From the beginning of our work on the Popol Vuh, Andres Xiloj felt certain that if one only knew how to read it perfectly, borrowing the knowledge of the day lords, the moist breezes, and the distant lightning, it should reveal everything under the sky and on the earth, all the way out to the four corners. As a help to me own reading and pondering of the book, he suggested an addition to the prayer that daykeepers recite when they go to public shrines. It goes like this:

Make my guilt vanish,

Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth;

do me a favor,

give me strength, give me courage

in my heart, in my head,

since you are my mountain and my plain;

may there be no falsehood and no stain,

and may this reading of the Popol Vuh

come out clear as dawn,

and may the sifting of ancient times

be complete in my heart, in my head;

and make my guilt vanish,

my grandmothers, grandfathers,

and however many souls of the dead there may be,

you who speak with the Heart of Sky and Earth,

may all of you together give me strength

to the reading I have undertaken.