Carol Chapman | Carol Chapman

Loving the Yucatan Travel Video

I am getting ready for a “meeting of the clans” week-long retreat when a number of us who are contributing to the Yucatan Travel Video will be getting together for meetings on production and promotion.

This is an exciting time for me because the original actors and camera people will be together again for the first time since our last shooting trip to the Yucatan in March of this year. Plus, we will have our editing consultants with us.

I am enthusiastically preparing for the get together.

Carol Chapman

Mary and Jesus Twin Souls

I just received emails with attachments of photographs of two paintings by the same artist. One painting is of Mother Mary, the other is of Jesus.

They are great! I love that the paintings of Mary and Jesus show a family resemblance. How unique! They look like mother and son. Why not! Of course, in Michelangelo’s Pieta, they also look very similar, as they should. However, I often find artists depicting them as individuals who don’t look related.

In these paintings sent to me, Mary and Jesus have such a strong family resemblance they I am immediately reminded that they were Twin Souls, which is what they were, according to Edgar Cayce.

December 21, 2012 Date Uncertain

As I’ve said before in this blog, and as I say in my lectures on, “2012, Edgar Cayce and the Maya,” the December 21, 2012 date has changed a number of times.

The change in date is the result of developments in the translation of ancient Mayan glyphs, the written language of the ancient Maya. The Mayan glyphs have only recently been translated by archeologists and linguists.

Modern-day Maya do not know how to read the ancient Mayan glyphs. Although many modern-day Maya speak their traditional language, they virtually lost their written language when Bishop Diego de Landa, fired with Spanish Inquisition zeal, burnt all of their books on July 12, 1562. These books were one-of-a-kind, meticulously transcribed codices written by shamans similar to scrolls produced by monks. They were irreplaceable . . . and they are all, except for 3 codices and parts of a fourth, gone.

It has taken modern scholars a long time to decipher the unusual ancient glyphs. Once they had the dates translated, they had to correlate the dates they discovered with the dates of the calendar we use, the Gregorian Calendar. In the process, the date for the end . . . and subsequent beginning of the new . . . Mayan Long Count Calendar has changed a number of times.

At the present time, December 21, 2012 is the agreed upon date that has been correlated with the Gregorian calendar as the date was that translated from the ancient Mayan glyphs.

But don’t hold your breath. That date may yet change again.

Carol Chapman

2012 and the End of the World

Today, I met with a woman who is becoming a friend. We have talked about 2012.

I have told her about my interviews with Mayan shamans, experts on the Maya and their Long Count Calendar, and Mayan people in the Yucatan.

She knows that my research among the Maya in the Yucatan is that the world is NOT going to end on December 21, 2012.

Instead, the Long Count Calendar will be starting on Day One December 22 IF present-day archeologists have correctly translated ancient Mayan glyphs and IF present-day archeologists have correctly correlated the Mayan Long Count calendar with our Gregorian calendar.

My friend told me that she had met a woman yesterday who proclaimed to her that on December 21, 2012, the world was going to end. Fortunately, my friend was able to assure this distraught woman that the world was not going to end on that date.

Carol Chapman

Yucatan Travel Video Gets Organized

I have been been struggling with a problem of my own making, as it turns out. It really helps to consult with love ones, in this case, my very creative daughter-in-law, Cher. It was her help that gave my business the name of SunTopaz.

Now, I came to her with a problem that I considered to be intricate and complicated. I told her that it bothered me that the Yucatan travel video is comprised of footage taken during three visits to the Yucatan.

In the first visit, our daughter Miriam came with us. At the time, she had long golden hair.

However, Miriam did not come with us during the second visit, which included the trip to Palenque and Villahermosa to see the Olmec heads.

Then, the third and final trip to the Yucatan, which includes the wonderful Mayan elders equinox ceremony at Chichen Itza, also includes Miriam, but this time, with short chin-lenth hair.

