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Part 1: How to Understand the Astronomy with Just a Pencil and a Sheet of Paper
 
Part 2: A Deeper Understanding: The Sacred Triple Rebirth of the Sun!
 
Video: Click here to see my 10-minute video of our 3-dimensional model in action!
 

Introduction

Since both the Maya calendar and their metaphorical stories are based on the underlying astronomy, it can be very helpful to learn about this astronomy and this is fun and fairly easy to do as long as we take it a little bit at a time. Even still, you may find yourself pondering this subject more deeply for quite awhile. For me personally, the more I dug into the actual astronomy of 2012, the more mind-blowing it all became. Perhaps you will have a similar experience.

During this introduction, I will give an overview of this essay and clarify some common misunderstandings. I intentionally have my title reflecting both the solid science of 2012 and also its mystical aspects in order to let people know that I am not going to “squeeze the wonder and awe out of the event” by “explaining it” with science.

While I address the mystical aspects of 2012 much further in another essay, this essay is focused on the actual mainstream astronomy. I am not going to introduce or support any unproven theories such as our entire solar system orbiting around a yet undiscovered nearby star or brown dwarf. In this regard, the Earth is clearly not in any danger whatsoever. If there is something outside of the awareness of the mainstream astronomers such as a comet or Planet X, well then, that is a completely different matter altogether, isn't it?

By the way, whenever Planet X is mentioned, many people think of the work of Zecharia Sitchin, which I do find very interesting. Yet my understanding is that Sitchin does not believe that Nibiru, the planet that is central to his work, will return in the near future and in this regard, I agree with Sitchin. With regards to the more general question of a cataclysmic astronomical event in 2012 or thereabouts, I simply do not see any evidence that such an event will happen or that the Maya set up their calendar to pinpoint such an event. In my opinion, they set it up to pinpoint the astronomical event that unfolds on the day of the winter solstice of 2012, as we shall clearly see in this essay.

So this is not a doom and gloom essay. We are not going to fall into a black hole or be inundated with a high level of cosmic rays. The slow change of the angle of the axis of the earth with respect to the center of the galaxy will have no ill effects. As far as Mother Nature goes, it will be business as usual: the sun will continue to shine, the earth will continue to spin and the four seasons will continue to transform from one into another.

And yet there is an amazing astronomical event that will occur in 2012 and it is best understood in two steps. The first step is to learn about the unique galactic alignment that has already occurred. Yes, this much talked about but seldom understood alignment occurred on the winter solstice in 1998. We will use a pencil and a sheet of paper to make a simple 3-dimensional model of the actual astronomy of this event and you will clearly see the basic astronomy in motion right before your own eyes.

Then we will expand your understanding to include the special event of 2012, which is similar. That event will unfold during the entire day of the winter solstice of 2012 as follows. Beginning a few hours before dawn, the disk of the sun will start to cross the line in the sky made by the plane of the galaxy. Over the next 15 hours, the crossing will continue throughout the day in the sky above the Maya until it finishes just a few minutes before sunset as seen from southern Mexico.

This crossing of the sun from one side of the plane of the galaxy to the other metaphorically represents for the Maya the sun moving from one world into another or a rebirth of the sun and it only happens like this on the winter solstice once every 26,000 years. This rare rebirth of the sun is only one aspect of what I call “the sacred triple rebirth of the sun.” The poetic beauty is breathtaking; the actual astronomy is profoundly precise!

(I am the only 2012 researcher that I know of that considers the event of 2012 to be as I just described. All other researchers are focused on the special galactic alignment of 1998. While that alignment is unique, I do not believe it is what the Maya were trying to pinpoint by ending their calendar on December 21, 2012.)

By the way, many people are surprised to learn that galactic alignments happen once a year. Yes, they happen simply because the earth orbits the sun as we can see in the diagram below. We will study this diagram in more detail very soon but for right now, let's just take a quick glance.

      The annual galactic alignment between the earth, the sun and the plane of the galaxy.

Here we see that once a year, the earth orbits up into a position where we can draw a line from the earth through the sun and into the plane of the galaxy, almost directly towards the center of the galaxy. This is a galactic alignment and, as I just mentioned, it happens once a year. But once every 26,000 years, the alignment happens at virtually the same time as the winter solstice and this is what makes the galactic alignment of 1998 so special.

By the way, the galactic alignment is sometimes loosely described as the sun lining up with the center of the galaxy. But that statement requires some clarification. When this phrase is used, the earth is implied as the additional third point required for the alignment, or “conjunction.”

But more importantly, the alignment happens with the plane of the galaxy, not the center of the galaxy, although the center of the galaxy is close, as we see in our diagram above. We will soon learn more about the parts of our galaxy and see more clearly why we need to make a distinction between the center of the galaxy and the plane of the galaxy.

We will also clearly see the simultaneous occurrence of the winter solstice and the galactic alignment when we build our 3-dimensional model. Since our model only has three parts and since the axis of the earth is the only thing in our model that moves, you will easily understand the basic astronomy in just a few minutes.

With all this in mind, let's begin by learning about the three parts of our 3-dimensional model.

Our 3-dimensional model of the astronomy of 2012. Click to see the video. (1)
(Click any footnote number to read it. Return by clicking your Back button.)
(Technically speaking, the plane of the galaxy is should actually be labeled “angle
of the plane of the galaxy” but this does not change the validity of our model.)

