In the Tolteca tradition there are probably hundreds of gods but there are 13 dawn light and 9 dark lord gods (also called day lords and night lords) in the core grouping most important to humans. These gods are the gods of the day and the night and can be associated with hours of the clock if the clock were divided into 22 hours. In fact these hours would not be even amounts of time, but would correlate with the length of the days and the night which varies in the course of the year. Any specific Day Lord hour in the summer would be longer than it would be in the winter depending also on the latitude. The calendar daysigns are like sub-deities that each rule an entire dawn-to-dawn period and have less significance in the order of forces then do the 13 and the 9.

Many people have a problem with the concept of pantheons of gods since the major religions teach that there is only one god. If you are fortunate enough to meet one of the gods in person, however, other than the one you believed in, than you won't have a problem with the concept of multiple gods anymore. I have had the honor of meeting one (in full living color) and being blessed by that entity while I was totally awake and of clear awareness--without the influence of any substances. Since that event, I have had the opportunity to create an energetic rapport with many of them. Because of my direct experience with them, I happen to believe in them. If you haven't had such experiences, you may prefer to think of gods simply as forces. These forces, however, do have a consciousness and an ability to move, change, and act on living things, objects, and events.

In the Tolteca pantheon there is a trinity of gods on high. This is not, however, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost but instead it is the Dual god/goddess who then splits into the Dual-female-god and the Dual-male-god as separate forms. This trinity represents the beginning of duality (meaning the source of creation for all realities.) It could also be thought of as the white light splitting into the two halves of the spectrum of lights. This trinity was not officially part of the old 13 dawn light lord configuration, although it will be in the next world (6th) officially beginning in 2013. The Tolteca names of these three on high are Ometeotl, Omechihuatl and Ometechutli. I recently showed the diagram of the Sacred Constellation of Forces to a Nahautl tribal shaman in a Mexican pueblo and he pointed to the top and said, "that is the trinity". You can rather understand why Christianity was so easily integrated--it had the trinity, the gods (saints) and Quetzalcoatl (Jesus) just like the native religion.

Beyond the trinity on high is the unknowable--the nahual (nagual in Spanish) which is imperceptible yet also all pervasive. In this case we are speaking of the place or space nahual rather than a nahual person. It is sometimes represented by the shadows and the space between things---like the empty space in an atom. This nahual is reality as we DO NOT know it. Reality as we DO know it is called the tonal. The tonal is the "real world" or the first level of perception. Tonal comes from the word tona in the Nahuatl language which means "warm sunlight". The further implication is "the perceivable."

The second level of perception includes, intuition, dreaming, day-dreaming, shamanic voyaging and astral travel. At this point you could say that more of the nahual is coming into play and less of the tonal is in play than in normal waking reality. This second level of perception would also include magical or "impossible" events that occur in the first level of perception. A magical event occurs when the first two levels of perception merge. The third level of perception is divine perception. The more you create a relationship or energetic affiliation with the gods, the more these other realities will come into play for you. This is one purpose for doing spiritual practice. Using hallucinogenic drugs, in a spiritual context, will also bring more of the second and third levels of perception into focus.

A nahual person is a double entity. This means that he or she has integrated the three parts of their primary soul (by raising the serpent energy), created the pearl within, and then birthed their nahualli (their double soul, sometimes called their twin.) The Nahual person has a view of the nahual realm (the unknowable realm.) If you have seen the giant statues on the temple of Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli in Tula, Mexico, you see that on the back of these human-like totems, there is another human face in an aura at the small of the back. This represents the nahualli fetus of the person--a person on the verge of birthing his nahualli and therefore spiritually becoming Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, the morning star. In Quetzalcoatl's story, once he goes up in flames (spontaneous combustion) while sailing to the East (Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli's direction) he becomes birds (the activating force of the dieties) that fly towards the morning star. Later he resurrects and continues teaching in Mexico. This is something only a nahual--someone who has completed the double soul, can achieve.

Nahual also means shapeshifter. Because a nahual person is extremely flexible in their energy body, they are not limited by the normal rigid constructs of reality and are in fact hardly of this world. In fact the spiritual energy of such a person would be so strong that they could hardly stay in a human body. That is why this transformation would usually occur at death rather than during one's life. A true nahual person would probably not go around giving out Nagual or Toltec Master promotions to their students, use their position to take sexual and monetary advantage of their trainees, nor write best-selling self-help books; at least I doubt it. If you want to see if your Nagual is for real, put him to the test and ask him to bi-locate for you.

Our reality is dualistic. It could not exist otherwise; if it were not dualistic it would be imperceptible. There is a lot of talk about transcending duality, but if you live, function in, and perceive this reality, then you have not transcended duality. When I was four or five years old I had a high fever and I was shown the nature of duality in a way that a child of that age could understand. He/she (Ometeotl?) showed me dark and light, rough and soft, sick and healthy, course and smooth, cold and hot, and good and evil; not to say that there isn't a continuum, but this is what she showed me so I would get the point. He told me we live in a dualistic reality and that the conflict of duality needs to be resolved. After making this point, she also told me personal issues and challenges I would encounter in my life and gave me certain directives.

