The Descent of The Feathered Serpent

who in large groups are guided through the area. As I first visited Chichen-Itza twenty years ago the site still had somewhat of a character of an archaeological excavation site and at the entrance there was only a man selling tickets in a little hut. Today, Chichen-Itza has lost of some of that and has turned into a kind of Mayaland designed by the Mexican tourist board with much commerce and spectacular nightly light and sound shows. It is then appropriate to ask if it is still possible here to become part of the deeper truths which the ancient Maya sought to convey.

Yet, many people think that this is possible and in pace with the interest growing world-wide about the Maya - and the Mayan calendar - large crowds had gathered especially at Spring equinox in Chichen-Itza. During the past ten years 40-50,000 people have come to meditate, participate in ceremonies or simply watch the descent of the Feathered Serpent on the Central Pyramid on this day. As I was allowed to experience myself this year the pyramids can sometimes talk to us and give a message which is more important than a thousand words, or even a thousand pictures. Surely the many pilgrims who have gathered here share a desire to receive such a message and to experience resonance with the Cosmos.

Maybe, it was once very much part of the purpose of this pyramid to talk to the deeper layers of Mayan society and maybe it is for this very same reason that it is able to talk to us today. In this regard, I think it may be likened to the so called "poor man's bibles", the many educating paintings covering the interiors of medieval European churches. In the Mayan ceremonial centers it was instead the architecture of the pyramids which conveyed a higher knowledge to all those that were illiterate and whose daily activities may not always have allowed the penetration of the deeper mysteries of the human existence. For this purpose, Chichen-Itza may be considered as special as it is considered by archaeologists as a "silent" city referring to the fact that only a few inscriptions have been found at its pyramids and stele. Instead, here it is the architecture that speaks! Rather than texts cut in stone about the personal lives and ceremonies conducted by the kings, which are prevalent all over the older Mayan cities, it seems that the leaders of Chichen-Itza wanted to speak to the people directly - through truths hidden in its refined architecture and building techniques. In these repects Chichen-Itza display many innovations compared to its predecessors.

Before I go into what I believe the Pyramid of Kukulkan has to say I feel it is in its place to give a short background about the history of the Maya. Despite the fact that many people today know that they were the most advanced mathematicians and astronomers of their time, and were alone in pre-Colombian America in possessing a written language, the actual historical course of events during their 1200 years of high culture remains relatively unknown to most people.

The high civilization of the Maya may be said to appear for the first time around the time of Christ and during the following centuries cities and ceremonial center mushroom in the jungles of Chiapas and Guatemala. In these subtropical and tropical areas where today we may find it hard to believe that one day an advanced intellectual culture emerged, the inscriptions testify about how Kings, ahauob - regarded as personifications of the Divine not completely unlike early Egyptian Pharaohs and Chinese Emperors - performed ceremonies and lead stately matters, never ever without keeping an eye at their calendrical system.

An important part of this calendrical system was the so called Long Count, which in certain aspects is unique among the calendars of this planet. This chronology, whose beginning was placed at August 11, 3114 BC and whose end may be projected to December 21, 2012, consists of a sequence of Thirteen so called baktuns. In contrast to the Gregorian calendar dominating the world of today, the Long Count was not based on a solar year, but on a 360-day year, a tun, where 400 tuns (exactly 144,000 days and approximately 394 solar years) constituted a baktun. The cities led by ahauob, that came to dominate in present day Chiapas, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras during the periods qualified by the Maya as baktun 8 (AD 41-435) and baktun 9 (AD 435-830) all followed the same calendar and the tzolkin count linked to this is still followed among several groups of Maya especially in Guatemala. Simultaneously with this rapid cultural development in tropical Central America the cult of the Plumed Serpent rose in the large city of Teotihuacan outside of today's Mexico City.

This system of city states led by ahauob was maintained by the Maya in the south until the end of baktun 9 when all of these cities suddenly ceased to commemorate the ceremonies and dynastic struggles of their rulers and were apparently abandoned. The question what caused this sudden demise has received as many answers as there has been researchers of the ancient Maya. Richard Wilks, an American sociologist, has however made the interesting observation that the explanations given by the researchers to the "disappearance" of the Maya very directly reflect the predominating trends in the countries of origin of the archaeologists themselves, in most cases then the United States. Thus, during the era of the Vietnam War the most common explanation given to the collapse of the southern Mayan culture was war. Today it has instead become fashionable to suggest an ecological crisis as its root. This would indicate that the explanations of the archaeologists tell us more about our own contemporary trends than about the Maya.

Relatively few researchers seem to have taken note of the fact that the Classical Maya deserted their jungle cities at a baktun-shift, at a significant cycle shift in their own calendar, despite the fact that it is widely acknowledged that time itself, and their calendar as a description of it, was a completely overshadowing aspect of the world view of the Maya. Could it be that in some way it was the very baktun-shift that precipitated the collapse of their southern sites? The acceptance of this idea, which I adhere to myself and may have first been suggested by José Argüelles in his seminal Mayan Factor, would probably carry the greatest change in our world view since the beginning in the early 17th century of the scientific revolution in Europe.

