Legends of the Izkaloteka

The Age of Abya Yala

In icuitlacuah oquipantiac in tlapetlanilli.

Le pego el relámpago en la cuitlacuaitl, en la pura nuca, but by that time it was too late.

They had already begun to laugh out loud, and that beginning was the very first wispy whisper of the roaring wind of their resistance, which came to be later documented in the Archives of Áztlan under the chapter known as the Atecocoli, a chapter which had neither beginning nor ending but kept on growing in remembrance and aspirations as the tale tellers grew, yes, grew older as the elders.

It was too late to expect for federal recognition from the United States government as “Native Americans” and being exactly 160 years after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), the government of the Republic of the United Mexican States would never flinch now to explain why or how as a political sovereignty recognized within the United Nations system, how could they (as States) transfer territorial integrity to the government in Washington, DC over lands, rivers, mountains, caves, glaciers, and entire ecosystems that they never even knew the name of, except only as shadow provinces of a New Spain that never made it past Geronimo into the New World, tracing projections of the way points of Americo Vespucci, Adams, and Onis.

“Sabes what?”  He said, not questioned but said as only a truly close relative might, could and did say: “Sabes what?”  He began asking out loud to the other ones, who there were not that many (they were not the masses, but only the surviving veteranos of the Movimiento Chicano), as a matter of fact at times there were only a few, or two, or an even one.


It was the multitude in miniature.

“Do you realize we live in the age of Abya Yala?”

He said it out loud but the question part of it went inward to return again four decades later (Gregorian) understanding that it was not resistance but fulfillment that created the high and low pressure zones, states of correlating social sciences trying to account for the lack of human relationship as human beings (what else?) across the territory of the lands of Abya Yala. [AKA: the Americas].

“We are no longer in America.” It was a declaration of voluntary departure. “We no longer live in America, this is now the age of Abya Yala”, and it was a statement of celebration in the powerful hushed tone of reverence and just simple luck to have lived long enough to sense it, see it, and realize that they had become the veteranos of the movement in spite of it all and because of it all.  Because of it all, La Causa had called and they had not resisted but fulfilled its mandate to go where all men and all women had gone before, those who had the good sense to go before and become the ancestors of those of us now going to find out just how they did it, how did they fulfill their love for life and humanity, and so they said it again repeating:

“Let us say with absolutely no risk of sounding ridiculous that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.”

It sounded good but in actuality the preference was for: 

“Prefiero morir de risa que vivir sufriendo.” 

And so it began, once, again.  Beginning with an echo, the laughter came out with that wispy nostalgia, whispering the question loudly in clear free flight, and with night sky of the desert wind for a trail:  “Where have you been?” 

I was trying to remember.  Already I was trying to remember what it was like to live in America before the Age of Abya Yala.

Chapter 1. Cemhueytlalpan - Pangaea

******************************************************************************http://aulex.org/nah-es/?busca=continente&idioma=en

hueytlalpan:  continente m  continent

ixachitecatl: indígena americano, nativo americano, amerindio, gente autoctona que habita en las tierras de todo el continenteamericano, desde Alaska y Groelandia, hasta la Patagonia chileno-argentina.

Indigenous person of Ixachitlan, Abya Yala [the Americas], (native american), amerindian, auctocotonous peoples who live in the lands of the entire continent Abya Yala [the Americas], from Alaska and Greenland to Patagonia of Chile and Argentinia. 

Ixachitlan: América (Lugar de la gran tierra), así nombraban los aztecas al continente americano antes de la llegada de los españoles.

Abya Yala [America] (Place of the great land), thus was named by the Azteca the continent before the arrival of the Spaniards.

http://aulex.org/nah-es/?busca=grande 

ixachi: bastante, suficiente, grande, gran, mucho
full, sufficient, great, much, 

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Anahuac, Cemanahuac

Hueytlalpan, Cemhueytlalpan

Gaea |ˈjēə|
variant spelling of Gaia (sense 1). Gaia |ˈgīə| |ˈgaɪə| |ˈgʌɪə|

1 (also Gaea, Ge) Greek Mythology the Earth personified as a goddess, daughter of Chaos. She was the mother and wife of Uranus (Heaven); their offspring included the Titans and the Cyclopes. [ORIGIN: Greek, 'Earth.' ]

2 the earth viewed as a vast self-regulating organism. [ORIGIN: 1970s: coined by James Lovelock, at the suggestion of the writer William Golding, from the name of the goddess Gaia.]

DERIVATIVES

Gaian |ˈgaɪən| noun & adjective

******** 

pan-combining form

all-inclusive, esp. in relation to the whole of a continent, racial group, religion, etc. : pan-African | pansexual.

ORIGIN from Greek pan, neuter of pas 'all.'-

There are 5 results for «relampago»

tlahuetequi: rayo m, relámpago m
tlapetlalli: relámpago m
tlapetlanalotl: relámpago m
tlatomitl: rayo m, descarga eléctrica f, relámpago m
tletletl: rayo m, relámpago m

Changing Woman

At one

Time

She found herself among the

Loneliest of speckled clouds,

Hanging by the power of a lightning bolt

To the desert land below that

belonged

To the People, to the O’Odham:

Generations of the Nahuatlaca.

They who had traced her trail,

The echoing footsteps,

Tracks that took

A moon time to appear

And disappear,

Blown back to stardust

By the wind

From the

Sun.

The OrigiNations met,

Formed assembly and adopted

Positions,

Caring for them as if they were

Their own children, which they were.

