Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Skeletons in the Closet




There is a sense that skeletons are walking out of their closets everywhere you look. The unresolved issues, inequities and inequalities upon which a seemingly workable structure of society has been built, are being called into question.

All over the world there are stirrings of this evident on the geo-political level. The Arab Spring has now spread to the shores of the USA with Occupy Wall Street. People long for truth, authenticity, fairness, honesty, and there is a growing will to demand these things.

But demand them of whom?

A sincere questioner may have to acknowledge a grisly fact: he or she has internal skeletons needing to come out of their closets - bones whose restless sighing whisper of souls kept in the chains of our attachment and possession, whose freedom has been long denied.

However immense those cultural skeletons may be, the ones within are even more fierce and powerful, for it is from these that the others derive their collective existence.

It is far easier to point to the supposed evil of Wall Street and foreign tyranny than to acknowledge one’s own complicity in creating a world in which selfishness and self-interest is the dominating Modus Operandi.

These times are calling for renewal and refreshment, for the final burying of the undead and the subsequent freeing of those bound under tyrannical slavery.  While we rightfully labor in the world to do this, let us not neglect to expose our own skeletons so that all may rest in peace.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Jesus' Prayer Rope



From the darkness a voice asks, “Would anyone here like to hold the prayer rope of Jesus?”

There is no reply. Everyone feels daunted by such a prospect.

The voice queries again, somewhat insistently: “Anyone?”

I struggle to overcome the inertia of trepidation and answer, “I will.”

A stubby piece of wood is placed in my hand, like a broken twig or branch, deep reddish in color. From it stretches out into infinitesimal distance an energetic cord.

The nearest bead on this cord is barely visible, and vibrating with subtle intensity.

After a moment of holding the stick, the bead’s content becomes clear.

It is a person, and with the stick he or she has punched a hole through the chest in order to be strung on Jesus prayer rope.

Seeing this, I do the same. The stick passes through my body easily, creating a spacious open void.

The piercing doesn’t seem to hurt, though I sense it reflects profound effort in the realm of human struggle, where life’s deepest issues are resolved and redeemed.

And suddenly I see that all the beads

Are glowing.

Friday, July 29, 2011

The Iboga Warrior



Sometime during our journey the Iboga Warrior revealed himself. 

He walked out of a dark wilderness toward the fire, where his rugged features gleamed rusty in the night.  His eyes peered toward a vision no one else could see - another land, or another life.

Nevertheless his fierce presence was undeniable and unmistakable.

Beneath his rough cloak, muffled by strong arms, a battle raged. 

A deadly creature wrestled within the warrior's chest, seeking to devour his very heart.  Yet of this severe conflict he gave no outward sign.

Being the youngest, it fell to me to witness all . . .

And I saw the light of the Iboga Warrior

Rising like blue smoke

Toward the waiting stars.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Transition Times



Day Two of the Ninth Wave and Universal Cycle (as describe by Carl Johan Calleman) ended May 1 with the beatification of Pope John Paul II.

Night Two of the Ninth Wave and Universal Cycle began May 2 with the demise of Osama Bin Laden.

Both events, obviously, are highly significant historical markers. There is a sense of transition in our times, of resolution for situations that had seemed impossibly intractible - while unprecedented developments also unfold, full of promise and potential.

This transition represents both an opening to the new and a closing of the old, movement beyond limitations of the past into more spacious realms of possibility.

How this process manifests at the collective level could be linked to a subject many know personally: the core wounding of childhood as it manifests in the adult experience.

It common, cliché actually, for those engaged in introspective therapies to arrive at a point where they conclude that most (if not all) their problems have resulted from the failure of their parents to provide what they needed as children. Not only did they not get the unconditional love that they craved, but they may well have received what they did NOT need, namely abuse and mistreatment.

From this analysis emerges a revamped opinion that is highly unflattering to mother and father. Deep hurts are uncovered and anger exposed as the child become adult gets in touch with wounded feelings that were repressed or denied in the formative years.

This is no doubt a healthy step in the process of self-recovery, but it is only a step. Many people get stuck there thinking they have reached the end point. After all, it is a convenient escape from responsibility if one’s inability to relate or behave well can be traced to faulty upbringing.

