Our Serpent Mother, Our Filth Mother: Serpents and the Slippery Earth in Mesoamerican Mythology with Jesse Hathaway Diaz

A part of The Serpentine Path series of classes. this class will be live-streamed at 7pm on June 22nd. It will also be recorded and sent out afterwards for later viewing. 

About the class:

In Mesoamerican cosmology, the mother deities such as Coatlicue (Serpent-Skirt), Cihuacoatl (Serpent-Woman), and Toci-Tlazolteotl (Our Grandmother Eater of Filth) are heavily associated with the earth energy known as tlazolli, and always associated with serpents. Fertility, lust, creativity, deviousness and cunning and the struggle to maintain ourselves are all tied together in these conceptions– the earth is crawling with serpent energy! Drawing upon Aztec myth and the traditions of curanderismo and brujeria that inherit these worldviews in Mexico, we will explore the relationship to our Mother the Earth, the serpent and its shed, and the manipulation tlazolli and our bodily and spiritual health, in order to walk upright on this slippery earth who is our Serpent Mother, our Filth Mother.

About Jesse Hathaway Diaz

Jesse Hathaway Diaz (he/him/they/them) is a folklorist, artist, performer and independent scholar with a Masters in Performance Studies from NYU. With initiations in several forms of witchcraft from Europe and the Americas, he is also a lifelong student of Mexican curanderismo, an initiated priest of Obatalá in the Lucumí Orisha tradition, and a Tatá Quimbanda. He co-hosts an occult themed podcast called ‘Radio Free Golgotha’, and edits the ‘Folk Necromancy in Transmission’ imprint through Revelore Press. For the better part of two decades, he has been involved with Theatre Group Dzieci, a New York based experimental theatre ensemble which explores theatre and ritual as a way, blending service with self-exploration and performance. Dividing his time between the Bronx and a farm in the Hudson Valley, his artistic and written work navigate the world-as-magic through exploring orality and transmission, decolonialism, ritual theory and praxis, herbalism and healing modalities through private study, apprenticeship, and community involvement. You can find his artistic and written work at www.jessehathawaydiaz.com and his wares at www.signthepact.com