Page:Historia Verdadera del Mexico profundo.djvu/141

the tequio, the “day of the dead” festivities or the Tonatzin festival, all were sustained on the basis of their philosophical thought.

Burnt Water.

This is another of the most interesting Anahuac philosophical metaphors. Its complex structure reveals a very deep and dialectical thinking. Once again facing the cosmic drama of opposite’s struggle; water and fire. As previously noted, water is the symbol of luminous energy. Everything that surrounds us is made of luminous energy, and water multiplies the action of light through photosynthesis, and the world around us. Thanks to water and light, the world reproduces and is full of life.

The fire is the divine representation of spiritual liberation from matter. With fire matter purifies and transcends. The same at the great Teotihuacan fire, where Gods threw themselves, so the Fifth Sun lived, as the bonfire in which Quetzalcoatl threw himself when he left the Anahuac. The fire serpent is the liberating symbol par excellence and fire is also the symbol of the spiritual sacrifice. This way —Burnt Water— philosophically represents spiritual life.

"This spiritual principle is so basic that the Tenochtitlan “Templo Mayor” was dedicated to it: the circumstance that the Rain God and the celestial fire have been placed side by side, on top of the pyramid, cannot be seriously interpreted otherwise. Knowing, in addition, that the temple was built on the location of the source of the blue and red water spring, thus makes it clear that the governing divinities symbolized the burnt water mythical formula.” (Laurette Séjourné. 1957)

The "burnt water" concept implies the struggle of opposites, fire and water, which transcends in a third party, other than the two that created it. Such that the balanced encounter of water and fire, produces steam, which rises and symbolically detaches from the material reality.