Winter Ends with New Year Beginnings

WINTER ENDS with NEW BEGINNINGS
Emerging from the Longest Night into a New Year

It is Solstice—the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. This year—2018—it is also the night of the Full Moon—a cosmic coincidence which will not happen again until 2094.

Hogmanay now a World-Scots Celebration

Traditional Christmas pudding, oozing flaming brandy, courtesy Delia Smith

Meanwhile festivities are revving up for a week of celebrations in all corners of the globe—more glitzy in countries with the Santa Claus connection: the USA welcomes his reindeer to school halls and shopping malls. Yule logs burn in grates from Scandinavia to Scotland.

While New Year’s Eve is still a week away, around the globe Scots are preparing. They have their own name and a long rich heritage associated with the last night of the Old Year—Hogmanay.

Theories abound on the derivation of Hogmanay. While I favor the translation given by the Scots Dictionary—aguillaneuf=gift for a new year, below—there are others. The Scandinavian word for a feast preceding Yule was “Hoggo-nott” while the Flemish words (many have come into Scots) hoog min dag=’great love day’. Hogmanay can be traced back to Anglo-Saxon, Haleg monath, Holy Month, or the Gaelic, oge maidne, new morning.

Remembering that Mary, Queen of Scots grew up as child bride at the French court, the most likely source seems to be the French translated bodily to Scotland with her when she became Queen. ‘Homme est né’ (‘Man is born’) in France is the last day of the year when gifts were exchanged. Aguillaneuf is still celebrated in Normandy, and presents given at that time are hoguignetes.

Tar barrel flaming at Burghead on Auld ‘Eel ends with burning the Clavie at the ‘Doorie’ on the ribs of Pictish promontory beach fort

In Scotland a practice similar to Normandy was recorded, disapprovingly, by the Church:

It is ordinary among some Plebeians in the South of Scotland, to go about from door to door upon New Year`s Eve, crying Hagmane
Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence, 1693

Christmas was not celebrated as a festival and virtually banned in Scotland for 400 years, from Protestant Reformation c.end of C.17th until around 1950s. The reformed Kirk portrayed Christmas as a Popish or Roman Catholic feast and it was forbidden. Many Scots had to work over Christmas and their winter solstice holiday was taken at New Year, when family and friends gathered for a party and to exchange presents—especially for children.

Earliest known Gaulish Coligny ‘moon’ calendar of 13 months dates to A.D. 150

In the earliest known Celtic calendar, the Coligny Calendar of 13 moons (months), now in the Palais des Arts, Lyon, the year began at Samhain, November 1st Fire-Festival of the Dead. At this time the veil between this world and the Otherworld was believed so thin that the dead could return to warm themselves at the hearths of the living. And some living—especially poets, artists, clairvoyants and shaman/healers—were able to enter the Otherworld through the doorways of the sidhe, fairyfolk, like the stone-lined entrance to passage graves in Scotland and Ireland

When the Julian calendar was in place in Rome, the Coligny caledar was seen as the Gaulish equivalent of a 10-month/13moon year, beginning November.

Traditions before midnight on Samhain perpetuated in rural communities when the calendar changed to Gregorian (at the Reformation) such as cleaning the house on 31st December—including taking outside ashes from the fire, when coal fires were in vogue. There was a superstition to clear all debts before “the bells” at midnight.

On the stroke of midnight it is traditional to sing Auld Lang Syne. Robert Burns claimed his verse was based on an earlier fragment, and the melody was in print eighty years before he published in 1788.

Partying from Hallowe’en through Hogmanay
An integral part of Hogmanay partying which continues today is to welcome friends and strangers alike with warm hospitality; and to wish everyone a Guid New Year. The underlying belief is to clear out any vestiges of the old year—ancient tradition included literally sweeping the house clean—and preparing to welcome in a young, fresh New Year on a happy and positive note.

