The Water Path includes taking part in cleansing fires, much like smudges, but it is the internal part of the path. It is a path of cleansing, of emptying the glass of its contaminated contents and refilling from the font of the universe with love and right thinking. Our first steps on the path were to learn the animal nature of each of the 20 days in a Maya month. There are 20 spirits within the Maya calender, each with its own day, and 13 numbers, symbolizing the interaction of the solar and lunar years. That leaves 260 combinations of numbers and energies, each with distinct goals and advantages, as well as common trouble spots. It is possible with a birth date to read the horoscope of a person, to see how the energies of the universe combined on your first birthday, the day you were born, the day you were 1 solar year old and saw the sun for the first time.
While we learned about spirits, energies and subtle meanings of numbers, we also cleansed our bodies on the inside and outside. We made teas from combinations of herbs that have been used since before the age of the Spanish. The first seven days included a mix of herbs with limes, garlic and tobacco that we washed our bodies with each night and allowed to air dry. Morning and night we drank a different mix of about 10 herbs, which varied only a little from the first week to the next. Our second week of purification baths omitted the limes, garlic and tobacco and added roses. I was pleased to buy all the herbs we needed at the market, my favorite part of Guatemala, despite the intimidation I felt as someone who speaks only enough Spanish to ask for things. I made a good friend in the avocado lady, it just took me unintentionally offending her the first time, and then buying a huge amount of avocados in every visit hence.
We continued to study the natures of the signs and numbers throughout our stay, but for the first two weeks we also spent a lot of time examining our own actions, our own decisions, our own feelings. We spent half a week discussing the 23 enemies, including anger, hatred, fear, guilt, and pretty much every other negative action you can think of. We were required to imagine ways to deal with each negative action, thought, or feeling. We responded correctly to very few at first, and it’s amazing what happens. You want to answer the question as if it’s an external, but the answers are all highly personal because every negative action or feeling is rooted in a lack of self-love, a lack of self-respect, and a lack of conscious thought. To be harmonious with universal energy, it’s necessary to always cultivate love, to be self-aware, and to really be quiet most of the time.
At the end of our herbal purification, we spent seven days cleansing our chakras, which align with each of thirteen joints that also correspond with parts of the body. For this cleansing we learned the Egg Ritual, another tool for spiritual adjustment. The beginning of the ritual requires a candle of every color, plus one of fat, to be lit on either side for light and protection, and a heavy dousing in floral perfumes. Jose says that Chanel is expensive because it’s great protection, as are any of the strong scents. Two eggs are used for this ritual, one to examine and cleanse the spiritual part of the body and one for the physical. The first egg is moved around the body, starting with the head, while all of the sacred names are called upon with love and joy. The person moving the egg symbolizes the movement of water, channeling universal energy into the person receiving the cleansing with tiny counter-clockwise spins from each of the three sides of the egg. When the egg has passed over all the major parts of the body, down the spine, around the neck and head, down the legs and arms, and across the chest and stomach, thanks are given, and the egg is cracked into a glass of very clean water. The energy being released by the body can cook a part of the egg white, giving signals to the person reading the egg. Bubbles inside the water, connected to the parts of the egg white, or on the surface, also have information, as does anything unusual inside of the egg, like a piece of shell, a cracked yolk, unidentifiable junk in white, red and black, and different colored spots on the yolk in different parts all say something different. It’s an easy and remarkably powerful ritual to practice, calling focus down, channeling energy, and providing information about yourself that is perhaps not always clear from the outside. The end of the ritual requires more perfume to be applied and rum to be poured in small amounts in each of the four directions for the hearts of the sky, the earth, the air, the wind, and the heart of fire that incorporates all of the elements and catalyzes change.
Our graduation took place on 2 Ba’atz, exactly one 20 day cycle after the new year celebration. 2 Ba’atz is a day of opportunities to be made in new beginnings, it’s a day to begin again in a positive way, with intentions set, open to any blessed happenings. It was a beautiful day to start the new month and our newly cleared path, and to have one more ritual! We helped lay out the table with Maximon presiding from the center, the cross of the Ajq’iij or Mayan priest brightly painted behind him, all of our Pixom Kakals, our garments, cigarettes, rum, cacao beans, oranges, bananas, rose petals, sunflowers, and giant, bright white perfumed lilies, as well as a huge glass of water. Jose burned clouds of incense while Carla played new music performed on digital-sounding reproductions of ancient Maya instruments. We were given our final words of guidance, our blessed garments, and our activated Pixom Kakals, with which we should be able to ask questions and receive answers from dark matter. We were initiated with waves of love as new Ajq’iij, as keepers of the count of days, very soon to begin again at 0.0.0.0.0. The stars are with us and where we have been.
… and now for a few words on 2012. Don’t worry. There’s no reason to be afraid. The way we are living is clearly not going to keep working, so don’t count on anything material continuing in quite the same way. It’s time to think from our hearts, to connect with the rest of the world with love, to feel the life of plants, of animals, of each other. We have to open our hearts and minds to accept the pain of what is happening on our planet, to what has happened between us. Most of us spend a considerable amount of time at war inside, and that is played out in front of us with struggle, confusion, anger, frustration, and negative impulses of all kinds – we are filled with negatives, which is no filling at all. We need to work to become empty of those impulses that deconstruct the path toward who we really are, the person we become when we are filled with love on the path. This person requires us to think all of the time, not just when we feel good. We have to be able to think, not react, to the hard times that are always ahead. Every day is a hard time when you are always taking the wrong actions. With that in mind, consider 2012 as a time of change, a time to change your mind, to change your heart. It will be a time when everyone is given the opportunity to let go of all the bullshit onto which we cling, and you don’t have to choose love, but that is all that will be asked when the time comes. If the crust of the earth moves, you will move, too. That is not a reason to fear – it is a reason to become more flexible, more open, and more connected to the ground on which you stand. Now is the time. Now you know.
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Abby Roan is a traveling gardener and aspiring herbalist who loves to make and share food, drink, and the good words.
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