IX CHEL: Beneath a Mantle of
Stars
(This
article originally appeared, by request, in the Japanese magazine
"Transdimension Vista for galactic humanity" Vol 1, No. 5, )
IX
CHEL: Archetypal Feminine Energy Principle of the Maya
"Ix
Chel, a Mayan Goddess of Stars and Children, another aspect of Jessica,
astrologer and mother." - Calendar entry for 8th
day of Hazel month, by Jean Kozocari, co-author, "The Witch's Book of
Days"
My intimate relationship with Ix Chel began the
day I came upon this entry while editing the lunar calendar pages of our
manuscript for "The Witch's Book of Days." I had been introduced to
Ix Chel a couple of years earlier during my cross-cultural Goddess research but
this magic mirror afforded me by my friend's vision put her into a far more
personal focus. I began then to discover numerous synchronicities between Ix
Chel and the totemic Archetypes which inform my own life.
Ix Chel, whose alternate names may be Ix
Actani, Ix Alvoh and Ix Asaluoh, is indeed Goddess of
Women in the pantheon of Southern Mexico, the
Yucatan and Guatemala, where she presides over healing arts and childbirth. It
is said that women still make pilgrimages to her shrine on Cozumel Island if
they are pregnant or wishing to be so, a tradition which has survived for
centuries.
She is associated with the Moon and in one myth
incited jealousy in both her grandfather and
the Sun who, through trickery, became her
husband, thus compelling her to show all women that it is necessary for a woman
to be the independent agent of her own life.
THE MYTH
The story is told of how the sky had once held
two great luminaries of equal brilliance, the Sun
and the Moon. So great was the beauty of the
Moon, Ix Chel, that the Sun fell in love with her and decided to approach her
to invite her love in return. Ix Chel's grandfather, however, guarded her
closely. In order to deceive the jealous grandfather, the Sun assumed the form
of a hummingbird, emblem of Art and Beauty.
On his arrival at the gardens of Ix Chel, the
Lady offered the Sun-as-hummingbird a drink of sacred tobacco flower honey.
Suddenly his side was penetrated by a blow-dart, the work of Ix Chel's jealous
grandfather who had discovered the Sun's scheme.
Astonished at her grandfather's cruelty, Ix
Chel gathered the wounded hummingbird in her arms and took him to her chambers
where she nursed him back to health, growing steadily more fond of him over
time. Finally revealing himself to Ix Chel, the Sun urged her to fly away with
him into the vastness of space. They fashioned a boat out of a cedar log and
escaped into the heavens but not without catching the attention of Ix Chel's
grandfather who then summoned Cauac, the Being of lightning and storms, to
pursue them. The two lovers leapt out of the boat, she assuming the guise of a
crab and he that of a turtle, but a lightning bolt struck Ix Chel....."and
the Goddess lay dead in the slow moving waters of the reed filled streams of
heaven." (1)
For thirteen days the heavenly dragonflies
(dreamkeepers and masters of "illusion") attended the body of Ix
Chel, around which they had arranged thirteen logs. On the thirteenth day,
twelve of the logs released great serpents but from the thirteenth Ix Chel
herself arose.
So overjoyed was the Sun that he asked Ix Chel
to be his wife, but their happiness was
short-lived for the jealousy which had plagued her life with her grandfather
became part of her life with her husband.
The Sun's brother, Chac Noh Ek (the planet
Venus), began to frequent the couple's home, paying
lingering attention to the beautiful Ix Chel.
The Sun, overcome with possessiveness, accused his wife of taking his brother
as a lover. Despite her protestations, the Sun flung Ix Chel from the sky. She
landed near the lake of Atitlan where she was discovered by a vulture and taken
to the home of the Vulture King. She became his lover, as much out of defiance
of her husband as out of gratitude to her rescuers.
The Sun, however, soon discovered what had
befallen his wife and went to retrieve her. When he found Ix Chel, he beseeched
her to return to the heavens with him once again. This she did but no sooner
was she reinstalled in their home than the Sun once again began to accuse his
wife of infidelity with the handsome Chac Noh Ek and Zinaan Ek (the Pleiades)
and Tzab (the constellation Scorpio).
To destroy her beauty, the Sun assaulted Ix
Chel but she left him, determined never to marry again. She traversed the night
sky and made the decision to help the women of Earth who sent her their prayers
and blessings. And so she remains, though she takes for herself three days out
of every twenty-eight, for sabbatu, "heart-rest,"(2) an example for
all women to follow.
