Some places announce themselves the moment you arrive.
Uxmal was one of them.
The energy was immediate. Dense, alive, and intentional. As soon as I stepped onto the grounds, I felt that this was not simply a preserved ruin or an archaeological site meant to be observed from a distance. Everywhere I turned there was iconography, repetition, and symbolism layered so thoroughly it felt like a language rather than decoration. Nothing appeared ornamental for its own sake. Everything pointed toward meaning.
I hired an English-speaking guide, and I am deeply grateful that I did. What unfolded was not a rehearsed tour filled with dates and facts, but a personal conversation with a native Mayan whose connection to Uxmal was ancestral and lived. What he shared reshaped not only how I understood the site, but how I understand reality itself.
The Pyramid of the Magician as a Threshold
The main temple, the Pyramid of the Magician, is believed by many to function as a portal rather than a monument. Beneath it lies an area associated with coronation rituals, though not in a public or performative sense. These were private rites, meant to be witnessed only by the individual and the gods.
The upper temple is saturated with symbolism. One of the most striking images resembles a face, with the temple opening acting as a mouth. During rituals, smoke would emerge from this opening, giving the impression that the structure itself was alive and breathing. Deep inside the pyramid is a chamber believed to have once held crystals. These were used to support the ritual and assist the person being initiated in moving into another dimension.
When I asked my guide what he meant by “dimension,” he explained it simply.
A parallel universe.
According to the cosmology he described, the soul does not reincarnate in a linear cycle. Instead, it moves through parallel realities. Existence unfolds across dimensions that exist simultaneously, not sequentially. We are not returning again and again, but moving through layered worlds that exist alongside one another. Hearing this, I felt an immediate resonance with ideas I have encountered through quantum physics and spiritual philosophy, where reality is understood as non-linear, multidimensional, and interconnected.
Snakes, Wormholes, and Movement Between Worlds
Snakes appeared again and again throughout the site. When I asked about them, my guide explained that they represented wormholes. In his words, snakes were the only beings capable of moving through dimensions with ease.
In modern physics, a wormhole is a theoretical passage through spacetime, sometimes described as a tunnel connecting two distant points in the universe. These ideas emerge from Einstein’s theory of general relativity and are often discussed alongside black holes, which are regions of space where gravity is so intense that spacetime bends in extreme ways. While wormholes remain theoretical, they are imagined as bridges between separate regions of reality.
What struck me was not whether the Mayans understood black holes in a scientific sense, but that their symbolic language described something remarkably similar. Movement between worlds. Passage through unseen structures. The idea that reality folds in on itself and that certain forces or beings know how to navigate those folds.
The snake, long associated across cultures with transformation and liminality, felt like an intuitive symbol for this kind of travel. Not escape from reality, but movement through it.
Venus and the Intelligence of the Sky
Astronomy was not an abstract interest for the Mayans. It was woven directly into their architecture, rituals, and daily life. Uxmal is no exception.
Several structures at the site are aligned with celestial events, particularly those associated with Venus. Venus held enormous significance in Mayan cosmology and was carefully tracked over long cycles. Its appearances and disappearances in the sky were associated with renewal, power, fertility, and transformation.
The orientation of buildings at Uxmal reflects this attentiveness to the sky. The placement of temples and ceremonial spaces suggests that the city was designed not only for life on earth, but in conversation with the movements of the heavens. Time, ritual, and architecture were inseparable.
Standing there, it became clear that the sky was not something the Mayans looked at from below. It was something they actively participated in.
Jaguars, Balance, and the Matriarchy
One of the most striking recurring images at Uxmal is the jaguar, often depicted with two heads. When I asked about this, my guide explained that the Mayans honored the matriarchy and valued balance between women and men. The two-headed jaguar symbolized equality, shared power, and dual strength.
This was not a culture built on domination or hierarchy, but on equilibrium. Authority was not singular. It was relational.
The Underworld and the Role of the Ancestors
The Mayan understanding of reality was layered into three realms: the underworld, the earthly realm, and the celestial or spiritual realm. The ceiba tree embodies this worldview. Its roots extend into the underworld, its trunk exists in our world, and its branches reach into the heavens. This same structure appears repeatedly in the symbolism carved into the stone at Uxmal.
The underworld, my guide emphasized, is not an evil place. That interpretation came later through colonization and mistranslation. To explain this, he used a simple physical metaphor. He held his phone face up and said, “This is the earth.” Then he flipped it over. “This is the underworld.”
Not hell. Not punishment. Just the other side.
I understood this immediately as the other side of the veil, the realm of ancestors.
Then he said something blunt and unforgettable.
A person with no ancestors is fucked.
What he meant was not meant to shock, but to clarify. Our ancestors are not gone. They exist on the other side and actively support us. Without acknowledgment of them, without relationship to them, we are ungrounded. We lose context, continuity, and support.
Walking Away Changed
Walking away from Uxmal, I felt quietly altered. Not overwhelmed, but recalibrated. I felt closer to my own ancestors and more aware of the unseen network that supports us from beyond this dimension. I also felt closer to other versions of myself, the ones living parallel lives in parallel worlds, making different choices but connected through the same thread of consciousness.
This experience has deeply informed my art practice.
Much of my work already explores pattern, repetition, symbolism, and intuition. Visiting Uxmal clarified why these elements continue to surface. They are not simply aesthetic choices. They are ways of mapping invisible systems, honoring lineage, and engaging with layered realities.
In my paintings, ceramics, and sculptural forms, surfaces become thresholds. Patterns function as languages. Repetition becomes ritual. Like the structures at Uxmal, the work is not meant to explain itself fully. It is meant to be entered, felt, and contemplated.
Uxmal reminded me that art does not need to resolve mystery. It can hold it. It reminded me that time is not linear, that reality is layered, and that creation can be a form of communication across dimensions.
When we create with intention and respect for what came before us, we are not only responding to the present moment. We are in conversation with our ancestors and with other versions of ourselves moving through parallel worlds alongside us.
Continuing the Conversation
This experience at Uxmal continues to shape the paintings I am creating during my art residency in Mérida. If you would like to follow how these ideas unfold on canvas and see the work as it develops, you can sign up for my mailing list here.