In the Western world, health is a matter for the individual. If we eat the “right” food, exercise regularly, and thus maintain our personal physical health, we are regarded as “healthy.” Our relationship with other people and the cosmos is not taken into account.
But in Mayan thinking, we are not separate from the world around us or the people in it. We cannot reach that state of balance which exemplifies true health and wellness by ignoring the world or withdrawing from its concerns. Instead, we must sustain a harmonious relationship with our total environment.
To achieve these aspects of well being, there are five key factors which must be in harmony:
Our Mother the Earth (K’iche’: Qanan Ulew), the physical world of nature – its valleys, rivers, oceans, clouds and breezes. We live upon the earth, and we fail to achieve true health (balance) if we are out of harmony with it.
Our Ancestors (K’iche’: Nan-Tat Kaminaqib’), a concept which is interpreted quite literally in traditional Mayan communities but which may also be taken in a modern psychological sense as meaning our family system, the inheritance we bring with us into this life from all of those who have come before us and contributed to the individual who is “you.”
Our Community (K’iche’: Ajil-Tz’aqat), meaning our neighbors and those with whom we live in proximity. In this sense, the tradition of monastic withdrawal which exists in so many religious traditions would not be considered “holy” in Mayan thinking; it would be considered anti-social. We are all part of one community or another. Honor it.
“Grandmother Moon” (K’iche’: Qati’t Ik’). To be in harmony with Grandmother Moon is a metaphorical way of saying that we must be in harmony with the waxing and waning phases of nature and the cosmos of which we are a part.
The Nawales (naguales). These are the day signs of the Sacred Calendar, still widely used by traditional Maya in many parts of Guatemala. This is another way of saying that we must be in harmony with the rhythms of sacred time. While “ordinary” time is embodied in the phases of the waxing and waning of Grandmother Moon as well as in the cycles of the seasons, there is a rhythm of cosmic or “sacred” time as well, and this is embodied in the 260-day ch’ol q’ij (Yucatec: tz’olkin), the ancient Sacred Calendar of the Maya. If one does not actualize or exemplify one’s archetype, if one does not make use of one’s potentialities and the capacities of the nawal granted to us at birth, it can be a cosmic or energetic factor in illness. In terms of Western culture, this is very similar to saying that one ought to try and exemplify the higher qualities of your sun sign.
The nawal of one’s birth places an individual within the context of a certain type of service to one’s community. Each nawal fulfills a specific function for personal and collective life and empowers people of both sexes who make a commitment to safeguard balance and harmony in a person and in society. And just as every nawal has qualities which may place it out of balance, so does each one have its special road to healing.
This, then, is the Mayan ideal of wellness – not just bodily health, but a life lived in harmony with one’s family and with one’s community, with earth and sky, with the rhythms of the world and the rhythms of sacred time.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kenneth Johnson is the author of several books about the Maya, including the well-known Jaguar Wisdom: An Introduction to the Mayan Calendar.
If you'd like to learn more about living in harmony with your Mayan day sign or nawal, get Ken's book Mayan Calendar Astrology: Mapping Your Inner Cosmos. Ken's web site is www.jaguarwisdom.org.
