This is the fourth in a series of short stories written by Mayan Ajq'ij (spiritual guide) Lina Barrios from Guatemala. These stories are meant to share the knowledge and wisdom of the Mayan peoples with the world.

B'alam was pretty excited to go with his grandfather to the mountain. They left very early in the morning, to the Sacred Mountain of Alux, to pick some Tz'ite'. These are the red beans used to communicate with Chuchqajaw (Mother and Father of the Universe). B'alam went to bed early so that he would wakeup as soon as his grandfather called him.

"B'alam, B'alam," his grandfather's soft voice called still in the darkness of the early hours.
"Coming grandpa," B'alam answered.

He dressed quickly and went with his grandfather to the family altar to ask for permission and blessings for the day's activities. Tthey asked specially to find many Tz'ite' seeds.  

The Wayeb

This is the third in a series of short stories written by Mayan Ajq'ij (spiritual guide) Lina Barrios from Guatemala. These stories are meant to share the knowledge and wisdom of the Mayan peoples with the world. This story relates to the 5 day month known as the Wayeb, which occurs from 2/17 through 2/21 2012 on the Gregorian Calendar.

For 5,000 years the Maya have simultaneously used 20 different calendars for various purposes: agricultural, sacred, and predictions, amongst others.

The Hab’ is one of these Maya calendars. It has 18 months of 20 days each, plus a small month of 5 days, totaling 365 days. The Hab’ is the most accurate calendar of the ancient world. According to the most sophisticated computers, the length of a year is 365.2422 days and the calculations of the Maya are at 365.2420 days.

One of the most relevant things about the Hab’ are the 5 days prior to the New Year. This time is used to purify several aspects of one’s self, in order to receive the coming year with good energy. During these days people clean their homes, giving away the things that are no longer useful to them but might be useful to someone else. They paint their house, fast to eliminate accumulated toxins, and meditate and reflect on the offenses they have done to others, for which they apologize. They bathe in thermal springs or saunas to purify their bodies, practice sexual abstinence, and reflect upon whether or not they have fulfilled their goals - and why or why not. They doing a cleansing and seeking for balance in the four levels:

• Material: by cleaning their body and their home
• Spiritual: by cleaning their spirit
• Emotional: by cleaning envies and bad feelings in their heart
• Intellectual: by cleaning the bad thoughts of their mind

This is the second in a series of short stories written by Mayan Ajq'ij (spiritual guide) Lina Barrios from Guatemala. These stories are meant to share the knowledge and wisdom of the Mayan peoples with the world.

Ixkotzij (flower woman) and her sister went with their mother to visit their grandfather, Kawoq.  They visited him every 13 days, since he lived far away.  The two sisters were very excited to see him.  He was often smiling, as he liked to tease them, and he always answered all the questions the girls asked, even the most difficult ones. From moment they left the house, Ixkotzij began thinking of a difficult question to ask her grandfather. He taught them no to be content with an "I don't know, just because, who knows"; or that type of answer. He said everything had a reason and they were entitled to know it.

Grandfather Kawoq had gray hair, which he was starting to lose.  When you came into his house you could listen to an old radio playing marimba music. While Ixkotzij's mother and sister where preparing food in the kitchen, she asked her grandfather the question she had planned for this visit.  "Grandpa, why are people in the city saying that the world will end in 2012? What are all those Maya prophecies about? And how come you never told me anything about it? I think that is not fair, you never warned us."

As many of you know, we have been unable to travel to continue our work with the communities in the Guatemalan highlands these last few years. This has meant that we have not been able to continue our program that brought calendars to the US and made them available for purchase as a way to support those communities. We are overjoyed that our longtime friend, Denise Barrios, has published a 2012 calendar in dayplanner format that is available for purchase at online stores. In addition, Denise has made available wall calendars with beautiful imagery and stories about Maximon (Spanish Only). Click "read more" below for details and be sure to order! We can vouch that the information is top quality and authentic of the Mayan tradition.

