A Sense of Time in Mexico

Once we'd decided to move to Mexico, Reed and I began reading everything we could get our hands on about Mexico, including a delightful book titled On Mexican Time: A New Life in San Miguel de Allende. Written by U.S. expat Tony Cohan, it is a readable, affectionate account of the cultural adventures encountered by Tony and his wife as they slowly made the transition from life as busy professionals in Los Angeles to full-timers in Mexico.

As I began this post, the title On Mexican Time quickly came to mind. Mañana must be nearly a universal idea these days. At the least, it conveys the notion that Mexicans have a concept of time a bit different from that held by most folks in the U.S. But what is it exactly?

I was reminded of this when we had to replace the vertical blinds in our bedroom. The strong winds that come up in the afternoon had broken several of the slats, which meant we had a gaping hole about 18" wide. But finding someone to replace them seemed a 'mission impossible' until Victor, our trusted vigilancia (building guard and informal majo domo), introduced us to Antonio, the albañil (master tradesman) who does a lot of work in our building. We began to believe that new blinds might be in our near future.

Antonio arrived promptly the same day to measure the window, and he told us he'd return on Friday at noon with the sample book so we could make our selection. The story gets a little complicated here, so before I go on, bear with me while we take a small detour. It'll be worth it, I promise.

Time Viewed in Mexico

Twenty years ago I did a two-year project with Pemex (Mexican oil company). One of my co-consultants recommended the little book Mexican Etiquette and Ethics: Anticipating and Understanding Mexican Social and Business Behavior (1996). I just discovered that the book has been lightly updated, and it remains remarkably useful. Where it seems outmoded, we ask ourselves, Does this still apply today? If not, we use the text as a jumping off point for understanding our own experience.

One section, titled Hora Mexicana / Dealing with Polychronic People, draws on the work of social scientist Edward T. Hall, who identified two kinds of time values that operate in different cultures:

• Monochronic, or one-thing-at-a-time time, which includes most people in Anglo-European cultures, including most people in the United States; and
• Polychronic, or many-things-at-a-time time, which includes most Asians, Mexicans and most other Hispanics.

Monochronic people (M-people) see time (M-time) as moving constantly forward in a straight line. Compulsively measuring time in tiny segments to keep track of its passing, they schedule things to happen sequentially—one at a time in specific time frames, and they tend to be obsessed with things happening "on time". M-people find any deviation in their precisely structured use of time to be very upsetting. Sound familiar?

Polychronic people (P-people) have a much more amorphous view of time. When we visited Teotihuacan, I wrote about the Mesoamerican view of space and time. Teotihuacan's first god-kings and city planners designed Teotihuacan to illustrate their vision of the cosmos. Above all, the Mesoamerican view is a cyclic view of time represented by the symbol ollin, the Life-Force that animates all life.

Ollín - Intertwining Ribbons represent the Life-Force that neither begins nor ends.

P-people, then, have a far more fluid, even seasonal sense of time. By seasonal I mean a morning, a mid-day, afternoon and evening recognized more as seasons than as specific hours, let alone minutes. Even days and nights are somewhat seasonal, or fluid. Far more open-ended than precisely segmented into strict minutes and hours, or even days and weeks, seasons neither start nor stop 'on the dot'. Instead, they seem to flow into each other. Agrarian societies all over the world, operate on P-time.

P-people routinely schedule—or allow—many things to occur at the same time. They are at ease juggling things around so that eventually all of them—or, at least, some of them—get done. They don't think twice about scheduling more than one appointment at the same time, accepting more than one work assignment that is "supposed" to be done in the same time frame, or intermittently doing two or three things during the same time period.

I wish I could remember where I came across this definition of mañana, but it is very useful. When a person on P-time agrees to do something mañana, it doesn't necessarily mean in twenty-four hours. It means that the task now has a place on the doer's list of commitments, and it will get done...when it more-or-less rises to the top of the list, or when it seems to be the next natural thing to do.

Maybe now's the time to mention that one of Mexico's many cultural divides is between the global, neoliberal business sector and the rest of Mexico. A relatively latecomer to the world scene, M-time arrived with industrialization, which demands it. As key sectors of Mexico become increasingly global, more and more Mexicans are becoming accustomed to M-time. Many here in Mexico City even speak of being puntual, punctual.

Back to the Vertical Blinds

But Reed and I don't live in modern Mexico and, most assuredly, neither does Antonio. So we weren't surprised when he didn't show up at the agreed-upon time. Feeling ourselves to be 'old Mexico hands', we were cool for the first several days, figuring that he'd show up in good time. Nothing.

Then one day as I passed through the Lobby, and there he was! Victor was on duty, so we had a lighthearted exchange around "What happened?"  I told Antonio that I thought he wasn't interested in doing the work. The genuinely shocked look on his face told me that he did want the work, which reassured me enormously.

He hung his head in mock guilt and agreed to come on the following Monday at noon, but Monday noon came and went with no sign of Antonio. Maybe now's the time to mention another trait we've noticed: it seems to be very difficult for Mexican tradespeople to tell us that they either don't have or can't do something.

Three weeks had now passed, and I'd given up when I again came across Antonio in the Lobby. This time he told me that the salesman had brought the sample, but he had to pay for it and he didn't have the money.

