by Rick Martin

from TheSpectrumNews Website

October 1999

 

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Why would I be presenting information at this time about the Mayan Calendar, and what is the relevance to these transitional times in which we find ourselves?

After reading materials presented by David Wilcock, and after reading, listening to, and speaking with Native American Robert Ghost Wolf, it becomes very clear that the Mayan Calendar and the Mayan prophecies are IMMEDIATELY relevant to this very specific time in history. We are living through the period of the Seven Thunders. It is a time of planetary transition on an unprecedented scale, a time of dimensional change, spiritual turmoil, self-examination and metamorphosis, as well as a time for separating the wheat from the chaff in the literal rather than metaphorical sense. It is a time of upheavals, geophysical as well as personal. The full extent and urgency of this information will become readily apparent as you read on.

As stated in the last edition of The SPECTRUM, in the article titled "Sunspot Cycles: Their Profound Effect On Man & Planet Earth", the great Solar-Cycle is upon us, and this coincides directly with Mayan prophecy.

With this in mind, I have chosen to present a compilation from several sources on the subject, including another chapter from David Wilcock’s book Convergence, titled "The Amazing Synchronicity of Chatelain’s Mayan Calendar". Further, I hope to speak directly with Robert Ghost Wolf about these and other urgent matters for an upcoming edition of The SPECTRUM.

Prior to presenting this immediately urgent information, however, as much needed background information, let me first share with you an article written by John Major Jenkins:

Mayan Cosmogenesis: Cosmic Mother Gives Birth
by John Major Jenkins
April 1995

Introduction
In recent years, several books have been published in England with, especially in the U.K., a good deal of success. Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert wrote The Orion Mystery (1992) and, in addition to becoming brief media celebs, turned Egyptology on its head. Graham Hancock produced Fingerprints of the Gods (1995) and injected some old ideas about Atlantis rising with some intriguing new perspectives. Most recently, Adrian Gilbert with Maurice Cotterell published the disappointing Mayan Prophecies which presumed to tell us why cataclysm will occur in A.D. 2012. Hancock and Bauval are presently working together on another book about Egypt. Gilbert, Bauval, Cotterell and Hancock pursue the often unrewarding path of independent research, striving to present compelling new ideas which tenured academes are too thick-skulled to acknowledge. Like England’s other Fab Four, these independent researchers say we want a revolution, and offer us one. They have all at some point struggled to identify what is so astronomically special about the opening of the new millennium. They’ve discussed sunspots and pole shifts, magnetic field reversals and the movements of Orion, but their solutions are in disagreement and are generally unsatisfying. They have all narrowly missed finding the "key."

As pin-pointed by the end-date of the Mayan Calendar, the turn of our millennium is attended by a rare celestial alignment between the sun and our galaxy, one that has been slowly converging for thousands of years. The winter solstice sun will align with the Milky Way in A.D. 2012. Moutain Astrologer published my article on this topic in their December 1994 issue. Since then, I’ve written a 110-page monograph detailing evidence for my thesis. Without mincing words, I feel that this simple alignment is the answer which all those writers sought. The irony, perhaps, is that the impending solstice-galaxy alignment was first mentioned back in 1969 in Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend’s groundbreaking book Hamlet’s Mill. My own research starts where they left off. It has taken 25 years to clarify how the Maya are involved in all this and to understand how the alignment marks the beginning of a new precessional cycle in humanity’s spiritual and cultural work. The alignment which I believe is so critical to understanding Mayan creation mythology as well as our own impending shift also has the benefit of being a straightforward fact of astronomy; it’s not the product of a labyrinth of convoluted speculations. What I offer is a synthesis of two simple facts:

  • the astronomical alignment itself (which targets the opening of the new millennium)

  • and the established end-date of the Mayan Calendar in A.D. 2012.

The ancient Maya apparently understood that the future alignment would have apocalyptic effects, and designed their World Age mythology to remind us of something essential. Myth, legend, or ancient message, whatever it is, clearly, it means we must all remember where we come from, where everything comes from: Mother.

What follows is a brief synopsis of the author’s research into the Mayan Calendar and Mayan Creation Mythology. An exciting breakthrough is described which is so basic, yet so startling, that many Mayan scholars have thus far refused to acknowledge it.

John Major Jenkins is an independent student of Mayan Time. He is the author of articles for Mountain Astrologer, Iron Feather Journal, Zeitgeist, Scenezine, World Explorer Magazine, The Borderlands Journal, and five books on Mayan cosmology including Tzolkin: Visionary Perspectives and Calendar Studies (1994) and the forthcoming The Center of Mayan Time (1995)

We are living today in the Mayan end times. The Great Cycle of the Mayan Long Count calendar ends on the winter solstice of 2012 A.D., less than 18 years from now. Following Mayan concepts of cyclic time and World Age transitions, this is as much about beginnings as endings. In fact, it was considered by the ancient Maya to signify the Creation of a new World Age.


End of the Mayan Great Cycle: December 21st, 2012 A.D.

Scholars today are recognizing that Mayan mythology is intimately related to the celestial movements of stars, the Milky Way and certain constellations. The sources of Mayan mythology are found in the sky, and the timetable of Creation Day is pinpointed by the end date of the Mayan Great Cycle. My research into the nature of this date reveals that a rare celestial alignment culminates on it. Generally speaking, what occurs is an alignment between the galactic and solar planes. Specifically, the winter solstice sun will conjunct the Milky Way, which is the edge of our spinning galaxy as viewed from earth. Furthermore, the place where the sun meets the Milky Way is where the "dark-rift" in the Milky Way is - a black ridge along the Milky Way caused by interstellar dust clouds (See Diagram 1 below).


