This is a time of remembering. The time to experience the mystery of life in its reality. A time to allow and embrace all that is in your heart to come forth, putting aside fears and drawing forth your soul’s authentic voice to commune with those of others in symphony. The butterfly is a beautiful and powerful example for us to learn from. So much of the answers we seek are present in the miracles that are all around us as gifts from Mother Earth. We need only to look with our hearts and be consciously present to receive.

In a previous post, I shared a little bit about the Mayan Hunab Ku symbol, also known as the One Giver of Movement and Measure and the Galactic Butterfly (my favorite description). I wanted to explain its symbolism a little further and its connection to the now, as well as its butterfly connection. To the Mayans, butterflies are seen as ancestors returning for a visit to physicality, and part of that return is to support the shifts in consciousness by bringing back the wisdom, integrated into the now, for a return to natural harmony.

Again, this symbol (Hunab Ku) is said to represent all consciousness that has ever existed in this galaxy: all our physical ancestors including human, animal, reptile, fish, shell fish, plants, as well as the consciousness which organized all of the raw material from a whirling disk into stars, then planets, and solar systems. It’s meaning is so huge that the original Maya had no symbol for this. In their civilization it was like having no name for God. Just knowing the concept was good enough. Later this pattern was devised by Toltec or Zapatec weavers as a pattern for blankets and this is where Jose Arguelles came across it. He called it Hunab Ku. The indigenous peoples call it “The Galactic Butterfly.”
 
This symbol is very powerful, as it broadcasts one’s reaching to actively join the consciousness of our galaxy. The Maya taught that the Milky Way Galaxy is the generator of life. The architect of the universe is called Hunab Ku, The Absolute Being, The Center of the Galaxy, The Universal Dynamism, which stimulates and motivates life in its total manifestation of spirit and matter. The principle of intelligent energy that pervades the entire universe. Hunab Ku is understood to transmit radiant energy information through stars which serve as lenses to transmit energies to planets. Our Sun is the chief mediator of Hunab Ku for our planetary system, the lens by which Earth receives direct galactic information. The pulsations of Hunab Ku are understood as a language of codes and energies recorded in the form of the Tzolkin, a universal harmonic module accommodating every possible permutation of Hunab Ku, also known as the Sacred Calendar. Numerically, Hunab Ku is communicated as the union of numbers 13 and 20, which represent movement and measure, energy and form, spirit and soul.

Hunab Ku, who can see and understand everything, knows that the time for the great change has come. We will complete a 26,000 year cycle, according to the calender on 12/21/12 – not the end of the world, but the beginning of a new experience of life as we have never known. A new cycle has already begun and life as we know it is evolving continuously and rapidly. A cycle that calls us to realign with the cosmos, which can provide essential energy needed to live together harmoniously and with honor for our Mother Earth. We are not separate from anything or anyone. These are the times in which all races, from all directions, must come together in harmony and unity. The Hearts of All Beings are connected. It is impossible to be disconnected.

Many indigenous peoples of the New World hold butterflies in a special place in their culture and butterfly motifs were used everywhere including ceramics, stone carvings, mural paintings, codices, feather work, wood carvings, and gold ornaments. They appear not only in pure form, but in many highly stylized renditions, sometimes so abstract that they were frequently misinterpreted by pioneer archaeologists.

Xochiquetzal, symbolized by a Mayan mythological butterfly, was called “precious flower” and regarded as a mother goddess, goddess of love, goddess of flowers, as patron of all fine arts, as the symbol of beauty, as the symbol of fire, as a symbol of the spirits of the dead, as the patron of domestic laborers and as the patron of warriors killed in battle.

Itzpapalotl, the Aztec “obsidian butterfly,” was a mother goddess, goddess of obsidian and knives, of human sacrifice and of war, the personification of the Earth, the patron of women who died in childbirth and more.

Massive figures of warrior-priests (about 15 feet high) have breastplates decorated with a butterfly motif. Along with the snake, the butterfly was one of the most frequently represented animals of Ancient Mexico that held deeply religious symbolism. Butterflies represented fire, soul, death, warriors, travelers, and hummingbirds. They were a component of many poems and songs.

The butterfly has come to mean many things to many people, collectively and individually. Some of its symbolism includes: resurrection, transition, celebration, lightness, time, soul, transformation, joy, unquestioning embrace, keeping the faith, grace…

I celebrate the beauty of the butterfly, recognizing it’s rich spirituality and honoring it as I would myself. For, if butterflies are said to carry the souls of our ancestors, then isn’t it quite possible that all creatures, great and small, possess the essence of intelligence beyond what we are presently conscious of? We have much to remember.

Nature has so much beauty to behold and the butterfly is an exquisite example of the precious miracle of life.