Chichen Itza

On our second day vacationing in Cancun we took a two and a half hour tour bus ride to Chichen Itza.

Chichen Itza is the most visited archealogical site in the peninsula of Yucatan, due to its extraordinary architechural beauty and geogragphical location. The priest Lakin Chan, who was also called Itzamna, founded Chichen Itza in 514 A.D. When the Spaniards arrived, it had already been abandoned as a consequence of the civil war fought with Mayapan. The final collapse of the Mayan culture took place in the north of the peninsula between 1196 and 1441.

The Spanish conquerors found the buildings of Chichen Itza partially in ruins and their names and real use were unknown, which is why their present names are suppositions. The Spanish further erased the memory of the Mayan people and consequently, any possibility of a genuinely comprehensive present-day knowledge of this once flourishing civilization by destroying written records and artifacts and actively suppressing the culture in the name of Christianity. (However, one must also reflect upon the barbarity of the age.)

Our tour guide explained to us that only three or four of the Mayan written texts exist today. These texts, the majority of which have been removed from Mexico, give the World some insight into the Mayan culture, language, science, and when coupled with the archaelogical evidence found at Chichen Itza, serve to further reveal their profound knowledge of mathematics, geography, and astronomy. The Mayan callendar has just one error in ten thousand years! The Mayan's believed this to be the fourth epoch of Man, with their present callendar and this epoch ending translated to our callendrical reckoning in December of 2012.

The Castillo or The Pyramid of Kukulcan

…When we arrived at Chichen Itza there were already thousands of visitors, on every day thousands come to this magnificent site. However, the most two most celebrated days of the year are the spring and fall equinox.

I will try to briefly explain what occurs on the spring and fall equinox. The Mayan's had 400 gods, one of which was the invisible god of the wind (the name of this god escapes me at the moment). However, on two days of the year, the spring and fall equinox, this god may be seen to this very day as the sun sets on the main pyramid, now known as The Castillo or The Pyramid of Kukulcan. The shadow of the sun plays against the structure of the pyramid onto one of the four staircases, and appears as a snake winding it's way (in the way that the wind itself may be imagined to wind it's way across the earth) down to the base of the pyramid. Consider the profound knowledge of astronomy, geography, and mathematics artistically incorporated into one of the World's greatest archaelogical treasures! For the pyramid is perfectly alligned to the four points of the compass. There are four sets of stairs, each with 91 steps plus a final step shared by the four sets of stairs; The four sets of stairs plus the final step equal 365, representing the solar callendar! It is for this reason that this pyramid, The Castillo or The Pyramid of Kukulcan is the Greatest Pyramid in Mexico.

I'm afraid that my words do not do justice to Chichen Itza. And now, I will prove it. Have you ever been to Houson, Texas? You know how hot and humid it is there? Well, at Chichen Itza, it's worse. You begin to perspire the moment the tour bus shuts down its air conditioning. Steppping off the bus is like setting foot into a gigantic sauna…within minutes you're …forget about it. For three hours you trek about this enormous archaelogical site. After following the tour guide for an hour and a half, you then have an hour and a half to explore the site on your own. In this time, everyone climbs the 91 plus one step to the top of The Castillo. The steps are narrow and steep. Is there some phrase; the path to heaven is narrow and steep? I don't know. The ascent appears easy enough from the bottom, even as you watch hundreds before you awkwardy climbing slowly and cautiously in a sideways fashion. You begin, only concentrating on each step before you. Before long you become a little winded and perhaps take a pause, looking down, the perspective is dizzying, appearing to be nearly straight down and the height greater than you had thought, and looking up, you realize that you are barely half way to the top. You think twice, nevertheless continue your slow and redoubled cautious ascent.

At the top, I'm winded. There is no railing and the walkway surrounding the structure at the top is maybe four feet wide. From here it appears that should you lose balance and fall over the side, you would fall straight down and worse, should you fall upon the stairs, you would bounce all the way down to the bottom. I immediately sit down with my back to the wall, waiting to catch my breath and regain my balance. After a few minutes, sitting and staring out over the site, I finally stand up and begin to walk around the structure, keeping one hand to the wall and maintaining my space from the other explorers, the more adventurous, or those unaflicted by heights walk about freely, their feet mere inches from the apparent sheer drop. The safest place is looking out from the structure.

It is here that I close my eyes and try to capture the moment. I let it all sink in, the magnificence of the pyramid, the culture that built it, what it means in my life to touch it. And what do you think pops into my mind at this moment? I'll tell you now, for simplicities sake; "Choosy moms choose Jif."

What in the hell is wrong with me? Choosy moms choose Jif? What's that? So much for epiphanies.

View of The Temple of The Warriors from atop The Castillo

Well, I'll chalk it up to Graphism, and Fat's having explained to me what "Wakka Chikka" really means. I knew at this moment that I was no ordinary man…er, I mean, that I would have to write to the Graphites about my experience at Chichen Itza…that I must find some meaning … some meaning in "Choosy moms choose Jif." Some justification for our oft-presumed modern day superiority. You could take any inane jingle that gets stuck in your head…or the hours you fritter away playing video games, writing emails, reading the back of a cereal box, sitting in a stupor in front of the television…And contrast it to these people who seemed on the one hand so simple and on the other capable of this magnificient creation of art, science, culture, religion, mathematics, architecture, astronomy…Makes me feel like popping pop corn for the Academy Awards…Jesus Christ…Just knowing that the finest moms are choosing Jif…while the Cosmos goes on spinning without a care whether we come or go… chaos or order? One plays against the other… We too are simpletons and geniuses in our own right…from splitting the atom, inventing the microchip and the rockets that carry the satellites that deliever our television and inane sitcoms and commercials.

And now, one must descend the pyramid…Falling off would be the quickest route, hardly the easiest…taking the stairs is safer…

Existence is an endless karmic round. There is little logic in religion and seeking it in science is folly. Sometimes the wind is just the wind, and still, at another you might for a moment capture the divine. Ascension and descension…Chaos and order…all this is symbolized in The Castillo. I think. Or are we just ants doing that which comes natural?

Relax said the night man
We are programmed to receive
You can check out any time you like
But, you can never leave…

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