ART JOURNAL- ENTRY #2

SUBJECT MATTER: NAHUI OLLIN

The Nahui Ollin is a Nahua and Aztec cultures' graphic, hard-edged representation of a four-petal flower. Here, it is depicted as a soft petal flower similar to the one found over the womb on the tunic of the heavily pregnant Virgen de Guadalupe.

The Nahui Ollin is a Nahua and Aztec symbol that represents 5 era cycles of creation and destruction. The 4 petals represent the four cardinal directions and four previous cycles to the one we are currently in. The center of the flower represents the axis mundi; the central locus of the earth's rotation that connects the poles of the celestial bodies (the heavens and the underworld) to the earth. The axis mundi also represents the fifth sun; our current sun and earth cycle. Our current cycle, it's believed, will end due to numerous, catastrophic earthquakes.

In other cultures, outside of South America, the axis mundi is represented as a pole, a line, a dot, a tree trunk, a temple, etc. which illustrate the same conceptual understanding of a central access point that consecrates and orders existence in an unhallowed and disordered world.

The Nahui Ollin symbol over the Virgin's womb would have pointed to her son as the central divine access point around which all things flow/rotate to and from. It would have been a very powerful communication to the remaining Aztecs in Tenochtitlan (current day Mexico City) on December 12, 1531 (the Aztec Empire fell 10 years prior on Aug 13, 1521). The Nahui Ollin would have signaled the omnipotence of Christ born from the womb as the conduit of all celestial and divine bodies in existence.



DIPICTION OF SUBJECT MATTER

I colored the flower petals of my Nahui Ollin pink to call to the rose-pink colored tunic of the Virgen de Guadalupe. The bent stem calls to the previous, pagan, hard-lined graphic representation of the axis mundi beginning to genuflecting on Tepeyac Hill (i.e. the hill Juan Diego received the tilma containing the image of the Virgen de Guadalupe) in reverence to the Son/"sun". 



PERSONAL DRAW OF MEANING

I've always loved the idea of flowers. I don't love studying them, I don't love stopping and smelling them, I'm allergic. Yet, too, if I'm given some or buy some, I stop and smell them every 10 mins so maybe I do love smelling them. Let's put it this way, if there's a chance there's a bug on them out in nature, I don't love smelling them. And, I don't love trying to artistically portray them by any means of realistic conveyance. However, I do love graphic representations of them and I do also super dig arranging them, especially in Ikebana flower arrangements. I love how powerful flowers are as symbols, how they carry so much rich history and social meaning. I love that they bend to the needs of one other and cooperate to survive, that they provide sustenance to just about everything living, and I love that they bring so much joy to those enraptured by their scent and beauty. I used to want to be a flower delivery person as a dream job, just to see the happiness on people's faces when they got their bouquets. I always thought that would be one of the best jobs in the world until I thought about the pay they probably get. So..., to the wind went that dream job, smh. Practicality. 

Here, I love that this soft edged Nahui Olin flower represents the only divine conduit needed to make everything holy. It's a personal show of gratitude for Jesus' entrance into the world through the purity of the Virgen de Guadalupe; The Divine Rose.

But, too, like the Nahua and Aztecs of the earlier eras previously mentioned, I'm not a "Marian" in the same sense that someone else might be a "Marian". Meaning, I do not pray "to" Mary as Marians seem to pray "to" Mary. Because this subject was on the mind it unintentionally became a center subject in a 3 hour long phone fight with another Catholic about whether or not Catholics should aught or aught not pray "to" saints.

My stance is "no", no Catholic anywhere, at anytime, should ever look at a saint and start praying to them. We are to pray to The Father alone and that's the end of it. However, this wasn't the end of the argument. I went on to explain to the person who start claiming I'm a Protestant that veneration; dulia and latria are not prayer and should not ever be conflated with an act of prayer.

Meditation is not prayer, I went on to explain, and, so, too, should also not ever be conflated as prayer. We should only appeal to The Father, always, and ask Him, if it's in His will, to have the saint(s) pray for us- this was my ultimate stance.

Although, in truth, I will secretly tell you, I have gone directly to a saint many times and have just asked them to pray for me (not in "prayer" have I gone to them, but just straight directly to their soul, after blessing myself with the sign of the cross, of course, and said, "pray for me...for this and/or that given reason"- I didn't stop to pray to The Father and ask first cause I've started with the sign of the cross saying, "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" which address them first. My phone opponent still did not take this view. The individual I was combating me implying I'm currently a Christian for my stance, again with the Protestant claims. So..., I told the person Protestants were standing on the right side of history with this one...and you can only image the silence I got from that one. 

This whole thing is blowing my mind. I didn't even realize some Catholics think it's okay to pray to saints and justify doing so by redefining the term "prayer" to mean that there are various forms and levels to prayer, one of which is considered a "veneration"; a "dulia" and that it's counted as an "appeal" prayer to the Saint(s) for prayer. I'm all like, "You're insane. That's not what prayer is at all nor how it works", smh. A prayer is a mode of worship done strictly in communion with the Father, in Christ's name, and then we make an appeal within that prayer to the Father to the saint to pray for us. 

Anyways, I'm digressing way too much, so, to get back on track, I'll just say this journal imagery has, in the very immediate, taught me that I feel righteous in my personal (which momentarily ago I thought was a universal) belief that we should only pray to The Father. Am I right? Yes, probably. 

Even when we say the Hail Mary, I've always considered it a call to Mary to pray for us rather than an actual prayer to her specifically due to it always being safely tucked behind and said after the Our Father- which would make it an appeal, not a "prayer", after our approach to The Father. I mean, who says the Hail Mary without first saying the Our Father?! No one, that's who! Right? 

Browse and purchase Nahui Ollin kitsch at AKO's website: NAHUI OLLIN KITSCH

Browse and purchase Nahui Ollin kitsch at AKO's Zazzle store: ZAZZLE- NAHUI OLLIN KITSCH