Mayan Calendar Days

The Days as a Transformational Human Journey (Part 9)

And now we turn to the “final four” of the Day Lords in the Mayan Calendar which are the highest spiritual aspect of our human-beingness:  Caban, Etznab, Cauac and Ahau.

And I feel that the way they can be thought of is that what is expressed by us at these "stages" or "stations" is the result of what we have experienced and integrated at the previous ones.  For the most basic of examples: what we have gathered from our resonating with Men and Cib will affect our thoughts, which affects our choices which affects what we give voice to and what light we transmit outside of ourselves.

 

Caban in glyph is represented as a flower and a brain.  Thus it is our THOUGHTS which represent the flower of our human mind at this highest of realms of our spiritual nature.  These are our pure thoughts when we are standing in the now, on this earth, and in the physical.   This is the work of being present and resonating with what is going on RIGHT NOW – the Maya pointed toward this power even before Mr. Tolle!

 

Etznab is symbolized as an obsidian knife.  It is the knife that divides sharply and finally.  In the human it is manifested as CHOICE.  All of the constant choices we are making.  We are actually discriminating all the time and choosing what we focus upon, although most of us are not aware this is how we are operating and creating our reality moment by moment by moment.  And the results of each and every choice we make in every moment are seen out there in the world whether we are aware of our choices or not.  I think the ancients knew that this station was the opportunity to become totally aware of our choices and the results they bear.

 

Cauac is represented in glyph and nature as a rainstorm and is always talked about by the Daykeepers as the human VOICE.  This is the spiritual station of “in the beginning was the Word….” in its most literal sense.  What we give voice to and what we share with the world using our voice determines creation at its very most basic level.  And here in Cauac we are in the flow of the penultimate of creation.  This is the station to give voice to our passions, to live the possibilities we want to see in the world and to make silent that which we do not want to create more of.

 

And the “last” of the Day Lord or Day Energies is Ahau which is pretty universally symbolized as Light or the Sun or Ajpu (the most powerful of the beings who triumphed over the beings of evil in the darkness).  In the metaphor of our wave starting way out there in the ocean, Ahau is riding in to shore and preparing for the next wave with all the learnings on this trip.  It is my no means the end of anything because there is no end, just like 13 contains all the seeds of readiness for 1 in the next cycle.

 

Taken literally these last four represent the highest expression of our spiritual nature.  That highest spiritual manifestation as we express it in our:  Thoughts, Choices, Voice and the Light of our individual destiny-expression.  I also think that as we approach Year Cero and the "resetting of the clock" in 2011 that these attributes of ourselves as human beings can be burnished to a high luster.  I think that's probably what the next cycle starting on October 29, 2011 is all about.  But that's just my opinion!

So I trust you’ve found something illuminating in this walk through the initiatory path of the Mayan Calendar.  And those of you who study other esoteric paths will surely have found resonance with these 20 Day Lords of Time or Human Consciousness.  Come back on November 13 for the beginning of the next cycle of this Galactic Underworld.

I don’t know about you, however I am MORE THAN READY for a little Clarity after this period of Challenge!

 

 

The Days as a Transformational Human Journey (Part 8)

Next is Ix which is usually symbolized by the Jaguar and closely associated with all things shamanistic.  The Daykeepers always talk about it in the context of some meaning of the word “Integrity” in the sense of  wholeness of that being.  Ix is that place in us where it resides and where there is to go back to when we are scattered. If our forming and developing Self is to survive, it must be whole to exist and sustain and thrive.

 

The next two always go hand-in-hand for me – Men bringing unique human perspective to our development and Cib bringing all the human wisdom that is possible in the moment.  So Men is represented as thee eagle which flies the highest and can see everything below in the most minute detail.  Men flies highest to the creator and brings with him the prayers of humans.  And so, with the integrity of Ix we can find the highest perspective possible without being actually god or actually being in heaven.  I think this is the first stage of actually having the ability to see what is possible on that path that has chosen us.

And with Cib, represented by the owl, comes all the wisdom of the ancestors and  learnings from any sort of  beings that have traveled this path before us.  With Cib comes your own (maybe even especially your own) wisdom that you have gained from this path this time around.  It is the station where we gather all the wisdom available and it includes what has been passed down genetically and culturally.  Next we’ll look at the ultimate stages of human consciousness as represented in this initiatory path unveiled from the Mayan Calendar.

The Days as a Transformational Human Journey (Part 7)

I just realized that November 13 is coming up and that this is the day the next cycle in this Underworld begins.  The next cycle (and in this Underworld the Heavens last 360 days) is the 11^th one and thus the one of Clarity following Challenge.  I’m going to write about its “birth” starting on the 13^th with two purposes in mind.  The first is that you get an idea of what is to come in the next 360 days.  And the second will be to show you exactly what a Mayan Birth Matrix entails.  I’ll publish the exact report I do for a personal Birth Matrix for the Day of

November 13, 2008

which is 13 Imix.  So you’ll be able to see the kind of information you get when you receive your own personal matrix information.

