13°
On my last night in Mexico, I had a nightmare consisting of a very vivid scene of human sacrifice at approximately 3:30 A.M., just hours before visiting the area in the photo above. The lone square structure just right of center is said to have been an altar for human sacrifices, and the entire area constructed in such a way that you can easily be heard about 1/4 mile away without needing to scream...
The acoustics are quite impressive.
I was staying in a hostel, sleeping on a cement floor with 9 other men in a single room the night before, and apparently I called out "something touched me" during my night terror. I felt like I was shaken awake, freezing, and dripping in sweat. Breathing as if I just ran the fastest time in a "toughmudder" competition.
Between the sun pyramid and the moon is a long avenue referred to as the "avenue of the dead". According to our tour guide, the road lays over top of perhaps thousands of sacrifices, and that on November 2 (which happens to be my birthday) the souls of the dead travel along it, from the sun pyramid, to the moon. I asked my tour guide what it might mean to be born on such a day, he replied that it would be something like "being born without a soul".
The sun and moon pyramids are quite a distance from one another, but the peaks of both are equal in altitude. The sun representing life, and the moon death. Creation and destruction, male, and female. The moon Pyramid is 1/3 the size of the sun pyramid, and the path taking you to it is at a grade of 13 degrees. Apparently ants prefer to build their cities on ground of that same grade, to provide protection to the colony from rain, and wind.
Systems of pools were used in and around these structures to hold water, with the optimal way to prevent stagnation to send the water down a grade of 13 degrees to level. Many of the altars possess 13 steps. The entire area forms a great crypt, of not only death, but hidden and obscure meanings.
Masterful carvings and workmanship adorn the area, the masonry and architecture is nothing short of supreme. I am also told that these pyramids are far larger than the ones of ancient Egyptian origin.
The stones jutting out in the image above were used as steps for the common people, which forced an image into my brain of a enormous population crawling to the peak, for an opportunity to be selected for the honor of sacrifice. I couldn't help but imagine what it must have looked like, with moving bodies covering every inch of it's surface. To die in this ritual sacrifice was considered to be a great honor, the local indigenous people played a game similar to lacrosse with the winner (not the loser) being chosen for death. Sacrificial death was considered a great honor
Attitudes surrounding life and death are very different in Mexico than North America, death being integral to, and very much a part of life itself in a cycle, until the end of all cycles, the 13th baktun cycle.
Before arrival I had imagined it would seem so dark, so ominous, to walk in a place that had seen so much death, such incredible brutality from the perspective of my American mind. But, it wasn't, in fact I felt at peace. The way you might if you sat alone in a quiet church.
Death is a very real event all of us will experience, fear, may only be a reminder of our mortality, and the mortality of those around us. Even with the incredible technology, brilliance, and skill of this civilization, they could not survive, and maintain forever. The force of time is unstoppable, and it's effects irreversible. The outcomes, inconceivable. Death and destruction are wholly unpreventable. With this awareness, I suppose I can see why death may become a celebration. The act of sacrifice born from a intimate understanding of the nature of time, and it's passage. Harnessing the power of death to achieve greater life... I don't fully understand it, but on some level it is sensible, even logical if only in the most basic and seemingly primitive of ways.
13 steps to the altar, 13 degrees, 13 moons, 13 deaths...It's so strange how wrong it feels just to write the number 13.