Pico de Orizaba / Citlaltépetl (5,636 m -18,491 ft)
Mexico (Vera Cruz)
The mountain
Pico
de Orizaba (5,636 m -18,491 ft) also known as Citlaltépetl is a
stratovolcano, the highest mountain in Mexico and the third highest in
North America, after Denali
of Alaska in the United States and Mount Logan of Canada. It rises in
the eastern end of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, on the border
between the states of Veracruz and Puebla. The volcano is currently
dormant but not extinct, with the last eruption taking place during the
19th century. It is the second most prominent volcanic peak in the world
after Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro.
Pico de Orizaba was important in pre-Hispanic cultures, such as those
of the Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs and the Totonacs. The volcano is part of
many native mythologies. Pico de Orizaba is located 200 kilometres (120
mi) east of Mexico City and approximately 480 kilometres (300 mi)
south of the Tropic of Cancer. A companion peak lying about six km to
the southwest of Pico de Orizaba is the Sierra Negra, at 4,640 metres
(15,223 ft). Pico de Orizaba is one of only three volcanoes in México
that continue to support glaciers and is home to the largest glacier in
Mexico, Gran Glaciar Norte. Orizaba has nine known glaciers: Gran
Glaciar Norte, Lengua del Chichimeco, Jamapa, Toro, Glaciar de la Barba,
Noroccidental, Occidental, Suroccidental, and Oriental. Pico de
Orizaba, like the Sierra Madre Oriental, forms a barrier between the
coastal plains of the Gulf of Mexico and the Mexican Plateau. The
volcano blocks the moisture from the Gulf of Mexico from saturating
central Mexico and influences the climates of both areas. Both the state
of Veracruz and Puebla depend on Pico de Orizaba for supplying fresh
water. The largest river originating on the volcano is the Jamapa River.
The painter
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera
was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish
the Mexican mural movement in Mexican art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera
painted murals in, among other places, Mexico City, Chapingo,
Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City. In 1931, a
retrospective exhibition of his works was held at the Museum of Modern
Art in New York. Rivera had a volatile marriage with fellow Mexican
artist Frida Kahlo. In 1926, Rivera became a member of AMORC, the
Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, an occult organization founded by
American occultist Harvey Spencer Lewis. In 1926, Rivera was among the
founders of AMORC's Mexico City lodge, called Quetzalcoatl, and painted
an image of Quetzalcoatl for the local temple. In 1954, when he tried to
be readmitted into the Mexican Communist Party from which he had
previously been excluded because of his support of Trotsky, Rivera had
to justify his AMORC activities. The Mexican Communist Party at that
time excluded from its ranks members of Freemasonry, and regarded AMORC
as suspiciously similar to Freemasonry. Rivera answered that, by joining
AMORC, he wanted to infiltrate a typical “Yankee” organization on
behalf of Communism. However, he also claimed that AMORC was
“essentially materialist, insofar as it only admits different states of
energy and matter, and is based on ancient Egyptian occult knowledge
from Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti.”
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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
