Arqueoastronomy
- Trascendence in Mayan
Mithology -
Let us take a brief moment to look into the meaning of the ritual ball
game of the Maya, and the Mesoamericans, in general.
Ball courts were constructed as part of the Mesoamerican ritual
practically from the beginning. Since these were sacred rituals, we
must assume that there is a metaphysical meaning in the ball game
which is being conveyed.
The layout of the ball
court has been connected to various astronomical orientations.
Whether the orientations are correct is not in question, for it is
assured that the Maya rituals were reality oriented to the
extent that they purposely tied in astronomical orientations to
their lives. They clearly believed that the word of
First Father came through the messages in the heavens.
We can also tie the temple and pyramid sacrifice rituals to the
asterisms at Perseus,
Andromeda, the Great Square, Cepheus, and
Sculptor.
The ball court and the turtle of resurrection can be illustrated in
the asterisms of Pisces and
Cetus to correspond to the bottom of the ecliptic under the
head of Cepheus and the body of Quetzalcoatl.
What we need is a tie in to the metaphor of the game.
The three vignettes above ("click"
on photo to enlarge)
show Maya kings playing the game. Besides the ball, there is the "Six-Stair-place".
This place of six stairs is central to the metaphor of the game.
That is what the vignettes are saying, even though definitions of
the glyphs at each step are not available. But, the ball and the six
steps are all we need to connect the metaphor of the ball game to
the experience of life on earth, or in the cosmos. Mayanologists
prefer to associate the ball with the sun.
Some, including Jenkins, associate the movement of the vernal
equinox with the ball game. This association is undoubtedly part of
the metaphor of the game. But, the Mayanologists avoid the
meaning of the six steps. This inability to identify the number of
steps with the metaphor also afflicts Egyptologists and
archaeologists, in general. In the Great Pyramid, the Queens
Chamber has a four tiered nitch located at the center of the
pyramid. The Grand Gallery has a seven tiered ceiling. The
King's Chamber is blocked by four portcullis slabs, and it has six
stone ceilings. These numbers are sacred to the rituals of the
monuments.
Return
If we consider the ball field one level, then there are six levels
which must be ascended in order to "win the game". In
metaphysics, seven is the number of the "spirits of God". In
other words, there are only seven dimensions of creation which must
be ascended to become one with the Creator. The first four
dimensions are the metaphysical elements, earth, water, air, and
fire. The earth dimension represents the material world composed of
all energy and matter. This is the earth in which we all come to
play the game. The first step to ascend is the physical dimension
which has the metaphysical element name water. This is the level at
which bodily functions result when a life force is added to the
substance of the first material level. An organism which
discontinues to maintain the level of the water step dies, and
returns back to the matter level of the carrion. The second step is
the metaphysical level called air. At this step, the living organism
imagines and thinks about objects and subjects in the creation. This
imaginary step is essential to any rational understanding. The third
step is the metaphysical level called fire. This is the level of
inspiration. When an imaginative living organism made of material
substance reaches the level of fire, it has the power to rule
nations of living organisms.
These four levels from the
ball field to the third step were identified in the Book of
Revelation.
-
Rev 2:7 He that hath an
ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him
that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in
the midst of the paradise of God.
-
Rev 2:11 He that hath an
ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that
overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.
-
Rev 2:17 He that hath an
ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him
that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will
give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which
no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.
-
Rev 2:26 And he that
overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give
power over the nations:
These verses associate the
material, physical, mental, and esprit de corps aspects of creation
with the rewards given for ascending above the appropriate level.
There is no reason to believe the great Maya
did not know these truths, and every reason to believe they had to put
them into their on revelatory saga. The real mystery is why is it
that
Mayanologists, Egyptologists, and archaeologists in
general, can not understand that the temples they uncover are of
religious nature, and are defining the essential metaphysics of the
created world. The answer to this enigma is in the modern object
oriented definition of science.