“First footing”—i.e. the first step over the threshold into the house after midnight—is less common now in cities, but continues in rural Scotland. To ensure good luck for the house, the First Foot should be male, dark-haired (believed to be a throwback from Viking days when blond strangers arriving on your doorstep meant trouble) and should bring symbolic coal, shortbread, salt, black bun and/or whisky. These days, however, whisky and perhaps shortbread are the only items still prevalent—and available.

“Handselling” was a custom of gift-giving on the first Monday of the New Year, but this may also have died out.

Magical fireworks displays and torchlight processions through Edinburgh, Elgin and many cities in Scotland are reminiscent of ancient custom at pagan Hogmanay parties which persevered until the late C.20th.

Traditionally one New Year ceremony more reminiscent of American Hallowe’en involved dressing up in cattle hides and running around the village being hit by sticks. The festivities included lighting bonfires, rolling blazing tar barrels down the hill—as is still practised in Burning the Clavie at Burghead, Morayshire—and tossing torches. Animal hide was wrapped around sticks and set on fire. This dense smoke fended off evil spirits. The smoking stick was also known as a Hogmanay.

Giant fireballs hefted by strongarm celebrants swing through Stonehaven harbor near Aberdeen on ‘auld ‘Eel’, old Yule

Some customs continue, especially in small, rural communities in the Highlands and Islands where tradition—along with language and dialect—are kept alive. On Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, young boys form rival bands, the leader of each wearing a sheepskin, while another member carries a sack. The gangs move through the village from house to house reciting a Gaelic rhyme. On being invited inside, the leader walks clockwise around the fire, while everyone hits the skin with sticks. Formerly, the boys would be given bannocks (fruit buns, similar to focaccia) for their sack before moving on to the next house. This tradition is reflected in American Hallowe’en, two months earlier.

Scotland’s Legacy of Ancient Customs
One of the most spectacular fire ceremonies to take place is in Stonehaven, just south of Aberdeen on the Northeast coast. Giant fireballs, weighing up to 20 pounds are lit and swung around on five foot-long metal poles that need sixty men to carry them, as they march up and down the High Street. The origin of this pre-Christian custom is linked to Winter Solstice December 21st, with giant fireballs signifying the power of the sun’s return. The fireballs were believed to purify the world by consuming evil spirits in the New Year.

Confusing Samhain/Hallowe’en with Hogmanay is understandable. Longtime tradition holds them inter-dependent. Only the numbers have changed.

Eagle Nebula Pillars of Creation, NASA Space telescope

A theory of gravity is also a theory of space and time — Albert Einstein

According to current thinking, we have gone beyond conventional spacetime and are now floating somewhere in a ‘construct’ of our own imagination.

One hundred years ago Albert Einstein had his great insight.

A decade afterwards he revised his general relativity to include quantum theory. And yet a century later physicists are still beating the quantum drum, trying to figure how to work outside theoretical time, when physicists have always formulated their theories within a space-time framework.

Let the New Year reveal.
And don’t forget. Raise those glasses on Hogmanay.
©2018 Siderealview

Hogmanay—Time for Seeing Both Past and our Future

HOGMANAY—Prelude to New Year the Old Way

Here’s a wee dochan doris
Jist a wee drap, that’s aa’
A wee dochan doris
Afore ye ging awa’                    

There’s a wee wifie waitin’
At a wee but-‘n’-ben
But, if ye can say ‘it’s a braw bricht meenlichty nicht’
Ye’re aa’ richt, ye ken

Winter sun enhances frost crystals from high cirrus cloud, to create light mirages

We just passed winter’s shortest day.
The solstice: solar ‘standstill’, the point when the Sun appears to come to rest at the center of the galactic plane. It seems to stand on celestial equator, pausing in time, moving neither north nor south.

Four winter solstices ago, we planetary travelers collided with Galactic Center on December 21st, 2012, when the Great Cycle Calendar of the Maya comes to full rest; pause; restart.

