NEW YEAR, AGAIN AND AGAIN
So far, we have experienced the New Year several times. But what is really new? Our wishes for the new can evaporate like fireworks, without long-term commitment and path of practice. We have experienced already many new beginnings and openings: the Gregorian New Year on January 1st and the Chinese Lunar New Year of the Wood Dragon on February 10th. In the traditions following the cycles of nature, we have celebrated the Cross Quarter Day, midpoint between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox, observing with joy the first signs of spring and growing light.
We live in a flux of polytemporal time-context, interweaving many calendrical layers and cultural influences. Within this multidimensionality of time each of us is navigating according our to our choices, defining what is most meaningful seasonal rhythm to follow and how to track and organize our days wisely.
Here in Finland, I have been wintering particularly deeply and well. There has been spaciousness for the new to emerge slowly, from dreams and hibernation, from silence of crystalline snow, from deep nourishing darkness of long nights.
THE NEW YEAR OF THE K’ICHE’ MAYA SOLAR CALENDAR
For me, as a Nordic daykeeper, the most significant New Year is aligned with the solar calendar Macehual Q’ijof K’iche’ Maya at the end of February. This ceremonial transition is synchronizing both my soul and my biological clock with spring awakening, marking the end of hibernation.
Following the traditional way of Guatemalan highlands I have just completed my annual Tz’api Q’ij, a five-day contemplative retreat, which brings closure to the previous solar year cycle and prepares for the beginning of the next one. For me this threshold, just before nature awakens here in the North, creates a timely pause for deep inner work and tuning in to the arriving energies of the New Year Bearer. This specific Tz’api Q’ij was embedded in the heart of a particularly powerful trecena, beginning on Jun 1 Kame and ending on Oxlajuj 13 Tijax.
Tz’api Q’ij means closing days. It is period without Year Bearer, emphasizing our own responsibility to create a respectful transition from old solar year to the new. In the ancient times the practices were emphasizing careful isolation, fasting and social withdrawal. Various contemporary rites of passage has been evolving to guide through these special days – some also collective ceremonial journeys – to transition from honouring the gifts and learnings of the previous cycle towards setting intentions for the cycle ahead.
Macehual Q’ij, beginning in February, is a 365-day solar cycle guiding agricultural and everyday activities. It is synchronized with the 260-day sacred Chol Q’ij ceremonial calendar. Each new solar year brings a new Year Bearer to be welcomed and seated in power. This year, on 19th of February 2024, the arrival of Mam Kab’lajuj No’j was honoured with many Fire Ceremonies and colourful welcoming festivities.
MAM KAB’LAJUJ NO’J IN THE 13-YEAR CYCLE
The cycles of Chol Q’ij flows in 13-day waves. The rhythmic fractal, organizing pattern, based on 13 can also be seen in the Macehual Q’ij continuum of solar years, which is alternating four Year Bearers: Mam Kej, Mam E’, Mam No’j and Mam Iq’. It is important to place the current Kab’lajuj 12 No’j year, which just began on February 19th 2024 in this context.
We have now journeyed eleven solar years towards the completion of a significant 13-year period, which began when seed of change, Jun 1 Iq’ was sown on February 21st, 2013. This was the first solar year and Year Bearer after the turning point of December 21st, 2012 when one cycle of Maya Long Count calendar ended and new begun.
These first eleven years of a new Long Count have been accelarating winds of change. Next year, on 18th of February 2025, Year Bearer Mam Oxlajuj 13 Iq’, will bring the accumulated change of the 13-year period into closure. We have been feeling the acceleration of winds of change, and there is a poignant link between the nawal IQ’ and speeding of the climate change. Atmospheric breath of planet Earth is clearly alarming us to pay attention, what is communicated by the biosphere and living ecosystem to us, humans as driving force of the anthropocene and sixth mass extinction. Therefore, during this solar cycle, it would be wise to prepare for the up-coming grand finale of the first 13-year period of Long Count, which began on December 21, 2012.
The number 12, Kab’lajuj, as the penultimate number of trecena is moving us towards gathering our experiences into sense-making conclusions and summarization. I have used the words ’whole story’ for this numeral force. When 12 is combined with nawal No’j, representing innovative thinking, higher intelligence and cosmic mind, we are supported by an inspiring combination that can help us to refine our knowledge into wisdom. I have described No’j with words ‘mystical scientist – scientific mystic.”
I see this solar round of with Mam Kab’lajuj No’j as our opportunity for planetary timewisening.