Cher’s suggestions? She said that she has watched a lot of travel movies and she noticed that many of them jump around from place to place with hardly an explanation. For example, in one recent Lonely Planet travel video, the viewer is suddenly at an island – no explanation and no introduction ahead of time.

She suggested that I announce to the viewer near the beginning of the movie that it was shot in three visits to the Yucatan. She believes the viewer will figure it out.

Now I feel more relaxed as I review the extensive footage taken of our travels in Yucatan.

Carol Chapman

Yucatan Travel Video Progress

After a year of travel to many wonderful speaking engagements, I am happy that I can be home for a while and make some progress on my Yucatan Travel Movie.

Carol Chapman

Moose at Speaking Event in Anchorage

A Mother Moose and her Calf frolic past the door of the ATOM Center in Anchorage, Alaska

I have been trying to get a photograph of a moose since my honeymoon 15 years ago. We went to Newfoundland where it was cool in July compared to the steamy summer weather in the South.

The whole time we were in Newfoundland, I drove with the camera on my knee hoping to get a great nature photograph of a moose.

On the highway, we saw one far in the distance munching on water plants in a swamp. However, we sped by it in the car too quickly to take a photo.

As a result, we decided to ply the many secondary by-ways, and even ventured on a few gravel roads, always searching for that elusive moose.

Now, 15 years later, this mother moose and her youngster appeared at my doorstep 15 minutes before my speaking event, “Everyone Has a Book in Them,” a two-day workshop program in the ATOM Center in Anchorage, Alaska. The Alaskans, who had arrived for the program early, thought that likely the mother and her baby were on their way to a nearby lake. It seems that moose events are rather common in Anchorage.

The ATOM Center is in town at 4025 Raspberry Road, kiddie-corner and behind the Tastee Freeze. And here they were – mama and baby! Definitely an auspicious event just as the program was about to begin!

At it turned out, it was a wonderful weekend where I met creative, energetic people who are excited about getting their ideas out of their heads and onto the pages of a book.

Carol Chapman

Guest Post from Clair

Carol can’t access this site again, and she asked me to let all of you know. The same technical issue is preventing her from accessing her email so if you are hoping for a reply, please hold tight. She will answer you once she has managed to get her computer to behave again.

It’s a Miracle!

This blog site is up on my computer! For some reason, everyone else could see this web site but my computer could not.

Yesterday, I spent much of the day attempting to get help from technical experts. Maybe it just took a while for the changes they suggested to become effective.

Whatever the reason: YAY!!!

Unfortunately, during the time my computer could not see the web site, I could not access any emails directed to email accounts associated with this web site.

Tomorrow, I will get a chance to read them and reply. I am too tired right now.

Carol Chapman —

Are we in Mercury Retrograde?

I have to remember this so when Mercury Retrograde begins in September, I will be aware that the internet and internet communications via email can be totally a disaster and impossible even when Mercury is NOT Retrograde.

I made the mistake of upgrading my browser to Windows Internet Explorer 8. Oh woe! I should have left things the way they were. Now, every time I open a new page, I get a window saying that there’s some problem and do I want to proceed? Of course I want to proceed!!!

Then, I can’t get into emails the normal way and have to use a circuitous route saying “OK” every time the “something is not right, do you want to proceed” box comes up.

Then, when I get to my mail, there is no “Squirrel Mail,” which is what I use so I click on “Horde” and there is nothing in the folder except for one after another file saying that the mail delivery system is returning the message to the sender.

Is this a virus? Funny, it did not begin until I upgraded to 8. The same thing happened when I upgraded Symantec. It wiped out various toolbars I was using and I can’t get them back.

I guess I could try calling Microsoft about my problems with Explorer. I hate to do that because there is the fear that I will end up talking with someone in a foreign country who is very polite, is obviously reading off a monitor, and can’t help me. I have also talked to a fast-talking geek at MS.

What do I do!!! People will think I have not answering their emails when I am actually trying to. I guess I will have to call someone and take my chances that they actually know what to do and also have the ability to communicate it. Scary.

Carol Chapman —