The Rebirth Celebration: May 9-11, 2009

In May 2009 a major emanation from the Hunab-Ku, an unfathomably large intelligence in the center of the universe according to Mayan Cosmology, will inform a magnificent birth of cosmic proportions. This epoch period, the Mid-Point of the Sixth Day of the Galactic Underworld, gives humanity an unprecedented opportunity to cooperate with the forces of evolution to fulfill individual and collective purposes, and to create a sustainable world of harmony, abundance and balance with Nature. As with any birth, there is also death...death of that which is no longer supported by these new evolutionary energies. This article provides the background for this paradoxically auspicious and ominous moment, and what we can do personally and collectively to consciously participate in it.

To understand our current situation according to the Mayan calendar I believe it is necessary to first backtrack somewhat and look at what has happened at the most important of the recent shift points of the Galactic Underworld (See Firgure 1).

A very important such was the beginning of the fifth night, November 19, 2007. In my book The Mayan Calendar and the Transformation of Consciousness, written in 2003, I ended the discussion about economy (page 233) with a prediction relating to this point in time: "Regardless of what forms such a [financial] collapse may take it seems that the best bet is for it to occur close to the time that the Fifth NIGHT begins, in November 2007 [strictly speaking the 19th]." This prediction was based on the fact that throughout cosmic history the fifth night has been a time when the old order often has come to be destroyed. Today, as economists agree that the global economic recession started in December of 2007 (see Figure 2) we can in retrospect see how amazingly accurate predictions may be if they are based on the true Mayan calendar. Even if predictions from it are not cut in stone it will nonetheless tell us what time periods that are conducive to certain activities and frames of mind.

A second very important shift point came with the beginning of the sixth day -- November 12, 2008 -- when, with the election of Obama as president of the US a week earlier, an energy of rebirth can be said to have manifested. This is also what had been predicted to begin at that particular time, which is symbolized by Yohalticitl, the goddess of birth. Barack Obama notably happens to be born on the Mayan day-sign 9 Ben, which is identical to the birthday of the United States, July 4, 1776, and thus plays a significant role in the history of this particular nation, in that he thus creates a full circle. His intentions to rule with transparency and with a more friendly and egalitarian relationship to other nations is certainly a welcome contrast to several of his predecessors. A sense of rebirth of ethical values has thus surrounded him creating an opening for a global unity on a larger scale.

We may however notice that the economy did not turn up again as the sixth day began. Why this was so can be understood on different levels. One is the economic in that the means of continuing the economic growth through expanding credit probably now have been exhausted. Everyone who takes a loan knows that this means taking resources from the future and the limits to how far this can be pushed have now been reached. Another level of understanding is that of the cosmic plan where we are now in the Galactic Underworld, which does not have economic and technological development as its primary purpose. On the contrary, the Galactic Underworld is about broadening the human horizon to a holistic viewpoint where we show concern for all of creation and the whole planet, which the world's economic system has increasingly come in conflict with. We thus have reasons to seriously ask if the world will ever again experience a prolonged period of economic growth although the media keep talking about when the recession will end and the bankers and rulers of the world, Obama included, are taking measures that they say are to this effect.

What is now being tried in order to reactivate the growth economy is then to give the bankers tax-payer money so that they can lend the same money back to the tax-payers that they got it from. This may sound like a joke. Yet, the fact that so many have accepted this as necessary, and too complex for regular people to understand, shows how great the faith in the old ways still are. The reason the majority of people take it for granted that there will again be a period of economic growth some time in the future is that they were born into the Planetary Underworld. And indeed, if we study the wave movement of the Planetary Underworld that had the dominating effect on our consciousness between AD 1755 and AD 1999, we can see that economic growth periods alternated with recessions as a direct function of its shifts between days and nights. Days meant upturns and nights downturns in the industrial economy. This very wave movement of the Planetary Underworld was however exactly what was transcended by the fifth night of the Galactic Underworld that began November 19, 2007. Will it then really in the current situation be possible for anyone to reactivate the growth economy? I personally do not think that this is the case except maybe for in limited sectors and to limited degrees. The decline will maybe slow down somewhat in this sixth day, but is likely to be intensified around the time the sixth night begins around November 7, 2009. The purpose of the current Galactic Underworld is thus different from that of the Planetary and is primarily to introduce relationships in the world based on a holistic global and egalitarian mindset, manifested in balanced relations between genders, nations, races and religions across the planet (and actually across the universe, but we know little about this). If we like we may thus look upon the whole Bush era as blocking this consciousness from manifesting.