But beyond the recognition that the world represented by our parents damaged us when young is another and more mature recognition step, namely that they did what they needed to do so we could have what we needed to have. The wounds we got were the ones we were supposed to get, because they illumine the specific areas in ourselves requiring healing and transformation.

Realizing this takes blame away from the parents – more importantly it takes “power” away from the parents as in, “they had the power to make me less than myself.” And it gives power back to the individual through presenting the case that all events, including those that seem debilitating, serve one’s growth in soul maturation - whose ultimate intended end is victory.

As parents wound a child, so the world has wounded mankind as a collective child, thus forming the challenging conditions out of which this “child” must arise and reclaim its true nature. Victory starts to assume tangible form as individuals wake up and stop unconsciously following the script of that early patterning.

We are not called to repeat our parents, either in what they were or what they made us to be, but rather to transcend both them and ourselves.

Nor are we called to continually repeat the world in its ageless cycle of false assumptions about reality, of its “wars and rumors of wars” and every form of self-forgetfulness that has kept the beings we are, having been created in the “image and likeness” of God, opposed to God’s very truth.

There is no doubt that powerful energies are manifesting through the events surrounding one world leader’s beatification and another’s death. Yet it is ours to decide how we will respond to those energies – whether we will continue to feed the patterns of the past or choose a new and far better direction.

Let our decision be to release the parental patterns of the world and reclaim our own power. Let it be to not repeat the limits of childhood, but rather to claim victory over these and manifest the image and likeness of God that we truly are.

Let it be.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Universal Underworld


According to Carl Johan Calleman, March 9, 2011 marked the beginning of the First Day of the Universal Underworld.  This is the ninth and last underworld, which (as Calleman believes) ought to culminate in a state of unity consciousness for all mankind.

I guess we'll have to see about that, since at the moment it doesn't seem that certain segments of the human population are likely to stop behaving like barbarians and the devil's henchmen any time soon. Be that as it may, it is interesting to note some significant activities occurring on and since that date.

Calleman writes that there are nine "underworlds" (cosmic time periods), each corresponding to a unique phase in the development of life consciousness in the universe. They all started at different times and are of different lengths, but every one of them is scheduled to end on October 28, 2011. Each underworld is composed of thirteen alternating "Days" and "Nights" which may last years or centuries, depending on the overall span of the underworld involved. The Universal Underworld is the shortest one of all; its Days and Nights lasting only eighteen chronological days.

Based on his research in relating these Day/Night periods to actual historical events in the past, Calleman has assigned certain energies or themes to them.  The theme for Day One (which ends today) is "seeding."  What could "seeding" mean to planet earth and its human populations?

Alert observer Frank Zweers offers a clue by posting the seismic data displayed at the LISS (Live Internet Seismic Server) on March 9, the beginning of Day One of the Universal Underworld. Compare the chart below to the one above from March 26 (today). Zweers says that the LISS stations:

"had gone mad during the night. All graphs from allover the world had peaked unusually. It struck me as strange, since I never have seen such a blackout before. Normally the graphs are full of quiet lines except for a few stations where an earthquake had hit, now all stations had gone bazurk. Could this be the activation of the Ninth wave? The frequency of Earth seemed to have heightened during the nightly hours everywhere."


(The LISS live feed can be monitored at http://aslwww.cr.usgs.gov/Seismic_Data/heli2.shtml)

What does this seismic data of March 9 suggest about the massive 9.0 earthquake that hit Japan March 11? Calleman weighs in on this question with an article reproduced below:


Was the Japan Earthquake Related to the Mayan Calendar?
by Carl Johan Calleman

In the discussions about the meaning of “2012” suggestions have commonly been made that we would be approaching a time filled with so called Earth Changes and natural disasters of different kinds to the point where it has sometimes been presented as if this would be all that the Mayan calendar is all about. Especially in the light of the terrible disaster that has struck Japan only a few days after the beginning of the 9th wave it then becomes natural to ask if this was predictable based on the Mayan calendar and if there are more such to expect for instance in the Pacific Rim of Fire.

Earthquakes have their origin in the continental drift, which is caused by convection streams in the mantle rising from the hot interior of the Earth. As these convection streams cause tectonic plates to move tensions between these plates will be created on the surface of the Earth and when these are released enormous energies may give rise to disasters. As I have presented both in Solving the Greatest Mystery of Time: The Mayan Calendar (2001) and The Purposeful Universe (2009) the continental drift in general has its origin in the alautun shifts of the Mayan calendar that in the Mammalian Underworld was behind this drift. In this very general sense you might say that all earthquakes (and Volcanic eruptions) have an origin in the shifts that the Mayan calendar describes.

