Farm 0618

Tuesday June 18

We harvested 36 pounds of snap peas in the morning, then mowed down the hoophouse crops with the tractor and corresponding attachment. Then we went up and picked up a spiky-looking attachment to carve the earth with, and came back down. It didn’t work. The floor had become very hard clay, and even a full digging-bar blow wouldn’t crack it any further than 1cm. We switched to the plow, with same results. Though it managed to carve down a little on one side, it only scraped it in the other, so in the end Josh gave up, and decided to try using the “Baco” the next day. Felix appeared, and he got on the tractor for a few minutes as it was on. He was paralyzed with excitement, eyes-wide open, sensing the vibrations, and just looking around at everything. He cried when Adan turned it off, and once on, he began saying “woah”, again. Eventually Adan ripped him away from the tractor, and cars started coming into the farm - there was to be an informative event about the Aztec calendar that night.

Though I was going to help Josh with the animal chores, I was told by him that I could attend the Aztec calendar event instead. In the end, I was stalled by a very long-seeming phone call from a AAA insurance agent, telling me the details about the insurance quote I requested (for my new Geo). After the call, I went into the Aztec calendar meeting area. No one was there but the food, and I wasn’t so hungry or rude that I would begin eating alone, so I went back to my cabin for a while. About 30-40 minutes later, I walked out again, and the area was full of people listening to a long-haired, long-and-gray-bearded, brown-skinned, smiling old man with a red-and-black-angular-designed bandana on his forehead, and clothing similar to that of an old sage in an indian tribe.

I sat down and began to listen. He talked of the discovery and invasion of America by the Spanish, and about how the indians in America were originally pure, and lived communally with the Earth and the Sun, and how they simply moved all across the continent, unhindered, and found help even in the remotest parts of Alaska and South America. And how the center of everything was Tenochtitlan, in Mexico. And how Cuactemoc, a famous figure, was not at all a king, but rather a representative who surrendered to the Spanish in peace, but was tortured and killed in turn. And he said that all of us humans already have many things in common: the Sun, the Earth, and Time. And that we have a cosmic identity, and we should learn it if we are to know what our mission on this Earth is.

After a while of explaining details and telling anecdotes, he turned to each person in the audience and asked them their birthday. In turn, he told them the sign of their year and their day, and what this meant for them. I was told my year was the House and my day was the Eagle, but looking further, I have the impression my year sign was the Reed. And now online, I read that my year is the Flint and my day is the Ollin, movement, so now I don’t really know. I like Ollin, though. The eagle’s cool too. In the end he offered a little bit of merchandise - a few books, colored or B/W, and Aztec calendar poster in two different designs, sizes, and languages. I didn’t want any merchandise, but Pilar said she was collecting donations for gas money, so I got my wallet and gave her $9. Well, I actually gave them to “Maestro Mazantlin”, whose name he told me meant “Venerable Deer”.

And after a little bit of helping to fold and move chairs, Adan asked me to close the farm gate. So I did, and when I turned back and looked up, the moon was waxing, and it had a soft, dark blue tinge in its light. Traveling clouds around it were painted with some of this blue light, and together with their gray centers, the blue/black background (depending whether clouds blocked the moon or not), and the spread-around white dots, it was a delightful spectacle. Then I went back to my cabin and slept.