The Dawn of a New Baktun – and Piktun

Beginning with an aside, I realize that some of my esteemed astrology colleagues are talking about the nonexistent galactic alignment that didn’t happen Friday, as if it did happen. Someone even wrote to me and said, to see the alignment you have to be off of the Earth — which, if you’re talking about astrology, defeats the point. Um, like, entirely.

There were these two Mayan guys talking one day…

Now, I ask you, why do we need a galactic alignment when the point of the Mayan calendar is a positively gorgeous day count? That’s the whole idea…they counted days. They worked in long spans of time. That’s how they did calendars, one of which, a 260-day cycle (the tzolkin), could keep you busy for years studying and working with and exploring it. The galactic association is what I would call an intellectual construction.

But I will not rant; I will not go against the misinformed marketing concepts of my most beloved colleagues. I may even be wrong; I know of no past lives as a Mayan mathematician-shaman/daykeeper. I have, however, long been marveling at the beauty of the day count method, which is organized (among other measures) in 144,000 day spans, one of which ended Friday and another one of which began Saturday.

The one that ended Friday was the 13th [see article from Friday, That Was One Heck of a Baktun], which began in Sept. 1618. The baktun that ended Friday began at the dawn of the colonial age, when corporations became as powerful as governments.

Saturday began the 14th baktun, which ends in 2406. We have many problems deriving from colonialism that we need to resolve, including the fact that corporations are doing a fine job of colonizing the New World known as our minds. I say in the 14th baktun it’s time to claim back that territory.

The 13-baktun span of 5,125 years may also be a piktun, the next unit up. I know there is a debate about how many baktuns there are to the piktun (we don’t even know the real names for these units; the ones we use are concocted by archeologists), but if there are 20 of them, then a Great Cycle of 26,625 years is not evenly divisible in piktuns; that’s not the Mayan way. With the Mayans, the math was always elegant. If there are 20 baktuns to the piktun, as some suggest, a Great Cycle — the precession of the equinoxes — would be 3.25 piktuns long. This is like starting the work week at 2 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon.

My point is not to bore you or impress you with maths; my point is that Saturday began a rather special new era. At least, that is, in the calendrical sense. Given that we usually begin eras when loads of people die (the post-9/11 era, for example, and the postwar era, for another example), using a calendar is, if nothing else, a friendlier approach. The piktun that just ended started back in 3114 BCE, right around when upper and lower Egypt were joined into one kingdom, and figured they could make more food by applying the concept of irrigation. I know that (as you rush to get to relatives’ homes, or do your last-moment holiday shopping) you’re probably not that interested in what the new piktun will bring, but I mean, the option is open.

I am open to the idea that there is a vibrational shift associated with these day counts, something we can actually work with. That’s not so much about something being applied to us from the outside, but rather, the conscious use of a tool.

Astrology as we do it is another tool. Let’s tune in to local time.

Sun square Uranus, which will make for a revolting or revolutionary holiday, or day of the week, if it’s not a holiday. This chart shows the Sun and Uranus in a square, as well as the yod pattern that I refer to in the article (consisting of Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto).

The Cancer Full Moon happens Dec. 28, with the Sun in a close conjunction to Pluto — a fitting end for 2012, with the Sun aligned exactly in the 2012 aspect (Uranus square Pluto) and Mercury aligned with the Galactic Core. The Sun is currently passing through the Uranus-Pluto square. The Sun is square Uranus Christmas Day at 8:31 pm EST, meaning that the aspect is developing all day. If you’re visiting your ancestors and tribe, this is a fine opportunity to spring free from family patterns, to come out of the closet or to revolt and/or recreate yourself in some clear way.

Then comes the Full Moon; and then soon after, the Sun is conjunct Pluto and sextile Saturn. This engages the yod pattern (Jupiter in Gemini, Saturn in Scorpio and Pluto in Capricorn), one of the famous patterns in the 12/21/12 chart. That yod continues for months, which will hold the energy pattern of the solstice, but we’re how in one of its great moments.

Looked at one way, this is about the evolutionary process (Saturn and Pluto) that will lead us to revise our story of who we are, what we know and what we are doing here. Jupiter in Gemini says: get along with your neighbors, or nothing else is possible.

This message is emphasized by Mars arriving in Aquarius (the sign of groups and collective ideas) Christmas Day, just in time to stir up the dynamics of the group known as the family. Note, this is synchronous with Sun square Uranus.

