Nothing is going to happen in 2012. There is no Mayan prophecy about 2012. In addition to the Chol Qij the Mayans have various other calendar counts of lesser mantic importance. One of these is the Long Count, which is a continuous count in days since August 9th, 3114 BCE. The Long Count will reset to zero-zero-zero-zero-zero on December 21, 2012. This is just a major calendar change – their equivalent of Y2K – with no more spiritual significance than the change of millenium had for us.
This 2012 thing is being touted by some non-Mayans as a kind of New Age version of the Rapture: a miraculous transformation of human consciousness which sweeps humanity up into the clouds to escape the coming tribulation.
But things don’t happen that way in real life. The way it will probably occur is that the environment and civilization will deteriorate over the next few decades. And then people will draw together and open their hearts to one another, as they do in the face of any natural catastrophe. When people lose their faith in the system and start listening to their own hearts is when the system will change.
Do the Mayans have something to share that is crucial to our evolution? Why do you think Mayan culture is surfacing as a topic of interest in other countries like America?
The Mayans had the highest civilization in the Americas at the time of the Spanish conquest, and they have largely maintained it in the face of five centuries of persecution. Mayans have the dignity of a people who know their rightful place in the universe. They have a sense of rootedness, belonging, and purpose compared to the empty materialism of American life.
Mayans know that the world and nature are sacred; they feel awe; they are humble. Viewed through Mayan eyes, American behavior is crass, boorish, and profane; completely lacking in manners and culture. We Americans can learn from the Mayans not by aping their traditions (such as the so-called Mayan Prophecy for 2012), but rather by taking a good, hard look at our own personal behavior, assumptions, and choices.
You write about how astrology can be a "vehicle of intent." Can you tell people how this works in everyday life?
Astrology wasn’t invented by human beings; rather it was channeled to human beings as a way of making a connection to the rhythms underlying everyday life. In particular, astrology is a way of understanding our true life’s purpose – the reason we incarnated at this time. Our karma from past lives – and the lessons to be learned in this one – can be read from our horoscopes. Astrology is one way of getting past our social conditioning to discover what our true feelings are and what our true purpose in this life is – the reason we were born.
You said astrology once was, and will again be the world religion. Can you share with readers what you mean by that?
At the time agriculture was invented the human race switched from operating on intuition to operating on thinking. Instead of thinking every second they were awake, ancient humans’ everyday cognition entailed what we would call “channeling”; attending to the messages of spirits, the voices of their ancestors, and feelings from their own past and future lives. If the human race is going to survive, people are going to have to relearn how to listen to the spirits who have always guided us; and also to use techniques such as astrology which help us to develop our intuition and build our faith that everything is unfolding as it should.
Are you optimistic about the future?
To be honest, I’m scared. I just finished reading Jared Diamond’s Collapse; but all of us hippies sort of knew that all along – that’s why we left the cities and went back to the land. I think there’s a shakeout coming, and one thing astrology teaches us is that it’s the tough times, and how we behave when things are going badly, that really move us ahead spiritually. Astrology also teaches us that periods of great expansion are always preceded by periods of contraction and pain. So I guess the human race has to go through that one in order to release its grip on materialism and move up to a new level.
