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The Shaman's Cenote: The Eternal Return

Through the empty wastelands runs a gentle stream. It is said the water here can rejuvenate the old and wise. Not one spider or tiny insect, let alone a four-legged, has been seen traveling through these parts. The vultures are also absent as there is no death they can consume in such a place having no life.

Strangely, a well built of rocks and bones of coyotes, birds, and rabbits houses a vast body of water called Cenote. The horizontal entrance to this well is dry and accessible to the voyagers that come to evade death in their wiseness that has grown with time. Many men have trekked through these barren lands, but only alone. All have been told by the son of the shaman who guards the border between the village and the wasteland that to make the crossing successfully one must be like the single star in a dark sky.

The legend of this mystical place tells us that no compass will survive the voyage to Cenote, that even the sun and shadows and the planets and stars are unreliable measures. It is only the beating of one's heart and the eyes fallen upon time that moves that will ensure a safe return. All who voyage first visit the watchmaker who has come from a line of tradesmen carving watches out of moldavite for the past 500 years. The carved encasing protects time from being consumed by forces ruling over life and death. Many a voyager visit the shaman’s cave so that their hearts and time charms can be consecrated as totems of protection and good fortune.

As the voyagers set out for Cenote they are well prepared with ceramic carrying vessels for holding drinking water. Although the lovely, clear stream contains clean water usable for drinking and bathing, many voyagers return dirty and stinking with empty vessels in hand, as it is safer to avoid drinking and bathing from the stream that has been poisoned by the tears of La Llorona who still paces along the water's edge weeping for her young children. The water here sparkles and dances; it is the succubus's trap meant to seduce and lure passersby into touching their hands and lips to what appears to be a source of great ecstasy, yet it only serves to suck and drain the remainder of life from the body, leaving only the victim's bones to eternity. There are still skeletons scattered about the stream's edge, kneeling as if to drink water. There are the other skeletons, frozen in position as if they are still bathing.

If the traveler can surpass his desire for touching the hands and lips to such purely evil yet delectable water, there is the chance that the entrance to Cenote can be found. It is an easy passing, for all one needs is to follow the stream to its end. There, a horizontal opening leading downward into a cave reveals the entrance to water from which all things have come to be and from which all things will come to end. When the center of the eye finds the center of Cenote the traveler must then promise all of his wiseness that has grown with time. He must hear the beating of his own heart penetrating every inch of his body and the reverberations of his life colliding with the walls of the cave. The time that moves encased in moldavite is thrown into the eye of Cenote, and all that is wise and old that has grown with time is swallowed up. And when the traveler voyages back he returns as if from the years of his youth, with all of his wiseness gone, with no wife and children, no parents, no friends, but alone as the only star in a dark sky. The memories of the voyager's life are still his, but the experiences now belong to Cenote.

 Chuparrosa is a Dreaming Woman who inherited the sacred art of the ensueño (Dreaming) from the Yaqui Queen of Dreams, Heather Valencia. She has also been training and closely working with Koyote, a Toltec Man of Knowledge, integrating the art of invocation with her academic training in psychology. Chuparrosa works her dream weaving by unifying worlds and mystical visions, using her body and words to sensually integrate, rearrange, and transform.