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The Maya civilization was an ancient Native America culture and is still considered to be one of the most advanced civilizations in the western hemisphere before the arrival of Europeans to the North and Central Americas. The people known as the Maya lived in the region that is now eastern and southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and western Honduras. They thrived for more than 2,000 years... and then mysteriously went the way of the Egyptians and the Romans; their amazingly rich and intricate empire all but dying out to a mere flicker of what it once was.
One of the Mayan pyramid temples at Tekal
These amazing people built massive stone pyramids, temples, and sculpture that still defy the comprehension of "experts" and they developed a system of writing using hieroglyphs and recorded their achievements in mathematics and astronomy that mathematicians and astronomers are still trying to wrap their heads around to this day. Archaeologists believe that Maya culture reached its highest development from about AD 300 to 900 but recent discoveries in northern Guatemala have found highly developed cities, sophisticated art, and examples of Maya writing that date from as early as 600 years prior.
The Mayan world
After AD 900 the Maya mysteriously declined in the southern lowlands of Guatemala. They later revived in the north on the Yucatán Peninsula and continued to dominate the area until the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. Descendants of the ancient Maya still form a large part of the population of the region. Although many have adopted Spanish ways, a significant number of modern Maya maintain traditional cultural practices.
Ix Chel is primarily a lunar goddess.
Below is the hieroglyph for "Ix Chel"
The Maya religion was comprised of several deities. Predominantly worshiped by women, Ix Chel (pronounced, roughly, EE-shell), a rainbow goddess associated with healing, childbirth, and weaving was one of the primaries. The origin of her name is thought to come from the Yucatán and is generally assumed to translate to "Lady Rainbow." She is what is known as a "triple goddess" indicating that she has a maiden, mother and crone aspect - each of these aspects being represented by one of the three main phases of the moon. And much in the same way the waxing, full and waning lunar phases bestow a unique energy, each manifestation governing different realms of the female experience.
Unfortunately much written mythology was destroyed by priests trying to forcibly convert the Maya to Christianity so there is little recorded information about Ix Chel outside the symbology of images. She figures in a single recorded myth, in which, as Mother Goddess, she is married to the god, Itzamna. However, she does figure prominently in several folkloric stories of more modern origin. It is important to remember that while such tales are considered of questionable value in anthropological and archaeological study, they are of great value in folkloric and mythological study. Spiritually, they are no less valid than the ancient myths.
Ix Chel in her Maiden aspect
As the young goddess of the waxing moon, Ix Chel oversees matters of fertility and feminine sexuality. In this form, she is usually accompanied by a rabbit, a symbol of fertility. Much like Chinese and Japanese cultures, the Mayans saw the figure of a rabbit in the moon. In this guise, Ix Chel is much more playful, mischievous, and sensual than in her other forms.
One tale relays the story of Ix Chel falling in love with the Sun God K’inich Ajaw, but he showed no interest in her. She pursued him, even after her grandfather struck her down with a lightning-arrow to prevent it (in some tales, out of jealousy; in others, to try to prevent what he knew would be a bad match). The arrow killed her, but dragonflies sang around her for 13 days (the number 13 also relating to the moon and its 13 lunations that comprise the lunar year), until their song raised her. She then continued her pursuit, finally reaching her lover’s sky-palace.
Before long, though, K’inich Ajaw became jealous and falsely accused Ix Chel of taking his brother, the Morning Star, as her lover. K’inich Ajaw cast her from his home, but when she found refuge with another deity. She did not beg him to take her back. Instead he came seeking her forgiveness and begging her to return. She did, but he grew jealous again almost immediately, and this time Ix Chel left him voluntarily and for good, making herself invisible by turning into a jaguar whenever he came too close in his search for her.
Ix Chel in her Mother aspect with her husband, Itzamna.
Ix Chel, the Weaver
Love, marriage, and motherhood did not come easily to Ix Chel. Her independent and erotic nature assisted her in her resistance to participating in clinging, unhappy relationships... but only maturity and experience did she gain the wisdom to avoid them entirely.
In her guise as a Mother goddess, she finally found a good match in Itzamna, the gentle and wise Moon God and founder of the Mayan culture. With Itzamna, she became the mother of thirteen sons (there's that number 13 in relation to the moon again!). Two of their sons were creator deities, and what they made, she set into motion, her weaving spindle the whirling center of the universe. Four others, called the Bacabs, are the giants who hold up the sky at its four corners.
One of the shrines of Ix Chel at Cozumel
Also as a Mother goddess, she is said to have spent much of her time among humans, especially on her sacred islands, where she healed those who came to her shrines, and aided women in childbirth. She is also revered as the great water goddess who governs the life-sustaining waters... which relates to both the water than humans need to survive as well as amniotic fluid a baby needs for survival in the womb. The rainbow is also a symbol interconnected with water (can't have a rainbow without water and light), a symbol of new life and serves as a bridge from the spirit realm to the earthly realm and back again. The rainbow is the pathway to God and vice versa - in Mayan mythology as well as the myths of many other cultures... and in accordance with biblical teachings relating to the story of Noah and the Arc (Genesis 9) - yet another myth that demonstrates new life.
