Los Corredores

Los últimos dias me la pasé con los Corredores de Paz y Dignidad (http://peaceanddignityjourneys.com/).  A group of approximately 25 people have been running for five months from Alaska, through the U.S. and Mexico, on their way to meet their counterparts who departed from La Patagonia, Argentina.  Runners from the north (eagle) and south (condor) will meet in Panama in mid-November.  This is in fulfillment of the prophecy of the eagle and the condor and is a prayer for peace and unification of indigenous peoples of the Americas.  Los recibimos en el CIDECI el 1ero de octubre y después los llevamos a los varios caracoles Zapatistas: Oventic y Morelia.  They also went to the community of Las Abejas, Acteal, site of the 1998 massacre of 21 women, 9 men, and 15 children.

As the local organizers were called away to the Americas Social Forum and the Forum on Militarization in Guatemala and Honduras respectively, I was entrusted by them to take over and support  the runners during their stay in Chiapas, accompanying them in ceremony and travel.  Also, I had the honor of running my bit, holding a staff on a dirt road that wound its way through the lush green hills outside Altamirano en route to the Zapatista Caracol de Morelia.  It was a very moving and profound experience to be a part of their prayer runs, their daily ceremonies of song, dance, and ritual—watching how at the dawn of a day’s run, each runner listens carefully to the call of one amongst hundreds of staffs they are collectively carrying (each staff represents a different community), warmly wrapped in colorful blankets.  After a day of running, upon arriving at a new place, they again form circle and close the obligations of the day with new ceremony, lovingly laying the staffs down to rest for the night.   During these days, we also held two Temazcalli (sweat lodge ceremonies) to which other people from the area were invited.  In gratitude, we made an offering which they now carry with them: wrapped in a Palestinian keffiyeh, a long glass bottle half-full of red earth I’d brought from Lebanon after the war in 2006, the remaining space to be filled up with red earth of Chiapas. The video below shows the runners arriving at the Zapatista Caracol of Oventic.

Los Corredores: a todas mis relaciones.

Cada bastón, un rezo
para nosotros y el mundo
cada comunidad, una pluma
vuelan águila y cóndor.

Craneos de búfalo con salvia
abren puerta al circulo,
humo de copal nos limpia
salpica pluma de águila.

Tres caracoles, cuatro direcciones
cielo y tierra envueltos en espíritu;
los ancestros mandan sabiduría
que yace en cada corazón.

Circulan cantos más alto
que los vuelos de aves,
sana la tierra el cantar

venadito azul, tu eres medicina.

Bastones de esperanza:
uno pa’ las mujeres de Juarez,
dos purepechas y cruz de Acteal,
frasco con tierra roja del Libano.

Toman vuelo los pies de mayores
de regreso al creador, mientras
corazones jóvenes y fuertes,
bailan y giran, pisando tierra.

Tonantzin, cuida la familia
aquí, allá donde quiera que estén.

Acuesta a l@s niñ@s esta noche
en el ombligo de Madre Tierra
para alzarlos en la mañana,
despertando las aguas.

Toda mi vida te he buscado
y en este fuego yo te encontrado.

****

The Runners: to all my relations.

Each staff, a prayer
for us and the world;
each community, a feather
fly eagle and condor.

Buffalo skulls filled with sage
open doorway into circle,
copal smoke cleanses
eagle feather sprinkles water.

three conch shells, four directions
sky and earth wrapped in spirit
the ancestors send wisdom
to reside in each heart.

songs circle higher
than flight of birds

singing heals the earth
little blue deer, you are medicine.

Staffs of hope, hundreds
one for the women of Juarez
two Purepechas, a cross from Acteal,
bottle of red earth from Lebanon.

Elder’s feet take flight
back to the creator, while
hearts young and strong
dance and pound the earth.

Tonantzin, care for the family
here, there, wherever they are

Lay down our children for the night
in the bellybutton of Mother Earth
to take up again in the morning,
awakening the water.

All my life I’ve been seeking
and in this fire, I’ve found you.

José finishing up breakfast in Morelia.

~ by charlottesaenz on October 8, 2008.