The Rainbow House - Casa Acozamalotl
A podcast from the borderland of spirituality, race, identity, and community, the Rainbow House highlights the voices of mixed race and minority people who choose a spiritual path other than Christianity or generic spirituality. Walk with those of us who are looking at our heritage and hoping to craft healing, fight injustice, and honor our ancestors and ourselves!
The Rainbow House - Casa Acozamalotl
Lannan, Digital Wisdom Keeper
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Dive into a rich conversation with Lannan, an artist, wisdom keeper, and moderator of the Mexica religious subreddit and related Discord server. Join me in exploring Lan's unique perspective on polytheism, his personal journey to veneration of the Mexica Teteo, the evolving landscape of spiritual communities in digital space, and more.
Referenced in the conversation:
https://www.reddit.com/r/religion/comments/le2qs7/i_worship_aztec_gods_ama/
Welcome
Nicte-HaPia Ali, welcome, bienvenidos to another episode of the Rainbow House. Today you're listening to an interview that was recorded earlier in the summer with my good friend Lan, who is an artist and a wisdom keeper and a digital shepherd for those of us who are connecting and reconnecting through the internet. Please enjoy. I did this little poll from the Jade Oracle, and four cards popped up. So we have some very interesting cards. The first one that came out is the one that always pops up, and it's La Grandiosa, the great goddess. So she's made appearances in several of my previous episodes. So this is kind of exciting. And then we have the Jaguar. If I'm saying that right. And then you also, we also interestingly got Tochtli, the rabbit, and Shilonen, the young corn. Ooh. So we have some kind of cool ones here. Do you have this deck?
LannanI don't have that deck. No, I haven't actually bought a deck in a long time. Um I've been eyeballing the mini one, though, for a few years now.
Nicte-HaYeah, I know. And I I bought it because I don't really do a lot of tarot work, but I liked that they were sort of oracle decks, so I didn't have to feel like I had to do all these crazy spreads and all this interpretation. I felt like I could do sort of just like pull a couple and it would inspire thoughts or emotions um or like inspire questions or give me a little bit of internal guidance around what I'm talking about when I'm talking to somebody or doing writing or something.
LannanYeah, I like the less structured decks a lot.
Nicte-HaYeah. Dan, I'm so excited to have you. Um, I feel like we have known each other for a long time, although we haven't ever really talked in real life. Side effect of modern life. So um I have been asking my guests to just give a short introduction to the listeners of the podcast and just give a brief statement about who you are, where you're from, and any other things you want to share or on an introductory basis.
LannanYeah, basically, I just want to start off by saying thank you for having me. I know this this getting me on getting me on the pod has been a long time coming. So I just I appreciate you continuously reaching out to me to see if I'm free to do this. So that's that's much appreciated. Um my name is Lenan. I go by Lan a lot of the time. I'm a Chicano from originally from Los Angeles. I now live in British Columbia. Um, I have been a practicing polytheist for the majority of my life now, since I was, I think, 11 or 12 years old. Um, been moving through different traditions, uh different uh pantheons, I guess we'll call them, uh different just ways of sort of uh different like cultural approaches to worship and stuff. And but it wasn't until like 2010, 2011, I started approaching Islamic spirituality through the traditions of the Yucatec Maya colonial era stuff. I was introduced to the deity Chuck, and I've sort of been a devoted uh follower of Chuck's for many years now. But I did it wasn't until 2020 that I really kind of got the push that I needed to look a little closer to home, which is the uh Aztecs and Chicayot and uh that whole thing. I I got the push from my ancestors. So they're like, Yeah, you need you need to come home. You need to come home for a bit. So that's kind of what brought me onto this path. Um sorry, would you say?
Nicte-HaNo, I'm just curious. So when you when you say that you were introduced to Chuck, especially in in college, you know, was that through conversations with your classmates, through academic study, or just dreams, or kind of what was the what was the genesis? Because I know people might not know this, but because especially right now, a lot of people think that most of the folks in in LA are from Mexico, which is true, but there's also a lot of Central American um immigrants and refugees from Central America, from Guatemala and from areas that have been more at that that were historically were Maya. The Mayan people are still around, folks. Very much so. And so what how were you introduced to Choc at that time?
LannanI was actually going to school in New York City at the time, and I was um I took a Latin American art class, and it was mostly focusing on uh contemporary, contemporary arts uh from the 20th century. But we did get sort of a crash course in some of the pre-Columbian history and and a lot of like uh Mexican Revolution era art, the political stuff. So that was really cool. But then like something just really grabbed me about the um the pre-Columbian Maya artistic tradition, specifically like the sculpture and relief work, um, just really just dug in my brain. And so I started collecting books, art books, just these beautiful, beautiful, you know, like museum quality books, just full of photographs of of all kinds of archaeological pieces and stuff, and and reading about them. And um the the deities just kind of also started to grab me. But folks familiar with polytheistic spiritual practices uh will kind of know what I'm saying when I say that I approached them more than they approached me. And so I I learned, I learned a lot, and I did some worship of them. And then after a while, they were like, you know, okay, you know, you're you're very cute, but you know, we're you we're not your people, you're not our people. So you should probably keep moving, keep learning. And so I stopped and and Chuck was the only one that stuck around. And at that time, there was, you know, yeah, a lot of dreams, a lot of subtle, more woo-woo kind of things, messages that I was getting. So that solidified that relationship for me. And I think that the reason that Chalk kind of stuck around is because he's part of a very ancient complex of deities that spans the entire region. So, in a way, he is more, I'd say, more versatile, more adaptable. Um, and his embodiments, his nature, it goes very, very, very deep into history. And so I can kind of carry him wherever I go, basically. I think is the best way to say that.
Nicte-HaIs is Chak because Chak is rain, right? Rain god.
LannanRain, storms, hurricanes, his there we go. There's the words, there's the words that I'm I'm forgetting. That's okay. One of his other names is Hunakan, so that's where we get the the actual word hurricane from. So at least to the the lowland, the lowland maya, he was hurricanes specifically. Also groundwater, because in the Yucatec area it's all the limestone shelf, right? And so there's really not much in the way of rivers or lakes or streams, but you have the cenotes, and that's where most of the fresh water is. And so he he's actually, you know, both the rain and also terrestrial water, which is very interesting too, um, because he sort of embodies this binary duality within himself as an individual god, which is very interesting to me. Whereas most of the other deities, they have, you know, they have wives and husbands and partners and things to embody that duality, right? But he embodies it within himself.
Nicte-HaAnd is he related to Tlaloc at all? Is that because Thlaloc is also rain, right? So is Tlaloc connected to that larger Yes, absolutely.
LannanYes. They both came from, you know, they both have the same origins basically. But they there's a there's a um there's a graphic that I'm thinking of that I've found in a couple different books that sort of shows the evolution of the deity um or the deities through sculpture and their manifestation through sculpture throughout time. And you know, you can kind of go back and see kind of around when they separated from each other, and you get these other deities like Kosiho, and yeah, I'm not remembering the other ones, but uh, yeah, there's all these different rain deities, and they all really came from the same place originally. Um, and with Chak and Tlalok specifically, it's really interesting because they both technically existed at the same time, just separated by distance. And there was a point in history where Lalok's cultus um was reintroduced to the same region where Chak still existed. And it was very interesting to read like how they were treated differently, even though they they came from the same place. Yeah, Thalok became instead of like a rain deity, they saw him as this deity of like meteor showers and sort of things falling from the night sky as opposed to just rain. So those that was like really interesting.
Nicte-HaSo you said that you've been a polytheist since you were pretty young. And I think, you know, a lot of us folks who are on this spiritual journey outside of Christianity in European colonial countries start to seek pretty early. And so were you raised in a traditional Catholic family? And how did that journey start for you into exploring polytheism?
LannanWell, that's such a good question. Um, when I was really young, my family went to Catholic Mass. My dad was not Catholic. My dad was my dad was white. He came from he came from Christian science, actually. That was his childhood, which is a whole, which is a whole other thing. Um, but uh yeah, so like with my like my grandmother's generation, my grandmother's was, you know, Catholic when I was younger, and she's not Catholic anymore. Her sister uh was pretty atheist. So like my great aunt is very atheist. I don't know what religion actually, you know, my grandmother's generation was raised with. I don't know if they went to like mass every Sunday, but I know I do have big parts of the family that are still very Catholic. You know, they still do the baptisms and stuff, um, still do godparents and things like that. But sort of my my arm of the family that I spent more time with, um, not so religious, actually, not so Catholic. Like my mom and my grandmother are still Christian, but they're not Catholic, no. So it wasn't, it wasn't that I I feel like Catholicism at least kind of primed me a little bit for polytheism, you know, with all the saints and stuff, right? So there's sort of like a it's sort of like a gateway drug there.