Particular places where these,

Their children,

Could once again,

Twice,

and then as before,

Emerge reborn –

Eyes clear and

Focused

On the shimmer of her

Sweeping skirt

In departure over the horizon,

Leading the way

Home.

Tupac Enrique Acosta

9/20/02

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The Weeping Woman of Flower Bone and Corn

DOWNLOAD PDF

Story by Citlaxochitl Enrique

Graphics by Tupac Enrique Acosta

She sits on heaps of trash weeping for reasons not yet known.

 

Discombobulated concrete, splinters of metal, shards of lost dreams, and slivers of ash, dust and life lay scattered like serpents into miniature Mountains nearby an unarmed pond.

The pond is incredibly shallow and unexpected, walking along you might not see it and fall right in.  There is a lot of beauty in this place, even among all these garbage mountains plants also grow.  A stalk of corn rises up from the Trash Mountains with dignity, it feeds the people and the spirit.

It is a clear day, the fire and glow of the sun present on her skin, brown like the sweet honey nurturing the flesh of the land.  She licks the tear off from her thin lips, she pushes her long black hair away from her face and cries quietly amongst the garbage.  An old Abuelo on a nearby mountain of garbage about a stone’s throw away is playing a flute. The flute is thin and still plays the songs of the ancients.  Pieces of wind, song and freedom are woven into his hair.  Threads of black and white corn silk rest under his ripened and aged Chiapaneco hat.  Dreams and prayers lay on top of his eyelids like obsidian butterflies blooming out of limp, stretched cocoons.  His hands, the hands of a Campesino, brown and strong, aged with earth and corn, sugarcane and exploitation, hold the flute.

Through his breath, corn seeds and pollen are born.

Through his flute flowersongs and prayers blossom.

As tears walk down her face she sits watching the old Abuelo. She reaches down to the ground and picks up a pile of granulated debris and separates two sticks and returns the rest to the ground.  With the two sticks she plays music with the old Abuelo.

Their eyes never meet,

Not once.

The old Abuelo with wind, song and freedom woven into his threads of corn silk hair sits like a calm stone, solid and focused.  He plays his music and through it deer’s dance, maiz de Ocosingo ripens, spirits soar.

The weeping woman of flower, bone, and corn sets her vision upon the shine of the thirsty drumbeat and rock of the Ocosingo Mountains and Hills of Chiapas, the land of the Maya.  Here oppression sharpens its cracked hate and thunder throbs giving birth to pistol and mask, fire and word.

The Zapatistas grow here, dreams of land, justice and freedom soar from the people of the corn, rooted deep into the heart of the land. 

Coffee bean and sugarcane pinch your tongue tonight. 

Your heart will eventually slur out of its slug slumber and you will set it free. You will not forget.

………………………You will not forget.

The weeping woman of flower bone and corn is far from her home, her family, her community.  She is far from her own mountains, her own people.  The people of deer, corn, and fire, cactus, mountain and wind.  Her land where the sun's heat is a force that can move mountains.

The weeping woman returns her thoughts to the mountain and laughs, but only a little, wiping away the tears from her face.  She feels safe and embraced by the land and in a blinks moment she leaves the old Abuelo, the pond and the trash mountains.  She must return to her compañeros, for sure they will be worrying because she left without a breath of permission.

On her way to return she walks into a restaurant, the restaurant is missing a wall, the floor is tiled white and very clean. There is a family sitting together laughing loudly and grabbing their fat bellies.  They are the owners.  The weeping woman of flower, bone, and corn walks right past them into the bathroom.  The bathroom is unusually extravagant for Ocosingo, there is running water, a toilet with a toilet seat, toilet paper and even a mirror.

The Woman of flower bone and corn who is no longer weeping stares into the mirror at a woman she does not recognize.  Pitayas, Cactus, and  love grow off of the branches of her mind.  They tear through the mist and the fog of the Chiapas sky.  She washes off the tears erasing them from her face.

The Woman of flower, bone and corn walks back, picking up bolts and stones off of the earth.   There is a lot of construction going on here in Ocosingo, but construction equals destruction and poverty shaves and burns the lives of all.

Her compañeros don’t recognize her absence so she returns to the unexpected pond, and the old Abuelo.  She returns to the same spot, the Abuelo with wind, song and freedom woven into the threads of his corn silk hair is gone, all that remains is a memory, a song of earth and corn.

She sits where he once sat and the wrinkles of an aged backpack appear.  The backpack is green and plaid and to the touch of the hand might turn into dust and return to the earth or fly out of restlessness to the stars like newborn hummingbirds and dreams.

A baby girl will be born tonight.

The lost daughter of the sun will be found.

Her eyes will bear flowers of the heart.

Her belly stones of the moon.

Her hair the currents of growth, rivers and oceans.

The Woman of flower, bone and corn opens the corroded backpack of the lost daughter of the sun.  Inside the backpack lay the spirit of the lost girl, she was kidnapped and killed, but now is free.  Her spirit flies and returns home.

The purple corn and hope guide her.

She is free.

She is with the old Abuelo her guardian singing songs of earth and corn. 

Everything sees you here.  You must change how you live they tell me.

This is where your deepest dreams live, out of the struggle.  Like the honey blood of the moon they transform and one day you will find them awaiting you to be released in a green and plaid backpack in an unexpected pond amongst the mountains of garbage in Ocosingo.
 

If you carry them they will carry you, and amongst the purple corn they will reveal themselves.

You will be the only one who will see it weeping woman.

The old peoples will know.

Story written by: the children of the trash mountains

Citlaxochitl Enrique 2005