"But now I have it," he added, and we made yet another appointment.

This time I decided to pull out the stops—well, actually, I pulled out the only stop I know: suffering. I told him that so many of the slats have broken that now when our upstairs neighbor across the air-shaft leaves a light on in the bathroom, it shines right on my face so I can't sleep:

"Estoy sufriendo, Antonio; es muy dificil"—"I'm suffering, Antonio; it's very difficult". 

I was appealing to Antonio's chivalry and his sense of honor toward women. Maybe my tactic worked, because this time he arrived at the appointed hour with sample book in hand. We chose the color and made an appointment for him to install the blinds on the following Saturday at noon.

Now here's the fun part of P-time. I next chanced upon Antonio on Monday, and he told me he had the curtains and could install them on Thursday at 4:00 PM. On the appointed day, I made a quick trip to the local market, arriving back at 3:30 PM, a full half hour before our appointed hour.

Who was waiting for me in the Lobby with the new curtains at his feet? Antonio...all smiles. He'd been chatting with his good friend, Victor, while he waited for me to return. Obviously, installing my blinds had risen to the top of Antonio's list. When I mentioned this to Reed, he observed,

"Yet another example of the personalismo, where business is conducted subjectively based on personal relationships rather than objectively based on an impersonal fee-for-service transaction."

To us M-timers, a specific date and time is sacrosanct, but for people operating on P-time it is just one more task that will occur sometime in its season. I'm convinced that personalizing my experience—I'm suffering because I can't sleep—is what propelled installation of our blinds to the top of Antonio's list. Oh, yes—the blinds look great, and I'm sleeping much better, thank you!

Still Curious?

Jenny's Post: Mesoamerican God-Kings As City Planners.

Another book by Tony Cohan Mexican Days: Journey into the Heart of Mexico.

Awakening to the Rhythm of Life in Mexico

I waken early. Once awake I linger in bed for a few minutes listening to our Coyoacán neighborhood as it wakes up to another day in the Valle de México, Valley of Mexico.

Song of the Cenzontle

First comes the song of the cenzontle (curve-billed thrasher, Taxostoma curvirostre), who begins to sing in the predawn minutes then continues singing pretty much all day long. A cenzontle lived in the trees and shrubs of our garden in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán. He also loved to perch on the ridge of the roof and sing, so we got a good look at him.

Curve-billed thrasher
Photo: Gerrit Vyn (Cornell Web Site)

The word cenzontle comes from the náhuatl word cenzon-tlahtol-e, formed from centzontli ("four hundred") and tlahtolli ("word" hence, "song"). Males have been known to have repertoires of fifty to two hundred songs. After numerous tries over almost a week, today I succeeded in getting a good recording of the centzontle's song at the Botanical Garden in Chapultepec Park.

The cultured and enlightened ruler of Texcoco, Nezahualcóyotl, wrote this poem about the beauty of the cenzontle's song:

I love the song of the cenzontle,
bird of four hundred voices;
I love the color of jade and the enervating perfume
of the flowers;
but I love more my brother
man.

Amo el canto del cenzontle,
pájaro de cuatrocientas voces;
amo el color del jade y el enervante perfume
de las flores;
pero amo más a mi hermano
el hombre.

According to the shamanic tradition out of which grew Mesoamerican religious thought and practices, each person has an animal spirit, called a nahua. The cenzontle is the traditional nahua of women blessed with beautiful singing voices.

Street Sweeper

Another early morning sound is the clatter of metal wheels as the street sweeper's cart bounces along the pavement, followed by a brief silence, then...the slow, steady, swish-swish strokes of the street sweeper's barrido manual.

Street Sweeper with his barrido manual on Paseo de la Reforma (Mexico City).
The natural fiber brooms are traditional and distinctive.

The tradition of sweeping predates the arrival of the Spanish. We saw nearly identical brooms in Michoacán, and we have seen them elsewhere in Mexico, which suggests that the tradition was widespread throughout Mesoamerica—and continues today. 

Until I went down to take this photo, I hadn't realized that our
street sweeper also sweeps the sidewalk. The woman in the coral dress has a
broom in her left hand. Housewives and household help throughout Mexico routinely sweep the walks in front of their homes. From our neighbor's house on the corner, her family runs a tiendita, neighborhood grocery and snack shop.  

Mesoamerican cultures had invented the wheel, but in the absence of animals that could be domesticated to pull vehicles with wheels, they had no incentive to invent the cart. Above all, Mexico's mountainous terrain made horse or ox-drawn carts impractical. On the mountain paths, humans carrying loads on their backs were most efficient. So, instead, they put wheels on animal figures in honor of the deities.

Jaguar carved in obsidian with wheels.

Recently, Reed came upon a list of activities associated with each month of the solar calendar. In essence, community life was organized to assure that the community produced what it needed not only to survive but to stay healthy: water festivals occurred in early spring to assure arrival of the life-giving rains, followed by planting rituals, etc., throughout the year. Sweeping and bathing rituals were practiced the same month as feasts for celebrating the harvests. It certainly makes sense to schedule cleanup of place and people after the annual harvest commotion!

