La gestación de un Universo:
La ciencia maya del embarazo
Apab'yan Tew

Photograph of author Apab'yan Tew

​Everything contains life. Everything is interconnected, stars, plants, and people.

So begins The Birth of a Universe, a profound exegesis by Apabyan Tew, a K’iche Maya midwife and daykeeper. We are bound to the ancient 260-day Maya calendar just as we are bound to the planets that gave birth to that divinatory calendar, our conception, growth, and destiny guided by nawales, the spirits of the days.  

This system, where everything in intertwined and shapes the nature of the soul and consciousness, is the essence of Maya science. Westerners may divide indigenous science into various disciplines such as physics and astronomy. The vital details of the parents’ circumstances and emotions at the moment of conception some would call psychology, a psychology that takes into account every intense mood and feeling—the very atmosphere—from the sexual act to the miraculous birth of the child. Others would call the daykeeper’s acute analysis of consciousness, spirit, gender, and material status a new (though age-old) philosophy. Like all well-wrought philosophies, this one is intricate and complex. In fact, it reflects a rational world grounded in earth and sky, basic human emotions and urges, as well as invisible forces.
This wise, sometimes esoteric volume is an antidote to chaos, presenting a Unified Theory of Birth that opens a pathway to the fates and to the eternal.
Apab'yan Tew is an International Associate Professor from Universidad Maya Kaqchikel, sustains the ancient traditions of the Maya people in his role as reader of the Mayan Calendar, bone therapist, auxiliary midwife, and ceremonial historian.
Author: Apab'yan Tew
Photo Credit Mariela Sancari
La gestación de un Universo: La ciencia maya del embarazo is a bilingual publication in Spanish and K'iche' (Mayan language) by Jade Publishing. This publication is a first of its kind in the U.S. and is now available for pre-order. Click here to purchase.
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Reviewed by
Carol Karasik​​
​1/12/2019
Carol Karasik is a writer and editor who has produced a number of books on modern Maya culture. She is the author of The Turquoise Trail, a popular book about intercultural exchange between Mesoamerica and the Southwest and The Drum Wars: A Modern Maya Story. Thrums Books published her delightful collection of Maya stories Maya Gods and Monsters in 2016.
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