December 21 2012 Is Near: What Should We
We have entered the year 2012, which may be the most anticipated year in
Western civilization’s history. In the minds of millions upon millions of people, one date in particular stands
out: December 21 2012. It is on this date that what is known as the Great Cycle of the now famed Mayan Calendar,
which began its count in 3114 BCE, comes to an end.
The Mayan Calendar was developed by the Mayans, the members of a
South American Native empire which has now been vanished for many centuries. The calendar is highly complex
and is made up of a number of almost machine-like interacting disparate parts, known as “cycles” or “counts”
of varying lengths. Among these are the 260-day Tzolkin sub-calendar made up of 20 day-signs that themselves
include 13 variations; the 365-day Haab sub-calendar; the Venus sub-calendar (approximately every 584 days,
planet Venus will arise at dawn as the Morning Star); and the a Long Count component which gives us the “Great
Cycle” of 1,872,000 days (approximately 5,125 years).
The Mayan Calendar
can be and has been used much like the birth charts and other supposedly predictive charts of the Western
astrological tradition. Mayan cultural anthropologists and other researchers have toiled for over a century to
figure out how the Mayan Calendar also acts as a calendrical time-keeping device and to see how it aligns with the
West’s Gregorian calendar. While there are still some disagreements, most of our instruments agree that this
intriguing calendar ends on December 21st, 2012.
The Great Cycle and the Long Count: What Could They Mean for Us?
It is the Great Cycle with its Long Count that is the most fascinating--and, to many people today, the most dreadful and terrifying--of the Mayan Calendar’s components. The Long Count ends on or
just around December 21st, 2012, which is time of the Winter Solstice. There appears to be no counting beyond this
date, which indicates to many that this is the predicted “end of the world”. But even if this is accurate, what did
the Mayans mean by the “end of the world”?
We have already seen 2009’s “2012” sci-fi doom and gloom movie which was based upon the theory of Charles Hapgood
that the Long Count corresponds to polar shifts within the Earth and predicts physical catastrophe and massive
destruction on a planetary scale. Of course, we also have those still waiting for, or anticipating the effects of,
the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Some say that December 21st, 2012 will usher in a New Age
event analogous to the Christian “Rapturing” that supposedly prefigures the calamities and subsequent rise of the
Antichrist. Others say that on that date we will begin observing and experiencing a spiritual, even a supernatural,
transformation. This may include people developing preternatural powers, burgeoning wars between those who become
the newly Illuminated vs. those who remain in and sink down into further Darkness, or extra-terrestrial contact
from intelligent beings who have been watching us from the skies and beyond.
Astrophysicist and world mythology researcher Dr. Paul LaViolette has said and written in the recent past that the
ending of the Mayan Great Cycle could very well mean that the Earth’s orbital cycle in space will align our planet
with our Galactic Center, from which will come, on or just after the fatal date, a “galactic super wave” of
unfathomable cosmic energy that will cause the next Great Flood event on Earth. LaViolette has said that ice core
samples from the poles strongly indicate that such devastating cosmic blasts come our way every 13,000 years, and
we are due. It should be noted, however, that Dr. LaViolette even more recently has changed his view somewhat and
is no longer so convinced that the Mayan Calendar predicts this event or that it is coming later this year.
Yet, what if the “end of the world” simply means the ending of the current age or epoch, and there is nothing
physical or supernatural about it? This is the view of independent researcher John Major Jenkins, who has
repeatedly visited the sites of the ancient Mayan empire and written prodigiously about their calendar.
Jenkins is convinced that while it is indeed true that the Earth will align with the Center of the Milky Way Galaxy around December 21st, 2012, alignment was used to signify the return of
the rulership of the god known as “Nine Wind”, who would descend to Earth from the heavens via a “serpent rope”.
Nine Wind seems to correspond with the ancient Egyptian god Tehuti, better known today as “Thoth”.
Nine Wind would apparently be a benevolent ruler who would take a keen interest in helping mankind to advance
technologically and spiritually. There are those who interpret Nine Wind as an extra-terrestrial whose “serpent
rope” is actually a galactic worm hole through space and time, through which he would travel almost instantly from
his home planet to ours.
Calendar As Doomsday Book?
Our planetary civilization certainly is in much upheaval now. Economic troubles, political frictions, and
environmental concerns are everywhere. But could the Mayans have “predicted” this? And even if they could, would
they have spelled out our doom, or some deus ex machina, or the deaths of most of mankind’s members? Perhaps the
greatest danger we face is that of a mass-scale self-fulfilling prophecy of doom and gloom.
December 21 2012 is now the most intriguing date in the world. But the most important one is December 22nd,