WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.050 align:middle line:84% I mean, the Mesoamerican tradition, is really humanity. 00:00:04.050 --> 00:00:07.110 align:middle line:90% It's a snake that has wings. 00:00:07.110 --> 00:00:11.400 align:middle line:84% We are mortals, we are close to the Earth, but we have wings 00:00:11.400 --> 00:00:14.790 align:middle line:84% and we can fly in our mind, in our spirit, 00:00:14.790 --> 00:00:16.680 align:middle line:90% we can be different places. 00:00:16.680 --> 00:00:20.310 align:middle line:84% And that's the tremendous dilemma of humans, isn't it? 00:00:20.310 --> 00:00:23.320 align:middle line:84% We want to transcend our mortality. 00:00:23.320 --> 00:00:26.820 align:middle line:84% And so then, in this case, Quetzalcoatl. 00:00:26.820 --> 00:00:34.140 align:middle line:84% I want to read a letter that I wrote to a person that 00:00:34.140 --> 00:00:35.610 align:middle line:90% lived in Mexico. 00:00:35.610 --> 00:00:38.610 align:middle line:84% I was a Fulbright scholar from Stanford University-- 00:00:38.610 --> 00:00:41.010 align:middle line:84% I ended up at Stanford, you know, 00:00:41.010 --> 00:00:45.180 align:middle line:84% and after going to East LA Junior College and Cal State 00:00:45.180 --> 00:00:48.600 align:middle line:84% Long Beach, I ended up studying at Stanford. 00:00:48.600 --> 00:00:53.080 align:middle line:84% And they sent me for one year and a half 00:00:53.080 --> 00:00:56.350 align:middle line:84% as a Fulbright scholar to Mexico. 00:00:56.350 --> 00:00:57.246 align:middle line:90% Better? 00:00:57.246 --> 00:00:57.746 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:00:57.746 --> 00:00:58.246 align:middle line:90% Nice. 00:00:58.246 --> 00:00:59.170 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:00:59.170 --> 00:01:09.510 align:middle line:84% And I came to a manuscript in Mexico City that was written 00:01:09.510 --> 00:01:12.500 align:middle line:90% by Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón. 00:01:12.500 --> 00:01:17.600 align:middle line:84% This was a priest that lived in Mexico in the 16th century. 00:01:17.600 --> 00:01:21.950 align:middle line:84% And he had spent 10 years basically 00:01:21.950 --> 00:01:31.310 align:middle line:84% gathering poems, spells, invocations, and different-- 00:01:31.310 --> 00:01:35.030 align:middle line:84% it was a way to try to suppress the Mesoamerican 00:01:35.030 --> 00:01:37.640 align:middle line:90% tradition in 1629. 00:01:37.640 --> 00:01:39.380 align:middle line:90% For 10 years he did this. 00:01:39.380 --> 00:01:41.480 align:middle line:84% He did horrible things to the Indians. 00:01:41.480 --> 00:01:46.550 align:middle line:84% And he will go to houses and he will claim that he will be sick 00:01:46.550 --> 00:01:49.340 align:middle line:84% and he will ask for the healer to do something to him. 00:01:49.340 --> 00:01:51.920 align:middle line:84% And the healer wanted to do-- they wouldn't-- they knew that 00:01:51.920 --> 00:01:54.120 align:middle line:84% he was a priest, and they didn't want to do that. 00:01:54.120 --> 00:01:56.630 align:middle line:84% And then he will say, please, help me. 00:01:56.630 --> 00:01:58.460 align:middle line:84% And so the healer will have compassion 00:01:58.460 --> 00:02:01.835 align:middle line:84% and they will do some remedies and some invocations. 00:02:01.835 --> 00:02:03.710 align:middle line:84% And then he will call the Spanish authorities 00:02:03.710 --> 00:02:06.350 align:middle line:84% and they will be all arrested because this 00:02:06.350 --> 00:02:09.710 align:middle line:84% was against the Catholic faith that was imposed on Mexico. 00:02:09.710 --> 00:02:13.398 align:middle line:84% And so I call it "Era Un Cabrón." 00:02:13.398 --> 00:02:16.990 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] SOB. 00:02:16.990 --> 00:02:17.920 align:middle line:90% But you know what? 00:02:17.920 --> 00:02:22.210 align:middle line:84% I believe I'm a descendant from de Alarcón. 00:02:22.210 --> 00:02:22.990 align:middle line:90% OK? 00:02:22.990 --> 00:02:26.560 align:middle line:84% And so what I did, 400 years later, 00:02:26.560 --> 00:02:30.070 align:middle line:84% was to go to the library, opened his manuscript, 00:02:30.070 --> 00:02:32.560 align:middle line:84% they has 700 different spells, retrieve 00:02:32.560 --> 00:02:35.530 align:middle line:84% of some of those spells, and then undo 00:02:35.530 --> 00:02:37.480 align:middle line:90% what has been done to us. 00:02:37.480 --> 00:02:41.740 align:middle line:84% So reclaim the Mesoamerican tradition, 100 years later, 00:02:41.740 --> 00:02:44.960 align:middle line:84% and to say I wanted to redeem my ancestors. 00:02:44.960 --> 00:02:47.620 align:middle line:84% So I'm going to read a letter that I wrote to Hernando Ruiz 00:02:47.620 --> 00:02:52.570 align:middle line:90% de Alarcón, who lived in 1643-- 00:02:52.570 --> 00:02:55.960 align:middle line:90% excuse me, 1587 to 1648. 00:02:55.960 --> 00:02:57.850 align:middle line:84% I will read the first-- the letter in Spanish 00:02:57.850 --> 00:03:00.850 align:middle line:84% and then read the English translation. 00:03:00.850 --> 00:03:03.760 align:middle line:90% Ololiuqui are magical seeds. 00:03:03.760 --> 00:03:06.190 align:middle line:84% That if you take your ololiuqui, you'll 00:03:06.190 --> 00:03:09.510 align:middle line:84% be talking to the gods for a whole week.