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Welcome students and colleagues, friends and family, if you have made it this far, I encourage you to stay a bit longer and read about some of my work. The writings reflect many of the thoughts that I carry with me throughout the course of a day, evening, and often times, the dreams that take hold of me while I sleep. The verses represent the inner voice in me that speaks of the past, the present, and the future. Writing is my ultimate form of expression that allows me to reflect, inspire, get well, and grow. The energy that feeds my work, I pull from themes that correspond to Mesoamerica, my ancestral place of birth, and the area I study. References to symbols of the past, deities, and natural phenomenon, dominate certain pieces, and blend with current verses of life, love, and death. I have never taken a writing class... the only "style" that exhibits my work is the one that I create from my imagination, heart, and dreams.

I’m an avid builder and horticulturalist, and so I spend a lot of my time building things and growing different types of herbs and plant food. I do not identify as an artist nor do I make art for aesthetic purposes; my work solely materializes a ritual-ceremonial or utilitarian function. The craft of working with wood I learned from my father, by watching him design and build homes throughout much of my adolescent youth. I also learned how to work with stone by watching my uncles construct brick and rock landscapes, in the wealthy neighborhoods were they labored during much of the 1980s, when construction was booming. My paternal grandpa Juan was also a craftsman, hence why all his sons became builders of some sort, and so building has always been an integral part of my family’s trade history. I learned about plant cultivation from my abuelita Mercedes on my paternal side and my abuelito Severo on my maternal side. Much of the landscaping strategies that I learned from my grandparents came with them from Mexico when they migrated to Alta California, in the early 1960s, along with my parents. A lot of the building and planting strategies that my family has implored have been in use for over 3,000 years. It is my purpose to revitalize and sustain these ancestral practices through ceremony, household building, and plant cultivation.

My fascination with building and growing food is not only familial, but also physical-skeletal (see my Physical Anthropology 101 blog), and because so, I have an admiration for the morphology of the human hand. The hand is unlike any part of the body, and because we use our hands every day, we literally take them for granted, sometimes failing to notice their full potential use. Our hands are our first weapons of choice in an attack, yet they are the first part of the body that we extend when helping or consoling someone. With our hands, we build shelter, writer letters, prepare food, and unknowingly, make love. Our hand-digit coordination is unique because it is precise, well adapted for creating, and for using and making tools. Hand-digit use coordination has been a part of our human evolutionary past since we inhabited arboreal environments, way before we developed bipedalism. When combined with tool use, the creative use of the hands has the capability of decolonizing our minds and bodies.

My inquiry into the relationship between hand-bone morphology usage and social behavior remains in the early stages. Nonetheless, some preliminary findings I modeled in a recent paper where I discuss the role of the hands, and early human tool making, in the creation of spatial wellness. The paper is published in Vol. 3 No. 4 of the International Journal of Development and Sustainability.


I have never written

I have never written a letter to
the God Christ... and for the first time in my
life, I need not one, but all of my faiths to
overcome my trials.

Dear God, I need you now more
then ever before… Although I live by way
of the feathered-serpent, your
cross I believe in it… and your love
I have always felt it.

God, thank you for allowing me
the life that some souls only dream of… I
know there are some things that
we just don’t realize until it is way too late,
but I promise you Lord that a greater
meaning in things I always look to make...
With you as my savior I would never
harbor feelings of resentment for this world.
Primarily one in which we are all just
passing through, I would never question
what you bestow on us.

My voice only answers to you,
my eyes only look for you… my ears mute
to the rhetoric… that is why
you allow me to do what I do. My apology
is sincere if at one point or another
I have lost my faith in people or in you…
Allow me to bask in what you
will grant us all… sooner or later…

I write to you not because
I hurt inside or because you have bestowed
your will on an Angel from my life. I
come to you because others look for you…
some question you… and others have
yet to realize you. I am overwhelmed Lord and
it becomes a tiresome task to show and
tell just exactly what you mean to us. I know
that my bones are made of jade, pearl,
and stone… they are strong. It is my heart
though that loses will and causes
my voice to flatter. My body now does
render at times.

I apologize…

I know that my only job is to
care for the soul, keep it safe and grant it
a new place. I’ll be honest with you
God… the task before me cuts at my very own
throat… and you know the
reasons why. I will overcome this I know, but
it is those that surround me that I fear
for the most. It saddens me deeply to see the
very men who taught me a sacred way
of living... lose their own
will to thrive.

God please don’t allow my
brothers to lose sight of your good… to
lose sight of the power that is your
holy spirit. The teachings found in your
bible, the meaning of your symbol the cross…
or the love that surrounds your temple. My
father is old and weak now, I know…
but he has not lost his faith. Please do not
allow my father to lose his faith…
his heart and soul.

Not my father... not anyone.
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