Organic Yucatan

Yucatan communities have the hip social patterns we seek out in places like Santa Fe, NM, Crested Butte, CO and Portland, OR. One I loved is this Monday sewing group, bathed in the energy of being together. How would you like to sew with your friends while breathing the rich tropical air, fragrant with citrus blossoms?




I spent the last week in Yucatan, Mexico. Stay tuned to this blog post as it grows with photos, observations and maybe a sound clip or two!



This is a large scale tortilla production in a small village. Ever wonder how tortillas are made? These are corn tortillas. First, you get lots of corn and remove it from the cob. I walked up and saw this mashed up corn pressed into tortillas. Corn in a huge part of the culture in the Yucatan. I'll search my memory to tell you a story I heard about the cycle of planting, growth, and harvest...

I keep thinking about the QiGong moves I learned at the Seaside Hostel in Portland, OR and how they are so much like the movements the tortilla makers make. You could say mechanization has made artificial exercises necessary, but I think it's a balance, ideally. So, we do the jobs we're best at and sometimes we compensate. I bet these tortilla makers enjoy a good mental exercise!

There's a group called Hijos del Maiz I am curious about. I want to go to Nicaragua next, and soon before it gets hot(ter). I asked some people in Yucatan about Nicaragua. I also met a traveler named Meaghan Murphy at the 8ABC who had just been there. I hear the topography is volcanic and much different than other countries in Central America. When I find things like Hijos Del Maiz's program, I often bookmark them in our Zoobird Reading List, FYI. Each Zoobird group has its own topical Reading List, for example the Zoobird Travelin' Zoo has a Reading list. The Reading List on Zoobird's homepage is the main Reading List. It contains all the links. The links are subdivided by topic for each of the groups. If you use www.delicious.com, you can send Zoobird Reading List links!