“While the outrigger Hokole’a was created from fragments of sacred trees, logs, boards, custom fabric for sails, hawsers, ropes, Home is wherever she is made welcome, whichever port her crew succeeds in reaching throughout the voyage.
Bringing with them fresh supplies (gathered/donated at each port-of-call) to last them two weeks, the multi-aged crew will have to catch their own fish & other food en route. Little deviation from this routine allows them to eat fresh fruit & veg indigenous to each island on their journey circling the Pacific.
In addition to 150 indigenous islands, they will visit Japan,Taiwan, Indonesia, S.Korea,Vietnam, Guam, Burma, Borneo, Marshall Is., before return to Hawai’i.
Ocean Consciousness Teaches Environmental Awareness & Evidence of Change
A mid-16thC European, by the name of Ferdinand Magellan would enter the Pacific and the Pacific embraced him, with relatively calm weather, and so he would call it ‘Pacific’ because it was relatively peaceful. The Ocean was gentle.
“Trust me, says Master Navigator Nainoa Thompson, the Pacific is far from gentle. So we call it by another name—one from our ancestors-thousands of years old. It is Moana Kia the Great—the Ocean of the Great expanse. We embrace both names.”
Thompson an his crew of combined new recruits and old-timers will begin their arduous journey in June, after their beloved canoe is shipped to its starting port in Alaska. Then, over the next 42 weeks she will circumnavigate the Pacific, visiting 36 countries and archipelagos, 150 indigenous islands.
“If you look at a nautical map of the Earth, it is divided into political territories & exclusive economic sub-divisions, marked by lines, international borders and boundaries. The Ocean has no lines. It covers one-third of the Earth’s surface and it’s all water. That’s what we want to protect, not just for environmental reasons, but for the sake of our children and grandchildren. It’s our responsibility.”*
Thompson says he wants to sail as little as possible, to allow the crew-the younger generation-to handle the legwork in order to develop an environmental awareness of the importance of life-giving water first-hand.
“Forty-seven years ago Pianu was launched & she and her crew of 17 would pull Tahiti out of the Sea, rescue those islanders in distress.
“It’s easy to look backwards, to what has been. What we’re about today is ‘What will we look for in the next 50 years?’ Hawai’i today is part of a global civilization, a financial/media driven world where we’re uncertain whether the future is good enough for our children. What’s its Kuleana?*
*Kuleana = Hawai’ian responsibility, which comes from privilege
Thompson says where they’re going there are no lines. There are no economic sub-divisions. “It’s a myth—It’s only one ocean and we are all one people on this island-the Earth.”
Inspired by Space flight Astronauts to see Earth as Single Island
One of Capt. Thompson’s gurus was space voyager Lt. Colonel Lacy Beach who compared the sailing in the Pacific to seeing Earth from Space. In the early 1990s, he summoned Thompson to his home when he was dying to share a few thoughts with his (then) pupil.
“I can go in the craft and it can fly me out of the atmosphere into Space, so I can turn around and look down at the whole Earth because what we need to figure is how to protect this Earth – our only home.
Thompson listened.
“He was a great navigator and a great teacher. He told me ‘we can’t protect what we don’t understand’.” We need to understand the systems. And we can’t do that if we don’t care. He made me keep three promises that he couldn’t. He said: you can’t do this alone.”
“He said ‘pay attention to the new language—’Climate change. Sustainability. Hypoxia, dead zones; acidification – a lot of words we don’t know because we weren’t taught. Sail round the world, touch it; feel each place. It’s the only way you can be part of it.’
“And the last promise he made me make was to build a school for the Earth by the Earth.”
Starting from Alaska in June 2023, canoe Hokole’a’s journey—Moana Nui Akea—Great voyage for Earth of Thompson and his crew will visit 36 countries and archipelagos and at least 150 indigenous territories. As President of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Nainoa Thompson affirms: “It’s our responsibility to connect, explore, discover.”
He admits he is already grateful for the reception he knows he and his crew will receive at each port of call. Indigenous people are always welcoming, friendly, as they understand the enormity & rigours of an ocean voyage, especially by canoe.
Thompson says the only way for the future is to build schools where the younger generation can be inspired to be part of the Earth by learning to experience her waters first-hand.
1762-85 Industrial Revolution-250yrLoom/Weaving ‘Progress’ can be Reversed
A British entrepreneur Edmund Cartwright between 1762-85 changed history by replacing hand-woven fabric, weaving looms and tapestry work by men and women (+many children) & introducing first machines capable of spinning yarn into cloth, thus creating the Industrial Revolution which has lasted so long that nobody remembers any other way.
Thompson is convinced this adaptation of human ingenuity can be reversed, but only with a change in the way our children & grandchildren are taught.
University of Hawai’i @Hilo Agrees to Change Curriculum to Offer Navigation
University CEO Dr. David Lassner of the University of Hawai’i at Hilo (Big Island, HI) has volunteered to add navigation skills and teaching Ocean canoeing to the curriculum, starting this autumn. Many Hawai’ian youngsters already have a taste for canoe group learning and have taken part in (small) canoe races at elementary level. By making ocean navigation & observation part of their degree, or even as an adjunct to sports lessons, Dr. Lassner hopes to create/inspire the next generation of navigators and provide them with the tools for a lifetime of sharing their beloved Ocean with others.
He hosted a recent press conference offered by CBS-Hawai’i to broadcast Capt. Thompson’s voyage starting June this year; and, along with others in the media with a love of ocean-going & support for Hawai’ians’ sharing/caring attitude to the importance of the Seas for the future of a healthy planet
University CEO Lassner agrees with PVS Navigator President Thompson that there are two paths. The first path is to stick to this path—the one that leads nowhere except to extinction —Science agrees and presents conclusive evidence. The second path is to change the path to one of caring and loving our island Earth. Love, he agrees with his colleague, is not an option.
“It is a way of life for Hawai’ians. We are all part of the same Ohana—one large family”
Many indigenous islanders throughout Polynesia have a similar ‘Aloha’ (loving/welcoming) attitude to their own Pacific home. And equally want to share the love with others—native & newcomers alike.
