Reaching for Sunbeams: Unity Consciousness in the Ninth Wave

Quetzalcoatl headdress crop circle July 2009 Silbury Hill, Wiltshire. Kukulcan's return foretold

José Argüelles–proponent of the living spirit of the Maya as seen through their Calendar of Consciousness — died on March 23, 2011 (2 Imix). Among his contemporaries and in his community, his ‘transitioning’ to a higher dimension–just as the culmination of the Calendar of the Maya is glimpsed on the horizon–was considered a surprise, a tragedy. He was one of the few indigenous Americans who could make sense of the multiple calendar calculations of his ancestral Maya, putting their Tzolkin (260-days), their Long Count and their fiscal Haab into words that many could understand. He was honored in March 2002 as Valum Votan, ‘Closer of the Cycle’ by Mayan Nine Indigenous Elders atop the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan. There they awarded him the elders’ ceremonial staff for his efforts in helping to awake humanity to the meaning of 2012. He was co-founder of Earth Day (former Arbor Day) and instigated the first Whole Earth Festival in California in 1970.

‘Everything is perfect. Love Everyone. Hate No-one’ José Argüelles’ words as he left this dimension. His final book Manifesto for the Noosphere is being released by Evolver/North Atlantic Books

Argüelles’ first book, The Mayan Factor: Path beyond Technology (1987) was a breath of fresh air to believers in many countries who in the year of its publication congregated at his instigation to celebrate the Harmonic Convergence of August 16-17. It was the first gathering in modern times on Earth for a large convocation of all nations joining together to pray, meditate, give thanks and commune with the ancestral spirits.

Harmonic Convergence happened at a point in sidereal time when a majority of planets of the solar system converged in the sky and in calculable time 25 years before the Mayan Great Cycle Calendar end-date of winter solstice 2012. Sixteen years after that convergence, another galactic (planetary alignment) event occurred in 2003, known as the Harmonic Concordance, when an estimated one million people gathered worldwide to celebrate another level to which a growing consciousness movement on the planet had aspired–and reached–Unity Consciousness. In November 2010 a third convocation occurred between East and West where an estimated 10 million took part.

According to several western Mayan scholars, the 1987 date marked global synchronization for those kin souls on the planet prepared to shift into global awareness suited to the final years of their revered ancestors’ calendrical calculation: a human society whose consciousness was making ready to leap into a higher dimension, where we will manifest ‘one thousand years of peace and harmony’ on our planet.

‘Indigenous people work with calendars to predict times of revelation, so they can watch for the symbols that can reawaken their cellular memory and remake the human bridge to the subtle worlds….’ Barbara H Clow

Along with her mentor and colleague, Dr Carl J Calleman, Barbara Clow is a Mayan scholar and also an accomplished astrologer. According to their calculations, the Earth, along with all who are ready for Mankind’s quantum leap in consciousness, moved into the last Mayan phase–the Ninth Wave or Universal Underworld–on March 9th this year, one month ago. The event was signaled by a massive series of earthquakes on the Pacific rim. This shocking occurrence has had the desired effect of bringing much of the world together in compassion, although it still seems almost inconceivable that we as a whole-earth society have only one year from now (the Ninth Wave) in which to ‘get our house in order’ for the leap up the dimensional ladder into our evolved higher (light-being) selves.

But Unity Consciousness has a finely-tuned harmonic scale which our DNA and our evolving, light-enhanced cells may find hard to resist.

And we have help.

2010 higher dimensional objects in 2D in Wiltshire fields

Judging by increasing complexity we have witnessed in crop circle designs of recent years, the 2011 season (England–imminent) *(see first report in Wales here)* will more than outdo its predecessors. From around 1998 on, 2D graphics seen in Wiltshire and Oxfordshire fields (as viewed from above) have progressively demonstrated the quantum reality of showing higher dimensional figures (3D, 4D, 5D) as if in shadow, or in their two-dimensional, (simpler), form.

