On May 15th, 2020, we reached our one-year mark of living in Ajijic, Mexico. It has been an incredible year! The first six months were challenging as we adjusted and adapted, but we’ve now found our place of comfort, safety and joy.
Then 2020 brought Covid-19 that shut down the world! The Turning of the Ages, with Pluto and Saturn, arrived with a fury, and a Great Pause came over the land. What a gentler and quieter time it’s been, even in Mexico, where the normally high noise level has abated and the village looks a bit like a ghost town. For such a social, Earth-based culture it’s rather sad to see, but La Gran Mamá evidently needed to put her children in a time out.
Alex and I wonder if we didn’t have some form of covid infection ourselves in mid-January, as we were quite ill with some unnamed respiratory illness that didn’t respond to normal flu or bronchial treatment and just ran its course for several weeks. Whatever microbes we encountered we hope they helped strengthen our immune systems.
Thankfully, we have not been affected or inconvenienced much by the pandemic shutdown (encierro). Mexico, where the average age is 28 years old, was a little slow to respond with numbers of infections and deaths now rising in densely populated Mexico City. Our small village has remained untouched as of this writing, as the governor of Jalisco in Guadalajara acted quickly in ordering people to stay at home and to wear masks (las cubrebocas) whenever going out for necessities. The energy is slowly starting to shift with the rise in noise level of music and rockets (los cohetes) going off in celebration of El Dia de Las Madres, and more shops and cafes are beginning to cautiously reopen.
We have appreciated our interior time in a beautiful and safe environment overlooking Lake Chapala. We spend our days reading, writing, responding to emails and social media, napping with cats, pondering the future of the planet, walking, swimming in our pool, zooming with friends, studying Spanish and astrology, planning and enjoying en-casa meals, and are glad to have healthy, bountiful food. Guess where most of the produce in the U.S. comes from? And we get it locally!
We feel so blessed to be in Mexico at this time, living the dream, when the U.S. is struggling for its very soul and survival as a nation. We are very grateful that we were able to sell our home last year and get out while we could. It might be more difficult now crossing into Mexico.
Yes, Mexico has its dangers, challenges and inequities that might be amplified during a pandemic, like elsewhere. Alex and I have learned to trust our instincts and intuition and rely on daily synchronicities for guidance. And, thankfully, we have good friends and have developed a good support system where we can seek help when we need it.
I want to invite you, queridos amigos, to use this time as a gift to reflect and to imagine what you’d like the future to be. We certainly cannot afford to return to the unbalanced, economically unjust behavior that got us here, nor being sequestered from life and La Tierra’s sustenance. I surely do not want to live in a sanitized bubble, fearful of the world and my neighbors!
My dream is that we find communion with the land again and become peaceful, helpful Earth stewards; that we take in Gaia’s beauty and reflect it daily, honoring all her lifeforms (except mosquitoes…sorry!). What if we are being initiated into a Great New Era? May we welcome the paradigm shift, whatever it brings, with an open, curious and generous heart!