During these days we celebrate our ancestors, we commemorate the memory of those who left this dimension before us. In the traditional Maya world we pay homage to their memory every Kame, especially on the day 13 Kame. With the coming to the Americas of catholicism, and to protect their spirituality and traditions, the Maya people adopted the celebrations of All Saints Day and the Day of the Dead to celebrate their ancestors (November 1 and 2).

The Maya elders tell us that during these days there is a subtle line in which the realities of this world and of the world of those who have passed touch, in a way we are vibrating in the tradition of celebrating the memory of our ancestors, these beings who existed in the ephemeral existence of life, in which they achieved their projections, their evolution, and left us the legacy of their knowledge. The importance of belonging to a lineage that was inherited to us marks us in life, for this lineage is transmitted to us at every level.

Let’s remember and thank our ancestors in the other dimension for guiding, advising and protecting us, for always watching over us. Especially for interceding for us before the energies of Creation, for inheriting us the lineage that composes our being, for transmitting their life experiences to help us grow.

We are bearers of that long lineage, our own character was outlined by all the ancestors that came before us, it is because of this that reminiscing their memory and recognizing their values and interests brings us closer to our purpose of life, their awareness of being is part of our origin, of our destiny, it serves us to redirect our purposes of life.

Today and tomorrow we can light a fire or some candles to invoke our ancestors and connect to their energy, wisdom, and essence. Let’s not forget them, let’s thank them for their lineage and heritage, let’s say a prayer to honor them, to remember that a great part of who we are, a great part of our being, exists thanks to them.

“Oh Father, Oh Mother; Heart of the Sky, Heart of Mother Earth, Heart of the Air, and Heart of the Water, oh Great Grandfathers and Grandmothers, great ancestors who have preceded us in this reality, in this day in which your presence is stronger we want to honor and remember you, we want to thank your legacy, your guide, and your protection. Our heart calls you so that your heartbeats attune with ours; we are your descendants, the seeds that you planted, the offspring that succeed you in the transit through this reality to carry on with the process of healing and growth of your legacy, for this we give thanks. Your consciousness has influenced the lineage of which we are a part, your achievements and shortcomings have brought us to this moment and for this we ask that together we can move forward to fulfill the destiny that was outlined at the beginning of Creation. We ask your guidance to fulfill our individual life’s purpose and the destiny that we share as a lineage. We give thanks for your existence, your heritage, and your energy in our lives. We honor the life of each and every one of you and for it, we give thanks, four times we give thanks.”  

The energies that affect the Najt/Space -Time come from the Uk’ux Kaj/Heart of the Sky and Uk’ux Ulew/Heart of Mother Earth. The convergence of these creates our existence in this dimension.  It is Ajaw B’atz who initiates the interweaving of reality in the Najt, and one of the most important days is 9 B’atz, the manifestation of the Female energy. It is the guiding thread of that essence that brings the subtleness, kindness, and creativity. It is the magic and the mysterious force that breaks through dimensions and brings us the marvel of life. It is because of this that when they were shaping the Cholq’ij/Sacred Maya Calendar, the wise men designated this the women’s day. It’s great protector has been Grandmother Ixmukane, who, together with her partner (husband) Ixpiyakok, gave advice to the Creators and Makers by making a divination with the Tz’ite seeds to form the new Human Being. This Grandmother, who is one of the greater divinities of the Maya world and whose presence has existed from the beginning of times, is the driving force of the female energy in the times of the Maya matriarchy.  Her power and magic have accompanied the world since its origins, especially for women.

The Ch’umil/Nawal of Ajaw B’atz opens on this day the opportunity to reconnect with our feminine conformation, for we, both men and woman, have lost much of it.  In the pyramidal structures, the female energy is that of the 9th platform, meaning the highest level (it is rare to find a pyramid with more than 9 platforms). The pyramids of 8 platforms are related to the male energy.

Let us remember that the female energy is also the energy of Mother Earth, and its fruits, as with women, give continuity to life, to its expression. It is this energy that opens the space of intuition, of magic, all of this because of the relation of the dimensional spaces of Paxil and Kayala (dimensions that coexist with our dimension). In some way it is the expression of beauty and art.