Mars in Aquarius is a reminder that cooperation is a matter of initiative. In order to work together, people have to want to do so. Usually it doesn’t happen spontaneously. Mars will be square Saturn through the first week of the month, so we need to get below any emotional resistance to doing that, which would include this thing we need to deal with known as authority issues.

The Capricorn New Moon is Jan. 11. For that event, Mercury, Venus, Juno and Pluto will also be in Capricorn. The lunation is conjunct asteroid Requiem, indicative of all that we will simply have to leave behind as we enter a new era in the history of the Mesoamerican calendar tradition.

17 thoughts on “The Dawn of a New Baktun – and Piktun”

  1. No, Eric, I don’t suppose the Mayans were in contact with the Greeks.

    Twelve figures prominently in many mythologies/religions, but the Greeks had a duodecimal counting system, too. Twelve is also a natural (in the physical sense, not the mathematical), rather than idealistic, number, and I would imagine that its prominence in mythology is precisely because it is apparent in nature.

    I’d long forgotten, but now I recall my mother learning a counting system that counts the bones of the fingers (tapping each with the thumb, three bones per finger = twelve per hand), as opposed to the whole fingers & toes that figures in the 5 and 20 patterns of the Mayan system (thank you, stormi).

    Maybe what I see then is just coincidence between the two systems because multiples are bound to intersect. But to my mind, they sure do intersect at intriguing points in the count of katuns and baktuns.

  2. Jinspace, the 12 you are thinking of is the Greek one. It’s an idealistic phenomenon rather than an actual fact of nature, though the zodiac wheel does divide somewhat precisely into 12. But that is by design, and I don’t think that the ancient Greeks had contact with the Maya.

  3. It’s true Eric can very quickly be trapped by the information circulating on the Web of channeling with astronomical reality. Still, I got the idea to look in the Declinations ephemeris. There were actually for December 22 four planetary alignments + Pluto slightly away (everything is explained in my column). There is another phenomenon outside of astrology is the increase in the level of consciousness as the man to assume for a decade and who is mentioned in the article “Love This Planet. For my part I’ve not studied the Mayan calendar that detects both mysteries and perhaps secret codes asking of this upgrade on the map of consciousness to decode…
    The revelations about the fascinating Mayan remaining calendar by this civilization from another time…
    http://lunesoleil23.wordpress.com/2012/12/21/solstice-du-21-12-2012-entre-alignement-planetaires-et-decroissance/

    The map is the heliocentric Zodiac, do not ask me why I chose it I don’t know. Perhaps to echo article on Chirotic, there yet it’s still a mystery, I just listened to my intuition

    To read in English, a the link copied, pasted into the translator and sent, thank you

  4. Eric / stormi –
    Thanks for the links. Eric, if that’s the post I’m thinking of, I recall now I had the same thought when I first read it… The twelve leaped out at me not just because it figures in how we mark the hours, months & zodiac, but also our linear measurement system (12 inches to a foot) and in our grouping of objects in dozens, and that 144 itself, i.e. 12 x 12, is such a specific measure (a dozen dozen is one gross). So much coincidence? I’m intrigued.

    That said, I’m off to read. Thanks, both.

  5. Eric — We’re new (as subscribers) to PlanetWave. WOW. (or, “Holy Batkun”). Just read “Dawn of a new Batkun [and Pitkun].” One of our “grand uncles” — Bucky Fuller — spent several years immersed (with HIS bogglingly big brain) in both astrology and numerology. His (so-called) peers scoffed, but he concluded (and told me personally) that they were both CLEARLY portals to different dimensions of understanding. However there are as many pseudo-astrologers out there as there are lost souls looking for the wrong kind of “magic.”
    Hence we’re reading your pages — like a camel lapping at a cosmic oasis. Whee! (lap, lap, lap). But seriously folks, in particular — your insight into the Dutch East India Company being the prototype for today’s out-of-control corporations echoes seminal awareness(es) we’ve been having. And you blew our minds with the pivotal idea in your essay, that the “new” corporations are busy colonizing our MINDS.”
    Both of us (husband and husband, staggeringly compatible & synergistic signs & minds) —
    have worked for corporations; one of us is a recovered ad agency exec (but actually until recently, a closet poet — now “Out.”) Anyway I babble. Thanks for a stupendous blog.

  6. Amanda, did you say *squid*??

    Love and joy of the season to all! Another beautiful, mysterious story to appreciate, whether it’s your holiday or not.
    Peace, Tricia

  7. Biren, loyalty to family can be insidious, it can be evil, and it may involve people you’re not even aware of, whose viewpoint translates down the generations in unrecognizable forms. There are some things in which no compromise is possible, though we do need to know they exist before we do something about them.

