quetzal feathers
“There is not yet one person, one animal, bird, fish, crab, tree, rock, hollow, canyon, meadow, forest. Only the sky alone is there; the face of the earth is not clear. Only the sea alone is pooled under all the sky; there is nothing whatever gathered together. It is at rest; not a single thing stirs. . . .
Whatever might be is simply not there: only murmurs, ripples, in the dark, in the night. Only the Maker, Modeler alone, Sovereign Plumed Serpent, the Bearers, Begetters are in the water, a glittering light. They are there, they are enclosed in quetzal feathers, in blue-green.
Thus the name, ‘Plumed Serpent.’”
—Popul Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings, translated by Dennis Tedlock, 1985.
a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush
“And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and behold, the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses, and he said, Here I am.”
—The Bible, Exodus 3: 2-3; quoted by Thorkild Jacobsen in The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion, 1976.
the visible sun
“Whereas the power speaking to Moses in the desert disassociates itself from the bush, and identifies itself as the god of Moses’ fathers, numinous power speaking to the Mesopotamian Enkidu in the Gilgamesh Epic does not choose to disassociate itself from its locus and so needs no introduction. The Gilgamesh Epic simply states: ‘The sun god heard the word of his mouth; from afar, from the midst of heaven, he kept calling out to him.’ The power is here seen as immanent in the visible sun, it is what animates it and motivates it, is the god who informs it.”
—Thorkild Jacobsen, from The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion, 1976.
an enormous black eagle
“Sometimes the form-giving imagination reads details and meaning into a form beyond what is given in simple observation: the numinous power in the thunderstorm, Imdugud, developed from the dark thundercloud into an enormous black eagle floating on outstretched wings; but since the mighty roar of the thunder could not well be imagined as issuing from other than a lion’s maw, this bird was in time given a lion’s head.”
—Thorkild Jacobsen, from The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion, 1976.
pale phosphorescence
“A last pale phosphorescence in the evening light outside, over the trees; . . .”
—John Fowles, from The Ebony Tower, 1974.
An obscure vision
“An obscure vision, obscure because he dared not free it from his consciousness and examine it; he was content to half look at it, and seek no explanation.”
—Miguel Angel Asturias, from Men of Maize, translated from the Spanish by Gerry Martin, 1988.
the new fire
“Tojil, in his own natural darkness, struck the leather of his sandal with a stone, and from it, at that very moment, came a spark, then a flash, followed by a flame, and the new fire burned in all its spendour.”
—Popul Vuh: Antiguas leyendas del Quich’, translated from the Spanish by Ann Wright, 1977.
made of maize
“We believe (and this has been passed down to us by our ancestors) that our people are made of maize. We’re made of white maize and yellow maize. We must remember this.”
—Rigoberta Menchu, from I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, translated from the Spanish by Ann Wright, 1983.
We evoke the colour of the sun
“We pray to our ancestors, reciting their prayers which have been known to us for a long time—a very, very long time. . . . For the sun, we say: ‘Heart of the sky, you are our father, we ask you to give your warmth and light to our animals, our maize, our beans, our plants, so that they may grow and our children may eat.’ We evoke the colour of the sun, and this has a special importance for us because this is how we want our children to live—like a light which shines, which shines with generosity. It means a warm heart and it means strength, life-giving strength. It’s something you never lose and you find it everywhere. So when we evoke the colour of the sun, it’s like evoking all the elements which go to make up our life. . . . We must respect the one God, the heart of the sky, which is the sun.”
—Rigoberta Menchu, from I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, translated from the Spanish by Ann Wright, 1983.
Red is very significant
“The little bags round [children’s] necks and the thread used to tie their umbilical cord are both red. Red is very significant for us. It means heat, strength, all living things. It’s linked to the sun, which for us is the channel to the one god, the heart of everything, of the universe. So red gives off heat and fire and red things are supposed to give life to the child.”
—Rigoberta Menchu, from I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, translated from the Spanish by Ann Wright, 1983.