Tonantzin and the Virgin of Guadalupe

Virgin of Guadalupe:
Tonantzin:

  If your world was suddenly turned upside down, say there were some strong and powerful people who conquered your culture and made you start to follow their rituals...then you might find that you would continue the traditions of your old culture in secret, and try to blend them into the newer rituals that were required.

After a while, the old ways would have died with the old peoples...a thing that used to happen more frequently, but now that we elders live longer, the memories are there longer.

Here's a great link to the tale of Tonantzin, who became absorbed into the Virgin of Guadalupe.

It was 1531 when Spaniards told indigenous people who lived in Mexico that they must become part of the new culture.

But today there are still Mexicans of indigenous descent who know Tonantzin's story.

Look back into your own history...

Look into the cultures of your own heritage...does your family continue a tradition that was handed down in the family, rather than according to the media?  Perhaps favorite holiday foods...decorations, or opening presents on Hanukkah or Christmas Eve?

Enter your temple, or cathedral, or a place that brings you to connect with your concept of the spiritual.  A place known as the temenos, coming to us from the Greek verb τέμνω, meaning "to cut". 

... it signifies an area of earth or ground forbidden to mundane uses and dedicated to the sacred. The temenos was an important feature of the mythological landscape in early times, at times a shrine, temple or a sanctuary structure made by human hands, but most often an open air enclosure or sacred grove.

Virgin of Guadalupe Day, December 12.

Today we (especially Latinos or Catholics) celebrate how a goddess (later to be named the Virgin of Guadalupe) sent a young indigenous man to tell the new conquering religion to build a cathedral on a sacred spot where the older culture had always venerated her as a goddess. 

Virgin of Guadalupe

Stars on her cloak, the moon at her feet, roses that bloomed in December, the depictions of this Madonna always have the same traits.  For more information on the Virgin of Guadalupe history and her miracles, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Guadalupe

The former name of the mother-goddess was Tonantzin, and her temple was at Tepeyac outside what was to become Mexico City, and as noted in the 2 histories (both in Spanish and Nahuatl), the Spanish had only been there about 10 years when these miracles happened.

Miracles are available still today.  Do we see them?  Do we ask for them? Yes, especially at this time of year. 

Today's art:

By Bertha Lum - Wise Men