Thus, while I feel that we are under the influence of the energies of the Mayan calendar (otherwise predictions would not have been possible) I also feel that our choices and the choices of different rulers influence how they manifest. Thus, certain policies of the Bush era might for instance have aggravated the situation. Regardless, I feel there is every reason to predict considerable hardships for many individuals who may lose their jobs, private economies and homes at the current time and the many who in the time to come are likely to be faced with similar circumstances. An observer from a different planet may however look upon this also from a somewhat different perspective. He or she may look upon the end to the incessant growth economy as a sign that there is some hope that the planetary cancer is starting to recede and that there is some hope that humanity will actually survive and fulfill its purpose. In such a perspective we may look upon it as if the cosmic plan has now set in a protective mechanism for the Earth, since one thing we can be certain of is that if the growth economy does not come to an end then the world will come to an end. No one may be able to tell whether this would happen because of global warming, depletion of life in the oceans, destruction of the rainforests, the disappearance of the bees or something else. In fact, we do not really need to know what would trigger such a collapse of the planetary ecosystem, since the point to realize is that none of these threats to our environment can be looked upon in isolation from the others. They all have a common origin in an economy that for a long time has been based on incessant growth and now the frame of consciousness carried by the Galactic Underworld is forcing us to face the consequences of this.

I feel this means that in the years ahead we may expect to be faced with very difficult dilemmas on a personal level that usually do not have simple resolutions: "If I do not take care of myself, who will? Yet, if I do not care for the larger whole, who am I?" We may of course put the blame for the downturn of the economy on the bankers and others, who created the economy that led us to live off the resources of the future. This however does not change very much, and it is also probably difficult to find someone who in one way or another did not to some extent benefit from this in a material sense. Thus, with few exceptions human beings have not voluntarily been willing to set an end to the growth.

What then is there to do in this situation we may ask? If the economy will never start to grow again, what will emerge in its place? Many realize that what needs to happen is a transition to a sustainable economy, something that humanity has not experienced for some 5000 years. This would mean a return to a non-dualist Garden of Eden in balance with the environment at a new and higher level, a transition that many will probably find very difficult and almost incomprehensible to grasp mentally speaking. We may for instance take note of the fact that no world leader or economist is currently advocating a shift to an economy that is sustainable. So far, few have even started to consider that there will be no upturn in the economy, and when this starts to dawn on people we may in fact come to witness all kinds of actions of desperation and social unrest taking somewhat different forms in different cultures. Many hierarchical structures are likely to collapse.

Will a sustainable economy then emerge? Well, there is no answer to this in the Mayan calendar, simply because it depends on the choices people will make in the time ahead and what they focus on creating. In the perspective of such a collective choice determining the future of humanity, it however seems plain silly when you hear people claim that the Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world from pole shifts, asteroids, natural disasters, sunspots or other physical events outside of ourselves. The reality is that the Mayan calendar describes the evolution of consciousness and for the future does not predict anything except for what emanates, directly or indirectly, from the human beings themselves. Another way of saying the same thing is that there are no "consciousness shifts" happening on this planet outside of ourselves. The exact time of the downturn of the economy was predictable from the Mayan calendar for the very reason that this was a result of human behavior that is conditioned by the resonance with the Cosmic Tree of Life. The Cosmic Tree of Life, according to Mayan, and other ancient traditions is an unfathomably large intelligence, Hunab-Ku, at the center of the universe that makes quantum jumps at critical shift points in the calendar. The existence of such a central axis of the universe has recently (2003) been discovered by science, which I believe to be one of the most consequential discoveries of all time and elaborate on in the forthcoming The Purposeful Universe (Inner Traditions, December 2009). It is the energies emanating from this Cosmic Tree of Life that serve to synchronize evolution on all levels of the universe. It is through our own resonance with this, and with its quantum shifts, that we are inspired to create our world in accordance with the wave movements of seven days and six nights in the cosmic plan.

From this perspective the talk of a predetermined "doomsday," as presented by the History Channel or in upcoming Hollywood movies, simply seems absurd for anyone knowledgeable about the Mayan calendar. Such thinking merely serves to instill fear and to deflect our attention from the real issues at hand. Even if it may be true that the world may come to an end if we are not able to successfully transit to a sustainable economy, this would not be because of any preset "doomsday." Such a disaster would instead be something that humanity has collectively (with some having greater responsibility than others) brought upon itself. If anything it would be caused by how we have ignored the message of the Mayan calendar, which is that we are meant to transit to a state of peace in oneness. Projections of fears or dreams onto a Y2K date in the future is a way of thinking that I believe is very disempowering and removes the responsibility for the course of events from our actions in the present moment.

