MAYAN CALENDAR END-DATE - We are on the brink of a new world age

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21 December 2012

THE MAYAN CALENDAR END-DATE

 

Most of us are not archaeologists or astronomers, anthropologists or

astrologers. Yet the majority of what is written about one of the

most exciting and relevant subjects of our day - the approaching

Winter Solstice 2012 end-date of the Mayan Calendar - appears in

words aimed at specialists and couched in language that can be hard

to read. This article is written for the Everyday Earthling who may

be hearing a lot about the Mayans, their calendars, hieroglyphs and

mysterious temples scattered throughout the jungles of Mexico,

Guatemala, Belize and Honduras.

 

Let us begin with some questions. Why is there so much talk about

the " end of the Mayan calendar " and what does it mean? Is there

something significant we should know about the Winter Solstice date

of December 21, 2012? How were the Mayans able to track long periods

of time and why would they want to? Why should we care about the

Mayans today? Is there anything we can learn from them? I'll begin

by sharing how my own interest in the subject developed and go on

from there.

 

I first learned about the Mayans in 1987 from Jose Arguelles' book

The Mayan Factor. It was during the months leading up to the event

known as Harmonic Convergence that Arguelles, artist and visionary,

introduced me to the 20 Mayan daysigns and the thirteen Mayan

numbers - and to the wonderfully engaging and mysterious 260 day

Mayan ceremonial calendar, called the Tzolkin (pronounced chol-kin).

My pursuit of knowledge about pre-Columbian culture had begun.

 

A great deal of scientific and visionary research work has been done

about the Mayans, so I started reading. I learned that the Mayans

tracked cycles within cycles within cycles of time. Their calendar

acted as a harmonic calibrator, linking and coordinating the

earthly, lunar, solar and galactic seasons in an aesthetically

simple and elegant manner. The provocative simplicity of the

daysigns and the sheer harmony of the calendar drew me in. Then a

landmark article by John Major Jenkins appeared in Mountain

Astrologer magazine in 1994, revealing for the first time in our era

the true meaning of the end-date.

 

Is there something significant we should know about the Winter

Solstice date of December 21, 2012? Yes. On this day a rare

astronomical and Mayan mythical event occurs. In astronomic terms,

the Sun conjuncts the intersection of the Milky Way and the plane of

the ecliptic. The Milky Way, as most of us know, extends in a

general north-south direction in the night sky. The plane of the

ecliptic is the track the Sun, Moon, planets and stars appear to

travel in the sky, from east to west. It intersects the Milky Way at

a 60 degree angle near the constellation Sagittarius.

 

The cosmic cross formed by the intersecting Milky Way and plane of

the ecliptic was called the Sacred Tree by the Maya. The trunk of

the tree, the Axis Mundi, is the Milky Way, and the main branch

intersecting the tree is the plane of the ecliptic. Mythically, at

sunrise on December 21, 2012, the Sun - our Father - rises to

conjoin the center of the Sacred Tree, the World Tree, the Tree of

Life..

 

This rare astronomical event, foretold in the Mayan creation story

of the Hero Twins, and calculated empirically by them, will happen

for many of us in our lifetime. The Sun has not conjoined the Milky

Way and the plane of the ecliptic since some 25,800 years ago, long

before the Mayans arrived on the scene and long before their

predecessors the Olmecs arrived. What does this mean?

 

Due to a phenomenon called the precession of the equinoxes, caused

by the Earth's wobble that lasts almost 26,000 years, the apparent

location of the Winter Solstice sunrise has been ever so slowly

moving toward the Galactic Center. Precession may be understood by

watching a spinning top. Over many revolutions the top will rise and

dip on its axis, not unlike how the Earth does over an extremely

long period of time. One complete rise and dip constitutes the cycle

of precession.

 

The Mayans noticed the relative slippage of the positions of stars

in the night sky over long periods of observation, indicative of

precession, and foretold this great coming attraction. By using an

invention called the Long Count, the Mayans fast-forwarded to anchor

December 21, 2012 as the end of their Great Cycle and then counted

backwards to decide where the calendar would begin. Thus the Great

Cycle we are currently in began on August 11, 3114 BCE But there's

more.

 

The Great Cycle, lasting 1,872,000 days and equivalent to 5,125.36

years, is but one fifth of the Great Great Cycle, known

scientifically as the Great Year or the Platonic Year - the length

of the precession of the equinoxes. To use a metaphor from the

modern industrial world, on Winter Solstice CE (Common Era) 2012 it

is as if the Giant Odometer of Humanity on Earth hits 100,000 miles

and all the cycles big and small turn over to begin anew. The

present world age will end and a new world age will begin.

 

Over a year's time the Sun transits through the twelve houses of the

zodiac. Many of us know this by what " Sun sign " is associated with

our birthday. Upping the scale to the Platonic Year - the 26,000

year long cycle - we are shifting, astrologically, from the Age of

Pisces to the Age of Aquarius. The Mayan calendar does not

really " end " in 2012, but rather, all the cycles turn over and start

again, vibrating to a new era. It is as if humanity and the Earth

will graduate in the eyes of the Father Sun and Grandmother Milky

Way.

 

Why should we care about the Mayans today? Is there anything we can

learn from them? The trees give us oxygen to breathe and help create

the nourishing rains upon which we depend, sustaining life. We are

missing these rains in places where the trees have been cut down or

burned. Fires begin that nature can no longer extinguish. For the

Mayans, trees were intermediaries between the physical and spiritual

worlds, and absolutely essential to life. They believed that without

the tree man could not survive and that " with the death of the last

tree comes the death of the human race. "

 

The ancient carved stones and the stars themselves tell us we are on

the brink of a new world age. There is no reason not to take a leap

of faith into imagining what may be in store. We may trust that it

is time for humanity to awaken into a true partnership with each

other, with the Earth, and the Cosmos. By accepting this partnership

we may claim our birthright and become Galactic Citizens who care

for and sustain the planet, thus sustaining ourselves. This is

clearly the challenge of our times. Yet, arriving just in time and

on schedule is the Winter Solstice dawn on the day we may remember

that we are truly Children of the World.

 

THE MAYAN CALENDAR END-DATE