Magic unfolds when you follow the signs
How letting the universe guide me led me to an encounter with a former soldier and a Maya priest, and what they taught me about the importance of asking for permission.
After being nudged toward the Maya world, I hopped on a ferry to Cancún, planning vaguely to drift west toward Mérida. But the lady at the bus terminal had other ideas. “Stop in Valladolid,” she said. So I did. And that’s how I ended up in a cobbled colonial town built with stones from an ancient Maya city.
In the mid-1800s, Valladolid became a key battleground of the Caste War of Yucatán, which is one of the most significant Indigenous uprisings in the Americas. Today, it remains a place where Maya traditions, Spanish colonialism, and contemporary Mexican life intersect.
Channeling my long-lost 22-year-old backpacker self, I landed in a bunk bed at one of the dirt-cheap and surprisingly homey local hostels. What was supposed to be one night turned into four. Edgar, the clerk, quickly became my go-to drinking buddy and accidental tour guide. A former city guide with a nerd streak that could rival a trivia champion, he knew “everything”: geology, history, Maya cosmology—you name it.
He told me the cenotes scattered across Yucatán were remnants of the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. For the ancient Maya, these water-filled craters were portals to the underworld. For today’s Maya, they’re sacred sites, tourist attractions, and—depending on land ownership—a communal lifeline run by village cooperatives, or a cash cow for private landowners.
Edgar shoves a paper map into my hand and tells me to rent a bike. “You can’t stay just one night! There are so many places you should visit.” I do as I’m told and, as I’ve become used to when following the signs, I stumble into more magic. My first stop: Cenotes Xkeken and Samula, near Dzitnup. It is early when I arrive, and no other tourists yet. Just a few staff and a man in white robes in a cave near the cenotes. He introduces himself as a Maya priest. Of course he is. I’ve come looking for Maya cosmology, and the cosmos delivers.
Before tourists arrive, he explains, the cenotes must be prepared—cleansed of bad energy to prevent accidents or disturbances. One way to work with energy, he says, is through ritual sacrifice: offerings meant to restore balance between what we take and what we give. In ancient times, some cenotes were used for human sacrifice. The priest explains that young girls were selected based on the astrological alignments of their birth dates and prepared for sacrifice from a young age. When the time came, they were adorned with precious stones, sedated, and offered to the gods through drowning. For the Maya, who believe in reincarnation, such sacrifices carried very different meanings than they do in contemporary moral frameworks.
According to Maya cosmology, the underworld—Xibalba—is not a place of punishment or evil. It is where the soul travels after death: a realm of healing, wisdom, and renewal. This world is connected to the earth (the middle realm) and the sky (the upper world) through the roots, trunk, and branches of the ceiba tree, or Yaxché. This tripartite cosmology is echoed in many other traditions, from the Norse Yggdrasil to the Andean chakana. These shared insights make sense. Religious traditions, the priest tells me, are simply different ways of speaking about the same reality. He says that he has met tourists from the Middle East whose views on life, death, and the sacred were strikingly similar to those of the Maya.
What strikes me most is his insistence on asking for permission. Before entering a cenote, cutting down a tree, or digging into the earth, you ask. If you don’t, bad things happen. When the new Tren Maya railroad was built, he says, developers sought a blanket blessing. They should have asked for permission in every village. Since they didn’t, many workers had died in construction. I ask him if climate change can be explained similarly, and he agrees, which makes me reflect that it’s not just about asking for permission but also about listening and honing the answers that come from within.
After my swim in the deep blue waters of Xkeken, I strike up a conversation with Honorio, the security guard on site. He is a former army man and used to be stationed in Ciudad Juárez. “The environment in the army is harsh. A lot of alcohol, drugs, and women,” he explains. The pay is low, but the job includes healthcare coverage for his family, which is why he signed up. I mention that it reminds me of the police officers I worked with in Brazil. Bonding over our shared military experience, I’m pleasantly surprised that he doesn’t flinch when I tell him I’m gay. Instead, he invites me to visit his home village, Tinum, to meet his family.
A few days later, he picks me up on his motorbike. When we get to the village, his youngest son joins us, taking the front seat on the fuel tank—like a human seatbelt. The family lives on his father’s land, next to Honorio’s brother. The lot is covered in a lush wild garden of tropical trees. Each tree has its own use and function. Honorio’s father, Honorio Senior, lost one of his three sons a few years ago and still gets emotional when remembering him. He repeatedly thanks me for coming to see them, like it’s me doing them a favor and not the other way around.
Honorio and his family are happy to be back in Tinum after a decade in Ciudad Juarez. It is an unsafe city, with all the cartel violence, he says. They spent most of their time locked inside the military compounds. Here they can walk freely in the streets of the village. Honorio’s dream is simple: take care of his father, leave something behind for his children, maybe take his wife on a motorbike road trip across Mexico. “We can’t go further north,” he says, hinting at his skin colour. South is too dangerous due to the drug gangs, he says. “Is that your idea of happiness?” I ask. He nods. “I guess it is.” Why make it hard when it can be so simple, I think.
After lunch, he takes me on a ride around his village on his bike. His son tags along. We stop at the cemetery where his mother and brother are buried. It is right in front of Honorio’s home. His brother lived in Merida, but he was buried in Tinum. Coming home is important.
The ancient Maya used to bury their family members under their homes. If they moved, they would excavate the remains and take them with them. The church next to the cemetery was struck by lightning last year. It cracked the brick and mortar, went through the electric grid, across the street to his home, and came out of the wall sockets in his daughter’s bedroom, which they had vacated a week earlier to remodel it. The symbolism is deep for both me and Honorio: we are always protected.