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Friday, May 18, 2012 20:23 - 1 Comment

Cosmological Convergence: May 20th’s Ring of Fire and Its Connection to December 21st 2012

May 20th has been talked about a great deal because there is a rare and spectacular annular eclipse on that day. However, few know that May 20th is astronomically significant for another reason, but we will not be able to witness that event because it happens during the day time. Though the story behind the unseen astronomical event of May 20 is no less fascinating. May 20th is also closely related to December 21st, 2012.

Convergence is a prevalent 2012-Mayan Calendar theme. In fact 2012-MC was introduced to the world via Jose Arguelles’ 1987 Harmonic Convergence event in which thousands of people around the world gathered at places of high reverence.  The event was a response to Jose’s clarion call to come together on behalf of a greater vision for the future of earth and her inhabitants. The dating of the event was not astronomically reckoned. Arguelles chose the dates based on closure of an obscure “prophecy cycle” known as the prophecy of the 13 Heavens and the 9 Hells.

Twenty-two 52 year cycles supposedly came to a close on August 16th, 1987.  Calendrics is largely an astronomically based science, but very little is known about the origins and basis of the 1144 year prophecy cycle. Whatever its origins we do at least know that the end of the prophecy cycle was indeed accompanied by a rare astronomical event known as a Grand Trine. A Grand Trine is at least 3 planets arranged in a triangular pattern. Depending on the source anywhere from 6 to 8 planets were involved in an uncommon triangular configuration on those two days.

Was it yet another coincidence that the world’s first globally scaled ritual gathering was accompanied by a gathering of planets? Probably not, and it’s also probably not just a coincidence that the year 2012 is host to a convergence of several rare astronomical events. This article is going to focus on the May 20th event. I will do a follow up article on 2012′s other significant astro events.

Mesoamerican cultures along with other ancient cultures believed that earthly order mirrored heavenly order. Just how that is so has been lost in translation, but I’m confident that Tzolkin Cosmology will be able to shed an evidence based light on that ancient belief. At the same time we are also witnessing uncommon degrees of convergence among the people of earth.

Solidarity is the rallying cry from Europe to the Arab world and the United States. In astronomical terms those 3 regions would qualify as a Grand Trine. This is new in the history of the world.  Revolutions have been common within nations, but we are witnessing the start of a transnational revolution against the Current World System.

Convergence means ‘to come together’. Some might argue that things are coming unglued. That is true too, but it’s the old structures that are coming undone while new ones are coming together.  Dissolution and assembly are simultaneous processes, but its the new trends that we ought nourish for they are the signs of our cultural renewal. The Current World System is crumbling before us and for good reason. Its an unsustainable and disastrous socio-economic order.

The Current World System is on life support and we must all work together to prevent its resuscitation while at the same time encourage the growth of the new culture. [MMAC time trackers please note the sudden increase in bad economic news just as we entered the last 13 days of the current AA-Tzolkin cycle. Unfamiliar readers may review Anticipating Personal and Collective Shifts in relation to MMAC time science for details.]

New trends in human cultural evolution are emerging from the convergence of fresh ideas about what it means to be human and a human society in general. Those of you who have been tuned into emergent culture broadcasts for some time now have an idea that significant shifts in individual and collective developments correspond to cycles junctures large and small. The cycle juncture alluded to in the previous paragraph is a 260 day cycle.  The year 2012 has been made famous because we are approaching the zero date of a very significant cycle juncture.

The Significance of May 20th

Click to enlarge. It is Jenkins who claims that the events of the spring equinox point to May 20, But that claim in not based on archeaological evidence that states the date specifcally. He makes the puzzle pieces fit his theory. I will not be presenting his argument in this article. But I do offer another rational as to why May 20th is the best candidate for a zenith based zero date.

Traditional mainstream Maya scholars will acknowledge the end of the 5125 year Long Count Cycle of 12/21/12. But John Major Jenkins, a highly regarded independent researcher has brought to our attention that Mesoamerica’s two dominant cultures, the Maya and the Toltecs, were tracking a much larger cycle known as precession.

