Commentary

Illustration for an article about Daniel Pinchbeck's "2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl" in Sub Rosa magazine, issue 5. Inspired by a dream from April 06: Two old friends and I are standing about 6 feet equidistant from each other in triadic ritual fashion. We’re spitting back and forth a sloshy purple ball woven with strange organic plastic tubes. Something about virginity and getting sore and sick? At an instant of receiving the violet sphere in my mouth, I become aware of what I am doing and the ritual ends. I take the ball out and look at it with my right hand- the dream fades… I am at home in the country and standing on the wooden deck looking out to the mountains. Someone below is standing in the grass dressed in a beekeeper chemical suit. He calls to me asking for a wrench in order to close off the holes in the ground. I go into the garage and cannot find it. The environment (especially at horizon) is foggy with luminescent mist and glossy glow. There are many people constellated around barely past the borderline of my awareness. I look up and am struck with vividness as I perceive an extradimensional field of mass appears at about 80 feet above me. The sky is shrouded by a psychedelic pastel-green/yellow semi-translucent jungle canopy of dark violet fetal-alien skeleton monkey demons with somniferous almond eyes ,amongst spinal tubules. It has a reverse gravity in comparison to my upside-down perspective. It moves as if just emerging and awakening from behind the air. The intension of thought erupts that I must do something in order to reconcile this. The tubes are descending from the field of anatomical threads and others flick into visibility all around my field of vision. A slithering radiance blooms from beyond the plane of strange entities. I am coming home now. ELUCIDATION Unbeknownst to me previous to the dream- some of the Mesoamerican peoples have had similar visions communicated through their esoteric mythologies. This inquiry has led me to draw connections to the ball, canopy, the awakening skeleton entities, the tubes, the beekeeper and the serpentine light. Meanwhile among Mesoamerican mythology research directly pertaining to my dream, I was keen to pursue another, related line of inquiry. This concerned the bearded white-skinned deity named Quetzalcoatl, who was believed to have sailed to Mexico from across the seas in remote antiquity. Quetzalcoatl was credited with the invention of the advanced mathematical and calendrical formulae that the Maya were later to use to calculate the date of this Age’s perception of time to end. He also bore a striking resemblance to Viracocha, the pale god of the Andes, who came to Tiahuanaco ‘in the time of darkness’ bearing the gifts of light and civilization. He had been described as a mysterious bearded white man with a broadly tall stature with large forehead and eyes. He is also credited with calling for an end to human sacrifice and was known as a god of peace- wishing to abolish war. Viracocha, in his journeys through the Andes, went by several different aliases and Quetzalcoatl did this too. In some parts of Central America (Notably among the Quiche Maya) he was called Gucamatz. Elsewhere, at Chicen Itza for example, he was known as Kukulcan. When these words were translated into English, they turned out to mean exactly the same thing: Plumed (or Feathered) Serpent. This character’s departure from their lands was described as a miraculous event, having sailed away ‘on a raft of serpents’ back to from whence he came- the East. He was depicted as having brought all the skills and sciences necessary to create a civilized and peaceful civilized life, thus ushering in a golden age. It was believed Quetzalcoatl had introduced the knowledge of writing, the calendar, masonry and architecture, mathematics, metallurgy, astronomy, agriculture, laws, a patron of the arts, and medicine- in addition, had disclosed to the people the mysteries of the properties of plants. After his departure the bloodspattered rituals were reintroduced with a vengeance. Nevertheless, even the Aztecs, the most vehement sacrificers ever to have existed in the long history of Central America, remembered ‘the time of Quetzalcoatl’ with a kind of nostalgia. ‘He was a teacher,’ recalled one legend, ‘who taught that no living thing was to be harmed and that sacrifices were to be made not of human beings but of birds and bugs. The Mexican legends said that the enlightened and benevolent rule of the Plumed Serpent had been brought to an end by Tezcatilpoca, a