Time and Light or Bread and Circuses
The Romans—a civilization we liken ourselves to more as time elapses—became so tired of their outdated Julian calendar, adding days, subtracting nights, that they elaborated on the earlier pagan rekindling of Saturnalia—extending a Hallowe’en thru Christmas holiday period into ten days of non-time in the run-up to January 1st and the New Year.

Khronos, Father Time—in his human persona Aeon—holds zodiac wheel in balance for human race

This respected period of utter chaos, drunken festivities, carnival and masqued balls was known as Saturnalia.

Not to be confused with current Hogmanay in Scotland.
While the Scots may already feel repercussions, there are certainly more to come—in the Empire and in now-disintegrated Scotland, Hogmanay will live forever, whatever the climate. Rhyme at top is traditional toast in broad Scots to test if you could outdrink them. Translation for dummies in comment section, below.

This year’s solstitial preparation for the New is a good time for pausing.
For all of us:

To contemplate how much we shall change in the coming year—because the Human Race is changing fast and we have changed radically in the past year—
To give thanks for the road that brought us here to this point in space and time and for this moment—before plunging into the maelstrom once more—
To bless all those immediately around us NOW—as well as our loved ones far afield—absent friends—and family gone to fresher fields—
A time to remember and a time to look forward—

Time and Light are on our side.

Time Warp and the Magic of Seventeen

Perfect bowl-shaped crucible zodiac chart for Hogmanay eve—with Uranus outmaneuvering Saturn—presages a receptive year for 2017

Χρονος Kronos was God of and out of Time, Father Time

Κρονος A Titan who killed his father Ouranos—Uranus, Roman creator god
Both confused within Roman god Saturn.

KRONOS (Roman Saturn) was the primordial Greek god of time. In the Orphic cosmogony he emerged self-formed at the dawn of creation. He was seen as discorporeal, serpentine in form, with three heads—of a man, a bull, and a lion. He and his consort, serpentine goddess Ananke—Inevitability—enveloped the primordial world-egg in their coils and split it apart to form the ordered universe of earth, sea and sky. After this act of creation the couple circled the cosmos driving the rotation of heaven and the eternal passage of time

Kronos was depicted in Greco-Roman mosaic as Aeon—Eternity personified. He holds a wheel inscribed with signs of the zodiac and Gaia—Mother Earth—reclines at his feet, right. A.D.5thC. poet Nonnus of Panopolis described Aeon as an old man with long, white hair and a beard, below, but mosaic-art presents a youthful figure—above.

The figure of Kronos was essentially a cosmological double of the Titan Kronos/Cronus—Father Time. Confusing the heirarchy, Hellenist culture sometimes merged Kronos with creator-god Phanes, and occasionally with the Titan Ophion.

Χρονος /Kronos self-created master of Time

No wonder we in the 21stC are confused. Drawn irrevocably to the madness of twelve days out of Time—just enough to feed our inner spirit, before we have to step back into the so-called real world when January hits.

ThunderSnow four inches on the Coast Range; chains required. Freezing hail in Mexico, battling a weak tropical front.

Thundersnow! Even the weather forecasters have given up; while in California, agriculture and home farmers are grateful for any seasonal precipitation, to allow the parched earth some semblance of moisture catchup, before the growing season starts all over again.

Hope for the Human Race to begin again with new resolution?

There is no Planet-B

Coal-fired industrial smog shuts down Chinese cities Beijing and Hangzhou

Even resolutions can be broken. Two years ago the Western nations agreed to a climate resolution. There are many who are doing their utmost to stick to clear healthy living, with clean healthy energy.
And there are those who are not. Marrakesh Climate Talks notwithstanding, United Airlines, one of the last American flight providers to operate within United States, as well as internationally, has closed its service to northern University town Eureka/Arcata, but has opened two new flight services to mainland China.

The mind boggles.

As does our inner spirit—watching and waiting for us to catch up with our human selves in a real grasp of what we are doing to our Pale Blue Dot—our only home—until they colonize Mars.