The earth has three well known cyclical movements. Its spin which gives us the day cycle. Its orbit around the sun and the tilt of its axis which gives us the seasons. The last motion is known as precession, and it results from a slight wobble that may be liked to the wobble of a spinning top.  The wobble is so slight that it wasn’t discovered until around the end of the 1st millenium BCE (before current era).

The earth’s precessional movement affects the relative position of the night’s stars such that it takes 70.56 years for a star to shift its position in the sky forward in time by one day. A stars position in the sky also changes such that over time any star will be in a different part of the night sky.

The Greek astronomer Hipparchus noted precession around 148BCE. Jenkins is confident that the Long Count (LC) cycle was developed to track precession.  The first recorded LC date was made in 36BCE.  So it would appear that precession was discovered in both hemispheres at about the same time.

Jenkins also claims that the Teotihuacan based Toltec culture was also tracking precession via another method involving the zenith, the sun and the Pleiadian star cluster.

Jenkins refers to the Toltecan method as the Zenith Cosmology and the Mayan as the Galactic Cosmology. [The upper portion of this article treats ideas that are expressed in greater detail in the lower portion where I interject an excerpt from the book I am working on]

According to Jenkins the Toltecan method give us May 20th, 2012 as a zero date for the precise end and start date of a new world age cycle. I would say that Jenkins plus the Toltecan method gives us May 20th since the Toltecan method does not offer a precise date. But rather an alignment period spanning some 200 years according to Jenkins.

By using a different alignment criteria I arrived at May 19th and I narrowed the zone of alignment down to 195 years using astronomy software (Starry Night). I am not saying that my alignment criteria is better than Jenkins. It only reveals another very interesting and affirming synchronicity. I believe that my contributions affirm Jenkins’ May 20th hypotheses.

Zeroing In On the Zenith Alignment  Zero Date

The sun's 36 year traverse of the 1 degree wide galactic plane

The alignment zone is defined at the point where one of the Pleiades’ brightest outer most stars is either tangent with or is intersected by the zenithal meridian as the star cluster enters and exits the zone of alignment over the 195 year period.

The period of alignment is defined by the number of years in which the star cluster is either tangent with or is intersected by the zenithal meridian.

Interestingly the midpoint of the alignment period using May 19th is the year 1998 or the same year that the sun is at the very center of the galactic plane during the winter solstice!

It takes the sun 36 years to enter and exit the 1 degree wide galactic plane. Nineteen ninety-eight is 14 years away from the end of the Long Count, but from the worldcentering zenithal perspective of the Toltecan its a perfect bulls eye!

Jenkins claims that Chichen Itza’s main structure, the famous pyramid of Kukulkan (Quetzalcoatl) was designed to mark the day when the zenith sun would conjunct with the Pleiades.  The problem with that as I’ve already mentioned is that the zenithal sun and the Pleiades do indeed conjunct, but they do so over a period of 195 years. Jenkins’ case, as outlined in his book Maya Cosmogenisis 2012 is a bit of stretch, but he is onto something.

It is widely acknowledged among scholars that Chichen Itza does indeed reflect a convergence of Teotihuacan and Mayan architecture and motifs. But it is Jenkins who asserts that it also reflects a cosmological reconciliation in which the Toltecan method also has a zero date in the year 2012. Jenkins’ interpretation of a certain mural as a reflection of the zenith meeting between the sun and Pleiades is entirely reasonable. More on the mural further down.  The question is how do we nail down a date within the 195 year period so one can say with confidence “Eureka this is a coinciding 2012 zero date for the Zenithian method of tracking precession”?

There are several ways to mark the Pleiades zenithal-sun alignment at the latitude of Chichen Itza. For example May 23rd at 12:50pm central time the sun is at the precise zenith point, but the Pleiades has crossed the zenith meridian by 18 minutes.  While on May 19th both the Pleiades and the sun straddle the zenith meridian at the same time, but the sun is not at the most precise zenith point.  On May 20th the sun is not at the most precise zenith point and the Pleiades has already crossed over the Zenith meridian by 5 minutes. May 20th would seem like the least significant date.