Hokulea will be in Polynesia from March to December 2024 and then make its way to New Zealand, Melanesia, and the West Pacific. With a voyage of 43,000 miles and visits to 345 ports in the bag, it will start the homeward journey.
The voyage will end in Japan, at which point the Hokule’a will be shipped back to Los Angeles and then sailed home to Hawaii.
Ancestral Navigation by the Stars: Nature Prevails, Removes Fear of Unknown
Both Lassner and Thompson have had to face inevitable “modern thinkers’ fear”; constantly being asked “Well what if…” citing a list of ailments or possible world cataclysms which might endanger the voyage. These always include World War III, death by shark-bite, nuclear weapons testing on nearby islands, another pandemic, influenza on board, running out of food. The list is endless—and representative of modern society’s attitude to any new enterprise. Fear first; trust later.
All Polynesian islanders and neighbouring seafaring countries like Japan, S.Korea and Taiwan have an intimate relationship with the ocean on their doorstep—remarkably similar to Out-Islanders of the Bahamas; Jamaica & Trinidad in the Caribbean, parts of Mexico & Guatemala in Central America, and Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, Skye and Shetland. They are the first to admit that they couldn’t live without its constantly changing temperament; that it affects their lives more than some care to admit, while watching news on TV, reading a newspaper (if they can obtain one) or going to the supermarket on a shopping spree.
Not All Doom & Gloom:Some European Countries take Responsibility for Future
After shock waves from WWII subsided in early ‘sixties, certain nations—like Germany and Japan made strong anti-war alliances, joined United Nations, promoted Peace Corps or local equivalent to make amends. Even now U.S. president Biden seems unable to unthink his war mentality, and continues to send military aid in $$millions to Ukraine on pretext of ‘helping’ them defend tank manoeuvres by Russians. The White House continues to foster fear in younger generation as an excuse for not channeling similar funds to help his own poor and needy—recent hurricane & tornado victims in disastrous Deep South. He seems unaware that Russian tank force is a seriously outdated repurposed squad of ex-WWII disused equipment which even Ukrainians laugh off. They accept U.S. aid nonetheless. Who wouldn’t?
French Frigate Shoals, above, is part of group of outlying islands in the Hawai’ian island chain (NWHI). Formed by remnant atolls around a submerged (extinct) volcano, the reef system associated with French Frigate Shoals supports the greatest variety of coral species in NWHI with forty one species of stony corals documented.
A steep-sided basalt pinnacle juts out of the water in the middle of the atoll. This is the last remnant of the original prehistoric volcano. The pinnacle was named “La Pérouse Pinnacle” after Compte de la Pérouse, who visited the atoll in 1786. In the moonlight the pinnacle so resembled a full-rigged sailing ship that it lured more than one vessel to her doom on the Shoals.
While there is still a U.S. military presence in the form of a runway atop immediate neighbor Tern Island, (formerly used as a refuelling stop en route to Midway Island, see top far right 1942 Pacific Nuclear bomb dropped by Enola Gay), the Shoals are an international refuge for Pacific Green Turtle, who lay their eggs in exposed dug-outs, above rt. while sun-basking, fishing, or travelling to mainland Hawai’i, but are devoted parents who return once the offspring hatch. The string of islets also provide refuge for the largest sub-population of endangered Hawai’ian monk seals and preservation of this atoll is critical to their survival.
Local temperatures never fall much below 79ºF in the islands, and so Hawai’ian Pacific activity continues at a frantic level, year-round. Meanwhile, there are many heroic deeds happening on shores of the ‘other’ Ocean, where temperatures are still slow to rise.
Holland aka Netherlands, severely strapped by Nazi domination in WWII, has blossomed in peace-time and is now second-largest #sustainable world nation to grow and export (organic) food. Their tulip fields are legendary; but so now are their organic farms, fed & powered by near-90% solar & wind-power energy, with distribution capability second to none-a Euro-bloc icon of sustainability.
Another-tiny-country known for sustainability is Morocco. 100% oil-dependent at the turn of the Century, now 23 years later 43% alternative.
Back in the Pacific, coastal Costa Rica is recovering from its previous bad habits.
The Central American nation had cut down over half of its forests last century. Now, with reforestation grants, and a lot of encouragement, they have restored over half the country’s trees. And their youngsters are enthused, involved in the new jungle.
Japan—while paying attention to its global impact on other nations after changing from a warlike nation to a peaceful one, is now known for slowing everything down in its overpopulated country. Whilst continuing to welcome newcomers who want to learn its ancient customs, traffic lanes have been diverted, pedestrians given right of way. Large slowing-down water boat and candlelight festivals are promoted. And all done with grace—with respect for their elders who kept traditions going, but emphasis on showing the young how to emulate such gentle cultural elegance in dress, tradition, food and other ceremonies. Japanese kimono & other costumes, tea ceremony, porcelain kiln & outdoor firing have been raised to a new level to allow the young to appreciate thousands of years of tradition. It goes without saying that Sumo Wrestling continues to play a big part in cultural exchange.
Quietly, when nobody was looking, the Pacific Diesel Company in Maui, HI began growing sunflowers on its 200-acre farm in 1998. Now, 25 years later it has opened fuel stations dockside in Honolulu and Maui to provide processed biodiesel for motorboats, biodiesel-capable cars. It recycles used oil from various outlets.
A separate purification system manufactures cooking oil for local restaurants. Mainland support was quick to fund the enterprise, as PDC, Hawai’i was first of its kind in the United States.
The company will feature in Earth Day celebrations April 22, 2023 throughout the Hawai’ian islands.
With a Little Help from His Friends…
We all extend our sincerest good wishes Bon Voyage/ Gute Reise & indigenous blessings to Navigator Thompson and crew. May fishing be abundant on lean days; and local pineapples, guava, coconut fruit & veg sustain them throughout their mammoth four-year pilgrimage. What a team!
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!
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.
Venus's Heliacal Rising, November 2010: her return from the Underworld
Something in between dreaming and doing
Something arching down from there to here
We are the arching
We are neither here nor there
We are the hope that lives between
The continual blooming outward and upward
of something we want
but cannot see
– Author unknown
On winter solstice this year, December 21st, the longest night in the northern hemisphere will be graced not only by a full moon but a total lunar eclipse at 8:14am GMT — 00:14am Pacific time.
