It’s Thanksgiving and I just polished off a bowl of black beans with hatch green chilies over a bed of fresh, raw spinach. Guapo rested by me and my simple dinner after gobbling his own kibble. We both like how silent our old building is today… We both are enjoying the solitude and peace today offers and we soak up energy infused in the air in this dusty and chilly Old Pueblo: Tucson.

We can feel the gathering and eating that produces deep pleasure. The act of being together is permeating and infecting the air with love and Guapo and I smile at this blessing. We, humans and dogs, naturally love being together; and that is why this day of Abundance, this Giving Thanks Day is so precious. In the end, it’s just about gathering around those that you love the most and sharing what you have with them.

Today I share with all of you my series of photos from the trip I just returned from late last night. My beautiful and loving partner, Alok, and I went to celebrate my mother’s 60ith birthday in Puerto Vallarta, Mèxico. We also went to spend a few days in my childhood village: Yelapa.

Yelapa is where my fondest memories live and where my feet feel the richest in her roots. Even though my child-hood friendships have changed and I only recognise a handful of sweet, compassionate faces. Yelapa and I still share a heart-felt connection as soon as my bare feet step out of the panga, or boat, onto her white sand shore.

In Puerto Vallarta, I marvel at the rapid change occurring. I spent many of my childhood weekends in this city. It only loosely resembles the one-gas-station and one-stop-light city of my memories. In the place of old mango orchards are Sam’s Clubs and Walmarts. On the street corner where an old viejito in a cowboy hat sits in the shade is the most enormous Carl’s Junior I have ever seen in my life. Dominoes Pizza, McDonald and Burger king have full parking lots and chubby people lining up to have a taste of America. There is also a new plague that I have noticed on the streets of Vallarta: Oxxo. A little convenience store much like our Circle K’s but without the gas pumps. These Oxxo’s are everywhere and I cannot help but wonder:

Migrants are crossing with dreams of making a living, all their faith in La Virgen de Guadalupe and too often dying on the desert floor in Arizona. Oxxo’s on every corner and sometime two to a corner in Puerto Vallarta selling Coke and chips are most obviously thriving…

Migrants are dying. Oxxo’s are thriving.

What can i do?

I am just finishing up reading “Crossing with the Virgin”. It is written by 3 Samaritans from Tucson and consist of heart wrenching stories that they have personally heard from migrants.

“Over the past 10 years, more than 4000 people have died while crossing the Arizona desert to find jobs, join families or start new lives. Other migrants tell of the corpses they pass–bodies that are never recovered or counted”. — Crossing with the Virgin

This particular group searches out migrants in the vast and merciless southern Arizonan and offers to them gifts of water and bags of food and basic medical attention to the ones in need. The stories from “Crossing with the Virgin” touch a very sensitive and tear-producing cord in my heart. (Apart from the fact that La Virgen de Guadalupe has always been my favorite Goddess). Growing up in Yelapa, I heard countless, yes countless tales of the terrible situations migrant face from the older brothers, tios and tias of my classmates and friends… It terrified me then, it relentlessly tugs at my heart now and is pushing me into action of compassion.

Women and children are dying in the desert not 30, 40, 50 miles from where I type these words on this beautiful Thanks Giving night. I ate my black beans in the migrant’s honor today. I want to live simply so that I can truly and wholly be tremendously grateful for the abundance I have in my life. So that I do not forget to be humble and grateful for this life where I have all the freedom I need to do what I love as a single woman of 31 years. I want not to forget my blessing of making money with my hands and with my eyes, I want to always honor that I have a clean apartment in a beautiful old building with running hot water, air conditioning and heating; a happy and fat golden retriever snoring at my feet…

I want to always remember the abundance and ease of life so that with my heart’s attention and my spirit’s passion, I can use my energy to help heal, pray and love my brothers and sisters crossing the desert floor tonight in hopes of living their authentic dream.

Let us rejoice in our abundance.

I am so thankful for you, I am honored to have this life, and I rejoice that I have this ability to share my love for photography with you and that YOU take the divine, delicious time to read and to look.

Aho!