The Baktun in the Mayan Long Count Calendar
Here’s a link to an article I found helpful and clear in describing the Long Count Calendar. It’s called Calendars & the Long Count System. I like that this website has a nifty little chart that starts with the day, called a “Kin,” in Mayan to the “Baktun,” which is approximately 395 years.
The December 21, 2012 date represents 13 Baktuns in the Mayan Long Count Calendar. I will be discussing the Mayan 2012 prediction during my talk, Do Mayan Shamans believe the world will end in 2012? on Wednesday, October 26th, at Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E. in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The event is sponsored by the Edgar Cayce Forum.
Continue readingThe December 21, 2012 Mayan prophecy names 3 dates in 3 Mayan calendars
As I said yesterday, this is the great epigrapher David Stuart‘s translation of the one and only 2012 prophecy in the Mayan glyphs:
“The Thirteenth ‘Bak’tun” will be finished
(on) Four Ajaw, the Third of Uniiw (K’ank’in).
? will occur.
(It will be) the descent(??) of the Nine Support? God(s) to the ?”
There are three Mayan calendar days in that prophecy:
1. A “Bak’tun” refers to a date in the Long Count Calendar.
2. An “Ajaw” refers to a date in the Tzolk’in Calendar, on the day called Ajaw
3. An “Uniiw” (or “K’ank”in”) refers to a date in the Haab Calendar during the month of Uniiw
That may sound complicated, but, if you were to look at our calendrical system, you could see that we do the same kind of organizing of our days. For example, today is:
Day 274 in the Year Long Calendar
Day 1 in the Month Long Calendar, this month called October
Day 6 in the Week Long Calendar, this day of the week called Saturday
Tortuguera Mayan ruins contains 2012 date
A Sketch of Tortuguera Monument 6 with the Mayan 2012 date and prophecy from the Mayan Mysteries of 2012 website
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
Continue readingWonderful Speaking Event Hosts in Nanaimo
Today I’m visiting with Judith and William Munns in Nanaimo prior to my speaking event, “2012, Edgar Cayce and the Maya,” tonight.
I feel happy and loved because they make me feel so welcome. I recommend any speaker to come to the Nanaimo Metaphysical Network. They will be happy they have come here.
In addition, Judith and William really know how to publicize an event.
Carol Chapman
Copyright (c) 2009 Carol Chapman All Rights Reserved
Continue readingThe Circus at the Tulum Ruins
You might be thinking, as a certain reader wrote to be yesterday in reference to the stela with the carving of the 41.9 billion billion billion Long Count Calendar date on a stela in Coba, “What does your intuition say?”
I replied: My intuition is soooo confused and I was sooooo exhausted tramping around that huge Coba ruin. OK, I know that there’s something really important about Coba. Not sure if this is it or not. And, still not really sure if this is the correct stela since the carvings are so weathered that my conscious mind says, “You’ve got to be kidding. How could anyone see anything on these stelae?” Actually, the guidebook says that when the sun is at certain angles the weathered carvings pop out. I can believe that since it happened to me when I was in Chichen Itza this last time and, for the first time, saw and photographed a certain bas relief carving of an ancient warrior that one guide told me was Itzamna. When I visited Chichen Itza a year ago, I could hardly see the details of the carving. However, this time, the sun was in the exactly correct place and the image almost leaped off the rock! It looked as if it was outlined in black.
We had a rest-from-filming day today. However, at breakfast, while relaxing with the wind blowing off the beautiful turquoise water of the Caribbean, a young man and father at the next restaurant table leaned back and asked us, “Been here before?”
When we answered in the affirmative, he then asked, “Know anywhere cheaper to eat?”
“Sure,” we replied, “You won’t believe it, because you’re going to expect that everything at the ruins is so much more expensive, but our favorite and cheapest restaurant around here is at the Tulum ruins . . . the Argentinian restaurant. It also has the best coffee in the whole of the Yucatan!”
“Wait a minute,” the young man said, “Are you saying there are restaurants at the ruins?”
