Mati here at the Heel

Which foot did you get up with today?

It's not a trivial question. The foot that first touches the ground upon waking traces the direction of your day, marks the angle from which you will see the light. Every morning, without knowing it, you are choosing a north.

Some say the world rests on Atlas's shoulders, but before Atlas could carry the sky, he had to learn where to place his heels. Because without a firm anchor on the earth, how can you hold up the stars?

The heels are the forgotten secret. The invisible architecture of how we inhabit space. They are the root of the column, the foundation of the axis that connects the base of the coccyx with the crown of the skull. And in all the mythologies of the world, the heels hold a mystery: they are, at the same time, the point of greatest vulnerability and the key to returning home.

ACHILLES' HEEL

Thetis held her son by the heel and submerged him in the waters of the river Styx. Every part of his body touched by those dark waters became invulnerable, except for the small point where his mother's fingers held him. Achilles grew to become the most feared warrior in Greece, but died from an arrow in the heel.

The heel that was not touched by the sacred.

This myth teaches us something we constantly forget: our greatest strength and our greatest weakness inhabit the same place. Achilles' heel is not just a metaphor for vulnerability—it is a reminder that whatever we avoid submerging in the deep waters of our transformation will, inevitably, be our downfall.

In alchemy, the first stage of the process is the nigredo: confronting the shadow, approaching weakness, crossing through the break that takes us out of center. Finding your own Achilles' heel is not weakness; it is the beginning of the path.

THE CELESTIAL HEELS

Look at the night sky. In the constellation of Orion, the great hunter, there is a bright star that marks his left foot: Rigel. In Arabic, rijl means foot or heel. From Orion's heel springs the river Eridanus, which flows through the sky like a stellar current born from his vulnerability.

Isn't it beautiful? The celestial river that guides navigators is born from the hunter's heel.

And there is another story of heels in ancient texts: Jacob, whose name in Hebrew means "he who grabs the heel" or "the supplanter." He was born grasping the heel of his twin brother Esau, trying to hold him back, competing for position from the very first instant. Jacob spent his entire life struggling—with his brother, with his father, with an angel, with himself—until he finally learned that it's not about grasping another's heel, but about finding your own.

The heel is where rivalry begins, but also where it can end.

THE WINGED HEELS

Hermes, the messenger of the gods, did not carry wings on his back. He carried them on his heels. The talaria, golden sandals forged by Hephaestus, allowed him to fly between worlds, cross borders, carry messages from Olympus to the underworld and back.

Why on the heels and not on the shoulders?

Because true flight does not begin in the head or in the heart. It begins at the point of contact with the earth. Hermes could fly because he first knew where to stand.

And there exists another story of magical heels: Dorothy, in The Wizard of Oz, discovers that she always had the power to return home. She only needed to click her heels three times while repeating: "There's no place like home."

Click the heels. Activate the return.

It's not external magic. It's internal geometry. It's returning to the original angle, to the point of origin, to the place where your two feet form the right angle that allows you to stand in balance between heaven and earth. Dorothy didn't need a yellow brick road; she needed to remember where she was standing.

THE CRUCIFIED HEEL

In representations of the crucifixion, there exists an anatomical detail that few notice: the nails pierced Jesus's heels, not just his hands. In some archaeological accounts, a long nail is mentioned that perforated the calcaneus—the heel bone—without breaking it, holding the weight of the body against the wood.

"None of his bones shall be broken," says the prophecy.

But it was pierced. The heel that supports, the heel that carries, the heel that anchors the body to the vertical beam. The cross as axis between heaven and earth, and the heel as hinge between life and death.

There is something profound here: the sacrifice occurs at the point of contact with the ground. Not in the head (ideas), nor in the heart (emotions), but in the feet. In action. In the step you take or don't take.

The heel that walks toward death is the same one that resurrects.

THE HEELS OF THE WORLD

If the human body is a map of the cosmos, then the Earth also has its heels.

There is a place on the planet that functions as the Achilles' heel of the world: the Sinai peninsula. There, where the Red Sea bifurcates and the Jordan Valley extends as a tectonic fault of 7,000 kilometers—from Lake Tiberias to Mozambique—the planet breaks. Two plates slide, friction, wound each other. It is a geological wound, a sting embedded in the body of the world.

