Virgin of Guadalupe

Judy. I can’t imagine anyone, at least in the Western Hemisphere, who doesn’t know of the Virgin of Guadalupe.  Those of us who are Protestant may not know the story, but we all know that Latinos, especially Mexicans, revere her. Some years ago we visited St. Stanislaus, the Catholic Church in Chicago where Ted’s dad attended, only to find that it is now Our Lady of Guadalupe.

It’s only in the past few years I’ve learned the beautiful story behind the love and reverence shown her. In 1531, only a few years after the Spanish arrived in the New World and enslaved the native peoples, an Indigenous man named Juan Diego was on his way to visit his sick uncle. As he walked past Tepeyac Mountain, the site of an Aztec goddess, a Lady appeared to him. Juan Diego, who had become a Christian, smelled roses, heard music, and recognized sacred symbols in the clothes she wore. She addressed him as her beloved son, and told him to tell the Spanish Bishop to build a shrine to her.

Needless to say, he wasn’t even allowed to SEE the Bishop, much less ask him to build a shrine to the Lady. Three times she told him to go back to the Bishop and ask, and on the third time, after he had been refused twice, she told him to go to the mountain and gather the roses to take to the Bishop.

A statue of Juan Diego giving roses to the Bishop

But it was December! There were no roses blooming in December! Nevertheless, he went, found the roses, and filled his tilma, or cloak, with them. When he spilled them out before the Bishop, all could see the image of the Lady imprinted on his tilma. The shrine was built, and since then has been a pilgrim site for the faithful.

A painting of Juan Diego

The loveliest part is that the Lady was Mestiza, both Native and Spanish, the Mother of all.

It is impossible to explain the significance Our Lady of Guadalupe has to the Latin peoples. The Basilica is the most visited Catholic pilgrim site in the world, and the third most visited sacred site. We had no idea the site was actually located in Mexico City. We took a cab there, where the Basilica itself seats thousands, and the massive plaza holds even more pilgrims. 

The plaza and Basilica

At one point, over a million of them came at one time for Mass. There are many churches on the site, a garden with a sculpture of the Lady, and a tiny chapel marking the spot where she appeared.

In the gardens she welcomes all

The spot where the Virgin appeared

In a hallway off the Sanctuary, Juan Diego’s tilma is on display, the image still vivid. Worshippers line the church with roses, and pilgrims crawl into Mass in search of favors.

Juan Diego's tilma

 

Pilgrims

A sign over the main door reads in Spanish, “Am I not here who am your Mother?”

It is a sweet place to visit, and I’m so glad we found it.

A Different Celebration

Judy. Two years ago when we came to Oaxaca, we made sure our stay included Dias de Los Muertos, the two-day celebration of loved ones who have died. It’s a beautiful holiday, personal and sweet, with families building altars, or offretas to honor their dead, in hopes they’ll return for the evening. Marigold petals are everywhere to guide the dead home, and cemeteries are filled with flowers and families eating and drinking with those who’ve gone on. We were deeply moved as we witnessed it. One of my favorite parts is the Catrina, a skeleton in fancy makeup dressed to the nines. She not only helps people laugh at death, she also reminds us that under our fancy clothes, we’re all skeletons.

This year we decided we’d not celebrate in Oaxaca, but in Mexico City. It was a whole different ballgame.

Dias de Los Muertos is a southern Mexico holiday, practiced for centuries. Except for a few families who had moved to Mexico City from the south, it was not celebrated there. That is, until 2015, when the James Bond film Spectre was filmed there. The studio wanted a Day of the Dead parade, and, upon finding out there wasn’t one, created it. Well, it took off. People fell in love with the parades and with Catrina. They added their own spin, including two parades on consecutive weekends down Reforma, a main street of Mexico City.

The result is a kind of family Mardi Gras/Halloween celebration, with adults dressed as Catrinas and children carrying jack-o-lantern candy containers and dressed in costumes from superheroes to anything from Frozen. Huge decorated skulls and massive alebrijes, or imaginary animals, line the parade route, and half the city, it seems, turns out. The few offretas we saw were in hotels or restaurants, or in parks, and honored famous people or areas of the country. It’s definitely different, but fun.