THE TOTEMS
Among the totemic associations of Ix Chel is
the hare, which is also affiliated with the Moon in
many cultures around the world. The hare is
said to "sit in the moon eternally grinding the drug of immortality....in
the sense of never-ending cycles of death and regeneration"(3) and it is
also the hare who, in Mayan mythology, is the recorder and keeper of the lunar
calendar, a covenant between Woman, the cyclic tides of Nature and the
celestial realms.
References to planetary bodies and
constellations (Venus, the Pleiades and Scorpio) portend interplanetary
connections which are currently so much a part of present-day speculation and
investigation, from the Earth-launched probes to the "channelled"
communications from Pleiadian and Antarean emissaries. My research into these
areas is yielding some fascinating, even startling, results but they are beyond
the scope of the current article. Suffice it to say it seems that Ix Chel, the
Moon, played (and still plays) an important role for planet Earth in the
mediation of interstellar and interplanetary influences.
The image of Ix Chel hurtling down to Earth
echoes other world myths which claim that the Moon once collided with our
planet prior to becoming Earth's satellite. Her affinity with the Moon
naturally allies her to water and Ix Chel is known as she who sent the great
floods at the time of the "cleansing and remaking" of the Earth, a
tale found also in the biblical Old Testament story of Noah and in our distant
memories of the antediluvian world in which Atlantis and Lemuria were
ultimately destroyed. One of her icons is a giant overturned earthenware pot,
called the Vessel of Doom, pouring its contents down from the heavens. Both the
crab and the turtle are icons of the watery zodiacal sign Cancer (also
affiliated with the Moon), during which
Age occurred the Great Deluge in Earth's History.
Too, she is the Weaver, the Spider who sits in
the centre of Creation and she (or in some myths, her daughter Ix Chebel Uax,
who was formed by her mother as the web is formed by the spider) is credited
with teaching Earth women the art of weaving. Her affiliation with weaving is
also reminiscent of the Indian Great Mother Maya, Goddess of Illusion, who
weaves the web of the material plane, what humans call "reality" -
she who is mother of the Buddha, the "enlightened one."
Another of her totems is the eagle and Ix Chel
was known as Eagle Woman, her majestic birds serving as Moon essence messengers
even before the eagle became identified with the Grandfather/Wise Man
Archetype. Images of Ix Chel affirm her status as Lady of the Beasts, for she
is often featured with an animal ally.
THE SACRED CALENDAR
The imagery of these myths reflects some key
factors in the remarkable numero-stellar sacred
"calendar" systems, called Tzolkin,
which we have inherited from the mysterious Mayan culture(4). The highly
sophisticated system which we have come to call the Mayan calendar (many
elements of which were later adopted by the Aztec and recorded by the Spanish
Jesuit priests)(5) contains a rich store of Archetypes which enable a precise
divinatory system, as well as a complex pattern of cyclic measurement.
This sacred "calendar" is composed of
three distinct parts with a number of synchronous
sub-categories: a Great Cycle, comprised of
thirteen segments each lasting between 394 to 395 Earth years and each
representing an evolutionary stage of development; a "year" lasting
260 days, (a reflection of the Great Cycle in increments of 20, the Mayan unit
of measurement), each with its own particular ritual and direction (North,
South, East, West, Centre) thus forming the base for the divinatory system; and
a lunar month of approximately 28 days.
The word, or title, Ix represents one of
twenty divinatory Archetypes and depicts "The Sorcerer,
The
Jaguar, Feline Energy, The Night-Seer, Attainment of Magical Powers,
Highest Level of Individual Conscious Development"(6), independence and
personal responsibility. It numbers 14 in the system of 20 Archetypes, preceded
by Ben, the Reed and the Skywalker, which is the principle of Spirit acting
outside the normally accepted boundaries of space and time. (Skywalker is also
a literal translation of the Tungus-Siberian word "shaman.")(7) The
subsequent Archetype, number 15, is Men, the Eagle, Collective or Over-Mind and
Planetary Consciousness.(8)Chicchan, number 5, is the Serpent, the Reptilian
Brain, the nervous and autonomic systems of the body, the corporeal
intelligence (and yet another of Ix Chel's totems). Cauac, number 19, is
"Storm, Thunder Cloud and Thunder Being, Transformation that Precedes Full
Realization."(9)
In the Aztec sacred cycle, Ix is called Ocelotl
(Ocelot) the Messenger, who is preceded by Acatl,
(Reed) and followed by Cuauhtli (Eagle). Number
5 is Coatl (Serpent), concerned with energy, polarity and the generation of
thought waves. Number 19 is Quiahuitl (Rain) and is involved with cleansing and
the nurture and cultivation of the human emotional body.
