Sun on the Rocks - The Marble Toucan
Chapter Six
Clarity woke up and stepped out of her tent, walking towards the portable shower shelter set up by Zephairi. Its five gallon reservoir supplied clean water to the inhabitants of Miradorcito who were living at the camping ground north of the Rosarito River. To prevent animosities, the Egyptologist had settled his tent and crew in the opposite side of the village, south of the river. Clarity rubbed her eyes and noticed the shower was busy. After a few minutes, Lanai got out wearing a robe. Clarity extended her hand.
"Soap, please." Lanai gave her a bottle of shower gel bought in Cancún.
"Soap."
After breakfast, Clarity decided to confront Lanai on why she had become distant.
"You haven't spoken to me in the last few days. I don't understand why. I'd like to know the reason."
"Well, we just have different opinions on things. You're very practical, and I know you mean well for the community with this idea of the ecovillage, but that's not what I'm looking for here."
Lanai had notes from the Book of the Adept, on the Greek boustrophedon that they had seen in the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas. She began showing a passage of the book to Clarity. According to the Malibu librarian, the Book of the Adept, also known as the Book of Decadence, depending on how you interpreted it, indicated that there were links between the various esoteric Mystery traditions, among them the Western Mystery, Egyptian and Mayan esoteric traditions.
"What are you thinking?"
"Ms. Morales is not who she says she is. There is a reason why she engaged in the ceremony to honor the god of rain the other day."
"Who is she?"
"A shaman or a priestess, I'm unsure. I've learned from this book that the roles of shaman and priest overlap in the Mayan tradition."
Lanai showed Clarity a page depicting a Mayan priestess, wearing a feathered adornment on her head. According to Lanai, Ms. Morales knew about calendrical divination, dream interpretation and spiritual healing. In anthropological studies, the ceremonial and healing roles of shamans and priests were considered distinct. Whereas the shaman adopted spirit possession and ecstatic trance, the priestess healed by establishing a connection with deities and ancestors, using offerings and prayers to effect the desired change in the community.
"So what do you make of all this?" asked Clarity. "It doesn't solve the problem of the community, there is no more Miradorcito if you look around, and the rumour is that Ms. Morales cannot really perform as head of village anymore, that she is not prepared to assume the role."
"I know we disagree about this, but the new gambling resort will solve the lack of jobs here. And restoring the spiritual traditions of the Mayas here will preserve the continuity of their values so that the people living in Miradorcito don't engage in gambling that will create problems for them."
Clarity was not convinced by Lanai's argument. They continued walking over the small wooden bridge that crossed the Rosarito River, as Lanai looked around ensuring no one saw them. She leaned closer to Clarity and whispered in her ear.
"I think Zephairi is up to something."
"Well, he wants to get rid of the village, that's clear."
"He's looking for something, and I think I know what it is."
"A pyramid, he likes pyramids."
"No, it's a book. A book that explains how the Mayas disappeared, it's called a codex. The codex of Xuleiha, I don't know exactly what's in it."
"Let's make a deal, an alliance of sorts then. I'll help you find the codex of Xuleiha, if there is such manuscript, in exchange for you letting me know what Ms. Morales teaches you of Mayan traditions. She shares that only with you – she seems to like you."
"That's because I've given her a role here in the middle of all this upheaval, I think she should be the conservationist of the new resort which is being built."
"That won't work, Zephairi and Fahibian will never agree, they want her out of here," said Clarity.
They were reaching the area of Zephairi's crew, where Flower had been allowed to set up her tent. They saw Duldu walk inside his own tent. Nearby, an excavator was hiding Zephairi and Flower doing some digging work. Clarity had a hunch about Duldu, who had been named by Zephairi the unofficial head of security in the campground. She walked towards his tent, and peeked inside from a mesh, which acted as window. Inside, she saw the crew man brought by Fahibian holding the small toucan statue of Ms. Morales, cleaning the smooth red hue of the heartwood with a piece of cloth. The toucan was made of Chakte, a type of wood found in Belize, Guatemala and the Yucatan peninsula. Exposure to light and air dulled the brilliance of the wood, but cleaning it restored the original color.
Duldu did not own many things and for some reason, he liked the wooden toucan that he'd found in the palapa of Ms. Morales. It was a trophy for him, proof that he was doing his job right, his own reward in exchange for doing all the hard work of unearthing the pyramids of Xuleiha. Fahibian had instructed him to inform him of all belongings of Ms. Morales, and also of all the papers she kept referring to ownership of the land of Miradorcito. His boss had managed to draw enough alliances to overrule the private property title of Miradorcito land, and claim to the governor of Campeche that the area was not properly maintained. That had resulted in his earlier mission to 'alter the calm mood' of the village, and becoming agent provocateur, by letting Ms. Morales know that soon, there would be a genuine asphalt road in Miradorcito. Duldu rejoiced, for the road built meant that he was doing his job well, and that meant a promotion when he returned to Belize to work at the 'Moneghetti Suites' in Ambergris Caye. His new role there as receptionist ranked a solid notch higher in pay and status than his current position as bellboy.
"Stay here," said Clarity, turning to Lanai, "it'll be just a minute." This was her chance to get closer to the head of the village. Clarity alerted Ms. Morales that Duldu had her wooden toucan and the strong woman reacted immediately.
"How do you know? Are you the one who took it?" The comment took Clarity by surprise.
