Cultivating curiosity and wellbeing in Mexico
In 1843, a collection of letters was published under the name of Life in Mexico as a sort of travelogue relating the impressions and observations gleaned and recorded by Madame Frances Calderon de la Barca during her sojourns in Mexico as the wife of Spanish diplomat. It is of special Continue Reading →
One of my favorite on-line resources is the Internet Archive, a repository of books, music, movies, and more. It is a virtual library that I love to get lost in. There’s always something interesting to find. Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, Continue Reading →
Searching through the digital libraries that are currently available on-line can render some wonderful finds. Here are a couple of illustrations from the Tovar Codex, attributed to Mexican Jesuit priest Juan de Tovar, from the John Carter Brown library online. Many more illustrations are included in the JCB Archive of Early American Continue Reading →
Orchids grow in warm, humid climates and are found largely in the tropical areas of Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Their unusual, long-lasting blossoms and often heady scents have inspired curiosity and wonder over the ages. A handsome volume titled “The Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala,” written by James Bateman, Continue Reading →
The Internet Archive at Archive.org features an old book, The Chayote: A Tropical Vegetable, that details the characteristics and properties of the tropical vine and squash native to Mexico and the Caribbean, citing documentation by Australians, Spaniards, and other Europeans who arrived in the New World during the early colonial Continue Reading →
With all the focus on the Law of Attraction during the past few years (see Jack Canfield’s Key to Living the Law of Attraction: A Simple Guide to Creating the Life of Your Dreams and The Secret), I was surprised to come across this reference to a book that was Continue Reading →
Today I want to share a wonderful find: an encyclopedia of Guerrero, Mexico (Enciclopedia Guerrerense) and its appendix, Guerrerismos, or idiomatic terms and phrases of Guerrero state. The online encyclopedia of Guerrero is in Spanish but does have links to translations via the Google translation service. It is indexed in Continue Reading →
How a mining company expedition in the early 1820s spawned and fueled Mexico’s passion for the sport of football soccer. A synopsis and excerpts from III. Journal descriptive of the Route from New York to Real del Monte by way of Tampico by one of the first detachment sent by the Real Continue Reading →
We are book scroungers. Books of every age and provenance fill up bookshelves, trunks, and closets, and a few uncommon curiosities have made their ways into our ever-growing libraries over the course of the past three or four decades. One of these is a small-format, ragged, and weathered booklet–almost more Continue Reading →
The College of Mexico (El Colegio de México) publishes a condensed history of Mexico (in Spanish) that gives a rapid-fire overview of the history of this key Latin American country from the times of the early Mesoamerican civilizations (c. 2500 BC) through to the modern years after the Mexican Revolution. Continue Reading →