The 2012 Story (24 page)

The astronomy connected with One Hunahpu’s future rebirth at the end of the current 13-Baktun cycle is matched with the astronomy of Seven Macaw’s downfall. I haven’t emphasized this until now, but it is very important for understanding the overall cosmology pioneered at Izapa. In Group A at Izapa, a row of five monuments with altars is located on the north end of the plaza. A priest making offerings on the altars would face the five carvings, over which Tacaná volcano looms to the north. In fact, the 23° azimuth of Izapa’s northward orientation seems intentionally cited on Tacaná. The perpendicular angle to this provides the approximate 113° azimuth of the December solstice sunrise position, which as we have seen is a significant aid in inter-preting the astronomical symbolism in the ballcourt. I’ve pointed out that the Big Dipper rises over Tacaná’s eastern flank and then falls down around the Pole Star to the west. In
The Popol Vuh
and in other contexts documented by translator Dennis Tedlock, the primary bird deity, Seven Macaw, was associated with the Big Dipper, a constellation of the northern polar region that circles closely around the Pole Star. The five carved monuments in Group A depict this bird deity rising and falling at the hands of the Hero Twins.

Seven Macaw’s fall is the event that must precede the resurrection of One Hunahpu. Again, the Creation Myth is being played out in the sky, but notice that in the astronomical dynamic between these two competing deities, two “cosmic centers” were utilized by the Izapan sky-watchers: the Polar Center (Seven Macaw) and the Galactic Center (One Hunahpu). I can’t emphasize enough that the dark rift in the Milky Way is located within the rather large and visually compelling nuclear bulge of the Milky Way’s center, which may have been referred to as “the cloud center” in the Classic Period hieroglyphic writing. This region is also targeted by the cross formed by the Milky Way and the ecliptic and, significantly, in Maya iconography crosses designate the location of “cosmic centers” (and underworld passages).

This dynamic between the Polar Center and the Galactic Center is beautifully portrayed on Izapa’s Stela 25.

This carving is an indispensable key for understanding the true scope of the astronomical and cosmological thinking of the ancient Izapans. We see the Seven Macaw bird deity at the top, in his polar perch in the north. The caiman arching around the left side of the carving sprouts leaves and thus belongs to the complex of caiman-tree images that is well known. Its bulging head (the nuclear bulge of the Galactic Center) is at the bottom, near the earth plane in the south. This caiman figure symbolizes the Milky Way, and the entire Stela 25 carving can be seen as a picture of the sky. The figure on the right is one of the Hero Twins. His foot is touching the snout of the caiman, surely not accidental and suggestive of a special connection between the two in a cyclic process. The mouth of this Milky Way caiman, like that of frogs or snakes, represents the dark rift. Notice that this Hero Twin’s arm is torn off, the stump is bleeding, and the arm is held in the talons of the bird deity above. This depicts a specific episode preserved in the much later sixteenth-century
Popol Vuh
document, but Stela 25 was carved sometime between 400 BC and 50 BC.

What we have in Stela 25 is a cosmological diagram showing a dialectic between the Polar Center and the Galactic Center, and two deities that represent two different eras. On one level, I’ve argued that a cosmological shift is documented in this carving, from an older Olmec-era polar cosmology to the new Galactic-Centered cosmology of the early Maya. As we’ll explore in Part II, the two deities associated with those two cosmic centers also represent two different types of consciousness, one centered in the ego and one centered in the unity consciousness of the original mind. This is how we can understand a deeper level of philosophical and spiritual teachings embedded in Izapa’s monumental message.

