We pick up this thread from part 3 where our young ‘nowhere boy’ was waken from a dream of the little people – the Alux. He had gone wandering into the ruins of his ancestors in the ancient parts Izapa. As dawn was edging closer, the energy started picking up on Dec 21, 165 BCE.

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When I arrive the people are already hard at work preparing the area, the dress and the potions for me to take. The location was planned in great detail before this night. A new stone throne has been carved. It faces the red direction (east), looking at the Holy Mountains. To the throne’s back (west) is the direction of black, and the sacred pyramid of fertility. People from far and wide bring their seeds to this sacred pyramid to increase fertility. This is a great resource for my people. This is the resource that will stand behind me. There are seats for six of the high priest shamans who will act as my guides. To the direction of white (north) stands the great zenith ‘stelae’, the one that shows the directions and produces the shadows which define our 260 day sacred Tzolkin calendar.  To the yellow direction (south) there is open space to give fuel for my journey.

The shaman priests dress me in the clothes, headdress of quetzal feathers, covering me in precious jade and other ornaments. On my journey to find our first father, our beginning, I need to be adorned in the riches of my people.

The air is deafeningly full of the sounds of chanting. Thick clouds of copal smoke billow out of the incense burners. I begin to feel the pull of my journey with, my fear behind me. The power of the ancestors is supporting me. I am full of strength and wonder. I am ready for my quest.

The high priest comes forward offering me the first elixir, the elixir of the sacred mushroom. The ancestors have used this mushroom as a journey potion to thin the veil between worlds since time beyond memory. The sacred mushroom was the first resident of these lands. It was here long before the two legged, four legged, winged, slithering, or plant people. It comes from the truly ancient ones. It is said to not be of this world. My ancestors have created many stelaes, altars and monuments honoring this sacred mushroom that has been a useful guide to see into the other worlds and provide insights into life in this world.

I feel the strength of the elixir almost immediately, first the taste, then a tingling sensation on my skin and shadows in my peripheral vision. The shadows take shape, dancing into magnificent colours; keeping time with the chanting

It is not yet time to focus on my goal. I am anxious to get started, but I know it is too early for the journey to begin. I patiently wait as times slows like turtles for the priest to give me the next elixir. Soon I will soar through the stars and be free with the wind, but for now I must hold myself here and wait until the time is right.

Finally, the second elixir is offered; the elixir of smoke element. It is made from burning the secretions harvested from the glands on the back of a sacred frog. My ancestors have build monuments and stelaes to this frog as well. I am told that this is one of the first creatures that came from the mother ocean onto solid land. The frog lives part of its life cycle in water and part on land. It is strong medicine that allows movement through the levels of reality; the same medicine that allowed its ancestors to move from ocean to land.

I smoke the elixir. The smoke gives me wings that lift me out of my solid body into my more subtle form. In subtle form I can journey to other realms. As I smoke this bitter substance I focus on my goal: the dark mouth of the great night serpent of Xibalba be, Hunab Ku. The way to the dark road to the first father gods. The way to the dark bulge in the milky star field in front of me.

I breathe the smoke deeply into my lungs four times. I am aware of the small voice of the Alux: “Don’t forget us. We will help as this is our realm too.”

I focus intently on Xibalba be; the mouth of the great milky serpent in the night sky. I see and almost more feel a slow spiraling tunnel open up in front of me. I am traveling along this tunnel experiencing its richness of colors and shapes. It feels as if a great snake has swallowed me and I am travelling through it at enormous speeds, to where I don’t know.  I feel strangely safe. The colours are wonderful; awe inspiring; filling me with joy.  The colors begin to take shape and for the first time I see that there are figures in the colours.

The first scene I see is of First God Father, One Hunahpu. One Hunahpu is the Lord of the earthly realm. It appears he is playing his favorite game, the ball game. In this game a large solid, very hard rubber ball is bounced on the ground, against a wall and eventually through a large circular vertical hoop high on the wall.  The game is played without using hands; only padded hips, elbows and shins are allowed to touch the ball.

One Hunahpu is playing with another Lord, Seven Hunahpu, but they are just practicing, as they have no opponents. In the next scene, I see the dark lords of the underworld (Xibalba) ask them for a challenge on their home court of Xibalba. These dark lords are not above trickery and continuously cheat in the game against first father. As the scenes roll themselves out, the inevitable happens and One Hunahpu loses the game due to the under lords cheating. This results in the under lords severing One Hunahpu’s head and then hanging it in a calabash tree.

