QUETZALCOATL

the pan-American totem known as Feathered Serpent
its symbolic meaning and ties to the project

not updated

QUETZALCOATL AND THE MANDALA: SHARED ATTRIBUTES

• SERPENT — animistic archetype

• ROUND TEMPLE — architectural vessel

• CROSS — stylized form and symbolic function

• 260-DAY CALENDAR — fundamental embodiment

• AMERICAN LANDMASS — land

SYMBOLISM OF QUETZALCOATL
(AS RELATED TO THE MANDALA)

creator of the world through the creation of duality / the religious impulse, the resulting quest to re-integrate duality / the crucible for the integration of opposites, ultimately that of "the self-creating, self-destroying pulsation that is found at the very heart of life" 1

balance between the life-force, Eros, and the death drive, Thanatos / the polarized aspects of a single force

Vital Breath', the breath of Creation, the breath of life

the Lord of Life (its quetzal feathers like an ancestral remembrance of the primordial blue-green algae)

the quetzal-colored bridge between the terrestrial (green) and the celestial (blue) / the power of ascension

a mythical ancestor

[ as ceremonial center ] order over chaos

[ as Mesoamerican sacred calendar ] the outward movement of Creation and inward journey of integration / the path of evolution and individuation of and from the original unity, which inherently implies a return to it

SOURCES

1 Robert Lawlor, Earth Honoring