A Message From the Mayan Ruins

Over the Thanksgiving week Doug and I visited Belize in celebration of our 30^th wedding anniversary.  We chose Belize, in part, because we knew we could visit some Mayan ruins.  We were not disappointed.  On the last day of our most wonderful week, we loaded into a van with our smiling guide, Heartfield.  A born in Belize local, we were told he spoke five languages and possessed a lifelong wisdom of the Mayan ruins and culture.  After a two hour drive through the country side, where we passed many bikers on rusty bikes, walkers as well as more than one Amish horse and buggy, we finally arrived at the first site. 

Heartfield was a wealth of knowledge and told us many great stories.  But I was most taken with a kind of freedom I sensed in his soul I had also felt among many of the locals we had gotten to know a bit during our days there.  Can’t quite put my finger on it, or fully explain it, but it was this very sense that followed me home and still informs me in unexpected ways.  There was also a kindness, again that I sensed among many, as he would offer his hand to help some of us older and more challenged ones up the ruins.  “Don’t be afraid”, he would say softly.  “Give me your full weight.”  And, with Doug on one side and Heartfield on the other, up I went!  And, all the while Heartfield would be smiling, weaving in stories of daily life which occasionally included his family of seven children.  I found myself wondering if his home was one of the few that had indoor plumbing and tried to imagine what their evening time was like with all those children without the stimulation of technology or a variety of extra-curricular activities.

At the very end of our day’s tour of amazing beautiful sites, Heartfield’s tone and expression suddenly became more matter of fact.  He asked if we had heard of the Mayan prophecy predicting the end of days to occur on December 21, 2012.  We all acknowledged that we had and then he said, “Well, I want you to know that I have it on good authority that it’s all BS.  Do you know what BS stands for?”  We were all silent for a moment until someone said with a giggle, “Bull Sh…!”  Heartfield said, “NO!  It doesn’t”, suddenly quite animated.  It means, “Book sales!” and smiled with the brightest expression in his eyes.  He went on to say how newly discovered artifacts have shown the next millennium of time and that what is really going to happen on December 21, 2012 is that humankind will be given the great opportunity to experience the possibility to begin anew…

…to begin anew…of course!  Every ending is a beginning.  Every death a birth.  So, there you have it – on good authority from the soul of Heartfield straight from the heart of the Mayan ruins.  Delivered with a gleaming smile and a tender helping hand.  I came home sensing, a little more deeply, what it means to not need to know because somehow, right there in the ancient ruins, as well as right here at my computer, I can still feel the Grace of the Beloved lifting us all up, one step at a time, higher and higher, to a final magnificent place of rest touching the clouds…only then, to simply begin again, anew.

Thank you Heartfield.