Living the Mayan Calendar

I rather like this idea of sharing our thoughts about how the Mayan Calendar has impacted or changed our lives, influenced or inspired our thinking.

I would like to tell you what it felt like to spend a month “living the Calendar” with traditional Mayan people in the highland town of Momostenango (some of which I have described and will continue to describe in blogs here on the Mayan Calendar Portal). In this community, people are likely to say, “Today is 4 Ix, isn’t it?” in precisely the same way that we would say, “Today is Tuesday, isn’t it?” The Mayan Calendar is that common and that well known; I am not exaggerating. During the month that I spent there, I was privileged to attend several rituals and ceremonies related to days of the Calendar, and I was fortunate enough to be able to talk to and interact with Daykeepers on a daily basis. It was unlike anything I have ever experienced before.

Many have said that the Mayan Calendar is a road, a path. And this is true. While most Daykeepers in Momostenango do believe that various astronomical and cosmic cycles are embodied in the tzolk’in (or chol q’ij in their local K’iche’ language), the principal metaphor is that of the road, the path, specifically the path that we walk as we grow for nine lunar months in the mother’s womb, the path from gestation to full birth, full participation in the human world.

But there is a major difference between our cultural conception of “the path” and that which is conceived by the Maya. We tend to see the “spiritual path” as something we walk by ourselves, as if we were lonely pilgrims, crossing a vast mountain range with staff in hand, guided only by a star or an inner voice.

But to the Maya, we never walk the path alone. Each and every day connects us with another important part of the world around us, and it is this wider, more extended world which constitutes the real spiritual “path.” Since most readers here are familiar with Yucatec rather than K’iche’, I will use the Yucatec names for the days, even though my teachers speak K’iche’.

Some examples:

On Ben days, we gave thanks for the children and the animals in our environment. On Ix days, we honored sacred places such as rocks, mountaintops, and springs of living water. Cib days and Ahau days were for remembering our ancestors, those who have walked before us upon the path, and who have now walked on into the next world. Akbal days were for lovers, and Cauac days for the women in our lives and our environment (especially for the midwives and the healers). Lamat days were for honoring plants and flowers, for giving thanks to the earth that supplies us with crops. There were indeed days when it was appropriate to focus on issues having to do with the self – Eb was the day of our personal destiny, Men was the day upon which we pray for material prosperity, and Caban was the day to clarify our thinking. But even the days that are about “us” may serve, in many ways, to place “us” in context with everything around us. The emphasis was always on relatedness, connectedness. There is no room in a Mayan community for the kind of introspective self-absorption that we commonly associate with the spiritual quest. If your inner child is demanding all your attention, maybe it’s just plain cranky and in need of a “time out.”

To step into the rhythm of the Mayan Calendar is to become intimately connected with the entire world that surrounds us, in all its beauty and its glory. The Tzutujil Maya of Lake Atitlan speak of our earth as “the Blossoming World.” It is our duty and our privilege to participate fully in the magic and wonder of this Blossoming World – to be “cooked in the oven of human existence” until we emerge warm and tasty and delicious. This cannot be done by turning away from the world, sitting alone on a mountaintop, enjoying neither food nor love. Among the Maya, that would be considered anti-social behavior rather than holiness. If your uncle gets drunk and falls off the back of the pick-up truck, you don’t write him a convoluted letter explaining why you are much too sensitive to deal with dysfunctional relationships in your life. You just pick him up, load him back on the truck, and keep going. After all, he too is part of the Blossoming World. He too will someday become one of the ancestors who look back upon us with joy from every sunset and every stream.

After living the Calendar for a month, I doubt that I will ever again have the feeling of aloneness or “terminal uniqueness” which so often characterizes spiritual pilgrims in the Western world. I now know that whenever I walk the path of life, I always walk hand in hand, arm in arm, with countless others through the magic of the Blossoming World.

Kenneth Johnson

April 5, 2010

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