Mayan calendar ends; world doesn't

Students react during countdown to when many believe Mayan people predicted as end of the world, Friday, Dec. 21, 2012, in Taichung, southern Taiwan / AP

MERIDA, Mexico Dec. 21 started out as the prophetic day some had believed would usher in the fiery end of the world. By Friday afternoon, it had become more comic than cosmic, the punch line of countless Facebook posts and at least several dozen T-shirts.

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"End of Days" celebrated at Maya site

At the ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza, thousands chanted, danced and otherwise frolicked around ceremonial fires and pyramids to mark the conclusion of a vast, 5,125-year cycle in the Mayan calendar.

The doomsayers who had predicted apocalypse were nowhere to be seen. Instead, people showed up in T-shirts reading "The End of the World: I Was There."

Vendors eager to sell their ceramic handicrafts and wooden masks called out to passing visitors, "Buy something before the world ends."

And on Twitter, (hash)EndoftheWorld had become one of the day's most popular hash tags.

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For the masses in the ruins, Dec. 21 sparked celebration of what they saw as the birth of a new and better age. It was also inspiration for massive clouds of patchouli and marijuana smoke and a chorus of conch calls at the break of dawn.

The official crowd count stood at 20,000 as of mid-afternoon, with people continuing to arrive. That surpassed the count on an average day but not as many as have gathered at the ruins during equinoxes.

The boisterous gathering Friday included Buddhists, pagan nature worshippers, druids and followers of Aztec and Maya religious traditions. Some kneeled in attitudes of prayer, some seated with arms outstretched in positions of meditation, all facing El Castillo, the massive main pyramid.

Ceremonies were being held at different sides of the pyramid, including one led by a music group that belted out American blues and reggae-inspired chants. Others involved yelping and shouting, and drumming and dance, such as one ceremony led by spiritual master Ollin Yolotzin.

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The boisterous crowd included Buddhists, pagan nature worshippers, druids and followers of Aztec and Maya religious traditions. Some kneeled in attitudes of prayer, some seated with arms outstretched in positions of meditation, all facing El Castillo, the massive main pyramid.

"The world was never going to end, this was an invention of the mass media," said Yolotzin, who leads the Aztec ritual dance group Cuautli-balam. "It is going to be a good era. ... We are going to be better."

Ivan Gutierrez, a 37-year-old artist who lives in the nearby village, stood before the pyramid and blew a low, sonorous blast on a conch horn. "It has already arrived, we are already in it," he said of the new era. "We are in a frequency of love, we are in a new vibration."

But it was unclear how long the love would last: A security guard quickly came over and asked him to stop blowing his conch shell, enforcing the ruin site's ban on holding ceremonies without previous permits.

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Similar rites greeted the new era in neighboring Guatemala, where Mayan spiritual leaders burned offerings and families danced in celebration. Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina and Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla attended an official ceremony in the department of Peten, along with thousands of revelers and artists.

At an indigenous South American summer solstice festival in Bolivia, President Evo Morales arrived on a wooden raft to lead a festival that made offerings to Pachamama, Mother Earth, on a small island in the middle of Lake Titicaca.

The leftist leader and 3,000 others, including politicians, indigenous shamans and activists of all stripes, didn't ponder the end of the world, just the death of the capitalist system, which Morales told the crowd had already happened amid "a global financial, political and moral crisis."

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"The human community is in danger because of climatic reasons, which are related to the accumulation of wealth by some countries and social groups," he told the crowd. "We need to change the belief that having more is living better."

Despite all the pomp, no one is certain the period known as the Mayas' 13th Baktun officially ended Friday. Some think it may have happened at midnight. Others looked to Friday's dawn here in the Maya heartland. Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History even suggested historical calculations to synchronize the Mayan and Western calendars might be off a few days. It said the Mayan Long Count calendar cycle might not really end until Sunday.

One thing, however, became clear to many by Friday afternoon: The world had not yet ended.

John Hoopes, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas, was at the ruins, using the opportunity to talk about how myths are created.

"You don't have to go to the far corners of the earth to look for exotic things, you've got them right here," he noted.