May we—at least some of us—wake up before that. They say seventeen is a good number.
Happy New Year.
©2017 Siderealview

Solstice and Yule—When Cosmic Forces Collide, Religions Meet

Sudden snowstorm in Denver focuses our seasonal senses—photo Andy Cross

Christmas Full Moon
Eight foot tides will run at their highest for Solstice. This year, as a bright waxing moon leads up to Christmas Night, from Monday through Wednesday December 21-23, 2015, tides along the Northern California coastline will reach near-‘maximum tidal range’, beyond which local fishermen and surfers abandon ports of Eureka and Shelter Cove and retreat behind the sandbags.

Full “Cold Moon” at sunset on Christmas Day—first to return to that configuration in our skies since 1977—will add to the frivolity and human goodwill generated en masse at this time of year. Happy Hanukkah, Eid, and of course Siderealview’s greatest pagan celebration, end of the old year—Hogmanay yay!

Earthquake Zone meets El Niño

As northern Pacific waters begin to freeze around the edges, the Southern Ocean revs up for the 2015 El Niño season. Prelude this year has been massive heat ceilings, causing water to become warmer for longer than the norm. September 2015 Equinox water temperatures in Humboldt Bay, Northern California, were 68ºF. Coastal Land temperature same day was 58ºF.

This autumn, however, the tropical storm system has had cosmic assistance.

Primeval fear of the Kraken kept medieval sailors watchful on the Deep—

Musical system known as the Circle of Fifths matches perfectly with Buckminster Fuller’s “vector equilibrium”: the Cuboctahedron. This same geometry is theorized in the Resonance Project, as a way we measure Space itself as an almost infinite supply of energy (in the form of quantum vacuum fluctuations), even though we perceive it to be completely empty. This is because it is in a perfectly balanced state, where all Vectors in the geometry are of equal length—
—Twelve around One—
Nassim Haramein, The Resonance Project

Sudden land temperature change is not the Ocean’s way. Slow to heat up, this watery stage holds its warm baby longer—until El Niño enters from the wings.

Solar (sunspot) activity has increased in recent weeks and Christmas weekend, Earthlings are targeted for more Coronal Mass Ejection—CME—effects: solar panel damage, electronic blackout, countered by spectacular (North) Polar Aurora Borealis. NOAA and SOHO label is ‘incoming STORM’, sidebar below right.

Meantime the equatorial ‘Volcanic Belt’ which few people pay attention to—just happens to run parallel from coastal-Mexico South to coastal-Peru and in mid-Pacific, through the Mariana Trench, the deepest ocean on Earth, through Fiji, Tonga. The so-called Carnegie Ridge is a huge submerged volcanic plate that runs through Cocos Ridges and the Galapagos tectonic plate, or Platform. There it heads for the coast of Peru, becoming sub-ducted under the South American continent where it collides—approximately—with the Andes.

In East-Central Equatorial Pacific, El Niño feeds off this interaction between ocean and atmosphere, producing cyclical peaks, like any other natural phenomenon. Geneva’s World Meteorological Center predicts end-2015-2016 season to run neck-and-neck with three greatest historical surges. The strengthening 2015-2016 season is forecast to hit New Year’s Eve, with current ocean temperatures two degrees Centigrade—2ºC—above normal.
Strongest previous El Niños were in 1972-73, 1982-83 and 1997-98.

‘This naturally occurring El Niño event and human-induced climate change may interact and modify each other in ways which we have never before experienced’
Secretary-General, World Meteorological Center, Geneva EU

Where Tropical Cyclones and Hurricanes meet
El Niño has already sparked an active tropical cyclone season in the Northern Pacific. Closer to U.S. in eastern North Pacific basin, Hurricane Patricia made landfall in Mexico October 24, 2015 and was reportedly (NOAA) the most intense tropical cyclone in the western hemisphere. Coastal Peru, Ecuador and Chile usually bear the brunt of warming waters and concomitant extra rainfall.

Peru declared a pre-emptive state of emergency in July 2015 for fourteen of its 25 states, setting aside $70 million, to prepare for the coming winter rains. Local authorities have been clearing river beds of debris, reinforcing river banks with rocks, sandbags and fortifying reservoir walls.

