[ chimalli ]

As Indigenous Chicanos and Mesoamerican descendants raised in the United States, many of us grow up feeling both rooted and displaced at the same time. We live on land we feel deeply connected to, yet far from the communities and contexts that shaped our ancestral traditions. This book comes out of that in-between space.

Colonial histories often portray the Aztec/Mexika as obsessed with bloodthirsty gods and ritual violence. But when we turn to Indigenous sources, a different picture emerges: a sophisticated worldview shaped by close observation of nature, reflection, and lived experience. It is a system that makes room for myth as symbolic storytelling and for inquiry as a sacred act.

This book invites readers to see Aztec/Mexika thought as a form of natural pantheism, where the universe itself is sacred. It also offers clear, practical guidance for engaging the ceremonial calendar in ways that make sense in the modern world. It is most effectively utilized as a companion to the Aztec/Mexika calendar "A Mexican Count of Days," published annually by the same author.