7. STORY LA MARIPOSA, BUTTERFLY WOMAN

Hello everybody, welcome. This is the podcast Woman and Mythology, and I'm your host Maria. In today's episode, I will retell the story of Lamariposa Butterfly Woman. It's a story about the power that women hold in their bodies. So let's begin. For years, tourists have thundered across the Great American Desert. They peer up the pelvis of the Mother Grand Canyon, shake their heads, shrug their shoulders, and hurry home. Only to again come, charging across the desert the next summer, looking, looking some more, watching, watching some more. Underneath, it is all the same hunger for a newman's experience that humans have had since the beginning of time. But sometimes this hunger is exacerbated. For many people have lost their ancestors. They often do not know the name of those beyond their grandparents. They have lost in particular the family stories. Spiritually, this situation causes sorrow and hunger. So many are trying to recreate something important for soul's sake. For many years tourists have come also to Puyé, a big dusty messa in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico. Here, the Anasi, the ancient ones, once called to each other across the mesa. A prehistoric sea, it is said, carved the thousands of grinning leering and moaning mouths and eyes into the rocks walls there. The Dine, Navajo, the Apache, the Southern Ute, the Hopi, the Zuni, the Santa Clara, Santa Domingo, Laguna, Picures, the Suki. All these desert tribes come together here. It is here that they dance themselves back into Lodgepole, pine trees, back into deers, back into eagles, and back into powerful spirits. And here to come visitors, some of whom are very starved for their myths, detached from the spiritual placenta. They have forgotten their ancient gods as well. They come to watch the ones who have not forgotten. The road up to Puyé was built with horses hooves and moccasins. But over time, automobiles became more powerful, and now locals and visitors come in all manners of cars, trucks, convertibles, and vans. The vehicles all wind and smoke up the road in a slow, dusty parade. Everyone parks Throtimochi, willingly, on the Lumpy Hillhawks. By noon, the edge of the maze looks like a thousand cars pile up. Some people park next to the six-foot tall hollyhawks, thinking they will just knock over the plant to get out of their cars. But the hundred years old hollyhawks are like old iron woman. Those who park next to them are trapped in their cars. The sun turns into a fury furnace by midday. Everyone trudges in hot shoes, burden with an umbrella in case it rains. It will. An aluminium folding chair in case they tire, they will. If they are visitors, perhaps a camera, if they are allowed. And pots of films cans hanging around their necks, like car legs. Visitors come with all manners of expectations, from the sacred to the profane. They come to see something that not everyone will be able to see. One of the wildest of the wild, a luvian nomen, Lamariposa, the butterfly woman. The last event of the day is the butterfly woman. Everyone anticipates with great delight this one person dance. It is danced by a woman. Oh, what a woman. And the sun begins to set. Here comes an old man in 40 pounds of formal dress turquoise. With the loud speakers, squawking like a chicken, spying a hawk. He whispers into the 1930s chrome microphone. And our next dance is going to be the butterfly dance. He limps away on the coves of his jeans. Unlike a belay recital, where the act is announced, the curtains part and the dancers wobble out, here at bouillet, as at other tribal dances, the announcement of the dance may proceed, the dancers appearance by anywhere from 20 minutes to forever. Where is the dancer? Tiding up the camper, perhaps. Air temperatures over 100 degrees are common, so last minutes repair to the body paint or need it. If a dance belt, which belonged to the dancer's grandfather, breaks on the way to the arena, the dancer would not appear at all, for the spirits of the belt would need to rest. Dancers delay because a good song is playing on the radio. Sometimes, a dancer does not hear the loudspeaker and must be summoned by foot runner. And then always, of course, the dancer must speak to all relatives on the way to the arena, and most certainly, stop to allow the little nephews and nieces a good look. How odd the little children are to see a towering katzina, spirit who looks suspicious, a little at least, like Uncle Tomas, or a corn dancer who seems to strongly resemble Aunt Yatsi. Lastly, there is the ubiquitous possibility that the dancer is still out on the desuke highway. While awaiting the butterfly dance in giddy and dissipation, everyone chatters about butterfly maidens and the beauty of the zoony girls who dance in ancient red and black carp with one shoulder-beard, bright pink circles painted on their cheeks. They loud the young male deer dancers who danced with pine bows bound to their arms and legs, time passes, and passes, and passes. People jingle coins in their pocket, they suck their teeth, the visitors are impatient to see this marvelous butterfly dancer. Unexpectedly then, for everyone is bored, the drummers' arms begins drumming, the sacred butterfly rhythm, and the chanters begin to cry to the gods for all they are worth. To the visitors, a butterfly is a delicate thing, oh fragile beauty, they dream. So they are necessarily shaken