2012 – Memoirs of the Maya

Over the last few weeks, I have noticed a lot of talk about the end of the Mayan calendar. December 21, 2012 is the supposed end date. And Roland Emmerich, the director of “Stargate” and “Independence Day” even has a disaster movie entitled "2012" coming out about the end of the calendar. Why is this date associated with disaster? Because many doom and gloomers have decided that the calendar finishes because 2012 is the year the world ends. Of course this is untrue, but I decided to do a little research nonetheless, to find out just what the Mayan calendar is about. So, here’s the scoop:

Because our minds have been trained differently, it may be a little tricky to visualize, but the Mayans weren’t counting days when they developed their calendar. It is for this reason that 2012 is hardly the end of days because the Mayans weren’t counting days when they came up with their system.

How the Mayans developed their methodology is still a mystery, but a fascinating one nonetheless. Without going into too much detail, it’s important to say that their calendar is actually three calendars in one, but each of the three parts works in connection with the other elements. First, they have two ways of counting the weeks. One way involves twenty symbols – things like “star”, “monkey”, “earth”, or “storm,” etc. Each of the twenty symbols represents a particular kind of energy. It could be creative energy, stabilizing or harmonizing energy. Or it could be the opposite.

The other way the Mayans counted weeks is by using the numbers 1 through 13. But it is still important to emphasize that they were not counting days. Even the numbers represent different energies. And again, these two systems are meant to work together. To describe a particular day, the Mayans might say, for example, today is 4-earth, which means that day is associated with the energy of the number 4 and of the symbol “earth.”

PLEASE NOTE: Today is in fact 4-caban or 4-earth!

But the day’s energy is not the only thing of importance. It is also important to know under what cycle the day falls. 4-earth might be a day of positive energy in one cycle and not so positive in the next. And the fact of the matter is energy is what the Mayans were tracking. Somehow, they figured there were cycles to our existence, not only as human beings, but as beings in the fabric of existence. We are part of an entire system that involves everything that we can perceive. The skies, the Earth, the air, the water, the birds, everything. Everything is everything and there is a cycle to that everything. Thinking of the cycles of human life may make it easier to visualize. From the moment a child is conceived, the cycles begin. From fetus to embryo, from infancy to the “terrible two’s (a cycle mothers know well). From childhood to adolescence to young adulthood and so on. We have clearly delineated the stages that we as humans go through during our lives. The Mayan calendar accomplishes the same task, only it is not just for human life, it is for existence as a whole. Many important decisions were based on the energies of their calendar. Doing something risky on a day of negative energy is hardly advised. In considering the stages of human life, what stage is existence in now? Millions of years ago, I’m guessing it was in its infancy. Without the benefit of the Maya here to explain, I can only guess that we are in a stage of adolescence right now.

The third part of the Mayan calendar is what they called the “Long Count.” The Long Count charted out cycles of 5,125 years each. If I am not mistaken, each of these cycles is determined by a galactic alignment, i.e., our sun lines up dead center in the Milky Way. 2012 is the end of one of those cycles. It is by no means the final one, but I am sure they felt no need to continue counting since they would never live to see this period anyway.

Ironically, the current cycle, which is now ending was predicted to be an age of materialism (“The age of the Great Forgetting”). An age in which we, as a race, would forget our spiritual connection to the rest of existence, and would focus on the material side of ourselves. Although, the Maya didn’t count beyond 2012, they did predict that 2012 would bring about an awakening to this spiritual amnesia. As the new 5,125-year cycle is ushered in, we will begin to realize the errors of materialism while at the same time strengthening our connection to each other and to what is truly important. And remember, the December 21, 2012 day is not a hard date. It’s not that we will wake up the next day and everything will be different. The change will be like childbirth, gradual, painful and thankfully liberating.

To track the Mayan calendar, please visit:

http://www.mayanmajix.com/TZOLKIN/DT/DT.html