Walking to my neighborhood farmer's market
on 11:11:11
I met a women who complimented me
on the Peruvian sweater I was wearing.
I complimented the Peruvian sweater artisans who made it.
This sidewalk friend was excited
to be on her way to a hotel near the airport -
which was hosting a group of visiting Mayan Elders.
An organized gathering to honour their Mayan wisdom.
The Mayan Elders were invited to Los Angeles
for a 11:11:11 planetary group hug
and celestial celebration.
I told my sidewalk friend
that she could go downtown,
to the local Indigenous cultural centre,
anytime she wanted to meet, greet,
and talk with individuals of Mayan origins.
She replied,
"But this event is special. These Mayans are special leaders."
I thought to myself,
"Yes, each one of us is a leader of our own life.
Each one of us is here to lead a life ...
Each and every event, everyday, everyone is special."
I recall a special day
on 6:11:11 ...
I watched a lovingly-crafted documentary
created by Pedro Daniel Lopez
and Dolores Santiz Gomez of Tzotzil Mayan lineage.
I loved watching
"The Little Seed In The Asphalt"
"La Pequena Semilla en el Asfalto"
The filmmakers shared with us
that this was the first film ever written, directed
and produced by people of Mayan ancestral nobility.
I complimented the artists who created the film.
I complimented the individuals involved.
I thanked those Mayans,
who were arrested and jailed,
for speaking their peace,
safeguarding the land,
and permitted their presence
to illuminate this moving picture.
A Mayan painter
interviewed in the film
related his story ...
... One day when he was painting pictures
of temples in the Yucatan,
a visiting university scholar
approached him not asking,
but declaring -
"Mayans no longer exist!
No one knows where they went!
It is amazing that all Mayans disappeared!
All together, en masse, at once, going who knows where!"
The painter was deeply wounded
by the tragic opinion
that "Mayans do not exist."
Where is the mystery? ...
It is historically hysterically well documented
that by order of the Kings of Europe,
they were burned at the stake.
Mayans filled the jails
of the colonizers and conquistadors ...
Even today they are imprisoned,
by natural resource extractors,
for protesting the grabbing of their lands,
by water, tree, oil and gas frackers.
The foreign contact which Mayans have known,
are international exploiters and saviours,
who continue to pass judgement on Mayans.
Mayans are painted as saints, savages, or sinners -
by those pretending to be world class leaders
role playing and self-portraying themselves as cause heroes.
In the film interview,
the painter explained he was tired.
He was tired of being told he is irrelevant -
that he and his culture do not exist.
He felt erased,
disrespected, disregarded
and historically deleted.
However, he did not feel defeated.
How can a culture
that is thousands of years old
be reconsidered to be considered
obsolete, obscure or invisible?
As an artist,
he found it hard
to contribute to a world society,
which insisted on
not taking his culture seriously ...
not understanding
Mayan culture is a vital life force,
one breathe of life -
one breathe in the composition
of the whole world society.
In the film, he asks,
"Why do people not talk directly to Mayans,
instead of reading books about Mayans
written by non-Mayans?"
He thinks it is foolish
and irresponsible in this day and age,
for people to read about culture,
instead of first hand experiencing it ...
When we share one world,
and live in one world,
with ever increasing easy access
to personal direct experience ...
it is simpler to experience first hand,
all that life has to offer ...
and embrace all the wisdom
and beauty,
our world's cultures have to offer.
In the film,
I witnessed the voices of individuals who exist ...
They all as one, and one for all, declared;
"I exist. I am here. I count!
I count my Self as human!
I consider my Self as one,
in the one world of one humanity!
I affirm my Self identity.
I respect my Self!"
Los Angeles is populated
with many first nations individuals,
who possess Native American
and Mayan cultural heritage.
My friends
from Mayan villages all over this World,
travel to Los Angeles to experience more ...
more than their village's current life force ...
more of what the urban experience might offer ...
a variety of diverse life styles that city living affords.
My Mayan friends
believe that travel creates opportunity
for personal expansion.
Conscious choice
to augment one's own unique individuality,
to cultivate one's own precious personal life journey,
conscious choice is a way of choosing
to reinvent the walk,
walk in shoes forged by time,
and re-experience life events
which our ancestors' previous incarnated.
My friends enjoy
expanding their insight
of their personal wisdom -
by creating contrast,
through exposure,
to other global cultures.
Their own Mayan outer world view
has permission to expand,
contract and balance -
to honour each individual
unique inner world domain.
Within, each one of us,
are individual world perspectives.
I am grateful to have friends of Mayan ancestry.
In Europe, when I met Mayans,
some were experiencing being culturally ignored.
They were sometimes treated as if they did not count,
and sometimes told by some people that
"Mayans no longer exist, never existed.
Mayans were a fantasy culture ...
an obstacle that had to be overcome
to conquer the New World."
Many current teaching tools,
education cirriculum and history books,
were thought up, written and published by
Old World political and religious leaders -
and their fantasy was created and propagandized,
sold and enforced
by their hired colonizing army of soldiers.
School textbooks that teach non-equality
do not serve our planet's peace of mind.
