It was 2006 and we were vacationing in the Yucatan Peninsula in the south of Mexico, with time and more to spare for the end of the world foretold by the Mayan Calendar on Dec 21, 2012. Jokes aside, the Mayan calendar is still in use today and so precise that their 365 day Haab calendar has an error of only 1 day in 6729 years, while our “modern” calendar has an error of 1 day in 3236 years. One of the highlights of our trip was Chichen Itza, which dates back to 600 A.D. and was one of the largest cities of the Mayan Empire and includes architectural wonders like the 100 ft high Temple of Kukulcán. This stepped pyramid, marvel of new world engineering has a dark and gruesome side. It was the site of human sacrifice carried out in ceremonies of colossal scale, at which upwards of 20,000 victims were sacrificed at a time in bloody offerings to the gods. In these many day-long rituals, the still-beating heart of the victim would be cut out with a sacrificial knife made of flint and offered to the deity.
Temple of Kukulcán or El Castillo, Chichen Itza, Mexico
Despite this terrifying history, Chichen Itza is considered to be an "energy vortex" and attracts new-agers in droves for its supposed powers of healing and rejuvenation. When told about this by the local guides, I rolled my eyes in skepticism. We spent the rest of the day taking in the sights and returned to our nearby motel for a well-earned night's rest.
At the time, I had the habit of doing 20 minutes of yogic breathing or pranayama prior to bedtime, and had been bothered for over a year by a tight and painful catch at the base of my sternum that prevented full expansion of my lungs. I would frequently play with this spot with my fingers trying to massage out the soreness, to no avail. That night, pranayama complete, I nodded off to sleep. The vivid and hyper-realistic dream that that I experienced later in the night was out of a new age playbook. In it, I was lying on my back with my chest bared. A bald headed female Buddhist monk in saffron robes stood next to me holding an obsidian dagger. She gazed into my eyes intently, yet kindly, in a Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One kinda way. "I am going to press the dagger into your chest and it will hurt", she said "but the tightness you've been experiencing will go away". I nodded my consent. An intense, searing pain tore through me as she pressed the blade into me just under the ribcage.
I sat bolt upright in bed with a gasp, panting heavily. It was pitch dark and Bhavna and Meghna were fast asleep. What. Was. That. I wondered. I felt the spot at the base of my ribs and the tightness was gone. In the following days and weeks, my pranayama was smooth and effortless, with not a hint of discomfort. In disbelief, I kept waiting for the tightness to return, but it never did. I am no more a believer in energy vortices today than I was before, but this incident from 2006 has left me a little warier of Chichen Itza, a place where the priests imposed a reign of terror and rivers of blood flowed copiously.
Post Script: I want to stress that many, many nations and cultures have a bloody past, not just the Mayans. The Spanish Inquisition was cruel and vast in its scale. Slavery and genocide were part and parcel of the colonization of North America, and its legacy lingers on. Nazi Germany needs no introduction. The caste system in India continuous to oppress large segments of the population. So on and so forth.
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