Curanderismo Soul Retrieval: Ancient Shamanic Wisdom to Restore the Sacred Energy of the Soul - Erika Buenaflor M.A. J.D. 2019

The East of The Mexica
The East: The Space of New Beginnings

The East is typically the last space we go to in the soul retrieval process. We go here when we are ready to create new stories, paths, and identities, and to take action to support these new beginnings. When we arrive at the East, we have developed habitual healthy practices of self-love and self-compassion, particularly around any issues that may been discovered while working with the South. We have committed to releasing anything that would inhibit the return of our soul pieces to a nurturing and positive sacred space. We are no longer attached to those stories, identities, or practices associated with the soul pieces that left. We have come full circle to a new point of reality, and we are committed to creating a loving, nurturing, and safe space for our soul pieces.

For the ancient Mexica and Yucatec Maya, the East was also related to new beginnings. It was the place of soul-giving energy, the rising sun, fertility, abundance, ascending, power, creation, regeneration, the color red, and cyclical completion and renewal. It was associated with a paradisal flower realm, a mythical place of emergence for gods, and a paradisal solar afterlife that housed those that had been brave, virtuous, and ethical.¹ It was the primary direction, conceptually and spatially. It was the idealized space of new life.² It was where the sun deity was resurrected from its journey through the Underworld. The souls of royal ancestors, brave warriors, gods, and other supernatural beings came out of the East and traveled on the Flowery Road, the sun’s path, which ascended the levels of the Upperworld.

The East of The Mexica

Life, New Beginnings, and Resurrection

The East was the region of light, symbolized by the reed, and represented fertility and life.³ The deities presiding over the East were also associated with new life, fertility, abundance, and creation.⁴ The Red Tezcatlipoca and Xipe Totec, deities of the East, were connected to vegetation, creation, and the renewal of nature.⁵ Tlaloc, as the god of rain and by extension fertility and life, was associated with the East. East was the direction of Quetzalcoatl as Venus, the morning star, known as Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, and of the revered rain-bringing spring and summer winds that came from the East. The East was ruled by Tonatiuh, the sun god of the fifth world, who provided solar energy and by extension new sustenance every day. In the Borgia Group codices, the directional temples and trees of the East were consistently portrayed with jade and quetzal birds, precious goods derived from the eastern realm.⁶

The Thirteen-Year Bearer sign of the East was acatl (reed), whose years were believed to be the most prosperous, fertile, fortunate, and abundant. The Mexica loved the years of reed.⁷ The East ruled over these five tonalpohualli day signs: cipactli (alligator), acatl (reed), coatl (serpent), ollin (motion) and atl (water).⁸ The one cipactli day sign was very auspicious. All those born under it were said to be affluent in some way, unless, of course, they did not do their penances and failed to be humble.⁹ One acatl was not a good day sign. If a child was born on this day, the parents would often wait for a more fortunate day sign for the newborn’s bathing and naming ceremony.¹⁰ One coatl was favorable, and it was believed that those born on it would be wealthy; it was particularly favored by merchants.¹¹ One ollin could be a good sign if the person was disciplined in performing their penances and was humble.¹² One atl was a sign of duality. If someone had been fortunate in childhood and adolescence, then their adulthood or death would be miserable, and vice versa.¹³ Although the signs for the East were generally more fortunate than those of the other cardinal spaces, there could still be misfortune, especially for those who were arrogant and failed to be diligent in their spiritual rites.

The East was also identified with the rebirth of the dawning sun, the house where brave warriors went after they died, and the paradisal realm known as Flower Mountain in the Upperworld. The Mexica Flower Mountain was a solar garden of heroic kings and warriors, where the honored dead spent their eternity as birds and butterflies drinking the nectar of flowers.¹⁴ In the Borgia, Cospi, and Fejérváry-Mayer codices, the Eastern temple of Tonatiuh, the sun god, was depicted as a house of flowers, or xochicalli.¹⁵ Sahagún states,

The brave warriors, the eagle-ocelot warriors, those who died in war, went there to the house of the sun. And they lived there in the East, where the sun arose ¹⁶ And there, always, forever, perpetually, time without end, they rejoice, they live in abundance, where they suck the different flowers, the fragrant, the savory. In this wise the valiant warriors live in joy, in happiness Eternal is their abundance, their joy. The different flowers they suck, the choice ones, the flowers of joy, the flowers of happiness: to this end the noblemen go to death—go longing for, go desiring [death].¹⁷

The Cantares Mexicanos further describe this paradisal realm as a land of plenty, where the sun shimmers with dew, flowers were able to lift sadness, lands were fertile, and people were happy.¹⁸ Brave warriors who had died in battle would go to Flower Mountain, and every morning they would be resurrected with the morning sun in the East.