The Twelfth Insight - James Redfield [63]
She smiled at Tommy. “Because he is stubborn.”
“They have tried to give me names,” Tommy reacted, “but none of the names have been right. When I do something important, I will know my tribal name.”
Then, as though suddenly thinking of something to do, Love of Mountain rushed out of the room, leaving Tommy and me alone. He looked at me as though he had something to say. I beat him to it.
“Tommy, I have to know how all this relates to the Mayan Calendar. You know, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said. “We need to hurry.”
He led me through an open entrance into a large sunroom of solid glass walls, and we sat down at a table. I could see Coleman in the other room talking with Rachel and several of the new people. For an instant my eyes met Rachel’s again. The room was busy behind them, as everyone seemed to be packing for a trip.
“It is the mythology of my tribe,” Tommy began, “that the mountains of the Red Rock area of Arizona and the Red Mountains here are all connected.
“Native peoples have always seen mountains as sacred places that lift us above the common awareness to glimpse the sacred spirit. This spirit is now seeking to come closer. The Maya knew this and came to this world to bring the message of the Calendar to us.”
“But what is the message, Tommy?” I asked. “The media has twisted it into predicting doomsday. It’s difficult to decide whose interpretation to believe.”
At this moment, Coleman strode into the room, obviously sensing that we were talking about something important. I saw a flash of impatience on Tommy’s small face, which brought up a smile I tried to hide.
“I’m certain I need to hear this,” Coleman said urgently.
Tommy and I both gestured for him to sit down.
“The truth of the Calendar is simple,” Tommy continued. “It has nothing to do with doomsday. It spells out a timeline for the entire Cosmos, and the true purpose of human history. The Maya conceive the Universe as being created approximately sixteen billion years ago, but according to them, the creation didn’t happen all at once. Their Calendar gives the dates of nine Steps of Creation that will have occurred from the beginning until the Calendar ends by 2012.”
He paused and looked at me as if the beginning date of the Calendar was important. I knew why. Only recently have scientists agreed on a date for the beginning of the Universe at the time of the Big Bang, and that date is very close to the one the Maya chose—begging the question: how could the Maya have known the date of the beginning this accurately, centuries ago? Is the rest of the Calendar just as accurate?
“One scholar in particular,” Tommy continued, “has spelled out the dates the Calendar has assigned to each step of creation with great clarity. As I said, the first Step of Creation began about sixteen billion years ago, and included the formation of the Universe and the coalescence of matter into galaxies, stars, and planets, and the beginning of life and its development into the first cells and then into more complex organisms. The Second through the Fourth Steps of Creation brought us mammals, anthropoids, and finally, two million years ago, humans.
“At this point, the remaining Steps of Creation focused on the expanding reach of human consciousness, beginning with a tribal awareness and reaching, about 103 thousand years ago, a regional awareness, where humans developed language and began to become conscious of other human groups in a larger geographical area.
“Next in the Calendar came a national awareness, beginning around 3115 B.C.E., where humans organized first into empires and finally into nations.
“Then on July 24, 1755, another step in creation began, yielding a planetary awareness. This was when we first realized we shared a finite planet and began to interact economically across the globe.”
Tommy paused to emphasize something.
“It’s important,” he continued, “to remember that these steps are not just symbolic. They entail an actual shift in our consciousness. When we reached the planetary step,