Nezahualcoyotl, Fasting Coyote, was the philosopher-king of Texcoco, the great city of learning beside Tenochtitlan, in the 1400s. He was an engineer, a lawgiver, a builder of gardens and aqueducts, and above all a poet.
He looked beyond the many gods of his day toward one unseen Creator, the Giver of Life, and tradition says he built a temple to that Unknown God with no image inside.
“Not forever on earth, only a little while here. Though it be jade, it breaks. Though it be gold, it is crushed. Though it be a quetzal feather, it is torn. Not forever on earth, only a little while here.”
Song attributed to Nezahualcoyotl (translation by Dan Dillman)
Nezahualcoyotl teaches that everything in this world passes, the jade, the gold and the feathers. What lasts is the flower and the song, the beauty and truth we create, and the Giver of Life who holds us all. The Mexica called it In Xochitl In Cuicatl: the flower, the song.
Reflect: What flower and song will you leave behind?
What do you think about this? On January 20, 1996, three young women in Varginha, Brazil, saw a four foot creature with oily skin and red eyes crouched by a wall. The army was in town that morning. A policeman said to have handled it died a month later. Cover story, or Brazil’s Roswell?
What do you think about this? In 1800 settlers at Conneaut, Ohio, opened a four acre burial ground in rows and reported skeletons over seven feet, jaws that fit over a man’s face, double rows of teeth. The graves were plowed under within a generation. Tall tale, or a people buried twice?
What do you think about this? The Iron Pillar of Delhi is six tons of forged iron from around 400 AD. It has stood outside through 1,600 years of monsoons and never rusted, thanks to a protective film from phosphorus rich iron nobody made again. Lucky recipe, or knowledge lost on purpose?
What do you think about this? North Sea trawlers pull up mammoth teeth, flint tools and a carved harpoon from 120 feet deep. Until 8,000 years ago that seabed was Doggerland, a forested land the size of Britain, drowned by rising seas and a tsunami. The lost land of every old story?
What do you think about this? In 1974 a Florida family found a polished 22 pound steel ball in burned brush. It hummed when a guitar played, rolled across rooms on its own and changed direction. Navy X rays showed objects inside, origin unknown. Valve ball, or something that landed?
What do you think about this? The Whaley House in San Diego was built in 1857 where a man was slowly hanged five years earlier. A baby and a daughter later died inside. Visitors report footsteps in empty rooms and a pressure on the throat where the gallows stood. Old house, or long memory?
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