Ya’aché: the Mayan sacred tree

You are a cosmic tree which roots can touch the sky and eternity. You are a tree of life that represents the creation of the universe. You are a symbol of geometry for the Mayan civilization and a sacred door between heaven, earth and the underworld. You are part of the whole and you are divinity, your leaves point the way to the sun and to the four directions, you cut the celestial sphere in two points.

You are Ya’axché, the sacred “ceiba”, the tree where the sun will always rise again.

According to some interpretations, in the Mayan philosophy human is the axis of the universe and holds in his hands the existence of everything that surrounds him. At the same time, the sun is the supreme element that borns and dies everyday, its trajectory marks the universal geometry. The sun shows the beginning and the end of cycles, seasons, the sowing and temporalities, among so many aspects of life.

Wisdom is a personal and spiritual tool for Mayan culture. That’s the big reason behind the great mayans mathematicians, biologists and astronomers, they wanted to be well informed.

For many researchers, such as the brilliant Mexican Mercedes De La Garza, the mayan universe represents the world with three great symbols: the sky, divided into 13 levels and in the form of a stepped pyramid; the earth, represented as a quadrangular plate; and the underworld, divided into 9 levels that are represented as an inverted pyramid.

This quadrangular plate touches in its four vertices the 4 directions of the planet, which are the inter cardinal points that we know. And just in each of these four directions, a sacred “ceiba” tree rises to support our earth. The four “ceibas” are accompanied by a guardian, or “Bacabe”, who takes care of all existence. And just in the middle of this terrenal plate, rises another big “ceiba” which creates the perfect balance of life.

This great ceiba — or “ya’axché” — is the spiritual connection that human being has with the sky, the earth and the underworld; the branches touch the 13 heavens and from its roots hang the 9 layers of the underworld. The ceiba connects the material and spiritual world, and in geometry, it represents the axis that cuts the earth in two, drawing two perpendicular lines that cross in the center, creating four angles of 90 degrees. This imaginary cross is the cross that is present in so many Mayan symbols.

Each step of both pyramids symbolizes the 24 hours of the day; since the sun rises at 5 o’clock in the morning (first step of the pyramid), the path of the sun through the zenith at 12 o’clock in the day, the sunset at 7 o’clock in the afternoon, the passage of the sun through the underworld at midnight, and the new birth of the sun at 5 o’clock in the morning. Time is cyclical and the sacred “ceiba” draws the stairs to heaven and the path of night. It’s important to say that the Mayan underworld is not a type of hell, is the contact with the energy of our ancestors and our mother earth.

Finally, the green “ceiba” tree also symbolizes the navel of the world and the point that connects the womb of earth with everything that exists on the outside. And just in that encounter, man and woman are located, capable of opening the door between the three worlds (heaven, earth and underworld), and having the great sacred “ceiba” as a guide.

That’s why the Mayan “ceiba” is a divine tree. It is a tree that in its anatomy symbolizes three great fields of Mayan knowledge: the path of the sun as part of astronomical knowledge, the geometry of the earth as mathematical knowledge, and human contact with the sky and the underworld as part of our duality and spiritual knowledge.

This is the story of a deep philosophical wave between a mother culture. Ceiba, “Ya’axché”, the sacred tree where the sun will always rise again.