It is a cosmic sign, a prelude to our annual rendezvous with Galactic Center — that dark patch in the Milky Way — when the Sun, including us, microscopic specks of energy clinging on to the plane of the ecliptic, all nine planets of our system as one, align with our Motherboard, the Creator-black-hole, call it what you will, in the middle of our Galaxy. Then, spiralling away one more time, we shall head off for another year of peripatetic searching through infinite realms of space until, two years from now, we return for that Great Meeting with Source prior to winter solstice 2012.
The Ancients always took note of appearances like this solstitial eclipse as they occurred at the cardinal points of the year (later on the same day, the Sun enters zodiac sign of Capricorn). In our 21st century world, I am not alone in thinking this heavenly sign — the apparent total annihilation of the moon’s disc — will probably go relatively unnoticed. Western minds filled with Christmas concerns, getting the car to start or catching the commute to work in snowy conditions, tend not to be looking skywards.
For the Maya, on the other hand, Mesoamerican life in the 9th century and later was an ongoing succession of cosmic appearances. They came in time cycles, each with a predictable quality. And their fascination with the night sky, like many prehistoric and classical cultures, allowed them to develop a deep knowledge of time which dwarfs our numerical western (Gregorian) system.
Time was seen as an evolution of human consciousness, split into Great Ages through which society would evolve. The Maya developed separate calendars for mathematical, ritual and functional purposes, but the great Long Count calendar which began in 3114BC and which comes full circle on winter solstice year-after-next is the one which has caught hold in our collective imagination as presaging the ‘End of Days‘.
For the Maya as well as for many other Ancients, celestial movement was at the root of astrology, theology, cosmology, history and social change. For them, the purpose of life was to understand sky rhythms that created time and to reflect in their culture the beauty and cosmic order seen in cyclical heavenly repetition.
‘It becomes clear….that the Maya always expected history to repeat itself’
Bruce Scofield, Signs of Time (1997)
Kukulkan, feathered serpent god of the Maya, Toltec and Aztec (Quetzalcoatl)
The Tzolkin, which is the oldest Mayan Calendar, repeats itself every nine months. The Long Count calendar’s 5124-year cycle with its so-callled end date of December 21, 2012 actually measures the precession of the equinoxes, the sun’s apparent motion through each of the twelve zodiac signs once in 25,920 years, but theoretically stretches to infinity. To give an idea of this precession cycle’s massive scale, it takes the Earth 72 years to move through one degree (1º/360º) of one zodiac sign.
West Acropolis of Yaxchilan (Maya: 'Green Stones') in Mexican state of Chiapas
There are carvings on the walls of a ruin at Palenque that give dates beyond AD4000. It is our modern short-sightedness that assumes, based on only one of the several Mayan calendars, that time stops at winter solstice, December 21st 2012. It is specifically this ending and new beginning chronicled in the Long Count Calendar which in New Age parlance is called the ‘dawning of the Age of Aquarius‘.
Documentation of this extremely long cycle was an amazing achievement for a culture whose belief in cycles of time had them keep astronomical records for 6000 generations, projecting forward and (20,000 years back) into a distant past. It is evident in the placement of some of their most sacred buildings that they saw purpose in heavenly movement.
Cosmology and religious icons were intimately intertwined.
While several pyramids and ballcourts at Tikal, Palenque and Chichen Itza are sited on extreme sun positions (solstices, equinoxes), the Governor’s Palace at Uxmal is precisely aligned to view the heliacal rising of Venus at its southernmost point in an 8-year cycle.
Whereas Megalithic and Egyptian complexes can sometimes be obscure or difficult to understand from our modern non-sky-viewing cultural perspective, (Newgrange and Stonehenge heelstone aligned on solstice sunrise, Aberdeenshire recumbent stone circles aligned on midwinter sunrise and midsummer moonset), the writings and hieroglyphs of the Maya are more easily understood as they can be compared easily with recent calculations of the same recorded astronomical cycles.
The ancient Maya left codices, systems of hieroglyphic recordings devised to include celestial sightings and predict events. The complexity with which these sightings and predictions are woven seamlessly into their entire culture is almost surreal.
Dresden Codex fragment, water-damaged in WWII, restored: shows Lunar series and Venus tables
One of these codices, the ‘Dresden Codex’ details an elaborate recreation of a cosmic environment which the ancient Maya believed regulated life. It contains an illuminated calendar recording observations of the planet Venus. Working with their solar Haab calendar and the separate sacred ritual Tzolkin, the Maya saw the heliacal rising of Venus, (Venus rising before the sun, visible in the east as a ‘morning star’) as a sign of resurrection of Light after Darkness, rebirth of a New Age. But its resurrection might also be seen as presaging evil, invoking wars, sparking conflict.
In Mayan mythology, the planet/goddess was inextricably linked with the sun and power of serpent god Kukulkan –his name means ‘one who emerges from the serpent-spirit’ or cosmic kundalini force. To the Maya the two bodies seemed conjoined, stand close to each other in the sky, never stray more than 47º apart.
Lamat: glyph for Venus as 'evening star'
Venus either follows the sun (when she appears as evening ‘star’, Lamat), hides behind the sun, descending into the Underworld, or reappears before the sun — her heliacal rising as a ‘morning star’, Ah-Chicum-Ek’. Seen in mythological context, their joining symbolized at times his masculine domination over female-desire-sexuality producing cultural balance, art and architectural beauty; at others (when she rides into the Underworld — below the horizon) her ability to wreak havoc on society. This warrior-goddess aspect of her femininity is not easily understood in our modern rush for ‘male’ pursuits in business, military dominion and political power. But it is this aspect of Venus which lingers in mythology and which is the natural, intuitive deep feminine of the mother consciousness which early patrilineal cultures (Hellenist Greece, Latin Rome, Judaism, pharaonic Egypt) wished to suppress. In examining the Venus cycles — particularly as they relate to upcoming 2012 date — we may be delightfully surprised to learn something ‘new’ which is very old.
According to observations made by the Maya, episodes of upheaval linked to the cyclical motion of the planet Venus play out as life-changing events.
Venus’s astronomical cycles are legendary.
