emotions in ancient sculpture

I'm always fascinated how artists capture emotions in the faces of humans (and other creatures), usually with very simple lines. I don't know if it's the artist's skill, my tendency to "read" emotions or some combination. In any case, it creates a real, visceral connection between me and the artwork and/or me and the person represented or depicted in the artwork. Or with the creature, as is sometimes the case. And in the case of ancient art, I feel a connection that transcends a great deal of time, space, and culture. That, to me, is utterly remarkable!!

A couple of months ago Tía Jenny and I went to the Museo Rufion Tamayo aka Museo de Arte Prehispánico de México. This is a museum started by a contemporary Mexican artist...who is also Oaxaca. He has acquired a pretty large collection of ancient art in order to keep it out of the hands of looters and collectors and like that and this is now all in a beautiful museum in Oaxaca de Juárez. It's a little unusual because the collection is less archeological in its focus and more artistic (as is Tamayo's wont to do things, eg, the Jardín Etnobotanico...). There are so many amazing things in the museo, I always want to take a foto of ALL of them. This is rather ridiculous endeavor so this last time, I hit upon the idea of photographing the pieces that spoke to me from the perspective of emotion, those pieces that convey a overwhelming sense of human (and other?) emotion. Here are at least some of those pieces:

check out the teeth! and the raised eyebrows!!

utter goofy-ness in that doggo kind of way

bit blurry but I don't think it's just the empty eyes and the crack that seems like tear tracks that give this piece its overwhelming sense of despair...

oh the innocent uncomplicated glee!

could there be more contentment?! to me, a dog yawning after a blissful nap in the sun

this is a very parrot-y emotion, somehow slightly superior and they know and they know we know and we know they know but they aren't going to be too obvious about it, with a little bit of amusement thrown in there too

three faces, almost the same but yet very different. the one on the right seems to be working quite hard at holding in their tears and the one on the left, has a look of wonder and intelligence. the middle-- I'm not sure...

like everyone's favorite abuelita, open arms, un-judgemental, unconditional welcome and love

Serene kiss

googly eyed awe or surprise with a bunch of mischevious goofiness tossed in

These last two are my favorites, both from the Maya tradition, both priests. This one with sternness, great arrogance and disdain, almost.

And this priest, he just utterly slayed me. The set of the mouth is similar to the one before but somehow the face/body language is all different-- he seems exhausted and downcast, perhaps after long days of ceremony

heights..tirolesas...(ziplining), oh my!

One aspect of the ecotourism initiative in the Pueblos Mancomunados (in the Sierra Juárez of the Sierra Norte) is hanging bridges (puentes colgantes) and tirolesas (ziplines). We visited two tirolesas on our two day explorations and there is a puente colgante at the same site as one of the tirolesas. None of the adults save me wanted to go on any of the tirolesas, the first tirolesa all three kids went on and then the second zipline saw two of the three kids participating. The first one was at the mirador high above the pueblo of Benito Juárez, and featured going over 3 different parts of a canyon between mountain ledges - gorgeous bosque below and view out over the mountains to the valles centrales. This one was broken up into three different ziplines. The second we went on went over the entire town of Cuajimoloyas and started higher up off the ground and went for 1km. A little bit terrifying and a lot of fun-- quite exhilarating! The puente colgante was transversed by Thalia, me and Jordan. Eric and Leigh went on small bits of it, but I'm not sure Andrew did at all-- there's no photographic evidence of it!! ja!!!

Here are fotos and videos- many of them taken by Eric, Leigh, or Andrew!!!

First-- el puente colgante (hanging bridge)! I do not understand the physics of how a puente colgante is built but I tried not to think too much about it. Despite my well known fear of the iron rung bridges/ledges in Acadia I really had no fear on the puente colgante! Something to do with handrails on both sides, I think.

Thalia took her time to get up the nerve to go on the bridge but then she loved it and we walked all the way across

the slats did have gaps between them so you could look straight down if you wanted...

Leigh on the puente colgante

Jordy walking across the puente

bridge as seen from below (those are random people up there. 7 people is max allowed on the puente at any one time)

Now for the tirolesas (ziplines)! There were three of them, one leading to the next to make a round trip, more or less, at the mirador above Benito Juárez. Really stunning vistas.

Here you can kind of make out the heavy gauge wire of the first and longest of the ziplines at the mirador. The tirolesa starts near that tower on the right of the foto.

