Sunday, October 30, 2011

MEXICO: El japonés Saburo Sugiyama identifica patrón numérico en pirámides teotihuacanas
La probabilidad de que 83 centímetros haya sido la unidad de medida utilizada en la antigua arquitectura teotihuacana, particularmente para la construcción de las pirámides del Sol, de la Luna y de Quetzalcóatl, fue planteada por el arqueólogo japonés Saburo Sugiyama, en la 5ª Mesa Redonda de Teotihuacan.

El arqueólogo explicó, que a partir de cálculos basados en las medidas de estas construcciones se ha determinado la constante presencia de dicha unidad numérica.
En dicho encuentro, donde también participó el arqueólogo Eduardo Matos, con una ponencia sobre las semejanzas arquitectónicas y de cosmovisión de las culturas mexica y teotihuacana, el investigador de la Universidad Estatal de Aichi, Japón, precisó que la posible medida longitudinal utilizada por los antiguos arquitectos de la Ciudad de los Dioses, corresponde a “una base numérica compuesta por 83 centímetros, porque es la cantidad que, multiplicada por 4 o múltiplos de 4, se repite constantemente en las medidas de las edificaciones del sitio prehispánico”.
En el foro, organizado por el Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH-Conaculta) del 23 al 28 de octubre, Sugiyama, dio algunos ejemplos al respecto, como las medidas de la alfarda, escalera y distancia entre las esculturas de cabezas de serpiente de la Pirámide de Quetzalcóatl.
“La alfarda mide 1.66 metros de longitud lo que corresponde al doble de la unidad que sugiero; lo mismo pasa con la distancia entre las cabezas de serpiente que es cuatro veces la unidad (3.32 metros), o con el largo de la escalera que es de 13.2 metros, lo que equivale a 16 veces la unidad; y así sucesivamente se puede también observar este patrón numérico en las pirámides del Sol y de la Luna, así como en la Ciudadela, en las que 83 centímetros es la base numérica que se multiplica constantemente”, expuso.
Al dictar la conferencia Cosmograma y política plasmada en la planificación urbana de Teotihuacan, Saburo Sugiyama también habló sobre el simbolismo de la Pirámide de la Luna, planteado a partir de los avances de investigación de entierros humanos y ofrendas halladas durante el proyecto de excavación de 1998 a 2004, que fueron encabezadas por él.
En este sentido, comentó que dichos contextos funerarios son muestra de la importancia de la pirámide como templo sagrado, en el que se hicieron ceremonias vinculadas con los movimientos celestes, la dualidad fuego-agua y el renacimiento del día.
“Al hacer excavación en la Pirámide de la Luna, por medio de un túnel que hicimos hacia el interior, se halló evidencia de superestructuras y sistemas constructivos, de los cuales determinamos más tarde la existencia de siete niveles, cuya antigüedad va de 100 a 400 después de Cristo.”, explicó el arqueólogo al añadir que asociados a estos niveles constructivos se descubrieron algunos entierros, de los cuales describió dos, denominados  V y VI, que fueron los que presentaban mayor cantidad de elementos
El entierro V fue hallado entre los niveles constructivos cinco (300 d.C.) y seis (350 d.C.), por lo que expertos del INAH consideran que fue depositada en una ceremonia de terminación. “Se encontró un espacio abierto —sin mampostería ni construcción que sugiriera la evidencia de un templo— donde posiblemente se realizaron rituales, pues se descubrieron tres osamentas humanas en posición de flor de loto (común entre personas de linaje), cuyos individuos seguramente fueron ofrendados para llevar a cabo la ampliación constructiva de la Pirámide de la Luna.
“Dichos esqueletos —continúo Saburo Sugiyama— portaban collares y pendientes de piedra verde, con diseños de lo que parecerían cuerdas amarradas, que para la zona maya eran figuras ornamentales relacionadas con la élite o la autoridad, lo que nos sugiere algún tipo de relación entre mayas y teotihuacanos”.
El segundo entierro, el VI —encontrado en el nivel constructivo cuatro (200-250 d.C.) de la Pirámide de la Luna—, se integraba por varios elementos simbólicos, entre ellos restos óseos de más de 50 animales acomodados en el centro y esquinas de la ofrenda, de los cuales 18 correspondían a águilas, 13 a jaguares y pumas, 10 a lobos y el resto a serpientes de cascabel y conejos; fauna vinculada con la guerra y sacrificio, según las representaciones de murales de la Zona Arqueológica de Teotihuacan.
Tenochtitlan y Teotihuacan, afinidades y divergencias
Por su parte, el investigador emérito del INAH, Eduardo Matos, al hacer un análisis sobre las semejanzas y diferencias entre ambas urbes, señaló que si bien estuvieron alejadas en el tiempo, hubo algunos aspectos ideológicos y arquitectónicos que las unieron.
En su conferencia El centro del universo en Teotihuacan y Tenochtitlan: afinidades y divergencias, destacó el aspecto fundacional de estas dos civilizaciones, mediante la presencia de una montaña sagrada y principal, representada con la Pirámide del Sol y el Templo Mayor, ambas orientadas hacia el poniente, y asociadas simbólicamente con la dualidad vida-muerte. “Las dos estructuras están situadas hacia dónde cae el Sol para ‘entrar al inframundo’ y volver a nacer al día siguiente; además, están delimitadas por grandes plataformas circundantes que demarcaban el espacio de sacralidad”, señaló Eduardo Matos.
Matos concluyó que los actos rituales de ambas civilizaciones, que para el caso de Teotihuacan, si bien no existen testimonios escritos, sí se ha encontrado evidencia arqueológica que lo confirma, como entierros con esqueletos humanos con huellas de sacrificio, y ricas ofrendas.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

