ARROYO ROSES is a site for celebration of our Mother known by many names who gave us birth and sustains us.  It is a crossroads where devotion, science, narrative, experience and cosmic gossip join forces to acknowledge her presence and dance.  Welcome.

 

Arroyo is a spanish word signifying streambeds which are dry most of the time and become channels for water after rain or runoff. Arroyos form where water seeks its lowest and most convenient channel and are usually below the normal water level for the area. A low area where water pools from rain or runoff is called a playa and is distinguished from an arroyo by the fact that water forms a lake or pond rather than a stream or torrent.  In the desert southwest where the ground is hard and baked and the rainfall is sudden and can be heavy in a short period of time, water can travel at rates of up to 120 mph, uprooting trees and bushes by its force and frequently changing the contour and depth of the arroyo, carrying soil, rocks, plant matter, rags and cans, railroad nails and even styrofoam and other detritus of civilization in its wake.  Geologists call this “flashy flow” meaning streamflow that rises to flood level and recedes quickly.

Arroyos are yin as described by Chinese cosmology and feng shui and represent and embody “the tonal” in the Aztec world view. They are the abode of the feminine. Arroyos act to replenish the groundwater through  “recharge windows” which are usually short offshoots of the main channel where the water seeps down into the aquifer below. These windows are literally gates to the underworld below the world we know, the kingdom of the sun, the other great energizer of the planet. The forces of the tonal, the great mother which creates and nurtures material existence have their domain here.  One of the results of this “flashy flow” is that as the water recedes it deposits what it carried in the channel and where it overflowed . This can include fairly large objects such as logs or boulders as well as sand, silt, pebbles, pine cones, crystals and seed pods. The cutting of the arroyo itself, which is ever changing due to erosion and changes in hydraulic geometry, exposes rocks, minerals, roots, animal dens and other artifacts and processes. The arroyo exposes the history of the area.

Because the arroyo clears a path for the easiest traverse, it functions as a highway and home to many animals and because it has more surface water than other contiguous areas it nourishes an abundance of plant life. There are species here that do not appear in the surrounding area and the same species which are native to the area can be 3-4 times the size due to increased water and protection from sun and wind. The floor of the sandy and/or mud surfaced arroyo is covered with tracks of mammals and birds.

In and around Santa Fe, NM one can see evidence of crows, bears, various wild cats, antelope, skunks and coyotes. In this area the course of travel for cougars has been shown to be a series of arroyos which come from north of Santa Fe and go south and west toward Galisteo and points beyond. The sides of deeply cut arroyos provide a sheltered habitat for dens and burrows of various animals  including coyotes, bobcats, prairie dogs,and burrowing owls. The arroyo is like a large apartment house with all kinds of various families and loners making it a home.

 

 

It’s no wonder that one gets the sense that the arroyo is aware of you if yr quiet and pay attention. A friend said to me, “I always feel like I’m being watched out there”. There are untold intelligences feeling, sensing and seeing you. It’s a part of being awake out here.

HERESLOOKINATCHA

The arroyo is the refuge of the wild. Besides the crows and coyotes one meets all manner of wanderers, a homeless vet who slept here last night, a jogger, dog walkers. The Navahos traveled through canyons and arroyos avoiding the white mans’ army, raiding ranches and stealing cattle, horses, and sheep. It took the US Govt decades to subdue them and then it was with lies not military defeat. They could have stayed below sight in the arroyos for who knows how much longer, perhaps years and history could even still exist here on a parallel track. Many tracks cross each other in the arroyo.

Mexican and later New Mexican folklore identify the arroyo as the home of La lllorona, the weeping lady who mourns for her lost children.  You can hear her wild sorrow in the strong winds of northern New Mexico. Children are cautioned not to go into the arroyo because, in her loss, she might “claim you for her own”.

It is interesting that in the time leading to the arrival of the Spanish in Mexico this inconsolate weeping was heard in the arroyos and canyons and similar stories have been told by some north american tribes re: the arrival of the white man.

