Fanny’s Blog

Ek Balam is a magical Mayan archaeological site about 2 hours southwest from Tulum, Mexico.  Balam means jaguar in Mayan.  I don’t remember what the Ek stands for but I know our guide Octavio told us when we visited recently.  He told us everything.  I got most of it. Regardless, I felt the place. More importantly, we had a blast.

We started at about 10 in his van.  There were no seats in the back, so I sat on two sleeping bags and just peeked out the window as I sat on the floor.  I felt like a kid. Actually more like a teenager when I think about how we packed two coolers for the trip – one full of beers and the other full of ‘healthy snacks’.  That is my friend Antonio’s specialty.  He does kayaking tours and always brings food he calls, “healthy snacks”.

It was Sunday morning and early for all 5 of us.  Yet, early or not, I love driving out of Tulum.  Somehow it seems like an adventure.  I am not sure if it is the way the jungle opens up just a few kilometers from San Francisco Supermarket or if it is the impromptu police checkpoints along the route where the officers decide whether or not to search your car based on how you look and whether or not they feel like it in any given moment.  Regardless, for me there is always a mild adrenalin rush as I leave my ‘pueblo pequeno’.

After we passed the town of Coba, home to another great archaeological site, the landscape changed.  The jungle forest became more cultivated.  We passed fields where they were burning the remnants of last year’s crops, the black smoke rising into the clear blue sky.  Roads veered off the highway in what seemed like an endless line, stretching miles to nowhere.  I gazed down those roads as we drove by and wondered what could be at the end. No doubt some wild west rancho, at least in my imagination.  But we didn’t investigate the back roads. We were actually on a back road even if we had a direction and purpose.  Ek Balam is definitely off the beaten track.

So we continued to the village of Tizimin.  I love that name. But it gives you the impression that there is more to the town than there really is.  It is a small pueblo full of little shops selling whatever they can, many nearly nothing.  We passed through happily without stopping and arrived at Ek Balam less than half an hour later.

As you enter, you feel the weight of the place.  It is heavy.  Or perhaps it was just the day but, as I entered, I started to slow my pace and my gaze was drawn to things around me, like the trees and the birds and the incredible buildings that line the way to the pyramids.  It helped that Antonio kept reminding me to look and that each question I had, Octovio could answer, but it was a different rhythm.  “Chichenitza is a masculine place’, Octavio reminded us, “and Tulum is feminine.  But Ek Balam is both. It is a balanced place.”

I could feel it.  I didn’t feel pulled in either direction.  I just felt a call to investigate the site and to listen to my inner voice.  We climbed one pyramid in serpentine fashion and blew into the conch shell that Octavio carried with him.  “To honor the deities here”, he explained.  Then we lit copal to make an offering to the essence of the place.  I felt grounded as I looked out over the surrounding acres of forest.  From the top, we could see the outline of the ancient village Ek Balam and as we descended we scattered each walking to the place that called us distinctly.  Then about half an hour later, as if on cue, we regrouped to climb the large pyramid.  I was afraid.  The steps are narrow and it is nearly 30 meters high.  I don’t like heights that much but I was determined not to be left behind.  So I led.

There is a monument about half way up where we stopped and looked at carvings dating before Christ.  The age of the whole place baffles me still.  The middle part where we rested, and I hoped we would stop, was a place for their dead and there were huge faces representing death carved into the walls.  There were also guardians carved all around the enormous square.  The two at the upper right as you face the monument have wings, calling to mind angels, not common in Mayan culture.  I was very happy to see them, especially since the group wandered up the rest of the stairs to the top of the large pyramid.  I forced myself to join them.  Again, walking in serpentine fashion, I willed myself up without looking either up or down, just at each step in front of me, while praying to those angels of death to take someone else.  It was the yoga of walking, very much in that moment.  And when I got to the top, I was in another world.  But I still couldn’t look down.  I didn’t need to.  From the top you can see nearly back to Tulum.  There was only green and the occasional spiral of smoke from a fire the farmers set to their fields.  I could trace our way back.  And of course, I could look across the city of Ek Balam again, this time from another perspective.  I imagined the place full of colorful people, each person doing his or her thing. Imagined the rituals and the daily life of people there.  It was tranquil.

Suddenly, I wanted to go down.  So I descended first, moving step by step in serpentine formation, again something about the sacred serpent and the fact that the stairs are thin, forcing you to walk that way.  I rested halfway.  Just to control my fear, not because I was tired.

Once down, I wandered into some of the open tombs at the base of this the large pyramid and rested in the shade.  It was hot.  Yet the tombs were cool and the stone was comforting, grounding.  I left as I got the eerie feeling that they were pulling me in, somehow and escaped to meet the rest of my group nearly at ground level and we gently wandered back to visit the cenote that is close by.  First we stopped for coconut water, cool and fresh.  A man in the parking lot cuts the cocos with a machete and then hollows out the meat for you and serves it with chile.  It is actually quite delicious.  These coconuts are different from the ones we have in Tulum.  They are greener, the water a little sweeter and the meet softer and less dry.

