CIRCLES OF WATER: THE GALAXY IN SOUTH AMERICA

It is quite possible that the Vedic civilization precedes the Egyptian Isis cult, since the Mother of God is always depicted as the flower who rises from a lotus as an earth goddess. She precedes all earthly expressions of power, including kingship. Secular or royal power is Female, or more commonly in the West, is known to be granted by a prospective king’s contact with a female being of a divine nature.

This is an ancient formula reflecting of the same Gnostic Christian view that the prior miracle giving rise to the concept of Savior himself came from miracle of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. We don’t find the Father lurking much behind Mary in the colonial-era Christian iconography, as found by a leading independent researcher on the ‘Galactic Alignment’in his book  -- John Major Jenkins. The said event is a rare astronomical phenomenon that brings the solstice sun into alignment with the center of the Milky Way galaxy every 12,960 years.

2012, the end-date, where we are at now, does not signal the end of time but rather the beginning of the ascension stage of the development of human consciousness, according to John Major Jenkins who is a leading independent researcher of ancient Mesoamerican cosmology and has worked with the highland Tzutujil and Quiche Maya. 

We have long anticipated the year -- 2012 with much dread or fear of earth’s destruction or with the jubilation of globally celebrating the coming maturity of Humanity. Moira Timms, author of Beyond Prophesies states: “Galactic Alignment brings us full circle, into the re-membering and re-cognition of the wisdom of our own ancient origins – re-connecting us with ‘whole’ consciousness and initiating us into the ‘mystery of mysteries.’ A profound work of epochal importance for our historic moment."

Colonial architecture provides an interesting support for the Isis origin of the Virgin in Washington D.C. We have another name for this great country: it is also called ‘the United States of the Virgin.’ I have done an article on it in this weblog and it’s archived. It is a galactic knowledge that draws our attention to the connection between mythology and cosmology and it didn’t bring anything new to the Americas, however. Mayan, Aztec, Incan, and virtually all native civilizations in the Americas already knew about and had an appreciation for the Milky Way as earth’s Great Mother, as mythologized by the Maya. It is pointed out here that the Maya were probably the most cosmologically advanced civilization in the Americas, and they recognized the Galactic Center as the womb of the Great Mother – the source and origin of the Sun and all life. ‘Circles of Water’ come as a life-giving-mother motif, and so Jenkins’ original and groundbreaking research on the Maya presents a sweeping look at the world’s esoteric traditions in terms of a central and compelling idea that times of galactic alignment might be also times of transformation, according to Vincent Bridges, co-author of A Monument to the End of Time. 2012 is a watery year,perhaps to remind us of the operation of the Circle of Waters.

When Spain’s invasion occurred, indigenous Americans saw in the Virgin Mary atop the Spanish churches, a reflection of their own deepest beliefs about the Cosmic Mother. Both ideologies -- religion and astronomy stem from a metaphysical understanding of the role played by the Galactic Center in human spirituality, although both worlds were oblivious to the galactic roots of their beliefs during the early ages of the colonial period. Jenkins says: Suffice it to say that colonial religious architecture in Mexico and Central, and South America honors the Virgin Mary as the deity that is Most High, above the worlds of duality and death. 

*I used to wonder before I came upon Jenkins' book Galactic Alignment the idea why I placed a statue of the Holy Mother with Child high above the tallest structure in our sala or living room, as I couldn't find a place for our Lady in the usual expected place, the Altar in the big room reserved for the enthroned Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Where to place the Holy Virgin was a quandary for me, but the thought suddenly hit me to put her up on top of an old aparador a relic from our lola's spanish house which I chose to reign in the midst of our sitting arrangement of chairs and sofas.  Did my guardian angel suggest that to me intuitively?  


    In Incan cosmology, and Peru was home to a thriving Incan empire, when the Spanish conquistadores arrived, we find clear evidence that the Milky Way was of great interest. And the Galactic Center was symbolic of a life-giving motif. Jenkins: When I say “galactic” I simply mean ideas and beliefs involving the Milky Way, our galaxy. Gary Urton’s At the Crossroads of the Earth and the Sky, remains the best source for the galactic sky lore of the contemporary Quechua Indians of highland Peru. Urton did his research or field work in the village of Misminay, not far from Cuzco. The life-giving Vilcanota River that runs through the town of Misminay symbolizes the Milky Way galaxy where our solar system is contained, and is oriented to the Milky Way at agriculturally important times of the year.

In South America, the region of the Milky Way with its Galactic Center is overhead in its sky. When you view its pristine conditions in the high altiplatino of Peru, it’s impossible for you to ignore the nuclear bulge in its connecting Sagittarius-Scorpio constellations. In addition to the great cleft running north of Sagittarius that is of great interest to the Maya, many dark-cloud features along the Milky Way were identified by the Inca, namely, the Fox, Toad, Tinamou, Snake, and Mother Llama and her suckling baby. The latter two represent the life-nurturing quality that we see in the Virgin Mary motif. Jenkins considers the Mother Llama and her baby’s location in the Galactic Center is of symbolic significance. The Fox is close by, and William Sullivan in his book, The Secret of the Incas, argues that the Fox is involved in Incan precessional mythology.