Jordy went first!!! Hanging high above this view.
(The light was sublime, evening, heading on towards atardecer)

Lundy took the option of going with one of the tirolesa guides, who were of course unfailingly sweet and entirely professional about their job of encouragement and safety.

I liked how this shot shows how you are up among the verrrrry tall evergreen trees (I think this might be a spruce, which is actually less common there than various pinos)

After Jordan and Lundy went and reported back that it was great, Thalia decided she would give it a go! And me too, naturally!!!!

Jordan giving Thalia a pep-talk at the beginning of the first section of the tirolesa.

Thalia on the tirolesa

In other news, my kid has reallllly long legs!!

guia giving me instructions before I go. And generally assuring me I'm not about to die and that it is totally safe....jajajajajajajajaja

L & guía on the 2nd part of tirolesa

Me watching T take off from 2nd part of tirolesa

"No hands, Mami!" on third part of tirolesa

T flying through the air on 2nd part

Very happy Thalia!!!

Here's a couple of videos of me and Thalia...

Now, onto the tirolesa at Cuajimoloyas. For this one, Thalia, Jordan and I climbed a steep, rather high hill at one end of the pueblo and the tirolesa goes over the entire town. It's high enough that they put those red balls on a second set of wires just above the tirolesa so that planes? birds? don't run into them and get tangled. When we got to the top we had to wait for the muchachos at the other end to be ready to receive us and I think they were off having lunch. So there was a lot of time to contemplate my mortality and that of my daughter and I was like what the hell have I done. Thalia didn't end up enjoying this tirolesa as much. Jordan loved it. I was terrified for the first 5 seconds but then a beautiful tranquility came over me and I enjoyed it very much.

view of the hill where the tirolesa in Cuajimoloyas starts-- up by the radio towers. Foto taken from center of town

iphone picture from perspective of top start of the tirolesa, looking down on the town. End of the tirolesa is somewhere down at other end of town. This is when I started questioning my life decisions regarding tirolesas...

 Harder to get fotos of us on this tirolesa becauseit is so high up-- but here are some from near the beginning of the tirolesa when we seem improbably higher than the start point...perspective is a weird thing...

montando a caballo por la sierra norte

foto by Leigh Needleman, from along the paseo / caminata

We had decided we would do one of the caminatas in between villages in the Sierra Norte. Elisa at the officina de Expediciones Sierra Norte* mentioned that the kids could ride horses instead of walking. Knowing my child and her a) love of riding horses and b) lack of love for long hikes, we were all in! Turns out there was an extra horse so I took that one...which my inner thighs and sitz bones are only starting to forgive me for ... its been a long time since I was in a saddle for three hours and never in a wooden one! Anyway, I probably had it a lot easier than either the horses or the other adults who had to walk with very few, short breaks up and down glorious mountains from Benito Juárez to Cuajimoloyas!
















Here then, are the fotos of us riding the horses!

Again, some of these fotos are courtesy of the Needlefrishes, Leigh and Andrew. Gracias, chicos!!! And so many thanks to our guias while we were on our caminata / paseo a caballo who got us where we needed to go and took care of the kiddos and me when our horses wanted to gallop down the hills....eeeeeeeeee!!!

our caballos show up at Benito Juárez

Thalía muy feliz en su caballo, quien se llama Pon Villa (possibly just Pancho Villa but the Sierra Norte accent is a bit hard for me to understand), Thalia le dio el apodo de Coco por el chocolate

I did some taking of fotos over my shoulder...ja!

Sometimes the path looked like this-- a dirt road ("la carretera"), wide and even and fit for trucks, horses, motobikes, and humans a pie

And sometimes it looked like this-- escarpado! Shockingly, I did not take any fotos going DOWN...too busy keeping my horse from running and holding my seat and more or less keeping my hat on....

Photo de Leigh Needleman. Sometimes the ride looked like this, along an open hillside with farmed terrrenos to one side and the bosque de pino-encino to the other...

Another foto de Leigh, of all of us riders and Eva, our guía...and Eric's elbow

Foto by Frishy, I believe, from when the horses & riders took a break while waiting for Leigh and Eric to catch up. What a view!!!!!! Que padre, no?????

Photo by Leigh or me and Adriana, my caballo, at the end of our paseo, in Cuajimoloyas. Adriana was a fiesty horse who had a mind of her own. After I realized this, I paid a little more attention to my riding and commands and we got along just grand. I even learned that she quite enjoyed having me rub her forelock when we took breaks. Note that neither my horse nor Thalia's had bits (therefore there was a good bit of the time that Thalia's horse was led by our guide).

