The ceremonies that happened for the prophesied day of the Winter Solstice 2012 in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala (the birthplace of Earth Peoples United) were a culmination of many lifetimes of preparation and sacrifice by many spiritual leaders and medicine people of many nations. We were a group of around 50 people- Maya, indigenous elders from Arizona, Ethiopia, Oregon, California, & Canada, youth from ages 14 to 28, and participants from throughout the United States representing doctors, healers, financial consultants, and many other gifts. We opened the ceremony with the lighting of the fire that was kept for 4 days and 3 nights, and soon began to hear from the different Wisdom Keepers sharing their messages for this time, weaving together words, prayers, songs, movement, into the circle and into the fire.
On December 20th we prepared to cross the lake to Patziapa for the ceremonies to give thanks to the Kablajuj (12) Baq'tun and welcome the Oxlajuj (13) Baq'tun, and the fire was placed in a ceramic pot to cross the lake with us and be re-ignited at the sacred pyramid of Patziapa.
After a traditional Mayan lunch, we made our way to the dock with our bundles and regalia, to be welcomed by Mayan musicians playing the marimba, drums, flutes, on the ferry boat that would take us across the lake. Joy and color were everywhere, smiling faces and dancing bodies climbed happily into the boat, the sacred fire and baskets of offerings amidst piles of backpacks, bags, and everything we needed for our pilgrimage.
When we arrived at Patziapa we emptied the boat of its passengers and cargo, lined up to go through the doorway framed in flowers to be enveloped by billowing copal smoke, smudged, then blessed by the waters before we made our way up the steps of the roundhouse into the maloca to be welcomed by the scent and greenery of pine needles strewn on the floor as a natural carpet, inviting us to kneel one by one on the woven reed mat to greet the altar of ancient stones and pottery, flowers, baskets of offerings, crystals, and many other sacred items. Many of the Wisdom Keepers came before the altar to sing songs of their ancestors, resonating and mingling with the vibrations of the ancient altar holding the center of the roundhouse. I also was honored to share a welcome to the incredible group that was gathered together, and I shared the power I was feeling of us being the living prophesy of what had been shared for generations, that was coming to its fulfillment in that very moment.
Once the prayer was complete in the roundhouse, we gave thanks and carried our belongings up the walkways and climbed the steep ascent to the place we would be holding the ceremonies. Tata Erick carried the ceramic pot holding the fire on his shoulder the way the Lords of Time carry the Daylords, carrying the fire up the steep slope to the altar to give thanks for the Era we were leaving, to ask for forgiveness for our violations, to transform and leave behind the things we no longer needed. As each Daylord was honored and offered to during the fire, the musicians sang and played to that energy. We also danced again, the ceremonial dance with the marimba to bless the Mother Earth with our footsteps, to massage her and send our prayers to her through our dance. The AjQ'ijab danced around the fire, clockwise and counterclockwise, and the community danced in place around us.
I felt the incredible honor and responsibility of being a white woman raised in a Western home with an incredibly loving family who was introduced and compelled to serve this tradition and ceremonial way of life, who was now holding prayers with my husband, alongside Mayan brothers and sisters who come from the ancestral lineage, at this historic time in this incredible sacred and powerful place. I felt all the years of my training and experience, service, witnessing, and powerful love for the Earth and all that is sacred flow through me into the ultimate prayer of my life. I prayed for all of our ancestors, for all peoples, for the physical representation that I am of a prayer for unity that transcends our color, gender, physical form, background. A prayer that if we come from the heart and serve that which is true, ancient, sacred, we can all become One, as Earth Peoples United, making our offerings in the way that the ancestors before us had once made theirs.
Once the Mayan ceremony was complete, we added wood once again to keep the fire burning. One by one, people came to make a prayer in front of the fire in the stillness of the night. Our brother Vern Williams, Haida, approached the fire and sang the Bear song he received and brought back to his people. The power of his ancestors echoed through him, and his voice gained strength as he sang. He declared that he was going to leave behind the shame, the guilt, the things that had been instilled in him through the residential schools and the churches, leave them to the Era that was ending, and claim his full power as he stepped into the New Era. His warrior's cry of victory, of empowerment, echoed through the stones of the pyramid, carried to the place of the ancestors and the future generations to come. We bowed to this self-expression of the re-emergence of the indigenous voice, the reclaiming of what had been lost and stolen in the past. A new Era was awaiting us. The embers of the fire were once again placed into the ceramic pot to be carried to the New Fires.
