Sun Ceremony - Casapueblo

First day, a rented bike, 7 km to go from the hostel where I was staying to watch one of Punta del Este's most iconic sunsets. That's what I did, cycling between cars passing close to the roadside and views of the beach and Laguna Del Diario on the other side. A few more climbs and descents and I was at CasaPueblo. While visiting the museum I waited for the sun ceremony. 15 minutes before sunset, Carlos Páez Vilaró began to recite a poem.

"Hello, Sun. Once again, without announcement you come to visit us.

Once again, in your long path from the beginning of life.

With your loaded belly of boiling gold to share it generously in villas and homes, country chapels, valleys, forests, rivers or in long forgotten villages.

No one denies you belong to us all, but you prefer to give your warmth to those most in need — those who need your light to illuminate their homes made of tin; those who receive from you the energy to face their daily work; and those who ask God that you never fail to enrich the crops and grant a harvest.

It’s that you, Sun, you are the golden bread on the table of the poor.

From my terraces, I watch you arrive each dusk like a ring of fire that never slows its pace and comes rolling through the years, punctual, infallible, inspiring my philosophy since the day I dreamt of giving rise to CasaPueblo and putting between these rocks the first brick and mortar. I remember it was a tempestuous day, and the sea had replaced its blue hue with a grayish tint.

On the horizon, a sailboat hard on its side tuning its path in an attempt to avoid the storm; the sky covered with escaping crows; and the squall combed the hills waking up possums and rabbits.

Suddenly, like a supernatural omen the skies opened and you emerged. You were neat and round, perfect and delineated, placed on the stage of my initiation with the sacred strength of a church’s colorful stained-glass windows.

From that moment, I felt God lived within you — and in your caldron melted the faith, and through your rays faith was transmitted wherever you went.

The same golden arms that reach out and awaken light also warm the hills, or upon descending gild the sea.

Hello, Sun.

How I would have liked to share your long journey and your gift of light.

Because within your path you’ve caressed the life of thousands of villages; you’ve shared their joy and their sorrow; you’ve witnessed war and peace; you’ve inspired prayer and work; you’ve accompanied liberty; and you’ve made the darkness of prisons more bearable.

In your path, alligators fall asleep, sunflowers awaken and roosters crow.

Vagabond cats lick their whiskers, dogs scratch as if playing the guitar, and moles are dazzled as they peek out of their burrows.

In your path, there is sweat on the forehead of workers and on the bodies of bronzed women carrying water back to the slums.

With your heartbeat, you arouse the sea and render music to factories, markets, and to the sowing and harvesting of the fields. In your path, stampedes of buffalo and antelope ran, the lion yawned, the giraffe was startled, the snake glided, and the butterfly flew.

In your path, the lark sang, the eagle took flight, the bat awoke, and the albatross migrated.

Hello, Sun. Thank you for inspiring once again my artist soul and for easing my loneliness.

It’s that I have grown so much accustomed to your company that if I don’t have you I search for you wherever you may be.

That’s how I encountered you once in Polynesia, when they crowned you king of the mother-of-pearl archipelagos and of the intricate coral reefs.

Also in Africa, when you gave impulse to the revolutionary quest for freedom, and your reflection on the mirrors of their tribal shields injected them with courage.

I’m looking right at you, and I see you haven’t changed — that you are the same sun the Aztecs revered; the same sun of my pilgrimage while painting throughout the Americas; the sun who engulfed the mysterious and secretive Amazon; the one who lit up my sacred journey to Machu Picchu in Peru; and the one in the valley of Patagonia, or even in the Sioux and Comanche territories.

The same sun that took me to Borneo, Sumatra, Bali, the musical islands, and to the burning sands of the Sahara.

In contrast to a bolt of lightning that in the night merely cracks whips of light, from your planetary kingdom your glowing rays continue active, permanent.

At times, mischievous clouds hide your splendor, but we know you are there playing hide- and-seek.

Other times, instead, we see you smile when swallows or seagulls pretend as if you were paper on which to write the lyrics of their flight.

Thank you Sun, for invading the intimacy of my afternoons and diving into my waters.

Now you will become the light of sea creatures and of their underwater secret universe, as well as the glow of ghosts that inhabit the womb of sunken ships.

Thank you Sun, for the gift of this golden ceremony and for impregnating my white walls with your phosphorus glow.

Among squalls and storms, traversing cyclones and gales as well as rainfalls and tornadoes, you were able to arrive here to depart once again silently in front of our eyes. Because your mission is to depart and illuminate other places.

Lumberjacks and fishermen await you in other regions where the night will disappear upon your arrival.

As if responding to a magical chime, you will awaken cities, you will accompany children on their way to school, you will put in flight the joy of birds, and you will call people to daily mass.

Upon your arrival, scaffolds will liven up with workers, markets will be filled with singing, the edge of the river will burst with women washing, and joy will enter through hospital windows.

Good-bye, Sun.

When in one instant you will depart totally, the afternoon will die. Nostalgia will possess me, and darkness will enter CasaPueblo.

Darkness with its insatiable appetite will penetrate under my doors, through windows, and any crack it can uncover to filter into my studio, giving way to nocturnal butterflies.

Good-bye, Sun.

I adore you.

When I was a child I wanted to caress you with my kite.

Now that I am old, I’m content to just greet you while the afternoon begins to yawn.

Good-bye, Sun.

Thank you for provoking a tear in all of us, as we reminisce that you also gave light to the lives of our grandparents, our parents, and loved ones who are no longer with us but still enjoy you from other heights.

So long, Sun.

Tomorrow, I’ll wait for you again.

CasaPueblo is also your home.

That’s why the people call it the “House of the Sun.”

The sun of my artist soul; the sun of my loneliness.

It’s that I’m a wealthy man as I possess a million suns, which I forever keep in the treasure chest of my horizon."

Font: https://casapueblo.com.uy/

Between the tears caused by the poem and the landscape in front of me, I felt the need to share this moment with someone. I see couples, old people and children enjoying the scene with me. At the same time I feel happy, I'm not jealous of the couples, I'm happy for them, I'm happy for me. I'm there, enjoying every moment just like them, feeling the last rays of the day coming towards me like a birthday present, a present I've given myself. When the show was over, I head back. Another 7 km of cycling, feeling the wind in my hair and the magic of the moment I had experienced, I felt free. The next day I would complete another full lap around the sun, a new cycle.

Credits: Author photo - Museo Casapueblo, Punta Ballena, Uruguay