Pausing to Reflect

As the pressure intensified and the deadline came fast approaching, rereading the Popol Vuh cleared things up significantly. Reviewing the story for my essay, I found myself lost in the winding turns of the story and its strictly NOT consecutive order, though it gave me no problem. Somehow, reading the story again allowed me to see a lot of the things that I hadn't seen before. Certain things that had been discussed in class and not. For example, when the hero twins travel to Xibalba to face the gods, they aren't fooled. Of course, they ARE the hero twins and are divine and sacred, but what astounded me was not that the boys triumphed over the gods, but the reaction of the gods. As a whole, the gods played tricks and tested the boys, purposely trying to make them fail. With failure, the twins would be sacrificed just as their father(s) had been. Not only did the boys pass every test and slip by every trick, they did it with help from the animals around, such as the Mosquito helping them with the names of the gods. Most surprising was when the gods seemed disappointed in the boys; that now there are these beings that will be able to properly worship them the way they prefer but they don't want it. They wanted the boys to fail so they could be sacrificed, which I found very odd. In this way, the boys seemed to turn the tables on the gods and were able to defeat them, leaving the gods overcome. This gave me a good sense of perseverance and concentration and being willing to take help from others in order to overcome arrogance, and it makes perfect sense.

In general, my favorite part of the Popul Vuh was instantly when the maiden, Xquic, tricks the gods and her father by making her heart out of the red tree sap and pretending to be sacrificed for her wrongly accused illegitimacy. I felt it empowering that she was able to trick the gods so keenly, and in a way this also shows how the gods can be overcome. The best aspect of this concept is when viewing the gods as a whole, they are seen as fallible and it provides that sense of imperfection. The story portrays the message that no one is perfect and that makes for a capturing story.

Why Not?

Not everyone has the confidence to make a bold statement about themselves that is impossible to deny. A tiger lily holds a sense of pride in its petals as though it knows exactly how good it looks. Packed with visual power, beauty, elegance, and strength, tiger lilies are fascinating flowers. Tiger lilies are called "tiger" lilies because of their bold, bright-orange petals and black, almost tiger-like spots. This ferocious flower stands out and makes that statement to the world that they are not one to mess with.

Ask me why a tiger lily. Go on, ask. Well, why not? Not good enough? What can I say, it's the truth. Let me tell you, reader, something that might suffice. All I want to do with my life is associate myself with tigers. I mean, it wouldn't make sense to spend my life doing something that didn't involve one of my passions. Passion is a strong word but it works perfectly. Because tigers are so important to me, as they have been since I was a teeny tiny little girl, I decided to represent how much I love them in a way that most people wouldn't. Tiger lilies have their own way of expressing their ferociousness and magnificence that is surreal and unlike any other flower in any garden in any corner of the world. Just like a tiger, tiger lilies have an air about them that presents their magnificence and power and beauty, along with endless amounts of brilliance and mystery, in a way that I try to relate to.

Confidence. These aspects of both tigers and tiger lilies are all a form of confidence that each shows the world. I have confidence. Tiger lilies represent my entire being it seems and they allow me to prevent myself from losing sight of who I am. Clichéd, yes, but quite true. I have been told by many that I don't lack confidence or belief in myself, or power and strength to pursue my goals; no obstacle will stand in my way for long. Still, I'm not the entire individual I strive to be, and that is why tigers and tiger lilies fascinate me so. I will invoke the same mystery, beauty, power, and magnificence in the way I am viewed by the world as well as by myself...as any tiger does to any presence.

My initial exposure to Native American Literatures from the poems of Leonel Lienlaf and Victor Montejo has been incredible. I am already the kind of person that loves to annotate poems and prose, and the like. I know that's something most people think is crazy or just plain weird, but I think I have a knack for such things. I love to analyze literature. What captures my mind at first "read," if you will, is the ability of the authors to incorporate elaborate personification and imagery with what seems like so much ease. It might be curious for me to say it this way, but I find that remarkable. A variety of authors are able to do this as well, but for some reason these three poems seemed to reveal these aspects to me with more emphasis. My most favorite of the three poems is "Confusion," by Lienlaf. I would call this poem my favorite because, first and foremost, it presents a beautiful picture in my mind. Though the speaker is not depicting a positive experience, he is able to provide the imagery to visualize exactly what is happening to him. Not only does the poem paint a physical picture for the audience, but it simply and clearly presents an underlying meaning that seems to be the loss of identity, and, most importantly, colonization.

Unlike Lienlaf's poem "Uprising," "Confusion" shows the side of colonizing the indigenous people rather than these people neglecting the ideas of the colonizer. In this way, I feel that Lienlaf presents the idea of being unable to deny colonization because the power of the colonizer is too strong to fight against no matter how much the indigenous people try; they have to give in at some point. Something else that I love, and find appealing, about this poem is its Spanish translation. The depiction of the tragedy occurring to, or for, the speaker of the poem is somewhat more magnificent and almost beautiful. This translation, to me, seems to emphasize more of how the indigenous people, and people in general, are unable to completely stick to their culture and they have no chance to prevent its loss, even if only lost for a short period of time, because they are so confused to how it was actually allowed to be lost in the first place. This is an opinion that I get out of this poem, and one that makes me appreciate it even more.