Dear friends! We are pleased to announce that the 2012 San Simón Wall Calendar in now for sale! The San Simón wall calendar is beautifully illustrated with full color photographs of over 12 different altars in his honor and representations. Each photograph has a sidebar with a text such as a prayer, poem, a ritual and other information of interest to San Simón followers (text in Spanish only). In addition, each day of the year details the special celebrations and keeps count of the Nawals and the Energetic Powers of each day as recorded by the Cholq'ij Sacred Maya Calendar. Retail and wholesale. Ask us: info@mystic-maya.com

"THE ENERGIES OF THE DAY - 2012," and its Spanish version "LAS ENERG�AS DEL D�A - 2012"
Aside from the 366 daily predictions based on the Sacred Maya Calendar —the journal's centerpiece— THE ENERGIES OF THE DAY 2012 contains the chapter "2012: The Door to Transition - What it Means and How to Prepare for this Prophetic Year," which offers an explanation and a series of exercises that will help the reader lay the groundwork for this spiritually inspiring event.

This is the first in a series of short stories written by Mayan Ajq'ij (spiritual guide) Lina Barrios from Guatemala.  These stories are meant to share the knowledge and wisdom of the Mayan peoples with the world.

In order to keep the long-standing tradition, Ixkab' (woman of honey) finishes the third and final cloth used to make a huipil (blouse) for her youngest daughter. Her heart is joyful, she has woven all the necessary cloths to make her husband's, daughter's and her own clothing. Early in the morning she will give her beloved husband all the cloths so he can begin putting them together to maintain the complement of energies. He will sit in their house, at the corridor, for 20 days with a basket full of threads to sew the huipiles, cortes (skirts), trousers and shirts, and he will have them ready before the Hab' (the New Year) so that the whole family will wear new clothes.    

He has enough time, as it is still 25 days to the Hab'. He will sew for 20 days, until the start of the month prior to the New Year, known as the Tz'apil.  The Tz'apil is a month of only five days, which are used for purification in order to begin the New Year with a clean body, spirit, heart and mind – as well as with new clothes.

NOTE: SAQ' BE' IS NOT CURRENTLY DISTRIBUTING CHOLQ'IJ CALENDARS. THIS ARTICLE IS HERE FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY.

As many of you know, every year Saq' Be' travels to the community in Chichicastenango, Guatemala to pick up the traditional Mayan Cholq'ij calendars they produce. We return with them and make them available for sale, returning the profits to the community to support their continued efforts to keep the traditional ways alive. Unfortunately, we do not know when we will be able to return this year and are thus uncertain as to when the 2005 calendars will become available. As a way of compensating for our lack of hard copy calendars, we are making available the same Cholq'ij/ Gregorian overlay on our website, which can be viewed on the front page. We have also made available information on the meaning of the Nawales (glyphs) and numbers presented. Click "read more" to view additional infromation on this calendar. We ask you to please consider supporting Saq' Be', a nonprofit organization, by making a tax-exempt donation to assist with our continued efforts for the rescue, preservation and appropriate sharing of these living ancient peoples, traditions and cultures.

By Saq' Be'

For so many of those reading this, the lands of Latin America may seem like a distant place and the Amazon basin like a remote exotic location that bears little relevance to our everyday lives. The reality is this region holds great relevance to all of our lives, on both the physical level as well as a symbolic and spiritual one. The Kichwa community of Sarayacu, located in the central Amazon Basin in Ecuador, find themselves on the front lines in the struggle for preserving a natural and traditional way of life in the face of the continued drive to conquer Nature in the name of profit and greed. Sarayacu is a strong community, and one that survives to this day in part because of the citizens of the world who recognize they share an intricate connection with the people and have raised their voices to holdup the actions of petrol companies that would see the forest leveled and the people destroyed in the name of oil. Yet, unless the eyes of the world continue to carefully watch the unfolding of events in this region, and the stream of letters, emails and phone calls continue to flow to let governments and companies know who is watching, this place of life and magic can cease to exist.