Robert Sitler - The Living Maya: Ancient Wisdom in the Era of 2012

Robert Sitler, anguished by our destruction of the environment and civil life, opens The Living Maya with an analysis of the prophecies and predictions around 2012. The very people, who had the astronomical genius to base a calendar on the coming alignment in the rift of the Milky Way, transmit through their way of life, the seeds for our desperately needed personal and cultural transformation. Sitler documents the values and relationships that sustain the Maya and that can sustain us. We walk the road with him so we also might live in vital relationship with the earth, be in true and vibrant community with each other, birth and raise skillful and wise children, and be guided again by the great hearts of the spirits.

D EENA M ETZGER , author of Writing for Your Life; Ruin and Beauty: New and Selected Poems; Tree: Essays and Pieces; and Entering the Ghost River: Meditations on the Theory and Practice of Healing

This lucid book by a long-time scholar of the Mayan people provides the reader with a rich cultural context against which to weigh the deeper significance of the 2012 phenomenon. Robert Sitlers approach is balanced, informed, heartfelt, and profoundly respectful of the wisdom of Mayan traditions.

P HILLIP L UCAS , P H D, founding editor of Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions; professor of religious studies, Stetson University, DeLand, Florida; and author of New Religious Movements in the Twenty-First Century: Legal, Political, and Social Challenges in Global Perspective

This extraordinary narrative, told by a scholar with many years of experience among the Mayan people, is a path of heart into their worlds, both ancient and modern. At a time when the global New Age and academic communities are stalemated in disagreement over what significance lies in the upcoming December 21, 2012 date, this book steps gently and boldly into that radical middle ground and informs us of the living Mayas message to us. Anyone who acknowledges that our crumbling family cohesiveness and fast-paced urban lifestyles are toxic and alienating should pay attention to this message. It doesnt come from other planets or galaxies, or from some other dimension, nor even from some esoteric mysteries that the ancient priests possessed. It arises from the Maya who have hadin spite of conquest and oppressionmany generations of connectedness to their land and their sacred shrines. It arises from their ritual observances, their daily rounds which honor the ancestors, the newborn babies and the family, the rains and winds, and the newly-planted seeds. It is another universe of human potential, but one which, if we pay attention, helps us to listen to our own heartbeat.

B ARBARA M AC L EOD , P H D, independent scholar and author of An Epigraphers Annotated Index to Cholan and Yucatecan Verb Morphology

The Living Maya is a remarkable exploration of the significance of 2012 that is both introspective and open-minded, by a scholar who has, unlike most authors on the subject, spent considerable time among the modern Maya. The book describes the profoundly practical worldview of the Maya, which has enabled them to survive war and catastrophe and may contain the wisdom we need to survive as a species.

M ATTHEW L OOPER , P H D, professor of art, California State University, Chico

Copyright 2010 by Robert K. Sitler. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Published by North Atlantic Books
P.O. Box 12327
Berkeley, California 94712

Cover art Veneracin al dios del maz by Mario Gonzalez Chavajay, 2008
Cover design by Susan Quasha

The Living Maya: Ancient Wisdom in the Era of 2012 is sponsored by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences, a nonprofit educational corporation whose goals are to develop an educational and cross-cultural perspective linking various scientific, social, and artistic fields; to nurture a holistic view of arts, sciences, humanities, and healing; and to publish and distribute literature on the relationship of mind, body, and nature.

North Atlantic Books publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com or call 800-733-3000.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sitler, Robert, 1955
The living Maya: ancient wisdom in the era of 2012 / Robert Sitler.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
eISBN: 978-1-58394-575-9
1. MayasSocial life and customs. 2. Maya philosophy. 3. Social values. 4. Wisdom. 5. Two thousand twelve, A.D. 6. Social problems. 7. Civilization, Modern21st century. 8. Sitler, Robert, 1955. 9. TravelCentral America.
I. Title.
F14353.S7S58 2010
305.89742dc22
2010000619

v3.1

To my beloved June,
Goddess manifest

Chhonta chey.Mal tyox. Kaknamal. Ku bootik. Wokolawal. Yuh wal dyos. Kolaval. Wokolix awalo. Ban tyox. Dyos bootik.

I offer my thanks in just a few of your more than two dozen languages. Numerous kindhearted souls among you and your remarkably diverse cultural traditions have inspired my life. Even so, I have no ability nor inclination to speak on your behalf. This book attempts to convey what are merely my own reflections on time spent in your communities and inevitably reveals far more about me than it tells about your world. I ask your pardon in advance for shortcomings in my perceptual capacities. Like the first true human beings modeled from corn dough by the primordial spirits in the holy Popol Vuh, I see through eyes deliberately and mercifully clouded by our creators.

W e begin with the premise that the human species living in different parts of planet Earth is all one. Everything that occurs on this ship that were traveling upon through space and time concerns us all. The destiny of our beautiful and privileged planet, home to more than six billion human beings, is unknown to us. Thus far, to our limited knowledge, it is the only space in the universe where the necessary conditions exist for life. The human being and other living creatures enter into the cyclical process of birth, growth, reproduction, and deathtransformation as a natural law of existence. Thats probably also the case for stars and our Earth since they someday too will cease to exist.

The differences between human beings lie in their cultural expressions; in terms of biology, all humans are similar with only small variations. But those cultural differenceswhich can be summarized as forms of conceiving, processing, and communicating the world and lifeexercise great influence on human actions. Many times large conflicts between one group and another arise due to these differences.