Fascinated with sequences, periodicity and numbers, the Maya must have adored Venus. Not only does she disappear and reappear with amazing regularity, her luminescence is also measurable, on some clear nights actually capable of casting a shadow. They noticed that Venus travels faster round the sun than Earth, orbiting 2.6 times to Earth’s 1.6 orbits. Venus orbits the Sun 13 times in 8 years, passing between Earth and Sun 5 times until they return to that meeting point in the synodic cycle (synod = meeting place). Point of closest ‘meeting’ is called ‘inferior conjunction’, taken as the start of the cycle.
It is also when Venus cannot be seen from Earth because of the sun’s brilliance, but as she continues to orbit, not only does she appear to go into ‘retrograde’ motion — a phenomenon caused by both bodies in orbit passing each other at different speeds — but she suddenly becomes visible again at greatest brilliance. Five Venus cycles of 548 days exactly equals 8 Earth cycles of 365 days — 8 Earth years — to bring both planets back in line to synodic point. When Venus is on the opposite side of the Sun its position is called ‘superior conjunction’ and has weakest brilliance. In between Venus appears to stretch to ‘extreme elongation’ to either side of Earth. The Maya also noticed Venus’s ‘stages’ took exactly 36 days, or multiples of 36.
So, Venus reaches maximum brightness 36 days after inferior conjunction, traveling direct and in the morning sky; maximum elongation (Venus’s farthest distance from the Sun) occurs 36 days later; then at superior conjunction, 216 days after that (6 x 36 days) Venus is on the far side of the Sun and traveling at its fastest speed, about 1º15′ per day, but obscured by the Sun from Earth eyes. Thirty-six days after superior conjunction, when the Sun and Venus are about 10º zodiac degrees apart, Venus first appears in the evening sky, setting after the Sun. In evening star phase, maximum elongation happens 216 days after superior conjunction, with maximum brightness reached 36 days following maximum elongation; 36 days more bring her back to inferior conjunction (and retrograde motion). This calculable sky embrace between Venus and the Sun, their apparent duel for supremacy in brilliance, disappearing into the ‘Underworld’ and reappearance in reborn brilliance, must have delighted the Maya.
Venus's orbit and Earth's over an eight year cycle
Not only did they know every nuance of Venus’s synchronicty with Earth, but they figured that in a complete cycle of 8 years the two planets did a dance round the zodiac (and the Sun) which resembled a sacred pentagram. Some of their written motifs reflect this knowledge. It is no surprise, then, that they also knew when Venus made a double transit of the Sun, a phenomenon that occurs less than once per century.
To bring their supreme, detailed and laborious calculations into modern context, it is synchronous that in 2012, there will be two profound solar eclipses and a rare ‘transit of Venus’ on June 6th, when Venus will pass directly in front of the Sun from our Earth perspective. It forms a perfect alignment of Earth, Venus and Sun. Transits come in 8-year pairs, with the precursor to this transit seen in June 2004. Transits of Venus happen on average only twice every 121 years. The last transit of Venus occurred in 1874 and 1882, around the time of rediscovery of ancient Mayan sacred sites. The 2012 Venus transit completes the pair and the phenomenon will not recur until 2117 and 2125.
Their solar calculations are renowned, too, with a system of years split to reflect numbers 13 and 20 still used by present-day Maya and many devotees.
A prophecy is attached to each of the twenty year Katun cycles. Each cycle starts on the day of the Ancestors, Ajpu or Ahau as Ancestors are known to the Yucatec Maya. The first 20-year cycle starts with 11 Ahau.
The present cycle (see Underworlds, below) starting on a 4 Ahau date began in 1999 and completes in 2012.
The Maya thought this katun brought scarcity and the arrival of great leaders. It is also the katun of remembering knowledge and writing it down.
4 Ahau: Food scarcities. Half the katun good, half bad. The return of Kukulkan
Kukulkan, depicted in the ancient Classical period as Divine Serpent, at Maya city Yaxchilan, modern Mexico
Legend of Kukulkan, Plumed Serpent god of the Maya, shares prophecy with the Aztec legend of Quetzalcoatl, known as Feathered Serpent, god of intelligence and self-reflection.
Serpent god Kukulkan in more recent Maya tradition
In the Mayan version of the legend the king and his court had descended into weakness and debauchery. He decided to redeem himself by sailing out into the ocean alone on a flaming boat. The gods forgave him and he was reborn. He came back to the Maya on a vessel from ‘across the waters’.
This Katun prediction implies that a great hero will come from across the waters to heal the problems of the people. It was during one of the 4 Ahau time periods, between 1480 and 1500 that Christopher Columbus came to the continent of the Americas from across the waters.
Chichen Itza
Although Kukulkan was mentioned as an historical person by Maya writers of the 16th century, earlier 9th century texts at Chichen Itza do not identify him as human and instead artistic representations depict him as a Vision Serpent entwined around figures of presiding priests. Chichen Itza’s famous step pyramid, El Castillo, shows Kukulkan depicted presiding over sacrifice, but the magnificent pyramid
Serpent god seen undulating down the staircase on fall Equinox at Chichen Itza
is most famous for his serpentine ‘appearance’ via the sun, which on the equinoxes (March 21, September 23) casts a serpent shadow that descends the steps of the famous pyramid’s north side in the late afternoon before fall equinoctial sunset and ascends its serpentine undulation prior to spring equinox sunset.
The living Maya still hold ceremony to celebrate equinox.
‘As the seventh day of the Galactic Underworld is activated we will actually finally come to a point when it is time to celebrate the end to male, western and rational dominance and to create a balance between the different aspects of the human mind associated with the left and right brain halves‘
Carl Johan Calleman
He suggested that, beginning November 3-7, 2010 (‘Yellow Galactic Seed’ Tzolkin date) careful contemplation of the Shift of the Ages and an awareness of our position in affecting the way we move forward will facilitate the dawning of the last step in our evolution. Seeing all of Creation from 3114BC divided into nine ‘Underworlds’ of ever-decreasing length, Dr Calleman (and others) agree with Mayan calculation that in that week in November we emerged from the last ‘night’ of the penultimate phase –the eighth Galactic Underworld which began January 1999, consisting of a wave-cycle of six fluctuating ‘days’ and ‘nights’– and that we now stand in the seventh ‘day’ of that wave, preparing to enter the final Universal Underworld, the Ninth Wave, in February next year. That is only two months from now. In that final cycle of existence, according to the Maya — and to thousands of believers of other faiths around the world — we are capable of manifesting ‘one thousand years of peace and harmony’ on our shared planet.