An Open Letter to ‘Occupy Wall Street’: A Lenape Perspective


12 October 2011

I begin by prayerfully remembering our free and independent ancestors, the Lenape and all the Original Nations and Peoples of this vast Turtle Island (Mother Earth), and of the entire Western Hemisphere from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America. 
Turtle Island
As you ‘occupy Wall Street,’ I ask you to reflect: You are on the island upon which our Indigenous ancestors lived and thrived for thousands and thousands of years. Please take a moment to recognize that we, the Original Nations, still exist here on Turtle Island. We have the right to exist as free and distinct nations with full self-determination.

What is the true source of our many grievances? It is the mentality and behavior of greed. The word ‘America’ is the combination of two Latin words ame (a command form of ‘love!’) and rica (riches and wealth). The effects of an insatiable desire for and the pursuit of riches and wealth first afflicted our Indigenous nations and peoples, and now afflict all peoples. Clearly, we need to address and rectify the political economy of greed, and the destruction it has caused and continues to cause.
Language Families of Abya Yala North, Turtle Island


Too Pig to Fail
Greed is an unsustainable value, but it is also an illness that is rooted in addiction. It is maintained in keeping with the slogan, ‘The more you eat (consume), the more you want.’ The addict will stop at nothing to get a fix; he will sacrifice anyone and anything to feed his addiction. For this reason, an economy of greed has and will continue to sacrifice the health and well-being of women, children, men, and all living things on Mother Earth. As a great Anishinaabe leader has profoundly stated, “Their way of living is our way of dying.” It is rapidly becoming ‘the way of dying’ for everyone. 

Today, after centuries of invasion and predatory consumption (‘devouring’) of our traditional lands, territories, and resources on Turtle Island and elsewhere, the waters of the rivers and streams that were once pure enough for our ancestors to drink from are now filthy and poisoned. Water is Life. The chemical contamination of Water, and, therefore, of Life itself, is emblematic of a way of life predicated upon patterns of greed that are destined to collapse.

The suffering of human beings and the destructiveness to life on Mother Earth has been a direct consequence of colonization, domination, dehumanization, militarization and war. Unfortunately, these conceptions and behaviors have become the metaphorical bricks and mortar of the current unsustainable world order. They are expressed in a number of documents issued in the fifteenth century by the Holy See at Vatican Hill in Rome; these documents called for the domination of all non-Christian peoples throughout the world, and for the theft of all our lands and territories. To this day, the ideas found in those papal documents are woven into US Indian law and policy.
Those Church documents unleashed claims to a right of conquest and domination in the name of a “right of Christian discovery.” The monarchies of Christendom used those documents to claim the territories of our nations in the Western hemisphere, simply because our territories were not yet in the possession of any Christian prince or dominator (‘dominorum christianorum’). This paradigm of domination has been used to give governments and corporations virtually unlimited access to our traditional lands and territories. If approved, the Keystone XL pipeline will be but the latest example.

