#ancientwisdom – Cara Carozza

Living Maya Time – Reflections on Ajmaq

Aq’ab’al showed me that I was feeling hesitant about sharing my new book with others. Ajmaq arrived to show me why. Ajmaq’s literal translation is one who works with error. Recognizing and working with error can polish our soul and allow us to become more authentic versions of ourselves. But not if we can’t see them. Sometimes we create blind spots that we’re not even aware of.

Like the car that suddenly appears in the lane that you’re merging into or the sting of the bee, Ajmaq is far from subtle. It asks us to look at what is underneath our error and understand how it’s shaped us. I thought that the record of my error no longer existed. Until I purchased a new phone. That’s how the text thread between my twin sister and I suddenly reappeared two years after I thought that I had deleted it. I felt completely blind-sided. A part of me still believed that I could have kept her here if I’d just done more. If I’d just said the right thing. The text thread would support this belief. Or so I thought until I read it.

Ajmaq is also associated with forgiveness and ancestral healing. My twin didn’t stop with the restoration of our last conversation onto my new phone. She visited two of our mutual friends in the dream space to deliver her message to me. In each dream she came as a young and playful version of herself. One friend described her expression as mischievous. Both said she teasingly stuck out her tongue. Definitely my sister.

Her message? There’s nothing more I could have done and she wants me to have more fun. Taste more of the honey. Lighten up. I’m doing my best to listen. I spent this past weekend in San Diego with my daughter. We had a lot of fun and I know my sister enjoyed every minute of it. Tomorrow opens the trecena of Toj. Thirteen opportunities to make offerings and express gratitude. May you offer the fire your full presence. It would be a wise investment of your time. Toj is the Nawal of reciprocity.

Appreciatively,

Cara

Living Maya Time – Reflections on Tz’i

Screenshot

Today I can honestly say that my faith has been restored. The word Tz’i means dog and this Nawal offers us an opportunity to look deep within ourselves to discover our own true nature. Tz’i enables us to sense that which is ordinarily hidden from our view. The dogs extraordinary senses fuel its persistence to discover bones of truth that have been buried for a long time. Perhaps for generations.

Emboldened by my fortified perception and already possessing the innate wisdom of a mother, I patiently unraveled and discovered the roots of the knots that N’oj had revealed. Decades old, yet still festering. I tended the wounds as a mother would. With attentiveness and compassion, but not denial. Tz’i reminded me that my job as a parent is a lifetime position. It requires a lot of faith and a lot of loyalty. Qualities that are often ascribed to our canine companions.

Being a parent is an instinctual job. We learn by doing. Our children do not come with an instruction manual and each one is different. My husband and I have four children between us. We each arrived with two and we decided that was plenty. Even though our hearts longed to know a child that was just ours, we both believed that it wouldn’t be fair to the four that we already had. They needed and deserved for us to give them our full presence. To finish the job that we began before we fell in love.

We did the best that we knew how to do and still we’ve made mistakes. Mistakes that have polished our souls and led us to have a renewed compassion for our own adult parents. Tz’i reminded me that I’m still my mothers precious baby girl even if I’m technically a senior citizen and on the path to grandmotherhood. When my cabin project hit a literal roadblock, it was my parents who came to the rescue with a solution. Reminding me that my own mother is still parenting me. We’re all just walking each other home to spirit and I’m so grateful to be exactly where I am.

Tomorrow, we welcome a new dawn and a new concept. Our faith restored, our senses heightened, we are ready to step into the new ideas and experiences that are awaiting us in this next trip around the calendar wheel with Aq’ab’al.

Gratefully,

Cara

Living Maya Time – Reflections on N’oj

The Solstice revealed some very old knots within my family. Many ugly things were said. It left me shell shocked and seeking support from both the heart of the sky and the heart of the earth. The wounds will take time to heal, but they will no longer be festering. With time and space reconciliation will arrive. I’m focusing on keeping my own head in my heart as I serve as mediator. I’m also beginning to understand that the job of parenting never ends. Even when your own children become parents themselves. In fact, it is a whole new opportunity to untangle the knots of the past and our ancestral lineage. These are the gifts that the Trecena of K’at offered me while I was in the mountains. Opportunity and compassion.

