One of the most fascinating deities of pre-Columbian Mexico is Coyolxauhqui. At first glance, a deity named “She Who is Adorned with Bells” might seem to be a dancer, until we read that warriors wrapped strings of bells around their calves before going to battle. Then we see Coyolxauhqui (Nahuatl: coyolli = small metal bells) as a […]
About Anne Key
For La Virgen de Guadalupe, on Her Day {Anne Key}
It was a cool late spring morning in Mexico City. I was up early, and the streets were still sleepy. The peddlers hadn’t even taken up their usual spots on the stairs down to the metro. I hopped on the metro easily, somehow missing the morning rush. The stop for the Basilica de la Virgen […]
Fall Equinox – Blessings for Balance {Anne Key}
Fall Equinox is a time of balance. This year during the day of September 22, all parts of the planet receive the same amount of light from the Sun. It is an excellent day to offer prayers to all parts of the world, that we may feel and know our interconnections. One of my favorite […]
Sacred Tour of Mexico City with Anne Key and Veronica Iglesias
Tour sacred sites in and around Mexico City with Veronica Iglesias and Anne Key, both priestesses and scholars of Mesoamerican culture. Learn about thirteen of the Nahua Goddesses, participate in rituals, a temazcal (a Mexican sweat lodge), enjoy guided tours through world-class museums and shopping at an art bazaar. Plus lots of wonderful surprises! Some of […]
Temple Offerings – Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral {Anne Key}
This is an excerpt from Anne Key’s book Desert Priestess: A Memoir Though I would usually go to the temple in the morning and at sunset, most of the time the temple sits open, waiting, and unattended. This is, I believe, a part of the magic and beauty of this temple—that it is open to […]
MesoAmerican Goddesses: The Cihuateteo – Women Goddesses {Anne Key}
The cosmology of the Mesoamericans presents a lush, complex landscape of deities and ideas. Study of this cosmology, through a particularly feminist lens, reveals powerful female deities. Among the most intriguing are the Cihuateteo[1]. The Cihuateteo (literally “women goddesses”)[2] appear in the pantheon of Mesoamerican cosmology as mortal women who died in childbirth and were […]
MesoAmerican Goddesses: Tlaltecuhtli – The Jaws of Life and Death {Anne Key}
In 2006, another giant monolith was found at the Templo Mayor in Mexico City. Like the Coatlicue monolith found decades earlier, this new discovery also towers at over seven feet tall. She is Tlaltecuhtli, the Earth Goddess. Images of Tlaltecuhtli are often found carved on the bottom of Aztec sculptures — where the sculpture comes in […]
MesoAmerican Goddesses: Tlazolteotl – The Goddess of Filth {Anne Key}
My heart is a flower, the corolla opens; Ah! It is the mistress of midnight and She has arrived Our Mother, the Goddess Tlazolteotl. (Hymn to Tlazolteotl, from Baéz-Jorge 101)[1] She is easily identified, usually with black around her mouth, sometimes with a conical hat or riding a broom, and often squatting in a birth-giving […]
The Goddess Sekhmet in Her Temple in Nevada: The Twenty-First-Century Myth Part 3 {Anne Key}
This article and Part 1 and Part 2 are a three part series from Anne’s time at the Sekhmet Temple and excerpted with permission from her book, Desert Priestess. I wove another reading of her myth based on the events described in Sekhmet’s ancient Egyptian myths. This new myth I created was not a translation or […]
Entering Her Myth – The Goddess Sekhmet – Part 2 {Anne Key}
This article and future articles are a three part series from Anne’s time at the Sekhmet Temple and excerpted with permission from her book, Desert Priestess. I began to have an understanding of Sekhmet in her context in ancient Egypt. But I wanted to understand her in the depths of my bones, in the depths […]