Regardless, synchronistic with the desertion of the southern sites in Chiapas and Guatemala was the rise of a new Mayan culture, sometimes called the New Kingdom, in the North. Chichen-Itza, the building of which was began a few years into baktun 10 (its oldest date is from AD 842) became the political and religious center of this new culture, which included almost all of the northern Yucatan Peninsula. In contrast to the Classical Maya cities which blossomed during baktuns 8 and 9, Chichen-Itza cannot be qualified as merely a city-state. Nor was it governed by shaman-Kings regarded as divine, but by more militarily inclined rulers. It is difficult to say anything for certain about the political life in this "silent city", but a sort of nobility seems to have risen (somewhat of a parallel to the system of knighthood which developed in Europe during the same baktun) and this came to be the key to a successful campaign of conquest as a number of auxiliary cities came under the dominance of the city. At the beginning of baktun 11 Chichen-Itza was then itself deserted and what we know about the continued life of the Maya stems partly from the stories of the Spanish Conquistadors and partly from the books, such as e.g. Popol-Vuh often regarded as the Bible of the Maya, which were written down with Roman script during the 16th and 17th centuries.

What strikes us in Chichen-Itza, in comparison to the older Mayan cities from baktun 8 and 9, is that the cult of the Feathered Serpent, among the Maya called Kukulkan and later by the Aztecs Quetzalcoatl, played such a predominant role. Wherever you look in Chichen-Itza you see snakes on the pyramids, the altars and the platforms or as sculptures lying in the grass. In importance the symbol of the Feathered Serpent in Mesoamerica can probably only be compared to the cross in the Christian world. And similarly to how the cross has a person, Jesus, linked to it, the Feathered Serpent in Mesoamerica has also had its personal manifestations, often through personas of light. Thus, for instance, according to one legend Quetzalcoatl incarnated as a god-king who ruled the city of Tula, the capital of the Toltecs in Northern Mexico, between the years 947-999 (Gregorian). From there he was forced to flee after having failed to convince its inhabitants of abandoning the practice of human sacrifices. According to the legend he then went by boast from the Gulf coast of Mexico to Chichen-Itza where he led its spiritual renewal around the cult of Kukulkan, which today we see so much evidence of.

What was this cult of Quetzalcoatl all about, a cult which during this time came to be embraced by all of Mesoamerica with its millions of people? We do not even know today whether to call Quetzalcoatl a symbol, a myth, a cult or a religion. What is noteworthy however, is that the emergence of this phenomenon in the New World temporally closely paralleled that of Christianity in the Old World - both were initiated during baktun 8 and were revitalised and spread during baktun 10. Another noteworthy parallel is that as Christianity meant the end of all kinds of sacrifices by its adherents the above legend about Quetzalcoatl points in the same direction. Was its cult then some kind of phenomenon parallel to Christianity which instead developed in the Western Hemisphere? The new light as it was seen in the Western Hemisphere? There are representatives of Native Americans, such as the Lakota Medicine Man Gerald Red Elk who have suggested the identity of Christ and Quetzalcoatl. The mind reels, could it be then that the evolution of our planet follows a higher plan, codified in the Mayan calendar and manifested through a sequence of baktuns, which plays out differently and is looked upon through different glasses in different directions of the world. After all, East and West are different and who is to say that this difference has emerged by accident.

Despite the fact that the cult of the Cosmic Serpent is geographically closer to today's Americans and even maybe Europeans, we appear more blind to its underlying significance than we are to Buddhism, Hinduism or the Old Chinese philosophies. We seem to be less capable of making sense of this cult intellectually. Our mind set seems to be telling us that a snake can not be a religion and so the Feathered Serpent has remained enigmatic, intangible and magical. Maybe then many of those that have gathered before the Pyramid of Kukulkan at this Spring Equinox has come to hear directly what the pyramid itself has to say - what the architecture and the phenomena of light that are displayed on its sides, want to convey.

The Pyramid of Kukulkan is about 25 meter in height and is hence considerably smaller than the Cheops Pyramid in Egypt. Its base is squared and on this eight terraces have been built on top of each other. On top of all this is then placed a house with openings in four directions, with one especially important in the north fenced by Cosmic Serpents and leading into a central room. On each side of the pyramid a staircase of 91 steps leads to this house. The staircase in the northern direction has been built above an internal staircase leading into an inner room dominated by a jade jaguar and a Chac-Mool-figure.

