All kinds of Holy Scriptures through the ages have heard the gong for the last round.  The year 2012 is mentioned with striking frequency, by the Pueblo-Indians, the Zulus and the Maya.

At the center of these are their calendars by which they calculated in periods of 26.000 years and larger. These periods evolved from their own calculation of time which seems to be superior in accuracy, also to our own calendar.

December 21, 2012, is the beginning of a large new period of 26.000 years and a smaller period of 5200 years. The Guatemalan group known as ‘Mayan Elders of the Eagle Clan' writes: “This is a cycle of wisdom, harmony, peace, love, of consciousness and the return of the natural order. It is not the end of the world as many from outside of the Mayan tradition have misinterpreted it to be. The first cycle (Ajaw/sun) was a feminine energy and its element was fire. The second cycle (Ajaw/sun) was of masculine energy, and its element was earth. The third cycle (Ajaw/sun) was a feminine energy and its element was air. The fourth cycle (Ajaw/sun) is a masculine energy and its element is water. The fifth cycle (Ajaw/sun) will be a fusion of both feminine and masculine energies. It will be a transition where there won't be any more confrontations between the polarities. It will bring balance and there won't be hierarchy of one over the other. Both energies will support each other. It is why this period is called one of harmony, the kingdom of love and the return of consciousness. Its element will be the ether.”

The end of times is a New Beginning.  It is like the necessary struggle of the caterpillar to become a butterfly. The bible calls this turbulent period 'labor pains'. Just as expressively, the bible tells us that after this a period will start of a thousand years, in which 'tha satan' is chained; resulting in 'many many' years of peace. This whole situation reminds us of the  Jesus-story, in which Jesus dies in a miserable way, rises from the dead and arrives at a higher level by ascending to heaven. "This large time cycle has been thought since ancient times to represent a complete cycle of human spiritual advance", writes John Major Jenkins.

The myth of Maya creation, recorded in the Popul Vuh, starts with One Ahuapu (the first father) walking past the mouth of a cave. The gods of the underworld call out to him and invite him to come down and play a ball game. He takes the bait and descends into the darkness, where the gods immediately behead him. They hang his severed head in a Calabash tree.

Shortly thereafter, the daughter of one of the gods walks by and stops and speaks to the hanging head. The head spits into her hand. The daughter of the god becomes pregnant from the spit, and is banished from the underworld. In due course she gives birth to twin boys (the Hero Twins). They grow into strong young lads.

After hearing the story about their father, the Hero Twins decide to go in search of him. They find the mouth of the cave (Xibalba), challenge the gods to a ball game, and the twins win. Then thru a series of tricks in which one brother kills the other and then brings him back to life, followed by the second brother repeating the performance, the gods are dumbfounded.

Finally, one said "Can you do that for me?". "Sure" said the twins, at which point they dutifully stepped forward to fulfill the god's request, and slayed him. Then, instead of bringing him back to life, they resurrect their long dead father and head for the surface. The father, following the twins, sees ears of corn along the trail, and takes an ear.

As they reach the surface, the Hero Twins pass thru Xibalba and rise into the sky to become the Sun and Moon. The father emerges from the cave as the God of Maize, and is greeted by the first sunrise of the Maya world.

 All Maya everywhere believe that they are the descendants of that one ear of corn. That is the definition of who is a Maya and who is not.

This story has been told for over 5000 years in the Mayan Civilization. Scenes from it are found in Maya art from the very earliest examples. It is a fundamental piece of the Maya culture, mythology, and religion. It is the most important piece of literature ever produced in the western hemisphere, and is generally unknown.

The Aztec Calendar

The Aztec Calendar is similar to the Maya. The ritual day cycle was called Tonalpohualli and was formed, as was the Mayan Tzolkin, by the concurrence of a cycle of numerals 1 through 13 with a cycle of 20 day names, many of them similar to the day names of the Maya.

Where the Aztec differed most significantly from the Maya was in their more primitive number system and in their less precise way of recording dates. Normally, they noted only the day on which an event occurred and the name of the current year. This is ambiguous, since the same day, as designated in the way mentioned above, can occur twice in a year. Moreover, years of the same name recur at 52-year intervals, and Spanish colonial annals often disagree as to the length of time between two events. Other discrepancies in the records are only partially explained by the fact that different towns started their year with different months. The most widely accepted correlation of the calendar of Tenochtitlan with the Christian Julian calendar is based on the entrance of Cortez into that city on November 8, 1519, and on the surrender of Cuauhtzmoc on August 13, 1521. According to this correlation, the first date was a day 8 Wind, the ninth day of the month Quecholli, in a year 1 Reed, the 13th year of a cycle.