Calzada de Tlalpan


We live a couple of blocks from the Calzada de Tlalpan, a busy six-lane expressway that follows the same route as the original causeway built by the Aztecs to provide access by land to their island capital at Tenochtitlán. During the night, traffic noise just about disappears, but it picks up by 4:30 AM and by 6:00 AM it is a dull roar.

Volcanoes

By the time I get up, the sun is rising behind the volcanoes visible from our living room windows.

Popocatéptl is at the right; Popo's beloved Iztaccíhuatl lies to the left on her
funeral bier with her head almost at the margin—the crater of an extinct volcano
forms her breast; her knees and feet extend along the mountain range to the right.

The Many Layers of Mexico's Culture

I haven't even made my coffee yet, but I've already experienced many layers of Mexican culture. The cenzontle and the volcanoes, of course, put me in direct contact with the natural forces that are a vital cultural component. The street sweeper's broom hearkens back to Mesoamerican times, but the wheeled cart is a Spanish innovation. It was the Spanish who brought with them the draft animals—horses, oxen, burros—needed to pull carts.

Earlier posts have discussed the Mesoamerican cosmovision, or view of the universe. They showed how early peoples conceived of time as cyclic rather than linear. The sun's diurnal cycle (day, night) is the most obvious. It was closely followed by others grounded in astronomical observations: the lunar month, the Venus cycle and, of course, the sun's annual cycle (north to the summer solstice; south to the winter solstice). BTW—yesterday was the summer solstice. Because we are so far south, it means that at high noon, we stand on our own shadows. Wild!

To Mesoamerican thinkers and theologians, the astronomical cycles merged with the annual cycle of the seasons and the organic cycle of plant growth, which combined to form an all-encompassing cosmic system. To their minds, this cosmic system was sustained by the spiritual energy of the ollín, or life-force.

Ollín, endless motion, the life-force itself, was conceived to be the essence of all existence. This representation from Tlatelolco is the most commonly seen symbol for ollín. Note the circle at the center, which becomes the column in the object that follows. 

During a recent visit to the Templo Mayor Museum of Tenochtitlán in the center of Mexico City, I was surprised to see a very different representation of ollín:

This column is said to represent the axis mundi (world axis that connects the earthly plane with the heavens above and the underworld below); the spirals represent ollín, endless motion (energy) or life-force, that is the essence of all existence. 

All of which brings to mind a memorable Spanish class—one of many at CELEP in Pátzcuaro. My teacher and I were discussing the Mesoamerican concept of time as cyclic and contrasting it with the Western concept of time as linear. As we chatted, it suddenly dawned on me that cyclic and linear concepts of time represent two extremes. What it would mean, I mused, if time were conceived as a spiral instead? Like a cycle, a spiral passes over the same points, but with each pass it moves over a slightly different point, either higher or lower.

According to the museum curator's note, the spiral represents the ascent and descent of ollín—movement of divine forces (energy)—between the three levels of existence: the heavens above, the earthly plane, and the underworld below. Thus, at the very center of the Mesoamerican cosmovision rests the spiraling cycle of energy, the ollín, the life-force that drives the universe.

Walking to the Tianguis de sábado, Saturday Open-Air Market,
we were struck to see this topiary in front of a sports gymnasium.
Appropriately, it is shaped into the form of ollín. 

So in the cenzontle's song, in the sun rising over the volcanoes, in the sounds of the street sweeper's cart wheels and the rhythmic swish of his broom, in the traffic noises from the Calzada de Tlalpan, each morning I experience anew the never-ending, always-changing rhythm of ollín. 

Still Curious?

If you'd like to listen to another of the cenzontle's songs, click on Cornell's web site for the curve-billed thrasher. Scroll down and click on "Sound". The second recording (Robert B. Angstadt, Texas, April 1961) captures the 'call and response' songs of two male cenzontles. The first male 'calls'; then, from a distance, a second male 'responds' with a song based on a descending scale. It is this song that captured our attention in Pátzcuaro. It also captivated a neighbor, who told us it is the song of the cenzontle.

Although my skills as a videographer are a tad challenged, I thought you might like to hear the distinctive swish of the street sweeper's barrido manual, which I finally managed to capture on this video (15 sec).

Here's my best street sweeper video (2:06) filmed today, where against all odds I managed to capture cart and worker. I enjoy it when the sweeper puts his barrido manual, broom, back on the cart—the 'flag' of his trade!  I still haven't figured out how to edit the video. I recommend you stop at 2:06! If I could figure out how to do it, I'd cut the rest.

Until I tried to video the street sweepers' activities, I hadn't understood their schedule. What I hear from bed is their 6:00 AM arrival down the main street that crosses our street. Then they make a loop and come back to our street, which is when I made this video (35 sec). This segment is also technically challenged but if you have patience, you will glimpse two men pushing their carts down the street.

Anecdote: There's a story behind why I'm filming the street sweepers from our balcony. The first morning, I went outside, greeted the street sweeper and asked if I could film him working. Although his facial expression remained genial (no 'mask'), he was adamant: "No se permite", it isn't allowed.   

