Everything in Patzcuaro is perfect. The town threads tiny streets up steep hills, whispering tales of pre-colonial Mexico in terracotta facades and delicately-formed handcrafts. The lake, like an accidental mud puddle, seemingly living its last days, shows itself in magical glimpses through the clouds outside my window.
The hostel is like my own house. I am the only person there. It rains solidly through my first three days but I happily curl under five blankets, hatted and gloved, chewing my way through neurone-popping books.
On the second day I meet a man in his forties called Raul, twitching, mouselike, mouth crowded with teeth. He instantly invites me to stay with him for free. He talks about natural healing and energy points within the body, something that rings deeply with what I've been recently coming across. He also talks about the Mayas.
Nervous and protective of my vulnerability I refuse, concealing my answer in a smilingly-delivered "I'll think about it". On the rain-soaked rush home I can't help feeling worried that I have ignored a message of some sort. Is he the person I knew I'd meet? I reassure myself with the thought that if it really is meant to be I will see him again.
When the sun comes out on Friday I borrow a bike and pedal furiously north round the lake, through splashing puddles and villages half-asleep.
I don't know where I'm heading, but after an hour a sign points me towards the ruins of Ihuatzio. The road unfolds before me, steaming away the freezing altitude with shimmering mirage. Dead dogs rot furrily in the gravel; as usual, vulture-like zopilotes the only birds in the sky.
By the time I arrive my legs are shaking.
The only other people here form a group that appear to be chanting whilst sitting in face-to-face pairs. I chain up my bike and creep past them.
At the end of a field of dried grass crouch two small pyramids, sides almost vertical. The Sun and the Moon. Grassy mounds perch quietly nearby; as yet uncovered shells of a previous life. I wonder how many other hills nearby camouflage sites that do not yet want to be found.
Around the edges of the site runs a steep, thick wall; remnants of an elevated road. I check to see no one is watching and clamber quickly to the top, pouring pumpkin seeds into my mouth as I go.
The sun is impossibly bright.
It takes my heart a long time to calm itself. I sit cross-legged, squinting even under my sunglasses, breathing steadily. Close my eyes and allow my mind to slip away with the place. I meditate for twenty minutes or so before inexplicably opening my eyes to see a small, bright red bird, darting among the nopal spines ahead.
Once more a feeling I can't explain; a knowledge that this is a sign for me. I know traditionally red is a warning, but this does not feel like a threat.
The bird follows me back to my bike. Its iridescence is almost gold in the sunlight. I think about it all the way on the gruelling, dusty journey home. I think I have overdone it, but I just can't ride a bike slowly. The 4km hill from the Lake up to Patzcuaro town stretches me almost to breaking point and it is perhaps the only time in my adult life I buy a Coca Cola.
For the first time since my arrival I am warm enough to brave the shower. Afterwards I collapse on my bed listlessly. I am completely useless. I can't even focus on text. Despite the exhilaration of my day and the tingling in my hands from the pyramids, I feel the loneliness creeping in. Before it slams its deadening plank into my exhausted back I force myself out of the door and down to the market, to feed my craving for guavas.
There is Raul. Again, he talks about exactly the sort of thing I have been thinking about. Again, he invites me to stay.
Again, I nervously say I will think about it.
I begin to get angry. If the universe or whatever it is wants to teach me something, why does it have to present it to me in the form of a man and an empty house? I don't want to go! I don't want to stay with a strange man! Why can't I meet someone who just wants to go for coffee?!
I become totally overwhelmed by all the things that are going on. There seem to be currents taking me somewhere and I am scared. I don't want to have to deal with any of this. I miss my country, my family, my friends. I miss mundanity. The void inside takes over the consuming joy of the last month or two and makes me call home, seeking comfort in the familiar.
I sleep fitfully again that night, as I so often have in Mexico. My aching legs the next morning keep me in town, wandering without aim amongst the closed, cobbled streets.
I am just about to go home when I walk past Raul.
He is sitting at a pavement cafe, drinking coffee.
With a barely perceptible nod of thanks to the powers-that-be, I ease myself into the chair next to him.
