Enjoy these photos from our tradition’s Prosperity Harvest of sacred corn on our temple grounds at Casa Xiuhtecuhtli in Tepoztlán, Morelos, Mexico on December 18, 2021. We wish you all a prosperous New Year filled with vigorous growth and nourishing harvest.
What is a mountain? Perhaps it is a sheltering giant, looking down over our village with a presence that we can feel all the time. The mountain has a say in how the wind blows, how the sun angles down to touch the little houses and fields of the human beings beneath it.
Last year, my husband was driving home from work across an expressway bridge during rush hour. He was hit from the side by a car that didn’t yield. As his pickup spun 180 degrees and slid down the railing toward a precipitous fall into the river, his only thought was, “How will I get out of this one?”
The cacophony of politics last October 2020 had brought me down, but I knew my feelings of disillusionment and emptiness would fade away as I stepped into a weekend of ceremony.
On Valentine’s Day, a time set aside for love, romance and reckless abandon in the arms of your beloved, how is your heart? To me, it seems the ancients knew the essence of Heart not as a moment of passion, but instead as a lifetime of courage, unity, and deep connection.
As the sun returns, revival and rebirth dawns in our lands. On January 6, 2021, on the day of our 27th wedding anniversary, we renewed our marriage vows. The leader of our tradition, don David Wiley, traveled to the Sacred Fire Council House near Asheville, North Carolina to lead the ceremony, where 18 guests witnessed our exchange of vows.
A few months ago, all the people in our tradition were delighted! our teacher and leader, don David Wiley, had commissioned a hand-carved ancient Nahua-Aztec Calendar Disk, or Disk of the Fifth Sun, to be carved in ancient stone. It was then leafed in gold and installed into the East wall of our Templo Mayor (main temple) at Casa Xiuhtecuhtli (House of Fire), our spiritual homeland in Mexico.
Transforming yourself into a person who honors traditions has its benefits. Incorporating tried and true ways of our ancestors into our lives at holiday-times, for example, wakes something up inside us. We find our shallow roots diving down into human life, spreading through the topsoil of what our lives hold in our own generations and then even farther below, deepening into the rich loam of the wise people who have gone before us.
My tradition inspires and requires me to honor and celebrate the intricate web of nourishment and interplay around me, with its dangers and competitions, with its bliss and deep connection, with its profound and inherent meaning. Humbled, I remember not to take anything, or anyone, for granted, including the weather, the trees, the insects, the birds, the stars, the unfolding of time.
Last night, I had a dream about rats. My husband and I are constructing a new building near our home that will be an altar room for our traditional work. In the dream, the building was there, all complete and filled with our altars and furniture…and rats.
A few days ago, I had a good cry. Like the rain and thunder, my tears and heart-wrenching sobs cleared the air, both within and without. Grief is such a gift, and when I'm under stress, when I feel alone or misunderstood, when the world just feels overwhelming, sometimes I remember, "It's okay; I just need a good cry"...and I do.