One more thing: regarding the Fox. In the current battle for supremacy of the US leftist media as anti- Trump noisy adversary to topple the latter, what emerges as a sly, unsinkable opponent in defense of Trump the conservative GOP president-elect is the FOX's news.  Why the Fox?  Is it the inspired choice of the Mother of God for the war on the devil's attempt to destroy America?


The Scorpio constellation is also of symbolic significance to the Quechua, and was thought as a plow for farmers, or a storehouse or in a larger sense, a granary, symbolic of abundance. The opposite side of the Milky Way near the Pleiades, is also significant, both the tail of Scorpio and the Pleiades are thought of as storehouses (of sustenance). The sun passes through the Scorpio side around the December solstice, and the life-giving rain is generated by the passage.


Incan cosmic consciousness has been noted by the Spanish chronicler Molina. He reported in his journal that just after December Solstice, the people of Cuzco threw food, coca, gold, spices, clothing and other things into the water behind a dam above the city, a symbolic ritual of giving back to Mother Earth what has been given them. After sunset, they opened the floodgates and the water poured through the streets of the city, scouring everything in its path and sweeping all the buried offerings that were left on the curb side. Below the city, where two the Rivers Tallumayu Huatanay meet, runners were waiting. They helped the offerings channel into the Vilcamayu River and then began a riverside race to a point where the river drops steeply into a canyon, ultimately to merge with the Amazon and the (northern sea) Atlantic Ocean.

Interesting to modern-day astronomers and esotericists is the fact that the ceremonial event took place during a time of the year when the Milky Way angled southeast-northwest overhead at sunset. Along the side of the Vilcamayu River people held lanterns to light the runners’ way. The Milky Way itself, ablaze with points of light, reflected the dramatic spectacle on Earth. Gary Urton wrote that the procession along the Vilcamayu River was equivalent to a journey along the Milky Way – the implied ultimate goal being the northern sea: meaning heaven. In this tradition the entire Sacred Valley of the Vilcamayu River reflects the Milky Way, and the ceremony facilitates what Urton calls “the cosmic circulation of water.” As above, so below.

The release of the renewing waters of life was keyed to the Sun’s alignment with the Milky Way galaxy. "As above, so Below" -- the ancient wise men would sum it up. Hadn’t the ancient Filipinos known about this ancient Incan religious system of renewal involving the “circulation of water,” an agricultural process that was essentially inspired by cosmological insights involving the galaxy? Now we still mourn a recent tragedy of enormous proportions involving the loss of numerous lives and properties in the Cagayan de Oro valley and neighboring areas in Mindanao that were swept away to the sea carried by cut logs that rolled down from the mountains during the December solstice of 2011, a catastrophe that would have been prevented if the consciousness of the people during this period of time extending perhaps several generations had assimilated a transcendent perception about this law of the Circles of living-Water. An incling of the Wholeness of Life may have manifested in these islands as a reversal of the desire to accumulate wealth by a rapacious need to do illegal logging for one, and mine for gold and other precious minerals by using chemicals that poison the rivers, and surroundings.

Here we encounter the crux of Rene Jean-Marie-Joseph Guenon critique of Western civilization. Modern civilization has become divorced from the transcendent realm which in former ages was consciously integrated into daily life. The modern world which fails to understand the meaning of the word transcendent as well as the meaning of the word intellect. In the traditional usage which corresponds to the Sanskrit word for mind, buddhi -- intellect means the perception of transcended realities, the faculty that can perceive the acitivity of the higher worlds. Notice that this doesn't correspond to the modern idea of being "intellectual" or "smart." What we see here is intellect as a faculty of perceiving, directly our relationship with higher realities rather than something someone acquires through study and schooling.

Notice how the Incans and Mayans of the indigenous tribes in South America had no claim to having studied in sophisticated schools or colleges in urban centers, and yet they had the intellect or faculty to perceive directly their relationship with higher realities as seen in their ceremonial rituals of the Circles of living Water, and their way of life. It is ironic that modern civilization effectively erodes the original buddhi mind of pure intellection that is the birthright of everyone, even while it educates and indoctrinates us. More to the point, the myth of progress allows modern civilization to masquerade as the most sophisticated in all human history. For Guenon and the other Traditonalist writers, however, this is a reversal of the true situation.

Modern civilization is not the result of progress, it is the civilization of the Kali Yuga, the darkest age, in which humanity obsessed with materialism, has been completely removed from a direct experience of connection with the higher Source.

Guenon may have experienced some kind of direct intellectual illumination at an early age. France was in horrendous upheaval during World War I, Guenon was thirty years old, and he knew that the world was heading in the wrong direction, writing his book, East and West, translated into English by Martin Lings. After the war, antireligious sentiment among the the French intelligentsa indicated that new levels of decadence were imminent, and for Guenon this meant a further distancing of humanity from its traditional roots. He wrote more books about the causes of modern civilization's downward spiral. According to Jenkins, Guenon was greatly concerned with the metaphysical processes of spiritual transcendence --the dynamics to emerge signifying the terminal phase of Kali Yuga where we are happily coming out of now. Any thoughts?

COMMENTS: Fr. Joey de Leon, SJ
Ateneo de Manila -- This is very interesting.