October 28, 2011
I am grateful that it will soon be October 28 and that we finally will get to the “end;” not of the Mayan calendar, but of the absurdity that has come to surround this date.
There are several key points to be made:
1. Not a single serious scholar in the entire world supports Dr. Calleman’s ideas concerning the Mayan calendar and his principal theories have no basis in Mayan culture, past or present.
2. No Mayan calendar ends. Like our own Gregorian calendar, the Tzolkin, the Long Count and other Mayan calendars are perpetual. Although references to the future are extremely rare in the ancient Mayan glyphs, Ken has mentioned in his blog that there is one occurrence of a date well beyond 2012. Furthermore, contemporary Mayan almanacs (written and published by Maya) also refer to dates well beyond next year. December 21, 2012 simply marks the completion of 13 pik (baktun) cycles in the Long Count (1,872,000 days), but the calendar itself will not end. The idea of the Mayan calendar “ending” is truly nonsensical.
3. Apart from Dr. Calleman and his followers, there actually is NO debate concerning the end of the 13-pik cycle. Dr. Calleman insists that “by definition” the cycle closing cannot occur on a 4 Ahaw day (Dec. 21, 2012) even though the previous 13-pik cycle in fact DID close on a 4 Ahaw day and, “by definition,” the close of our current cycle MUST occur on 4 Ahaw. The October 28 date has NO basis among the Maya apart from associations with any other day 13 Ahaw, a date that occurs every 260 days.
4. The photos of Dr. Calleman’s “ceremony” on-line look like they were taken during a tourist show with participants from a cruise ship. Does anyone recognize the stage in the background? Gotta love the "Mayan" outfits.
Actually, I hope Calleman is correct and we'll all be enlightened by the 29th of this month. If that happens, I will joyfully retract this blog entry.
robert
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A shift in time
Hello Robert,
Sometimes it happens in the history of science that some very fundamental thing changes if only so little. A few weeks ago all physicists would have said that nothing can move faster than light. Recent measurements reported in the sixth night of the Ninth wave show however that certain particles may arrive a few nanosecond earlier than expected despite what everyone had said before. Compared to the large scale evolution of the universe the end of the Mayan calendar, at least based on the best knowledge that we have turns out to arrive a few nano units earlier than expected by the so called experts. Compared to 16 billion years the difference between October 28, 2011 and December 21, 2012 is not particularly large.
Of course this goes against the belief system of most academic Mayanists who looks upon the calendar as devoid of meaning and as just another way of marking of time. I am not sure if this is also your view, but this would be good to know. Regardless, I know from my interview with Mark van Stone that this is essentially his view. Nonetheless, Mark pointed out that there are several strange things with the beginning date of the Long Count and hence with its end date 1,872,000 days later whether this has been set as December 21 (or 23) 2012. This creates an opening for those that seriously want to understand the issue at hand and not just be given the consensus answer of academic Mayanism. Hence, I recommend these youtube videos in three parts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSu-SWJILQU&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLA70317C803E2BE36
Best
Carl Johan
Thanks so much for your response
Dear Carl Johan
I genuinely appreciate your time in responding.
I do not think we moderns are in a good position to understand what ancient pre-Classic calendar-makers intended apart from measurement of time. Our collective ignorance has allowed for the wild speculation currently surrounding the close of the current 13 pik cycle. Based on my own experiences in a variety of Mayan communities over the course of several decades, I feel astounded by their cultures' (deliberately plural) depth of connection to the earth, community bonds, profound humility and genuine sweetness of spirit. The 2012 date seems to me one of the less significant features of their many faceted cultural traditions.
I simply do not know if the 2012 date has any extraordinary significance, and I don't think anyone else does either. From my perspective, we humans of the modern world live in almost constant ignorance of the awesome miracle of the infinite One and are hardly in a position to assess the significance that ancients placed in their calendars. Most of us don't even know who we are or what we are. Humanity lives, as explained in the Popol Vuh, with its vision obscured. I think that most of the content in the 2012 phenomenon is fundamentally delusional since we humans live in profoundly limited understanding of cosmic processes.
Please, I can't help but be curious about "strange things" mentioned by Mark at the "start" of the current Long Count cycle. What were they?
