Dear Friend,
As you may or may not know, I was invited to travel around Mexico for a few weeks to attend yoga retreats and workshops last October. The trip also gave me ample time to finish writing my manuscript. It was a journal I had begun to keep after returning home from my first trip to Mexico for Dia de Los Muertos in 2022, which reflected on the two weeks I had spent there. It had taken nearly a year to complete, and as I was approaching the Halloween deadline, I was suddenly given the opportunity to travel back to Mexico to complete the manuscript in the same place I had had the idea.
It was not lost on me that some sort of magic had transpired in order for me to finish writing my project by coming full circle and returning to Mexico, so I suppose this made it easier for me to turn down an offer to work at a stable full time job in the pursuit of my creative dreams.
Lavender Haze: Mexico City
While walking through Alameda Central, an urban park located in the center of Downtown Mexico City, I was asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Hmmm…” I began then listened into my body which felt, quite viscerally, all that was happening around me. It was a Friday evening, and the large park was a host for several events. In one area, large candle sculptures painted with butterflies and cempasúchil flowers had been erected for the upcoming Dia de Los Muertos festivities, in another area crowds gathered in a circle to watch a clown perform tricks, couples met near a fountain for a weekly practice of salsa dancing, their bodies were twirling in perfect synchronicity to each other like birds in flight.
I thought back to when I had arrived the previous night when the city shut its doors like eyelids preparing for rest. To keep the light out, I had lowered all the blinds, but as I laid in bed, somehow the moon managed to slip itself into the cotton sheets next to me. We stared at the ceiling, not saying much if only to hear the breath of the other with precise accuracy. Recalling the morning when I had awoken in an apartment overlooking El Centro where the archaic architecture of yellow buildings with red roofs stretched as far as the mountain range on the perimeter of the city itself, where the Torre Latinoamerica skyscraper kept time for me, where I was so high in the air, I could see angels below me as marbled statues on top of a monument built in honor of former Mexican President Benito Juarez. I reminisced about the independent book fair I had visited in the plaza outside of the Zocalo at noon, where the poetry of local female poets and the strength of women who had flocked to the streets of Mexico City in recent years to protest high rates of femicide had inspired me to write my own. I recalled the murals of artwork painted by legendary painters as I toured el Palacio de Bellas Artes. All of which depicted México’s history and revolutionary spirit as its people pushed for sovereignty and liberation against fascist powers by exposing the corruption of the elite and ruling class. Something about these paintings invoked a sense of pride within me for my Mexican heritage that I have been, for many years, reclaiming my right to reconnect to.
Finally, I remembered the evening before going out for dinner and a walk through the park, where a simple dream of sitting in an apartment listening to the sounds of La Ciudad at night had come true. A lavender haze of dusk fell over the mountains with a feather lightness, gently riding the shape of its fall through air to land with such grace it hardly seemed to make a noise. And if it had, it faltered like sand beneath the sound of nocturnal life in the city. Buskers played their instruments in hopes of captivating the attention of the public, cars in the traffic jam joined in by blaring their horns, the winds of bagpipes caused the eruption of children’s laughter. It was all music to my ears, and it flowed over me as sonic waves until it soaked through my body and I began dancing to the sound in the middle of the apartment. That is where I realized that each moment that comes my way, is an answered prayer divinely brought.
My body was certain as I felt a warmth in my chest and I answered finally, “I’m feeling in love.”
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆
When Women Were Birds
A poem I wrote while attending a local book fair at the Zocalo. It was inspired by the recent women’s uprisings and protests in CDMX that happened in the last couple of years. I was deeply inspired by the revolutionary spirit of the women of Mexico which comes from the vigor and strength of our foremothers.
Tropical Storm: Oaxaca
I spent a week in a small coastal town in Oaxaca called Zipolite, where I attended and assisted a yoga retreat. It was the same yoga retreat that I had attended the previous year on my initial trip to México, where I had spent much of it in solitude as I grieved the loss of loved ones and when faced with the absolute promise of death, I found the courage to pursue my writing endeavors. Located next to a lighthouse, the retreat center was built on a cliffside overlooking the ocean. The desk, where I spent most of the week writing and finishing my manuscript, had a window looking outside at the far stretching horizon. It provided me with the solitude a writer needs to be with her thoughts and hear her voice.
Being back in Oaxaca reawakened the memories that had been dormant from my initial trip and I was able to recall the events because in a sense, I was reliving them.
