Who's walking the White Road?

And, what is the White Road?

You’re probably here because of what you’ve been seeing on my Instagram page since 2021: A daily count of the Cholq’ij – The Mayan Sacred Calendar.

If you’re not here from Insta-world, welcome! I’m so glad you found Walking the White Road! I’m Diana and I started this Substack to share The Mayan Sacred Calendar’s Daily and Cyclical Readings.

This site is curated for those who want to align all areas of their life with:
• Auspicious Timing
• Shamanism and Wisdom
• Natural Law or Universal Law

My Story
As Substack recommended, I’ll first share my story – the forces, people, synchronicities, and curiosities that led these metaphorical feet to walk on this mystical path called Saq’ Be’ – a phrase in Mayan tongue that means The White Road.

I first landed upon Mark Elmy’s work – a Daykeeper Priest (Aj’Qij) trained by the Guatemalan Mayans (K’iche’). Mark’s an interesting character; an enthusiastic, articulate, and light-hearted man with his long hair usually tied up and speaks with an english accent. Mark lives among the Maya of Lake Atlitán and has been on this path for over 25 years. He teaches introductory workshops on the Maya Sacred Calendar. I interviewed him on my podcast series.

The Reading Where I Found Some Missing Puzzle Pieces
Mark gave me my first Maya Cross reading (akin to an Astrology Natal chart) and blew me away.

Certain components of my cross felt like the found puzzle pieces that bridged aspects of myself seemingly disparate and opposing. Studying Numerology and Western Astrology for years, I found so many interesting crossovers with the Sacred Calendar. But what it mostly helped me with is filling the gaps inbetween varying characteristics I knew about myself, and... how to move or adapt with them.

This inspired me to take his workshop to understand its mechanisms. I joined the workshop with my dear friend Jacob (9 K’at), who warmly invited me to join.

What I Learned in the Workshop
In about a week’s time, I learned some key, introductory pieces about the Sacred Calendar and the entire cosmology (universal-view) behind it:

• The Cholqi’j: the 260-day spiritual calendar count and its connection to both terrestrial and human gestation cycles, as well as movements of the Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars.
• The fundamentals of the 13:20 pattern in the Sacred Calendar.
• The Nawales (day signs).
• Tonales (numbers or powers).
• Trecenas (13 Day Cycles) also known as the measurement of 1 week for the Maya. These are the overarching themes that also modify the energy of each day.
• The Mam also known as the Year Bearer or Year Lord – also a modifier of the energies of each Trecena and each day.
• How to manually calculate a person’s Maya Cross.

Little did I know, the end of Mark’s workshop was only the beginning of a much greater journey.

To continue my study and connect with the energies, I experimented by writing my own daily affirmations inspired by the energy of each day, and sharing those on my IG – a fun and quick creative writing process.

Later, I was pleased to discover another Aj Q’ij author – Kenneth Jonhson, who further deepened my study.

In Johnson’s book, I learned more about the mythological foundations of each day sign, historical findings from the long surviving codices, one of them being the Pop Wuj (also spelled the Popul Vuh.)

The Beginning of My Journey
Nearing the end of 2021, I began sharing the Cholq’ij’s daily energies (combinations of Nawales and Tonales) on my Instagram stories.

I committed to share them on a daily basis, deepening my study while joyously sharing them as a digital art gallery for my followers. I noticed the same people kept coming back, so, happily, I kept going and rarely missed a day.

To this day, on my IG stories, I present the ritual count with artwork I collect or create with AI tools, pairing the readings with artwork that aligns with the themes of the daily energies.

As a graphic designer, the Cholq’ij sparked a curiosity to design my own collages for all 20 Nawales (day signs). These are especially crafted for the Trecena themes (13-day cycles). I have been sharing those on my Instagram feed consistently.

I call this body of work “Sacred Arts” because of its intentional choice of elements to describe the energies of the Cholq’ij from my artistic perspective.

I feel so much gratitude for the creative and technical knowledge I’ve gained to inspire an artistic and individualized exploration of the Cholq’ij. In pairing the energies with intentional art, it heightens my capacity to feel the Nawales. I’ve completed twenty nawal designs and have have developed two more sets (60 collages). Although unusual, creating with it artistically has been a profoundly satisfying and expansive method of learning about these sacred energies.

Initiating Steps on The White Road
Sharing the calendar’s combinations and themes consistently, helped me memorize them and their mathematical order. Pecking away at this daily practice, my mind was capable of grasping an aspect of it.

But at some point, it started migrating out of my mind, and into my life – meaning, I started feeling the rhythmic aliveness of these combinations in my life and physical reality. Something had unlocked.

