Compadrazco: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo & Beyond

It's been a long time since I've put words down.  I often have poems/words travel through me, but these days I haven't made the effort to focus them into physical form.  Yesterday, however, I was so inspired by the speakers of the event organized by Luis Peña, Compadrazco:  Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo & Beyond, that I had to write.  And, here's what I've written:

One of the things that came out of the Compadrazco: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo & Beyond for me (yesterday) was that we seek to know who we are, our place in the world, our importance through a very individual lens and that what Jorge Alberto Garcia Atilano was getting to was the coming together through compassion, via a larger spirituality that allows for all things and all beings, where the center of the spiral is the destiny of each individual life and our lives as one simultaneously. What we care for is our destiny. Our destiny defines us. And, we are whole within the consciousness of that reality.

That was my post on Facebook.  Then I listened to Jorge's words again

http://culturalenergy.org/serna.htm

and here's what my focus and intention are now:

My conscious mind cannot fathom the diversity of all that we represented when we came as Conquerors and settlers under the Spanish flag:  Crypto-Jew, Muslims/Moors, Greek, Portuguese, Italian, Basque, on and on . . .

I cannot fathom who we met and conquered:  Caribe Natives; Aztecs - who had been any number of pueblos and past civilizations, such as Mayans; Tewa, Apache, Comanche, Ute (Aztecas), Zuni, on and on . . .

WE - out of all these civilizations, nations, peoples, ancestors - developed a life in northern New Mexico that is so unique, we take offense at being recognized as anything but that culture.

Our culture holds all the seeds of that past and gives life through ceremony and tradition.  We may argue and discuss amongst one another about who knows more, embodies more, practices more of our culture, but in the end, those interactions only strengthen us.

We have come to the place where we can see ourselves as EVERYTHING; not nothing, but EVERYTHING, because we ARE defined.  Our peoples, our past have brought us to this moment where WE ARE.

I look in the mirror and see more than smoke.  I see that we are all the ancestors from every lineage smiling back at us in the mirror.  We are ALL.  We hold ourselves as a people.  We must use our traditions and ceremonies to strengthen that identity.

Take hold of your piece of the collective, with me.  Let us pull it taut, like a blanket off which our children and grandchildren can leap into a higher consciousness - a place where We ARE Sovereign.