New Beginnings: 2012 Hinges open Doorway to Consciousness

CONSCIOUSNESS: Great Gatherer toward Ascension

Princeton’s Global Consciousness Project recorded 12/12/12

The Great Cycle of the Maya has been sliding quietly shut. December 21st, 2012, foretold as long ago as 3114BC to be a cosmic door closing on ‘historic’ humanity, was said within the Maya themselves to herald the threshold of a new form of Man: the revealing of the knowledge of the Ancestors, or ‘return of ancient wisdom’, and the ‘gathering together of tribes’.

The Great Long Count Calendar of the Maya is not the only calendar to herald this moment, but it is certainly the most evocative and topical headline-hitter of all ancient calendars which come to a finale at this crucial crossroads in time. Similar sacred systems studied by early priesthoods [5000+BC] in both old and new world religions from the Assyrian ‘fertile crescent’ to the Siberian steppes, based their supreme knowledge and annual information of secret wisdom ‘given by’ the stars. It was common in all cultures, held sacred, and its ongoing calculation was handed down as sacrosanct.

Seen from the perspective of the NewAge self-awareness movement, many such ancient prophecies would appear to allude to man’s growth in spiritual knowledge, practice and frequency.

So when group meditations started happening worldwide on 12/12/12, the resulting reverberation, measured on the University of Princeton’s Global Consciousness Project, passed any previous measurement on their global consciousness scale which registers world consciousness fluctuations as a dot-graph chart.

This result has astounded Princeton Noosphere Project monitors; but contributing to this event has been a decade’s worth of mega-growth in world computer function/distribution, ensuring that more people now have access to a ‘network’ [television or computer] during December 2012 than ever before in human history.

This special solstice 12/21/12-end cycle event has had a larger [eastern] audience too, as the last full moon of the year occurs tomorrow, December 28th, see astro chart below for its potent Cancerian influences.

And this extended portal, related in consciousness to the thoughts we have continued throughout the year on this blog, comes now at a time when remarkably, the human race may just be ready for it. Certainly questions about human potential, personal growth, creating alternate realities are on many lips.

What has been surprising is the number of young people who had heard of the Maya Cycle Close, had listened to but not necessarily believed the associated doomsayer apocalypse scenario; because they themselves genuinely believed in the less-broadcast-more internet-wide alternative for hope-for-humanity.

We are saddened that our supposedly intelligent media should invade their youthful peripheral world, scoop up and serve vampires, blood-and-gore, fireballs at the end of a comet tail, in order to create a massive fear plot.

… and what a let-down to find no axis-reversal, no polar shift; but instead a wondersome star-show as spectacular as the December Geminid meteor shower and a stunning night sky full of anciently-grinding- and wheeling stars, galaxies, planets and satellites predicted by ancestral calculation and all draped in divine splendour of a black winter sky, for our delectation.

Hope for 2013 and the New Cycle
Instead of succumbing to a stupor of virtual/screen terror, or a mock-millennium-bug-rave-till-the-grave, many have found personal reason to use this season to go within. There has been in internet circles as well as sacred centers round the world an emphasis on attaining newfound knowledge, newdreamt dreams; remembering our connections instead of our separateness.

Much of the new consciousness is simple: a child could do it. That’s what all the ancient texts say ‘with the eyes of a child… you will but see…’ ‘…and a child shall lead them…’

The first hinge of the Great Doorway of Consciousness has opened. Mankind steps tentatively forward, knowing intuitively how to proceed but still not sure if it can really be true: that love is the answer; that we are all brothers and sisters. Then, seeing others do the same, our steps become bolder. By letting go fear of ‘others’, we find more ‘like’ minds/spirits gathering round, coming into our lives.

Astrological chart, courtesy Christina Adolphsson, full moon in Cancer December 28th, 2012

Several million people worldwide met together in consciousness during the twenty-four-hour standing-still of this particular solstice 2012, in order to pull in the stillness through meditation: and another estimated million will continue a Vedic tradition in celebrating the full moon tomorrow. These groups consist not only of Central and South American, indigenous North American, Inuit and Aleutian/Alaskan heritage; along with thousands of southern hemisphere celebrants in Vedic ceremonies of the Indian subcontinent alongside private sun- and moon-worship celebrations on Bondi Beach. More significantly, in the heavily-populated northern hemisphere, hundreds of thousands of non-denominational spiritual groups internationally combined their loving intent, pooling spiritual resources for world peace and loving brotherhood.

