A moment remembered from the Women’s Creative Writing and Yoga Retreat:
Our yoga guide Beth Miller gathers us around her in a circle. We sit on chairs, backs tall. At the head of the room is the traditional Zapotec altar complete with candlesticks and an incense burner ready for the next celebration. Forefinger touches thumb to form a circle. We rest arms on knees, close our eyes, take a deep breath and then another. Inhaling yet again, deeper, each of us releases sound from within, from the center of our being. From the third eye, to the throat, to the heart, to the belly, to the secret chakra of the woman’s womb, the place where we release the child from our bodies, whether real or imaginary.
Beth will be teaching this summer, July 5-11, in Teotitlan del Valle.
We sing clear, mouths open, full. It does not matter if one or the other of us cannot carry a tune. There is no shame in our voices as we expel the breath and accompanying sound. It fills the room and the walls reverberate. The sound is another sister and it envelops us. Elena Gutierrez, in whose home we practice this vocal yoga, tells us we sound like a sacred ashram. The melodies we chant become integral to the creative energy we develop as each day passes. The sound gives us connection, power, peace, and allows us to lift our creative voices high.
With hands put together in the prayer of honoring each other, we bow and leave the room in silence.
This silence is sparkling clean. Bird sounds are amplified. The cup placed onto the tablecloth is an act of intention. The table vibrates slightly to receive it.
Next is the taste of crunchy fresh tortillas soaking up spicy black bean paste topped with slivers of sweet white onion, translucent. A sprinkle of chopped fresh cilantro and queso fresco like white paint splattered on a black canvas adorns the morsel.
My spoon cuts and I lift spoon to mouth, taste the crunch again, the corn ground by Magda’s able hands, formed in her palms, toasted on the comal in the courtyard, turned four times by fingers old enough to tell the story of eternal woman.
The black heat of bean paste smeared on tiny tortilla, the crunch of corn with cilantro punctuation are full in my mouth. My tongue receives them like a host, hot flame of spice engulfs my mouth, a vessel holding the flavors of earth.
Photo Diaries: Blending Photography and Prose
What is photojournalism? Our workshop instructor June Finfer, Chicago documentary filmmaker/photographer/playwright explains it this way: It is making a picture, capturing the connection, creating something out of what you are feeling as you go beyond the surface of what you see.
Our charge this week is to make photographs and then write about impressions that our photographs evoke. The narrative accompanies the picture. June asks us to consider each photo and what persona relationship we have to it. Can a photo answer questions such as: What do you expect here? What is it about this experience that has changed you? “The exercise becomes like a picture story, says June. “Photography creates possibilities for a common language when language is a barrier. We all go to the same places and each of us comes back with a different feeling, experience, impression.”
Photograph #1: Making Tamales by Norma Hawthorne
Las mujeres, the women, sit together under the palapa, ancient hands and some younger and still soft, take a fistful of soft masa paste, smear it into the cups of tender young green corn husks. They are comadres, sit together under starlight. A child clings to his mother’s apron hem. Together they sing an ancient hymn of womanhood under the stars by the campfire, preparing the meal, obscured by steam from the cooking pot. For eternity, for now, for us.
Photograph #2: Tlacolula Child in Yellow by Norma Hawthorne
Lost underfoot or forgotten? Which among those legs and backs is the parent who loves her and leaves her to look out at something distant, beyond her grasp. It is a feast day. Their attention is on the priest who gives mass and absolution. She looks toward a future unknown. Were she mine, I would hold her and cherish her, this small, delicate child dressed in yellow.
Photography #3: Woman with Bundle by Norma Hawthorne
A refreshment is what she asks for. I ask for a photo. Perhaps, she says with lips pursed and a glint in one eye. I am not stealing her soul. Her hat is a bundle of grain stored in a grain sack, stamped words too blurred to read even magnified. Here she is: proud, defiant, strong, survivor beyond what is possible to endure. Her hat sanctifies her, a blessing. She is my gift of the day and I return the gift with pesos for a refresco. A dios.
Photograph #4: Señor Secundino at Las Cuevitas by Norma Hawthorne
Rugged, etched wood, rough-hewn, the texture of life — furrowed brow, creased cheek, gnarled hand, cracked leather strap, bristled mustache, mottled goatskin pulled taut over pine drum, rough pine, watch the splinters, tiny diamond pattern in finely woven straw hat, a brim offering a bit of shade. But now it is night. The shadow cast by an exposed light bulb defines him: solid, durable, tenacious.
Photograph #5: Sunset at Las Cuevitas 2012 by Norma Hawthorne
Shadowy figures, silhouettes mark time until sun sets. Beyond are mountains, magnificent purple, black. Sun rays spray the clouds like a crown of glory. In the dusk muffled voices utter a universal prayer for the ages: peace, good health, shelter and warmth. See the distant town. The church steeple. The call to forgiveness. Feliz y prospero año nuevo.
Oaxaca Women’s Creative Writing and Yoga Retreat is coming up March 2-9. Consider joining us.
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Posted in Cultural Commentary, Oaxaca Mexico art and culture, Teotitlan del Valle, Travel & Tourism, Workshops and Retreats
Tagged blogsherpa, creative writing, culture, Mexico, Oaxaca, photography, poetry, postaweek2012, retreat, workshop, yoga