Ix Chel in her Crone aspect
Ix Chel as the Dark-Moon Crone was wise, fearsome, and oddly merciful as well. As is true of most goddesses of this nature, she was equally loved and feared, sometimes simultaneously, because both the light and dark aspects of her other natures can be found in this one.
Her most common appearance in this form was as an old woman with jaguar claws and/or ears. Figurines of Ix Chel in this guise shows her with her hair bound in the traditional Mayan style commonly donned by older women but tied with a snake rather than a strip of colorful cloth. These figurines also show her wearing a skirt decorated with crossed bones, and in her hands or on her back she carries a jar from which she pours rain and floodwaters.
In this form, Ix Chel is the midwife, the magician, the healer, and the diviner - the Wise Old Woman who might be honored for her experience one day, and feared as a witch the next. She brings rains to nourish the world, and floods and storms . Hurricanes are her forte and she used them to destroy and lay waste to what had previously been created in order to make way for new birth and new beginnings. She helped the celestial serpent create a flood that ended the third world of Mayan tradition and ushered in the fourth. She is the Birth-Death-Rebirth Goddess who is at the heart of the Crone, whatever her name or form, culture or myth.
As is evident, I have included elements of all three aspects of Ix Chel in the above illustration... as well as the other touches such as the top of one of the pyramid temples at Tekal and the dahlia, Mexico's national flower. Images of Ix Chel often show her holding a dahlia flower in her hands.
Ruins of the shrines and temples of Ix Chel on Cozumel, Isla Mujeres and the Yucitan
Important shrines to Ix Chel existed on Cozumel - known as "Island of Women" and Isla Mujeres; ruins of both can be seen today. Pregnant women and those seeking fertility made long pilgrimages, walking from villages as far away as Honduras, then crossing the 12-mile channel from the mainland to the islands in dugout canoes. At her sacred temple, she was worshipped on the 6th day of the moon with a special ceremony that honored and celebrated her powers of medicine and magic. Modern offerings are still found at her shrines from time to time.
Ix Chel was worshiped on the sixth day of the lunar month with a ceremony that honored and celebrated her powers of medicine and magic. In the month of Zip (or Sip), the feast Ihcil Ixchel was celebrated by physicians and shamans. Medicine bundles containing small carvings of Ix Chel, healing fetishes, and divination stones were opened and blessed (Ihcil Ixchel currently falls on May 21; it will shift to to May 20 in 2012.).
The Mayan Calendar
And speaking of 2012... According to some interpretations of the Mayan calendar, the world is said to come to an end on December 23, 2012. The buzz about this in certain communities and schools of thought is quite the major big deal.
The Tzolkin and Haab
Our modern calendar, the Gregorian Calendar, has days, weeks, months and years. In the Mayan Calendar, it's more complex. In fact, it's really three calendars all in one - the Tzolkin, the Haab and the "Long Count". All three work together in a highly complex and intricate system of fascinatingly accurate time-telling, prediction and prophecy.
Now, I'm not going to even attempt to explain how these three calendars work together in tandem. I suck at math - and in order to really understand how it all works, one must have a mathematically and astronomically bent mind. I've tried to make sense of it all but, honestly, it makes my head hurt. I suppose that's why I'm an artist and a predominantly right brain thinker.
What I can tell you is that the Mayan calendar predicts December 23, 2012, as a day when the maximum possible influences for solar flares that the universe can provide will be at it's height, potentially causing some major simultaneous global disasters. It's also when the Mayan calendar resets to year zero. Interestingly, this very date in 2012 is also the Winter Solstice. On this day the sun will be aligned with the center of the Milky Way for the first time in about 26,000 years. This means that "whatever energy typically streams to Earth from the center of the Milky Way will indeed be disrupted on 12/21/12 at 11:11 p.m. Universal Time.
The 7th century Mayan prophet Pacal Votan remarked on this date, saying "If Humanity Wishes To Save Itself From Biospheric Destruction It Must Return To Living in Natural Time."
It is said he foretold of our accelerated technological society and the resulting damage of our collective divergence from Natural Laws and living in harmony with the earth in exchange for materialist values. In essence, if we don't get a clue, we very well may go the way of the Egyptians, the Romans and yes, the ancient Mayans. Obviously, there are a growing number of those who seem to be tuning in to a mass shift in consciousness, commonly referred to these days as "Going Green." Concerns about global warming and the damage it's causing, hybrid cars, organic foods, saving our resources and our environment, using less, giving more, going natural... these are all manifestations of that steadily rising shift.
Some interpret the day to be indicative of the world coming to an end, a doomsday of sorts. Others see the date as a marker for a radical and massive shift in global consciousness, when Ix Chel's waters are said to close the Mayan era begun with the Spanish Invasion and usher forth a new era. After all, she's a destroyer and a creator... and sometimes you have to level out the old to make way for the new. If you ask me, this isn't a sign of doomsday but, rather, a positive shift for the better.
If you'd like to know more about the 2012 Mayan Calendar prophecy, here are a few sites to check out:
http://www.universetoday.com/2008/05/19/no-doomsday-in-2012/
http://www.viewzone.com/endtime.html
http://www.breakfornews.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1185
http://www.13moon.com/prophecy%20page.html
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