Showing posts with label pyramid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pyramid. Show all posts
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
The Mayans come to Yelapa
It so happens that when I finally get really sick - amazingly not until 2 months after my arrival in Mexico, I am lying in a real, double bed with real, crisp sheets and a real live pillow.
This is no ordinary room. It is a penthouse. It squats above the Yacht Club over in town; a name that suggests much more glamour than the corrugated plastic roof and concrete floor in fact impart, but a fitting name all the same, for this building balances itself directly over the water, and the sea is as much a part of its existence as the bricks it is made of.
Looking out through the glassless, iron barred windowframes from the comfort of my sick bed is like looking from the window of a boat. I am just a few metres away from gently folding, turquoise waves.
The sea explodes against the beach below; wakes me gently every half an hour from delirious dreams. The breeze strokes me to sleep, fluttering coloured scarves at the windows that float around me like Mexican spinning dancers.
Now I am alone with my blue sky and my stomach spasms, attempting to order my increasingly unfamiliar brain. I feel like my body is doing this to me to force me to think about these things and address the things I am struggling to digest.
Dan showed up yesterday. His original plan was to travel for a year, interviewing people to make a film about the shifts that are occurring to our world. Instead he has been on the road for four years, following coincidences like me, on a looping, curious path seemingly seeded the entire way through by the person he last interviewed.
On his doorstep in Canada awaits a pile of film; everything from shamans, to Nobel prize winners, to scientists, to people he picks up on the street whose eyes shine a particular light. His battered van has taken him from the Arctic, through Canada, the States and half of Mexico, and will eventually drop him in Panama. Along the way he has lived with several different groups of indigenous people, been given a dog, gained and recently lost a love, and been sent well on his way to enlightenment. (You can read his story here).
Confidence and understanding seeps from his pores. He distils things so simply. I want to resist, want to be sceptical, but I am drawn in because I know I have to be.
We spend days in conversation. I learn more from him than I have perhaps the entire journey. Here is someone who truly has the voice of the people; the truth we are so protected from. And it is clear to him that the world is in flux and is due a serious change, very soon.
Yet again, the prophecies of the Mayans are the centre of the conversation. Yet again, we find ourselves dissecting the possibilities.
Most people believe the Mayans predicted the end of the world in 2012. This is not true. In actual fact, the messages they left actually show a calendar that ends on December 21, 2012. This date corresponds with the date that the sun will eclipse the galactic centre.
The following is taken from Daniel Pinchbeck's book 2012: The Return of Quetzacoatl. (This is the book that came to me from Taylor, following the coincidence I had in Sayulita.)
On the winter solstice of December 21, 2012, the Sun will rise within the dark rift at the center of the Milky way galaxy, an event that occurs every 25,800 years. As John Major Jenkins describes in Maya Cosmogenesis 2012, this alignment represents a "union" of the Cosmic Mother (the Milky Way) with the First Father (the December solstice sun)." Mayan hieroglyphs describe the center of this dark rift as the "Hole in the Sky," cosmic womb, or "black hole," through which their wizard-kings entered other dimensions, accessed sacred knowledge, or toured across the vast reaches of the cosmos. In September 2002, astronomers verified the existence of a massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, naming it "Sagittarius B."
Most people also believe that this is just the prediction of one civilisation. This is also untrue. There are many other ancient civilisations who also talked of the end of an age in 2012.
The Mayan calendars were divided into a number of 'eras' of varying lengths, that grow shorter the closer we get to 2012. These are encoded into the pyramids at Palenque,Mexico; Chichen Itza, Mexico, and Tikal, Guatemala. Each of these eras represent a different stage of consciousness.
In brief - (again, borrowed from Daniel Pinchbeck's book 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl).
