Saturday, January 19, 2013

2012 - Images/ Guatemala & Winter Solstice Ceremony

Mayan community preparing for 2012 Solstice sacred Fire Ceremony - San Pedro de la laguna

 Welcome to my still photo documentary of my visit to Guatemala during the 2012 Winter Solstice.

Such a remarkable experience meeting the Maya people in the village of San Pedro - an experience like no other...a different world. Because i know the images speak for themselves with feelings over words, i will simply explain the highlights of the trip -- allowing an immersion into the culture as best i was able - experiencing the amazing Heart of a people who, materially, have so little...yet so kind and open-hearted!

 Experiencing the Solstice sacred Fire Ceremony and the amazing and rich Maya-cosmo-vision that is awakening in this community - a vision of compassion and caring for each other; working through deep wounds and injuries; understanding life purpose and inner and outer meaning of each day; doing one's own part in caring for the environment--bodies of water, land, animals and air; integrating a spiritual perspective in daily life....

     Mayan fire ceremonies are elaborate and moving - lasting anywhere from 3-4 hours. Sacred symbolism. Similar to other indigenous cultures - deep reverence to Nature and Spirit.

    Another pivotal aspect of my visit was connecting with the heart of Taa 'Pit...  Taa 'Pit Kortees, the Center for Intercultural Learning Tz'utujil Mayan  - reintroducing/restoring their 'disappearing' culture and language back to the children and their families--is unique, founded by Maya, nonprofit, in the highlands of Guatemala, Lake Atitlan, San Pedro la Laguna.
you can visit their website, just below... by pasting into your browser.....
       http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.taapit.org/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dtaa%2Bpit%26hl%3Den%26c 
     The trip was dreamed, birthed and offered through Compassionate Listening Project - creating the program and making all the arrangements for our remarkable event experiences, beautiful lodging, dining, and meeting Maya people of the community. 

     In my photo images, you will see the preparation of the Sacred Fire Ceremonies; the children of Taa'Pit and those working hard to bring the Mayan culture & their native language back to the children and their families; may you enjoy the beauty of this magical place... and feel the Heart of these remarkable people.

I think you'd very much like to see this brief video- of 2 minutes:  http://vimeo.com/52769887

Hotel Antigua in Guatemala

Rooftop in Antigua Guatemala

Selling wares in the market - Antigua Guatemala

Old Ruins in Antigua


Antigua Guatemala
Street in Antigua

Field off the roadway heading to San Pedro

View of Lake Atitlan atop the mountain - see San Pedro at base in distance

A white egret? or crane or heron ?  at Lake Atitlan - San Pedro

See how Bananas grow - and the long hanging maroon colored thing hanging below

Sunrise in San Pedro and Lake Atitlan

Hotel facing the Lake - my room is bottom floor, second from right

Street in San Pedro
View from Home Restaurant - San Pedro
On the road to San Pedro - bags of coffee beans lining the street
old looking building in Antigua

Blankets hanging - San Pedro

At dawn arriving at San Marcos for Solstice Sacred Fire Ceremony


Atop of mountain, looking across Lake Atitlan at dawn - fire ceremony soon to begin
Fire pit to be prepared - see dark objects on ground just to right - and musicians

Daykeeper preparing firepit in a sacred way- (after cleaning) beginning with the sacred 4 Directions


large round pine sap balls are added
Sacred Four Directions
Adding the large round pine sap balls in building the sacred fire

Elements for building the sacred fire - round ball of pine sap

Chocolate and kindling added
White candles are handed to Daykeeper - 4 colors for each Direction

Beans and rice are added to sacred fire

4 colors of candles are utilized in sacred fire


Mayan musicians at fire ceremony
Kindling being lit with sacred fire and prayer - the actual Fire ceremony is not permitted to be photographed
Lush vegetation in San Pedro

Children of San Marcos
                                                           
Calle in San Pedro

Tuk-Tuks in San Marcos


                                                             Canal in San Pedro - Santiago dock
Hotel reception area in San Pedro

Lush vegetation - San Pedro

Narrow 'calles' in San Pedro

Home Restaurant in San Pedro

Mother & son who is student at Taa' pit - school reinvigorating Mayan children back to their beautiful culture
 -

Children at Taa'pit learning about computers
Taa'Pi't School reviving Mayan culture for Mayan children

Taa'Pit school operating on a shoe-string budget

Children of Taa'Pit learning about protecting environment & their Lake
on the walk to my hotel room
Solstice eve in San Pedro village- Children in the streets with sparklers