A god such as One Hunahpu cannot be killed, so his head was still alive hanging from the tree, when one of the dark lord daughters, X’quic (Blood Moon) came along intrigued by the head in a tree. She started up a conversation with One Hunahpu’s head. When she moves in close enough, One Hunahpu spit into her hand, magically impregnating her. When the dark lords realize that she is pregnant to an unknown father, they banish her to the surface of the earth, where she gives birth to twins. The Hero Twins; Hunahpu and Xbalanque.

As the Hero Twins grow up on earth, they learn that their true father is One Hunahpu. Their father is the true Lord of the earthly realm. But as they grow, they realize that the ruling lord, Seven Macaw is a false lord, stealing their father’s position in his absence. I see that Seven Macaw is a very arrogant lord; one of self-indulgences and strong ego. His vanity knows no limits. He adorns himself with rare feathers and precious metals at the expense of his people.

When the Hero Twins are of age, I see them sneak into the underworld through the great rift Xibalba be. They go there to challenge the under lord to a ball game, to revenge their father’s beheading. Being partly from the underworld, from their mother’s side, the Hero Twins also knew about trickery. Unknown to the under lords, I see the Hero Twins, with the help of the Alux nature spirits, replace the game ball with their father’s head. At the finale of the game, the passing of the ball (really One Hunahpu’s head) through the goal ring, One Hunahpu regains full consciousness with the joining of his body — his head and heart are together again.

I see that this new ‘incarnation’ of One Hunahpu is a more enlightened incarnation of the feathered serpent Kukulcan (Quetzalcoatl), firing all seven energy levels at once and obtaining a profound level of cosmic consciousness.

Next I see the Hero twins escape to the upper world, tricking Seven Macaw into defacing himself.  They convince him that a cob of corn is sacred and will give him much power. In truth it was a cob made of rocks. The rocks broke Seven Macaw’s teeth, which eventually rotted and fell out. Without teeth, Seven Macaw began to starve and was forced to release his power.

I then see their true father, One Hunahpu return to the earth realm in the form of the feathered serpent (Kukulcan), a much more enlightened state to rule the realm in an age of enlightenment.

* * *

I feel myself breathe deeply and suddenly I am back in my body; back in Izapa , on the throne. Incense still hangs in the air and chanting overwhelms my ears. I have had my journey, my vision. It will take days of interpreting and refining for the high priests to understand its meaning. They will take their own journeys to fill in the details. My role is finished except to tell the high priests the fragmented bits of vision or Lucid dreams that I saw on the journey. I tell them in as much detail as I can remember. Then I collapse in exhaustion.

The time has come to announce my new name.  For a moment I feel afraid and then surprise and finally honor. My new name is One Ahau, (first light lord). I exist again. I have a name. I am the top Shaman King of the people. The supreme ruler of this era: One Ahau!

* * *

The next day I have my first discussion with high priest shamans.  They treated me differently. I am not a boy anymore. I am now their ruler. They call me “Oh Great One Ahau.”

They first asked me how I felt. I told them I felt quite good, but was a bit concerned that I never achieved my primary goal: to discover where and when we came from. I failed to discover the bigger cycle that our sacred Tzolkin cycle and K’atun are nested in.

I saw them looking at each other with a big smiles and they said, “Oh Great One Ahau, but you did show us that. You gave us the seed information; now with work and close observation on our part, we will be able to calculate this bigger cycle. You showed us where to look and the understanding of the content of the era. This is a very important cycle; it is the cycle of our evolution of the spirit. This is the era of controlling of the seven levels of power.”

You have given us the starting point for our calculations. During the ceremony of your vision markers were driven into the ground to record where the celestial gods were in the sky.  As you have already learned in your studies, some of the bright gods that do not twinkle, keeping their light solid, move through the celestial sky at a much faster speed, changing position every few days to months. The less intense gods, the ones that twinkle, also move, as you know, around the celestial god of our deep ancestors. As you might remember, Oh Great One Ahau, all of the stars also move in a much bigger cycle. We have records of this going back almost 2000 sun cycles (Haab) in this location. It appears Oh Great One Ahau that you might have shown us the center of this existence. By close observation over the next many years and comparing it to these already existing 1000s of years of our ancestors observation, we will be able to calculate when first father One Hunahpu started the cycle and more importantly when the great cycle will come to his evolution into a more enlighten Being. This return of him to our earthly realm will be of great importance to our descendants for it will be a time of enlightenment for our people.

“It is our humble role to record this information, Oh Great One Ahau. Hopefully we will be able to be born again and again to be present when this great time of enlightenment returns to this land.”

To be continued . . .