The initial level, 16.4 billion years ago, proceeds from the inception of matter in the "Big Bang," through the development of cellular life on Earth. During the second step, beginning 820 million years, ago, animal life evolved out of cells. The third underworld, starting 41 million years ago, saw the evolution of primates and the first, rudimentary use of tools by human ancestors. During the fourth underworld, beginning 2 million years ago, tribal organization began among the ancestors of Homo sapiens. During the next underworld, 102,000 years ago, Homo sapiens emerged developing spoken language. The next sixth underworld, beginning 5,125 years before the approaching birth date, when we created patriarchal civilization, law, and written language. The seventh step, beginning in AD 1755, introduced industrialization, electricity, technology, modern democracy, gene splicing, and the atom bomb.
The current era started in 1999, and corresponded with the birth of the internet - a global connectivity unlike anything seen before.
Time is 'speeding up.' Things are happening faster.
The next and final era of this age of history begins in April 2012 and ends in December later that year. There is much speculation as to what this final stage will bring. Many believe there will be a fundamental change in the way we think, and the way we connect to each other and the world - a connection to the 'global consciousness'.
Certainly in every era there is an increase in consciousness. And certainly the signs of this can already be seen.
The end of the calendar could mean many things, but the consensus is that there will be huge change, marked most likely by increase in frequency and intensity of natural disasters. While I am slightly sceptical that something can happen so quickly, I only need take a look at recent history to tell me things are already starting to shift.
In terms of what will actually happen on December 21st, 2012, opinions are hugely divided, ranging from anything from meteor collision or volcano eruptions to the arrival of extraterrestrial Mayans (the glyphs in several temples show what seem to be spaceships...). Others speculate that crossing the 'dark rift' of the galaxy could cause a magnetic pole reversal, as the earth spins in an external field.
Again the consensus is that society is going to change completely and in the process shed a huge number of people and their constructions.
Maybe nothing will happen in 2012. But if not then, it seems clear that something is going to happen soon, and the better prepared we are, the more chance we have of staying alive to see the change occur.
Dan is preaching self-sufficiency. From what he has seen and heard, it seems to be the only way to attempt survival through the coming eruptions. It rings with the voices deep inside me that have been urging me to keep going, whilst keeping one eye half out for a piece of land on which to create my nest. Whenever I start to worry about money I make myself relax, for I know that if it is right, the money will arrive.
We start getting into 'headfuck' area when we move on to the Law of Attraction, and the very real possibility that 2012 is a self-fulfilling prophecy. For if the world brings us what we think about most, it shouldn't be so far-fetched to suggest that the increased awareness will breed the things that we most fear.
My mind is swollen with conflicting emotions; acceptance and resistance, understanding and confusion.
I lie in bed, shivering with the aches of a mild Dengue fever, feeling my body process the information it has been loaded with in the last few days. I am forced to become one with my thoughts and to truly consider what path to take. I could view all this as hysterics; for after all, have there not been several occasions in the past when a small group proclaiming the end of the world have been proved wrong, again and again? Besides, it is far easier to ignore it and carry on planning a future of security. As the philosopher Neitzche pointed out, our tendency to be drawn towards the mundane and the secure and ignore the things that seem outlandish or scary is vital for our survival.
But how much does it blind us?
My instincts are shouting at me. Listen! There really is a lot of truth behind all of this. The Mayan prophecies have actually all been right so far. To the extent that they even predicted the date the prophecies themselves would be discovered. And even if the Mayans were wrong, how long is the Earth going to put up with what we are doing to it? It is not so far fetched to believe that a serious shift could occur in my lifetime. We are accelerating. Technology and development are speeding up. Can we really expect this exponential curve to go on infinitely?
If I really think about it, I know this is why I'm here.
I'm not here to 'see the world'. I don't care about cathedrals or museums or 'canopy tours'. I'm here because I know I have to do something. I have no idea what. But I'm here because on some level I've tuned into something that told me I need to be here. I don't see it as a coincidence that the place I'm in is at the very heart of these prophecies. Arguably, if I was in Africa I would be hearing African prophecies. But I have been brought here, so these are the ones I have to hear. I wanted to know about all this. I NEEDED to know about all this.
Whether any of this is true or not, this is part of my personal journey. Bizarre as it all seems, I´m confident that it will all become clear in time.
In the meantime, I feel like I am to collect and distribute information. Take it as you will.