Given that an alautun is as much as 63.1 million years long and the size of the continents there has however hardly existed any basis for making detailed predictions as to when and where an earthquake may strike. To my knowledge no one has been able to provide a convincing pattern relating smaller Earthquakes to the Mayan calendar even though serious attempts have been made (see for instance William C. Treurniet’s http://www.treurniet.ca/MayanCal/QuakeMC.htm). There are many factors complicating such predictions and so for instance while some sources claim that there has been an increase in earthquakes over the past decades for quakes 3.0 and above on the Richter scale the US Geological Survey maintains that the number of quakes of 7.0 (which are potentially of a disastrous nature) has remained constant over several decades. I see no reason to question their general assessment even though today with the high population density all over the world there is always a very serious risk that large numbers of human lives will be lost.

Nonetheless, I tend to believe that the terrible 9.0 quake that hit Japan was directly related to the beginning of the Ninth wave. There are a few reasons that I believe this to be the case. The first is that already on March 9, 2011 a very unusual pattern was apparent in the printouts of global seismographs (as observed by Frank Zweers: see http://nunki.nl/post/3746640161/9-march-2011-activation-of-the-9th-wave). This observation was made before, and lasted until, the actual quake in Japan took place and showed that something was in the works already as the energy of the Ninth wave first started to come in. The other reason to believe that the quake and tsunami in Japan was actually related to the beginning of the Ninth wave is the astonishing parallel with the great Lisbon Earthquake in 1755. Both of these quakes, and the tsunamis that followed, happened as a new wave in the Mayan calendar began, the one in Lisbon at the beginning of the Planetary Underworld and the one in Sendai at the beginning of the Universal.

The one in Lisbon hit several months (on All Saints Day) after the day on which the new wave had been activated, but given that this wave had a much lower frequency this is what you would expect if you saw it as an immediate effect of this. The strength of both quakes has been estimated to 9.0, and there were in both cases also many aftershocks. They occurred at exactly the same latitude and not far from opposite longitudes on the planet and this is again exactly what you would expect if they were related to the shift in the Mayan calendar. The logic here is that as a new wave is activated changes take place in the interior of the Earth in order to create a new form of resonance to the human beings. While the Seventh Wave favored the back side of the planet (where Lisbon is located) the Ninth Wave is expected to favor the front side of the planet (where Japan is located). If this reasoning is true we would look upon these two quakes as reflections of adjustments in the interior of the Earth that are necessary to mediate the information from the Cosmic Tree of Life to the human beings.

The Lisbon quake in 1755 is considered one of the most devastating of all time and prompted the development of modern systems of surveillance. It also had strong repercussions of a philosophical nature and so for instance Voltaire argued that the creator overseeing this world could not be benevolent as he allowed this disaster to destroy a whole capital of Europe taking more than 100,000 lives. In a similar way I know some people are now asking if the 9th wave that seemed to be designed to bring unity consciousness will bring many natural catastrophes such as earthquakes. Could there be a benevolent plan behind this? Before we place judgment on the intelligence that created this cosmic plan I feel we should be aware that it is not necessarily an easy thing to manifest such a plan without causing some harm. In fact, paleontologists argue that plate tectonics, which only the Earth has among the planets of the solar system, is a necessary pre-requisite for the evolution of life and so without earthquakes we would not be here in the first place. Such intellectual arguments obviously do not ease the pain of someone who has lost a daughter or a husband in an earthquake, but for others it may help us understand that there is no evil intent behind the creation of plate tectonics on the part of the Creator.

I thus think that plate tectonics and earthquakes are a necessary side effect of the creation of resonance between the human beings and the Earth and that when a new wave starts its interior structure needs to undergo change. I also believe that this is a time when we need to show our solidarity with the Japanese people and offer help in the ways that it is in our power to do. My own view is that we should continue to focus on the transformation to unity consciousness and praying for and sharing the experience of the Japanese people is exactly an expression of this. I do not believe that there will necessarily be an increased frequency of strong quakes in the time to come (there was for instance not such an increase after the Lisbon quake), but this is only a guess. Yet, while we always have a choice as to how to look upon reality I believe that what will lead us forward is the light. Maybe the Earth is now adjusted to mediate unity consciousness to the human beings, which remains our highest purpose and presumably also that of the cosmic plan.
 
