Why 2012?

Why should the so-called “end date” of the Mayan calendar – at the time of the winter solstice on 21./22. December, 2012 – be of particular importance?

Why did the Maya consider this date to be so especially unusual that they regarded it as the completion of their calendar cycle ?

It is not the calendar date that is of importance here, but the astronomical event that takes place at that time – namely the particular position of our solar system in relation to the Milky Way.

It seems that the Maya had knowledge of the so-called “precession of the equinoxes” and they could foresee this unusual position of our solar system. It appeared to them to be of such profound significance that they chose it as the end of their calendar cycle.

Indeed, this extraordinary astronomical constellation does prove to have historical, astrological, geophysical and human-neurological consequences. An understanding of these relationships reveals to us not only the implication of the Mayan calendar, but – from the prophetic perspective – the development state of humanity as a whole.

The year 2012;
  the Mayan Calendar & Prophecies

“A transformation, triggered by the completion of the Great Cycle has already taken place, signalled by a shift in the resonating frequency; this shift announces the end of the Great Cycle and gives a premonition of the brilliance of our galactic, solar and planetary reality in the following era which begins with 2012 AD.

“Our planet thus enters into its next evolutionary phase, securing itself a place as a new member of the galactic community.”

José Argüelles

The Maya not only had their own method of measuring time but also a unique calendar system, which portrayed the fractality of time. The longest cycle in the Maya calendar is 26,000 years, which is the approximate length of a so-called ‘Platonic year’ or ‘Equinoctial cycle’.

The Tibetans, ancient Egyptians, Cherokee and Hopi Indians also refer to such a cycle of 26,000 years in their mystical belief systems.

The Maya also had a numerical system, based on units of

1 (like one finger),

5 (five fingers or toes), and

20 (the sum of all fingers and toes).

These units were reproduced in their calendar system and combined with other natural units, such as 28 (equivalent to the days in a lunar cycle) and 13 (the number of lunar cycles in a solar year).

The Mayan calendar also used two systems of temporal calculation: a short one, to measure daily and annual sequences and a long one, which also had cosmological and religious significance for them.

The short cycle had 13 months of 28 days each = 364 days. The missing day was compensated for by an extra ‘day out of time’, which corresponds to the 26^th of July in our calendar.

Another unit of 260 (13 x 20) days, the Tzolkin, is of importance both for the short and long cycles. The Tzolkin is the sacred calendar of the Maya.

It consists of 13 tones and 20 seals, which, flowing in a doubly synchronous pattern, can be combined into all of the 260 possible combinations. Particular attributes are associated with each of the 13 tones and 20 seals, by which each day of the Tzolkin receives unique qualities – qualities not unlike those that we know of from astrology.

The Maya were fascinated by the correspondences of cycles and considered every concurrence significant.

Thus, the Mayan calendar contains another unit of 52 years created by the conjunction of the 260-day Tzolkin cycle in correlation with the solar cycle of 365 days. 52 x 365 = 18980 days. 18980 is the smallest number that is divisible by both 260 and 365.

The long cycle consists of multiples of the numerical system units and those of the short cycle.

The basic unit is one day (Kin).

20 Kins are one Uinal.

18 (13 +5) Uinals are one Tun (= 360 Kins).

20 Tuns are a Katun (= 7200 Kins).

20 Katuns are a Baktun (= 144,000 Kins).

13 Baktuns are a Long (Great) Cycle
(= 1,872,000 Kins). This, if we include the leap years, is approximately 5125.4 years.

The Maya recorded significant astronomical, historical and ritual events with units from the long cycle using glyphic notations which have since been deciphered.

A certain date would be noted as x Baktuns, x Katuns, x Tuns, x Uinals and x Kins since the beginning of the cycle.
The zero date was noted as 0.0.0.0.0 and the last day of the long cycle as 13.0.0.0.0.
For example 6.19.19.0.0 = 6 Baktuns, 19 Katuns, 19 Tuns, 0 Uinals and 0 Kins.

Based on astronomical events, such as solar or lunar eclipses, the Maya researchers have been able to establish a correlation to our current calendar system.

