Blog Post: To Those Who Call on Hunab Ku, Ometeotl, and Teotihuacan: You Are (Unintentionally) Whitewashing Mesoamerica Traditions
It is a painfully widespread problem: So many people in modern society who are seeking more, who want deeper answers to the great mysteries of life, who crave grounding, connecting rituals turn to these ancient cultures for answers. There is just one big problem. 99% of people teaching about the mysteries and ways of the Aztec/Maya/Teotihuacanos are teaching traditions and ideas that are not actually native, and are just another form of colonialism in disguise.
It is difficult to say, but even often teachers that emerge from these cultures and traditions are often spreading teachings that were adapted to European standards in order to gain traction globally. In short, some very industrious thinkers from the Maya and Aztec worlds - even as far back as the 1600s - were already living in a world that was forcefully Christianized, and they were aware that moving their ideas from a true representation of Indigenous philosophy to one that aligned with the Catholic Church was possibly forced to maintain safety and survival (this common phenomenon is known as syncretism). As time went on and the world became more globalized and more Americans and Europeans gained interest in these cultures, it was more in the interest of appealing to a broader audience that these ideas were easily accessible to the Christian mindset. In other words, by the 1900s when spiritual leaders from this part of the world began to appeal to the Western mindset, they were already culturally bilingual, if you will, they knew how to switch back and forth fluently between Indigenous an Western thought.
It is a difficult realization to contend with, and I know many modern spiritually-seeking folks will choose to ignore this, but the truth is that beloved “Indigenous” gods in new age American spirituality like Hunab Ku and Ometeotl are not Indigenous at all. They were invented with a Western person in mind and have absolutely no roots in native Maya or Aztec thought or practice. The same is true with much of the way the mysteries of Teotihuacan have been presented to mass audiences. These figures were actually intentionally developed to have the appearance of Indigenous gods, while essentially mimicking Western values, which gave them more global validity (for more about this please see my article on the topic). Continuing to adopt these gods and concepts as part of a diverse spirituality actually has the opposite effect: it continues to prove that the modern Western mind is not open and curious enough to take on the long, intensive, truly transformative process of coming to know these figures in their authenticity. It reifies the self-centeredness of the Western mind. Long term, this actually serves to strengthen the colonialist spirit and weaken the attention and respect for the actual contributions of Indigenous populations.
Learning another culture is something that takes time. It is like learning another language - maybe you learn enough to say “hello,” maybe you learn casual conversational skills and stopped there. Maybe you have spent many years dedicated to learning the language, letting the language shape you. As a person who has spent nine years learning these cultures, learning how to enter them, and really allowing myself to be totally affected by the radically different perspectives at the heart of them, I can tell you, Hunab Ku and Ometeotl got nothin on the deep complex shape-shifting gods that really inform Mesoamerican spirituality.
If you have integrated these misinformed concepts of Mesoamerican myth and spirituality into your own spiritual teachings, writings, yoga classes and retreats, and even academic classrooms, you are not alone. I have seen many, many people unknowingly and totally unintentionally perpetuate these harmful, colonialist ideas. There are not a lot of places to get better information because the truth is it is incredibly hard to understand a worldview that is so different - so confronting - to your own. After a decade of experience studying other cultures, many months living among the Maya in Guatemala, many trips to Mexico, Spanish fluency, and a lifelong meditation and spiritual practice, it still took me three years of intensive study to even learn how to even begin to ask the right questions, or more importantly how to situate myself in a space where I could listen to the wisdom that was right there all along, but really could not be captured by books or studies.
It is my greatest ambition in life to authentically represent the Indigenous epistemologies of Mesoamerica, not only because they are beautiful and rare, but also because if widely understood and embraced, I believe a revivification of Indigenous epistemologies, understood in their native context, could radically, deeply change the world (see more on my works on Corn Consciousness).
It is my life’s work to present these teachings to the Western mind in a way that conveys them without losing their essence. This requires a very carefully cultivated blend of teaching through myth, ritual, and depth psychological practices. When it is appropriate, I use art, writing, and meditation as immersive practices to access the unusual archetypal energies held in these traditions. I am primarily a scholar, and am informed by the most current and the most up to date religious studies anthropological research. I am also a deeply spiritual person and an artist by upbringing, an activist and program developer by trade.
I do my work in a way that is grounded both in deep academic understanding and also radical spiritual orientation, and in that I believe I am totally unique. If you want to find out more about how I do my work and how I tailor it to yoga and spiritual groups, screenwriters and artists looking for authentic and unique stories, or socially conscious organizations looking to do deep decolonizing work, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
