Mountains

Yesterday I visited the country home of my cousin’s cloister. Her name is Sor Salome, and her eyes shine with a pure simplicity through her comically round glasses. The nuns led us within a locked gate to lovely gardens which lead to the grotto of Santa Maria de Las Flores. It is said that the Virgin made a special appearance in this garden, and she made a request for the grotto to be built. Since then tumors have been healed, and terminal sickness removed, from those who asked the Virgin for her aid. When it was my turn to kneel in front of the grotto and make a request, Madre Claudia put her hand on my head, ostensibly to make my wish more potent. My mind rushed so quickly, and I fumbled over a list of cures.

We then walked towards the chapel, and Mother Claudia asked me what I wanted to study in college. When I said “filmmaking”, her lips pursed and her eyes grew dark. In the chapel, she read from a book about the evils of Los Angeles and the corruption of the movie industry. I sat in the pew staring up at her, and she paused to ask me if I believed in the devil. I muttered that I didn’t want to answer. This woman couldn’t see that it is men who rule the film industry. What did she think; a shy girl wearing flowers in her hair was going to go to Hollywood and make films glorifying sex and violence?

I felt as if, despite the mother superior’s dogmatic attitude, she had called upon the same Goddess I revere, except in a different form. My body felt oceanic and white light streamed within me. Hair the color of gold wrapped around my arms and diaphanous silk caressed my cheek. The woman dressed in light had stars shooting out of her palms and the moon resting on her forehead. I blink and she is dressed in black robes, yet cosmic light pours from her arms. I thought for a moment, “If this being is always with me, I will always be safe.”

Without a camera, I am seized with desire to imprint beautiful surroundings in my mind like transformative waves of emotion. I visited my aunt’s house in Papallacta in small community that was said to be built as a request from the Virgin as a refuge from the corruption of the city and the nearing end of the world. How many appearances and special requests can the Virgin make?

Still, the irregular shape of the dark green mountains against the brilliant blue sky and stop-motion clouds brought me a moment of serenity. I walked down the gravel road in icy air, past an encased statue of the Virgin. Under an archway of dark twisted trees was a moss colored trunk to sit on, in front of the rushing creek. Yellow and lavender wildflowers were speckled among the mulch. I tried to feel light moaning breeze cleansing my achy emotions. I wanted a sense of spiritual well-being to sink into my bones. I wanted to open my palms and feel the aliveness within the trees spilling inside me. But all was still. No supernatural rusting in the leaves, no heart expanding into healing. Stillness. So I sang, I felt my voice crack, and I was filled with longing to be a part of explosive theatrics. Filled with longing to screech, belt, and convulse within a realm of spinning colors and cries of an electric guitar.

On the drive home, my jaw dropped to see stars spilling across the night sky. I had forgotten what stars really looked like. In the distance ahead I could see Quito with its clusters of burning faerie lights, lamparitas. In my head, I prayed the only prayer I know by heart- the Hail Mary. But I changed the “the Lord is with thee” to “the world is within thee” I changed “Mother of God” to “Mother of All”. But I made so many alterations that I became confused and stopped all together. The words I wanted to utter felt so darkly intricate and deeply buried, that they could only flow out of me in a spontaneous glow. Despite my failed attempts at praying, I detected a split second of enveloping warmth. But then my aunt and uncle began to pray in Spanish in the front seat, and the moment was lost. They prayed the entire way home. Their repetitions got under my skin and I squirmed every time I heard a reference to “God the Father.” and I thought my chest would explode from frustration.