In Europe, Mayans I met
were treated as unwelcome foreigners -
illegal immigrants seeking work
without menial permission.
Humans seeking rights
to earn the right to food and shelter,
and humans seeking human rights
from their own governing bodies,
are obviously humans
expecting human existence to be equal
and full with liberating free will - choice.
I like to keep life simple
and human interaction easy.
If a person feels respect for our planet,
and our world,
then they show respect
for our cultures of our world.
If a person feels respect for humans,
then they show respect for the humanity.
If a person feels respect for Mayans,
then they show respect for the Mayan culture.
Respecting each individual you meet -
by being kind to them,
by looking in their eyes,
showing interest, seeing, hearing,
asking them to share their stories -
is a form of relating to each other
and relating with each other's cultural history.
Warring confrontational attitudes
are activated and acted out
by individuals who have no interest
in communication to create
mutual understanding.
I met individuals of Mayan heritage in Asia -
where they studied free of charge in China,
with full tuition, housing, food,
and respect for their r.evolutionary place in history.
In England, I met individuals of Mayan origins -
in the United Kingdom they experienced
hard times getting any kind of work -
except cleaning up other people's messes.
They were offered "take it or leave it" job prospects.
They were permitted to serve, clean offices, sweep streets,
and earn substandard minium wages.
My Mayan friends were told they were not welcome.
Not welcome as foreign workers,
imported help or tourists -
if they over stayed the state's approved time allocation.
If you want to revere the Mayan culture,
then on a daily basis honour each individual you meet,
with kindness, consideration and respect.
One of my Mayan friends told me the story,
that one day, as a social experiment,
he chose to stand in front of a bookshop window.
The store front window was displaying books
written by non-Mayans speculating about Mayan culture.
He offered himself to the people leaving the bookshop.
He offered a free discussion, a discourse on Mayan culture.
He said;
"I could see the fear in people's eyes,
as if this unexpected encounter with a Mayan warrior,
brought up some unknown secreted guilt and remorse.
These individuals moved away from me
as fast as they could.
They wanted to create
enough space and time between us,
to erase the past,
get back to the safety
and security of their own homes.
They preferred the childlike fantasies
they were taught in their childhood about our world"
My Mayan friend thought,
"living" room was a funny description,
for a place where people shut themselves up -
attempt to close out the rest of the world.
They preferred to be "armchair experts" on Mayan culture -
living inside their carefully constructed imaginations -
living life according to the books
and human attachment to book learning.
Living yes, but lives lived in closeted rooms
void of life forces.
All actions and deeds that Mayans do,
are a blessing to creation and creating -
intentional acts to manifest
infinite potential and possibility.
It must be difficult for Mayans
to understand and encounter,
people who are afraid of human contact.
To many Mayans it would be like
choosing to live life without breathing.
Some Mayan friends wonder
what worldly conditions exist
in which individuals might choose
not to inhale ...
might desire
to live drained of life -
working tirelessly,
to empty their lives
through daily draining actions.
Yet craving replenishment,
the vitality of full lives lived,
but believing that achievement requires
a majestic dream for more
by achieving monetary immortally.
Over the last few weeks
my Mayan friends and I have met often.
Each day I meet more
individuals of Mayan heritage
in the city of angeles (Los Angeles).
We often choose to talk about more -
creating more and projecting more
good-hearted ideas and visions,
which hold positive intention and desire
for more imagination
which see life expanding
into more peaceful existence.
We each talk about living essence.
That, of no time, no linear existence.
The Mayan belief in the non-linear
simultaneous event-full experience.
We each feel the infinite
circle of intentional choice,
never ending acts of manifest
well-placed consciousness -
and awareness of that in each one of us,
that uniqueness which creates
unique experiences and existence.
We each sense,
there is no need to make sense,
of what exists.
We feel
the many intersection of life
points in Spacial coloration ...
Many points of gathering
acoustic events ... the sounding in space
of our individual and collective
illuminated manuscripts.
The worldwide web of archives ...
of peace filled deeds well done ...
libraries of awareness
of dimensional simultaneous events,
harmonic points of experience,
existing essentially as colour in space.
We each basically agree
that living is a powerful experience,
a transformation of awe into sense,
a transfixing of sensing more presence into existence.
I can only speak for myself,
although in writing
I am aware I sometimes generalize.
I don't like generalizing,
I think it helps create wars.
At the best of times I achieve my goals
of Self-clarity, Self-insight, and Self-awareness -
at the worst of times insight is my only achievement.
During the contractions of uncomfortable sensations,
I sense the world's choices,
and I do my best to remember -
that after contraction comes expansion,
after exhale comes inhale,
during war peace coexists
and is simultaneously being created.
I believe everyday is significant.
I believe when large numbers of people
direct their attention towards the same intention,
that intention is achieved
no matter if their aim is true.
There is something powerful about large numbers,
and I know there is great power within each one individual.
I believe every night is significant.
I believe when an individual directs their life to create peace,
they create peace, experience peace,
and sense peace within themselves -
correspondingly they sense peace
within other individual forms of life.
If they love peace they experience peace -
no matter what is going on around them
and other people's choices.
