Tuesday, April 06, 2010

The Minotaur

The cenote is a sacred sink hole. One of many that formed around the edge of a giant crater that impacted around the tip of the Yucatan peninsula and stretched out into the Gulf of Mexico. Temples often were established near these cenotes. Pretty people were thrown into the cenote. They would flail there unbound until they tired. Then they would fish them out and ask them what they saw. One woman said she went to visit many others down there, and the spirits bashed her on the neck so that she would keep her head down. They would also toss in offerings of gold and beautiful sculptures. The complexity of Maya art has always amazed me. They weave visual chunks of info into their stones. One big mask of say a mountain flower god(sounds like a level in a Mario Brothers game)will be made up of smaller commentary of smaller faces and serpentine wisps and thorns and rope. I have been studying their works off and on for about 23 years now. Last night after making this latest, Mad magazine/Big Daddy Roth version of one of the masks I dreamt of my Grandfather. He stood next to me shirtless and cut with old man muscles. Light peppery and ginger chest hair and a lump off the back of his neck like a Brahma bulls. He pointed out that he was 3 feet taller than me. He complained of some ailments from a life of drinking(real life he was not a drinker). I remember thinking he was an ass hole but I still respected him and he was still my Gram pa. As I tried to get out of the little cracker house kitchen and leave the house in the dream, I found I had to pass through a couple of screen doors covered in cob webs and spiders everywhere. I think I was trying to knock them away with a broom. I don't think I killed any of them though.

2 comments:

Russell Maycumber said...

"Somewhere out on that horizon"...lone wolf, lean hungry treading the narrow path. Snarling, snapping tiny leg bones with your wise teeth. Medicinal crimson life force saturating your hairy lips.

Russell Maycumber said...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2327/2214435328_4312b7d505_o.jpg -lady going for a swim

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I spill ink ,it collects here.