We Survived 2012, What Now?

Now that we have safely traversed the date 12-21-2012. I'm going share some thoughts I've had for some time. This was never about this date. It only added to the confusion.

Were the Mayans fools? No. They were very astute astronomers. Many science writers have debunked the Mayans claim of alignment at 11:12 UTC today by an eye test of the model showing relative positions of the planets at that time today, as seen from above the solar plane. The Mayans and those who support their claims did not claim all the planets would be in a straight line. They claimed that they would form what has been dubbed a grand cross formation. The first image shows the planets positions without the lines and the second connects the lines of the grand cross in today's planetary alignment.       

It’s not clear what the significance is of this alignment, if any, other than its coincidence with the Winter solstice and the end of the Mayan Long Count calendar. By easily connecting the dots, the alignment forms a pentagram with a star in the center.

The concerns and some of the theories about what might have happened today are real concerns. The Sun is indeed acting out. We all know about the 11-year cycle, but a little research - scientific and even ancient astronomy - says the Sun has many cycles.There is evidence that we are in the midst of a cycle for the last 150 years that has really ramped up in about the last 30 years.

Despite what you hear in the popular media, the Sun has a greater influence on Earth's climate (and other bodies in the solar system than anything else). We had an event called the Carrington Event in 1859 that would wreak havoc on our systems today.

We are seeing the greatest sunspot activity since 1600. Note that over the past 150 years there has been a large uptrend and in the last 30 years we have seen highs for this 400-year time frame. Note that when sunspot activity was nil in the latter half of the 16th and early 17th centuries, Earth was experiencing the depths of the "Little Ice Age".

The prospect a pole reversal is also very real. There is a ton of evidence that this has happened numerous times in Earth's history. We don't know what triggers it, if its sudden or gradual. In fact, our magnetic north pole is moving towards Russia. The only real dispute about this fact is over how fast it's happening.

There are estimates that the north pole is moving as much as 40 miles per year. There is also debate about what the results would be. Finally, this crossing the galactic plane (which may or may not have begun today) is interesting in that it happens on roughly the same time cycle as the Earth's precession. This is not a one-day event and actually will take years to decades to accomplish.

There are some who believe this could cause some perturbation in the solar system. The Mayans, and others, accurately targeted this time frame for that crossing and also noted the unusual planetary alignment that accompanies it this time. This, I believe, is what they saw as creating the cataclysm they predicted.

Our science cannot predict how events like these will impact our Sun, impact the tectonics on our Earth, or impact the interactions of bodies within the solar system or beyond. There are many theorists and some astronomers who wonder whether this alignment with the galactic plane and other planets in our system might upset asteroids in the solar system and draw them toward the inner solar system.

Let's also be clear. The more you look into the facts, the clearer it becomes that our view of human history may be, at best, a watered down and shrouded version of the facts. Events like these, it appears have happened in the natural history of the Earth. The myths and more describing previous advanced civilizations on this planet are too widespread and numerous to be ignored. It's possible that we have faced events like these before, been setback and had to climb back up to a civilized world.

Barbara Hand Clow has dubbed this Catastrophobia and believes there are deep psychological scars in our collective consciousness about past events like this. She even hypothesizes this may be why we are so fixated on disastrous ends to our civilization as predicted in numerous mythological and spiritual texts.

So, I've said many times in recent weeks that December 21, 2012 was a Non sequitur and that we should not live always afraid of the next doomsday. That to do so diminishes us and leaves us living lives of worry that do not allow us to thrive. I firmly believe that. We should not always live worried about Y2K, 2012, or whatever the next terrifying date trotted out in front of us. We should also be wary of interests political, religious, or economic that always seem to want to keep us in a state of fear and confusion about such things.

We know, though, that we live on a dynamic planet, in a dynamic solar system, in a dynamic galaxy. Climates change, things bump into each other, and that massive ball of fire 93 million miles away has an awful lot to do with what happens here on Earth.

What can we do? Well, we don't want to stick our heads in the sand pretend none of these things could ever happen. We can and must develop our minds, our sciences, our awareness, and marshal our resources to be as prepared as we can be, but we need not live our days worried about a "what might happen someday” scenario in any way, shape, or form that undermines our purpose for being here and moving our species forward.

Stay inspired!

Ray