So why did Jenkins favor May 20th over the other 2 dates? Because the new moon is right close to the zenith at the same time as the sun and the Pleiades and later that day there’s an annular solar eclipse. Interestingly the eclipse maximum will take place smack dab in the middle of the pacific ocean between Asia and North America.  There is no other date within the 195 year alignment period where the sun, the Pleiades and the new moon are in such a tight grouping within the bulls-eye zone. The metaphor of bulls-eye is amplified by the fact that an annular eclipse resembles one in that we have a circle within a circle.

Pleiades centered on the zenith meridian. Sun and New moon on either side of meridian at 12:45 pm. Click to enlarge

Another interesting synchronicity emerges on May 20th when the Pleiades is centered on the zenith meridian. When the Pleiades is centered on the meridian, the sun and moon are equidistant on either side of meridian forming an almost perfect isosceles triangle! Another Grand Trine !

New moons and eclipses started to occur on May 20th-21st with metonic regularity in 1993 and they will do so for about 95 years and then the pattern will shift to another set of dates. A metonic cycle is 19 years long.  Eclipses also follow two other cycles of particular interest to this work.  One is the 18 year 11 day saros cycle and the other is a 177 day semester cycle. 

It just so happens that May 20th 2012 is an integral eclipse date shared by at least the 3 noted eclipse cycles. The 3 eclipse cycles have no other shared date between 1901 to 2096 or the 195 year period of alignment. This is something unique to this time period because the eclipse cycles will fall out of synchronization.

Based on the high number of astronomical events and their signifying peculiarities May 20th, 2012 does seem to be the best candidate for a zenith based worldcentering, worldrenewing zero date within the 195 year alignment period. I have said before that calendrics is a work in progress. Present day calendrical researchers are continuing the work of ancient Mesoamerican astronomers. May 19th and the 20th reinforce each other as marker dates for a zenith based worldcentering and worldrenewing zero date.

The Numerology and Symbology of May 20th

May 20th AA-Tzolkin date Kin 252 click to enlarge

Further reinforcing the significance of May 20th is that day’s AA-Tzolkin signature. That is the Tzolkin’s numerological and symbolic correspondence with the events and significance of May 20th.  First of all May (5th month) 20th coincides with the 5th day of the 20th or the Tzolkin’s last 13 day tone cycle.

The last tone cycle is coded by the Yellow Star archetype. Yellow is the color of ripening, fullness and completion within Tzolkin Cosmology and the sun is a Star. The sun plays a central role on May 20th.

The specific AA-Tzolkin date for May 20th is kin 252 or the Yellow 5 Human. Note the 5 centered in between the two 2′s  Again we have the color yellow and the number 5. Five is the number representative of the center. May 20th is about the centering of the Sun and the Pleiades over the Pyramid of Kulkulkan. The middle of the sun is intersected by the zenith meridian at 12:50 and 52 seconds.

The Yellow Human archetype is number 12. There again is the all important 12. Twenty and Twelve are the numbers of completion within Tzolkin Cosmology (TC).  Now the central archetype of any AA-Tzolkin date is accompanied by 4 other archetypes according to a numerological formula.

The Yellow Human archetype is always accompanied by the Blue Hand, the Red Water, and the White Wind.  The Blue Hand is the 7th archetype and 7 along with 5 are the numbers of centrality. The middle column of the Tzolkin chart is the 7th column.

The Red Water archetype is also the equivalent of the moon. In fact Jose changed the Traditional 9th archetype Water to Moon for his account of the tzolkin, but i have reverted back to the trational in my account. They are both equally valid symbols for the 9th archetype.  Remember the new moon will be up in the sky with the Pleiades and the Sun and later that day the moon will be centered in front of the sun.  The White Wind is characterized by communication, spirit and breath.

Finally each day has its guiding archetype and the guiding archetype of May 20th is none other that the last or 20th archetype—the Yellow Sun.  When you look at the themeplex’s arrangement you will find the Sun archetype occupies the top or 12 O’clock position.  On May 20th millions of people around the world will be guided by or attuned to the solar eclipse. A much smaller number will be at Chichen Itza to observe the Zenithal-sun Pleiades alignment.

