DAY 52: Keep an Eye in the Sky
By David Marín Roma, San Cristóbal, Guatemala, 1 September, 2017
Reclaiming our Connection with the Stars!
Last September I presented several calendar sculptures to a group of Mayan Aj Q´ij, a term that literally means: The one who watches the sun, but nowadays is translated as “spiritual guide”, reflecting precisely the main issue we want to discuss: We are loosing our connection with the stars, and replacing it with words and representations.
We live on the Era of Technology, the ensemble of all techniques has shaped the human environment and now we live in a world of representations. We interact with each other by proxy, and experience life as a set of numbers. We cannot cope with the speed of the machines, and before we can digest an experience, a new pack of data comes into our brains leaving us with a sense of indigestion, un-satisfaction, where time seems unreal, empty, and worse of all: It is accelerating.
The Solar Eye is a contemplation object used to raise awareness of the Earth as a planet moving around the sun. Not as an idea or information we´ve been told, but as a direct experience. Observing the changes in the shadows over the sculpture help us to visualize the passage of time as the motion of the earth around the sun.
I created the original version of this sculpture at the request of a group of Mayan “Time Keepers”, who want to recover the study of the sky as the source of all ritual cycles that are still practised today, but mostly as numbers on an almanac, disconnected from their original cosmic significance. You can see the original version in the International Year of Light blog: Solar Eye: Lights, Camera, Ritual.
The new version of the sculpture used for our day of knowledge is an improvement on the first version, designed as the seed of a workshop on Mayan Astronomy to be coupled with the ritual activity of the Mayan time keepers, it marks eight important days in the apparent motion of the sun in the sky. (Solstices, Equinoxes, days of Zenith and Nadir passage of the sun). These important dates are the origins of several ritual cycles in the Mayan calendar system. In this way, the project starts with one day of knowledge, but continues trough the year and replicates itself as other time keepers get to know the sculpture.
The main objective of the new design is to have a more precise, cheaper and portable version of the sculpture so that people can take it home where it can be seen every day, and not only in special dates.
We focused our attention on the association “Barefoot Physicians”, because this group is well organized and can be the base camp to distribute the sculpture to other time keepers who may be interested in the project.
This group is remarkable because they help highland communities that receive little or no aid from the public health or education system of the state, the members themselves do not have formal education, and they treat others by traditional methods embedded in Mayan culture. These indigenous populations have survived for thousands of years planting their own food, using their own medicine, making their own clothing, and keeping their social integrity by powerful traditions that help them to survive, even the armed attacks of Guatemalan state at the service of local land owners that inherited the colonial status quo, with the pretext of a “war” against communism that officially lasted from the fifties to nineties, but still is causing problems in Guatemalan society.
This day of knowledge has been an important experience to design alternative ways of education fitted to the needs and demands of Mayan population, and help them to keep their traditional way of life, instead of using the education system to convert them into pieces of the gigantic machine. Their independence and diverse ways of living are very important in the modern discussion on sustainable development and social design, and it is my hope that efforts like these will bring awareness in today society about the value, and the role that bio diversity and cultural diversity play in the survival of humanity.
September 21 Equinox Update:
The equinox is the best moment to align the sculpture with the polar star, it is always surprising to see that it works, now everybody wants to have one sculpture at home. Our goal is to make more for the next equinox March 21, with the beautiful shiny stones found everywhere at Chinique.
The moment somebody brings the sculpture home is the greatest honor it may receive. When it is embedded in daily life, the simple art piece is taken to the level of ritual object, and achieves it´s real purpose and meaning.
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About 100 Days of Learning
Age of Wonderland 2017 presents 100 DAYS OF LEARNING, a global learning event to exchange valuable life experiences with peers. Doers and thinkers from around the world — innovators, scientists, engineers, artists, designers, social entrepreneurs — are invited to share their personal stories, ideas, and practice, not to be found in textbooks. Aim is to rediscover knowledge, challenge beliefs, and exchange life lessons with others. To make the world a better place, we need to embrace change on an individual level, and inspire others to do the same.