Today we use the Gregorian calendar, introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII. In order to synchronize with the Maya calendar, the Julian day count is used, which according to Joseph Justus Scaliger, would set Monday 1 January, 4713 BC, from the astronomical point of view, as the date zero.

The End of the Maya Calendar ‘Great Cycle’

In correlating our calendar to the Mayan calendar, the opinions differ slightly – there are two common synchronizations and a discrepancy of two days.

But there seems to be consensus on the main point that

the Long Cycle of the Mayan calendar ends at the time of the winter solstice, on 21./22. December, 2012.

(It seems, however, that the Maya were aware of the so-called Precession of the Equinoxes, recognized this particular time as being something exceptional and intentionally chose it as the end point of their calendar cycle.)

At this time, namely, an extremely rare astronomical constellation will occur, which the Maya anticipated thousands of years ago.

At the time of the winter solstice in 2012, the sun will be in conjunction with the equator of the Milky Way.

The entire Creation-Myth of the Maya can be understood only in the perspective of this significant conjunction.

According to the Maya mythology the winter solstice is embodied in the person of the deity: One Hunahpu, also known as the First Father. The holy book of the Maya, the Popol Vuh, teaches that the First Father must be reborn so that a new global era can begin.

The Dark Space is mythologically significant in several ways: as the Street of the Underworld; the jaw of a cosmic monster; as well as the birth canal of the Cosmic Mother. The best way to understand the importance of the Dark Space is in its aspect as being the birth canal of the Cosmic Mother, which at the time of this conjunction is enjoined with the First Father.

This is the exact point where the Great Cycle of the Mayan calendar ends.

All these correspondences make it seem obvious that the ancient Maya were aware of the conjunction and considered it to be an important time of transformation – the transition of the world into a new era.

In mythological language this event signifies the joining of the First Father with the Cosmic Mother – or more precisely: the rebirth of the First Father (the sun of the winter solstice) through the womb of Cosmic Mother (the dark space in the Milky Way).

The ancient Maya recognized that the sun, observed at each winter solstice was slowly moving towards the centre of the Milky Way. Two major points in the sky were moving toward each other to create a rare heavenly conjunction. The calendar of the Maya accurately identified when this event would take place – an event which means more than the mere birth of a new solar year.

It means the beginning of a new Great Cycle and era - the resetting of the great stellar clock - and perhaps a new stage in the nature of human consciousness and civilization.

According to the Mayan calendar we live today in an ‘End time’. The great cycle of the Mayan calendar ends with the winter solstice of 2012.

According to the Mayan concept of cycles and time transitions, this end at the same time signifies a new beginning.

In fact, the ancient Maya considered this transition as the emergence of a new era: At the end of each age there is a rebirth.

[The previous remarks and comments on Mayan mythology are based on the writings of one of the leading Maya researchers, the American scholar, John Major Jenkins.]

Galactic Synchronization

We learn more about this topic from
  Jose Argüelles, who rediscovered the Mayan calendar and is the main initiator of the current interest in the subject:
 

“The Great Cycle or great synchronization ray with a diameter of 5200 Tuns or thirteen Baktuns, which our planet Earth is transversing at this time, is approaching its end.

“On this journey, the more sophisticated DNA life forms on earth will be experiencing a constant acceleration. It is this process of acceleration and ultimately synchronization which is of interest to us here as a specifically harmonic wavelength of history.

“This specific historical overtone is a tiny but exquisitely proportioned fractal of the galactic evolutionary process. In this respect the end of the cycle in 2012 AD (Kin 1 872 000, 13.0.0.0.0) is nothing less than the decisive qualitative leap in the evolution of light and life of the earth – that is, of the radiogenetic process, which our Planet embodies.

“But when, in the context of a morphogenetic field –whose calendar is consciously or unconsciously dominated by the presence and vision of the historical figure of Jesus Christ – we speak of the end of the Great Cycle, then we automatically conjure up the spectre of Armageddon and visions of the return of Christ.

