PROGRAMME NOTE
Movement 1 The New Fire Ceremony
Movement 2 Journey to The House of The Sun
On a rainy November night in
2009 I wandered into The British Museum and came upon an Aztec artefact of
great beauty. A small stone casket with a stone lid was covered in bundles of
carved reeds. It was so expertly crafted that you could almost feel the contour
of the hands of the person who carved it. I wanted to touch it, feel the frozen
reeds and have a contact with this otherworldly object from another time, place
and culture. The gallery was empty, dark and silent save for the sound of
muffled feet on the carpet in the corridor outside and I was drawn to the stone
casket so strongly it was as if music was coming from it. I began to hear oboes
and layers of reed sounds building and ‘The Binding of The Years’ was begun.
Ancient cultures,
archaeology and ritual have been part of my life since childhood. I am drawn to
cultural references of how time is perceived. For the Aztecs, time was circular.
There was a great sense of pre-destiny. The manner of understanding the present
and how it projects into the future was radically different to our modern
experience. Gods and demi-gods played their part and for the Aztecs the renewal
of fire and the symbolism of the sun were at the centre of ritual and daily
life.
The ‘New Fire Ceremony’
marked the beginning of a new century for them. It
symbolised a renewal of time, a rebirth of life, and of new fire. An inscription on a carved rock face in Southern
Mexico known as the ‘Colalcalco stone’ reveals a pattern of dates, which had
elsewhere been recorded as a ‘Calendar round’,
a combination of day and month that will repeat every 52 years. The ‘Colalcalco stone’ coincides with the
end of the 13th Buktun- Buktuns were roughly 394-year periods and 13
was a significant sacred number the Aztecs. The long count Aztec calendar was begun in 3114 BC and the 13th
Buktun ends around December 21st 2012 when a new fire
ceremony should mark this momentous passing of time and the beginning of a new
Aztec century- extraordinarily enough, this year.
By a strange coincidence the
end of 2012 when this new piece of mine is given life, marked the end of this
over thousand year cycle and I had not known this when I heard those first
sounds 3 years ago on that November evening in the museum. This is a very moving and deep thing to contemplate and is
significant to me because each new big work, which I write marks the end of a
period of thinking and creating. In its culmination that way of thinking is
finished and a new beginning is waiting round the corner, which is both scary
and exciting.
The title ‘The Binding of
The Years’ refers to the gathering and binding of 52 reeds, which symbolised
the old years. At dusk on the day of ‘The New Fire Ceremony’ a procession of
fire priests dressed as gods walked silently to the mountain to a pyre of
stacked firewood. In the town all embers were extinguished. Thousands gathered
on rooftops. Children were masked lest they turn into mice. After sacrifice,
fire was kindled and the bound reeds were used to light the pyre. Torches of
reeds from the pyre flames were taken by runners to light the city with new
light and the ceremony was complete.
For me the power of the
ritual of lighting a flame from the first flame reminds me of Candlemas, of
Easter, of Hanukah and Passover, and of the
‘peaceful’ candlelit processions in Belfast during the troubles in the
1970’s when communities of women from both sides of the religious divide who
called themselves ‘The Peace People’ took to the streets with candles in silent
processions of unity. I’m also affected by the power of the silent protests of
the Arab Spring when thousands used candlelight from rooftops to unite and put
a world focus on what was happening to them and of the passing on of the
Olympic flame to London this year, seven years after the 7/7 bombings. The idea
of passing light and rekindling a fire and welcoming a new sense of beginning
and spirit is a hugely positive message and one, which has great meaning for
our world today.
© Deirdre Gribbin 2012.