GRAND TRADITIONAL DANCE
IN RESPECT FOR WATER AND LIFE
CHAPULTEPEC PARK ON MARCH 16th AT 12:00 noon

A HISTORIC
HOPI - AZTECA
DANCE CEREMONY

Celebrating WATER

12:00 Noon
Thursday March 16th

ESPEJO DE AGUA
NEAR ANTHROPOLOGY MUSEUM
CHAPULTEPEC PARK
MEXICO CITY

The Mexicas, the Otomies, the Teotihuacanos, dancers from Amatlán de Quetzalcoatl, Mazahua Women, traditional dance groups from Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) will be present to receive, in a ceremonial manner, the Hopi runners who bring the message of RESPECT FOR WATER AND LIFE to the 4th World Water Forum.

The Hopi have collected water from all over the world to bring to Mexico on the run. The water will be handed over ceremonially to native women who are water keepers in Mexico

A COMING TOGETHER OF MANY CULTURES
IN RESPECT FOR WATER AND LIFE

CHAPULTEPEC PARK ON MARCH 16th

AZTEC DANCES BEGIN AT 11:00 am
WATER CEREMONY AT 12:00 noon

In front of Chalchihuitlicue

Because of its genuine spirit of love and gratitude recognizing WATER as the very essence of life itself , this gathering has brought together like minded people from all round the world. The powerful intent and heartfelt message of this prayer will be magnified by the presence of Dr. Masaru Emoto who has gifted the world with a clear and proven understanding that water not only responds to our thoughts and prayers but transforms into crystaline jewels that restore and heal.

We are asking people wordlwide to Join the runners, the traditional dancers, Dr. Emoto and all those present in a PRAYER OF GRATITUDE FOR WATER. As we focus our intent simultaneously worldwide we know every drop of water will shimmer with joy.

FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS PEOPLE OF ALL CULTURES HAVE HONORED WATER

The hosting dance groups have followed the traditional ways of their people and will be coming from four states to receive the HOPI and bring their songs, their dances and their offerings to the Water deity TLALOC´s. They want the Hopi runners and their elders to have a proper welcoming and to make sure the Water is received in a sacred manner by the traditional Mexicans. It has now become part of the oral history of the Mexicas…that when Ruben Saufkie Sr. , coordinator of the HOPI run, was recently in Mexico he was invited to speak at the circle of dance of the Mexicas. He spoke his words of the intent and reason for the Hopi run and all received him with open hearts, it started to sprinkle and then a light rain blessed the whole group and the flowers after the dance. It happened only in that area of the city and exactly in the middle of the year's dry season. This was a sign to all that this run was very important and the spirits of water wanted all to assist the HOPI in their endeavors. Seasoned runners from the Peace and Dignity run and from the Cuauhtemoc run have also offered their assistance and support.The traditional dance group Xolalpan Teopanacazco from Teotihuacan as well as many other groups from the Azteca – Mexica- Teotihuacana and Otomi traditions have offered to ceremonially receive the HOPI runners, their elders and eagle dancers and their Spirit of Water message in front of Tlaloc at the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City on March 16th at Noon. Dancing starts at 11:00

Many cultures will be present that day and others will be joining the intent from around the globe so that simultaneously we can celebrate the gift that water is and that we, as water, are collectively. Each one expressing their own heartfelt message of gratitude, prayer and respect towards the Spirit that is Life itself, WATER.

HOPI MESSAGE
Hopi run to Mexico March 3 2006
Towards 4th World Water Forum in Mexico

RUN: RESPECT FOR WATER AND LIFEMore and more, the world community is recognizing what Hopi and indigenous peoples have been taught since time immemorial: “Water Is Life – We come from water and will return to water as mist” when our journey on earth ends.
All waters is a sacred gift from the Creator and a precious birth-right of all living beings. All waters are part of a singular network of life – the great oceans and seas, the frozen waters and glaciers, the cosmic sea from which are born the clouds, snow and rains that nurture the plants, animals, birds, fishes, insects, reptiles and humankind. We are of waters and waters are of us.