Flower of Life: at root of all growth from cell to consciousness

Meditation ceremonies for December solstice, Christmas, full moon and year-end [Hogmanay] will continue in many cases through New Year, according to private calendars-timing-invitation. These ceremonies include but are not limited to events associated with established spiritual communities worldwide [e.g. Esalen, CA, Scotland’s Findhorn Foundation, Jean Hudon’s (Canadian) Planetary Light Network; Drunvalo Melchizedek’s ongoing Hawaiian, New Mexican and Central American ‘flower-of-life’ mer-ka-ba visualization for Ascension [his advice on a possible “earth-shift” in an electromagnetic sense can be read here]; the Meeting of the Thirteen Grandmothers in Arizona; and even more prolific, thanks to the internet: another uncountable number of individual workshop/meditation initiatives continue to be conducted online, courtesy of Keisha Crowther, Gregg Braden, Caroline Myss, Baba Ram Dass, Humanity Healing Network, Eckhart Tolle, and David Wilcock; with other proactive media influences [like Daniel Pinchbeck, Evolver and Reality Sandwich continue to encourage from the sidelines…
with assistance from sacred L.A group events e.g. Dee Wallace, Sandra Bullock, Brad Pitt environmental foundations.

From the perspective of the great serpent-hole at the center of the [Milky Way] spiral arm, the Earth is a precious planet. Teeming with millions of intelligent lifeforms, all potential cells of its supreme guidance system holding the planet in orbit as it passes through the gate. Its species are equipped with every last form of technology, spiritual, dimensional, physical and material: all the tools and toys of the imagination to play with and a perfect planet to perform on. And Mother Universe stands back for a few billion years [remember, time and space are relative, so this is an arbitrary number] and allows the species to have free choice.

Well, the Universe has left us to our devices now for something like five thousand years, give or take a Maya-contrived Baktun or two. And our consciousness has begun to hone itself: Ascension is a word on more lips now in 2012 than in, say, the post-war Eisenhower-era (where more common words might have been ‘duplex’, ‘superhighway’ and ‘warloan’).

And if not Ascension, then almost everyone [reading this blog] has spoken of or contemplated raising their own consciousness.

Where there is a meeting of consciousness, particularly with a a communal intent, a goal in view, Group Mind creeps in, allowing right-hemisphere/female-related sensations which the body knows intimately, like intuition, emotions, feelings, to take over.

During 2012 throughout the world, with so many spiritual groups holding conferences, earth-festivals, sacred ceremonials, to celebrate this exceptional milestone of time in our combined earth culture, it has become bigger than merely marking year Twelve-Twelve Gregorian; Hebrew year-5773; Maya 13.0.0.0.0.

“Where two or more are gathered in My Name”
New Testament, King James edition

If teenagers can feel it; it’s there, on the tip of our tongue, that indescribably elusive taste of freedom-creation-possibility; if the Occupy Movement was last year’s phenomenon in the ongoing cycle of change to bring human interaction back to the human level [rather than being ‘managed’ by its current soul-less bureaucratic one]; then Ascension is this year’s preoccupation, its golden meadow of opportunity.

If we don’t see it right off, does that mean that the consciousness-the meadow-isn’t there? or does our habit of expecting media-manipulated answers to be delivered on a screen overshadow our deep desire and conviction that the great cluster of global consciousness is finally on the move.

We are not the people who were born into this world six, five, four, three decades ago. Not only has our skin, muscle tone, brain function but every cell changed, regrouped and rebirthed. Our consciousness, too, however much we doubt, has altered.

Some of those early movers and shakers have entered another dimension, leaving a few of us to carry the torch. Others, among the early ‘believers/NewAgers have sadly lapsed into the retirement-relapse-ageshock-memorylane comfort zone of never again having to confront ideas of Ascension. Still powering on, though, there are the original NewAge believers, encouraged as each decade passed and another generation joined them to swell their numbers quietly.

