Conciencia Zapoteca: shcarliin benzaa

Size: 60x200cm; 2x6.5ft

Materials and methods: Criollo sheep wool spun at the mills of Tianguistengo hand dyed in an exhaustive aniline dye bath for colorfastness. Handwoven on a Zapotec style loom of the 16th century adapted from European styles. Woven using a 7 threads per inch reed and wool rayon blend for warp.

Weaver: Adela González Hipólito

Design, pattern and symbols.

This rug starts with stripes of the smile pattern, this teeth like symbol reminds us that smiling and laughing is the source of inner medicine that we carry within and that we can share generously with each other. If you walk around Zapotec villages in Oaxaca you will notice how people smile kindly and greet each other on the streets, the degree of gentleness and love that Zapotec communities express to each other has amazed antrophologist in the past.  Unfortunately, due to the growth of towns and the fast pace of life with the introduction of Mototaxis (tuk-tuks) these random acts of kindness on the street are dissapearing and the youth begin to adopt the western ways and values, generation by generation, the culture gets transformed. 

The next row of symbols in this rug is the "eye of god" as many people call it, but in reality it represents the state of Quetzalcoatl (feather snake) or flowered snake as we call it in Zapotec (Beal Guiea): the state of being that balances the forces of the sky world and the earth world in our bodies and in our actions. The diamond shape of this parttern comes from the skin of the rattle snake, one of the oldest and wisest beings living on earth. Snakes have been snakes for more than 100 million years and they have moved to almost every corner of the world, adapting to many ecosystems, they also produce some of the most complex molecules in their "venom", used in the appropriate dose, these molecules produce the most profound vissions in the spiritual realm. The snake energy pulls us towards the earth and is related to organs below the navel; e.g. the kidneys, the reproductive organs, and our legs that represent our determination to survive and to hunt for food. The bird symbolism is the triangles in this diamond, it represents the feathers of the bird, and birds are the natural evolution of reptiles, so the feather snake alegory is a representation of this physical and spiritual evolution. The organs above the navel represent portals to the spiritual world. Organs like our guts, where we feel our intuition arise from, our heart that makes us feel deeper emotions, our voice system, our entire nervous system all of which allows us to perceive reality from an "intangible" window of perception such as thoughts, emotions, memories, dreams... etc but that have the power to transform the physical world. In fact, what is a culture or society but a collection of stories that are full of emotions, thoughts, mermories, dreams and intention. Hence, the most important teachings of the many reincarnations of Quetzalcoatl is to live a life of balance between heaven and earth.  

The other pattern in this rug is the spiralled cycle of life, the life of a warrior. When we stop fearing death abd we embrace it as part of life, we become warriors of the flowered path, our only "weapons" are flowers, song and dance, we know we are going to loose this battle of life but we face it with a smile and embrace death for a joyful dance. The meaning of the battle is an inner battle to face our unconsciuos, our fears, anxieties and traumas and to shower them with flowers, song and dance. By the flowered path we mean the enlightened path that finds beauty and harmony in everything that we do.

The next stripe is a series of mountains that represent the natural altars of the world and our source of strenght and wisdom, the landscape remembers the entire history of creation and by connecting to the sacred mountains we can trace our steps back to the original instructions for living in harmony on planet earth. These mountains are interacalted with seeds of life, nine sister seeds that were given to us by the Pleyades (the ladies of the market) to nurture and sustain our civilization (corn, beans, squash, amaramth, chia, agave, chillies, cempasuchitl, ololuihqui). The mountains are mirrored above and create a mesmerizing double helix DNA pattern, because we ourselves are nothing but sacred geometry expressed through DNA coding living a mortal dream that we wake up from.