Mayan Calendar Days

The Days as a Transformational Human Journey (Part 4)

Now we begin the four Days that resonate with the level of the Personal Unconscious.  It is very important to understand that you may have been taught that the unconscious is dark and “bad.”  This is totally false and has clouded our experience of our own development for far too long.  It would be best in delving into how I like to think about these Days and our relationship in consciousness to them, that you just adopt a simple definition of unconscious.  That which you are not aware of RIGHT NOW.  If I ask you to tell me your telephone number; where was it before you answered.  It was “there” it was just unconscious.  So these four Day Energies that affect the level of our Personal Unconscious are Chicchen, Cimi, Manik and Lamat.

 

Chicchen is represented in nature by the Maya as a snake.  More correctly a serpent and usually a very powerful one.  Many times as the feathered serpent of vision.  Chicchen represents the first movement.  It can be seen as movement arising from what we think of as instinct.  On the level of our own consciousness, something is stirring.  At the stage of Imix  everything there is that might be is simply not there.  In the state of Chicchen,  now a bit of it is.  It is said that someone asked Einstein toward the end of his life if he could express something that he knew for sure.  He thought about it for several days and came back to the questioner.  Well, the only thing I know for sure is that something is moving out there.  That sums up Chicchen for me.  It can be detected in the body as those subtle movements of limb or face that express what we really mean to say to do before we have ever had even an inkling of a thought about it.

 

Following this is Cimi or Death and is represented as a skull in most glyphs.  It is most clearly expressed as the energy of the Cycle.  With the first movement of Chicchen comes the potential cycle of birth/death/rebirth.  Everything is always in a state of being born, maintaining or decaying and dying.  We don’t have any idea of this in the moment, however.  Only passage of time or movement through space tells us which phase of the cycle something is in.  Cimi reminds us that nothing is static by its very nature.  And that for every birth there is a death.  There is nothing to judge about this  - it is the way of our spiritual path to understand more and more about the cycles of our own life.  And the cycles of the life of our species.

The Days as a Transformational Human Journey (Part 3)

Akbal is the third stage at this level of the Collective Unconscious.  It is the first quality of direction emanating from the dark or void through the first subtle movement of wind and now into the light. After the faintest of movement like a breath and before some unseen form takes place.  This stage is like the silver nitrate emulsion on which light or dark will eventually be revealed depending on what it is exposed to – so it can end up dark or light depending on what falls on the film.  Akbal is almost always symbolized by the Maya in nature as “night” however when my daykeeper teachers speak of it they always reference the transition between dark and light.   Akbal as the time of dawn and even as the time of dusk.  When things are transitioning between two opposites at a very, very subtle level.  Remember, and it is VERY important to remember, that these are not energies or levels of consciousness that we experience consciously.  Your primary access to the manifestations of them will be in dreams that you remember and work with in any way that you have been taught to do that.  And, you will notice them in “coincidences” in your life that correspond to either the meaning or the symbol of the Days.  For example with Akbal you may dream of Night or experience a transition between dark and light in a particular way on that day.  Use this to inform your spiritual journey in any way that is powerful for you.  What is happening on an Akbal day is a subtle transition from dark to light or light to dark.

 

 

The last phase of the Collective Unconscious is

Kan.

  It is sometimes referred to as Seed and is traditionally symbolized in nature as Lizard.  I’d like to take this time for an aside about the symbols for those who haven’t read my book.  We have to remember that these symbols are taken from nature as they were experienced by the calendar-makers.  They didn’t have a huge variety of information, at least consciously.  They had their particular place on the planet with its population of flora and fauna.  And so they “mapped across” (to use an NLP term!] their experience to their outside world.  I hardly every encounter a lizard myself these days!

 

So

Kan

is always talked about as “entanglement” and so it can be seen as the stage at which a morphogenic field-like form takes place.  The energetic stage before anything is seen by our senses – everything is there and not yet manifest.  It is the day on which Daykeepers always say for us to pray for problems to be untangled.  For

Kan

is the master of holding on to the form in an entangled, small space of seed and is also the master of releasing it into its next stage of development.

The Days as a Transformational Human Journey (Part 2)

The symbol of Imix in nature is the Alligator.  The energy is First wave of emanation from the void.  This is the closest energy to being fully grounded in the void, the universal field of creation, Binah for those who have studied Kaballah.  In the human being it is operating at the deepest collective unconscious.