 

Part 1: The Actual Astronomy and Our 3-Dimensional Model
 

The Plane of the Earth-Sun Orbit and the Earth's Axis of Rotation

Here is an edge view of the plane of the earth-sun orbit, the ecliptic.

The wobble of the axis

The first thing we want to look at is the orbit of the earth around the sun. Imagine the sun in the middle of a big tabletop with the earth always staying on this tabletop as it travels around the sun in its yearly orbit. This tabletop is called “the plane of the earth-sun orbit” or “the plane of the ecliptic” or more simply, “the ecliptic.” The earth does not bob up and down; its orbit around the sun is perfectly flat. At all times, the earth and the sun can be found on this tabletop, on the plane of the ecliptic.

As you may know, the earth's axis of rotation is always tilted about 23 degrees shy of vertical from this plane and it's this tilt that creates the seasons. When the axis is leaning away from the sun as much as possible, we have the winter solstice and our shortest day. As the earth continues in its orbit, the axis will no longer point away from the sun as much as possible and the seasons change. When it is leaning towards the sun as much as possible, we have the summer solstice and our longest day. (2)

In addition to its motion around the sun, the earth is slowly wobbling much like a spinning top that is not standing straight up. This is the action of precession and it's what makes the event of 2012 unfold as it does.

Since the earth is floating in space, this wobble is centered around the center of the earth. In other words, both the north and south pole make circles while the center of the earth remains still relative to these circles. As the axis makes these circles, the tilt remains fixed at 23 degrees. From the side, it looks like two cones, one right side up and the other upside down with the tips of the two cones touching one another at the center of the earth.

It takes about 26,000 years for the axis to make one circle and this long cycle has several names. One of them is “the great year.” (3)

 

Natural Cycles: The Day, the Year and the Great Year

Before we go on, let's review some very familiar natural cycles. As you know, the day is the fastest astronomical cycle and there are four distinct points that naturally divide the day: sunrise, high-noon, sunset and midnight. There are significant physical changes at each of these points. Sunrise and sunset are the most visibly dramatic and sunrise plays an important role in 2012.

Similar things can be said about the year with its two solstices and two equinoxes. These four distinct points naturally divide the year into the four seasons. Something significant happens at each point as we travel in our orbit around the sun. Also notice that the summer solstice is analogous to high-noon while the winter solstice is like midnight. Spring and fall, like sunrise and sunset, are the most visibly dramatic. So our yearly cycle reflects aspects of our daily cycle. How beautiful.

It turns out that the great year also has four naturally occurring points of distinction and we will clearly see them all in just a few minutes. One of them is the special galactic alignment of 1998!

Now, let's move on to the last part of our model, the plane of the galaxy.

 

Our Milky Way Galaxy

Top view of our galaxy. Artist's conception.

This is a telescopic near infrared image of the center of our galaxy from just outside our atmosphere. The dark rift is not visible in this spectrum.

Our Milky Way galaxy is a huge flat disk with spiral arms that spin around a bulge in the center. It's like a big pancake with a bump in the middle and our entire solar system is an extremely tiny dot in the pancake more than half way out from the center.

When we look towards the center of the galaxy, we are looking into the section of the sky that contains the thick group of stars that we commonly call the Milky Way and the event of 2012 is concerned with this section of the sky. This viewing angle is like looking along the edge of the pancake towards the center of the pancake and, as you might expect, this viewing angle contains the most stars. Even though many of these stars are fairly faint, this section of the sky contains the brightest section of the Milky Way. The above telescopic near infrared image on the right shows this viewing angle from just outside our atmosphere.

By the way, virtually everything we see in our sky with our naked eye is part of our Milky Way galaxy. In other words, the Milky Way is literally all around us. Because of this, I should clarify that when I mention the Milky Way, I am often referring to the brightest section of the Milky Way, the part that we see when we look towards the center of our galaxy. Interstellar dust blocks some of the light from certain parts of this region and this creates interesting patterns in the Milky Way. One such pattern is called “the dark rift” and the Maya metaphorical stories speak specifically about this area of the sky.

Now, as you know, you cannot go outside every night and see the brightest section of the Milky Way. In other words, sometimes it is up during the day and sometimes it's up during the night. Obviously, we can only see it if it's up during the night and it turns out that this depends upon the time of the year. During certain times of the year, the sun is near this section of the sky and the sun obscures the Milky Way with its brightness.

I bring this up because this will be the case during the special event of 2012. On that day, the sun will travel along its regular path and everything will appear to be perfectly normal yet if we could push a button and make it so that we could see the stars during the day, we would clearly see the sun moving through the brightest section of the Milky Way, right across the dark rift.

Now, if you can imagine our galaxy, our pancake, being flattened all the way, you'd be left with something called “the galactic plane.” It runs right through the middle of the galaxy and is also known as the mid-plane of the galaxy or the galactic equator. It is like a cross-section of our pancake. In just a few minutes, we'll see the role it plays in the galactic alignments that occur every year.

An important way to picture the galactic plane is as a line in the sky drawn through the middle of the stars of the Milky Way, through the dark rift. Since we are looking into the edge of the plane, we see it as a line and we should also note that this line goes exactly through the center of the galaxy. Astronomers have precisely measured the position of the galactic plane and you can see it marked on many star charts because it is part of the fixed background of the stars.

I am using the term “see” a little loosely. It's like seeing the equator of the earth. Obviously, there isn't a line painted on the ground at the equator but the nature of the equator does gives rise to a precisely located imaginary line. So it is with the plane of the galaxy.

