Yoga Olmeca IV: Constructing a Monumental Life

The Olmec city of La Venta has both warrior intimidation entrance and also a geek stimulation entrance, so dorks now rush in where savages once feared to even tread. There’s no pen holder bulging from my shirt or toilet paper dangling from my pants. Still, I proudly show my university professor ID for free admission and then bounce through the doorway into the tourist museum with unsightly glee.

During previous visits, I microanalized every exhibit. But this time I’ve persuaded an actual live girl to accompany me, so I shuffle rapidly (if glumly) across the nerd cathedral and out onto the grounds of the archaeological site. My lady sighs with relief. We circle the ruins, until we reach a dense patch of jungle that extends 15 kilometers to the sea, over which ancient warriors dragged heavy canoes and trade goods to visit the Olmec metropolis. This is the real entrance to La Venta. We’re retracing the steps of prehistoric tourists who visited the urban zone during the Middle Preclassic from 1000 – 400 BC.

One cannot grasp Olmec artifacts in a museum without seeing the original context and placement, because such art has a strong message and huge dramatic element. This city entrance was a theater of intimidation. The artwork had a clear message: respect our might, respect our leaders, tread carefully and offer appropriate gifts.

How did the Olmec say all that with just stone? Emerging from rainforest at the edge of the city, ancient travelers almost immediately encountered a line of colossal stone heads then a wall of chubby stone columns. These municipal ruler portraits are difficult to transport with current technology. Their formation and alignment must have both mystified and astonished out-of-town visitors, as they do hordes of museum goers today.

The bulwark of columns would have provided guards a safe spot to repel invaders and would have denied a rapid coastal retreat to guests who became unwelcome. Crossing this threshold meant submission to Olmec society. Inside the wall, a main pyramid dominated the skyline and loomed over the lengthy approach, where a human sculpture knelt midway to extend gift-giving hands. Didn’t bring a gift? Might wanna go get one!

Just past all the kneeling and offering is a stone shaman in seated meditation posture gazing eye to eye with a sculpted woman on the other side in yoga’s standing mountain pose. Whatever your gift, prayer couldn’t hurt either! While some view the Olmec as primitive in their sparse usage of written language, these folks didn’t need an abundance of words to make their point. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Big heads and border walls (whether of Olmec rulers or American presidents) seem a tad stone age, nevertheless disrespecting the laws and cultures of places one travels to is also a bit uncivilized. A word (or a sculpture) to the wise.

The city’s stone column wall construction didn’t just guard the urban boundary. It also fenced off a private zone reserved for sacred rituals and elite burials, because travelers were entering through the exclusive northern precincts not the teeming residential sprawl at the southern end. Migrants were honored guests. If they came in peace and with respect, they were valued sources of hard-to-obtain goods and information. Wise folks relish meeting travelers to learn about the world. Some provincials view anyone who knows something they don’t as suspicious and worthy of keeping an eye on. So, wise travelers know when to keep the travel tales to themselves.

I trudge up the main pyramid that is central to this city of the Americas thus foundational to the civilizations of the Americas plus the orientation of the billion lives that have been lived or will be lived in this hemisphere. The dirt slope is steep and quite crumbly. A few overeager steps forward result in a slide or tumble backward, like the old childhood game of chutes and ladders. Many of us not only play that game in our youth but with our youth. Hasty careless missteps often thwart us in our life journeys. Yet, people can also glean wisdom from mistakes and improve.

The better known pyramids in Mesoamerica are made of stone, because cultures discovered more durable construction methods. Individual people can also acquire superior methods for constructing a monumental life rather than a crumbling ruin. Still, access to better life technology means nothing unless it is fully embraced and applied. While the world needs good people more than smart people, intelligence is in far greater supply than wisdom.

Many people construct their lives like New York skyscrapers. Faith, fitness, family, and finance are all separate building projects. Some developments soar to lofty heights, but others remain unstable desolations. Eventually, the neglected areas erode the foundations of our big achievements. Then, the storms of life topple everything – like the parable of the carpenter Jesus.

