A wake up call about an ancient obsession
by Shannon Bradford
As children, chances are we were enchanted by one of the following:
- Glitz, glamour and actors
- Outer space
- Horses or cars
- Enormous pyramids
In my case, I was equally fascinated by deep space exploration and ancient tombs. I spent my entire childhood wishing for the chance to visit Egypt and touch a real mummy, and then the majority of my adolescence and young adult life wishing for the chance to visit the ancient Mayan pyramids and climb to the top of the jungle.
The Egypt thing hasn’t happened yet, but I have followed the footsteps of the Mayans multiple times through recent years. I’ve climbed their amazing pyramids, visited indigenous pueblitos, attempted to learn Kek’chi, and marveled at the genius and ancient lore of it all.
Yet I’m still writing this article which, from the title, suggests that something is amiss.
I’m a bit of a dreamer, you see. I write fictional stories, I prefer to live in my head, and I’m offering this all as a sort of disclaimer for the scientific-types who visit ancient pyramids and see ruins in a totally different light. When I visit ancient buildings, I hear distant drums in my head, I can practically see the ancient inhabitants, I concoct sordid tales of love and injustice amongst nobility and commoners, and I’m pretty sure that in the back of my mind I believe that all the ancient Mayans were infused with the fabric of some Universal Secret.
So it’s easy to see why visiting Mayan ruins is a magical, spiritual event for me. There’s nothing that gets my heart pounding more than the knowing that the ancient Mayans walked over the same ground, laid eyes on the same pyramids, looked up to the same sky. The heat of the jungle combined with the saccharine rot of the plantlife, the ruins strewn about as though discarded by a giant toddler who went to find something else to do while he was sloppily constructing a pyramid out of stone blocks, the semi-beaten paths that still maintain fabricated authenticity like you’re the one who discovered the pyramid…it all adds up to a very romantic, albeit sweaty, journey.
Yet this journey is not nearly as romantic as previously believed. After a particularly informative tour through more remote ruins in Guatemala, I learned some things that had somehow escaped me. Perhaps I didn’t read the brochures closely enough; perhaps I consciously blocked the information. Whatever the reason, I’ve been forced to reconsider my intimate relationship with the ancient Mayans. More correctly, Reality finally broke through the dense, dreamy lining around my brain and forced me to abandon some of my previous beliefs about these ancient civilizations.
Per the advice of Support Groups and Counselers, I wrote a letter to the ruins that I won’t send.
Dear Mayan Ruins,
I’ve always had a special place for you in my heart. I always knew that you and I would connect on a deep spiritual level and that I would be able to visit you, secure in the knowledge that you have been maintained and restored precisely as you once were. But now I know this isn’t true, and I can’t continue pining away for you now that I know you’ve been living a lie. You really should have been up front with me, and at least posted a sign in a more visible area that allowed me and other visitors to know the REAL truth about you, but you didn’t, and now I’m upset.
First of all, you are partially reconstructed. As in, not from the hands of ancient natives who toiled mercilessly under the sun whilst eating mushrooms and struggling to worship Kukulkan. Rather, SOME of you were “artfully re-created” by scientists – and not ancient scientists, but MODERN scientists who have a birthdate that I can still sort of relate to. Not cool. This denies me the dreamy, breathless recollection of times past as I wander through you and gently touch your stones. The last hands to touch those were not natives, and they certainly didn’t arrange them in that way. How can I trust anything you show me now? What if the pyramid I am most impressed by turns out to be a “guesstimate” made by some dude with a PhD from England? That’s not ancient, it doesn’t whisper sweet indigenous nothings into my ear, and it robs me of my awestruck wonder.
Second of all, you were not surrounded by jungle. The Mayans cleared out the jungle for miles around their settlements, and the fact that you are surrounded by jungle now really detracts from me creating an ACCURATE image of how the ancient Mayans actually lived. I think it is unfair that you are surrounded by jungle, which inadvertently creates a romantic, jungle-fever style setting , thus allowing me to imagine that ancient Mayans might have slipped into a wormhole and accidentally made it to the year 2009 and are watching me through the underbrush. The jungle element, while a nice touch that certainly is unlike any experience I could find in North America, is just misleading altogether. How can I imagine ancient Mayan civilizations with a false backdrop? Surely you understand my quandary.
Last of all, you have too many lovers. I was under the impression that you and I had something special, but here you have girlfriends (and boyfriends) coming from all over the world, touching you, oozing on about you, taking pictures with you. It makes me a little jealous, and it certainly makes me fearful that you might not be able to hang around for much longer with so much activity and destructive behavior. Your original paint is flaking off; your stones are eroding; your undiscovered depths are being penetrated by modern tunnels and glass panes. All I want is your safety (and lifelong commitment), so please understand why we need to part ways for awhile.
I wish with all my heart that when I return to you (and believe me, I will), perhaps the sting of Facts will have dissipated and I can continue my ancient reverie.
Until then, Mayan Ruins, I bid you adieu.
Wishing for ancient mists and distant primal yells,
Shannon