6th day of the Ninth wave
March 14, 2011, 6 Eb

Friday, March 25, 2011

The Divine Mother



In the silent, hopeful moments before dawn an image sometimes presents itself of a mankind preparing to live angelically in this world rather than as the devil’s henchmen.

I see people for whom truth is the only frame of reference. People whose personal darkness of despairing demons has been reconciled and saved, ending the curse of eternal damnation; people who have chosen consciously to serve the sacred in order to extend compassion into a wounded populace.

As the First Day of the Universal Underworld draws to a close, I lend my prayer to those of many others:

May this planet no longer be called “a man’s world,” but rather honored as the abode and manifestation of the Divine Mother. I pray that this material maternal being which has nurtured every living creature be respected and acknowledged, and her forceful movements seen for what they are.

In this way earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and erupting volcanoes may be understood not merely as physical seismic events, nor even as irruptions of mankind’s collective unconscious into manifest reality,

But as expressions of a powerful living Presence

Whose voice needs to be heard.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

The Psychosoma



In his article “Does Consciousness Depend on the Brain?” Chris Carter quotes Schiller, Bergson, and James:

“The brain is not an organ that generates consciousness, but rather an instrument evolved to transmit and limit the processes of consciousness and of conscious attention so as to restrict them to those aspects of the material environment which at any moment are crucial for the terrestrial success of the individual. In that case such phenomena as telepathy and clairvoyance would be merely instances in which some of the limitations were removed.”

The point is well-taken, but seems incomplete. I would suggest that it is not merely the brain which transmits and limits the processes of consciousness and conscious attention, but the entire organism. The human nervous system depends on sensors throughout the body to monitor not only its relationship to its environment, but its own inner functions. Although much of what happens on this level is below the threshold of consciousness per se and occurs autonomously, it nevertheless impacts and affects consciousness.

Moreover, the effort to become more “conscious” takes the form of increased body awareness. Those who are engaged in self-inquiry or therapy may discover impacted emotional nodules, many dating from the first moments of life, lodged in their psychosomatic regions. These also serve to “transmit and limit the processes of consciousness and of conscious attention,” usually in neurotic, conflicted ways. Part of the work of enlightenment, as I see it, is unraveling these knotted complexes of emotional energy within so that they cease defining a person’s awareness along their limited pathways.

Typically such complexes and neuroses operate beneath the surface of our awareness and are fairly invisible until something happens to expose them. The triggering mechanism irritates the complex and makes it irrupt into action. This is usually an unpleasant experience not only for the person with the complex but for anyone else involved, as it represents a breach of immature, regressive patterning into the waking present.

For anyone actively seeking emotional healing or “expansion of consciousness” however, such events present an opportunity for higher-order healing. “You have to feel it to heal it,” the old saw goes, and the feelings that arise when impacted emotional nodules erupt are anything but fun. The typical tendency is to quickly repress them, which is why such nodules remain inaccessible somewhere in the psychosoma.

The higher energies flooding our solar system suggest however, that triggering mechanisms on the planetary and personal scale are going to continue to escalate, forcing both individuals and societies to deal with hidden issues that need to be resolved and healed. Balance and wholeness are needed, and anything that no longer contributes to these must be ejected.

In this process not merely the brain, but the entire psychosomatic organism, will begin to operate from a more rarified state, and its corresponding transmitting and limiting of consciousness will attain a higher level of functionality.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Psychic Heliocentrism



Four hundred fifty years ago the typical European believed the Sun and all other planets, indeed the entire universe, revolved around the earth. Copernicus set this false concept on its ear by looking into his telescope and noticing that the facts were otherwise.

And while a corrected reorientation of cosmology ultimately formed in the intellectual framework of general mankind, this shift has yet to occur within his deeper psyche.

If we posit the Sun as symbolic of God and the earth as symbolic of personhood, an emanation of spiritual reality into manifestation, it is clear that mankind as a collective has continued to believe the entire cosmos revolves around himself.

The “me” dominated (and denominated) mentality so prevalent everywhere is behind all expressions of control, manipulation and domination of others. In the scientific, political, economic and even religious realms, the concept of ME trumps all other considerations.