Coatlicue is the mother of the gods. She is called by many names and appears in many forms as “Mother of The Southern Stars” and “Our Grandmother”. She is called Tonantzin, “Our Reverend Mother” as the embodiment of the feminine force and mother of us all. Wikipedia says “The title is particularly believed to refer to Mother Earth and, among Catholics, nowadays denotes the Virgin Mary”. Kiva Rose Hardin, a medicine woman from New Mexico says, “To many the Virgin of Guadalupe is seen as a living manifestation of the americas, an embodiment of the land itself rather than a symbol of religious authority…” She is also called “Snake”, “Goddess of Sustenance” and “Mother of Corn” as well as “Seven Flowers” and “Woman of Precious Stone”.

HEART OF TONANTZIN

Coatlicue is the earth. She is a name for this earth. She is Tonantzin, our mother. She is the creator and destroyer of form. As a baby twists in the birth canal in a spiral moving toward the light, she spits out creation in an undulating spiral of magma and intention. Michael Schneider, the visionary mathematician and teacher says ”nature comes about by whirling into manifestation”.

An emerging form is a morass of currents, cross currents, and chemical and physical imperatives. They move into archetypal forms created by the stress of birth and the edge where “the implicate order” meets the “real world”. The most efficient 3 dimensional form to channel stress from cross currents, inertia and the demands of existing as matter is the spiral. The forces which form a spiral exist as a 5 fold geometric matrix of influences including ability to withstand and/or channel stress as weight of force, ability to channel or create motive force by efficient distribution of energy, structural integrity and evolutionary capability.

The spiral is the secret hidden in the internal martial arts. Raven feels it in the uprushing air. We wake up on another curve of a widening spiral wondering
why everything seems so alive.   Michael Schneider describes the activity inside a spiral as a “rocking rhythm of a vortex street”. Maybe that’s why it feels a little wild out here.

 

 

The animal tracks we see in the arroyo are all contained in the form of the pentad which is the geometric form that symbolizes or is a glyph representing the spiral vortex which is the actual living moving pattern. The esoteric implication of the “stations of the cross” refer to these evolutionary stages in the spiritualization of matter or an evolving conciousness alive within the matrix, the body of Coatlicue, the being who is the mother and progenitor of this all.

The spiral of forms emerging as the body of the mother is endowed with her qualities. They are her attributes as “Seven Flowers”, “Woman of Precious Stone” as well as many other names and forms.  Coatlicue/Tonantzin/Guadalupe appears in many costumes (trajes tipicas) as a personage and as many forms and names in the matter (mater) making up our material world.  John Mini, whose book, “The Aztec Virgin” is an eye opening look into Aztec cosmology and the new age of flowers foretold by Aztec prophesy calls Coatlicue/Tonantzin/Guadalupe “the dance nothingness does to create the world of form”.

Here she is as Tlaliyob, “EARTH HEART”

 

Detail of “EARTH HEART”

Here as Tezcat Lipoca, “SMOKING MIRROR”

 

 

 

 

The Catholic mystic and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin spoke of the endless creativity of the matrix calling it entelechy, “within, in the heart of things” . One of the things he spoke of is “evolutionary drive and creative intelligence”. Earlier western minds called it “the anima mundi” or Soul of the World.
Teilhard saw that “atoms aggregate in geometrical patterns in simple groups”. This is crystallization, an evolutionary choice or vector for matter gradually coming into being or entering higher states of organization.

Samuel L. Lewis, the american Sufi teacher, wrote of “The Heart Mystery In The Mineral Kingdom” and discussed the thermodynamics of material formation, “Ishk, the divine all pervading love, operates as gravitation, adhesion, cohesion, and chemical affinity on the physical plane and manifests in and through chemical and physical forces herewith..” He refers to Sir Jagadis Bose, who applied “the knowledge of his ancestors”…in the scientific field and made numerous discoveries, finding analogues to human and animal processes in the vegetable and mineral worlds and said “there are stresses and strains and even psychological moods in metals”.

