Essay title: 2012
he End of the Mayan Calendar is scheduled for December 21, 2012 (give or take a year). The possibilities of what this “end” might mean is an increasingly hot topic on the Internet, in conferences, printed articles, and in discussions all over the globe. This is because it just might be an incredibly important moment in history — e.g., the end of history!
Calendars, in general, do not end [1]. The whole purpose of developing and/or keeping a calendar is to predict future events based upon the cyclical nature of the world — to keep such things as agriculture in line with the seasons or inform out-of-line politicians when their terms of office are up for reconsideration. [In this regard, politicians are like babies. Both need to be changed periodically, and often, for the same reason.] But the idea that everything is coming to some sort of completion, i.e. the end of cycles, the end of days, the end period… This just doesnt compute when it comes to the idea of a calendar.
But the Mayan Calendar is not necessarily your average, run-of-the-mill calendar. It is, among other things, reputed to be the most accurate in the world. This is due in part to the fact it is also a relatively complicated calendar, using cycles of 13 and 20 (weird!), relating to the cycles of other planets (e.g. Venus), and in general incorporating some 22 (at last count) different sub-calendars, such that every contingency can be accounted for.
The Mayans did not elaborate in great detail about what would happen in 2012 A.D., just that their calendar would end. However, there has been no end (pardon the pun) to the possibilities being forecast by modern day interpretors of what the Mayans might have meant. These possibilities include 2012 A.D. as a time for:
1) major changes in human DNA (as in Indigo Children),
2) an enormous leap in Consciousness,
3) dimensional shifts (as in Hyperdimensional Physics and/or Superstrings),
4) the cessation of linear Time,
5) an evolutionary human pinnacle,
6) a huge surge and multiple breakthroughs in technology,
7) the end of Money [Shirley, you jest!],
8) massive genetic mutations [the good news!],
9) (5/25/06) Massive earthquakes and volcanic activity due to