Installment #2 of Elder Ni Bon Te Ban’s Interpretations of the Taino Chronicles
The pain and suffering Guakar brings to us are natural processes of growth, such as Birth, Death, Initiation, Responsibility, Accountability, Defense, Offense, the struggle to physically grow to maturity and so on. These are the pains of growth and transformation and not the pains of destruction. Understand that suffering and pain within Guakar’s Bohio are unto themselves sacred, for if not, this gracious Mystery would have no need to move them within our Human Experience.
This Myth and Legend concerning Guakar defines Guakar’s name as meaning “Our Menstrual Cramps”. Here again we must invest a great amount of clear thinking, concentration to arrive at the wisdom and knowledge within Guakar’s name. There is no life in the Human Experience without Menstrual Cramps, because let’s be clear that Menstrual Cramps are intimately related to the contractions of bringing a Child into the World, which begin as soon as the Woman is pregnant in their more subtle forms. It is through the action of the Menstrual Cramps that a Divine Entity (Child) is brought into physical manifestation. This pain is a healthy pain of evolution and coming into physical manifestation. By expanding our conception of menstrual cramps, we see that these are the healthy pains by which any Divine Concept, Divine Principle, Inspiration from the Spirit, Divine Tool and so on, are brought into this Physical Reality. Without “Our Menstrual Cramps” the Ancestors would never have arrived at their profound conceptions of the Universe or the physical manifestations of such Divine Places of Reverence such as Kaguana and the many other places where our Peoples globally have constructed temples, pyramids, observatories, burial grounds and so on in alignment with Divine and Celestial Energies. We also see within our expanded definition of Menstrual Cramps the interrelationship and intertwining of the polarities of masculine and feminine in their Divine Dance within all the manifestations of Creation.
Once again it is extremely, extremely important concerning the gifts of Guakar that we internalize the meaning of trials, tribulations and agony so that we may come to redefine for ourselves what do these mean in their healthy manifestions, because we know that in the time of the Old Ones who were bringing forth these Myths and Legends there certainly was not the hostility of modernization and western civilization which is actually western backwardness. So here again we must be very careful not to align our Myths and Stories with the definitions of the colonizers. When we look back to accounts by the Europeans who first came into our Taino World, we see that Our Old Ones were described as healthy, beautiful, kind, generous, happy, thriving peoples. We know that the Lands and Waters within our Taino World were, especially at that time, extremely abundant, one only had to walk into the ocean to find more seafood that one could possibly eat. Our Peoples had immaculately clean Yukayekes and were by all accounts living in a Paradise. Naturally there would be some trials and tribulations, but we cannot rate these side by side with the extreme of suffering and deprivation that we see within these same Lands today, and globally. In doing so we will continue to struggle upon quicksand that will eventually digest our experience. Just as suffering and pain (within this definition) are sacred, so too are Trials and Tribulations also sacred. Note: Agony in itself arrives from the breakdown of a Spiritual Foundation and its conception of the whole of the Spiritual Entity. Agony is also the atrocity that the People experienced in the overthrowing of their experience and their interrelationship with the Creation. We must be careful not to associate Guakar with the god that the Europeans brought upon our Lands and with that god which Hatuey certainly rejected. Agony is a European demon.
We say in this interpretation that Guakar brings forth challenging lessons in order to teach us to be in good relationship with the Human and Earthly Conditions. Because of this Guakar is watchful to continue to bring us into healthy relationship with the right path of progression and evolution. Through Guakar’s Lodge we are able to arrive at Yokahu Bagua Marocoti’s Lodge, from the perception of singular we are lead by Guakar to the expanded perception of multiples (All)! Let’s remember that within the depths of Winter (Guakar’s Lodge) we can look upon the trees and see the buds which will become flowers and leaves in the Spring already forming among the ice and snow. Which is a symbolism of Guakar leading us through the Menstrual Cramps into the Physical Manifestation of that which has been Invisible. If we look at another natural symbolism, we see in the spring the birds start to hatch, the flowers start to bloom, the animals which have been hibernating begin to reemerge and so on, showing us that we have returned to the Lodge of Yokahu after the trials and tribulations of the winter, but that the winter months (Guakar’s Lodge) held vital developmental phases for all these beautiful manifestations that would not be possible without Guakar. By no means are we saying that Guakar and Yokahu Bagua Marocoti are separate entities or separate Mysteries, for wherever you find Guakar you will also find Yokahu Bagua Marocoti. It is just that through the polarization of One Divine Consciousness into the polarities of Guakar and Yokahu Bagua Marocoti, (dual consciousness), all the manifestations and cycles of Life come about, which cause them to appear to be separate and apart from one another.
Caney Circle 