Book 3 · 2030s' · The Yucatán and the Talamanca Mountains
In a pyramid that waited two thousand years for discovery, a Mayan gift of knowledge sets the pace for Earth’s new world order.
A zephyr at an archeological dig in Mexico embeds the Mayan gifts of universal understanding in an unborn child, the daughter of the archeologist, Dr. Mercedes Andreyev researching their temples.
A cataclysmic event, the American second revolution drives the current day of social upheaval into a dystopian future. Espy Andreyev, the now adult daughter, inheritor of a massive fortune, is blessed with the Mayan Gift of future sight. She speaks of the ancient Mayan prophecy to her parents and followers in a burned-out church.
The Mayans accurately tracked the future by observing the stars and counting time. They left carvings on stone stelae to share what they knew about the heavens and their ruling dynasties. In time past a Mayan stele stone carver immerses the reader in ancient Maya life. Through his eyes we see a portrait of Mayan family, religion, agriculture, cosmology, architecture and sacred ceremonies.
After two millennia, Mercedes unearths in the tomb of the Red Queen, a plaster-coated, bark Codex with undecipherable glyph markings. Dr. Mercedes Andreyev, Mayan archeologist extraordinaire working a site in Yaxchilán, Mexico finds the door to a deeper understanding of human existence.
The pictorial glyphs on the Codex scroll are interpreted by her husband, Nick an expert in advanced computing science, AI data sets and quantum computing. Unravelling the secrets of the Maya, his interpretations offer a new direction for social continuance after civilization collapse. The Mayans had the same thinking but nature intervened with decades of drought that destroyed their civilization.
Mercedes’ pregnancy at the dig with Esperanza (Espy) her unborn daughter who, in the future will guide the enclave residents from global cataclysm to peaceful, communal life. Human coexistence with the planet and with each other to be in balance, not tipped in one side’s favor.
The pyramid of ruler Pakal, from the house Palenque and his Queen, the Red Queen awakened, feeds Espy’s unborn soul. There’s no going back from divine touch to a baby in the womb.
Their findings remained a mystery until Espy Andreyev held second millennium technology in her hands to reveal their predictions.
Her Meta Quest 7S offers an eye to understanding and in Espy’s case she uses it to project her visions for others to witness. Were the Mayans waiting visitors from the stars to return expressing their feeling of something from there came here before time as we know it?
In the second millennium of Espy Andreyev, the end of civilization is nigh and a new world will be built by Nick’s enclave community group with like-minds and hearts.
Guatemalan bandits cross the Usumacinta River between Mexico and Guatemala and rob them of their archeological treasure. The priceless artifacts become commodities for the gold and precious stones in them. Their true value, irreplaceable; historical treasure forfeited to greed.
Nick offers to buy the artifacts but the deeper meaning of their find remains hidden to them. To launch an armed assault for their retrieval, Nick Andreyev joins forces with Colin Conroy whose dark history is tied to the former, Irish freedom fighters, the IRA.
They orchestrate an ambush with a group of former ex-special forces, Spetsnaz. Russian mercenaries. Victory comes at a cost as a retrieval turns into a murderous assault.
Expecting world collapse, Nick with wealth beyond counting builds a fully serviced town and populates it with a professional and trades skilled community in the Talamanca Mountains of Costa Rica.
Creating a sanctuary community in the remote hinterlands of Central America is not a task for the light-hearted: Bandits without police to stop them want what they’ve got and are willing to kill to get it. Mother Nature issues her own demands like the Maya experienced with earthquakes destroying human infrastructure and volcanoes obscuring the atmosphere with ash.
Nick, Mercedes and Espy are the escape group leaders. Through Nick’s invitation professionals in medicine, science, engineering and learning are added to the communal post-disaster mix. They develop a workable mini-society funded by the Andreyevs in the middle of tropical mountain nowhere.
