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