Decorated skull

One of many alebrijes

Offreta honoring a hero

Party-goers

 

Up close and personal with Catrina and friend

As  we waited for the parade to begin, a lovely Catrina turned to us and asked where we're from.

“Atlanta.”                                        

Our Catrina Sonya

“Me, too!”

Turns out that our Catrina, whose name is Sonya, grew up in the town where we lived for 30-plus years, and was taking drama at the big rival of the high school where I taught drama! We discovered many mutual friends. She lives in downtown now, and takes one month a year to be a digital nomad in some exotic place. (She gave us some great ideas.) We found mutual friends, and definitely some shared interest in travel.

And we’re looking forward to meeting up again in Atlanta.

Mexico City, Part 1

Mexico City, Part 1

Ted. Judy and I had planned to spend a week in Mexico City two years ago but a large earthquake forced us to kick that can down the road. So, now, we were finally able to visit the largest city in North America. And boy is it big – over 21 million folks live in the metro area. The first thing one sees is the air pollution. It’s the worst I’ve seen. Still, there were a lot of things one can only see here so we decided to suck it up (literally). For me, the pollution and the traffic were about the only negatives. We found the people friendly and the food to be very good. As the old saying goes, it’s a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live here.

In some ways, it reminded me of Santiago, Chile which also had bad pollution but seemed to be a thriving metropolis. We saw far more construction cranes in both cities than we saw in Buenos Aires, which is a key indicator for me of the prosperity of a city.

We stayed in Roma, an upscale neighborhood made even more famous by the release of the movie of the same name that came out last year. It was everything that we hoped, safe, leafy and walkable, with lots of families, urban hipsters, retirees and digital nomads.  There was an abundance of public transportation but we mostly walked or took Uber. 

An important site for this amateur historian was Templo Mayor, the ruins of the Mexica city of Tenochtitlan, located in the Zocalo, or main square of downtown. One of the many things I learned this week was that the Mexica were one of the groups of peoples known collectively as Aztecs. They were ultimately the biggest group and conquered all of the others but we saw the term Mexica used a lot here and never saw the word Aztec. The city was founded around 1300 AD and this was the capital city that was ruled by Montezuma when the Spaniards arrived in 1521. Modern Mexico City is basically built right on top of the ruins of Tenochtitlan.

One day we took a day trip by bus out in the country to visit the pyramids at Teotihuacan. Archeologists believe that at its peak, roughly 500 AD, this was the largest city in the Western hemisphere with a population of between 125,000 and 250,000. The temples are incredible and the Pyramid of the Sun is allegedly the third largest, (not tallest) in the world. What’s especially interesting is that this vast city had basically disappeared when the Aztecs arrived in the Valley of Mexico around 1200 AD. They had never heard of these people and gave the ruins the name by which it is known today, which means “birthplace of the gods.”

Pyramid of the Sun

A tiny portion of the temple complex

Palace of Quetzlpapalotl

All of this, and more, was explained to us when we visited the National Museum of Archaeology.  This vast collection includes items from all of the cultures that have existed throughout Mexico such as the Maya, Zapotecs and coastal peoples.  I found it fascinating. 

God of Song and Dance

God of the Underworld (not so happy)

Superhero symbol? (Teotihuacan)

New OT for Denver Broncos (Olmec)

Stone of the Sun (Mexica)

Montezuma's headress (Mexica) which looks better on Judy

We had lots of other adventures during our week here. Our visit coincided with a little event called Dias de Los Muertos. But those can all be covered in later posts.

A pit stop in Atlanta

Ted. We wrapped up our stay in Asheville with a final hike with friend Hannah.

Trail to Looking Glass Rock

It was a great visit. Peaceful days were interspersed with time with friends, old and new. From there, we returned to the Atlanta area for two more weeks with friends and family and to take care of “stuff.” 

Caedmon with friend Susan

Oliver at play

Parker with Callum

Cousins hanging out

Now, after farewell hugs and a tear or two, an old Gene Autry tune comes to mind as we head “South of the border, down Mexico way…”

Feeding time