I have seen this pyramid before, both from above and below, but never on a Spring Equinox. I have been impressed and fascinated, but have mostly sought to understand it intellectually from the basic archaeological facts. Despite the fact that it intentionally was constructed not to stand in parallel with the four geographical directions, the pyramid is a symbol of the world with its four directions and a center, a world view shared by natives of the American continent from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. The number of steps in the staircases is 4 x 91 = 364, which, if the top platform is added makes 365, the number of days in the solar year, testifying that the pyramid was partly built to follow the agricultural years. The Pyramid of Kukulkan is then built in Nine terraces, Nine hierarchically organized levels. This is similar to the most important pyramids from the preceding Classical era, such as e.g. the Temple of the Inscriptions in Palenque and the Pyramid of the Jaguar in Tikal. To the Maya, the number Nine was the most Holy one since Creation consisted of Nine Underworlds, each with Thirteen Heavens, as it is described in the Popol-Vuh.

Considering that their contemporary Europeans built Cloister Churches and a century later would begin to build cathedrals, this construction may not at first sight seem all that impressive. What is remarkable, however, and stunning in another way is what we might call the Cosmo-architectureof the Pyramid and how this speaks to us especially at the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes. The Pyramid is built in such a way that on these two days, and only to a limited degree on the adjacent days, it gives rise to a shadow play where the Serpent Heads which terminate the staircases become whole snakes through the shadows of the terraces of the Pyramid. To be able to build a pyramid in this way bears witness to a resonance with cosmic processes that has now been lost. The Descent of the Serpent is created through a projection of solar light, a shadow play where the Seven triangles of light form the special pattern of scales which can be seen on a rattlesnake. For the Maya who once lived here this must have been a spectacular show serving to mark the passage of the seasons. It is said that the appearance of the Feathered Serpent on the side of the pyramid was an important sign to the farmers for planting the corn, and its appearance on the Fall equinox was another important point to mark the passage of the solar year.

What then about the Thirteen Heavens described in the Popol-Vuh and manifested for instance as the Thirteen baktuns of the Long Count? It would indeed be strange if the Epic in Stone which the Pyramid of Kukulkan constitutes would be incomplete in such an important regard. But yes, the Thirteen Heavens are there, but in a very special way. They are present in the shadow play of the Feathered Serpent and are thus only visible during the Spring and Autumn equinoxes and then as Seven triangles of light on the back of the Serpent. Together with the Six triangle-shaped shadows from the teracesses that are then formed they give rise to a wave-like pattern consisting of Thirteen different triangles, Thirteen Heavens. It is well known that among the Maya the Cosmic Serpent is a metaphor of Creation. This might have been the only way, or at least the most spectacular way to convey through the architecture of the pyramid that Seven of them were light and Six were dark. That the Mayan astroarchitects were able to make everything fit in this way is astounding. The Epic of Creation becomes complete. These triangles on the side of the pyramid of Kukulkan bring everything together. To my knowledge the descent of the Feathered Serpent from the Pyramid of Kukulkan of Chichen-Itza is the only direct link between the Thirteen Heavens of the Maya and the Jewish-Christian-Moslem Creation story, initially from the Book of Genesis, according to which God created the world in Seven Days and Six Nights.

In this way the link between the Creation stories in the Old World Religions to the calendrical system of the Maya has found a direct expression. Maybe, after all, all of the philosophies, religions and systems of thought of the ancient world seek to describe the same thing, although this has been seen through different glasses in different locations. If we would all realize this, the prospects for a future evolution in peace and respect between the human religions would be considerably improved. What the descent of the Feathered Serpent shows is that the Maya who built the Great Pyramid at Chichen-Itza was aware of history as a wave-like process created by Seven pulses of light and Six intermediate periods of darkness. Considering this concordance between the Christian and Maya Creation stories the thought of the cult of the Feathered Serpent as a parallel phenomenon to Christianity in the Old World appears much more plausible.

Maybe the new light that appeared at the beginning of baktun 10 was what was behind the fact that the Maya no longer went on worshipping their kings as manifestations of the divine but turned to a higher, spiritual, lifegiving principle, The Cosmic Serpent, as an expression of the worship of the ongoing process of divine creation itself. The Cosmic Serpent then represents the coiling wave-motion of the Thirteen Heavens, the Seven Days and Six Nights and its gradual evolution through different phases - materialized as tail, body and head. And indeed it was this wave-like process that allowed the Itza culture to emerge in the new Day, baktun 10, on the ashes of the Classical Culture during baktuns 8 and 9. To master the energy which drives the movement of the Cosmic Serpent forward, what the Hindus call the Kundalini energy, is the key to allowing our individual evolution of consciousness to develop in phase with the divine process of creation. On a microcosmic scale, the Kundalini energy passes through our Seven chakras before its final realization through the head of the snake. Surely, the knowledge about this, the knowledge about how Kukulkan and Kundalini are related, would have been worthy of a cult.

Carl Johan Calleman
cjcalleman@swipnet.se