when out of hops, Maria Lucian, and she is big, really big, like the Venus of Willendorf, like the Mother of Days, like Diego Rivera's heroic size woman who built Mexico City with a single curl of her rest. And Maria Lucian, oh she is old, very, very old, like a woman come back from dust, old, like old river, old like old pines. One of her shoulders is bare, her red and black monta playing kit dress, hops up and down with her inside it. Her heavy body and her very skinny legs made her look like a hopping spider wrapped in a tamale. She hops on one foot and then the other, she waves her feather fan to and fro. She is the butterfly, arrived to strengthen the weak. She is what which most think of as not strong, age, the butterfly, the feminine. Butterfly maiden's hair reaches to the ground, it is thick and it is gray like stone and she wears butterfly wings, the kind you see on little children who are being angels in school plays. Her hips are like two bouncing bushel baskets and the fleshy shelf at the top of her buttocks is wide enough to ride to children. She hops, hops, hops, not like a rabbit but in footsteps that leave echoes, I am here, here, here, I am here, here, here, awaken you, you, you. She sways her feather fan up and down, spreading the earth and the people of the earth with a pollinating spirit of the butterfly. Her shells bracelets rattle like snakes, her bell garters tinkle like rain, her shadow with its big belly and little legs dances from one side of the dance circle to the other, her feet leave little puffs of dust behind. The tribes are reverent involved, but some visitors look at each other and murmur, this is it, this is the butterfly maiden. They are puzzled, some even delusioned, they no longer seem to remember that this spirit world is a place where wolves are women, bears are husbands and old women of lavish dimensions are butterflies. Yes, it is fitting that wild women butterfly women is old and substantial for she carries the thunder world in one breast, the underworld in the other. Her back is the curve of the planet earth, with all its crops and foods and animals. The back of her neck carries the sunrise and the sunset. Her left thigh holds all the lodge poles, her right thigh, all the she-wolves of the world, her belly holds all the babies that will ever be born. Butterfly maiden is the fertilizing force, carrying the pollen from one place to another. She cross fertilizes, just as the soul fertilizes mind with night dreams, just as archetypes fertilize the mundane world. She is the center, she brings the opposites together by taking a little from here and putting it there. Transformation is no more complicated than that, this is what she teaches, this is how the butterfly does it, this is how the soul does it. Butterfly woman mends the erroneous idea that transformation is only for the tortured, the saintly, or for the fabulously strong, the self need not carry mountains to transform. A little is enough, a little goes a long way, a little changes much. The fertilizing force replaces the moving of mountains. Butterfly maiden pollinates the soul of the earth, it is easier than you think she says. She is shaking her feather fan and she is hopping for she is spealing spiritual pollen all over the people who are there, native Americans, little children, visitors, everyone. She is using her entire body as a blessing, her old frail, big short legate, short necked spotted body. This is woman connected to her wild nature, the translator of the instinctual, the fertilizing force, the mentor, the rememberer of old ideas. She is la voz mita laurica, she is wild woman personified. The butterfly dancer must be old because she represents the soul that is old. She is wide of tight and broad of rump because she carries much. Her gray hair certifies that she needs no longer observe taboos about touching others, she is allowed to touch everyone, boys, babies, men, women, girl children, the old, the ill and the dead. The butterfly woman can touch everyone, it is her privilege to touch all at last. This is her power, hers is the body of la mariposa, the butterfly. So this is the story of the butterfly woman, I hope you enjoyed it and I would like to ask you what are the images that come alive for you? What can you see clearly in your mind? This is an indicator, a symbol that connects you to your soul, a path to your unconscious, which perhaps is the moment in the story that you see yourself at, that you find yourself at. This is also another indicator. On the next episode, we will reflect on the symbols of this story. Why? Clarissa Pinkolestez in her book Woman Who Run With The Wolves bring this tale to us. We're going to be talking about the beauty myth, we're going to be talking about female bodies, the pressures that are placed in women around body, and most importantly, the power in the body. And how women can retrieve this power, only when a woman is it, in peace with her body, and can harvest the power of her body, the wild women archetype can properly settle in. If you like to share with me the elements that came up for you from this story, please connect with me through Instagram @womenandmetology or through my website www.womenandmetology.com. I'll leave the links on the description of this episode. I would love to hear from you and share more with you about my work. Until our next episode, I wish you the fertilizing force of La Mariposa. [Music]