This “me” may be expanded to include a community, a tribe, a business, a state, or a nation – but the principle remains the same. ME must be defended at all costs. ME must succeed, ME must overcome, ME must live and not die!

At this point it must be acknowledged that such an attitude of virulent self-preservation is destructive and reflects psychic immaturity and ignorance – much like the geocentrism of the 1600’s.

Wisdom is recognizing that what one had imagined “special” about oneself is both ordinary and expendable, and only the divine within is precious.

Psychic heliocentrism comes about through a shift of focus to the heart-space, in which the ego is relegated to its proper role as an orbiting functionality around the divine Self, eternally intimate with God.

This transition of consciousness, one must hope, is accelerating throughout the world. But it does not come about through reliance on ideation.

Political parties, for example, are by definition and default separating entities that depend on the egos of their members for cohesion, and whose underlying goal is to subsume all opponents. The same can be said for nation-states. We will not help the world by taking sides on issues, but rather by becoming “side-less” within ourselves.

By reorienting from a perspective in which the center is “me,” to one where the center is the true Source and Foundation of “me,” we begin to live out a new paradigm.

The wisdom that comes from this will reveal how we can most effectively serve the global transformation.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

A Celebration of Crisis



“Consciousness is a continuous process of unfolding,” writes Thom Cavalli, “punctuated by dislocations and reunions.” These dislocations are necessary so that opposite polarities of consciousness, which are incomplete in themselves, can view each other clearly and make the adjustments necessary to come into synthesis and reunion again.

Such dislocations may come in the form of crisis, an abrupt intrusion of imbalanced energy into what had seemed a stable field. Under the influence of this intrusion hitherto hidden psychic factors make their unexpected appearance.

Crisis serves to expose polarities that have been suppressed by the prevailing order. Polarization manifests the Yin/Yang in its more extreme states – a turbulence we interpret as chaos and experience as disorientation and distress. And yet such chaos can be a necessary prelude for those opposing polarities to be reconciled.

In the realm of self-awareness, the Yin/Yang polarities are represented by consciousness and unconsciousness. Within a person's unconscious are repressed patterns (called shadows) that reflect our disenfranchised self – ways we have been, things we have experienced, that we intensely dislike and so push out of awareness. Being unconscious, they can irrupt into waking life without our quite realizing what is happening or the part we are playing in it.

To bring one of these patterns into consciousness requires dreaming it awake – luring it into objective view where it can be witnessed in all its luridness. Such a dreaming awake usually produces an uncomfortable situation thoroughly infused with the wounded qualities of our suppressed psyche, a drama in which antagonist and victim seem indisputably identified.

Once such a psychic polarization has occurred, an opportunity for resolving that irrupted pattern is at hand. The shadow cannot be effectively confronted until it has manifested consciously, therefore bringing it out - through dreaming it awake - is a necessary (though extremely difficult) part of the healing process.

When the urge becomes overpowering to assume some past role, along with the familiar (though usually unpleasant) emotions that role dictates, this is a signal the shadow has emerged from unconsciousness and is parasitically living through us. We, as host of this unintegrated manifestation, assume its unconscious state and therefore offer no resistance to its imbalanced energies.

In fact, the natural propensity is to identify with superficial characterizations (victim, perpetrator, etc.) and fully accept the shame these roles prescribe. Nourished by this, the shadow drinks from the intensity of our involvement in the drama it has unleashed. After filling up at the pump of our darker emotions it can slink back unnoticed into the unconscious until hungry once more.

In that moment when the shadow seems most powerful – in its outward manifestation – it is paradoxically also most vulnerable. Here is the point of intentionally “dreaming it awake,” for in bringing unconscious content into view we have the chance to sooth and balance disturbed and distorted portions of our psyche that are usually beyond reach.

Taking advantage of this weakness is challenging however. To begin with, we must recognize that the conflict is not really between, or about, external parties. Anyone involved in facilitating this process is a friend, provided our overreaching intent is to be healed. Nevertheless it is we ourselves who must do what seems impossible when the shadow is ravenously stalking – namely, not feed it.

“Not feeding it” means not allowing the shadow (which will feel like us) to embody whatever emotions (self-justification, self-vindication, blame, etc.) the situation seems to bring up and entitle us to. Nor can we simply numb out. Rather, we need to be consciously present with the intensity of the uncomfortable feelings that arise - while doing nothing to either express or expiate them.