The community joins with the indigenous people of the Talamanca Cordillera, the Bribri and realize the ancient peoples are not gone, they’re still here in Jala de Piedra festival hefting a two-hundred-pound stone through the jungle.
The Bribri spiritually connect to Espy through her gift of future sight.
Connect the Bribri to Mercedes’ Mayan research the similarities of ancient peoples with the modern indigenous come to light. The Mayan’s gifted the world we didn’t know how to interpret their offering.
When an earthquake and volcanic eruption cut them off from the only road connecting them to the rest of Costa Rica the outside world disappears.
The story is a web of family, fortune, and survival, set against the backdrop of a catastrophic world-changing event that ends society as we’ve known it.
Nick’s enclave is designed to withstand the consequences of floods, social disorder, famine, war, and the breakdown of governments. “No-one knows we’re here.”
In this scenario, military experience becomes invaluable to defend their town. Nick invites a small group of former Navy SEALs from Pensacola and drone specialists from the Ukraine to protect the community.
The residents are mostly vegan. Meat animals (except for chickens) take too much space and food to provide their protein. Theirs is a mountain valley community, not open plains farming and ranching. Supplies are gathered, medical, medicines, ammunition and arms used for defense, drones, hydroelectric turbines. A hidden settlement takes shape: A modern Shangri-La created for long-term survival meet the challenges of isolated social groups: Antagonism, jealousy, envy, anger, cruelty and murder must be dealt with to ensure survival. Who gets killed and who’s the killer is a surprise to all.
When an earthquake and volcanic eruption destroy the road connecting them to the old world, they are isolated and alone until El Tio appears with his gangs of miscreants and tries to kill them all and seize their food, properties and possessions.
Survival requires more than providing a roof, food and shelter. The arrival of the Navy SEALs transforms the enclave's defensive capabilities. The sailors, quarantined before welcome by the ruling council prepare the sanctuary for the inevitable attacks of desperate outsiders.
Entrances are fortified. Defensive positions are established. The community learns that compassion must coexist with caution. Beyond the walls, new groups of survivors arrive. The Edgers, young people living on the margins of the new world have organized themselves for the new isolated reality.
The sanctuary is tested for morality. People arrive at its gates asking for seeds, medicine, food, and shelter. Those with no ulterior motives are welcomed and helped. Others are not.
From the decimated outside world, an organized group led by the mysterious El Tío finds them. Their acquired knowledge of local water supply, underground tunnel systems, ancient Maya engineering, and the mountain/valley landscape gives them what they need to defeat the voracious horde. Surrounded, defeat inevitable, the final assault by El Tio and his gang ties the defense threads together. Armed drones fill the sky. Electromagnetic pulses cripple their technology. Water floods where none flowed before and eliminates them at the gate.
Espy marries and has children, as do the others who’ve come to maturity in the enclave. From the one thousand original inhabitants they grow in number, move to new areas and prosper. The new world is not like the old of capitalist greed and political dominance of one country over others.
The new earth world order is a cooperative, not adversarial and competitive. In past times kings seized territory to expand their domains. Kings are not needed in the egalitarian future a counsel of leaders will set the pace of the race. The planet and all living beings to live in harmony with each other on their earthly home.
At the heart of this story are things that truly matter: Love, memories, family and friends and realizing your life purpose as part of a thriving community.
“There, in the stars is our destiny, a part of everything we’re not ruler of all. To be human is to live, love and die as part of the earth’s natural eco system. When the human spirit joins the light of truth, it finds peace. In the infinity of the universe, we’re one with all, a part of everything forever in dust or human form. There’s only the present, nourishing on the past with promise for a future existence. This acceptance and knowing is, “The Mayan’s Gift to the World.”
The opening chapters of The Mayan Gift to the World, in full, without leaving the page.
Chapter One
The Gift of the Maya
Technological times and climate change have veered out of control. There is no urgent agenda by governments or individuals that ensure survival as a species or a planet. There should be. Our actions are damaging each other, all the earth's regenerative ecosystems and for the first time in our history we're impacting the planet in more negative and irreversible ways than the most destructive forces of nature.
