The 12 blind men are the popularizers with no understanding of mytho-symbolism. The elephant is the Mayan calendar and the 2012 event. I don’t presume to know how this is all going to shape up, but I can least keep my head above water or so I like to think. The positivist crowd has got it right thematically–a regenerative event. The looming question is one of scale and magnitude.

Apologies for my thoughts taking some of your writing on the Olmec out of context in regards to my reply. I think that overall it is beneficial to use the term Meso-American calendar system. Although some of the calendars referred to on-line such as the Haab or Venus-Sun calendars do ’seem’ to be uniquely Maya . As you rightly clarify it is however difficult to be 100% sure even of these common beliefs.

I think many people suspect the knowledge that the Maya held had existed in even more ancient times than theirs.

I think that now the water of 2012 has begun to settle many will lose interest in it as they realise much of what they thought they knew about it is wrong. It is ironic that the more the answers discount a fixed doomsday prophecy the less interest. So many people are only interested in 2012 due the false data. My concern is that by the time the greaters secrets and truths are freely revealed a lot fewer people will be listening.

I hope that I am wrong.

Thanks for the reply

Bruce

Alignment vs Conjunction
John Major Jenkins does use the term alignment in his work. A dictionary review uses the word alignment to describe conjunction.
What is the difference between alignment and a conjunction from your understanding?

I agree with what you have to say about the aspects concerning the questions of precision involving the “conjunction/alignment” of our solstice sun with the approximate center of the galaxy.

There must be other astronomical features yet to be discovered to help explain the Maya’s astronomical pinpointing of the Dec. 21 date.

Jenkins seem pretty confident with his explanation concerning the “vagueness”of the “conjunction/alignment” I must admit that the astronomical aspects concerning 2012 “conjunction/alignment” is the least investigated portion of my work. I am relying on the current expert (Jenkins) in that dept.—for what I have to say about it.

Regarding your statement about my efforts to show that the “Maya calendar system is merely a repacked version of the Olmec system”

I do not state nor do I imply that anywhere in my report. I simply state that the Olmec civilization predates the Maya and that the archeological record left by the Olmecs indicates they had knowledge of the 260 day Tzolkin the core of MAC calendrics and that they were also tracking the Long Count. Tracking the Long Count implies an equal understanding of cycles at least 5125 years long. We attribute more to the Maya because they left far more record and evidence. My point was not to show that the Maya system was a “repackaged” version of the Olmec system, but to say that the “Maya Calender” is a misnomer. Since it is unclear just who discovered the 260 Tzolkin and who set the Long Count. We only know for sure that the older Olmec civilization did leave a record of their knowledge of the Tzolkin and the Long Count.
Due to the uncertainty of just who discovered “what” and “when” is the reason I suggested the scholarship consider using the term Maya-Mesoamerican-Calendrics (MAC) to add further precision to the study of Mesoamerican calendrics while recognizing the culture most responsible for its continued development and refinement.

And you are right about the last part of your comment. We are both in agreement about the popularized misinformation and sensationalized false prophetic aspects of Maya’s mytho-symbolic lore.

Anyway I have added this Blog page to StumbleUpon to draw more people to your project.

All the best

Bruce

There are some errors and if you do not mind I will just quickly share the ones I spotted, you may decide to dismiss them. The correct term is ‘Maya’ not ‘Mayan’ when talking about the calendar, people or civilisation. Mayan is just the language group.
You mention a galactic alignment between Earth, Sun and Galactic Centre for 21-12-2012 yet myself and several other 2012 researchers have all concluded this is an error and are updating our sites to reflect this. Firstly the correct term is conjunction and it is a vague happening at best. We know that the most excepted theory by scientists and mathematicians is that the sun was most conjunct with Galactic equator during the winter solstice of 1998/99. The area referred to as galactic centre is huge and can’t be considered as a special factor in such conjunctions as this could be said otherwise to occur for hundreds of winter solstice in our era. Even if we take the galactic equator as the important position this to is a problem as we don’t know the Maya ever made such a distinction to that region. As one Maya Anthropologist and Meso-American calendar expert summarised it for me: “The best that we can say is that on 21-12-2012 the winter solstice sun will be conjunct with the edge of one part of the great rift in the approx central region of the Milky Way.”

I also think you will struggle to show that the Maya calendar systems are merely a repackaged version of the Olmec system in the manner you seem to describe. The available evidence shows the Olmec had a far more basic system with the importance put on a 360 day year and a 52 year cycle. I think to say that the Maya just took the calendar system from the Olmec can’t be proved by the evidence available (even if both you and I sense that to be true). On the face of the evidence it is more like a Maya scholar saw an Olmec with a horse and cart and went away and built a Ferrari.

I look forward to your upcoming articles and it is good to see a site that deals more with the actual calendar rather than just 2012 prophecy theories, which are all to common.

By the way I think you misunderstood the three part series I wrote on the 2012 date. I was actually showing how there is in fact no such thing as a Maya doomsday prophecy and no compelling evidence for catastrophe at the end of previous 13 Baktun cycles. The third part was not my opinion on what the Maya predicted for 2012, as you assumed, but rather simply a what might happen around the year 2012 which ‘could possibly’ relate to the calendar finishing. I certainly do not say there is any good evidence (yet) the Maya predicted solar or cosmic storms for 21-12-2012. I do appreciate that is perhaps not at first obvious so feel free to have another read through. Thanks for the analysis though I always love feedback, critical or positive. It is how we all advance!

Kind regards

Bruce Fenton
2012Rising.com