On that weekend of Yellow Galactic Seed in November — coincidentally when Venus’s heliacal rising returned her to our skies as an ‘morning star’, the leaders of nations representing East and West on Earth held separate but spiritually-cohesive celebrations and ceremonies to invoke peace on earth and a joining of minds. In the West, Don Alejandro Oxlaj, 13th Generation Quiche Mayan High Priest — ‘Wandering Wolf’ — and Buddhist spiritual leader of the Orient, Seiyu Kiriyama, joined their flocks in mutual meditation, flooding the airwaves and ethers with positive affirmation. Calleman saw this not only as the meeting of West and East but a mingling of the feminine, intuitive right-brain half of humanity with the masculine, rational left-brain side.
Unity Consciousness. Our ‘Awakening’.
New Age philosophy and astrology support a path to ascension required of its vision-keepers, lightworkers (through meditation and right living) as a process of uniting these two conflicting polarities, emphasizing the need to bring harmony to the male-female yin-yang, left and right brain hemispheres which must operate before the Earth may return to a balanced state of wholeness and oneness.
As a small postscript, or just to keep us on our toes, Mayan Elder Don Alejandro has suggested that shortly after the solar system’s 2012 re-alignment with Galactic Center — when our sun and all planets are conjunct the dark ridge in the middle of our Galaxy, the Milky Way —
Earth will “pass inside the center of a magnetic axis and that it may be darkened with a great cloud for 60 to 70 hours”
Don Alejandro Oxlaj
To some Mayan scholars, in a continuing calendar the doom-and-gloom scenario is far more likely to play itself out, not in 2012, but around the year 2032.
Several other events are in the lineup for 2012:
May 4 partial lunar eclipse off Mexico
May 14 1st standstill Venus during retrograde loop
May 20 annular eclipse of Sun
June 6 transit of Venus (above) and Inferior Conjunction
November 13 2012 total solar eclipse in which sun and moon align with head of the Serpent (constellation Serpens)
November 18 Solar system conjunct dark ridge Galactic Center
Nov 28 partial (penumbral) lunar eclipse
We know our future is in our own hands. This is seen by believers with faith in Man’s ability to transcend his inglorious past as positive, glorious rebirth, awakening, resurrection of our soul, our apotheosis, potential to become one with the gods. The opposite is also true –especially if we continue to contribute to the misuse of energy, pollute and dissipate earthly gifts.
As we know, cycles exist to show choices in the Path: overall the future is golden. Venus’s malevolence may only be a wayshower to direct us away from a mistaken ‘Way’. The future, in the form of the Ninth Wave, is upon us — all the heavenly signs say so — and it’s up to us to embrace it.
Ascension button, Whitefield Hill. Like most cropcircles, the Mandala invites us in with its energy. In focusing on the beauty, we transform ourselves
Equinox is only days away. The leaves are turning. A storm is brewing. The Earth prepares as the hinges on the door of another season swing shut. This doorway to autumn in the northern hemisphere is heralded by a whole slew of heavenly bodies lined up and waiting to shepherd us through. After all, as one door swings shut, another opens and we have little more than 800 days to go before the Calendar of the Ancients — embodied in the Tzolkin Long Count of the Maya — says we reach Transfiguration.
Is it possible, we ask, to create our own Apotheosis? are we capable of reaching out from the depths of the mire in which we have entrenched ourselves on Earth to hold hands with the Divine? become gods ourselves? All the prophesies say yes. We are told to watch the heavens for signs. So, watchers we have become.
There have been warnings: a couple of planetary tight corners — 2010’s T-squares and Full Moon in June’s Grand Cross — squeezing our world and our communal psyche into a place of no retreat.
But if you thought you were just going to puddle along over the next couple of months, couple of years, and it would all fall into place? That ‘somebody else’ had it in hand and we’d muddle through somehow? Then, there’s more thinking to be done.
Some people still question why we should even listen at all to the voice of the Ancestors: those revered traditions handed down over millennia on all continents through civilization’s records and archives and oral tradition. What did they know of 21st century life? How could they possibly help us rise from a world of racial, religious, financial and nutritional inequality — not to mention bombardment by media-manipulated fears — and become one tight-knit community, one homogeneous being? These are high concepts; tough hurdles for humankind to leap.
It’s probably for that reason that the ancestors have been hanging around lately, giving us a little more immediate help and encouragement, sending us little signs… like those in summer fields of shining corn.
All ancient wisdom declares we are not alone; that we have only to ask for help and it will come. There must have been a lot of people asking lately, because the messages have been coming in thicker and faster! 2010 season’s crop circles have proved to be our most challenging yet.
They brought us dimensions beyond those we’re accustomed to thinking in, sacred geometry and energy vortices and power places known to all previous civilizations, but somehow ‘lost’ to our own; magical light orbs and mysterious high-pitched sound accompanying the formation of a circle or even group meditative ‘requests’ for such a crop appearance. 2010 has consolidated and convinced a far-reaching cult of believers who now no longer care to look back at the world we left only yesterday.
2010 has also created — outside the crop circle sphere — a coming-together of Earth-loving communities all round the world. No longer do the meek hover unheard while business corporations haggle over responsibility for destruction. The Gulf of Mexico event took care of that. Depleting earth’s precious species and resources is neither politically correct nor tolerated. Even the Rich List themselves have taken to the waters to redress the balance.
There is indeed an awakening of the world mind — a tangible creative move to choose life over death, kindness over greed, healing over repression, and compassion over power. We just have to look carefully to find it: not on smog-ridden highways or in high-rise metal offices perhaps, but in the miraculous and ever-evolving daily life of small villages, volunteer children’s creches and around organic farmers’ market stalls.
