CH’UL BE, SACRED PATH

Engraved in my memory is the time my great-grandfather bore the task of Servant to the Lady of the Assumption and it was his responsibility to organize her celebration, one of the celebrations dedicated to all of the saints and virgins or our town.

From afar, I could hear the musical notes rising into the air. I looked out and watched the musician. His hands seemed to be dancing with the harp, pulling out melodies while his expression was one of being submerged in a dream. That image, so vivid and shared by all musicians, showed me that they feel the music in the depths of their being. Interwoven in my mind are the images of my great-grandfather, his proud expression, and the deep devotion that these tasks represented for him. It was at one of these moments in his company, that we danced for the first time to the sound of the rattles. Years later, my parents would embark upon this sacred path of service to the gods, in which we participated as a family. Sons and daughters, uncles and aunts, cousins, grandfathers and grandmothers and the town, maintain it year after year. For me, this film is also a way of participating in the maintenance of this sacred path, of honoring it and expressing out loud that we are a living people.

''Ch'ul be, sacred path'' is both a dream and reality that explore the ancestral collective commitments that sustain the cycle of life in the community. This cycle renews itself each season, each year, just like the corn, the landscape and the lake which turn green in times of celebration.  I try to recall the story of my people and rebuild a part of the oral tradition that is fading, giving voice to our stories and ancestral wisdom, celebrating our collective identity that still prevails.