Did the Mayans get it wrong? What’s next?

We survived the Solstice. The end of the world. I wasn't particularly surprised...Were you? Long before that fateful day, I learned about a different calendar that seems to really have the answers. For now. Now that we're still here...


The image we associate with the Mayan calendar is actually that of the Aztec calendar. How did that happen? But unlike the Mayan's, and just like a Timex, the Aztec calendar keeps on ticking...beyond 12/21/12. Not only that, but the Aztec calendar, and the indigenous wisdom behind it, holds clues to how our future will unfold. And how to ready ourselves for this new era...called the Sixth Sun.

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I first learned about this Sixth Sun from Aztec/Toltec teacher Sergio Magana Ocelocoyotl. A brilliant and eloquent young man, Sergio expertly bridges the modern world with that of his indigenous teachers. Sharing tools that align us with ancient, universal rhythms, which evoke deep, positive change in our lives, he's been teaching in the US and Europe since 2010. Sergio's lineage includes Aztec Anubis, Xolotl Jose Luis Chavez Martinez, keeper of the ancient Nahuatl wisdom, and Hugo Nahui, a gifted scholar of stellar events and their impact on our lives.

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On the auspicious date of 12/21/12, I joined in a ceremony led by Xolotl and his priestess wife, Alma, near the Zocalo (main square) of Mexico City...

During the eight seconds of no-time at 5:13 a.m., I stood in a suddenly hushed circle. One hundred people—from all points of the globe—powered out to the universe our big intentions for ourselves, our families, countries and planet, as the Sixth Sun dawned. When the eight seconds were over, we resumed our frenzied dancing as hummingbirds, eagles, and macaws; miming the expert moves of native celebrants.

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With this Solstice, the influence of the next “Sun” or Era of 6,625 years surpasses that of the previous Fifth Sun and deepens until it is in full control on 12/21/2021. While the Fifth Sun was an era of outer conquest and seeking wisdom and happiness beyond ourselves, the Sixth Sun ushers in an era of inner listening. In other words, a time of reckoning with our shadow.

As a not-so-proud owner of one, I felt drawn work on mine in Mexico at this particular time. I couldn’t tell if what I’d been experiencing were growing pains, ascension symptoms, or something less savory. I wanted to set some awareness and healing in motion. What better place to do this than the energetic center of Mexico? 

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I sit cross-legged in a temezcal, or sweat lodge, also led by Xolotl and Alma. Unlike the Solstice ritual, this is a very intimate, personal affair. Our lodge is a green reed dome, partially covered by tarps. Clad in sarongs, shorts, and skivvies, our group of 20 crawl to their places inside.

As the couple’s preteen girl and boy play on the grassy lawn outside, I feel like we become the couple’s 20 children as their gentle ministrations are translated from Spanish to English...but soon realize, that here, in the temezcal, we are children of Earth parents who possess deep, healing love, but also claws and fangs.

Introductions are made, and the womb-like space feels initially safe and cozy. The first round of red hot stones is pitchforked in; each rock cradled by very long, sharp tines that slide inches from my bare leg. I release my breath when the final stone is placed, blessed, and the door closed. Because I’d requested a personal healing for bronchitis , Xolotl now ushers me to sit by the central fire pit, facing away from it. It’s a chill, windy day outside, and I’m happy to abandon my drafty seat by the door. He sprinkles water on the stones.

Luxuriating in the enveloping steam bath, I’m now feeling pampered by my surrogate parents. Sighing deeply, I relax into the comforting silence. Then…surprise! My back is whipped with a leafy tree branch! I feel…oddly Catholic and almost laugh. The leaves don’t hurt, but an occasional spark singes my skin for a microsecond. Had he touched the branch to the fire first?! Was my hair going to burn?! I just had it done!

Fortunately, as gifted shamans, my “parents” knew what they were doing. I emerge from the lodge a couple hours later absolutely radiant; my lungs and skin gloriously clear and hydrated. Purified for the Solstice ceremony and respectful of Xolotl and Alma’s Earth parent power.

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When they’re not thrashing tourists or teaching eagles to fly (midwifing sweatlodgers or leading ceremony), Xolotl and Alma share their Mexica cosmovision and wisdom with eager students. One of the most memorable concepts that they both taught was that of the Cosmic Dynamo. This is the activation of the center of movement of a sacred place, such as a mountain, through physical human activity and offerings, and then radiation outward of first personal, then social intentions to the community.

In one of Alma’s teaching sessions, she described the healing nature of ceremonial dancing, as we did on the Solstice. Participants place an intention along with a photo, or other personal item on the altar at the center of the dance. The movement creates a vortex of energy, and the focus of the dancers’ intentions sends the healing to its destination, be it personal or planetary.