The Dawn Light dieties and their Dark Lord counterparts represent forces of the duality we live in. In the sacred constellation of forces, directly below the Ometeotl trinity, there are four dawn light deities who have no dark lord counterparts. The first three of these are "heavenly" deities: Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli--Venus as the morning star, Tonatiuh--the sun, and Citlalincue--the goddess of the Milky Way. These three are the galactic forces important for human transcendence. Below these three sits Quetzalcoatl who corresponds to the crown chakra, third eye and point at the top of the spine, on humans. He represents Christ consciousness or Buddhahood. Quetzalcoatl has another form named Ehecatl, day lord of the wind, so Quetzalcoatl can be said to rule the air element. These four gods have effectively transcended their dual natures; therefore they have no dark lord counterparts. If they ever did have them, they have been entirely resolved, absorbed and transformed.

Below these, there are 6 dawn light deities who have the same names for their dark lord counterparts. The first three of these, corresponding to the human heart level and represent elements. Tlaloc the god of rain and lightning is at the heart, Xiutecuhtli, "fire lord" on the right hand, and Tlatecuhtli the "earth lord" (though female) on the left hand. So this trinity corresponds to the heart level of humans and represents the elements fire, water, earth with Quetzalcoatl above them, representing air. Although Tlaloc is water, he really is the integrator of the four elements and the directions. Chalchiuhtlicue who is at the uterus level is also water. Her name means "Jade skirt" and she is the goddess of drinking water places such as rivers and lakes. The uterus is called "Atl" in the Nahautl language and means water. So Tlaloc is surrounded by air above, fire on one side, earth on the other and water below. If you think about it Tlaloc represents rain (water) and lightning (fire) that falls from the sky (air) to the earth.

Note that the two water dieties Tlaloc and Chalchiuhtlicue corresponding to the central part of the human body. This is logical, after all we are comprised of about 87% water, so it is clearly an important element for us. If we make Tlaloc the center of a cross, we have the elements and the directions on the end of the segments of that cross. It is Tlaloc's task to integrate the elements and directions. When it rains, we have the water element, the fire element (lightening), the rain falls through the air, and falls onto the earth--so Tlaloc is the integrator of the elements in all directions. This is why the heart chakra is important in all spiritual traditions--the heart is the main integrator.

On one side of Chalchiuhtlicue is Centeotl whose name means "corn god" who rules food, on the other side is Tlazolteotl whose name means "filth god" who rules decomposition, regeneration, and sanitation. This lower trinity is about the basic necessities for tribal survival--food, water and sanitation concerns.

These lower six have corresponding points in and around the human body, as you can see from the illustration. They have dark lord counterparts with the same names because they accept their dual natures. It is interesting that those dieties that have accepted and started to integrate their dual natures (both their dark and light sides have the same names) are less dangerous than those that have not (the ones whose dark and light sides have different names.)

In the new order of 13, the system ends here. In the old order of 13, the higher trinity was not included. Instead there was, Tezcotlipoca, Teoyaomiqui and Chalmecatechutli. Since these three cause continual problems in our world of duality, there is certainly no point in using them in your spiritual practice. As mentioned in the Quetzalcoatl article, the struggle between Tezcotlipoca and Quetzalcoatl is a struggle that represents the end of the 5th world (December, 2012) era. Tezcotlipoca and his two sorcerer cohorts represent the qualities of black sorcery, trickery, connery, manipulation, male dominance, greed, warfare, human sacrifice, and death. As stated, the gods in the old dawn light lord pantheon corresponding to these sorcerers are Tezcotlipoca, Teoyaomiqui (death) and Chalmecatechutli (sacrifice). Interestingly, they are also the only three in the old dawn light pantheon whose dark lord counterparts have different names. These are (in order) Piltzintecuhtli (dark lord of the infant sun), Mictlantecuhtli(death) and Itztli (sacrifice). It is as though they are so severely dualistic that they refuse the same names for their dark sides.

When people use the forces of Tezcotlipoca, Teoyaomiqui and Chalmecatechutli, these forces quickly transform into their dark lord counterparts Piltzintecuhtli, Mictlantecuhtli, and Itztli. That is why they are not included in the Sacred Constellation of Dawn Light Dieties

Iyeeah is not from the Tolteca tradition, but harmonizes with it in an obvious way. She is a virgin warrior goddess energy (like Quetzalcoatl's mother Chimalma) from below the center of the earth. She is the earth's most ancient energy, though she appears young, and has integrated rather recently. I had the honor of first encountering her in 1996.

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