Thanks in advance,
robert
Beginnings and Ends
Dear Robert,
Since you do not really think that the Mayan calendar has a deeper meaning or that we can understand it we obviously come from so different places that we can only agree to disagree. I do want to point out however that every tzolkin round has both a beginning and an end. In ancient times its beginning was on 1 Imix and its end on 13 Ahau. Today among the Quiche Maya it begins on 8 Chuen and ends on 7 Oc (Yucatec names). Moreover, every calendar round of 52 years has a beginning and an end and so does the Haab of 365 days. The beginning date of the Long count was certainly perceived by the ancient Maya as a creation date (a divine beginning) and its thirteen baktuns certainly have an end. The fact that there are dates deep into the future, or at least to AD 4772, which I also discuss in my articles, does not change the fact that Mayan calendars have beginning and ends. If you listen to my interview with Mark Van Stone you may also get the idea why the true end date of the Long Count and the other nine waves is not December 21, 2012, but October 28, 2011. Best
Carl Johan
I do not know
Dear Carl Johan,
I did not say that the calendar has no deeper meaning. I simply said that I did not know what that deeper meaning is.
Clearly the 4 Ahaw 8 Kumku date in 3114 BCE was seen as a creation date of some sort by the ancients but I do not think we can say how the Maya understood it.
What do you think will or will not happen on the 28th this month? I truly hope we will all be enlightened as you wrote. That would be glorious for all.
best wishes from Florida
roberto
Enlightenment or Collapse
Hello Robert,
What is not clear to me is whether you have studied my books or not. If you had you would probably realize that you can not address the evolutionary processes that the Mayan calendar carries, or the end date, based on their belief systems. The empirical evidence regarding the nine waves of the Mayan calendar is simply by itself massive and there is no reason to stay in the dark regarding this.
I think that October 28, 2011 the Cosmic Tree of Life will establish a unitary field that also our own planet is part of. Because of the high frequency with which this has come to us through the ninth wave it does not seem like many people have been able to keep up with it. What seems more likely is that the end date of the Mayan calendar will mean some kind of collapse of the world's economy and political structure.
Best
Carl
I stumbled on this site with
I stumbled on this site with no prior knowledge of a change in the date of the end of the Mayan Calendar, but found it interesting that it coincides with the Occupy Movement's chosen date to 'shut down the system' through passive protest. On October 28th people across the globe turned off lights, televisions, cellphones and computers. Many refused to enter retail businesses and banks, and some even refused to go to work.
While I'm pretty sure the world's economy did not collapse that day, who knows, perhaps there's a corelation.
Just sayin'.
Thanks again for taking the
Thanks again for taking the time to respond.
I did read The Mayan Calendar and the Transformation of Consciousness but did not find the evidence presented there convincing.
I look forward to your comments in a couple of weeks.
evidence
OK. Does this mean that you think the few examples given there of progressions
from seed to mature fruit were wrong or did you think more such examples would have been needed?
examples
I do not think any of them were wrong, but there are so many other processes from seed to mature fruit that could have been
added and may serve to convince other people with other focus. To take just one,
the development of modern dance music is something that shows how these energies are
absorbed by our entire bodies and movement patterns. What would be the alternative?
To just believe that the Mayan calendar means something without knowing what?
Best
Carl
I loved your simplicity Dr.
I loved your simplicity Dr. Sitler...
Thanks for this...
I'm a pretty simple
I'm a pretty simple person.
I'm curious as to why you seem to shy away from the Dec. 21 date as the end of the cycle. Am I perhaps misreading you?
I think GMT correlation is
I think GMT correlation is just a mathematical calculation... It might be ture or not... I choose to follow the Elders and what they say about their calendar... If the end date brings difficult times that requires spiritual strength I would like to be next to Don Alejandro and pray with him, but not with Calleman or any other scientist that has not developed spiritually...
I'm with you on preferring to
I'm with you on preferring to hang with tat Cirilo (Alejandro Perez) rather than Dr. Calleman. That said, very few (if any) Maya elders have ever been exposed to the Long Count. I had a chat once with Cirilo and he clearly did not understand the Long Count. He works with the cholq'ij and the K'iche' version of the haab'.
Unfortunately you are right
Unfortunately you are right that their knowledge of the LC is limited... The main point is integrity, if someone speaks from integrity it means that person has the power to guide people... Rest does not matter...