Unlike Western Astrology, where I feel certain planetary influences impacting areas of my life, the Cholq’ij was much more precise, direct, and had an air of magic about it, calling for my attention. I came across synchronicities with it in my relationships, in my dreams, in conversations, in thoughts shared on social media, etc. It was everywhere.

I had a glimpse of what it means to “Live the Sacred Calendar”. I was tuning into a new channel of reality overlayed over the paradigm I knew. And it just stayed on, interweaved with my daily experiences – online and offline. It revealed itself as as an omnipresent guardian of time.

I was excited, but didn’t know what to do with it. I kept telling my partner how “trippy” these synchronicities were – to the point of annoying him, which I totally understand! Am I crazy?

So I learned to internalize it, but my thirst for more knowledge increased. I wanted to learn, but where and from whom? Do I take a trip down to Guatemala?

The Teacher Shows Up
Not short after, in a visit to Florida, I unexpectedly came across a man has been trained and initiated by the Mayan abuelos, the elders. He’s a solar priest and spiritual guide. In Maya tongue, he is an Aj’ Qij. His name is Carlos Luis Urteaga, a curious elder that lives in Miami, FL where I grew up.

Although he’s native to Peru, he belongs to the lineage of the K’iche’ from Totonicapán, and he’s also a Guardian of the Sacred Cacao lineage of the Kakchiquel from San Marcos La Laguna Guatemala.

Born in Ecuador and living in the U.S. since I was six, I’m grateful my parents decided to only communicate with me in Spanish, because even though Tata Carlos spoke English, we communicate much more fluently, especially about this tradition, in Spanish. I felt this as another door unlocked, as this cosmovision is rooted and spread out mostly in Central America – Spanish speaking countries.

There Are No Coincidences on the Path of Knowledge
When I first met him in person, it was on my Mayan “birthday”: 4 No’j. That felt significant. The odds of that are 1 in 260. I was intrigued by this.

Him and his wife, also trained by him as a Nana (Maya Priestess), hosted me and my friend in a beautiful Cacao and Sacred Fire Ceremony; a prayer, a cleansing, a celebration, powered by the ancestral wisdom of the Calendar. This was the first Mayan sacred fire ceremony I attended.

That evening I gained a new perspective of the Cholq’ij.

I brought loose tobacco leaves as an offering, and some items that represented my past – aspects of my life I wanted to let go of. I offered them to the sacred fire.

According to Carlos and his wife, Vivi, that fire consumed my past in a very peculiar way, and the way they read the fire, piqued my interest even more in this type of ceremony.

So I followed Tata Carlos, and like common interactions with Masters, I had to ask him a few times to teach me. I later learned that he needed time to meditate and ask his nawales if it’s appropriate to take me under his wing.

He first shared that he had to read my full Maya Cross, and continues to remark that only Maya priests and authorities are adept to read crosses and present a person’s destiny through the reading. He’s cleverly developed his own computer software for cross readings.

The Maya Cross
The Maya Cross encompasses things like masculine and feminine, intuitive and practical, yin-yang-like characteristics of my personality and lifetime and aspects I carry within my ancestral lineage. It also demonstrates which forces are strong and weak in my character, showing both talents and life areas that need work. And one of my favorite parts is the inclusion of the change of energies or nawales in one’s future. This is just the central part of it, there are many more details it reveals about a person’s map of consciousness.

Tata Carlos’s reading differed from my first cross reading by Mark Elmy. It was another fascinating angle of my personal blueprint from a more spiritual perspective. This second reading was like hovering a magnifying glass into my first reading and seeing a whole new set of fractals unfold, showing me this study is much more multidimensional than I previously perceived.

Through him, I learned that this is not a static science or system,
it’s a living path to walk, what the Maya refer to as “Saq Be’ – The White Road, also known as the Milky Way, or the Path of Destiny.

I felt excitement and awe considering my partner walks The Red Road – The Lakota’s Ceremonial Way of Life. Here I am, on his side, curiously about to enter the path of destiny known as The White Road.

Carlos’ Mentor & My Sources of Knowledge
Carlos Urteaga’s mentor shared his first name. Carlos Barrios, a Mayan priest and shaman, as well as a member of the Guatemalan Mayan Elders Council. Leaving behind a great wealth of knowledge and technological advancements in this tradition, he recently passed to the spirit realms. His wonderful daughter Denise Barrios, whom I feel very fortunate to call a friend, now carries the torch through her work and team at SacredRoad.org. His book, “The Book of Destiny” is one of the most comprehensive accounts of this way of life, Mayan History, and its Cosmology is translated in English by Denise, for those who are curious.

The Ceremonial, Ritual Side of the Cholq’ij
With Carlos Luis Urteaga, I had my first introduction to the ceremonial / ritual half of Mayan Cosmology – which completes its other, academic half I received from Mark Elmy.