To avoid such projections I feel it is necessary to ground our intentions and actions in the changing energies of the Mayan calendar that we are living through in the present moment and look at what kind of intentions these may empower in us now. Our understanding of these may be based on parallels between different Underworlds such as the exact prediction of the time for the beginning of the economic decline. This was based on the analogy with the year 1932, the beginning of the Fifth night of the Planetary Underworld, which meant the beginning of the Great Depression on a global scale. With the same reasoning of making parallels between different Underworlds we may now also look at our current situation as we approach the midpoint of the sixth day of the Galactic Underworld on May 11, 2009 (10 Ahau) and its continuation into its second half until November 7, 2009. The shift date is a parallel to the year 1962 (which was the midpoint of the sixth day of the Planetary Underworld) and the second half to the time period 1962-1972. We may then want to recall what happened during this time period. 1962 was the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a shift point from which the Cold War would start to thaw and the year later the Beatles phenomenon exploded. I was privileged to be in England at the time and experience this first hand before it went on to most of Europe and later to the US. The point here is of course not to emphasize the musical phenomenon as such, but that this was the beginning of an intense wave of novelty that would create a tremendous cultural rebirth and social experimentation that in the years ahead would sweep the world from Mai 68 in France to Flower power, hippies and the peace movement in the US. This movement had distinct characters in different countries, and yet was very much globally synchronized in time. It was carried by a desire to test new ways of being outside of the control of the "establishment" in every area of life and no authority was taken for granted. We may today look upon some its expressions as excesses, such as for instance the cultural revolution in China, but the fact remains that our current world still owes much of its egalitarianism and openness to what was created in this era.

Needless to say, the world today is very different from 1962 and if nothing else it is dominated by another Underworld, where economic growth is constrained. Yet, it seems to me that this kind of an experimental attitude is exactly what is needed at the present time when a chief challenge is a grass roots creation of a sustainable economy. Any time of crisis fosters new creativity, which may take many forms of self-organizing collectives that escape the dominance of the ruling hierarchies. Moreover, if the downturn in the economy was predictable based on the Mayan calendar we have reasons to suspect that an intensified grass roots creativity will be supported by the Tree of Life in the time ahead. It has already become clear that in the current situation the old ways do not work for people in general and that something new will have to emerge. I feel if we do not understand this now, it will definitely be clear during the sixth night, November 7, 2009 to November 2, 2010, that the return to a growth economy is not possible. There might then come a point when the US government sees it necessary to declare a global moratorium on debts, at least to major financial institutions, something that would decrease hardships, and at the same time mean a major step towards a sustainable economy. For these reason we are inviting you to participate in a global meditation on May 9-11 to focus on the creation of a sustainable economy for the first time in 5000 years. This is an intention that millions of people share, but it is an altogether different matter to see it transcend the growth economy on a global scale.

What we can do is in meditation to look at who we need to be for this to happen. I also believe that the increasing awareness of the Cosmic Tree of Life, currently shared only by a very small minority of the Earth's population, will help to create the increased compassion that will be much needed as humanity seeks new ways of sharing resources, jobs etc. Thus a spirit of sharing, collaboration and compassion needs to color the global meditation at the midpoint of the Sixth day, May 9-11, 2009. If the new ways do not embody such a compassion and collaboration they are simply likely to reproduce the old. A global meditation clearly does not by itself solve the problems of mankind. But it does help! By focusing on connecting with the Cosmic Tree of Life, which in Mayan and other ancient myths is behind the different eras humanity is living through, we may help create the necessary compassion to fulfill our own purpose as this attains its highest state on the energy of 13 Ahau on October 28, 2011. In a global meditation we may focus on inspiring the grass root creativity that will be needed to transit to a sustainable Garden of Eden that on my own part I am convinced is the purpose of the cosmic plan.

Carl Johan Calleman has been studying the Mayan calendar since 1979 and is the author of The Mayan Calendar (2001), The Mayan Calendar and the Transformation of Consciousness (2004) and the forthcoming The Purposeful Universe (Inner Traditions, December 2009) and collaborates with the Mayan elders. He holds a Ph.D. in Physical Biology from the University of Stockholm, has been a Senior Researcher at the University of Washington and an expert on cancer for the World Health Organization. His web site is: www.calleman.com

Image by Niharb, courtesy of Creative Commons license.