Mayans / Long Count / Why 2012? / Galactic Alignment
http://www.crystalinks.com/tzolkin.gifOk, first let’s get this out of the way, because when it comes down to it, mostly none of this would be possible without the Mayan Long Count:
The Mayans where decades ahead of their time when it came to the fields of Math, Science and Astronomy. They had already figured out and plot the orbits of the planets while mostly everyone in Europe was still convinced that the Earth was at the center of the Universe.
One of their greatest achievements was the Mayan Calendar; its said to have been nearly 30% more accurate then the calendar we now use today. Much like a horoscope it was mostly used for religious events, marriages, times for planting crops, and even predicting the future, like events of Solar Eclipses that would occur decades later.
Historians argue that the Mayans were obsessed with time. But beside their normal calendar, they made a second that they named the Long Count; in a way, this was more like a time line for the Mayans that recorded the exact date of their culture's creation, up until an alleged date that their culture would never see thanks to a man by the name of Hernan Cortes and his Conquistadors that reshaped Mexico's tribal nations in the name of Spain. The Long Count though is exceptional in calling predictions, for it had the record of actually predicted things like the American Revolution, The Civil War, The World Wars, The Civil Rights Movement, etc.
The thing about the Long Count though is, as a time line, it had an end, predicting that the human race would go through a time of "Great Change" before disaster would strike, ending the world as we know it. This takes place in a grand total of three days, starting on December, 21st 2012; The date that starts the 2012 Winter Solstice.
The Winter Solstice was a HUGE holiday for mostly ANY religion that's ever existed in the world as we know it, including that of Christianity, in why we celebrate Christmas
(Originally the date was chosen to compete with the Roman Saturnalia, ie: the celebration of Saturn during the Winter Solstice. When Constantine converted the pagan Rome to Christianity, he abolished the Saturnalia, and put the celebration of Christmas into place during the same week. It was a similar time of celebration, rest, and gift giving, but the people just has to celebrate it for a different reason. the people were happy as long as they got to party.)
It marks the transition in winter when days start growing in length, and the nights become shorter, as the Earth continues it's orbit around the Sun. The Winter Solstice basically meant start to the end of Winter, which in a tribal perspective meant more light in the sky, more hours to work, and warmer weather for crops and food.
Without electricity back in those days, people lived by the sun and many cultures worshiped the existence of light. The Mayans were no different. They believed the Sun was actually a God, and the creator of all life.
Which actually brings me to the first part of the reason why they chose 2012 as their doomsday. But to understand this, you need to understand the myth of their creation:
In the beginning the Sun god, Ah Kinchil, had two sons, a set of twins named Hunahpu and Xbalanque.
The story basically goes that one day in the Sun's travels through the Heavens, the god of death, Ah Puch, captured Ah Kinchil and imprisoned him in Hell -
an endless abyss that lay at the center of the fields of Heaven, that consumed even light.
Hunahpu and Xbalanque though ended up saving their father from Hell, after an epic struggle that I'm not going to go into on here because it's very lengthy, and in return, Ah Kinchil granted his sons the birth of the Mayan civilization.
The significance of this story though is rather the Sun's trip into the Mayan's Hell. Simply translated, the plain of Heaven to the Mayans was the field of Space, with every planet, comet, and star perfectly aligned in the sky. The Mayan Hell however was the
endless abyss at the center of the galaxy that consumes even light. At first glance, the Mayan idea of Hell isn't exactly our image of Fire and Brimstone, but do you know what is actually in the center of the Milky Way galaxy?
A Supermassive Black Hole lies at the heart of our galaxy giving the Milky Way it's rotational spin, and holds us in sync with it's massive gravitational pull. Scientists actually hadn't discovered it until recently, but the Mayans knew and depicted of it within their myths and legends.
http://www.space.com/images/iod_black_hole_000717_04.jpgAnd in 2012, the Sun, according to the Mayans will make that trip into Hell once more; IE, because the Earth is on a tilt on it's axis, it creates the illusion of our Sun aligning with the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Cool huh? So what is this going to do to us?
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
The Supermassive Black Hole is not any version of Hell, nor is it going to be some type of new threat to the earth in a matter of three years. Our Solar System is located on one of the outer rings of the Milky Way, so there's no chance of us being sucked into it, by gravitational pull or anything of that matter. The Milky Way's black hole will only effect us as it has been doing for billions of years, keeping the Solar System in its orbit with the rest of the trillions of stars that exist along side our sun.
