Omeyocan- Aztec LocationLocation · Realm"Place of Duality"

The Thirteenth Heaven

Aztec cosmology stacked thirteen heavens above the earth, mirroring the nine levels of Mictlan below. The first heaven held the moon, the third the sun. Higher still lay realms that grew increasingly abstract, until at the summit stood Omeyocan: the Place of Duality, the thirteenth and final level. The Florentine Codex calls it "in ōmeyōcān in chiucnāuhnepaniuhcān," the place of duality above the nine-tiered heavens. No mortal vision could perceive it. It simply was, as it always had been.

The Dual God

Omeyocan is the eternal home of Ometeotl, the primordial dual deity who manifested in complementary aspects: Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, the Two Lord and the Two Lady, also called the Lord and Lady of Our Sustenance.

The Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas records that "they were raised and had always been in the thirteenth heaven; nothing was ever known of their beginning, just their dwelling and creation, which were in the thirteenth heaven." While every other god had a birth and a history, Ometeotl existed outside the cycles of time. The Aztecs built no temples to the dual god and offered no sacrifices. Ometeotl had set creation in motion and withdrawn.

Source of Creation

From Omeyocan, Ometeotl generated all other gods. The four Tezcatlipocas descended first: Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca among them. These four were tasked with creating the world, and through their rivalries and collaborations the five suns rose and fell, each age built and broken by divine siblings whose power traced back to the thirteenth heaven.

The first act of creation was water and fire. Then the great earth-monster Cipactli, from whose torn body the land was formed. Then time itself. All flowing downward from Omeyocan into the void.

The Milk Tree

Despite its remoteness, Omeyocan received one kind of soul: infants who died before eating maize. These children, untouched by earthly sustenance, ascended to the thirteenth heaven rather than undertaking the journey to Mictlan. Near a great tree dripping with milk called Chichihuacuauhco, they awaited eventual rebirth into the world below. Never having eaten maize, they had never fully entered mortality. They returned to the source.