Tierra Sagrada

For at least three thousand years people have been coming here to the high desert of Real de Catorce in the oldest, continuous pilgrimage, the oldest known pilgrimage in the history of the Humano.This place has always been known as the Sacred Land that is infused with the light and sublime Spirit of the Great Medicina - Peyote.When I was last here, 11 years-ago, I developed my second full-blown kidney stone.In the middle of a deep sleep, in the back of my pick-up truck, I was awakened by the unmistakeable, the unimaginable sensation of a jagged piece of glass moving through my body.It is the most hellish pain human flesh is subject to, in this horrendous world.And yet, I was led to the Great Medicina.Desperate circumstances require desperate measures.I took a wild, crazy leap into the wild, blue yonder. I ate a huge quantity of Peyotes, buttons as big as your head. I ate the Great Medicina raw with no preparation no mitigation of the taste. I chewed as little as possible, took huge gulping bites.And then I walked in the desert and awaited the spirit of the Great Medicina to come over me.I had to take a piss. And when I pissed a heart-jaring, gravity rainbow of bright blood happened.It was a long piss. It seemed as if I was to piss away all of my blood. It was itzing - large.The Mayans know bleeding/itzing is about releasing the primal, sacred energia of the universo.And just when it seemed as if I was running out of blood to piss, I heard the most wonderful, joyous sound.It was the sound of a jagged pebble of glass pinging off of the desert rock I was pissing against.All that night I danced with my machete as I cut the thorny desert brush to stoke the fire of the altar to the Great Medicina.When the sun woke me, I went to my pick-up truck.Someone had broken the back window with their hand and a rock. The glass had cut deeply into that hand. Again there was blood all over the place.There were valuables in the truck. All the valuables were still there. The things that were missing was a bag of laundry, and a broken tape recorder.As I walk this high desert I realize that the healing of the Great Medicina did not stop with the kidney stone. (As if that was not enough.)The Great Medicina began the great sloughing off of my old skin and began the definitive coming into the new skin.