Nando sat on his futon in front of his laptop. "I'm writing about the Maya story of creation." Nando is a Maya medicine man. He's been my house guest these many months.
     It seems there was a counsel of Creators.
     "Like a committee?" I asked.
     "Like a circle," said Nando.

     In the beginning this committee, this circle of Creators made creatures out of wood, but the wooden men neglected to give due respect to the Creators, so they burned them. Then the Creators made men out of mud, out of clay, but again, they clay creatures failed in this respect, so the Creators washed them away.
     "Ah ha!" I said. "That explains why the world is such a mess. The Creators were a bunch of bumblers."
     "No," said Nando (with a heavy accent). "It all works out fine. Next the Creators created the animals, and that was good, and though the animals didn't give much attention to the creators, there was no blame in that. So next the Creators made men, and women. But then they thought, the people are a little too clever. 'Ah ha. They are clever like us,' so the Creators took away men's vision, their inner vision - they closed the third eye - and they took away their patience."
     "Just the men?" I said.
     "Just the men," said Nando.
     "Well, indeed, that does explain a lot. They are not very kind, the Creators."
     "Oh no," said Nando. "They gave us dreams."

CODA: Not to worry too much. When the Maya calendar renews in 2012, I believe that many of us are due to get our vision and our patience back, and live in reality rather then the dream world.