A chacmool (also spelled chac-mool or Chac Mool,) is a form of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican sculpture depicting a reclining figure with its head facing 90 degrees from the front, supporting itself on its elbows and supporting a bowl or a disk upon its stomach. These figures possibly symbolised slain warriors carrying offerings to the gods; the bowl upon the chest was used to hold sacrificial offerings, including pulque, tamales, tortillas, tobacco, turkeys, feathers, and incense. In Aztec examples, the receptacle is a cuauhxicalli (a stone bowl to receive sacrificed human hearts). Chacmools were often associated with sacrificial stones or thrones. The chacmool form of sculpture first appeared around the 9th century AD in the Valley of Mexico and the northern Yucatán Peninsula.

Aztec chacmools bore water imagery and were associated with Tlaloc, the rain god. Their symbolism placed them on the frontier between the physical and supernatural realms, as intermediaries with the gods. Wikipedia

Sitting at my dining room table, opposite the wall that is full of Mexican objects and framed photographs of Rosemary and me, I noticed this today. If anything is shows how my Bunny Watson connections enable me to think of links that may not be obvious.

The photograph in the scanograph here, which I have placed often in these blogs, was taken by my Yorkshire compadre Andrew Taylor in 1968 at the Botanical Garden of the University of Mexico. Of why we posed with a Mexican paper flower, I have no memory. But I do remember that Andrew used my Asahi Pentax S-3 with the 50mm f-2 lens loaded with Kodak colour negative film.

My Sword Excalibur Cameras in Mexico

While I was staring at this photograph, my thought process immediately took me to the sad understanding that both of us were alive for the photograph but now only I exist. This concept is a hard one to digest when I see photographs of Rosemary all over the house. I think, “She is not here.” This happens all day. I cannot escape it.

As I looked at the photograph I was struck by how my pose resembled a Mayan chac-mool.

The human mind is such an extraordinary and complex mechanism. If only I could now reconcile and accept Rosemary’s nonexistence and go on with what is left of my life.