From Mexico with Love: Following Faith

The Story of Guadalupe, Part 1
By guest blogger, Emily K. Grieves

While the faithful in the United States are celebrating the story of the Pilgrims of Plymouth on Thanksgiving, here in Mexico people are getting ready for a pilgrimage of their own. December 12 honors the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and the weeks preceding it are filled with pilgrimages, some lasting many days, even months, as devotees embark from their faraway homes and lands to walk toward this Mecca of the Americas. I have found this devotion to Guadalupe one of the most moving, enriching parts of my life in Mexico, and so I’d like to tell my story of Her and my own “pilgrimage” of sorts. My experience with Her is both deeply personal and a reflection of the national love, dedication and faith to Her, marked by massive annual pilgrimages to be at Her side, but also by the small daily acts that show how She lives in the hearts of so many.

The official story of the Virgin of Guadalupe goes back to the time of the Spanish conquest, when the indigenous people were dying by the tens of thousands in their resistance to Catholic conversion and political oppression. It was during this tumultuous time that She appeared to a humble indigenous man named Juan Diego at the old temple site of Tepeyac in what is now Mexico City. She gave him the mandate to go to the Catholic bishop and ask that a temple be built in her honor at this site. After two failed attempts and a series of trials and crises of faith, Juan Diego is able to complete his mission when the Virgin gives him proof of her apparitions to present to the bishop. She has him collect roses and other exotic flowers on the wintry desolate hill, and when he presents them to the bishop, the Virgin’s image is miraculously imprinted on his tilma, or roughhewn cloak, in which he had collected the flowers. The bishop acknowledged the proof as true, and built the temple in honor of the Virgin, now known as the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City, where the original tilma hangs to this day and is the destination of millions of pilgrims each year.

I was raised Protestant, where the Virgin Mary appears as a quaint prop in the Christmas story and is never spoken of again for the rest of the year. Nonetheless, I have always been fascinated by Her and as an adult began collecting images of Her, accruing, as one friend termed it, “Maryphenalia.” The particular image of Guadalupe was always at the forefront of this growing array of Mary objects. There was no explanation to my attraction, obsession even, other than to realize that I was on a big quest to connect with the Divine Feminine, and Guadalupe was perhaps the most wide-spread and visible version of Her. Whatever the case, my calling to connect with Her sent me, as it sort of inevitably had to, to Her home in Mexico. It led me on a spiritual journey to the Pyramids of Teotihuacan, where standing in a meditative dream state in a temple, I was told that whatever I saw appear in a certain portal was my true spiritual essence. When I looked through the doorway, I suddenly saw the Virgin of Guadalupe. It was such a surprise to me, on some level, but also felt so perfect and true – to see the Divine Feminine reflected back to me, as if I was looking in a mirror, and in all of Her light-filled splendor She was saying to me, look at yourself. You are light-filled splendor. The words She spoke to Juan Diego echoed in my mind: “Am I not right here I who am your Mother? Are you not always in the folds of my garment.” I realized that She is not only always with us, but also always within us. We are woven out of the fabric of Her robes, and she embroiders us like so many millions of fibers of light and glowing threads into the stars on her cloak. We are always intertwined, and so of course, I could accept from a totally ego-less place in that moment, that the Mother truly is my true spiritual essence.

That big moment of realization was part of the biggest journey of my life, which completely altered the course of my life. That same night, I met a sculptor at a fiesta at a fledgling retreat center called The Dreaming House, of which he is also the owner, and as I was admiring his artwork, I randomly said “I’m a painter.” He responded, “Oh, you can paint the mural.” I had no idea what he was talking about, but with that brief exchange, the cogs of destiny were set into motion. I finished the journey, went to the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City twice in the days thereafter, and experienced further explosions in my mind and expansions in my energy. I arrived back home in the States a different person. My apartment and belongings seemed to belong to someone else. I did not fit back into my old matrix, and I couldn’t go backwards now that I had opened my awareness to these new feelings. My “day job” as a legal assistant in corporate real estate, which had always felt frustrating and confining now simply seemed like it belonged to someone else. The ties had been cut between the old Emily and the new Emily. And the new Emily was about to embark on accelerated schooling in Faith, because I really truly had this invitation to go “paint the mural” in Teotihuacan. The real-world timing of it, if I wanted it, was to return there in 3 months and live for an indefinite period of time, painting.

