Every holiday has magic moments. One of those moments was, when we were flying south-west of Mexico City. As I was looking through the window into a clear and unusually blue sky, not grey with smog, I could not believe what I was seeing at and excitedly I said to Peter: Look, look, look ! because very suddenly, right there, to my great delight and excitement, in perfect view we could see before us : Iztalccihuatl and Popocatepetl. Iztalccihuatl, is also known as " The Sleeping woman " because it has the uncanny resemblance of a woman lying on her back, over the top of a mountain. You can see her head, her long hair stretching downwards, her neck, the arms crossed over her chest, the legs, knees and feet as though she has a sheet over her body, running down through the side of the mountain.
There is a most popular legend about Iztaccihuatl and Popocatepetl, that comes from the ancient Nahuas, and there are also poems and songs telling this beautiful story which I will narrate as best as I can.
Many years before Hernan Cortez came to Mexico, the Aztecs lived in Tenochtitlan, today's Mexico City. The Chief of the Aztecs was a famous emperor, who was loved by all his people. The Emperor and his wife, the Empress, were very worried because they had no children. One day, the Empress told the Emperor that she was going to give birth to a child. A baby girl was born and she was as beautiful as her mother. They called her Iztaccihuatl which in Nahuatl means " White Lady "
All the people loved Izta and her parents prepared her to be the Empress of the Aztecs. When she grew up, she fell in love with a captain of a tribe; his name was Popoca. One day a war broke out and the warriors had to go south to fight the enemy. The emperor told Popoca to cut off the head of the enemy chief and bring it back from the war to show his victory. Then Popoca could marry the Emperor's daughter. After several months of combat, a warrior who hated Popoca sent a false message to the emperor. The message said that his army had won the war, but that Popoca had died in battle. The emperor was very sad when he heard the news and when Izta heard it, she could not stop crying. She refused to go out and did not eat anymore. A few days later, she became ill and she died of sadness.
When the Emperor was preparing Izta's funeral, Popoca and his warriors arrived victorious from war. The Emperor was taken aback when he saw Popoca, and he told him that other warriors had announced his death. Then he told him that Izta had died. Popoca was very sad. He took Izta's body and left the town with his warriors. He walked a long way, until he arrived at some mountains where he ordered his warriors to build a funeral table with flowers and he put Izta lying on top. Then he kneeled down holding a fiery torch to watch over Izta until he died of sadness too.
The Gods were touched by Popoca's sacrifice and turned the tables and the bodies into great volcanoes. The biggest volcano is the Popocatepetl which in Nanuatl means: " smoking mountain"; he sometimes throws out smoke showing that he is still watching over Iztaccihuatl who sleeps by his side. Popoca's torch is still smoking as a reminder of what happened.
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26 comments:
Welcome back to your blog Maria!
Things have been a little quiet while you have been gone .. with only Robert holding up the fort.
A wonderful story, narrated very well, and the photos are great .. the hotel looks beautiful and so is your smile!
Maria, that was a really charming story. The myths that the ancient cultures created to explain the world around them, always have a kind of magic to them.
When I was at school I encountered this poem :
ROMANCE
by: W.J. Turner
WHEN I was but thirteen or so
I went into a golden land,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Took me by the hand.
My father died, my brother too,
They passed like fleeting dreams,
I stood where Popocatapetl
In the sunlight gleams.
I dimly heard the master's voice
And boys far-off at play,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Had stolen me away.
I walked in a great golden dream
To and fro from school--
Shining Popocatapetl
The dusty streets did rule.
I walked home with a gold dark boy,
And never a word I'd say,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Had taken my speech away:
I gazed entranced upon his face
Fairer than any flower--
O shining Popocatapetl
It was thy magic hour:
The houses, people, traffic seemed
Thin fading dreams by day,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
They had stolen my soul away!
'Romance' is reprinted from An Anthology of Modern Verse. Ed. A. Methuen. London: Methuen & Co., 1921.
Those are nice pictures. The cathedral still looks in reasonable condition. Is it still used?
Robert
Victoria, Thank you, its nice to be back. Viva Robert ! He will no doubt, go to heaven with his shoes on. Its really nice to be back among my friends again. I think I am blushing now.