Nicte-HaYeah, I think the other Christian denominations would agree with you. That's why they did away with the saints and the and the uh they find them very highly suspicious, I think the Lutherans and the Methodists and the Baptists of the world.
LannanYeah, right. Just don't get them started on the Trinity.
Nicte-HaRight, right, right.
LannanBut I just I remember being like a little kid and like I loved going to church. Like I loved, I loved religion when I was a little kid. Um and I loved going into houses of worship because they felt um they felt separate from the mundane world, which is what they're intended to to be, right? I just remember going up to uh um I don't know, I must have been like four or five or something, going up to um uh an altar in a Catholic church, I don't know, on a weekday or something. Nobody was there. And I remember like bringing some rocks with me. And I'm like, oh, I'm gonna give these to Jesus or I'm gonna whatever, give these to God or something. And so I like put them, like I stashed them somewhere near the altar, and uh that was like my offering. I made an offering because that made sense to me, right? Like I am I am given things I want to give back, right? And so that sort of animistic, polytheistic head space has just always been with me. And a lot of kids, I think most kids probably have that innate sense of the world in them, and then they just, you know, they grow out of it or they are talked out of it, or you know, society imposes different values on them or or what have you. But like that's that's most people have that sensibility when they're young. I just never grew out of it, never had the decency to grow out of it.
Nicte-HaDo you think that it made it easier for you to explore the polytheism growing up with your immediate family being less bound into one Chris like solidly Catholic or solidly Christian? Because I do think that atheists' parents and families can be as dogmatic in their own way sometimes as ultra-religious families, because they're they do not believe in a god, period. So I think in some ways that can be just almost as inflexible as being a religious conservative. So do you think that it made it a little bit easier, or did you just not talk about it with your family when you started exploring that? What was that like?
LannanYeah, there wasn't. I kept it very private just because it like I didn't know how to talk about it because I had a lot of very personal, very intense experiences. And a lot of people in the Western world aren't, they don't know how to talk about those kinds of spiritual experiences either. They just, you know, even if they are very devout, we we don't really have the language to talk about, you know, I'm I'm having a conversation with a god. Most people, you know, even even like devout Christians are gonna be like, uh, have you talked to your doctor? Like that's gonna be like most of what they think, right? Um, so I just didn't really have the common language to discuss what it is that I was doing and experiencing. Um, but on in a more general sense, um, if my mom freaked out, I was like, I was like 11 and 12, and I, you know, I brought home a copy of the witch's Bible, like this big, thick, black book, right? Like she flipped out. She was really scared for a while. But yeah, right. You know, I don't blame her. Like, I I made these like new friends, these new weird, kind of sketchy friends that came from like broken homes. So just like, oh god, what is my kid getting into? So I really don't blame her. It was like a year of her like fighting me on, and that I just like I'm like, no, this is my religion. And I kept at it, and it wasn't a phase, and she just had to accept it. What did my dad do? My dad, uh, my parents are divorced at the time. So, like, my dad, I think he he told me he looked up like what the US Army had to say on Wicca or something. Like he looked up, yeah, he looked up like the US military guide to like Wicca, and that's how we learned about it.
Nicte-HaThat that was your father's authority. He was like, Well, let's see what the army says about all this. I mean, yeah, exactly. It's like, okay, well, it's military.
LannanNo, I don't think he's ever even held a gun in his life.
Nicte-HaBut he's you know, he's a card-carrying Republican, so I guess that's that's hilarious. I mean, they do have pagan chaplains, or at least they did until very recently. Who knows what's happening now? But I know they did have pagan chaplains.
LannanYeah, they did. And there were pagan service members. I mean, there's I'm sure that they're still pagan service members. I don't again, I don't yeah, I don't know what their status is, but um there's been pagan service members, openly pagan service members for a long time. Um, you know, and Wicca was big in the 90s and early 2000s, and that's kind of what I'm I'm sure most of the openly pagan people were back then, and now we have, you know, openly uh, you know, Nordic polytheists and stuff like that, and Greek polytheists and stuff there now. But yeah, that was that was my dad who's like, oh well, you know, sounds fine to me.
Nicte-HaSorry, that's really funny.
LannanYeah, my dad for you.
Nicte-HaYeah, so um, so that's interesting to be an atheist republican.
LannanThat's an interesting combination given to actually know what he believes, and I don't know if he knows what he believes either. Right. Like he's sort of open about things. Like when my parents divorced, like he went back to his childhood um Christian Science Church and revisited that, and then he dragged me to a couple other different kinds of churches, and he was just kind of like, I don't know, figuring stuff out. But I don't, I don't know. I I would say that he probably is functionally atheist.
Nicte-HaI think a lot of people are functionally atheists, they're kind of culturally Christian, right? But they're not really practicing. And if you pinned them down and said, Do you actually think that there's a bearded man in the sky who is the only being who judged everything, I think many people would say, Well, no. I mean, that's borne out by all the research done, Pew research and all of that, over the declining religiosity of Americans. But but I think that that that cultural that's part of why I started the podcast was because to push back against that sort of default cultural assumption that you're either a Christian because you believe in God, or you're an atheist because you don't, and that there isn't anything really in between that. Because when you say I'm a religious person or I'm a people have sort of gotten around that by saying I'm a spiritual person, but then I think that that's just squishy cop-out for a lot of people. I might get some hate for that. I don't know. All six of my listeners will get mad at me.
LannanThat's a whole conversation right there. Like spiritual but not religious.
Nicte-HaSpiritual but not religious. And I just think to myself, there's gotta be more to that conversation. Can't there, there's gotta be more thought behind that if you're going to do that. Because yeah. So, well, that that's very interesting. So when you started, were you drawn? You were Wiccan initially, because I I feel very very connected here because when I was in high school, this is the mid-90s, so about 10 years earlier than you. When I was in high school, it was all Scott Cunningham, Silver Raven Wolf, you know, the all of those. And so it was all very much eclectic, eclectic paganism. I couldn't be Wiccan because there weren't any covens around for me to join. And I wasn't super sure about the sky clad thing and all of that. I was also too young, honestly. Oh. Um, I think I used Wiccan as like a shorthand, but I definitely started with those books, although it didn't really continue in that vein. And so did you did you start Wiccan sort of Celtic paganism as your default? Was that where you began? And did that how long were you on with that with that group of deities?
LannanI'll just say like everything that you just said was like, oh man, that was yeah, no, that was it. That was me for like three years. It was like my first three very intensive years, is going through all of that. Oh my god, I haven't heard Silver Raven Wolf's name in years. Oh, blast from the past. Um, yeah, no, I I called myself Wiccan because that was like the only word that I really knew how to describe what this secret third thing was that wasn't Abrahamic and wasn't atheist. Um, yeah, so I called myself Wiccan, even though I didn't really follow what the religion outlined whatsoever. Um, yeah, I read all those same books. I was reading Cunningham and and Silver Raven Wolf and basically whatever I can get my hands on by whatever fly by night author was out there. I didn't really do much of anything with the the sort of starter pack of Celtic deities, although that was sort of just like the water that I was swimming in either way. My my first deities were actually Egyptian, where they were comedic. Uh real, I had a real affinity for the animal heads. I I somebody gave me like a statue of like Fast, and just like, yes, I love this. And so I had Fast and Anubis as my quote patrons for a couple years. Um I was doing I was doing all kinds of stuff. I was more experimenting with like land spirits and house spirits and ecstatic practices, trance states, and I didn't know that's what any of it was uh at the time. But um, yeah, yeah. And then and then in high school, I kind of like I moved away from my friends that I was doing all this research and practice with. They've they moved out of town, so I and I went to a uh a different high school from all of them. So I'm like, I kind of lost my connection.
Nicte-HaLan was explaining uh his, I'm sorry, I didn't even ask. Are your pronouns I keep asking people? He, him.
LannanHe, him, yeah.
Nicte-HaYes. So Lan was explaining his starter pack of deities, and I got so excited about one of his starter pack of deities being Bastet that I, because I also was a Bastet fan, still am. She's wonderful. And I have a statue that I wanted to show Lan of Bast. And then I lunged out of my seat while he was talking and I tripped on microphone cord and everything went boom. So there's gonna be a little bit of an introduction in our or an interruption in our recording. Okay, so you were drawn to Bastet and the comedic deities. All right, let's go.
LannanYeah.
Nicte-HaYeah.
LannanUm, yeah, I don't remember. I don't remember what it was.
Nicte-HaIt's okay. So you you said you were drawn to Bastet. It wasn't the Celtic starter pack.
LannanYeah.
Nicte-HaYou were initially drawn to the comedics. So where did that, where did that come out of? And was it only Bastet or was it like the full everybody toast raw? What was the draw?