This day of Ch’umil B’atz is of great importance to connect with Mother Nature, preferably to go to the forest or to a park with lots of trees, if this is not possible go to a botanic garden, to the shore of a lake, look at a volcano, at a mountain. What is important is to communicate with Her, even if it is only by looking at the sky. Light green and blue candles, which represent the natural environment, tie each of them with a thread (of the color that resonates with you) turning it around the candle and asking a wish with each turn. Don’t forget to ask for the recovery of Mother Earth. Sit and meditate about the interweaving of your life and how to project your objectives.

Life is a gift given to us by the Creator and Maker, fulfilling our purpose of life is the opportunity that the awareness of being gives us and which is manifested during this day!

B’elejeb B’atz’ for 2017 first falls on Monday, January 15.

We are fortunate to have an article from Carlos Barrios, and a video from Maya elder Tata Pedro Ixchop, on the significance of B’elejeb B’atz’

Wajxaqib’(8) B’atz’ is the first day of the count of the Cholq’ij Calendar. There is a great celebration on this day. In Guatemala, thousands of traditional Fire Ceremonies are celebrated, as we begin a new cycle of 260 days. This is an important moment to organize and ask for the fulfilment of the purposes we have set out for ourselves. The energy that rules this date is one of a physical and material realization.

B’elejeb (9) B’atz’ is also an important date within the count of the Sacred Calendar. It is celebrated 40 days after Wajxaqib’ (8) B’atz’. B’elejeb (9) B’atz’ is also celebrated throughout the country and carries with it an energy of sensitivity for realizing the spiritual purposes we have decided to reach for.

During this important day, lets connect to the energy of B’elejeb (9) B’atz’. Let’s be aware, throughout the day, of its strength and power. If we wish to increase the effects of it’s energy, we can light a candle or a fire to connect to this Ch’umil. Lets ask that this Sacred Fire may increase our sensitivity, the power of our vision, the revelations through dreams, and the power of our mind. Let us focus upon balancing our polarity to open the space to both the masculine, material, and physical energies and the female, emotional, psychic, and spiritual energies. The energy that comes with B’elejeb (9) B’atz’ is a very subtle one and it allows us to develop the asepcts to which we normally don’t pay much attention, but which is highly important and which allows us to have a balance as whole beings.

B’elejeb (9) B’atz’ has many elements of the female energy, for which many people call it the Day of the Maya Woman.

• Carlos Barrios

In this video, Tata Pedro discusses the significance of B’elejeb (9) B’atz’ from a traditional perspective. This includes its relationship to Waxaq’ib (9) B’atz and the significance it has for both men and women. Don Pedro’s teachings here come from a deep root and ancient lineage, and sometimes differ from the current understanding, even amongst many ajq’ij’ab.  Maya Elder, Don Pedro Ixchop is the head of the Association of Maya Ajq’ij in Guatemala.

Maya guide, educator and researcher Lina Barrios describes the continued relevance of the Maya Cosmovision in today’s modern world. The Cosmovision has withstood untold challenges, yet remains essential in the lives and flourishing of Maya identity and holds keys for potentially improving all our lives and even transforming modern civilization.

The ancestral Maya world recognized that this which we call reality is a world of energies contained in the NAJT: space-time. Each of these energies has a cosmic and telluric correlation.
It is from this knowledge that the different calendars that govern the Maya world were delineated.
The calendar known as Ab’ is in essence an agricultural calendar of 360 days plus 5 additional days. These last days are used for meditation, to reflect upon our life, about the things that influenced us, the events that took place during this past year. During these five days known as the WAYEB, people would shut themselves in their home. They would fast and drink only a beverage made of maize (atol de maiz) and dedicate their whole time to go back and recapitulate their life, but mostly this last cycle. Which of the things they had projected had succeeded and why have some of the things they planned not happened? What were the causes and reasons that impeded achieving all their purposes? It is during the Wayeb that we analyze how we feel, what we like about our life and what we want to change or end, that is those things that do not allow us to be fulfilled. It is important to define what we want, what makes us happy, what we want to end, and how to remove from our life the people or situations that are an obstacle for our development.
This is also a time to project and plan the next cycle of 360 days…
This is a very important practice to stay well and in complete harmony with ourselves and with the world that surrounds us.
The COSMIC WAYEB is related to the Winter Solstice, and according to the Elders, the five days from the 21st to the 25th of December is the time in which the Father Sun rests. This is an apparent vision seen from Earth in which the Sun remains motionless in a corner of the Universe during these days. It is for this reason that this time is used to meditate and reconfigure our life.
Let us use these five days as a tool to renovate and plan our purposes.
The ancestral knowledge indicates that we must be aware of every action in life. The advice is to take this opportunity with the necessary determination, with the calmness needed to search within ourselves. The wisdom, the peace, the harmony are deep inside each being… we just need to be determined to find it.

