The Visionary Mayan Queen: Yohl Ik'Nal of Palenque (6 page)

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Sunlight blazed fire into her eyes. Bursts of brilliance burned through her closed eyelids with blinding intensity. Heat seared her face. The sun was too hot, too close.

“K’in Ahau, your light is blinding me,” Yohl Ik’nal cried.

Glowing streamers of molten fire reached from the sun’s surface toward the earth, swirling and twisting like ferocious serpents. Their strong magnetic field drew her toward them, closer to the blasting furnace of burning light. She struggled against the magnetic pull, but could not resist its power.

The sun was immense, its intense heat melting her.

“K’in Ahau, release me, I am burning,” she pleaded. “I beg you, let me go!”

But the Sun Lord was relentless and continued to draw her into his cauldron of gaseous flames. As her body fell into the sun, she did not incinerate but was suddenly catapulted along a magnetic arc into deep space. Floating, soaring in vastness she saw stars flickering in the darkening indigo of space. A white band arched across the sky, milky and translucent. She recognized the Celestial Caiman (Milky Way) who swam through the night sky, his devouring mouth seeking souls after death as his tail tipped the horizon plunging him downward, like an immense canoe carrying his cargo to the Underworld.

She was drawn through the dark rift of the Caiman’s underbelly, and propelled past Tzab Kan, the seven stars (Pleiades) called rattles of the rattlesnake tail, ancient origin of the celestial Maya ancestors. The magnetic currents suspended her near the Heart of the Sky, the Creative Source that brought into being her people’s part of this vast universe, the home of Hun Ahb K’u the Supreme Deity.

Fascinated, she watched as the spiral galaxy slowly turned, its widespread arcs circling around the mysterious dark center in majestic rhythms, forming a cyclic pattern. Groups of stars moved gracefully in space following trajectories within the arcing arms of the spiral. Some stars had planet systems and undulated in their cycles, like the movements of snakes through water. All was spirals, circles and ovals, cycles upon cycles, comings and goings in a grand cosmic dance.

Suddenly she plummeted downward along an arc of the great spiral until she hovered in space above a brilliant star with eight planets circling around it. The star looked familiar, could it be her own sun K’in Ahau, the solar lord? She recognized the cloud-shrouded blue planet as her home, the earth called
Kab
’ or
Lum
in her language. Her heart leapt at its beauty, so watery and full of life. Awe, gratitude and love filled her.

Then she saw the great calendar wheels her people had created to follow the cycles of the sun, K’in Ahau. As the sun traveled the arc of the great spiral, making its own undulating cycle with its planets, an unimaginably long cycle appeared—the complete traverse of the arc around the Heart of the Sky. The time span was beyond her comprehension. Another calendar wheel appeared near K’in Ahau, smaller and following a much shorter time cycle, though still immensely long by standards of a human lifetime. As the sun followed the elliptic course of this cycle, it moved closer at one end and farther away at the other from the Heart of the Sky.

Abruptly the wheels and cycling stars froze. Eerie sensations prickled along her spine, raising her alertness. Something significant was happening. She focused intently and tried to make sense of the frozen pattern. There was something significant about the location of K’in Ahau and its planets on the elliptic cycle. They were near the farthest end away from the Heart of the Sky. Then the cosmologic images began shimmering and dissolving.

A gust of chilling air blast against her skin and she woke shivering.

Yohl Ik’nal drew blankets around her shoulders, sitting up on her pallet and drawing her knees close against her chest. It took some moments for the chills to end. The dream remained vivid and she reviewed its details, committing them to memory. This was a significant dream, she was certain. Tomorrow she would discuss it with her mentor, the High Priestess Lahun Uc.

Early that morning Yohl Ik’nal traced the familiar route to the temple of the High Priestess. The temple was a short walk across two plazas and up a long stairway from her family compound. Scarcely a moon cycle had elapsed since her training there had ended, with its enforced residence. Ruefully she realized that she missed the predictable temple routine and the discipline of study.

The High Priestess was finishing a lesson with acolytes when Yohl Ik’nal arrived. The young woman waited impatiently in the reception chamber, fingering the woven sitting mats and looking distractedly at wall glyphs. Finally Lahun Uc entered the chamber and sat upon her elevated bench.

“Greetings, Yohl Ik’nal, to what do I owe this unexpected visit?”

