Our Last Year on Earth.

"Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god, you say 'YES!'"  - Winston Zeddmore

Beware! This time next year is slated to be the end of the world! They made a movie about it so you KNOW that it has to be true. The Mayans have predicted this! They are authors of an ancient calendar that ends on this day next year. Now all of a sudden people want to listen to Mexicans.

I am always amazed that every few years someone is either predicting the second coming of Jesus, the rapture, or now the unexplained reason why a calendar just stops. I have read that some archeologists have suggested that it is simply the end of an era and that the world will not end. I tend to believe this. Although, I am a little bit more practical. I say that the calendar resets or maybe they got tired of doing all that math. I do not recall the Mayans having a knack for telling the future nor is there any accounts that state the ending of "civilization."

However, there is seems to be a religious component to this (of course). The end of Ancient Mayan Calendar (aka Mesoamerican Long Count calendar) is supposed to mark the return of the Mayan God, Quetzalcoatl. Without going into further detail, he is a very powerful serpentine deity who was also worshipped by the Aztecs. There are many stories about his true nature but one thing was for certain, it was believed he was the God of the morning star (Venus). He avatar is more like a dragon than anything else but the the most interesting description comes a blog I read about Quetzalcoatl: "Legends say that Quetzalcoatl was tall and light-skinned, with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a beard, in contrast to the natives who were short, dark skinned and dark haired. He is said to have worn a long, flowing robe. Quetzalcoatl was special because he was a god of creation."

This raised my eyebrows because that definitely sounds like a European Cleric to me. Upon further investigation, there a people who believe that Quetzalcoatl is actually Jesus. There are some Mormons who believe that after his death he visited South America. I am not sure this is a Mormon thing because I remember hearing this somewhere in my 12 years of Catholic School. So according to some there is a link to Quetzalcoatl and Jesus Christ. Maybe all those rapture people were off by a year?

It is indeed interesting that the Ancient Mayan Calendar stops on Winter Solstice of next year. I can see why people, who probably have limited knowledge about ancient civilization, can pick on that small piece of info and think something catastrophic will happen. Never mind that cycle for this calendar is 5,125 years long. The Mayans were astronomers that studied the ways of the universe so they can map calendars and astronomical alignments. So there is no suprise that ABC News reports that "The Mayans predicted a final event that included a solar shift, a Venus transit and violent earthquakes." Of course there is a failure to mention (which ABC News does state) that there is evidence that dates beyond 2012 were indeed recorded.

No one person or people this side of Nostradamus can predict the future and for what it is worth, people tend to bend Nostradamus' words into whatever may happen in the world today which makes what he says ambiguous at best. What I am not understanding is what is the obsession with the end of the world? Are we not satisfied with the world we live in? Not that we should be. But, from a religious stand point, if you are just living your daily crappy life waiting for a better life in the ever after then I supposed you want that to happen as soon as possible.

But, what if the "end of the world" means something that is totally not physical. Perhaps a mental transformation. Such paradigms shifts have happened before after the atomic bombs were dropped in Japan in August 1945. Some could argue the world ended right then and there. The world that they knew was gone because from that point on the world got smaller and more dangerous. Since then we have lived under this shroud of Nuclear war up until the Cold War end. Some could say the world ended on September 11, 2001. The world we know as Amercians has changed so much since then.

So what will end exactly? Will there be a new paradigm shift? I certainly do not believe that the world will suddenly be visited by an ancient Mayan God like Gozer (Sumerian God) from the Ghostbusters, but I do think that Mayan Calendar could mean an end of an era, but for what, remains to be seen.