Nawal: The Sacred Maya Calendar, Cholq’ij, is formed by 260 days/energies; 20 energies that vibrate in 13 different manifestations. These energies are commonly known as Nawal, which is the name that has been diffused in the Western World. According to the most traditional Elders the days/energies of the calendar should be called Ch’umil, which means star or destiny. It is the energy that each day of the Sacred Calendar brings with it. Ch’umil is a broader concept to describe the days/energies, since the concept of Nawal is more that of a spirit, of an energy that animates. Nawal is, then, the spirit of the correlative or protective animal that rules over each Ch’umil.

Nawalism: The word nawalism indicates the capacity that a human being has, once he has initiated the ancestral powers and traditions, of transforming into his correlative animal. Nawalism is known in the Maya world as the property of Charakot. Nawalism is a ritual for the practitioners of Maya spirituality, since it requires a discipline and learning for which an absolute impeccability in necessary. For the non-practitioners, however, it is important to work with the correlative animals to awaken their powers and connect to nature.

Every person, at the moment of birth, is born with an energy or Ch’umil, and each Ch’umil is accompanied by a correlative animal -Nawal- that protects the person throughout their life, appearing in the person’s life either physically, through dreams, or through visions.

Each person shares several characteristics with their correlative animal, they possess their abilities and even some of their habits. For example, people born under the energy of Tz’i’, the dog or coyote, protect their space and their people, they have an acute sense of what will come, they are agile, but like a house dog they could become dependent. It is a good idea to learn about our Nawal, to see how it affects us and which things we share with it, to connect to it and allow it to be our protector. It is also good to have something, such as an iconic image that represents it, for example a pendant or a painting.

The Maya spiritual path teaches techniques that give people the ability to become their correlative animal, this is called Nawalism. Many of these techniques, however, are nearly lost, especially in the “civilized” areas, or kept in secrecy. The purpose of becoming an animal is to move faster, to stand in a place that provides a view of any dangers for the community, to check if anyone is sick or in danger to help them, and to go into the mountains and the forests to collect wisdom, for through this animal manifestation you can easily connect to the energy of Mother Earth, to the knowledge of the Ch’umil, and you can cross to other dimensions.

Learning about our Nawal we can understand the essence of nature, which integrates us to a more real world, to the world of the origin of Mother Earth. The transcendence of the Winaq (human being) consists in developing all the possibilities that the Cholq’ij brings. For this it is important to know and transcend all the possibilities in the Cholq’ij, to learn about all the Ch’umilal and Nawalil of the Calendar, so that the Maya Cross no longer affect us, so that we can transcend all the crosses, in other words, so that we can become an integral being.

Approaching the knowledge of nawalism allows us to learn the mimicking of the correlative animals through the movements, through the energy of the animals, in other words it allows us to vibrate with the animals to merge with them and to understand the Nawal of each Ch’umil. This makes us more sensitive and more integrated. The importance of this learning is that it brings us closer in an experiential way to the energies of nature, to Mother Earth, to the origins of everything; because sadly we human beings are distanced from the natural world. We are no longer part of nature, but we have become part of an artificial and material world, which makes this learning transcendent. For the people who are have more consciousness, it is transcendent to have this experience, for in these levels one could even feel and deeply connect to the wisdom and the spirit of the animals. This technique is part of the learning and evolution of the Winaq, the whole human being.

Don Pedro Ixchop, head of the Association of Maya Ajq’ij offers a prayer at Lake Attitlan in April, 2017. Don Pedro was gracious enough to join us, along with his son, for a day where we filmed him speaking on a number of topics, including the mathematics behind Maya knowledge, meaning of Ch’umil’al, numbers, and much more.