Robert, Wow! I am impressed. Such knowledge ! I had no idea you knew so much about the Popocatepetl, the Chimborazo and Cotopaxi. That is really a very beautiful poem, thank you for showing it to us; and you are quite right in pointing out how the ancient myths woven by the ancients helped to explain the world around them. This legend of Popoca and Izta, is like a Romeo and Juliet story, which makes you believe it could conceivably have happened in real life, considering the Popocatepetl erupts every so often. If memory serves me right, I think the last time the Popo had smoke and fire coming out of its crater, was around 2006 and it has erupted at least some 20 times since the Spanish conquistadores arrived in Mexico. So the legend in a way, prevents people from being afraid about an eruption, since in their mind, it's still the ancient warrior letting us know he is just watching over his sleeping beauty with his eternal torch. Whilst she is asleep for all eternity, he, on the other hand, is awake watching over her. Maybe the saying, " holding a torch over her " could be related to this legend.
The Izalco volcano used to be called the "light-house of the Pacific" because the sailors could see it from their ships at night. The spectacle was red and golden bright lights, erupting from the crater just like fireworks.
Oh I just saw your question. Yes, only 1 quarter of the Cathedral is still in use today, the front part. It was the back of the cathedral ceilings and some walls which tumbled down.
Maria, yes, I like these myths. For me, one of the most haunting is in Plato's Symposium : the original human beings were hermaphrodites, and were both male and female. But the gods cut them in two, and after that, whenever they saw their other halves they ran towards each other and threw their arms around each other, men and women trying to become one again.
The volcano is better than the man-made lighthouses - more powerful and doesn't require a keeper!
Yes Robert, I agree that the myths have a magic quality to them, and probably a lot of them hold great truths of this creation when understood not in their literal form.
I like your quote from Plato's Symposium, to me it has the same meaning as this saying from Jesus in 'The Gospel according to Thomas'..
"On the day when you were one, you became two.
But when you have become two, what will you do?"
Victoria, there is something similar said in the marriage vows. Except maybe that one says two become one when they are married.
On Wednesday it will be your turn to travel in a wonderful cruise. I wish you also find your magic moments in your travels. We will miss you too.
Robert, unfortunatelly the Light-house of the Pacific as unpredictable as nature tends to be, has decided not to continue the fireworks anymore. It stopped exactly on the very day a hotel was being inagurated to open its doors to attract visitors to the area. Isn't that rotten luck !
Victoria, that saying you mentioned from Christ, in the Gospel from Thomas. Could it mean.. divorce ? Only a thought. What do you think this could mean ?
Victoria, or... when you are married you become one and two people at the same time. Maybe ?
Robert any thoughts ?
Maria, no, I'm not quite sure what it means. Christianity seems more individualistic than some of the eastern religions, but this is Gnostic Christianity, so...well, maybe Victoria can help us out.
Victoria, are you going off on a cruise too? Around the southern oceans? I'm told they have Italian ice cream vendors in Antarctica these days!
Victoria & Robert. I am afraid when it comes to Christianity it is all very confusing to me. Take for instance the Father the Son and the Holy spirit. What is exactly the Holy Spirit ? If its not God or Christ then what is it ?
I much prefer the legends like the Roman God Volcan who is responsible for the underworld.
Okay, lets see if I have cracked this puzzle.
" On the day you were one, you became two but when you have become two, what will you do ?
On the day you were married you became two, but once you have become two, what will you do now you are married ?
Puzzles have the nagging feeling of not going away until a solution is found. Robert I guess we will have to wait until Victoria comes back next month.
Hi Maria
Well, I'm not a Christian and even if I were, I would find the mysteries of the Trinity beyond me. I think the idea is that you have one god who has three aspects or persons to him - the father, the son, and the holy spirit or holy ghost, this latter being the divine force that works within people i.e. seen as something more internal and less external than the other two.
You mean like a Gemini figure, the two twin personalities, but in God's case, he has three sides to him. Have you noticed that there is no mention of a femenine entity in this holy trinity ? That is a very important element, since even God had to resort to the Virgin Mary to deliver Christ, the Son.
In other cultures the have the Ying and the Yang, the positive and negative forces which rule the world. Femenine and masculine, black and white, light and darkness.