End-of-the-world paranoia, however, has spread globally despite the insistence of archeologists and the Maya themselves that the date meant no such thing.

Dozens of schools in Michigan canceled classes this week amid rumors of violence tied to the date. In France, people expecting doomsday were looking expectantly to a mountain in the Pyrenees where they believe a hidden spaceship was waiting to spirit them away. And in China, government authorities were cracking down on a fringe Christian group spreading rumors about the world's end, while preaching that Jesus had reappeared as a woman in central China.

Gabriel Romero, a Los Angeles-based spiritualist who uses crystal skulls in his ceremonies, had no such illusions as he greeted the dawn at Chichen Itza.

"We'll still have to pay taxes next year," he said.

As if to put the final nail in the coffin of such rumors, Bob McMillan of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory confirmed Friday that no large asteroids are predicted to hit anytime soon.

And Bill Leith, a senior science adviser at the U.S. Geological Survey, noted that as far as quakes, tsunamis and solar storms for the rest of the day, "we don't have any evidence that anything is imminent."

Still, there were some who wouldn't truly feel safe until the sun sets Friday over the pyramids in the Yucatan peninsula, the heartland of the Maya.

Mexico's best-known seer, Antonio Vazquez Alba, known as "El Brujo Mayor," said he had received emails with rumors that a mass suicide might be planned in Argentina. He said he was sure that human nature represented the only threat Friday.

"Nature isn't going to do us any harm, but we can do damage to ourselves," he said.

Authorities worried about overcrowding and possible stampedes during celebrations Friday at Mayan sites such as Chichen Itza and Uxmal, both about 1 1/2 hours from Merida, the Yucatan state capital. Special police and guard details were assigned to the pyramids.

Yucatan Gov. Rolando Zapata said he for one felt the growing good vibes, and not just because his state was raking in loads of revenue from the thousands of celebrants flooding in.

"We believe that the beginning of a new baktun means the beginning of a new era, and we're receiving it with great optimism," Zapata said.

Mayan shamans take part in a ceremony on December 21, 2012, celebrating the end of the Mayan calendar, at the Tikal archaeological site, north of Guatemala City.

/ JOHAN ORDONEZ/AFP/Getty Images

[shiftoftheages]

Thank you for this great article. You can learn more from the documentary Shift of the Ages www.shiftoftheages.com. Elected Grand Elder Alejandro Cirilo Perez Oxlaj, also known as Wandering Wolf, is the protagonist of the film and it is a beautiful story about Mayan prophecy, healing ancestral wounds, unity and how we have the power to reclaim our destiny.

[Maiaa-Arishma]

Hello: Maybe there is a grace period....it was the responsibility of humanity to seal and clear the Eye of Horus and Amaru Meru gates...among other things...
As soon as this process is complete then Quetzacoatl/Lord Yeshua may be able to enter the solar system...just a little traffic jam...
Are you doing anything to help seal the Eye of Horus and Amaru Meru? Maybe a little more Quetzacoatl juice in the Heart and we will be on our way to a New Earth...Whadya say?
Maybe Quetzacoatl/Lord Yeshua can give you more insights...?
See you in the 5th Sun...
(c) Maiaa-Arishma Rose Magdalena
Shoshanayin Ministries

[ijdavidson]

Sorry to disappoint all the ignorant gee-whizzers, but the Maya did NOT possess "advanced astronomical knowledge." If they had, the first men on the moon would have been Maya, 2000 years ago. Most if not all ancient civilizations worked out highly effective techniques for observing, tracking and predicting cycle celestial events; successful agriculture benefited from this. But they had no more understanding of what they were looking at than anyone else; "advanced astronomical knowledge" is something that began in Europe with Copernicus's De Revolutionibus. The most rudimentary description of our solar system in a 2nd-grade schoolbook would be incomprehensible to an ancient Mayan. Likewise, they would not have believed anyone who told them that the sun, moon and stars don't REALLY "rise" and "set;" it just looks that way because we live on a rotating planet. And so forth. And then there are the posters who have the peculiar delusion that posting a Biblical quotation has any meaning. THE CHRISTIAN FANTASY about the end of days, Doomsday, the Apocalypse, the Second Coming, etc., HAS NOT HAPPENED because IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. It's a fairy tale cooked up by a superstitious primitive some 1800 or so years ago. What is "the world," anyway? The ancients didn't know. Our planet Earth? The planet has been rotating on its axis and revolving around the sun for about 4.5 billion years, and it will continue to do so for about the same length of time again, until the sun runs out of hydrogen to fuse into helium. Then the solar furnace will go out, the sun will collapse in on itself, and from the energy generated by the collapse will then balloon out into a red giant, past the orbit of Mars. So: No more Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, Mars, and maybe the asteroid belt. THAT'S how the "world" will REALLY end. If you seriously base your life on the belief that there WILL be a Christian-type Biblical end of the world, then you're wasting your life.