He then explained that a friend of his had been photographed, and it had caused all kinds of problems for him at the 'bodega' (I assume he meant the staging area where they store their carts). I quickly assured him that I had no desire to cause him problems, and I asked if I could photograph him with his back to me: 

"I really want a picture of your barrido manual." 

He was agreeable to that, and I snapped the photo that appears above in the post. He also indicated that it would be okay for me to photograph him from our balcony, so that's why I filmed from above.  

Moving on...here's the original Spanish of the curator's note [Templo Mayor Museum, Mexico City]:

"La pieza cilíndrica con relieves espirales recuerda la forma en que los mexicas, de acuerdo con su cosmovisión, concebían el movimiento de las fuerzas divinas cuando se desplazaban entre los niveles celestes del universo, la superficie terrestre y el inframundo".

Mexico Culture: Quetzalcóatl at Xochicalco and other symbolism

When Reed and I visited Xochicalco just south of Cuernavaca, we were both struck by the symbolism that infuses the site—most explicitly figures found on the Templo de Quetzalcóatl (Temple of the Feathered Snakes). The sculpted reliefs on the temple are outstanding as art, but their symbolism is at least as powerful.

This post attempts to describe the symbolic meanings that inform these works of art—which, after all, the Xochicalca people didn't at all regard as 'art'! The symbolic figures communicated meaning—including sophisticated religious concepts.

Metaphor is widely used throughout Mesoamerican to convey meaning. I'm often struck anew by the highly attuned visual sense of many of our indigenous friends. One barely-literate friend spent perhaps 10-minutes describing all that she saw in a particularly beautiful painting of pueblo life that hangs here at Casa Mariposa. It was not a one-time event. Her responses to various 'objects' that we've brought home suggest that she actively interacts with them:  they 'speak' to her.

For me 'Mesoamerican culture' is not at all 'dead'. It is alive and well and surrounds us today. It is in this spirit that I'd like to share what we 'saw' during our visit to Xochicalco.     

Templo de Quetzalcóatl
The subtle colors are intriquing

It's not an exaggeration to say that Xochicalco is dominated by the Templo de Quetzalcóatl. 

Templo de Quetzalcóatl - Another View

The symbolism of Quetzalcóatl—also known as the 'plumed serpent'—is multi-layered and rich. The serpent is associated with water, caves, and the sky and hence with the cold, wet energy called ecahuil. But the serpent is also known for swallowing its prey whole and for shedding its skin; in this sense, then, the serpent symbolizes death, rebirth and transformation.

Birds take to the sky, which is home also to the sun and to the hot-dry energy called tona. The long blue and green tail feathers of the quetzal bird are highly regarded—sometimes they represent royalty.

Quetzal, sacred to the Aztecs and Maya
During mating season, the male grows blue and green twin tail feathers three feet (1 meter) long;
these tail feathers were worn ceremonially by Mesoamerican rulers and priests

Quetzalcóatl, the ‘plumed serpent’, thus combines earth and the sky, water and sun (fire). We shouldn’t be surprised to learn that Quetzalcóatl was a very complex God. Some see in him a culture hero. When the Spanish arrived, the Aztecs thought Cortés was Quetzalcóatl returning as he had promised.

As the God of Venus, Quetzalcóatl was one of the four sons of the creator gods, and he played an active part in creating the universe. After the first four worlds were destroyed by water, fire, wind and earthquakes, he created a new humankind by mixing his blood with a powder made of the bones of the ancestors.

Quetzalcóatl helped in discovering the maize (corn) seeds—a discovery which was to Mesoamerica what wheat was to Mesopotamia and rice to China. Throughout Mesoamerica, rituals propitiated both the God of Sun and the Gods of Water, precisely as if the sacred plant, maize, were a synthesis of both sun (tona) and water (ecahuil). Certainly, maize requires sun, water and earth to grow in order to yield its life-sustaining kernals.

Quetzalcóatl was the patron of knowledge and of the highest priests. During his life-time as ruler of mythic Tula, he led a life of prayer and ascetism. Quetzalcóatl was also the God of Wind. 

Each corner of the temple depicts two feathered serpents

The Templo de Quetzalcóatl is decorated with beautifully sculpted reliefs representing eight huge feathered serpents—two at each corner (see photo above). These feathered serpents are adorned with great headpieces, snails, important leaders and the symbol for ‘new fire’—the ritual celebration that occurs every 52 years when the 365-day solar calendar and the 260-day divinatory calendar coincide.

Head of one 'plumed serpent'

The Pacific Ocean is 150 miles west, so I was startled to see sea life at Xochicalco. But archaeologists have determined that seashells were obtained throughout Mesoamerica as a result of trade and tribute. Hence the representation of sea life—e.g., starfish, conch shells, sand dollars—at Xochicalco testifies to the city-state’s control of key trade routes and to its military prowess in subjecting other peoples to pay tribute. 

                Pottery Starfish

Pottery Conch Shell

                                                                                               Pottery Sand Dollar                        

Ollín: Symbol of Movement and Transformation

In Mesoamerica, moreover, it was believed that the mountains of the earth rest upon the sea, so the depiction of sea life carried symbolic meaning. As I mentioned earlier, metaphor was used extensively to describe abstract religious concepts throughout Mesoamerica. For example, ollín refers to motion and to the essential vitality and dynamism of life itself; that is, to transformation. In the sculpture shown below, the folded, ribbon-like form at the base represents ollín.

