The Ides of Aquarius

A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate enough to visit the land of the Maya. It was a very short trip, I traveled with my husband to a conference he attended at Xcaret. I was able to visit a place of myth and mortality, Chichen Itza, and I managed to speak to a couple local residents about history, mystery and the ending of a Baktun, a cycle of time, referenced by the Mayan Calendar. I discuss these conversations throughout writings I will publish between now and the turning of the baktun this month, December 2012.

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Time beyond this baktun, more properly b'ak'tun, is noted in the writings on the wall in a room of a recently found workshop for scribes, priests, and other high society Mayan types who apparently calculated cycles and dates for calendars, including ones beyond December 21, 2012. In fact, the date marks the ending of the 13th baktun that will be followed by the 14th baktun,, and that by the 15th, ad infinitum. There is an excellent summary of the archeological research which has been detailed in the journal Science and the June 2012 issue of National Geographic that includes excellent photographs of this recently found “house” at Xultún in the Cosmic Log news site.

I have taken to calling this transition the Ides of Aquarius because the confluence of New Age thought with the traditional Mayan calendar all stirred into a fine contemporary mythic batter is liberally sprinkled with ideations from songs from late 1960s musical theater, recognition of catastrophism, and the galactic alignment. People love apocalyptic claptrap especially in times of change where we do not know what the the hell is going on. If there ever was such a time, it is now. The very nature of the rate of information flow has changed per what some people are calling an information singularity and what I have heard others describe as an information event horizon. No matter how you conceptualize it, the global instantaneous linkage of human thought changes everything no matter whether you frame it in negative prophetic terms or positive awakening terms, we are entering a new age and I refuse to partake in the fear mongering that I have taken to calling The Ides of Aquarius.

You know “ides” as in the Ides of March, the day and not the musical group, which happened to be the 15th day of March, and a bad day for Julius Caesar, but was the 13th day of the month during most months. Ides, a singular word, not a plural, basically was a mid-month recognition for the God of the Month, or something like that (I'm not Roman you know.) There is now an association of Ides with a time of bad luck. That is where the word “ides” comes in in my phrase. “Aquarius” encapsulates the other worldly but well known contemporary mythology that surrounds History Channel hysteria induced by the layering of doomsday prophesies that are largely built on supposed simultaneity of many, many predictions through time and space.

The commercial aspect of the creation of the Ides of Aquarious did not really hit me until I went to Xcaret on coastal Quintana Roo, and saw the signs of huge expenditures on four lane divided highways between Cancun and the coastland south of it that is being called the Mayan Riviera where luxury tourist digs are defying environmental logic with their very presence on the continually hurricane re-shaped coastline. And this is on a fragile land whose ecosystem collapsed from over-building and over-population a thousand years ago. Resorts pepper the coast, and inland ruins have been made into park like attractions. At Chichen Itza “restorative” work for a mega-buhzillionaire, invitation only, jet set apocalypse party was evident. Hotel and resort prices have doubled, tripled, and risen to the very top prices that can be afforded to small, elite subset of the international global market for the period surrounding the end of this baktun.

I am still processing all I saw and the conversations I had but I am completely convinced that there is as much hope as devastation in the Mayan, Hopi, and other prophecies that have been much promoted these past few years in anticipation of the turning of the Mayan calendar. I do not dismiss the beliefs of the people's to whom the prophecies belong, but the cultural property of a people extends to beliefs and how they order their world and I vehemently disagree with those who would commercialize or play at recreation and adoption of the sacred ways of others.

The world will not end on the 21st of December. The 12-12-12 of today's date is just as worthy of superstitious behavior and the passing of such calendrical milestones from our lives unless we live on into the 22nd Century, which is not likely, as December 21st. What can happen though is what ever we want to have happen. Change is upon us now, we need not wait even a few more days for it to happen. We live in the midst of it now. We can shape and nudge the direction of that change. And because the pace at which we travel and live is so rapid, our minor efforts can amplify and we can have dramatic impact with just a bit of coordination of efforts. There is no need to fear coming change, and we are at a point where, metaphorically, peace can guide the planet, and love can steer the stars, if we choose to create that world.