Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
Here is a retelling of the Hopi story, The Revenge of the Katcinas (Kachinas or Katsinam). To grow crops and survive in their mountainous desert, the Hopis understand the necessity for proper devotion to the supernatural powers, known as the Kachinas, who embody the spirits of living things and also of ancestors who have died and become a part of nature. When the people fall out of favor with the supernaturals, disaster results.
The fracking boom threatens Puebloan and Hopi ancestral homelands around New Mexico’s sacred Chaco Canyon and local Diné communities are fighting drilling, pipeline projects and just general industrialization of their region without bringing real economic development. See the videos from the Solstice Project.
How two bitter opponents, Barry Goldwater and David Brower, came to realize the folly of dam building and desert over-development in the arid Southwest United States. It is time to open the floodgates of Glen Canyon Dam.
The Soyal Ceremony begins on the shortest day of the year, and symbolizes the second phase of Creation at the Dawn of Life. Its prayers and rituals implement a plan of life for the coming year, ceremonially turning back the sun toward its summer path.
The Butterfly Dance is a Hopi ceremony petitioning for rain, and health for all living things, thanking the beautiful butterfly for pollinating plant life.
Mytho-Historical Prophecy: Facing certain destruction by a massive wildfire raging down from the high peaks, the Oraibi village leader consults Old Spider Woman on overcoming the state of koyaanisqatsi, or life out of balance, that had befallen the land.
Following the dances of the kachinas in the wayward village of Pivanhonkyapi suffering the imbalance of Koyaanisqatsi, the dreaded Yaayapontsa arrive to purify the world with fire.