1-E’ trecena daily digest: begins June 25, 2018

Left without saying goodbye

All over the world and throughout history humans greeted each other when they met, and parted ceremoniously via some gesture (of the hand, most commonly). Some animals share the greeting ritual, in various modes of sensory communication, but do not say goodbye to each other before leaving. Why is that?

If a friend of mine comes over to my place for a dinner party, and leaves without announcement of some kind (let’s assume he didn’t have an unexpected emergency that pulled him away), I would probably be in a position to become rightly offended. Was it the food? Didn’t he like the company? Wasn’t he comfortable? Why didn’t he say goodbye? Is he some kind of animal?

Leaving without saying goodbye means that his experience at my house was negative. It could be negative to the point of dissolving our future relationship, in other words, he left unceremoniously because he doesn’t want a future with me anymore. So here is the crux: animals don’t live by any concept of future the way humans do. A dog meets another dog and greets it to establish the boundaries of this encounter in the now. When it’s time to leave it simply points its nose to some interesting direction and gets going. No offense taken.

For us humans many other meanings factor into the equation. A human is the kind of creature that lives a story, and each story has its proper form. Each story also comes to a conclusion eventually. When my story concludes I will leave, but not before saying goodbye (I hope).

A friendly goodbye with a smile is the last impression me and my friend leave each other within the depth of our subconscious. It is a promise for an equally happy get-together next time, sometime soon maybe, hopefully.

My story and script are being written while being acted out, live and improvised. Whatever wake I leave behind me is my own, personal Road of Life. Whichever direction I pick to point my compass towards, it would be the horizon my heart yearns for now.

Walking my path of life, never knowing whose path I might cross tomorrow.

“Happy to meet, sorry to part, happy to meet again.” – The tyler’s toast, Freemasonry

Humble PATH-FINDING

The purifying storm (1-Kawok) left debris of old habits and mindsets in its wake, so a new trail must now be blazed. This trail begins with 1-E’, and develops over a 13-day journey through ever-developing aspects and intentions.

1-E’: By the way

Under the hood

1-E’is a southern trecena, since it begins with a southern sun-sign (E’), and it has more southern sun-signs (4) than any other direction (3 of every other). The southern sun-signs in this trecena appear on the days 1, 5, 9, and 13, and they are contrasted by 3 northern signs on the days 3, 7, and 11. When drawing a line connecting the yellow (southern) signs in the above figure, a trapezoid is formed, which gives the trecena a stable southern base. If the contrasting white (northern) signs are connected a triangle is formed, with 7-Tijax at the apex.

Being a southern trecena, 1-E”s theme is abundance: plenty of Roads (1-E’), plenty of Wisdom (5-Aj’maj), plenty of Suns (9-Ajpu) and plenty of networks (13-Kat).

The absent southern sun-sign is Q’anil. What could that mean?

1-E’: On the Road again

Born on this day: Friedrich Nietzsche, Billie Holiday, Dr. John, Albert Pujols, Ban Ki-moon, Julius Erving, William Shakespeare (baptized 1-E’), George R. R. Martin

“Many people are obstinate about the path once it is taken, few people about the destination.” – Friedrich Nietzsche (1-E’), taken from ‘Human, All Too Human’ (1878) section IX

“Every day is a winding Road” sings Sheryl Crow (5-Kat), and this is the main message of 1-E’. Every day a winding road is taken, while countless other roads are inevitably forsaken. The sun-sign E’ is called “the Road of Life” and it stands for abundance through humility, stewardship and simplicity. Another famous saying which applies to this day is “there is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path”.

This trecena accentuates the presumed conflict between trying to make everyone happy and dwelling on the compromises that result from such expectations. This is the day when I begin walking the path and knowing it.

13-Serpent/Kan: Winter’s Terror (29 May 2018)

Born 13-Kan: Heath Ledger, Sylvester Stallone, Jodie Foster, Mark Wahlberg, George W. Bush (43rd US president), Osama bin Laden, Ted Koppel

“I cannot believe in God when there is no scientific evidence for the existence of a supreme being and creator.” – Jodie Foster (13-Kan) As quoted in Calgary Sun (2007), and sounding a lot like Dr. Eleanor Arroway

The United States declared independence on the Tzolkin date 9-Ben (1-Kan trecena). So, today these two related sun-signs (Serpent and Reed) meet again, but in reverse.

Generally speaking, people born on day 13 are other-worldly in many ways. They are either full-on present, or altogether absent and ether-vapor like. This resonates and is consistent with how the Maya regard the number 13, being the last number of the trecena period. Any last number of a cycle is considered to be zero as well as the actual number (13, or the 20th ‘seating’ day in the Ha’ab calendar). This way, the last day of one period, is the fruit of that period, and at the same time – carries the seed of the next period.

So how does this affect the sun-sign Serpent? 13-Serpent types, like Sly Stalone and George Bush Jr., have learned the lessons of the Serpent, and are less prone to the unbalanced aspect of the archetype, like say 4-Serpents and 9-Serpents are. When doing readings to 13’s, I’ve noticed that the sun-sign traits are familiar to them, but at the same time they know how to put their gifts to work in their lives. Their innate connection to the other-worldly often beckons them to listen to divination, like a Tzolkin calendar reading.

