Guatemalan Death, Mourning and Dream Rituals
Cultural Travel
Before, diving into the article listen to our welcome note and invitation to ground, connect and bring presence to this moment:
Were you raised with an intimate relationship, and deep understanding, of death, mourning and dreams, and how they can inter-weave in your life?
I personally didn’t grow up with a deeper understanding of any them, let alone how they may interact and inform one another.
Our Cultural Travel section of this magazine, allows us to learn different ways of perceiving ourselves, and the world around us, through different peoples, places, traditions and rituals — without (necessarily) leaving our homes.
This week, we’re looking to Guatemalan death, mourning and dreaming rituals.
[Find the Audio Reading of this article at the bottom of page]
I first visited, and lived, in Guatemala for two months in 2015. It was here that my ability to lucid dream, and experiences of astral and shamanic dreams noticeably increased. It wasn’t until later researching more about Guatemalan Maya dream rituals and practices, that I learnt how normal a practice engaging with dreams is in Guatemalan daily lives. Whether it is by receiving your direction and purpose in life, conceiving, or supporting a healthy pregnancy, or communing with a loved one who has passed — dreams play a vital role.
I also learnt of this study that describes different anthropologists experiencing their dreams changing when living with a different culture they are studying.
As we began our journey of researching, learning with, and documenting indigenous and ancestral cultures with Soul Seed Gathering - Guatemala was an obvious first choice to begin and return back to.
We journeyed for our first research and documentary trip in November 2016. I was in awe, and incredibly grateful, for how deep and how quickly we were able to immerse ourselves in the San Juan Del Lago community. We sat with the weavers each day, and befriended Micaela a community leader, and master weaver, who invited us to the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Here, hundreds of women gathered with so much strength and support for one another. The next day she introduced us to her sister Maria Feliciana Opal Mendoza, an Aj’ilonel, the Tz’utujil Maya name for shaman or spiritual healer.
Maria had received her calling to be a medicine woman in a dream, but had at first resisted that path because she knew what it would entail. Maria became our first documentary interview, and guided us into a fire ceremony as an invocation, and also an invitation, for us to gather in Lago Atitlán, in several months time, for our Chapter 1 Female Soul Weaving gathering. During the ceremony, I learnt that I was pregnant, a week after conception, and soon understood that this it can be normal for midwives to recognize a woman is pregnant just a day after conception.
We learnt that dreams, prophecies and ritual practices are often worked with by “comadronas” mayan midwives and spiritual guides, and are also an important part of the death, dying and mourning practice.
According to Maya tradition, honoring the dead encourages the living to make peace with the inevitability of death.
Death and Dreaming
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