The 2012 Story

by John Major Jenkins

  The 2012 date may also be a rallying cry for the indigenous mind and soul to reassert itself on the world stage—among all human beings of all ethnic groups because we are all indigenous to earth. The Maya renaissance, already under way, may just be the spark of a wildfire that may spread around the world, igniting the dormant primordial mind that has been layered over with materialism and abstractions. This renaissance can be phrased in many ways. It is essentially about throwing illusion into the fire of sacrifice, returning ego to its proper place as a satellite of the Divine Self (not the other way around), and awakening a higher consciousness through which the world’s intractable dilemmas can be solved. If, as Terence McKenna said, consciousness does not loom large in the future of the human race, what kind of future is it going to be? And if the awakening of consciousness, a turnabout in the deepest seat of the collective soul, does not occur, then no amount of legislation, electing new leaders, or applying bandages is going to help.

  Scholars and New Agers should move their thoughts beyond the prerational and rational stages of psychological development. They have become locked in a staring contest, failing to see a higher level of consciousness where their dualistic standoff can be reconciled and a direct experience of transformation and renewal can occur. According to the perennial wisdom at the root of the recovered 2012 teachings, the key to facilitating that renewal is, as it is for any cycle ending, sacrifice. This isn’t rocket science, it just requires taking a step in the right direction and doing what needs to be done.

  As for my own work to recover the lost cosmology connected with the origins of the 2012 calendar, there is more evidence for it now than there was fifteen years ago when I first put it on the table. Recent breakthroughs by scholars themselves are supporting a simple idea: The 13-Baktun cycle ending in 2012 was intended to target the rare precession-caused alignment of the solstice sun with the dark rift in the Milky Way. That’s the “end-date alignment theory” stripped down to its basics. I suspect that this work will continue to matter, and to be added to, long after 2012 has passed. I never intended or expected it to be conflated with misconceived apocalyptic madness, or enlisted into serving a dozen different doomsday devices. But I did suspect that it was generally on target and would one day be subsumed into Maya studies, with or without credit to its originator.

  It’s likely that many of the curious people entering the 2012 topic are not going to care much for those details. They hear tell that 2012 is about transcendence, tripping, a new generation’s reimagining of Woodstock Meets Burning Man. If people are merely wanting to know where the party is going to be, they should think twice about the impact their celebration is going to have on the sacred sites they’d like to visit, and double-check if their intentions are congruent with what 2012 is really about—transformation and renewal. I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade, but if the end-of-time party planners invite Eternity (you’d think they would, right?), they better make sure there will be enough room in the parking lot. I hear Eternity will be bringing some friends.

  WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO BE?

  This is one of the more hilarious and perplexing questions that I am supposed to respond to. I’ve given as many answers as times it’s been asked. What can you say? “I don’t know, I can’t predict the future.” “Right here.” “In the Now.” “Everywhere and nowhere.” How about this one: “I’ve already been there.” The reasons I’m not playing that game are many. First off, someone has to clean up after the party. That ensures that class divisions (worker bees serving party monsters) will survive the shift. Second, I’ve tried to envision what the ultimate cool “end of the world” partay would look like, and my mind meanders over various absurd scenarios. Let’s see… I could parachute into the Great Ballcourt at Chichén Itzá, ritually deflower a virgin, and throw her into the cenote while 100,000 people throng around the Pyramid of Kukulcan. I could wear a top hat and be the ringleader of the 2012 circus, a cosmogenesis carnival replete with requisite freaks and fantasias.

  No one should be on center stage! Any expectation of me personally is antithetical to the ego-transcendence that I believe is a central idea in the 2012 spiritual teaching. I may be the ultimate party pooper when I explain that I’ve never seen the specific day as having any predetermined or inherent significance for those who are around to experience it, apart from its being an authentic calendrical artifact. And having to be somewhere at a specific time in order to experience eternity—I don’t know, it seems as counterproductive as consumerism has been to Christmas. The last thing I’d want to deal with is an event the Seven Macaws of mass media could have their way with.