Coco and Thalía at the end of the ride, in Cuajimoloyas

*Expediciones Sierra Norte is the pueblos-owned ecotourism company that all visitors to these pueblos must deal with in one way or another, whether you have a guide or just take a hike or go on a zipline. The Pueblos Mancomunados de Oaxaca own and operate this organization. Community members must volunteer their time working for a year at a time (during which they are paid a daily stipend). There are other communal aspects of the pueblos as well-- in Benito Juárez for example, four people (equally distributed among genders) are yearly chosen to lead the pueblo in terms of making decisions for infrastructure, policies, etc. and four women are chosen to make and provide the food for the children in primary and telesecundaria schools of the pueblo. The pueblos of the Sierra Juárez (part of the Sierra Norte) in the 90s began to specialize in the production of flowers for the mercados of Oaxaca (Tlacolula, Abastos, others in Oaxaca de Juárez, etc.) as well as in ecotourism - hikes, mountain biking, ziplines, eco-cabins, etc. in an effort to provide jobs that don't mean having to leave (Oaxaca has very, very high internal emigration and well as very high emigration to the EEUU) the pueblo.

las plantas de la Sierra Norte

 I'll have to break up the fotos of our weekend in a small part of the Sierra Norte (one of 8 regions of Oaxaca). Starting with the fotos of plants, flowers, árboles...because soy Daniela in case you don't even know me... any of my friends with better botanical skills than me (not hard), feel free to comment on any identifications!!! Some of the foto are courtesy of Leigh because I was on a horse or my version of the foto did not come out, I'll note this in the captions. Otherwise all the fotos are mine. Que distruten!!

the orange flowers are that of Kniphofia uvaria ("torcha" or "bandera española") in front of three pines- the lower ramas (branches) of the pinos have been cut so that the corn fields are not too shaded.

on a road side on the way to a granja. I think it is escaped cielo azul (Vinca major)

La flor de alcatraz or cartuche (Zantedeschia aethiopica; cala lily), a lot of these are farmed here, destined for mercados. I saw at least one field of them growing but my foto was rather crap of that field....this one was escaped and growing on the side of the path

These utterly massive magueys are planted at the edges of terrenos (fields) to demarcate one neighbor's land from the next and to keep farm animals from crossing from one field to the next.

foto by Leigh Needleman! We're not quite sure what the species of agave is-- maybe Agave salmiana

They have these enormously tall and beautiful quiotes (flowering stalks), with yellow to red flowers-- utterly brilliant

Locally, they call these margarton-- like margaritas but BIG

Hierba de golpe (’oo li’ loo tii, Oenothera rosea)-- this is a medicinally used plant. Also just a really striking wildflower

Hierba de golpe is used externally (as a plaster) and internally as a tea for any and all kinds of skin wounds as well as internal issues like stomach aches, heartburn, sore throat, etc. It's also called yerba cólico...

I was super excited to see this-- Lobelia laxiflora (Chilpanxochitl)! I was like ooh!oh!oh! This is a lobelia!! And native to Mexico!

At first I thought this was a penstemon but the leaves were all wrong, so instead now I think it is Salvia species (stolonifera? coccinea?) (mirto rojo, also flor de colibrí or flor de Jericó). Such a brilliant red!!

No idea whatsoever about what this cheerful asteraceae is...

bromeliad epiphytes - "magueyitos" in local terms although they are not at all maguey - in an encino (oak); photo by Leigh Needleman. There were soooo many bromeliads in this tree and they are so brightly colored that it looked like a decorated christmas tree!

Leigh also took this foto because I was up on the horse-- "Leigh! This blue flower!!!" I think this is a species of Sisyrinchium, blue eyed grass (that's not a grass) but I don't know what spp

foto by Leigh Needleman

Foto by Leigh. The rosett

Simply called "espina" by our guide, I have no idea what this is. Silver flowerheads though. Super cool. EDITED TO SAY: I think this is a Eryngium spp., a hierba del sapo

have no idea what this is, but it's such a great color!!!

thistle with maguey in the background

it took us awhile but eventually we realized these were the flowers of an orchid in the tree! Photo by Leigh Needleman

this and the next are fotos of a succulent in someone's front yard, couldn't resist these colores

uuuufff .... la luz! los colores! succulent flowers

tuna!!! that is, the fruit of a nopal cactus!

Now some plants with evening light/sunset in the background- ja! not too shabby...

This post ended up being longer than I thought! uuuuuuuuppppsss! Buenas noches!!