Conrad SatalaJune 17, 2025

15 June 2025 - Sunday Nawal Kawoq

Conrad SatalaJune 17, 2025

Conrad’s Reflection on Living Within Two Lands

“I Carry the Mountain in My Breath”

A Ceremonial Introduction to Living Within Two Lands

from the Earth Remembers Series

A Dawn Memory Beneath the Volcán: Santiago Atitlán

There is a moment, just before the light stirs the water,

when the lake holds still as a prayer,

and the woodsmoke rises from the hearth of a kitchen still half-asleep—

and I feel Her.

The Great Grandmother’s Light,

not as a thought,

but as warmth moving through the soles of my feet,

through the threads of my hands,

woven into the stones of the old path,

into the roots of the tree of Light,

into the marrow that remembers what the sky once whispered.

She speaks—

not in words,

but in the hush between breath and wind.

In the brushing of water on shore.

In the rhythm inside my chest

that echoes the drumbeat of the bones of my people.

She says:

“All things breathe.

Even the unseen.

Even the unnoticed.

Even the worn and broken still remember.”

I sit above the lake,

on that sacred slope where the hills speak and the roof tiles hum.

And in that single quiet moment,

I feel the full landscape living within me—

not as memory,

but as presence.

I open my chest like the doorway of a ceremonial house,

and the Light inside me stretches out

to meet the Light in all things.

I send this quiet blessing

to the fog that rests on the lake,

to the clay pot still warm with maize,

to the sleeping dog,

to the broken sandal near the trail.

No words are needed.

The breath becomes bridge.

The moment becomes altar.

And I remember—

I am not outside of this life.

I am part of the sacred weaving.

This is the wisdom that lives in my bones.

⸻

A Breath of Light on the Sidewalk: Fort Wayne, Indiana

This morning, I passed a crack in the sidewalk—

and through it, a dandelion had risen.

And once again,

I heard Her.

Not in the songs of birds over the lake,

but in the shimmer of a stoplight,

in the murmur of tires,

in the stillness behind the street’s voice.

The Great Grandmother’s Light speaks here too.

“Even here,” She whispers,

“in the hum of electric veins and hardened ground—

Light still breathes.

Love still listens.

Nothing is untouched.”

I stand barefoot in the narrow alleyway,

concrete beneath me,

a painted wall behind me,

and above—

a vulture turning slow circles in an opening of sky

the city forgot to claim.

And in this still moment,

I breathe.

I offer love to the metal railing,

to the discarded plastic lifted by wind,

to the stone that once lived in riverbed before it became concrete.

And there—rising within—

is the soft presence of Nawal Bartolo Martín.

Not as a vision,

but as a glow behind my sternum.

A warmth in the center of my spine.

He comes gently,

like a breath I forgot I was holding.

He whispers:

“Take this minute.

Become the Light you remember.

Let love meet the world as it is.

And the world will remember itself through you.”

This is the same ceremony

that once lived on the mountain.

Same light.

Same breath.

Different form,

same sacred presence.

I do not return to the village.

I do not leave the city.

Both are alive in me.

⸻

I Am the Thread Between Two Lands

It is morning in Fort Wayne.

I stand again on this patch of sidewalk—

cracked, unremarkable,

but now sacred.

The dandelion still blooms through the stone.

The wind wraps around brick and steel

as if it knows the mountain’s language.

I place my hand on the cold railing—

but it is not cold.

It is not dead.

It breathes.

And in that same breath,

I am there—

above the lake,

at the foot of the volcano,

in the hush of fire smoke and early birdsong.

I am home.

In both places.

The breath that leaves my body

carries the voice of Santiago,

and returns to me with the quiet light of this city.

The same Great Grandmother’s Light moves through me—

through both landscapes,

through both skies.

Her whisper comes from the lake wind,

and from the wind between buildings.

Her thread is the thread of my spine.

Her altar is the altar of my bones.

She reminds me:

“You are not split.

You are the bridge.

You are the remembering.

You are the altar that walks.”

And in this knowing,

Nawal Bartolo Martín is near.

He is the fire behind my eyes,

the subtle weaving of light between the dog by the door

and the alley gust lifting a plastic bag like a sacred flag.

He is the current that joins two lives

into one path of love.

And so I breathe—

here, now.

I offer this moment

to the railing, the dandelion, the bricks.

And at the same time—

to the clay pot, the fire, the mountain mist.

My body remains in one place.

But my vision kneels in both.

I am not torn.

I am not waiting.

I am already within the weave.

This is how I remember.

This is how I walk.

This is how I carry the mountain in my breath—

with every step,

with every ache,

with every love-shaped moment.

I am the living thread of two lands breathing through one body.

Let this breath be a blessing.

Let this light remember itself.

Let this be the way we return.

Conrad Satala