The end of the world part 2

The Mayan Long Count ends around Dec. 21, 2012 but as David Stuart, a specialist in Mayan epigraphy at the University of Texas at Austin points out "It's a special anniversary of creation, the Maya never said the world is going to end, they never said anything bad would happen necessarily, they're just recording this future anniversary.”

The release of the film “2012” will only add fuel to this misconception. The idea of an apocalyptic end is so Western, so Judeo-Christian, just read “Worlds in Collision” by Velikovsky to understand the origins of our deep seated fear of the unknown around us. From the Wikipedia entry on Velikovsky:

“The catastrophes which occurred within the memory of mankind are recorded in the myths, legends and written history of all ancient cultures and civilisations. Velikovsky pointed to alleged concordances in the accounts of many cultures, and proposed that they referred to the same real events. For instance, the memory of a flood is recorded in the Hebrew Bible, in the Greek legend of Deucalion and in the Manu legend of India.. . .Velikovsky put forward the psychoanalytic idea of "Cultural Amnesia" as a mechanism whereby these literal records came to be regarded as mere myths and legends.”

The end of the world as we know it, is not such a bad thing really. We go about our business thinking nothing much changes like “Groundhog day”. In reality nothing ever stays the same. It has happened many times whenever there was a cosmic leap in understanding. When things that were obvious but unnoticed suddenly caught our eye. Subtle (and not so subtle) forces have always been at work recreating the world we precieve.

In Florence Italy c. 1430 artist and architect Flippo Brunelleschi discovered how to do perspective drawing, creating a three dimensional image on a flat surface. Now an artist could create a painting with depth that mimicked what our eyes saw. While everyone went crazy using this new technique something extraordinary happened. It revolutionized the way people looked at the world, not just visually but philosophically as well. That it wasn’t until the 15th century we figured this out is astonishing but to every artist today it’s obvious. Galileo did it when he turned the telescope on the sky and confirmed, much to our dismay, we are not the center of the universe. It’s only in the past ten years that traditional medicine has realized there is a mind-body connection.

Years ago I remember my mom and sister complaining that the sun felt warmer and brighter as they dodged from tree shade to shadow. Oh come on, I thought they’re just over reacting, our family tends to be melodramatic. Sometime later I read a curious little article in which scientists were puzzled by data that indicated the sun seemed to be brighter but they didn’t know why. How many other people felt the same way as my relatives but never said anything because it just sounded crazy? As Twain put it “ A man with a new idea is a crank until it works.”

The signs of change are all around us if we look carefully. There are also signs we ignore because they seem too bizarre to be true. What will cause the next cosmic leap in thinking and bring on a new age? Global warming? The string theory in physics? The internet? It could be anything . The end of the world means the start of a new one, so on December 12, 2012 a glass to a new beginning.

The world is coming to an end in 2012. . . or not

The Aztec “long Count” is coming to the end of an age on December 12, 2012 (12/12/12 get it?) . It seems everyone from Edgar Cayce, Native Americans and Australian Aborigines have been saying for decades something big is going to happening in 2012. Oh my God, it’s the end of the world! It’s going to tilt on it’s axis, here comes drought, disease, world war!!!

OK everybody calm down. Before you panic, sell your house and run for the hills let’s put things in perspective here. Wasn’t this supposed to happen in 2000? Have you ever heard of a metaphor? All the prophets, soothsayers, sages and really smart future seeing people use them. They weren’t being to be coy or clever. They could only understand so much. The future can be fuzzy at times, not to mention subject to change without notice when you throw in human influence. Every prediction of the world coming to an end the next Friday the 13th in a leap year has come and gone.

We have a fondness for disaster- the more disastrous the better and we are deeply afraid of the unknown. We love to assume that all hell is going to break loose at once- just look at how it’s portrayed in movies. So it’s not surprising that prognostication is met with anxiety and special effects. This is another chance to yell the sky is falling.

What’s really happening here, spiritually speaking, is we are growing up and it’s been going on for more than 15 years. We’re changing our attitude toward each other and the world around us in a major way. Some have reacted to this spiritual growth spurt badly. The rise of fundamentalism is the equlivant of digging in one’s heels. An intrenched reaction to change. Whether it’s “The only way we can be saved is to turn to God as we literally interpet His laws” or “ Don’t be silly, there is no evidence of global warming being a long term trend”. There’s a lot of denial here.

There are physical changes going on connected to 2012.
“Scientists believe the Earth is overdue for a geomagnetic reversal, and has been for a long time, even since the time of the Mayans, because the last reversal was 780,000 years ago. Critics, however, claim geomagnetic reversals take up to 5,000 years to complete, and do not start on any particular date. There is major sunspot activity predicted or more precisely the solar maximum in the 11-year sunspot cycle is forecast to occur on or near December 12, 2012.” But obsessing on an arbitrary date taken from an ancient calendar is neither constructive or useful. Change comes slowly; our world is not going to magically change overnight or be destroyed instantly. There may be cosmic forces at work but it is up to humanity to adapt to those changes.

The age of adolescence is over. No more drunken frat parties, no more unbridled freedom from responsibility. No more wasting Mother (Natures) time, energy or resources. Time to grow up campers, whether we like it or not.