  Perhaps it is better to say where I don’t want to be. The scenario I’d like to avoid is thousands of seekers descending, Harmonic Convergence-style, on Maya sites that shall remain nameless. The postparty cleanup and repair that a tug-of-war between anarchist apocalyptarians and ascension acolytes would entail is too much to contemplate. The violations of local laws, confrontations with misunderstanding officials, and the bad mojo generated with local populations are not things that party planners are likely to anticipate or even care about. These are real concerns. It could be the biggest crazy party you ever wished that you never went to. Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll are probably not going to be applicable as a hoped-for salvation. If they are, then 2012 really will be a time-travel portal, as some have suggested. Many might be expecting to party like it’s 1967, even if they weren’t yet alive in that “summer of love.”

  It should be clear by now that no one should be future projecting to December 21, 2012, waiting around for “the thing to happen.” To plan a gala affair on that date is the least productive behavior I could imagine, but it is bound to happen. So, what can we expect? Well, we can expect the typical media exposés, crass condemnation by clueless commentators, and throwing the entire 2012 baby out with the bathwater. The mere presence of the all-seeing eye of Big Brother would likely bring about a buzz-kill, and the Eschaton, the transcendental object at the end of time, could decide to remain in hiding. Even good intentions have a built-in catch-22. If we focus all our collective conscious energy on having an ego-transcending mind-orgy of blissed-out oneness on December 21, 2012, we are likely to catalyze the opposite collective shadow—a lunatic with a dirty bomb who will also be counting down the days, seeking to keep Seven Macaw in power.

  Something new and surprising may nevertheless emerge. Let’s remember that emergence is attended by a sense of emergency, and this is a hallmark of spiritual awakening. We may even call it a crisis, a crossroads, a collective crucifixion as we ride the wave of earth’s apotheosis, awakening to the sacredness of the living sanctuary that our ancestors simply called “home.”

  Whenever a profound experience of change is about to take place, its harbinger is the motif of death. This is not particularly mysterious, since it is the limited view and appraisal of oneself that must be outgrown or transformed, and to accomplish transformation the self-image must dissolve.2

  Clearly, the pathway through to the other side is to embrace death rather than fight it. This was the beautiful and profound message of Darren Aronofsky’s movie The Fountain, which deftly wove Maya themes together with this perennial teaching: Eternity cannot be found by living forever; it is found only when death is embraced. This is what was meant in the movie by Izzi Creo’s mysterious refrain: “Finish it.” The specter of death does not have to breed fear; it invites, rather, a meditation on mortality and a fuller appreciation for life. The paradox of this advice is well known to spiritual guides who facilitate the rebirth passage for people in crisis. The advice applies to 2012, which is the screen upon which the urgent fear of world cataclysm is being projected. The psychodrama of personal dissolution is a microcosm of larger portents.

  Psychologist John Weir Perry observed the process: “In times of acute and rapid culture change, visionaries undergo the shattering experience of seeing the world dissolve into a chaos and time whirl back to its beginnings… d
issolution of the world image is the harbinger of change. Expressions of cultural reform are explicit.”3 The crisis of change is throbbing with urgency; we feel the impending juncture of something awesome and profound on the horizon, but when, when, when? Death or birth? Both processes are utterly and completely interwoven, and if you embrace their hieros gamos, or sacred marriage, your passage to a new reality is ensured. Yes, an old world fades, but a new one appears. Here we see how the term “apocalypse” is best understood in its original etymological sense: it means “unveiling.” What is unveiled, or revealed? The dang an sich, the thing-in-itself, that which is, was, and will always be: Reality.

  The 13 numbers and 20 day-signs in a mandala. Drawing by the author

  Individual renewal and world renewal must happen in concert. Both share the same representative image: the mandala—the image of center, source, wholeness, oneness. To the extent that the world image is a projected dream of the inner psyche, the burden of successful world renewal lies with the individual. We decide, and we make it or break it. We may prefer to sit around, “waiting for 2012 to happen,” and avoid the responsibility for being the change that needs to happen, but that completely misses the point. If we don’t do it before the 2012 party, it will be waiting for us afterward.

