The How and Why of the Mayan End Date in 2012 A.D.
continued

The Charts
So the quest returns to identifying why December 21st, 2012 A.D. might represent some kind of astronomical anomoly. I'll get right to the heart of the matter. Let's look at a few charts.

Chart 1.

Here is a full view of the sky at noon on December 21st, 2012 A.D. The band of the Milky Way can be seen stretching from the lower right to the upper left. The more or less vertical dotted line indicates the Galactic Equator. The planets can be seen tracing a roughly horizontal path through the chart, indicating the ecliptic. The sun, quite strikingly, is dead center in the Sacred Tree. Let's look closer.

Chart 2.

The field is now reduced from a horizon-to-horizon view to a field of 30 degrees. Part of the constellation of Sagittarius can be seen in the lower left portion of the chart. The planet in the middle-to-upper left portion of the chart is Pluto, which rarely travels directly along the ecliptic. The center square near the sun is placed on the Trifid Nebula (M20). According to the star chart I used, this nebula is very close to the crossing point of Galactic Equator and ecliptic. However, a small star (4 Sgr) is even closer; it sits right on the Galactic Equator and its declination is only 00 .08' below the ecliptic. Let's look closer at these features.

Chart 3.

The field is now reduced to a 5-degree span, what astrology considers to be within conjunction. The dot to the lower right of the sun is the star 4 Sgr. Amazingly, the Sun is right on target. We couldn't have hoped for a closer conjunction. 1 day before or after will remove the sun a noticeable distance from the crossing point. December 21st, 2012 (13.0.0.0.0 in the Long Count) therefore represents an extremely close conjunction of the winter solstice sun with the crossing point of Galactic Equator and the ecliptic, what the ancient Maya recognized as the Sacred Tree. It is critical to understand that the winter solstice sun rarely conjuncts the Sacred Tree. In fact, this is an event that has been coming to resonance very slowly over thousands and thousands of years. What this might mean astrologically, how this might effect the "energy weather" on earth, must be treated as a separate topic.

But I should at least mention in passing that this celestial convergence appears to parallel the accelerating pace of human civilization. It should be noted that because precession is a very slow process, similar astronomical alignments will be evident on the winter solstice dates within perhaps 5 years on either side of 2012. However, the accuracy of the conjunction of 2012 is quite astounding, beyond anything deemed calculable by the ancient Maya, and serves well to represent the perfect mid-point of the process.

Let's go back to the dawn of the Long Count and try to reconstruct what may have been happening.

Why: Winter Solstice Sun Conjuncts The Sacred Tree in 2012
First, the tzolkin count originated among the Olmec at least as early as 679 B.C. (see Edmonson's Book of the Year). We may suspect that astronomical observations were being made from at least that point. The tzolkin count has been followed unbroken since at least that time, up to the present day, demonstrating the high premium placed by the Maya upon continuity of tradition. In this way, star records, horizon positions of the winter solstice sun, and other pertinent observations could also have been accurately preserved. As suggested above, precession can be noticed by way of even simple horizon astronomy in as little time as 100 to 150 years. (Hipparchus, the alleged "discoverer" of precession among the Greeks, compared his own observations with data collected only 170 years before his time.) Following Edmonson, the Long Count system may have appeared as early as 355 B.C. Part of the reason for implementing the Long Count system, as I will show, was probably to calculate future winter solstice dates.

We must assume that even at this early point in Mesoamerican history, the crossing point of ecliptic and Milky Way was understood as the "Sacred Tree". Since the Sacred Tree concept is intrinsically tied into the oldest Mayan Creation Myths, this is not improbable. At the very least, the "dark rift" was already a recognized feature. Early skywatchers of this era (355 B.C.) would then observe the sun to conjunct the dark ridge in the Milky Way on or around November 18th.5 This would be easily observed in the pre-dawn sky as described above: the Milky Way points to the rising sun on this date.

Over a relatively short period of time, as an awareness of precession was emerging, this date was seen to slowly approach winter solstice, a critical date in its own right in early Mayan cosmo-conception. At this point, precession and the rate of precession was calculated, the Long Count was perfected and inaugurated, and the appropriate winter solstice date in 2012 A.D. was found via the Long Count in the following way.

How: Long Count and Seasonal Quarters
Long Count katun beginnings will conjunct sequential seasonal quarters every 1.7.0.0.0 days (194400 days). This is an easily tracked Long Count interval. Starting with the katun beginning of 650 B.C.:

Long Count Which Quarter? Year
6.5.0.0.0 Fall 650 B.C.
7.12.0.0.0 Winter 118 B.C.
8.19.0.0.0 Spring 416 A.D.
10.6.0.0.0 Summer 948 A.D.
11.13.0.0.0 Fall 1480 A.D.
13.0.0.0.0 Winter 2012 A.D.

Note that the last date is not only a katun beginning, but a baktun beginning as well. It is, indeed, the end date of 2012.6

The Long Count may have been officially inaugurated on a specific date in 355 B.C., as Edmonson suggests, but it must have been formulated, tried, tested, and proven before this date. This may well have taken centuries, and the process no doubt paralleled (and was perhaps instigated by) the discovery of precession. The Long Count system automatically accounts for precession in its ability to calculate future seasonal quarters - a property which shouldn't be underestimated.

Summary
This has been my attempt to fill a vacuum in Mayan Studies, an answer to the why and how of the end date of the 13-baktun cycle of the Mayan Long Count. The solution requires a shift in how we think about the astronomy of the Long Count end date. The strange fact that it occurs on a winter solstice immediately points us to possible astronomical reasons, but they are not obvious. We also shouldn't forget the often mentioned fact that the 13-baktun cycle of some 5125 years is roughly 1/5th of a precessional cycle. This in itself should have been suggestive of a deeper mystery very early on. Only with the recent identification of the astronomical nature of the Sacred Tree has the puzzle revealed its fullness. And once again we are amazed at the sophistication and vision of the ancient New World astronomers, the decendants of whom still count the days and watch the skies in the remote outbacks of Guatemala.

This essay is not contrived upon sketchy evidence. It basically rests upon two facts:

For early Mesoamerican skywatchers, the slow approach of the winter solstice sun to the Sacred Tree was seen as a critical process, the culmination of which was surely worthy of being called 13.0.0.0.0, the end of a World Age. The channel would then be open through the winter solstice doorway, up the Sacred Tree, the Xibalba be , to the center of the churning heavens, the Heart of Sky.

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