Everything we do and the way we think is based on a linear conception of time. Our very ideas of life, success, and happiness are tied to a non-cyclical, non-organic paradigm that often works against our own nature and potential. The Maya live in a different world—close to nature, close to their children and their elders, and close to time: the sacred and the secular. It may seem we could not be further removed from the Mayan way of life, but there is a road built centuries ago we can still access. It’s called the Tzolk’in, the sacred ritual calendar the Maya have used since ancient times to guide their personal and spiritual paths.
For the first time, The Serpent and the Jaguar brings you the Tzolk’in and all of its 260 days interpreted in the context of modern life and modern challenges. This book will help you redefine your relationship with sacred, cyclical time in the face of our demanding, stressful schedules operating on linear time.
Included in the book are:
- The full set of the 260 Energies of the Day of the Tzolk'in
- Detailed descriptions of the 20 trecenas and their ruling day signs
- Detailed descriptions of the 13 numbers
- Introductory sections on the Mayan Calendar, the day signs, trecenas, and the numbers
- A guide to living with sacred time
- Mayan Calendar tables to calculate dates offline
- Original day sign illustrations by New Zealand painter and artist Maree Gifkins (along with the traditional Maya day sign and number glyphs)
REVIEWS:
Birgitte Rasine’s The Serpent and the Jaguar stands out among the plethora of recent books on Mayan calendars by offering us a profoundly practical approach to the Tzolk’in, guiding readers in applying the wisdom of the ancient “count of suns†to their own daily lives. She gracefully avoids the hype and self-serving tendencies that infect the 2012 phenomenon, and instead inspires us to reflect upon ourselves in ways that our fast-paced modern lifestyle rarely allows.
— Robert Sitler, PhD, Director, Latin American Studies, Stetson University
Birgitte Rasine’s intuitive and my hard-science approach may produce fundamentally different world views of the Mayan Calendar, but with this book, I get the feeling that Birgitte is just like me, trying to capture the attention of the seekers of sacred time. She wishes to lead them to deeper insights, rather than offering stimulating, or comfortable, lies. My own works have a similar aim ... Some readers may reject my message and move on, but others respond to something, something that will entice them closer to the Real Maya, ancient and modern... the farmers, poets, weavers and kings, the warriors, captives, charlatans and sages that populate the lively world that Birgitte and I love.
— Mark Van Stone, PhD, Professor of Art History, Southwestern College
Beginning with the ground-laying Foreword by Kenneth Johnson, to the process for accessing personal guidance described by the author, Birgitte Rasine, to the poetic daily rendering of the Tzolk’in calendar, this book is far and away the most accessible and spiritually commanding work of its genre. The Serpent and the Jaguar is a must read, and one to be practiced faithfully—above all for understanding the cyclical nature of the Maya way that guides our own path for consistently living a fruitful life in any era, at any time, from day to day. Indeed, this work of art is a measure and celebration of sacred time. The wisdom it contains is abundant and precise, the language pragmatic yet liltingly poetic, its comforting and uplifting nature unparalleled. The Serpent and the Jaguar belongs in every collection dealing with the Maya culture.
— Jim Young, PhD, Author and editor, 2013! The Beginning is Here