  And now the rope of time runs out unweaving the wrongs

  Till nothing’s left but loosening strings and without doubt all the things

  Dissolve into the sea of songs4

  —John Major Jenkins

  APPENDIX ONE

  GLOSSARY OF TERMS

  1 Ahau. The Sacred Day of Venus. Occurs every 104 haab (26 days less than 104 years) when the cycles of Venus, the tzolkin, and the haab coordinate on a Venus morning star rising.

  4 Ahau. The day in the 260-day tzolkin calendar that coordinates with both the zero day and the completion day of the 13-Baktun cycle.

  Ahau. One of the 20 day-signs in the 260-day tzolkin calendar. Has multiple meanings, including “solar lord” and “blowgunner.”

  Anagogical. Perceiving or accepting that symbols have a higher or larger reference to other sets of meanings, beyond a literal and specific denotative meaning. The etymology of the term means “upward-leading.”

  Anagogue. A neologism derived from the term anagogical (see entry). By analogy with the relationship between pedagogical and pedagogue, an anagogue is a person who teaches or believes in the anagogical interpretation of symbols.

  Apocalypse. From the Greek, ‘Aποκα′λυψις (Apokálypsis), meaning “lifting of the veil” or “revelation.” In modern usage it has become synonymous with a fated catastrophe.

  Apocatastasis. From the Greek, meaning the restoration of the original and true conditions. Implies a doctrine of degeneration through time followed by regeneration, which may apply to the world generally or to conditions within humanity, including spiritual awareness.

  Astro-theological. A worldview espoused in many ancient cultures, including the Greek and Maya civilizations, founded on an intimate relation between the human world, spiritual teachings, and astronomical cycles. It often resulted in the alignment of temples with meaningful astronomical horizons. See, for example, The Earth, The Temple, and the Gods by Vincent Scully, Jr.

  Baktunian movement. A term used by Maya scholar Victor Montejo in reference to the modern renaissance of Maya culture heralded by a renewal at the end of the Baktun (in 2012).

  Bloodletting rites. A sacrificial practice of letting blood from the tongue, earlobes, or penis by ancient Maya elite.

  Buddhi, buddhi mind. Buddhi is a feminine Sanskrit noun derived from the same root as Buddha (budh—to be awake; to understand; to know). The word signifies a transpersonal faculty of mind higher than the rational discursive mind that is approximately equivalent to “intuitive intelligence” or “higher mind,” but is more properly identified as gnosis (direct inner knowing). It is “that which knows”—that is, able to discern truth from falsehood.*

  Calendar Round. A period of 52 haab (18,980 days) representing the synchronization of the 260-day tzolkin and the 365-day haab.

  Chac Mool. A reclining deity holding a bowl in its belly to receive sacrificial offerings. Associated with the New Fire ceremony and the movement of the Pleiades. Many large and small stone carvings of Chac Mools have been found.

  Classic Period. The period of the Maya florescence and sudden decline, from 200 AD to 900 AD. The beginning of the Classic Period used to be set at 300 AD, but defining characteristics have now been identified for an earlier date.

  Correlation. The coordination of the Maya time system with the modern Gregorian calendar. This effort began in the late 1800s, and Joseph T. Goodman published a breakthrough in 1905 that was later confirmed but adjusted slightly by Juan Hernandez Martínez and J. Eric S. Thompson. The issue was settled by 1950, resulting in 13.0.0.0.0 correlating with December 21, 2012.

  Creation Myth. Specifically used in this book to refer to the Maya Popol Vuh, also called the Hero Twin Myth.

  Cycle-ending date. The date that falls at the end of a cycle; a term used intentionally to avoid confusion caused by the term “end date,” which has often been mistakenly taken to mean a final ending.

