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Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
DUSK BEFORE THE DAWN by Larry KetchersidCopyright 2006 Prologue
Julius looked down from his high perch atop El Templo del Gran Jaguar, gazing at all of the people who were trampling this sacred place of his ancestors. He did not begrudge them their curiosity; in fact, he welcomed it. But he wondered if any of them had a sense of impending events, events that his people had been holding vigils for atop this Mayan temple. He wondered if any of them would believe, or even could.
The sun blazed down on the temples at Tikal, punishing those visitors who had failed to plan around Guatemala’s torrid afternoons. Everyone, from Japanese tourists covered head to toe in cotton including starkly white gloves, to Guatemalan locals sporting American vendor logo T-shirts, sought out the shade or the water vendors or both.
Local guides, identifiable by their large brimmed jungle hats and loose fitting khaki clothes, shepherded the sweaty citizens of many nations, describing as best they could in the tourists local language the geometric precision and spiritual beauty engendered by the Great Plaza, the Plaza of the Seven Temples, and other rebuilt or partially uncovered structures at Tikal. All of the tourists had different reasons for coming, for making this out of the way journey. Tikal is not a ‘drop-in’ tourist attraction; visitors must want to come here, or be pulled here. The nearest community of any size, the dual towns of Santa Elena and Flores, Guatemala, has an airstrip short enough to make even the most seasoned flyers pray as they glide toward it over the lake, over Lago Peten Itza. There were multi-hour bus rides from cruise ships docked in Belize City ports, hikers, and people from neighboring countries like Mexico who had driven by car.
But few of these interlopers were not taken with the place, for one reason or another.
“We started our tour at El Templo de la Serpiente Bicefálica, where everyone goes to watch the sunrise,” the guides would all intone. “But here, at the Great Plaza, was the center of Mayan life where all important civic and spiritual events took place. The main city, the Central Acropolis, is to the right, the North Acropolis to the left, with El Templo del Gran Jaguar and El Templo de Las Mascaras on either end. Notice how El Templo del Gran Jaguar has thirteen levels, six on each side plus the pinnacle, equating to the thirteen heavens, of the Mayan philosophy.”
“Thirteen heavens?” a righteous usually American tourist would always exclaim. “There’s only one heaven where I’m from.”
Heads in the crowd would nod in agreement. Others would shake their heads, in silent disgust of the impending religious discussion.
“The Mayans believed the path to any heaven, including heaven on earth, lay through enlightenment,” the guides would always respond, “as do many of the world’s other philosophies and religions. The thirteen heavens correspond to thirteen steps or plateaus on the evolution to an enlightened state.”
Usually, in any tour group, there would be some caterwauling about unsophisticated heathens with pagan beliefs. Some of the guides would respond with footnotes of interest concerning Buddhism, Hinduism, Mormon or Hopi Indian beliefs that parallel the Mayan. For instance, some would point out that modern Mormon temples had similar structures to the Mayan. Other guides would remain silent amongst the grumblings of the tourists, safe and protected in their own knowledge and beliefs.
“If the Mayans were powerful enough to build these things, why were they destroyed?” someone would ask.
“Mayans are not extinct,” the guides would reply. “I am a Mayan, my family and the people of my village are Mayans. We still practice many of the old ways.”
The tourists would look at them, unimpressed.
“If you were talking about the ancient Mayans from the 9th century,” the guides would say somewhat resignedly, “there are many theories.”
“Well, what do you think?”
“The ancient Mayans were actually many kingdoms, so there was probably no one reason. What we do know is that the rulers of each kingdom were considered divine and all powerful, responsible for everything that happened in their kingdom. Some believe they controlled their worlds through ‘magic’, influencing the gods to bring prosperity for their people. When they stopped focusing on the world, and their people, and started focusing on themselves, the people suffered, probably through disease, drought. They overthrew their rulers, ran them off, or died out while their rulers were preoccupied, probably with deeper studies of this ‘magic’.”
On this day, one new question was consistently put to the tour guides:
“What are those people doing up there on the Jaguar Temple?”
The questioner would point to the opening at the top of El Templo del Gran Jaguar, where a small group of people sat, unmoving.
All of the tour guides, being from the surrounding towns and villages, knew what the people were doing, and some were envious, desiring to be up there with their brethren, rather than down here with visitors.
None would tell the tourists the true purpose of the group. Research, most would say. A local Mayan ceremony, others would say, a comment that casually hinted at the truth.
“Can we go up there?” the visitors would always ask, though they already expected the negative answer.
Not without permission from Julius, the guides would think.
Julian Rodriguez, known to everyone as Julius, closed his eyes, suspending his observation of the tour groups from his perch atop the temple. Usually calm, he was even more so after the groups’ morning meditation in this sacred place. They had kept vigil in that small but spiritual place for almost a month now. Through assistance from his friends who were the keepers of Tikal National Park, Julius had managed to secure access without the bothersome queries of government officials, whom he doubted would be sympathetic to their actions.
