As is the often the case with ancient history, the greatness of the Maya is matched by the mystery around their civilization. Even for experts in Mexico where I study and teach, there are many gray areas. Despite these, I have come to deeply respect the vast Mayan knowledge, which includes the most sophisticated ancestral astrology known to date. From the growing mélange of archeological discoveries, enriched by an oral tradition which has carried on during thousands of years, we glean that 2012 presents an opportunity to renew our cosmic awareness on a personal and planetary scale.
Our colleague, anthropologist José Luis Xolotl, is currently working on a retranslation of the Chilam Balam, an early collection of sacred writings, which the original, Spanish translator confessed to re-working according to the dictates of Christianity. From the new version, we can affirm that the Maya predicted current sunspot activity thousands of years ago. In the sparse records that survived the wrath of the conquistadores, it is clear that, by some unexplained means, they could see 400 stars of the Pleiades whose observation today requires high-powered telescopes. A Mayan calendar of Venus extended thousands of years into the past and future with precision beyond our current ability.
In his impeccably documented book, Mysteries of the Mexican Pyramids, Peter Tompkins shares evidence that the inhabitants of Teotihuacán—an ancient archeological site in central Mexico whose latitude is near that of the Mayan centers in Yucatan—knew the exact position of Pluto, as well as two more planets beyond. Tompkins also quotes author Frank Waters, who asserts that the Mayan “science of abstruse mathematics and astronomy with a metaphysical cosmology… could have been a shorthand to a galactic type of science of a different dimension from the conventional physics we use” today. Geoffrey Hodson, a psychic Theosophist, went into a semi-trance at the top of a Mexican pyramid, from which he perceived that the Mesoamerican priests drew on clairvoyance for their information.
In fact, it seems impossible to neglect right-brain wisdom when interpreting this ancient civilization, whose calendar purportedly points to 2012 as a crucial date. José Arguelles—whom I met some years ago—was able to generate worldwide interest in that prophecy, which he admitted had been flavored by “galactic Mayans” that he channeled. Another colleague of ours, Julio Yectepactl, has authored several books on this civilization, and received channeled assistance to reinterpret parts of Chilam Balam, coming to the conclusion that on Winter Solstice, 2012, Quetzacoaltl—a divine emissary known as Feathered Serpent—will return.
The Mayans saw themselves as part of an interactive cosmos, and communicated regularly with its other forces. The divinatory arts were so basic to Mesoamerican culture that many important political rulers were skilled soothsayers [i]. Those interested in researching its oral tradition sooner or later are likely to participate in spiritual practices that lead to altered states of consciousness, including steam baths, all-night dancing and the use of psychotropic agents, among other, less extreme intuition triggers like those that we’ll share a bit further on.
As for Arguelles, although some of his past predictions have not materialized [ii], and many Mexican researchers consider his work to be strongly subjective, he drew popular attention to the end of the Long Count (first deciphered by mayologist Eric Thompson), the longest of 20 known Maya calendars, whose duration was close to that of the equinox precessions, 26,000 years, and which ends in 2012 or 2013.
Whether or not it finalizes on Winter Solstice is also subject to debate. One group of researchers prefer March 12, 2013, a date that was the New Year for various Mesoamerican groups. The confusion stems from the divergence between their unique system of measuring months and years and our own Gregorian calendar. The latter date is supported by history, if we count from a moment that was indisputably registered in both Gregorian and native systems: August 13, 1521 (when the Mexica capital, Tenochtitlan was taken by the Spaniards), on the Mexica day 1 Serpent, in the month When the Flowers Bloom and the year 3 House.
Furthermore, in contrast to the European tradition, Spring Equinox supersedes Winter Solstice in importance for these natives. On the other hand, Winter Solstice is involved by implication since another cycle, the 13-year onda energética (energy wave) which includes 2012, began with the sign of Hummingbird, the sacred being related to Winter Solstice. Anyway, what is clear is that the transits this year involve key players of the Mayan cosmology: Venus, the Pleiades, Sun and the Dark Rift of the Galactic Center, and they bring powerful messages in these times of change.
On April 3, 2012, Venus makes a rare conjunction with the Pleiades. Venus is the most beloved of Mayan planets after Earth, associated with Kukulcan, the wind spirit (the concept of “god” was not part of their philosophy). Venus shines with special brightness in Maya-hab (land of Mayas), and is helpful in developing solar qualities such as spiritual luminescence, intelligence and transcendence.