All the boring irrelevant church gatherings I was forced to attend as a child would have been worth it, had I only grasped the profundity of a corny children’s song based on that parable: “The wise man built his house upon the rock, but the foolish man built his house upon the sand. The rain came down and the flood came up, then the wise man’s house stood firm, but the foolish man’s house went crash.”

In a superficial world, it’s easy to neglect the unquantifiable aspects of a balanced life till debt, divorce, disease or depression demands all our attention and renders our well-built projects moot. Growing up in The United States taught me how to be productive, but life in Mexico taught me how to be happy.

I’ve given up erecting skyscrapers to duplicate the ancient pyramids. The object is not to build the tallest or gaudiest pyramid. Rather to build a balanced and durable monument. Most of the Mesoamerican pyramids had temples on top made of perishable material. However, time has obliterated them. Most visitors don’t know they were ever there. You can build whatever little bamboo and palm shrines you want atop your pyramid, but the supportive structure must be rock solid. Pursue all hobbies you wish, once you’ve laid a good life foundation, but never allow them to distract from an unfinished or cracking up faith, health, marriage, or budget. Lay well and prioritize these four steps of your pyramid, then the layers will support each other, making the totality of your life sturdier and higher and more artistically elegant.

I descend the southern face of the dirt pyramid. Here sit two stone monuments: a rectangular slab ruler’s throne next to another colossal stone head ruler’s portrait. The placement is reminiscent of San Lorenzo. Yet, this portrait gazes across a vast plaza (suitable for public assemblies, team sports, or religious festivals) to make eye contact with a jaguar sculpture emerging from the rainforest on the other side.

The message is clear. Our ferocious cat is lord of the jungle but our Olmec ruler is the big dog downtown. The assembled urbanites had reason for their submissive domestication. Just as ancient wild dogs traded romping in the forest for the cozy fire and tasty meat of a human settlement, these civilized savages lived in suburbs around the plaza with aqueduct plumbing and a diet of corn, beans, squash, yucca, fish, deer, turtles, and crocodiles from the swampy rivers encircling the island hub. Both the jaguar and the ruler were terrifying. However, only one gave the people bread and circuses. Life in the city was less difficult and more entertaining.

How could Olmec have foreseen that their urbanization would lead to future city slickers so domesticated they’d forget how to cook real food, build primal bodies, make animal love, or feel natural awe? How could they prophecy that we’d be so ignorant of history thus so ungrateful for all the eons, generations, blood, sweat, and tears it took to build the massive foundation on which we can quickly and simply construct an artful blissful life. How did we become so weak and spoiled?

Over the past few years, I’ve hired numerous gringos to be university professors in Mesoamerica.  Most are physically fit and financially sound, but few are spiritually content or even emotionally stable. I usually promise that if they spend a few years teaching locals how to access the global economy, locals will teach them how to be happy. The reactions are consistent. They assume I’m offering a politically correct platitude with no actual meaning or they feel it’s politically incorrect for me to note their neurotic misery, though most people here can detect it from across the street. Almost none have the humility to admit a need and the teachability to accept a foreign guru.                                                                                                      

Readers who adopt such openness are now invited to complete an apprenticeship under Olmec master builders and then to construct a monumental life. These old school American shaman conjured up aqueducts, cornbread, and compasses about the time old world miracle worker Jesus offered up the water of life, the bread of life, and the way to navigate life. Good maps are hard to find.

Where we stumble onto the path of abundant living is less essential than whether we find it. Since I’m now meandering Mesoamerica and life is short, I was happy to discover an abundant life map here and am happy to share it. If you've enjoyed this Yoga Olmeca series and want to schedule some personal or group training in the Yoga Olmeca art of abundant living, contact me at lynfuchs@gmail.com. In whatever jungle you find yourself, may you be blessed with the life force of the jaguar.