Diagram 1:
The sky on December 21st, 2012 A.D.
showing a rare astronomical alignment -
the winter solstice sun is right in the
"dark rift" in the Milky Way.

 

This is a feature of the Milky Way anyone can see on a clear midsummer’s night, away from the light pollution of industrial society. At dawn on the winter solstice of A.D. 2012, the sun will be right in this dark-rift, and the orientation is such that the Milky Way rims the horizon at all points around. Thus, the Milky Way "sits" on the earth, touching it at all points around, opening up the cosmic sky portal. The galactic and solar planes are thus aligned. "Sky portal" is just a term to describe the "opened sky" scenario apparent when the Milky Way rims the horizon. This is not to be confused with the "dark-rift" itself.

In Mayan myth, the winter solstice sun corresponds to the deity One Hunahpu, also known as First Father. The Mayan Sacred Book, the Popol Vuh, is all about setting the stage so that the Hero Twins’ father (One Hunahpu) can be reborn, thus beginning a new World Age. The dark rift has many mythic identities: it is the Black Road; it is the xibalba be (the Road to the Underworld); it is a crevice in the branches of the cosmic tree (the Milky Way); it is the mouth of the Cosmic Monster (often portrayed as a frog, jaguar or snake with tree-like features); it is the birth canal of the Cosmic Mother. Overall, the dark-rift is best understood as the birth canal of the Cosmic Mother, who we may call First Mother, to complement First Father. In this way we can trace how these various metaphors are found in Mayan Creation Mythology. And the date of this alignment is, again, the end date of the 13-baktun Great Cycle - a cycle of approximately 5125 years. This all suggests that the ancient Maya were aware of the impending alignment and considered it to be of such importance to be a major transition point, the Creation of a new World Age. In mythological terms, this event is about the union of First Father with First Mother or, more accurately, the birth of First Father (the winter solstice sun - the new World Age ruler) from First Mother (the dark-rift in the Milky Way). The headline appropriate for the upcoming event is:

"Cosmic Mother Gives Birth to The First God."
 

World Ages: Precession of the Stellar Frame

The slow process by which the winter solstice sun comes to conjoin the dark-rift in the Milky Way is a function of a phenomenon known as the precession of the equinoxes. This involves the slow wobbling of the earth’s axis, which causes the stellar frame to slowly shift. To observers on earth, it causes the position of the winter solstice sun to slowly move in relation to celestial background features such as the Milky Way. A full cycle is completed in roughly 26,000 years. Approximately 2100 years ago, when both the Long Count calendar and the Popol Vuh were devised by the early Maya, the dark-rift in the Milky Way could be observed some 30 degrees above the dawning winter solstice sun (See Diagram 2 below).


Diagram 2:
Winter solstice sunrise from the early Mayan site of Izapa,
50 B.C. Notice the dark rift in the Milky Way, the
celestial birth canal of Cosmic Mother,
some 30 degrees above the rising sun.
 

When these early skywatchers discovered precession, they realized that every winter solstice the cosmic birth canal was moving closer and closer to the dawning sun. The winter solstice sun was called the First Sun, the First Lord or First Father, because it is the first day of the year, the beginning of the sun’s annual rebirth into increasing daylight. They calibrated the process, and fixed their Creation Mythology to the future alignment as described.

Monuments from the early Mayan site of Izapa clearly portray, by way of mythological iconography, the anticipated astronomical alignment of the Long Count end date (See Diagram 3 below). In this way, the Long Count calendar and Popol Vuh Creation Mythology (portrayed on Izapan monuments and elsewhere) work together to describe the future astronomical alignment. Furthermore, scholars believe that Izapa, an unassuming early-Maya cultural center near the Guatemalan border in Mexico, is where both the Long Count calendar and the Popol Vuh myth originate.


Diagram 3:
Stela 11 from Izapa shows Cosmic Father in the "mouth" of
Cosmic Mother, the "dark rift" or "birth canal" in the
Milky Way. This is an image of the celestial alignment
which culminates in A.D. 2012.

 

Ancient Cosmology Points To Our Immediate Future

Based upon these simple facts, ancient skywatchers in Mesoamerica were apparently aware of a subtle celestial process, the precession of the equinoxes. Knowledge of that process, and the fact that a major alignment in that process culminates at the end of their Great Cycle, strongly suggest a cosmological understanding which modern scholars have yet to explore. While today the conjunction is hidden behind the rays of the solstice sun, to early skywatchers the future convergence would have been the focus of intense calendar calculations and eschatological myth-making. As it says in the Popol Vuh:

"by sheer genius, by sheer accuity, they got it done."

People interested today in the scope of ancient Mesoamerican knowledge inescapably must incorporate these recent findings into their thoughts. In doing so, we can better appreciate the profound scale of the cosmological understanding possessed by ancient New World cultures, to which millions of present-day Indians in Middle America are heir.


The Fever: Millennial or Mayan?

Understanding this aspect of Mayan cosmogenesis may also help us understand our own impending millennial milestone. What is going on in the world today? Is this alignment having some kind of influence? The precession of the equinoxes is, after all, primarily an earth rhythm. Whether we call it Mayan or millennial, we are living today in the shadows of a rare celestial juncture which parallels the increasing interest in "New World Orders", "post-historic" thinking, and a major shift in world economic structure and what it means to be human. The Mayan myth seems to remind us that all life springs from the Great Mother. The transformation of cosmic recreation is already occurring. Perhaps we should look closely at this celestial alignment, imagine its meanings, and determine what this transformational shift means for future humanity. For the ancient Maya, on the far-future Creation Day which for us arrives soon, First Mother and First Father join forces to engender a new World Age.

 

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