Size: 40x100cm; 16in by 3ft
Weaver: Belen Bautista
Price: 140USD
Materials and methods: criollo sheep wool spun in the mills of Tianguistengo. Hand dyed yarns by Leonor Lazo using natural dyes: Béé (Dactylopius Coccus). 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.
Design, patterns and symbols.
This rug depicts the five pointed cross that teaches us to live a life of balance and harmony. In the ancient calendar, the sun rises with the effect of each cardinal point every day thus imparting every day a different type of energy used for divination. The fifth direction gives us the idea that when the energy of the four directions is balanced there is order in the universe and when the energies are not balanced there is chaos in the up and down axis. The same metaphor applies to our personal lives. The center point represents the energy around our navel, from the navel and above we have the spirtual energy that helps uplift our spirit towards the sky (our hearts and our mind) thus represented with a bird symbol. From the navel downwards we have our kidneys, reproductive organs and legs that represent our earthly and survival needs, often represented with a snake. The left side of our body holds the energy of the nahual, the side of the jaguar (intuition and dreams) that connects us to the spirtual world while the right side is a chamber for sound (language, music, logic and mathematics) that allows us to understand the patterns of nature and the cosmos. A person that balances the four types of awareness becomes a Nahual, a person that creates knowledge, someone who can travel back and forth (consciously) from the spiritual world to the awake world and unite both realms.