Since I moved onto my parents property three years ago, I have been praying for healing between myself and them and it’s happened. Now there is space for this same healing to happen between myself and my own children. It’s not comfortable and it’s most certainly exhausting, but it’s the most sacred work that we can do while we are here in earth school. The Maya believe that the fire is the ear of spirit and that’s why fire ceremonies are such an important part of their spiritual practices. I made my Wajxakib B’atz fire ceremony at 4500 feet, opposite Mt Lassen this cycle. My fire offered me an image of a portal and an invitation to enter it. I accepted and spoke the words that needed to be spoken.

N’oj arrived quietly after we had descended the mountain and returned home. Still bruised and vulnerable, I found myself unable to write as the first full trecena of the new calendar cycle opened. My spirit asked for stillness and reflection first. I often think about N’oj as the mind of the calendar. However, N’oj is not only the mind. It is also the earth thinking through us. In order to hear the wisdom of the earth we need to listen. I listen best when I am quiet and that’s why I’ve decided to offer a reflection at the end of each trecena this calendar cycle instead of at the beginning.

Tomorrow our loyal companion T’zi arrives to chaperone us into our destiny. T’zi brings the frequency of justice and natural law along with the playful and instinctual nature of the dog. I look forward to sharing my journey with T’zi after I’ve taken it.

In Stillness,

Cara xoxo

Living Maya Time – Symbols of K’at

Today is my daughter Caroline’s birthday. Twenty eight solar years ago I became a mother. The seed that was implanted within me grew, ripened and finally emerged as my precious baby girl. Today we also welcome a new trecena. K’at can be seen as the gathering or the net. K’at is also everything that we carry. Our blessings and our burdens. K’at reminds us that everything we create or receive must be carried if we do not use it or share it with others. This weekend I had the opportunity to share some of the wisdom that I’ve gathered on this path of walking with the sacred calendar. I attended a women’s circle where we were invited to create a personal Medicine Wheel altar expressing our relationship to the energies of East and South through natural objects, symbols and creative expression.

My decision to join the circle had been spontaneous. It felt like my last opportunity to engage with the playful energies of the B’atz trecena. A chance to weave with other women and to be nourished by community. I didn’t know that I would be asked to set the loom and place the first threads. Our leader presented me as the, “Altar Queen”, a student who had surpassed her teacher. Cari introduced me to the practice of offerings as a nervous system regulation technique during my dark night of the soul. She’s walked the Medicine Wheel of her ancestors, the Esselen and she understands the power of ritual, presence and ceremony. She also understands the importance of finding ones own way and ones own medicine and that is why she asked me to share my experiences with my altars and the Cholq’ij. To offer a different indigenous perspective.

The ease with which I was able to speak and pray before strangers surprised me. It bolstered my courage. The FINAL draft of my second memoir had been sitting patiently awaiting my second read for over two weeks. Yesterday I was finally ready to read it. I was ready to see myself the way that the women in the circle had seen me. I have gathered much wisdom on my path and I need to share it. That’s what I will be accessing most from the energies that K’at offers over the next thirteen days, my connections to others and the opportunity to share my abundant heart with everyone in my community.

Next Monday is the ceremonial reset of the calendar, Wajxakib B’atz. A new creation cycle of 260 days will begin and new Aj’ij will be initiated. Fires will burn all day as people gather to celebrate, pray and make offerings. I’ll be up in the mountains celebrating the Solstice with my family. The Solstice is the day before Wajxakib B’atz this year and I’ll be making my own special ceremony on that day too. I have so much to be grateful for. May you also recognize all the grace and abundance that already lives in your life. Happy Birthday Sweet Caroline.