Here is a rough translation of the prayer: Heart of the Sky and Heart of Mother Earth we thank you for being here today with my brothers and sisters. In this day we ask you Ajaw, Bitol, Tz’akol that you bless my brothers and sisters and bless us in our mission. We ask you with much humbleness, because you are the Ajaw, you are part of the air, part of the fire, you are in the Earth, you are in every place that exists in the four cardinal points of the Universe that you bless all the nations of the world. You are the powerful one who resides in the mind and the heart of every creature over the face of the Earth, don’t leave them or forget them Father, because they are also alive, because they also pray for the peace and calmness of the world. Thank you Ajaw, Heart of the Sky and Heart of Mother Earth.

Tata Pedro Ixchop prayer from Saq’ Be’ on Vimeo.

For most of the ancient peoples, the cosmic events represented a great occasion. Nowadays these are not as relevant, but even though they are not as present in our minds, they influence us. For the Maya people both the Equinoxes and Solstices mark the beginning of a new cosmic-telluric cycle.

The Winter Solstice is the most important for the spiritual and evolutionary development of the human beings and Mother Earth. The Elders say “The Ajaw (Father Sun) takes five days of rest.” The Ajaw (Sun) settles in one of the corners of the Jun Kaj (the first level of the thirteen skies) and rests there for five days. The cycle that goes from December 21 to December 25 is called the Cosmic Wayeb. For our tradition, this visual stagnation represents a time of reflection, the days of introspection and meditation. This position of the Ajaw gives us a moment of mental and energetic quietness, which also affects the physical plane. This influence flows in accordance with the energies of the Choq’ij Calendar, the Calendar of Life.

This December 21st is influenced by the energy of 9 Imox, which opens a space to activate our internal powers; the development of our vision, intuition, the awareness to find balance between the material and the spiritual. Imox brings with it the energy of the unusual, the energy that breaks the traditional schemes. This Ch’umil is known as the left hand, and it gives us the vision and the intuition. It is also related to craziness, not of mental loss or unbalance, but of the force that breaks with the conventional, with the system.

According to the tradition of the Mam Elders this cycle (December 21), which this year bears the energy of 9 Imox, is the energy of subtleness, of the spiritual openness that comes from Ajaw Imox, who opens dimensional pathways and connects us to the wise ancestors. Our focus should be in connecting with our inner being to develop our internal powers.

This cycle ends on December 25 when it is influenced by the energy of Ch’umil 13 Kan, which represents the strength of energy both in the physical and mental, number 13 is the highest expression of the energy of Kan. We should focus in perceiving the power of Kan and make it part of our existence, to flow with the energy of wisdom that Kan brings, and to accept and provoke the changes both in the physical and the mental.

The process of the Cosmic Wayeb is transcendent for this moment in which humanity is about to face changes in the social, in the economic, and in our relationship with Mother Earth, for which we must be prepared.

The advice is to practice a meditation-focusing. Take some time during the sunset, when Father Sun falls, and light a white, yellow and red candle. Focus your attention in these candles, as they will be the catalyzers of your purposes. During these five days you can make a recap of your year and how you have reached the reality you have forged for yourself. Think of what makes you happy, what you want to change; it is a real introspection, a recapitulation as the ancestors called it.

During these days you can outline your purpose and the course your life should take, you have to program and determine what you want in every level, the changes that you will make and how you will accomplish them. Let’s remember that the power of the mind is infinite.

It is also important to make a projection in a community level, in which we determine the wellbeing of our community, then making this projection expansive to all humanity.

We are living in challenging times and our purpose should be focus in halting all this negative energy; lighting candles, meditating, focusing, or doing our spiritual practices with the purpose of stopping the forces of destruction, racism, hatred, and intolerance. We will change things by projecting peace, harmony, tolerance, awareness, kindness, and compassion. It is also important to focus in the destiny of Mother Earth and us, human beings. Our thoughts and vision, together with the power of our heart and our mind, should also be guided stop the harm we are causing Mother Earth, how we are affecting her and creating climate change, hydrologic stress, deforestation, etc. We must project a real change to stop the madness toward which our countries, especially the great world leaders, are taking us.

Let’s become human again!