Ollín is the crossed, ribbon-like shape that forms the base of this sculpture
Xochicalco Museum

Emerging from its chrysalis to become a butterfly (mariposa), the butterfly is another symbol of transformation. Below is the sculpted  head of a butterfly.

Butterfly (mariposa) Head
Xochicalco Museum

The jaguar was the Sun God of the Night who, traveling west to east through the Underworld, emerged each morning at sunrise to resume his east-west trip. This journey was not taken for granted, but was supported by religious rituals. Below is a sculpture of the full body of a jaguar and a close-up of the jaguar's head.

Sitting Jaguar (above) and Jaguar's Head (below)
Xochicalco Museum

Let me end this tour of Xochicalco with a lovely plate depicting 'dancers'.  Reed and I disagree over what, exactly, is depicted.  Reed votes for 'dancers' but I have my doubts. The short necks and torsos, and the long, skinny legs suggest 'monkeys' (monos) to me.

Here's what I've been able to find out about monkeys as symbols:  Spider monkeys are social animals that live in groups of 40 to 50, and they range farther north than any other New World monkey—that is, than do either the howler monkeys or capuchin monkeys.  We saw spider monkeys at the Ecological Park in Cuernavaca.

In Central Mexico, the monkey was known as ozomatli and was the 11th day sign. Babies born on the day Ozomatli were thought to be lucky and happy persons.

Plate depicting Dancers
Xochicalco Museum

Maybe these are 'Dancing Monkeys'!  What's your vote?

In any event, the graceful, vital aesthetic of the plate conveys to me much of what I felt about Xochicalco itself. The Xochicalca people only occupied this site for a little over two hundred years (650-900 C.E.) but what they constructed in this short time is powerful testimony to their creative, imaginative intelligence.

Travel Journal: Mexico from a Bus Window - Time

On the highway to Mexico City, our bus takes us alongside great agricultural fields: agribusiness. Smaller, family-worked fields are also visible. Farm 'technology'—I can't think of a better word—spans two centuries.

Time itself seems altered as we take in the sight of plows pulled by ox teams or horse teams. Modern tractors pull plows in other fields. In Mexico the ancient and the modern live—they co-exist—side by side.

The bus speeds past fields where laborers are picking product—radishes, maybe?—from plants with deep green leaves close to the ground. In many fields, a man or two works with a manual farm tool—hoe or machete. The poignancy of this faithful trabajo (work) tugs at me. Setting aside the timeless quality of the men’s labor, I can’t help wondering about the efficiency of their traditional methods.

We see a variety of farm conveyances. It seems we’re watching a split screen showing two centuries. Horse-drawn farm carts loaded with harvest plod steadily down a nearly empty road running parallel to the highway. A few miles later, modern pick-up trucks outfitted to carry farm products to market pass our bus on the highway.

We pass both irrigated fields and fields lacking irrigation. We pass an area where pueblos creep up the sides of cerros (hills), undoubtedly to preserve productive farm land. We pass immense white-roofed greenhouses where fruits and vegetables are grown both for domestic consumption and for export: hydroponic lettuce, berries of all kinds, and much more.

Then we observe a curious phenomenon. With unsettling regularity and set right smack in the middle of large, fallow, open fields stand modern, multi-storied buildings. Their size and style shout ‘Multinational Corporation’. Few, if any, cars are in the parking lots. It’s difficult to know what purpose these buildings serve. Signage is minimal. Warehouses? Could be. It remains a mystery.

Changing buses in Mexico City, we head for Cuernavaca, which has been a weekend and vacation destination for Mexico City’s wealthy and landed classes since Colonial times. On the road to Cuernavaca, we observe a transition.

The modest pueblos we passed entering Mexico City slowly yield to increasingly visible wealth. Upscale fraccionamientos (large subdivisions) hint at the luxury of homes nestled safely inside secure walls.

Arriving in Cuernavaca, I feel like a country mouse in the Big City. Capital of the State of Morelos, Cuernavaca is another world—another tile in the cultural mosaic that is today’s Republic of Mexico.

When we were new arrivals in Pátzcuaro, our Mexican friend Norma observed that “Mexican culture has many levels, and each level is rich.” Each time I encounter yet another facet of Mexican culture, my appreciation for the wisdom of her observation grows.

A Connecticut friend wrote that he’s eager to read my description of Cuernavaca. His mother is Mexican-American, and he recalls spending summers on his uncle’s ranch just outside Cuernavaca: “We rode horses to the mercado (market) in Cuernavaca for comida (mid-day main meal).”

I’ve heard similar comments from Patzcuarenses (Pátzcuaro born). In both pueblo and state capital, it is safe to say that the days of tying horses to hitching posts are gone forever—although I hasten to add that horses are still used regularly to deliver firewood to houses in Pátzcuaro.

The truth is, I can’t write about Cuernavaca right now. Our time there was a private visit to renew—and extend to new family members—a cross-cultural and cross-language friendship that goes back almost twenty years. A valued friendship was warmly, joyously, inclusively renewed. In today’s world, it doesn’t get much better than that.

