Tlaloc 

One day he had been sitting in an armchair in his backyard

Studying an ancient scripture

When he remembered an urgent errand.

Setting the manuscript down he drove into town.

 

Black clouds blew in without warning

Rain would soon follow

He feared for the fate of the scripture

Until he remembered:

Rain is a Living Presence.

The storm now upon him

He prayer to the rain

Explaining the precious pages

Asking they be spared from destruction.

 

Arriving home after the cloudburst

Everything soaked

Except armchair and scripture

He said to himself

Maybe it hears me

Never mind if that’s silly -

I’m going to speak to the Rain.

 

On the summit of a mountain in Mexico

Stands a pyramid known as El Tepozteco

He wondered, What gods were honored here?

He was told Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc

Names which meant nothing to him

So be climbed the mountain, scaled the walls

And lay down on the ceremonial platform

With some apprehension.

 

Did he have the right to be there?

Was he being disrespectful?

Was this the place where priests with obsidian knives

Cut out still-beating hearts?

He closed his eyes and hoped for the best.

 

Jaguar appears circling round the pyramid

His tail held straight up

Suddenly wheeling, he says

So, you want to meet Tlaloc, eh?

I’ll take you

Get on my back.

 

Jaguar leaps bounding into the air

They reach the sky and tear through it as if it were paper screen

They find themselves in another more colorful world

Under a different sky

The cat tears through this too

They enter a third world 

The cat keeps on running through sky after sky.

 

In the thirteenth world Jaguar comes to a stop.

Below can be seen the worlds they passed through

Neatly stacked like the steps of the pyramid.

Turning around, they see a young man

With long blond hair, blue eyes and a halo

His palms facing forward

From the center of each spouts a stream of blue water

Flowing down through the worlds below

Eventually forming the waters of Earth

Where fish swim and plants flourish.

 

Hello, I am Tlaloc.

Then how come you have blue eyes and brown hair?

You see me as a gringo because you are a gringo.

The people who built the pyramid saw me differently

I look different to different folks

But everyone knows me

I am the Rain God, Tlaloc.

Now tell me -

What do you know about rain, about water?

 

Water is the element that supports movement and stillness alike.

So many movements  

Our joints move in water

Our food is digested

Our sperm swim

Our brain thinks

The surging of water moves our souls, our willpower, our ambition.

 

When the water in us comes to rest

We know peace

We plunge below surface appearance

There are eternal moments between breaths

Between thoughts.

 

Suddenly he felt timid

Giving a lecture to a god -

How am I doing?

 

That was very good!

You should be telling people these things

And there’s more.

Look at the way man squanders the water

How they pollute

People don’t realize it’s the very blood of their veins

For most water is just a commodity

bought and sold

Something that comes out of a faucet

And Rain is a nuisance.

 

They treat me as if I had no feelings.

Naturally, I treat them the same way

Tell them.

They need to know.

 

 

A found story by P. Bralley, from Plant Spirit Medicine by Eliot Cowan