And what about the Pleiades?

The Pleiades look like a quetzal bird in flight doesn't it?

So where is the Pleiades to be found within the day’s Tzolkin coding.  Quetzalcoatl was first associated with the Pleiades by the Toltecans. Quetzacoatl is the archetype of the union of opposites, transformation, greatest beauty and that which is most valued or exalted. The Wind (Ehecatl) archetype is another manifestation of Quetzalcoatl and the White Wind is in May 20th’s themeplex.

Quetzalcoatl is also present in the Tzolkin’s last tone cycle as the Yellow Star archetype is the overarching theme of the Tzolkin’s last tone cycle. The Star archetype is actually a reference to Venus the evening and morning star of Mesoamerican cosmology. And Venus is yet another another key manifestation of Quetzalcoatl.

Quetzalcoatl’s literal translation means bird-serpent.  Mesoamerican cosmology incorporates the idea of nestedness or embeddedness as in Russian Dolls.  Even Western cosmologists will say that you are embedded in the Universe as much as the U-niverse is embedded within yoU!  Each Tzolkin archetype is part of a family of embedded or nested archetypes according to a numerological formula.

The Yellow Sun archetype is related to those archetypes with the number 5 as a factor and they are known as Archetypal Family Number 5 (AFN-5). There is the number 5 again. The 4 members of AFN-5 are the Red Serpent (archetype 5), the White Dog (A-10). the Blue Eagle (A-15) and the Yellow Sun (A-20).   Quetzalcoatl in its most basic archetypal form as bird-serpent is embedded within the Yellow Sun as the Red Serpent and as the Blue Eagle.  The Pleiades as Quetzalcoatl has correspondence to the White Wind, the Yellow Star and the Yellow Sun archetypes.

Mass Synchronization

May 20th’s central archetype is the Yellow Human (A-12) as noted. The Yellow Human belongs to Archetypal family Number 2. AFN-2 is the family of overt and repetitive synchronicity hence the proliferation of the numbers 5, 2, 20 and 12. Everything we are reviewing has to do with synchronization. The zenith, the sun, the Pleiades, the moon and millions of skywatchers are all synchronizing on May 20th.

The Tzolkin Correspondence Between May 20th and December 21st.

December 21st 2012 is coded by the inverse of May 20th’s Tzolkin themeplex.

May date: 5-20-2012 or Tzolkin date kin 252

Kin 252 Themeplex Elements

• Tone Number = 5
• Guide      = Sun-Storm    = 20-19 = AFN 5-4
• Central    = Human-Hand = 12-7  =  AFN 2
• Analog    = Hand-Human = 7-12  =  AFN 2
• Antipode = Wind-Earth   = 2-17  =  AFN 2
• Quasi      = Water-Dog   = 9-10  =  AFN 4-5

December date: 12-21-2012 or Tzolkin date kin 207

Kin 207 Themeplex Elements

• Tone Number: 12
• Guide:      Storm-Sun     = 19-20 = AFN 4-5
• Central:    Human-Hand  = 7-12  =  AFN 2
• Analog:    Human-Hand  = 12-7  =  AFN 2
• Antipode: Earth-Wind    = 17-2  =  AFN 2
• Quasi:     Jaguar-Serpent = 14-5 = AFN 4-5

Please not the correspondence between the Month number and the tone. May = 5 and tone for May 20th = 5

December = 12 and tone for December 21st = 12. The difference between 12 and 5 is 7 or the number of centrality.  Five to seven is also the ratio between solar cycles and tzolkin cycles when it comes to fully synchronized cycles. There are 73 tzolkin cycles in a 52 Year Calendar Round

The complete numerological assessment of December 21st, 2012 is found at The Universal Meaning of 2012: The Mythos, Astronomy and Sociology of 2012-MC.

Now you know why I base the Science of Synchronicity on Tzolkin Cosmology. And I didn’t have time to flesh out several other synchronistic factors.