But it doesn’t leave me with a lot to write about Cuernavaca either. Instead, I find myself feeling the profound difference between a modern Mexican city—perhaps especially one as cultured and beautiful as Cuernavaca—and Pátzcuaro, where we live. It has taken days for me to be able to articulate the feeling, but it has to do with how residents in the two locales regard time and space.

Reed has written about how in the global world the Internet and social networking tools erase ‘time’ and ‘space’. As a corporate consultant, I participated in real-time video conferences attended by people located around the globe. ‘Time’ was ‘now’ regardless of what ‘time zone’ local clocks showed. 'Space’ was defined by the computer ‘screen’ we all watched, regardless of where we were physically located.

Cuernavaca strikes me as a modern, possibly even global city more or less decoupled from the land in a way that ‘frees’ the notion of time from the seasonally-based agricultural cycle. Once ‘liberated’ from the land, time becomes more ‘progressive’. People are more inclined to schedule X-event to occur on Y-date at Z-hour.

In contrast, life in Pátzcuaro is still inextricably linked to the land (‘la tierra’). Now we await the arrival of the spring rains, expected any day. Campesinos wait for the rains to arrive so they can begin planting maíz (corn).

Yesterday morning I heard cohetes (rockets) going off at 5:00 AM, calling the faithful to mañanitas (morning prayers). Today I found out the cohetes were for the Fiesta of San Isidro Labrador, patron saint of farmworkers (Labradores).

But there’s more. Several people described San Isidro to me not only as the patron saint of farmworkers, but as patron also of the rains and of the earth. I take notice whenever reference is made to natural elements. I’ve come to expect a connection to Mesoamerican culture.

My vigilance is rewarded. Tlaloc is the Aztec god of rain. Coatlicue is the Aztec goddess of the earth and of fertility. One might be forgiven for imagining that the Catholic Saint Isidro of Farmworkers rests atop this ancient Mesoamerican belief. It's one more dramatic example of syncretism—the intermingling of two or more belief systems.

It was all beginning to make sense. Last Friday I had passed by Plaza Chica (Little Plaza, or commercial square) on my way to run an errand at the Post Office. Streets on two sides of the Plaza were closed to traffic, and the large area in front of the Teatro Emperador (Emperor Theater) was filled with young Purhépecha women wearing traditional dress for fiestas.

A banda was playing traditional Mexican music. Dancers were performing the Torito (Little Bull), beloved balet folclórico (traditional folk dance). Men and women on horseback watched the proceedings. Men dressed as women (as for Carnival) clowned around while passing around a box and asking spectators for donations.

It was the first day of the Fiesta of San Isidro. The sights and sounds of fiesta—the vibrant colors, traditional banda music, dancers and dances—are a vivid reminder of the sensual connection between Pátzcuaro’s daily, cultural rhythm and this pueblo’s ancient relationship to the land.

The Mexican writer Maria Luisa Puga observes that Patzcuarenses live as if time and space were ‘naturally’ one. In this place called Pátzcuaro, it is time for the rains to arrive.

It is time to plant seeds in Fertile Mother Earth where they can receive Tlaloc's life-giving rain. So it is that in this time and place, the cycle of life continues…as it was millennia ago in Mesoamerican culture, as it is today, and as it shall forever be....

Good Friday in Pátzcuaro

Gazing periodically out the iron gate of Casa Mariposa on the outskirts of Pátzcuaro, Reed and I watched a steady stream of cars heading toward Centro (downtown) in advance of Good Friday. Based on our week-long observation, we're confident that the cars bear license plates from all over Mexico—Puebla, Jalisco, Guanajuato and Querétaro and, above all, the Distrito Federal or Mexico City.

Pátzcuaro is a destination on religious pilgrimages of the faithful throughout the year. But observance of the days preceding Easter are especially powerful and emotionally charged. 

The stage is set, as it were, by the Altar de Dolores (Altar of Sorrows) that are set up in more than twenty locations in Centro—not only in the Básilica and Churches but in the Palacio Municipal (City Hall), Library, local Theater, hotels, schools and even some private houses, including the Bishop's Residence, situated on the Plaza Grande. 

By far, the most elaborate and beautiful of these Altars is the one set up in front of City Hall (see below), which induces a distinct cultural jolt among those of us raised in a tradition of strict separation of Church and State.

Altar de Dolores (Altar of Sorrows), Palacio Municipal, Pátzcuaro

Semana Santa, Holy Week, in Pátzcuaro is very different from Holy Week in the United States. Almost all Mexicans are Roman Catholic, and their Easter traditions originated in Catholic Spain 400 years ago. 

Processions through the streets and other events represent the last week of the life of Jesus. The images are extraordinarily vivid in their portrayal of the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus and of the suffering of his mother, the Virgin Mary. They provoke an immediate emotional reaction. To those of us with a Protestant heritage, they can be strange and even disturbing . Here you will encounter this Mexican experience.
Good Friday morning began for us with the procession up to Calvario Church, located on the road leading up the volcanic mountain called Estribo.

In the procession, men and women from the Church's confradas (lay service organizations) carried on their shoulders wooden platforms on which rested statues of Jesus, Mary, and John the Disciple, whom Jesus charged with caring for Mary.