The insights of these and other western minds as to “Implicate Order”, the “Cosmic Plenum”, “ Iteration”, and “Holonomy” attempt to explain the physics of this heart mystery. The latest book by the famed mystic scientist Rupert Sheldrake is called The Physics of Angels. After an extensive western education Don Juan cautioned Carlos to seek “the path with heart”.

 

Guadalupe is that heart unfolding in the material world, riding a spiral into form. Michael Schneider says “Not only does our whole body whirl into life as a spiral, but at its heart, our body’s “literal heart” is a dextrous (left spinning) spiral vortex”

David Bohm, the theoretical physicist says “elementary particles are actually systems of extremely complicated internal structure, acting essentially as amplifiers of information contained in a quantum wave” ..again he says “any individual element could reveal detailed information about every other element in the universe”. He explains that subatomic particles…respond to each others motions thousands of years later when they are light years apart.”  “Where green mansions and solar flares feed each other in endless delight and death is a door into larger horizens.”

John Mini, again speaking of Coatlicue, says “ her serpent skirts are the pathways of galaxies flying through space”.

 

 

Thus each apparently discrete event or process and each apparent discrete and separate entity in the manifest world partake of and reflect all others in a hologramatic system. Thus Hermes Trismigestus spoke “as above so below”. Plato’s theory of archetypal forms, the doctrine of signatures and the homeopathic simillimum are all theoretical constructs which reflect this reality. John Mini again….”Atoms remember states of being and compounds they’ve been part of before. In other words they learn. They remember their history. They carry a signature of everything they’ve ever been and everything they’ve ever done.”

 BON VOYAGE

Thus we see forms emerge in the mineral kingdom which are similar and/or suggestive of other forms in the manifest world and suggestive of other forms in the vicinity of their appearance which are subject to the same local energetic vectors. Rupert Sheldrake calls this reincarnation or recapitulation of forms in various apparent separate kingdoms or orders, “morphic resonance”.   Our apparent apparition of these similarities of form also apply to the energetics of these forms which is the basis of the “doctrine of signatures” such that a rhinoceros horn is valuable as leverage in tough situations.

STANDING WAVE

The evolutionary movement along the meandering path of an arroyo or the swirling snake skirts of Coatlicue in the world of minerals or galaxies creates or is part of a wave which uplifts and invigorates our human efforts, insights and evolution because we are part of the same quantum wave which becomes more inclusive as it expands and luxuriates. This is the energetic nature of a logorythmic spiral which expands as it moves with the influx of energy it is fed and which spins it!  The mineral forms which appear as the matrix of our earth remember their evolutionary destiny and move toward that destiny as a gradual unfolding geological process or in a rush as a torrential lava flow. We are riding that wave. We separate beings are part of that wave.  This is Guadalupe’s promise and blessing.  That wave is a “being”.  A toltec shaman recognizes this being and other “beings” within creation’s body such as allies, minions, animal and plant spirits and other entities because he is democratic and acknowledges that all in nature is evolving into personhood and he wishes to pay his respects. He also wishes to enter a dance which may empower and exult him.

Guadalupe says “Are you not always enfolded in the hem of my garment?”

BOATLOAD OF ROSES

The spiralling energy of creation manifests in forms which appear as flowers, seashells, galaxies and all the other swirling vortex of apparent phenomena…apparent only because we are “seeing” it in a stopped moment of time rather than “seeing” it as the process which it is. Because the spiral has the greatest creative capacity to efficiently channel stress and resolve conflicting agendas and tendencies it is a sign of blessing when it appears in the world. The pentad energetics of the spiral are like to the 5 pointed star or pentagram which has a rejuvenative and healing energy.  Michael Schneider says “Spirals are a sign of growth and transformation through resistance.”  A starfish has the ability to regrow an arm if it is destroyed because it is engaged with the spiral energy of its origin in a shamanic dance. Thus, these forms have been considered signs of religious and/or magical power and good luck.