As demands for fresh waters increases and resources diminish, the prospect of global water wars and domestic struggles among diverse populations become more and more likely. Every eight (8) seconds a child dies from drinking polluted water. In the meantime corporations are getting rich buying and selling clean waters all over the world.

On March 2, 2006, Hopi runners will carry sacred messages, teachings, and waters gifted to us from many parts of the world to the international gathering of leaders who will be attending the 4th World Water Forum in Mexico City.

Along the way starting from our sacred homeland on Black Mesa (Northern Arizona), the runners and Hopi elders will meet with indigenous peoples, who will add their spirit and blessing, their energy and prayers for peace. We will accept their water samples that will be poured into a lake at the end of the Run. The Run will bring us to Central Mexico, places of our clan origins, to reaffirm our cultural ties to our brothers and sisters.

The Run will re-establish bonds of respect and unity so that together we will bring hope and courage to change the world for the better.

Led by Ruben Saufkie, Sr. (Water Clan) and attended by elders who will be providing spiritual guidance, the runners, ranging in ages from 12 to 70, will average 150 miles per day for two (2) weeks and arrive in Mexico City in time for the grand opening ceremony on March 16, 2006.

The Run is organized by volunteers from all of the 12 Hopi villages, and is a project of Black Mesa Trust, a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching the world community about traditional Hopi knowledge about waters.

We invite peoples from all over the world to gift us with samples of sacred waters with the message: “May Peace Prevail Forever” in their native language.

Kwakwhá. May the spirit of waters guide you.

For update on the Run visit www.h2opirun.org or kuuyi@aol.com.
Vernon Masayesva
BMT Executive Director
Ruben Saufkie Sr.
Run Coordinator
President,Herbert Naphi, Jr.
Run Committee

Excerpts from NEWS Release by Joan E. Price

Pre-story Feb. 15, 2006

Hopi Indian runners head south to World Water Forum
"I AM A SIMPLE MAN" – Ruben Saufkie Sr. center, (Photo by Zdenek Plachy) a Hopi Indian from Arizona, tells Mexicas, Teotihuacanos, Otomí and dancers from Amatlán de Quetzalcoatl in Mexico City about a delegation of Hopi runners who will arrive bringing sacred spring waters gathered from around the world to the World Water Forum from March 16 to 20 in a call for spiritual unity. In the middle of the dry season, drops of rain began to fall, a sign of assistance from the spirit of water.

TIES TO THE SOUTH - Jerry Honawa (photo by Joan Price), a Hopi Indian religious leader was at home upon seeing a clan sign and stories with other petroglyphs in New Mexico that recorded the history of pre-Columbian cultures traveling between Central Mexico, New Mexico and Arizona. Honawa will be going to Mexico in March with a team of Hopi runners to the 4th World Water Forum in Mexico City on March 16 to 20 with a message about the spiritual nature of water.

The Way It Has Always Been Done

KYKOTSMOVI, ARIZONA - Relying on their own feet and centuries of tradition, Hopi Indians runners 12 to 75 years of age, will run from their desert mesas homelands of Arizona 1,500 miles south to Mexico starting March 2. They will carry an ancient message about water to the 4th World Water Forum March 16 to 20 in Mexico City. 8,000 delegates are officially expected to attend representing the business of water – municipal utilities, pipeline companies, bottling companies, political and government representatives – to discuss the global crisis of equitable drinking access, food production, wide-spread contamination of water sources and global climate change.

Along with hundreds of other Native American nations, non-governmental organizations and environmental groups who will also attend on their own, the Hopi do not have an official invitation. But they will be coming with a message – a spiritual ceremony to place water as a living sentient being, "the first living spirit on Earth," at the center of the global forum.

