The combination of the nawal of forgiveness and pardon with the number of ceremony gives rise to a day for powerful work in the area of redemption.

Ajmak day are not always easy to negotiate. The energy may bring up our “failings” or those of others. They remind us of what it is to be human, both through the ways of compassionate forgiveness, and through actions which give rise to the need to forgive. These are how we learn, but we do not need to keep running the same program once we have learned what we need from it. For example, an action gives rise to a reaction. That reaction may be desirable or undesirable. We may wish to repeat the desirable one and not repeat the undesirable one.

However, holding on to guilt about the action which gave the undesirable reaction rarely serves any purpose. In the Maya cross of Ajmak, the future sign is K’at, the net. Thus, the future of Ajmak can be abundance, one aspect of K’at, or it can lead to ensnarement. This ensnarement may be a result of guilt, the inability to move on from an action which produced undesirable consequences. Of course, this is highly simplified, but we often do choose to hold onto our guilt for longer than we need to. It becomes a burden, stifling our creativity and preventing us from achieving our full potential. It can be something which stops us from living the lives we are able to live, filling us with regret. Choosing to cleanse ourselves from the burden of guilt over past actions can have a dramatic effect on our lives, as can releasing grudges we hold towards people who have wronged us in our perception. Holding grudges takes a huge amount of our creative energy away, again preventing us from being all we can truly be.

Ajmak days give us an opportunity to resolve this in one way or another, and 8 Ajmak points us in a direction of ceremony. So how might we make a forgiveness ceremony? Unless we are in the Maya lands, we may be unable to make a Maya ceremony, so here are two other ideas of forgiveness ceremonies. I realise they are not insights into Maya ceremonies, and hope that you will forgive me this. The opportunity to free ourselves from what we no longer need to carry seems like too good an opportunity to allow it to pass without comment. Firstly, we might make a ceremonial fire. It doesn’t have to be a large and ostentatious affair, your intention is the important ingredient. Write down what you want to forgive, or be forgiven for, on pieces of paper. Light your fire and connect yourself with your true essence, connect with the Earth and the Sky. Say some words which have meaning to you, prayers if you like, then lovingly and respectfully put your papers into the fire. You might like to read them out loud first, contemplating each one as you burn it away. When you have finished, say thank you in whichever way seems most appropriate. Another way may be to use the four sentences of Ho’oponopono, the Hawaiian art of forgiveness. Bring the person or situation to mind and use the following four phrases.

I am sorry

Please forgive me

I love you

Thank you

Both of these methods have the ability to release you from your burden through forgiveness. This is the day to energetically wipe the slate clean, and move forward without guilt or resentment to hold you back. Embrace your creativity and allow yourself and others to be human.

Ajmak is the nawal of pardon and forgiveness, the nawal of redemption. It is the energy of being human, of falling down and getting back up again, and giving those chances to others. When the creators fashioned the four first men, the Bacab’ob, they created them as equals. These four first humans had superhuman abilities, including the ability to see through space and time. As equals were not desired, the gods smoked the mirror of perception, giving us our human set of senses. When we lost the ability to see through time, we lost the ability to see the true consequences of our actions and thus we needed to start asking for forgiveness. Sometimes even well meaning actions can cause problems at a later date. Ajmak represents this ability to forgive others, the ability to forgive ourselves and the ability to accept forgiveness. Ajmak is a sensual energy, which creates some of the reasons for it’s needing to be forgiven. It is kind and very lovable, but irresponsible. It can be a very talented energy, with great ideas. However it can also be very easily distracted, especially by anything that makes it feel nice. This often leads Ajmak to failing to fulfil it’s true potential, although due to it’s lovable nature it is easy to forgive. One of the lessons with regards to the Ajmak energy is learning to forgive oneself. The number 8 is considered to be a number of wholeness. It can be seen as birth (1) and death (7) combined to represent the whole cycle of the soul. It can also be seen as the point where the four first men who raised the sky from the sea were joined by their wives and the world become whole. It is the most common day for ceremonies to be made, it is still in the balanced range of numbers and is an even number, which is also considered fortunate. As this wholeness represents every aspect of the energy of the day with which it is coupled, it is the wholeness of the nawal that is addressed in ceremony.