Home is Where the Rajawala’ Are

The Mayan peoples of Highland Guatemala inhabit an animate universe, interacting daily with the immanent spirits of the physical environment, with their ancestors, and with the people, plants and animals that surround them. Ajq'ija', Mayan spiritual guides, help mediate between these living energies, the rajawala'. The authors detail the basic knowledge that ajq'ija' use to dialogue with the rajawala'. The book explores how the sacred manifests through time and space protecting and defining habitable environs for Maya people and communities. Each community has its own encircling constellation of guardian energies and their altars. The authors address the current threats to these altars, including private property holders cutting off access, traditional caretakers failing to pass on their positions, vandalism, religious opposition, pollution, and targeted violence against practitioners. The book itself mirrors the structure of ritual, the constant (re-)creation of sacred space with concomitant dialogue with the spiritual energies that define it. The authors hope to share Mayan techniques and understandings of how to live within this sacred space.