I am sitting in a cafe in San Jose del Pacifico, Oaxaca in the mountains eating a pan dulce and drinking chocolate caliente con leche, eating pasteries with hot chocolate. Every morning when I wake up, I open the door to my rustic cabin and look west to a view of rolling, wooded mountains. San Jose feels more like a Swiss village that a small Mexican pueblo, and after three weeks of sunburn and sweating, my body welcomes the fresh and crisp mountain air.
Mexico self medicates the cold in the same manner as Seattle, with hot beverages and sweet things. Although, instead of drinking coffee in a Starbucks and listening to the rain and bad acoustic guitar love songs, I¨m sitting in a family kitchen which doubles as a restaurant, listening to a little girl sing songs in Spanish and play cards with her father. This place reminds me of the warming heart, fond memory place we call home... or maybe I am reminded of home because after over three weeks of travel I am starting to feel the first tinges of homesickness.
San Jose is beautiful, but it is also known for something else. Upon arrival, it becomes clear to me the reason my travel companion desired a stop in the mountains. Fungi paraphenilia and annoying "transcendent" murals of talking trees and little gnome men can be found scattered around the pueblo. Small as it is, this town also has the highest percentage of light skinned and foreign travelers that I have encountered since Puerto Vallarta. People come to San Jose from all over the world to eat mushrooms and strive toward enlightenment through the world of psychadelics. The pople of this town accomodate the travelers for the needed economy it brings, but I have noticed a coldness here from the locals. Here, I am just another hippi using the mountains and location for a great trip.
Rather than be annoyed at my enlightened friends, I say to each their own and choose mine. Morning prayers in the mountains, facing east with the sun and earth shining and new. I throw in the First Hour to make my time of meditation last longer. The wind whistles a melody through the trees. I breath in and out my prayers as I move my knotted rope through my fingers and remember the faces and smiles of the people so far away yet so close to my heart. This place, in the mountains so close to the stars and heavens, is magical. I feel a whispering pull on my heart of a different realization and enlightenment. I miss the music, rhythm and life of the church. I am still here, in the present, enjoying my friends and the new places I encounter everyday, but I can feel myself looking ever so slightly forward to my time in Guatemala with full emersion into everything the Orthodox church offers to this world.
I feel peace in my heart and look forward to my next moment of stillness and meditation in this magical mountain town.
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Have you been able to find Orthodox parishes or monasteries to visit?
ReplyDeleteMarx said that religion is the opiate of the masses.
ReplyDeleteI have heard it said that opium is the religion of the new athiests.
What Marx is saying in the first quote is that those who fix their hopes on another world and life beyond this one lose the motivation to violently and forcefully change the conditions here and now.
But I think that the second quote is accurate. Those that turn away from the world to come turn to pleasure in the here and now as the only replacement. If drugs offer the pleasure cheaply and easily why not participate in them with all of the regularity and commitment of religious devotion.
I'd argue that religion and opiates, (or psychedelia, narcotics, etc.) offers different things to different people, and are not mutually exclusive, nor does the lack of one necessitate signing up to the other. People prescribe to different ideas/substances for a plethora of reasons.
ReplyDeleteSadly, the strongest enthusiasts in either camp usually inspire such generalities as in Marx's statement and the response regarding atheists.
Anyway, well said, Katie. To each their own.
Thanks for comments all. Randy, no churches to be found yet. But I plan to head to the church in Guatemala before too long.
ReplyDeleteAs I get to know my friends here in Mexico and we build a confidence to tell stories about our lives, I grow more and more convinced that habitual drug use or addictions of any kind are symptoms to a deeper problems, regardless of how the masses to choose to medicate. If the end goal is a life that experiences true and sincere happiness, I don´t think drugs can get you there. However, I say to each their own because people can choose the condition with which they live. It will still make me sad, because as I learn the stories I also begin to feel that same pain that demands medication in my friends, but the least of all my places is to judge the medicine.