Through the intricate and beautiful altar that centered our Solstice ceremony, I felt the group raise a powerful vortex. I returned to bed at my hotel later; dreaming about jaguars and serpents racing through my blood, and native dancers executing perfect hummingbird steps.

With the Solstice ceremony taking place near the Zocalo, we tapped into an ancient power source. This was the very site where the Aztec calendar was unearthed! The Templo Mayor, one of the main Aztec temples, is also close by. Sadly, it was desecrated by the Spanish; its stones pilfered and built into a Cathedral. (Churches can often be found built on top of ancient places of power.) Interestingly, one of the two towers of the Templo Mayor was dedicated to Huitzilopochtli (hummingbird). Not by coincidence, our Solstice dancing was exquisitely led by a slight man in a white hummingbird costume, in honor of the new Sun, also called Huitzilopochtli.

Cultural Comparisons

As a cross-cultural shamanic practitioner, I’ve explored many wisdom streams to arrive at my current toolkit. In all my studies, however, I’ve never heard of a blessing disseminator on the scale I experienced with Xolotl and Alma. And this particular teaching, creating a Cosmic Dynamo, is just being revealed to the outside world for the first time!

I’ve spun Tibetan prayer wheels; never quite believing that a simple mechanical action could actually send supplications into the ether.

I’ve walked labyrinths, where physical movement took me on both an inner and outer journey to a still center. But it was always a solo process. Never for the community. Imagine going into a labyrinth with intentions and having them radiate to the world upon the out-spiraling!

In Wiccan rituals, I’ve joined and led groups in setting a healing intention; raising a cone of power and sending the energy off to a person, community, or the planet. Anchoring and amplifying the power through a vibrational epicenter of the Earth takes this to a very different level. When you create a Cosmic Dynamo you’re activating an Earth chakra. You’re invoking it to work for you.  In the case of the Solstice, we activated a sacred, ceremonial site. When that Earth chakra is a mountain, what’s activated is the mountain’s heart…its cave….

The Personal and Metaphorical Cave

In addition to activating an Earth  cave, we also activate our own inner cave (chicomostoc) or shadow, in this system, transforming the unknown, the enemy into our Higher Self—the hero who is ready to help the collective. We have within us a portal to a place of great power.

How to Move a Mountain

The heart of a mountain (and any organism) is the center of its movement.  According to Xolotl, “In our (Nahuatl) cosmovision, everything has a (vibrational) center. Therefore when we activate sacred things, when we activate the sacred mountains, what we offer is directed to all.” 

In another ceremony, on another night, our offerings included flowers, songs, chants, dances, and sacred sweets called tzoalli, made from chocolate, amaranth, tequila and other delicious ingredients. In the center of the designated altar, in a cave within a caldera, the tzoalli would be arranged in a wheel, representing movement (ollin) and becoming the center of the Cosmic Dynamo. 

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The bus slowly emerged from the diesel-fumed crush of the city. Closer and closer we sped toward a snow-capped mountain. After our lesson on activating Earth chakras, I was eager to put theory into practice. But the mountain we were approaching was puffing out white clouds like a steam engine!  I recognized it as one of the two sacred volcanoes of Mexico City – Popocatepetl. This Earth chakra already seemed quite active without any human assistance! Would we be working here? My palms started to sweat…

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Thankfully, a less pyrotechnic Earth chakra was selected for our ceremony. And it was only much later, as I assimilated all the work we did, that I realized my personal growing pains simply mirrored those of Mother Earth. We are birthing our new selves for this new era, as we agonize together with the contractions, like Inanna comforting Ereshkigel in the underworld—stepping into our darkness, forsaking our outer self-centered trappings of beauty or security or being the superstar lone wolf…because it is called for. Not knowing whether we’ll be dismembered by the process, or if we’ll be missing a part of ourselves when the journey is over like Osiris; but knowing that surely we will be transformed.  All the while we are being forged and tempered into swords of better discernment, in the cave, in our chicomostoc, our cauldron of transformation—grappling with our shadow, stepping into our portal to great power.

It’s time to seize our inner swords. Become better stewards of both our shadow…and the planet. We are being called… This is what’s next.

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“The human experience is constant change,” says Xolotl. “We need to create our own( change regularly to counteract our separation from our pure essence.”

Ometeotl. (And so it is!)

(An initiated Andean and Wiccan priestess and shamanic practitioner, Michele Fontaine is an award-winning author of novels and short stories. Her work has appeared in Shaman’s Drum magazine, Travelers’ Tales, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Left Coast Writers’ “Road Work”.)