Now the long-awaited and much-foretold EndDays are manifesting one by one, hour by hour, minute by minute, and we are being asked as each precious moment of it passes, or as each new thought, new emotion arises, if we are worthy; if we have done enough in this life to merit the honor of still being alive as this time of flowering for us humans begins.

Drunvalo Melchizedek’s spent two years in a solitary cabin in isolated surroundings, attaining a personal state of peace, openness and belief. His description of a personal ‘shift’, a St-Paul on the Road to Damascus moment, Ascension-in-action have been likened to experiences documented by all indigenous shamanic practice. The Leary-Alpert-McKenna team’s 1990s research has never been outclassed as a source of information on the natural ‘alpha’ theta-wave condition. This enhanced state of awareness is one sought by all meditative practitioners from Zen to Tibetan to Sedona to Laos. Independent gurus give the same advice. Allowing the left hemisphere to relax and the right to come through; intuition, awareness of gratitude, feelings over logic, calming the voice of the ego into a submissive role.

Ken Carey was also drawn to spend several seasons in isolated conditions, growing his own food and opening himself to belief that what he needed would be provided for him.

Both emerged from their experiences professing the first step in wrapping oneself in this new blanket of love is silence, and faith that it will go on surrounding us.

As Mayan 13.0.0.0.0/Gregorian 21-December-2012 slips quietly to a close and the stars and planets of the firmament wheel once more out of the central axis of the Milky Way’s Dark Rift and begin again a whole new charting through unventured regions of the Galaxy, we raise our heads humbly to such a magnificent canopy and at the very least wonder how we came to be so blessed to be here at this time, at this change of consciousness.

Because, however tentative and faltering our baby-steps, they are indeed steps we are making, with unfathomably loving spiritual help [call them Angels, Archangels, guides, God, Great Spirit, Jah, JVH or Aunt Maud-channelled-in-heaven] to become our more-loving selves; and as we feel more proficient at our new openness, more brotherly can be felt towards each other and miracles can be projected and start to happen: in energetic and spiritual terms our imagination-creativity-self-field (a pure extension of our self), is made more ‘real’ every time we re-emphasize a loving solution over a non-caring one.

Perhaps no great revelation or white light appeared on solstice 2012; no fiercely threatening alien form of a ‘dark star’ in the Nibiru mold crashed through the heliosheath and stood breathing lethal gas into earth orbit.

But, as Carey said in his latest work
‘when all else are looking the other way, God’s work will be done’.

Shift of the Ages
It probably takes a prescient kind of mind to know just exactly when one went/goes through the shift, if such one does/did, or whether we are among those privileged to live in these times of unique growth for the experience of sensing human psyche-consciousnes-groupmind.

I believe we are indeed the ones chosen to be here for this shift in consciousness-dimension-level of understanding of a Greater Spirit to guide us unerringly through these uncharted waters… we have to let go of the oars, believe we are in good/godly hands, and allow the energies, the aegis of the new to direct and guide us. After all, in a brand new dimension, all directions are valid; and we have pointers to show us the way, if we only watch and listen.

It may be some months before we shall look back on these final moments of December 2012 and be able to say truly: ‘I was there then when the shift…’ or ‘I had a feeling in my bones…’ it may be February before we will feel a change in the air, new birdsong, but, let us believe our star-nurtured electromagnetically-magical circuitry is capable of more than we currently see; more like the gods the Ancients believed were directing our path.

I believe the Ancestors knew of which they spoke when they called this moment the Shift of the Ages. While we may be slower on the uptake than the Masters, I think we mortals made it through the portal and that great dreams are ahead for us, with help from our loved ones, new friends and old, virtual and in the flesh, and that those who continue to help “bring through” the “new reality” will grow in strength and numbers.
©2012 Siderealview

Lifting the Veil: Humanity at the Gate: Solstice 2012

Santiaguito volcano, Guatemala, September equinox 2012; Earth stirred in transition from summer to autumn

Serpentine Mind disentangles from branches of confusion uncoils its knowledge to greet the dawn and sees In the growing light
Great Colored, feathered wings
That grew unnoticed in its sleep
Understanding perfectly
In a single rush of joy
It flies above the ancient promises
Beyond where the forest lies to the Sea
The open sea
As rings around the Morning Star
Light corridors through the air
Kukulkan

During classic harvest time, a crop circle appeared on new moon August 17th/18th, predicting thirty-six days stretching from then until autumn equinox, September 22nd; and coincidentally twenty days backwards to Lammas and the Avebury masterpiece, more below.

