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October 11, 2011

The Mayan Calendar: World emergence

It is a fact that  Time does not exist, but only to measure space. Time and space are the dimension we live in. You’re awareness of WHERE you are and WHEN you are there represent the present moment YOU are in.

Calendars seem to be created to have some sense of order and memory about those moments we choose to live. There are several Calendars in the history of humans.

Different cultures have lived more years than others, so their calendars mark the same time in space with a different date. For example the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar, the current Islamic year is 1432 AH, from approximately 7 December 2010 (evening) to 26 November 2011 (evening). The Hebrew year 5772 began at sunset on 28 September 2011 and will end on 16 September 2012. The Gregorian calendar, also known as the Western calendar, or Christian calendar, is the internationally accepted civil calendar. It was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom the calendar was named, by a decree signed on 24 February 1582.The reformed calendar was adopted later that year by a handful of countries, with other countries adopting it over the following centuries. The motivation for the Gregorian reform was that the Julian calendar assumes that the time between vernal equinoxes is 365.25 days, when in fact it is presently almost exactly 11 minutes shorter. The error between these values accumulated at the rate of about three days every four centuries, resulting in the equinox occurring on March 11 (an accumulated error of about 10 days) and moving steadily earlier in the Julian calendar at the time of the Gregorian reform. Since the Spring equinox was tied to the celebration of Easter, the Roman Catholic Church considered that this steady movement in the date of the equinox was undesirable. The present year in the Gregorian calendar is 2011.

Periods in a calendar (such as years and months) are usually, though not necessarily, synchronized with the cycle of the sun or the moon.

  • A lunar calendar is synchronized to the motion of the Moon (lunar phases); an example is the Islamic calendar.
  • A solar calendar is based on perceived seasonal changes synchronized to the apparent motion of the Sun; an example is the Persian calendar.
  • A “luni-solar calendar” is based on a combination of both solar and lunar reckonings; examples are the traditional calendar of China, the Hindu Calendar in India or the Hebrew calendar.
  • There are some calendars that appear to be synchronized to the motion of Venus, such as some of the ancient Egyptian calendars; synchronization to Venus appears to occur primarily in civilizations near the Equator.

The most EXACT Calendar is known by the experts to be THE MAYAN CALENDAR.

We think of a calendar as a system of organizing days for social, religious, commercial, or administrative purposes, like collecting Taxes.

At its most basic and fundamental level, the Mesoamerican, or Mayan, Calendar is made up of:

  • the Tzolk’in or “ritual almanac” of 260 days, comprised of 20 symbolic day signs and a series of 13 numbers (13 x 20 = 260), plus..
  • a solar calendar of 365 days, called the Haab in Yucatec Maya.

The Tzolk’in and the Haab interlock and intermesh with one another like cogs in a wheel. The same combination of numbered days in the Tzolk’in and the Haab (for example, 13 Akbal in the Tzolk’in and 10 Yaxkin in the Haab) will re-occur once every 52 years. This 52-year cycle is known as a Calendar Round.

What makes the Mayan calendar so interesting to our present era is that The Maya were using their Calendar to describe evolution and changing energies. What makes the Mayan calendar fundamentally different from other calendars in existence in the world is that its various symbols are reflective of the evolution of consciousness in the cosmos.

The Maya studied TIME as the 4th dimension, which was neccesary to understand in order to perceive the 5th dimension of Spirit.

The Mayan Calendar End date

 In reality, there is nothing to indicate that the ancient Maya who developed the Long Count calendar had any interest in what would happen as this calendar came to an end. Instead what the ancient Mayan scriptures talk about is its beginning.

People such as the Maya, the Toltecs, the Aztecs and the Hopi all shared a concept which we might call “cycles of emergence.” According to this shared cultural view, the world has been created and destroyed a number of times.

The so-called “end date” of December 21, 2012, is based on the time-keeping system known as the Long Count, which was used to compute large cosmic and historical cycles. The Long Count endowed the Maya with a unique sense of cosmic vision. The Great Cycle—that span of time which began in 3114 BCE and ends upon the much heralded event of December 21, 2012—is part of the Long Count. With the invention of the Great Cycle, the Maya were making a bold and powerful effort to mathematically quantify and define the cycles of world emergence.

The Long Count is based upon a “mathematical year” of 360 days, called a tun, which means “stone” in Mayan. 20 tuns was a k’atun, which means a “twenty stones.” 20 k’atuns constituted a bak’tun, signifying “a bundle of stones” and comprised of 400 tuns. 13 bak’tuns made up a Great Cycle, which adds up to 5,200 tuns and 260 k’atuns.

All Long Count dates contain the following elements, written in this order: the bak’tun, the k’atun, the tun, the winal or 20-day period, and the k’in or day. A Mayan date such as 9.12.2.0.16 (July 5, 674 AD) means that 9 bak’tuns, 12 k’atuns, 2 tuns, 0 winals, and 16 k’ins have passed since the creation date in 3114 BCE.

Those who think of the end of the Great Cycle as a catastrophe or cataclysm would benefit from noticing that the Maya conceived of epochs or ages that were much longer than the Great Cycle. A p’iktun was comprised of 8,000 tuns or 20 bak’tuns. A kalabtun was 160,000 tuns, and a kinchiltun was 3,200,000 tuns. The present p’iktun will end on October 13, 4772 AD, a date which was carved in the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque.

The Maya also used the calendar for celebrating significant energy shift. At these times the shaman kings would make prophecies about the time ahead in the new energy. A base of knowledge had been created as to how the energies would shift according to the calendar, and, in combination with the shamanic connection to the World Tree, prophecies of relevance to the present moment and the immediate time ahead were developed.

The aspect of the Mayan calendar system that has survived to the present time is the uninterrupted use of the Sacred Calendar of 260 days. Mayan day-keepers daily pray to the Creator and perform ceremonies that honor the day signs. Among the living Maya the 260-day calendar has various roles:

  1. To keep track of the energies of the day,
  2. To calculate birth energies of different individuals,
  3. To determine the celebration of holidays,
  4. To base healing practices on,
  5. For prophecy, and
  6. For divination of individual destinies.

In times like the ones the world is living today, what keeps uniting people is the unavoidable stumble upon the lack of meaning to the materialistic lifestyle we have created as our unconscious and unaware effort to understand the eternal  most spiritual of all questions:  WHY ARE WE HERE?

The Mayan Calendar gives us an opportunity to observe who we are on a daily basis under the cyclic influence of Nature energies, always changing, so that with this understanding we actually can use the one and only gift that makes us humans: conscious free will to manifest creation… and begin again.

Today is:

Electric Moon Dali 22

Kin 31 Blue Overtone Monkey

I Empower in order to Play
Commanding Illusion
I seal the Process of Magic
With the Overtone tone of Radiance
I am guided by the power of Self-generation

TO BE CONTINUED>>>

…in our next Mayan essay we’ll explore how to use the calendar and its symbols, stay tuned 🙂 If you have any specific question, please leave a comment with what you would like to know 🙂

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/10/understanding-the-mayan-calendar/

love

yeye

www.yeyeorganicpop.com listen to Planetary Moods ~

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