Maybe it’s a sign of how dramatically movies drive popular culture but a number of folks deeply steeped in the meaning of the Mayan Calendar and the Mayan writing system\u2014as well as numerous scientists\u2014are coming forward to reassure us that the world is not in actuality coming to an end on December 21, 2012.<\/p>\n
By way of example, a Mayan tribal elder is quoted recently<\/a> as saying that the idea of the calendar predicting a catastrophic doomsday springs from Western ideas and not Mayan.\u00a0 This has been followed up even more recently by a Washington Post article<\/a> approaching the matter from a scientific perspective, in which the astronomical basis of the movie<\/a> 2012<\/em> is viewed as sensationalizing for profit.\u00a0 That article does not take Sony Pictures to task strongly enough for its setting up a phony (and very hi-tech) website<\/a> called Institute for Human Continuity, whose goal is Ensuring the end is just the beginning <\/em>and where you can vote for who ought to lead humanity in the post-2012 era.\u00a0 Sane and caring people everywhere ought to boycott this film just to protest this kind of commercial exploitation.<\/p>\n Think none of this matters?\u00a0 Think everyone knows its entertainment?<\/p>\n According to the Post article, David Morrison<\/a>, the author of an online feature called Ask an Astrobiologist, has “gotten nearly 1,000 e-mails from people who think something dire is about to befall the planet. One teenager wrote to Morrison that he’d rather commit suicide than see the world destroyed.”<\/p>\n An even more recent Los Angeles Times article<\/a> entitled, Scientists try to calm ‘2012’ hysteria, <\/em>notes:<\/p>\n Morrison says it’s hard to know whether the people who have written to him with their fears represent a fringe or a larger cross-section of Americans who, distrustful of traditional sources of information and the authorities behind them, are falling victim to the Internet’s snake-oil salesmen.<\/p>\n In such an environment, the viral marketing campaign for the movie “2012,” which encourages people to “Vote for the Leader of the Post-2012 World,” can seem like confirmation of the apocalypse, rather than of an upcoming 90-minute entertainment vehicle.<\/p>\n A spokesman for Sony Pictures, Steve Elzer, said: “We believe consumers understand that the advertising is promoting a fictional film.”<\/p>\n Morrison said the movie’s distributors are feeding the “panic” by creating some of the fake science websites. Most of the sites, Morrison said, are full of misinformation and speculation, often by people who have written books they are trying to sell.<\/p>\n But scientific and ethical considerations aside for the moment, let’s return to the source of the 2012 phenomenon, the ending of a 5,128-year cycle of time as marked by the Mayan Calendar.<\/p>\n Drawn away from purely academic writings for the moment, David Stuart, arguably the foremost expert on Mayan glyphs in the world,\u00a0 spoke<\/a> his own words of reassurance for informed lay readers, in which he clarified his previous statements regarding the now-famous Monument Six of Tortugero, one of the few surviving Mayan texts that actually seem to predict events\u2014and that specifically mentions the December 21, 2012 date.<\/p>\n Or does it?\u00a0 Stuart references an article<\/a> by his colleague Stephen Houston, who points out greater ambiguity in the reading of Monument Six than previously recognized.\u00a0 The date may not reference any objective date but rather be ceremonial, having to do with the consecration of a particularly sacred building.<\/p>\n Great pains are being taken by such noted experts and the Mayans themselves to point out that the misconceptions about the world ending simply because the Mayan calendar turns over and begins another 5,128-year cycle are based on exaggerations and decidedly Western apocalyptic myth-making.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Well, obviously, the release of the special effects extravaganza 2012<\/em> may push already-anxious men, women and children into fear overdrive<\/a>.<\/p>\n Few people, after all, are well-versed in Mayan calendrics and astronomical cosmology, especially of the type that purports to deal with phenomena that recur only every 26,000 years or so.\u00a0 Enter the infotainment industry with its conscience-less view on sensationalizing the latest world-ending fad in order to increase revenue.\u00a0 There is apparently no end of people willing to come forward with their direst interpretations, selectively citing facts that bolster their theories.\u00a0 The more shocking and attention-getting the better.\u00a0 And the public good be damned.<\/p>\n A comprehensive and up-to-date review and criticism of the whole gamut of speculations related to the 2012 phenomenon can be found on Wikipedia<\/a>.\u00a0 Its clear-eyed evaluation of the phenomenon is augmented with useful research into the history of its ideas and the personalities of its proponents.\u00a0 Bottom line?\u00a0 There is nothing to any of the claims of the world ending in 2012.<\/p>\n Likewise, there is a lengthy and very informative article here<\/a> that discusses the particular difficulties of interpreting specific dates and meanings of Mayan calendrics, especially related to the problem of exactly where the Mayans envisioned their calendar starting over.\u00a0 This is the rather abstruse but fascinating issue of whether a pictun occurs after 13 baktuns or, as is favored by many specialists, after 20 baktuns.