Ric O'Barry's EarthIsland has done much to highlight humanity's vital connection with the dolphin world
Huge pressure is now being put on so-called ‘fish’ marketing interests in Japan and the Solomon Islands by dolphin and whale support groups like GreenPeace and EarthIsland, to bring to world awareness the crucial connection between Man and the Cetacean. They believe not only should the barbaric slaughter of such mammalians stop, but that this highly intelligent species might have something in their great communicative awareness to teach us humans.
American Gray Wolf returned to protected status in the Northern Rockies
In San Luis Valley in Colorado the whole community participates in an energy collective derived from solar generators which make the commuity self sufficient. It’s also home to Shaman and Sioux-Salish Elder Kiesha Crowther who founded its SRV Wildlife & Endangered Species Rescue Center which now has a strong voice within the USA on the protection of animals on the endangered list.
A flawed piece of legislation initiated during the Bush administration allowing Northern Rockies (endangered) wolves to be slaughtered wholesale, has recently been revoked, restoring the American Gray Wolf to protected status. Mother Earth is starting to smile again.
Longcount dates in 2011 and 2012
Like Kiesha Crowther, Barbara Hand Clow is a shaman, gifted teacher of the intuitive arts, an Elder of the Maya, Cherokee Record Keeper, and she shares wisdom from a wide range of researchers and Medicine People. Like one of her mentors, Swedish biologist Carl Johan Calleman, she sees the Great Underworlds of the Tzolkin calculus as a means to understanding human evolution — towards our ultimate reconnection through our intuitive senses with the Divine. Evolution rapidly nears its zenith: ascension/transcendance at our final gate. As each Age is ten times briefer than its predecessor, time appears to speed up, learning accelerates, human beings evolve at an unprecedented rate. Both she and Calleman place enormous importance on the August 1987 Harmonic Convergence whose spectacular planetary alignments presaged the final 25 years of the Tzolkin Count. We entered the Sixth Night of the Galactic Wave Cycle on 09/09/09 and will emerge from it on November 2nd this year.
Extreme pressure for deep change came to the surface during the cardinal T-squares of the major planets in June and August and a final flurry of this configuration commands human attention now, as we near Autumn Equinox. While the pressure may be easing, it’s not over yet. We are about to experience the final throes of the technological age of the Galactic Underworld when Day Seven opens November 2nd 2010 —Yellow Galactic Seed — and it becomes apparent that nothing will stop the rollercoaster of change now spinning ordinary life out of control. Fall Equinox requires our trust and belief that there is cosmic Design behind such change.
She suggests that time acceleration is occurring and that we have already begun to feel a quickening of the energy around us.
‘You’ve been recreating yourself since 1999 when the Galactic Underworld opened,’ she says, ‘and now you are ready to become a Cosmic Being on Earth.’
Both believe we shall reach this ultimate goal in consciousness a year early — on October 28th 2011, to be exact. That’s only 405 days from now.
Heavenly bodies are appearing in our skies which seem to confirm the ancient prediction of nine ‘appearances’ or energies which accompany the End Times. The first of these — the dramatic return of sacred serpent god Quetzalcoatl — happened at the final moment of ceremony as 40,000 people welcomed spring equinox 1989 at Chichen Itza. At the exact instant of sunset and full moonrise, asteroid 1989-A zoomed over the crowd and plunged into the ocean off the Yucatan peninsula. Astronomers were unprepared for the happening, but the Maya were not!
Now we begin to see further signs — the light spiral over Tromsø, Norway last December during the Obama Nobel Peace Prize presentation may be another. The heavens have their own way of sigaling changes in energy, influence and human events.
Immanuel Velikovsky, in his posthumously published (1982) book Mankind in Amnesia, wrote that mankind has suppressed memories of cosmic catastrophes, Noah’s flood, possibly even the extinction of the dinosaurs: essentially we were wounded in our separation from Source. And until we clear our ‘injury’ and heal ourselves, we are doomed to play out with wars, genocides and mass murders much like a mental patient plays out suppressed rape or abuse trauma with anti-social behavior.
Calleman believes western concept of time cannot accommodate the phenomenon of evolution or creation. That our linear (Gregorian) view sees time as an endless repetition of cycles with no beginning and no end. With such limited perspective, humanity seems not to be going anywhere, life has little purpose. He sees the consequences of such an attitude in the environmental rape of our planet. The Tzolkin itself is a pattern for the unfolding of creative energy rather than a numerical calendar.
‘I believe through study and use of the Tun-based calendrical system [of the Maya] we may develop an awareness of consciousness, a meta-consciousness, which will allow us to understand factors underlying the evolution of our spiritual process and evolution of the universe.’
Kiesha Crowther believes Enlightenment comes as we express love in word and deed; rejoin in oneness with Nature. And to evolve to the next level, our species must reach enlightenment. Calleman, Clow and Crowther all agree it is time to end our separation from Nature.
Chart for Equinox
This is the chart for NOW. In five days, at midnight on equinox (September 22/23, 2010), the Sun will stand at the top of the chart at cusp Virgo/0ºLibra with the full Moon moving to stand directly opposite at 0ºAries: Grand Cross elements resurface
The fall equinox chart is potent with symbolism. First, and most powerful, the 0º00 Libra Sun squares Pluto in Capricorn at 0º41. A Sun-Pluto square packs punch. The full moon phase at this dying of the year — our climaxes and harvest — with Pluto in the mix — gives potential for destruction, disintegration, elimination on the world stage. While Pluto’s destructive power is for good — symbolic death leading to rebirth — this destruction opens the door to regeneration and transformation. Power play between patriarchal rule (Pluto in Capricorn) and the people, and between masculine and feminine archetypes everywhere will be noticeable.
This is powerful stuff. We reap what we sow, so anything sown that smells of corruption, power/over, power/under dynamics can and will come to light in this cycle!
A significant aspect in the chart is Mercury conjunct Saturn in Virgo — only 33 minutes apart. Actual conjunction occurs earlier that day at 2:08am, so at equinoctial point it is very potent. Mercury symbolizes the conscious mind and has just moved from retrograde (where action is internal, introverted and intuitive) to direct. In Virgo, one of the two signs Mercury rules, his review process covers the territory of self-mastery, service, and mind/body connection.
