The Coatlicue State Writing Exercise: Self

 RIO HONDO COLLEGE - DIVISION OF BEHAVIORAL & SOCIAL SCIENCES
Humanities 125: Introduction to Mexican Culture (3 units) (CRN-50052)
Summer 2015, 6-Week Track / Monday & Wednesday / 06:00pm – 10:15pm / in Administration 205
1 The Coatlicue State Writing Exercise: Self-reflection, Narrative Inquiry, & Healing
in conjunction with Anzaldúa Borderlands Chapter 4 La herencia de Coatlicue (The Coatlicue State) Rev. 8/7/2015
Some important paragraphs from Chapter 4
The Coatlicue State
Coatlicue is one of the powerful images, or “archetypes,”
that inhabits, or passes through, my psyche. For me, la
Coatlicue is the consuming internal whirlwind, the symbol
of the underground aspects of the psyche. Coatlicue is the
mountain, the Earth Mother who conceived all celestial
beings out of her cavernous womb. Goddess of birth and
death, Coatlicue gives and takes away life; she is the
incarnation of cosmic processes. [Gloria Anzaldúa]
Coatlicue depicts the contradictory. In her figure, all the
symbols important to the religion and philosophy of the
Aztecs are integrated. Like Medusa, the Gorgon, she is a
symbol of the fusion of opposites: the eagle and the serpent,
heaven and the underworld, life and death, mobility and
immobility, beauty and horror. [Gloria Anzaldúa]
The Coatlicue State Is A Prelude To Crossing
[Borderlands, mind, body, spirit, Earth?]
Voy cagándome de miedo, buscando lugares acuevados. I
don’t want to know, I don’t want to be seen. My resistance,
my refusal to know some truth about myself brings on that
paralysis, depression––brings on the Coatlicue state. At
first, I feel exposed and opened to the depth of my
dissatisfaction. Then I feel myself closing, hiding, holding
myself together rather than allowing myself to fall apart.
[Gloria Anzaldúa]
Sweating, with a headache, unwilling to communicate,
frightened by sudden noises, estoy asustada. In the
Mexican culture, it is called susto, the soul frightened out of
the body. The afflicted one is allowed to rest and
recuperate, to withdraw into the “underworld” without
drawing condemnation. [Gloria Anzaldúa]
Coatlicue image scanned from Wilson G. Turner’s “Aztec Design”
In Chapter 4, Gloria Anzaldúa breaks down the Coatlicue for us. She describes her iconography, its perceived symbolism,
and what the sculpture of this feminist-Mother Earth-female “goddess” meant to her. Anzaldúa describes her own state,
the Coatlicue state in which she first learned that something was “fundamentally wrong” with her body. She calls her
body abnormal… and dealing with her lesbian sexuality at a very young age, she did everything to hide herself, only to be
devoured by the Earth Monster Coatlicue. Yet, at the same time she writes that our painful disappointments, and
painful experiences, if we can make meaning out of them, they can lead us to more of who we really are.
I want you all to write about your own Coatlicue State, a time when you had to hide your ideas, yourself, your
body, or even your own family, either from shame, ridicule, guilt, oppression, self-fear, or fear of not feeling good
enough. I want you all to go deep, allow yourself time to think, and write about when you felt devoured by the Coatlicue
in your own borderlands experience. This exercise is a self-reflection free writing exercise. There are no correct or
incorrect responses, and using “I” is very much appropriate. Get this done in class! Worth 20 points!
Worksheet developed by Santiago Andres Garcia 8/7/2015, Division of Behavioral & Social Sciences, Rio Hondo College, 3600 Workman Mill Road, Whittier CA, 90601. Free to use for educational purposes only.
Your own Coatlicue State
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4 Page 68 and 69 scanned from Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands La Frontera The New Mestiza 25TH Anniversary Fourth Edition