Women of the Confrada carry the image of Mary, Mother of Sorrows

The men of the confrada wore shirts bearing the message (loosely translated), "Jubilee Year celebrating 350 years of miraculous movement of the Lord of the Third Order." (Third Orders are church lay organizations, distinquished from clergy and monastic orders.)

Message on back of shirts worn by men in the Confrada

When the procession reached the area in front of Calvario Church, a man from the Church, in a reenactment of the crucifixion of Jesus, was placed on an actual wooden cross. On either side of 'Jesus' were two other men representing the two thieves.  All three remained on their crosses for less than an hour before being taken down.

The crowd of watchers then began to disperse—many taking advantage of traditional Mexican food offered for sale by residents of houses along the route of the procession. One family had offered chairs on their balcony for observers willing to pay for a better view.

Tonight after dark was the Procession of Christ Crucified. We waited patiently with others for the arrival of the procession. We spotted the white canopy first, but had no idea what it was until it close enough for us to see a priest walking under it, carrying the Host, which embodies the presence of Christ.

Following the priest came a seemingly endless procession of Crosses, brought by the confradas from their Churches in Pátzcuaro and from Churches in nearby pueblos to be part of this procession.  The first Cross was cradled tenderly in the arms of two men.

Christ Crucified is draped in purple, which symbolizes His Suffering and Passion.

Next came the Cross of the Sacred Heart. The handwritten sign, "The Holy Cross of Saint Lazarus," touched me for its unapologetic simplicity.  

Next came a Black Christ. 

Christ shrouded in His Tomb. 

The Sorrowful Mother of Christ dressed in the black of mourning, carried by women of the Confrada. 

The Cruz Verde, or Green Cross, with the Rays of God emanating from the empty cross draped in white, which symbolizes not only purity, but mourning as well. The Cruz Verde was the only 'empty' Cross in the procession.

The color green carries complex symbolic meanings. In the Aztec culture, green connoted royalty because it was the color of the quetzal plumes worn by Aztec chiefs. Green is also associated with resurrection and regeneration. Fiesta Day for Cruz Verde is May 3, which coincides with planting in the Lake Pátzcuaro region.

The last Cross was remarkable for its humanity and its simplicity. 

The Procession ended as it began...in silence. We, like the others who had stood near us watching, began walking away slowly, quietly, reflectively.  

Mesoamerican God-Kings as City Planners

After viewing our photos of the Mayan cities that we visited recently, a friend in Manhattan asked: "Who in the society designed these spaces—Priests? Kings? The spaces seem so carefully designed." We thought you might enjoy Reed's reply, so here it is. The live links go to the photo albums Reed has posted since our return.

Yes, Mesoamerican cities are often very intentionally designed. God-kings were in charge and served as 'chief priests'. The pyramids and temples (such as Pakal's 'Temple of the Inscriptions' at Palenque) were built not only as tombs of the kings, but to honor as well the god the now-deceased king had represented on earth.

Pakal directed the building of his own tomb, and his son had the finishing touches put on it. The son then built three more "temples," honoring himself, his royal lineage (traced back to a mythical founding by the gods in 3000 B.C.), and each of the city's three chief gods.

Pakal's tomb at Palenque
Note the Nine Levels representing the Underworld

The Mesoamerican 'city plan' is a representation of the cosmos—a 'cosmogram´—laid out to the four cardinal directions. Imagine a cross formed by two lines: one connecting north to south, and the other connecting east to west, with a center point located at the intersection of the two lines.

Mesamerican astronomer-priests had observed the sun's daily path east to west across the Heavens, and they posited that the sun's zenith (high noon) fell directly above the center located in the plaza. Similarly, they posited that nightly the sun traversed the 'Underworld' and that the sun's nadir (midnight) passed below the center point located in the plaza.  In this sense, they envisioned a spherical planet.

This center point serves as an axis mundi (world axis) that connects the Human Level vertically down to the Nine Levels of the Underworld and up to the Thirteen Levels of the Heavens of the Gods. The Mayas regarded the ceiba tree to be the Tree of Life, with its roots in the Underworld and its branches supporting the Heavens.

Ollín (Sp. el movimiento) is an ancient word that translates into Spanish as 'the movement'. In English, perhaps 'motion' is the best interpretation. Ollín refers to the motion that is the Life-Force itself. Not surprisingly, ollín was said to occur primarily along the axis mundi or World Tree, which permits 'movement' from one level to another—especially by priests in altered states of consciousness. 

For this reason, Mesoamericans typically constructed at the plaza's center point a pyramid surmounted by a temple; the steep 'rises' and short 'runs' of the stairs leading to the temple at the top symbolized the 'motion' of ascending to the Heavens.  Subterranean rooms (tombs and rooms dedicated to ritual performance) were often found at the base of pyramids, such as Pikal's tomb (discussed below). 

'Cosmogram' at Toniná

The 'cosmogram' on the pyramid at Toniná explicitly portrays this plan. It is composed of a lower pyramid—the Underworld—and an inverted pyramid above—the 'stairs' to the Heavens. The vertical, central rectangle is an axis mundi—possibly the Milky Way—that unites the two supernatural worlds and the world of humans, which is represented by the horizontal band in the middle. The path of the sun—from east to west—is marked by the symbols on either side of the horizontal band. 