Yet it may not be enough.

El Nino tropical Pacific anomaly

The two deadliest floods in Ecuador’s history occurred during strong El Niño events: in November 1982—307 deaths—and October 1997—218 died. Peru’s deadliest flood (518 fatalities) occurred during the 1997 El Niño event. A United Nations-backed study said that the 1997-1998 El Niño cost Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela approximately $11 billion.

One aspect of the El Niño effect is to reduce rainfall in drought-prone regions. Australia, India and Bangladesh have already been suffering with near-desert conditions prevailing through summer-autumn 2015

Ocean Warming
Increasing water temperatures in the central-eastern Pacific create more fertile conditions for tropical rain and clouds. Seasonal heavy rainfall that usually hits north Australia at this time, abandons its southern tropical band and heads for the central-eastern Pacific basin.

Also prevailing trade winds, traditionally blowing east to west over the Pacific, weaken—or, worse, reverse.

Fueling more extremes.

HIGHEST & LOWEST Tides Herald Solstice and Christmas Full Moon

Warm water funneling through ocean trenches, exaggerated by a full moon’s return in its 38-year cycle, coupled with CMEs for Christmas Day? Look out!

Highest tides for a decade combine with solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs, sidebar right)—incoming—to give the human race a little more to think about over the Festive Season than just buying trinkets, decorating trees or lighting sequential candles on the Menorah.

Haven for Humankind
For those who watch the skies, the Full Cold Moon [‘when deer shed their antlers’ in Native American Pacific Northwest] blesses us by rising ENE—Azimuth= 69.6°—at dusk on December 25th, opposite the sun setting WSW—Azimuth=239.1°—in constellation Sagittarius. The fickle Moon rises first in opposite astro sign Taurus; then moves one hour later into challenging Gemini. If humankind needs to be stimulated any more than we already are, this year-end astronomical/astrological cycle returning after thirty-eight years, promises innovative solutions.*
*Lunar 18.6-year cycle x2: for explanation, see Lunar Standstill-Returning to the Cradle of Civilization, here.

Northern Pacific Fishing Season on Hold
Snow-wracked northern hemisphere—with its rainy coastal counterparts (Naples, Florida experienced 87ºF on Solstice) may bring a better outcome for fishing fleets on both shores—California crab fishing has been on hold throughout December, while authorities assess potential risk of ‘bottom-feeders’ transmitting domoic acid-packed meat through the food chain.

While coastal control agencies continue to monitor the crab disease, fishing boats lie idle in Humboldt Bay. Some say they’re glad of the break. Others look to January and the start of the 2016 sport fishing season for new beginnings.

Hogmanay/Saturnalia

This time of year we loosen Kronos/Saturn’s bonds.
The ancient God awakens from His sleep,
and rules the Earth as in the Golden Age.

Meanwhile, with the joyful sound of merrymaking—even Saturnalian singing—on our lips and ears, perhaps the human race may find a place where we, as simple vibratory beings withinin the Great Vibration may find a bolt hole—Resonance Project quote by Nassim Haramein, above.

Sending (the smallest, whispered) blessings to those less fortunate than ourselves in this Yule season of challenge and change—earthquake-prone Hindu Kush comes to mind—we may, like Native Scots, invoke angelic help for Hogmanay—by welcoming the dark stranger over the threshold for our New Year.
©2015 Siderealview

Galactic Center calling Earth: Blue Moon signal; pick up please

December Full Moon rises exactly at sunset on the opposite (NNE) horizon - latitude 57ºN

New Year’s Eve – the last day of 2009 or Hogmanay, as the Scots call it – will be triply auspicious. Not only is it the eve of a new year, a new decade no less, but it will be graced by a full moon, a partial lunar eclipse, and the Moon will be Blue. In celestial spheres you might say we are being given the royal treatment; or at least being sent a signal.