Astrophysicist Carl Sagan once explained that the only way we–in 3D– can visualize a 4D object is to imagine an extra dimension at right angles to the ones we know as familiar. Or see its shadow counterpart.

Crop designs in 2010 were particularly adept at showing higher dimensional objects in their lower dimensional (geometric) shadow guise.

It is as if we are being given consciousness clues to help us maintain our level of intent to accomplish the next leap in faith.

Crop circle art is no longer seen as marginal, an outdated hoax, a manmade joke. The concept of humankind’s own higher self–its own unified field of psychic understanding projecting a message back down to the 2D receptors of its own learning (lower self) population–begins to make a degree of sense.

Like imagining a dimension at right angles to the ones we already know, we just have to get our heads around the concept.

Crop Circles–the Cosmic Post-it Note

Aldbourne 'vortex' crop circle, July 2006

Crop circles are like post-it notes left by our already-elevated consciousness in a time-warp created by our future self and stuck on a prominent noticeboard before it left the building: for us to come along and read in this dimension, so we know we’re still headed in the right direction. Or, if you prefer it, picture a shadow of what is to come. However you do it, it will take both hemispheres of the brain to work in unison to get the projection right! And there are many poised worldwide to integrate the lessons of the 2011 season into their awareness.

The Astrological Aspect
Many of us have a fascination for planetary clustering in current astrological charts. In progressed charts, astrologers can detect heavenly indicators which are actively guiding the human race in present time –making it a make-or-break choice for many. Last spring and summer were dominated by a Grand Cross configuration: conflicts all around. This spring marks global change.

New Moon/Sun & Mercury, Jupiter, Mars/Uranus in Aries opposite Saturn in Libra: April 4th 2011

Following this month’s potent new moon-Sun-Jupiter conjunction on April 4th-5th and a Mars-Uranus conjuction (rash, impulsive unexpected change) in the same sign (Aries), Ms Clow says ‘people will feel like racehorses at the gate, ready to charge when the gun cracks… If you race for your true heart’s desire, chances are the people around you will be focusing on theirs as well; there’s no need to smash into each other. Our reality is now a fully-activated holographic fractal field, so when you choose your highest good and place it in your heart, what you’re doing doesn’t (negatively) affect others. But it would be very smart to stay out of any conflicts that are going on around you–especially the ones you don’t really care about.’

One further prediction in archival material maintained by the Maya is that nine deities or forces will appear at the End of Time. The Codices left by the Maya envisage the return of Kukulcan–Aztec Quetzalcoatl. He is mesoamerican serpent god-of-the-sun and consort of Venus.

In the West, the appearance of nine energies in the End Times has been interpreted widely as equivalent to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in Western biblical tradition: war, pestilence, famine and death. Dr Calleman, however, thinks otherwise.

“I believe that behind these cosmic forces, whose times of activation are described by the Mayan calendar, is an intelligent plan for the history of humanity that comes from a higher source and has a benevolent intention.”

He sees them as synchronicities or numeric coincidences: 9:9:9; 10:10:10; 11:11:11 and, of course, 12:12:12 are only four such numerological events.

Others have seen the ‘appearances’ of light orbs associated with the creation of crop circles, the Norway spiral and the revelations now being released by US government sources on UFOs as such ‘appearances’.

These nine cosmic forces are influencing and governing our collective consciousness and so we have every reason to pay attention to what is going on in this cosmic time plan–
Carl Calleman

He is convinced the numerology of nines is particularly relevant to this, the Ninth–and final–Wave, leading us to planetary and societal ‘completion’. He encourages ‘community building, networking and spiritual synchronization’. He envisages a rapid expansion of consciousness in our Final Days, where much is accomplished in a very short time–the Tzolkin 260 day time-count. He says the Ninth Wave is designed (by intelligent Source) in the Cosmos to accomplish a new earth-wide and earth-nurturing consciousness: unity consciousness with all life. That we need to prepare for this–individually and together.

And that in approaching the birth of a new world with conscious intention, we will join with others of like mind and intent. Naturally, says Calleman, it is a matter of choice.

