Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
One of the 20th Century’s most influential composers, Paul Hindemith created the neo-classical-folk-inspired symphony Mathis der Maler, based on the life of the mysterious 16th Century painter Matthias Grunewald, whose masterpiece associated Saint Anthony and the Virgin Mary with the miraculous cure of the epidemic skin disease called St. Anthony’s Fire.
Like several West African religions, Vodouisants believe in a supreme being called Bondyè, from bon “good” + dyè “God.” Because Bondyè is unreachable, Vodouisants aim their prayers to lesser entities, the spirits known as Lwa (Loa), contacted and served through possession. In turn, the Lwa confer material blessings, physical well-being, protection, abundance.
In Guatemala, a procession through the cobblestone streets of the former capital, Antigua, marks the end of the Day of the Dead, All Saints and All Souls.
Part II of the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe, part of the Spanish colonial appropriation of the Aztec Earth Mother Tonantzin: The future St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin explained to the Bishop of Mexico City how the Virgin appeared to request a temple be built at Tepeyac in her honor.
A Mexican Indian Catholic convert experiences visions of an obscure Aztec goddess, Tonantzin, challenging his faith. Thereafter the goddess becomes associated with the Virgin Mary in post-Spanish-conquest church.
Here we follow poet Lenelle N. Moise’s surreal submergence into her mother’s passion for water, the sea, vodoun. Imagery, juxtapositions, fluidity, they haunt this reverie, influenced by unseen forces, diaspora and the Haitian sea goddess Erzulie.
For more than a century now, Haitians have trekked to the picturesque grove where, legend has it, the Virgin Mary – or Erzuli Dantor – appeared in the middle of the 19th century on a palm tree near the 100-foot waterfall and began healing the sick.