When a month is graced with two full moons, the second one is called a blue moon. You know, the ‘once in a blue moon’ blue moon? Because our modern calendar calculates by the sun (annual orbit of the Earth round the sun takes 365.25 days), its 30- and 31-day months take us out of synch with our nearest neighbour, whose cycle is 29.53 days. Only the female menstrual cycle and the oceans remain in touch with our lunar companion. The rest of humanity seems to have forgotten what cosmic rhythm is.

Blue moon of May 2007 seen at 40ºN latitude USA

Because of the lunar/solar anomaly, only 41 months in every century can be called true blue moon months, hence a fairly rare occasion. The blue moon cycle of 2.72 years, therefore, makes it something special. December 2009 already had a full moon on the night of December 1st/2nd. The last blue moon month was May 2007 and the next will occur in August 2012.

This New Year’s Eve, because the full moon always rises at the moment of sunset on the opposite horizon and because the moon will not be full this December 31st until 7:13pm GMT, those of us in the Old World will be able to witness the full orb of Luna rise at sunset in the Northeastern skies on Hogmanay night. That’s 4pm GMT in London, home counties, Midlands and Birmingham and about half an hour earlier (3:20pm) in Edinburgh where Hogmanayers will only just be starting their all-night revelry. Four hours later, as Jupiter prepares to set in the southwestern sky, the moon’s disc reaches its fullest and the Earth moves between her and the sun to cast a shadow over her in partial eclipse. This moment of maximum partiality occurs at 19:23 UTC, 7:23pmGMT or 11:23am PST. In astronomical terms it is not a full (total) eclipse because earth’s shadow (eclipse magnitude) will only reach 0.0763, but for us earthlings in the eastern hemisphere it will still be a singular sight.

Solar system planets from outer orbits looking in

At midnight when Hogmanay reaches crisis point in Scotland’s capital, when they shoot off fireworks from the battlements of Edinburgh castle to welcome the new year to the screech of bagpipes, very few, I suspect, will note that the ‘New Year star’, Sirius, reaches its zenith in our northern skies. Sirius will stand behind Orion in the south with the Moon, in Cancer, followed in close proximity by our secondmost close neighbour Mars, the ‘red’ planet, retracing its steps through Leo as we enter 2010. The ringed giant does not arrive on the scene until late when the revellers are wending their weary way home: Saturn is a ‘morning’ planet right now, best seen in the east in the hours before dawn, with its spectacular rings just starting to ‘open’ to our view.

That’s the astronomical picture.

The astrological one is a little different. It reflects a vastly complex array of planetary influences to which our ancestors paid heed, but which Technological Man tends to ignore. However, like the menstrual cycle affecting the female population, it is well, occasionally, to pay attention to heavenly bodies and the way they appear to sway our passage through the cosmos.

At winter solstice the Sun enters the cardinal earth sign of Capricorn, having played and filled us with optimism in late November while in fiery Sagittarius, encouraging us to look to the future, fulfill our dreams. Capricorn Sun and Cancer full Moon bring those dreams and our grasp on reality into sharp focus: both make us examine our ‘outer’ career, capabilities, achievement potential and ‘inner’ love of family, home, need for a peaceful centre: their polarity challenges us to fix our relationships. Cancer may be content to be dependent, Capricorn urges us to be grown-up and responsible. Cancer represents the origin, Capricorn looks to the goal. In this mix stands the astrological giant Saturn in Libra, exerting discipline, demanding that we find balance. Mars, because of retrograde motion in Leo, is teasing us, telling us ego fantasies, diverting our attention from the path of loving acceptance. Our usual mental messenger, our Mercurial helper is currently useless; he is doing a backwards dance through Capricorn and being uncommunicative. It is up to us to review how well we’re using our own natural-financial-mental resources. However, on January 5th, Mercury is joined by loving Venus, so all is not lost. There is hope in the days ahead. The loving, healing solution may show us a way through our planetary difficulties.