By the way, at our current time in the precessional cycle, the best time to look towards the center of the Milky Way is approximately from June through August. This is simultaneously true for both the northern and southern hemispheres even though they are going through opposite seasons. I also want to mention that under ideal viewing conditions, it's possible to see the center of the galaxy with the naked eye.

It is important to note that in order to understand the astronomy of 2012, you only need to be concerned with the motion of the Earth. Everything else can be considered fixed in their position since their motion is extremely slow. This makes understanding the astronomy a lot easier than you might at first think.

Now of course, everything in the galaxy is flying through space at tremendous speeds but the distances are so vast that their relative motion is too slow to make a difference with regards to 2012. As an example, the Big Dipper appears to keep its shape and relative location compared to its neighbors. Yet in reality, the stars that make up the Big Dipper are moving rapidly in different directions. But it will take many thousands of years for the shape to change significantly. The same can be said about all the background stars. They appear to be fixed in their locations but in the very distant future, they will be in new locations and all the constellations will have new shapes.

With this in mind, here are the only three actions that you need to be aware of in order to understand 2012:

The first action is the orbit of the earth around the sun. This causes the annual galactic crossing and, as you might imagine, the middle of the crossing is the annual galactic alignment. We’ll learn more about this in just a minute.

The second action is the spinning of the earth on its axis, which causes this crossing to move across the sky at a fairly rapid rate. Obviously, the crossing directly involves the sun and the sun moves across our sky from east to west in half a day.

The third action is the wobble of the axis of the earth, which causes the special event of 2012 to happen on the winter solstice as I will describe it only once every 26,000 years.

You will notice that all three of these actions involve the earth. So you only need to concern yourself with the motion of the earth; everything else can be considered fixed. This makes understanding 2012 much simpler than you might at first expect.

Before we move on to our next topic, I want to mention that our entire solar system orbits the center of the galaxy approximately once every 240 million years but I don't think that this has anything to do with the event of 2012. Yet I often hear people say that the event of 2012 has something to do with our entire solar system moving from one side of the plane of the galaxy to the other as it orbits around the galactic center. In other words, it moves from underneath the middle of the pancake to above the middle of the pancake or vice versa. While the solar system does indeed bob up and down across the plane of the galaxy, the timeframe for this is very long and it is not going to happen for millions of years. Perhaps this is being confused with the crossing that is really going to take place. (4)

 

The Fixed Background Stars of the Zodiac

      The zodiac is a band of stars surrounding the solar system. It's in the plane of the earth-sun
      orbit, the ecliptic. The earth is the only thing in this diagram that moves.

In order to understand 2012, it is helpful to understand the zodiac, so here's a little information.

Throughout the year, as the earth orbits the sun, you can draw a line from the earth through the sun and out into the background stars that surround the solar system. All these stars are on our big tabletop, the plane of the ecliptic, and can be considered fixed in their positions.

As the year unfolds, we change our point of view, and, looking away from the sun at night, we eventually get to see all the stars that lie in this big circle. This circular band of stars is known as the zodiac and it's divided into twelve regions. The most distinct constellation in each region has a name, such as Leo, Virgo, Libra and so forth. Of course you recognize them as the signs of the zodiac.

As you look down on our tabletop, the plane of the ecliptic, you can imagine this huge circle of the zodiac surrounding our solar system with the twelve signs in their fixed positions. The circle of the zodiac is much larger than the circle of the earth's orbit since the stars are so far away.

By the way, the solar system is pretty flat. In other words, the orbits of almost all the planets are close to the orbital plane of the earth. (5) Additionally, the moon's orbit around the earth is also near the plane of the earth's orbit. This means that you can draw a line from the earth through Jupiter, for example, and then out to one of the constellations of the zodiac. This is why you hear people say that Jupiter is in Gemini, for example. You can do this with the sun, the moon or any of the other planets. In the picture above, the sun is in Leo. One month later, the earth will move around in its orbit and the sun will be seen in Virgo.

It's important to note that the plane of the galaxy, which includes the center of the galaxy, is part of the background stars and therefore fixed in its position. As it turns out, the direction towards the center of the galaxy is always towards Sagittarius. This does not change as the earth changes it's position in its orbit around the sun since the center of the galaxy is extremely far away. In other words, the diameter of the earth's orbit is microscopic compared to the distance to the center of the galaxy. (6)

All this leads us to the subject of the annual galactic alignment, which, as you might expect, always happens when the sun is in Sagittarius. In our picture of the zodiac above, this will happen in four months.

Let's take a closer look at this alignment.
 

The Annual Galactic Alignment

      The annual galactic alignment between the earth, the sun and the galactic plane.

First, let's consider our two planes: the plane of the galaxy and the plane of the earth-sun orbit. It turns out that they are not parallel planes; they intersect each other at an angle of 60 degrees. This angle never changes. (7) In our model, as we shall soon see, this intersection is the crease in our folded paper and in our diagram above, we see it as the blue dotted line.

You quickly see that once a year the earth orbits up into a position where you can draw a line from the earth, along the crease, through the sun and into the plane of the galaxy, almost directly towards the center of the galaxy. This is the annual galactic alignment and you can see from the layout why it repeats itself every year. For our purposes, it's helpful to remember that the earth is the only thing in this picture that moves since the orbit of the solar system around the galaxy is too slow to matter.