Let us hope that not only is he a true visionary, but that he is right.

For those who choose to join in collective intention for the co-creation of a new world, all miracles are possible.

‘… and for those who love…’ Moody Blues, 1970
©2011 Marian Youngblood

11:II:11 Navigating the Vortex: our Quantum Leap

Vortex, maelström, whirlpool: Nature's basic mechanism for transporting mass and energy effectively

“Nature seems to be a Book written in the Language of Mathematics” Galileo (1564-1642)

As communicators, we bloggers may sometimes feel we have been speaking but the words are not coming from inside our bodies. The words have been coming from somewhere else…

“For several months, we have been moving forward and are being released in small increments. We are in the birth canal –the tunnel– and in that space it is near impossible to ‘see’ anything. We feel we are not connected to anything. Alone in the tunnel, we have been traveling on a raft with no wind behind us, no oars and in still waters, with no-one to left or right. But now we are moving forward and this new movement is creating the strange feeling of being in two places at once.” Karen Bishop Emerging Earth Angels

Lightworker Karen Bishop suggests that the sensation of being lost, disconnected and alone will pass as humanity moves through this intermediary stage and into the great mass awakening to follow. This new sensation of bliss and purpose comes as soon as we “are enmeshed in our new spaces in a higher dimension.”

Schrödinger's Cat: quantum uncertainty principle (1935) reduced to the absurd

Higher dimensions, Alternate Reality, parallel Universes; the quantum paradox of ‘many worlds’: an unending conundrum of being in two places at the same time. Particle physicists pursuing the ‘God’ particle, Higgs-Boson, endlessly around circular underground tunnels on two continents. What do these concepts have in common?

Uncertainty principle: math simplifies quantum reality

Higher dimensions –or alternate ones– are presently the preoccupation of particle physicists, quantum cosmologists and proponents of the holographic universe in our search for the meaning of Reality. Physics, cosmology and mathematics are crossing the boundaries between science and philosophy.

New Age lightworkers are becoming more assured and vocal in their prediction of a mass awakening in human consciousness. And it looks as if science is beginning to agree.

Max Tegmark, astrophysicist, cosmologist and professor in the physics faculty at MIT in Cambridge, Mass likes the idea of parallel universes: the quantum mechanics (QM) paradox of a particle’s ability to be in two places at the same time. He sees mathematics as our ultimate connection to reality. “Math is not something we invented, but something we are continually rediscovering.”

“We now have equations that describe how light behaves, how gravity behaves, how atoms behave. We can express the speed of light in mathematical terms. It is beautiful. In math we capture the essence of a very complicated Universe out there.”

“What if we were to see the Universe not as an entity that exists inside space and time, but that space and time exist inside it?” Max Tegmark, Prof. of Physics, MIT

Anton Zeilinger, author of Dance of the Photons 2005, translated into German as Einsteins Spuk, ‘Einstein’s Spook’ or ‘Ghost’, has a different view. He currently heads a team at the University of Vienna who have ‘teleported’ light photons 600 meters under the river Danube. He and his Austrian team of photon-busters have proved (in their ‘double-slit’ particle experiment) a basic quantum theory that we change the nature of reality simply by observing it.

“(Quantum Theory of Reality) is exciting, it is extremely precise, it is mathematically beautiful; and it describes everything. It just doesn’t make sense.” Anton Zeilinger

Quantum cosmologist, Leonard Susskind, professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University since 1979, says the beauty of math’s connection to reality is its simplicity. It becomes easier to describe reality with mathematics. “As you probe deeper, mathematics becomes the ONLY reality.”

But in sounding the depths of the cosmos, he uncovered many unanswered questions, e.g., the popular assignment of black holes as the bad guys of the Universe. He and Stephen Hawking discussed the black hole theory in 1988 when Hawking first published his Brief History of Time. “It changed my life.”

” I believed he was wrong. I spent the next 20 years working through the evidence to prove lt.”