There is power in the individual,
and I know each individual
is designed structurally unique -
to provide Self-empowerment
to journey their own life
through the gates of personal choice
and very personal unique experience.
Transcending the portals
made while creating
their own life's events.
I believe that our present-day lunar-calendars
are more accurate than our present solar-calendars.
I believe that most calendars mark time,
and time no longer exists as a true force of Nature.
Due to the shape of our planet constantly changing -
our space in Space is constantly altering,
our relationship and understanding of time shifts ...
We teach ourself to see and know
that Earth constantly alters it's shape,
and it's influence on the illusions all around us.
I believe there is a relationship between
the shape of our Earth's form -
Earth and Lunar illumination by the Sun -
and the time it takes our Earth's form
to clock it's rotational spiral of travel.
I believe the Mayan calendar,
and other ancient calendars,
were left by our ancestors
for us to study,
in order for us to remember
who we truly are
and what we are capable of.
It is interesting that our ancestors knew
they could imagine
therefore influence
and so share in our lifetime
and our generational future.
From the past ancestry participates
in the crafting of our sphere of life.
Ancient calendars take into consideration life
in all it's shape shifting forms.
Large numbers of individuals
are uniting in belief
that they can create
large shifts of perception.
To me 11:11:11 was one day
that I recalled
the life force of one,
that is now,
multiplied in existence,
as many.
I number myself as one,
in a line of many other ones ...
The Ones who have come before me,
The Ones who created history,
and The Ones continue to co-exist
now in the current of world stories
being created and recreated infinitely.
I choose to believe each individual is special.
I choose to believe each individual culture is special.
I choose to believe each individual is gifted
with Self-determination and Self-respect.
I respect my Mayan friends as they live in this World.
I do not expect them to live in ways other
than they feel is right and of their birth right as Mayans.
A World
where individuals sometimes tell others,
that they do not exist,
that they are disappeared,
is a limited world of misperceptions
and misguided limitations.
To vanish a culture
is to believe you have some mysterious power of right -
rights over other individual's rights.
The right to not understand,
the right to not attempt to communicate,
the right to reject, revenge
and rakishly devour
the cultural worlds of other individuals.
Mayans were not vanquished off the face of this World,
by the invading colonial powers
and their governing politics
which required funding.
Mayans are being slighted and ignored
and so therefore colonialism is alive
and well secreted
within the hearts of schooled children.
We who are taught stories
about history imaging the worse,
and those who teach history
that imagines only sharing revenge stories -
which portray the indigenous people
as obstacles to be overcome.
Until we learn to respect and honour
the First Peoples of our planet,
the First Cultures of our Earth,
then we will never know peace -
we will never feel, value or respect peace
within each individual heart and each mind.
Mindfulness can be studied but if practiced
a mind full of peace can illuminate any dark heart.
Human dignity is recognition of one's Self,
and awareness of one's Self and at least one Other.
Basic human rights create recognition of each Self,
and human basic Self-design creates
Self-identity and Self-recognition -
one's Self within the whole.
Basic human need is to be seen and heard,
and to be treated with kindness and consideration.
Each one human feels their own individual human Self-worth.
Individual intention and desire
expands an individual's vital life force -
their ability to procreate proactive inner world visions -
and have these Self-visualizations dreamed alive,
into this World of shared coexistence.
Developing your precognitive abilities
is Self-cultivating
your imagination's expansion
into more healthy imaged images of the future.
For me the significance of 11:11:11
is to re-mind my Self that I exist,
that we all exist -
that our mosaic of individual numbers
culturally weaves together
our shared group experience.
I remind myself
that new friends are arriving soon,
new friends are already in the making.
I remind mySelf
that Mayan history is very much alive,
that the legacy of their descendancy
is alive within each one of us.
Our ancestors are very much alive and well,
composing the cellular
and DNA informational essence of existence.
I recall times in human history,
when we were all taught one truth -
we knew we were all from one and the same source.
A fountain of human kindness
connectively educated every one,
about how to create one from two,
and care for the health of every one by one ...
Equations derived from each
and every one of us as equal,
and each one of us
equally important to the one,
as the sum of the whole, as it's whole.
My friends of Mayan origins
count themselves alive,
and are significant in their numbers.
Their numbers count,
and as individuals each one individual counts.
Each individual can choose to declare
I exist! I count! I matter!
I count, you count, all count!
I matter, you matter, all matters!
Each one of us,
each one individual's number
adds up to form
our world collective
and our world's history.
Count your self in.
Perhaps 11:11:11 means 1+1+1+1+1+1 ...
the significance of numbers forming
the creative world spirit, mind and body.
Count your self as one.
~~ Other People's Fingerprints ~~
Sometime after 1902 Rainer Maria Rilke wrote;
"Whovever you are: step out in to the evening
out of your living room, where everything is so known;
your house stands as the last thing before great space:
Whoever you are.
With your eyes, which in their fatigue can just barely
free themselves from the worn-out thresholds,
very slowly, lift a single black tree
and place it against the sky, slender and alone.
With this you have made the world. And it is large
and like a word that is still ripening in silence.
And, just as your will grasps their meaning,
they in turn will let go, delicately, of your eyes ... "