NO’J SOLAR YEAR EXPANDS OUR CONSCIOUSNESS
The nawal No’j is particularly familiar to me: I was born on Wajxaqib’ 8 No’j day and Oxlajuj 13 No’j year. The descriptions of No’j nawal that I read at the beginning of my Maya studies did not completely match with my own personal experience. It was only when I heard an authentic, pre-colonial description of nawal No’j from K’iche’ Maya daykeepers that I felt precise alignment with my own felt sense of this power.
Last time we experienced the arrival of No’j solar year was on 20th of February, 2020 when Mam Wajxaqib 8 No’j was seated in power. Some weeks later I began my immersion into collective trauma, studying its impact in the life history of individuals, families and nations. During my training my time perception was radically changed. The more I was able to heal my personal, ancestral and collective trauma, the clearer and more precise my awareness of time became, opening a more subtle perception of Chol Q’ij calendar as well.
Now, as the new Kab’lajuj 12 No’j year has just begun, I feel a resemblance to the energies of the previous No’j year. It is possible, that also this cycle of 365-days will expand our collective consciousness in an unexpected way, challenging us to think radically new solutions to arising global challenges. Nawal No’j has its seismic power, to shake and awaken as it is sourcing deeply from the living pulse of the planet Earth.
Trauma prevents us from being fully present in our own time, fragmenting our full embodiment. It ties our energy to the past and creates a repetition compulsion, making us prisoners of the past, stuck in the old story. Then the future is just a vicious cycle of the past that keeps appearing in front of us. We call it the future, but in fact it is just a repetition of the old story. This past, which surfaces in various disguises again and again, will not change until we face the traumatic lock that holds us in its grip. Repetition compulsion creates suffering on individual, ancestral and collective levels. We cannot truly become wiser and learn from the past if we do not turn towards the suffering caused by trauma by creating a safe and compassionate space to integrate past into the now, by healing the broken connections with patience and gradual restoration.
TIMEWISENING AS A PATH OF PEACE
How can we as humanity wisen up, learn from our history and mature enough to cultivate peace, in inner and outer realms? For the evolution of higher collective consciousness as humanity we need to act from Earth-centered worldview and ecosystemic understanding, so we can develop an everyday path of practice of responsibility and embodied care for the larger whole.
Wisdom is knowledge that is translated into to change of action. During this Kab’lajuj No’j solar year, we can prepare for the accelerating winds of change by strengthening our inner wisdom by integrating all dimensions of our life story: cultivating our core presence, resourcing from the resilience of our ancestral roots and mindful orientation towards the futucestors.
TIMEWISENING is a trauma-informed and neuro-informed process I have developed based on my own experiences of transformational autobiographical work.
The process is guided by multidimensional TREE OF TIMES –map, that invites to weave our individual life story into a larger planetary context. The journey begins by developing an anchored sense of our own land and somatic soul-soil: taking responsibility for our own footprint on this shared planet and considering its impacts on biosphere. When we stand centered in the core of our own Tree of Life, feeling home and alive in the mystery of our own self, we can also meet others with widening circles of compassion and appreciative inquiry.
Since 2020, the motto of my personal narrative peace work has been: Piece by piece, peace by peace. The autobiographical time healing, which I call TIMEWISENING has been opening a path of peace across inner war zones and divided lands of dispute, betweaving connections across broken family bridges and transgenerational conflicts.
During my inner work I have integrated contemporary trauma healing modalities with Earth Wisdom, with permission from elders and lineage keepers, who have protected ancient ecosystemic knowledge for the well-being of all humanity and the Earth.
When we let our presence breath through TREE OF TIMES, dwelling in three interrelated homes of self, TIMEWISENING can be a path for more soul peace, ancestral peace and world peace.
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I currently guide TIMEWISENING process only in individual mentoring sessions. The group mentoring journeys and longer training programs will be available from fall 2024 onwards.
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My book about TIMEWISDOM is in the final stages.
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Coming in summer 2024:
Art Exhibition – Outi Leiskuma and Mervi Riikonen: The Sister-Space of Fire-Water. Gallery of Rautalampi Library, 3.- 30.6.2024. Opening on June 3rd, at 17.00 – 19.00.
Lecture – Outi Leiskuma and Mervi Riikonen. Stories weaving paths of peace. The epic ancestral song as the living pulse of an art exhibition. In connection to cultural event Poem and Song of Rautalampi 2024. Gallery of Rautalampi Library, 27.6.2024 at 17.00 – 18.00.
Lecture – Outi Leiskuma: AIKAINPUU – Planetary timewisening. Tietäjäpäivät of Pielisen Tietäjäkeskus. Koli, Kelvänsaari 20.7.2024.