LannanI was super drawn to Bastet because I was given a children's book when I was younger. I must have been like seven or eight, and it was a children's book, and all the illustrations were painted on and it was super cool. It was about this temple girl who served in the temple of Bastet, and this you know, big evil grumpy lord comes along and he's grumpy about something, and he accidentally kills one of the temple cats, and this girl is devastated, and so then she goes on this adventure to the underworld. I don't remember exactly why, but both her and the grumpy lord are going through the underworld, and I think she's trying to get the cat spirit back or something, and then they have their hearts weighed and everything, and then the grumpy lord, his heart is eaten by Amut, and he's defeated in the end. But I just thought it was so cool. Like I had never, ever, ever seen just an honest depiction of somebody in a polytheist culture before and uh worshiping a deity, and I thought that was the dopest shit. And so I when I was like eight years old, I actually started worshiping Bastet for a little while. Like I had little shrine sword in the backyard and everything. So that's kind of where that started. Like I didn't I didn't do it for very long, but that's where that started. So it's like as soon as I had my more grown-up opportunity to participate in paganism, I'm like, I know who I'm going to.
Nicte-HaYes, I think, I mean, I was always fascinated. I love now, my daughter is seven, and she went through this period of just being obsessed with mythology. I'm sure she's gonna go in and out of that because who's not obsessed with mythology and and and history of those kinds of stories. So, but she has the DK books on Norse mythology, Egyptian mythology, and Greek mythology. And we she we've read them multiple times, cover to cover, all the gods, their stories, and it also gave her this atlas of world religions that's that's really fun. So, but I love what I love about reading all three of them is you can clearly see the kind of cultural and societal differences in the way that the stories are structured and the lessons they're teaching. When you read them, it's really interesting. Like all of the Egyptian stories, well, not all of them, but the Egyptian stories, like the story about Ra and kingship. It's this very complicated, but it's all a kind of a justification for the divine right of kings, right? So kingship is is a divine is from the gods. Like the gods became were the kings and then they gave it to the descendants, right? And then the Norse mythologies are these just like chaotic, insane stories. I'm sorry, I'm I don't want to offend any Norse pagans.
LannanI don't think you will. I really don't think.
Nicte-HaOh my god. These are definitely stories that somebody just was like, and then the horse had eight legs, and people around the fire are like, ooh, eight legs, you know. Um that horse can run really fast. Right. And it was not, it turns out that the thunder god disguised himself as a woman and wed the giant and then killed him. You're like, what? So, and then you have the Greeks who are all about like cheating and backstabbing and sleeping around. Like it's just really wild to read them all next to each other and think about what stories that culture is telling themselves about human behavior through the lens of these of these stories. So did you also look at Hellenic gods and do that detour as well? Um kind of on your on your path of exploration?
LannanUm, I didn't really. I kind of I kind of just sort of went right around that one. Which is funny because that was like the only compendium of myths that I actually had was like Greek myths.
Cultural Connections: Navigating Identity and Heritage
LannanUm I thought they were cool. Uh the myths were always really interesting to me. Um I mean, there's there's there's so much in the Western art canon about them. So many beautiful paintings and and you know, prints, woodcuts, plays, you know, whatever, everything. So it's like we're still kind of swimming in in Greek mythos. Uh, and I think kind of maybe by that by that reasoning, it it didn't stand out to me as anything especially especially emotionally interesting because it was just sort of always there. So the deities themselves, they didn't really grab me in any special way. I thought they were cool, but yeah, kind of kind of just avoided that one altogether.
Nicte-HaSo you you mentioned that your family, sorry, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna pivot kind of abruptly, but well not really abruptly, but I'm just gonna pivot and just say, you know, you mentioned that your your father's white and uh presumably your mother's mexicana. Is she was she born in Mexico or is her family from Mexico and she was born in the United States, or what's the what's the connection there? And then how much of a relationship with Mexico did you have when you were growing up?
LannanThat's a good question. I didn't have a super strong connection to Mexico. My family that's why that's part of the reason why I call myself Chicanos, because like my family um has my family is in like the Pasadena area for like generations since like you know the turn of the century. Like my my great grandmother was born there. I probably would have had a much stronger connection to the country if my if if my mom and I had a better relationship with her dad because you know he w he his his family, they were a family of braceros. So uh he was born he was born in Aguas Calientes, you know, he still had a bunch of family there, but uh my mom, just due to some unfortunate family circumstances, like my mom was kind of estranged for most of her life until um I was like three teen. It's kind of like when I started really getting introduced, reintroduced to that side of the family and getting to know my grandfather. But unfortunately that connection is is pretty weak. Like my mom doesn't even know really any Spanish. My grandmother doesn't know very much Spanish either, because like my great-grandparents, they, you know, being in the Pasadena area, they were redlined. Um, this is back in the the 40s and 50s, right? So they were redlined and I don't know exactly what the decision was. Uh I don't know how much it was talked about, but they decided not to raise their kids with Spanish. So they wanted them to they wanted them to assimilate basically as much as possible. Just because they yeah, I'm just I'm assuming that they they suffered. They suffered a lot. And you know, even my my grandmother suffered a lot when she was younger, um, you know, medically. Like she almost she almost died giving birth to my mom due to like medical negligence and stuff and and just casual racism, right? Back in the back in the 60s. So I don't like I'm sad. I'm sad that uh Spanish is just not part of, you know, this part of the family. Like that there, I like I have a bunch of cousins that have, you know, married other Latinos and other Chicanos and stuff, and you know, their partners know Spanish and their families know Spanish and stuff, but like my part of the family, we just don't, and it's sad. But I I understand the historical reasons for why um you know why that is, and it's you know, comes down to racism, certainly don't but I have a very strong connection to California, basically. Um very, very strong connection to LA and the desert out there. God, I miss the desert so much. But like that's you know, California is is that's where home will always be, even you know, if my aunt's Ancestors came from Mexico. I don't know. It's a it's a comp it's a complicated thing, not being a recent immigrant, being like a fourth generation American, right?
Nicte-HaSo Yeah, I mean, I think we're so used about we're so used to thinking of the Mexican experience. At least I am through my own family lens, because my family are more recent Mexican immigrants. My grandfather was born in Mexico. I actually was born in Mexico, but that's because my dad was in Mexico for school, medical school. So I was born in Mexico, I was born in Puebla. But like my grandmother, her mother was from Guanajuato, but she was born in San Bernardino. But I think we're so used to thinking, and I'm so used to thinking about the Mexican experience, especially in California as a recent one, one of immigration, right? You're right. It that thought and that cultural narrative erases the fact that California was Mexico.
LannanYeah, right.
Nicte-HaIt was part of Mexico for like a few hundred years. And so even if your family came from Mexico, they could have come, you know, in the 1700s or the 1800s, or, you know, before the before the turn of the century, before it was actually California, even.
LannanYou know, the Tejanos, right?
Nicte-HaYeah, the Tejanos, right? And and all of the big ranches that were owned by by Mexicans before California was acquired by the US. So yeah, it uh you're right. Thank you for pointing that out. I mean, I know you but it it's something that I forget because the cultural conversation is so focused on erasing that part of history, I think that's I mean, and I get it.
LannanAnd there's there's obviously more, there's more recent immigrants than not. And and the conversation is about them because they, you know, they they suffer the brunt of the system because it's like, you know, people like my family, you know, a lot of us still look very brown and some of us don't. Like I don't, like I'm still I'm I'm extremely white passing, and you know, I sound like a white guy and I live like a white guy for the most part, right? But um so it's like when I when I tell people, it's like I have to like come out as Chicano. And then there's that whole, it's God, it's the whole bullshit thing of like, well, if you're gonna say that you're Mexican American, we're gonna put you to the test. We're gonna test you. Um, I'm like, I'm gonna fail that test. I'm gonna fail that test. I'm sorry. I always have, you know, my mom did too. But that's also kind of like the white passing slash mixed race experience of like, you know, you're never gonna be white enough to be white, and you're never gonna be brown enough to be brown.
Nicte-HaRight. Everybody's got a test for you to pick. You gotta pick.
LannanYeah, exactly.
Nicte-HaYou gotta be this or that, or you have to be enough of one or the other. And we get it from, I think one of the things that is complicated about the multi-race experience is we get it, like as you said, from inside of our culture, from our own people. And then also from, well, I guess technically white people are also my people, but we get it from from all sides of our people. They're like, hmm, show me, right? I think that's partly why I'm I'm very grateful I speak Spanish, but I'm not, I'm not teaching it to my kids. Their dad's white. And I think to myself, I'm like, is this it? Is this like where, you know, I can show them, I can teach them, I can tell them that you have this connection to your ancestors and that are not all your ancestors came from Europe, right? But are they gonna feel that because the cultural connection is so much about family and so much about land and so much about just non things you can't teach, right? Non, non-teachable experiences like dancing in the kitchen with your cousins or your aunts, tacumbia, you know, backyard barbecues, all that. It's just it's part of the, like you said, the water that you move in, right? The air that you're that you're moving through that you absorb. And I think, I don't know if my kids are gonna choose, right? They're gonna be more white passing than me. I think I'm mostly whitepassing if I'm in Iowa or Idaho. But for sure, you know, I get the question, oh, yeah, how's your Spanish so good? And I'm like, because I'm Mexican. Really? Yeah, get the same thing.
