2012 Maya Calendar Dark Rift Conjunction Not Alignment with Galactic Centre

On December 21st 2012 the Long Count Calendar used by the ancient Meso-American peoples such as the Maya, Aztec, Toltec and Olmec will end one great cycle of 13 Baktun (5125.26 years). The creators of this system were able to calculate and track interesting cycles of nature such as eclipse cosmic alignment and conjunctions.

The length of sub-cycles matched natural cycles such as human gestation local snakes shedding their teeth as well as the number of human digits and major joints. They understood the orbits of the observable planets and knew the lengths of each ones journey around the sun. The minds behind this system gave birth to some 24 separate calendar systems capable of tracking both astronomical and non-astronomical cycles within nature.

The winter solstice of 2012 will occur at 11:11 GMT on of course 21-12-2012 the same day the Long Count flips over. On that morning the sun will appear to rise into the patch of sky we refer to as the galactic centre or nuclear bulge. It is the location of the super-massive black hole at the centre of rotation for the Milky Way galaxy.

In itself the appearance of the sun rising here is not a particularly unique event. The phenomena can be observed for winter solstice dates of numerous years either side of 2012. The only interesting new aspect of this year will be the sun appearing to just touch one part of the Dark Rift (Great Rift) that snakes its way along the Galactic Equator. This is an area of the night sky considered important to Maya cosmology most notably with respect to spiritual rebirth mythologies. It will however take some two decades or so to travel completely through this dark region of the sky.

Although commonly known as the ‘Galactic Alignment’ the correct term for the event should really be the ‘Galactic Conjunction’. Astronomical alignments refer to three celestial objects in shared orientation. Astronomical Conjunction is an alignment of two cosmic objects or bodies as seen from the Earths perspective.

For a simple example we can imagine three planets in alignment. The factuality of this event would not be effected by your location in the solar system. Whether you are stood on the Moon or on the Earth the three planets would still be aligned. When an alignment, such as that of the Sun and the Dark Rift, is only happening from the perspective of the Earth then it is a Conjunction. This is clearly the case for 2012 calendar end-date.

It is true that this will be the first time in almost 26,000 years that the Sun will appear to connect with part of the Dark Rift. It is also fair to say that this lacks the excitement of some of the false theories regarding 2012 astronomy events. We can not say that the Sun will be perfectly aligned with the galactic centre or with the middle of the Dark rift. It is rather just somewhere between the two regions of the sky. Interesting yes, but not what I would exactly call dramatic or exciting to see.

Let us just quickly clear up some common errors.

 The solar system does travel in a wave pattern as it circles the centre of the Milky Way during a 250,000,000 year period but will not cross the mid-plane or disc of our galaxy in 2012. We are currently around 30 million light years above this plane and moving further away from it.

There is not an alignment of all or indeed even of several planets on 21-12-2012. Jupiter and Saturn will however be involved in an astrological formation known as a Yod (finger of God).

The Solar system will not be any closer to the Galactic core in 2012 than on any other year, or in any way in a position which might affect gravity levels between us and the Milky Way’s central black hole.

There is no evidence of us aligning with the infamous but wholly mythical photon belt with a location said to be marked by the star Alcyone. We are certainly not orbiting this star in the Pleiades system as some 2012 writers have additionally claimed.

Now we have ascertained just what is involved in the conjunction on 21-12-2012 it is worth clarifying the mechanics of the process. What causes the view of the sky to change and shifts the solstice sunrise position relative to the celestial bodies?

The answer to this is in fact a phenomenon known as precession, or precession of the equinox. During a cycle of somewhere between 25,600 and 25,800 years our view of the constellations shifts in a 360-degree circular motion.

The movement of the Earth’s axis (and by default the solstice and equinox points) occurs at the rate of approximately 1-degree every 71.5 years of this cycle. This is sometimes know as the Platonic or Great Year and is the driving force of so-called astrological ages.

There are two theories posited to explain this shift in the view of the stars on the horizon from the Earth. The most widely excepted theory is the Luni-Solar model, which holds the cause to be the Moon’s gravity pulling on the Earth and causing it to slowly wobble on its axis as it rotates. The second theory is the binary model, which explains precession as caused by our sun orbiting a binary twin not yet detected by telescopes. Most likey it would have to be either a Brown Dwarf Star or small black hole (both hard to detect).

It is sometimes noted in respect to 2012 information that many scientists’ state there was a very close conjunction of the sun and galactic equator on the winter solstice of 1998/99. Due to the width of the sun being half a degree in the sky the crossing of the entire solar disc through the equator will take 36 years in total. This gives us a period from 1980 to 2016 possibly of significance. The biggest problem with placing importance on this event is that we have no idea exactly where the Maya would have considered the plane of the Galaxy to be. The Maya data seems to suggest they were far more interested with the Great rift than the Galactic Plane anyway.

One theory that makes sense in light of the aural, written and carved history of the Maya is that they were interested in a period of time surrounding 21-12-2012 rather than just that single day. If we take a single degree of precession centred upon this date we then have a window of time running from 1976 through to 2048. An expert on Meso-American calendars that I consulted agreed with me that such a theory is not unreasonable to hypothesise based on his understanding of Maya cosmological thinking.

It is important to note that the year 2012 is not only the year the calendar system ends a major cycle but also a year including a rare Venus conjunction. The Maya and other ancient calendar scholars would certainly have considered conjunctions of the sun and Venus very special. Venus holds a uniquely important place in the planetary mythology of these peoples.

To calculate their occurrence into the future is extremely difficult. It seems these people managed to do just this however as it seems likely they deliberately targeted 2012 at least in part due to this other event. Interestingly this conjunction occurs on 6-6-2012 then just months later on 28-03-2013 the Maya Venus-Sun calendar will finish a 104-year round.

As for cosmic energy having physical effects on Earth in 2012, we can only say that the events described here do not lend themselves at all to any clear logical reason why 21-12-2012 would be unlike any other day. There is however other 2012 avenues to explore not related to the 21-12-2012 conjunction.

Part 2