A few days later, when I have stopped shaking, I leave Yelapa. Once again, I don't know where I'm going. Only that it is time to go.
This is no ordinary room. It is a penthouse. It squats above the Yacht Club over in town; a name that suggests much more glamour than the corrugated plastic roof and concrete floor in fact impart, but a fitting name all the same, for this building balances itself directly over the water, and the sea is as much a part of its existence as the bricks it is made of.
Looking out through the glassless, iron barred windowframes from the comfort of my sick bed is like looking from the window of a boat. I am just a few metres away from gently folding, turquoise waves.
The sea explodes against the beach below; wakes me gently every half an hour from delirious dreams. The breeze strokes me to sleep, fluttering coloured scarves at the windows that float around me like Mexican spinning dancers.
Now I am alone with my blue sky and my stomach spasms, attempting to order my increasingly unfamiliar brain. I feel like my body is doing this to me to force me to think about these things and address the things I am struggling to digest.
Dan showed up yesterday. His original plan was to travel for a year, interviewing people to make a film about the shifts that are occurring to our world. Instead he has been on the road for four years, following coincidences like me, on a looping, curious path seemingly seeded the entire way through by the person he last interviewed.
On his doorstep in Canada awaits a pile of film; everything from shamans, to Nobel prize winners, to scientists, to people he picks up on the street whose eyes shine a particular light. His battered van has taken him from the Arctic, through Canada, the States and half of Mexico, and will eventually drop him in Panama. Along the way he has lived with several different groups of indigenous people, been given a dog, gained and recently lost a love, and been sent well on his way to enlightenment. (You can read his story here).
Confidence and understanding seeps from his pores. He distils things so simply. I want to resist, want to be sceptical, but I am drawn in because I know I have to be.
We spend days in conversation. I learn more from him than I have perhaps the entire journey. Here is someone who truly has the voice of the people; the truth we are so protected from. And it is clear to him that the world is in flux and is due a serious change, very soon.
Yet again, the prophecies of the Mayans are the centre of the conversation. Yet again, we find ourselves dissecting the possibilities.
Most people believe the Mayans predicted the end of the world in 2012. This is not true. In actual fact, the messages they left actually show a calendar that ends on December 21, 2012. This date corresponds with the date that the sun will eclipse the galactic centre.
The following is taken from Daniel Pinchbeck's book 2012: The Return of Quetzacoatl. (This is the book that came to me from Taylor, following the coincidence I had in Sayulita.)
On the winter solstice of December 21, 2012, the Sun will rise within the dark rift at the center of the Milky way galaxy, an event that occurs every 25,800 years. As John Major Jenkins describes in Maya Cosmogenesis 2012, this alignment represents a "union" of the Cosmic Mother (the Milky Way) with the First Father (the December solstice sun)." Mayan hieroglyphs describe the center of this dark rift as the "Hole in the Sky," cosmic womb, or "black hole," through which their wizard-kings entered other dimensions, accessed sacred knowledge, or toured across the vast reaches of the cosmos. In September 2002, astronomers verified the existence of a massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, naming it "Sagittarius B."
Most people also believe that this is just the prediction of one civilisation. This is also untrue. There are many other ancient civilisations who also talked of the end of an age in 2012.
The Mayan calendars were divided into a number of 'eras' of varying lengths, that grow shorter the closer we get to 2012. These are encoded into the pyramids at Palenque,Mexico; Chichen Itza, Mexico, and Tikal, Guatemala. Each of these eras represent a different stage of consciousness.
In brief - (again, borrowed from Daniel Pinchbeck's book 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl).
The initial level, 16.4 billion years ago, proceeds from the inception of matter in the "Big Bang," through the development of cellular life on Earth. During the second step, beginning 820 million years, ago, animal life evolved out of cells. The third underworld, starting 41 million years ago, saw the evolution of primates and the first, rudimentary use of tools by human ancestors. During the fourth underworld, beginning 2 million years ago, tribal organization began among the ancestors of Homo sapiens. During the next underworld, 102,000 years ago, Homo sapiens emerged developing spoken language. The next sixth underworld, beginning 5,125 years before the approaching birth date, when we created patriarchal civilization, law, and written language. The seventh step, beginning in AD 1755, introduced industrialization, electricity, technology, modern democracy, gene splicing, and the atom bomb.