LannanMan, yeah, like I yeah, I've really uh I almost like got like goosebumps when you're like when you're when you kind of were talking about like, well, like it's this is this the end? Is this how this ends? Like like passing shit on to your kids like that. And it's you like you're totally right. Like the further and further you get from it being part of your daily life and your daily experience and your daily interactions with people, like the more you have to like make the concerted effort and like put elbow grease into it. And you know, like when I was growing up, my my my parents moved out of Pasadena because they wanted me to go to a better school district. So we moved to La Racenta, which is uh Glendale school district, great schools, or so I'm told. And like uh yeah, we we had some cousins there, and you know, I grew up with those cousins, which was great. I'm glad I had I'm glad I had family in in town. But I think we were like one of just like a very tiny handful of like Latino families in the area, but it was still like a very multicultural experience. It was like half white people, yeah, but then the other half were like Armenians, Koreans, like other Middle Eastern folks. And so I was still very much in a very, very multicultural area, which I'm extremely grateful for. I am I am so happy that I was exposed to Korean food as young as I was. So good.
Nicte-HaKorean Mexican food is like one of the best things that's ever come out of the United States. I'm just saying Korean Mexican.
LannanYeah, like Mexican Asian fusion, the best peak, peak cuisine, as far as I'm concerned. But it's but like so, but I didn't, I I had sort of this like unconscious sense that I wasn't like all the white kids, you know, because like I'd go hang out with my my family and we'd be making Mexican food all the time. Or, you know, I'd be dragged to my cousin's house for like the big tamale making weekend every December, or you know, this, that, the other thing. And even just like having that Catholic experience in the family also put me apart from whiteness. But I didn't have a conscious sense of like my Mexican-American identity until I was like in high school. And then I went to high school in LA. I went to Laksa, I went to the arts high school downtown LA. Tons of Latinos, tons of Chicanos going to that school. And and I remember wanting to join Mecha, Mecha Club at school. And I brought it up to my dad. My dad's like, oh no, you can't do that. That's a that, you know, that that's a racist group. They're racist against white people. And I'm like, oh I I mean, like, I I didn't know, I didn't have any racial or ethnic consciousness then. So so I never joined Mecha. And and sometimes I think about like how things would have been different if I did. Like maybe I'd know more Spanish, maybe I'd feel more culturally connected and it wouldn't have taken me this this long.
Nicte-HaWell, it's also your dad labeling you as white, right? Like that sort of demonstrates that your dad's understanding was that you were white and you would be the target of racism.
LannanYeah. Yeah. There's, you know, something about like my family history that he didn't, you know, he didn't want me to discover or he didn't feel it was worth discovering. Um yeah. Yeah, because his family, like when my mom and my dad were,
Artistic Expression: The Intersection of Spirituality and Creativity
Lannanyou know, together when they were younger, um, like his family was like racist to my mom, which is really ironic because my grandmother being very new age, very kind of very in the woo-woo sound healing, remote viewing kind of world, right? Like that level of new age. Like she's always like she loves Mexico. Like Mexico is like one of her favorite places. And she's always said, uh, you know, oh, I feel like in a past life I would have been like living in Teotihuacan. And yet, like her son marries a Latina and fucking racist as shit, right?
Nicte-HaLike, right, right, right. Like she gets to exoticize it if as long as it's like something that's out there.
LannanYeah.
Nicte-HaIt's a very good idea. That you're you're an artist. So can you talk briefly about your art and the medium that you use and anything like that that you'd like to share? I'm curious. You know, it doesn't have to do with the teteo or the or your religion, but I'm just curious about your art and what kind of artist you are.
LannanI like to paint. I'm kind of I've been I've been a painter for like my whole life. Not a very good one, but I love painting. I've done I've done a lot of my own depictions of various deities. Like my primary, my primary shrine has a big painting of shock that I did. Um, yeah, I made my own paint for that one. I made my own casing and and ground up my own. Yeah, I didn't grind the pigment, you know. I I mix mixed my own paints and stuff for that one. I have a watercolor of plazo. So I have fun doing those. Um I have fun painting. Um, I've done some spiritually um inspired painting work, but my real love is comics. My real artistic vice, I call it, is comics. It's like doesn't like my current project, my last project was was me working through some spiritual ideas about myself and spiritual theses that I was sort of arriving at and wanting to convey thematically to other people. But my my current project is is purely self-indulgent. No. Um, I wouldn't say, okay, so I wouldn't say it's purely self-indulgent, but it's also it's not directly spiritual. It's a vehicle for me to talk about, just talk about various things that interest me and I think are important and things that I you know I feel like I have an interesting perspective on. Um so it's it's a poka post-apocalyptic romantic comedy.
Nicte-HaDo tell. Tell more. Are you in the middle of writing it and storyboarding it and doing paint doing drawings for it? Is this something you're gonna publish? Is it like on the web? What's the medium? Okay.
LannanIt's a webcomic. I started writing it like a year and a half ago, year ago. Uh started drawing it about a year ago. I officially hit 150 pages that I've completed as of yesterday, which is holy crap. Sort of my halfway mark. Oh wow. Yeah, I'm really excited. So it's it's gonna be about like a 320-page graphic novel that I'll be posting in webcomic form. So on a website. And then after that, it's gonna turn into like an episodic series with like much shorter stories, like 50-page stories or 60-page stories.
Nicte-HaOh my god, you are like that, you're like serious, you're professional. You know what's interesting when I was talking about cards that I pulled.
LannanUh-huh.
Nicte-HaSo this card is Shilonen. I think I'm seeing that right. Shilonen? Yep. That sounds about right. Spirit of young corn. And listen, when you said it's purely self-indulgent, a deity of sustenance, she was honored at festivals that included singing and dancing, and her priestesses wore garlands of miracles and scattered flowers of the tobacco plant. Lonen can signify youth or a youthful stage of a project, a state of innocence. She reminds you that if you want to have strong stocks and healthy crops, you need to continue nurturing the young plant. Consider making an offering to honor all that nurtures the young corn in yourself. So it sounds to me like you are nurturing all parts of your being and not just the like super serious spiritual ones, right?
LannanI okay. Yeah, maybe I've been called out, called out my kid on me.
Nicte-HaYeah.
LannanIt's so that's wonderful. It's like I like to tell people like I like I when I was like in college, I went to art. I went to art, art school in college. Bad choice. I don't recommend it. Don't, don't do it. Anybody who's listening to this, don't do it. It's not worth it. But I had this idea where it's like, oh, well, if I want to be like a super serious artist, then I need to make super serious art. And only until I hit like 30, I'm like, you know what? I'm tired of making serious stuff. I want to make funny shit. I love writing comedy. I love writing funny interactions between funny characters. And I started watching like Seinfeld more deliberately, like paying attention to like what the writing is and like what they're doing. And I started watching MASH. I love MASH. I'm like, you know, funny is like really powerful. Like, laughter is really powerful. Comedy is amazing. Comedy, there is so much you can do with comedy, and um and and and comedy's power is that it's like it's like the the the pill pocket. Like, if you gotta give like your dog a pill, you wrap it up in this delicious little thing, and then that's how you get the pill in there. So it's like you can you can talk about stuff, like really serious, really grim, really dark things with comedy in a way that you can't in any other way. And I've I'm really appreciating, I'm really appreciating that now in my 30s. And um, I've I really appreciate another deity that I haven't really thought about at all, or a type of deity that I haven't previously thought about at all, which is like Wei Wei Coyot.
Nicte-HaUm deity of just I was just gonna say trickster, your trickster energy maybe is coming out.
LannanSo I feel like I feel like that's me growing up a little bit, going, you know, you know what? Actually, laughing is good.
Nicte-HaSo Chicano is in Chicana as a very, I think like pretty political way of identifying
Indigeneity and Identity: A Personal Reflection
Nicte-Hayourself. I think there's been this effort to really embrace the indigenous side of Chicanismo right. And yeah, there's a big effort to connect deeply with the indigenous side and exploring the Mexica deities is a part of that for a lot of chicanos. And so I'm just wondering what's your take on that term and and how do you feel like it applies to you? Um, or is it something that you're just like, you know, that's not because my sister doesn't identify as indigenous. So she's a chicana, but she doesn't identify as indigenous. And I know that that can be sort of a loaded conversational term. So I'm just wondering how you parse that for yourself.
LannanUh yeah, that wow, that's a really that's a really big question. You're asking all the hard-hitting questions.
Nicte-HaSorry, Lynn. I gotta practice, they gotta practice.