WHAT TO DO TO BENEFIT FROM THE FULL MOON ON THE NIGHT OF NOVEMBER 14
THE MOON WILL BE CLOSER TO EARTH- FULL MOON ON JUN LAJUJ K’AT

According to the vision of the Maya World, we are living the times of change, which are related to the New Cycle, the Job Ajaw or Fifth Sun.

The events that are happening indicate that the paths for the readjustment of the energies are opening, this readjustment comes with much strength and affects us both in the individual and the collective, as a humanity.

The standards with which we have lived are being shaken. It is the time to restructure our system of life in the social, material, and spiritual; in the essence: our relationship with the environment, with the manifestation of Mother Earth.

We are filled with a diversity of thoughts before the uncertainty that destiny holds…

This November 14 we have the opportunity to redirect our purposes.

The Moon will come closer to Mother Earth and a special space will open in which we will have the opportunity to free ourselves from the burdens that affect us, in our thoughts and feelings.

In the space of the sub-lunar plane (which is located between the Moon and the Earth, closer to the Moon) all the energy of thoughts and feelings, both dense and subtle, from all the human beings who exist and have existed, is accumulated. It is the space of the sensitivity of the psyche, in all its manifestations. The love, compassion, frustration, fear, hate, etcetera.

During this night the full Moon will be influenced by the Maya energy of the day -Ch’umilal- 11 K’at, which is the net that traps the unbalance, those negative feelings and thoughts.

Since Grandmother Moon will be closer to Mother Earth, her power of attraction is stronger. When the Moon rises we can meditate, think of those things that limit our development, the evolution of our spirit. We have to take action to get rid of this energy.

With the help of a white candle you can focus in its flame and direct your thoughts to this light that will take them to the sub-lunar plane, take as much time as you need. Make a recapitulation of who you are and how the internal and external thoughts affect you. Rely on the flame to remember, to define, and to let go, one by one, each thing that limits you, that imprisons you. Rise your eyes to the Moon and place the candle-flame between the Moon and your vision. Remember, think, take action and free yourself, send it all to the sub-lunar plane.

If you can’t do this exercise when the Moon rises, you can do it at any moment of the night.

After taking this action, it is good to receive the light of grandmother Moon, guiding it to your crown, to receive the new vision of simplicity, of not complicating yourself, of being open to the realization of the new being, of consciously filling yourself with happiness!

There are thoughts that bring with them a line of action, a tendency. These come form what we have learned and are used to repeat the same experiences. Our purpose must be focused in the possibilities, product of our state of awareness, we must let flow and free ourselves of all those things that limit us.

“We are the ones that create reality”.

It was long ago when I learned, while in the company of a Navajo elder in the Arizona desert, about the “vision of the eagle”. We were sitting by the shadow of the “great rock” and the elder was patiently listening to my disquisition about the thinking of the indigenous people of my country; suddenly his eyes were fixated on an eagle that was flying above our heads. He looked at me and started saying: The vision of the eagle is one that all the beings that inhabit this earth share. When the eagle is up, it is looking at an immense territory, so immense that we could not encompass it all. It sees it all, even the smallest thing with all of its details. Suddenly, a rabbit hopped and the Eagle, flying so high, feels it run in the grass, it fixates on it, it looks at the field, it feels the wind, and calculates how both, rabbit and wind, can run on the sinuosities of the ground. It takes all things into account, so many things that I cannot enumerate them. All of a sudden it throws itself into the void, as into death, as fast as an arrow. It comes down rapidly and when one thinks it is going to crash, it turns in the air and captures its prey. Everything happens instantly and precisely. One second, ten centimeters, and the eagle would be wounded or dead. But instead, it elevates back into air with the rabbit in its claws. This action is so precise because the eagle, up there, can see it all in its totality, with each detail, like threads that are weaved to make up the reality of the world, of the here and now. That is the vision of the eagle, when one can understand the whole interweaving, then one can touch every stitch and every thread, and one’s decisions are accurate.

The Andean vision of water is embedded in the “vision of the eagle”. Water is never seen as a separate element, but as a living being that forms part of the weaving of life within the community of nature, which the Kechuas call Sallka. Therefore, water is one of the constituent beings of the territory, together with human beings and the community of deities. It is family and it builds, together with the other two communities, through a mutual upbringing, relating through dialogue, reciprocity, and complementarity.