 

 

ROSEY EXTRUSION

Roses, which are formed by a spirallic energy, are thought of as a harmonizing element in traditional medicines and have proven to affect the heart and orient the emotions toward a more inclusive view. The roses which appeared in winter at Tepeyacac appear also in the heart of the mineral kingdom as a primary energetic form which is actually the head of a logarythmic spiral. They are considered a vanguard sign and signature of the coming sixth sun in Aztec cosmology which is called The Sun of Flowers and portends a blossoming and fulfilling of the evolutionary cycle when the wisdom of various world cultures comes together and ushers in an age of cooperation and love.

WINTER ROSES

A prophetic Aztec Poem, “The Flowering War” describes thus,  “The full flowers tremble, the flowers grow heavy with Spring, bathed in sunlight..the Sun’s heart throbs in the cup..”   The “flowering war” is a basic metaphor in Nahuatl cosmology.  It refers to the struggle of spiritual evolution which all matter and beings are engaged in.  If a person or being “wins: his body flowers and produces a new order of energy which “gives power to the sun”.

JAGUAR KNIGHT

 

 

 

 

FLOWER WARRIOR

“Human” beings’ energetics influence the whole and each other apparent separate participant in this dance including the sun.  Transmission or actually circulation of energy is always a 2 way street. Physics acknowledges this interpenetration and influence and ultimately points to love as fact if not romance.  Flowers are the perfection of evolution because they bring fragrance and joy to the heart.  Flowers are the sexual organs of the plant kingdom and again signify a coming together of people, cultures and ideas through harmony.

ARROYO ROSES

 

 

ROSE DETAIL IN MATRIX

 

 

 

 

 

The flower (Xochitl) which is at the tip of the tongue of Tonatiuh in the center of the Aztec Sun Calendar (which was dug up during construction activities for the sanctuary on the hill at Tepeyacac) promises the coming Sixth Sun, the Sun of Flowers and reflects the unfolding destiny and evolutionary direction of this era of human history.     Rodolpho Usigli said in 1965, “The Virgin of Guadalupe is not an ornament. She is destiny”.

According to Father Miguel Sanchez who was the first of the Spanish invaders to chronicle her appearance, when Guadalupe appeared at Tepayacac, a dragon appeared in the sky and threatened her and “St. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon” with their swords.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Near Santa Fe, NM a woman who lives on the edge of an arroyo filled with Guadalupe’s colors fell asleep and dreamed of herself as St. Michael grasping the handle of a sword which appeared above her head. The uplifted blade had 3 drops of blood along one edge and a single teardrop on the other. When she brandished the weapon, drops of blood fell which turned into a sea of roses falling around her and “were nothing but love” “ supporting, exalting and uplifting her at all times”.

 

LAND ABOVE THE CLOUDS

Amid the rainbow assortment of colors, the myriad forces and counter forces, the power of hydraulic forces in the geological process, and the elementary weather patterns here, the arroyo country of northern New Mexico is a nurturing environment for a wide variety of forms in the mineral strata.  Here we see turquoise and obsidian, all vegetative greens and lime as well, magenta, azure, orange, blood red and all manner of roses and pink .  Because physics tell us that each particular event and apparent particle partake of both the whole plenum and all other parts and particles, we can see why the mineral strata here contains images, signs and totems which reflect the natural world and the human culture here as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We can see animal forms, plant forms, images of energy vectors such as ventifacts, ground into lines and flat surfaces by wind and flying sand, primitive patterns suggesting calligraphy, delicate embroidery formed by caliche deposited on soil or rock surfaces, patterns seen in indigenous art from this area, and sparkling images of starfields and galaxies crusted with bling of mica, garnets, tourmaline and pyrites. All these attest to the “implicate order” of creation named by Bohm and further confirm the messages brought back by Raven from the other world.