These four esoteric states are, by definition, subjective. The
subjects they are concerned with are the material existence, the
life force in the biomechanisms, the imaginations of the
mind, and the espirit with which the material, biomechanism,
and mind accomplish life. Science, being object oriented rather
than life oriented, cannot overcome the first step of subjective
creation, and is always bound to the material universe. Science
cannot understand subjectivity because it is a taboo placed on
science.
The top three steps in the quest for a winning ball game are not parts
of the created world. They are a process which is mandatory for
communication to occur within any creation. These higher steps bind
even the gods and the God. Communication is a process which requires
a subject, a medium, and a message. The subject is closely
associated with consciousness, but it must not be confused with
consciousness. Consciousness is a composite of the four created
elements. The subject can enter consciousness, but it is not
consciousness. For example, the subject of this essay is the ball
court rituals. The consciousness is forced to focus on the ball
court rituals, but it is an independent element, and no author can
capture the consciousness of a reader, without the reader's consent.
If a reader does not consent to stick to the author's subject, then
communication fails. The written words, vignettes, monuments, or
star constellations are media through which subjects can be carried.
My present goal is to transfer the message that communication cannot
occur if the subject, medium, and message do not work in unison.
This communication trinity resides in the author and the reader. But,
more importantly, the author has to use the cosmic medium to
transfer the message. In this way, and only in this way, two people
can communicate. But, because the cosmic medium must be involved in
the communication, it is possible that subjects external to any
specific attempt to communicate can become part of a communication
by association. When this happens, the medium of the receiver can
record messages which are composites of the various sources of
subjective information. This potential is a primary reason why
modern science excludes subjectivity as part of the processes it
calls science. Within the exclusions is the failure to communicate.
The sacred sciences of all cultures attempted to decipher all the
subjects in order to maintain the messages in their proper
perspectives. Sacred Science is much more profound than Material
Science, because it attempts to integrate an holistic message.
These three steps were also identified in the Book of Revelation.
-
Rev 3:5 He that
overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will
not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess
his name before my Father, and before his angels.
-
Rev 3:12 Him that
overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he
shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God,
and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which
cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my
new name.
-
Rev 3:21 To him that
overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also
overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
John demonstrates the
successful transfer of subject with "white raiment" in the "book
of life". He identifies the successful ascension above the level
of the medium with the "pillar in the temple" and the "new
Jerusalem" which will carry the meaning of the subject. And
finally, John gives the throne of the father's to the one who can
ascend to the level of the message. The throne is the message, for
it is what is on the Mind of God. The white raiment is the
Milky Way on the child at Quetzalcoatl. The Pillar
in the temple is the body of the Caiman Tree. The throne is
the rational message of the precession of the ecliptic cross. Thus,
the Popol Vuh is in agreement with Revelation (or
viceversa). One important aspect of these top three stairs is the
fact that the entities which were on the ascended level do not
change, it is the created one who ascends that is re-cognized. In
other words, communication does not change the medium nor the
message, communication simply causes the subject to return to its
origination. That is the fundamental consequence of proper
communication. An author can lead the individual, but only the
individual can carry the subject back to the throne from whence it
came.
The subject of the present discussion is the meaning of the ball game
in Maya mythology. When a successful communication has occurred, a
reader will hear the message in the subject and the medium and then
be able to go directly to the originating source for the message. In
the ball game, Hunahpu wins and acquires the head of First
Father. This acquisition then makes Hunahpu the one who
possesses the mind of
First Father, as he repeats the circle of life. The message is
returned from the mythical lands of the underworld, where it had
been lost in subliminal consciousness.
Return
Now that we can see the possibility that the six stair place is that
domain where the seven spirits of God reside, we can begin to
recognize that the ball is the "real world." In many glyphs a man,
or a man's face is found on the ball. This means that the ball is
the "human world." There is little question that the goal of the
Maya ritual was to get the sons back to First Mother
and
First Father. This is precisely the same metaphor as the
ball court and the six-stair-place. The objective of the game is to
get the human world back to the heavenly world.
