By Briana O'Connell
The room filled with wisps of smoke from burning bundles of sage.
The sage, burned a few minutes earlier, helped cleanse and purify the room from any negative energies.
In the corner of this quaint room sits a man who is quiet and reserved.
Across the room is an older man, Bert Gunn, resembling Santa Claus with his beard, setting up a table with flyers, books, tapes, video cassettes, T-shirts and herbs directly from Mexico.
In the center of the room are rows of couches that, once they are filled, will make a semi- circle around two folding chairs.
This is the setting on April 19 in St. Francis in the Foothills, a United Methodist Church, where a renaissance man shared his wisdom with local Tucsonans.
One by one, people enter the room. Shortly before 6 p.m., more than 45 people are waiting to be enlightened.
Tlakaelel, a Mexica-Tolteca elder and healer, rises from the corner, where he has been in a meditative state. He moves across the room to the chairs.
Tlakaelel is known for creating the first spiritual pyramid in Mexico in over 500 years. The "Peace Pyramid" began in 1999 and echoes ancient Mexica tradition.
But Tlakaelel is not here to boast about his accomplishments in San Martin de los Piramides, a town of 20,000 about an hour from Mexico City.
He is here to share his theories and ideas about the oral tradition of Mexico, the indigenous view of world changes and other topics.
Tlakaelel sits next to his translator, Lanny Lewis.The room grows quiet as Lewis makes a quick introductions for Tlakaelel.
"When I think about all the things I have done, I think, 'wow'," Tlakaelel said through Lewis' translation. "People think I am a big, important man. But when they see me, they see a short, round, belly man."
When Ericha Scott, a core faculty member of Prescott College's Tucson Center, realized that friends she knew were ill or becoming ill in the past two years, she turned to Tlakaelel for advice.
"Good or bad, all people get sick," Tlakaelel said. "But when we care about that person it hurts. We follow a process like a machine. Death is not a sin, it is just part of who we are. We cry when we enter this world and we cry when one leaves it."
After Tlakaelel's speech, volunteers pass around a basket to help raise money for the "Peace Pyramid."
Tlakaelel said the goal of the pyramid is to recover and preserve the indigenous traditions of the Americas and help ensure the survival of the human species in a healthy cooperation with each other and with the natural world.
There will be chambers in the pyramid to be used for healing of various illnesses, and people from all over the world will come to share their wisdom.
Contributions are invited to help buy materials and supplies, Gunn said. Volunteers are also welcome to come to Mexico and work on the project.