Ancient Pathway

Son Of Hunab The Creator God, Mayan Sky God and their most powerful Diety.
The carving symbolises the rising of the Ancients from the ashes to once again go forth in the world with their knowledge of how to live in peace and harmony with the planet.

“This upcoming journey is creating some apprehension in us both. It will be the first time Paul has been back to the place where it all began..where the symbols and the knowledge was “downloaded” into his being, it is the first stone to go to its resting place on a dark moon and want to be photographed…… we have no idea what is in store but know without a shadow of a doubt that it will be a truly awesome experience.”

We thought we were to be going to Mali, Africa in January 2007 and began to make arrangements for just such a journey. Not far into our research an email arrived from our good friend Carla Woody who excitedly told us that her dream of many years to take a group to the Lacandon Maya jungle in Mexico to meet with the spirit keepers and travel through sacred areas, was about to come to fruition…..that was to be our destination after Africa and the Dogons.

The symbol had not come through for Africa and the feeling to change our arrangements and join our journey with Carla’s was overwhelming. Apart from the fact that Carla had the contacts that we needed already, and that she had missed out on being at the Q’ero Lake of Initiation and had wished to come with us when we went to Mexico, seemed a gift from the gods….. The symbol came and also a vision of us out in the middle of a lake in a small dugout canoe, placing the stone into the water.

Paul carved the stone unsure of what it meant but trusting completely in the process and the design.

We have said it many times and so will say it again…soft, sensuous, mysterious, magical Mayan Mexico…..we slotted right into the rhythm of the land and the people the minute we sat in the restaurant Don Muchos drinking a cold local beer with Carla and another of our group Ed (he would later change his name to Lalo…the Spanish form) at El Panchan, our home for the next few days as we waited for the keys to our rooms.

Nestled in a lush jungle paradise not far from the famous Mayan ruins of Palenque, El Panchan and El Jaguar across the road would be our haven to which we would return after long and for the most part, physically arduous days travelling in and around the area.

As a matter of fact we all became so relaxed in Mexico that after meals we would get up and begin to wander off without thinking about the bill as though we had finished a meal at home.

We were also waiting to meet with our Mayan guide for the journey, Alonso Mendez (see our links page to read more about Alonso and his work) and the rest of the group who were to arrive early the next day.
There was to be thirteen of us all up + Cathy the cook and an assortment of wonderful helpers who showed up along the way.

The rest of the group were not arriving ‘till lunch time so Paul, Carla and Phoebe headed off to the ruins in Palenque, Ed having vanished in that direction sometime in the early morning. Paul and Carla went to reacquaint themselves with the mysteries therein and Phoebe to discover them for the first time.
The others ended up arriving late that afternoon after many valiant attempts to find transport from Villahermosa to El Panchan.

The symbol came with us as we felt the river that ran through that vast mind blowing ancient complex down to the naturally formed bathing pool of the Queen and beyond, was the ideal place to introduce the stone to Mexico.

Not surprisingly as we searched for the right place, Ed showed up on the path and so as we were about to cross a bridge over the river above the pools a strong call went out from the stone that here was the place it needed to be bathed.

There is so much to tell but you will have to wait to read about it in detail in our book.

Once the group was assembled and settled in we took off over the next few days revisiting Palenque, with Alonso telling the stories of the city and how and why the structures were built, their true astronomical alignments (he being the discoverer) and how their society functioned at a spiritual level.
We were to hear these stories at all the wondrous sites we visited:
Piedras Negras: – accessed by boat from the swirling, rushing Usumacinta River…on the one side Mexico and the other Guatemala and the entrance marked only by a small beach that rose vertically from the shore and in the river, a stone carved with intricate and ancient symbols of the Mayans who once lived there.

We met Willy Fonseca at his “Velle Escondido”…Hidden Valley and he transported us and the boat on a large truck that bumped through the jungle and small villages for two or more hours to our launching site. Getting to the river is a whole story in itself.

“If the boat sinks swim for the Mexican side” was Alonso’s advice especially as guerrillas had only just left the ruins that week. So we were met and escorted upon arrival by two “park rangers” armed with machetes to hack back the aggressively invasive jungle from the paths and kill a fer de lance snake (THE most dangerous snake of central and south America) that Lalo had bent to pick up thinking it was a bracelet as we began our trek to the ruins. It made us all sad to see the snake killed no matter how deadly it could have been. It served to remind us to be awake and aware as we ventured into this sacred area.

We met with two other armed guards along the way who walked with us, albeit discreetly, making sure we were safe as we explored and also got back to the tiny beach and our boat.
All the way the primeval call of the howler monkeys echoed around us and we wouldn’t have been surprised if King Kong himself had come crashing out of the Guatemalan biosphere.

Bonampak: Here there were paintings still vivid with colour and scenes of life and death in the temples that sat at the top of flights of steep stone steps…the same theme in all these sites..just calling out to be climbed. The ever encroaching jungle now covering what must have once been expansive views over the cities from the top of these stairs.

Yaxchila’n; was especially so..Alonso led us through a pitch black labyrinth within a stone wall and out into the main courtyard. As we all emerged the howlers put on an earsplitting display of calls and for a second or more you could imagine it as it was hundreds of years ago.