 

To understand this most simply, consider that you are personally aware of only a tiny bit of your experience.   That is your personal consciousness.  There is a VAST amount of personal information and activity of which you are entirely unconscious – like digesting your food.  You could not DO this consciously – you do not know how to do this consciously.  That is your personal unconscious.  So there’s a lot you don’t know about your self.  Now consider that as human beings there is also a collective connection that we can no understand in light of investigations at the quantum level and the laws of physics of that level.  There is no question we are connected however we have literally no conscious access to that level.  There is no way we can at our current state of development.  However it’s unquestionable existence can certainly be demonstrated by phenomena of synchronicity so dear to Carl Jung and validates psychic phenomena.  And even by those times we think of someone and then they call us at just that moment!

 

This is the level at which the first four Days operate and Imix is at the very deepest of these.  The Maya creation stories involve the world being created and springing forth from the alligator.  So go ahead and take this literally when considering the “action” of Imix upon your being:  the energy at the very basic level of creating our reality.  Better yet consider it as the basis of creating your very own personal reality because that is actually what is going on.

 

In the Mayan Popul Vuh it says that at the start “everything there is that might be is simply not there.”  It could be said that this is the state of Imix and that the “everything else that might be” gets there as a result of our passage through the other Days!

 

 

At the second stage of Ik (which is symbolized in nature by the Maya as Wind) those first very Sub-sub-collective unconscious particles start to spread.  There is in Ik a quality of the joy of dissemination as in being the first to spread the creative news.  This is the first “wind” that has it’ effect on the water mass way out there in the middle of the ocean.  It is SO subtle that one could hardly detect it, however this is what sets up the motion of energy that becomes the wave we see crashing on the shore so much later in time.  At the stage of Ik it is not seen but the first transmission begins.

 

[Note:  I see now I have more to say than I thought so I’m going to extend the series longer than I had planned!  More next time!]

The Days as a Transformational Human Journey (Part 1 of 7)

I’m going to talk about the 20 Day Lords or Day Energies as I see they reflect an initiatory journey of human transformation of consciousness.  There’s no doubt in my mind that this is exactly what they represent and that each of us will find our own personal resonance with them depending on our previous learning about the human journey.  Students of the Tarot will see parallel in the way they have been trained and studied.  Hindus will see them in the frame of reference of their own spiritual tradition.  Astrologers will view it from their perspective as will Christians and people who engage in “personal development” as a transformational path.  It doesn’t matter where you are coming from: I know you will find resonance when you look for it.

 

So in this series I’m going to just talk briefly about the very general aspects of the Day Energy and how I see it relates to the human transformational path.  I might suggest some ways for you to focus or mediate which will allow you to make your own, personal connection also.

 

I need to acknowledge first that the “order” of these days is observed differently in different Mayan traditions.  Some calendars “start” with Imix and “end” with Ahau.  Others start with Chuen and end with Oc.  This makes no difference because absolutely inherent in any study of Mayan time is the concept of cycle.  There IS no “start” or “end” there is only continuous evolution of life in a continuous cycle.  So, my training has been in a calendar in which Imix is the “first” day so I will start with that.

 

For people who have not yet read my book, I will give a brief breakdown here of the stages of consciousness that I see each of these 20 Day Energies resonating with.  To get a clearer picture you’ll need to either get a copy of the book or else read a little more about traditional interpretations of the terms.  The first four are the level of the Collective Unconscious, the next four the Personal Unconscious, the next four the level of the Personal Conscious and the next the level of our Personal Identity in the world.  The last four are of the spiritual or higher self realm of consciousness. Here again, there is it not my intention to suggest that the Collective Unconscious develops prior to the other level of consciousness.  In fact, many traditions suggest that we begin “life” in the highest state of consciousness and our experiences if we are not on a spiritual path actually lessen our ability to experience higher states.

 

This is actually a lot for one post, so I am going to stop here for now and start with a discussion of the first four in the next post.  I’ll end the series with a summary and how I see using this 20-day cycle which keeps recurring as a journey after journey after journey! 

