Listen to El Mariachi Loco by Mariachi de la Ciudad de México de Pepe Villela

A few days before leaving for Mexico, I started to feel apprehensive about the journey, perhaps because I know what it means to travel with two small children. Also, Teotihuacan is not an actual vacation, it’s more like a place to wake up from, and we all know what it can feel like being woken from a deep sleep….

Sometimes life in the U.S. is like a big dream, everything is easy and all one knows is inside their bubble.  Teotihuacan bursts that bubble, pulling on our authentic places that are screaming to dance. Mariachi music serves as a great alarm clock, after a day of grounding on the moon an evening of getting down was necessary.  Alberto, my husband’s partner here in the Dreaming House, arranged a fantastic 40^th birthday party for one of the women on the journey – Mexico could not let this moment pass without a fiesta.

I stayed up way too late chatting with some of my favorite people. Mary Alice made the journey, as well as a group of our friends who live on the Island of Bermuda, including Sarah White or, as I refer to her, “Lady Gaga”.  This woman is so real and fantastic that I must contain myself and refrain from sitting at her feet. “What makes her rock?” you ask. She has led a twisty, curvy, funny life full of failures and successes and at almost 70 years old, she still rises to the funny and climbs the Pyramids. I also might add that she is still a stunning woman.  My mother told me long ago to align myself with women that could lead by example and Sarah White is one of these women.  I think the ideas of perfecting our lives have changed. In truth, the only perfect women I see are those that are heavily flawed but full of beautiful cracks, so, isn’t this all of us?

After a late night full of female giggles, Monday morning came quickly.  I thought I would stay home and rest until the great knowing whisper brushed my ear and I heard: “Go with them today, again.”  I don’t usually join the journeys with the groups that come, for many reasons but mainly the responsibility of my children and my home. Add on the fact that I’ve been around this kind of work since my early twenties and I’ve learned that the journey resides inside of me and it seldom matters whether I am in Teotihuacan or Nashville.  That being said, Teotihuacan is a powerful place that lends a spanking now and again….

I threw on some clothes and met the group at the Palace of the Jaguars, or Masters, as they were known to be called.  Isabella was there with Lee and I thought I was going to connect with her. As we passed each sacred room we bowed and thanked the Masters. I had explained to Bella that they were like high Llamas and she asked that we speak to them in Hebrew, according to Bella this is the language that Jesus understood.  I guess Bella totally gets that it’s all one and the same – connected.

Once The Masters completed their spiritual paths they moved here to this areaa of Teo to be close to the portals.  The believed that by meditating through a great portal or doorway one could  get to the other side, a “hole or tunnel”.  The other side could have been literally or in my case the other side of my current fears.  With ease and grace, I found myself standing before this portal, dreaming into it, imagining life on the other side, imaging my life on the other side.  Then, as I was leaving, I remembered the hole and the tunnel. I was doing it. I was walking through my core – my core of illness, my own internal human center of my own personal earth, and I had found a way out of that house – an escape from the dark places I had been.

I had a conversation with someone before I left Nashville; I was feeling up tight about leaving and worried about how my body would travel, since Teotihuacan is not a comfy spa resort. It’s a cool and groovy city but the elevation is close to 7,000 feet and normally super, duper dry!  I happen to be a mango, moist and warm water kinda gal, give me humidity and I rock.  Back to the convo with this person: as we spoke she told me not to worry and that I am possibly getting to my core, truly moving through the center of my physical healing. Of course, in Princess Know It All fashion I argued and attempted to close my ears.  Then I called her back, I’d heard her and she was right, I thanked her.  On the way down here I started thinking about being in the core of every aspect of my self and my life, standing in my center and then moving forward.

Joan Borysenko, PhD and cellular biologist was on this trip with Lee and I wanted to connect with her, she is one of my contributing editors and a friend.  Joan KNOWS how diseased cells grow and change according to the emotional perception of the person. I’ve listened to her speak many times before I was sick myself and now her wisdom soars home and rings a bell.  Our first conversation here was more like a statement, when she asked me how I was I responded with tears: “I know I am better but my mind tells me I am still sick. My body IS stronger, but my mind wants to identify illness.” She hugged me and said, “This is the last piece, master it.”

So there I was feeling the thrill of passing through the tunnel when Lee said I have to climb the Pyramid of the Sun. I giggled and said, “No, I’m not down with that.”  Then Bella, my brave little warrior, said, “Come on Momma, you can do it.”  Of course, one of my main goals in parenting is to raise brave, courageous women who believe in themselves.  Not climbing to the top was not an option and this pyramid is tall too!  I’ve climbed it a ton of times and I only had a full on meltdown once, the first time I’d ever climbed it 13 years ago. Like everyone else that arrives at Teo climbing the Pyramid of the Sun ignites the child in us that wants to climb trees & castles.  I saw this giant pyramid as an adult jungle gym, I couldn’t wait for the final day to climb it!

Life sure is funny because half way up, I realized I was afraid of heights; I made it to the top but only by clawing and scratching my way there!  Afterwards, I dug deep to understand this fear and I found that it was a pile of fears that had sat in the back of my inner closet, overflowing the laundry basket!

Over the years I’ve worked to release them and in truth I have moved through more than I thought possible, like I said, since then I’ve climbed that Pyramid many times!  I did not know why I felt so uneasy once again, especially since I’d just seen myself moving forward in the Place of the Masters?

By the second level of steep stairs, I had to sit and try not to look down.  I found myself sweating and uneasy. Lee tried to keep me going but I froze.  After closing my eyes and hearing Bella’s call I grabbed the rope that one uses to make their way to the top and continued climbing. I heard the voice again, “Use the rocks as mirrors and allow them to reflect what is keeping you back.”  As I held one hand on the Pyramid stones and the other on the rope, my eyes began to fill with tears.  I saw myself, lonely, isolated, afraid, pained emotionally and physically. I witnessed my fear and doubt.  I made it to the top of the Sun with only ten feet to go. Instead of continuing, I sat by the wall, closed my eyes and lent some much needed compassion to Mee Tracy.  Lee called me to come even higher but I said that I wanted to sit alone, with just Mee.  Earlier that morning “Lady Gaga” came to share a hint that she’d received earlier that morning: “Hey Kid (in her hip cool lingo), I gotta piece for you. You be sure that you don’t ever go against your self, not in work, friendship or family.  You trust you and you’re going to go all the way.” So there I sat, knowing that I didn’t need to climb to the top because my view was good enough, I was high enough to see Mee.

For someone like me who usually pushes until I collapse, this was an accomplishment. Just like the mouse in my dream, I, too, found the hole guiding me through the dark tunnel that I have spent the last year wandering around in. The light at the end of that tunnel was the Sun.

The Toltecs believed that one can pass through portals into other dimensions and that ascension is possible. I don’t know if they really flew into the stars but I do KNOW that we ascend and move through our centers, becoming more of us and less of fear.

Below is a picture of the Pyramid of the Sun, if you look at it you will see that there is a body with legs & arms, a head all ascending, so that’s why we all go to Teo – to move one more step closer to ourselves.

Thanks Michelle Larson for this photo & the others.