'samutsaringHakahaka': Will the world end on 21st December 2012?

By: Elsabe Smit

Will the world end on 21st December 2012? If not, what will happen?

My intuition has always told me that date is the end of time, but not the end of the world. I did not have much more knowledge, but then read a very informative book called Maya Prophecy by Ronald L Bonewitz.

This book explains that the Maya prophecy is actually not a prophecy as we know it, but rather a calendar. So what is so particular about this calendar and the date of 21st December 2012?

Let me give some background. The Maya believed that time binds the various dimensions of the Universe together. They believed that time can be measured, that time does not stand still, and that time flows away from the past into the future.

The Maya also believed that time is circular and cyclical, and that events are repeated in different cycles.

The Maya used three different calendars. The first is the Long Count Calendar. This calendar was used to record past events and predict future events. It starts again more or less every 5 000 years.

The second calendar is known as the Sacred Calendar or Ritual Almanac. This calendar consisted of 260 days, and is used mainly for religious purposes and divination. The Sacred calendar consists of two separate calendars, one comprising 20 days, and the second comprising 13 numbers. These two calendars ran concurrently, for example where both calendars started on the same day, both day 1 and day 14 of the 20-day calendar would be day 1 of the 13-day calendar. Day 20 and day 13 coincided every 260 days.

The third calendar is known as the Solar Calendar. This calendar consists of 360 days, followed by another five-day period.

The start of the Solar Calendar and the Ritual Almanac only coincides every 52 years. This period is called the Calendar Round. This is regarded as a highly sacred period of time and is celebrated with various activities that celebrate the dying of the old and the re-birth of the new.

If the Maya Long Count Calendar is correlated with the Gregorian calendar, then it can be calculated that the world started on 13th August 3114 BC. The Maya Long Count Calendar ends on 21st December 2012.

Is that the day on which the world will end? I have heard 21st December 2012 being described as "the end of time" - that is the end of the Maya Long Count calendar as translated to the Gregorian calendar.

However, there is another significant event that will happen on that day.

On 21st December 2012, the December solstice sun will cross the Milky Way in precisely the location of the dark-rift in the Milky Way, also known as "the road to the underworld". The sun will be at the exact centre of the Galaxy. According to the Maya the center of the Galaxy is the cosmic womb, the place of dead, transformation, regeneration and rebirth. This moment shows the end of the current Maya Long Count Calendar.

It appears that the Milky Way has a 25 800 year cycle, and on four previous occasions the galactic centre aligned with the sunrise of a solstice or equinox. The last time was about 6 450 years ago (or around 3114 BC?) and the next time will be 21st December 2012.

Back to the Maya - or rather to the Aztec, another ancient people. The Aztec Calendar Stone indicates five different eras or Suns. The First Sun began in the year 15 213 BC and ended with the last Ice Age. The Second Sun began in the year 11 205 BC and ended with the demise of Atlantis. The Third Sun began in the year 8000 BC and ended with the Mesopotamian floods. The Fourth Sun began in the year 3114 BC (the start of the Maya Long Count Calendar) and is predicted to end on 21st December 2012.

According to the Maya, the Fifth Sun will then start, and the ancient Aztec records say: "there will be a movement of the earth and from this we shall all perish."

What will happen on 21st December 2012? Who knows?

I was going to make some flippant remark about the press blowing things out of proportion again and doomsday prophets cashing in on people's gullibility, but then I read The Mystery of The Crystal Skulls by Chris Morton and Ceri Louise Thomas.

This book describes the journey of the authors while investigating the existence and meaning of crystal skulls. I am not going to say much more here, except that this book is on my (very short) list of ultimate must-reads for anyone that is interested in spirituality and our roots. The information in the book is too explosive to repeat here, and I would not do justice to their message by quoting sections from the book.

What I can tell you is that 21st December 2012 is not about earthquakes or about the end of the world. I can say that most of the book will resonate with my readers because we have always known that there is more to life than the dress sense of some minor celebrity or some irrelevant political shenanigans.

At the risk of sounding like a preacher, I now understand that life is about making choices that are based on Love and nothing else. No, I am not going to start my own church or anything like that. I am simply going to continue with my own search for more and more details of the truth.

I know that I am on the right path, and I know that the truth is being exposed to me by means of meditations, visions and dreams. My role is to receive and communicate this information to those people that are ready to listen. Everyone knows by now that I do not just swallow what is offered to me. I am constantly looking for explanations and proof, and that will not change.

There has been talk of changes in the earth's magnetic field, even as drastic as the north and south poles changing positions. This last happened about 780,000 years ago. The predictions indicate that the earth is heading for a change that is as drastic as that.

Is this a signal for us to start stocking up on tinned food and warm clothes? I think not. We have had solar and lunar eclipses in the past. They are always spectacular and make good photographs, but they do not necessarily mean catastrophe. We had a near miss on 23rd March 1989 when a 300 meter diameter asteroid missed the earth by 700 000 kilometres, passing through the exact position where the earth was only 6 hours before.

And there is another one coming our way: on 16th March 2880 an asteroid with a diameter of about a kilometre will probably hit the earth. I will be watching the show from my ring seat in the galaxy.

As far as I am concerned, 21st December 2012 will be the culmination of the changes that we have all been aware of for a long time, and that have been speeding up recently. If a massive earthquake destroys the earth, a stock of tinned food would not really help much and I will just have to go with the flow. If nothing as drastic as that happens, I would probably still be working on bringing spiritual enlightenment to this earth, because we are visitors here anyway.