Transformations

a trail of thoughts from CDMX + California

The sun was starting to set, the air dry ready for some rain. The hills green.

My cousin and I drove through a back road, catching up on life.

Photo by Prabuddha Dasgupta

As we reached the end of the hill, a coyote slowly ran across the street. My cousin braked, the coyote stopped in the middle, looked at us, then hopped under a fence.

By now I know an omen when I see one.

Just like the crow that stumbled on the roof while my niece and I played fairies.

I met with a teacher, healer, maestro is what they called him, very coincidentally when I visited CDMX last week.

There were many words lost in translation, but his wife told me that I had an energy.

Skull energy, he finished her sentence.

Skull energy I thought…but I’m a libra rising? Lol

Skull energy….I started reading a memoir about a mortician. On her first day she collected the ashes of a man she had just groomed. His skull was still intact after the cremation. She picked it up and it crumbled. Like dust in her hands.

photograph, taken in in the library of the Blue House, Coyoacán, Mexico City, in 1949 by Kahlo's nephew Antonio

Skull energy…I met this wonderful human in CDMX. You know those people you meet while traveling where you feel the audible wow within.

She was once invited to a funeral in India where she watched a cremation out in the open, the way my family members have all described what they’ve seen. The smell wasn’t bad because of the cedars and flowers she said.

Skull energy…I’m thinking about the scary stuff. The “what happens when we die” stuff. The “who will I leave behind” stuff.

Being in CDMX was like being in water. Where the dead and the living are one. It felt so easy. And interconnected. The symbolisms and honoring of spirits… everywhere. In the murals, the conversations, the alters, the trees, the sculptures, the pyramids, the music, the doors, even in the brooms used by the street cleaners.

I could feel life that was once roaming the streets whenever I looked to a mural with hawks and panthers. Even if it is a city built on water and even if some of the wildlife is no longer there. The spirit is.

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I got a chance to visit the chinamperos and learn about indigenous farming practices which honor biodiversity and permaculture. Traveling with food allergies was tough and knowing that mono crops are one reason why I can’t have gluten again was aggravating. I thought about my hometown and how rows of mono crop orchards cover most of the land. I thought about the soil, and a small mountain range which once used to be an active volcano, meaning the soil once had incredible minerals. Just like the soil in the chinamperos.

Everything is interconnected in biodiverse farms, the plants are grown to protect one another with shade, or to attract certain pollinators or even scare away bugs. The compost is placed next to the rows of growing veggies. And no seed is planted in the same spot. Can you believe that? No seed is planted in the same spot it was once grown in.

Being in Mexico made me rethink what it feels like to be a visitor and what I can offer in any place I enter. I opened a Rick Rubin book at the airport and there was a page about different senses. We can close our eyes, plug our nose, shut our mouth. But we can’t close our ears.

Sacred bone deep listening.

I kept thinking about what the maestro said to me, that I had skull energy.

And when I saw the coyote cross the street. I had an idea.

That we must be clever, we must be light on our feet.  That I have an ancestor who is a teenager. And that teens laugh.

Coyotes laugh. They cackle loudly, like my niece who laughs deep from her belly. And so do skeletons.

Usually I am so afraid of Taurus season, because the lessons are tough and strict. The pruning of my ideas, the releasing of what no longer serves. The intense divine feminine energy we feel before entering an airy, watery and fiery summer. Taurus season now is my chance to listen and reconnect with dense earthly matter.

Photo by Prabuddha Dasgupta

I made my way back to a river the other day.

I sat next a tree that felt like it was decaying beetles, butterflies, moths and dragonflies would rest there.

Some even died there. I buried one beetle and put an X made of twigs to honor the spirit of transformation.

Another beetle flew onto my arm and all I could think about was how hard it is to actually invite transformation, even though constant change is the nature of our lives.

In my contemplation, I eventually heard the flow of the river, the unapologetic flow…The ease… The surrender, and the death of what I’ve been holding onto.

I watched this moth flutter, from one flower to the next. Even the moth experienced death within its short lifetime, a death that gave her wings.

I suppose then, that not all deaths are tragic, some give us flight and truly a new life.

If the change is coming then, let it flow.

And let us be in constant ceremony with it.

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Side note, I have some HW for you all before the new moon in Gemini on May 7th.

If you’re looking to upgrade or visualize a higher purpose for yourself. Here’s a little trick to get it started.

Vision board a few images of people you look up to (I always include Cher, honorary Taurus queen). Piece each image together and then write down a word to describe what each person makes you feel.

Now incorporate those into your affirmations.

Taa daaa

Until next time loves,

Jakari Wing