Vernon Masayesva is the executive director of Black Mesa Trust, a grassroots organization that led the final years of a 40 year struggle of two generations of Hopi people to evict the worlds largest water pumping project for an coal slurry pipeline in their homeland. Masayesva met with the Secretariat of the World Water Forum Cesar Herra and three assistants in Mexico City on Feb. 8 to present and explain the Hopi message to be brought by the runners.

"We will also be participating in Chapultepec Park with other indigenous peoples and NGO’s gathering for conferences and position papers on water rights and the cultural values of water in their own world water forum “Mirror of Water” said Masayesva.

The team of runners and supporters have been preparing for the continental run strengthened by a cultural history shared with other native communities along the route. The Hopi runners will be joined by Native American runners at Zuni, Albuquerque and Isleta del Sur – all bringing water in gourds gathered from sacred springs to add to a ceremonial water bowl carried by a Hopi matriarch to the forum and indigenous events.

These waters will be used for the ceremonies to renew the memory of water as a sacred being and to unite all land and life.Hopi women have been giving as much of their spare time as possible to this preparation.“We have had water sent from the Lake of Galilee by Jerusalem and from Mt. Fuji in Japan. As Hopi people, we know something is wrong," said Burton, a member of the Snow Clan.

Saufkie Sr. returned from Mexico on Feb. 15 after scouting the way and meeting with organizers and supporters along the route into Mexico City. "I stayed longer than I intended because I was invited to present our project to a Mexica-Azteca dance ceremony. The people really responded. People are more than willing to give and help out because water is sacred, a human right, not a commodity to be privatized – water is our unifier because we are all made of water," said Saufkie. "If water is privatized, there won’t be enough water for all the children of the future generations," he said.

"The waters we bring will be received at the Indigenous Water Forum by four women including a "rain maker," a Holy woman who was marked by lightning," said Saufkie, a member of the Water Clan.

"I told the people I am a simple person, not elegant or a leader. I said I am a raindrop and that they were clouds," he said.

Jerry Honawa, a Hopi religious leader and advisor to Black Mesa Trust, will accompany the runners to the World Water Forum to pray for renewal for the global waters all life depends on.

"In most cases, we have a female counterpart in our prayer ceremonies when we are going to start rejuvenation of a water source because the female is responsible for new life," said Honawa.

Honawa said his grandfather told him Hopi concerns in the 1950’s of global climate change. "He told me that once they start tearing down our mountains, once they start blocking our waterways, (and these are the dams that are being built), once they go and start making oasis out of desert areas that they should be, they are going to move the ‘belt of patuwakatsi’ (water world). It is going to lose its equilibrium, it is going to shift, it is going to move when spring or when summer should begin. It will be warmer all the way into winter months, you will not see the cycles as they are today and yesterday," said Honawa.

The runners will speak and stand for the spiritual relationship humans have to rain, clouds and lightning, snow, mists, dripping caves, springs and oceans, living forms of a moist global matrix within which a spiritual life is lived in resonance and mutual cooperation rather than domination.

"We are of water, and the water is of us. When water is threatened, all living things are threatened. What we do to water, we do to ourselves," they stated in a Declaration of Water sent out in October 2003."The runners have received an endorsement by Governor Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico. We have also been given a resolution from the All Pueblo Council to carry to the peoples of the world," said Masayesva.

Each placement of a foot is a pulse-prayer into the earth and the pulsing vibrating waters that moisten the planet. "Now we have to organize a run that is a prayer -- the vibration and energy goes out with thoughts of peace and harmony for all living things and for the children of the future," said Masayesva

For more information, contact: www.h2opirun.org
Vernon Masayesva/Black Mesa Trust
P.O. Box 33
Kykotsmovi, Arizona 88630
(928)734-9255
Ruben Saufkie Sr./H2OPI
P.O. Box 901
Second Mesa, Arizona 86043
(928)734-5438