Renewed and full of energy, we picked up mats, chairs, bundles, blankets, and left the Old Fire to move and settle in around the front of the pyramid. The Mayan AjQ'ijab had laid offerings for 4 fires around a center fire, each one in a different direction and encircled by the flower petals and the color of that direction, and connected in a cross with the flower petals. We placed our bundles once again in the east, facing the lake, and Erick and I took our place as the keepers of the East Fire. Each fire was held by a man and a woman AjQ'ij. The center fire was held by Nan Berta, as she carried her sleeping son on her back. Once everyone was again settled, we took the embers from the fire and poured them onto the center fire, once again blowing it back into flames, and each of us holding a directional fire took candles from the center flame to light our own fires. Five fires blazed in the night, illuminating the circle of people gathered in prayer to welcome the New Era. It was now the prophesized day of Caji Ajpu, the Four Lords of the Light. In synchronization, we all made prayers for our own fires, once again making payment and offerings to all of the Daylords and dieties, synchronized also with the musicians playing the songs of each Daylord.
At some point during these prayers the winds started to blow, and sparks from the fires flew all around, dancing the flames and sending the smoke in all directions. This was the strongest prayer of my life. Again I felt the responsibility and gift of being one of the ones holding the prayer for this community of people and our world. I prayed to each Daylord and its representation to awaken the Light, that the Light would call forth our full potentials as the flower opens to the sun, that the pollen of our gifts and full potentials would be realized and shared to create the golden honey so that we may become the People Made of Honey of the New Era.
I prayed for our purification and releasing of the wounds and violations of the past, to find the sacred warrior inside each of us to defend our Mother Earth and all that is sacred. I prayed for the youth and the future generations to have a renewed path to follow, founded on the Original Instructions and Reverence and Respect for Life, and that the fire would illuminate the path ahead of us. The winds continued to blow, and I prayed that every being on this planet would be blessed by the sacred smoke of these fires, blessed by the prayers of all of us, and felt the connection with the thousands of people across Guatemala, Mexico, and many places in the world who were also in prayer at this time. We added wood to the fires to keep them burning until the light of the New Dawn arrived.
As we neared the pre-dawn time, the Morning Star, Venus, appeared in the east over the volcano, signaling that the Dawn was on its way. The bolas that were holding the prayers from many different people and communities were offered to the fires. Slowly the light began to change, with the Morning Star remaining bright as the lights of other stars began to fade away. The winds continued to blow steadily, and as the light began to grow we witnessed many clouds forming and moving through the sky- serpents wrapped around the tops of the volcanoes, birds, and other formations formed and dissolved.
In the growing light Erick and Sweet Medicine sat next to each other facing east towards the lake, and prepared their mesas for their Chanupas, both made for the purpose of serving the community. This was the time that the male stem and the female bowl would come together, and breath and the fire would come into the new pipe, gifted for the community, to be used in this New Era of the Oxlajuj Baq'tun. They laid out and blessed their pipes, going through the sacred ritual brings the male stem and female bowl together, offering the sacred tobacco and medicines to that union. Sweet Medicine lit her pipe from the Eastern Fire that Erick and I had been holding, then took her Chanupa and used it to light the new pipe. In that moment male and female came together in sacred union, bowl to bowl, Mother birthed a new child- a new sacred instrument of prayer for the community.
The birth of the Chanupa shared its female Spirit, and its name: Ix Sacarx Chumil -Morning Star Goddess. As this was taking place, in the eastern sky the Morning Star began to fade as light continued to grow, and in its place a small cloud appeared, shining as bright as the star before it, heralding the birth of the new Morning Star. When this new Chanupa was passed to me, as I held it the four directions I felt its direct connection to each direction, as if it was a bow and arrow shooting straight and true to the Four Corners of the Earth. I felt myself a Warrior of the Light, armed with this instrument of prayer, and was humbled by its gentle power as I returned it to the loving embrace of Erick, her caretaker. The pipe was passed to each person to make their prayer with her for the first time.
Everyone found their place to await the Dawn of the New Era on this day of the Winter Solstice, Caji Ajpu, December 21, 2012 in the Gregorian Calendar. The energy and excitement grew as the light became brighter in the East. The cloud people were present and reflected light in ways that left us in great anticipation for the glowing orb of the Sun to finally crest over the slope of the volcano in the East. We embraced the light and welcomed the New Dawn, each in their own place, in their own way. Then we went around to hug each person and say good morning. Once again we gathered around the smoking fires to give thanks and release the Spirits that had come to support our prayer, Thank You to the Essence of the Fire, Thank You to the Essence of the Air, Thank You to the Essence of the Water, Thank You to the Heart of Heaven, Thank You to the Heart of the Earth, Thank You to the Essence of the Soul Flower, Thank You to the Essence of Everything, while kneeling in gratitude and kissing the earth once we were done.
The center fire's embers were collected once again the ceramic pot to lead the people down the slope of the pyramid once again and into the maloca, to wait for the boat to come take us back to Tiosh Abaj. And we followed the fire into the New Era...
by Nan Balam Chay Cotzij, Heddi Neale
President of Earth Peoples United
