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Alternative Theories

There are many who believe the entire dating of the Long Count calendar is faulty. Chief among these is Vincent Malmström at Dartmouth University. He believes that the start and end dates are contrived to fit our modern understandings of the universe.

Where Do We Go from Here?

On December 22, 2012, the next age of the Maya begins. Exactly what does this mean? What are the astronomical and spiritual correlations? The Maya were spiritual timekeepers. The meanings of the ages and the changing of the ages exist in a multidimensional matrix. It’s coded in the calendars, in the sky, and in the temples. What to expect, what to prepare for, is the focus of the rest of the book. The next step is to move our focus out of the Mayan calendars to the stars themselves.

The Least You Need to Know

◆ The Tzolk’in, the Haab, and the Long Count calendars are the main time-tracking calendars.

◆ The calendars expressed spiritual qualities of days and numbers and could be used to determine auspicious days for events.

◆ The Tzolk’in was especially useful in personal divination and birth charts.

◆ All of the calendars interact with each other within the context of larger cycles.

◆ The Long Count calendar is related to the creation story and is a cycle within the precession of the equinox.

◆ Many researchers believe that the Long Count calendar started on August 11, 3114 B.C.E., and ends on December 21, 2012 C.E.

Chapter 6

Players on the Cosmic Ball Court

In This Chapter

◆ The celestial players of 2012

◆ The orbit variations of the earth

◆ How solar sunspots affect Earth

◆ How galaxies behave and Mayan mythology

We’ve tracked the 2012 story out of the jungle and into the calendars. We’ve seen the Maya’s mathematical and astronomical genius. But before the puzzle pieces come together, we must journey to the stars. You’ve seen how the Maya coded astronomical information into their mythology, calendar systems, and pyramids. Clearly the information they tracked and coded held great significance for them. What were the events they watched so carefully, and why were they so important?

As it happens, 2012 will be a year of amazing celestial alignments. As we turn our gaze to the sky, keep in mind that the sky game of 2012 was being watched 2,000 years ago by Mayan shamans as they plotted the calendar end date.

Let’s look at some of the players in the celestial games underway. The key players are the earth, the sun, the solar system, Venus, the Milky Way galaxy, and the Pleiades constellation. Even if you don’t have a mind for astronomy, you’ll find this pretty interesting!

Earth’s Anomalies

Our window to the universe looks out from planet Earth. Naturally, the cycles and anomalies of Earth affect our view. Even the alignments we measure are only alignments from our particular vantage point: in another galaxy far, far, away, the alignments we emphasize aren’t alignments at all. On Earth, however, they affect the tides, the weather, the climate, our mental/emotional states, and by some calculations our spiritual development. It’s not an urban legend that more crimes are committed during a full moon.

Let’s look at the specific attributes of the earth that affect the impact of upcoming alignments, starting with the length of the year. This cycle is important in the larger synchronization of cycles.

Length of the Year

It’s time to end the argument of whether the Maya knew the true length of the year. As we discussed in Chapter 5, every calendar system has the same set of problems: correlating years and days. The issue is that the time it takes the earth to rotate on its axis (a day) does not divide evenly into the time it takes the earth to revolve around the sun (a year). The solar year is actually made up of 365.2425 days. As mentioned in Chapter 4, to keep the calendar in sync with the sun we add a day at leap year and subtract a day every 400 years. Four hundred