Humanities Research Highlights

Professor Allen J. Christenson: Balancing the Cosmos

Balancing the Cosmos  is the result of nine years of work in the traditional Maya community of Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala filming rituals and ceremonies that blend ancient Maya religion with Roman Catholicism. It is in part based on the work of Professor Allen J. Christenson of the Department of Humanities, Classics, and Comparative Literature, who has worked in the highlands of Guatemala as a linguist and ethnographer since 1978. It is a collaborative effort on the part of filmmaker Andrew Weeks, Dr. Christenson, and the Maya themselves who wished to document these ceremonies for their community and for future generations. The Maya of Santiago Atitlan believe themselves to occupy the center of the world. It is one of the most beautiful places in the world, situated at the point where three great volcanoes come together around a high caldera lake. Far more important than the beauty of their community’s location, however is the profoundly-held conviction on the part of the Maya that they live in a sacred place. The volcanoes and surrounding mountains are the abode of gods and powerful ancestors. The lake bears the primordial waters of creation, suffused with animative power capable of regenerating and sustaining life., as well as the capacity to destroy it. Traditionalist maya priests believe that if they neglect their rituals, the world will be unable to sustain itself and sink back into the waters of the lake from which it sprang and darkness and death will shroud the world as it once did before the fierst dawning of the sun. Sacred ritual rebirths and sustains the world, keeping it in balance and perpetually new and alive. (More information on the DVD available at www.balancingthecosmos.com.)