Leonard George: Happy Uayeb

Greetings from the bar at the Del Monte banana plantation in Morales, Guatemala!  I raise my glass of vino tinto to salute the uayeb.  Presently we are mid-uayeb – the five-day period between the end of one tun, or Mayan year, and the start of the next.  In any sort of liminal zone – in between nations, or commitments, or  times – there is promise and also danger.  The usual limits are weakened, the solid wall that splits possible and impossible suddenly coils into a question mark… a transformation can happen.  But you have to be paying attention, or you’ll miss it.

Two days ago we visited Chichicastenango.  This town in the western highlands is renowned for the persistence of the old Mayan ways.  Here it was that the Popul Vuh (the Quiche Maya creation story) was preserved in the Church of Santo Tomas, and rediscovered in the 1700s.  And here, as Ignacio revealed to us, one of the ancient gates between human and spirit is still open.

Ignacio led us along a winding path up the sacred hill by the town.  We hiked through the woods until a semicircle of dark stones came into view.  For uncounted ages, seekers have climbed here to contact their nahual.  Each of us has a nahual, who shares our birthday.  The nahual is closer to us than our own breath, and just as invisible.  It is a part of us that is also a part of nature – our wild, wise and unknown face.  (The Mayan glyph for the nahual is a human head partly veiled by jaguar pelt.)  Its form of manifestation is unpredictable. 

Someone had recently visited the hilltop shrine.  There were pits of fresh ash from sacrifices.  This place isn’t a fossil, but a breathing, watching presence.  Each member of our group lit a candle.  I lit mine for the Great Green Life of All.  I wanted to be alone there, so I waited until everyone left.  Everyone did, except for an old Mayan woman who had been tagging along with us.  We gazed quizzically at each other.  I looked down to photograph the shrine, looked up – she had vanished.  Maybe, somehow, she had darted into the bushes.  Maybe.

Heading back along the lane toward the town centre, I noticed a wooden plaque carved with an image from a Classic Period Mayan vase.  A man dances.  He wears pants of jaguar pelt, jaguar headdress and jaguar paws.  He dances to awaken himself to his nahual.  I walked to Santo Tomas.  At the front of the church I lit a candle for my Beloved Marjorie.  So I covered all the bases that day.

Yesterday we stood in a circle on a hill overlooking Antigua, the fabulous old capital city ringed by volcanoes (and abandoned for obvious reasons!).  Our host was Nicholas, a Mayan priest who gave us the great privilege of attending a traditional ceremony.  Upon a woven mat, a jaguar-shaped bowl fumed with copal incense.  Floral sprays of white and red, yellow and purple, scented the four directions.  These symbols, Nicholas explained, drew the world together.  From the compass points we called the Powers, the priest with his conch shell, the rest of us with our kind intentions.  Sky and earth fused in the jaguar, forest beast whose pelt is decked with stars.  Nicholas chanted in the old Mayan tongue.  I was filled with blue-green light, quetzal feather hue.

A transformation can happen.  But you have to notice.  Happy uayeb.  I’ll have another vino tinto.