The 1st and 2nd of November is celebrated in Mexico as a festival of death. This is the largest such celebration in the world. Although it is an ancient tradition in Mexico, the dates in which it is currently celebrated now were established by the Spanish.

In ancient Mexico, the feast of death was celebrated for 3 of the 20 day periods into which the calendar was divided, corresponding to 60 days. During this time the ancestors were honoured and also people were taught how to die in an enlightened way so that they didn´t have to come back. This is why reincarnation wasn't a great issue in ancient Mexico, because people knew how to die - a knowledge that we must recover in this this time.

Death was a word used for many things, not only physical death - every major transition in your life was considered a death, in which you stopped one type of life to enter into another. The deep understanding of these mysteries made the ancient Mexicans fearless of physical death - because they had experienced many other little deaths throughout their lives.

Ideally there would be 13 deaths available for the human experience:

First death. Conception. The moment of your conception was considered a death because you stopped living your life as energy to become matter again and you were pulled into the womb of your present mother.

Second death. Birth. After experiencing a life in the womb, dreaming about who you were and who you were going to become, birth is considered a death because you went out of this place inside your nantli (mother)into the world.

Third death. Puberty. After living like a child depending on others, puberty, was considered a major death because it is the time of starting a new life independent of others and finding your own way.

Fourth death. Falling in Love. To fall in love was a major death because you stopped your independent life to become two again and in those times this bonding was for life.

Fifth death. Reproduction. It was a major death, because part of your energy goes to create your child and you would have a bond with them throughout your life.

Sixth death. Ageing. After taking care of your partner and children for some time, you enter into a new death in which your experiences make you wise and mature.

Seventh death. Physical death. With that wisdom you were able to experience the major transition, leaving the physical body and becoming your nahual or energetic body again.

Eighth death. Awareness of your own death. People that weren't wise enough or didn't practice dreaming disciplines could get stuck here for ages, in a dream in which they are still alive, and their body is still attached to the physical world or body.

Ninth death. Recapitulation of your last life. For the ones that realize that they are dead they experience the recapitulation of their own life.

Tenth death. Splitting of the bodies. The mind body that is in the dream of recapitulation will split from the teyolia or soul and nahual and dream body to prepare for the next big step or death.

Eleventh death. Teyolia and Nahual measure. The meeting with Mictlantecuhtli, Mictlancihuatl, lord and lady of the land of the death that will see if your energy is heavy and will send you back to earth to make it lighter or if it is light like an ihuitl, or feather, to give you other possibilities.

Death twelve. Ego temptation. For the ones that had heavy energy you go to an underwold in which you will prepare for conception and doing the cycle again. For the ones with light energy Mictlantecuhtli and Mictlancihuatl will offer you the possibility of being the one to judge if the others are heavy or light, if you accept this it would reveal that you have a lot of Chalchiuhtotolin, ego, so you will be sent back to make it weaker. If you don´t you can have access to the 13th death.

Thirteenth death: Nahual becoming. The choice of melting with the sunlight forever or to become a Nahual our equivalent of Buddha or Avatar.

To learn more of the traditions of the Toltecs, see my book, The Toltec Secret which you can learn more about below: