Mama Atlas, Mama Marrakech

I ran my fingers over the smooth surface of the Medina, like rose petals caressing a tombstone. I felt the filth and coveted the beauty, inheriting all within the walls. I was lost, still carrying a sweaty fistful of wilting mint in my left hand that had been handed to me to mask the putrid smelling labyrinth of the tanneries I was previously lost in. Animal skins of all sort, being shape-shifted into decadence... even luxury has its hell.

I wanted the real Marrakech,  and it took me by a beggars hand, furled and wove me into the tapestry of a harem pant pocket. I saw how privilege breeds ignorance, and lack of privilege breeds deceit. Hunger and greed everywhere among the locals and tourists, embellished by the intricacies of sublime Moroccan design.

I sit at a picnic bench in the food stalls of Jemaa El Fna . The face of a baby boy, no more than 2 with a face punctuated with bruises and scabs, still imprinted in my memory.  His little hand outstretched towards me holding a small packet of Kleenex,  his eyes dazed in the distance as his mother towers over him waiting for the 4 Dirham exchange for guilt ridden Kleenex.  The poor baby, can barely keep his eyes open from exhaustion, and his face the obvious result of being pulled around negligently as a money maker. Empathy for his mother who was clearly mentally ill, but rage for his innocence succumbed to it all.  Monkeys, pulling at the chain held by its tyrant ,  and the sight of snake charmers mythicized by the sounds of the bansuri.  Perhaps I should have let this wash over me as any tourist, however I realized that never again, can I merely be a visitor in our world,  and not take my surroundings in its entirety to heart. A sentiment birthed after the experiences I've had in the past 2 years.


And then Mama Atlas, in all her swelling dignity. I spent 5 days in the Atlas Mountains, coddling baby goats and lonesome donkeys, and processing more than just the past few days in Marrakech.  She gave me this through meditation;

Mother Atlas, 

give me the energy to grow, to thaw and let go. 

To reign in prowess with humility among humanity. 

To nurture, protect, to forgive and relinquish. 

To observe and not judge, in high humbleness, 

and to remain pronounced through all the changes.

To bloom and flow, and gracefully heed our existence like you,

 Mother Atlas.