LannanYeah, you gotta practice for the Tales of Aztlantis, guys. Um I yeah, I've thought I I think really, really, really hard about the identities that I claim. Um I would say that uh because of my re my engagement with this side of my family history, my ancestry, cultural heritage, whatever you want to call it, it I didn't start thinking hard about doing it until I moved to Canada. That has kind of influenced the way that I negotiate uh any potential indigenous identity because it's so present and it's so raw and it's so recent up here. Uh whereas in California it's it's really not very recent, but it goes all the way back to like the mission system in the 1700s, right? So like negotiating indigenity in Southern California is very different than negotiating indigenity here in British Columbia. And so I'm just I'm very cognizant of what's going on up here, and so it's a very, it's a very deliberate thing for me to claim as opposed to chickenismo, which is what I see a lot of people moving towards now, uh, which is good, which I think is a very good thing. But I think because of the distance that I have based on the circumstances of my my birth, my family, uh how my family has historically navigated their own relationship to their indigenous Latino identity, my distance from Mexico, my you know, my my familial distance as well as just my sheer physical distance. I'm not sure I am yet comfortable with saying I am indigenous. Right now, um, I would absolutely say that I am indigenous descended, but being isolated from others who are re-indigenizing themselves who come from the same kind of history, like Chicanos who are re-indigenizing themselves. Like if I had like a like a like a physical community where I live of all people doing kind of the same thing. Like if I had, you know, if I was in LA and I was around other people from like the Discord server who were all kind of doing the same thing, I might feel differently. But part of the part of the ancestor work that I also do is specifically about embracing uh the discomfort and embracing the ugliness and embracing all of the bad decisions that brought me and my family to where they are now. Um, and so like I'm very cognizant of like even the term mestizo, right? And all the ugliness that that conveys, you know, I am a mestizo. I am the result of bad decisions. I am the result of trauma. I am the result of rape and theft and colonialism and racism and all of that stuff. And um part of me reconnecting is not just like celebrating the good and celebrating what is beautiful and poetic and culturally significant, it is also embracing um and accepting all the horror that is, you know, my bloodline stretching back to the dawn of time, right? And specifically stretching back the past 500 years. So I think for me, that is what my Chicanismo is rooted in, and that's sort of uh it's it's less maybe about you know, like the brown power politics and the farm workers movement and all that stuff, and more about sort of a politics, like a more of a a deeper time kind of politics. That's yeah, that's I think that's where I'm at on that for now, and that may change in the future, but yeah, for now I would say that I am Chicano, and you know, I don't think anybody else in my family would identify as Chicano. They're all pretty apolitical, you know, for better, for worse. But yeah, I feel like I feel like I'm the only person in my family that is looking backwards at history, right? Everyone else is very much focused on tomorrow, next year, who's having babies next, who's getting
Connecting with Ancestry and Deities
Lannanmarried next, the next job, the next house, as opposed to, you know, pausing and looking back and recognizing where we came from. And I think that's uh that's a deeply unpleasant experience for people who have suffered racism and have suffered institutional violence. So I get it. I get it. I I understand why I'm the only one in the family doing this.
Nicte-HaBecause it is a complicated place to be and to navigate. And I think that your words really speak to a lot of the experiences of a lot of Chicanos and Latinos, first, second, third, fifth generation who are navigating that feeling of in-betweenness and looking back and seeking connection. So thank you. That was pretty wise. Thank you so much.
LannanOh, thanks for asking the question.
Nicte-HaSo you dropped the Discord server. So I think I want to go. So we we covered your the starter pack of deities. I love that. I'm just gonna use that forever. And then, you know, Egypt Egypt, Egyptian deities and chalk, and then what was the when would when did the transition to the teteo come? And maybe you can talk a little bit about the terms we're using, because I think sometimes in polytheistic spaces, people say, I'm working with deities, which I always think is really weird, versus worshiping them and who the teteo are, and if there are particular aspects of the teteo that you that you follow. So how did they come to you or how did you come to them? And kind of is there a particular couple of deities that that you are particularly drawn to?
LannanHow did I come to them? Okay. So in 2020, you know, obviously COVID happened. Um, and we were all, I feel like a lot of people were sort of taking stock of their lives en masse at the time. Um, my grandmother moved in with my mom, and I that like I don't know, that triggered something. And I I feel like the ancestors were were pushing me towards reckon reconciling with the past through that because my mom and my grandmother's relationship has always been really difficult. They never got along for various reasons. My mom's upbringing was not rosy. So that had me thinking about, you know, my mom's relationship with my grandmother was bad, but my mom's relationship with her grandmother was good. And then I found out that my grandmother's relationship with her mom was bad, but her relationship with her grandmother was good. So I'm like, well, how far back does this go? Like, how far back does this mother-daughter, these these mother-daughter problems and abuse and trauma and and what have you? Like, how how deep does that go? And so I just I started looking back and going back and going back as far as I can and trying to like place like where my ancestors were and sort of in in and around historical moments and around when they might have because I don't actually know exactly when my grandmother's side of the family arrived in California or when they crossed the border. I don't know, actually, know when that happened because it happens long ago.
Nicte-HaMaybe before there was a border to cross.
LannanMaybe. So I went like pretty much as far back as I could. So um, and and because the the Maya deities also said, hey, you know, you need to look closer to home. So it's basically it was coming at me from all sides, and I was like, okay, I can't, I can't avoid this anymore. Because I would that's kind of what I was doing. I was kind of avoiding that they for some reason. I don't know. It just it felt too uncomfortable for me until this moment. And then I started looking into them, and it just had this like feeling wash over me of like homecoming, which I don't think I would have been really prepared for before that. So I guess it, you know, it happened when it was time for it to happen. And I was like, oh my god, wow, like these gods, they feel like family, and that seems to be a really common experience um for a lot of us coming back to them. Uh feels, yeah, feels like it feels like one big extended divine family. And that's just kind of that's just kind of how that went for me. And then I was looking for other people um who were also interested in the deities. I remember I remember that they were like a couple like Yahoo groups. It was like kind of a thing for a few years that like people were blogging about and talking about and making groups about, and then they all just kind of died. Um, they all disappeared. All the blogs are deleted. Yeah, it's like an entire entire community just like disappeared from the internet, like around 2010. Yeah, really weird. Weird. And so the only group that I could find, I did a lot of digging. The only group that I could find was on Reddit. And so I joined the Reddit group, and um it was kind of active. I don't actually know how many members there are now, um, but it's been closed for a few years. So I I became an active part of the the group, an active community member. Uh, there was somebody who had ownership of the group, and me and a couple other people were like, well, they're not actually part of the community, they're just caretaking the subreddit. So we got ownership from them and we ran it for a few years, and then we made the server, and we and the, you know, the server was growing at the Discord server for folks, and then uh um membership of both the subreddit and the server were growing, and then we just kind of realized it's gonna be better for us as a community if we stick to the Discord server. And because we, you know, Reddit being Reddit, you know, we started getting all kinds of like goofy, goofy people coming in, asking goofy questions and acting goofy. Um, and we're like, no, I think as a community, it's just gonna be better if we close this up Reddit, make like a guide and have like rules that people have to read in order to participate so they're not being stupid, asking stupid questions. And then we could also like age verify too, because um, we get some young, young ass people trying to get in there. And I'm like, no, you're 14. You can't, no, you're no, you come back in a few years.
Nicte-HaGood for you. I see some posts on some of those Reddit sub subreddits, and people are like, I'm only 15. I'm like, what the hell are you doing on Reddit? This is a bad place. Although I did grow up in the era of just joining random chat groups when I was like 16 on the internet in like 1996-97.
LannanYeah.
Nicte-HaI am so lucky that I never got sucked into anything.
LannanYeah, I think about how like I grew up on the internet and compared to now, I'm like, okay, it's like way safer. So I I get it. I get it. I totally accept that there's gonna be like literal children in a lot of these public places on the internet, but my boundaries are like, I don't want to deal with you.
Nicte-HaGood for you. Okay, let me just clarify. So for people who are listening, there was uh on a walk, which is spelled A-N-A-H-U-A-C. So no new posts, you just go there for, but then you can join the Discord server.
LannanSo Yeah, we direct people from there to join the Discord server, yeah.
Nicte-HaOkay, that's what I figured. So just to let everyone know, that's how that's how I joined Ana Walk briefly when you could join it and post, and then I I joined the Discord server, and that's where I discovered I was the oldest person on the server, at least at that point.
LannanSo it's okay. You might be up there with Itzli with the Itzli now.
Nicte-HaYes, I think it was me and Itzli. I think Itzli was like two years younger than me or three years younger than me. So, but I haven't, I I left the community because I was not as dedicated about pursuing the worship of the Teteo at that time. So I was kind of like, I'm just gonna dip out. Plus, I had younger kids, but I know that you've been really active in it. So, what's it like running a religious Discord server? I mean, what's the, you know, do you feel like people look at that as their kind of primary religious community? Or do you think it's like more of a clearinghouse for people's ideas around how to practice and where to find resources? And then they practice in real life, or is it kind of both? Like what's the what is it like running that, you know, a digital, a digital religious community, essentially?