The Mexicans, as all other Meso-Americans, believed in the periodic destruction and re-creation of the world.  The "Calendar Stone" in the Museo Nacional de Antropologia (National Museum of Anthropology) in Mexico City depicts in its central panel, the date 4 Ollin (movement)

on which they anticipated that their current world would be destroyed by earthquake, and within it the dates of previous holocausts: 4 Tiger, 4 Wind, 4 Rain, and 4 Water.

The Aztec calendar kept two different aspects of time; tonalpohualli and xiuhpohualli. Each of these systems had a different purpose.

The tonalpohualli was the 'counting of days.' It originated by ancient peoples observing that the sun, crossed a certain zenith point near the Mayan city of Copan, every 260 days. So this first system is arranged in a 260-day cycle. These 260 days were then broken up into 20 periods, with each period containing 13 days, called trecenas. Each period was given the name of something that was then shown by a hieroglyphic sign, and each trecena was given a number 1-13. Each trecena is also thought to have a god or deity presiding over each of the trecena. They kept these counts in tonalamatls, screenfold books made from bark paper.

The Aztecs used this as a religious calendar. Priests used the calendar to determine luck days for such activities as sowing crops, building houses, and going to war.

Hopi Civilization

The Hopi are American Indians who currently occupy reserved land in the Arizona area. Some of this land includes the Grand Canyon. They were once a great and peaceful people who roamed freely, and whose history and evolution is passed from one generation to the next in the mythological format, as many Native Americans.

The Hopi Indians believe all of humanity can be traced to a matriarchal hierarchy. According to the Hopi, man was created by woman.

The male dominant creator is KA.
Taiowa, is known as the Sun God, and created the Earth.
Two brothers were given guardianship rights over the Earth.
The Earthlings have access through prayer and meditation to spiritual guides called Alo.
Katchinas (Katsinas) are the messengers of the God. KA and the spirit teachers of nature.
The Katsinas are descendants of Eototo.
The Hopi name for Pleiades is ChooChooKam

One myth states that one brother stayed to procreate the earth while the other ventured into the realm of Ka on the back of Eototo.

To Hopi people believe Tuawta is one who sees magic or one who can transcend time.  Pahana is the lost brother who would one day return.

Another myth states that the Hopi descended to Earth from Alien life. The Earthlings were set up in underground caves ( 3 caves ) and left to procreate. The Alien project was so successful that the Cave people overpopulated the underground world and were forced to learn to survive in the harsher climates on the surface. Of course, this would take milleniums to play out.

Throughout the ages, prophecies and warnings were shared by Hopi visionaries and shaman.  An example of one prophecy says:   "When the Blue Star Katchina (spirit guide) makes it's appearance in the heavens, the Fifth World will emerge. This will be a day of Purification."

Another prophecy states:  "When the Saquasohuh ( Blue Star ) Katchina removes his mask there will be no more ceremonies for a time. Only the homelands will be preserved as an oasis for the Hopi."

This could be translated in several ways, for example,  "Mother Nature will force humanity back into a cave, or warring bodies will destroy the surface world and the only refuge will be in a cave."

In whatever manner the prophecy unfolds it would bring about the emergence of a Fifth World. The Fifth World evolves and seeks out the Sixth World and the Seventh and so on and so forth goes the legend.

The Inca End of Time Predictions

According to the Inca Prophecy, "The new caretakers of the Earth will come from the West, and those that have made the greatest impact on Mother Earth now have the moral responsibility to remake their relationship with her, after remaking themselves."

This prophecy holds that North America will supply the physical strength, or body; Europe will supply the mental aspect, or head; and the heart will be supplied by South America. These prophecies are optimistic.

They refer to the end of time as we know it-  the death of our way of thinking and our way of being, the end of  our way of relating to nature and to the earth.  In the coming years, the Incas expect us to emerge into a golden age, a golden millennium of peace.  The prophecies also speak of tumultuous changes happening in the earth, and in our psyche.  It also speaks of redefining our relationships and spirituality.

The next great change, or pachacuti, as the Inca refers to it, has already begun, and it promises the emergence of a new human after this period of turmoil.