Antonio’s Spiritual Roots

In the novel, Bless me, Ultima, Antonio goes through events and experiences which enable him to see the beauty in the landscape and understand the spiritual roots of his culture. This eventually helps Antonio in deciding the person he would like to become in life. One of the incidents is where Gabriel sents Ultima to leave llano and tells her to go and live with his family. Antonio says that “Ultima came to stay with us the summer I was almost seven. When she came the beauty of the llano unfolded before my eyes, … The magical time of childhood stood still, and the pulse of the living earth pressed its mystery into my living blood”(Anaya 1). Ultima depicts to have a great influence to Antonio as he has the power of lifting curses, knows the knowledge on herbs, magic, and plants (Anaya 4). Eventually, Antonio becomes intrigued with Ultima. He starts to learn from her, and he says ”I had been afraid of the awful presence of the river, which was the soul of the river, but through her [Ultima] I learned that my spirit shared in the spirit of all things“(Anaya 15). This event leads to another experience where Antonio has a dream which tries to open to him his cultural roots. Antonio dreams about his birth in Ultima’s hands and sees the way he is drawn by Ultima from his mother. In the dream, he encounters family conflict which is centered on his identity. Finally, Antonio is thus able to understand his culture and know that his grandfather and uncles foreshadowed that he would be connected to the ground. All these events make Ultima to eventually ascertain that she is the only one who knows the path of life and identity of Antonio. 

Antonio becomes fascinated with the dream and is forced to ask Ultima if it is a reflection of reality. This leads to another critical experience where Ultima explains that he has a special bond with Antonio as he is the last of the Marez children which she assisted in giving birth. Besides, another important incident where Antonio understand his spiritual roots is when Ultima comes to their home accompanied by an owl which sits near the house (Anaya 230). Here, other people such as Theresa and Deborah are frightened by the owl, but Antonio becomes extraordinarily comforted by the owl’s presence. Later he dreams of the ”Virgin of Guadalupe” being lifted into heaven by the owl.

There is a relationship between the conflicting cultures in Antonio’s childhood which are fundamental making him understand his spiritual roots. This is particularly between the Luna and the Marez. Antonio understands that while Marez is free-spirited cowboys dedicated to the sun and horses while Luna are sincere farmers who worship the moon and the earth. Antonio follows Luna’s path to become a priest but feels pressure which weighs down his destiny. He comes to believe later on that identity is a combination of the cultures and hence cannot pick on one and leave the other. He says that ”Then maybe I do not have to be just Marez or Luna……perhaps I can be both” (Anaya 247). Notably, Anaya emphasized the tensions that exist between the life of Antonio when at school and home. When at home, Antonio is forced to speak Spanish and thus allude to the cultural expectations when growing up. However, at school, Antonio experiences the English-speaking academic world. He speaks and interacts with other children from various cultures. Antonio ultimately comes to understand that he has to accept the element of each culture while creating his own identity and learns how to deal with conflicting cultures.

The spiritual world of Pagan beliefs and Golden Carp explain the natural world in Antonio’s surrounding. The combination of the spiritual beliefs results in an amalgamation of cultures. For instance, the event when the spiritual roots of Golden Carp are explained outline the set of beliefs which Antonio never knew before. Having brought up in a Catholic world, Antonio comes to know that the Golden Carp offers a different viewpoint to the world than Catholicism. Notably, the two are related, and their combination finds a way of satisfying faith in Antonio’s life. This enables Antonio to gain a broader scope of understanding his spiritual and cultural roots. He develops his understanding of faith and thus chooses his own path and identity.

Work Cited

Anaya Rudolfo. Bless Me, Ultima. New York. Grand Central Publishing, 1 Jun 2012