Hawking suggested black holes were places in the cosmos which swallowed everything. Nothing escapes after it has breached the rim — event horizon — of a black hole. All light, matter, energy, information is sucked in by its (theoretical) huge gravitational pull and is lost. Nothing comes back out.

“Hawking had to be wrong. I refused to believe everything could disappear. We can’t allow information to be ‘lost’. Instead, how about if the horizon of a back hole is 3D like a hologram capturing 3D reality of everything that falls into it?”

In 1993 he and his graduate students announced their holographic principle of the Universe: that if all reality were indeed a hologram — a 3D model of everything captured as an image of our reality — maybe black holes were images of events taking place very far away: back in time; that our reality is a projection of a holographic record stored at the outer reaches of the Universe. The team became bold. They called a consortium of the world’s top physicists to a conference at Stanford in November 2009 and Susskind invited Stephen Hawking to speak. By then, Hawking was talking about ‘sideways’ or lateral time. But he was interested in Susskind’s holographic theory. And Susskind’s team was about to put it to the test.

“He didn’t get it. You don’t get it. Nobody gets it. But we may be about to prove that the whole of creation is a hologram.”

If the Stanford team is right, their model brings quantum cosmology, the ‘Many Worlds’ interpretation and New Age spiritualism into the same arena: We are what we believe, what we think and how we see our own Reality.

Or even more spiritual in concept, that Susskind’s ‘something stored at the outer reaches of the Universe’ might be the Intelligent Being/Source from whom mystics and devotees seek enlightenment.

Does this mean that the Cosmos is coming full circle?

We are having an intelligent conversation with the Universe.

The Universe may be providing its own answer to the question.

The Sun and solar system gravitate each year to and from Galactic center (of the Milky Way), coming closest in mid-December. It is a point on the ecliptic roughly in the constellation of Sagittarius from which (in the view of many esoteric disciplines and world religions) we emerged in the dark recesses at the beginning of time. In the view of some (physicists, cosmologists) Galactic Center is a black hole. To others (esoteric/New Age science), it is the source of a massive emission of photons, beaming information towards us, a ‘photon belt’ affecting Earth and human DNA. And we are circling in an irrevocable spiral back towards the point where on December 21, 2012 Earth’s orbit in the Solar System, the Sun’s position on the ecliptic and the center of our Galaxy will line up as one.

We may reach this galactic vortex unscathed. In the mythology of the Maya, this is Hunab Ku, our galactic heart; a sign that the Mayan Long Count Calendar is complete and that Mankind will start a new Count of Time.

In world mythology, earth was ground out from the mill of the Vortex, the great Maelström, the cosmic whirlpool. And so, in the eyes of the Maya at least, we are returning to that vortex, that pool of creation.

According to some Mayan scholars, we entered the last Underworld (phase of human evolutionary Consciousness), the Universal Underworld yesterday.

In the eyes of Karen Bishop and other New Age lightworkers who have been working tirelessly to prepare for the ‘Shift’ (in human consciousness), the runup to our rendezvous with the heart of our Galaxy is a sign of our Ascension, ‘coming home’, maturing as a species. To the fearful, solstice 2012 could mean chaos, collapse of Earth systems, erratic solar and stellar behavior; even a physical shift in earth’s poles.

The Sun, our partner up there in the immediate galactic neighborhood, has indeed been leading us a dance lately. Solar activity is on the increase.

Tiny solar burst crop circle in rice at Magelang, Java January 29th, 2011

We are currently headed for solar maximum, but it’s not sunspots –traditionally seen as the barometer for solar minima and maxima— that have featured, but strong warnings of solar flares disturbing our geomagnetic field.

NOAA’s solar X-ray alert system [view sidebar at right] has been signaling ‘major storm’, ‘active’. Twin crop circles* in Java in late January were followed by a third small design reminiscent of last season’s Wiltshire solar flare warnings.

Spaceweather alert.

And last weekend the Sun itself joined the 3D holographic universe.

Last Sunday, dubbed Superbowl SUNday by NASA and the media, February 6th 2011 marked the day when the space agency’s twin STEREO satellites locked into orbit round the sun and started projecting 3D pictures of both sides of the sun back to Earth.