Not only that, but the Sun isn't actually going to align with the center of our galaxy. Because the Earth has a tilt to it's axis it has a different perspective then that of the rest of existence. While mostly everything in the Milky Way is turning on an even plain, the Earth makes it look like the Sun is traveling around the Milky Way much like its traveling the path of a Sin Wave, or that the Sun will cross the center of the Galaxy in a cycle.
But there isn't really going to be any side effects from this alignment. To the naked eye it'll just be another Solstice and life will go on much like it did after Y2K.
To the Mayans though, a very much religious people who were in fear of their God of Death, saw this as the end of man kind.
Even though the Mayans were farther ahead of us in the time line, and their depth perception of time was much more advanced, they still had a problem with the idea of 2012. They added their religious perspective to a Solar/Galactic Center Alignment and saw it as the end of all things. But
Astrology + Astronomy STILL EQUALS Myth!
And if that isn't enough to prove that nothing will happen in December of 2012, the fact that their Doomsday is placed on a religious holiday should be enough proof. To me, because they used their own beliefs to mark the end of time seems rather far'fetched. The Solar Alignment technically happens within the full year of 2012, not just in December, and they chose the Solstice because it was such an important religious time period. In fact the chances of something happening on the other 355 days of the year have the same chance as that of the Solstice: Slim to None.
Personally, I think the Mayans were incredibly smart, but because of choosing the Solstice as Doomsday, I really think that December 21st, 2012 will be no more then just another day under the sun. If anything, I think that the Long Count will just repeat itself, and start a new cycle as man kind continues on.
*EARTH'S PERSPECTIVE / "GALACTIC ALIGNMENT
This is a very bad picture i know, but i did it rather quickly.. I may or may not make a better one but you never know.
Ok. Because of Earth's tilted Axis, Earth spins on a wobble - like an off settled spinning top or a gyro.
In the year, 2012, Earth is supposed to complete a cycle of one of these wobbles, creating the illusion of a Galactic Alignment of our Sun with the Center of the Milky Way Galaxy.
View One in the Diagram is pre 2012. View two is post 2012.
Yellow is the Sun, Purple line is the Center of the Milky Way plain that the sun "will" cross,
and the Red dot and dotted line is an Earth's Perspective sight line.
Because of Earth's perspective, the Sun looks like it's traveling up and down in the current of a Sin Wave, crossing the Milky Way's galaxy every several thousand years:
As the Earth's Axis starts to tilt, the illusion is created. When you look into the sky once a year, the stars generally line up to the same exact place as they were a year before hand, because of the Earth's elliptical Orbit. The one thing that the Mayans saw that was changing though was the position of the sun, compared to the Supermassive black hole, which again, they saw as their hell. They saw, and plotted out, that the sun travels in a wave cycle, much like a Sin Wave, passing through a point that crossed the center of the galaxy.
BUT THIS ONLY CAN OCCUR BECAUSE OF THE EARTH'S TILT.
In view one, the Axis is tilted to the left, making the Sun appear like it's traveling upwards above the Milky Way plane.
In view two, the Axis is tilted to the right, making the Sun appear like it's traveling down, below the Milky Way plane.
The Earth continues this wobbling cycle, giving the view of the Sun's path to the black hole, but if you went anywhere else in the universe, and tried to see this same effect, it doesn't exist.
In trust, the sun sits INSIDE one of the bands of the Milky Way, and does not travel up and down on this plane. The Sun travels parallel to the black hole, and we're technically aligned with it 24/7. It's only Earth's perspective that gives the Sun this effect.
The Mayan's didn't understand this, or they understood the first perspective, but couldn't grasp the fact to look at it from another place in space (because quite frankly, they couldn't) and saw that in 2012 the Sun would travel into Hell again, but it is only an illusion.
Good Videos to Watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Iq4PIHYyAo - "Why it's not 2012"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9SmN6UNJjk - "Doomsday 2012" -History Channel
Off the coast of North Africa is a tiny little chain of Islands called the Canary Islands. Peaceful and scenic, it's a hot spot for the tourist industry much like that of the Caribbean. However like Hawaii, it's has a volcano of its own. Unlike the destructive power of Yellowstone's ash cloud, the Canary Islands has it's own destructive force just waiting to be unleashed: a tidal wave. 
The answer really involves the way the volcano has shaped itself over the last few centuries. The mountain Cumbre Vieja is both the cause and the victim of this. When the volcano inside of it erupts, scientist predict that the volcano will fall apart; causing the entire face of the western side of the mountain to slip into the sea in one massive land slide. 
