Winged serpent, plumed snake, protector of the Toltec people, such definitions of Quetzalcoatl means little at the end of the inevitable filter where and when all words are siphoned and rendered all too simplistic when faced with the extermination of cultural differences. At face value such overwhelming beauty from such an elegant beast demands the imaginative inquiry from generations of rediscovery. If it where not for our imaginations we would become the mere shadows of men and women, black and white, devoid of…
Color and brilliance.
Yet the principle enigma that allows us to expound, and tear from the memory of experience stems from this brilliant and often distorted area of the mind that remains taken for granted, a sign of instability, or another enigma not quite socially accepted in the world of facts and figures, but perhaps equally envied. This indefinable layer of the mind lingers perhaps somewhere between the ego and the id, an area that distorts, obscures, and tricks any notion of truth with the limitations of what we sometimes fail to recognize in life…the value of experience. If a piece of the puzzle comes up missing our imagination makes use of the empty ink blot at hand, creating something ‘workable’ at the very least.
Do we choose to linger somewhere between fact and fantasy, selectively denying the latter while depending on the former to protect only what we become willing to understand? Unwilling and unable to look beyond our own staggering cultural boundaries; when images of fear from dominant sources rigorously bombard our sensibilities with wanton hate and destruction do we become paralyzed? As if this were all we were allowed to conceive in a world where newsworthy often means ultra violent. We should gasp our last dying breath spitting on such wanton hate and intolerance that remains nothing new to this era, but certainly has become amplified in the extreme. Yet the dilemma still remains, living in fear yields a life not necessarily worth living.
The source of truth, like the ill fated fountain of youth never yields anything definitive at the source, or rather at the end of a journey which remains wholly imagined for the purpose of further explorations of the mind. In the end the quest brings us to vibrant vistas, brilliant examples of a living breathing culture free from the tainted hands of slandered digital injustice. This is the complex and vital journey made by master photographer, Paul Dahlquist as he grants us the beauty of a mesmerizing trek that reveals a rigorous examination of people, locals, crafts, and cuisine; living breathing customs in the making, forging a road for humanity rather than yielding to brutal instances of just how culturally ‘bloated’ we’ve become with our
