July 7, 2024
Preparing the ceremony materials and the many, colorful candles
After being a volunteer at IMAP for a month, I decided to take their Permaculture Design Certificate Course. The PDC (Permaculture Design Course) began today with a Mayan ceremony.
Mayan Nawales
During the Mayan ceremony each of us participants were given our nawal. According to the Mayan culture, nawales are protector spirits that we acquire at birth. There are 20 nawales which are the 20 energies that govern life in all of its manifestations. In the Mayan calendar there are also 20 days, and each day has a nawal. You can see the nawal of the day here and you can also discover your nawal by putting in your birth date and year. (https://www.mayatecum.com/calcular/).
My nawal: Kawok
Knowing our nawal can help us better understand ourselves. My nawal is Kawok, and while each nawal is complex, in short, Kawok represents community, family, groups, and meeting. It is symbolized by the turtle, because the shell of the turtle represents the nature of Kawok to be a leader and protector. Those who are Kawok are often community leaders and community defenders. They do not tolerate injustice and are considered noble, calm, and caring. However, those who are Kawok must also work to overcome intolerance, imposition, pride, and ego. Our nawales also show us our places for improvement!
The Ceremony
The Mayan Ceremony focused on the 20 nawales and explained each of them in detail. It was led by a local, indigenous Kaqchikel leader. In the ceremony there were many candles of different colors (blue, yellow, red, white, green, pink), and we were instructed to take five of each color. The young man sitting next to me, Felix, was from Guatemala, and he explained to me that each color represents something. For example, green represents hope and abundance and the heart of the earth, yellow is the energy and strength of life, white is the purification of the mind to calm anxieties and to help the memory, etc.
The Nawales Maya with their glyphs and animals
Throughout the ceremony the leader went through the 20 nawales, explaining the significance and importance of each energy. When he got to your nawal, you stood up and tossed half of your candles into the fire. For certain nawales, we each stood up and tossed in a certain color candle into the fire. For example, we each placed a yellow candle into the fire and said aloud our last names, remembering our ancestors. It sounds simple and insignificant, but it felt nostalgic to say my parents' last names out loud. I thought of my grandparents and great grandparents on both sides of my family. I realized that in my culture we don't have rituals to remember our ancestors and family members.
The ceremony emphasized the importance of our ancestors, those who came before us, and the knowledge that comes with age and life experience. The ceremony leader noticed that we were a relatively young group, and said that we might not be ready to receive all of this knowledge. He invited the oldest members of our group, who were over 55 years old to stand and walk around the fire. They threw in specific candles. The leader emphasized the wisdom that we can only receive with age. While living in a global culture that praises youth and youngness, it was nice to see a culture that values the wisdom and value that only comes with age.
The leader explained that in Mayan ceremonies we don’t seek out new information and knowledge, but rather we call on the ancestral knowledge that already exists, so that it can inform us and our actions. We need to accept with humility that we are not creating new knowledge but rather we are appealing to the knowledge of those before us so that we can learn from them. He said that there are two types of people—those who have a lot of knowledge and those who live and act through knowledge.
Mayan first, then Guatemalan
The ceremony leader also spoke about being Mayan. He said that first he identifies as Mayan, and second, he identifies as Guatemalan. While people refer to him as being Guatemalan, he says that he and other Mayan people don’t benefit from the “development” of the nation state of Guatemala. Therefore, he doesn’t feel Guatemalan but rather feels part of the culture and tradition of his indigenous ancestors. He said that while society tends to discriminate and view indigenous people as poor, he sees people in the city as poor, because there is nothing that they can consume in the city without paying for it. Meanwhile, on his land he has a lot to consume, and he says that his products are of much better quality. I thought that this was a very interesting and insightful view on development. Bringing this indigenous perspective to the forefront is what makes IMAP a unique and important permaculture space.
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