Red Hands

I‘m returning home from a wedding weekend in Tulum, Mexico just as God intended: with a two day hangover and a very sandy suitcase.

The trip was absolute paradise. Our room looked out on crystal clear turquoise waters. We sipped too many mezcalitas, snorkeled the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, and danced late into the night after a magical wedding ceremony in the jungle.

The experience that was most profound though was touring the Mayan ruins in Tulum. These ruins were a trade center and ceremonial and religious site until the Spanish Conquest in the 16th century. We stopped at the Temple of the Frescoes (pictured below) where I saw the bright red handprints high up on the exterior wall.

So many human experiences are universal, primal. Weddings. Dancing. Swimming. Leaving a mark that says “I was here.” When I saw the red hands adorning the temple structure, I shuddered. What a powerful image. Not just now in the moment that I viewed them, but across time, across 500 years of history. It is intimate. Someone climbed up that wall and pressed their hands into the stone to be known and seen by visitors through the ages.

I see my own hands in the red prints on the wall. They remind me to see myself in the love between the newlyweds, to see myself in the chronic pain of my clients, and to see myself in all of the joy and desperation and wonder and fear of all humans that have come before me.