Photos from Previous Maya Trips
Travelers' Stories: Testimonials from Previous Trips

We are honored to offer a special program that supports the sacred traditions of Maya peoples during this momentous point in history — and coming change. Through the timing of our travels we are fortunate to immerse ourselves in Maya Mysteries showcasing the spiritual strength of the Living Maya connected with their ancient origins. We offer you an intimate opportunity, unlikely to be found on your own, engaging with spiritual leaders and healers who serve their people — with the intent that we are all transformed and carry the beauty home.

We begin our program in the lovely colonial town of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, surrounded by high mountains, with its stately architecture, narrow streets and markets replete with beautiful Maya weavings and handicrafts. Here we are introduced to the elements of Maya culture and traditions by Mayanists Carol Karasik and Chip Morris, creating a framework for what is ahead. We also meet Don Sergio Castro, known as the saint of San Cristóbal, and learn of his humanitarian healing work.

In a small hamlet above the village of San Juan Chamula we are invited into the home of Don Xun Calixto. Here he holds an audience telling his personal story of shamanic initiation and curing methods. After a special ceremony of prayers and offerings we share a meal in the family compound. We engage with the village-at-large through the festival of the Virgin of Guadalupe, witnessing the processional of saints and spending time in the Maya church where curanderos conduct healing sessions — and many have deeply spiritual experiences.

Doña Flori Pérez González, who carries the revered role of Maya Daykeeper, facilitates the temazcal, the traditional sweat bath used in childbirth and curing, with us as a cleansing ritual. She identifies this day, December 12, as B'atz', a day for continuity with the past, especially for offerings to our ancestors. We hold this intent as we transition to the Guatemala highlands where we light in Panajachel and explore Lake Atitlan and the Maya village of Santiago Atitlan. Moving on, we come to rest in Antigua Guatemala where we take in the sights and enjoy this colonial town, the old capital of Guatemala. Here we meet Daykeeper Felipe Mejía Sepet and his community and participate in the sacred fire ceremony held inside Iximche, an ancient Maya ceremonial center of equal importance to Tikal in northern Guatemala. This moving ceremony takes place on Ix, the day (December 15) of the jaguar when feminine forces are also strong.

We carry this immersion inside as we travel back to Chiapas — and on December 21 witness the solar alignments at sunrise in Palenque. We leave ourselves open to celebrate whatever ways show up during this profound climax to our journey... knowing that commitment to such an undertaking is life-changing, unfolding on multiple levels, informing our future and those we touch.

GROUP SIZE LIMITED. RESERVE YOUR SPACE!

Contact us at 928-778-1058 or info@kenosis.net to arrange
a Spiritual Travel journey for your group.

Carla Woody, MA, CHT... author of Standing Stark and Calling Our Spirits Home... is the founder of Kenosis LLC, an organization based in Prescott, Arizona, supporting human potential through workshops and spiritual travel opportunities. She leads retreats internationally sharing an integration of NLP, subtle energy work and world sacred traditions. Carla is the developer of "The Re-Membering Process", a model for spiritual growth, and works with individuals and groups in areas of transition, relationships, spirituality and whole health. She first journeyed to Palenque in 1995 and has been drawn back again and again by the resident mysteries of the region. In 2007, Carla founded Kenosis Spirit Keepers, a 501(c)3 organization, working to preserve indigenous wisdom traditions threatened with decimation.

Floridalma Pérez González is a traditional ajq'ij, a "carrier of time." Raised in a Mam village in the mountains of northern Guatemala, she learned traditional Maya medicine from her mother and father, both of whom are curers. After the family moved to Chiapas, Mexico, Flori eventually became an elementary school teacher, human rights worker, and associate of Colibri, an alternative health care center for indigenous women. At the age of 19, Flori began her formal training as a daykeeper under a Kaqchikel Maya elder from Guatemala. "My ceremonies help us to see the state of a person's energy... help people to cure themselves and to find answers to things that are troubling them, especially matters of health."

Felipe Mejia Sepet was born in Tecpán, Guatemala, near the ancient Kaqchikel capital of Iximche. A K'iche'-Kaqchikel, his Maya name is Kajkan (Sky Serpent). Don Felipe's work as a traditional Maya authority is rooted in his cosmovision. Over the years he has worked with survivors of the Guatemalan civil war and designed projects that strengthen Maya culture. He has also participated in many national and international conferences of Maya elders and other indigenous peoples throughout the world.

Carol Karasik is a poet, writer and editor who has worked on books and films in the fields of anthropology, art, ecology, and educational philosophy. For the last fifteen years she has lived in Chiapas in order to experience her passion on a day-to-day basis — Maya culture. That immersion has recently produced a novel set in nineteenth-century Chiapas, as well as the text for Corazon Abriendo, a multi-media dance piece based on Maya weaving which is now being performed in the US and Mexico. She received a National Endowment for the Humanities award for her script on Maya civilization. As editor she has been involved in many publications such as Maya Tales from Zinacantán, Living Maya, and available in July 2008, Every Woman Is a World: Interviews with Women of Chiapas. She is also conducting research on archaeoastronomy at Palenque. Carol is a quintessential storyteller who conveys the lives of the present-day Maya in a way that is mesmerizing.

Walter F. Morris, Jr. (Chip) was born in Boston. In 1972 he arrived in Chiapas as a lost tourist. He was fascinated by the Maya and decided to stay in order to learn Tsotzil as well as the Maya textile and their symbolic meanings. He is a founding member of the Sna Jolobil weaving collecive and compiled the Pellizzi Collection of Chiapas textiles. He was awarded a MacArthur Prize for his work in archaeology and anthropology, and he has published several books on folk art, including A Millenium of Weaving in Chiapas, Living Maya, and Hand Made Money: Latin American Artisans in the Marketplace.

The Tzotzil and Tzeltal Maya of the Chiapas highlands hold a rich tradition of religious festivals, curing rituals, herbal remedies and women's sacred medicine ways. Their healers are called through dreams and their everyday lives are infused with the esoteric metaphors that are documented in Classic Maya art. We will be fortunate to sample it all.

Maya fire ceremonies are offered to Mother Earth; to the four cardinal directions; to the first Grandmothers and Grandfathers and all our ancestors; to the rivers, lakes and seas; and to the powers of all animals and human beings in the universe. "The fire ceremony embraces the 20 day names in the sacred 260-day Maya calendar. But these are not simply day names; they are nahuales, living forces that are present in every element of the cosmos. People born on a particular day take the power of that day, and so, everyone possesses nahuales, which define our destiny on earth. When we make the sacred fire we speak with the 20 powers and they respond through the fire to what we ask of them. An ajq'ij ("counter of days"), has numerous responsibilities: spiritual and psychosocial guide, family counselor, and mediator as well as mathematician, astronomer, and keeper of the Maya calendars related to the cycles of the earth, moon, and human life." ...fire ceremonies emphasize the ancestral practices and principles of living together in harmony." (Source: http://lacasadelaguila.blogspot.com.)

Mexican photos ©2010 and 2012 Carla Woody. All rights reserved.