Mayan legends say that their ancestors originally came from Venus, and they look to it for guidance, with methods including one that you can apply wherever you might be, called Listening to the Wind, which we will share a bit further on. As for the Pleiades, another Mayan standout, they are associated with cosmic order, the organizing force that allows us to complete our true purpose. Not only do they appear in this transit, but will also conjunct the Solar Eclipse New Moon of May 20. (Both this and the Lunar Eclipse two weeks later are visible from the US.)
The Mayans didn’t read the stars in a merely predictive manner, but rather as part of a cosmic dance in which humankind is inextricably involved. They believed, and still do, that we have free will to work on ourselves and receive the blessing—rather than the challenge—of the moment. Having prepared for it duly, April can help us move from chaos and uncertainty into alignment with the highest and best design. If we connect with the forces of Sacred Order, and this could also thwart the plans of the New World Order, which some researchers consider has been intended to surge in 2012.
Besides the Mayan methods already mentioned, we will share affirmations for divine order, but first let’s take a look at some other key transits. Venus remains in the fore as she opposes the Full Moon Lunar Eclipse on June 3, before a rare Venusian Eclipse of the Sun on June 6. On August 13, the Mayan “bright star” displays her charms once more, when she is eclipsed by the Moon in Cancer.
In contemporary astrology, Venus is of course associated with love and the female: redeeming energies that are reiterated at the Winter Solstice, when the Sun will have moved into what is called the Dark Rift. This group of interstellar dust clouds runs like a strip along the Galactic Equator, from the middle to the North of the Milky Way. In Mayan it is known as The Dark Path, or Xibalba bé (pronounced “sheebalba bay”). About it, Dr. Eugenia Caserín affirms, “This entire area is part of the cross formed by the Milky Way and the elliptic between the constellation of Sagittarius and Scorpio. The Mayans call this cross, The Crossway of the Sacred Tree” [iii].
As Christine Page points out in her book, 2012 and the Galactic Center: The Return of the Great Mother, it is the birth channel of the Great Mother from which civilization will be born anew as the Sun has its birthday (Winter Solstice). It can be an opportunity for Christ Consciousness, and the re-emergence of feminine in spiritual practices plays a key role in the process.
More than an astronomical accident, the Sun for the Maya is a divine guide and assistant. They learned to communicate with its hidden essence, symbolized in the eagle, and from it receive much more than warmth, light and the food that results from photosynthesis. On its rays, angels touch our beings, activating our willpower, intelligence and purpose. As Caserín explains, “The Sun has a higher consciousness than ours, and can penetrate the cycles of time which much greater efficacy.”* [iv] As for the sunspot activity predicted for this year, it will provoke changes in the liquids on earth, including rain patterns as well as the liquid in our bodies, a connection that can harmonize our deepest emotional nature, and that is reinforced by Neptune—the Sea God—moving into Pisces, sign of oceans. The powerful waves generated by movements on the Sun’s surface are emissaries it sends forth to touch, vitalize and activate our personal energy and potential, freeing us to a new level of empowerment and spiritual unfolding.
Whether the Long Count ends on December 21 or on March 12, 2013, the Maya believed it would be followed by a period of rest before the beginning of another similar cycle. The Four Cardinal Protectors and Sustainers that hold up our world would be temporarily dispersed and there would come a time of drought. How intense it would be or how long it would last is not set in stone, physically or figuratively. Water, however, is a theme that reappears in different guises for this year’s astrology. Over the course of the next few days, we will share more about this and related predictions in Daykeeper Journal.
In Mesoamerica, the Sun is symbolically reborn as a hummingbird at each Winter Solstice. Its tiny wings beat incessantly, defying the force of gravity as it remains suspended in the air. This sacred vibration helps those of us who call on it to maintain our “achieving willpower” as we direct it in New Year’s intentions. The 2012 Solstice tunes the yearly promise of rebirth to a transpersonal octave. The significance of this event is not isolated to a single day or festivity. It is closely connected to that dark galactic path that each of us travels within, whose empowerment calls for daily care and connection.
The role of the female in this transition is confirmed by the entrance of Neptune in Pisces, in ways that we will reveal in upcoming articles for Daykeeper. It is interesting to note that, according to one author, misogyny is promoted by the hidden control system, since females, and the feminine side of men, hold the key to humanity’s freedom.
As we clarify our own intentions for spiritual rebirth, you might ask: How can I assist the Great Mother? Which of my spiritual interests coincide with her gifts? What does spiritual rebirth mean personally for me?