“When we consider the source from which the Armageddon script originates, the Apocalypse of John, ... we have a text before us, which couldn’t be any more visionary. The most remarkable thing however, is that the numerical symbolism in John’s Revelation has profound, Maya-like overtones.

“Of central importance is the fact that Christ there is the thirteenth in a group of twelve apostles. Moreover the number seven appears in ever new variations, giving the entire Revelation of John its mystical taint. And finally there are the elect, 144,000 in number, as many days or Kins as there are in a Baktun.

[Also interesting is the fact that a ‘prophetic year’ in biblical prophecy has not 365 but 360 days (= one Tun).]

“If we remind ourselves that a Baktun contains many dimensions of meaning within the harmonic order and that we are presently in the twelfth or thirteenth Baktun cycle, then we can not avoid asking ourselves if there is not perhaps a subliminal link between the Christian Apocalypse of John and the Maya factor – a link of which the ruling circles of the Western Orthodox Neo-Christianity have no idea – or prefer not to mention.

“Are the New Jerusalem, the New Heaven and New Earth, perhaps nothing more than our entry into the unimaginable dimension of a new cycle, the cycle of time following the galactic synchronization of 2012 AD., in the year 13.0.0.0.0 of the Mayan Calendar?”

“The global mobilization of social forces to achieve demilitarization and deindustrialization will finally, despite delays due to the resistance of reactionary elements, achieve its goal towards the end of the cycle in 2012.

“At this time the synchronization process of the entire Great Cycle will rise to new peaks, and the whole of human society will take an unprecedented turn toward a galactic orientation.

“The end of the cycle is marked by a festive atmosphere, a synchronization of mythical proportions and a tenor of spiritual renewal, previously unknown in the historical phase.

“Our planet thus enters into its next evolutionary phase, securing itself a place as a new member of the galactic community.”

José Argüelles

as quoted in “The Maya-Factor”

The Mayan Prophecies and the Period of Transition

The Mayan prophecies are very general.

The broader message is that after each Great Cycle (about 5100 years) humanity and/or the world undergoes cataclysmic changes or is even destroyed (i.e. by fire, wind, water ...).

That a cataclysmic, radical upheaval lies ahead, is already foreseeable, which however, must not necessarily lead to the destruction of mankind. We have, after all, already survived several Great Cycles.

From the astrological perspective, we are at any rate in the midst of a transition to a new era.

 The Age of Aquarius promises to become an era of individualism and non-conformism. It will be characterized by qualities such as tolerance, openness and global citizenship.

The common spirit of the Age of Aquarius will not only have an effect on innovations in research and science, the new Zeitgeist will also embrace all of mankind.  

The Age of Aquarius is conducive to worldwide networking and globalization in general. It will bring about an atmosphere, by which mankind can unite to solve its common problems.

The fact that our solar system will transverse the physical (and therefore the electromagnetic) centre of the Galaxy just we are in the process of transition into the Aquarian Age, also seems to be significant.

That this could trigger a concentrated manifestation of the qualities of the Aquarian Age – which in turn could reveal the apex of the extreme socio-political events, which can be associated with the turn of an era and of which numerous prophetic texts have warned – seems in no way not too far-fetched.

The year 2012 and the “Signs of the Times”

The stars impel, but not compel.

Thomas Aquinas

Irregardless of how instructive and convincing the coherent aspects concerning the end date of the Mayan calendar may be, they nevertheless represent only one single “eyewitness testimony” and should be regarded as such and no more.

No matter how favourable the influences prevalent at the time of the winter solstice of 2012 may be, such a massive global change will certainly not occur spontaneously without a series of recognizable key events which promote and cause such a transformation.

If the mentioned time period is truly of importance, then at most as the probable culmination of the events which make the predicted transformation possible.

The date alone, however, gives us no evidence or indications as to what exactly these events could be – these “… delays due to the resistance of reactionary elements…” for example, of which Argüelles warns us – or how we can prepare ourselves for them.

In order to find this out we must consult the other major prophetic “witnesses” – who incidentally also point to the beginning of the 21st century as the time of transition – and provide us with a variety of details and clearly recognizable “signs of the times” by which we can orient ourselves with greater certainty.

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