There was this one time.
About ten years ago I was doing some work with my job that took me down to the
country of Belize of all places. Belize
is a lovely place to visit if you have a reason to be there or on a vacation
in one of the pampered tourist areas.
Of all the countries I've visited though, the people of Belize entirely
redefined my perspective on what poverty looks like. There are some terribly poor people there
among the tropical beauty of the beaches and countryside.
There are also Mayan ruins, a place called “Xunantunich”
(zoo-nan too-nik) which means “Stone Maiden”
These ruins are still under excavation so when the people I
was working with had a day off to be tourists some of us piled off to visit
Xunantunich. The Mayans are by no means
extinct as a people. Some of the indigenous
people of Belize and part of Guatemala are direct descendants of Mayans and
some still regard themselves as Mayans.
When you visit a place under excavation like Xunantunich there are
finished structures that have been retrieved from nature, but its not like the
Indiana Jones movies. What you see are
these lumpy looking hills with trees and jungle growing on the sides of
them. Hills that look natural enough and
yet, not quite right. Buried in the hills, like graves, are buildings where people lived and worked. If our own civilization ever collapses someday out tall buildings and houses will someday look like lumpy hills.
The pleasure of history, of museums, of historical places is
the association of the imagination. To
realize that these places were once alive and important to people. That people like yourself lived here, fell in
love, gossiped, has families, worried about the future. Worked hard, loafed. Worshiped and speculated. And then all things pass away. When you walk along the green paths among the
ruins you come to the small and narrow foundations of what were once private
homes, where people lived their lives, gave birth and died before the conquistadors arrived and
upended everything.
In the midst of the excavations , there is a pyramid called
“El Castillo” which means “the castle”, probably a modern name. El Castillo is quite a landmark and appears
on the beer bottles of a locally brewed
stout which everybody drinks. El
Castillo has a band of images that surrounds the sides of it. On the reverse side is a stone stairway that leads up from the ground to
the top, about 130 feet straight up, where there is an observatory of
some kind where the Mayans would observe the stars or perform whatever rituals
bound them together. The stone steps are
a piece of work as in “Yeah, that guy.
He’s a piece of work.” They are
as narrow as a step ladder, close together and almost vertical. One hundred and thirty feet of vertical. No hand rails. At the bottom of the steps are broken rocks
and debris where workmen have been clearing things. Certain death if your foot slips. I couldn’t wait to climb it.
And why not?
Tourists, and students, some of them in sandals and back packs were
whizzing up the steps and taking selfies at the top. I put my foot on the first step.
It wouldn't move. My
body wouldn't move.
I had never experienced anything like this. It was a mind and body split. My mind wanted to go up, see the top, see
what Mayan priests saw, take pictures of the surrounding land.
Nothing doing.
My feet were planted in cement. I could go anywhere else, even climb partly
up the other side, but those vertical stairs;
I tried and tried. Each time my
body froze as if it had nothing to do with me.
I never made the climb. I stood
by and watched other people climb up and down like angels on Jacob’s Ladder. A couple of times I went over to the steps
and put my foot on them – and all though I wasn't consciously afraid my body
would go no further.
This was one of the first times I was made aware that there
are deeper levels to our minds. We know
that as a concept, but it’s a strange thing to have some deeper level,
something beyond your self awareness, put a heavy hand on your shoulder and prevent you from
doing something you consciously want to do.
It goes back a little to a previous post where I mentioned to Lisabet
about how a person’s consciousness could simply be snipped into two people like
a flatworm. It reminds me that we are
not who we think we are. That
personality and ego may be an illusion, a construct, and that the totality of
our personhood may be much more complex and mysterious, and largely out of our
reach.