    The need for loyalty is often based on the expectation of being unloved for being who we are — inherently a contradiction

  8. can someone help me weave these seeming separate aspects into one coherent story?
    i feel it is calling out to me… but in a language i am unfit to understand…

    “… this is a fine opportunity to spring free from family patterns, to come out of the closet or to revolt and/or recreate yourself in some clear way.”
    +
    Jupiter in Gemini says: get along with your neighbors, or nothing else is possible.
    +
    Mars in Aquarius is a reminder that cooperation is a matter of initiative. In order to work together, people have to want to do so.

    maybe… i am stuck because i am trying to see how to break free of the family-patterns, without breaking the family connection… and how to extend that connection to the ‘neighbours’ – especcially when they may not care to (out of fear?) get-together…

    anyone, please?

  9. omg — next year, i swear i’m hiring a mayan to calculate how much squid i need, since they’re so good at mathematical projections.

    what the hell was i thinking buying this much?

    there almost wasn’t room for the water in the pot! oy… our dinner gues better want to take leftovers home…

    🙂

    for those who celebrate christmas and those who do not, i hope you have a peaceful evening filled with joy and mystery.

  10. I don’t know whether I’m stating the obvious and/or asking a question that’s been answered before, so forgive me if there’s a lesson I missed along the way: Is it known, or a given, that the Mayans also divided the days, months and heavens by twelve as we do? Because those 144,000 day spans are divisible by twelve: 12 x 12 = 144. That’s the number that leaps out at me. Math, boring? Never.

    Wishing a lovely holiday to those whose holiday it is!

  11. “The word ‘moon’ in English and its cognate in other languages are rooted in the base ‘ME’ meaning measure (as in Greek METRON, and in the English METER and MEASURE), reminding us of the Moon’s primitive service as the first universal measurer of time”. A quote by Daniel J. Boorstin from his book “The Discoverers”

    Time and its measurement was important to all ancient civilizations which isn’t surprising to anyone, but even still, the Moon’s measure of time – at least to astrology – remains a valuable tool. Recalling the chart found here at PlanetWaves for the Sandy Hook massacre, you might remember that the Moon had just completed her 10th occultation of Pluto in a series of 19 continuous monthly occultations. At this Full Moon she will now oppose Pluto (and square Uranus), and her fullness will likely reveal something about this sad event previously hidden. With the simultaneous Sun-conjunct-Pluto at full moon, it could lead to that first step in reclaiming the New World territory known as our minds. Consciousness and it’s growth is symbolized by the Sun and the aspects he makes, while the Moon symbolizes how we feel, a rather unconscious human aspect. Even so, she is still a tool for measuring time in a conscious manner, at least while we still sense time as a linear thing.

    If time heals all wounds, some wounds need more time to heal than others. Then too, some people need more time than others to heal from the same wound, which makes time and healing a relative thing. Considering the polarity of what the Sun represents and what the Moon represents, they do seem to work well together, which leads me to a conscious feeling regarding the season we are observing and you and your relatives; try to get along with your neighbors, but try even harder to love your relatives. We are still all one.
    be

  12. Thank you, EF, for the inspiration and welcome words. Fitting as I woke this morning thinking of holiday stories filled with consciousness change and heartfelt giving, which led me to wonder how my story revision will take place. Patiently awaiting Listen as a guide.
    Hope your holiday is warm and pleasing!

  13. I’ve been considering what the Prophet Jeremiah had to say. He wrote between 586-626 BC in the period of “The Law” on the Mayan Calendar. Here is a quote from Jeremiah 10: verse 9 “Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the workman, and of the hands of the founder: blue and purple [is] their clothing: they [are] all the work of cunning [men].” Earlier in the chapter he is warning about cutting down trees to adorn with silver and gold instead of trusting in God. God is lamenting the loss of his children in the same chapter, the separation? The King James version is much more explicit than the other versions, which is probably not by chance seeing as how they were written during the corporate period.
    We have turned Christmas into an idol with our tinseled trees and over-zealous gift giving and expectance. In fact, we’ve nearly destroyed the planet fulfilling our wants and desires. I sort of wonder if the old prophets were warning us of this. The sabian symbol for the full moon is about letting go of fear and letting in love. I only looked all of this up because of one of those facebook ecards that said the Bible said not to cut down trees to decorate, to which the response was that it was a yule tree. whatever. I thought it was interesting that someone went to the trouble of making fun of a bible verse that sort of stated that we were destroying our planet.

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