Hunab Ku: 77 Sacred Symbols For Balancing Body and Spirit (Paperback)

~ Joel Speerstra (Author) "THE ANCIENT PEOPLE OF NORTH AMERICA PILED UP THE EARTH IN VARIOUS shapesas lizards, birds, snakes, turtles, panthers, and bears, as well as humans..." (more)
Key Phrases: image pictured, figure pictured, spirit numbers, Native American, United States, Released Soul (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“In this enchanting book, the Speerstras offer a rare glimpse into the power, meaning, and magic of ancient symbols throughout time and across cultures. It’s great reading for healing the spirit.”—Cyndi Dale, author of ADVANCED CHAKRA HEALING

Product Description

The Hunab Ku glyph, a yin-yang-like spiraling symbol of balance and harmony, represents the ancient Mayan god of creation. This god fills us with intelligent energy and ushers us into the Age of Consciousness, which, according to the Mayan calendar, begins on December 21,2012. HUNAB KU illustrates and describes 77 signs that will help you navigate your way on this journey toward enlightenment. Much like a tarot deck, the book invites you to explore, reflect on, and interpret visual symbols drawn from ancient sites, artifacts, and earthworks from around the world. Believers are drawn to these symbols and sites for worship and healing from the stone burial engravings of Sanchi Stupa, India, to the New Grange spirals in Ireland, to First Nations petroglyphs in the United States. These ancient signposts of the Age of Consciousness are already available to us; let HUNAB KU be your guide.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Crossing Press; illustrated edition edition (May 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580911684
• ISBN-13: 978-1580911689
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #363,160 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #73 in	Books > Religion & Spirituality > New Age > Divination > Numerology
  #81 in	Books > Religion & Spirituality > Hinduism > Chakras

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative, Comprehensive, Oracular, and Profound, August 31, 2005

By	Janet Boyer "JanetBoyer.com" (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

"In Hunab Ku, you'll find seventy-seven images of home-multiple ways to view or earth and ourselves. These images, like the Hunab Ku itself, measure and move us and encourage us to embark upon our own sacred journey. The Hunab Ku lies at the very center of these images, reminding us to balance our intentions, to center our understandings, and to become more conscious of what ancient wisdom continues to teach all of us today." - From the book

Hunab Ku is an ancient Mayan symbol that represents the joining of opposites. Hunab means "one state of being" and Ku means "God". Masculine and feminine, analytical and intuitive, objective and subjective, yang and yin, conscious and unconscious, external and internal-the Hunab Ku speaks to the abyss between opposing forces and, in fact, serves as a bridge between them. The archetype of the Hunab Ku is the "space between" that reflects oneness with God and the unity of all things.

The Mayans constructed several detailed calendars and these calendars reflected cycles of the Earth and humanity itself. After each cycle of 5,125 years, the "universe takes a deep breath and begins again", and according to the Maya Long Count Calendar, humanity is posed on the edge of a great unfolding of balance and understanding. Many have called this the Age of Aquarius, but the Mayans called it the Age of Itza-Age of Consciousness. Some interpretations have set the winter solstice of 2012 as the time marking a gateway to the galaxies where Hunab Ku-the great mover-will pulse and fill us all with intelligent energy.

To help prepare humanity for this cosmic awakening, authors Karen Speerstra and Joel Speerstra have presented 77 sacred symbols that create an interactive system for learning, healing, and meditation. These 77 symbols are archetypes that are universal, arising from the collective unconscious. As visual metaphors, the symbols reflect, like mirrors, the patterns that are deeply imbedded in each one of us. These archetypes bypass the rational mind, arrive on the wings of synchronicity, and invite us to journey inward. Archetypal symbols like those presented in Hunab Ku can explode us into different dimensions of understanding, restoring balance, energizing creativity, and promoting healing if we but allow them entrance.

The 77 archetypal images are organized into groups of seven color palettes, each reflecting the seven chakras. Eleven archetypal symbols are associated with each chakra, depicting the energetic pattern of the image as it relates to the seven energy vortices and their corresponding issues, gifts, and challenges. The lower chakras--represented by red, orange, and yellow-connect to the physical side of life. The upper chakras-represented by blue, indigo, and violet-connect us to the spiritual side of life. In the center likes a field of green which connects to both the heart chakra and the Hunab Ku. This area marks our central union with one another and joins the images of the body and the spirit.