According to some Maya present-day research, Equinox is the famed day for witnessing the serpent of light creep down its light staircase at Chichen Itza. Equinox ceremonies there are attracting increasing numbers each year on that day, and it added to the excitement this year that seven “triangles of shadow and light” appeared on the northern staircase. The August crop circles appeared to reinforce this appearace of Kukulcan.

Today, one hundred days farther on, the full moon in Gemini/Sagittarius—plus a partial lunar eclipse——may be closing one door——the end of an astronomical sky show and spectacle which the Heavens have been giving us all year—

2012 Astromical Highlights
May 4 Partial lunar eclipse, off Mexico
May 14 First 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

—or a preparation for what is —more energetically— to come.

We are told by all Cultures that moments of experiencing the “Shift” are individual: that we will be taken by the Light, know if it is meant for us, that it matches our own inner right-ness, intent, and it will allow us to move on down the new path. Our spiritual senses are being honed. It is thrilling to believe the crop circles—particularly later in the 2012 seson—are showing us a kind of starmap of consciousness: in the essential original meaning of the Maya calculation of time: they appear to be more a calendar to consciousness.

Sadly, out there in television land there is a war being waged to capture our attention “in fear” and to distract us from what is happening in our inner-spiritual world.

Avebury forecast solstice dawn to precision limits; photo M.Etchepare

Human consciousness is rapidly transitioning to a new state, a new intensity of awareness that will manifest as a different understanding, a transformed realization, of time and space and self.
Daniel Pinchbeck

Several years ago Michael Glickman suggested some crop circles were representative calendars or ‘maps of time’. A square within a circle in 1997, itself made up of twenty-six rows of 30 squares, the total number of squares coinciding with the number of weeks remaining from its appearance date until the end of 2012. Glickman and Pinchbeck both believe that the focus on the end of this year too marks a dimensional shift and the purpose of crop circles is to key us in to this change, and to give us clues as to how this shift in dimension will manifest itself in our world.

Thankfully, help from the crop circles has only continued to manifest and inspire us—with the magnificent series of serpent formations all summer, and the Avebury culmination, commented on in so much detail by astronomer Miguel Etchepare.

More sigificant than the development of language…
We are all aware that there is a Shift going on. In physical terms, it has taken some by storm; continents have upheaved, hurricanes have raged; and the December portal beckons.

Ken Carey writes:

The great day of purification has begun—a short but essential division that will gather those who promote fear and volence and separate them from from this Season of the World like chaff is separated from wheat at binding.
During these next two and one half decades [written in 1988] humankind will experience this separation, a transformation in human consciousness more fundamental than the development of language, more significant than the shift to agriculture, more meaningful than any historical revolution.

The dawn approaches.

What if they are all right?

Returning to Galactic Birth Canal
There has been such a plethora of celestial events, from Mars lander, to Voyager breaking through the heliosheath, to Venus transit, and potent crop circle reflections in autumn fields have echoed events, even after the crop crowd had closed down group hopes and expectations for the year.

Venus's Heliacal Rising, November 2011, her return from the Underworld presaged solstic dawn 2012

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

The Etchepare series of videos is important to view—especially for budding astronomers or those less aware of the movement of the skies. On the Maya count, above, November 13th’s total solar eclipse brought the sun and moon to co-align with head of the Serpent (Serpens caput); while last week on November 18th, the Solar System became conjunct with the dark ridge of Galactic Center. Please read various back up blogs on Venusian cycles, significance of Galactic Center, the Maya Sacred Tree.

Each year we spin in and out of this Dark Rift: it is a cosmic sign of our balance in the system, 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, aligned again with our Motherboard-birth canal, the Creator-energy-vortex, on November 18th in the middle of our Galaxy. The portal is still open—our consciousness is being assisted before the sun spirals away one more time, and we shall head off for another year of peripatetic searching through infinite realms of space.