Tata Carlos challenged everything I’ve learned about the Cholq’ij. With him, I realized quickly how much more there is to learn.

Although his colorful character brings me joy and many laughs, he is a strict and serious man with an orthodox style of teaching and a verbal intolerance for exploitation of these traditions (such as facilitating cacao “ceremonies”) without a proper and full training by Maya authorities. He refused to teach me anything if I’m not serious about learning.

The ritual framework of this science attunes me to the energetic work with the calendar, opening new levels of understanding the nature of reality. It requires the full use of my body, concentration, physical materials, elements, and creativity to connect with them.

*Update (2025): I currently live in Mexico. Tata Carlos Urteaga and I connected as pupil and mentor before initiating my path, and then mutually decided it wasn’t a good fit due to distance and other inevitable issues. I continuing my studies through the development of Walking the White Road, my interviews with Aj Q’ijaab (Mayan Authorities), and by attending its traditional gatherings or ceremonies in person when possible.

Syncretism
I once read someone describe modern psychology as “stripped of ritual and prayer.” I couldn’t agree more. For me, the wisdom of the Sacred Calendar not only works a psychological analysis tool, but is fed and animated as a living consciousness through ritual and prayer.

It not only unifies psychology with prayer, it interweaves our intentions with time and space. It not only bridges philosophy with science, and physics with agriculture, it encompasses all of these fields. And we, humans, are at the center of it. The Cholq’ij shows us how our own being is fused with the cyclical gears of the Universe.

But most of important, it merges our consciousness with Natural Law and Supreme Being, Ajaw (Creator and Former). Where else do we find this? Perhaps something like it in the Vedas?

So in essence, the Cholq’ij revealed itself to me as a living, syncretic technology, seamlessly joining vast fields of knowledge together as a complete system guiding harmony between the human being and the whole.

”Syncretism is the key to understanding all sciences, as it combines different disciplines to reveal a deeper understanding of the universe.” –Santos Bonacci

By engaging with the Cholq’ij in daily prayer, I’ve started to learn how this calendar can be poetically alchemized into lived experience. It is a cosmic compass just as it is a nurturing balm for the human heart and mind. In Tata Carlos’ words; Mayan Spirituality is a path of awakening.

Communication with the Nawales
In the ritual practices and learning, a huge revelation was that I could communicate with the Nawales.

Are the Nawales living spirits or forces? Yes.

And I can communicate with them? Yes.

Most importantly, through the sacred fire, as simple as tea light candle being lit, I can dialogue with Creator.

The fire and the ceremony itself speaks back to me, if I can learn to be receptive enough, and how to read its messages.

Sometimes the candle flame is still.
Other times it dances vigorously.
Sometimes the match won’t light the candle.
Other times the flame is very low.

There are interpretations for each of these expressions of the candle flame in relation to the Cholq’ij’s energy of the day and my own state of being.

To the Maya, the sacred fire is the ear of God, listening to our prayers. The Aj Q’ij read the flames, and dialogue with God’s messenger - the sacred fire. To put it plainly, the Mayan ritual or ceremony is a dialogue, that continues to reveal itself more and more with practice, intention, and will.

My Altar
The altar is where one prays and synchronizes to the tune of circular, sacred time. The more present I am with my prayer, the more present I am with myself. My altar, is not only a physical area in my home, it is the relationship I’m cultivating with the order of the cosmos.

Religious Obsession or OS Upgrade?
From the outside, looking in, it may appear like some religious obsession. I’ve learned to accept this. However, in my experience, this path is a total Human Operating System Upgrade – a new biological program being installed or integrated into my consciousness, continuously refining itself with my cooperation.  

It requires my actions, intentions, and participation to be perceived, to live it. I must act with it. This is what it means to Walk The White Road. In part, this is how I understand what Mayan traditions describe as the path of transforming knowledge into wisdom.  

I’m still studying this tradition and humbly gathering experience.

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What to Expect from Walking The White Road:
This site is a sacred space you can enter every day, to not only contemplate your own life with the Sacred Calendar, but to embark on a journey into your own heart through this cosmovision; its science and spirituality.

In my daily newsletters, along with my personal interpretations, I gather a variety of interpretations and quotes from different Mayan authorities to give you a complete scope of each day’s themes and each 13-day cycle’s rhythmic influence.

No matter your religion, creed or ethnicity, this ancient gem is readily available to everyone. The Maya Cosmovision can benefit anyone, especially during this intense cycle of planetary rebirth and human awakening.

And from the bottom of my 4 No’j heart, welcome! I’d love to hear from you. Please feel free to reach out!

With Love,

Diana P.

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