A Mexican song tours the state: Caminos de Michoacan
Caminos de Michoacan (an old ranchera song) by composer: Bulmaro Bermude is a musical tour of this Mexican state.
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Mexico Matinee: The Country in Film
Maybe you already know that Mexico is the fifth largest country in the Americas by area, and 14th in the world. And maybe you already know that it boasts a population of 109 million, and that people al...
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Shamanism and the problem of consciousness
Daniel, a Huichol maraka'ame, or shaman-priest momentarily disappeared from the group. A short time later he reappeared. When asked where he had been, he replied in Spanish, "I have been to the moon."
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First Stop in the New World by David Lida: an interview with the author
Mexico City has long exercised a fascination for writers of varying foreign stripes - Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley, Jack Keruoac, D. H. Lawrence, William S. Burroughs, B. Traven; not to mention Latin American writers such as Roberto Bolaño, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Alvaro Mutis - and while some of them have stopped here for brief periods and others have made it their home, the erstwhile megalopolis (now 'hypermetropolis') remains an elusive quarry to pin down in words. Its trawling immensity may be a well of inspiration or a veritable Oak Island of futile excavation in search of treasures that refuse to be unearthed.
read moreMexico, A Love Story: women write about the Mexican experience
Mexico is a country infused with goddess energy. When you're in her arms, you want to stay there, cradled in her warm, moist smells, re-charged by her underbelly of pulsating earth energy, and sustained by a wisdom born of a history filled with extraordinary achievements and major defeats.
read moreDid You Know? Consuelo Velázquez and "Bésame mucho".
The song "Bésame mucho" (Kiss me a lot) was written by a young Mexican woman who had never been kissed. This article is a tribute to Consuelo Velázquez, who died January 22, 2005, at the age o...
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Did You Know? Popular children's chorus features cockroaches and pot smoking
La Cucaracha (The Cockroach), one of Mexico's best known corridos, is a comic, satirical song, with infinite possibilities for creative verses. Versions of La Cucaracha have been performed by countless bands and musicians, including Louis Armstrong, Bill Haley & His Comets, Doug Sahm
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Did You Know? Quetzal Dancers in Puebla, Mexico
The Quetzal Dance is one of the most colorful folkloric dances anywhere in the country. It is also thought to be one of the most ancient. Both the dance and the spectacular headdresses worn b...
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Did you know? Mexico's Nobel Prize nominee and music revolutionary
A Mexican who tried to revolutionize the world of classical music was once nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics.
In 1950, Julián Carrillo was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics. The nominat...
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Did you know? Thousands of Mexico's students receive classes by TV
Mexico's pioneering "telesecundaria" or "television secondary school" system began back in 1968. It now provides junior high school classes in remote areas, serving about one million students in grades...
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Did You Know? Mexico in the Guinness world records: part one
In the current edition of Guinness, the Mexican responsible for most records is Sergio Rodriguez Villarreal from the northern state of Nuevo León. He specializes in creating giant Christmas figures an...
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Did You Know? Some national symbols in Mexico are not what they seem
This month, Mexico celebrates her birthday, the anniversary of her independence from Spain. On the evening of September 15, the annual El Grito ceremony is held in town plazas all across the cou...
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Cuernavaca's Muros Museum: There's Heart within These Walls
Muros, which means "walls" in Spanish, opened to the public in May of 2004. It is the only museum in Cuernavaca, Morelos originally designed to be a museum. The space is flexible with movable lighting,...
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Huellas ...entre flores
Most mothers in Mexico look forward to May 10 as a day to take it easy and be pampered by family. For Esperanza Perez, proprietress of Ajijic's most popular flower shop, the date means not only business as usual, but extra work and longer hours.
read moreAztec Calendar
Mexica/Aztec Calendar Systems
The Civil Calendar
The solar year was the basis for the civil calendar by which the Mexicas (Aztecs) determined the myriad ceremonies and rituals linked to agricultu...
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Where Divergent Religious Customs Merge: Death Of An Infant In Oaxaca
Between the birth and the death came a crazy-quilt of only-in-Mexico experiences that resonated with my memories
Daniel Pérez González was a beautiful baby. His parents Flor and Jo...
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Amate Art of Mexico - (Where the Secular Meets the Sacred)
Nowhere was the cord between man and spirit more tightly bound than in the making of amatl, the sacred paper of the pre-Hispanic peoples. This paper was so important to the spiritual needs of ...
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Holy Week and Easter
LENT is very important in the lives of all Mexicans who profess the Catholic faith, and in a very special way the people of Ajijic.
Lent means a time of penance, conversion, prayer and of ...
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The Obsidian Butterfly: modern Huichol symbolism
"The Nawatl art is creating archetypes, in the Jungian sense, awakening unconsciously the common roots of the artist and the viewer."
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The Guaymas Chronicles: La Mandadera by David E. Stuart
Although it's about Mexico, this one starts off in Ecuador in the 1960s where the author was doing doctoral fieldwork for a dissertation on haciendas in that country. His work took him to a remote research station on the side of a mountain seventy miles from electricity, running water, telephones, etc. One day while riding his horse along the side of a gorge, with the bottom of a canyon almost a thousand feet below him, the horse stumbled and fell. On its way over the edge it rolled over Stuart and disappeared, leaving him badly crippled. He was rescued and eventually found his way to Guaymas, on the coast of the Sea of Cortez, in Mexico, where his fiancé, Iliana, lived. Thus begins the story of his recuperation and, at the same time, the exploration of Mexican society and customs which is described here.
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Traveling exhibit offers portal into Huichol world
The Huichols are one of the four indigenous groups that reside in the region known as the Gran Nayar, located in the southern part of the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains. The Huichols call themselves Wixarika or, in plural form, Wixaritari, a word that's meaning is unknown but from which the term Huichol is derived.
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Agave Marias: Border Crossers, Boundary Breakers by the Lake Chapala Women Writers
Here's an unusual volume with ten individual authors, each of whom is independent of the other nine except for the fact they all reside - either full or part-time - in the Lake Chapala area of Mexico. Their book consists of some 45 or more pieces of fiction and non-fiction plus a poem or three. The non-fiction includes travel tales, accounts of significant events in the authors' past lives, recollections of interesting people and other offbeat memoirs and anecdotes.
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Yarn painting - images of a vanishing culture
The Huichol Indians, whose pre-Hispanic culture still survives in the remote Sierra Madres ranges, live a life woven of magic and sacred mythology. Believing themselves to be that part of creation whic...
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Atayde Hermanos Circus
Against the backdrop of the dome of the Palacio del Arte in Morelia, Claris Leydi, a Cuban gymnast swings on a high trapeze in the opening act of Atayde Hermanos Circus.
...
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