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"Hi ---! I'm back from my travels overseas and wanted to catch up on..."
And that's where it grinds to a halt. I've been writing emails like this to my colleagues and clients ever since we landed back here in the Bay Area, but after that first line my fingers drop on the keyboard, and I'm right back in Colombia, exploring those enormous, endless ancient rivers, holding my breath as I watch little crocodile babies hiding out near the water's edge, stalking a tiny little frog that may just well be a signal of clean waters returning once again to the area, talking to the locals, swinging in a hammock soaking up the complete and utter peace of the tropical grassland plains.
(Check out the pix on my Facebook page!)
Sure, you can go right back to your daily rhythm. Laundry, grocery shopping, paying your bills, responding to that RFP. But that's all mechanical. Your heart stays down there, in "los llanos" as they are called in Colombia, in that timeless timeless world where the heat melts the very marrow of your bones, where nothing but a thin aluminum boat separates you from electric eels, 12-meter anacondas, and large caimans, and where nature still rules the way she did centuries ago.
Why is that pull so powerful? Why after only 10 days were we so irretrievably smitten? How come years of living in the modern West don't leave some kind of permanent mark on you?
Because that's where we all come from.
All the technology and social media in the world cannot do away with the fact that we belong to nature. Her ancient rhythms still course in our veins, her beauty still awes, her power still overwhelms. And if you're not feeling it, you need to get out there more often.
Where is your magical place in the world?
~ Birgitte
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In late 2011, I published a book called "The Serpent and the Jaguar: Living in Sacred Time" (yep, that's it at the top of the right hand sidebar). It gives you the full set of 260 daily energies of the Tzolk'in, the sacred personal calendar of the Maya. I had spent years learning about the calendar, and held many personal conversations with a long-time Maya researcher and author as well as a senior Maya Daykeeper from a traditional K'iche' community in Guatemala, to learn how to read the calendar and apply it to daily life.
I didn't want to reinvent and re-explain the calendar as so many Western authors do; I simply wanted to respect it and present it to readers in as direct and authentic a manner as possible. Today, hundreds of people are able to follow the Tzolk'in as it was meant to be read, and integrate it into their daily lives instead of just reading about it as some esoteric knowledge from an unapproachable ancient culture.
When I first set out to write "The Serpent and the Jaguar," I had originally planned a dual set of energies: one for our inner life, our personal life, and one for our relationship with the natural world. We are, after all, living breathing beings just like any other on this planet: we eat the bounty our orchards, gardens and farms provide us, we breathe air, drink water, we are profoundly, perhaps subconsciously, inspired by the beauty nature envelops us in on a daily basis (whether we see it or not).
And the Maya are among those who still live close to nature, rather than apart from it. It therefore seemed more than logical to compose a set of energies about the role of the natural world and its extraordinary resources in our lives.
But the intense effort of diving into the Tzolk'in and its meaning and purpose on a daily basis, and interpreting its daily energies in the context of our modern lives in a series of poetic expressions, proved too intense to write all at once, so I decided to focus on the first set of energies. But this second set of energies is just as critical, and the time to release them is NOW. The fear and doomsday panic of 2012 have evaporated with the first breaths of 2013, so let's move on and make this year greener than ever!
On February 7, 13 Lamat/Q'anil in the Tzolk'in calendar, I will start posting these new "living green" energies on my Facebook page. And yes, the book is already under way. As soon as I have a release date I will share it with you, but for now, enjoy the daily journeys through the mysteries of one of the world's most ancient and meaningful calendars.
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THIS MONTH
If you are local to the San Francisco Bay Area, stop by and say hello at one of these events!
February 21, 12:15 - 1pm.
"The Maya in All of Us: Living in Sacred Time"
Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS), Stanford University.
The title says it all—the Maya live in harmony with the natural cycles of time and nature; there's more than a little we in the West can learn from that. I'm honored to have been invited to speak at CLAS. It's a long way since my undergrad years attending cultural meetings in that same building — even before I spoke Spanish.
This event is open to the public.
February 28, 9 – 11am.
"The Sanctity of Time: Why Modern Society Needs the Ancient Tzolk'in"
Divine Science Community Center, San Jose, California.
I'll be spending the morning of Feb. 28 talking about our most precious commodity—our time.
This event is open to the public but an RSVP is strongly recommended: contact the Divine Science Center with your name and contact information.
For more on my talks and presentations, visit my author's site.
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I know personally. If you have any questions, please contact LUCITÀ via email at info@lucita.net or by telephone at +1 408.542.9942.
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