The Toltecs built the great city of Tollan, Tula, in central Mexico more than a thousand years ago. To the Mexica who came after them, the Toltecs were the golden ancestors: the inventors of the arts, the calendar and the sacred teachings of Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent.
So great was their memory that the word Toltecatl came to mean an artist, a master, a wise one. The elders who spoke to the friar Bernardino de Sahagún in the 1500s described the true Toltec artist as one who works with heart.
In Their Words
“The true artist is a Toltec. He works with care, he works with skill, he converses with his own heart. He puts his heart into everything he makes.”
Words of the Mexica elders, Florentine Codex, Book 10 (translation by Dan Dillman)
What This Teaching Shows Us
The Toltec path is the path of mastery. Every act can become sacred when it is done with a whole heart: the stone you carve, the word you speak, the life you build. Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, shows the union of earth and sky, the serpent body rising on wings of light. That union is the Toltec goal for every soul.
Reflect: What would change if you put your whole heart into the work in front of you today?