Below you will find Mayan and metaphysical exercises to enrich your own spiritual practice as you prepare for this year’s cosmic opportunities. I share these and other rays gleaned from this magical civilization, with such deep respect for its mystery and greatness, that I am reminded of an expression used by Mesoamerican healers as they begin a temazcal (steambath) session, to the effect of: “I cannot presume to be a teacher, only one of infinite instruments that the Sacred Forces work through as they touch and guide those that have joined here.” May something in our offerings achieve that for you, dear Daykeeper reader, as we join in thought to revive our ancestral certainty of the perfect pattern within every event and cycle, a living pattern which each of us contributes to.
Mayan and Metaphysical Preparation for January 2012 (to be updated each month)
[Note: the exercises that follow will be updated each month 0f 2012 for Daykeeper Premium subscribers. Subscribe now, and stay in touch with the Mayan energy wave throughout this vital year of 2012.]
Suggestion: Get a special notebook to keep a journal of your inner work for 2012, in which you keep a record of your spiritual goals and methods, prayers, psychic impressions, answers from the cosmic essences, dreams and so on.
Listening to the Wind
- Each day, in the late afternoon or evening, go outside and feel the breeze. Identify the direction it comes from and face that way.
- Mentally ask the wind, or if you prefer, the angels of the wind, for guidance on something. The question can be about a spiritual or material concern or healing for yourself or another. (Mesoamerican healers would often consult the wind before recommending treatment.)
- For at least several minutes, place all your attention on listening.
- Write down the words, images, and sensations that come to you.
- Ask for the essences or angels of the wind to carry your prayers to the invisible realm of the Great Spirit.
For example: “Angels of the Wind, please put wings on my thoughts so that they fly directly to the invisible realm of Divine Cause, making a most powerful connection.” - Ask the wind to sustain your connection with the divine realm in dreams, and to breathe life into your achieving will power.
Chasing the Sunrise
Establish an intention for spiritual rebirth or growth.
Each day, face the rising sun, and invite the Angels of the Aurora to strengthen your achieving willpower to follow through on your spiritual goal, after which you can mention one or more mundane goals.
If you can’t do this at sunrise, make a point of remembering to look at and great the Sun at some time of the day, inviting It to assist you in the aforementioned manners.
Affirmations for Divine Order
(Choose or adapt one or more, and repeat each affirmation at least 5 minutes daily.)
There is no chaos on the planet, we are working with spiritual law, so everything is in divine order now.
There is One Power that can determine the order of my home, thoughts, finances and relationships and this Power is Divine. As I contemplate the invisible order, it becomes visible now.
Everything on this planet responds to divine law, so there is divine governance and divine order on this planet now.
No group or situation can keep the Higher Power from governing our planet and affairs for the greater good of all concerned.
References:
Caserín, Dra. Eugenia, El Auténtico Mensaje Maya para el 2012 (Mexico, 2009).
Castellaños, Laura, 2012: Las profecías del fin del mundo (Vintage Espanol) (Spanish Edition)
Horn, Thomas, Apollyon Rising 2012: The Lost Symbol Found and the Final Mystery of the Great Seal Revealed
Llewellyn Publications, Llewellyn’s 2012 Daily Planetary Guide: Complete Astrology At-A-Glance (Annuals – Daily Planetary Guide)
Page, Christine, 2012 and the Galactic Center: The Return of the Great Mother
Teal, Celeste, Eclipses: Predicting World Events & Personal Transformation (Special Topics in Astrology Series) (Woodbury, MN, Llewellyn, 1990).
Tompkins, Peter, Mysteries of the Mexican Pyramids
Zapp, Ivar and George Erikson, Atlantis in America: Navigators of the Ancient World
Spanish website with great pictures of celestial scenes: http://asteromia.net/sol/estrella-sol-eclipse21052012.html
Special thanks to José Luis Xolotl, Julio Yectepactl, and Susana Argaez, for sharing generously of their valuable time and knowledge, and to Maya Del Mar, Lucy Aspra and Fernando Ruiz for resources and wisdom that has enriched these and many other topics.
Footnotes
[i] 2012 LAS PROFECIAS DEL FIN DEL MUNDO, Laura Castellanos, Random House Mondadori, Mexico City, 2011.
[ii] In her book on 2012, Castellanos analizes these in detail.
[iii] El Auténtico Mensaje Maya para el 2012, Dra. Eugenia Caserín.