After that “healthy snack”, we had energy to visit the cenote.  We rode bikes, with Alejandro carrying the cooler full of beers (and a little tequila, I forgot to add) down a trail that was not well groomed at all.  After we dismounted the bikes, we climbed down layers of not so well made stairs and over a walkway that was reminiscent of something from one of those fantasy action flicks like my personal favorite, the “Mummy”.  This cenote was deep into the jungle and not horizontally.  It was a vertical drop into mother earth.  To enter, you jump.

Octavio took the rope that was hanging in front of a slight overhang in his hands and ran and then let go.  He yelled as he plummeted at least 8 meters into the water below.  Antonio followed and Alex waited to help Jennifer and me.  I took the rope in my hand and reminded myself to repel far enough over the cenote to drop into it.  My heart was beating fast.  I was afraid again.  But I  closed my eyes, moved back two steps and ran forward three and then let go of the rope to plunge into the cool, clear water.  I landed right on my butt and it hurt.  I knew my ass would be black and blue the next morning.  No worries.  As I surfaced, I smiled, looked up at Alex and Jennifer and waved.  “Lastime mis nalgas pero, bien”.  I meant to tell them I hurt my butt but was o.k.  They smiled so I think they understood.  Jennifer jumped with the same hesitation I had and then Alex followed with a shout.  I let the echoes of their happy cries rest in my head and floated.  I was cool, I was balanced.  I was at Ek Balam.

Most Saturdays, I teach the Power Yoga class at Maya Tulum, the grandmother of yoga studios here in Tulum, Mexico. Usually, when I enter to teach, a calm ‘Om’ echoes tranquilly through my mind.  But when they asked me to teach this class, the word “power” rang in my ears.  Of course, I could teach the class but, “What if the students aren’t ready?” I asked.  “I mean, in my classes I don’t get too many ‘power’ types.” I told the manager.

It was true.  Of the three years I had been teaching at what was not too many years ago an out right Ashram, I could easily count the number of times I had some power yogis.  Mostly, my students were more serious about their basic practice.  They were learning meditation and breath work.  Many were new to yoga and I took great pleasure in introducing them to a practice that I hoped would stay with them.

“Let me know how it goes”, was the manager’s response.

That first day I was excited and, to be honest, curious about who the title would attract.  I imagined a group of “power” people, ones who would jump from crow into plank and come through their sequences lightly, ready for the next.  I planned the class with series upon series of movement to the rhythm of the breath.  We would dance through our practice.

Then, as I prepared, insecurity crept in. “What if they are not even challenged by the class?  What if I have been practicing in Tulum for too long with the same teachers and students.” Sometimes I felt stale.  I attributed it to not venturing out from Tulum often.  Why leave paradise, right? Twice a year, sometimes more often, I go to Boston or New York and practice at studios there but I rarely go to classes in Playa del Carmen or Cancun or other people’s classes in my own little pueblo.  I hadn’t been to India for more than 15 years and I try not to pay attention to the “yoga rock stars” that grace the headlines in Yoga Journal and who come to Maya Tulum with their groups.

I had come to yoga to avoid these things:  the push, the competition, the desire to do more than perhaps what your body should do.  I prefer to stay mostly in my own yoga world with my books and video’s and favorite teachers.  I motivate myself and try to listen to my body and hope to motivate a few other people to do the same.

Planning that class, my mind started to run. I changed my plan to include more challenging series so everyone knew it was a power class.  To some degree, I also wanted to be certain everyone knew I was powerful.  Then, in one moment of sanity, I observed myself and stopped, inhaled and exhaled deeply and let the voice of my guru enter my mind: “the most powerful thing anyone can do is breathe”.

So true.  I felt tension leave my body as I remembered that simple fact: finding the breath is our power regardless of our physical ability.  I let go of the class redesign and stayed with my original outline.  Reminding myself to be motivated by who came to the practice, I took a deep breath and felt the power.

Now at each power class, I share that message with the practitioners:  without the breath there is no yoga; without the breath there is no power; without the breath there is nothing.  I begin the class as always, reminding people to check in with your breath, appreciate it and enjoy it.  And like on that first day, each day we have a “power class” I remind them that wherever they are in their physical practice,  the breath is your “power”. So, breathe.

Sometimes I miss spring in New England where I grew up: the magnolias, daffodils, tulips.  In Tulum, it is a green landscape: coco palms, chit palms, guano palms, curly palms and then a few sea grapes and the odd landscaping plant or orchid that I have installed to add variety.  The shades of green are impressive but nothing as dramatic as the first rhododendrons or hyacinths.  I miss the color, the fragrance.

Yet things change here.  The sun, for example, sets farther to the north.  The days are longer and we have light until nearly 7 p.m. now.  It is glorious.  There are new flowers, you just have to look closely to find them.  The black manglers for example, create little star shaped white flowers.  And the orchids will bloom shortly, but like the hooded monk orchid, many are shades of deep purple under a hood of soft green, or some a brownish violet surrounded by deep green fronds.  They don’t call your attention, like the crocus does. They almost hide from you until you stumble upon them and wonder at their beauty.   And many of the grasses in the Savannah marsh that extends behind my house have petite white blossoms that you only see if you get close.  The chit palms send fans of fragrant white flowers into their perimeter but you only notice them if you look up into their leaves.  You might find yourself looking at the birds among the leaves wondering why they are hopping from branch to branch and incidentally notice the flowers.