  Dark rift. A visual feature, caused by the thick accumulation of interstellar dust along our galaxy’s midplane, that lies along the lengthwise body of the Milky Way, beginning within the nuclear bulge of the Galactic Center (between Sagittarius and Scorpio) and extending northward to Cygnus.

  Day-count, count of days. Refers to the 260-day cycle (the tzolkin).

  Day-keeper. An initiated priest, or spiritual guide, who counts the days of the 260-day tzolkin calendar, says prayers and makes offerings at shrines, and is adept at using the calendar as an oracle.

  Desacralized. A term describing something that has been drained or shorn of its sacredness.

  Dresden Codex. One of the surviving Maya books.

  Eclipse half-year. An ideal period of 173.3 days between eclipses; used in Maya calculations and almanacs.

  Ecliptic. The 14-degree-wide band that encircles the earth and along which the planets, moon, and sun travel. It is, astronomically, the plane of our solar system.

  18 Rabbit. The approximate English translation of the name of the Copán king who ruled between 695 AD and 738 AD and erected the many carvings in the Grand Plaza. His name in the Mayan language is Waxaklahun Ub’ah K’awil.

  End-naming practice. The Maya practice of naming a Long Count period by the day in the 260-day tzolkin that its last day falls on. For example, we are currently in the 4 Ahau Katun because this Katun’s final day falls on 4 Ahau.

  Entelechy. According to Aristotle, an entelechy is the condition of something whose essence is fully realized; actualized in its totality. In some modern philosophical systems it is a vital force that motivates and guides an organism toward self-fulfillment. *

  Epigrapher/epigraphy. Epigraphy is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs engraved into stone or other durable materials, or cast in metal; the science of classifying them as to cultural context and date, elucidating them, and assessing what conclusions can be deduced from them. A person who does this study is called an epigrapher.*

  Epiphenomenon. A consequent or secondary phenomenon derived from a previous existent. For example, mind is thought by some thinkers to be an epiphenomenon of matter.

  Equation of Maya time. 13.0.0.0.0 = 4 Ahau = December 21, 2012.

  Eschatology. The study of the ultimate ends of the world, or universal process; an ultimate spiritual state of being. Some historical religious traditions, such as the Essenes of Qumran, are thought to have realized their eschatological ambitions, and thus its members lived in a state of awareness of ultimate reality, a “realized eschatology.”

  Eschaton. The end state, or ultimate condition or object, that emerges at the end of time. See eschatology. Used by philosopher Henry Corbin and popularized by Terence McKenna.

  Fractal. Is generally a rough or fragmented geometric shape that ca
n be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole. A property called self-similarity. A mathematical fractal is based on an equation that undergoes iteration, a form of feedback based on recursion.*

  Fractal time. The application of fractal geometry to time. The concept was elaborated by Terence McKenna in his Novelty Time Theory. The concept has since been adopted in various forms with varying intervals and periods by other writers.

  Galactic alignment. The alignment of the December solstice sun with the dark rift in the Milky Way. This definition highlights astronomical features that are compelling to naked-eye sky-watchers, past and present. For a more technical definition, one can replace “dark rift in the Milky Way” with “galactic equator.” This alignment takes place within the boundaries of the nuclear bulge of the Milky Way, also perceptible to naked-eye observation, known as the Galactic Center.

  Galactic Center. The center of a spiral galaxy. Our own galaxy’s center lies between the constellations of Sagittarius and Scorpio. Astronomers tend to conceive of the Galactic Center as a precise point, which is misleading because galaxies have slightly different gravitational, visual, and electromagnetic centers. In addition, some spiral galaxies, such as our own, have two closely connected centers. A more realistic conception, which is congruent with how the central part of the Milky Way is perceived by naked-eye stargazers, is that of a “nuclear bulge,” which is a wider and larger zone of brighter stars as compared to other parts of the Milky Way. For example, the opposite part of the Milky Way in Gemini is very thin and diffuse, as that is the direction looking out of the galactic disk.