“Salutations, Holy Priestess, and please forgive this interruption. It is a matter of importance or I would have requested an audience. Last night came a dream that left me both confused and full of wonderment. Perhaps you can assist me to understand its meaning.”

Lahun Uc nodded, signaling her to continue. Dreams often brought significant messages or portended critical events, and the Maya respected these communications from deeper dimensions of consciousness.

“K’in Ahau drew me into his body as the dream began, and I feared I would burn up. Instead, he sent me far into the distant reaches of the sky and I saw many incredible stars beyond the Great Sky Caiman and the Tzab Kan. It seemed I was taken to the very center of our star system, the Heart of the Sky, then shown immense cycles of our sun, K’in Ahau and his planets.”

Yohl Ik’nal described her dream in detail. The High Priestess knit her thin brows in concentration, eyes burning into the depths of the young woman’s soul. When the recounting finished, the priestess pressed her eyes closed and seemed in meditation. Then she spoke in a husky voice that startled her visitor.

“This is indeed an extraordinary dream. It is of utmost importance. Truly, I am astounded by what K’in Ahau has shown you. What you have seen is knowledge reserved for only the most advanced calendar priests, those who have passed through many initiations to prove their comprehension and spiritual worthiness. Never have I known one who is uninitiated to have this revealed to them. Ah, but it was the action of K’in Ahau, the Lord Sun, and we must take it as his initiation of you.”

“But, Holy Priestess, what did I see? What does it mean?”

“This I cannot speak of,” Lahun Uc said. “It is secret knowledge, the arcane calendar arts that only the High Priest has authority to reveal. We must see our chief calendar priest, the Foremost Ah K’in, Wak Batz.”

Lahun Uc sent one of her priestesses ahead to request audience with Wak Batz. She and Yohl Ik’nal followed more sedately, crossing several plazas then climbing long stairways to the temple of the High Priest. This secluded temple was situated on the northwest rim of the plateau, on a craggy out-cropping ascending the mountainside. It commanded a breath-taking view of the plains and river below, stretching to distant horizons that shimmered in the morning heat.

The women were shown into a small chamber bordering the High Priest’s quarters. Scarcely had they settled onto mats when the bent form of Wak Batz appeared. He seemed immeasurably old to Yohl Ik’nal. Small and wizened, his body contorted into folds and angles while thin limbs remained remarkably straight. Sunken cheeks and eyes made his nose even more enormous and his teeth protrude in a permanent grimace. Today he wore no adornments of office, leaving his lop-sided chest bare with ribs clearly defined. Had he attained twice 52 tuns, the revered age of 104 tuns that made him almost immortal? Each of his numerous wrinkles carried her people’s history and wisdom.

After the formal greetings, the High Priest inquired into their mission and listened to the re-telling of Yohl Ik’nal’s dream. He too sat with eyes closed in meditation as she finished. After a time of silence, the High Priestess spoke.

“You see why I brought her to you at once. It is beyond my purvey to explain the meanings of these revelations by K’in Ahau.”

“Ah, yes, so it is, so it is,” he murmured, still inwardly focused.

At last he came to his decision. When his eyes opened, they held a luminescent glow that lit his entire wizened face. A shimmering aura surrounded his head that both the young woman and High Priestess could see.

“It happened, in your dream, that our Sun Lord-K’in Ahau revealed to you the most secret, most sacred and esoteric of our many calendars.” His usually thin, reedy voice took on resonant tones. “It is the calendar we call
Tzek’eb
, and it traces the Great Solar Year in the journey of the Tzab Kan (Pleiades) stars as they move closer and farther from the Heart of the Sky. You see, our own Sun Lord is one of the Tzab Kan; our Father Sun has seven brothers and together we all form a single cosmic family. As in any family, we will have better times and worse times. We have our seasons of light and of darkness. All of this occurs in a very long time span, so very long that few can comprehend it. This Great Solar Year is the cycle of the rise and fall of consciousness and civilization upon our beloved planet,
Kab’
.”

“Is this calendar known to my father?” Yohl Ik’nal could not resist asking.

Maya rulers and leading nobles all studied the calendars and were expected to possess sound understanding of their cycles and significance.

“Even your illustrious and erudite father has not attained this knowledge,” Wak Batz answered. “Nor his brother, the ruler. Often it is better that those who must bear the burdens of our people’s needs, must make the sacrifices and intervene with deities, keep their vision focused on cosmologies that are closer to home. The full realization of
Tzek’eb
and its implications could discourage their efforts. You will see.”