Hi Maria
Strangely enough, women seem to have played an important part in the establishment of Christianity, by way of converting their husbands. But you're right, there is no original feminine element. Centuries later, however, there grew up the cult of the Virgin Mary, and she is still of course an important element in the Catholic faith, to such an extent that there have been accusations of idolatry, with Mary half way to being regrded as a goddess. I think the idea is that people can pray to the Virgin Mary who will "pass on" their request to her son (who may in turn "pass on" the request to his father). It all sounds a bit bureaucratic, but I think that women in particular find a special comfort in praying to Mary especially as regards family issues.
God himself of course is supposed to be without gender, yet in practice I should think that people find it pretty difficult to shake off the idea that he is male.
Hi Robert,
There is a controversy about God's gender, I vaguely remember something about women being ordained as ministers because they allege there is a femenine side to God. Although, the Catholic Church goes by what Jesus said to Peter " Upon this rock I shall build my church." Also all the 12 apostles were men. But some are now saying Mary Magdalene was also an apostle and that she was higher in Jesus estime than the others.
To me, it would make more sense if the holy ghost or spirit was: femenine, this way, we are left with: The Father, The Mother and The Son which makes more sense, instead of the ridiculous: The Father The Son and the Holy Spirit which leads to so much confusion.
Before, you mentioned that it is one God who has three aspects or persons to him. In a sense, we normal mortals, also are sons or daughters, at the same time that we are also mothers and fathers if we have had children, but we do not have two genders.
Hi Maria
Well, when pushed Christians will in the end always say that they have no answer in words, because they are trying to describe something which is ineffable and cannot be confined within the limits of theological thinking. Hence Pascal's note concerning his mystical experience : "Not the God of the philosophers" and St Thomas Aquinas's remark when he apparently had a vision just before dying, "All I have written is mere straw."
Hi Robert
I have been thinking about what Victoria said and it occurs to me that maybe she was referring to Adam. The femenine side was taken from his rib, so before that, it was one person who became two when Eve was created from him. This is just exactly like your Plato's Symposium where the original human being was hermaphrodite. So Adam in a sense was one.
Which brings us back to what you said before about the human need of trying to explain the world around us, either by religion or by legends or whatever other means humans can think of. You also mentioned, the Holy Ghost as the divine force that works within people. This completely annuls any femenine aspect to it. No wonder poor St. Thomas Aquinus realized right at the end of his life that he had missed something !
This year, being the anniversary of Charles Darwin, has brought up again some of these nagging questions where religion tells us we were always the same, right from the beginning, whilst Darwin has successfully shown us we have adapted and evolved through hundreds of years of evolution. Well, we will always be trying to discover the miracle of life and who we are, why we are here and where are we going? Obviously the sensible answer to this is 42.
Ha, Maria, 42 but what about inflation?
I think the Christian folk have never really liked the idea of a world that evolved over tremendous periods of time, for it seems to suggest that somehow the supreme being was taking all that time to get it right. They prefer to believe that the world was created perfect but spoilt by Adam and his descendants. This brings to mind the following old story :
A man moves into a house whose garden is terribly overgrown. After months of hard work he finally gets it looking really nice. The local vicar comes by. "What a wonderful job the Lord and yourself have done on the garden," he says. "Yes," says the man. "You should have seen the state of it when the Lord had it to himself."
The Church of the Conception looks pretty good. Maria, with the volcanoes belching away, how often do the buildings have to be cleaned?
Make it 72 with inflation.
That was so funny Robert, that my ribs are still going up and down!
I think the monuments in Guatemala get restored whenever the Lord gives them money.
Maria and Robert,
so many posts and I have no time to talk, less now that I already wrote a long post here, and in my haste I must have forget to press publish after the preview, because it is now gone. Anyway just briefly one becoming two, then the 'what will you do' refers to the homeward journey. Say that we are like children of God or a spark from the Divine. This is Enlightenment, Nirvana or Self Realisation .. the ultimate aim of life. God is neither man nor woman but an energy or force. God is usually refered to as the creator of this universe but there is more beyond that. There is symbolic meaning in the wedding vows that you mentioned Maria that support this.
Robert, are you kidding me with italian icecream vendors in Antarctica? you must be, but I will still be on the lookout.
Keep well and be happy, see you both when I get back.
Victoria, I hope you enjoy your trip. Have a safe voyage and don't eat too much ice cream.
Bon Voyage Victoria, have a wonderful time ! we will look forward to know all about your adventures in South America and Antarctica when you return. We will miss you a lot.
Maria, you've changed the name of that church, haven't you? It was called the Conception before.
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