A lyrically beautiful view into a spiritual journey. To say much more would spoil the experience of the reader. This is a must read for any spiritual seeker. ( )

"Long Life, Honey in the Heart: A Story of Initiation and Eloquence From the Shores of a Mayan Lake" was written by Martin Prechtel and released in 2004. It’s his second book, and tells the story of his political involvement in a Mayan community in Guatemala. His responsibilities as a politician chiefly surrounded the initiation of adolescents into adulthood.

The book begins by introducing the Tzutujil’s [the Mayan’s in his village’s] stages of human maturation - the five primary layers of initiation into becoming a Magnificent Adult:
*Birth - Dawn Sprouting
*Birth to Adolescence - Flowers and Sprouts
*Child Rearing to Grandchild Rearing - Rainbows and Shimmers
*Grandchild Rearing to Adult - Big Trees, Big Vines, or the Bark People
*Adult to Death - Echo Person

On Childbirth and Children

Childbirth for the Tzutujil is a multi-step process. In a way, it begins with death. There is only so much room for the living, so death makes way for the new. If there is “space,” then a child will be conceived. Upon the birth of the child, the midwife - a shaman of childbirth - reads the placenta, and lets the grandparents know notable things about that child. The placenta is then buried in the family’s sweat lodge, and a piece of wood from a tree struck by lightning is placed on top. Neighbors bring meat, a prized food, as gifts to the family, and a baby is measured not in it’s weight, but in the weight of the gifted meat - which can often go into the hundreds of pounds! The child and the mother then spend the following seven days in the sweat lodge together - the second womb. If a child makes it to the eight day, the child is named [similar to the Jewish tradition of circumcision on the eight day].

The Tzutujil have six growing seasons, overlapping and evenly-spaced throughout the year. There is a special variety of “teeth” corn, only used for this purpose, planted following the first cycle after the child’s naming. It is harvested about nine months later. The period when this corn is growing is called the second gestation. Upon the harvest, there is a feast. This happens to be around the time when the child is getting teeth.

Children in the Tzutujil village play many games. And the games are very important - they dictate weather patterns. Playing a game out of season could have serious consequences.

Nothingness

Santiago Atitlan, Martin’s Village, was the center of the world, or more specifically, the umbilicus of the world. And at the center of their village was the belly button, a hole - in some ways, the most sacred place in their village.

When the missionaries arrived in the village, they built a church around the hole. For a while, the two coexisted. But during Martin’s time there, the Christians filled in the hole with cement, which was promptly chipped out the Mayans. They went back and forth for a while this way, before they arrived at the compromise of putting a cover on the hole.

There’s something significant in that the Mayan’s most sacred place was nothing rather than something. Something fails to represent the infinite. Only nothingness can suffice.

Language

The Tzututjil have no written language. Their words are the lifeblood of their culture. Words carry supreme power, and are closely tied with life.

Initiation

The process of initiation could last anywhere between five and twelve months. During this time, Chiefs and Priestesses are assigned “dogs” [initiates in training] as their mouths and ears. They aren’t aloud to talk with anyone other than through their “dogs” for the duration of the process - they listen and speak through their dogs. During this time the dogs learn the eloquent language of adults, by repeating everything they all say. Not only do children and adults have completely different languages, but the languages of men and women also vary.

Initiation is a fight with death. The Mayan’s knew better than try to kill death [for death cannot be killed]. Instead, they would satiate it with beauty. In a way, learning to be an adult was learning to be beautiful in our words and our actions. A deal is made with death during initiation - to trade the immortality of youth for the significance of adulthood.

Conscious initiation, facilitated by a healthy community, brings an end to the urge for initiation. Everyone wants to be initiated. We seek initiation today through functions like violence and war. We seek to fight death. Even our business represents this fight with death. But we cannot “win” by this means; it is a vicious cycle.

I’ve been hearing a lot lately about cultural appropriation. Martin points out that cultural appropriation simply isn’t functional. Sure, we can take the rituals that the Mayan’s used for initiation. This might be disrespectful, but on a more practical level, these traditions just won’t work for us. Why? Context. These rituals developed over centuries, possibly millennia, to fit the needs of a specific people in a specific place. We are a different people, if there is even a we.

Martin leaves us at the end of his book with a paradox - our world and all our alien peoples [non-indigenous] need true initiation more badly than ever, and yet it’s development takes an unfathomable amount of care, attention, and effort, carried out for generation after generation… ( )