Happy Spring Equinox and welcome to the Mexica New Year 2022!
The Spring holds a large gateway of passage from the dreaming of Winter to the budding of energy and activity that signifies the renewal of life, both inside and outside of us. It calls for a passage through release of that which no longer serves and purification as we greet new movement. It asks for a recapitulation of the prominent themes or events in our lives, as we pass the threshold into new energetic possibilities. In the Indigenous traditions of Mexico, March is therefore also the month of transition from one year’s cycle of prominent cosmic forces to the next, the new year based in the count of the Aztec Calendar. At a specific time, annually, on March 6th, we enter a period of days that are out of the count of the year called the Nemontemi. These days, between the 6th and the 12th are a time for quiet contemplation, rituals of cleansing, and taking stock of what the previous cycle has brought to light and what needs to be seen before moving on. The Mexica New Year arrives on March 12th, moving us into a new cycle that can be interpreted by both a number and an archetype, together representing the opportunities and challenges of the coming year. This is just one aspect of what the Aztec Calendar signifies, and its insights still provide us a glimpse into the cosmic observations and understandings of a culture that was and is dedicated to aligning with the largest view of our interrelationship with the vast. And yet, these celestial movements come to bear in our earthly lives in the most personal and practical of ways, especially if we decide to take advantage of the moment before us.
This may be even more true in relation to the year that has just begun. We are now entering a year of expansion, far more auspicious than the previous one, but what expands for us will greatly depend on how we meet it. Coming from the past year’s energy of contraction, ruled by 9 House, which limited our ability to create and encouraged the expression of our human underworlds, as manifestations of fear, violence, rage, stagnation, and imbalance of power, it feels very encouraging to greet the year of 10 Rabbit.
Yancuic Xihuitl Mactlactli Tochtli: New Year 10 Rabbit
Let’s break down the meaning of the number and archetype for this year.
Mactlactli means ten. The way the Nahua traditions imagine this is through the metaphor of our two hands, with all ten fingers working together. We think of our first five fingers as the talents, gifts, and interests that we inherit from our ancestors, yet with only five we may lack the discipline and focus to cultivate them fully in our lives. With ten, it is like our hands coming together, joining the inheritance of talents with the what we need in the present to bring them to full flowering. There is a saying in Mexican culture: With our two hands, we make tortillas. With ten, we can create in a beautiful way. We take our inclinations and create beauty and nourishment, for ourselves and others. This is how we accomplish what we feel most driven to do, and move it from the level of unconscious soul territory, or desire, to a blossomed expression in this time and place, giving it the nuances of our idiosyncratic natures.
In the metaphor of our hands as a representations of the number ten, there is also the element of reflection, like one hand reflected in a mirror, creating two. One is the compliment of the other, the gifts of our ancestors (perhaps quite distant ones) and the ability to execute them here and now. With the mirror image comes the presence of a major force in the Nahualismo tradition, The Black Tezcatlipoca or Yauyauqui Tezcatlipoca, the force that rules the unconscious, dreams, duality, and the process of healing and retrieving ancestral knowledge and gifts at a deep level. The beauty we create with our hands this year may also be the emergence of the themes of our soul that have been waiting to flower. Are you ready to own what you feel most truly called to do and be?
Tochtli means rabbit, in Nahuatl. Here we find ourselves, in both the year and the season of the Rabbit archetype, as Oestre/Easter awaits us in April and Spring emerges in full bloom. The Rabbit, as an archetype, is dualistic, and provides us a great opportunity to either create joy and success or depletion and suffering. The Rabbit represents fertility, abundance, multiplicity, our talents, creativity, and pleasure in our lives. These themes can guide the year we are beginning, and will especially rule those born within a Rabbit year. If we take the opportunity provided here, we will have the cosmic forces behind us as we manifest that which we want to create and expand. There are four types of years within the Calendar that create a cycle of archetypes. These are the glyphs that represent plants, minerals, animals, and humans. They correspond with a cycle contraction and expansion, which alternates each new year. In an animal year, we are under the energy of expansion, and as such is the case this year with Rabbit, the potential for expansion is doubled. We need to consider carefully and intentionally what we will expand, however, because Rabbit has another side.
In Mexico, when someone is engaging in their habitual self destructive habits, whether this is drinking too much, choosing bad relationships, or something else they know doesn’t serve them but can’t resist, people say they are “in their Rabbit".” Rabbit rules our weaknesses, our addictions, our repetitive patterns of self destruction and distraction. Some of these may be relatively harmless, and yet they drain our vital and creative energies, and distract us from our deeper purposes. The “Mother of Rabbits,” however, is addiction to suffering, and under this we may sabotage ourselves in enormous ways, creating dramas, health issues, and other problems that can serve to keep us busy or bring us some form of care, and yet do so at our peril. Rabbit is deeply associated with the Moon, Meztli, another aspect of Tezcatlipoca, and an amazingly sacred and generous force that expresses her duality by either giving us everything or taking everything from us, here on the earthly plane. For these reasons, we can’t allow our relationship with Rabbit to be unconscious. We need to meet this energy with intention. If we can do that, we have an excellent chance of releasing our addictions, healing our more self destructive tendencies, and manifesting what we wish to create, with abundance and blessed fertility. To let go of something, however, we must truly want to. If we don’t, we won’t fully succeed. Another option is at least meeting our habits and addictions with awareness, and making clear steps to limit them. This will not be a good year to let your Rabbit run away with you. You may find yourself expanding what you don’t want to.
Sergio Magaña, sanctioned teacher of the Nahualismo tradition in Mexico, described this year as a portal, saying it is “like someone opened a gateway to the heavens, for those who are aligned with that, and also a gateway to the underworlds. It’s the way you are vibrating that dictates what you’re going to get.” This means that we need to choose decisively and to take steps to set ourselves in one direction or the other. It’s a good time to recall and recommit to the strong practices that help you align with the best version of yourself. It is an excellent time to bring yourself forward and advance your best dreams. Maybe you will call on Rabbit to bless your art, your joy in life, your talents and vocation, your ability to create family, or your personal healing. When we meet this archetype with intention, we may find the blessing of fecundity for all we are longing to manifest, and this can shift the balance away from the unconscious expression of our weaknesses. Even if this takes some effort, it offers us more potential than the year we have just left, when our inner house was activated, called us to take stock of what was out of order, and perhaps encouraged us to hide away. Who you are most deeply is invited to come out of the land of the hidden and forgotten. It is invited to shine, to cultivate beauty, to expand, and to blossom. What are you going to do about it?
Begin by asking yourself what you really want, what you have been waiting to create. Then ask what has been standing in your way.
There is your first step. Follow it all this year by honoring the cycles and rituals of the Moon. Ask for her favor.
Together in friendship, guided by the cosmos, and embracing the opportunity to grow to our full soul potential, this is the meaning of the astrological eleventh house.
May it be a good year for all of our community.
In Sacred Partnership,
the eleventh house
-This blog was written by Melusina Gomez. You can learn more about her work and healing practices at www.metzmecatl.com