He exchanged glances with Lahun Uc. Sighing deeply, he continued.

“It seems K’in Ahau decrees that you are to understand this Great Solar Year, the Tzek’eb. Why this is so, is not yet clear to me. The Sun Lord must have some plan for you, perhaps it will be revealed in due time. Even as K’in Ahau travels across the sky of Kab’ and we note the seasons, so K’in Ahau has his own seasons in his cosmic cycles. The longest cycle is his own birth, growth and death. But that is beyond all comprehension, except in the infinite possibilities of the Long Count Calendar. Of that cycle I do not now speak.

“The cycle you saw is the Great Solar Year of K’in Ahau. It is his movement around a twin star in our area of the Celestial Caiman, one of his brothers in the Tzab Kan. This long cycle takes 26,000 tuns (25,650 years) and brings our sun and planets closer to the Heart of the Sky, then farther away. It was known in very ancient times, and we inherited this knowledge. It is tracked by the changing zodiac signs on the eastern horizon at spring equinox. These changing signs mark our movements from one age, or Sun, into the next. We have been in Bahlam, sign of the jaguar, moving toward Coz, sign of the parrot. When 5200 tuns (5125 years) are completed, there comes another Creation, another Sun. Now we are in the Fourth Sun of the Great Solar Year, in the declining cycle. When the next, the Fifth Sun begins, we again start the ascent from the farthest point moving toward the nearest point.

“Your dream confirms this. You saw our sun and planets on their cycle, near the farthest point. Hmmm, yes. For this I am grateful. It coincides with my calculations.”

Wak Batz fell silent, lost in contemplation. Yohl Ik’nal waited until her patience could endure no more.

“Holy Priest, I am confused,” she said. “Your calculations and my dream place our sun at its lowest point in the cycle, but if this means a declining age, why does it appear that our people are increasing in knowledge and ability, that our society is developing?”

“Ah, your mind is sharp to pose such a question.” Wak Batz nearly chuckled. His glowing eyes caught and held hers. “You are destined for greatness, that I can see.”

Lahun Uc studied her student with new interest.

“Now comes your answer, my young inquirer. Yes, the Maya people seem ascendant, our cities are growing and accomplishments increasing. Yet we are in the autumnal fluorescence of our civilization. There were greater ones who came before, in the legendary lands of Atlantiha, in the great sea of the east. Their knowledge and powers far exceeded ours, but few retain memory of those times. Atlantiha was a great civilization even before Matawiil, the land of our ancestors Muwaan Mat, Hun Ahau-First Father and the Triad Deities. Our ancestors of Matawiil were descendants of the exalted leaders of Atlantiha, whose land was destroyed in the great inundation. It was the beginning of the descent, the loss of high knowledge. Slowly this golden age deteriorated, although groups of people held onto the knowledge for thousands of years.

“What we have now, in the Maya people of our time, is a late flourish of this advanced civilization in Tamuachan, our Maya lands rising from the turtle’s back after the flood. In other lands, far across the great eastern sea, societies have fallen into darkness and barbarism. This is the time for the Maya to be great; after greatness follows darkness.”

Tears sprang to Yohl Ik’nal’s eyes and she looked pleadingly at Lahun Uc.

“Why must this be so? What is the purpose of it all?” Her voice choked.

“It is the Cosmic Law, the nature of cycles. The Creator of All has ordained these cycles in its infinite wisdom.” Wak Batz softened his habitual grimace into what resembled a smile. “The cycle is not at its end, Yohl Ik’nal. There is much yet to come. You have an important role in what is coming.”

Wak Batz turned to Lahun Uc.

“This is most irregular, but I will instruct Yohl Ik’nal in the esoteric calendar arts. As she was recently under your tutelage, it is fitting that you arrange this as a continuation of her studies. I will come to the priestess’ temple, as not to arouse curiosity. The nature of these studies we must keep in strict confidence. Not even her parents shall know what she studies.”

“So it shall be,” the High Priestess agreed.

“Yohl Ik’nal, you must take a vow of secrecy about your dream and the calendar meanings we have discussed,” the High Priest said gravely. “Do not mention it to your father, mother or anyone at all. The High Priestess and myself will be your only confidants. Understand the seriousness of this. Such knowledge would be destructive for those not initiated. Give us your vow.”