If we can sit in this nerve-jangling state, giving all those wild and wounded emotions our fullest compassionate attention - while simultaneously denying them their usual destructive discharge routes - we will be performing a microcosmic salvific act. The energy that would have continued to feed our sense of disempowerment, as personified by the shadow, will be retained for consciousness and fuel our own awakening.

By surrendering to what had seemed like death – and not dying – we will experience a resurrection that institutes a new and true awareness of personal empowerment.

And what had seemed a hopeless crisis will transform into joyful celebration.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

A Vision of Unity Consciousness



Unity Consciousness infiltrates the planetary field, gently enfolding the globe. The effect is subtle at first, similar to gradually decreasing the density of earth’s atmosphere. All life is affected; every organism throughout the plant and animal kingdom is elevated in awareness to some degree, though local variations occur.

This change in the field of consciousness is experienced as either mild or severe depending on the emotional integrity and mental cohesion of the person affected. Those unprepared for the shift feel discomfort and disorientation, resulting in a broad spectrum of reactions ranging from irritability to intense acting-out of unresolved processes.

On the other hand, people in a state of anticipatory acceptance experience the shift more purposefully and intentionally. Inner attention moves toward the heart region of the central corpus, and mental “noise” begins to clear. Thought ebbs out of the foreground of awareness, becoming less distracting and interruptive.

Such individuals feel a sensation of upward mobility characterized as “letting go.” This is a voluntary relinquishing of attachments to personal identity with their attendant implications - an act that is self-reinforcing since the more whole-heartedly and single-mindedly it is done, the greater the resulting satisfaction and consequent desire to repeat the process.

Some people, due to their prior work with radical self-inquiry and spiritual healing, find themselves comparatively comfortable within the changing field of consciousness. These serve a vital role in helping others navigate the transformational flux, a prospect that is extremely demanding for most – especially those with strong habits of emotional suppression and hardened conceptual viewpoints.


As enlightened beings have always stood out from the crowd, this distinction is likely to be more, rather than less, pervasive at the End of the Age. During previous eras the average person was so far removed from an enlightened state that saints and bodhisattvas were regarded as somewhat distorted replicas of the norm – deformed individuals in whom something called “holiness” resulted from important human components being missing. Such sanctity was often considered not merely impossible for ordinary men, but undesirable.



But in the Last Days unity consciousness will extend beyond a few historical anomalies into the furthest reaches of incarnate awareness. As this gradual but inexorable process unfolds, those able to bear Christ’s divine Light will be detectable through their self-composure, grace and good-humor, being at peace even in the midst of a society in shock. Having become grounded in Truth, they will have nothing to fear – and know it.

This knowledge will effectively make them kings among men in terms of spiritual riches. Yet such royalty will be borne humbly while they busy themselves assisting those struggling to navigate the seas of cosmic awareness. As learning to swim in ordinary water requires overcoming one’s natural fear of drowning through mastering a complex set of non-intuitive skills, so navigating the Deep of unity consciousness will necessitate the development of abilities which - for many people – are at this time still far from functional.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Beginning a Tzolkin Round Today



The following is written by Carl Johan Calleman:


I have got so many emails from people asking about February 11, 2011 versus March 9, 2011 that I feel it is necessary to write a special note about this particular issue, where I am largely responsible for the confusion myself. The question is: What is the beginning date of the Ninth wave? To address this I need to backtrack somewhat.

When I started my independent work on the Mayan calendar late in 1993 I already suggested two things that seemed controversial and unorthodox: One was the proposal that there were not only one, but nine waves, (underworlds, supports, levels of evolution, long calendars) of different frequencies of different durations that were creating the universe. A second was the proposal that the end date of the True Long Count is October 28, 2011. Naturally both of those assumptions came under attack by various people who had concocted suggestions as to what would happen on December 21, 2012, without foundation in Mayan texts. I however argued that the use of the Mayan calendar had undergone significant changes over the ages and the only criterion we could apply when it came to finding its true form would be that this actually would explain evolution in all of its aspects and would be useful for making predictions.If it was not reasonable useful for this why take an interest in the Mayan calendar to begin with? Such a criterion of rationality would have to be applied also to the Universal Underworld, which however at the time seemed to be far into the future and thus not completely clear to me.