"Not at all, I'm telling you Fahibian's hired worker has your toucan." Ms. Morales wanted to see it for herself and walked with Clarity towards Duldu's tent. Lanai was standing near the entrance of his tent, ensuring no one got in.
A few feet away, Zephairi was excavating a deep area with Flower.
"We've got another stela," said Zephairi. He shouted. "Duldu, come over here."
Duldu got out of his tent, seeing Ms. Morales walk towards him.
"My toucan, I want my toucan," she said.
"There is nothing I have which I don't own."
"Let me check your tent."
Zephairi walked towards them, gently pressing his hand on the back of Ms. Morales to lead her away from the tent of Fahibian's henchman.
"Leave Duldu. Come here, Ms. Morales, we found a new stela depicting a priestess. According to my indications during a trip I made to the side of Copan, this is the stela of an important priestess." Ms. Morales followed the advice of Lanai, using the opportunity to gather additional knowledge about her own tradition. She lifted a finger towards Fahibian's employee.
"I'll find it, I'll find my toucan."
"There's nothing to find. You're the one who owes me the keys of an excavator."
"Keys, what keys? I don't have any keys."
"You know you do lady, keys don't just disappear."
"You're not the head of this village Ms. Morales, you have to begin facing that," said Zephairi. Ms. Morales said nothing.
Duldu crossed his arms defiantly and remained at the entrance of his tent, until the group walked towards the new finding, which Zephari was labeling stela H, following a previous set of stelas found in other Mayan sites. Clarity saw Flower used a brush to sweep dust off the features of the priestess, who was not wearing a miter. A heated debate arose between Lanai and Flower as to which stela was more important. Stela B, the one depicting a mythical god of rain, or stela H, depicting a real person, a goddess incarnate as high-relief sculpture, dating back to t
he end of the Mayan influence peak around seven hundred A.D. Stela H was thought to embody a long twenty year cycle, the k'atun, and a soul-like essence associated with the divine. On the face opposite the five foot-high priestess, a series of twenty glyphs and thirteen numbers showed the tzolk'in calendar, a cycle of time linked for the Mayas to the growth of corn and to the gestation period of a baby, both of them spanning close to two hundred sixty days, the result of multiplying twenty days by thirteen numbers of the tzolk'in.
Zephairi began taking photographs of the statue, made of grey stone, at close range. Ms. Morales claimed that the statue belonged to the village, and that she was the representative of Miradorcito. Zephairi showed her his permit to do archaeological work and his mandate on behalf of Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History as caretaker of the site. Ms. Morales grumbled, but had to accept that she wasn't the one in charge at Miradorcito anymore.
That night, Duldu mounted guard near stela H, making a fire to keep warm. At the same time, he ensured no one got inside his tent to take his precious toucan from him. In the far distance, he saw the palapa of Ms. Morales, wondering what the former head of the village was doing there.
Inside the home of Ms. Morales, Clarity and her friends had enjoyed a pleasant dinner. Ms. Morales lived on her own, and so she enjoyed the company of these younger women. Kish had decided to go to sleep early, preparing for a new assault on his fence by Duldu the next day.
Flower showed Clarity the photograph taken from her smartphone of the lower part of stela H. They admired the image of the priestess holding a sceptre, and an engraved x-shaped cross that looked like the cross of St. Andrew, which they were used to seeing in the flag of Scotland. Clarity didn't see the linkage with the esoteric Mysteries that Lanai was trying to point out to Ms. Morales. According to her friend, in other esoteric traditions, the cross was often illustrated with a rose at the crossing point, becoming the rosicross. There was a code word in the book of Decadence that Clarity was still investigating, the word rosebud, and with Lanai's theory of cross-linkage across Mystery traditions, it looked like her friend was on her way to interpreting one of the meanings of the word.
"The rose is the logos, and the logos stands for reason and judgement," said Lanai.
"It could be, I don't know about the Western Mystery traditions," said Ms. Morales.
Lanai, who liked sharing her interpretation of the Western Mysteries with Ms. Morales, had the approval of the former head of village to raise questions that would be considered inappropriate by other people. She questioned the strong woman of Mayan descent about the difference between a priest and a shaman.
"The shaman works for individuals, the priest works for the community."
Strengthened by Lanai's words of encouragement, Ms. Morales began telling a tale of a Mayan priestess, Lady K'ab'al Xook, who lived during the Classic period in the old city of Yaxchilan, in what was now Chiapas, in Mexico. Lady K'ab'al ordered the making of a lintel depicting her motionless in front of a large snake standing on its tail. According to Ms. Morales, Lady K'ab'al was a high ranking member of a religious hierarchy called 'ah kinoob', meaning 'those of the sun', headed by a chief priest or priestess, referred to as the lord of the serpent.
"The snake represents water and fecundity, doesn't it?" asked Lanai.
"Yes, but there is another reason for that snake."
"What is it?" asked Lanai. Clarity glanced around and noticed that her friends Cynthia, Jenna, and Taimi, were not paying attention to Ms. Morales, preferring to talk about how good Zephairi's crew members looked, and whether they could get used to living in Egypt with any of them.
"The meaning of the snake is kundalini energy."
"That's an Indian term, isn't it?" asked Clarity.
"Yes, it's the energy of the gods. It's meant only for those who want to be swallowed by the serpent, and then reborn."