Several monuments at Izapa are iconographic depictions of the era- 2012 alignment. The ballcourt throne, Stela 67, and Stela 11 are the best examples. One scholar criticized this as being a dateless interpretation of iconography. A double standard is evident in this critique, however. Over in Group B, there are three pillar-and-ball monuments. Scholars, including Linda Schele, Prudence Rice, Karl Taube, and Matthew Looper, recognize these as the three hearthstones of Creation. Anywhere they are found, even if no dates are associated with them, they are recognized as symbols of the astronomical Creation event that transpired in 3114 BC—the setting in place of the three hearthstones of Creation in the constellation of Orion. The nearby cross of the Milky Way and the ecliptic, above Orion in Gemini, is recognized as a player in this mytho-cosmic construct, since crosses symbolize the idea of source and center. (The Gemini Ak-turtle glyph is an essential feature of the scheme, from which the Maize God is born; the Maize God and the Sun God are related.)

The way that the Creation event astronomy is defined reveals that a precession-specific era is implied, since it is observed as significant that the turtle constellation and Orion passed through the zenith at sunrise on August 11, 3114 BC. Now let’s look at the other side of the sky, where the other cross formed by the Milky Way and the ecliptic is located. This cross, symbolizing (like the other one) a cosmic source and center, is very near the dark rift in the Milky Way. This important eschatological feature is portrayed as a frog/ caiman mouth at Izapa, most notably on Stela 11. By analogy it is the seating cleft in the canoe on the iconographically similar Stela 67.

What we have, then, in the ballcourt at Izapa is a dateless reference to an astronomical scenario that points to era-2012, the end of the 13-Baktun cycle. Similarly, in Group B we have, as described above, a dateless reference to era-3114 BC, the beginning of the Long Count’s 13-Baktun cycle. In a startling display of intellectual contretemps and selective application of logic, scholars happily accept the latter scenario but quickly reject the former. One argument is that no demonstration of precession knowledge is evident. However, precession is present as an identifying characteristic of both scenarios. So, again, scholars make it a problem for one scenario but not the other.

With the inclusion of the zenith center monuments in Group B, it becomes apparent that Izapa integrated the ideas connected with three different cosmic center regions: zenith, polar, and galactic. This fascinating situation suggests that Izapa truly was an origin place of much greater importance than it has been previously accorded. The tripartite framework evident in the three main monument groups also has a corresponding meaning in terms of the three deities associated with those centers, whose roles and functions often overlap in that they are all regents of their respective cosmic centers. I believe that confusing cross-identifications between deities could probably be sorted out if we acknowledge this foundational template.

There are several things about my work that need to be emphasized. It is an interdisciplinary synthesis of the best scholarship. It makes informed deductions based on evidence that is largely accepted by mainstream scholars. I like to think of my work as placing all the accepted evidence on the table, for all to see, and then simply enunciating what is there. I noted the ballcourt’s alignment to the solstice, which then become a factual crux for my unexpected conclusions. In addition, the entire site of Izapa provides a coherent picture of a tripartite cosmology that implicates the 13-Baktun cycle-ending date (in 2012) as well as its beginning date (in 3114 BC).

Second, my work gives voice to spiritual teachings that are in the Creation Myth. I honor them as expressions of a Perennial Philosophy that is part of the collective human heritage and has inherent worth. This is an engaged type of scholarship, much like that undertaken by Joseph Campbell, whose clear appreciation for and defense of the profound wisdom he could read in the ancient texts placed him at odds with colleagues who believed a scholar must be objective and dispassionate, a floating eye dissecting the object of examination like a surgeon picks apart a carcass. Noninvolvement with the object of one’s interest is basically impossible, however, and scholars like Barbara Tedlock have normalized the fact of anthropologists’ unavoidable subjective involvement with their studies by identifying it as “human intersubjectivity.”
³⁶
Using her apprenticeship to a calendar priest (a day-keeper) in Guatemala as an example, she argued that there is no reason why a scientist cannot be personally involved in a subject while retaining objectivity. The criticism of such a practice follows from a naïve fallacy of exclusion in which the subjective and the objective positions cannot overlap. But they do overlap, all the time; such an overlap of inner and outer realities, mutually reflecting each other, is in fact the way reality is. This is why it is impossible for a scientist to be completely objective, as their ideal would insist that they must be. Instead, objectivity can be practiced best if one acknowledges and owns one’s involvement instead of denying it. This is what Joseph Campbell did.