THE POLITICS OF EVOLUTION
For many years, it has been my understanding
that the development of the human emotional body represents the last phase of
our evolutionary development before our next quantum step. I arrived at this
conclusion mainly through the study of occidental astrology which is another
system involving Archetypes, measurement, direction and divination. Upon
examination of Ix Chel's story and the Mayan-Aztec "calendar"
divination systems, I realize that my "revelation" has been known for
thousands of years and by many people of the ancient world, though in latter
times this information has been suppressed or has fallen away from our common
knowledge.
For at least the preceding five thousand years
of history and most definitely since the Industrial
Revolution, humans have become increasingly
"mechanized," growing ever more ignorant of our own natural cycles,
which are more flexible and humane than our Gregorian calendar/forty-hour
work-week schedule suggests. The lunar influence represented by Ix Chel is of
prime importance, both as an Archetype and as a mediating factor in our
emotional development, a fact already in evidence through the menstrual cycle
and its relationship to the emotional and psychic lives of women and, by
association, children and men.
Menstruating women who, like Ix Chel,
"disappear" to care for ourselves and to meditate help to
maintain the overall balance of the evolving
emotional body, not only for ourselves but for all humans, a fact known to
every culture which has ever observed this ritual(10). When this practice is
overlooked or violated, emotional balance is disturbed, one of the contributing
factors to the dread "Premenstrual Syndrome." In turn, the
relationship between women and men is undermined, effectively disrupting our
attempts at co-operative activities. (Ix Chel leaves her husband, the Sun,
after he assaults her, vowing never to marry, which may be interpreted as a
feminine withdrawal from participation in Solar/masculine arrangements and
activities, a phenomenon which we are now witnessing in some women's
communities within our culture.) As we are entering a time when the need for
co-operation and community is critical if we are to survive as a species on
this planet, the continued imposition of a solar/mechanistic/exclusive model
upon a primarily lunar/cyclic/inclusive mammalian group is inimical to our
collective evolution.
Too, a mechanistic approach to life renders
humans more prone to disease as we are driven to ignore the body's natural
prompts. However, shamanic cultures have long recognized and acknowledged the
role of illness as a most profound initiator into the Mysteries of the
shamanic, or Skywalker, realm.
The wounding and death of Ix Chel and her
subsequent resurrection attended by serpents marks
an inauguration or acknowledgment of the body
wisdom, instinct. (The acquisition of this wisdom was achieved over the course
of one Great Cycle of thirteen "days.") The image of the body of Ix
Chel...."dead in the...waters of the reed filled streams..." speaks
of the shamanic process by which one attains knowledge of and access to the
multiple realms which exist outside the jurisdiction of time and space as
commonly accepted, whether through the process of birth (and birthing) or death
(and the near-death experience). The Dance of quantum stepping with the
archetype Ix Chel, the supple feline sorcerer who teaches us independence and
personal responsibility, may well offer us another alternative for our
exploration of the realms beyond space and time if we are willing to honor the
planetary consciousness through attunement to natural cycles. Thunder
accompanies lightning - lightning is a metaphor for enlightenment. According to
the Mayan "calendar," we concluded the katun (approximately twenty-year span) of the Archetype Cauac,
Thunder Being, in 1992; we have already had that twenty-year wake-up call.
Ix Chel, the Lunar Night-seer Magician, holding
the Reed basket, the doorway or bridge between
worlds or dimensions, which contains the
healing Moon essence to soothe the fevers of Solar/machine age overindulgence,
transcending the limits of space and time to guard and nurture our maturing
collective emotional body, is waiting to initiate us into the full realization
of our potential. Although she portends collective transformation, she also
reminds us that we are individually capable and responsible for our own
attunement to planetary consciousness.
“THE POLITICAL IS PERSONAL”
As I sit, creating this article very much like
"weaving" of a tapestry, while wrapped in my
jaguar-print robe (a gift from a friend who
said it was "me"), I am compelled to review the Archetypal role Ix
Chel has played in my own life.
Three months before beginning this article I
was given my first Eagle feather, Eagle having entered my life as a totem in
1985. On sleeping with the feather beside my bed, I had a series of intense,
visionary dreams. Needless to say, my life is currently in transformation.