Source: The Learning Center on Tzolkin Cosmology

At this point I’m going to interject an excerpt from my developing book on 2012 to complete this article.

[enter excerpt]

Look up in the sky, its bird, it’s a snake no it’s Quetzalcoatl

John Major Jenkins’ research offers another take on the mystery of Quetzalcoatl. According to Jenkins the myth of Quetzacoatl is astronomically based like so many other Mesoamerican stories. The same is true for the myths of most major and minor cultures of the ancient past. Present day society has much to learn about why the ancients were so preoccupied celestial happenings.

As mentioned earlier Quetzalcoatl first appears in the murals and sculptures found at Teotihuacan in the first century CE (current era). In his book Maya Cosmogenesis 2012, Jenkins describes the great Mesomamerican quest to find the Heart of Sky or the center of all centers. Cosmology is about our attempt to comprehend the order of the entire phenomenal world before us and of our place within the order.

Ancient star watchers discovered that the heavens moved with fixed regularity—an implication of order, pattern and rhythmicity. So it was by star gazing that the cultures of Mesoamerica developed the most comprehensive calendrical system the world has ever known. A system that is only now coming into focus.  Mesoamerican cosmology evolved according to three key parameters; worldmaking, worldcentering and worldrenewing. What follows is a passage from Jenkins’ book describing its 3 key elements.

Despite the many varieties of cosmological traditions in Mesoamerica, we can distill some general universal principles. Following the work of David Carrasco, we can identify three basic processes or concerns that apply to Mesoamerican culture as a whole: worldmaking, worldcentering and worldrenewing. In Mesoamerican thought the layout and orientation of each new city were understood to be a reflection of cosmic order.

To mirror the important philosophical concept of a cosmic source and center located in the sky above, the socio-political realm was ordered by an authority emanating from the city center. Like-wise the cosmic center, functioning both on Earth and in the sky, was considered to be a symbolic birthplace and source of universal order. Worldmaking is the first act in creating universal order, and in Mesoamerica it was accomplished deity sacrifice.

For the purpose of this chapter we are going to look at how the concept of worldcentering was involved in the Mesoamerican quest to find the ultimate center of their universe—the Milky Way. The ancient Mesoamericans had no way of knowing that our galaxy was only one of countless many. Modern astronomy did not realize that other galaxies existed until the early 20th century.

The Galactians Meet the Zenithians

Classic and post classic (250CE-1000CE) Mesoamerican culture can be divided into two major cosmological groups. We have the nahua speaking Toltecan groups of the north and central highland areas of Mexico and the Maya of the Yucatec lowlands, southernmost Mexico and Central America. Those of the first group are commonly referred to as the Teotihuacanos because their primary ceremonial center was Teotihuacan. They are also regarded as a mixture of the many tribes that occupied the central plateau. The ruins of that great center, Mesoamerica’s grandest, are found near Mexico city.

In the process of worldcentering both groups discovered precession after the failure of the Olmec civilization to center on their preferred center, “the falling” north star, polaris. It was falling due to precession. Teotihuacan’s primary alignment concerns were the rising and setting of the Pleiades, the May 18th, solar-zenith passage date and the August 13th sunset.  The solar-zenith passage is the day on which the sun is directly overhead, a date that does not change with precession. Solar-zenith passage days were considered worthy of reverence because the sun was centered in the heart of sky.

And the zenith is important to worldcentering because it marks the overhead center of the celestial sky dome.  Jenkins refers to the Teotihuacan centering method as the Zenith Cosmology.  The Teotihuacanos realized that their preferred night sky zenith marker, the Pleiades was gradually moving toward a meeting with their preferred day time zenith marker the midday sun. The conjunction of the sun with the Pleiades on the annual solar-zenith passage date meant to them the start of a new world age!

The mythological significance of such an event was nothing less than the convergence of the Teotihuacanos two most important worldcentering elements; the sun-Pleiades conjunction (Quetzalcoatl) with the Heart of Sky (solar-zenith date), their center of centers. The foregoing point now brings us to the another important facet of Mesoamerican cosmology—worldrenewing. Worldrenewing is related to the overriding Mesoamerican preoccupation of world ages. It was important to know such dates because one could expect significant changes at such junctures and we can prudently suppose that it is better to anticipate changes than to be caught by surprise. Such was the obsession of Mesoamerican astronomers-priests.