The number of levels of the pyramids often reflect one or the other of the levels of these two 'supernatural' worlds. Pakal's tomb at Palenque, for example, has Nine Levels, representing the Underworld. The pyramid at Chichén Itzá (see below) has Thirteen :evels and a total of 365 steps on its four sides, representing the solar year. Pyramids and temples are often oriented to mark the four cardinal directions (north-south-east-west).

Ballcourts—the other central feature of Mesoamerican cities—were sacred spaces where the mythic battle between the Gods of Creation and the Gods of Destruction (the Underworld) was constantly replayed.

Ballcourt at Monte Alban

Ballcourt game between a lord—in the role of the Creation God—and dwarfs of the Underworld portrayed in miniature on temple stairs at Yaxchilán

The designs developed over a period of more than 2,500 years. Although their sites were not fully organized cities, the Olmecs (1,200-400 B.C.) were the first to design center spaces (plazas) with pyramids and ballcourts.

Olmec mosaic of Jaguar head,

In Mesoamerican culture, the Jaguar is a God of the Night and Underworld. This mosaic was deliberately buried by the Olmecs beneath their plaza at La Venta. The plaza itself represented the primal sea from which the gods of creation brought forth the terrestrial world.

Monte Alban is considered the first fully developed city (500 B.C. to 500 A.D.).

The central plaza at Monte Albán

A mountaintop, dominating the intersection of three valleys, was first deliberately leveled to create a building site. The plan evolved over time, but it has a clear organizing, north-south plaza, a central temple and other temples aligned to the cardinal directions.

Contemporaneous with Monte Albán, Teotihuacán (north of Mexico City—a future trip, we were there in 1994) is the biggest city of all and was clearly designed from the beginning according to this cosmic plan, with a north-south axis for its huge so-called "Avenue of the Dead," and pyramids and temples aligned to the cardinal directions. Residential streets were laid out on a Manhattan-like grid around the political and ceremonial center.

Pyramid of the Moon, at the end of the Avenue of the Dead, Teotihuacán

The so-called Classic period Mayan cities came later (400-900 A.D.) and seem less formally organized. Palenque actually doesn't have an overall, clear plan. The palace is in the center, dominating the plaza, but the city is built along the base of a ridge, and a number of temples line up along that ridge. Other temples are arranged around the palace.

Each Mayan city we have visited—both this time and on previous trips—is quite individual in its layout. Perhaps this is because many Mayan cites are in hilly country, so the landscape determined their layout. Toniná (500-900 A.D.), for example, is in a wide, flat valley, but sited on a hill that dominates the valley. Its temples and palaces are almost all constructed on a pyramid built up the side of the hill, evidently for strategic defensive reasons.

Toniná

Yaxchilán (350-800 A.D.) is similar to Palenque, built along the side of a ridge parallel to the Usumacinta River. It has a plaza lined by temples, but no free-standing pyramid as such. Most of the temples are above the plaza, on the side of the ridge; on the other side of the plaza the land slopes down to the river.

The stairs up to the main temple

Yaxchilán

Comalcalco is on the flat coastal plain of Tabasco state. It has a large, rectangular plaza, with a pyramid at the south end and temples arranged formally around the other three sides. However, there is a low hill at one corner and a large palace sits atop the hill, dominating the city.

Comalcalco

Uxmal, in the low Puuc hills (more precisely "hillocks") of the northwest Yucatán Peninsula, consists of a pyramid not in the center but to one side, with a variety of groupings of government and religious buildings spread out in a beautiful manner that seems determined by the gently rolling landscape.

Uxmal ballcourt, with "Nunnery" in background

Chichén Itzá, not far from Uxmal, but in the flat Yucatán coastal plain, presents both less formal and highly structured areas. The older part (600-900 A.D.) is built in the same, less formal "Puuc" style as Uxmal. But the newer part (900-1200 A.D.) is very similar to Teotihuacán, with a huge pyramid in the center of a huge plaza, a gigantic ballcourt and other buildings arranged in a rectangle around it.

Pyramid of Kukulcan at Chichén Itzá

This may be because of an invasion by the Toltecs, who dominated central Mexico after the decline of Teotihuacán and whose own city of Tula (900-1200 A.D., also north of Mexico City), imitated the formal organization of that earlier metropolis. The Toltecs invaded the Mayan area when it was going into decline and built, or influenced the building of, the later—and more famous—part of Chichén.

Statues of Warriors atop the Pyramid at Tula

The Aztecs formed the last Mesoamerican civilization (1300-1521 A.D.). These nomadic, "chichimeca" ("barbarian") newcomers to Central Mexico imitated the formal urban planning of Teotihuacán and Tula in building their own city of Tenochtitlán (Mexico City). The plaza of Tenochtitlán became the Zócalo of Spanish colonial Mexico City, with the Roman Catholic Cathedral replacing—and built from the stones of—the "Templo Mayor" (here seen at rear center).

Model: Tenochtitlán Temple Complex

Metropolitan Cathedral on the Zócalo, Mexico City's main square