In a recent archeological dig in Mexico a Star Map was discovered that shows a path away from our assured demise. It's a gift from the ancient Mayan sky watchers to our generation of technologically superior youth and only Espy can read it and tell the others what it implies. "We must use it wisely or insufferable peril will be at hand."
The Anthropocene is an informal geologic chronological term for the proposed epoch that began when human activities had a significant global impact on the Earth's ecosystem.
She was a child, a young girl who stood poised in the arch of the open door ready to speak. She was silhouetted by the sunlight behind her as it flowed from a prism of blending and rhyming colors. Erect and calm she held the soft glowing visual display cupped carefully in her hands. Her face illumed as she gazed into her gathered palms. What she saw in her Meta Quest 3S was safe in her keeping. It gave her a feeling of wonder, beauty and hope. Her heart filled with a welcomed song of redemption. What happened next was an event beyond the common human ability to understand: the complete destruction of everything we know and love came to her in a premonitory flash.
All gathered in the church hall were silent; they knew something momentous had happened. After the initial shock of seeing light expand behind her and flow into her hands Espy stepped from the doorway and walked down the aisle holding the treasure reverently in front of her chest. As she moved forward a hubbub of voices conferred in whispers and the elder in the nave spoke in an echoing voice to all those with there with doubtful and inquiring minds.
"We are the first intelligent beings to live on earth, but we are not the last to inhabit the planet. Before the 'Event' that none though probable we did not listen to the warnings we pay no heed to the tolling bell that signaled our end as a species. There are only 1% of humans left on the planet. We are sixty-six million strong and scattered on five continents in different situations from jungle to urban field to mountain and valley to river but we are alive. and the earth is once again in a frecoery from our abuse Before the discovery of 'The Gift of the Maya' life on earth was moving to the unrecoverable complete extinction of every living thing. What do we do now?"
In the aged one speaks, listen to his wise words: "Only with the power and knowledge contained in the Mayan gift of the dimension superior to our conception of reality will enable us to survive. The Gift is a Map of Stars and it points us in a direction that can stop the ignorance leading us to complete destruction of every living being on the planet.
"We must not abandon faith in the power of love and the innate desire of the living to continue life. To stop our extinction and save the dying planet we must act before it's too late.
"We need to harness the knowledge offered by the gift. It is fundamental to understand and accept what, who and how we love. Without love we are lost animals in a disaster. Is it possible to change from our path of ego centered destruction?"
"Only recently have we deciphered the gift written in inscriptive Mayan glyphs on the Dresden Codex. It answers the question we need to ask: How can we change the course of human events before all life is extinct from our blindness to the truth? There will be no recovery from our clear and present actions.
"With the guidance of the stars precisions based on the ancient knowledge we can see into the distance; it shows the way. It is a map for the survival of our species. It sets in unmistakable parameters the course we must steer toward to create a peaceful coexistence with other life and with nature."
"Ah yes, old one we agree it is the young girl who has the gift; she is of the gifted ones. We know that and we're in awe of what's happening here before our eyes. It will change the world from oblivion to continuance. Yes, we are listening old one and yes, we are ready to follow her way as it is the only way to our salvation."
"We realize the ancient's knowledge was common to many civilizations. The Maya, the Egyptians and back to the world's Monolith builders of the Neolithic Age all had star maps that are accurate to this day and the future beyond. How did they acquire this knowledge? Who taught them all the same lesson at the same time? And before that when we were forest and cave dwellers who drew paintings on cave walls of animals not common to modern times and other non-human beings from other worldly places. Is the gift the girl holds not from the Maya but from another galaxy or dimension from something we cannot see or understand?"
