Author: Marcos Chamorro Guillén
THE FEATHERED SERPENT:
The White Road towards the North ("Xaman").
* The present article is the continuation of another titled: THE MAGICIANS.
"But at dawn they found them safe and sound, and they decided to put them in the Cave of Fire." 12 Without knowing how, the brothers also got rid of the flames and sparks that were everywhere in that place. see this those of Xibalbá despaired ".
Popol Vuh. Ancient legends of the Quiche. The magicians.
In due course, Grandpa Oscar arrives, supervises everything and finishes details. At last it solves the mystery of what my mission in the Temazcal will be. Third test I did not expect. The mission entrusted is powerful and I try to ask myself, may I? But I prefer not to even consider it. The grandmothers accumulate their incandescent energy, it's already too late for rehearsals. The participants arrive. The family is complete. I will do it.
Before the ceremony and gathered in a circle, the grandfather performs a ritual similar to that of the preparations * 13. In the sense of the clockwise he purifies us with Copal. At the end he embraces us one by one, he sits us down and hands us a shamanic musical instrument to accompany the songs during the ceremony.
To enter the Temazcal, you have to do it crouching, the only way to enter the underworld, the only way to get out of it, with humility.
Once inside placed in a circle, I realize the size and other details of the Temazcal, it is small and has the primitive design, without a seat, directly to the ground floor that will end up muddy. A little later I will know that this will make the experience much more intense.
Grandpa and I flanked the door one on each side. We separated the space just to place a Granny between the two. The grandfather says a few words to give an intention to the ritual. Make Invocations and requests. Tlazolteotl * 14 is waiting for us. We ask for the stones. This time there are 36 grandmothers * 15.
Luis from outside places one by one the stones in the entrance and I have to catch them by making a clamp with two wooden tools in the shape of slingshots of the size of 2 palms. With the grandmother in the tweezers I have to place her in a ritual order from the center of the temazcal to the different cardinal points, elements, paths.
Every time a Grandmother crosses the small door, we sing with joy: "Welcome grannies, grandmothers welcome"
Grannies are incandescent, the sticks I use to pin them too. Burn my hands, my chest and my face. Ardo Granny falls, I can not balance, I'm afraid I'm going to burn my grandfather. The sweat makes the tweezers slip from my hands. I feel the enormous weight of the stones on wrists and elbows. Grandpa watches me with attentive patience. I snort. The grandfather grabs the tweezers and with astonishing ease teaches me. I take air. After several attempts I can imitate him with all the concentration placed on the moment.
With the first 10 grandmothers placed in the central circle, we shout: "door" and Luis from outside closes us the door leaving us in darkness. There you see nothing and all the sensations multiply and the reality of union of the group is amplified. Egos dissolve in sweat and black. We are in the stomach of the earth and we are being digested.
The petitions begin, in the dark it is easy to do them from the heart, Everyone asks for something, everyone puts that intention. The grandmothers are there, ready to hear us. They all say Ometeot * 16. Then the songs arrive.
The grandfather sings, his voice is unmistakable, the song is beautiful, I do not know the lyrics; I can follow him, I do choirs, atmospheric sounds. The roar of a jaguar breaks, the rattle of a snake escapes from one of the shamanic instruments. Everyone connected there makes their instruments play or they sing when they feel they have to. Without vision Everything vibrates.
Nobody, nothing left over. We all participate On this trip we explore from the outside to the inside. From diversity to singularity. The energy that comes out of our mouths when we sing and the bodies next to each other, generate a heat that feeds back and joins that of the grandmothers.
This can last from half an hour to 45 minutes. When the alchemy of the cycle ends with the first element, we shout: "door" and Luis from the outside opens the door letting in some light and breeze that relieves us and relaxes us to face the next door, since this ritual is repeated with The other 3 elements and the complete ceremony can last from 2 to 3 hours.
On the trip, you dream of water, you cross galaxies, you stir like a snake looking for some freshness and air in the corners and walls of the temazcal and someone suddenly grabs your hand or hugs you. Magnetism, combustion and consolation in the center of the earth.
When the 36 grandmothers accumulate, you are already living a completely unreal situation, but it is real, very real, you stop being you, you stop being real, you disappear in the dark. You die And dead you absorb the energy of fire to sing back to life. More live than never.
The mother of one of the Australians, had problems in the delivery and he has suffered a regression during the ceremony, he felt that he died, being more accurate, that he was not born. He left the Temazcal at the beginning of the second door. He has not been able to be reborn, but he has found what he has been looking for for a long time through Bufo.
As for me, I have entered into a trance from the third door, I do not know how the grandmothers moved. I had to help Gaya remember. The grandfather also went into a trance, he would confess later. At some point by pinching the stones together or through the voice, our energies merged into the same will, he felt it too.
The moment you waited so long to despair and stop waiting: it has arrived. The initiates are leaving the temazcal, it is the path of the serpent * 17.
By order I have to leave the last one. I try to incorporate myself by supporting myself in a Grandmother without wanting to, 1, 2 and 3 seconds and I realize that it burns, I put my hand away quickly. I lose my balance and I step on another grandmother, I feel the fire this time on the sole of my foot. I crawl as I can, I retort. I am outside already!
Then the cold water falls on my head, and a slap of air shakes me and makes me cry, like a newborn.
I look at my hand and my foot, waiting to see them singed. Surprisingly, and as expected, there are no burns.
The bowl of fruit that you take when leaving: Never a fruit will taste the same, it tastes like Paradise, it is a divine gift. Then the whole family goes to bathe in the Cenote that is near the temple. If we were on the coast we would go to the sea.
