REFLEXIONES FINALES

In the previous chapter, we began to explore the internal energy known as koyopa, represented in contemporary Mayan thinking by the archetype of the Feathered Serpent. It is time to examine this concept a little further.

The existence of a powerful bio-psychological energy within the human body has been postulated by many civilizations. The best known example comes from Hinduism, where this energy is known as the kundalini or serpent power. The kundalini is in essence a goddess just as much as it is a form of energy. It travels through different energetic centers in the body, known as chakras, and can be manipulated through meditation and spiritual practice. The feminine power known to Kabbalists as the Shekinah, which also dwells in centers within the body, is an analogous concept.

In K’iche’ Mayan, this powerful inner energy is called koyopa. The word literally means

“sheet lightning.” However, the Maya also think of a bolt of lightning as a “sky serpent,” so in that sense the koyopa is a serpent power too.

Called the “body lightning” or “the lightning in the blood,” the koyopa is the energy upon which shamans draw for important rituals, especially the divination ritual in which the day-signs of the tzolk’in are represented by groups of seeds from the sacred tz’ite tree. A shaman’s hand may literally shake with the power of koyopa as he holds it over the divining seeds. (I have actually seen this.) Sometimes the koyopa “awakens” as a pulsing in one’s leg or other limb.

108 The koyopa, like the kundalini, is essentially feminine because it is associated with the 13 numbers. Koyopa collects in the thirteen major joints of the human body, which thus form a Mayan analogy to the chakras. It is from one of these thirteen points that the pulsing and hand-trembling will have their origin.

In the last chapter, we learned that the Maya believe that a human being has two souls.

One of them is an immortal soul, the nawal that is represented by one’s day-sign. Yet there is another soul, one which is vested in the human body and which dissolves at the time of our death. This bodily soul is called the uxlab or, in Spanish, the anima. We may have a tendency to think of the bodily soul as a somewhat lesser entity than the nawal; after all, it remains within the human body and dissipates at death. But the koyopa dwells within the body and is thus connected with the bodily soul.

Here, then, we see a deeper esoteric significance at work. The day-signs are a masculine energy that represents the immortal soul or nawal, while the numbers are a feminine energy that represents the indwelling power of the bodily soul and its koyopa.

109

The Wave of Time

The Mayan Calendar is a symphony of cycles within cycles. The 260-day tzolk’in is interwoven with the solar year, and may be divided into twenty periods of thirteen days, commonly known by the Spanish term trecenas. Our pyramid of days reveals the inner meaning of these thirteen-day trecena cycles.

The trecena periods are essential to an understanding of the Calendar. The number cycle runs from 1 through 13, then returns to the number 1 again. Each time the number 1 recurs, it will do so on a different day-sign.

The trecenas are the essential component of what we may call "living the Calendar." They set the clock for the major rituals of Mayan life. The Daykeepers of Guatemala say that low numbers are "weak" and lack strength, while the middle numbers – 6, 7, 8, and 9 – represent the days of balanced energy and power. The final days, 10 through 13, are "too strong," so powerful as to be potentially dangerous. Therefore, all major rituals are performed on the days of balanced power at the center of each trecena.

The cycle of the trecena can best be shown as a pyramid, equivalent to the pyramid of the Thirteen Heavens which was part of the cosmology of ancient Mexico.

The energy inherent in a particular trecena cycle is still tentative or weak in the beginning, not yet fully established in its own nature. As it climbs the pyramid, it begins to grow in power. It reaches the region of perfect balance on day 6, and it reaches the peak of the pyramid on day 7.

As the current cycle begins its course down the pyramid, it will grow in power, just like a wave that has reached its crest and then begins to crash downward. This descent of power is still in a balanced condition on the eighth and ninth days; after that, the energy inherent in the current cycle of time becomes more and more intense—too intense to be safely dealt with on ritual terms.

110 The Pyramid of Time

If, for the moment, we leave behind the somewhat static or architectonic image of the pyramid, we may return to the metaphor of the wave as a concept that is closer both to the world of nature and the world of post-Einsteinian physics. Each trecena cycle may be regarded as a particular quantum of energy, an energy that travels in a wave-like motion. Precisely like a wave, it begins as an underground surge, symbolized by the sun's emergence from the Underworld on the first day of the cycle. This wave of energy grows in power until it crests. Then it begins to descend, discharging its quantum of energy in a thundering crash to the shore. As the energy inherent in the wave trickles away into the sand on the night of the thirteenth day, a new wave cycle has already begun farther out at sea. The power of the day-sign that will begin the new trecena is already present. At sunset on the thirteenth day, the Daykeepers welcome the spirit of the coming day, the one who will begin the next trecena cycle. They think of the next day as a

"guest" who is already entering the sacred space defined by their communal and family altars.