Notice what happens 6 months after the alignment. At that time, the earth will have the center of the galaxy behind it as you draw a line from the earth, through the sun, along the crease and out the other edge of the plane of the galaxy, the shorter edge that faces away from the center. While this alignment is also with the galactic plane, it's not the part of the plane that's near the center of the galaxy and therefore has nothing to do with the special event of 2012.

The important point is that once a year, the earth orbits into the special position that creates the galactic alignment near the center of the galaxy and once every 26,000 years, this happens at virutually the same moment as the winter solstice. This was the case in 1998.

Now let's examine the diagram below.

Our model in the sky at the time of the annual galactic alignment. The crease is
always pointing just a few degrees away from the center of the galaxy.

Here we see that when we look exactly along the crease, we see the plane of the galaxy, not the center of the galaxy, although the center of the galaxy is close. It is only about 6 degrees away. This angle never changes.

This is why the galactic alignment is correctly stated as being between the earth, the sun and the plane of the galaxy rather than the center of the galaxy. Nevertheless, when we look in the general direction of the crease, we will always see the Milky Way and the center of the galaxy if the sun is not obscuring them with its brightness.

The annual galactic alignment is so central to 2012 that I want to go over it again with two other ways of visualizing it. The first way will look very much like our previous diagram, the one titled, “The Annual Galactic Alignment.”

Let's use a coin to represent the plane of the earth-sun orbit. The sun is at the center of the coin and the earth orbits around the edge of the coin. First, pretend that the plane of the earth-sun orbit is not tilted and that the coin and the plane of the galaxy, our pancake, are both flat and level with the coin inside the pancake. Put the center of the coin, our sun, a little more than half way out from the center of the pancake. Now tilt one edge of the coin up 60 degrees, 30 degrees shy of straight up, while tilting the opposite edge of the coin down 60 degrees.

Notice that this causes the coin and the pancake to intersect and that that intersection is a line. Make sure that you have the center of the coin a little more than half way out from the center of the pancake and the line of intersection pointing approximately towards the center of the pancake, about 6 degrees to the left of the center of the pancake. Again, this direction never changes.

Now let's imagine that the earth is at the bottom of the coin. If we draw a line from the earth through the sun, it will continue out the top of the pancake and into deep space. There's not much of interest at this time.

Three months later, however, the earth will orbit up and out into a position where we can draw a line from the earth, through the sun and into the pancake, through the edge of the pancake, almost directly towards the center of the pancake. Notice that this line will be exactly along the crease, the intersection of our coin and our pancake and that we again have a galactic alignment.

Now let's go through this annual galactic alignment again but on a bigger scale and with our tabletop, the plane of the earth-sun orbit, flat and level rather than having the pancake flat and level. It doesn't matter which plane we have flat and level as long as we keep the angle between them at 60 degrees.

So let's imagine our tabletop in the middle of a big room with the sun in the center and the earth going around it flat and level. Viewed from above, looking down on the north pole, the earth is traveling counter-clockwise and the sun is staying in its fixed position. As before, the earth is the only thing in this picture that will move. Imagine that the room does not have four walls but instead is surrounded by one circular wall with the constellations of the zodiac painted in their fixed positions.

Now, paint a somewhat vertical line on the wall. This line is the plane of the galaxy. To get the correct angle for this plane, move the top part to the left so that the plane of the galaxy is 30 degrees shy of straight up. This line should be near the constellation of Sagittarius but you don't really need to concern yourself with its precise location, you only need to realize that it is present and fixed in its position.

Now examine the situation as the earth orbits the sun. Let's draw a line from the earth through the sun and into the background stars of the zodiac. Let's call this line the line of conjunction. You will notice that the line of conjunction sweeps around the room such that once a year, it points right at the edge of the plane of the galaxy, our painted line on the wall. So we again see that at this time, the line of conjunction goes from the earth, through the sun, right along the crease, the intersection of our two planes, and into the plane of the galaxy.

As this line of conjunction sweeps across the plane of the galaxy, the disk of the sun moves from one side of the galaxy to the other, as seen from the earth. Due to the size of the disk and the speed of the orbit of the earth, this crossing takes about 15 hours. As you might imagine, the alignment happens at the middle of the crossing. While these crossings happen every year, we will soon see what makes the crossing of 2012 so special.

By the way, 6 months after these crossings, the sun crosses back to the other side of the galactic plane but this crossing takes place with the shorter part of the plane of the galaxy, the part that faces away from the center of the galaxy, so it is not involved in 2012.

I want to again point out that the center of the galaxy is on the line made by the plane of the galaxy. It's below the point of intersection by about 6 degrees. So when we look along the crease, we see the plane of the galaxy, not the center of the galaxy, although the center of the galaxy is close.

So now we clearly see that a galactic alignment happens every year, just like the winter solstice happens every year. Yet when the two events occur together, as we'll see in a minute, we have the special galactic alignment of 1998!

Astute readers may notice that this is a puzzling situation. If each event happens once a year and they are not synchronized, they should remain unsynchronized forever, right? It turns out that astronomers use two different years that differ only by about 20 minutes. We all know that basically the year is the amount of time for the earth to make one complete orbit around the sun. Astronomers calls this a sidereal year and the background stars are used to determine when the orbit has been completed.