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n And so, in that vein, I would like to add my voice to that of responsible folks in the Mayan and academic communities, attempting to inform in a useful and meaningful way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The date December 21, 2012 falls on a day called 4-Ahau in the Mayan calendar, which corresponds to the day 4-Flower in the similar ritual calendars of the indigenous peoples to the north of the Maya, such as the Mixtecs and Aztecs.\u00a0 All<\/em> of these civilizations had a schema of recurring Ages (or Suns<\/em>) that ended on one of the 20 days of their calendar and was accompanied by the numeric coefficient “4”.\u00a0 On the famous “Aztec Calendar Stone”, for example, the Ages are seen as ending on the days 4-Jaguar, 4-Wind, 4-Water, 4-Rain, and 4-Movement<\/em>.\u00a0 Obviously, each of these Age-ending dates is succeeded in turn by another, new, Age.<\/p>\n The essential point is that these dates commemorate and celebrate the creation of the world<\/em>.\u00a0 They are life-affirming, a philosophy of history that takes into account the periodic transformations of civilization, each one better and brighter than the last<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n These are symbolic dates, in other words.\u00a0 Not world-ending<\/em> events.\u00a0 World-beginning<\/em> events.\u00a0 Metaphorical.\u00a0 Not literal.\u00a0 Symbolic<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But we are symbolic creatures, are we not?\u00a0 To such an extent that the great anthropologist Mircea Eliade called us homo symbolicus<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 The use of artifacts<\/a> as old as 75,000 years points to the origins of language, imagination and spirituality in this creature we call human being.\u00a0 We have a sea of symbols inside us and we seem predisposed to connect those symbols to people, things, events or ideas that infuse our lives with extra meaning.\u00a0 Not all meaning needs be positive, however.\u00a0 Fear can add meaning, even if it increases distress and distrust.\u00a0 And drama.\u00a0 Especially if it seems to bind us closer to others.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n And as has been noted<\/a>, we are herding creatures, after all.\u00a0 Beyond some threshold point, we move and act in a more collective manner than we generally recognize.\u00a0 Presidential elections, real estate bubbles, groupthink, the list is as long as it is embarrassing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In the present case, the 2012 phenomenon finds itself in the company of other symbolic world-ending predictions:\u00a0 the end of the millennium, Y2K, biblical prophesies, Nostradamus, and a host of others that various people interpret as coinciding with this date.\u00a0 Beyond the purely unethical behavior of using technology and the resources of the media to instill fear in people for profit, we as a culture need to question the wisdom of rewarding those whose use shock<\/em> for personal gain:\u00a0 The more shock<\/em> is used on us, the more inured we become to it, so the more has to be administered in order for us to feel shocked.\u00a0 Yes, it’s like a drug.\u00a0 And we ought to know enough by now to stay away in droves from those who peddle it.<\/p>\n We also ought to know by now that human nature possesses a self-defeating, self-destructive side that justifies greed, exploitation, and narcissism.\u00a0 Is it that we, as individuals, can become so mesmerized by our sense of self-importance that we cannot imagine the world going on after our death?\u00a0 Is it possible for us to prefer that the whole world end than that it might go on without us?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n My take on the 2012 phenomenon is that the facts have become irrelevant.\u00a0 And maybe that’s a good thing.<\/p>\n There is currently a mood toward anticipating something dramatic happening on the Winter Solstice of 2012 and, even if it amounts to nothing but a self-fulfilling prophecy, this mood is likely to provoke some profound inner changes in those people who take it seriously.\u00a0 In this sense, it is not so different than contemplating one’s own death:\u00a0 it brings about a reconsideration of one’s life, how it is being spent, what is really important, what true purpose should be, and so on.\u00a0 Seriously reflecting on the end of the world has got to impact our inner lives\u2014and perhaps our outer actions.\u00a0 In this sense, it might not be so different than those who survive a near-death encounter:\u00a0 It brings about a renewed sense of wonder and reevaluation of what is truly worth preserving.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Perhaps the symbolic end of the world this time around will fuel our collective imagination and inspire our collective heart to renew our desire for a truly benevolent civilization that bequeaths peace and prospering to all our great-grandchildren and their descendants worldwide.<\/p>\n Not the end of the world, then.\u00a0 But the end of a world view, maybe.<\/p>\n A celebration\u00a0 of creation-in-the-making.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Perhaps the symbolic end of the Age this time around will convince us that the Golden Age of Humanity is within our reach if we but dare hold out our hand.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n The Toltec I Ching<\/em><\/a>, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just been released by Larson Publications.\u00a0 It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.\u00a0 Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World<\/em> hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Maybe it’s a sign of how dramatically movies drive popular culture but a number of folks deeply steeped in the meaning of the Mayan Calendar and the Mayan writing system\u2014as well as numerous scientists\u2014are coming forward to reassure us that … Continue reading