Barbara's Mayan Calendar Story
Location
Chicago, IL
United States
See map: Google Maps
How many in your family/community/group are living with the Mayan calendar?
My monthly newsletter goes to about 400 people, most of whom are in the Chicago metro area and neighboring states in the Midwest. I offer four different training modules on the Mayan calendar and have trained over 100 of these followers. Using Karen Majorowski’s Daily Guide to the Mayan Sacred Calendar as a text, my feedback indicates that most of those I have trained are now using the calendar on a regular basis.
How do you use the Mayan Calendar in your everyday life? Do you combine it with the Gregorian calendar?
Tzolkin: Since I practice what I teach, I tune into the energy of the day before rising and integrate that consciousness into my day’s activities. This process adds an interesting dimension to my long-standing yoga and meditation practice. In four years of using the Tzolkin, it has gradually taken precedence over my awareness of the Gregorian. I use the Gregorian as a method to schedule the mundane aspects of life, and find that Karen’s Daily Guide helps me do that with a high degree of functionality.
How has the Mayan Calendar influenced or changed your way of life or thinking?
I have found several different interpretations of the deities/lords of each day, what to ask for how and how to leverage those intentions into my own consciousness. I continue to explore their meanings meditatively. As soon as I began using the Tzolkin, I noticed the alignment among the day’s events and experiences with the essence of the energies. Over time, I have learned how to weave them together so that each day seems richer than it was while living a less sacred worldview. I’m more present. It feels as if my awareness of the Tzolkin grounds me so that I can respond in situations to which I previously would have unconsciously reacted. On days where I feel that the unexpected is to be expected (Storm, Monkey, Dog or Eagle, for me) I can chuckle instead of freak-out, knowing that this is what is supposed to happen on these days. In general, I feel that I’m paradoxically on top of it, as well as humbled by the immensity of divine intelligence.
What challenges or difficulties have you encountered in integrating the Mayan Calendar into your daily life?
For about a year, especially during the 5th night of this
underworld, I found myself blowing appointment times and unsure of what
day it was. My friends, family and clientele know about my interest in
the calendar and joke with me about this. I have had some sheepish
moments, but am now on better track using both calendars and living
“Between Two Worlds.” I have had to made several adaptations to my life
style so that I can make it work, but those may have happened anyway.
I’ve learned that because each soul is truly unique, individual
responses to the energies of the days are also unique. One’s experience
of a day is influenced by what energy they carry. For example, a
10/monkey friend of mine faces huge challenges on storm days. Others
may love storm days. I teach that there are no bad energies, just ones
that we have not yet learned to work with.
My sense is that this is a life’s work, especially for a Westerner. I
continue to work with the challenges that Star (Lamat/ Qaniel) and
Eagle (Men/Tz’ikin) days bring me. I can find myself out-of-sorts, but
at least I know this before my day starts and can manage things with
more awareness.
What do you feel are the benefits of living with the Mayan Calendar?
Most importantly, knowing that you are aligned with cosmic energies that pulse within us, as with all existence, is a benefit to one’s sense of self and purpose in the world. This allows you to live in the world, but not of it, to find sanctity in each moment and trust that what needs to happen will. Living with the Mayan Calendar brings the uninitiated Westerner closer to their soul. If more of us use the Mayan calendar, perhaps our society may become more soul-centric, as indigenous cultures are.
Do you have a blog or a web site you’d like your story to link to?