Yet we also think of the year as the amount of time from one winter solstice to the next winter solstice, for example. But while the earth is making its journey around the sun, its axis of rotation is precessing very slightly. Since it is the direction of the axis that determines the winter solstice, the solstice line-up occurs about 20 minutes before the earth completes the full orbit. This type of year is called a tropical year or a solar year and it's what we commonly call a year. Astronomers themselves usually mean this type of year unless they make the distinction of a sidereal year. (8)

So we see the winter solstice happens once every tropical year and the alignment with the plane of the galaxy happens once every sidereal year. This is why their relative occurrence shifts, allowing Sthem to happen at the same time once every 26,000 years.

By the way, as unique as the special alignment of 1998 is, we will later learn why the Maya picked the galactic crossing of 2012 as the focus of their calendar.

 

The Key: Our 3-Dimensional Model in Action

Our 3-dimensional model. Click to see the video. (1)
(Technically speaking, the plane of the galaxy is should actually be labelled “angle
of the plane of the galaxy” but this does not change the validity of our model.)

Now that we have covered the basics, it is time for us to build our 3-dimensional model.

Take a sheet of paper and fold it in half. Then place it on the table and open it up a little more than half way. The half that's lying on the table represents the plane of the earth-sun orbit. The other half represents the plane of the galaxy. Again, the crease in the paper points almost directly towards the center of the galaxy.

Note that we have rotated the previous two diagrams clockwise 60 degrees to make the plane of the earth-sun orbit flat and level, which makes the plane of the galaxy come in at a 60 degree angle, 30 degrees shy of straight up. We will be focusing on the precession of the earth's axis of rotation and this is a better view for that. Again, it doesn't matter which plane we consider flat and level as long as we keep the angle between them at 60 degrees.

I should point out that the neither the sun nor the earth is exactly on the plane of the galaxy, they are both a little bit above it. Some people think that this invalidates our model but when we look more closely, we can see why our model is still perfectly valid. Technically speaking, the plane of the galaxy is should actually be labelled “angle of the plane of the galaxy” rather than just the “plane of the galaxy.” Or it could be labelled “a plane that is parallel to the plane of the galaxy.” But a parallel plane does not change any of the angles at all. In other words, we are not even introducing an approximation. This can be seen in the diagram below. Just imagine a line parallel to the plane of the galaxy and notice that the angles between this line and the axis of the earth are unchanged. Because of this, I will continue to use the simpler term “plane of the galaxy” rather than “a plane that is parallel to the plane of the galaxy” or “the angle of the plane of the galaxy.”

As you have seen, we are going to use a pencil to represent the earth's axis of rotation. Take the pencil and put one end in the middle of the crease and keep it there. This point is the center of the earth. Stand the pencil up about 23 degrees shy of vertical and make the top of the pencil go around in a circle while maintaining the 23 degree tilt. By the way, as you look down on our model from above, you should make the pencil go around in a clockwise direction. Again, imagine that one time around takes 26,000 years.

I encourage you to actually build this simple model and examine it closely as you move the top of the pencil around in a circle. Now let's consider what this looks like from the front.

Looking directly at the front of our model, we see the cone of precession.

This diagram looks at the front of our 3-dimensional model and allows you to see the cone of precession. The tip of the cone is the center of the earth and it is always on the crease. You are looking directly along the crease in such a way that it only appears as a dot: the intersection of the plane of the galaxy and the plane of the earth-sun orbit. (The crease is not the vertical dashed line. That line just helps you see the tilt of the earth's axis.)

You can see that since the earth's axis is tilted 23 degrees shy of straight up and since the galactic plane is 30 degrees shy of straight up, there is a time during the precessional cycle when the axis of the earth is almost directly aligned with the plane of the galaxy. It only misses by 7 degrees. This is when the pencil is closest to the folded half of the paper and will happen in 6,500 years.

You can also see that there is a time when the pencil is pointing away from the plane of the galaxy as much as possible. At this time it misses by 53 degrees, which is 7+23+23. (Note that here we are talking about the plane of the galaxy and not the center of the galaxy.) This occurred 6,500 years ago and this is where the pencil is in the above photograph of our 3-dimensional model.

Next, let's consider the most important view: what it looks like from above.

      Looking down on our model, we see the circle of precession and the four parts of the great year.

This diagram looks down on our 3-dimensional model from above and allows you to see the circle of precession. Basically we see that twice during the cycle of precession, the axis is directly over the crease and twice the axis is exactly perpendicular to the crease. These positions are marked by the four points of distinction as shown by the small orange circles. They naturally and equally divide the great year into four periods of 6,500 years. These points are not artificially created by the mind of man. They are as natural as sunrise, high-noon, sunset and midnight or the points that divide the year into the four seasons.

To get a feel for how slowly precession unfolds, imagine that the circle is made out of 26,000 equally spaced dots and imagine that each year the top of the pencil moves to the next dot.

Now, let's take a closer look at the position of the axis in 1998. Since the axis moves so slowly, it is fine to state that the axis was virtually directly over the crease during the entire year. While the year was unfolding, the winter solstice occurred and this means that the axis was also pointing away from the sun as much as possible since this is what makes the winter solstice. This means that on this day the sun was also on the crease and that you could draw a line from the center of the earth, which is the center of the circle, up along the crease to the sun and then further out to the plane of the galaxy!

So we see that the special event of 1998 was when the axis was directly over the crease and we also see why this was signified by the simultaneous occurrence of the winter solstice and the alignment of the earth, the sun and the plane of the galaxy.

