Transcendent Wisdom of the Maya – The Ceremonies and Symbolism of a Living Tradition
By GABRIELA JUROSZ-LANDA
Foreword by José Luis Tigüilá NABÉ kaxbaltzij, Mayan Spokesperson
“Transcendent Wisdom of the Maya bridges the Western scientific worldview and the spiritual world of Maya brilliantly …. This is a heartfelt and genuine story of Maya life, a must-read for understanding their time cycles and culture”
Barbara Hand Clow, author of The Mayan Code and Awakening the Planetary Mind
An initiate’s inside account of ancient Mayan spiritual practices alive today
• Details the initiation process the author went through to become a Mayan shaman priestess, including rituals, prayers, and ceremonies
• Explains the foundational spiritual wisdom of the Mayan calendar as a living entity,
its cycles of time, and the significance of “the counting of the days”, which helps
keep time itself alive
• Examines the power of dance and Mayan ceremonies, Mayan future-telling, and
communication with ancestors through the sacred fire
Offering an insider’s experiential account of ancient Maya spiritual wisdom and practices, initiated Mayan shaman-priestess Gabriela Jurosz-Landa opens up the mysterious world of the Maya, dispelling the rampant misinformation about their beliefs and traditions, sharing the transcendent beauty of their ceremonies, and explaining the Maya understanding of time, foundational to their spiritual worldview and cosmology.
The author, an anthropologist, details the initiation process she went through to become a Mayan shaman-priestess in Guatemala, including rituals, prayers, the presence of numinous forces, and the transmission of sacred knowledge. She explains the spiritual wisdom of the Mayan calendar as a living entity, its cycles of time, and the significance of “the counting of the days”, which helps keep time itself alive. She examines Maya spiritual and cosmological concepts such how the universe is shaped like a triangle over a square. She reveals the profound power of dance in Maya tradition, explaining how ritual dance halts the flow of time, reactivates primordial events, and captures vital energies that keep the Maya spiritual tradition vital and alive. Exploring other Mayan secret knowledge, she also details Maya ritual attire, Mayan future-telling with the calendar, the reading of the Tzi’te beans, and how the Maya communicate with ancestors through the sacred fire.
Illustrating how contemporary Mayan life is suffused with spiritual tradition and celebration, the author shares the teachings of the Maya from her initiate and anthropologist point of view in order to help us all learn from the ancient wisdom of their beliefs and worldview. Because, to truly understand the Maya, one must think like the Maya.
Gabriela Jurosz-Landa is an anthropologist and Mayan shaman-priestess initiated by
her teacher Tomasa Pol Suy in Guatemala. She has researched Guatemala for more
than 20 years, living there for 6 years, during which she participated in ceremonies
with Mayan spiritual and political authorities, including the 2012 New Era celebrations.
The founder of the Forum of World Cultures she writes and lectures internationally. She lives in Connecticut.
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