The cosmovision -vision of the eagle- is, for the three communities -deities, nature, and human beings-, the larger context, the nucleus, the axis of all way of living, the indication of how to be in this world. One is in this world to be, and not, like us, the westerners, to exist. This is the vision that was and is shared by almost all the native peoples of the Ancient America since it was the Abya Yala “fertile land surrounded by water”.

This cosmovision, represented in the Law of Origin of each nation, it is its referrer of relationship, of duties and rights, of significance and meaning; is expressed through myth and it becomes operative through rite, which is both celebration and festivity. The cosmovision expands and enhances, like waves of water in a lake, successive waves that contain it and through which we denominate thought and culture.

When the cosmovision is transformed into Law of Origin, it is done because it is in direct relation with a territory that includes the community of the sacred, the community of nature, and the human community, Waka, Sallka and Runa in Andean Kechua. This Law of Origin guides the wise people of a human community to do thinking with the purpose of shedding light, from this great law, to the issues of the community. For this reason, in Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, called “the Heart of the World”, the Mamos or spiritual wise people of the four nations –Kogis, Arhuacos, Kankuamos and Wiwas-, guardians of the four corners and the four elements of this heart -earth, fire, air, and water- gather at the kankúrwa or “sacred house” to light the four fires and sit at the center with the Mamo to dedicate themselves to “do thinking” recreating their Law of Origin to solve concrete problems of their time at this world.

But both cosmovision and thought need to materialize into actions of re-creation of the world in the apparent reality, what is established in the field of culture, which is doing in the world from the action that recreates the thought. All that is perceptible by the external senses is culture expressed in shape. Culture is a way of the doing of all living beings, not only the human being. Therefore, water, a part of this intertwined weaving in its deepest part, has life, forms part of the cosmovision, generates thought, and has culture.

That said, the main issue in this process and the fundamental difference between the native world and the mestizo world, is the coherence with which the cosmovision, the thought, and the culture are intertwined. If any action in the world accurately reflects a thought, which at the same time reflects a cosmovision, this doing is coherent and harmonious. If on the contrary, as it happens in the mestizo world that was imposed five hundred years ago, the culture as action does not recreate the world, but it tries to dominate it, to control it, to use and possess it cumulatively; this cultural action denies or overrides the thinking and thus, the cosmovision. The results are clearly visible. This brings us to a fundamental question: What is in essence being an indigenous person? There is one answer to that question: real respect to a Law of Origin and coherence, respecting this law, its form of being in this world. This is the path to becoming a human being from the indigenous point of view.

The world is structured in this way, from a mother cosmovision, which can be pictured as a woven-world: The loom which reflects the four parts of the world and its four corners, where warps of relationship and different weavings are woven. The warp is the diachronic and synchronous cosmovision shared by the native peoples from their population, allowing a deep relationship: the weavings, which begin when each cosmovision generates specific thoughts, are given in the amazing diversity of the peoples and their cultures, when these inhabit territories that are distinct because of their position and climate.

It is not by chance that in the vision of the Kogi of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, the territory is considered a great loom that has its borders where the sacred hills and main rivers which descend from the sacred snow-capped peaks to the ocean, the mother of all waters. The weaving is done when the living beings transit the paths that cross the territory both vertically, between different ecologic grounds, warps, in which inter-Andean valleys interweave horizontally, forming the weavings of territorial and cultural diversity.  It is in this sacred geography where relationships between the sacred, the territory, and culture have been woven. The ancient Tayronas, ancestors of the four current native peoples, built their urbanism and architecture in stone and water, one of the most interesting organic designs that is known in America. For this reason one of the main concerns of the Mamos or sacred authorities of these peoples is the way in which the “younger brother” the mestizos and white people of the other culture, are handling the water, conceived in simple terms as a resource to be used, barely considering it as a weaving when it is viewed in terms of water basins.

Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta has at least thirty-five of these great basins that belong to the Caribbean Sea slope. The most serious problem is that the basins show severe environmental effects, losing almost 49% of its runoff in less than twenty years, affecting the supply of fresh drinking water not only for the indigenous people of the Sierra, but for important urban centers such as the three capitals of this area of the country: Valledupar at Cesar, Santa Marta at Magdalena and Riohacha at Guajira.