The current era started in 1999, and corresponded with the birth of the internet - a global connectivity unlike anything seen before.
Time is 'speeding up.' Things are happening faster.
The next and final era of this age of history begins in April 2012 and ends in December later that year. There is much speculation as to what this final stage will bring. Many believe there will be a fundamental change in the way we think, and the way we connect to each other and the world - a connection to the 'global consciousness'.
Certainly in every era there is an increase in consciousness. And certainly the signs of this can already be seen.
The end of the calendar could mean many things, but the consensus is that there will be huge change, marked most likely by increase in frequency and intensity of natural disasters. While I am slightly sceptical that something can happen so quickly, I only need take a look at recent history to tell me things are already starting to shift.
In terms of what will actually happen on December 21st, 2012, opinions are hugely divided, ranging from anything from meteor collision or volcano eruptions to the arrival of extraterrestrial Mayans (the glyphs in several temples show what seem to be spaceships...). Others speculate that crossing the 'dark rift' of the galaxy could cause a magnetic pole reversal, as the earth spins in an external field.
Again the consensus is that society is going to change completely and in the process shed a huge number of people and their constructions.
Maybe nothing will happen in 2012. But if not then, it seems clear that something is going to happen soon, and the better prepared we are, the more chance we have of staying alive to see the change occur.
Dan is preaching self-sufficiency. From what he has seen and heard, it seems to be the only way to attempt survival through the coming eruptions. It rings with the voices deep inside me that have been urging me to keep going, whilst keeping one eye half out for a piece of land on which to create my nest. Whenever I start to worry about money I make myself relax, for I know that if it is right, the money will arrive.
We start getting into 'headfuck' area when we move on to the Law of Attraction, and the very real possibility that 2012 is a self-fulfilling prophecy. For if the world brings us what we think about most, it shouldn't be so far-fetched to suggest that the increased awareness will breed the things that we most fear.
My mind is swollen with conflicting emotions; acceptance and resistance, understanding and confusion.
I lie in bed, shivering with the aches of a mild Dengue fever, feeling my body process the information it has been loaded with in the last few days. I am forced to become one with my thoughts and to truly consider what path to take. I could view all this as hysterics; for after all, have there not been several occasions in the past when a small group proclaiming the end of the world have been proved wrong, again and again? Besides, it is far easier to ignore it and carry on planning a future of security. As the philosopher Neitzche pointed out, our tendency to be drawn towards the mundane and the secure and ignore the things that seem outlandish or scary is vital for our survival.
But how much does it blind us?
My instincts are shouting at me. Listen! There really is a lot of truth behind all of this. The Mayan prophecies have actually all been right so far. To the extent that they even predicted the date the prophecies themselves would be discovered. And even if the Mayans were wrong, how long is the Earth going to put up with what we are doing to it? It is not so far fetched to believe that a serious shift could occur in my lifetime. We are accelerating. Technology and development are speeding up. Can we really expect this exponential curve to go on infinitely?
If I really think about it, I know this is why I'm here.
I'm not here to 'see the world'. I don't care about cathedrals or museums or 'canopy tours'. I'm here because I know I have to do something. I have no idea what. But I'm here because on some level I've tuned into something that told me I need to be here. I don't see it as a coincidence that the place I'm in is at the very heart of these prophecies. Arguably, if I was in Africa I would be hearing African prophecies. But I have been brought here, so these are the ones I have to hear. I wanted to know about all this. I NEEDED to know about all this.
Whether any of this is true or not, this is part of my personal journey. Bizarre as it all seems, I´m confident that it will all become clear in time.
In the meantime, I feel like I am to collect and distribute information. Take it as you will.
A few days later, when I have stopped shaking, I leave Yelapa. Once again, I don't know where I'm going. Only that it is time to go.
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