Egypt was founded with the
specific goal of "uniting the two lands". The two lands are
the material earth and the heavens above. "As above, so below",
was a ritual required in order to attain the fullest awareness of
reality. This ritual was world wide, because it is as essential to
an African, or an Asian, as it is to an American. Any human being
must climb the six-stair-place in order to achieve the objective of
life. When it is achieved, and the obstacles are overcome, the
reward is the throne of the father's.
The great divergence in the ritual accomplishment of "as above, so
below" occurs because above and below are variable around the
surface of the earth. This means that the thrones of the father's
are dependent upon the local terrain and the local Holy City,
as seen from the sacred lands on earth. The ball is thus the
earth, not the sun. The variant faces on the Maya ball
are the symbols of the local chiefs and kings. This theme has been
explored at great depth for many cultures of the earth. They all
demonstrate one clear compassion. The compassion is written in their
local myths and it says, "join the two lands," "as above, so
below.". Let us apply the "as above, so below" idea to
Teotihuacan, as an example.
The chart on the right
represents the view of Teotihuacán on the vernal equinox of
4400 AD, oriented so that the expression "as above, so below"
applies. If the stars were projected down to the terrain, they would
be as shown, with the Milky Way and the head of the reborn
king resting on the Way of the dead at the Pyramid of the
Feathered Serpent. The sun is at the foot of Aquarius as
represented in the ball game vignette from the Popol Vuh.
Look closely at the path
of the zenith (Z). At the east northeast horizon, it is in the cleft
of Pisces, or the back of the turtle. Further north along the
horizon, a ball player takes a hip shot to beat the Lord's of
Xibalba at their own game. The metaphor of the hip shot can be
understood in modern cowboy vernacular as "shooting from the hip".
The zenith ball bounces through the Pisces circlet "ball" over the
head of Aquarius who is pouring water toward the man holding the
"staff of life" at the bottom of the cosmic world. When the ball
reaches the zenith, the star pattern is as it is shown, with the
zenith directly on the head of the reborn king. The sons have
rescued
One Hunahpu! Let the dances begin.
West of the galaxy we see
First Father drawing new spirits out of the mouth of
Quetzalcoatl, and the sons doing what sons do in the
heavens, where a Maize God tends to his field and his flock.
On the northwest horizon, Seven Macaw stands pointing the way
to the top of the world and the head of the king. Salvation is shown
in full swing at Teotihuacán on the vernal equinox morning of
4400 AD. Down below at Chich'en Itza a shadow will rise along
the stairs of the pyramid to Kulkukan to symbolize that
Quetzalcoatl shows the way back to First Father, just like it
has since the pyramid was first constructed.
This shadow and the metaphor "as above, so below" is a great
comfort to any who would worry about death and dying. It is a
pathway to eternal life in the hearts of the children of First
Father, who overcame all obstacles in the "Six-Stair-Place".
On the west horizon at the moment when Quetzalcoatl returns to
Teotihuacán, the hand of the Virgin, First Mother,
reaches for the flower at the top of the field of Maize. When we
move to the winter solstice of that year, another amazing phenomenon
occurs. Saturn will sit right on the winter solstice together
with the sun in Libra, suggesting that the days of judgment
will finally be over and a cosmic balance will prevail. As the sun
rises that day, all the other planets and the moon will be in the
visible sky. The order of the planets from the sun to Pluto
will be the same as the order of their orbits from the sun. When the
top of the galaxy stands at the zenith of Teotihuacán, the
Eternal City of the Milky Way will lay completely around its
horizon. Pluto in the Twins will send a signal that
the alignment of the Cosmic Ball has been achieved and
the
Eternal City restored by the Hero Twins.
