December 21, 2012, The beginning of a New Age

A Spiral Galaxy

We are all familiar with the annual cycle of our planet around the sun in around the 365 days. We can derive a value for the Mayan estimate of the year by dividing 1,101,600 by 365, subtracting 2, and taking that number and dividing 1,101,600 again by the result. This gives us an answer of 365.2420 days. It is more accurate than the 365.2425 days of the Gregorian calendar.

Besides the annual cycle there are other cycles that concern the movement of our planet in the galaxy, the longest of which on a galaxy wide horizon is around 226 million years. Our sun travels through the spiral arms of the galaxy as it revolves slowly around the galactic center in an orbit that takes about 226 million years. Shorter cycles mark other movements of our planet. There is a dark patch called the dark rift in the Milky Way close to the galactic center. This is caused by an interstellar dust cloud obscuring the light coming from the stars at the core of the galaxy. It is from this dark rift that the winter solstice sun will appear to emerge when it rises on December 21, 2012 marking the beginning of a new cycle. The Mayan calendar finishes one of its great cycles on this day.

In some matters the ancients knew more about our universe than we do now in the modern scientific age. The reason is that modern scientific knowledge is limited by logic and evidence. The ancients had no such limitation and could combine intuition with observation to come with other findings, some ridiculous and others profound.  Ancient knowledge needs to be handled with respect so that the profound is not rejected along with the ridiculous.

Humans appear to have read too much or too little meaning into the date, December 21, 2012. Some have predicted it as the end of the world. There is nothing in the Maya, Aztec or ancient Mesoamerican prophecy to suggest that they prophesied a sudden end of the world on December 21, 2012. On the other hand it is unwise to reject the day as one without significance too. The day is a significant one in that it marks the end of a long approximately 5000 long year cycle of the Mayan Calendar and the day marks the beginning of a new age, the transition to which began 13 years ago in 1999.

It was thirteen years ago in December 1999 that the internet and mobile age may be regarded as having begun. Prior to this various internet search engines, browsers and operating systems were trying to establish a foothold on the online landscape. A firm trend began to be established soon after that and we have by the end of this year the establishment of a connected world wide online community through facilities such as Google, email, Face book, twitter etc., truly a new age.

There is no doubt in the years to come that this new form of communication will have a profound influence on human civilization as indeed it is already having as shown by such events as the Arab Spring and the financial crisis. It will also be an age of truth because whereas lies and exploitation based on lies can be preserved more easily by denying truth it becomes more difficult to do so in an informed community.  It may mark the beginning of the end of the dominance of the one per cent maintained through their servicing bankers that draw millions in salary and bonuses in return for their services to the one per cent. Changes will undoubtedly take a few decades to establish since the established order does not yield without a struggle as being illustrated in Syria. But change to a new age will undoubtedly come. Let us all therefore celebrate December 21, 2012 as the beginning of this New Age, the beginning of a new transition to a new Sat Yuga of ancient Sanskrit texts, The cyclic new age of truth following the undesirable age of materialism, exploitation and  unsustainable consumption where consuming more and taking more debt are bandied about as virtues.

This public domain photo is adapted with minor modification from GRIN, the Great Images In NASA Collection within the NASA image archive.