Obviously, this affable young man had never been to a ruin before.
“Yeah, sure, there is often at least one restaurant and also usually many craft stalls. Actually, Tulum, being about a 2 hour drive from Cancun, is inundated with tourists. It has a little train pulled by a tractor that takes you to the entrance of the ruins, many restaurants, tons of craft shops . . . it’s like a circus.”
The young man looked over at his lovely young wife and their two elementary-school aged sons. “Are you saying that the kids would find it interesting at an ancient Mayan ruin?”
I could see Miriam, who was sitting across the plata de fruta from me, started to roll her eyes because I knew she knew what was coming. Her mom and step-dad where about to wax eloquent about the ruins at Tulum and they might just go on and on and on.
“Heck,” I said, “The kids will love it! There’s a guy dressed up with feathers along his arms and a very realistic- looking imitation hawk’s head over his head. He spreads his wings and poses for tourist pictures. There’s also these amazing acrobats from some indigenous tradition who, dressed in their native costumes, climb a long pole while one of them plays a flute. Once they get to the top, they drop backwards tethered by a rope and slowly circle upside down until they are low enough to the ground to summersault onto their feet.”
“The best thing is the iguana,” John said.
“What?” asked the young man. His sons were definitely interested in what we were saying now.
“The iguana,” John repeated. “This guy carries around a huge ignuana. It’s tail is so long, it touches the ground when the man carries the reptile against his shoulder. The iguana’s body is almost three feet long and about 6 inches thick. You can come up to it and pet it or, for a small fee, the guy will put it across your shoulders with the tail draped down your front.”
The little boys’ eyes opened wide.
“Face it,” Miriam piped in, “if you get bored with the ruins – but my Mom and Dad never seem to – you can always go swimming . . . ”
“In a ruin?” the young man quipped.
“In the Tulum ruin,” Miriam replied. “Tulum has a fantastic beach and a beautiful protected cove. Many people come to Tulum just to swim. Forget about the ruins.”
“You mean, the water is less choppy and the wind less intense than it is here in Akumal?” the lovely young mother asked.
“Tulum beaches are some of the best in the world,” Miriam answered. “Your kids will love it. You will love it.”
The rest of the morning, Miriam and I lay on beach beds on the sand between our hotel and Half Moon Bay in Akumal. We enjoyed the sound of the surf, the refreshing breeze, and conversations about many things both about the movie we were making and anything else that came to mind. John swam and snorkeled past the pounding surf over the coral at the foot of the sand bar.
We ate Fritos with lime (Fritos also come with chile and lime flavoring here) for lunch and then headed out to Yal-Ku, a lovely snorkelling area where the salt water flows inland and is protected by limestone headlands. The water here was smooth and calm. The howling wind was a breeze.
We saw many beautiful parrot fish, some kind of turquoise fish, and the funniest, strangest fish I’ve ever seen in the wild. It was only about 3 inches long, had big protruding eyes like a frog, was reddish-brown colored, had a big head compared to the rest of its body and tapered to a small point of a flat tail. It liked to hide under the limestone rocks that hung over the water.
It looked so unusual that Miriam and I wanted to give it a name. Because it looked so unique, we named it Hermoine (after our beloved Harry Potter character), the slug fish.
It’s a good life.
Blessings,
Carol Chapman
Copyright (c) 2009 Carol Chapman
Continue reading2012 Movies
I’ve been looking up 2012 movies to see how they compare with the one I’m working on. To my surprise, I’ve seen trailers for 2012 movies with what appears to be Tibetan Monks, something about the dead coming alive, a talking head movie of a young guy with such poor audio I can hardly hear what he’s saying who is denouncing the whole thing as a scam to make money, another talking head view of young man speaking at a conference.
Isn’t 2012 about December 21, 2012, the end of the Long Count Calendar of the ancient Maya? It appears as if there are few 2012 movies about the Maya people, ancient and modern, of Mexico. That’s what my 2012 movie is about.
Continue reading