Humberto GarciaReligion 110Professor W. RaverPopol VuhMyths organize the way we perceive and understand our reality. Myths ensure the stability of a culture, and in this regard; serve to explain the inexplicable. From Barbra Sproul's perspective, creation myths reveal fundamental religious concerns relating to how the universe was formed and how people or societies are shaped. Myths speak of the transcendent and unknowable aspects of a drama which attempts to reveal and give reason to human existence and to man's place in the cosmos. Through myth, the dimensions of space, nature and time are expressed in symbolisms that show how the sacred can be experienced or transmitted if correctly understood. The Popol Vuh is a collection of mythical stories that tell the origins and history of the Quiche Mayan people. . The story opens with a description of what it was like before the first creation. “There were neither men nor animals… there was only the calm sea and the great expanse of the sky” (Sproul, Barbra. Primal Myths, Harper Collins Publishers 1979, p. 288). Only Tepeu and Gucumatz, the creative couple, existed as powers of solar fire in the void of dark waters. After agreement, the creative couple said “let it be done”, and it was done. From this; the land emerged from the sea, mountains and valleys were formed, the water currents divided, and wild animals (the guardians of the woods and the spirits of the mountains) appeared. The animals were commanded to praise their creators and invoke the gods; but they could not speak like men, so they were banished to the forests. The Gods made three vain attempts to create humanity. In the first attempt to create humans, they used mud, but it failed because middle of paper......o divinity, that spiritual connection between nature (the natural world) and man exists. The Maya did not exploit the land (the corn donors) because “All that is… manifests itself above the waters” (Eliade, Mircea, The Sacred and the Profane, Harcourt 1959, Pg. 131) and therefore a link with the gods. The notions of sacred space are defined in the classical image of the sky. The sky reveals itself “infinite, transcendent… it is par excellence the completely other” (Eliade, Mircea, The Sacred and the Profane, Harcourt 1959, p. 118). Transcendence is revealed by this infinite height. In the beginning, only calm waters and sky existed. “For the sky by its own mode of being “reveals transcendence, force, eternity… it exists absolutely because it is high, infinite and eternal”” (Eliade, Mircea, The Sacred and the Profane, Harcourt 1959, p... 119) .