“GREEN THRUSHES SANG IN THE FIRE, GLOWING, CHANGING INTO ROSES”

-THE FLOWERING WAR

 

 

The sumptious roses and pinks of Guadalupe’s flowering are colored and energized by the element iron which is a prime mover in the elemental processes which form the land and geological matrix in this area of the world.  Iron, as an element, is thought to be the prime mover in the origin of life on the earth. Scientists believe that life arose when primitive bacteria feasted on rust from iron laden lava which erupted from the “heart of the world” into the ocean. Other theories speculate that the iron came from meteorites or other interstellar travelers which fell into the sea. Perhaps both occurred. In any event we carry the “starseed” in our hemoglobin which connects us to the earth and to the sun, our “solar self”.

COPPER & IRON – CHLOROPHYLL & BLOOD

Another primary element in this area which infuses the mineral strata with all manner of greens and blue-greens is copper. Copper arises here with iron in a great variety of red/green combinations in the mineral kingdom. In the plant kingdom, green is the primary color as chlorophyll and reflects Coatlicue/Tonantzin/Guadalupe’s role as “Mother of Corn” and “Goddess of Sustenance”. Copper is connected to the root which is our “morphic resonance” with the earth we arise from and the heart, which is our evolutionary destiny. Copper is the great healer of the elements, the soother and harmonizer. In indigenous cosmologies and western occultism, it is said to be ruled by Venus while iron is ruled by Mars, the mover and shaker. Together they form a masculine/feminine, yin/yang complementary duo both in terms of stability and mobility. Iron creates force and copper channels and harmonizes it.   Copper is the primary element used in electrical conductivity applications. The Aztecs used copper in a gargle to soothe sore throats. In the last ten years it has been found to be efficacious against a wide variety of bacteria, viruses, and fungi including E. Coli, Staph, Strep, and influenza and has been incorporated into western pharmaceuticals as such. Its good we’re catching up. Hospital rooms are painted green to accentuate healing. The early Egyptians used it to sterilize water and fashioned it into the Ankh, the symbol of eternal life. In ancient texts copper is said to have “the attributes of the Queen of Heaven”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“GREEN, HOW MUCH I WANT YOU GREEN”                                                                                                        – GARCIA LORCA

 

 

PORTAL                                                                                                     

The same creative vortex that disgorges the rocks and mountains shapes the human heart. The spiral called “our grandmother” that gives birth to “the southern stars” carves your fingerprints. The evolutionary and inclusive destiny of the mineral kingdom and ourselves, the warrior’s path and the flames which lick at, surround and energize the penitent follow the same swirling trajectory. The heart has long been considered the seat of the spirit in human form. Is it coincidence that the “heart mystery in the mineral kingdom” is the same promise that Guadalupe represents and embodies. In these hearts of stone, we can see the larger ventricle on the left and the way the spiral wraps around from left to right sometimes leaving a ridge or swelling in the lower right quadrant moving left. (In human anatomy this swelling of tissue is created by the pulmonary artery & valve overlying the aorta and aortic valve) This is the shape the human heart takes.

 

Another evolutionary possibility out of the spiral dance of creation is the star or pentagram considered a good luck charm and symbol of regenerative activity. In ancient Egypt, the “duat” is a five pointed star within a circle which signifies our human ability to rise up and cast off our illusions. It is a symbol for the underworld and the promise and inherent way foreward in terms of strategy and destiny.    In the manifest world of crosscurrents, agendas and inertia the star pattern sometimes manifests as a balanced energetic five part pattern.  Stephanie Mines, a student of curandera in Mexico, was told by her teacher, “You are a star…your legs and arms are four points of the star, and the fifth is here, in your center, in your umbilicus, where everything begins.  The body is a star and the sobradora (masseuse) must make the star shine.”

