To reach a true understanding of the Mayan calendar it is important to understand that all of the glyphs and numbers are of a metaphorical nature. It is not enough to know how a glyph translates from Mayan to a single English word. You must gain a shamanic understanding of the language to appreciate a glyph’s full interpretation and flexibility. If this were something understood by Western academics, the Maya language would be taught in universities alongside the Shakespearean epics.
There is a special chapter in the Chilam Balam of Chumayel (Jaguar Prophet — a special book of of Mayan politics and prophecies that holds the true prophecy for Dec. 21, 2012), titled “A New Judgement of the Lordship” where a “True Person”, a special priest of Toltec origin, questions the chiefs of the Mayan towns to see if they are educated and worthy leaders.
The chiefs were asked for food stuffs – “Bring me the Sun…with a green jaguar seated over the Sun drinking its blood.” That is a fried egg with a green pepper on top. The “brains of the sky” is incense. The “branch of the ceiba tree, and three stranded cord and a living vine” is a dried lizard, the tail of an iguana and pig’s intestine.
The metaphors get trickier as the chapter progresses and some of the metaphors can be very erotic, “one woman, her calf very white and well formed, here I will pull back her undergarment from her thigh,” that is peeling the skin of a jicama. These same chiefs presumably had knowledge of the sacred calendar to which they applied the same metaphorical intelligence.
If the dialogue was understood by the chiefs then they would have achieved wisdom and have sound judgement. If they did not understand then it would be a sad day for their people as well as for the stars and caverns, the implication being that there was a connection between the heavens, the people and the underworld.