Hen’s Eye View: A Tapestry of Maya Mythology, Motherhood, and Making Life Anew

By Jan Capps

The Tz’utujil, one of many 22 indigenous Maya teams of Guatemala, see themselves as folks of the birds.  Birds are revered for the various advantages they create. They’re considered as charmers of the ear, as messengers. Birds know the Earth and sky properly, to allow them to acknowledge and announce adjustments. When you watch the birds, you already know what the sky will do. For instance, robins and thrushes swarm in a particular sample when rain is coming. The hoot of owls, specifically, but in addition the calls of different birds, can sign hassle close by.

Birds unfold and solidify life. When an individual’s home is destroyed, he or she seeks to rebuild it in the identical place, typically foolishly, as a result of what destroyed it might come again once more. When a chook’s house is destroyed, it flies away to search out one other place to construct its nest. Birds carry the seeds of fruits they’ve eaten with them, which permits new vegetation to sprout and helps different birds make future houses. Flycatchers stuff the roofs of thatched homes with moss, thereby including stability and sturdiness.

The Tz’utujil assert that chook calls will not be solely alerts for folks and different birds, but in addition brings into existence the adjustments within the annual pure cycle. They are saying there’s a kind of chook that calls the wind of January, one other that calls the pollen haze of March, and one more calls the fuchsia cactus flowers in July. The looks of hummingbirds brings an finish to the dry season.

The Tz’utujil are additionally a tree folks. The birds assist unfold the bushes, however the bushes in flip present a house for the birds, in addition to for different animals. Although bushes seem stable and stationary, they’re communicators as a lot as birds.

Based on Maya legend, the god Huracán (additionally known as Coronary heart of the Sky) fashioned the Earth between the underworld, additionally known as Xibalba, and the higher world within the sky. The lords of dying occupied the 13 ranges of Xibalba, and the gods and spirits occupied the 13 ranges of the higher world. Seeing that he left no house between the Earth and the higher world, Huracán planted a ceiba tree that stretched its branches into the higher world and expanded its roots deep into Xibalba. The ceiba’s trunk grew to separate the Earth from the sky and depart house in between for all beings. The gods, spirits, and the useless can cross by way of the ceiba as a communication route between Xibalba, the Earth’s floor, and the higher world.

Groundbreaking analysis on the “minds of bushes” has confirmed the connectedness and communication capability of bushes. Beforehand, bushes had been thought of particular person beings working individually from others and relying solely on the solar over their heads and the soil at their roots. Scientists have since found an intricate underground communication and assist system consisting of an online of tendrils connecting species. They acknowledge when one within the community is poor in vitamins and might ship what’s missing to it. When bushes are injured or dying, they ship messages of resilience to the following era of seedlings, rising their resistance to future stresses. By means of back-and-forth conversations, they enhance the energy of the entire neighborhood. Additionally they give life to an ecosystem of lichens, vines, moss, liverworts, ferns, bromeliads, and orchids that stay symbiotically inside them.

These two natures are sometimes in battle with every of us, and at sure occasions in our lives, we should name upon one and suppress the opposite.  But, we should additionally acknowledge their interdependence and honor each.

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