A similar case occurs in one of the most important American wetlands, located in the North-West of what is now Colombia, known as the Momposina depression, more than 500.000 hectares of wetlands, which make up sort of the “kidney” of the Colombian territory. It is at the Momposina depression, known as the “Mojana”, where three great Colombian rivers pour their sediments: Magdalena, Cauca, and San Jorge, arriving already purified to their mouth in the Caribbean Sea. For around 1.500 years the Zenú native people sustainably managed this territory, maintaining its balance, in one of the most interesting cases of hydraulic engineering in native America. Today the descendants of these indigenous people are desperately fighting to obtain drinking water. For the last twenty years, our poor management of the wetland ecosystem nearly brought about the collapse of it, destroying the natural system and its recreation accomplished by the Zenú. The Zenú continue to think of water as a living being, with whom one needs to converse and reciprocate under other principles.

Cycle of water in the Andean way of thinking:

Water is life, cosmovision, thought, culture, and the connecting path between the seeds of the sacred, nature, and human beings.

The water dwells as a sky-blue seed in the Upper World (Hanan Pacha), within the River of the Sky, the Milky way, from where, imprinted by solar semen, it descends in the shape of a cloud to condense over the earth; from there it falls in the form of water-weaving in the shape of rain until it arrives to the skin of the mother; it penetrates her entering the uterus-Underworld (Ucku Pacha), where it fertilizes the seeds of all life achieving its various forms; once fertilized, the seeds in “our mother, our father”, emerge through the subterraneous waters of the Middle World (Kay Pacha) where they are expressed as the three basic communities: deities (Waka), nature (Sallka) and human beings (Runa).

Each of these communities–Waka, Sallka and Runa-, inhabitants of the Middle World in which we all exist, have a dual nature: they are female and male at the same time, with different levels of manifestation, either predominantly female or predominantly male. All the process of life, which we denominate humanization, as a vital experience, seeks to accomplish complementarity of these two principles until they achieve harmony as everything else. For this reason, the three communities establish a type of relationship that we can denominate conversation, reciprocity, and complementarity. All three are incomplete, even the deities, they need one another. This completeness begins with a conversation that is established through aware observance and the way of knowing, which is actually a way of remembering.

Conversing is listening to the other through every sense and letting our voice be heard not from a position of authority, but as an exemplary expression, of self-experience, which serves only as an example to be considered; one converses with the sacred through the ritual, with nature through knowing what to do, and with each other with the oral word, the one that weaves relationships, individual examples and the possibility of sharing experiences in a world where we are all interwoven threads and stitches. We reciprocate when we do not impose, control, or dominate, but when we allow, respectfully, the expression of the other, to understand and feel in which place and time we weave together, without ceasing to be ourselves, now as jaqui: partner, community. The whole process of conversing, reciprocating, and becoming harmonically complementary can be consider as a mutual upbringing, were we raise to be raised, which implies ethics and aesthetics; ethics that imply reciprocity, respect, and the wisdom of upbringing; aesthetics that are clearly embodied both in the Law of Origin and in the thought and culture, which is all the shapes that we give to the world when we recreate it in diversity: weaving of threads, weaving of agriculture, weaving of irrigation, weaving of paths, weaving of houses, operating centers, temples and huacas (ceremonial centers), weaving of ceramics, sculptures, metal objects, clothes, songs, words; weaving of water.

Water the being:

Water is female when it is the liminal portal between worlds: the sea as Mother Cocha, and also the calm lagoons and the water deposits; or when it inhabits the caves where it goes deepens. It is masculine when it is ice and snow, in the apus or mountains, condensed at the glaciers of water that allow the flowing of the rivers and streams, connecting water that ultimately reaches the mother-sea. From the deep caves it emerges again as a female seed cloud, which rises to the celestial world in the calendar spiral.

Water is, therefore, from the native Andean vision, part of the community of nature with which we share life, origin, the duality of who we are, needed complementarity, mutual upbringing.  For this we need to understand that it is not an object, mere H₂O (the dull vision of the flesh, in which we lose the heart and soul of things), a simple resource to be controlled, used, and accumulated according to individual interests, but rather a brother or a sister (depending on the manifestation it has in shape and energy), with whom we share a common destiny in this experience in the part earthy world, a part of it is to learn to establish a dialogue in reciprocity that allows us to become complementary so that we can raise up each other. Then, we will know how to relate with each other.

