I don't see how anyone could deny the Japanese - certainly Oriental - features of the Olmec statue (above) known only as, "The Wrestler."
    While the Maya may have inherited their calendar from the Olmec, they certainly extended the Olmec concepts and refined them to a very sophisticated form. By Mayan mythological tradition, the deity Itzamna is credited with bringing the knowledge of the calendar system to the ancestral Maya, along with writing in general and other foundational aspects of Maya culture.
    Most important to the Maya, was the 260-day calendar, a ritual calendar with no confirmed correlation to astronomical or agricultural cycles. The second of the major calendars was one representing a 365-day period approximating the tropical year, known sometimes as the "vague year". Because it was an approximation, over time the seasons and the true tropical year gradually "wandered" with respect to this calendar, owing to the accumulation of the differences in length. There is little evidence to suggest that the Maya used any intercalary days, as we do by adding a "Leap" year (which, quite coincidentally, occurs in 2012), to bring their calendar back into alignment. However there is evidence to show Mesoamericans were aware of this gradual shifting, which they accounted for in other ways without amending the calendar itself.
    These two 260- and 365-day calendars could also be synchronized to generate the Calendar Round, a period of 18,980 days or approximately 52 years, then considered to be the length of a Human life span, which makes one strongly suspect the Maya had not gotten the news about Methuselah. The completion and observance of this Calendar Round sequence was of ritual significance to the Maya, as well as to a number of Mesoamerican cultures.
    To account for events more than 52 years away, they devised a third major calendar form, known as the Long Count, during the Classic period (c. 200–900 CE). The Long Count, that spanned a period of roughly 5,126 solar years, provided the ability to uniquely identify days over a much longer period of time, by combining a sequence of day-counts or cycles of increasing length, calculated or set from a particular date in the mythical past. The Maya believed that time - at least the current cycle of it - began (shades of Ussher and Lightfoot) in the year 3,114 BCE, and that at the end of each 5,126-year cycle, all life on Earth is destroyed and begun afresh. They also believed that this had already occurred five different times in the past.
    For those mathematically inclined, 3,114 (BCE) subtracted from 5,126, gives us - wait for it - 2012!
    But think about it for a moment - first of all, no one can know the future, it simply hasn't happened yet, and Quantum Physics has gradually awakened us to the likelihood that there are an infinite number of futures, dependent on far too many variables for anyone to foresee any particular one. We've seen that even the god of the Bible, touted as being the epitome of clairvoyance, has either not had it, failed to use it if he did, or simply made extremely poor decisions based on his inside information. We can speculate, using observable factors, that there is a high likelihood that a given event may occur, but none of us - and that includes Nostradamus - can ever really know.
    Even weather forecasters, with all of their sophisticated equipment, are reluctant to predict conditions much more than five days in advance.
    True, you could reason, as some have, that the Maya were accomplished astronomers, and that they were aware that some orbiting body - an asteroid or comet, with a given orbital cycle - would come back around in 2012, on a collision path with Earth. But consider, they had no telescopes, no way to see beyond the use of the normal Human eye. Some of them may indeed have spent a great deal of time in the pursuit of astronomy, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was good astronomy. Think about the fact that they studied round, celestial objects for two or three thousand years, and yet walked everywhere they went - it never occurred to them, after viewing circular objects for all of that time, to apply the implications of those objects to the invention of the wheel.
    Let's hear what a few people who have made it their occupations to study the field, have to say:
    "There's no real prophesy that says this is going to be the end of the world," said Christopher Powell, an archeologist who studies Mayan culture, "not from the Mayan ruins, anyway."
    Bruce Love of the Archaeological Institute of America, is quoted as saying: "Whatever the significance of the date is, it is significance we are putting on it; it's not the significance the Maya are putting on it. It's not coming from anywhere in the literature or in the Mayan hieroglyphic writing."
    Ian O'Neill, a physicist by training, has written a piece that says, "there's no evidence to suggest the Mayans believed the end of their Long Count calendar would spell doomsday."
    "I believe the Mayan calendar was based on some incredibly good astronomy," said Lawrence Joseph, author of Apocalypse 2012. "They were really good at knowing when. They weren't so good at saying what's going to happen then." Joseph said he worries about an outbreak of solar flares in December, enough to fry the world's electric grid.
    And finally, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History said, "Western messianic thought has twisted the cosmovision of ancient civilizations like the Maya." It said the Maya believed that time started and ended with regularity, with nothing apocalyptic occurring at the end.
    I can only speak for myself, but I'm ordering my party hats in advance.