Saturn's stunning south pole aurora; the giant planet itself glows red, while the rings reflect blue sunlight, courtesy NASA's Cassini orbiter
And because Saturn and Mercury are conjunct, Father Time, Lord of Karma and the celestial messenger act to bring into our consciousness all the tools we need to solidify, restructure, ground us and birth this new awareness into reality. Pluto also turned direct on September 13th. Its influence now has great strength.
This Full Moon in Aries with Sun in last degree of Virgo signals the beginning of the final phase of our emergence into Nature. With Neptune holding us in divine embrace in Aquarius, this lunation is the seed that plants us as vessels of cosmic light, in a spiritual alchemy.
This alchemical seed bears wild fruit during the Aries Full Moon on September 23, a few hours after the moment of Equinox, when the Full Moon stands conjunct Jupiter and Uranus in Aries opposite the Sun and Saturn in Libra, while T-squaring Pluto in Capricorn! The Full Moon actually detonates the T-square. These aspects will germinate our species into the Cosmos. Pluto is powerful and the god of the Underworld will, in the words of astrologer Robert Wilkinson show us how to use the polarities of Will and Love, Mind and Heart, in an alternating manner to achieve a form of mastery.
‘If we can confront what needs to be uncaged, we can find an enormous power and wisdom which our inner Elder can teach our inner Child.’
Shaman Kiesha Crowther in her own beautiful Nature-connected way — while accepting that the end of the Mayan Calendar looms — agrees that it’s more about each person moving back into proportional relationship with Nature and our role as EarthKeepers.
‘Specifically, how do the people of Mother Earth join together their hearts and minds to create a change?
‘The answer lies with each and every one of us doing our part, with our own hearts, moving forward as individuals in our own abilities — to grow our hearts larger and love and live with kindness and consciousness.
‘When we live from our hearts our consciousness grows and we become the true loving beings we are meant to be.
‘We all have an ability to share our love with others and to gather our friends and family together to meditate, to pray, to learn how to run energy, how to listen and feel what Mother Earth is saying and feeling.
‘The council is asking us to share what we know from our hearts and be the best we can be as loving human beings — this is what will change our realities.
‘Go inside yourself and live and love and remember what a great being you really are and that Mother Earth is alive and loves you, and that whatever you do to her you do to yourselves.’
Little Grandmother‘s message is one of love and enlightenment and a belief that we can all do this together. There are no structures to set up, no teachers guiding others, no hierarchy. The Tribe of Many Colors is not an organization. Rather it embodies a group of people with a single goal: to live from the heart and to love our Mother Earth and each other. Her Tribe of Many Colors can change the world.
In the summer of 2010 Kiesha Crowther visited Scandinavia where she embedded a special crystal to anchor earth’s electromagnetic grid. She and the Elders have been re-energizing the Earth Grid by placing crystals at strategic Power points where Earth’s electromagnetic energy focuses.
‘The Tribe of Many Colors has been prophesied to come for a very long time and now the time is upon us. All we need to do is to go to Nature, to the Source, and fill ourselves up with that tremendous love that is out there for us, just as we are. It does not matter if you are ever recognized by the world for what you are doing—you are a divine spark, the Great I AM, here to kindle your light, recognize the brilliance that you are, just as you are.’
Inkeeping with this sentiment, but within a complex array of symbolism that unites light, sound, the Golden Mean spiral and quantum physics, Clow explains in her Alchemy of the Nine Dimensions (2004) the phenomenon we call crop circles is advancing in complexity as we as a species advance. She calls the energy — ‘great tubes of light’ — which creates formations ‘benign’, but one which keeps us on our toes, keeps us learning, stays always just one step ahead of us.
‘Since the same geometry can easily be seen in shells and in skeletons, no one should be surprised. The visibility of these tubes of light and the numerous spirals in crop circles are analogs to the visibility of spirals in nature. Materialization occurs by the spin or motion of spirals, and the crop circles are material things. Once the great force is drawn down to Earth, tubes of light imprint a crop circle where it enters a plane — the field crop — where 2D interfaces with the curvature of the surface. The actual circle is made in seconds. Scientists are penetrating the deeper mysteries of the Golden Mean these days, as the Circlemakers are constructing ever-more complex expressions of it.’
At its simplest level of perception, this crop circle says: 'communication'
The story of our awakening to Galactic Mind is complex and is perhaps best understood by studying crop circles b
but it may be a warning that communications we take for granted are about to be disrupted by the Sun
ecause the symbols appear to integrate many worlds, many Ages of Man, many cultures.
One might ask, since so much emphasis is placed on End Times fixed by the Tzolkin calendar, why are crop circles not appearing in Mexico?
Clow answers that, too. Shockingly, she says ‘the central vortex of patriarchal ignorance is located in England, while the Mexican people already know what is coming.’
On a geomantic level, Wessex — that great chalk aquifer of Salisbury Plain — is one of the largest on earth. It has a very low magnetic field and is therefore the world’s best conductor of electricity. In an electromagnetic dimension, it was ideal for constructing stone circles (whose great neolithic rock-crystals still stand embedded in the earth) and it is therefore perfect for weaving electrical current in waves of grain.
We are being fine-tuned for our return to Source. And the Ancestors are shouting encouragement from the grandstand. Perhaps it’s time to speed up the activation process ourselves: to tune ourselves in to the Great Spirit with conscious intent. For this, Blossom Goodchild, who channels instruction from the Federation of Light, has this to say:
Royal Throne and coronation chair in the Palace of Westminster, London
Imagine yourself sitting in a large ornate chair with armrests. Visualise yourself firmly within this ‘throne’. Feel comfortable. Any anxiety you may experience is simply the heart’s preparation for what’s to come.
Imagine that on the armrests where your hands are placed are metallic finger plates for each digit of each hand. Lay your fingertips gently on the activation plates.
Resume position. You feel these plates are magnetised to energy points within your fingers and at the back of your neck. You can feel the tingling. As you watch, you see we are adding plates down through the back of the chair, aligning with your chakras. Yet you only see four, evenly spaced. This is correct.
You are being activated. You are tuning into the power of the Cosmos.
Blossom Goodchild’s Instruction from the Lightbeings
Equinox can be used as a trigger, but however you want to do it, now would be a good time to start. Rather than pressing the channel button on your television set, how about activating the ascension button instead?
