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Awakening the Historical Memory with the Southern Cross | Chakana

Approaches to the significances of the Southern Cross in the history of the peoples – Bolivia

Our North is the South – click on image to read more

In Earth’s navigation around the Sun, today is the middle point between last equinox and next solstice, marking a new phase in the Solar Wheel of Life (see more here) . Growth for the Northern Hemisphere, Appeasement in the Southern Hemisphere. Both phases are impregnated in the historical memory of the peoples and are observed with different names during the first days of May.

Historical memory may or may not be conscious of the new Solar phase, Or, be covered with the veil of celebrations that have nothing to do with our orbit in space. Anyway, it will happen and define our daily life the next 45 days.

There are those in search of deepening their historical memory journeying their memories and gathering parts of forgotten history. I found some of them these days, trying to make visible what the material density hiding it. All of them busy with the Southern Cross, Andean Cross, Chakana, our Wheel of Life in Heavens (see more here).

And that has many meanings and significances, having as a result many approaches from each one’s experiences. Almost listening that walking life is also recreating the historical memory from our own experience, feeling, waking up knowledge and applying it to daily life.

Despertando la memoria histórica de nuestros orígenes – pulse en la imagen para leer más

This reminded me of those using Tarot as oracle – not as fortune telling art – having among their goals to recreate their own deck of cards with their own icons and depositing on it their own approach from their own experience and historical memory. It’s not theory, it’s not a hypothesis, it’s live history, latent, tangible and intangible, bursting out through the cracks of oblivion veils.

Here a brief summary of the approach presented by some of the people I encountered, from their own experience in the wonderful venture of recovering our historical memory:

Simón Yampara H.* > La Chakana: Planning and cyclical character of agricultural calendar. It’s Andean cosmoliving. Parity and tetralectic. Two energies becoming four. Planning with a spiritual and material axis. It’s not an external duality, it’s here, towards the outside and towards the insides.  Weave of the Andean cosmological house for organization levels.

Gonzalo Pereira Q.* > Constellations do not exist, they are part of the cultural production of peoples according to their daily needs. What one culture perceives from heaven depending on the geographical latitude where they live. Guaraní people do not watch the stars but the dark spots. Leo Pucher realizes that the Andean llama is the important thing.

Guiniol Quilla* > It’s the Andean logic. The philosophy of the Pacha. The Chakana is the union with the Cosmos. It’s guidance reading with coca leaves. The progressive logic in textiles. The ordering archiqtecture of our peoples and in the external points are the apachetas (energetic points).

Southern Cross | Andean Sacred Cross | Chakana | click on image to read more

Jesús Llorenty* > The cross does not exist for Christianity. Not until the XVI century the cross on May 3 is spoken of and only on books. Not until the 17th and 18th century in the church. One thing is the continent and another the content. The Chakana is a meeting place.

Oscar Chambi* > The Chakan and the mathematics from Tiwanaku. Represents a cyclic culture, dual, of rotation character, complemmentary, symmetric. The center is the meeting point, not the middle, can be moved, it’s not static. His approach is based on mathematical models where the starting point is the duality and interactions between the two of them. Interactions cross proportions on Chakana stairs: [1 1] [1 3] [1 5] and only in [1 6] beings start to be born.

Javier Medina* > Axis on which men place themselves in the world, Tool for very practical things. Expressed in a paradigm of relaitonships, principle of correspondence, as above so below. The organization of a whole based on a point, which is not on Western culture. The Chakana is an archetype produced by the mind.

Eduardo Pareja*** > The Chakana has four views on the same image: space, time, future, past. You are in the middle. We are speaking about connecting not only present future past, but directly with dimensions. It’s a portal, a spacecraft, a very complex instrument, a tool to give time order. In the facade of Moon Island it’s very clear, it’s an iconographic dynamic design, not static. When it’s handled as icon, itś time; an embossed cross in a vertical wall becomes a clock, the shadow marks each minute and changes the design of the cross and by its characteristics we know what it is about.

Marcelo Zaiduni** > “…essential cossmological scheme on which they based for the formation of Tawantinsuyu, from permanent observation of the rising Azimuth of the Southern Cross (Chakana). Hence, all the other lines in (Coricancha) run towards the cardinal points (ceques). The main line which should run towards the South form the center of Coricancha deviates to the Southeast, until the point in the horizon where the Chakana and the Lluthu rised. Based on this myth [the fox and the Chakana], it seems evident the logical deduction that the observation of this phenomena is marked by the relationship between the precession movement and the Chakana. The reason of this approach is just due to precession, the Azimuth is the rising point of stars in the horizon, it travels faster on the horizon, on the horizon of the South deep sky where lie nearest starts on the East-West line. The myth points to the rapture of Llunthu before mentioning the Southern Cross or any other star. But we have to emphasize that most myths, stories and Andean-Amazonian narratives, pranks and deeds of the fox are the central element. For reference matters, the fox is an object of dark cloud, as mere reference, these clouds start to blur from sight a few hours before sunset. The monitoring of this process helped our ancestors to determine the position of all other celestial objects in relation to the position of the fox, the partridge (Llunthu), the serpent and the Chakana. Immediate conclusions from these observations is that the Earth has a series of regular movements related to these celestial objects (brilliant and dark) and that these objects have regular movements related to a common axis or the center of the galaxy. Last, as a conclusion, all components from the Earth, stars, black objects, etc., are in a permanent systemic and recurring movement and that their observation and systematization were and will always be vital.”

We also have the approach of Carlos Milla Villena here > La Cruz del Sur: Nuestra Rueda de la Vida en los Cielos

And there must be many more approaches that are not here, and we wish to find them soon to keep awakening and sharing our forgotten histories. In this path of recovering our historical memory, all approaches are valid, no need to have the consent of any officialdom, except the experience of initiating the way back to our origins remembering who we are.

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*I found all these persons in the event ‘PRIMER AKHULLI – AMUYT’AWI EN TORNO A LA CHAKANA’ organized by the La Paz Municipality on May 3, 2011.

***Curator, guardian of the historical legacy of our origins and a personal friend.

***M’anka Ayra Taqi Chuyma (El Camino de la Vitalidad Conciente), Universidad Pública de El Alto (UPEA), Departamento de Historia y Cultura Andina en colaboración con el Centor Andino de Acciones y Proyectos X’ata (Capax Ñam), Responsable del Proyectoy Compilador: Marcelo Zaiduni Salazar Yupanqui, El Alto, Jácha Apacheta, 3 de mayo del 2003, Bolivia.

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