My grandmother came to this country from Mexico, and when I was growing up there my hometown was about evenly split between Latinos and Anglos, so I definitely grew up with this stuff about "la virgen", but I agree with the other poster...COM'ON. It's a freaking tree, people. The virgin is not appearing in a tree, or on a tortilla, or on an oil stain under a freeway overpass, or any of the many, many other places people have claimed to have seen here over the years. Quit making belief in St. Mary seem like something for crazy people. Heck, quit BEING crazy people. There is proper devotion to the Theotokos, but this is absolutely something else.