(Technically speaking, the axis was exactly over the crease only on one day during 1998 and that day was not the same day as the winter solstice of 1998. But the axis moves so slowly that we still have a very high degree of accuracy if we consider the axis to be over the crease for the entire year of 1998. At the moment of the winter solstice in 1998, the line-up of the earth, the sun and the plane of the galaxy was tighter than that produced at the exact moment of the winter solstice of any other year. (9))

It is important to note that without the galactic plane, which makes the crease, each and every point on the entire circle of precession would look basically the same. There would be no naturally occurring points of distinction. But when we add the galactic plane to our model, we see that this gives rise to the four naturally occurring points that we are talking about.

This 3-dimensional model is the key to understanding the alignment of 1998 and in part two, we will develop this understanding a bit further so that you can understand the special event of December 21, 2012, which is similar.

 

Several Ways to Think About the Special Alignment of 1998

Our paper and pencil model gives us a great way to clearly see the axis in its position over the crease. I think this is the best way to view the alignment of 1998 but there are others.

The most common way, as we will see in more detail in a minute, is to look behind the sun every winter solstice and plot the line of the edge of the galactic plane. As we approached 1998, the center of the sun aligned more closely with the galactic plane at the moment of the winter solstice. Now that we have past 1998, the center of the sun will be further and further away from the plane of the galaxy at the exact moment of the winter solstice.

Yet another way to look at this event is to stay focused on the yearly conjunction of the earth, the sun and the plane of the galaxy and examine the direction of the tilt of the earth's axis. You only examine the angle once a year during the conjunction. Once every 26,000 years, the angle of the axis will create the winter solstice and we again have this special event.

If you understand why all three ways are equivalent, you really do understand the basic astronomy very well. For many of you, this solid astronomical foundation will be sufficient and you may choose not to dig any deeper. Dwelling on the simple beauty of just this can be quite fulfilling. Yet in my opinion, some of the more detailed aspects of the special event of 2012 are quite amazing. If you are inspired, I invite you to continue. You won't be disappointed!

 

Part 2:
A Deeper Understanding of 2012 - The Sacred Triple Rebirth of the Sun!

 

The Maya Long Count Calendar

Five cycles of the Maya calendar add up to the great year.

The Maya calendar has received extensive coverage by many books and websites so there is no need for me to go into great detail here but I will still present some of the most important facts.

The Maya used several calendars for business, social, scientific and religious purposes. It is their Long Count calendar that is ending on December 21, 2012. This is a continuous cycle so it will start again the next day. John Major Jenkins traced the origin of the Long Count calendar back over 2,100 years to the little-known pre-Maya site of Izapa in the southern tip of Mexico. Here we find more than sixty carved stone monuments that reveal ancient esoteric cosmology. Even though it appears most likely that the Olmec, rather than the Maya, created the Long Count calendar, I will be like everyone else and continue to call it the Maya calendar. (10)

The Long Count calendar is 5,125 years long. Five cycles of the Long Count calendar add up to the great year to within one-half of one percent and the Maya show all five cycles in their artwork and talk about them in their folklore. (See the five-pointed star above.)

Many mainstream critics claim that this is just a coincidence since, in their opinion, the Maya could not and did not know about precession. But how could this be a coincidence when the Maya record stories about the shifts seen in their sky and base their calendar on what causes these shifts? And the ninety-nine and a half percent accuracy is quite compelling. In my opinion, this is strong evidence that the Maya had an accurate value for the precessional cycle. But this is just the beginning of the evidence!

Notice that the Maya have gone through less than one Long Count. What is most interesting is that they did not design the calendar and start using it as if they were on the first day. They started about three thousand years into it. Why? I think it's obvious they started at a specific point on purpose in order to have it end when they wanted. And consider this. What if they knew about the minor inaccuracy of one-half of one percent and properly accounted for it? If that were true, the calendar would of course end on the exact day that they wanted. Yes, the exact day!

So this brings us back to December 21, 2012, which is the winter solstice. To correctly pinpoint a winter solstice from several thousand years away is quite remarkable. In fact, it is so remarkable that most mainstream researchers and scholar simply declare it to be a coincidence. But consider the following.

In Izapa there is a supremely important ball court. It is long and narrow and it points exactly to the location on the horizon where the sun will rise on the day of the winter solstice and it has been doing this like clockwork for thousands of years.

There is a throne at one end of the ball court, which provides the king with the perfect view of this special sunrise. There is also a round ball, symbolic of the sun, moving forward into our world from between the front legs of this throne and this represents the rebirth of the sun. This is just one of the many examples that demonstrate the importance of the winter solstice and the fact that the Maya saw it as a rebirth. It certainly is not a coincidence that the ball court points exactly to the winter solstice sunrise. Likewise, I don't think that it's just a coincidence that the calendar also restarts exactly on a winter solstice.

To correctly pinpoint a winter solstice from several thousand years away shows a precise understanding of the length of the year. And again, the length of the Long Count calendar clearly demonstrates knowledge of the length of the great year. So it seems to me that the Maya are saying, “Yes, we understand the year and yes, we understand the great year. We have extremely precise values for both.” But it even goes beyond that. By picking the year 2012, they also show that they knew where they were in the precessional cycle. In other words, they knew about the four points of distinction of the great year and they knew about the one coming in about 2012.

And yet there is something even more refined about the astronomy of 2012. Did the Maya know about this, too? Let's take a closer look.