According to Jenkin’s the Galactic Cosmology was born at Izapa, a Pre-classic (2000BCE-250CE) era settlement located near the pacific coast and along side the Mexican and Guatemalan border. It is there where a transitional culture between the Olmec and the Maya realized that the sun was inching (precessing) its way toward a meeting with the center of the Milky Way. It is in Izapa where Jenkins claims the Long Count cycle was devised and calibrated. The Izapans had discovered the grand Kahuna of all centers or the true Heart of Sky.

COSMOLOGICAL CONVERGENCE?

Around the start of the 9th century CE, as the great Maya and Toltec civilizations began to wind down a peculiar convergence takes place between the Galactians and the Zenithians at a place known as Chichen Itza. The circumstances surrounding their meeting is a matter of dispute among scholars. The primary question is was the meeting based on competitive hostile grounds or was it a cooperative effort? Jenkins assessment of the archeological record at Chichen Itza leads him to conclude that the encounter was based on cosmological reconciliation.

Jenkins points to a mural known as “Captain Sun Disk Meets Captain Serpent”. Captain Sun Disk represents the Maya ideal of a cosmic ruler and symbolizes the solstice sun disk moving toward the galactic center. While Captain Serpent in none other than Toltecan Quetzalcoatl (Pleiades) moving toward the solar zenith meeting. The mural is commemorated twice year when the rays of the zenith day sunset illuminate the mural.

Please recall that the Maya had developed a galactically centered cosmology based on the solstice sun’s progression toward the galactic center. It is Jenkins’ claim that the Long Count was devised to track the sun’s trek toward the galactic center.

Scholars, including Jenkins are confident that the name Quetzalcoatl first referred to the Pleiades. The Teotihuacanos were known as the People of the Pleiades. And we also know that Teotihuacan is aligned with the Pleiades at sunrise, sunset and that the Teotihuacanos tracked the sun-Pleiades zenith conjunction via 52 year New Fire Ceremony in their quest to worldcenter and anticipate worldrenewal or the next world age. It is at Teoitihuacan where the images and sculptures of Quetzalcoatl first appear. Jenkins also concludes that Quetzalcoatl later came to also mean the anticipated May 20 sun-Pleiades-zenith conjunction that has been taking place since 1901.

It is likely then that the persistent theme of “Quetzalcoatl’s return” was based upon the long awaited zenithal-sun-Pleiades conjunction of May 18 at the location of Teotihuacan. And this is where the conflict between the Galactic Cosmology of the Maya and the Zenith Cosmology of the Teotihuacanos is revealed. Based on the steady precession rate of 1 day every 70.56 years the sun-Pleiades-zenith conjunction would occur sometime in the early 19th century and that would have signaled the start of a new world age for the Teotihuacanos.

But word reached the Teotihuacanos about the Maya Long count cycle and that their target date for world renewal did not align with theirs. Not only did the Maya posit a different new world age date, but they were also targeting the the mother of all centers—the galactic core. Indeed some of the various names, stories and motifs for the central galactic bulge and rift allude to the great mother and the birth canal. The galactic bulge does indeed resemble a pregnant belly.

The Milky Way is the most mysterious and the most awe inspiring feature of the night sky and to have zeroed in on a conjunction between the sun and the galactic center on the winter solstice was nothing less than the holy grail of Mesoamerica’s cosmological quest for markers of worldcentering and worldrenewing. The details surrounding what it was that brought Mesoamerica’s two greatest cultures together are non-existent to murky at best, but the archeological evidence does paint a plausible picture of architectural, cultural and cosmological convergence at Chichen Itza. [exit excerpt]

Published on the 3rd day of the Yellow 1 Star tone cycle Kin 250 May 18th, 2012.

Rohaan Solare
Birth Kin 248: Yellow 1 Star

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