In the midst of a massacre, we were laying down at Hell’s gate, waiting for death.
Looking up, I saw a peaceful blue sky far above us. My ankle was throbbing from a shot wound, right where an asp had bit me in a dream days earlier.
Like lightning inside the head, the realization that all states are already in me struck.
This bolt of light showed me the opening across the dream beyond which lies the path of mastery of perception.
You demand big tanks while keeping the children in concentration camps.
You want this day to be about your pestilent hole.
There are real pains in this land, beyond ratings and the fears you grasp.
My eyes and ears will be today on the hearts that fear for children in places dark and damp.
There are words untranslatable, and when translated something of essence is left out. The word “apapachar” used by Mayan influenced people, like in southern Mexico and Central America is one such word. Many dictionaries translate it as “spoil” or “pamper”.
How curious that in English the word emphasizes either the ruining of something in a child (because when overdone, the child becomes “spoiled rotten”), or the indulgence given a person when you do things for them they could do themselves (as it happens when you pamper someone in a spa).
What then, is “apapachar”? It is associated with pamper or spoil because of the image of a parent hugging his child or a lover cuddling and whispering tender nothings.
There is no word in the English language that I’m aware of, and if we were to translate literally from the Mayan, to apapachar is “to hug with your soul.”
I’ve been receiving some wonderful comments about The Teachings of a Toltec Survivor. Here is one that touches the heart with tender fingers.
“After I removed it from the package I headed into my infants son room to take a quick peak. Brett saw your book in my hand and made a hyper-supersonic crawl to the doorway, stood up and reached for your book. I stepped over the child gate and went to sit down with him, book in hand. He climbed all over me for 15 minutes trying everything in his power to hold on to you book. Finally I placed it down on the carpet, and held it securely against the floor, and he spent the next 5 minutes touching it and trying to pick it up, smiling and laughing, overjoyed. I’ve never seen him act in this manner before with such intensity, and unbending intent, and I take that as a wonderful omen 🙂 I’m looking forward to diving in, if Brett will let me have it to myself. He likes me reading to him, so your book is our next read. Cheers!”–Thor Blethyn
When the times bring you to that place where you feel unworthy of love and divine grace, think about the love parents have experienced for their child.
When immersed in remorse for past deeds, or when feeling weakened by the chains of habit in the sleeping state, think about the love present when you see a child you love. You do not love him for his strength, his power, or his abilities. You love him for the essence in him. If he is sleeping, you love him the same as when he is awake.
So is the light of your heart; worthy of love divine even when you are trapped in the sleeping state.
The mother sings to the child, though in his sleep the child knows it not, and his small breath is enough for the mother to feel all her loving care rewarded. That divine breath in you, makes your heart love, and that love comes from the infinite in you, and that awakens the love of the supreme consciousness witnessing your heart of hearts.
In the source of that love, no merit or deed is needed to justify it. Its existence is its reason to be loved.
When you were born, the Tonal was there only as potential. It was surrounding you, nurturing you. You knew the Tonal only as an all-encompassing feeling. You did not distinguish between one feature of it and another. You did not say, “This is my mother, and this is a crib.” It was all the same. It was feeding you; it was carrying you into sleep, protecting your form. That’s all you knew.
As time went by, your assemblage point was fixed, and the world became what it is now, and you were able to name and distinguish things. So you looked at your mother and said, “Mama,” and you looked at your father and said, “Not the mama.” And you looked at your toys and said, “Mine.” And then you looked at your neighbor’s toys and said, “Mine.” And then someone beat you up—usually your neighbor’s kid when you took his toys—and you learned to share, out of the goodness of your heart.
From my upcoming book: The Teachings of a Toltec Survivor
When I was in the fifth grade, I had a good friend named Lucía. I called her that because she was born when I was shinning a light behind her shell. It looked like the glow of life came from her as she was stirring alive and broke through this side of life.
My abuelita gave her to me to raise. I carried her warm fuzzy frailty in my hands for the 100 kilometers trip back to the city. She took residence in the small cement square we called a patio, where the water basin was.
I came to visit and speak with her every day after school. She didn’t like to play, but she enjoyed listening. She liked it when I’d tell the cats not to approach, and when I trained the dog to see her as my friend. I failed to train my aunt, who served Lucía to me one afternoon. My older brother laughed at the surprise on my face when I came to the patio after lunch and didn’t find my friend. “You just ate her!,” he mocked.
I covered the real feeling pulsating above my belly, under my heart. I didn’t want him to see. I masked my inner reality with rage, as if the mockery was the only thing I minded. The real feeling, I carried with me safely through life, holding its fuzzy fragility in a tiny square of my solar plexus where a glow of light forever listens and waits.
Orange puny child
always scared to be seen true,
makes brown children cry.
Trump is trying to slip a Trojan Horse. He’s making it seem like he’s swiftly solving the situation by keeping children and parents together. However, in exchange, he is turning what has always been a misdemeanor (I.e., crossing the border without documents) into a federal crime. As a result, he will be holding the entire family as criminal and they will be processed as criminals (maybe even the children). Asylum seekers can then be denounced because they will be charged with a crime before their claim’s merit is properly considered. Also, after convicted by a court, those children can be forcibly removed again.
Be careful. This is no victory yet. It is a trick.
Be watchful and keep up the pressure. They are feeling it. Keep it up.
From the point of view of neurology, as soon as the baby begins to acquire motor skills and focus their eyes, their brain begins to trim. There are neural connections that cut themselves off. In that cutting off, we begin to bring our attention into this world; to be able to perceive things as separate and distinguish shapes, heights, duration, space, color. Without that trimming, everything that the organism can perceive would be perceived and nothing will be distinguished. So, there is a trimming that happens there, and part of that trimming of our neural system is what culture does with language.
Then, over that language, many things are programmed: like belief systems, like agreements of what is good and what is bad, what is acceptable and what is not. And then over that series of values we build identities: democrat, republican, Argentinian, Mexican. From those we define our personal identity: “This is me,” “That’s not my family,” “I am not like that,” “I am like this.” But we don’t realize the layers of soil that we use to build that sense of self.