malevolent god whose name meant “Smoking Mirror” and whose cult demanded human sacrifice. Often depicted as a glaring skull, he was said to have been the owner of a mysterious object, the obsidian Smoking Mirror after which he was named, which he made use of to observe from afar the activities of men and gods. The poignant moment of Quetzalcoatl’s departure was supposedly staged at a place called Coatzecoalcos, meaning “Serpent Sanctuary”. There, before taking his leave, Quetzalcoatl promised his followers he would return one day at the end of this Age to overthrow the cult of Tezcatilpoca and to inaugurate an era when the gods would again “accept sacrifices of flowers” and cease their clamor for human blood. Without going into too much detail, the Mayans’ calculated time for the end of this Age translated into the Gregorian calendar is December 21, 2012. The Maya refer to this moment in history as ‘Zero Time’- when all time is realized to be now, the eternal moment. A glyph frequently associated with mythological events of the Zero Time is translated as “black hole”. The dark-rift of the Milky Way is called the entrance to the Underworld or the Black Road by the Maya, and it appears as a “hole” in the sky. The “black hole” of the Mayan Creation text is associated with the Mesoamerican ballgame and its ballcourts, understandable because, in the penultimate Hero Twins creation story, there is a strong connection between ballcourts and the Underworld. The black hole glyphic designation is associated with the mouth and has affinity with ballcourts and “entrance to the Underworld”. The fact that astrophysicists are now saying that a Black Hole exists at the center of our Galaxy obviously cues the Mayans’ knowledge of cosmogenesis occurring at the black hole. Mayan concepts of the black hole involve entities descending along sky conduit“ serpent ropes”, bringing otherworldly knowledge from portals to other realms. In Mesoamerican ideas the cosmogenesis takes place via a kind of weaving process of threadlike netting. In other words, spacetime itself is woven together into a tapestry of interwoven dimensions of reality. The prophecy for the time before 2012 was that the [fallen] star demons, the Tzitzimime, would descend to earth along these serpent ropes and devour the few humans who survive the coming catastrophes. The name “Tzitzimime” means ‘monsters descending from above” and were depicted as skeletal creatures adorned with human hands, heart, and sometimes with a rattlesnake penis. As this dream is being interpreted as corresponded prophecy, the catastrophes building up to the eschaton should be primarily considered as occurring in the human mind. The purple ball may be a reference to the ballcourt ritual that takes place in the Underworld (collective unconscious). The ballcourt game is won by passing the ball into the hoop, otherwise known as the black hole. Black holes suck in known information and radiate new “otherworldy knowledge”. The canopy jungle-like appearance is notably interesting because the Mayans lived in a jungle. The beekeeper is the tender to the bees, the hive being the collective unconscious and the bees being the coagulates of unconscious energy. These Tzitzimime (and others) are emerging from the jungle hive and the beekeeper intends to stop this. I believe these skeletal demons are consuming humanity’s shit before the return of Quetzalcoatl. As our spacetime in the larval womb ends- the shells of ourselves fall away as the Tzitzimime feast on our shed skins. When we emerge, Quetzalcoatl returns. The Feathered Serpent corresponds to the kundalini, the starfire serpent, the energy of consciousness that lies coiled unconscious at the base of the spine. As this entity-energy ascends, all the blockages are shed and dissclved as we are purified in the clear light of lucidity. December 21, 2012 is the symbolic birthdate of our emergence past the birth-portal of the “hole in the sky”. The state of being in the new aeon of the ‘Sixth Sun’ is inside the outside of the womb of history. We are one, we are Quetzalcoatl. The next 6.66 (the number of the Sun) years will be those of ifinitely accelerated purification by fire, the rivers overrun as the world is flooded by the emergent ocean of the collective unconscious. These times may be terrifying as the Tezcatilpoca of ourselves has his last expression before being resolved, but this passes, as what is behind… unimaginably eschatic love-bliss, is revealed. What we have been creating all along are ourselves, and the gold of this alchemy is who we will be…are…