Sometimes the star is evolving toward the star form but appears unbalanced or imperfect or has been obstructed by circumstances and is temporarily apparently in stasis. Sometimes we are seeing this form from a point of view which does not acknowledge its multidimensional reality as described by modern physics or in indigenous cosmologies. These are the drunken stars. The drunken stars sway and weave, they play at the game of life, first going over here, then suddenly veering off.

Sometimes they become falling stars and burn out in flashes. Coyote, who lives in the arroyo, talks to them.

FLAMES WHICH EAT OUR WORLD

The spirallic pattern and undulating coils of “Snake” and Coatlicue’s snake skirts embrace and embody the manifest world of crystals, birds, wind and human emotions. Another of these spirallic forms are the flames that appear from time to time engulfing everything in their sacrificial “burning” which purifies creation whenever inertia has slowed the vibrational rate of some particular organizational unit or “soul”.   These flames that burn our world purify the heart and the duat or underworld as well.   When the flames cool down some, they move more slowly and may move toward the center of the spiral in the quiet eye of the vortex and take refuge there, where the nectar is at the center of the flower, and slowly whirl and become a star or perhaps a heart.  In many ancient cultures, after the hero or warrior passes through various buffeting affronts, trials and whirlpools he finds him/herself and rises into the heavens and becomes a star or constellation.

In Guadalupe’s manifestation these flames consume the heart and all apparent separate phenomena burning away the dross to reveal you are included in her protection and sustenance.

 

 

Northern New Mexico is host to a wide variety of native american cultures. Because these cultures lived (and live) within the world of nature and intuited or recognized the personhood of plants, animals, weather elements and other natural phenomena, native american art reflected the flora, fauna, planets and topographical elements of the landscape.   It also represented the energetic processes of nature such as lightning, rainfall, patterns of wind and bird flight, snake’s undulations and the unfolding spirallic pattern of plant growth. The following pages show the same forms appearing in the matrix of the mineral kingdom.

                            EAGLE

 

HUMMINGBIRD

           

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        OWL

                                                                                                                                         

BEAR

 

GRANDMOTHER OWL

 

 

ARROW OF INTENTION WHICH
SEEDS THE FUTURE

 

 

 

In geology the term “ventifacts” refer to abraided surfaces created by wind and blown sand. These flat or linear forms are striking as they reflect the inherent earth element forms as they meet the spirits of air.

 

 

“Caliche” is a white deposit on rocks or soil which is a product of organic putrifaction so these patterns are likewise a cross current of environmental affect on the pure creational forms.

 

 

WOLF ROCK with
ventifacted surfaces

 

 

 

 

 

                             OWL TOTEM
QUETZALCOATL

“Desert Varnish” is a deposit of iron and/or manganese which is tan/brown to black and also paints the rocks and soils here. Native american artists used flat sections of desert varnished surfaces to incise their designs or petroglyphs to expose the colored substrate underneath, thus lending drama and precision to their images.

EAGLE’S NEST

 

 

SPIRIT OF THE MOUNTAIN

“THE PROBLEM IS NOT THAT YOUR LIFE HAS NO MEANING, THE PROBLEM IS THAT IT HAS ONLY MEANING”

– DON MIGUEL RUIZ

 

MANIFESTATION
                 

                                 

OFFERING

 

 

 

 ALLY

 

PHAROAH’S
BIRD

 

 

 

 

 

                                                              

 

 

 

EMERGENCE

 

 

 

 

TRAJES TIPICAS 

 

 

ANCESTOR

BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN

                                FIRE IN THE HOLE

BODHIDHARMA’S LECTURE

 

SNAIL – The snail has both
sex organs in his/her body& is thus considered a sign of virgin birth

 

 

RIFFDOG

RA’S HOUSE

 

 

 

 

                                     FAN

 

             PAINTED BIRD

CALICHE CON CARNE

THE FUTURE

MR NATURAL

 

JEWEL BUG

 

 

 

 

CUT THE
CAKE, WE’LL
ALL GET
WELL –
DON VAN VLIET