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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.


An Angel's Chuck Taylor's

An Angel's Chuck Taylor's,
In Memory of My Father I Promise…

In memory of my father I promise that every stride I take shall be backed by two loving hearts, a cross, and a ribbon that binds them. One heart shall always be mine, the other one belongs to my brother whom I love with all my heart and soul… The ribbon shall always keep us together. The cross shall always be our 7th day faith… and life will grow all around it.

In memory of my father I promise to combat the treacheries of all evil. I shall surround myself with the strongest men… the strongest woman. In memory of my father I shall NEVER abandon the sick, not for any reason. The weak I shall care for and always reach out to… even if it weakens me. I will write one inspiring poem everyday, in the morning when I wake… for the rest of my life.

In memory of my father my friends and family shall become MD’s and PhD’s… Scientist’s from all over the world, fighting to make this world a better place, even if it kills them, even if it kills me. In memory of my father I shall sink my hypodermic fangs into the spine of every disease that attacks the young and the old… leukemia, diabetes, alcoholism, and cancer. My life’s work shall be religious and revolutionary… always anthropological.

In memory of my father I shall tell the love of my life everyday that I love her always. Her children I shall look into their eyes and tell them that I love them always… that their dreams I shall make real. I shall never leave her side because I know what it feels like to lose someone you love… a boy and a girl… to have to bury a dream and a life. In memory of my father my family shall always be connected by an unbreakable seal made of harmonic will, strategy, and intelligence – LOVE.

In memory of my father, every planet will be my guide, every star my light, the universe the joy of my imagination, every world-faith mine. EVERY stride I take shall be the one of a converse all star… like the steps once taken by an Angel… now in heaven and in space.

An Angel's Chuck Taylor's, in memory of my father I promise…
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