mother fucking blogger quit on me last night. but i liked the post enough to attempt to recreate it. but first, i wanted to just get out that i am totally done with all my paperwork for applying to grad schools. tomorrow i have to fax westmont to get transcripts to each individual school, and that's it. my mom's got a fax machine at her work, so i'm getting the hook up. but this means i'm done! all i have to do now is sit back and wait til march or however fucking long it takes those bastards to process the shitstorm of applications they got this year. the anticipation hasn't really struck just yet.
now back to the previous post:
i finally got around to start reading rigoberta. there's a link below if you're interested. but the main point is that she was a civil rights leader for the guatemalans after the genocide they faced in the 80's.
anyway. the book is basically rigo telling of her life and culture. in the beginning she starts with the beginning: birth.
she runs through the practices that the mayan perform, but also go into an astrology that they hold. what i found interesting about it was that it was unlike the greek or romans that base one's personality on the MONTH a person was born. also, unlike the chinese who base one's personality on the YEAR the person was born, the mayan base what the person's personality will be like on the DAY of the week they were born.
they call it the person's nahual. pretty much like a totem. like the chinese the mayan get an animal or plant that shares their personality. you can be a dog, cat, bird, bull, lion, sheep, horse, or even a tree.
i know i said this was based on days of the week, but if you decided to count those nahual and got confused when you counted 8, the answer lies in the fact that the mayan go off of a 10-day cycle. rigo didn't really go into the details, so i can't account for how they assimilate that into our 7-day week, nor can i say what the other two nahual are.
but anyway. being born on a wednesday is bad. that means you're a bull: bad tempered. monday, wednesday, saturday, and sunday are the best days to be born on because you will be well mannered. wednesday is considered to be the best of all because your nahual is a complacent sheep.
i have no idea what day cats are, but if you are one, you will most likely fight with your siblings and like it.
the interesting part is that parents don't tell their child which nahual is theirs. this is so the child can't grow up blaming his behavior on the nahual. if you knew you were a bull, you might be tempted to blame your assholishness on the fact that you were a wednesdayer. the mayan culture wants the child's personality to form on its own until it is fully molded and formed. apparently this happens for them sometime around the age of 10 - 12 where the parents finally tell the child their nahual. the perk to finding out what animal you reflect is that the parents gift you with that animal, unless its a lion, in which case they find you a proper substitute. then once you are told, you tend to keep it to yourself or only tell your close friends. rigoberta is tight and won't give up the identity of her nahual.
all in all, i thought it was interesting that cultures around the world can base their notions of what a person's personality will be liked based on a time frame of when they were born, but that different cultures pick different ways of grouping how they think people's personalities will be similar. astrology doesn't seem to have much of a solid base if you can pick and choose your time frame for judging it. anyone have any explainations to offer?
now back to the previous post:
i finally got around to start reading rigoberta. there's a link below if you're interested. but the main point is that she was a civil rights leader for the guatemalans after the genocide they faced in the 80's.
anyway. the book is basically rigo telling of her life and culture. in the beginning she starts with the beginning: birth.
she runs through the practices that the mayan perform, but also go into an astrology that they hold. what i found interesting about it was that it was unlike the greek or romans that base one's personality on the MONTH a person was born. also, unlike the chinese who base one's personality on the YEAR the person was born, the mayan base what the person's personality will be like on the DAY of the week they were born.
they call it the person's nahual. pretty much like a totem. like the chinese the mayan get an animal or plant that shares their personality. you can be a dog, cat, bird, bull, lion, sheep, horse, or even a tree.
i know i said this was based on days of the week, but if you decided to count those nahual and got confused when you counted 8, the answer lies in the fact that the mayan go off of a 10-day cycle. rigo didn't really go into the details, so i can't account for how they assimilate that into our 7-day week, nor can i say what the other two nahual are.
but anyway. being born on a wednesday is bad. that means you're a bull: bad tempered. monday, wednesday, saturday, and sunday are the best days to be born on because you will be well mannered. wednesday is considered to be the best of all because your nahual is a complacent sheep.
i have no idea what day cats are, but if you are one, you will most likely fight with your siblings and like it.
the interesting part is that parents don't tell their child which nahual is theirs. this is so the child can't grow up blaming his behavior on the nahual. if you knew you were a bull, you might be tempted to blame your assholishness on the fact that you were a wednesdayer. the mayan culture wants the child's personality to form on its own until it is fully molded and formed. apparently this happens for them sometime around the age of 10 - 12 where the parents finally tell the child their nahual. the perk to finding out what animal you reflect is that the parents gift you with that animal, unless its a lion, in which case they find you a proper substitute. then once you are told, you tend to keep it to yourself or only tell your close friends. rigoberta is tight and won't give up the identity of her nahual.
all in all, i thought it was interesting that cultures around the world can base their notions of what a person's personality will be liked based on a time frame of when they were born, but that different cultures pick different ways of grouping how they think people's personalities will be similar. astrology doesn't seem to have much of a solid base if you can pick and choose your time frame for judging it. anyone have any explainations to offer?
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