His group on the temple numbered thirteen, an exactness of interpretation Julius did not subscribe to, but tolerated. The count had been insisted on by the village shaman and elders. Exactness of interpretation was one of the main topics Julius differed on with the shaman and the elders, but it certainly wasn’t the only one. Julius characterized all of their arguments under the guise of the shaman’s narrow mindedness. Most attributed these conflicts to Julius’ time away from home, studying and obtaining college degrees in the United States; others knew it was because of the multi-perspective way Julius examined each angle of an idea before weighing in with an opinion. Julius often cited the irony of the fact that his sojourn to the United States was encouraged and partially funded by the same people who blamed his rebellious nature on it. In his opinion, the experience had been quite necessary, given the different viewpoints on ancient history, philosophy, religion, even current events that he had found on the two college campuses he had attended.
Every few years, the village would select a member to get a separate education, something radically different than the regimented teachings of the normal village schools. Julius and the current Shaman had been schoolboy rivals for the position, years ago. Shaman candidates were a separate pool, kept somewhat ‘pure’, building a natural rivalry against the kids considered more ‘open minded’, where Julius had been a natural and leading candidate. Winning the position, he had left the influence of the village and the Shaman for several years, studying Western and Eastern philosophy and culture, and getting a glimpse of American perspective.
Upon Julius’ return from the States, it was obvious to all that he had become more liberal with his thinking, while the Shaman had stayed conservatively close to the roots.
The rationale for the groups’ vigil on top of the temple was at least a point of agreement for them all, though their motivations were skewed. The Shaman had interpreted the Tzolkin, the ancient Mayan calendar, in the same manner it had been interpreted for years, and had pointed to a cycle change, the end of the old cycle and beginning of the new. Cycle changes always bring important events, he had vaguely told the council, events we must be ready to observe and interpret.
The Shaman was also the groups ‘daykeeper’, responsible for keeping and translating the two major calendars, the Tzolkin and the Haab. The Tzolkin was the spiritual calendar, filled with cycles, with the base cycle being thirteen days. The days are counted with thirteen numbers in parallel with twenty different signs, giving a 260-day cycle. This cycle paralleled many spiritual time intervals, like the gestation of humans, the time between planting and harvesting, and some astronomical cycles. The Haab was based on a 360-day cycle. The integration of these two calendars gave a cycle of more than 52 solar years. The longest cycle is over 5,000 years.
These ancient calendars astounded modern-day scientists with their accuracy, depicting the equinox, solstice and other events with pinpoint regularity.
Julius had observed the daykeeper, and his interactions with the council. Each cycle change, not matter how small, was an excuse for the Shaman to address the council. He used the cycles for power, Julius had thought, for influence, not for what they were meant for.
Julius knew, based on his research of his own Mayan heritage, including the Tzolkin, and his college studies of other similar philosophies that some major event was imminent, but that the date could not be exactly predicted. To assume so would be presumptuous, stating that one of the ancient races was wrong while others were correct. Julius preferred to view this as an error of correction in interpretation or translation, as opposed to viewing it with a single-minded prejudice.
The date indicated by the Shaman had come and gone, but Julius had convinced the group to extend its stay. The Shaman was simultaneously grateful and vindictive, uncertain how to react to having his reputation partially salvaged by one whom he saw as a rival. Julius cared not, wanting simply to continue to be there, to be meditating together at the right moment.
At his insistence, some of the members of the group were also members of his special class at the local school, where Julius taught. While they were taught reading and writing, Julius also ensured that they were taught ancient and modern history, plus activities classes on how to meditate, how to understand and then later control their minds. This followed his personal interpretation of enlightenment, and the path to reach it…another topic he and the shaman disagreed upon. The Shaman would follow the Tzolkin blindly, watching the calendar, never thinking to influence reality.
Julius enjoyed the meditation, especially the morning session before the sun had crested the horizon, reveling in the heightened awareness he felt through the group. After many classes together, he and the students had settled into a rhythm, even in meditation. Some of the students even believed they could ‘feel’ the others when they meditated, something Julius had thought was beyond their experience.
As the tourists continued to sweat below, Julius and his group meditated, and waited.
* * *
Joseph Davis swam leisurely in the water, staying within easy reach of his daughters. Susan, his oldest, had gotten to be a good swimmer, but she was still only seven. His youngest, Anna, could float well, but still needed the blow up floats cinched up on her still chubby five-year old arms. They would both sleep well tonight, he thought, exhausted from their exertions.
He’d always had that dream of flying, when he was a kid, of jumping off of the concrete garden wall in front of his house and floating up into the sky at will, seeing his house shrink far below him, feeling the energy within him fight against and negate gravity. It had always felt so real. Swimming was the only activity that came close to that imagined feeling. The water felt cool against his skin, and, as he was a large man, he occasionally touched bottom, temporarily thwarting the feel of flying. It was smooth for the most part, although previous encounters with jagged cans or broken bottles had made him habitually put water socks on himself and his daughters. The sun had burned a little of the smog away, so while it wasn’t one of those rare clear blue sky days and the tops of the skyscrapers in the distant city were s
