Love from Oaxaca

Blessed in Oaxaca, Mexico

January 15, 2020

updated January 19

One thing leads to another on the internet and I may have an explanation for what is happening to me here in Oaxaca, but maybe just in general, too. “Jerusalem syndrome” or in my case, “Oaxaca syndrome” or maybe “Goddess syndrome,” where suddenly people become overcome, even psychotic, while visiting foreign places of holiness and great beauty, or in the case of the Goddess, being a person in whom she sees an opening to “play and create” (in the words of Octavio Paz) with me and boy, does she ever go to town.

This could explain why I can suddenly understand more of the spoken Spanish, and as the days go by, I even am able to speak it better and better. Also, this could explain why I seemed to merge into the flow of humanity during the Saturday evening paseo around the zocalo, though I was sitting on the sidelines, and why this Zapotec necklace leaped out at me and now everyone comments on it, though only one person, an old man at a restaurant, knew the symbolism.[1] Why I stumble around and have the most fantastic time.

This is the fourth time I have visited Oaxaca, but it is really the first time I have experienced it on a deeper, personal level. That is probably due to the fact that I was with other people on the other three trips, tending to their needs and even having to play tour guide which was a complete distraction from experiencing my own feelings about the people and the place.  

Now that the air has cleared, I find that I really love it here.  I love Mexican colonial cities which is where I want to spend my time in Mexico anymore, avoiding the beach scene which I find mostly obscene and soulless, unless there is a quiet little place somewhere that someday calls to me. 

Oaxaca is much bigger than another of my favorite colonial cities, San Miguel de Allende.  Oaxaca has many more indigenous people and a more authentic Mexican feel as the norteamericanos and other tourists are far outnumbered and tend to disappear in the crowd, except for the tallest ones who tower over these short people.  

It is a life of exquisite privilege for me to be among them.  My hotel, Las Golondrinas, The Swallows, is gracious with small, basic and clean rooms clustered around the lush inner courtyard.  We have our breakfast under a roof of bougainvillea, with colorful birds darting in and out.  It is quiet and serene; the other guests do not speak loudly if they speak at all, and for that I am grateful.  I am not in the mood to chit chat so after the first courteous Buenas dias, I sit by myself and write.  

Fully Alive

Fully Alive

A Sermon by the Rev. Connie Yost
preached on Easter at the UU Fellowship of McMinnville

4/20/14

As some of you know, I love to travel.  I just returned from a trip to Charleston, South Carolina, where my nephew was married.  It was a beautiful wedding at a fancy restaurant in the old historic city.  The city, which I had not visited since I was 10 years old, is a truly gracious and lovely place.  At this time of the year, the azaleas and dogwoods were blooming with glorious color, and the wisteria grew wild up the trees in the forest.

Weddings and spring are surely signs of hope and life.  It was the first wedding both sets of parents had experienced, and the mothers, especially, were ecstatic.  Being the slightly eccentric old auntie, I decided to go ahead and ask my nephew the question we all were dying to ask:  “Are you and Becca going to have kids?”  My sister and I waited in hopeful anticipation as my nephew cleared his throat and announced, “Becca says the official answer is ‘We hate kids’” but he was smiling so I knew that this was not true.  He went on to explain that they wanted to get a house first, get out of the inner city of Washington DC where they live, and then – yes, maybe then we will have kids, he said.  OR, I suggested, it could happen the old-fashioned way – SURPRISE!

 Well, that’s life, isn’t it?  SURPRISE!  And we are!  For some reason, most of us are surprised when stuff happens that is out of our control.  Whether a good thing or not, it takes us a while to grapple with the things that happen to us.

2013 Holiday Blessings

 

Me at Disibodenberg, Germany in November 2013

2013 Holiday Blessings

There are years that ask the questions, and years that answer.    – Zora Neale Hurston

I have often reflected in my annual holiday letter that the year has been the usual mix of blessings and curses.  But for me, 2013 has been nothing short of miraculous blessings.  The impossible just takes a little time!

Some of the blessings came out of the blue – grace many people would call it – and some were the result of very hard work on my part.  But even when I knew I was working hard and participating, there still seemed to be an element of grace in the result.  For instance, I scoured Portland for months seeking the right house, and just when I thought I would never find one for the price I wanted to pay, a house more perfect than I thought existed appeared.  And I am very happy in it today.

Pre-Birthday Ruminating

 

Ministerial Meditations

by The Rev. Connie Yost

July 22, 2013



Annie Oakley "Little Sure Shot" age 28, 1898



I recently flew to Los Angeles to meet with one of our Chalice Oak Foundation clients, the nonprofit 20KWatts, which brings solar lighting to desperately poor communities in Central America.  As I boarded the small commuter plane in Long Beach to return home, I found my seat next to a young girl who was sitting next to the window.   I settled into my seat and asked her if she was travelling alone.  Limpid blue pools looked straight at me and she kindly but firmly announced that she was.  "I'm old enough," she told me.  "People don't think that I am, but I am.  I'm fourteen."  Impressed with her self-possession, I struggled with what to say next.  Certainly I would NOT say that she didn't look fourteen.  She knows that; everyone always says that.  And I remember how much I always hated people telling me that I didn't look my age (when I was younger, mind you!).