In Love & Celebration,

Cara

Living Maya Time – Symbols of Tijax

Today we are invited to look in the mirror and reflect on what is no longer serving us. Tijax asks us to edit, purify and set the boundaries that need to be set so that deeper healing can occur. The past thirteen days have been very introspective for me. That’s the power of the serpent. If we were able to sit still and listen, Kan delivered powerful wisdom from deep within ourselves and our lineage. Kan left me with the gift of empathy for my mother. Empathy for her overwhelm with all the busyness that living on a multi-generational homestead can bring. My son and daughter-in-law to be welcomed a set of Siamese cats to their growing family. Sisters. My twin sister and I had a set of Siamese cats when we were growing up. I would have expected to have been thrilled by these two little lovelies. Instead I panicked. What about their dog, Beso? How would he react to his new roommates? Who would take care of them when we all go on vacation? So many questions.

I’ve been praying for healing and intimacy for my mom and I ever since my husband and I moved onto her and my stepfather’s property three years ago. The original plan included only us, but has expanded to include our youngest son, his beloved, their dog and now their two cats. My mom has accepted it graciously, but not without discomfort. Kan showed me how this discomfort feels in her body when I became overwhelmed by my son and future daughter-in-law’s decision to adopt two new pets.

My favorite purifying plant, Rosemary

Today Tijax arrives in perfect time and with just the precision I need to excise any lingering feelings of anxiety that I may hold. I now understand that for my mother, most anything can feel overwhelming. She deserves grace and my compassion. This is the real work that we are doing together. We’re showing up just as we are and we are still choosing to live together in community. I’ve come to understand that a community thrives when its members are diverse and carry different frequencies. Different medicine.

I’ve awoken on the other side of the country this morning. I’m in New York visiting my new sister, her family and my stepmom. I’m feeling all their frequencies and I can’t wait to see how they polish me and my perspective. I’m hoping to see a lot of lilacs and even Niagara Falls. It’s going to be purifying and it’s going to be healing. May you find just what you need to deepen your own healing over the next thirteen days.

Happy Spring,

Cara

Living Maya Time – Symbols of Kan

Time felt like it sped up over the past thirteen days. I think the E’ trecena left me with some jet lag after Kawoq’s powerful news. I’m going to be a grandmother. This news both excites and overwhelms me. Much like the feeling I experience while traveling in a foreign country. The landscape is unfamiliar and I’m still learning the culture. I’ve already made a few faux pas, but I’m still delighted to be here. Today, Kan arrives just in time to help me integrate all of my contrasting feelings.

Kan is power and innate wisdom. It’s the coyopa or body lightening that animates human beings. It’s the secret dancer that lives inside us. It holds the codes of our DNA. Kan is most often associated with the serpent and personal transformation. Becoming a grandmother will definitely be transforming. Just like my grand baby, I will also need an entire calendar cycle to be reborn. In the meantime, I still have some identities to shed. A few have become quite uncomfortable, just like most of the clothes that I own right now.

**My new calendar wheel that arrived from Guatemala during the E’ Trecena**.

My body has changed a lot over the past few years. Grief and menopause will do that. I haven’t shopped for new clothes for myself since my sister passed. Instead, I’ve cobbled together a few outfits from the back of my closet and the clothes that she left behind. It’s been comforting, but it’s also kept me stuck in the past in many ways. Monday marked the two-year anniversary since she left. I’ve held onto my security blankets long enough. I’m ready for a new look that honors the body I have now. My grandmother body.

E’ walked me back to a stylist that I met five years ago. Amy arrived on my path just in time to help me harness Kan’s transformative energy and update my wardrobe. I sent her my measurements after we met virtually for an hour. A couple of days later I received an e-mail with links to over a dozen different pieces. I liked each and every one of them. Even the prices were good. What I didn’t like were the sizes. I’d never bought clothes in the sizes that she recommended before.

Today the first items arrived. Just in time for my trip to San Diego to visit my daughter for Mother’s Day weekend. Each one fits me perfectly and makes me feel beautiful. This is the feeling that I intend to cultivate over the next thirteen days. May your own transformation be equally fun and satisfying. Happy Mother’s Day!