Despite the destructive effects of more than five centuries of subjugation, as the Originally Free Nations and Peoples of Turtle Island, we still remember what it is to be truly free as exemplified by our ancestors. Our ancestors evolved life-ways and values that challenged European feudalism, medievalism, and lordship. Today, forces seem to be working toward neo-feudalism and neo-medievalism, with a long range plan for irreversible global domination in the name of ‘national security,’ under the unblinking eye of the surveillance state.

We have entered the ‘Brave New World’ written about by a prescient mind a generation ago. Not only have we survived, but we now have the capability of expressing ourselves in the language of the Colonizers, and we are maintaining the message that our great leaders tried to convey to your ancestors: Stop the patterns of destruction and greed before it is too late. The Chernobyl-scale release of radiation at Fukushima, Japan is a clarion call.

We must invert the key symbol of domination. Once inverted, the patriarchal symbol of ‘the dome of domination’ becomes a bowl; when filled with water, the bowl is the symbol of the Sacred Feminine, as exemplified by the White Buffalo Calf Woman. She was the one who brought the Sacred Pipe to the Oglala Lakota Nation. 
World Water One
The Living Laws and Values of Turtle Island that the White Buffalo Calf Woman brought include: Honor and Respect; Compassion and Pity; Sharing and Caring (to carry the well-being of the People in one’s heart); Patience and Fortitude; Bravery and Courage; Humility; Seeking Wisdom and Seeking Understanding. In keeping with the White Buffalo Calf Woman’s teachings, Love and the Beautification of Life are healing values that need to replace the love of riches and wealth.

Next May, 2012, a year of great transformation, we will be in New York at the United Nations as part of our work toward decolonization at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. The theme of the Permanent Forum will be the destructive legacy and deadly impact of the Doctrines of Discovery and Domination on Indigenous Nations and Peoples and on Mother Earth. We ask for your support by renouncing the Doctrine of Christian Discovery.

Steven Newcomb, Shawnee/Lenape, is co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute, author of Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, and a columnist for the Indian Country Today Media Network.

Star Man drops in for a moment's notice to bring the Designation of Reality to the Bull Smoke.



Kundur Anka Pachakutic





Thursday, October 6, 2011

Sacred Symmetry: Chicuei Ollin - Eight Movement

Chicuei Ollin

Eight Movement

Tonal Machiotl
On September 22 the first sunrise of Fall blessed us.  The equinoxes, Fall and Spring, divide the day roughly in half, a manifestation of the creative duality (Ometeotl).
Thirteen days after each equinox is another manifestation of this sacred symmetry.  At sunrise on Thurday October 6 Earth will be the same distance from the Sun as it is 13 days after the Spring equinox. 


This event, termed "equihelions" by maestro Arturo Meza, has been part of the natural calendars of this continent for thousands of years. Interestingly, currently not even NASA makes them part of their astronomy.
Xiuhuitzilin
 
They are important because there are 8 Earth orbital events that create conditions so that the creative forces of Sun, Moon, and Earth can form Life on this, on Mother Earth such as creating seasonal changes, weather, ground and sky flow of water, and decomposition becoming fertile material.  On the Aztec Calendar these 8 points are marked by the sets of arrows, four with curving ends and four with just pointers.

Equinoxes, solstices, equihelions, and the perihelion (when Earth is closer to the Sun) and aphelion (when Earth is farthest from the Sun) link the human gestation cycle (260+13=273) to the movement of Earth in relation to "her husband", the Sun, with grandmother Moon setting the cycles of life reproduction on Mother Earth.

Human creation in the womb is marked by 5 key events (nesting, heart creation, brain creation, entrance of the tonalli, and water breaking for birth) over a period that can be divided into nine stages of 273 days. The 5 is also correlated with the five fingers of our hand which allow us to be "little creators", the five crossings of Venus across the Sun (that always comes in pairs every 100 years or so), and the five patterns of Venus that repeat every eight years. 

The Aztec/Maya Calendar is synchronize around five main celestial phenomena: Earth, Moon, Sun, Venus, and the Pleiedes constellation.  Our Creation story is embedded the motion of 13 star groups (constellations) over a period of a year. Particularly interesting is that the Medicine (peyote) contains those patterns in her growth: 5, 8, the 13 ridges.

This knowledge, and more importantly, our application of it guides us to be more natural creatures, aware that we are subject to the same laws of Creation as other forms.  It is also an important to create a conscious that is scientific as much as it is spiritual.
Carlos Aceves, Yolohuitzcalotl 


Pachacutic Kundur Anka