The Consciousness of Art Seen While Traveling

I spent the 4th of July weekend distracted by the holiday and packing for two weeks in the Mexican lowlands. For the last twenty-five years, I have been traveling throughout all of Mexico, except Baja Sur. With that being the only exception, I have been to 30 of 31 states, over 120 archeological sites, and know-how to travel, whether by air, bus, or train, in the region. So, when I had received an invitation from a dear friend of mine to come and enjoy the house they had rented in Oaxaca, I was excited about the opportunity. I had carefully planned the flight, budget, ground travel, and how I would take care of schoolwork. However, I had not planned for Aero-Mexico to be one of the victims of the recent hacking scandal, which led to my flight being delayed two hours and causing me to miss my flight to Oaxaca! It also provoked such a commotion I had started to stay from my carefully thought-out itinerary.

There I was in Mexico City, having missed my flight to Oaxaca, and I could not have been happier; there was a deep feeling of synchronicity, and perhaps any other time I would have been annoyed, but that evening I allowed myself to surrender to the experience of the unknown. The earliest flight they could get me on was two days later, so I allowed myself to sit and think about what I would do. The first was to book my favorite hotel overlooking the gran plaza of a Zocalo in the heart of Mexico City. The next thing I was going to do was spend my extended layover in the art museums of Mexico City, which houses some of the most impressive pieces of Mexican and Mesoamerican art. During this class, Art as Mirror of Evolving Consciousness, it had not occurred to me to go to a museum and look at art in real life! So, the morning after the missed flight, I sat out on a mission to see as much as possible. I spent the next twelve hours walking twelve miles walking through Bella Artes, which houses artwork by Diego Rivera and other prominent Mexican muralists. From there, I went to other museums and allowed myself to have experiences of the unknown. It was a gentle way of pushing the edge of my consciousness, permitting myself “not to know”. For the first time, within this space of permission, I revisited each floor of all of the museums twice instead of walking all the way through to the gift shop, however, this practice started to notice all that I had not seen the first time around. As I looked at each piece, I was reminded of Combs (2009) and the eight perspectives and where would heavily Spanish and European art created by indigenousness, which Zones would the art fall into, and what relationships could it have, and where my relationship could fall within the context of these works of art.

Sometimes what we plan has other plans for us and although I was supposed to have a couple of extra days in Oaxaca, I am grateful for the experience of Mexico City this summer.

Combs, A. (2009). Consciousness explained better: Towards an integral understanding of the multifaceted nature of consciousness (1st ed). Paragon House.