Before the birds. Before the world wakes. I’m barefoot again, jungle dew already soaking my skin. The path to the cenote is just dirt and root, no headlights, no phone, no voices but the ones the mind wants to send me. I let them fall behind. It could be an empty world, if I let it, until the hush thickens and the water, black as obsidian, appears. The cenote is still as a mirror, waiting. But it doesn’t reflect the sky, not really. It reflects who stands at the edge.
Old Nahua Tradition
There’s a story in old Nahua tradition, my father’s father once told it under tobacco smoke. The world, he said, does not reveal itself to you. It radiates from the inside out, a projection. “No atraes, proyectas.” The priests never spoke about attraction, the idea you wait and hope and wish and call things to you. They spoke about projection, about reality as a canvas that takes the color you carry inside. If what’s inside you is agitation, you’ll see threat even in peace. Walk with reverence, and the jungle seems to breathe with you. The cenote doesn’t show you what’s ‘out there.’ It shows you what frequency you bring with you to the water.
Mysticism and Science
People call this mystical. But science is, at last, catching up. Sit in an fMRI machine and they’ll tell you: The brain doesn’t just record reality, it edits and filters and shapes it constantly. Moods bend the light. Breath, especially, is a tuning fork, however you breathe, your mind follows. Shallow, rapid breaths twist your focus, turn every shadow into threat. Slow, full ones open the lens. What you see is anything but passive; it will dance to the beat you set inside.
The Circle and the Breath
I’ve watched hundreds of people come into circle, breathing hard from the noise of the day, eyes clouded by the stories not yet dropped. Let the breath set a new rhythm, and something changes: The room softens. Faces lift. The jungle outside seems less crowded, less hungry. This isn’t magic. It’s neurology, but it’s also a return to the wisdom the Nahua knew: You are not just a spectator here. You are, and always have been, the projector.
The Story We Swallow
This is where most of us miss the mark. We swallow the story that life happens to us, that we’re here to find answers out there, or wait to be picked, or to chase for a feeling that never quite lands. That old trap of helplessness is familiar and quiet. But the answers, and the world itself, begin inside. If your frequency is anxious, rushed, ashamed, you’ll see a brittle, judging world. If you shift your internal state, even by just a breath, the day can tilt. What you see follows.
A Practice
So try this. Before your phone, before you are anyone to anyone else, step outside (or just stand by the window). Breathe in slowly for a count of four. Let it fill your back, your belly. Breathe out even slower, for six or seven. Let the world meet you in this pause. Thirty seconds. Sixty, if you can manage. See if the world softens, or brightens, or meets you a little differently than yesterday. Don’t force it. Just notice.
Walk outside. Before the world intrudes, notice what radiates out, not just in.