Sunset on Lake Atitlan - San Pedro


San Pedro Community Solstice Fire Ceremony preparation - preparing flower petals

San Pedro Mayan community preparation for Solstice Sacred Fire ceremony

San Pedro Mayan community preparing flower petals for sacred fire

quietly coming together for preparing the sacred fire for solstice

Beautiful, devout women in their traditional San Pedro shawls


 Preparing ingredients for sacred Fire Ceremony - for Solstice

 Multi-colored candles representing each Direction to burn in the sacred fire

Candle colors of 4 Directions - see fire pit prep in background

Spirit Water


Candles and other sacred ingredients for the fire ceremony


Daykeeper preparing for sacred fire

enhanced fire pit and community participants

Mayan families of San Pedro participating in sacred Ceremony

Mayan family
Daykeepers of sacred fire ceremony



Daykeeper of sacred fire ceremony
Sacred fire at end of ceremony
















San Pedro - garden in foreground - houses behind




view of Lake Atitlan from my room
butte, above, is location for San Pedro fire ceremony
yard just in front of my room - looking out to Lake Atitlan

three dogs napping on a step along the roadside


Maria, scarf-weaver in San Pedro

Gathering of Mayan families & students of Taa'pit

17-year-old interpreter

Home visit of Mayan family - three generations of women

Middle woman, age 97, she's in the photo (years earlier) above her head in the blue skirt with her husband

The son of the 97 year old woman - in kitchen area

Washing the corn to be prepared to make tortillas


 The whole corn is now put into a crusher
The corn is crushed and falls into the bottom bin as dough

Here the woman is carrying the corn dough - the corn that
had been crushed














stove with live wood burning fire

Rolling out the corn tortilla dough
kitchen area


      corn tortilla - hand made
sleeping areas behind the curtains






 Kitchen area



This lovely man is holding photographs of my grandmothers

This appears to be at least four generations of women


This woman holds a snow globe from seattle. The curious little boy later dropped it on the cement floor.





















Young girl selling fruit at front door

Market in San Pedro
 

Highway buses - not for use in the village

Teacher of Taa'pit and her 12 y.o. student

Strong supporter (left) and Founder of Taa'Pit
San Juan hand-made weaving - shawls
Demonstration of yarn-dying
Mayan spirit image/mural on a wall in San Juan
Religious procession in the street - San Juan
our wonderful grilled chicken prepared for lunch - San Juan
Mural in San Juan capturing reverence for Nature

Artist by his mural depicting Mayan bone healer
Mayan fisherman

Symbolic Mural in San Juan depicting Maya community
Mural in San Juan on a building wall
Street in San Juan - neighboring San Pedro





my room in San Pedro


work party at Taa'Pit school



































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































 Symbolic art work representations for the students

Painted wood carving - related to Nature & Environment

owner and the chef at La Puerta





 

                                              La Puerta Restaurant - lovely entrance & cabana

                                                    Coffee cups steps - La Puerta Restaurant


                                                          Sweet Isabel at La Puerta

Idea Connection Internet Cafe






                                            Street of La Puerta, Internet Cafe and hotel


local tienda 



selling beans, rice... their staples

Calle in San Pedro ... No CARS ! :)

Walkway to my hotel by the Lake


Looking east toward volcano
                                       
Juan Martin, Deborah and Juan Manuel - the heart of Taa'Pit





















Leaving San Pedro heading toward San Juan and over the mountain



heading over the mountains back to Antigua









up in the clouds traveling back over the mountains

















van shuttle between Antigua & San Pedro - i sat shotgun w/ the big guy

streets of Antigua - you can feel the difference




















memory of sunset on Lake Atitlan from my hotel





      memory of full moon rising on Lake Atitlan - San Pedro de laguna



A most welcome invitations to your comments and questions on this photo documentary.
Thank you for visiting. Please do share the the link to this blog with others who may 
find the material interesting. ~ Nancy B.

















Friday, November 23, 2012

Systemic Constellation work - what is it? how might it help?

Family constellation work has been the most transformative modality I have yet to witness and to experience the healing aspects, personally, in my own life. I have been involved in systemic constellation workshops and subsequently, training programs since 2005, experiencing well over half-dozen different facilitators. I would like to provide a brief and concise explanation of how constellations works--what happens, and who might benefit.