I decided that since I had had this big connection with Guadalupe that I would ask Her for guidance. I asked “Should I go to Mexico, yes or no?” And She said “Yes.” Big “Yes.” Resounding “Yes.” Undeniable “Yes.” I felt rather as I imagine Juan Diego might have felt as She told him “My littlest Son, please go tell the bishop to build a temple in my honor.” Fulfill my mission for you. Do not fail me. Do not be afraid. You get the picture. So I quit my job, gave notice on my apartment, and sold all of my worldly possessions, all very quickly. There were moments when the logistics of whittling my life down to what would fit into a couple suitcases were completely overwhelming, but I kept having to come back to my faith in Guadalupe to guide me. I kept praying and asking Her to help me. When it got really scary, and I called out to Her to help with all the big logistical problems that were keeping me up at night, She said something to me that I remember to this day. She said, “When you were little and you were going to go on a trip, did you worry about any of this? No. You let your mother and your father take care of everything and you just showed up when it was time to go.” Get it? Your Mother. Your Father. Show up. Yes, be present and allow your true spiritual essence to move the illusions around in this reality so your dream can manifest and your mission be fulfilled. Or something like that. In any case, I breathed and everything worked out perfectly and I arrived in Mexico on schedule, was welcomed into the home of a lovely family who somehow believed that I was the one to paint “the mural” even though they’d never seen my work, and for all they knew I couldn’t even draw a stick figure. It certainly seemed as if Guadalupe had taken care of everything.

It turned out that was just the beginning of me going to “Faith Graduate School.” The mural that I was supposed to paint was for a structure that hadn’t been built yet. Meanwhile I would paint other things around the house as I saw fit. I was given complete liberty. I was shown a meeting salon where they were going to put an altar with a Virgin statue, and they said “paint some clouds or something behind it.” I sat for a long time staring at the blank wall in the salon, and suddenly my vision of Guadalupe came back to me from my previous trip to the pyramids. She told me, no, actually she commanded me to paint the vision on the wall, exactly as I’d seen it in the Temple of Quetzalpapalotl. I sort of cringed in my chair, feeling totally humbled, totally honored, and totally like Juan Diego again, given a seemingly impossible mission. Because first off, I’d never painted a mural in my life. And the wall was 9 feet by 17 feet. But I also knew, also as I imagined Juan Diego must have known, that if I did not undertake the mission, I would feel jaggedly out of integrity for the rest of my life. The only answer possible was “Yes.” When La Virgencita asks a favor, the answer is always “Yes.” Why? Because She is always within us, and so the favor she asks is for our own benefit ultimately.

The favor I carried out for Her, painting an unfathomably large space with an unfathomably complex image in a completely unaccustomed style over a period of over a year, became the biggest favor She did for me! I worked daily as an artist for the first time in my life. I learned Spanish. I met my husband, with whom I now have a child. The sculptor who had originally told me “You can paint the mural” became my father-in-law. I immersed myself in a culture that has enriched every part of my life. I grew spiritually, paying more attention to my thoughts and feelings, and becoming attuned to ever-deepening energies in what is one of the world’s greatest power centers. I ended up completing a giant mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe standing in a dream world within the columns of Teotihuacan that has since watched over countless groups in their meetings and meditations, and countless visitors have stood before Her, perhaps recognizing their own true spiritual essence.

In your life, do you take the time to listen to higher guidance and “know” you must undertake a project, difficult as it may seem? Whatever the mandate is – start a business, write a book, produce an album, travel the world, go back to school – can you find the faith within yourself to follow through, to accomplish your “mission”? What is your true spiritual essence?

Read Part 2: The Story of Guadalupe: The Pilgrims’ Destination

Emily K. Grieves is an artist and healer dedicated to helping people find connections to the sacred in their lives. She explores symbolism, mythology, and ritual in her artwork, drawing inspiration from the celebrations and mysteries of Life. She has also dedicated herself to the healing arts as a practitioner of shamanism and hands-on healing energy work for over 10 years. She lives with her family in Teotihuacan, Mexico, where she has painted murals in the Dreaming House, and where she helps lead groups into the transformative energies of the pyramids. To learn more, visit www.livingwithpyramids.blogspot.co and www.thedreaminghousemx.com.

Image #1: Detail, La Virgencita of the Dreaming House, acrylic mural by Emily K. Grieves (photo by Iva Peele)

Image #2: La Virgencita of the Dreaming House, acrylic mural by Emily K. Grieves

UPCOMING RETREAT
Join Emily Grieves and Annie Fuller for The Healers Journey to Teotihuacan and the Basilica of Guadalupe Feb. 16-23, 2011. This will be unforgettable experience of shamanic journeying and healing in one of the world’s greatest power places. See www.fullcirclespiritualhealing.com for more information.

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