Fortunately, we may still call on the largest of the planets: Jupiter, which presently consorts with another friendly giant, Neptune, the bringer of change. Together they stand in forward-looking Aquarius and are guaranteed to bring abundance into our lives, fresh ideas, a new focus, perhaps even a totally unexpected way of solving our problems. Both reflect the potential for the spiritual, the mystical, even a miracle, to bring about the change we cannot perceive ourselves.

This brings us to the spiritual view.

At the time of the December solstice each year the sun approaches the heart of the Milky Way, our Home Galaxy, and conjoins with Galactic Center in the constellation Sagittarius. At this time of year the Earth also gets closest to our own star, Sol. Closest point in our orbit, perihelion, happens annually on January 2nd/3rd.

Through the ages, after solstice when the sun moves northward along the horizon again, each month setting farther and farther north, the period from winter solstice to summer solstice was festival season. In several ancient civilizations winter solstice was associated with the return of a Sun-God to save the world, the bringer of light and fruitfulness to the earth, and hope to humanity.

Spiritual communities too, mindful of ritual handed down from ancestral hierarchies, hold winter solstice sacred, meditating and communing with the silence of winter in a kind of mental hibernation which itself opens up communication with Source. It is at midwinter that many begin preparations for the three major festivals of spring and summer: in the Celtic calendar they are known as Imbolc (February 2nd), spring equinox (Ostara, Easter) and Beltainn (May 1st).

Other indigenous cultures celebrate on these dates, the Hopi, Maya, Chinese, Arab, Vedic and Zulu, but one which has gained world-wide recognition is the May full moon celebration of Wesak, the greatest festival in the Buddhist calendar. All surviving cultures which perpetuate these ancient forms begin with a meditation at winter solstice which culminates in the May celebration.

It is fascinating, then, to discover that in using an ancient technique of knowing when the planet is at its closest to Galactic Center, by aligning with cosmic energy emanating from the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, at the crossing of Galactic Center with celestial ecliptic, at a time when the Earth is herself at her perihelion, closest to her own star, and when the stella maris, the ‘spiritual sun’ Sirius is at her zenith, ancient civilizations and their modern devotees discovered a means to tuning into the cosmic Source of all energy, knowing, and guidance.

In the sacred Long Count calendar of the Maya, one of the most accessible of ancient calculations to modern man, within a period called a Great World Age, an eon, an unimaginably-huge 26,000-year timespan, there are only a few moments when we Earth people come closest to the center of this cosmic cross, the point where the ecliptic crosses the Milky Way, at precise center of our Galaxy.

Galactic Center where stars are born

This nebulous area of the Universe, where stars are born, is our own cosmic womb, from which we, as stardust emerged. It is from this hole in the Cosmos that many spiritual masters and followers believe emanates a divine energy; that the centre of the galaxy is constantly emitting and transmitting a pure energy source which may be utilized in our conscious co-creative process to amplify and transmit new programmes of operation to us, to amplify our awareness and to broadcast light energy directly to enhance human DNA.

Winged serpent sun god Quetzalcoatl of the Maya from Codex Borgia

In the mythology of the Maya, it is to this great birth canal or womb aperture that Creator-sun-god Quetzalcoatl, mythical feathered serpent, one who crawls on Mother Earth but also flies in the heavens will return on winter solstice 2012. This cosmic re-union symbolizes the joining of spirit with matter, in order to be reborn: the Shift of the Ages.

Our alignment with Galactic Center occurs only once in every 25,800 years. We have come close to it several times in the last three decades. During the so-called ‘Galactic alignment period’, or ‘era-2012’ between 1980 and 2016, the closest the Earth came to Galactic Center was on December 21st, 1998.

Galactic center is exactly where the December solstitial sun will stand at noon Universal Time on December 21st, 2012.

Is it any wonder then that we as a species are being given a few reminders of this cosmic date only a couple of years up the stellar turnpike?

If Galactic Center is transmitting messages, is it not logical for us, a technologically advanced civilization, to pick up the spiritual phone?