[codytank]

the worlds not ending

[mahovictor]

Let's take a look at the last 5,125 years. August 3114 BC to 2012 AD.

What about the era before 3114? Wikipedia is a fun past time looking up dates (even future dates). The Neolithic Period ended in 3100 BC. I suppose The Computer Age has become us. The age of Silicone. The Stone Age, The Bronze Age, The Iron Age, The Copper Age, The Silicone Age. Each one filled with wars,peace, climate change, philosophy, invention, knowledge, birth, death...

The Electric Age.

What a fascinating creation we are.

So, the Next Mayan Calender looks like what? 5,125 years to look forward to. Just think what is going to happen. I have a feeling a history on Mars is going to be written...an new Era's will develop

All is Vanity.

[esif44]

"As for these things which ye behold, the days will come, in which there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. And they asked him, saying, Teacher, when therefore shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when these things are about to come to pass? And he said, Take heed that ye be not led astray: for many shall come in my name, saying, I am he; and, The time is at hand: go ye not after them. And when ye shall hear of wars and tumults, be not terrified: for these things must needs come to pass first; but the end is not immediately." http://www.moykrest.ru

[WhereisOT]

"We believe that the beginning of a new baktun means the beginning of a new era, and we're receiving it with great optimism"

Is the slow agonizing death of the rethuglican party a good "sign"

One thing for certain, its a hell of a good start...

[delcirose]

Just wanted to say that if all the people who are so afraid that the end of the world is coming perhaps they should spend a month r & r in the North Korean concentration camp for political prisoners and they would discover that life is precious and we should not be wasting time and emotion on such drivel We are more likely to kill each other off over things like religion and political differences than common sense which is not so common anymore....Just saying....

[seodio]

Um if anyone took the time to read what the Mayans say, they never said it was the end of the world.

People = Sheep

[anthonyprillez]

We are at 21 December 2012 and on all over the world the newspaper, the media and the most people are speaking about the doomsday in regard with Maya legend.
Surely, it is a "very interesting" issue and, above of all, permits that we go out from our unbearable routine and sly-foxy people make up big money, too !!!
If you ask me about this, I think that it is pathetic, dumb and really fool that our "knowledge society" spend up so much energy to this nonsense and we no pay attention to a really important fact happened the same day: the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution banning the practice of Female Genital Mutilation.
Yes, believe it or not, newly December 20, 2012 our "awake humanity" recommend to prohibit this atrocious practice.
Female Genital Mutilation affects about 140 million women and girls worldwide and each year it is estimated that an additional three million girls are at risk of being subjected to this practice globally.
While across the worldwide a lot of people gathered to raise prayers for the end of the world doing OMMMs and MUMMMs, at the same instant thousand of girls were being circumcised and mutilated at the "new era dawn" !!
It is incredible that at XXI Century, we are more concerned for an "old and stony legend" than by thousands of women and girls who suffer this horrifying fate.
Although the declaration of United Nations is not binding, it reminds us where we are how global humanity and certainly, I think that we are so much overrated.
If we believe that a stupid doomsday history is more important than the life and suffering of millions of people in the world we are very far from the birth of new era !!!
The New Humanity will not be built with OMMMs and UMMMs. This is good for our comfort and relaxation. And this is also good for each of us, no doubt. But the New Humanity will be built with active involvement in the solutions of aberrant world problems.
If we don't understand this, the human dawn will continue being very far.