"Are there gifts on other continents yet to be discovered? Are they hidden to be found when we will need them for our species survival and to help us preserve earth as the living cradle for life? Humans are intelligent tool using mammals but we could an experiment from a distant time of visitors or from a fourth parallel dimension we cannot surmise or perceive with our primitive brains? Our modus operandi is to use the tools we have, or can develop, to solve problems and resolve our differences with each other and the at-odds effect we are having on the planet. Is this the plan of the gift is this the result of the experiment?"
"The gift is in the hands of the gifted generation who are its ciphers. The gifted are young people like this girl born in the early second millennium. They are post millennium children, a special and technologically gifted group not seen before in earth's history. We learn from their gifts or the planet and life as we know it will not exist when they are dead. They are the last, the gifted generation who will carry humanity into a new world and a new future."
The girl spoke calmly and in respect of the wise and aged elders who are of her time. "I read from the documents before me: The Mayan Gift is a Map of Stars. It is a series of stellar combinations not unlike the tumblers in a massive vault. They are based on time and connectivity. Their positions of the ages and their movements into the future were predicted by the Mayan Sky Watchers and others around the world more than two millennia ago. When the combinations of the stars are aligned in perfect symmetry the doors of everlasting life and complete understanding will open. This code cradled in my hands belongs to the world and I, one of the gifted ones, can see it and will guide us through the Anthropocene to the Age of Enlightenment.
"The Map sets the path and the bearings of the stars and shows us where we are today from where we have come and to where we go. The time is coming when we will be able to reach out and hold the universe in our hands. The question is: Will we survive to see it? This map is for the lost to follow… to give us hope. It is our only chance to find our place in a universe that goes on forever."
Espy was reed thin with thick, Gallic-ginger hair that matched her fiery personality. Blue eyes glowing, diaphanous dress flowing, the radiant young woman held the answer in the Meta Quest 3S and the people were in her hands. She was a spark of a woman who ignited those who were witness to her offering. She had the answer to the question: "What must we do as a species to survive our self destructive ways?"
All eyes are on her in reverence for she holds the Star guide from those here before us who knew our dilemma of survival before we existed. Those, who will come again if we do not destroy ourselves and the planet and indeed we gave our earth and home a brand new life.
What song is ringing in her heart and who is gifted enough to truly understand the ephemeral notes of her song?
In the modern epoch of the New Humans, anthropogenic disasters had become commonplace. There was no way for anyone to escape the irreparable damage except with the blessed children who reject doing negative things. They are unwilling to harm mother earth or each other unless it benefits the doer and the receiver. This is book is dedicated to those who still believe we are the captains of our soul and we have a future and will survive as a species.
Chapter Two
Letters of Introduction
Chapter Three
Who Was Entitled to Give
About the author
Raymond writes across many genres: Historical fiction, poetry, YA, short stories, flash, CNF, nonfiction, humor and essay.
He came to long-form fiction late by way of suffering in a prison incubator where his fragile writing hatched and found form. The Gift trilogy grew out of a single mention in a St. Petersburg catalogue describing an object (The Lady of Kazan icon) recorded in ancient texts as a palladium and not found again.
He writes in the early morning, keeps a light-bulb journal, and reads historical novels together with Booker and Giller prize winners and short list poetry and fiction. He lives in British Columbia on a fertile, delta plain, snow-capped Rockies bounding three sides and the Pacific Ocean stretching west to Japan.
Book 1 · 1881
Historical fiction (1881-2011). The gifts witness the intrigue and political turmoil of a dying 19th century Imperial Empire. Themes of revolution, love, unexpected deaths, passing of a wealthy family legacy, collecting antiquities, Impressionist paintings and books with a taste of ballet feed the narrative flow.
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Book 2 · 2011
Adventure/mystery love story of the last heir to the Ivanovich family fortune. Nicholas Andreyev, a Bitcoin-era Asperger savant, and Dr. Mercedes Conroy, a Mayan archeology professor, race from New York to Costa Rica and Palenque to break a childless curse and claim a Swiss vault of Imperial Russian wealth.
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