The One World, Cem-á-nahuac, has existed for many milleniums. But even before the world as we know it there were four Suns and four Earths. Each Sun ended in a catastrophe, a cataclysm, and each time the world was created again, fatally identical to that before it. A new cycle began, and this cycle brought about an improved form of life. The four primordial forces presided over these Suns - Water, Earth, Fire, and Wind - until the age of the Fifth Sun, the Sun of Movement, which is the Sun we live in now.

The first Age was the Sun of Water, and the first humans were made of ash. They lived in the world, and existed as anyone may, until a great catastrophe came and destroyed them all. Water covered the earth, destroying them, and they were all turned into fish.

In the second Age, the Sun of Earth, humans were giants. These men and women, in spite of their great size, were, in reality, weak beings. When they fell, as in an accident, they fell forever. In this Sun the people were nourished with maize water. But this Sun, too, was destroyed. The people were eaten by jaguars.

In the third Age, the Sun of Fire, men and women lived in the world and were nourished on cincocopi, an ancient form of maize. But they too met a tragic end. The sun rained fire, and all the people were converted into turkeys.

Finally, the people who lived and dwelled in the fourth Age, they ate genuine maize as we know it, our sustenance, discovered by the god Quetzalcoatl. These humans, when they met their final doom, were converted neither into fish nor turkeys, but went to live among the mountains as monkey people. This was the Sun of Wind. The fifth age in which we live, the Sun of Movement, had its origin in Teotihuacan long, long ago. This is why Teotihuacan is called the City of the Gods. It was there that the Gods united to create the Age of Movement. Movement is Ollin. All that exists is in constant movement: rivers and oceans, plants and animals, life itself and the movement of the sun across the sky. This is Ollin, the Sun of Movement, the world we live in today.

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The Legend of the Fifth Sun is the song of the Ages. Each Age begins with creation and ends in catastrophic destruction, which then brings about another creation. With this understanding it becomes clear as to why the Aztecs so greatly feared the destruction of the world we live in, the Fifth Sun. Cataclysm and destruction, being naturally occurring phenomena, could come at any time. To many, the Legend of the Fifth Sun is sacred because it preserves the history of our ancestors, whose cultural footprints have left an impression on our lives.