 

2012 or 1998? The Winter Solstice Sun Crossing the Galactic Plane

     The sun appears to cross the galactic plane if you plot its position at the
     precise moment of the winter solstice for the years 1976 through 2021.

As I mentioned in the introduction, our modern astronomers place the combination of the winter solstice and the galaxy alignment in 1998, not 2012. At the precise moment of the winter solstice of 1998, the center of the sun was exactly on the plane of the galaxy. (11)

Yet this brings up an interesting point. The conjunction is spoken of as if the sun were a tiny dot but the disk of the sun actually takes up a bit more than one-half of one degree in our sky. It takes about 45 years for the precessional cycle to move the disk of the sun completely across the plane of the galaxy as we see in our diagram above.

As you see, we have placed 1998 in the middle of this 45 year period. This means that the right edge of the sun started to touch the galactic plane on the winter solstice in 1976 and that the left edge will finish touching it in about 2021. During this 45 year period, the center of the sun is within one-quarter of one degree of the exact alignment at the moment of the winter solstice.

So we see that if we only consider the position of the sun at the time of the solstice, it appears as if it is crossing the plane of the galaxy by moving to the right. While this is interesting, it is not the whole story, as we shall see.

(Note: I use a crossing time of 45 years yet many others choose 36 years. This is because they use an approximate value for the angular size of the sun and they ignore the fact that the plane of the galaxy is tilted 30 degrees shy of straight up, which cause the crossing to take longer. (12))

It is important to note that the diagram above shows the position of the sun only at the exact moment of the winter solstice. The position of the sun with respect to the plane of the galaxy, which is part of the fixed background of the stars, changes due to the earth moving in its orbit around the sun. This can easily be noticed as the year unfolds but the change is even large enough to be noticed as one day unfolds.

First, let's consider what happens as the year unfolds.

Realize that during the 3 months following the winter solstice, the earth travels one quarter of the way around its orbit. This makes the line-up miss by 90 degrees. And after another 3 month, on the summer solstice, the center of the galaxy is behind us as we look into the sun. So it misses by 180 degrees at that time. But when the winter solstice comes around again 6 months later, we yet again have the approximate alignment of the earth, the sun and the plane of the galaxy, in that order. (The diagram of the zodiac above will help you visualize this.)

Now let's examine the change in the position of the sun with respect to the plane of the galaxy as one day unfolds.

First, let's calculate the amount the sun moves against the background stars in one day. During the 365 day year, the earth travels through all 360 degrees of its orbit. This means that from the point of view of earth, the sun travels across the fixed background stars of the zodiac approximately 1 degree per day. (360 degrees / 365 days = 0.986 degrees per day.) This is approximately twice the diameter of the sun every 24 hours.

During the 24 hours of the day, the earth spins around once on its axis and the background stars appear to make one complete circle around the earth. They travel through all 360 degrees of this circle and yet the sun goes through only about 359 degrees. This is due to the one degree shift calculated above and this counteracts the apparent motion of the sun across the sky and creates the motion of the sun moving across the background stars. (This does not have anything to do with precession.)

Let's see how this daily one degree change in the position of the sun against the background stars makes the special event of 2012 unfold.

 

The Galactic Crossing of 2012

As you know, during the day of the winter solstice of 2012, the sun will be in the same section of the sky as the plane of the galaxy. The spinning of the earth will cause both the sun and the galactic plane to appear to move across the sky and yet, as I just mentioned, while the earth is spinning, it is also orbiting the sun and this counteracts some of the sun's apparent motion across the sky. This makes the sun move slower than the plane of the galaxy and allows it to be over taken by it. The brightness of the sun will obscure the Milky Way and the plane of the galaxy but nevertheless, they will be right behind the sun. This is shown in the diagram below.

     The sun crossing the galactic plane as it will unfold for southern Mexico
     and the Yucatan Peninsula during the day of the winter solstice in 2012.

For all of southern Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula, the sun will cross the plane of the galaxy as this day unfolds. Although the crossing will start a few hours before dawn, the Maya will witness most of the crossing since it will continue during the entire day in the sky over their heads and finish near sunset.

As I mentioned in the introduction, this crossing from one side of the galaxy to the other metaphorically represents for the Maya the sun moving from one world into another, or a rebirth of the sun. While this crossing happens every year, 2012 is special because the crossing happens on the winter solstice and it occurs as I describe here only once every 26,000 years! In my opinion, this is why the Maya long count calendar was setup to end on this day. This is one of the three important elements of the special event of 2012.

Incidentally, the sun does not actually cross the plane of the galaxy, it only appears to do so from the point of view of earth. Neither the sun nor the plane of the galaxy are moving. They're both fixed in their own positions. It is only the earth that moves. It is the combination of both the spinning of the earth on its axis and the orbit of the earth around the sun that makes the event of December 21, 2012 unfold throughout the day. And it is the slow wobble of the earth that makes it all happen like this only once every 26,000 years.

Upon first examination of the above diagram, you might think that the sun is moving to the left. Actually, both the sun and the plane of the galaxy are moving to the right but the plane of the galaxy is moving faster and overtaking the sun.

What will this look like? To the casual observer, it will look like a normal winter day with the sun traveling across the sky along its normal path. But there are several aspects of this events that are worth noting.

I'll talk about this in just a second but first we need a little background information.