Regarding the beginning of the ninth wave I thus wrote in my first book in English Solving the Greatest Mystery of Our Time: The Mayan Calendar (Garev 2001): "The short Universal Cycle of 2011, probably totaling 13 x 18 = 234 days, but possibly 260 days..." leaving an opening to the orthodox answer that it would just be another traditional tzolkin count starting February 11, 2011 (which has the added appeal of being an amazing palindrome date (11.02.2011 in international notation)). This quote reflected a vacillation or uncertainty on my own part not certain whether I could introduce a third unorthodoxy such as the return of the nine day count. Before taking such a step I wanted to feel a little more secure that my overall model of nine levels all completing on October 28, 2011 was true (that is to say accurately described the evolution of consciousness and the emerging paradigm shifts). In the Mayan calendar and the Transformation of Consciousness (Bear and Co 2004) I place more emphasis on the final 260 day tzolkin round as the duration of the ninth wave (and so did, I think, always Ian Lungold who did so much to spread my work). Nonetheless, also in this book I wrote ("or possibly, if it is one twentieth of the Galactic Underworld, 234 days; I cannot tell yet," page 216). The point here is that there is nothing that has changed, but rather a vacillation on my own part that has now come to an end. In the early nineties, when these notions were first developed, I had a much less certain view of how the Mayan calendar was going to evolve.

February 11, 2011 (1 Imix) thus remains the beginning of a tzolkin round and may for this reason be a cause for celebration for anyone following the traditional Mayan calendar. It is only that on my own part I tend to think that the experience of its inherent rhythm will be broken up by the ninth wave starting March 9, 2011, in which days and nights are each 18 = 9+9 days long. The tzolkin I believe will remain an undercurrent of energies whose power will however come to be superseded by a 18 = 9 + 9 day rhythm. It was Robert Gunn who through a manuscript he had sent me prompted me to lean over to these 234 days as the duration of the Ninth Wave. But generally, you might say that the fact that the two earlier mentioned unorthodoxies have now been verified, or at least given tremendous additional support, gives me the confidence to place the emphasis on the March 9 date as the beginning date of the Ninth wave. What I am referring to here is partly the support from the Tortuguero monument, which in no ambiguous terms states (http://www.calleman.com/content/articles/the_tortuguero%20_monument.htm) that indeed we are up for the simultaneous manifestation of nine waves (and not just one Long Count) and partly the verification of the October 28, 2011 date through my predictions about the Fifth night of the Galactic Underworld in the Mayan calendar and the Transformation of Consciousness. To the latter should be added the arguments that are presented in my interview in three parts on YouTube with Mayanist Mark van Stone (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSu-SWJILQU) that December 21, 2012 cannot be the end date of the true Long Count (it is the end date of the Izapan Long Count, which is another matter) and that the ancient Maya who developed this calendar system were not at all interested in solstices (which is more of a thing for the currently dominating northern cultures of our planet).

If you ask me today I would then say that February 11, 2011 is the beginning (1 Imix) of a new tzolkin round of 260 days, but that March 9, 2011 is the beginning of the 234 day long ninth wave or the Universal Underworld. Naturally, some may react to my earlier vacillation with surprise, but the fact is that an explanation to the Mayan calendar is not cut in stone anywhere. Even the Tortuguero monument can only be made sense of with a background of all cosmic evolution in its entirety and when I started my work this monument was not even known. You also have to see such a monument in the right perspective and use your critical faculties in trying to make sense of such an archaic text.

To uncritically just take over a date or concept from the ancient Maya without further verification is much like saying that something is true just because it is written in the Bible. Clearly ancient peoples did see a lot of things we mostly are not able to see and so they may guide us, but in terms of overall factual knowledge the modern world is vastly ahead of the ancient world. Despite this knowledge basis whatever view we endorse regarding the Mayan calendar our models will always involve assumptions and interpretation that will require our best judgment (and putting our own egos aside). In doing so I feel that there are a few rules that we need to follow. One is not to base any aspect of the calendar on a personal (such as your own birthday) or local (such as the solar zenith in Izapa) agenda. Another is that the calendar should be able to describe the evolution of consciousness and the paradigm shifts through which this is expressed. Most importantly we need to follow a model that is process-related that accurately describes the processes that we want to co-create.