Quetzalcoatl on Balance

The name of the cultural hero Quetzalcoatl refers to a pan-Mesoamerican god as well as to one or several like-named Toltec priests. The Nahuatl word itself means, usually, "plumed serpent," although quetzal can also mean precious (the cherished iridescent green feathers of the tropical bird) and coatl can also mean twin. In fact, on the round Sunstone or Aztec Calendar, Quetzalcoatl is depicted encircling half of the periphery in serpent form, with the other half encircled by his serpent twin god/avatar, Ehecatl, the wind. Their faces emerge from the snakes' jaws and meet with out-thrust tongues as obsidian blades: the power of speech, or thirst for blood?

Hernán Cortés learned about the alleged coincidence of the year of his arrival from the east to Mesoamerica (1519) with the year of Quetzalcoatl's foretold return from the east (One Reed), and used the information to his advantage in the campaign to conquer Moctezuma's empire. Within a decade or two, the Spanish clergy and crown wondered if the stories about the seemingly enlightened and benevolent Quetzalcoatl (perhaps the priest), could have been narrating the life of the apostle Thomas, also a twin and supposed to have spread the gospel as far as "India." The Maya called him Kukulkán, and the deity has come to be associated with many identities and avatars including Mesoamerican leaders in general, but as well-known Mexican cartoon artist Rius specified in the title of his 1987 black-and-white graphic contextualization of the legend, "Quetzalcoatl no era del PRI."

What entices about Quetzalcoatl is the union of opposites that he embodies, in name and in image: terrestrial and ethereal, reptilian and avian. It even seems that this union--reconciliation or equilibrium--is that which is necessary for creation: he is the deity of the arts, handicrafts, writing, and creative endeavors in general, even the creation of mankind, for which he is given credit at the beginning of the fifth sun. To create humans he had to mix corporeal opposites: bones (the remains of the dead in Mictlan) and semen (or the euphemistic "penis blood"), death and life. If Quetzalcoatl encompasses opposites in reconciliation, then his opposite, the deity Tezcatlipoca (Smoking Mirror), denotes opposites in conflict. Together, they themselves form a sort of meta-opposition opposition, like yin and yang.

Quetzalcoatl receives a new identity in D. H. Lawrence's 1926 novel The Plumed Serpent: Ramón Carrasco. Lawrence's vision, in which Ramón revives a Quetzalcoatl cult, is so bold as to depict the toppling and burning of the Catholic saints, the historical reversal of the Spaniards' treatment of the Mesoamerican idols. Ramón, a wizened and stately intellectual, writes hymns to Quetzalcoatl that are dispersed and sung in clandestine congregations throughout the Mexican countryside. Ramón eventually accepts the popular idea that he has become Quetzalcoatl. His associate Cipriano becomes Huitzilopochtli and the Irish protagonist, Kate Leslie, halfheartedly becomes a new in-between goddess with the historically resonant name of Malintzi.

That Lawrence mixes elements from the South American El Dorado legend into the tale can be forgiven, since he does it so compellingly, converting a lake in Jalisco into the glittering tribute of time before time whence arises anew Quetzalcoatl. The rituals and vestments that Lawrence conceives to flesh out the logistics of the cult surpass even what is perhaps the only comparable scenario from 20th-century Mexican letters: the resurgence of a Maya cult in Rosario Castellanos' 1962 Oficio de tinieblas. Ramón's followers hold one hand to the earth and the other to the sky in their worship, and they are encouraged to emulate the Morning Star, meeting their fellow humans and especially their spouses "between day and night, between the dark of woman and the dawn of man, between man's night and woman's morning." Ramón's corporeal quest for balance, through his worshippers' gestures and dances, is meant to correct the "realization that Christianity had reached a dead end of disembodied spirituality," according to L. D. Clark' excellent 1964 analysis Dark Night of the Body.

Lawrence's editors wouldn't let him keep his original title Quetzalcoatl. No matter: the writer's Jungian insights into creation as propelled by the nature of conflict and harmony, played out in the novel on so many levels (female and male, America and Europe, body and mind, peace and war), elucidate in astounding detail the mystical essence of the precious plumed serpent twin. Those interested in reading English-language interpretations of the 2012 Maya calendar end-time would be wise to choose The Plumed Serpent, as allegory of enlightened change, over most of the titles on the bestseller racks.