Reading Under the Volcano while a Friend Trips on Ibogane:The Great Mexican Lie

Mexico, land of mystical uncertainty, where natural power

has not been subdued by dark age "death by machine"...

...babysitting a poor slob unprepared for a cosmic journey.

Lowry wrote of the unseen forces of Mexico...he though

it was his life he was putting down on paper...rather, in the lines

of his novel are brushstrokes, shadowy glimpses of the unseen,

subtle sensations, as well as the truth of his journey....

Between the lines are the life here...the hopelessness and joy,

the constant presence of death, as well as birth...futility

bravado, recklessness, machismo, passion, flowery exaggeration

and abstraction, hopelessness and acceptance, bravery and sacrifice,

a tragic, romantic, slapstick, horrible theatre of the absurd.

So, if my friend comes away from his experience wildly changed,

distorted or visionary, inspired or depressed, saner or more solidly

crazy, it is no matter...he took his adventure, as many Mexicans do

with their lives,  with little thought of the consequences, with a 

Mexican love song from their childhood, with a naive longing for the 

possibility of life, no thought of the past or future, as if time was a 

concept thought up by gringos....and the risk he takes is that of a

creature born in a jungle...into a wild remorseless fiesta, if you want 

to call it that.

The truth is not of great value here, or, I should say it is not well 

known here...everything exists in shades of meaning that are constantly

recolored and embellished...the Spanish lied to the natives and the 

natives lied back...the Spanish killed many natives, it's true...but they also

intermarried, and the lies of that were the basis for a cultural stew made of 

blood and subtle lies.  Up North there was just the killing and the occasional

whopper as was needed to aid in the killing. The American indians knew they were 

being lied to....after a while...there was nothing subtle about it or slavery...

In Mexico,  the whole culture became a lie with the hope that the truth would

somehow manifest miraculously, like Guadelupe....like a whore that wakes up

every morning with the belief that he is still,  miraculously, a virgin.

In the North, the truth was whatever the victors wanted the others to believe,

and they did and do. In Mexico, power was just another, a bigger lie. Those that

stood for truth as power...many of those noble people...were assassinated and 

slaughtered....just as the Mexican army now slaughters the drug lords and are in 

return slaughtered....many men working both sides of the fence, because, in reality,

"on the ground", the moral distinction is cloudy at best....another example of

how strong the lie is here in Mexico.