Problems affecting families have been passed down, unknowingly, through generations - often due to displaced Love.
Knowing Love has a healing and gratifying effect on us and on those around us. However, unknowing, Blind Love hands down through the generations grief and problems that we live out unconsciously due to unconscious  family loyalties--unknowing, blind love..

 HOW does this happen?
One example: when family members, through the generations, are in any way 'excluded' or lose their place in the family
    --due to wars, early death, miscarriage, stillbirth, abortion, murders, tragic and accidental death, adoption,
   --broken engagement, divorce, victim/perpetrators of injustice, family secrets, disowned family member
this excluded family member's fate is unknowingly taken over and continued by a later member of the family - even a generation or more down the line. The member who takes over the fate of the earlier member has no conscious awareness of this. This is done through Blind love.

This experience of taking over the fate of an earlier member is called an "entanglement". We can also live out unconscious loyalties for our parents or grandparents without realizing this.

What are the possible indicators?
Entanglements show up in our lives as:
 --chronic health or energy issues, relationship issues that repeat,
 ---lack of sense of belonging, sense of isolation, feelings of failure or dissatisfaction with one's life,  --difficulty maintaining relationship, weight issues, eating disorder,issues with money, chronic pain, --psychiatric problems, anxiety, depression, chronic irritability, substance abuse,alcoholism, --schizophrenia....   are all experiences that  may suggest 'entanglements' with ancestors...

How the Family Constellation works:
 
A group of participants are seated in a circle. A person wanting to do a piece of work sits in the empty seat next to the facilitator.
A piece of constellation work starts by this person selecting an issue to be worked on and briefly identifying it with facilitator.
When the issue has been identified - the facilitator asks the person to select, from among the participants, representatives for - for example, the person's own self, mother, father...
In this way, Constellation work sets up a visual method for these entanglements to be witnessed, experienced and starting a healing process. The person selects and places these representatives according to her inner vision of her family members' relationships - on the workshop floor.

 The facilitator encourages the chosen representatives to tune into the wisdom in their bodies and to feel where they are drawn to move, to look... and to notice how they feel. These selected  representatives are  accessing the 'Knowing
Field' --accessing this 'Knowing' through their bodies not their minds.

The facilitator observes the process unfolding, gaining information, inquiring into the representatives to speak their inner experiences--accessing awareness of bodily sensations and emotions-- in representing this unknown family member of the other person. Truths are made visible that had previously been unseen. Entanglements made visible can begin a healing process.

Resolution of entanglements is possible when the Love through the generations
becomes "knowing" rather than "blind" or entangled... this resolution creates a new image in the client's mind's-eye and a process of healing and fulfillment for the client and the ancestors within that family system begins to percolate within the family soul.

A lovely introduction to constellation work might be setting up a Nature Constellation or a Mind, Body, Spirit constellation. These two constellations beautifully illustrate the workings of the 'knowing field' in a simple way. I will provide an example of a Mind, Body, Spirit constellation - permission was granted to share this:
     The individual (we will refer to as X) selected three representatives from the circle of participants. As this would be a 'blind' constellation - meaning that the representatives, in this case, were not informed as to who or what they would be representing - the mind could be of no help! Instead, X had three pieces of paper, folded up, each one indicated either mind, body, spirit written on the paper - X handed one of the folded papers to each representative who simply held it, remaining folded, in their hand.

 In X's constellation, the representative for Mind (remember - no one knew who was representing which) moved away from where X originally placed this representative and stood apart from the other two representatives.  Mind said, "I feel like I'm in my own little world; I like it here on my own."
Body and Spirit were nearer to each other and each stated their wish that the lone representative would be closer. However, that lone representative appeared to be gazing off into space barely recognizing the other two. The representative that we later learned stood for Body had said that it felt 'cut off' and felt 'out-of-touch'.  The representative for Spirit stated it felt available yet also feeling disconnected.

When each representative unfolded their papers and read their representation, the meaning became more clear to X.  X had a tendency to live in the head - living from the neck up, a safer place to occupy and, therefore, experiencing a sense of being cut off from the body. 

What was remarkable here is that the representatives were able to access wisdom from their own bodies in the 'knowing field' even though lacking, mentally, the concrete information of who they were representing. Constellation work brings visibility to what is true - and we can allow (or not) this wisdom to percolate in our soul.

You are invited to share your own experiences of or questions about systemic constellation work. We find ourselves at a juncture in our history whereby the human family would appear to benefit from healing. Facilitators of systemic constellation work are offering workshops all across the country.