As we stood listening to Alonso telling the stories of Yaxchila’n, its rulers and its people a very high set of stone stairs just beckoned too strongly and Paul and I, with a swift apology to Alonso, who totally understood, took off up the stairs that just kept going up forever until we finally reached the Temple of the Sun. Cindy lee, Cindy, Lalo and Julianna found their way up their too. Paul performed a small ceremony at the base of the temple and then we sat in silence to drink it all in…we could have stayed there exploring for weeks and still not discovered it all. Put this one on our list of places to come back to.
In between all of this we had a day off and went to Misol Ha the waterfalls of the swallows. Here we had lunch and watched as the water pelted down rocks and created madly swirling natural spas before plummeting down over the sides. Alonso, Paul and Ed went in and under the crashing water, you could see how much strength it took to stay in the pool and not get swept away. “This will be a test of your courage” Alonso had said before he entered the water.

Cindy sidled up to me and said “I want to go in but not by myself”…as I had been thinking along those lines we now stripped to our undies and joined by Nancy edged carefully towards the spinning water.
It felt so good and was sooo very strong. I made a quick grab for my wedding ring as I felt it being sucked of my finger by the force of the water.

There must have been magic in there as the three of us felt renewed and cleansed when we clambered out. It was a feeling that stayed for days.

We digress and now need to go back to the first few days in Mexico when we all went to Naha’ a small village in the middle of the Lacandon jungle and the home of the last spirit keeper of the Lacandon Maya, Don Antonio.

A short while after arriving and setting up camp Carla and Alonso came back to collect us as we were to visit and do ceremony with Don Antonio. It was he whom we had to ask permission to place the stone symbol in the lake there and if he would give it his blessing. Lake Naha’ is also called the mother of waters as it is the source of the water that then runs through Southern Mexico.

Don Antonios’ God house had been moved down from the top of a mountain to behind his home as he was now in his 80’s (this is a guesstimation only) and had not recovered fully from a leg he had broken some time ago.

He led us through ceremonies that called in a couple of the Gods to be with us, using copal in God pots..one a little shy at first, then he told us about the God house and the God pots and how they were used, about the Balche,’ an alcoholic drink made from the bark of the Balche’ tree and the Balche’ ceremony which we were too early for this year.

It was an honour to be in the presence of this sacred being who is the only person left with the knowledge to properly perform the ceremonies and rites. When he is gone they will be no more and a way of life once held sacred will have disappeared. We only hope that he has found someone to pass this knowledge to and that the visits of Carla and her groups will inspire some of the young Lacandones to once more be proud of the old ways and want to learn them.

Alonso spoke to Don Antonio about our stone journey and asked for his permission for us to place the stone in the lake. At first he was hesitant and our hearts sank…not understanding Mayan meant we missed out on much of the conversation but the gist of the hesitation was that when he unwrapped the carving and looked at it he said that it could bring too much rain. When pressed by Alonso, Don Antonio said, “This carving is alive and very powerful,.it is Itzamna , the sky god of the Mayan coming out of the Sun and going to the North and South”.

This was why he felt it would bring too much rain. Through Alonso we told him of the journey of the stones and how they were all carved to anchor love into the lands they were taken to and that they were for the land and the true people of these lands. All the while Don Antonio held the stone and looked as though he was reading it or listening to it. He gave his permission and we all heaved a collective sigh of relief. On the way back to our camp two young Lacandon men, Joaquin Chan Kin and his Father in-law Antonio Ramos Chan Kin, offered to take us out on the Lake the next day in a 15 man dugout canoe to do the stone ceremony.

The morning came and we headed off to the lake side through the bush via a very slippery board walk that claimed a few victims. At the waters edge we found that the large dugout had been taken out earlier and had not returned and all that was left was a small four person plus oarsmen dugout. Before Paul and I could ask who would like to come with us Alonso and Carla were already in the boat. The rest of the group would hold sacred space for us as we were paddled out first to the Island of the gods in the middle of the lake to pay our respects and then out in to open water in sight of the rest of the group who were watching from the shore. Here Paul took out the bull roarer dipped it into the lake called a prayer to the gods of this area and then tossed the symbol into the water. A mist had descended on us as we had paddled out and now surrounded us as we moved slowly back to shore. As we neared the bank a huge out pouring of emotion washed over us. To our surprise as we joined the rest of our group we noticed that they had all been crying and it was their collective emotion that had reached out to us in the canoe.
It just blows Paul and I away every time we see that the stone symbol journeys effect others the same way it does us. We just hoped that someone had been taking photos, they had, and Cindy Lee called out that she had recorded it all on her “binoculars”. Cindy had been giving everyone a running commentary of the ceremony as she watched through those binoculars.

The journey didn’t finish there but as said before..it will be in our book.

Paul and I would like to thank Carla for her dreams and contacts, Alonso for his guiding, stories and jokes, Cathy for her cooking, Joaquin and Antonio Chan Kin for their excellent rowing… now the guardians of the stone, our drivers, boat handlers and guardians, a special thanks to Willy Fonseca who we affectionately re-named Jungle Jim and to CindyLee, Cindy, Lalo, Marianne, Nancy, Frostie, Julianna, Penni and Sandi a special thankyou for your presence and your sharing….you all made it so special.