Sunday January 29th, 2012 Is the end nigh?

According to the positions of the stars on the morning of the spring equinox, the earth is coming to the end of the Age of Pisces, and the Age of Aquarius is dawning. It is the position of zodiacal constellations that indicates the ‘age’ that we are in. Each age lasts something like 2,150 years. There are 12 signs of the zodiac, which makes one cosmic year about 26,000 earth years.

These ages supposedly influence human beings and civilizations. The Age of Aquarius is thought to indicate that feminine, emotional and psychic energy will supersede masculine, mental and physical energy.

Although exact dates are debated, some writers insist that the beginning of the Aquarian age will be this coming December 21, 2012, the winter solstice. Based on the Sun’s altitude above the horizon, the solstice is determined when the altitude of the sun is lowest above horizon. This is the shortest day of the year, every year. This year’s winter solstice might be a special case, however, because of its association with Mayan star-gazing.

Mayan ‘astronomer-priests’ observed the stars and were apparently able to calculate the 26,000 year ‘great cycle’. This December 21, 2012 could be the end of a ‘great cycle’ and the beginning of a new cosmic year. So, the winter solstice of 2012 is special because, apparently, it marks a rare cosmic alignment, essentially a cosmic new year’s eve.

What does this all mean? Well, if you are an astronomer-priest, it is when one world ends and another one begins. But different writers offer different theories, explanations and perspectives.

Gregg Braden, author of Fractal Time: the Secret of 2012 and a New World Age, says that the Maya predicted the end of the current world age. He states that electro-magnetic variations throughout earth’s orbit will connect our spirits and emotions with the energy from the center of the galaxy.



Academic scholars Matthew Restall and Amara Solari, experts in Maya culture and colonial Mexican history, take an opposing stance. Together they wrote 2012 and the End of the World: the Western Roots of the Maya Apocalypse. They state that major misconception has to do with the interpretation of glyphs as a prediction of apocalypse or global catastrophe. The reading of the glyphs themselves is open to interpretation, depending on who does the work. The glyphs read something like, “The thirteenth calendrical cycle will end on the day 4 Ahau, the third of Uniiw, there will occur blackness (or spectacle) and the God of the Nine (Bolon Yookte’) will descend to the red (or be displayed in great investiture).” This god, Bolon Yookte’ has been loosely associated with war implements, but has also been associated with travel, especially movement through space and time.

A third category of 2012-scholars integrates the metaphysical new age philosophy with the practical, modern world. Daniel Pinchbeck, author of 2012: the Return of Queztalcoatl, insists that this coming winter solstice will not bring global disaster, but rather is an opportunity to renew our global social structure. Quetzalcoatl means “feathered serpent” and to Pinchbeck it is a metaphor for heaven and earth. In the context of 2012, the return of the feathered serpent means integrating the spiritual and scientific realms of our human civilization.

Ervin Laszlo, author of WorldShift 2012: Making Green Business, New Politics, and Higher Consciousness Work Together, believes that we humans must change our systems that we’ve created that no longer appropriately serve us. In other words, we must “replace the limited consciousness of our failing society with the holistic consciousness that is rooted in the Akashic field.”


Are we destined for catastrophe, or will we rise above our invisible limitations? Perhaps only time will tell.

Chris Waite