Annual Letter from Solstice Project 2024
This monumental earthworks was formed 2000 years ago in Ohio. The Hopewell people, so inspired by the moon, brilliantly conceived and built a marvel of geometry they could see only in their mind’s eye.
Dear Friends,
Happy Solstice! With great joy and gratitude, I want to share exciting news with you about the accomplishments of the Solstice Project during this past year –and to tell you about our ambitious plans for the new year.
After our film premieres and panels in June at the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe and elsewhere, we are thrilled that we achieved nation-wide broadcasts of Written on the Landscape on PBS stations across the United States.
Our trilogy of films on Chaco Canyon’s mysteries has broadened awareness of its ancient cosmology, inspiring global audiences to appreciate the Chacoans’ remarkable achievements and their spiritual depth. This year, with your generous support, and the talents of our skilled production team, in tandem with our wise and thoughtful archaeological and indigenous advisers and participants, we’ve expanded outreach, developed educational programs, and advanced research to preserve the legacy of Chaco Canyon—a convergence of ancient wisdom, astronomical mastery, and architectural brilliance.
As we reflected on what is next for The Solstice Project we are drawn to expand, with our insights from Chaco’s astronomy, into an exploration of astronomy expressed in monumental indigenous sites around the world. We are now working on our fourth film, From the Mind’s Eye. It will seek to show the unity of these cultures with the cosmos and with each other as they aligned with the heavens.
Last week as temperatures dipped into the low twenties, we began this exploration with recordings of the sophisticated lunar astronomy of the little-known Hopewell Culture exemplified by the Great Circle and the Octagon near Newark, Ohio. We planned our visit to coincide with the northernmost position of the moon in its grand nineteen-year cycle, and once there we sensed as the moon rose the presence of the brilliant astronomers who planned and engineered this phenomenal construction.
We congratulate the community of Newark, Ohio for wresting the magnificent Octagon site from its 100 years as a private golf club and to obtain UNESCO’s designation for it as a World Heritage site. Uniquely beautiful in its geometry and astronomy, the Octagon is massive, covering 50 acres with its attached Circle of 20 acres — a complex so large it contained an eighteen-hole golf course!
Additional sites to be filmed include Maya temples in Mexico and ancient sites in England and Ireland. While greatly distant in time and geography, these sites were all built to align with the same cycles of the sun and moon revealed in the monumental constructions of Chaco Canyon.
Image credit: On our recent visit our new drone photographer, Jeff Holbury, captured sweeping views of the Observatory Circle of the Octagon site and the northern most rising moon.
In these times of intensely divisive views and struggles across the globe, we hope our film, From the Mind’s Eye, will provide an experience of unity and harmony achieved by peoples of the ancient world, as they drew profound order and meaning for their lives from the universal presence of the sun and moon.
Your continued support over the years has always moved me and gives me hope that you’ll contribute to our latest project. I invite you to make a tax-deductible donation to support our continued work to preserve Chaco culture and our new film From the Mind’s Eye. I firmly believe this film is especially needed in today’s world, as people seek deeper connections with the earth and the cosmos.
Thank you again for being part of this journey. I look forward to sharing more adventures and updates with you all soon!
If you know others who might resonate with this vision, please don’t hesitate to share this opportunity with them.
Wishing you and your families Happy Holidays.
Warmly,
Anna Sofaer
Executive Director
Solstice Project Inc
www.solsticeproject.org
To make a donation by check, please mail it to:
Solstice Project
222 East Marcy Street #19
Santa Fe, NM 87501
If you prefer, please mail your donation to the Solstice Project address above. Please note that the Solstice Project is a 501c3 non-profit organization and your contributions are tax deductible to the extent that the law allows.
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Solstice Project colleague Robert Weiner recently earned his Ph.D. from University of Colorado Boulder following a successful defense of his (900 page!) dissertation on Chacoan roads, which was held at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe. In the fall, he will begin a Postdoctoral Fellowship with the Society of Fellows at Dartmouth College, where he will be affiliated with the Department of Religion. We look forward to reading the publications he will produce in the near future!