Affectionately known as STEREOAhead and STEREOBehind, the craft were launched in 2006 on a mission to study solar flares [coronal mass ejections, CMEs] to predict solar storms headed towards earth. The two craft reached their final position [in ‘opposition’ to each other, 180ºdegrees apart] so NASA, SOHO, and SDA are now combined to beam a wholistic continuous view of the sun back to earthbound systems.

“We expect great advances in theoretical solar physics and space weather forecasting.”

Heliophiles are jumping for joy. The 3D stereo images arrived just in time to document new coronal holes forming on the sun’s far side, which are heading to face towards us.

STEREO went into orbit round the SUN last Superbowl SUNday

STEREO is an acronym for Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory. The two satellites now join forces with SOHO [NASA’s Solar & Heliospheric Observatory] which has carried the load of solar projections to date.

“In the past an active sunspot could emerge on the far side of the sun completely hidden from Earth. Then, the sun’s rotation would turn that region towards our planet, spitting flares and clouds of plasma, with little warning.”

Now, in the runup to solar maximum, 2012, these first 3D stereo images bring into focus our need to prepare for possible solar disruption to the geomagnetic field and earth’s electromagnetically-powered systems.

Coronal Holes, imaged from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory

Coronal holes on the sun’s surface are the source of open magnetic field lines from which high-speed solar wind particles stream out into space. This fast solar wind travels at approximately 800 km/s [about 1.8 million mph].

When this surge reaches Earth’s magnetosphere, predictably three or four days later, some spectacular fireworks can occur. Usually the spaceweather team tries not to alarm earth populations more than they really have to. So electromagnetic disruptions to power supplies and weather systems are downplayed. Aurora borealis –northern lights– are emphasized instead.

UV image of same solar holes: coronal flares heading earthwards

“After traveling through space for a few days the particles will impact the Earth and may spark the formation of some auroral activity for lucky spectators” NASA

In NASA’s study ‘of the nature of coronal mass ejections’ the agency is not responsible for reporting on physical repercussions strong emissions [M-class flares] may have on communications, logistical and transportation systems. There are three categories of flares, X-class, M-class and C-class. C-class flares are small, with few noticeable consequences in the geomagnetic field. M-class flares are medium-sized, capable of causing brief radio blackouts, affecting Earth’s polar regions. Minor radiation storms sometimes follow an M-class flare. The largest, X-class, flares are ‘Superstorms’, major events that can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms. Earth’s last major Superstorm blackout was the Carrington Event of 1859 when telegraph systems behaved erratically. But at the time the electric light had not yet been invented. **

150 years later our systems are massively dependent on NOT having magnetic surges play havoc with our electrical supply. Not to mention our telephone, television, cells, blackberries, macBooks, iPods, iPads… you get the picture.

So, is our Universe shaking its quantum hologram fist in our faces and saying ‘shape up or else…’? [In that context, we, reflections of the Intelligent Source, may be setting ourselves the test to see if we are ‘intelligent’/evolved enough to pass it].

Maelström, vortex of the Norwegian Sea

Or, is the vortex going to win? Is the black hole going to pull us in? Are we navigating the cosmic whirlpool alone with no-one to save us from drowning?

Mythology and spiritual belief predict Mankind has enough presence of mind to make a quantum leap in consciousness, to save itself. History says it’s never too late to start anew. Native American and Maya traditions say now is a good time.

I hope we’re listening.

©2011 Marian Youngblood

*more on the January Java crop circles here.
**Two days after this blog was posted, the Sun issued a “Valentine’s Day” X-class flare. There have been several large flares since then, along with some disturbing volcanic eruptions. Siderealview apologies for any suggestive content within this blog. No harm was intended.
MY 03/10/11

Galactic Underworld and Venus Rising

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.

At autumn equinox this year Carl Johan Calleman called for a convergence to prepare ourselves for Unity Consciousness, our renewal as a species.

‘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.

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.