LannanI think it's I think for a lot of people it is their primary religious community, which is really interesting. We we do have other people in there, we do have a lot of people in there who are familiar with other polytheist paths or they follow other polytheist paths in addition to uh teotica uh uh uh teot sorry, teoticayotl. Um so we have a mix of folks, but I do try so it being a polytheist tradition specifically, I do try and emphasize learning more about polytheism in general, because I think that just makes folks more just you know, a more rounded sort of theological perspective, a a better understanding that what you know what was going on religious-wise in throughout Mesoamerica before um before the conquest was not unique because I think that there are a lot of people who are reconnecting to their ancestral culture who come from a very Christian or very Catholic background, and they have this sense or they they have this thought in their head that oh, what you know, what our ancestors were suing with very Very special, very unique, very uh, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't anything like what those, you know, like what the Europeans were doing. Um, and it's like, no, no, it's polytheism. It's it's it's exactly the same. It is the you have these big political institutions that revolve around ritual calendar and a ritual schedule of worship and honoring various deities, various godhoods. That's that's what they were doing. There's a lot of people that don't like that because that's you know, you know, they they have this sort of very Christianized and turnalized idea of oh, well, that's you know, that's barbarism, or that's I call it Aztec exceptionalism. Um, and I I think it's just good to approach it with the understanding that polytheism has existed everywhere throughout the world. It comes in many forms, many different theologies, many, many different kinds of metaphysics, many different kinds of worldviews, but it's it's polytheism. You you you are acknowledging the multiplicity of the divine, the existence of the divine. Um and and acknowledging that multiplicity and plurality is a big deal. It's a much bigger deal than people think when they first come into it. They, you know, think, oh, okay, you know, you got more you you have more than one god. You got a lot of gods to pick from. I can worship whoever I want. And it's like, yeah, okay, that's that's the very, very, very basic idea of it. But theologically, it is vastly different from a monotheist worldview, let alone atheists. I would say the atheism and monotheism have much more in common with each other than monotheism and polytheism. And a lot of people don't don't understand that until they, you know, really start doing their homework and they really start reading and just thinking, just contemplating about what it means to live in a world with multiple godheads. So I I try and emphasize sort of sort of a more well-rounded education. I direct people to other polytheistic communities because I think it's important to have more more than one community that you can rely on for information. I just think it's that's just good. What's the word? Stewardship? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And good, uh uh, just like good um intellectual hygiene. That's what I was gonna say. Um, rather than just relying on one community and one one kind of people for information. Um I don't remember what else I was gonna say. There was a whole other thing that I was gonna say on this, and I don't remember.
Nicte-HaWell, it might, it might come back. You know, we're talking you you use the phrase Aztec exceptionalism, and I think one of the dangers, I think people who are rediscovering their indigeneity or reconnecting to their ancestral practices in this way, I think that there is the danger of what we see happening in Eastern Europe or in Norwegian countries with nationalism and racism creeping in to that, to that exceptionalism, that idea that, you know, we were way more advanced than so and so. And the evidence has just been suppressed. It I will fully admit that, you know, the Mexica have been maligned pretty thoroughly by European academics and by historians. However, you know, it's not, you know, there was human sacrifice happening, right? And we can have a whole conversation around is crucifixion and all of the wars of religion is that human sacrifice that the Europeans were doing and all of that, which I think is a valid conversation. But, you know, you have people who are very drawn into this idea of making the Mexica exceptional, which erases kind of the cultural diversity of the area, right? And it really does. I think that'll that's a danger for a lot of Chicanos and for others who are kind of reaching back to that idea of Aslan or that idea of the Mexica as like a an exceptional people. You end up kind of recreating that pattern of nationalism and and won't say racism because it's different, but like that pattern of sort of like insular nationalism about your one people.
LannanI think too, it it lends itself to an anti-intellectualism, right? Because then it's like, oh, well, I've learned all I need to learn about the ancestors. They were awesome, they were cool. Nezawal Coyot was, you know, he was a he was a gentleman and a scholar. And look at all this poetry we have, look at look at all this, these, the, you know, these philosophical treaties, uh, treatises and and metaphysics that we would still have if the Spanish hadn't come and destroyed everything. You know, it's like people like valorizing like the Library of Alexandria, right? And it's like, oh, look at all this stuff. We you know, civilization would be so much more advanced if if the Christians hadn't come along and destroyed the Library of Alexandria. And like, no, like it was a library. That's all it was. It wasn't like it wasn't the sum total of all human knowledge, and it really kind of covers up the fact that the Machika were empire builders, you know, they they were the Johnny come lately's to the area, and they came in and they bulldozed the local politics and the local cultures, and they they they wanted to rule as much as they could and as many people as they could, and they wanted efficiency, and they wanted tribute, and they made a lot of power plays, and they made a lot of really brutal, nasty power plays, and that's the way it was. And it doesn't serve anybody to sweep all that under the rug. They were just as much playing political games as anybody now, anybody in the US right now, but that's everywhere, everywhere there's politics, everywhere that there has ever been politics. So they they were working in a well trod human tradition.
Nicte-HaYeah, I was actually thinking about this last night, kind of thinking about our interview and just reflecting
Philosophy, Power, and Cultural Narratives
Nicte-Haon you have the stories and the warnings about um the Wendigo in in the Great Lakes, like Ojibwe cultures, and then you have the story about skinwalkers among the Dine and the South uh Southwest tribes, right? The idea of people who who who seek to have power over others, right? So I just was thinking about this idea of all these cultural stories we tell about rapacity and greed and generosity of spirit and all of that, and thinking about how different our culture would look if we adopted certain attitudes toward generosity. I was like, I was like, all of these things are just culturally taught to us, right? Philosophies about what our role is in the world, and they're tied into our religious beliefs and religious duties as people.
LannanYeah, no, a hundred percent. That just yeah, that just reminds me of like some of the stories that we still have from the Tenochtilan uh area, you know, whatever the Empire. Um yeah, I I I like thinking back to the story about the guy playing ball with Tlalok and um he wins and Tlalok gives him corn, gives him mace kernels, and the guy's like, what the fuck? Where's my jade? And Tlalok is like his you know, he smites the guy basically. He's like, What are you stupid? This is you can't eat jade. Um like I I love stories like that that are just like you didn't think greed is greed is stupid. This is you know, greed doesn't greed upsets upsets the balance of stuff. But I think too that it's tough, it's tough to talk about like virtue ethics in these societies that didn't have like school, like specific schools of philosophy in the way that like some of um you know, like the Greeks did basically or if they did if they did, we don't know because they burned all of the codices and executed all the pre. Yeah, that's true. And I think in a place, I think in a in a culture like you know, pre-conquest Mexica had those philosophies were like physically embodied. Like I would be like I would be surprised if a lot if if there were like uh you know formal philosophical writings anywhere. Like it it seems to me that like the the what was philosophically important to the culture was you know what could be done, right? Like it's very very practical people, right? Very similar to like the let's just say like the Vikings, the Norse, right? What was philosophically important to them was what can be embodied. Like, why would you write this down? Everybody's doing it already. This is you know, we teach through, you know, uh like the like with the Aztecs, it would have been like we we teach through dance, we teach through training warriors, we teach this in the home, we teach this it through these embodied practices of participating in culture rather than standing around and thinking about it, right? Like who has time for that?
Nicte-HaYeah, I just I was thinking that actually they you know developing these different schools of philosophy and all of these deep thoughts is really a function of of having the luxury of time, which requires a certain like level of economic stratification, right? That yeah, Mexica were just they were starting on, right? I think one of the things that shocked me was that the Mexica Empire was actually relatively young. Yeah, you know, it was only a couple hundred years old when when the when the uh clunky settlers arrived, right? And yeah, there were older ones in the area, right? And that, but them as a as the Mexica as a people, like were relatively young as an empire. And so I think that you have to have some level of uh like in Greece you had like lots of slaves work in the fields so that you could sit around in your togas and you know draw triangles on the ground or whatever, you know? So I think, right? You gotta gotta have a little bit of like a little bit of space to sit around and look at your own navel. Yeah, come up with this stuff. Um, I one of the things that I've struggled with is when you have experiences of the divine and you go out, you look for other people who've experienced it as well, right? And you're starting on this journey and you're stepping outside of sort of the well-accepted definitions of prayer and hearing God's voice, right? It can be very complicated to parse through some of the overwhelming experiences you can have, right? And then keeping your objectivity when you meet other people who are also under like you tell them how you're feeling, and they're like, I know, that's amazing. Yes, my spirit guide from the planet Xanadu also speaks to me. And I'm so excited that you, you know, so there's like you on the one hand, when you have these deep spiritual experiences, because I've had several that I can't explain any other way, but I don't, I it's difficult for me to to talk about it with other people because you feel very self-conscious that people are gonna either gonna think you're mentally ill, which I think is a thing, you know, if you're regularly hearing voices, you may be communing with spirits, but you should also maybe check with a mental health professional. Yeah, yeah, it's good to be proven. Right. It's good to be proven. Nothing wrong with that. Yeah. Right. So, like, how did you how do you sort of navigate that in talking with people? Because I think people are fine when you're like, oh, I went to church and I prayed and like God made it so that I, you know, won $500 at the lottery. But like it's very different. I know when Christians are like, God spoke to me, I'm kind of like, okay. So how do you, how do you personally navigate that feeling? Do you just sort of you're like, okay, your God spoke to you. Is that the beauty of being a polytheist? You can be like, yeah, your God spoke to you, and that's great. There was a question in there. I'm sure you can parse something out of that.