Joyfully,

Cara

Living Maya Time – Symbols of E’

The midwife asked a lot of me over the past thirteen days. I had forgotten how intense labor can be. Everything we create requires energy and presence to bring it into form. A lot of seeds that I’d sown many moons ago popped during the Kawoq trecena. It felt like I had been told that I was expecting triplets after I’d just adjusted to the news that I was pregnant. It’s been dysregulating, to say the least. It’s time to direct my presence back to myself and to my own journey. I may have new creations to nurture, but I must anchor myself before I can serve anyone or anything else. I’ve acquired a lot of tools and now it’s time to use them.

Today invites us on a new journey. E’ is the nawal of the sacred path or road. It’s restless and curious. It craves novelty. E’ is just the breath of fresh air that I need after pushing through to the end of my deadline. It felt just like the transitional phase of labor. If you’ve given birth, you know what I mean. There’s no turning back. Only pushing through. This is the strength that Kawoq imbibes us with before we take our next journey on the wheel of life.

**The Path to our New Cabin Site. My son paving the way for the next generation.**

My next expedition is both professional and personal. I’m traveling to New York to stay with my new sister Maat. She arrived in my life just when I needed her most. Right after I’d lost my twin. This week Kawoq gifted us with a new law, just in time for her new venture. My sister is opening a cannabis dispensary and she’s asked me to prepare the tax returns. This week medical cannabis was descheduled by the Federal government. It’s now deductible as a medical expense for income tax purposes. A change I didn’t expect during my lifetime and if you’ve been following me for a while, a change very near and dear to my heart.

That’s all I have for now. Taking my own medicine and staying present with myself and those that I love. May your own horizons broaden and may your journey always be supported. There is much to be grateful for.

Cara xoxo

Living Maya Time – Symbols of Kawoq

Kame answered my prayers for a wedding at home with a decisive and very clear NO last week. It caught me off guard. It wasn’t what I expected and it wasn’t what I’d hoped for. Yet, the clarity has prepared the soil for a new idea to be born. Today we welcome the trecena of Kawoq. She is the midwife, the rain and the storm. After death comes rebirth. Into the darkness, a light is shined and new plans begin to emerge. It’s been really uncomfortable. For me and my entire family. Through our discomfort we’ve discovered a deeper level of intimacy and an opportunity for profound transformation. This is the gift that walking through the valley of death offers.

I’ve never worked so hard in my entire career as I have this year. In retrospect, one might conclude that I took on too much. Perhaps it was ill advised to try and write a book, mentor my son and take on all of my business partners clients. And let’s not forget the cabin project that I decided to add to my plate. Just for good measure. In fact, I’ve managed it all quite well and the only casualty has been people pleasing clients that don’t appreciated me or respect my time. With so much new work and so many moving parts to my life, something else had to die to make space in my garden for what really serves me and my own personal transformation.

A few of nights ago I dreamt of two turtles. One was larger than the other and they were both moving through a flame. It was an aqua blue flame like you might see from a gas lit fire. In their effort to escape the flames, they catapulted themselves over a mountain that was at the edge of the fire. The dream was incredibly vivid, but offered me no clear message until the evening that followed. My son had also had a powerful dream that night. So powerful that he slept walk outside and jumped off his deck. The entire left side of his face is bruised. The following day, my mom also took a fall, bruising the entire right side of her face. Her cat had brought her a lizard that was still alive and it startled her, causing her to jump over the threshold of her door and fall onto her face. I’m not sure what to make of it all, but I can’t help but feel like my mom and my son were the two turtles in my dream and that they walked through the fire of Kame together and then jumped into a new reality where we can all find common ground.

Kawoq’s spirit animal is the turtle. Many Meso American indigenous people call earth Turtle Island. The pattern on a turtle’s back mirrors the lunar calendar. The turtle is very much a symbol of new life and our sweet mother earth. The next thirteen days are fertile days to birth a new reality for ourselves. We are ready. We have walked through the fire and we have taken the leap of faith. The rainstorm has come to wash our wounds clean and support us through the labor of birthing a new dream for ourselves. Mine includes a weekend wedding retreat for my son and his beloved in the redwoods. Date and location to be determined. It’s going to be magical. May your dreams be equally sweet.

