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The Mayan Calendar
The Mayan Calendar which is a predictive system of shortening cycles, will come to a finish. The doom and gloom experts would have us believe that it is the coming of the end of time! The dire predictions range from Armageddon to a shifting of the earths poles. The date in question is December 21, 2012. (I have seen dates ranging from October 2011 to the end of December 2012 supported by arguments as being the correct date. Whilst there is some contention as to the actual date, the overall picture hangs together very well, so let's go with 21 Dec 2012)! So what is going to happen to the planet on that date? Well, actually, nothing out of the ordinary in the way of disasters! The sun will still come up each morning as the world keeps turning and life goes on for the inhabitants of planet earth. If the Mayan civilization still existed, no doubt their calendar would be extended into a new cycle, after all, it was cyclic, not open ended. However because there is a final date for the existing calendar the doomsday advocates are having a field day. Ten years ago, almost no-one even knew of the existence of the calendar, now apparently the Bible, and Nostradamus both seem to have something to say about 2012. However, what is happening is not of the physical world, but of the spiritual and, in particular, our collective consciousness. According to the Mayan Calendar December 21, 2012 marks the beginning of a new era. Many believe that it marks a point of transition from where mankind has consciousness, to a higher level where mankind is consciousness. Whether this time will mark the end of the transition or its beginning is a matter of conjecture, however what is important is that a New Age is happening, and the Mayan Calendar is just one more pointer. As we approach the end of the Mayan Calendar, a critical mass of consciousness and life-force is collecting on our planet. Conscious awareness is what we bring with us to the planet when we are born, and what we take with us when we pass on, our soul for want of a better term. However it is more than this. The total of all our consciousnesses forms a gigantic pool which we can tap into, and which augments our own individual consciousness. At this time, the total pool of consciousness is greater then ever before. There are more beings which have a conscious awareness, (I include dolphins, whales and other types of consciousness, whether group or individual ) at present alive on the planet than has ever been. The flow on from this pool of consciousness is a growing awareness of our role in cooperating with each other for both the good of the planet and our societies. No doubt you have noticed that change is not just speeding up, but the pace of change is increasing. Well hang on, we are in for quite a ride! We are talking change here - not disaster. We are evolving in the development of our consciousness at an increasing rate, and the power of the entire human collective consciousness is fueling our development. Of course there are vested interests which view any change they cannot control as a disaster, but as it has been said - "resistance is futile"! A lasting time of peace will be possible - simply because collectively we consciously shall will it! This coming new era heralded by the end of the Mayan Calendar is the era of conscious creation :- the new age everyone has been waiting for.
So how do we arrive at this magic date? The Mayan Calendar is a fascinating invention which combines the passage of time, development of consciousness, evolution and predictions of both the distant past and future. There is not just one Mayan calendar, but several :-
In the interests of keeping the picture clear, I shall keep Mayan terminology to a minimum in this article, however if you wish to pursue the subject in more detail, please visit the sites listed at the bottom of this page. As we are all familiar with the terms of days, weeks and months and years, let's stick to them! Note : A Mayan year is 360 days long, called a Tun ie. the Mayan solar year minus the 5 "unlucky days". Each day in the life of a Mayan citizen was defined by a combination of the Ritual and the Solar calendars. When a Mayan citizen got out of bed in the morning he or she knew what the purpose of that day in their life was to be, as set out by the symbolic meaning of the day and the period in which it occurred. From the time of their birth the combination of Ritual and Solar calendars produced 52 years of unique days of their lives. Of course if they lived longer than 52 years the calendar was reset and the days repeated. The Long Count Calendar The Long Count calendar consists of 13 periods called baktuns. A baktun consists of 400 (20*20*360) Tuns which makes 144,000 days which equals 394.3 of our years, thus the Long Count calendar spans 5125 years. Most archaeologists agree on a beginning date for the Long Count of August 11, 3115 BC. Thus when corrected for rounding errors, and historical adjustments to the Gregorian calendar : 3115 (BC) + 5125 = 2012 To add further importance to the date of 2012, we need to examine the nine stepped evolution pyramid of the Mayans. 
Whether the Mayans themselves regarded their nine stepped pyramid design as a symbolic representation of the evolution of higher consciousness or not cannot be known for sure. However, a generally accepted interpretation of the pyramid is that it represents nine cycles of time which represents a concept of the evolution of the universe. Each layer is symbolic of a period in time and presumably the developments which occurred during that time. Perched on the topmost layer is a tenth symbol, a temple which represents completion and spiritual oneness. If we overlay the Long Count over the pyramid with the end date of 2012 at the top of the pyramid, the Long Count spans exactly the upper four levels of the pyramid. This gives us a time frame for each level so that each level can be said to span a given period of time, each twenty times longer than the one above. Articles written describing these levels define each level as an Underworld, however I am more comfortable with the terms Creation Cycles or Levels of Creation.
The length of each of these 13 periods is of course determined by the level in which it occurs, therefore as we move up the pyramid, the time taken to complete each period becomes shorter and shorter. Here in reverse order is the Day/Night periods for each level:
As you can see, things are definitely becoming faster and faster. The next age begins in 2012, and the pace of change/evolution will make our heads spin. The accepted term for this speeding up of change as we evolve is "The Quickening". A great deal has been written about the quickening over the last twenty years or so, but the Mayan Calendar is the first time I have seen it set in stone! Of course much of the interpretations of the Mayan culture is speculation based on solid archaeological research, and may even be a projection of our own expectations. However, it does all hang together rather well, and up to the recent past the predictive aspects of the calendar have shown to be surprisingly accurate. The only aspects of the current predictions of the end of the Galactic period and the Universal age I have issues with is the doom and gloom, collapsing of civilization, Armageddon, magnetic pole switching and alien attack type scenarios which are obviously written to attract publicity. Of course, only time will tell (whats left of it)!
If you wish to pursue the matter of the Mayan Calendar further, here are two well researched sites worth visiting : Mayan Majix - Ian Lungold The Mayan Calendar Portal
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