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New Year 2007

by Crystal Pomeroy

July 26 is the Mayan New Year, a portal that sheds some fascinating light not only on the year ahead, but also on 2012 as a time of meaningful, constructive transition.

Some background on the Mayan Calendar

Before getting into the astrology for the Mayan New Year, let’s get some perspective on their calendar, or rather calendars, which together make up a vast and complex system. They include Solar, Lunar and Venusian, to name only three among several known measurements. To study any one of them provides a unique glimpse into a deep and ancient web of wisdom.

The Mayan astronomical observatory at Chichen Itza in the Yucatan: planetary positions we observed through carefully placed windows

At the same time, their interpretation is subject to controversy and misinformation, the latter more acute in English speaking circles. When the Spaniards arrived in Mexico, the Mayan empire had dispersed and ceremonial centers had been abandoned several centuries earlier. The conquistadores systematically destroyed and exported to the Vatican library every trace of native wisdom they could get their hands on. Other factors add to the confusion. The Mayans are not the only native culture in the region, but one of dozens throughout Mexico and Latin America, each with its own language and variants on similar calendar themes.

As for traditional archaeology: although it does evolve, producing new evidence and interpretive methods, it simultaneously restricts popular understanding by resisting new dating methods and discoveries that clearly suggest an antediluvian phase to the Mayan culture, reaching as far back as 50,000 years. As in the case of Egypt, this early phase exhibits signs of sophistication and technology that reappear as mere vestiges among the Mayans of more recent eras.

These observations are not intended to tarnish the luster of Mayan teachings, whose powerful poetry we respectfully evoke a bit further on, but rather to put some perspective on a tendency in esoteric circles to confuse the systems of the different native peoples, and what is more important: we’d like to humanize the myth around the fact that one of the Mayan calendars—known as the Long Count—ends in December 22, 2012. There is no evidence that either early or late Mayans believed that it signified the end of the world. To this respect, Richard Montiel has said, “When a calendar reaches the end of its cycle, it simply moves onto the next cycle. In western cultures, each year the 31st of December is followed, not by the end of the world, but by the 1st of January.” Montiel goes on to point out that one Mayan Long Count would naturally be followed by another. Since those who produced it are not around to present another measurement, exactly what kind of change it presages has not been written in stone, pun intended.

Fortunately, as we will see below, the elders of this enigmatic civilization did leave enough solid testimony to keep a candle burning for seekers and teachers today, illuminating our mystical synchronization with the cycles of life and with the present and approaching earth changes.

The Mayan New Year Three Storm begins on July 26, 2008

Number three refers to the third year of a 13-year “Enchanted Wave” that began in 2006. Storm is one of the four forces that rotate in these recurring waves, the other three being Moon, Magician and Seed. This will be the last Storm year until 2012, which marks the end of the current Long Count calendar of 5,126 years. The year now beginning can be taken as a preparation for that final one.

The New Year portal is related to the energy of the Sun, which evolves throughout the seasons. It was born as a hummingbird at Winter Solstice, evolving into a mature eagle by summer. As July comes to an end, the Eagle Sun crosses paths with the Butterfly, their shared portal is called The Magical Flight. It opens a celestial channel for transformation, transporting those who use it to higher levels of awareness.

For the Mayans, number three relates to the bloodstream in motion, an electrical energy that awakens our power of decision and creativity. The force behind this movement is Chak, a rain spirit who provokes these changes to empower us to enter in spiritual realms. Chak’s counterpart in the post-Mayan Mexica nation’s mythology is called Tlaloc. In an interesting aside, such entities are erroneously called “gods” by western thinkers, when actually they are simply the identity of rain itself. Chak’s companion is the Blue Night, ruler of sleep, dreaming and other intuitive realms. She activates lucid introspection, favoring dream work and other divinatory arts for self-observation directed toward spiritual renewal. This annual cycle strengthens our vital energy to travel within, to visit the “mind’s heart” and discover, clarify or reaffirm our destiny or special role. The months from now until late July next year are most propitious to make use of all inner and outer elements to activate and catalyze this process. S/he who does this will be prepared to optimize the coming changes: both those related to the next Mayan year, which is ruled by Seed and therefore signifies a decidedly new phase, and the greater cycle of the Long Count, which begins on Winter Solstice of 2012.