Love,

Cara

Living Maya Time – Symbols of Kame

I’m arriving a day late again this trecena. In all my years working as a tax accountant, I’ve never been busier. I’ve taken on all of my partners tax clients this season and a massive new tax bill, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed last year. I’m experiencing growing pains and it’s a little uncomfortable. My spine is as straight as it can be. I stood up tall for my clients and for my family over the past couple of weeks while Aj was our guide. I was able to resolve a lot of issues and abate a lot of penalties. It was satisfying, but also exhausting. Kame arrived yesterday asking even more of us. Kame literally translates to death, but it embodies much more than that. It is the Nawal of the ancestors and it offers us the elixir of transformation if we’re willing and able to face our fears.

I’ve had an idea gestating for a number of weeks, but I’d been afraid to share it with my mother. My youngest son got engaged and he and his lovely fiancée would like to get married on the property that they, my husband and I and my parents all live on together. My parents own the land, but they’ve graciously invited us to be here with them. It’s mutually beneficial, but not without its challenges. We’ve brought our youthful energy, but also all the noise and business that comes with it. It’s been an adjustment for my mom who likes her peace and quiet and grew up an only child. Still, the land and the ancestors keep nudging me to bring more life and celebration to this property that we all share.

Yesterday, I planted the seeds for the ceremony that I keep being shown. Everything can be done outside so that if it’s too much, my mother can retreat to her own space. Friends and family that haven’t met or who haven’t communed in years will join together. A single day has the potential to ignite transformation within many. This is what I expressed to my mother. My desire to alchemize healing for those that I love and for the land that holds and loves me. It wasn’t nearly as frightening as I thought it would be. She hasn’t said no and she was able to express how she feels. Transformation has already begun for us and it is my prayer that it will happen for you over the coming twelve days. Remember to be grateful for every experience. Sometimes the most difficult ones offer the greatest reward.

Until we rise again,

Cara

Living Maya Time – Symbols of Aj

Today we welcome the stabilizing energy of Aj and boy am I ready for it. Ajpu led me on quite a quest over the past thirteen days. Yesterday I was rewarded and my new path was revealed. For seventeen years I have been a member of a mutual benefit corporation. The corporation has 100 members and collectively we own 2600 acres. Yesterday the ancestors and Nawal E’ conspired to grant me permission to build a cabin on this land. I’d abandoned this dream long ago, but Ajpu asked me to consider it again. From an elevated perspective. With the wisdom that my latest hero’s journey has gifted to me.

Aj is the connection between heaven and earth. It stands tall to hear the whispers of spirit and channels it into it’s roots which are firmly planted in the soil of mother earth. Aj represents the spinal column and it asks us to lead with our heart and for the good of our communities. Aj is most often symbolized by the cornstalk or the staff of life, but I’ve come to associate it with the mountains also. It’s quiet and noble strength are unwavering. Aj holds the container for our ceremonies. An Aj Q’ij is a spiritual guide and calendar priest who interprets the Cholq’ij and offers guidance.

The law of man may say that I own a piece of the mountain that my cabin will sit on, but I know that it cannot be owned. I am merely an invited guest and I do not take the hospitality that this sacred land has offered me for granted. I asked the land for permission to build on seven Aj. As I made my offering of cornmeal and tobacco, I asked for absolute clarity. I promised not to proceed unless the answer was crystal clear. Ajpu shined it’s light brightly over the past thirteen days. My application to build was approved unanimously and one of the other members has even offered to do all the ground work, at a discounted rate. When he told me that his birthday was March 22^nd, the same day as mine, I knew with absolute certainty that the land had also given her approval. She had just one condition. She asked for more ceremony.

The land that I have the privilege of building a cabin on is the land of the Esselen. The tribe that lived in reciprocity on these lands for hundreds if not thousands of years before colonization. For at least the past one hundred years our 2600 acres has been a gun and hunting club. No ceremonies have been made on these lands for a very long time. She is starving for communion with the humans that she hosts and provides for. This is what I heard on the mountain. A cry for connection and reverence. This is what Aj is asking of us over the next thirteen days. For the good of our families, our communities and the land herself we must stand up tall and witness what needs to be witnessed and then do better. A simple prayer is all it takes to begin.

In Strength,

Cara