This Eternal City
was memorialized by Stonehenge around 2800 B.C., the
founding of Rome in 753 B.C., and the writing of the Book of
Revelation in Patmos around 200 A.D. We also have three communities
which have forecast the coming of the Eternal City. Around 1360
B.C., Pharaoh Akhenaten built Akhetaten on the
location where the axis of the galaxy would be at the moment of the
first occasion in 1998 A.D. The Moai statues of
Easter Island were being constructed many centuries ago to
commemorate the same date for the arrival of the Eternal City
in the Land Under the Land. Now we can see that
Teotihuacán was constructed when the child
Quetzalcoatl came down to earth in 1 B.C. and aligned to mark
the return of First Father to the Eternal City 4400
years later.
The dream of being aligned with the cosmos is a very ancient
ideal of humanity. When Teotihuacán aligns with the top of
the cosmos, Seven Macaw will be a cosmic plow for the
First Father as he tends his crops and his herds. Cepheus
will hold the axis of the earth, and the crucibles spilt to reach
Polaris in the Age of the 5th Sun will be distant memories.
On the day the sun begins to rise in 4400 A.D., the planetary gods
of the underworld, Neptune and Uranus, will both be
under the Jaguar's gait. The visible planets, Jupiter, Mars, Venus,
and Mercury, will be a bed for First Mother in Virgo. The Moon will
be in Cancer, the house where reflections on cosmic feelings are
most associated. The only planet which will not be above the Milky
Way on that glorious morning will be the Earth itself.
But, there is no cause for alarm, because on that year the summer
solstice aligns with Perseus at the Pleiades,
and the gateway to the Caiman Tree will be the location of
our cosmic ball. Thus, the sun will be at the balance above and the
earth will be at the Tree of Life below. The Maya
spirits on the earth at midnight that day will participate in the
First Fire
ceremony, as a memory of the days when Seven Macaw upset the
peace in the cosmos, and the Hero Twins recovered the head of
First Father. Sure, it is just a subjective story, but who told
the story, the heavens above, or the humans below, or can it be
realized, that as it is above, so it is below.
The astronomical data clearly supports the contention that the primary
objective of the Mayan rituals was to maintain a cosmic
orientation for all generations. This idea may seem quite
esoteric
in our modern world, but for the sake of our children, we have a need
to remember that humanity came into this cosmos in the same state as
the other creatures, without conscious experience. The rituals of
the
Maya carry many great truths through the ages, which would
otherwise be lost. The core truth is that cultural consciousness
must maintain an orientation to the Big Picture. Like Egypt,
the Maya believed that the relationship with the cosmos could be
lost if not properly maintained by ritual and monumental temple
construction. The star charts presented in these essays are not
declared to be the exact images seen by the Maya
astronomer-priests, but they show an unmistakable and
intentional association of "as above, so below" in their
mythology. That association is the heavenly spiritual perspective
being transferred to the mundane world for the sake of generations
to come. It is the Mayan perspective of the cosmic path of
transcendence.
In our modern world we give lip service to our heavenly alignment, and
treat scriptures as if they do not apply to the daily actions of
self orientation here on earth. The reason why we do not connect our
scriptures to the heavens is because the present empires in which we
participate on earth are more important to us than past or future
empires. Although this is an essential necessity, it is incomplete.
The complete picture of the Maya ritual demonstrates a perception of
a lost Golden Age which will return when civilization returns
to focus on the cosmic centered consciousness, from which it came.
This return is steered by
the affectations and associations of the polar constellations
with the daily lives of people who play the game of life in this
Six-Stair-Place. If we stop for a brief moment in our mundane
quests and meditate on this concept, it becomes obvious that the
Mayan objectives were appropriate for all times, even for these
times when stars no longer shine in the hearts of men. We do not
honor the stars for their role in human endeavors. We do not honor
the biosphere in which we live for its role in our endeavors,
either. But, the spiritual winds are telling us that times are
changing. We are about to witness the rebirth of cosmic
consciousness. This rebirth will unfold precisely as the great
ancestors said it would. Heroic children of First Father will
restore his head upon the body of civilization, and the human world
will mount up to the top of this
Six-Stair-Place, one committed life at a time. How could it be
otherwise?
Return