I have excused myself and I go to sleep, I do not have the strength to reach the Cenote. At dawn, I discover illuminated by a candle, that I am covered completely with red mud. I like it, I perish a real savage, but it's not a disguise this time.
I arrive at the nearest cenote with the first light of dawn, I want to cleanse myself. I am not aware of having awakened, I follow the waves of the fish. I jump into the water and swim to an island where I usually sit and meditate. And for the first time I see a turtle there, swimming happily, he looks at me and smiles as he moves his fins rhythmically. He looks like an old boy.
The meeting illuminates me, I consider it a sign. Symbol of union between two spiritual traditions that I love: For Mayans and Taoists, metaphor of the Universe.
A turtle keeps the door of the Temazcal of Xibalbá and yes !, there are turtles in the Cenotes, sometimes even alligators, if they are close to the mangrove. But in all this time I had not seen any here. I decide to take the message seriously.
The snake has to be feathered, the egg has been opened. The feathers will grow soon. The dragon must fly.
Surely if you have reached this height of the article you will wonder what consequences the ceremony has, what the signs mean and finally what will be the fourth unexpected test. You will find the answers in the penultimate article:
JAGUAR STAR
Notes*:
12 * It refers to the tests that the Lords of Xibalbá made happen to the brothers Hunahpú and Ixbalanqué. The tests to escape the underworld by obtaining immortality imply sacrifice and cunning and are levels to achieve enlightenment. The Popol Vuh says that there were many places of torment and punishment in Xibalba:
The first was the Dark Cave, in whose interior there was only darkness.
The second was the Cave of the cold, where a cold and unbearable wind blew inside.
The third was the Cueva de los Jaguares, where the jaguars turned, piled up, snarled and mocked.
The fourth was the Cave of the Bats, where there were only bats that screamed, shouted and fluttered.
The fifth was called the Cueva de los cuchillos, inside which were only sharp and sharp knives.
In another part of the Popol Vuh says that there is a sixth cave called the Cave of heat, where there were only embers and flames.
13 * OMETEOTL
I greet the directions.
East: Now we greet the guardians of the path of light; place where the sun rises; where the black and red dye blooms as a flower; Quetzalcoatl region the feathered serpent.
We offer you copal smoke, a touch of snail and a venerable touch of huehuetl.
Oste: Now we greet the guardians of the women's course; place where the sun descends; place of women warriors; region of the venerable lady of the maguey and the cloud serpent, place of Xipe Totec
the disembodied
We offer you ...
North: Now we salute the guardians of the course of death;
place where the sun sleeps; the place of the obsidian wind that cuts our faces like knives; Coatlicue region that of the snake skirt; course Tezcatlipoca smoking mirror.
We offer you ...
South: Now we greet the guardians of the thorns course
luminous; place where the sun sets in the middle of the sky; place of the portentous smoking mirror; course of Huitzilopochtli.
We offer you ...
Cosmos: Now we salute the navel of the cosmos, the beloved Father Sun, the eagle that ascends, that of arrows of heat.
We offer you ...
Earth: Now we greet our beloved Mother Earth, our lady with the skirt of serpents, mother of our sustenance.
We offer you ...
Gratitude:
Now we greet the guardian soul of the center; in the navel of the world, in the great Mexihco - Tenochtitlan; where the eagle unfolds,
where the serpent is devoured, where the fish swims, in the junction of the embraced waters, meeting place and meeting of the people of the four cardinal points.
14 * Tlazolteotl is Mother Earth, she is considered the goddess of the temazcal, and it is believed that she devours what we no longer use to transform her into a fertile land and transmute it into a new life. Within the temazcal, which is the belly of the earth, the steam makes us sweat and take out toxins from our body; the temazcal will devour them, will absorb that sweat and transform it into fertile land, ready to feed the new life.
However, the purification of our being within the temazcal goes far beyond the physical, because also the spirit undergoes a detoxification through the words we utter, negative thoughts that we eliminate, the tears we let loose, etc. The temazcal will devour those destructive thoughts and emotions to transform them into new energy; in a few words: we will live our own rebirth.
15 * The number of Grandmothers, varies according to the shaman and the type of ceremony. The followers of "The red road" get to put 56 stones inside the temazcal, without opening the door at any time from the beginning to the end of the 4 elements. In other occasions they are 36 or another number.
16 * "God of Duality", also called Moyocoyani, "He who created himself".
He thought and invented himself to constitute the principle and generate everything that exists. It is equivalent to the Egyptian Ptah and the Taoist Ying / Yang.
It was the first divine manifestation that gave rise to everything. In the Mexican autochthonous language, the word "God" does not exist as such. But in their own language the word "Ometeotl" encompasses the creator of everything, the principle, the only one.
Then Ometeotl, the generating principle is everywhere. He looks at us and finds us in whatever hiding place we are.
The sky represents its masculine part with light blue, if we observe during the day, and the feminine part during the night, with a dark blue color.
In other versions, that original creative couple, is reduced to a single divinity called Ometeotl that acquires a double side, on the one hand the male, Ometecuhtli, and, on the other, the female, Omecihuatl.
As a duality and masculine-feminine unity, it resides in Omeyocann, "the Site of Duality", which, in turn, occupies the highest place in the heavens. He / she is the parent of the Universe and how much is in it. As "Lord and Lady of Our Flesh and Sustenance", it supplies the universal cosmic energy from which all things derive, as well as the continuity of its existence and sustenance. Provides and maintains the oscillating rhythm of the universe, and gives each thing its particular nature.
17 * Enter and exit in a row in a clockwise direction.