A Chac at the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza

Inner work suggestions for the Mayan New Year

The following suggestions combine Mayan, Mexica and New Thought techniques.

From now through the end of July, light a blue candle, adorning your altar or sacred space with water and a rose. This offering was used in ancient Mexico from the time of the Summer Solstice through the New Year portal. A native flower was used until the imported Spanish rose supplanted it. In a show of planetary synchronicity, Summer solstice was also the traditional Day of Roses in England, and in Greece of “All Heras”—Heras being women who have achieved communion with the Goddess. The flower or flowers that you include in your offering connect you with that feminine life and beauty.

On or around July 26, eat the Sun in its Magical Flight as the Mexica people did at this time. Rise before dawn, and as the Sun comes up, use your hands to make a triangular window (joining thumbs and index fingers), that you point towards the rising sun, arms extended. Visualize the sunlight streaming through the triangle into your open mouth as you mentally repeat something like this:

I take in the magic of the mature Sun’s power. It flows through my veins and moves me:

to express the highest good through my attitude, consciousness and actions,

to achieve reconciliation with Mother Earth and with myself,

to understand the writing and the painting for which I was made.

I accept the light I’m given for this, as it clarifies my mission and puts the mental and spiritual energies of my being into balance.

As the Sun now nurtures me, it also touches and awakens all souls everywhere to the truth of their higher nature, bathing, blessing and balancing the earth and its entire, glorious nature now.

Throughout Mayan year Three Storm, utilize prayer themes like those described, and any compatible tools or opportunities that may arise to reaffirm your higher destiny and otherwise prepare yourself spiritually for a new era of good in the years ahead. And arise they will. If you were led to read this, be certain that the Blue Night—co-ruler of this year—is calling you and will make her guidance known through oracles, books, dreams and subtle experiences.

The last moments before going to bed are especially tuned to her gifts. Adapt prayers like those above to activate deep processes just before sleeping.

The following prayers are a parting gift, to use or adapt especially during those moments when you are passing from the waking world into your own dreamtime:

The Same Mind that knows what I need to clarify my higher purpose also knows how to reveal it to me and does this through Its infinite channels as I sleep and while I am awake.

The Same Mind that knows what I need to clarify my true purpose,

to express the highest good in attitude, consciousness and action,

to achieve reconciliation with Mother Earth and with myself,

to understand the writing and the painting for which I was made, also knows how to reveal it to me and does so through Its infinite channels as I sleep and while I am awake.

The Same Mind that knows what humanity needs to clarify its higher purpose,

to express the highest good in attitude, consciousness and actions,

to achieve reconciliation with Mother Earth and with ourselves,

to understand the writing and the painting for which we were was made, also knows how to reveal it to us and does so through Its infinite channels as we sleep and while we are awake.

In a recent encounter with Toltec guides, I was gifted with a vision that has marked my own experience of The Blue Night. In it, I could see with sight beyond eyes how prayer is more than passing words, it is a creative weaver of strings and fields of light, an instantaneous builder of temples and roads on etheric planes. These structures are not fleeting, as our thoughts so often seem to be. They last beyond time, opening paths for all creation, paving the way for future generations, for a coming era of victorious good. After this experience, my mind returns to the heavy appearances of impending planetary demise, and I still have trouble staying in this revelation. But it was palpable and clear, a message of hope and certainty for all who have sometime lifted our hearts in prayer. May we remember to do this repeatedly and with faith as we prepare ourselves and the planet at the transition to the next Long Count.

Special thanks to Xolotl for his counsel on the Mexica oral tradition.