Galactic Cross or Maya Sacred Tree, the point where the Milky Way meets the Ecliptic
The ecliptic is the path travelled by the sun, moon, and planets through the sky.
Twelve constellations lie along the ecliptic, their symbols used by generations of world civilizations, both as night-time guidance by sextant and, in astrology, to predict character traits and the future.
In both astronomical and astrological terminology, the sun passes through all twelve constellations or zodiac signs on the ecliptic during the course of one year. The path of the ecliptic can be seen to cross over the Milky Way at a 60 degree angle near the constellation Sagittarius. Where this happens, it forms a cross with the Milky Way, and this cosmic cross – also known as the ‘crossroads’ – was called the Sacred Tree by the ancient Maya.
It has names in other cultures, too: most famous among them is that of the Norse, where it was called the World Tree, or Yggdrasil.
The Milky Way with its Dark Rift seen at a 60º angle to the Earth
In Britain, with almost no summer night sky to speak of, The Milky Way is usually thought of as a winter night sky spectacle. From our perspective on Earth it is the wide highway of stars arching through the sky, especially clear in northern winter. In the cloudless skies of ancient Mesoamerica, however, it could be seen after dark at almost any time of year, because tropical dusk happens quickly and almost invariably year-round at 6p.m.. So the Milky Way was (and is) a phenomenon of wonder to behold in Mexico and Central America. There this spectacular freeway of stars interspersed with blotchy areas of starless clouds can be seen along the entire length of the Milky Way. These ‘dark cloud’ formations are caused by interstellar dust. The most prominent of these is in astronomy called the ‘dark-rift’ or ‘Great Cleft’ of the Milky Way. It looks like a dark road running through the galaxy, pointing towards the centre or cosmic crossing point where the ecliptic bisects the Milky Way, near the constellation Sagittarius, or, according to the Maya, the fulcrum of the Maya Sacred Tree.
The center of this cosmic cross, at a point where the ecliptic crosses the Milky Way, is coincidentally the precise centre of our Galaxy, a nebulous area of the Universe where stars are born and our own cosmic womb, from which we, as stardust emerged. This Galactic centre is exactly where the December solstitial sun will stand at noon on December 21st, 2012. This alignment occurs only once every 25,800 years.
The Maya called this dark-rift the Black Road, or the Road to the Underworld. They seem to have imagined it as a portal to another world, and their prediction that the December solstice sun would re-enter its ‘birth canal’ in 2012 now appears to be fairly accurate. This special time, in Maya numbers, occurs at the end of one Great Cycle or 13 baktuns: the date 13.0.0.0, from an origin in 3114 B.C. Each baktun numbers 144,000 days and 13 baktuns equals 1,872,000 days since the beginning of Creation.
Oldest civilizations like Assyrian, Persian, Egyptian and Greek culture all saw the movement of the stars within a context of time, rather than space. This is a direct connection to ancient knowledge of the movement of the stars along the band of the ecliptic in a contrary direction to that of the zodiac. The earth was seen as laid through the ecliptic passing through the celestial equator at an angle of 23.5º which divided the zodiac into two halves: the ‘dry land’ northern half of the zodiac reaching from vernal to autumnal equinox; the other half representing the ‘waters below’ the equinoctial plane, or the southern arc of the zodiac stretching from autumn equinox, via the winter solstice, to vernal equinox. These mythological concepts dealt with Man’s measure of time, rather than quantifiable space.
And over time ancient wisdom noticed that the equinoctial points, as well as the solstices, appear to move backwards through the constellations every 2,200 years, thus marking a phenomenon called the Precession of the Equinoxes. In Classical mythology, this movement of the heavens was thought to be the cause for the rise and fall of civilizations and Ages of Man. Each Age was named for an astrological sign and a time when in astronomical terms a particular constellation in the heavens appeared to rise at dawn on equinox.
So as precession made its inexorable journey through time and the heavens, Man and civilization generally moved from the Age of Taurus (the Judaic era of the Golden Calf) through Aries (which Moses heralded on descent from Mount Sinai as ‘two-horned’) or the start of the new Age of the Ram; into Pisces, the Age of Christianity whose symbol was the fish; and now, from February 14th this year, the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.
The Ouroboros or cosmic serpent eating its own tail
The Greeks saw the Milky Way as the Ouroborus or Serpent of Light residing in the heavens and, when viewed at Galactic Central point near Sagittarius, this serpent appears to eat its own tail.
Crop circle July 2008 depicting serpent eating its own tail
A crop circle which appeared on July 27, 2008 gave an earthly rendition of the Ouroborus, seen by both classical and Mayan scholars as symbolic of the winter solstice date of 2012 when the sun will appear to rise out of the mouth of the Ouroborus or the dark rift at the centre of the galaxy where the World Tree, the Sacred Tree of the Maya, the Sanskrit Sampo and the Norse Yggdrasil all meet.
While Mythology has stood the test of time in many world cultures, it may be a surprise to learn that science has also discovered a new twist to the old tale/tail.
For generations our acceptance that we are part of the Milky Way galaxy was unquestioned; yet this pathway in the heavens appears to rise from our earthly horizon at a 60º slant: odd if we are one sun within its great spiral of stars. It now emerges that the Solar System belongs to another galaxy which is currently colliding with the Milky Way.
This fact was discovered when astrophysicists recently pursued investigations into the existence of ‘dark matter’ to account for fluctuations in energy which are measurable but invisible. By using infrared wavelengths of light below eye and optical telescope visibility, they detected the presence of a huge sister galaxy circling the Milky Way and colliding with it at – you guessed it – its point of centre near Sagittarius. It’s called the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy, or SGR. And its collision may be the source of a huge gravitational pull which influences the 11-year solar coronal mass or sunspot cycle.
So, we really are stardust, colliding with our nearest neighbour, returning to the stars from which we came. And world mythology from our greatest civilizations, like crop circle designs from the cosmic consciousness, were trying to tell us this all along.
View from the Stars: whichever way you look at it, we are present in Sidereal time, Space is our growth medium, and stardust and water our constituent particles. When electromagnetically charged, our solar-powered circuitry is capable of Creating Anything We Choose.
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