Free Deity by Theresa Danley Page A

age of Quetzalcoatl.
    “It’s
clear that the Castillo is an instrument of the zenith cosmology,” Chac added. “The
shape of the pyramid itself points directly toward the zenith.”
    “How
can you be sure that it was Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl who inspired all of this?”
Lori asked.
    “Simple.
Only priests tracked celestial movements and kept the sacred calendars. The
common people didn’t have such intimate knowledge of the stars. So even if
Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl’s followers migrated to Chichen Itza, it’s doubtful they would’ve had
the astronomical knowledge required to build the Castillo. Only a priest could
have calculated the precise position of the pyramid to effect the serpent shadow-play and enforce such an elaborate zenith observatory.”
    “What
about the Maya priests?” Lori challenged. “They could’ve just as easily
constructed the Castillo.”
    “Highly
unlikely,” Chac said, shaking his head.
    “How so?” Lori asked.
    “The
Maya weren’t as interested in the zenith as the Toltecs were,” Chac explained. “They
had a cosmology all their own.”
    “Okay.”
There was uncertainty in Lori’s voice that indicated they’d reached the limits
of her Mesoamerican cosmological knowledge. The Toltec astronomical
observations were one thing. Mayan cosmology was something entirely different.
    “While
the Toltecs were watching the Pleiades at one end of the Milky Way, the Maya
were observing the widest and brightest bulge in the galaxy at the opposite end
of the sky. Astronomers claim that when we look at this bulge we are looking
horizontally across the very center of the Milky Way. Interestingly enough, the
Maya viewed this as their center of creation.”
    Lori nodded. “I’m familiar with the bulge in the Milky
Way,” she said. “The Toltecs believed the bulge was the flying serpent’s head. Amid
that bright bulge is a dark cleft created by cosmic dust clouds which they saw
as the flying serpent’s mouth.”
    Chac
lifted an appreciative eyebrow. “Yes, but what the Toltecs viewed as a
serpent’s mouth was the portal to the underworld to the Maya,” he countered.
    Lori
excitedly snapped her finger as though Chac had struck a familiar theme. “The
Toltecs regarded cavernous spaces like caves to be portals to the underworld and   wombs of creation. In their
iconography, caves are often represented by the gaping mouths of animals, like
jaguars and snakes.”
    Chac
smiled. This girl was quick to catch on. “So now we’ve found the common ground
on which the Toltecs and the Maya might have come together. That is what makes Chichen Itza so
remarkable. This city clearly illustrates the coming together of not only two
separate cultures, but their two polar cosmologies.”
    Movement
caught the corner of Chac’s eye. He turned back to the temple steps to find a
young couple climbing toward them. Chac frowned. Others were following behind
like mindless sheep. He’d lingered too long.
    “Which
all leads us to this mess,” he growled.
    “Mess?”
    “The whole 2012 attraction.” Chac started down the
steps to intercept the visitors. “I’ll explain once we get off this temple.”
    * * * *
    Lori
was surprised by Chac’s abrupt change in demeanor. Just moments earlier he
seemed relaxed and even enjoying their discussion but now he was quite moody
and considerably abrupt with the visitors he turned back down the temple steps.
And once again, he spoke of 2012 with a distaste that Lori had not experienced
whenever the subject came up before. There were critics, sure, and she was certainly
one who refused to buy into all the hype. But in general, she found people either excited , fearful, or just downright dismissive of
2012. Never had she come across someone so aggravated by it.
    And
Chac was Maya. Wasn’t this the year the Maya had been looking forward to for
thousands of years?
    Patiently,
Lori followed Chac across the plaza that was increasingly filling with
visitors. She waited for signs