By guest blogger, Emily K. Grieves
One of the most important days of the year is approaching here in Teotihuacan – Spring Equinox. This day more than any other has always been celebrated in the pyramids as a high holy day, a day when the planet comes into balance between seasons. More than anything, it celebrates the moment when there is balance in the ever-present duality that exists in this physical reality. It celebrates two opposites, dark and light, being in harmony and finding union for a moment. At noon on March 21 every year (even if the actual astronomical event happens to fall on another day, like on the 20th this year), tens of thousands of people dressed in white gather here for ceremony. Hundreds of Aztec dancers with giant headdresses of pheasant feathers twirl and stomp to the deep resonant rhythm of massive huehuetl drums. It is said that at high noon, a long line of shadow on the 4th level of the Sun Pyramid is erased from one second to the next as the sun crests the apex of the pyramid. In that moment, the thousands raise their arms to salute the sun, to drink in the energy streaming down its rays of light, and to reflect on this disappearing shadow, to be bathed in light.
Of course, most people have no idea what they’re really doing. They come because it’s what you do, go to Teotihuacan on March 21st. Many young people come out from Mexico City with their bed roll and a six pack, and spend the day stumbling from party to port-a-potty, as if it were all just an excuse to go crazy. They wake up in the weeds around the periphery road on March 22 wondering what it was all about. In past years, back when millions would turn out for the event, back when it was free of charge, there used to be permission to enter the archeological zone the night before and sleep up on the pyramids. This inevitably led to all-night parties up there, loud music blasting from portable stereos, lots of drinking and weed-smoking. I can only imagine what the gods thought about it, but the INAH Archeological Institute certainly couldn’t tolerate it anymore, so they’ve gone the route of extreme restrictions now. Now they close off the whole periphery road, kick out all the vendors, allow access only through certain points of entry, charge extra for tickets, close the plazas along the Avenue of the Dead and seal off all the smaller temples. They do it to prevent damage to the ancient sacred sites by the drunken multitude. They run a little bridge over the top of the Pyramid of the Sun so that you can’t walk on it directly or stop for longer than a second. Of course you can’t get up there anyway because there is a long line snaking all the way to the front gate to try to climb up it. So you may as well find a place on the ground to take it all in, and listen to the silence beneath all those voices. The beating of the drums can take you down through layers of reality to the place where Teotihuacan is always silent, still, and alive. One of the greatest lessons for me about going into the pyramids on March 21 is to learn how to tune out apparent distraction, and tune into those deeper layers, to hear the sound of perfect pristine stillness that always hums beneath it all. Balance always exists beneath the seeming noise and chaos. Union always exists beneath the seeming duality.
I began to investigate why exactly Spring Equinox is so important in Teotihuacan, because nobody really knows when you ask them. They just come because it’s what you do, to raise your arms up to receive the energy of the sun which maybe shines a little brighter that day. Well, when I googled “Teotihuacan Equinox” and started to dig around in a number of sites geared toward “archeoastronomy,” I must have opened Quetzalcoatl’s box of secrets or something. I emerged hours later with my brain addled by physics, geometry, astronomy, astrology, ancient myths, mathematical figures, and esoteric debates. I can barely process the information, let alone communicate it, but I think, in a nutshell, the spring (vernal) equinox is so important because at distinct important points in the precession of Equinoxes (26,000 year periods) the layout of the city of Teotihuacan aligns perfectly with the center axis of the Milky Way on precisely the vernal equinox. The name of the Avenue of the Dead (the principle south-north axis of the city) makes sense when you think about the belief of many ancient cultures that the souls of the dead went through a gateway in the Milky Way, with which the Avenue lines up perfectly. And on these magical points of alignment with constellations, a constellation like the head of a king rises to the point of the axis with an eagle constellation on one end and a serpent constellation on the other – which sounds like Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, grand deity of Teotihuacan, representing heaven on earth, the king promising to return one day like a Messiah of Christ Consciousness … And on Dec. 21, 2012, the whole thing aligns with the Pleiades … Goodness graciousness. Did you understand that? The ancients knew so much that we can’t even begin to grasp.
I know nothing really about astronomy, astrology, archeology, etc. I’m, in essence, your average artist/corporate paper-pusher/healer turned housewife/mother who finds herself somehow magically located in this place at this time. Coincidence or divine choreography? Who knows. Maybe I’m here so I can ascend to the Pleiades on Dec. 21, 2012. Or maybe I’m here so that on that day I can have a nice cup of tea and glance out of my window at flocks of people crawling all over the pyramid of the Sun. Even as I write this, and cram details about the pyramids being a giant pelota ballgame court reflecting movements of stars and heavenly bodies into my head, my child is whining at me to cook him a “perro caliente” hotdog, and oops, ketchup dripped on the couch. Duality, much? And that is what spring equinox is about, that zero point, that place on the swing when the pendulum comes to center. So whether we can wrap our currently-low-capacity brains around the cogs of the universe as reflected on the Earth by our ancestors doesn’t matter so much on this spring equinox. What matters is that we stop for a minute to feel balance, to feel that duality does meet in the middle, light and dark do merge. Maybe we raise our arms to the sun, the source of energy for our planet, or maybe we don’t. But we know the sun is there because we can’t help but feel its warmth on our faces, or to notice how it makes our crops grow, or to notice that after this moment, days grow longer and warmer, and there is always a return of the light after a long dark winter.
Can you find ways to honor balance in your life? You can spend a simple moment of reflection or create an elaborate ceremony. Do you connect to the movements of the sun and other heavenly bodies? How and why?
Emily K. Grieves is an artist and healer dedicated to helping people find connections to the sacred in their lives. She explores symbolism, mythology, and ritual in her artwork, drawing inspiration from the celebrations and mysteries of Life. She has also dedicated herself to the healing arts as a practitioner of shamanism and hands-on healing energy work for over 10 years. She lives with her family in Teotihuacan, Mexico, where she has painted murals in the Dreaming House, and where she helps lead groups into the transformative energies of the pyramids. To learn more, visit www.livingwithpyramids.blogspot.com and www.thedreaminghousemx.com.
