“The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained.”
― David Bohm
Dear friends and family, we are writing to you today to ask if you may be able to help our effort to grow support for Saq’ Be’ as we expand our programming in this, our twentieth year as an organization.
The above quote from a theoretical physicist speaks to the way that work with traditions helps us to change the eyes with which we see the world, to reawaken what is innate and to develop it so that we may grow to become different than who have been. We are all unwitting participants in a world of human design that extracts, degrades, and deviates from our deeper purpose. Many of us recognize the time has arrived for our individual and collective healing, a time to restore balance and wholeness.
Bohm brought to light an understanding of implicate order to quantum physics, the organization of potential before being made manifest into existence. As an example of how this is relevant to the work of Saq’ Be’, we become capable of understanding potential and alignment with natural patterns through ancient wisdom, looking to coherent knowledge systems, such as those reflected in the Cholq’ij calendar of the Maya. It is not enough to simply understand that potential, but we must work to bring it into being. We only understand and realize our own potential by aligning into deep harmony with the natural movement of creation and manifesting that alignment through our interaction and work with others in life. The Cholq’ij, other calendars, knowledge and wisdom that survives from those cultures that have co-evolved in this way offer an opportunity to return to our role of right relationship as humans on this planet, not only to restore a balanced state but to manifest endlessly more potential. Yet, if we fail to nourish and support the roots of living lineages and the keepers of these traditions, we unintentionally embody the extractive and degenerative patterns that have divorced us from our right relationship with a natural and universal order, and limit our evolutionary potential, individually and collectively.
As Saq’ Be’ enters our 20th year, we are reminded of the significance of the number 20 in the Maya tradition. This represents the balance and realization for humans, between the 10 cosmic and 10 telluric energies. It is manifested in our species as 10 fingers and 10 toes and is reflected in the 20 Ch’umil (day signs) that cycle through 13 times (correlating with our 13 major articulations) to form the Cholq’ij, known as the calendar of life. Elder Mariano Xutumil has spoken about our civilization falling into a rhythm of a different calendar, the calendar of death, which can be seen in the way that our societies degrade life in all its forms in an attempt to grasp an illusion of wealth, when true wealth lies before us all. By aligning with the rhythms of life, and working to enhance life, we experience the richness of fulfillment of purpose, of connection, and find comfort in knowing that we are firmly on the path of recognizing and realizing the endless potential of creation.
In 2020, we lost one of our key founding elders, Carlos Barrios. With heavy hearts, Saq’ Be’ committed to continue to move forward with our work of bringing forward the teachings of living lineages so that we may be a part of contributing to humanity, once again, coming into alignment and realizing our deeper purpose. We will continue to nourish the roots of these traditions, with new and ongoing programs that support the communities and keepers of traditions critical to maintaining the threads of connection, knowledge and wisdom in their homelands. While we continue to build out our programming, some of the current and upcoming highlights include:
Supporting Traditions
- Saq’ Be’ will work with our colleagues in Chichicastenango, Guatemala to establish a medicinal teaching garden. We previously worked with this community to construct a building, Casa de los Nawales, which serves as an art and teaching space. The community medicine garden will work with local, traditional herbalists to share and reawaken ancestral knowledge within the local K’iche’ community.
- We will be working with the Amazonian community in Sarayaku, Ecuador to support identified needs and to promote the use of local medicine as a means of health empowerment. This project is about providing support for the Sarayaku community’s capacity to maintain agency over providing for its own healing and medicine, largely from within, utilizing traditional and other natural healing practices. The strategy includes expanding the presence of Chinese medicine, which holds respect in the community, as a way to link to a renewed valuing of local medicine and healing knowledge. As the community increasingly values and depends upon (poorly offered) western medicine, this project is about strengthening pathways towards decolonizing medicine and uplifting innate medicines, traditions and practices. The program could work towards expanding the exchange with Chinese medicine, increasing the capacity to locally produce medicine supplies, the creation of healing space(s) and more.
- Continuing the work of filming elders, documenting the traditions, and conducting research on important knowledge so that it may remain accessible for communities into the future.
Sharing Traditions
- We will continue to publish the Daily Ch’umil on our website, which provides a consistent way for participants to connect with Maya wisdom.
We will continue to publish new articles/ videos that share traditional teachings with the world. - We are currently posting a series of online publications on raising energy in turbulent times, created and shared Maya wisdom keeper from Guatemala, Red Armadillo.
- Saq’ Be’ is supporting the printing of a day planner that integrates traditional Maya wisdom. This year’s version will be in honor of one of our founding members, Carlos Barrios, and next year we plan to focus on a collaboration with the medicinal garden projects.
- We will be developing a series of webinars, one offered by a board member on natural healing methods, a series introducing foundations in Maya knowledge/ cosmology, and another led by our colleagues in Chichicastenango, Guatemala. These will be offered by suggested donation.
Operating Infrastructure
- We will be working to upgrade our website and social media presence, as needed, to serve as a backbone for the programs mentioned above as well as future programming.
For 20 years, Saq’ Be’ has been, and will continue to be, a volunteer led organization. In order to expand and advance this work, however, we are asking for our friends and supporters to please consider providing financial resources to the organization so that we may effectively operationalize and implement the programs identified above. The support and generosity of our community has carried us for two decades, and we believe we are now at a juncture of critical opportunity to support the roots of living lineages and the flow of knowledge and wisdom that can reorient humanity towards enhancing life on our planet.
Donations can be made online, or if you would like to explore other arrangements, you may email us: saqbe1@gmail.com.
Thank you!
- KAB’LAJUJ TZ’I’ ~ Today’s Ch’umil - November 18, 2024
- Please Consider Supporting Saq’ Be’ this Giving Tuesday - November 28, 2023
- KAB’LAJUJ AJ ~ Today’s Ch’umil - November 7, 2023
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