The process of writing fiction effervesces from the very core of your soul. It cannot be planned. It cannot be forced. It commands extreme respect, integrity, and passion.
So does non fiction. And yet, the seeds for my non fiction work could not be more different. There was no powerful epiphany, no stranger-than-life real event, no traumatic childhood memory that sparked The Serpent and the Jaguar into existence. It was a slow, organic process that finally erupted into a physical book.
My company had created the popular Mayan Calendar Portal (MCP) web site in 2006, and in 2009 we redesigned and enhanced the site. More importantly still, we took the MCP site social, launching a Facebook page and a Twitter account, and the site quickly took off. It was on Twitter that I first began posting the daily energies of the Mayan Tzolkin calendar, giving them my own poetic touch and aligning them with the realities of our modern Western lifestyle.
I wrote the energies with a tremendous amount of respect, researching the meaning of each day's day sign and number, even calling up a Maya elder down in Guatemala to make sure I'm on the right track.
The energies began to hit nerves with people. All over the world. The comments and feedback began to pour in.
This is so accurate it's scary some days.
This couldn't be more appropriate. Thank you.
Thank you so much for the insight. I always start my day here :)
This is exactly what I've been going through lately...
and on and on. That sort of thing can really blow up your ego, or it can humble you. It certainly humbled me—for I am neither a Maya daykeeper nor an astrologer. I'm a poet, a journalist, a writer. All I wanted to do is make the daily energies more accessible to people outside the Maya world. In a way, it made sense... for the Maya, one of the greatest gifts a person can have is eloquence of the spoken and written word. And one of the greatest gifts you can give of yourself is to compose poetic interpretations of the sacred Tzolkin calendar.
This book had to be written because the gap between the sacred mysteries of the Mayan Tzolkin Calendar and the fragmented, aching fabric of modern Western society had grown dangerously wide. For embedded in the Tzolkin are the profound, timeless energies and rhythms that underpin the human existence, but are too often drowned out by the stress and din of the "modern" world.
The Serpent and the Jaguar has helped to make people's lives better, and for that I am profoundly grateful.
