THE TRIQUETRA OF LIFE: Wisdom, Wealth, and Wellness

An Excerpt from Chapter 39

Path Perilous: My Search for God and the Miraculous

At the border, a Mexican officer asked for my identification and the purpose of my visit. I handed him my employment letter from the Rio Caliente Health Spa in Jalisco. After conferring with his superior, he waved me through. Fred, a dual citizen through marriage, passed without delay.

We drove south on Mexico’s 49D, nine hundred miles over three days, until Guadalajara’s northern outskirts shimmered in the heat. We talked about how gadgets now perform slivers of what once belonged to Scripture—the clinically dead jolted back with electric shock. The ancient Biblical wonders … much like Aladdin’s Magic Lamp, dented and tarnished … were being traded for bright, tawdry new ones.

In Jalisco, we reached the sleepy village of Primavera, forty-five minutes northwest of Guadalajara and 180 miles east of Puerto Vallarta on the Pacific. I asked Fred to drop me at the dirt road leading into the hot springs valley. He drove on. I wanted the quiet—and the climb. With a backpack holding all I owned, I walked the dusty road bordered by sagebrush, pines, and palm trees.

The road ended at a cluster of white adobe buildings—two dozen sagging structures. This was La Primavera. No cars. Just an old Ford pickup rusting where it had long been left. I stepped into a small church with patched roofing where birds nested and fluttered in the rafters. Pitted wooden saints stood in wall niches. Faded paintings still held streaks of red and yellow where the color had not yet peeled away.

Older women, heads veiled, knelt on the tile floor, murmuring the rosary in unison. Outside, a donkey brayed—raw and uneven—pacing their steady cadence. Sunlight fell through the rafters and struck the cross behind the altar, the red sanctuary lamp burning beneath it. Incense hung in the air. I lowered myself onto the cool tiles and closed my eyes, thanking God for a safe journey.

Leaving the church, I stopped at the sight of a red Coca-Cola machine across the road and felt its pull, though I knew better. A frosted bottle of Coke gleamed beneath the caption, “The pause that refreshes!” The slogan dared to rival older promises. For a nickel’s worth in pesos, refreshment was immediate—bright, sweet, and cold—a cheap substitute for peace of soul.

Past the village, women knelt beside a stream, kneading and pounding clothes against smooth rocks, then plunging them into the cold rush of water. There was no plumbing here, no electricity. I wondered if their labor carried its own rhythm of prayer—each scrub a quiet “Hail Mary.” In their bent backs and steady hands, I saw my grandmother at her ribbed washboard.

The climb steepened, and I began reciting the Rosary with each step. The dirt road narrowed through a forest thick with pine needles. Something caught the light off the trail. I stepped aside and found large, glossy slabs of black obsidian scattered across the ground—lava cooled and broken into blades. Some pieces stretched five or ten inches, their edges sharp enough to cut hide. Hundreds lay untouched. I wondered why no one had gathered them for souvenirs or jewelry, not yet knowing this forest was a protected park.

I tried to lift one. It slipped and sliced my right index finger. The cut was straight and shallow but stung sharply. I rubbed in Tea Tree Oil, then smeared on antibiotic ointment and bandaged it.

I felt like an astronaut set down on an alien planet. No houses. No livestock. No voices. Nothing made by human hands but the clothes on my back and the sandals on my feet. The pine trees stood still without wind, their needles silent. No squirrels moved. No lizards darted. No birds made a sound. The silence pressed in until the solitude unsettled me. The world felt emptied of human life, and I stood alone.

I pondered Apollo 11’s landing on a dead-still moon and Neil Armstrong’s words as he stepped onto its surface: “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.” I had come thousands of miles to set foot on alien ground I had never seen before. No cameras recorded it. No one cheered. Yet my arrival felt as immense as any journey to the moon. The small step I took in Boston became a giant spiritual leap, uncharted territory awaiting us all.

From the memoir-in-progress, nearing publication:
Path Perilous: My Search for God and the Miraculous
—a spiritual epic for truth-seekers, contemplative mystics, and all who long for God.

Visit www.RMDellOrfanoAuthor.com and pass it forward.