What resonates most with 13’s in their readings has to do with the number 13 being both fruit and seed, as described above. When 13’s hear that, to them, each achieved mountaintop is an accomplishment, while at the same time – an opportunity to get the first glimpse of the next mountaintop – they find this insight helpful.

What a gift it is to have such fine individuals among us…

Dead Kennedys

To find that Bush and Bin-Laden shared the same Tzolkin birthday (13-Serpent, today) really got my attention a few years ago. Bush is the 8th US president to have his birthday on this trecena. I wonder if this record will be beaten. His father, BTW, Bush senior, was born the very next day in the Tzolkin – 1-Cimi. In other words – close, but no cigar.

The sun-sign Aj seems to have a lot in common with the United States. Heck, even Obama was born on 9-Ben! Our current commander in chief, Mr. Trump, was born 4-Ak’abal, which has little to do with the Serpent (Kan), but is the sun-sign opposite to Aj. So, in some ways, he’s something other than the archetypes around the United States.

… and what’s this hang-up I have with presidents and politicians, anyway? Time to get off the authority trip. Time for a change.

So the last day of the Tzolkin Fall is 13-Kan, which is a divine flavor of fluidity, with an unreal scent for drama – directly contrasting our point of origin (1-Aj, the unitary steel pipe).

Tomorrow, 1-Kame, is the beginning of the Tzolking winter; the second quarter of the round begins.

… and Moses remained on mount Nebo, and watched his flock cross the Jordan into the promised land.

8-Ajpu: Infinite Light (24 May 2018)

Born 8-Ajpu: Alan Dershowitz, Warren Beatty, Toni Collette, Vincent van Gogh, Douglas Adams, Norah Jones, Idan Ofer

“If the Universe came to an end every time there was some uncertainty about what had happened in it, it would never have got beyond the first picosecond. And many of course don’t.” – Douglas Adams (8-Ahau) from Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (1987)

Destiny.

A word with much gravity and a touch of romanticism. Is there really a destination that I can single out and abbreviate as being my destiny? The thing with destinations is that once you arrive at one of them you get a view good enough to recognize the next one. So how can there be a destiny in the sense of an ultimate destination, some life-long goal that can be actually realized and materialized? And if there is one, in what way do I continue living without destiny beyond its acheivment?

There can’t be such a thing as a future destiny, unless I define death itself as a destiny, followed by nothing. Instead of looking to the future in search of it, I think destiny is everything that has already happened, along with whatever’s transpiring now. So in other words destiny is made up of my karmic accumulation of the past, over which I have no control, and the now moment, for which I have total responsibility.

Today, the 8th day of the 1-Aj trecena, is where the current 20-day uinal period comes to a conclusion, on an Ajpu day, according to most western followers of the calendar. Being the concluding nawal, Ajpu embodies completion and perfection, and fittingly, some of the meanings associated with Ajpu are: master, lord, hero, flower, ancestor.

When they’re busy pursuing their destiny, people born on Ajpu days display near-magical abilities and heroic skills. They expect much of themselves, and their community does, too. Some Ajpu types embody their heroic nature, and create new realities regardless of expectations and disappointment. Other Ajpu’s have it way over their heads. They foresee themselves letting everyone down, failing to meet expectations, not to mention exceeding them (as they are used to do). So they tend to indulge in some sort of old escapism habit of their’s; robbing the world the gift only they themselves can produce and give away gladly.

… and 8-Ajpu says: “perfection cannot be realized tomorrow, nor remembered as past glory. It abides now and always, beckoning me to discover it.”

OUR CONCEPT OF TIME

When does a new child begin life’s journey? Is it at the moment of birth? of conception? Is it after puberty? or a couple of days after his/her parents first met?

When viewing time as a linear progression of units, it becomes terribly important to agree on a suitable answer to the above query. So most people will say that the moment of birth is the beginning, and the government bureau-cats will have a piece of flimsy reality with which to fill out their forms in hospitals, and file them next to the morgue expiry forms.

To counter the linear perception of time, Ken Johnson stresses that according to the Mayan concept of time there’s no exact moment (for example, 00:00) when one day nawal is replaced by the following one. When the sun sets the nawal of the following day already begins to assert its energy, while the nawal that governed the current day wanes.

So like everything else in nature, days and nights have their unique, flowing dance of energies, which intensifies whenever they mix and switch governance (of day and night/winter and summer). Spring, after all, is known as “The Quickening”, and fall is exactly what it means – a slowing down, a time to stop and take stock, gather gravity in preparation for winter – the standstill.

There are no clear cuts in the natural world. Clear cuts can only be found in the human world of words and dotted lines. They are arbitrarily set by my dualistic, calculating mind (one of my favorite tools!)

According to the Mayan concept of time, when the child is born other members of the family are born with him/her. This means that the mother and father (roles) are born with the child, along with sisters, brothers, grandparents, etc. This is most obvious with the first child (there were no parents before it came), but is also true about any other child joining earth.

At the time of birth something also dies. When a couple gets married the bachelors die, and when the pet is adopted the loner dies.