The overhead lights blazed bright in The Center that Thursday evening, September 18th. Students and staff gathered around the table, carrying the slight hesitation that comes with not quite knowing what to expect.
Cultura Cura had begun, coordinated by Orlando Rodriguez from Servicios de la Raza as part of Hispanic Serving Institutions Week.
Rodriguez, a 2021 CSU Pueblo alum with his Masters in Social Work, had something specific in mind. This wasn’t going to be a passive presentation about cultural awareness. He brought materials for Ojo de Dios, the Eye of God, a sacred spiritual and ritual object woven on a cross of sticks. This practice runs deep in the traditions of the Huichol and Pueblo peoples.
The four sticks in each person’s hands had meaning. They symbolized the four cardinal directions and the four elements: earth, water, fire, and wind. Participants picked up colored yarn, beginning the process of wrapping around what becomes the eye. Each strand would has its own prayer, its own need, its own connection to someone specific.
“There was no border there, just people,” Rodriguez explained later by phone. “When the border came, it split the people.”
The practice represented something vital about Indigenous and Hispanic identity in the Southwest, where histories interweave across artificial boundaries.
The center of the eye symbolizes the power of seeing and understanding things we normally cannot see. Traditional Huichol craftspeople weave a pupil of black yarn or place a mirrored disk in the center where the sticks cross, enhancing the vision of the god’s eyes.
The Ojo de Dios does what it’s meant to do. It connects the spiritual and physical worlds through the simple act of wrapping yarn around crossed sticks.
Rodriguez’s intention had been clear from the start: “We don’t want to appropriate cultures. We want to appreciate and respect them.” His intention had been clear from the start: “We don’t want to appropriate cultures. We want to appreciate and respect them.”
The photo gallery below showcase the event.