Like how the first time that I saw a sunrise over an unobstructed horizon was when I visited Oaxaca for the yoga retreat in November of 2022. Despite the charge of the pacific ocean below the cliff where I sat watching, the whole scene was quiet and slow moving like I was experiencing now entirely. Each breath came and went, but the moment always stayed fixed as it was. Then, as the sun’s golden body rose, bringing along with it a sacral light, I saw tiny fishing boats that had gone out onto the water before dawn as they began to appear into sight. As they buoyantly maneuvered through the water, it rippled along the sides of the boat and made a tail that followed behind. The trees in the forest all began to sway, and the birds stretched their wings as they reached into the new day. It was like the whole world was yawning awake. Naturally the earth turned its cheek to feel the warmth of that giant celestial body against its face.
I knew back then, as I stared at the sunrise over the Pacific, that anything with this much radiance didn’t need to demand attention, it was purely given. I began to cultivate a deeper reverence for the sun than I already had as I beheld its holy entrance. Its vibration filled the space between us until it held me like its own child. Until that point, loving myself had been my life’s greatest challenge, but feeling claimed by the sun's warmth, I finally realized that love is a softening, a gentle ease into grace. It was then that I decided to devote my life to be like a grand prayer to the sun. This is when I truly became a yogi.
“The first and foremost of the elders and the Devas, Surya is the energetic knowledge of the entire universe. Therefore, he must be worshiped–Surya Namskara is quite necessary. Surya means “emitting rays,” rays mean “knowledge.” To a yogi, the rays of the rising sun represent the rising of knowledge.”
–BNS IYENGAR
𖤓☼𖤓☼𖤓
Because of the sun's importance in yoga philosophy and because of the heat that it quickly brought to the tropical climate, yoga practice began each day at 8 in the morning. After breakfast, I used the free beach period to write in my bedroom. I have mentioned my confusion when it comes to my path in previous letters, but as I set my yellow journal down to write each day, the confusion I had about my direction would lessen like fog subtly lifting. It became clear to me that my journey was to follow my stories around as if it were my guiding compass, yet the path was only to be revealed day by day. I don’t necessarily know where writing is taking me, only that it is taking me somewhere and that I must go.
While in Oaxaca, we experienced some pretty violent wind storms that broke the lock off my bedroom door as it shoved the door open before turning into torrential rains later that night. There had been a hurricane along the Mexican coast in Baja California, and we felt the vigor of its force. At one point, I truly feared the palm thatched roof would be blown off the house.
As I was preparing for bed, the rain (which is quite typical for the tropical climate) began to fall with such force that all of the guests who were sleeping dormitory style in the open air studio became drenched along with their cots and belongings. After helping a guest move her clothing and belongings to prevent them from getting soaked, or worse, from being taken by the wind, we had to move most guests into my bedroom and temporarily share beds as we sought shelter in the storm. I placed my rubber yoga mat underneath the door in order to keep it shut. I got into bed completely wet and breathing heavily from running around in the dark storm. I couldn’t help but think that maybe God had broken the lock off the door as a clear command to invite everyone in for safety. A friend agreed with me.
Of course, everyone was fine, and we all laughed about it in the morning while suggesting that two of the guests had conjured the weather with a storm dance before bed. While I was washing dishes, I found a few tiny crabs that had been blown from the beach all the way up the cliff hiding in the sink. I thought of scaling the cliff down to the beach in the afternoon to return them, so I captured them in a cup. But when I went outside to shower, I noticed many crabs that had been carried by wind and were now displaced way up high on the cliff. It was then that I saw the intricate hand of mother nature placing those crabs up on the cliff by way of wind to be eaten by other animals. It became obvious that this was calculated and not an accident by any means, I could see that the whole earth is an intelligent feeding body, rejuvenating life through the process of death. The crab was but a small expression of earth, and the crab was also the trees, the crab was all the blooming flowers of the tropics, the crab was the body that would soon consume it. All of it was the same yet distinguishable only by individual physical form. Everything in the forest on the cliff and down below on the beach was an extension of the earth and death was but the process of returning to it. I couldn’t intervene with a process so divine in its nature, so it was with absolute reverence for death that I placed the crabs outside to allow the cycle to close, knowing death was not the end of them.
