Nowtopian

At Uxmal in Yucatan, Mexico.

I went to Yucatan state in Mexico over the New Year holiday. We engaged in all the usual touristic activities, from visiting the amazing Mayan ruins at Uxmal, Chichen Itza, and other lesser-known archeological sites to beaches, cenotes (sinkholes with clear turquoise waters), haciendas, and remarkable wildlife, especially birds. While we were seldom far from a car or modern life, the combination of entering 2012 and being amidst both centuries-old Spanish colonial towns and even more ancient Mayan cities, made it easier to feel the longer stream of history we too are floating in.

Here in Northern California the New Age hype is already at fever pitch for the Mayan calendar’s prediction of the “end of the world” in 2012. But as we drove along country roads to long-abandoned cities of elegant stone towers, massive edifices that were apparently “apartment complexes,” and sophisticated systems of water management and interurban roadways, we came upon a surprising text in the local tourist magazine “Yucatan Today.” Anabell Castañeda writes that the Mayan prophecies do not predict an end of the world at all, but rather a “change of time:”

Not for a single moment have the Mayas feared the arrival of this date; on the contrary: the ancient Mayas have always told us to wait patiently for a change in consciousness and the evolution which that change will bring… Human beings don’t exist by chance or a work of fate, they are part of a plan to carry out a mission in this part of the universe. Nor is the world totally complete in its creation and perfection; mankind has a job to do on this planet and must be a part of its conservation. It could be said that life on planet Earth depends on humans and what we do during our existence…  The Popol-Vuh is their book of advice and it tells us: “It is time for a new dawn and to finally complete the task.”

… within this long-awaited change, it is expected that there will be a reawakening of the Mayan world in all its complexity…  We have an opportunity to experience a change of conscience which will help us to evolve as a species, protecting the natural resources which we need for our survival, and bringing about the long-awaited urgent social equity, finally understanding the importance of the human being in the universal order.”

It was charming and serendipitous to find such a prosaic interpretation of the much-cited Popol Vuh. In a way, Castañeda is placing the prophesied changes into the context of the political movements already underway, from the global efforts to put the brakes on chaotic climate change to the sweep of occupations from North Africa through the Middle East, to southern Europe and across the U.S. in 2011. Imagining the “Mayan world re-emerging in all its complexity” wasn’t so far-fetched while standing on the top of the ruins of Uxmal or Ek-Balam. In fact, Mayan life is quite present throughout Yucatan, albeit a relatively modern and Mexicanized Mayan life. (My neighbor David Miller, a practicing witch, just finished a rather different look at the Popol Vuh in “The Cosmic Ballgame” where he reads the myths and stories in it as the point of origin for cultural obsessions with sports and ball-playing!)

The massive ballcourt at Chichen-Itza, Yucatan.

Yucatecans playing baseball in their own "field of dreams," in rural Yucatan.

I was reminded of an excellent book I read many years ago, “Stolen Continents: The ‘New World’ Through Indian Eyes” by the Canadian writer Ronald Wright. He traces five great civilizations (the Iroquois, the Cherokees, the Aztecs, the Mayans, and the Incas), describing their first contact with Europeans, their centuries-long struggles to resist subjugation, and their remarkable re-emergence in the late 20^th century. In fact, since the occupation of Alcatraz in 1969-1971, Indians in the U.S. have regained cultural pride, political initiative, and with the indigenous from around the world, a global treaty on the rights of indigenous peoples passed at the United Nations. The descendents of the Incan empire, a vast and highly sophisticated urban culture that spanned much of western South America (from today’s southern Colombia through Ecuador and Peru to northern Chile), have been making themselves felt in all the countries of the Andes. Continue reading Finding the New in the Old