And it is no coincidence that it is also the epicenter of eternal conflicts. The place where three religions dispute the land. The place where the arrow never stops piercing.

But there is another heel, at the opposite end of the world: Lapataia, in Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost point of Argentina's foot, and Glaciers National Park in Chile. The end of the road. The heel of the world touches the cold water of the Beagle Channel, where the Atlantic and Pacific meet.

Two heels. One in the north, pierced and bleeding, leaving a Red Sea in its wake. Another in the south, still, stable, and expectant.

Between both, the body of the world.

And in the middle, two anchors very present in my path: Egypt and Argentina. The two feet upon which one can walk. From a third point—perhaps Oregon, the origin—two possible directions extend in my personal journey. Two paths. Two ways of standing in the world.

HEEL / HEAL

In English, there exists a play on words that contains an alchemical truth: heel and heal sound almost identical.

To heal, you must place the heel in the correct position.

It's not about seeking external medicine, a remedy that someone else gives you. It's about finding your own posture, the correct position, something the Greeks call stylós, column, your style: how you dress, yes, but also how you live. And from there, your own angle. The feet, when standing, must form a 90-degree angle—the perfect square, the right angle that allows light to enter correctly, that allows waves to flow without distortion.

Dorothy knew it. Pandora knew it in every angle of her box. Ancient temple builders knew it. The 90-degree angle is not arbitrary: it is the geometry of clear perception.

When your two feet anchor at a right angle, three engines align:

• The mind (the head, thought), the scarecrow…

• The heart (the chest, emotion), the cowardly lion…

• The action (the belly, the feet, the will), the tin man…
  

These three engines are what allow you to move in the world. But they must be coordinated. If the mind thinks one thing, the heart feels another, and the feet walk toward a third place, you fragment. You get lost.

The Wizard of Oz understands this. He is an alchemist of perception. The Emerald City shines with a light that seems magical, but the magic is in the green lenses that the Wizard forces everyone to wear. It's not the city that shines; it's your way of looking at it.

And this connects us to the Emerald Tablets of Thoth, those ancient laws that taught how to find the correct angle of perception. Because true alchemy doesn't transform lead into gold on the outside; it transforms it on the inside. Change the angle from which you see the world, and the world changes.

But there is a trap: alchemy without soul becomes chemistry. Manipulation. The wise witch who becomes malignant. The mother who knows the herbs but uses that knowledge to control instead of heal.

That's why the position of the heel matters so much. It's not enough to know where north is. You must stand in the direction of the correct north.

ATLAS AND THE COLUMN

Atlas holds the sky on his shoulders, but where are his feet?

Atlas is not just a mythological titan. He is also the first vertebra of your cervical spine, the one that holds the skull. And the skull is the world. It is the sky you carry every day.

But Atlas cannot hold anything if the coccyx—the base of the spine—is not correctly positioned. The coccyx is the seat of weight. It is where the entire structure is anchored. And the coccyx is anchored in the heels.

Coccyx → heels → ground.

If your heels are not well planted, if they don't form the correct angle, your entire spine twists. And if your spine twists, Atlas collapses. The sky falls.

That's why in all spiritual traditions that work with kundalini—that energy that rises from the base of the spine to the crown of the head—there is so much insistence on posture. On how you sit. On how you stand. Because the journey of energy from the coccyx to Atlas depends on the axis being straight.

And the axis begins in the heels.

And now I ask you, who are reading this:

What is your Achilles' heel?

Where is the point you never submerged in the sacred?

In what place are you still held by another's hand, preventing your complete transformation?

Which foot did you get up with today?

Do your feet form a 90-degree angle, or are you standing at a crooked angle that distorts all your perception?

Are your three engines aligned—mind, heart, action—or does each pull in a different direction?

Where are your two anchors? What are your Egypt and Argentina, the two feet upon which you stand in this world?

Because until you know which foot you get up with every morning, until you place your heels at the right angle, until you anchor your coccyx so that Atlas can hold up the sky, you will keep walking in circles.

The world rests on heels.