So I said, "Well, that's very good.  I know how annoying it is when people think you're a lot younger than you are.   They treat you like you don't know anything.  I always hated that."  "Yes," she agreed.  "It is annoying," she said and calmly went on reading her book.

I didn't start travelling alone much less on an airplane until I was much much older than fourteen.  But then, I was raised in the pre-feminist dark ages, discovering my own womanpower well into my thirties and with little support from my parents or society.  I wondered how my life might have turned out had I been as empowered as she when I was 4'7" and weighed 80 lbs.

Quanah Parker, Comanche Leader

Ministerial Meditations

By The Rev. Connie Yost

April 28, 2012

Quanah Parker, Comanche Leader

            On a recent trip to Oklahoma and Arkansas, I got to indulge my passion for travel to 1) places I haven't been before; 2) national parks; and 3) Indian museums, art galleries and crafts stores.  Killing time at the Portland airport, I stopped at Powells to browse the sale table and a book immediately jumped out at me, Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne.  On the cover was a picture of a handsome Indian and it read, Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History.

            That caught my attention, as I was going to Indian Country where the Comanche live to this day.  It's a fascinating book but I quickly realized it wasn't bedtime reading.  The Comanche were a nomadic warrior people, and the book sparred none of the gory details of their battles with other Indians (mostly Navajo, Apache and Tonkawa), white settlers, soldiers, and buffalo hunters.  The basic storyline is the Comanche were expert warriors and horsemen who lived and rode on the Great Plains, and because of these skills were able to resist first the Spanish, then the French, then white settlement on their lands until the late 19th century.  The American West did not open up until the end of a forty year war with the Comanche.

Hildegard and Viriditas

Ministerial Meditations

By The Rev. Connie Yost

April 6, 2013

Hildegard's Illumination All Beings Celebrate Creation

            I am home from my trip to Germany which, like all the best travel experiences, was much more and much less than I expected.  The less part was that I expected to experience the "greening" of Spring that Hildegard of Bingen wrote so much about.  That was not to be as there was a huge blizzard in the area just 2 days before I arrived.  So instead of green, I looked out my hotel window and saw various shades of white and gray for the first few days.  I never imagined that we would be running around in the snow at Disibodenberg where Hildegard lived until she was nearly 50 years old (just ruins now, but still a wonderful site, even in the snow).  I was on retreat with 30 other people, visiting the sites where Hildegard lived and did her ministry.  She left Disibodenberg to found the monastery at Rupertsberg (the only original part of the structure left is just a cellar now), and if that wasn't enough, at age 67 she acquired the damaged buildings of the Eibingen convent and restored them for 30 of her Benedictine sisters and thereafter, crossed the Rhine twice a week to supervise her two monasteries until she died at age 81.

            Part of the "more" part of the trip was all that I learned and experienced about Hildegard.  She was a pistol in her time, influencing the pope and cardinals and gaining audiences and respect in high places despite her criticisms of the Church (Catholic, of course, in those days).  She continues to inspire us today.  In fact, there is an incredible surge of interest in her ministry today.  She even finally made it to the top of sainthood in the Catholic Church, being declared a doctor of the church just last fall, taking only 900 years to get there!  (A lesson in patience, for sure.)

Traveling as Spiritual Practice



Me on my birthday August 6, 2011 with Momma Mt. Rainier



A sermon by The Rev. Connie Yost

Preached at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of McMinnville, Oregon

June 16, 2013

I am a traveler by birth, disposition and, I am sure, the hand of God.  It is in my blood.  My Dad was a great traveler, limited only by lack of money and time during his long, working life.  But he lacked nothing in imagination and passion for seeing the sights.

It was different with my mother.  She went along, of course, but she did not open up to anything new except with fear and criticism.  In many ways, it must been a real drag for him to have her along.  But in their world, you did not travel alone if you have a spouse.

Not so with me.  I have traveled with husbands, lovers, family, other people's family, friends, enemies, strangers, stuffed animals, cats, and one sad time, a turtle.  But I much prefer traveling alone.  A lot of people don't get this. 

"Hey, lady, where's your husband?" the young cab driver says the minute I get into the taxi at the airport in Puerto Vallarta.  "He's dead," I say.  It's not true, of course, as at that moment I have no husband, and the ex's are very much alive.  But it is the only thing guaranteed to kill the conversation cold.  You cannot explain to most people why you love traveling alone. 

I think most people are afraid of being alone in any place, and certainly can only think of what horrible dangers might befall them, especially if they are female, when traveling out of their tiny comfort zone.

In truth, we are not safe anywhere.  That is just the sad reality that very few people, before they are faced with major illness and death, are willing to accept.  It is an occupational hazard for those of us in the ministry, medical profession, social services and other helping professions.  We know we are going to die, because we see people die all the time.  I am sure that changes us, each in our own way.  But overall, I think it makes us appreciate the life we have more, and gives us a certain urgency to stop wasting time, tell the truth, help others, and follow our passions and dreams.