There are several ways Hunab Ku can be read:

* Conventionally, from beginning to end, as a mini ancient art history tour
* One color group of eleven images at a time
* As an oracle where you ask a powerful open-ended question and then turn to a random page
* Roll dice and generate random numbers for different types of intuitive readings
* Use a pendulum to dowse the Hunab Ku symbol for numbers/images that speak to your questions

Hunab Ku is an unconventional book that serves as a spiraling labyrinth of archetypal consciousness. The physical images span from Red 1 Great Bear (Solitude) to Green 39 Hunab Ku (Lover). The spiritual images span from Green 39 Hunab Ku (Relationships) to Violet 1 Unicorn (Unity). So one could move down a path towards the center (39) and then move back out towards the world again by passing through numbers 38 through 1.

Here are a few symbols from the book:

RED

Scorpion (Conflict)
Womb (Gestation)
Ouroboros (Unconsciousness)

ORANGE

Mother (Intuition)
Water (Movement)
Giant (Control)

YELLOW

Star (Inspiration)
Twins (Androgyny)
Wheel (Change)

GREEN

Dolphin (Addiction)
Healer (Wholeness)
Phoenix (Hope)

BLUE

Teacher (Knowledge)
Sound (Vibration)
Magician (Journey)

INDIGO

Moon (Dreams)
Wise Old One (Rest)
Chalice (Quest)

VIOLET

Scarab (Manifestation)
Double Spiral (Infinity)
Crown (Reward)

For each symbol there is a re-drawn color plate of a petroglyph, artifact, figurine, carving, wall mural, etc. These archetypes are from diverse areas such as the Americas, Africa, British Isles, Babylon, India and beyond. For example, Under Mystic (Violet 8), there is a picture of a stone labyrinth (1200 CE) from Chartres, France. For the Serpent (Red 7), there is a picture of the Great Serpent Mound (c. 1000 BCE) from Ohio, U.S.A.

For me, one of the most fascinating elements of this 330-page book is the symbol readings in the back of the book. Each of these readings is comprehensive, combining a series of archetypes for an incredibly accurate and insightful reading. There's an Insight Reading, Work Reading, Rainbow Reading, Courage Reading, and The Bard: Telling Your Story. The authors provide easy to read charts if you want to generate numbers by throwing dice or by assigning number values to the letters of your name, for example.

Frankly, I am amazed at the depth of this book. It "speaks" profoundly on so many levels. I was experiencing physical discomfort that left me feeling nauseous, discouraged and weak. Tarot didn't appeal to me at the time nor did any of my oracle decks. I remembered this book and randomly turn to a page. The symbol I was given, The Phoenix, directly spoke to my situation. Its keyword was "Hope" and offered insight into the renewing of youthfulness and the promise of future lives. (And, as synchronicity would have it, the book mentioned how the Phoenix was featured in the Harry Potter books-and I had just been reading the latest installment of the series!) I felt as through a burden was lifted from my spirit. I kept meditating on it as I went to bed. Whenever I woke up through the night, I kept seeing the Phoenix.

Amazingly, I woke up the next day with the troubling symptom entirely gone. It's been almost 24 hours and I still haven't seen a recurrence of this symptom. I feel more energy and clarity and I believe it has something to do with the symbol of the Phoenix featured in the powerful book Hunab Ku.

If you're fascinated by the world of symbols and archetypes-as well as chakras, energy, mythology, art, sacred geometry, oracles, anthropology, and spiritual evolution-this beautifully illustrated and exhaustively researched book will take you on an amazing journey through both outer and inner worlds. In the center of these worlds lies the Hunab Ku, the threshold between our present age and the coming age of enlightenment-the heart of Oneness and All That Is.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An incredible spiritual tool, November 2, 2005

By	J. Blackbourn - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

To readers on their own spiritual journey, Hunab Ku brings images of some of the richest symbols of ancient wisdom together with "logos"--the words of the authors that help one to interpret and integrate the wisdom into their own lives. As much a book to be read as one to be used--just as such tools of self-insight as the Tarot, I Ching, and other divinition aids-- Hunab Ku offers the reader a wonderful meditation on the energies of each of the images. The museums next to my office at Harvard University are filled with artifacts from other cultures, ancient times, but they don't speak to a viewer with the richness and depth of wisdom that the Speerstras have brought to the artifacts included in Hunab Ku. A book to be kept close!
Julia Blackbourn, Cambridge MA

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Travel Guide to Self Awareness, August 6, 2005

By	Ellen D. Allen "Artist" (La Grange, Illinois) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Hunab Ku is a travel guide for your journey of self awareness. Through it you'll travel to cultures and symbols from all periods of humankind, gaining insight into what makes us all human at the core. The book is a treasure of knowledge beautifully presented. And as with travelers--some travel for the sights, some for the insights--Hunab Ku will lead you anywhere you want to go.