Spring here is more subtle, less easy to distinguish from winter.  Here, spring teaches you to pay attention and if you do, it rewards you with a moment of intense beauty that many may not find.  Sometimes, the hidden treasures are the most valuable.  Even though I miss the abundance of spring in New England, I value searching the innuendo of spring here in the tropics.  Miracles abound here if you are patient and observant.  Come to Tulum and find a different type of spring.

Today I went to cenote Lab Ne Ha after teaching yoga.  I had just discovered it on my route to Maya Tulum, where I teach.  Don’t ask me how to pronounce it correctly.  I just say it the way it looks: Lab Ne Ha.

It was nearly sunset and I asked at the gate, “Do I still need to pay?”

“Claro”, was all he said, “of course”.

Ten pesos. No big deal. I needed to swim.  So I paid him and walked down the relatively long pathway.  I changed just before coming to the dock, then walked to the water’s edge, saluted the two people there with, “Buenas tardes”, and directly jumped in.  Heaven.  The crystal clear water softened the blows of that day.  The plunge helped my concerns and anxiety slip away.

Lab Ne Ha is a small cenote, really a series of small cenotes or fresh water underground rivers that rise to the surface and eventually join the sea when they move back underground.  Lab Ne Ha is slightly salty from this connection as it is close to the beach.  Like many cenotes in the area, it is surrounded by black manglers, mangroves to people from the US.  The black ones have leaves like a rhododendron, green and hardy. They shine from the salt that graces the leaves as they sweat.  Their flowers are small, white, and star shaped that when sink into the cenote can be mistaken for star fish. At least I mistake them for that sometimes.

I swam and played with my water ballet dolphins: circular backbends through the water that are for me a sort of meditation.  I arch my back, push my head back and then reach my arms over my head to pull me through a circle underwater.  I love them and can do 5 or 6 in a row.  Inhaling deeply each time I surface and then submersing once again.  I finished playing as the sun was setting and started to air dry on the dock.  As I did so, I looked for the orchids that grow in the manglers remembering it was nearly the season for them to bloom.  As I stood there, a fin split the water in a gentle arc.  I was paralyzed.  Then two more moved just after on either side, just as softly, just as beautifully.  I was spellbound: dolphins.  It was as if I had called them, as if they knew my anxiety about life and as if, through their visit, I had been transported to a magical place where I knew everything would be alright.  They reminded me I did not need to worry.  I was in a magical place, cenote Lab Ne Ha, Tulum, Mexico. Everything would be alright.

The 15^th and the 30^th are paydays here in Mexico.  “La cincena”(kin-sena):  the 15^th.  People live for them.  Now, I have to admit, so do I.  I am freelance, paid yoga class to yoga class, no taxes, no insurance, no recourse.  So far this week each day I check it is, “sorry, no yoga pay yet.  Can you come back tomorrow?”

“What ever happened to direct deposit?” I ask myself as I head back up the road.

I know the woman well who pays me. But for the cincena I am just a worker.  I wait in line like everyone else and I make the trip back if there is no money for me, just like everyone else.  And when I sign for my envelope of money, I open it to double check.  It is about 250 dollars US that needs to get me through til the 30^th.  I start to wonder if I will make it but then remind myself that I know I will.  Something always comes up, a private class, writing work, friends to invite me to dinner, something.

I feel a kindred spirit with my grandfather who received his pay the same way. He never had to worry if it would last, that was my grandmother’s job.  Then I think of how he might be disappointed to know that I receive my pay in an envelope and that it is not really enough to get me through the week let alone the 15 day cycle.  He might wonder about me, after all that education, all that experience.  And as I pedal home to pay my workers, I check the cash again and chide myself, “you used to make that in half a day”.  Then I remind myself, “but you never got to ride a tropical road to work, either, or walk your own dogs on the beach nearly every morning”.

Every occupation has its price.  I pay my workers and get ready for the next class.

The sunset last night was in a new place.  It is autumn in the Caribbean and although the changes are not as dramatic as in the Northeastern U. S. where I grew up, there are changes.  Like the sun changing it’s transect.  It has a different quality now.  Just like the sea.  I am not sure what it is exactly, but it is different.  The color is a little more blue in the sea.  The sun is a little more contained in the evening as it sets.  The sun and the sea interact differently too.  The sun plays more on the blue, sparkling more brightly somehow.  The temperature is not Africa hot, although it is hot.  The nights are cooler.  It is fall in Tulum.

We have more rain in the autumn.  Generally, tropical storms that blow in with the force of a gale and pass quickly.  Lately we have had electric storms that are incredibly energetic and dynamic to watch.  They pass quickly and the energy they possess is intoxicating.