 

So, on with the Initiatory Path of the day lord progression.  Next come Eb which is pretty universally symbolized by the Maya as the Road.  Remember that Manik was the unmanifest path?  Eb is the actual destiny road.  And it is important to remember that this destiny road is really the point where the road takes us on.  Important to remember that in the evolution of our consciousness, this is the road that is choosing us.  Not just because it is my own personal Central Birth Energy is my birth matrix, but it is always the best day to consider what it is you came here to do.  Any time Eb is in consciousness, we are being asked to really look at our purpose – particularly if this is one of the nodes in your matrix.

 

 

And now for the next four Day Lord or Day Energies in this transformational journey:  Ben, Ix, Men and Cib.  These reflect the level of our Personal Identity.  It is much more subtle than what we in the West talk about as “ego” from psychological roots.  This is much wider a definition of our identity and could best be thought of as “who we are seen as in the world” and maybe who we represent ourselves to be in the world at any given time.

 

 

The first in this series of four is Ben and is represented in glyphs as a staff or a personal medicine bundle.  It is thus the station of personal power.  On the personal level,  this is the first time IDENTITY is present. After Ben it is the personal and conscious path of evolution – before BEN it is the collective/preincarnation.  So at the stage of Ben, the Self is forming.  Or, better yet in this context it is being woven by Chuen using the tools of Oc to follow that Eb road.  Ben is place in our development where we have the wherewithal to take the road bringing along all the attributes of our personal World Tree.

The Days as a Transformational Human Journey (Part 6)

Now we are getting to the stage of human consciousness where we are aware of manifestation and experience.  I think it is important to know that they ancient calendar keepers were absolutely aware that we “know” things that are beyond our five senses.  In fact, I’m pretty sure they were absolutely certain that the things we “know” that are beyond those senses, and hence the confines of our modern science are actually much more important to our evolution.  That’s my personal opinion!

And so with Muluc is the birth of the emotional body – out of all those things that are possible from the stage of Lamat there is the magnetism of our emotions which determine those possibilities that we actually see and which we draw to us emotionally.  Muluc is represented as Water and I always associate it with the energy of the huge masses of water on earth being influenced by gravitational forces from bodies so far away like the moon.  It is the same with us as we are influenced by things in our lives that attract or repel us.  It is totally individual, isn’t it, what actually draws and repels a person?  One person’s poison, and all that.  So at Muluc we have the energy of the emotions that draw and form us as we travel along the path of Manik and encounter all the abundance of Lamat.

The next Day Lord or Energy in the cycle is Oc which is usually represented as Dog.  It is also important to note that the Maya call their tools Oc and name each of them.  For example the calendar is an Oc.  And so we are introduced to the two aspects of Oc which are “loyal guidance, material guidance (as distinct from spiritual guidance)” and “tools.”

Tools to get toward what draws us – and way from what doesn’t.  And most probably Oc is the energy of choosing the tool and then following its function.  Remember, the best tool designed is designed to create something specific in a specifically beautiful and functional way. Learning to use it is surrendering to it (not your way) and following in the footsteps of others who designed it to create something specific.  In this very special way, the Mayan Calendar is most assuredly is an Oc in my life!

Chuen is usually consider the “half-way” point of the calendar round (or in some societies it is the start instead of Imix, ever reminding us that everything is cycle and we don’t “begin” at Imix and “end” at Ahau any more than we begin at birth and end at death.  Chuen, or Batz in Quiche, is the Monkey.  This monkey is creative and playful.  And this monkey is the Weaver of Time and, by definition, the Weaver of Reality.  This is the point in human consciousness where we weave our own reality – including our selves of course.  This is where we stand to really understand that we are totally responsible for everything we experience and create.  Remember, this stage is before identity so we don’t have to justify and rationalize anything here.  It is that simple, child awareness that we “are” ourselves and are creating our universe.

Since Eb is my birth sign and the center of my personal Birth Matrix, I’ll probably have a lot to say about it!  Next time then.

The Days as a Transformational Human Journey (Part 5)

We will continue the exploration of those Day Lords or Energies that are part of the level of human personal unconscious with Manik.  It is represented by the Maya as a deer.  And not a bambi type small deer.  A large deer or stag.  And one specifically with a white tail.  The tail of the deer is important in the symbol because it is what we follow when the deer runs away.  So Manik, as our spiritual path which is just beginning is like the plasma before lightening.  When we see “lightening” it is merely energy which is going along a path ALREADY formed by plasma.  It is that path that directs the form we see, and sometimes hear as lightening.  It is unseen or detected by our usual five senses, however it will guide everything to come.

 

And last in this series of the Day Lords representing Personal Unconscious is Lamat which is represented by the Maya as the rabbit.  It is the rabbit of reproduction and multiplicity and is the stage of human consciousness where everything is possible – all the manifestations of everything you see are possible and are ready to be co-created.  Except at this stage we don’t know about it consciously.  I always feel Lamat when seeing anything I consider highly beautiful.  The incredible bounty of the parts that go into making that piece of nature or human-made thing so totally beautiful to me.  And the incredible bounty of the human nervous system to respond so powerfully to that beautiful thing.  Down to the tips of our toes, sometimes!

 

And then we go to the next level which is the Personal Conscious.  They house all those experiences and manifestations of which we are aware at any given time or maybe those things we can become aware of through certain transformational work.  Those Day Lords or Day Energies are:  Muluc, Oc, Chuen and Eb.  And we’ll talk about them in the next part next time!

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!