March 2009 Journal #3    Page 1

What do you get when you combine the Spring Equinox, a temple more than a thousand years old, lots of mathematical and astronomical equations, and a sunny, cloud-free sky? A feathered serpent unlike any other. This year was the first year that Centre students were able to experience the spring equinox at Chichén Itzá. One this day, due to the architectural design of El Castillo, the shadows cast by the late afternoon sun create triangles of light that form the body of Kukulcan, the feathered serpent in whose honor the temple was built.

The painstaking precision and careful calculation that went into the construction of this Maya temple was clearly evident as the sun descended to the horizon and the image of the serpent materialized as if from nowhere. I seemed to fall back into forgotten centuries as I watched in awe, surrounded by hundreds of people from all over the world who were mesmerized along with me.

The next day, I was once again transported into the past as I sat in a horse-drawn trolley and traveled along the same rails once used by the post-Colombian henequen workers of massive plantations. Centre women’s soccer player, Cindy Bergstrom ’10, had invited her fellow teammates, Rosie McAuley and I, to accompany her and her father to the

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