Fertilizing water moves in different cycles of the space-time (pacha). We have already mentioned a macrocycle that encompasses from Milky Way to the underworld, making its planetary and cosmic circulation. But the water being, the water person, also has particular cycles of manifestation: continental, regional, in each local pacha. This is why dialogue has different levels and the observation different landscapes and scopes. Conversation takes place with the weather and its signals to understand the type of crop year that will come regarding water: drought, regular rainfall, flooding; with the time of the year for the agricultural cycle and the expansion of water: fallow, soil preparation, sowing, weeding, irrigation, fruiting, harvest, and storage; with the purely local pacha in the ayllu or community and with regard to other communities and to the archipielago territory (located in different ecosystems and climate zones) to ensure food security; thus, a unity-complementarity is woven within the diversity that makes it possible. It is through this conversing and reciprocity where multiculturalism in the dialogue with ecosystem multi-diversity is understood, experientially.

Water, though, does not exist on its own, it is family with nature and provider of structure to the territory. Other level of conversing and reciprocity is established within this first family in the community of nature: among plants, animals, earth, wind, water, fire, movement (the five elements), who converse with each other and with human beings. In the field water is in a state of dialogue and ayni (reciprocity) with the specific soil where it resides and walks, with the harvests that grow there as a family weaving, with the animals that live in this environment, and with the natural and recreated microclimate of the field. It is all a living weaving of wefts and weaves in cycles of expansion-contraction complemented at the chakana. When the human being converses with the field and thus with the water, he/she does it through the ritual and his knowledge, including the sun, the stars, the clouds, the ray, the hail, the rain, the frost, the soft or hurricane force wind, the water that irrigates or floods, the drought, the plants and animals, the underworld, the celestial world with all its deities, such as the sacred and snow-covered hills.

The human being must learn to observe this inter-community dialogue expressed in the visible signs of what can happen; then he/she must converse with this family-field and establish his/her reciprocity between communities. For this reason every level of mutual upbringing begins with the ritual, the highest dialogue that enables every relationship, going from gratefulness to petition. The dialogue with nature and with water as a being is given through ritual, through the language of observation, memory, and through doing, which is implementation and experimentation. Finally, the human community converses with one another to understand how the experience of each, in their personal pacha, can be combined with that of the others and how the example of some allows a better understanding for the rest. There is not a criteria of a truth that is absolute, abstract or superior in authority, but the wisdom of understanding the diverse weavings that can be combined in warps of understanding the processes in their different cycles and levels. The hegemonic is not important, but the similarities that we share.

In this order of things related to water, the living female and male being, with body, heart, energies, character, feelings, and culture, the way in which she/he wants to be raised must be respected to allow, in reciprocity, a good breading of the nature and the human. For this reason it should be impounded only when it is necessary, channeled when she indicates it, accumulated temporarily for the common good. Like every energy, when it is retained and accumulated for no reason, it decomposes; when one wants to monopolize and corrupt, it bursts; all living energy must flow through the weaving connecting the parts of the system in a planetary body. Mama Cocha as the sea, lagoons, puquios, streams and rivers, ice and snow, are beings that are conversing, offering all their wisdom, and also learning from one another. The key of this relationship between communities and water is that in the Andes everyone is attuned with the world as it is, to understand it and raise oneself, not to use it and transform it. The health of a community depends on the other two; either the deities, nature, and human communities are healthy, or health is precarious, for it cannot be fragmented.

In this process of mutual breeding, knowing and understanding are given through a dialogue and reciprocity in the action itself, were the territory and the field, water in all its expressions of form and energy, the three communities together, are the true classroom. One learns by observation and example, by sharing the experiences and taking each action by one’s self, to contribute with one’s own experimentation and recreation of reality, in accordance with the cosmovision and the thought which are the warp of one’s community, its main identity.

The water, living and vivifying being, is still waiting, in this mestizo and desecrated world, that we remember the principles of conversing and reciprocity, the ways of mutual breeding, seeking to restore order. Because all order begins within each one of us, within our own elements, to be able to interact coherently with these element-beings in the great body of the Mother.