Xochipilli Lives!

Xochipilli in temicxoch !

Xochipilli - The "Prince of Flowers" of the Mexica or Aztecs of Mesoamerica. This statue of Xochipilli was unearthed at Tlalmanalco on Mt. Popocatépetl and is dated approximately 1450 A.D. The god's body is adorned with carved flowers including coaxihuitl or the morning glory Turbina Corymbosa (L.) Raf., source of ololiuhqui seeds, quauhyetl or the tobacco Nicotiana tabacum L., and other visonary plants, including rosettes of the sectioned caps of the mushrooms called xochinanácatl or "flower mushrooms" in Náhuatl, probably Psilocybe aztecorum. For the Aztecs "flowers" were a metaphor for the entheogens as evidenced by the repeated reference to "flowers that inebriate" in their poetry. The face of Xochipilli is contorted as if seeing visions in ecstasy, and the head is tilted as if hearing voices. temicxoch...

As R.G. Wasson says in the The Wonderous Mushroom of the statue of Xochipilli:

"He is absorbed in temicxoch, 'the flowery dream'*, as the Nahua say in describing the awesome experience that follows the ingestion of an entheogen. I can think of nothing like it in the long and rich history of European art: Xochipilli absorbed in temicxoch."

* Note: Translated as 'dream flowers' in the original.

! Image courtesy of
Marc Franklin
aka LordNose!
POB 368
Santa Cruz, CA 95061 USA