dozen or so people that  I want to hear it (and if they are so moved, respond somehow to it) to hear it well.  


Today, I realized that I feel ready to start saying it.   No time like the present, no moment like now.  So I will say what I've been holding to my heart all these years..  The secret work of my heart all this time, that has made my live the seared blessing that it has become.


First, I need to explain a few terms.  If you notice, I've been tagging my posts here.   I want to explain what I mean by a few of them, so that if you care to follow this blog and really understand what I am trying to say, you will. 


This afternoon I was listening to NPR and Neil Conan was interviewing this fellow about "apocalyptic" movies.   They were joking that the segment had nothing to do with the previous ones in which we learnt that London is burning, world markets collapsing, tanks are rolling the streets of Damascus, and the recession deepening.   They rattled on for a while, and talked about a bunch of movies in which the human race is almost or entirely annihilated by one thing or another, usually some combination of our own hubris and stupidity or alien invasion or natural holocaust.    


As listened I realized that they weren't going to talk about the origins of the term, about what the word "apocalypse" means.   Let me do it for you here.   This the etymology my dictionary gives the word:


ORIGIN Old English, via Old French andecclesiastical Latin from Greek apokalupsis, from apokaluptein ‘uncover, reveal,’ from apo- ‘un-’+ kaluptein ‘to cover.’


This word entered our lexicon by way of the Bible, of course.  It is used as a title of the last book of the New Testament, which is (if you did not know) written in Greek.   That book is the account of a prophetic dream attributed to the Apostle (Greek for "messenger") John, the only one of the 14 apostles (I include Judas, Matthais and Paul) to die a natural death.   Judas killed himself, and all the others were all martyred (Greek "to witness") for their faith in Christ.  


John, not incidentally, is the only one of the twelve who did not run away from the Crucifixion, and remained at the foot of the Cross.  


Wikipedia says that the name John derives via Latin Iōhannēs and Greek Ἰωάννης from the Hebrew name יוחנן (Yôḥanan, also transliterated Yochanan), a short form of the long name יְהוֹחָנָן Yehochanan, meaning "Yaweh is merciful".  


Now, why am I telling you all this?   If you notice, I've tagged a lot of the posts here with that word, apocalypse.   And when I do it, I am usually not (usually most often emphatically not) referring you to the end of the world, or to tribulations like those that Neil Conan and his guest were calling "apocalyptic" in those films.   Like I say, not normally..  


Instead, what I mean is that I think that whatever I am writing about is revelation of the hidden truth, the true nature of things, of veiled unappreciated goodness, veiled (often widely accepted) evil.  The way we, and things, truly are.  The beauty deep down things, or else the tricks that wicked bastards are doing in the shadows..  Things that people aren't noticing or being honest about, the subtle things that admit transcendence, the wickedness that we do to benefit ourselves and that harms others.


You know, all that which is "occult"  (from Latin occultare ‘secrete,’ frequentative of occulere‘conceal,’ based on celare ‘to hide’; the adjective and noun from occult- ‘covered over,’ from the verb occulere ).


Those things "seen through the glass darkly.."


These things are not usually "occult" in the sensational sense.  But evil things are always in the end diabolical, and the most evil people ultimately become satanic, in that they consciously revolt against the good and begin to worship their own wills which are evil.  And that is inevitably demonic and then spiritually uncouth in all the ways that people normally think "occult."


When I use "occult" as a tag on this here blog, I mean that I'm usually talking about something malevolent or diseased that is disguised, subtle or hidden.   Or, something beautiful that is gentle and unappreciated.


Which brings me to the issue of knowledge.  Gnosis, science, wisdom.   Love.   


Knowledge of good and evil.


Which is of course tantamount with knowing the truth.  The truth that shall set us free.


My ultimate message here, the thing that I want finally  to tell you, is that that truth exists.


Because what is is true, and that is inescapable.


We can either accept truth, witness and worship it, or else reject it and lie.  We either see that we serve the truth, and are subject to it, or else seek to escape it and deny it.


If we acknowledge our dependence upon the truth, our need for it.. If we see that we cannot control the truth or destroy it..


And that the truth will necessarily humiliate us, make us see ourselves and others as we really are..


That the truth is not in the end of the intellect, but rather of the heart..


That the truth, like everything good and real, is personal..  is indeed, a person.


This is my faith.  My testimony.   My heart knows it is so.




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