What is significant about Etchepare’s starmap—interpreted solely from his inspired reading of the Lammas Avebury crop circle, above, is that by associating each planet as it rises ahead of the sun just before dawn on solstice, December 21st, 2012, not only do the planets—led by Saturn, Mars, Venus guide the solar rays ahead like a plough or cosmic train of starlight and planetary bodies—along the line of the Ophiuchus’ [Serpent-bearer] arms, holding both ends of the Serpent—Serpens:caput, head, above November 13th led by Spica and the edge of constellation Virgo; pulling serpens cauda (serpent tail) after him.

But … when all these miracles have been witnessed all over the planet —various earth views are given, making it easier to understand the sky program from any earth location, including Antarctica—the dawn sun … rises from the very mouth of the Galactic Rift.

For the Maya to calculate so far in advance of their own time and to see this train of heavenly bridal veil enticing the light to re-emerge from its birth-hole—was indeed unprecedented. It is still difficult for some to comprehend such detailed knowledge of the heavens so vastly ahead in time. However, their predictions for solstice are phenomenal—to an exact celestial degree: Saturn joins Spica/Virgo to ensnare Ophiuchus, who, wrestling forever with the head and tail of the Serpent, drags—alongside Venus and Mars—the reluctant Sun at the exact moment of dawn from his cosmic birth cavity at Galactic Center to be reborn for a new cycle.

Indeed a spectacle worth keeping predictive records of witness for over three thousand years. And we are the civilization alive to witness it.

In the eyes of the Ancestors, we are the ones we have been waiting for. We need to get our heads round this soon: and … before solstice would be good.

Above all, group consciousness, or combined intuition is clearly the way to perceive what is happening to us.

For those perhaps not willing to take another [spiritual] leap, the earth will continue in her beautiful bounty, I do believe; but I also believe there is an added dimension out there—not just because the crop circles have succeeded in describing “portals” in detail; but because all the ancient calendars can’t be wrong.
©2012 Siderealview

One Thousand Days from Equinox

Galactic Butterfly: Mayan symbol for all Consciousness that ever existed in our Galaxy

On 09:09:09, September 9th, 2009 our Gregorian calendar coincided with the ancient sacred Tzolkin Calendar of the Maya at the beginning of a new count cycle of 260 days which had the energy called Hun Imix or alternately, 1 Alligator. It was a prelude to our initiation into the last of Nine sacred Levels of Existence, according to their reckoning of Man’s evolution through time and space.

On November 7th, 2009 we entered the sixth Night of the Galactic Wave cycle of the Maya, from which we will emerge almost a year to the day on November 2, 2010 (Yellow Galactic Seed). We as a species are heading towards the last of Nine Underworlds which started with the Beginning of Creation and whose eighth phase, the Galactic Underworld in which we find ourselves now, began on January 5th, 1999.

Nine Underworlds of the Maya, superimposed on the Great Pyramid of Tikal

We shall enter the final Mayan Underworld, the Universal Underworld, on February 10th, 2011. It is the shortest in duration and lasts only 100 days. That cycle comes to an end on October 28th, 2011, by which time we shall all have reached our full spiritual capability as co-creators with the divine spark within us and, if we choose, start to manifest in our lives ‘one thousand years of peace and harmony’.

It is almost an afterthought that the Calendar of the Maya continues until its climax at the end of their 13 Baktun Great Cycle on December 21, 2012.

On that date of winter solstice our Milky Way galaxy, and we on Earth orbiting the Sun, will come into that rare alignment with the Galactic Equator that happens only once in 26,000 years.

Give or take a couple of days in our modern calendar count, as of this equinox weekend, we have one thousand days to go in the Time Spiral until winter solstice 2012.

It’s not the end of the World. It’s just the beginning.

Galactic Wave Cycles of Night and Day, courtesy Carl Johann Calleman, PhD

According to born-again Maya researcher and self-professed sacred geometer, Ian Xel Lungold, who died prematurely in November 2005, the calendar of the Maya is a ‘portal to intuition.’ And because their civilization valued for over 3000 years the natural cycles and worked with a sensitivity to organic relationship with the Earth, he is convinced their calendar was a kind of roadmap to Creation’s ‘intention’ for us, her children.

