I'm going to kick off today's episode by reading from Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkole Estes, Ph.D.

This is from a section called Marking Territory, the Boundaries of Rage and Forgiveness.

I would like to introduce you to the concept of disconsos as I've developed it in my work.

If you ever traveled in Old Mexico, New Mexico, Southern Colorado, Arizona, or parts of the south,

you've seen little white crosses by the roadway.

These are disconsos, resting places.

You'll also find them on the edges of cliffs along particularly scenic but dangerous roads in Greece,

Italy, and other Mediterranean countries. Sometimes crosses are clustered in twos or threes or fives.

People's names are inscribed upon them.

Jesus Mendez, Arturo Buenos Fuentes,

Genie Abeta.

Sometimes the names are spelled out in nails. Sometimes they are painted on the wood or carved into it. Often they are profusely

decorated with artificial or real flowers or they glisten with chopped up new straw glued to wood slats,

making them shine like gold in the sun.

Sometimes the Descanso is just two sticks or two pieces of pipe tied across one another

with twine and stuck in the ground.

In the rockiest passes, the cross is just painted onto a large rock at the roadside.

Disconsoes are symbols that mark a death.

Right there, right on that spot, someone's journey in life halted unexpectedly.

There has been a car accident, or someone was walking along the road and died of heat exhaustion,

or a fight took place there.

Something happened there that altered that person's life and the lives of other persons forever.

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