All week, I kept saying in regards to finishing my manuscript, “I really think that I can finish it tomorrow.” But when that day finally did arrive, I was feeling emotional, spending most of the day crying. This was because, as I wrote about my previous travels, I was processing grief from the loss of loved ones that had all occurred during that time. It was through the year I spent in the writing process that I had cultivated the voice I had initially gone to Mexico to find. It was a victorious moment filled with so much pride for myself, which was heightened due to the fact that I was already high on mushrooms which put me in this euphoric state.
Having spent most of my time writing hunched over at my desk, I could feel my body asking to go outside to finish the manuscript in the fresh air. As I stood with the trees overlooking the Mexican coastline, holding my journal close to me and just moments away from finishing, I became aware of a charge in my body that fixed me to the present moment which felt like a doorway into eternity. I have never in my life felt that I have embodied my personal dharma more than in that moment, because it felt as if I was vibrating at a frequency that was completely in alignment with who, or what I truly am. It may seem strange, but as I think back to it, I truly believe I was aligning with my destiny. In that moment I was able to tap into my purpose fully, in that moment existed the entire fabrication of my life. As I was fully embodying myself, I was aware that I was all that I ever had been, all that I ever would be, like every iteration of myself unraveled into this infinite strand and I was each, all and one. And my manuscript, it had a life of its own, it had its own soul too, its own purpose and mystical path. It was actualized right then and there, I felt the potency of all of its potential, the opportunities that would present itself, the doorways that had opened. It was powerful magic that moved me to tears, then I began to write.
One of the reasons for traveling all the way to Oaxaca to finish my manuscript was because there was a small detail I had forgotten about my initial trip, which was the significance of the cempasúchil flower as told to me by a Native Zapotec Curandera, a medicine woman, during a temazcal ceremony the year before. It was a detail I left space for in my almost complete manuscript, like the last piece of a puzzle needed to complete the whole picture. For the last day of the retreat, we were scheduled to participate in the same temazcal ceremony, which is a traditional Native Mexican sweat lodge, which took place on the day of the full moon lunar eclipse last October. I had scheduled to meet with Irma, the curandera, for a personal limpia, before the group ceremony to release the grief and ask about the flower.
Having taken a taxi down the road, I arrived at Irma’s house and place of practice an hour before the rest of the retreat guests. Because everything along the Mexican coast moved so slowly, I sat for a long while waiting on the porch with her black cat keeping me company as he slept on the ground near me. Her home was high up on a hill and overlooked the small coastal town of Zipolite. From there I could see the strip of bars, hotels, shops and restaurants, as well as a football field where locals gathered for a game. Her property was quiet, with the exception of the few chickens roaming the grounds and the shifting of trees as the breeze from the ocean made its way up the hill.
It was a simple life that she led along with the residents who all studied medicine beneath her. One such resident was a man from France who had been a festival DJ in his early life before being called to apprentice with Irma. But based on the beauty of the surrounding grounds and the way that everything seemed to move so much slower out there, I’m certain it was enough to make anyone question their path and call them toward subtle renunciation of a worldly way of life. At least, it was enticing enough for me…
When Irma finally did call me back to her from the apothecary, I was only a little nervous to meet with her. Yet those fears quickly dissipated when interacting with her as she held a sweet presence. Irma was an elder, and she reminded me of a tree that has lived a long life, because I could feel that her roots were firmly planted in ancestral soil, while also having sturdy and high reaching branches that extend into the heavenly planes because she was devoted to her spiritual practices. I told her of my alignments as she gathered her supplies, but she seemed to move much more on intuition.
During the cleansing, she handed me two cempasúchil flowers, bathed me in smoke and liquor, pulled my hair, whacked me with sacred native herbs, and forced a primitive scream out of my core until I wept finally. After, while holding the flowers in my hands, which she had directed me to use in ceremony to scrub myself with, I asked, “¿Qué significa el cempasúchil?”
With a tender and loving smile that could only belong to a wise elder deeply connected and open to the source, she explained to me that the cempasúchil flower was a gift offered to us by our ancestors. They are a connection between life and death because it is a flower that blooms during the dying season. It is a flower that represents the masculine as it symbolizes the sun with its thousands of golden orange petals appearing like thousands of sun rays.
Showing her my cempasúchil tattoo on my left arm, which I had gotten in honor of the passing of my loved ones, I explained to her that my family sold cempasúchil en La Ciudad during Dia de los Muertos. My dad had, as a young boy, sold flowers in a neighborhood called La Roma.
