Maya Journeys
Maya Journeys
An Imagined Past in the Yucatán
In his book The Maya Cosmos, David Freidel writes, “The ruins of Chich’en Itza are not the Chich’en Itza conceptualized by the ancient Maya. This city has become a part of our contemporary experience. Because we modern pilgrims are ignorant of the intentions of the original builders, we impress our own meanings and aesthetic values on the Maya monuments, just as we always do when we contemplate masterworks of art from other cultures and other times.”
Gallery
The ancient Maya were born from a journey. Travel between worlds is the history of Maya inscriptions and architecture. It is also the theme of the ‘Popul Vuh,’ a story written in the sixteenth century that traces the lives of the Hero Twins. From the underworld, through the Earth and across the heavens, the Hero Twins and other deities journeyed. Shamans, beginning with one called Plumed Serpent, transform themselves enabling them to pass from one world into another and back home again. Within the context of architecture, the journeys are expressed through hieroglyphic inscriptions, ballcourts, cosmological alignments, rituals and the landscape itself.
Field Notes
My own journeys since 2008 have taken me though much of the Maya world, with more to see. While my travels have taken me around the world to destinations and lands with deep and long-lasting traditions, it is on the Yucatán peninsula where I have had some of my most profound experiences. Notable among these are the sleepful nights dominated by vivid and powerful dreams. With each visit to this part of Mexico, my dreaming continues. As described in my journals, over several nights these reveries pick up from where they left off the night before, eventually forming a narrative. The journeys in this Maya world are more than metaphor; they are real.