To the Mayans, the World Tree Yaxkil created the directions and the nine worlds that emanate out from that. The tree, as it grows, dictates the waves and cycles of physical life and human consciousness. The tree creates time.
In the Mayan tradition, the calendar is sacred. Each day has its own character and meaning. Specific rituals are performed on each day to keep time alive. This is the work of the shamans in this tradition: keeping time alive. They do this consistently through divination and ritual. Martin Prechtel’s book, The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic eloquently speaks of this tradition of divination and keeping the seeds of time alive.
New World Trees get planted at certain cycles in the ongoing Mayan calendar. Time does not end, it has cycles that coil and uncoil. Depending on which trees get planted in certain critical cyclical epochs of the calendar, the energies that flow forth will be determined. We have just passed through one of these critical epochs.
The World Tree is an energetic structure that exists in all systems that most cultures believe in and have myths about. The World Tree dictates direction and time and creates the potential energetic patterns that can manifest in its time cycle.
The seed of the new World Tree of the Mayan calendar was planted on January 5, 1999. This new tree is a female tree. She is a young maiden tree now. The old one that was planted in 3115 B.C.E., and dominated for the last 5000 years, is now dying away.
The calendar did not end in 2012; but the new tree that was planted is beginning to make herself known. As the old one dies away and this new one comes forth we experience the transition. As when a new sprout comes forth from the earth, things need to break away and move to create space for this new life and all the potentiality it contains. Mayan Calendar scholar Carl Johan Calleman states that this new tree plants strong, feminine energies. “Powers of the Goddess will increasingly manifest themselves in human life.”
With this new energy or time being ushered in, diviners of all traditions today can explore through divination and ritual how to best help it flourish and grow.
~Theresa C. Dintino
