2012 Part 1: My Encounter with the Eighth Crystal Skull

For several years I co-facilitated groups going through Mesoamerica, journeying to understand more about the Maya and the fateful year of 2012. Well here we are at that crossroads. What now?

From time to time over the next several months, I will include in this blog some of my insights about what I see/feel we are about to encounter. Some of this material comes from my research through books, journeying, internet, sweat of exploring the ruins in ceremony; but a lot of it comes from interaction with the 8th of twelve crystal skulls.

As these stories unfold over the next several months, you will see that some of these visions have the quality lucid dreams. Somewhere between reality and a dream state. Often these states feel much truer than the world we walk around in.

I will start with my interaction with the crystal skull.

Dec 14 2008, Palenque, Chiapas Mexico

Gathering in a horseshoe shape in front of the Temple of the Skull in the Palenque main ruin site, we were waiting for the ceremony to begin. A group of us had been travelling in our magical bus on a sacred journey since the beginning of December.

I have been co-facilitating these journeys for three years and although they are demanding, they are also quite enjoyable. Our group was exploring many ancient sacred sites of the Maya, and participating in 1 – 3 ceremonies each day. The ceremonies were helping us navigate the feminine path that we were travelling. It is quite an adventure to be on a sacred journey and in deep ceremony for two weeks straight.

Palenque represents the seventh, or head chakra. Our group spent yesterday exploring and doing our own ceremony on this very large and magnificent site.  Near the end of the day a local white sheet shaman (white robed) caught my eye and asked if our group wanted to do a ceremony the next morning.

We had originally planned today as a rest day. A day to reflect and integrate all that we had learned and experienced on our journey through the traditional 7 chakras. Some had planned to rest, others planned on visiting the lovely spa at our hotel, some were going to spend the day journaling or simply experiencing what ever came up.

None of us dreamed that our rest day would involve yet another ceremony.

A good looking, western dressed indigenous man in his early 20s started the ceremony, and we were relieved with his clear English. A Maya Indigo man, but times are a changing. At first we thought that he was to be the translator for his father, an older man dressed in the traditional ‘white sheet’ of his people. We soon learned that this young man had travelled for three hours to do the early morning ceremony with us. His inner guides had told him the day before to come do this ceremony.

His grandfather had passed down to him the ceremonial rites he was about to perform. His father did prayers and song in their native language as the ceremony proceeded with the burning of copal, and the blessing of the space, the ancestors and each of us as participants.

As the ceremony started we noticed what looked like a bowling ball bag sitting on the grass.  When the chanting began, the leader opened the bag and pulled out a crystal skull. Then to my great surprise he handed the skull to me. Not quite knowing what to do, I followed my inner instinct and held the skull’s forehead to my own in a head salute or a Hongi (Maori Greeting). Next I held the skull to my heart and then passed it on around the circle. As I watched the skull get passed around to my fellow travelers, I was overwhelmed knowing that I had just held the eighth crystal skull of Palenque!

After everyone had a chance to experience the skull first hand, we were given a few minutes to spend some time in its company while curious tourists watched from the sidelines. Soon our guide told us it was time to leave and we began a one-hour trek through the jungle, climbing to the high pyramid of the Forgotten Temple.

When we arrived, the temple room on top of the pyramid had been prepared for what looked to be a much more intense ceremony of the skull. The air was rich with anticipation as we peered at the skull on its altar. Each of us was again cleansed in the copal smoke and with palm and banana leaves before having a personal ‘blessing’ session with the skull sitting on its altar.

The high humidity in the air took on a new quality of peace. Each of us had both a blessing done by the shaman and spent some time with the crystal skull. We even had time to make a water essence of the skull’s vibrational field, while in ceremony. Each of us got a crystal necklace that was both blessed by the skull and hung on the skull during the ceremony.

An hour later as we walked out of the jungle our party was wrapped in silence, each feeling altered by the experience. When I got back to the hotel I went into a mid-afternoon deep sleep, waking with a ‘download’ of much of the content of what I will be sharing over the while.

That evening as we did our group sharing around the pool I was excited to share with my fellow travelers the vision I had that day as it flooded through my mind.

To be continued . . .