The 2012 Story

100,000 people throng around the Pyramid of Kukulcan. I could wear a top hat and be the ringleader of the 2012 circus, a cosmogenesis carnival replete with requisite freaks and fantasias.

No one should be on center stage! Any expectation of me personally is antithetical to the ego- transcendence that I believe is a central idea in the 2012 spiritual teaching. I may be the ultimate party pooper when I explain that I’ve never seen the specific day as having any predetermined or inherent significance for those who are around to experience it, apart from its being an authentic calendrical artifact. And having to be somewhere at a specific time in order to experience eternity—I don’t know, it seems as counterproductive as consumerism has been to Christmas. The last thing I’d want to deal with is an event the Seven Macaws of mass media could have their way with.

Perhaps it is better to say where I don’t want to be. The scenario I’d like to avoid is thousands of seekers descending, Harmonic Convergence-style, on Maya sites that shall remain nameless. The postparty cleanup and repair that a tug-of-war between anarchist apocalyptarians and ascension acolytes would entail is too much to contemplate. The violations of local laws, confrontations with misunderstanding officials, and the bad mojo generated with local populations are not things that party planners are likely to anticipate or even care about. These are real concerns. It could be the biggest crazy party you ever wished that you never went to. Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll are probably not going to be applicable as a hoped-for salvation. If they are, then 2012 really will be a time-travel portal, as some have suggested. Many might be expecting to party like it’s 1967, even if they weren’t yet alive in that “summer of love.”

It should be clear by now that no one should be future projecting to December 21, 2012, waiting around for “the thing to happen.” To plan a gala affair on that date is the least productive behavior I could imagine, but it is bound to happen. So, what can we expect? Well, we can expect the typical media exposes, crass condemnation by clueless commentators, and throwing the entire 2012 baby out with the bathwater. The mere presence of the all- seeing eye of Big Brother would likely bring about a buzz-kill, and the Eschaton, the transcendental object at the end of time, could decide to remain in hiding. Even good intentions have a built-in catch-22. If we focus all our collective conscious energy on having an ego-transcending mind-orgy of blissed-out oneness on December 21, 2012, we are likely to catalyze the opposite collective shadow—a lunatic with a dirty bomb who will also be counting down the days, seeking to keep Seven Macaw in power.

Something new and surprising may nevertheless emerge. Let’s remember that emergence is attended by a sense of emergency, and this is a hallmark of spiritual awakening. We may even call it a crisis, a crossroads, a collective crucifixion as we ride the wave of earth’s apotheosis, awakening to the sacredness of the living sanctuary that our ancestors simply called “home.”

Whenever a profound experience of change is about to take place, its harbinger is the motif of death. This is not particularly mysterious, since it is the limited view and appraisal of oneself that must be outgrown or transformed, and to accomplish transformation the self-image must dissolve.²

Clearly, the pathway through to the other side is to embrace death rather than fight it. This was the beautiful and profound message of Darren Aronofsky’s movie The Fountain, which deftly wove Maya themes together with this perennial teaching: Eternity cannot be found by living forever; it is found only when death is embraced. This is what was meant in the movie by Izzi Creo’s mysterious refrain: “Finish it.” The specter of death does not have to breed fear; it invites, rather, a meditation on mortality and a fuller appreciation for life. The paradox of this advice is well known to spiritual guides who facilitate the rebirth passage for people in crisis. The advice applies to 2012, which is the screen upon which the urgent fear of world cataclysm is being projected. The psychodrama of personal dissolution is a microcosm of larger portents.

Psychologist John Weir Perry observed the process: “In times of acute and rapid culture change, visionaries undergo the shattering experience of seeing the world dissolve into a chaos and time whirl back to its beginnings… dissolution of the world image is the harbinger of change. Expressions of cultural reform are explicit.”³ The crisis of change is throbbing with urgency; we feel the impending juncture of something awesome and profound on the horizon, but when, when, when? Death or birth? Both processes are utterly and completely interwoven, and if you embrace their hieros gamos, or sacred marriage, your passage to a new reality is ensured. Yes, an old world fades, but a new one appears. Here we see how the term “apocalypse” is best understood in its original etymological sense: it means “unveiling.” What is unveiled, or revealed? The dang an sich, the thing-in-itself, that which is, was, and will always be: Reality.

^{The 13 numbers and 20 day-signs in a mandala. Drawing by the author}

Individual renewal and world renewal must happen in concert. Both share the same representative image: the mandala—the image of center, source, wholeness, oneness. To the extent that the world image is a projected dream of the inner psyche, the burden of successful world renewal lies with the individual. We decide, and we make it or break it. We may prefer to sit around, “waiting for 2012 to happen,” and avoid the responsibility for being the change that needs to happen, but that completely misses the point. If we don’t do it before the 2012 party, it will be waiting for us afterward.

And now the rope of time runs out unweaving the wrongs
Till nothing’s left but loosening strings and without doubt all the things
Dissolve into the sea of songs⁴

—John Major Jenkins

APPENDIX ONE GLOSSARY OF TERMS

1 Ahau. The Sacred Day of Venus. Occurs every 104 haab (26 days less than 104 years) when the cycles of Venus, the tzolkin, and the haab coordinate on a Venus morning star rising.

4 Ahau. The day in the 260-day tzolkin calendar that coordinates with both the zero day and the completion day of the 13-Baktun cycle.

Ahau. One of the 20 day-signs in the 260-day tzolkin calendar. Has multiple meanings, including “solar lord” and “blowgunner.”

Anagogical. Perceiving or accepting that symbols have a higher or larger reference to other sets of meanings, beyond a literal and specific denotative meaning. The etymology of the term means “upward-leading.”

Anagogue. A neologism derived from the term anagogical (see entry). By analogy with the relationship between pedagogical and pedagogue, an anagogue is a person who teaches or believes in the anagogical interpretation of symbols.

Apocalypse. From the Greek, ‘A?????????? (Apokalypsis), meaning “lifting of the veil” or “revelation.” In modern usage it has become synonymous with a fated catastrophe.

Apocatastasis. From the Greek, meaning the restoration of the original and true conditions. Implies a doctrine of degeneration through time followed by regeneration, which may apply to the world