As a very young woman, I was warned by a psychic
on numerous occasions that jealousy would be a stumbling block in my life. I
was determined that I would not allow that to happen but, nonetheless, I did
encounter enough of it, in a variety of guises, to force a change in my
direction
on more than one occasion, which contributed to
some profound transformational initiations, as well as some realizations about
the nature of reality.
Astrologically a Lunar type, I was born in the
Year of the Hare and have a prominently-placed Moon, high in my natal chart,
the "esoteric ruler" of the chart, sharing the distinction of
elevation with the "exoteric ruler," Mercury, the Messenger. I have
always been a swimmer in the sea of consciousness and human potential, more so
when I allow myself to work from my intuition and inner vision - Lunar
trademarks. Too, in true Lunar tradition, I am the mother of five children.
At birth, my parents (unknowingly) gave me the
name of an Etruscan Thunder god. At 21, a year after the birth of my first
child (and three years after the second of four near-death experiences) I
received a new name, meaning "Serpent Lady of the Dawning Sky," an
image strongly reminiscent of both the archetypal Kukulkan/Quetzalcoatl, the
Feathered Serpent of the Maya/Aztecs, and Melusine, the serpent-tailed,
wish-granting, doom-crying Goddess of the Gallic Celts.
The Aztec Quetzalcoatl was the son of the
Goddess called Lady of the Serpent Skirt and his story features a
death-and-resurrection theme, like the story of Ix Chel. At the time I had not
heard of either of these Beings, nor did
I until very many years later.
Kukulkan/Quetzalcoatl is associated with the
Archetype number 13, Ben or Reed, the shamanic
gateway between the realms which precedes
Archetype number 14, Ix, the Messenger.
Four years after I received my new name, I
wrote of my Archetype:
"...As
though you fly into the Sun
Her
rays can melt your waxen wings,
And
if you court illusion
Her
heart will not be won....."(11)
already aware that we must be prepared to
surrender our old concepts in order to embrace our next adventure in
consciousness.
I resisted the title shaman for many years but was "tricked" into it by first
being given the title
Dakini, a Sanskrit word meaning Skywalker, and according to some, Witch.
Years later, after I had made peace with my reluctance at being referred to as
shaman, I found the literal translation of the word in an interview with
Terence McKenna. I enjoyed the cosmic joke immensely!
For the last seventeen years, I have embraced
the work of Feminine/Lunar consciousness as a
Messenger: teacher, writer, artist, shaman. As
an attendant of Ix Chel, I serve as a mediator, dancing a bridge between the
Solar and Lunar aspects of consciousness, between worlds we know and worlds we
yet may dream.
NOTES:
1) Merlin Stone, Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood,
Boston, Beacon Press, 1984, p.94
2) Vicki Noble, citing Merlin Stone's findings
regarding the term "sabbath," Shakti Woman: Feeling Our Fire, Healing
Our World, San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1991, p. 94
3) Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the
Goddess, Berkeley, Wingbow Press, 1990, p. 50
4) For a complete examination of the Mayan
systems, see the works of Dr. Jose Arguelles, The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond
Technology, Santa Fe, Bear & Company, 1987, and Earth Ascending: An
Illustrated Treatise on the Law Governing Whole Systems, Boulder, Shambhala
Publications, 1984
5) See Bruce Scofield & Angela Cordova, The
Aztec Circle of Destiny: Astrology & Divination from the Ancient Aztec
World, St. Paul, Llewellyn Publications, 1989
6) Arguelles, The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond
Technology, p. 100
7) Terence McKenna, The Archaic Revival, San
Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1991, p. 165
8) Arguelles, The Mayan Factor, p. 100
9) Ibid., p. 101
10) The word "ritual" derives from
the Sanskrit word for menses, "ritu." Vicki Noble citing Elinor
Gadon, op.cit, p. 95
11) "Serpent Lady of the Dawning
Sky," original musical composition by the author, 1975
Copyright, 1995, 2001, by Jessica
North-O'Connell
Mayan Signs:
According
to the Dreamspell Calendar: CIB (owl)- grace, trust,
inner voice, reception, mystic transmission, divine communication, cosmic
consciousness, golden pillar, ferryman’s staff; Yellow Overtone Warrior;
Crystal Moon Month, Fifth Chakra
Personal
Affinities: BEN (skywalker, time/space traveller, angelic
messenger, pillars of heaven, courage, new directions, mysterious journey,
compassion, fluid reference point), Third Chakra
IX (jaguar/ocelot, integrity, heart-knowing,
alignment with divine will, magician, shaman, jaguar, night seer, pries/esst,
torch bearer, magic, peacock, all-seeing eye), First Chakra