Irma looked momentarily surprised but then a calm knowing overcame her, and she told me that the flowers had come to me by my ancestors as medicine.
After the ceremony, I went out to the trees where I had finished writing my manuscript and offered it to the land by burying it beneath the full moon. It was my intention to return to it someday in the future, but for now, I was purely creating a portal for that day.
The Video
I started flying: Pubela
“I'm sittin' in the railway station / Got a ticket to my destination / On a tour of one-night stands / My suitcase and guitar in hand / And every stop is neatly planned / For a poet and a one-man band”
-Paul Simon, Homeward Bound
The bus ride to Puebla City from La Ciudad de México was nearly a three hour trip, and I spent the majority of it in tears. First, I had been convinced that I had left a very special gift back at the rental room in Mexico City–where I had spent several days visiting family and celebrating for Dia de Los Muertos after the retreat–I didn’t. Second, I was feeling terrible motion sickness and the dramamine that I had taken at the station was no match for the bus riding the curves and bumps of the country roads. Finally, after having completed my manuscript, I was feeling lost again and had gotten the invitation to travel more, this time overseas.
Maybe because I was already feeling such emotional distress, but as I looked out at all the tiny pueblos scattered along the Mexican landscape, as if peering out the window was like traveling through a museum of pastoral paintings, I thought of my parents making a journey to America through this same terrain. Their trip had undoubtedly been treacherous and scary as they abandoned all that they had known for the hope of something better in an uncertain future and land. With this thought, the tears came tenfold until I was no longer a woman but a bestial river unable to be kept. I felt selfish for my desire to seek fulfillment elsewhere beyond the landscape of America, beyond the confines of its capitalist structures that don’t lead the spiritual fulfillment I seek. They had made treacherous travels to America, and I had this belief, similar to what they had when they were my age, that there has to be something better out there.
Out where though? I wondered while also beginning to fear that maybe the dissatisfaction was coming from within. But this was quite perplexing as the pull to go beyond my known reality was very much real.
My companion and I traveled to Pubela where he had planned to host an ashtanga yoga workshop. While there, we stayed as guests in a yoga studio in Puebla City, which was hosting their own Dia de los Muertos festivities. I had intended on climbing a volcano whose indigenous name is Matlalcueye, which is more commonly referred to as “La Malinche,” but decided not to because I was feeling unwell. As my companion went out to seek the summit with a local guide, I stayed at the studio for the day resting, speaking to my mother and meditating on a decision that would determine what kind of life I wanted to live and what kind of person I wanted to be.
While in quiet contemplation in Mexico, I realized that I do not want an ordinary life. It is not what I am built for and neither will I shrink myself for it. I cannot imagine staying fixed in one spot when there is a whole world created for wandering and frolicking in, when the earth has expressions meant to be admired by my heart and held in my eyes, when there are so many people I have yet to meet, touch, and fall in love with, when there are whole spiritual realms I have yet to access. I am not ordinary and I require freedom, I require passion, and experiences that will give my life, my character, and my work depth of thought, emotion and spirit.
This is why I have made the decision to travel more in the year of 2024. Like my own parents, I plan to leave behind the known to journey into uncertainty because something is calling me there. I do, however, plan to document my travels and musings to share with you, dear friend, so please do read my future letters.
I suppose now when I look back at the trip, the fear came from the sensation of the wind ribboning around my body as I was falling in love. Falling for the sights, the sounds, the culture, the practices, the people. But it didn't hurt because on my way down, I think I started flying.
Land Acknowledgment
I would like to acknowledge and send my respects to the indigenous people of Oaxaca—the sacred lands in which I resided as a guest–Mixtec, Chinantec, Zapotec, Mixe, Mazateco, Chatinos, Trique, Huave, Náuhuatl, and any nations that I may have neglected to mention. I especially want to voice my deep reverence to the Zapotec lineage, medicinal practices, and to the healers that guided me through the cleansing of ancestral grief and trauma. I give my deepest reverence to the lands, the ancestors, and the current and emerging elders.
p.s. here is a playlist that essentially sums up my time in Mexico ~
Very moving work, Jacquelin. It gave a lift to my day to read your words and enjoy your pictures, and I wish you the same fulfilling journey in your literal travels as you have discovered (and so vividly articulated) in your spiritual ones. May you continue to challenge me and all of your readers!