I Walk in your Name

Five generations of women bonded by 5 letters. I walk in a name which has been honored as the family tradition of reincarnation. The life path advancement by one Elena into the quest of another Elena in my family dates all the way back to the 18^th Century.

Elena Valdes Chavarría, me, my mother Elena Chavarría Correa and my grandmother Elena Correa Capetillo are women who dwell deeply in me, but also Mama Grande, my great grandmother, named Elena Capetillo Piña and my great great grandmother Elena Piña Aguayo keep manifesting them in my life.

Little do I know off their personal lives, but my mother surprises me often when she highlights gestures being faithful replicas of these women I did not know at all. Not to emphasize the repeated times when I catch myself speaking or thinking exactly like my mother. Surprisingly these personal features in me recapitulate, according to my mother the most evident feature which connects us all through time.

I like to think that the capital letter with which our name begins E, stands for Emotive and I know deep in my heart that we all were distinguished from other women and female figures in the family by our emotional existence. Either poignant, disturbing or exciting the name of Elena stands along a quest of endurance shared by 5 generations of women’s minds, hearths and spirits.

I advance my great great grandmother’s path of spirituality. Elena Piña Aguayo was a devote women of the Holly Spirit. Not through monetary support of the Jesuits, as she did, but in her name as a woman, I walk Elena’s path of faith, a deep believe of everything being animated and spiritual on our planet. It is this Elena, the one who sustains my faith; I reach to her strength through wind, through some dreams. Answers spark afterwards these intersections of routes and visions which keep us together regardless the 150 years apart of our existence.

I follow the idealism of my great grandmother. Elena Capetillo Piña became a famous painter, a disciple of German Gedovious. Her perception of time was guided by her careful selection of angles of observation and the strategic focus of light. As an artist she excelled in portraying always the best side of an object. As a woman she surpassed others with her ability to animate her still life creations.  I have her genes.

Influenced also by famous painter Caravaggio, Elena Capetillo Piña works of art trace the Teneverism techniques which fitted also her reality. Elena Capetillo Piña. Around my great grandmother, everything was dark; for her, the early 19^th century in Mexico City was not a colorful pallet for an aristocratic life. Regardless of the wealth surrounding her, Elena Correa Capetillo had to cope with an image, servants, prestige, seven children of her own and absolute obedience and submission to my great grandfather. For me, a woman of the 21^st century civilization everything look opaque again. Our planet’s living wealth has vanished we are all slaves or slavers; there are no children laughter in our society anymore.

I amble within my grand mother’s devotion for family. I did not have a chance to meet this Elena, but I can see that her facial expressions part of my own face. She had magic, and so do I, especially when it comes to celebrate us, day to day, in every Christmas, every birthday or blessed meal. Neither she nor I take anything for granted.

I meander within my mother’s horizons; they are so broad that it is hard to visualize limits. She confessed she almost broke the rule and named me differently, it was then than my father urged her to reconsider. I do walk on my father’s name as well, and this is but a first step into the quest of ecstasies, for if it wasn’t for him I would’t be writing about my...