AMLO (Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Mexico’s new president – yes, he’s an acronym) is pushing forward with plans to build his “Mayan Train,” a tourist transportation mega-project intended to run on 932 miles of track that, say many friends of the Earth, will lay waste to a treasure trove of biodiversity.
Plans for the line will see it passing through pristine jungle in the states of Campeche, Chiapas, Quintana Roo, Tabasco and the Yucatán.
A controversial public referendum was held on November 24 and 25 to gauge popular support for the project. Despite the fierce protests of environmentalists and indigenous peoples (the guardians of these territories), the “yes” camp won the vote easily.
In addition, the line will cost around US$6 to $8 billion, a sum which, of course, will wind up being double, based on an economic principle as old as the Egyptian pyramids, “Lord Imhotep, we need the slave populations from six more nations to get that pyramid top done.”
The project is already under way, and it is believed that four years from now, this transportation decision will pay for itself in enhanced tourism and tourism convenience (recreational tourism being one of Mexico’s greatest sources of income, next to dental tourism). It is southern Mexico’s equivalent of Jalisco’s Tequila Express, except that one remains sober upon arrival.
In any event, many believe that the key progressive development here was a faction of the Mayan peoples coming out to thank the Earth for the use of the land and to appeal to the Mayan gods for a good result. That is really how this all got done. Forget the referendum. The Earth essentially gave its go-ahead and blessing to AMLO, because we all know politicians talk to the cosmos.
Or some do. So this takes me to the unfortunate economic and logistical debacle that was the new Mexico City airport. It was simply an endeavor fraught with bad luck from the planning to the financing to the design for parking accommodations the size of your driveway.
So the question begged here is why no permission was requested of the Earth by our remaining Aztec descendants for an airport blessing. Would there have been a different airport result? The airport might have been completed, because someone would have been cosmically inspired to choose a different location, proper financial management and an Outback Steakhouse. We’ll never know. Because the Earth can be a prankster. I mean it could say, “Okay, do the airport,” and then suddenly rev up an earthquake under it. (I mean earthquakes aren’t funny, and neither has the Earth been a barrel of laughs over the centuries. Remember the floods?)
Anyway, nobody apparently asked the Earth’s blessing and we found out too late there was a really flaky, tottering lake bed under the airport location. Ha. Ha. “Yes, Captain, we know your runway seems to be boogeying, but just take a Xanax.” So the government has lost billions of dollars by canceling the project one-third of the way through.
So how do we deal with such stuff, given the Earth’s whimsy? Speaking on behalf of our majestic globe and our understanding of its primal energies and how these interface with humanity empathically through the Gaia Effect, it postulates. (Yes, the Earth postulates when it says things, because it is the Earth and it can get pompous and postulate stuff.) It postulates a lot actually. We just don’t listen. In this case, it postulated that “living organisms interact with my inorganic surroundings like the train track to form a synergistic, self-regulating, complex system that regularly resets itself and perpetuates conditions for the survival of life, because humanity (including plastic bag users, deforesters, uncovered cement trucks, to mention a few) continues to screw things up.” Yes. That’s an Earth quote. In postulate form.
In the end, the Mayan Train and the Mayan blessing may prove that we do have an intimate relationship with our planet.