LannanOh man, there's so much in here. I would say that I I just I I tend to avoid those kinds of conversations with normies. I'll say that, I'll say that just straight up. Um, I will get into the theological weeds with normies. I'll get weird like that because that's like a language that they can understand. Being able to talk about your your religion or religion in general from that sort of impartial distance is something that they can understand because they're doing it themselves. Most people are. And yeah, so that's kind of my approach. And I it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't help me to talk about it with people that don't understand. So I just don't. It just makes things weird and complicated and it gives them the wrong impression, usually, because they have no idea what I'm saying. I'm speaking, I'm speaking a completely different language. So I just it's that's why I think it's it's really important to those connections, those community connections or individual connections. If you're a polytheist, if and you're the kind of polytheist that has those kinds of personal interactions with deities, with spirits, with what have you, you gotta be able to have people to talk about it with, people that you trust, to be impartial. You basically you you you have to kind of develop like your discernment ability because so much of polytheism is sort of this wild west for most people, and they're going it alone, or you know, like I yeah, I if if I find somebody that I connect with and who experiences things, excuse me, in the same kind of way that I do, whether or not it's with the same entities or not, or in the same tradition or not, I will, you know, I will try and connect with that person because being able to share those experiences is so important. It's so important um for the health of your practice and just like for your mental health. And so you could do like check-ins with people, see like, you know, am I crazy or is this does this does this make any sense to you? Yeah. So like regardless of Pantheon, regardless of culture, tradition, just you know, having somebody connect to or a mentor, having a mentor is like really good. And I think that's kind of like I think that's kind of the role that I serve for a lot of people in the server, is just sort of like, you know, I'm I'm server dad. I'm server dad. So when people start going off off the rails, you know, it's my job to rein everybody back in, you know, or say, hey, you know, that sounds kind of weird. Are you sure that's what you think it is? Or is you know, are you sure that there's not something else going on? Um, have you had your hormones checked? Have you had your thyroid checked? You know? Are you depressed? Yeah.
Nicte-HaAre you still have you been out lately to touch grass?
LannanNo, yes, grass lately. It's so important. Really, right?
Nicte-HaEspecially now.
LannanYeah, especially now. And the thing, the thing that I would say frustrates me the most with the various polytheisms is that uh we really don't have a lot of elders who we can call on for experience. We have we're we are uh a religion or a category of religion of converts, of first generation converts. That's 90% of us, 95% of us. Practically nobody is raised in these traditions. Nobody's parents have passed these down to them. That's changing. Obviously, you know, people my age that grew up with this stuff, we're, you know, we're having families and we're raising kids. I'm not, I'm childless. But, you know, I lot I know a lot of people that are, you know, having children and they're raising their children in their traditions, and that's great. But we don't really really have elders that we can call on. We don't have uh a priesthood in the same way that uh, you know, other world religions do of people that are vetted, trained by other elders. We are a collection of religions where people, anybody can just just randomly start calling themselves a priest, and and you know, there's no overseeing body that you can make a complaint to about that. So you you gotta take them at their word. You have to vet them, you have to make sure that they know what they're doing, that they're not there to manipulate people or self-agrandize themselves. So I don't uh I don't trust, I have a hard time trusting elders in any capacity, just from my personal experience with older people in my family and older people in my my life really kind of all dropping the ball on what being an elder and what being a mentor actually means, not getting the memo there. So yeah, I I have a really hard time trusting people who claim that they are in positions of authority and that they know things and that I should go to them for knowledge. I have a really tough time at that. Um, but but it's also unfortunate that we don't have those people in our traditions. So that's that's part of the reason I like Buddhism
Buddhism & The Mexica Worldview
Lannanso much. It's because you have people and the the priests, their job isn't to commune with the deity. The priest, the Buddhist priest's job is to make sure everybody's playing nice and uh make sure people aren't having uh uh you know breaks with reality when they're meditating, and then also basically just like giving advice on how to sit for two hours at a time. That's it. That's all their job is is to run meditation centers for people. That's that's that's it. So I really, I really appreciate Buddhism in that way.
Nicte-HaI do also like that Buddhism's entire like one of the core things that the Buddhist said is basically think for yourself.
LannanYeah.
Nicte-HaLike use my words as toilet paper, I believe, is the phrase. My mom is my mom is uh is a Buddhist. She's been a Buddhist for the last like 25 years. Oh, that's still she's the Soto Zen, Soto Zen person. While she's also sort of a mystic, it's like a whole thing. But she and I have talked a lot about Buddhism. And I just love that like Buddhist priests, like half of the other thing is just calling you out on bullshit. That that is the fundamental thing that they're that they're trying to do is just pin you down and make you stop bullshitting. Yeah.
LannanSo I think that's that. I love that so much. I yeah. And there are a few people in the community, a few older folks in the community, you know, they're not old, but they I would I would call them elders just because I have to, who do that. And I I they are national treasures. Um, but there's not many of them. There's not many of them. So I am, you know, I try, I try to bring that energy to the to the groom. I try not to tell people what to think. I tell people how to behave appropriately in a religious community because a lot of people don't know how to behave in a religious community either, which is fine. That's not something a lot of people have experience with. And then I, you know, I I try and tell people, you know, to experience stuff and to read and to expose themselves to ideas and experiences and basically just to like get out of their heads and just practice. So I try and bring a little bit of that that Buddhist uh sensibility into the group and I hope it's doing something.
Nicte-HaWell, I also I just love that Buddhism, and I don't want to kick us off because we've already been talking for like an hour and a half, but I don't I don't want to kick us off in a whole nother direction, but I do love um the simplicity of Buddhism and I think the four noble truths. I'm like, I don't really know anybody who could argue those. You know what I mean?
LannanYeah.
Nicte-HaThey're pretty, they're pretty good. It's pretty good at encapsulating a lot of the human experience.
LannanAnd Buddhism to me is like extremely compatible with the Mexika worldview. They're both very practical, right? They're both about avoiding extreme and just doing the right thing and be there for your community.
Nicte-HaIs that so I'm I'm kind of curious. I I found that that brief AMA you did, and you had a really beautiful explanation of the Mexica worldview. And so if you want to just explain to you what your understanding of it is after all of your, you know, reading and exploration, I know that's a big question, but you had a very succinct and elegant way of expressing it. And I just would like to give you the opportunity to to share your understanding of the Mexican worldview that you've come to through your study.
LannanI don't remember what I said in an AMA at all.
Nicte-HaCan I link it to uh do are you okay with it if I link it in the show notes? Yeah. I'll link it. Yeah, yeah. Because I think it's a really beautiful explanation. Um I'll link it in the show notes.
LannanI think what I'm going to say is probably going to be vastly different because yeah, I don't remember what I said at all. My memory's not so great. And that's okay.
Nicte-HaWell, and we also change over time and our theology and our understanding of the world evolve. So it's okay if it's different.
LannanYeah, I think I think if I were to turn it into a very brief elevator pit, I think it's about fundamentally about reciprocity. About it's to me, it is very much a oneness, a oneness kind of worldview where the duality, the duality is to me, the duality of it is is secondary, it's a secondary manifestation of what is fundamentally a oneness experience because everything, everything dies, everything comes back, and everything dies again. Everything it's ever everything is cyclical. And I believe to avoid to avoid that cyclical nature of life, of existence, of material reality, to avoid it, you know, to compare it to a pendulum, to keep the pendulum from swinging too from one end to the other too much. The whole idea is moderation and again avoiding extremes. And that is what creates the basis for uh functional family, home, uh a functional civic society, a functional world, a planet in which to live in, you know, a creation, and that willingness to be uh that willingness to be transformed and willingness to change and willingness to move through those cycles in order to usher in what is uh good and what is natural and what sustains the movement of the world, if that makes any sense at all.
Nicte-HaThat does. And actually, I will say, having just read your previous explanation, you're still pretty much holding on to the same understanding.
LannanOkay, cool.
