MADRE MAIZ Y SU MILPA

The fields of the milpa lay fallow, scattered with dried cobs, colorless husks and rotting stalks that weren’t gathered after the last season. Soon, the farmer will bundle them all together and light a fire, burning them and the fields themselves and all else that has found its way there. She watches then, Corn Mother does, because she knows the time of her rebirth is near. A long wooden stick will poke holes in her earthen skin, her children from the last season will be dropped in, and she will wait. 

She will wait in the black soil, for the sun, for the water, for the fresh warm air, before she emerges again. She will emerge from her own earthen skin, giving birth again and again, in tiny green shoots that recall the ancestors, and their ancestors before them.

Blessing Ceremony by Maruch Mendez, inaugurating "Cuentos Cosidos"

 Her people glorify her in ceremony, singing their praise and asking her blessing, burning copal as they go. In return, Corn Mother blesses her people with bountiful crops, if there is sufficient rain, but not more than is needed. If there is sunshine, but not more than is needed. If her people are there to care for her, once again, as they have since the beginning.

With a huge amount of gratitude to Taller Leñateros for Corn Mother's 

face, from the cover of their book "Conjuros y Ebriedades; 

Cantos de Mujeres Mayas." Que un gran honor!!