    Speaking of twisting, let me share with you with a little Mayan story:
    Once upon a time, the Mayans had a god, Hunab-Ku. Hunab Ku was described as, “the supreme god.” In fact, the very name, Hunab-Ku, translates as “Sole God” or “Only God.” The name appears in the 16th century Diccionario de Motul, where “Hunab-ku” is identified as “...the only living and true god, also the greatest of the gods of the people of Yucatan." He had no form because they said that he could not be represented as he was incorporeal.
    There was only one teensy little problem - the Maya never heard of him.
    His mention in the Diccionario de Motul in the 16th century - after the invasion of the "one-god" Spanish - was the earliest mention of him anywhere. Though he also received a write-up in the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel, written after the Spanish Conquest, he is unknown in any pre-Conquest inscriptions in Maya writing.
    Hunab-Ku was closely associated with an indigenous creator god, Itzamna, and the fact that the deity is described only in a few late sources, heavily influenced by Christianity, has caused some scholars to suspect that the deity was not an actual Mayan deity but was rather invented by Franciscan friars to ease the transition from the traditional polytheist Mayan religion to strict Christian monotheism.
    Why, they wouldn't do that, would they? To those simple, trusting people? Why that would be like, like, telling Sun worshipers who celebrated the Winter Solstice's beginning of the return of the sun, that the real reason for the season was the birth of their god's kid!
    Oh wait - they did that too, didn't they?
    There were certainly a number of natural disasters in the distant past, that eradicated, at different times, 90% of all of the species on the planet, and life had to start all over, almost from scratch. It is also true that those events appear to be cyclical, and highly possible that whatever caused them, will occur again. Even if that doesn't happen, mathematical odds are very much in favor of one of the myriad asteroids and comets that orbit our sun, ultimately finding itself on a collision course with Earth, but now that Humans have entered the Space Age, there is a strong likelihood that by the time that occurs, if it occurs, we will have devised a way to prevent such a global disaster.
    I'm much more concerned with the enemy within, than the enemy without. By that, I mean that everyday, we Humans are moving this planet ever closer to a 2012-style disaster - whether it occurs in 2012 or 2025 - the approach of this planet to the point of global warming, beyond which, there is no return, no fixing it.
    I'm going to leave you with a poem, by Kenneth Ross, that I found long ago in a periodical, The Idaho Wildlife Review. I've since contacted them, in an effort to locate Mr. Ross and request permission to share his work, but they know no more than I do. I've made repeated phone calls to nearly every Ross in Idaho, without success. I'm reprinting his poem here, without Mr. Ross' permission, on the conviction that a man who could write so sensitively and insightfully, would not be the sort of person who would be angered by my sharing his very profound thoughts with you.


In the end,
There was Earth, and it was with form and beauty.
And Man dwelt upon the lands of the Earth, among the meadows and the trees, and he said,
“Let us build our dwellings in this place of beauty.”
And he built cities and covered the Earth with concrete and steel.
And the meadows were gone.
And Man said, “It is good.”

On the second day, Man looked upon the waters of the Earth.
And Man said, “Let us put our wastes into the waters,
That the dirt will be washed away.”
And Man did.
And the waters became polluted and foul in their smell.
And Man said, “It is good.”

On the third day, Man looked upon the forests of the Earth
And saw that they were beautiful.
And Man said, “Let us cut the timber for our homes and grind the wood for our use.”
And Man did.
And the lands became barren and the trees were gone.
And Man said, “It is good.”

On the fourth day, Man saw that animals were in abundance
And ran in the fields and played in the sun.
And Man said, “Let us cage these animals for our amusement and kill them for our sport.”
And Man did.
And there were no more animals on the face of the Earth.
And Man said, “It is good.”

On the fifth day, Man breathed the sweet air of the Earth.
And Man said, “Let us dispose of our wastes into the air
So the winds might blow them away.”
And Man did.
And the air became filled with the smoke and the fumes could not be blown away.
And the air became heavy with dust, and choked and burned.
And Man said, “It is good.”

On the sixth day, Man saw himself, in skins of many colors;
And speaking many tongues and languages, and Man feared.
And that which he feared, he hated.
And Man said, “Let us build great machines of war and destroy these, lest they destroy us.”
And Man built great machines, and the Earth was fired with the rage of great wars.
And Man said, “It is good.”

On the seventh day, Man rested from his labors
And the Earth was still,
For Man no longer dwelt upon the Earth.
And it was good.


    How will you spend 2012?

pax vobiscum,
archaeopteryx