21 December 2012
THE MAYAN CALENDAR END-DATE
This was sent to me via E Mail from a reader- I have tried to establish the
source but I have not had much success !!
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.
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