* Quotes translated to English by C. Pomeroy.
Crystal Pallas Pomeroy, Maya’s daughter and astrological protégé, offers in-depth astrological consultations from her home in Mexico, in person or via Skype. She is a noted author as well as a regular radio and television commentator on esoteric topics, and leads a spiritual and healing ministry in Mexico City. Crystal offers workshops on astrology, the sacred feminine, indigenous spirituality, and the goddess in beautiful locations throughout Mexico. Her book Angels & Goddesses (Llewellyn, Spring 2022) is available now. Reach Crystal by email here.
Shamanic cultures throughout the world have practiced this. In her book, The Path of the Priestess, author Sharon Rose describes her own ten-day darkness retreat to a “simple cabin in the woods adapted for that purpose”, on the suggestion of Norbu Rinpoche, who says it will help awaken her to the “essentially free and luminous nature of mind itself”. He had learned it from a Tibetan woman, Aya Kandro, who was over 113 years old when he met her, and looked much younger after 50 years of living in almost total darkness. The most I’ve done in Mexico is one whole night, while praying and chanting with Toltec grandparents. It was a light version, as there were rays from a street lamp coming from under a narrow door -hahah, but it seemed quite intense to me in the context of the Toltec ceremony. At the time, I wasn’t familiar with the pineal gland connection, but found the experience emotionally uncomfortable yet unforgettably visionary, and can imagine that longer periods must be quite powerful indeed.
John, I like your images from Intergalactic Geography. We definitely have unexplored potentials, and at least some of these seem to have been accessed by the ancient Maya. The pineal gland is related to our paranormal faculties and one of the keys to its activation is to be in absolute darkness, no night light, no street lamp shining through the curtains. It ocurred to me that this was perhaps one of the secrets behind the steam bath and cave traditions, native not only to Mesoamerica but Europe, Africa and other places. On querying my oral sources here as to that possibility, it came out that the large, ancient monoliths such as Tiahuanacu in Peru, are said to have been moved by shamans in altered states of consciousness, while working in the dark. I agree, this is a great time to be alive.
On the topic of darkness and the faculties it awakens, Qi Gong Grandmaster Mantak Chia offers total darkness retreats at his healing center in Thailand, where students can spend up to 17 days and nights in total darkness. http://www.universal-tao.com/workshops/jasmuheen2012.html
I do believe that Mayans were Shamans of the highest and most sublime order. The fundamental basis of creation which both creates and sustains this and all universes is, in my opinion, the sacred word of the supreme being. If one was to travel out into space and go to the center of a “black hole”, there would be that same fundamental basis of all creation, not merely the “breakdown of the laws of physics”. Of course, it is very unlikely that one could travel to such a place in a physical body and survive, but an impeccable Shaman could go to the center of the supermassive black hole at our galaxy’s center. From that vantage point, the Shaman could look out and “see” the perfect vision of time and creation’s unfoldment in this, our local galaxy. I submit that this may be the technique used by Mayan Shamen to produce their predictive calendar that we struggle to comprehend and explain these days.
P. S. It sure is great to be here now in these times! Thanks for all you do.
Betty, Susan has sent me the work, and tho’ I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet seen it, I wouldn’t be suprised to find sincronicities. There is a universality to the Mayan consciousness of our role as magicians interacting with a living, intelligent cosmos, one that resonates with other pagan teachings, and that has attracted me since childhood at the side of my magical mother.
To study the Mayans somehow feels like coming home, even their connections to the Pleiades—and with you, Nina and the other sisters, as well as the name of Daykeeper, that Susan and Maya produced, inspired in this particular nation. love & blessings
Tareia, It is amazing how the cosmic essences do respond. How are your intuitive connections coming along?
Crystal,
This article corresponds to a great extent with Linea Van Horn’s Galactic Embrace work. If you get a chance to read or hear about this work, I think you would find it very interesting.
Very good job, Crystal.
Betty
Thanks so much for this! I love the Listen to the Wind exercise. It’s ironic that you mention the wind because no sooner than a day after this was posted, it’s been SOOOOO windy everyday since and no matter what (rain and clouds) the sun has shown itself too if only for a little while each day.
That was part of the motivation behind this adventure, Ricardo. Have you covered anything on this topic in your television productions in Mexico?
Wonderful website!
Krystal, your article is very complete and is worthy of spread and help to clarify much confusion, on the issue of the Maya.
thanks!
Ricardo Arenas