One day, in trying to figure the recurring pattern within the Calendar of numbers 13 and 20 – or Creation’s Fibonacci sequence of one third and two thirds – he made an intuitive connection. ‘There was no logical reason for me to make this intuitive leap, but when I did, a deep connection was made to something that I believe we are all attempting to understand: there is a pattern running through Creation—a hologram—and understanding how we each create within this pattern from outside it, is our key to ultimate freedom.’

Recently, Gregg Braden discovered within ancient (Old World) texts a ‘code’ replicated inside our own DNA. Dr Johann Calleman has studied texts from (New World) Tikal and Tortuguero which announce the appearance of nine deities or divine ‘energies’ who will come at the End of Time. Robert Sitler, a lifetime student of Maya mythology and culture believes the end of time – according to Maya texts – will manifest ‘the quetzal (green bird) comes; He of the Yellow Tree comes; blood-vomit comes.’

Lungold believes it’s not going to be as bad as it’s painted. That we are given through number and ‘cosmic forces’ a blueprint for our own ascension – which might happen well before that end-date.

He describes each of us as a ‘shaman’ who, as we develop our own intuitive capabilities, shall ‘feel and understand the field of Creation and be able to alter the mechanics of it using our heart and inner guidance.’

He was never one to see the ‘doom and gloom’ of 2012, as have, for example, media, threatened businesses and bureaucracies, politicians with a vested interest in dumbing down rather than allowing others to reach for their dreams.

Lungold studied other societies, gathered wisdom as he went and shared his blessings.

He liked the advice the Hopi give:

[1] know where your food and water comes from; and
[2] know all your relatives.

He did advise having caution in the last wave of ‘Nights’ before the ending of a Cycle, because Fifth and Sixth Nights of previous Cycles have been fraught with wars and cultural clashes. WWI and WWII and the Dark Ages occurred during such Nights.

His focus, however, is on the Light: that in this last and briefest of all worldly Ages, ‘the coming trial for humanity will be less severe’, because overall we’re beginning to learn new ways and he sees things getting better.

Paying attention and having intention will be key factors. If you can’t imagine a dream, envisage a future for yourself, then you have no future. When you’re centered in your intuition and following your guidance, Lungold suggests, you’re actuallly creating your own future.

We all know how, when we are absorbed, lost, in doing something we love – a walk in the spring sunshine, creating a painting or tapestry, planting a shrub in a new position, playing make-believe with a beloved child – that magical things happen. With mental censor diverted, our inner child, our Creator, has free rein. ‘Instant manifestation’ is the New Age term for being so much in the ‘Now’ that there is no space to think; kindness to strangers, treating others as we ourselves wish to be treated, going with the flow will, according to Lungold, become the norm.

And, because everybody’s doing it, and Unity Consciousness increases and proliferates, there manifests a transformation of consciousness in humanity and in all our lives.

Medical science confirms the whole brain lights up and every cell is activated when we reach this point of bliss. Athletes and sportsmen call it ‘the Zone’, musicians the ‘spook’, the beingness or ‘no-mind’ found during meditation. It’s set to become an everyday occurrence for all of us – or, for those few who remain in denial or cannot face the concept of a world without anger, frustration, money-worries, debt or intrigue – translation to another plane of existence. It’s rather like the idea in our grandparents’ heyday when a child was taught to be good so he could ‘go to heaven’.

Now we don’t have to wait: heaven’s gate is on our doorstep.

Following December's Light Spiral over Norway, a spiral Aurora in March 2010

It’s not just a matter of belief for a few inspired Maya experts. The signs are in crop circles, they appear in the heavens: exactly as foretold in all the ancient texts.

Civilization has always used a calendar as its kingpin: time and consciousness revolve around it: The Tzolkin Calendar of the Maya was based on the same six-Nights-seven-Days cycle of wisdom which the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia imparted to the Judaic creators of Genesis. It is the same Arc of Evolution which began in this Galaxy 16.4 billion years ago.

It seems a fitting calculation, a comforting closure, in our world of chaos – in these present End Times – that that incredible arc will reach its zenith in one thousand days.