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Frozen in his flight, a volador, etc.

Flying.
We already know it: Flying is one of mankind's biggest dreams.

We also know that in some ways we've achieved this dream, through technology. For real dreamers, though, this isn't the same. Being inside a metal cage only causes us to desire the freedom of soaring through the air, assisted only by our bodies.Flying is cruising through the air, the way birds, butterflies and dreamers do.

Flying in Totonacapan is different. Here it is synonymous to dancing in circles, playing the flute and drum, a group of five, all at the tip of an enormous wooden pole, swaying in the wind.

It also means tying your feet together to a rope that's been twisted around the pole, and letting yourself spin around 13 times, arms extended, eyes closed, the monotonous flute and drum the only sound, except for the wind rushing past your ears. What are they thinking as they fly towards the ground?

The ancients flew, offering their courage to the earth. They were the seed of this enormous pole which signified life, this enormous tree cut during the days of the fiesta by 30 men, the strongest and youngest, who went into the forest, looking for the strongest, most resistant tree. This quest could take weeks, but that didn't matter. They stayed out, eating mushrooms, herbs, rabbit, deer, drinking pulque, hallucinating with mother Earth, who showed them where to look, and the strength to bring it home. They never returned empty handed.

Those who fly now never forget, because they know that memory is the food of history. Because San Pedro, Santa María, Santo Domingo, or whoever is watching from the Heavens, blesses them instead of taking their lives. And they keep cutting through the air, while their children, wives, siblings, parents and friends, who might possibly fly as well, or have flown, wait below.

Because everybody can fly here: Men, young and old, children, who even learn the skill in school, and now also women, they spin with their coloured outfits, their boots, their feathers, their music.

And from down below we can spend days watching them, mesmerized by the tradition, the history, the spectacle.