Two Days To Go

In 1990 I visited Tikal with my Aussie friend Cathy. We stayed at a horrible hotel, but slept atop the Mayan pyramids surrounded by the thick Peten jungle. Howler monkeys dashed from tree to tree and the buzz of insects hummed outside our mosquito nettings. This abandoned city had had a population of 90,000 souls around 600AD. No one lived there now. And this was before the time of Baktun. Enjoy the last two days of the 12th Baktun. The 13th will be a good one.

The Hour Of The 13th Baktun

A little more than three days remain until the end of the 12th Mayan Baktun, which began on August 11th, 3114 BC. Supposedly the Egyptians invented written language on that date. The rest of the Neolithic world was recovering from the ravages of the Great Ice Age. Agriculture wouldn't revive in Northern Africa for more than a hundred years about the same time as the foundation of Troy and Caral the first city in the Americas. Stonehenge had yet to be built by the Celts, but beer had existed since 9500 BC as the first stepping stone of civilization. Billions of people have lived since then. The supposed approach of doomsday on 12/21/12 had leadened the spirit of the world. A tenth of Americans are concerned whether they will survive the dawn. The mother of the Sandy Hook shooter was purportedly obsessed with the End of Times. The director of the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe has declared that the entire apocalyptical prophesy has been a hoax foisted on mankind by the media. According to him there is no planet Nibiru in this galaxy, planet alignments have no effect on the Earth, and a magnetic polar shift occurs every million years and if it happened now north becoming the south would take centuries to complete. So I guess I'll drink beer on December 22. Heck, I'm drinking beer on December 17 and I will on December 18 too. Happy Beermas.

B'ak'tun Tsunami

Doomologists have pinpointed the end-date of the Mayan's 5,125-year-long cycle as 13.0.0.0.0 or December 21, 2012 without predicting the cause of Armageddon. Various options for the B'ak'tun have been offered by opposing camps. Fundamentalists are hoping for the Second Coming of the Messiah and survivalists are arming up for collapse of the New World Order, while New Ages search the cosmos for an errant asteroid or black hole. The apocalypse was supposed to start May 21 and culminate with a cataclysm on 12/21/12.

Last evening I had a dream in which I was staying on the 8th floor of a Honolulu high-rise. The waves surging into Waikiki grew larger and larger, until a surfer duck-dived under the crest of a monster tsunami. The wave crashed into the condo and water splashed against the terrace windows.

I looked out the window.

An even bigger wave surged towards the submerged beach and I backed away from the window in time to escape the wave shattering the glass. The sea was only two stories below our floor. Another wave was coming and it was huge.

I woke up with a start and looked around my room.

Dreams about tidal waves are often the result of life's overwhelming pressures and our tendency to not dealing with our problems. I have to admit that I don't have everything under control, however not everything in the world is about me and I got out of bed to look out the window. It was still dark and no wave rose over the skyline of Brooklyn, but I don't really have to worry about a tsunami.

Fort Greene is only 104 feet above sea level and the doric column of the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument adds about 149 feet of elevation. This added height would provide sufficient elevation to survive a tidal wave of epic proportions, but I would only be one of hundreds of Brooklynites seeking refuge from certain doom.

A jug of moonshine is under my kitchen sink.

It was a good back-up plan for doomsday and I went back to sleep content that the world was not ending today.

Ka xi'ik teech utsil, which is Mayan for good luck.

We'll be needing in the months to come.

Pluto Pluto

The Mayan star-gazers studied the Xibalba be or Black Road or Milky Way from the tops of pyramids and predicted the end of the 26,000 year cycle on 12-21-12 and modern day astronomers of the apocalypse have suggested that the grand alignment of the planets will mercilessly annihilate the population of the Earth. Of course this line-up of the celestial orbs only worked due to the downgrading of Pluto to a smaller galactic orb. I reject the rejection of Pluto as a planet. Doom is avoided by acceptance of the old way of the solar system. I am a man of tradition.

Doom Soon

Reuters reported that 15 percent of people worldwide believe the world will end during their lifetime and 10 percent think that the end-date of the Mayan calendar will signal a planetary cataclysm on 12-21-12 according to a poll of over 16,000 people in China, Turkey, Russia, Mexico, South Korea, Japan, the United States, Argentina, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, France, Spain, Belgium, Canada, Australia, Italy, South Africa, Great Britain, Indonesia, and Germany.

While many westerners are influenced by the end date of the Mayan calendar, other pro-apocalyptical respondents are leaning toward the Hand of God, asteroids, or natural disaster. Russians and Poles were the most positive about Doomsday.

My old co-worker Ava called me this afternoon and asked if I wanted a job.

"Not really."

"Why not?" Ava was a born-again Christian.

"Because the world is coming to an end and I'm not going to waste my time at work."

"You don't really believe that?" She was very familiar with my non-belief in God.

"No, but it's a good excuse." I took the number from her, because if the world doesn't end on December 21, 2012, I'm fucked.

Countdown To Doom Minus 18

December 21, 2012 or 12-21-12 will mark the end-date of a 5125-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. Positive New Agers are expecting a transition to the new era of enlightenment, while the fundamentalist are predicting a doomsday collision with an unseen planet called Nibiru drawn to our Earth by the Grand Planet Alignment. This gloomy forecast was based on Mayan scholar Michael Coe writing in his 1966 book THE MAYA, "there is a suggestion ... that Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation on the final day of the 13th [b'ak'tun]. Thus ... our present universe be annihilated in December 2012, when the Great Cycle of the Long Count reaches completion." Annihilation? Only 18 days away? NASA and none of the other space agencies have announced impending doom, although that silence may be keeping with the classic line in disaster movie by the leader of the Free World, "We don't want the people to panic." Panic. The world is in a throes of a major economic depression. Wars are fought across the globe. Weather patterns are shifting to challenge the coastal populations with floods and the interiors with drought. But those in control of the world are afraid of panic. If we are not panicking now, we never will, then again I favor the renewal of the world spirit rather than a planet-ending calamity. Peace will rule the world.