Preparing for a Week of the Yucatan Travel Movie

This is the week of the “gathering of the clans” to work on the Yucatan Travel Movie and also the book about our adventures in Yucatan.

Almost Lost Yucatan Travel Movie!

Today, when I turned on my computer in preparation for editing the Yucatan Travel Movie, I was shocked to see a prompt saying that there was something wrong with the computer.

I almost went into a warp-drive panic!

Fortunately, I could call my trusty tech support at Dell . . . and, I discovered that even though the prompt appeared to be giving a message of doom and gloom, it was actually a relatively frequent prompt, i.e., I had not lost all my work. He suggested I shut down and start it again.

It worked!!! Yay!

I did lose all the editing I did yesterday because . . . and this is definitely a lesson to me . . . I forgot to back up the file.

I backed it up today!!! Twice!!!

Chichen Itza Equinox Event

Today, I sorted through photographs of the world-famous Chichen Itza Equinox Event. We were in Chichen Itza for the Spring Equinox this year when the sunlight formed the pattern of a serpent’s body on the stone serpent whose body rises up the side of the stairs on the Pyramid of Kulkulkan. This was an event that required a lot of jostling and justling in the crowd to get the photo without someone’s else from the crowd getting in the way.

Yucatan Travel Movie Decisions

So many decisions to make. Whether to put this event here or there. Whether to use this event or not. How much to leave it, how much to throw out. I’m worn out. Time to rest for the day!

Working on Yucatan Travel Movie

Today, I was learning how to make titles for the Yucatan Travel Movie. I am using Sony Vegas Platinum Pro 9 software. It is very much a learning experience but I am making progress . . . and, it is fun!

I love digital! It is so much easier than film, which is the medium on which I originally learned how to make movies.

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

Copyright 2009 Carol Chapman