The Trecena of Kan / Kat
1 Kan / K'at — The Trecena of Freedom and Fertility
The symbol of the sacred Ceiba tree, Kan, or K’at in K’iche’ Maya, represents the magic of germination and growth, in the form of new offspring, new crops, and the expansion of future generations. At times called Seed, Kan is considered by some Maya to control the sexual force in the body, and as such, it embodies the power of gender. Within its vast body of meaning, it also signifies the Net, in all of the diversity of senses of the word: a fisherman’s net, a woven net for fruits or vegetables, a network, a spider’s web; in addition, it is the patron of storerooms and pantries and refers to the gathering of resources; and finally, it carries the concepts of captivity, punishment, social traps, and lawsuits. Kan is the nagual of fire, namely that which keeps a home running, and of prisons both visible and invisible, material and intangible. Kan’s animal totems are the alligator and the lizard. In the Classical Maya tradition, it is associated with the cardinal direction South and the color yellow. In the tradition of modern-day K’iche’ Maya, it is West and the color black.
On Kan days, the Maya pray for abundance and express their intention to understand, or to seek to understand, their fellow human beings, events or situtations. This is the day to ask that those imprisoned in some way, be freed, and for the tangling and untangling of things. It is also a good day for healing ceremonies and practices, especially if the healing to be done is psychological in nature.
This trecena is especially sacred, as Kan embodies the power to give life and drive evolution, but also especially dangerous, for this potent day sign harbors powerful passions in all aspects of creativity and fertility—from sexual prowess to creative genius to the generation of wealth—that, if left unguided or aligned with the right path, can cause wanton waste, sensual abandon, or excessive indulgence. Like the elemental forces of Nature that rage across the planet in their full power, potency, and diversity of form—water as rain, rivers, and oceans, air as winds, breezes, and hurricanes—Kan makes no value judgments and takes no moral stances. It simply is. The key to allowing the fertile energies of the Kan trecena into your soul, and guiding their power along the path of right intention, is respect. Respect the sanctity of your life, of your own talent, imagination, and capacity for creativity, fertility, abundance. Don’t belittle yourself or your abilities, but be realistic in terms of which talents you do indeed possess and where to best channel your creative energies.
In modern human society, the more fertile or resource-rich you are, whether you are a person, another living species, a company, a country, or a natural resource, the more valued, the more desired, the more envied—and the more threatening you are considered, and therefore the more sought after, whether the intention is to control, to exploit, or to own you. Ironically, it is those entities and those interests with the most political and economic power that seek to possess and control, rather than to empower or to express and bestow gratitude, admiration, love, or respect. These entities and individuals rely on fear to keep everyone else—those of us who would prefer to live empowered and free of toxic emotions—under control. That’s the imprisonment that Kan represents, the entanglement of the vast personal and global Net that we all need to break so that we can be free of the fear, the competition, the ego, the greed, and other toxic qualities that our various social systems and customs inject us with since the day we are born.
The world we live in is built on power, productivity and money, which are but the technical structures that are supposed to serve the generation of true wealth—that of the mind, body and soul—yet which have taken over the psyche of our society and are now reigning as the ultimate purpose in life. Many are already categorically rejecting this paradigm, and I encourage all of you to rediscover and harness the creative powers you hold deep within your soul. Nature herself expresses her fertility and creativity every breath of every day, blossoming new forms of life, nurturing the tiniest and supporting the biggest, painting vibrant colors across her skies, forests, and seas, unleashing awe-inspiring storms, winds, and earthquakes, yet balancing all of her forces with eternal patience, instinct, and the wisdom of millennia.
You too are a force of Nature. Live your life accordingly.
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(Excerpt from "The Serpent and the Jaguar: Living in Sacred Time" by Birgitte Rasine, pp. 234–235. If you'd like to repost the Trecena texts, please copy the above text in its entirety and credit Birgitte Rasine/LUCITÀ Publishing with a link to The Serpent and the Jaguar, and email us with a link to your site so we can reciprocate.)