Nicte-HaThat that no, that makes that's consistent and that's beautiful. I think that's a wonderful summation of it. So I think that we're sort of naturally coming to the close. I mean, I I think I could keep talking to you for another couple of hours, but I think that we can we can move toward the come some closing questions. Um, I feel like a lot of the reconnection happens now, like through through danza and through finding calpullis. And so did you ever get involved in Danza Azteca? And what are your feelings on the close link between the reconstructionism and danza Azteca?
LannanI have no personal connection to Danza. I stumbled across it too late. I was on I was already on my way to Canada, basically. And then like the one that was closest to me when I was still in LA before I moved was like like an hour away, hour and a half away. It just wasn't gonna work out. So it's it's never been part of my experience. I've never enjoyed dancing anyways. Never, never enjoyed performing, never, never like any of that stuff. So that really would not have been my jam either. Never played team sports, none of it, none of it has been ever been in my wheelhouse. So but I think it's I think it's a great vector for people to get into that reconnection. I think it's great. I think it's it's doing exactly as intended for most of the time for most people, whether people come into the Kapoolis to start learning Nahuatl or start learning the calendars or just just to learn anything because they don't know anything and they're just hungry for knowledge, right? Hungry for anything. And they have that community and and that structure. And I think having having communities that revolve around joint organized action is really good for a lot of people, especially a lot of people that maybe um are struggling to find that kind of structure in other areas of their life, especially like young people, like teenagers and stuff, right? And that that that feeling of empowerment is so important, especially for young people. So I think they're great. I think they're fantastic. Um and I love that they're all over the place now. I do think that you run into issues with some of the elders in these communities. Some of the, you know, some of these people are self-declared elders because, you know, they read a book once uh they read, they read the material that is available uh uncritically. And as we know, a lot of the material that's available is not good. And I think there's a lot of that looking to like sort of the new age self-help world and then repackaging that as indigenous wisdom, and people don't dig any deeper, or they don't know that they should be digging deeper, or they don't know that so-and-so author is unreliable, or you know, like how many people think Mega Leon Portilla is reliable, like most people do, so like to go into this and have somebody tell you um like you can't actually trust even the academy, you can't trust these people, you can't trust the archaeologists, you can't trust the anthropologists, um, because most of their shit stinks too. Um and it see when you get people spouting wisdom and and knowledge and so-called history, and it's just a bunch of bullshit, um, you know, or more of that like Aztec exceptionalism stuff, or you know, human sacrifice is just a metaphor, it never happened. Or my favorite that I've actually seen a couple times is oh, you know, the the Aztecs, they were actually vegan. Yeah, yeah, the ancestors were vegan, so we should all be vegan.
Nicte-HaThere's a lady here in Chicago, and there was a pagan festival, and she was talking about the Aztec gods, and she called herself a curandera, and she was like, Yeah, they were vegan. And I was in the back, like, they absolutely were not. Anyways, yes, I've heard that too.
LannanOh my gosh. I can't believe how common that is. Like, yeah, yeah.
Nicte-HaIt's like, no. My dad tried that on me. Well, my dad was going to Danza Group, and I I studied religion at Princeton. So I took a class on Aztec religion with David Carrasco. And at the time my dad was trying to, he was kind of getting more into danza, and he was like, you know, it's just a like a lie that the Europeans told that we, you know, that there was human sacrifice. And I was like, Dad, I am taking a class with like one of the best known anthropologists in the world on this topic. And I can assure you that it is not a lie. It's just, it is, it is, it happened. And that was a bit that was a bit of a struggle. He now he's he's backed off of that. But yeah, that was a bit of a struggle.
LannanOh man, it's so uncomfortable. It's such an uncomfortable conversation. Like it happened, you know, there weren't 84,000 in one day, but it happened regularly every year.
Nicte-HaYeah.
unknownYeah.
Nicte-HaYou know, it's funny, as you're talking, you know, I think, I think, man, we're really holding ourselves to such high critical standards because when I think of the number of Christian pastors and priests out there, especially these non-denominational, more charismatic traditions, anybody they can set themselves up as a pastor with no divinity school training. You know, not if you're part of the major denominations, but if you're one of these evangelical, non-denominational Christian churches.
LannanYeah.
Nicte-HaYou don't need an M-div. You just need a storefront and people to listen to you.
LannanYeah, and a loud enough voice.
Nicte-HaYeah, and a loud enough voice and to be and and for real, like how you know, we are sometimes cutting ourselves off from exploring this because we're like, oh, well, they might not be telling the truth. And I'm like, that's a problem in Christianity too. It's just, it's more about recognizing that humans. Humans are not completely honest, perfect human beings, no matter who they are, what religious tradition they come from. And you always have to have your critical lens on what they're trying to tell you.
LannanYeah.
Nicte-HaSo I just thought about that. Yeah, we you should look at the Kalpuli and the people and the elders and what they're saying, you know, but that truth that goes for Christian faith too. And we shouldn't be self conscious. Conscious of it in ours any more than not that we shouldn't care about it, but we shouldn't think that we're exceptionally less cr less credible because there are some of those people in in our traditions.
LannanYeah. Yeah. I mean it's it's gonna be it's a problem wherever there's an opportunity for someone to exert power over somebody else, right? Yeah. And everybody's got biases. I've I've never I've never understood the impulse to be like unquestionably loyal to somebody or like the leader. Like I know we had somebody in the group that they would come in and they would like be like, oh well, you know, the elder of my calpulli says this. The elder of my calpulli says that. We should probably be doing things this way because my elder says blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, but your elder is not our elder. I don't know who this person is. I don't know what they know. How do I know that I can trust them?
The Future of Spiritual Reconstructionism in the digital age
Nicte-HaWell, it'll be interesting to see as the reconstruction develops because I think this is relatively new, right? This started when I was in high school, really. I mean, like Danza Azteca started as a cultural kind of movement, you know, and then it sort of evolved into this whole spiritual religious practice, right? I'm sure it started before the mid-90s, but that's when it reached, you know, my consciousness and was sort of more part of public events and stuff in California. And so it'll be interesting to see as this evolves because clearly it's it's it's it's a spiritual movement. So it'll be interesting to see how that vetting process and that if there is some institutionalization or schools or certifications that end up arising, that's gonna be interesting to watch.
LannanYeah, it will be. Yeah, I wonder if we'll wind up with like, you know, lineages of of like the different couple leaves, different school of thought, different approaches, you know, like like yeah, to bring it back to Buddhism, like the different different Zen schools, right? Like you have you can trace your lineages back to, you know, all the way back to the Buddha himself, or or at least, you know, whoever well, all Soto Zen on on the West Coast can trace it back to uh what was his name? Suzuki Roshi. It'll be yeah, it'll be really interesting. It's like you said, it's it's like a new fledgling thing, relatively. Like it's been around for a few decades, but it's still extremely, but it's a new practice. Yeah, yeah, and new people deciding what they want to do with it and what they want it to look like and what they want their communities to be like and how they want their communities to be organized. And that's all really exciting stuff. But I think where it's gonna get really weird and really interesting is when when that changeover starts happening, if it hasn't already between that those first generations of elders passing that on to the next generation, and like what that passing on looks like and whether that's going to be, you know, are you gonna ritualize that? Like, what are you are you going to standardize that? Are you gonna institutionalize that? So yeah, I don't know. It'll be kind of cool.
Nicte-HaYeah, that'll be interesting. And you're gonna have, you know, third and fourth generation, you're gonna have kids that grew up going to calpullis and raised in, you know, going to ceremonias and stuff. So uh I I have to bring this conversation to a close. Um, but it was it's such a pleasure to have you. I'm gonna finish with one last opportunity. I think I mentioned just asking if there is, you know, any piece of advice, if you feel like you haven't already expressed it, but if there's anything you want to reiterate about this journey, about being on this journey, any piece of advice or experience that you want to pass on, think something that you want somebody who listens to this interview to take with them beyond what we what we express today. You know, I want to hear if you have anything to share in that vein.
LannanWhen you when you first asked that, I'm like, oh man, I got nothing. I got nothing. And then a thought came to me just now, which is like, don't be afraid of anything. Don't be afraid, don't be afraid of the tail, don't be afraid of history, don't be afraid of the ancestors and what the ancestors have done. Don't uh don't be afraid of being wrong and don't be afraid of don't be afraid of being right either. Don't be afraid of new things, new new discoveries, new finds uh that may rewrite what we know. Don't just don't approach anything having to do with religion and with reconnection and finding community. Just don't approach anything with fear. Fear is the mind killer. That's that's it. That's what that's what I got for you today.
Nicte-HaFear is the little death that brings total obliteration. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Lan. I'm gonna go ahead and end our our recording. And I just want to say what an absolute pleasure it's been talking with you. And I hope that people find as much as much richness and nourishment in your words as I have.
LannanSo I appreciate that. It's been really good talking with you too. I'm I'm really glad that we finally got this going. This has been awesome. Thank you.
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