The Power of the Creative Stages 1 - 13 (Part 4)

This is the fouth and final of a series about the Creataive Stages because sometimes I think I pay too much attention to the “flavor” of the days which is provided by the Day Lords.  Not to minimize them, however the simple 1 – 13 cycle and re-cycle can be one of the most simple and powerful ways of attuning to this calendar.  In the changework field, we sometimes talk about “process” being independent of “content” meaning that how things are going are more important than what is happening or being said.

The previous 3 Parts covered the stages of Initiating through Challenging.

The energy of 11 is the clarity after the challenge. That stage in the plant where the full flower blooms and is no longer the possibility and potential inherent in the bud.  Things are in “full flower” and are appreciable by our senses as human beings.  Picking things at the flower stages is a choice with consequences.  This cuts off all possibility for that particular manifestation to fruit and bear new seeds.

The 12 energy is that of Understanding.  Only after manifestation, challenge and a period of clarity can we reach understanding.  In many traditional Mayan societies, these days of the higher tones are considered very dangerous because of their power and in healings or oracular readings caution may be given to individuals regarding certain actions.  Because I am writing for a general audience here, I can’t warn you of anything and in fact these are days in which POWER may be very important to you.  I can only point out that in these last few days we are returning to effects which are not so apparent to us as humans – more subtle than gross.  And the Understanding of 12 does not just happen – it requires cultivation.

The tone of 13 contains the most quintessentially “Mayan” concept of the cycle.  This is the “end” in one sense and yet it contains all the seeds for the new beginning.  The metaphor of the plant is spot-on here:  The fruit could be considered the “end result” of the growth and yet it contains all the seeds for the next cycle of growth at the same time.  Which is fruit and which is seed?  The day of 13 is the day of celebration of the end and the beginning at the same time.  For the Maya, and for those of us who are students of this calendar, EVERYTHING is cycle.

I am inspired to do another series like this on the 20 Days because they are also a cycle themselves and one which I interpret to be an initiatory path of human consciousness.  From the deepest of the collective unconscious of Imix to the highest light of Ahau and on and on yet again and again!

The Power of the Creative Stages 1 - 13 (Part 3)

This is the third of a series about the Creataive Stages because sometimes I think I pay too much attention to the “flavor” of the days which is provided by the Day Lords.  Not to minimize them, however the simple 1 – 13 cycle and re-cycle can be one of the most simple and powerful ways of attuning to this calendar.  In the changework field, we sometimes talk about “process” being independent of “content” meaning that how things are going are more important than what is happening or being said.

We previously covered the stages of initiation through revealing ( 1 - 7 ).

The stage of 8 energy is harmonizing.  I think it is important to understanding this energy in terms of what has come before and what will ensue.  It is not some light little happy energy of harmony in the sense of “let’s all get along!”  This is a hugly powerful and wise stage which takes all that has come before and holds it together for what is to come after.  In traditional Mayan cultures, this is the Tone on which various Day Lords have their special celebrations:  8 Chuen is the day of Daykeepers, 8 Manik is the day of our teachers, 8 Lamat is the day to celebrate the abundance of the fields, and on 8 Eb we celebrate our personal road of destiny.  At 8 everything, and I mean every thing, hangs in balance.

At the stage of nine we could say that things are now starting to manifest themselves to us as human beings.  In the plant metaphor, the budding stage is 9 and we see the beautiful color of the eventual flower.  It is the energy of that rocket booster taking things to the next level.

[Note to self:  I really like the glass blowing metaphor and know NOTHING about the energetics behind how the glass is interacting with the heat and the physical manipulations of the artist to wax eloquent about it.  Learn more because it is a beautiful metaphor for what the 1 - 13 are all about.]

The energy of 10 is the challenging force to what has been created up to this stage.  It is important to remember as humans that this challenge is neither good nor bad, however it is a part of the creative process. Some of my personal development teachers are fond of saying that EVERYTHING you say is important to you will encounter an obstacle.  Obstacles tell us, by their very definition, what our goals are.  Otherwise they wouldn’t BE obstacles, would they?  That is the nature of 10 in the creative cycle.  It is the time when all things dear to you will be challenged and the time to bring on the tools to either wait it out or deal with it.

We are in a 360-day period of challenge (or 10 energy) for this underworld and it will be finished on November 12.  On November 13 we move to the time of Clarity.

More on Clarifying, Understanding, and Completing in the last of this series.