My own tendency is to gladly accept the possibility that the Maya were truly onto something unique and fascinating, a profound cosmovision that for some reason has been invisible to Western science. But I’ve learned that when addressing scientists the domains of physics and metaphysics must be carefully kept apart—at least semantically and conceptually—for those who are committed to physics cannot accept a larger perspective that embraces all that they hold dear while transcending it to allow for a larger
meta
-physical understanding of reality. That’s right, metaphysics includes physics. It
“
can do” physics, but sees physics as only one slice of a larger model of the universe in which all faculties of the human being are used.

These clarifications are important if we are to approach the 2012 reconstruction honestly with interference noise minimized. By this I mean we need to separate the 2012 topic into two domains. First, there is the reconstruction of a lost or forgotten paradigm. We should assess that as a model that the Maya once established and believed in. It was a paradigm that apparently involved our changing relationship to the galaxy, alignments to the Galactic Center, and spiritual teachings and prophecies connected to that alignment. We don’t have to prove that the model is true, or believe in it ourselves, for it to have once existed. Contrary to how my “theory” is often taken, my theory doesn’t state that “the world will be transformed when the galactic alignment happens.” My theory states that, according to my reconstruction of ancient Maya cosmology,
the Maya believed that galactic alignments are involved in a potential awakening experienced by human consciousness.
That’s an important distinction, as it helps us avoid denying the existence of a once-grand galactic cosmovision because it currently cannot be proven true. My theory argues that it once existed, whether or not we can prove that its central tenets are true. I’m very insistent on making this distinction, because without it many silly notions follow.

Let’s say my reconstruction is accurate. Ancient people living in southern Mexico about 2,100 years ago achieved an impressive understanding of the precession of the equinoxes. This in itself isn’t as far-fetched as one might think, as Greek and Babylonian astronomers were onto the same discovery at the same time—also without the help of high-tech instruments like telescopes. One implication of noticing precession is that the equinoxes and solstices cycle around the zodiac path, backward, and periodically come into alignment with background features such as stars, asterisms, and the bright band of the Milky Way. An idea, a future occurrence, in this process could very well have been extrapolated by those early astronomers who tracked precession. Since the sun’s position on the solstice was moving westward, sometime in the distant future it would converge with the Milky Way. Or perhaps the Milky Way was thought to be falling toward the solstice horizon—it doesn’t matter. In either case, it’s a profound idea; it implies seasons of change timed by alignments between the solstices, equinoxes, and the Milky Way. How would we go about investigating whether the ancient Maya were aware of this alignment? We would study the relevant World Age traditions—namely, the Long Count and the Creation Myth, and the site where the earliest Creation Myth scenes are found, carved in stone: Izapa. My work documents what is found when these traditions are rationally investigated.

The alignment of the solstice sun and the dark rift had a profound meaning for the ancient Maya calendar makers. A veritable symphony of similar astronomical alignments with the dark rift, involving Jupiter, eclipses, the moon, Mars, and probably Uranus, were tracked through the Classic Period. Their meanings are abundantly clear, supported by specific Long Count date references, and contribute to our own understanding of how the ancient Maya thought about the cycle ending in 2012. King-making rites, the sacred ballgame, time cycles, and a Creation Mythos form different facets of a lost cosmology, ancient beliefs that center around one idea: transformation. There is nothing in this material that suggests the kinds of cataclysmic prophecies currently being peddled in the 2012 marketplace, cheap cardboard cutouts that mock the profound cosmovision of the ancient Maya. This is the galactic cosmology in a nutshell. I don’t want to complicate the presentation with myriad sideline arguments and discussions of other monuments at Izapa and related sites, such as Tak’alik Ab’aj, of which there is much to discuss.
³⁷
Enough can be found in this brief survey to help you understand the compelling and reasonable basis of my end-date alignment theory.