The winter solstice in 2012 will occur at 11:11 AM Universal Time. For all of southern Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula, this will be 5:11 AM Central Time. As an additional note for Izapa, the birthplace of the Long Count calendar located in the southern tip of Mexico, sunrise will be at 6:27 AM and sunset will be at 5:46 PM. (Izapa's latitude is 14.8 degrees north and its longitude is 92.2 degrees west.)

Okay, now let's review the crossing in a little more detail.

The crossing lasts 15 hours and 16 minutes and it will begin at 2:26 AM when the edge of the sun starts to touch the plane of the galaxy. About three hours after the start, the winter solstice will occur. Then about an hour after that, the sun will rise above the horizon. The peak will occur at 10:04 AM when the center of the sun will be exactly on the plane of the galaxy. The crossing will finish at 5:42 PM, just 4 minutes before sunset.

(My calculations that determine the duration and time of the crossing are here: (13))

So the entire crossing takes place on one calendar day and occurs, for the most part, during the day in the sky above the Maya. Notice that both the exact moment of the winter solstice and the moment of the sunrise occur while the crossing is happening. In other words, the crossing “embraces” these other two astronomical events.

It is important to note that at dawn, the plane of the galaxy will be physically superimposed on the earth's horizon because of the alignment of the sun and the galactic plane occurring at this time. So the plane of the galaxy is physically underneath the center of the sun at dawn even though we cannot see it because the sun is so bright.

After sunrise, the sun will rise higher and higher above the ground of the earth. Simultaneously, the plane of the galaxy will also be moving up yet it will be moving up faster than the sun and the crossing will continue.

At approximately 10 AM, the center of the sun will be exactly on the plane of the galaxy as seen in the diagram above. Of course you recognize this as the moment of the annual galactic alignment. For the Maya, the intersection of the line of the ecliptic, which is the path of the sun, and the plane of the galaxy creates “the sacred tree” since they make an “X” or a cross in the sky.

At the moment of the galactic alignment, the sun is centered on the sacred tree and this represents an important time in the rebirth of their sun-god. This is the exact moment when the center of the sun moves from one side of the galaxy to the other.

The crossing will continue for the rest of the day until within minutes of sunset, the sun will complete the crossing and we will have a “galactic rebirth of the sun!” Very interesting!

Out of curiosity, let's look at what will be going on for Izapa in 2011 and 2013. For 2011, we will have the winter solstice occurring at 11:30 PM on December 21. It turns out that the 15-hour crossing will span the boundary of two calendar dates and will occur almost entirely at night.

I strongly doubt that the Maya would find this appealing for their metaphor. During the night, the sun is beneath the ground and said to be in the underworld, a world that is mysterious and unknown. Remember, the dead are buried beneath the surface of the earth. When the sun rises above the horizon, it is reborn into our world. It then brings forth the light and heat we all need to stay alive. I think that the Maya would strongly prefer to celebrate the crossing while the sun is alive and over their heads. The importance of this cannot be overemphasized.

In 2013, the solstice will occur at 11:11 AM also on December 21. The crossing will start at 8:19 AM and finish 11:35 PM. While the crossing does occur throughout most of the day, it is not as much as it is in 2012 and more importantly, sunrise does not occur while the crossing is happening, it occurs before the crossing starts so the sunrise has fallen out of the embrace of the crossing. Also, obviously, 2013 is after 2012 and perhaps the Maya prefer the year that arrives first, if all other factors are equal.

By the way, in 1998, in Izapa, the solstice occurred at 7:56 PM. At that time the center of the sun was on the plane of the galaxy and the start of the crossing was approximately seven and a half hours before, which was about noon. The end was the next day at about 3:30 AM. So again the crossing spanned the boundary of two dates and occurred mostly at night.

If the Maya wanted to pinpoint the year where the complete passage of the sun across the plane of the galaxy occurs throughout the day in the sky above them and embraces both the winter solstice and the sunrise, they would pick 2012, not any of these other years - not 1998, not 2011 and not 2013. 2012 is not only the best fit, it is an excellent fit!

Others might think that the Maya made a slight error and simply missed the 1998 alignment by 14 years. It would still be quite remarkable to come so close from over two thousand years away, but I don't think that that is what they wanted. They hit the day of the winter solstice exactly. How could they hit the exact day they wanted and miss the year they wanted since the year is a bigger target?

Consider the following. Let's imagine that you are at an archery range that is set up like a bowling alley and you are watching a row of archers practice as they each aim down their own lane at their own target. The targets are six feet in diameter and marked with concentric rings. In the middle is the red bullseye only 6 inches in diameter. The targets are very far away but the archers are all pretty good and can hit the general target area every time and they can even hit the bullseye fairly often. Then one archer aims not at his own target but at the target 14 lanes over and hits a bullseye. The fact that he hit the bullseye provides strong evidence that he intended to hit that target rather than grossly missed his own target.

It seems to me that the Maya fully intended to pick 2012 rather than the more commonly accepted idea that they were trying to pinpoint 1998 and missed by 14 years, especially when you consider the unique astronomical event that unfolds on December 21, 2012. It's a bullseye!

If you are inspired, I invite you to ponder this deeply.

In order to appreciate this issue fully, it is important to know the level of precision required for the Maya to hit the winter solstice from several thousand years away so let's look into this now.

 

How difficult was it for the Maya to do this?

How difficult was it for the Maya to do this? What level of precision is required to hit the exact day of the winter solstice from several thousand years away?

Let's approach this problem by focusing on the length of the tropical year, which is the amount of time from one winter solstice to the next. Astronomers record this value as 365.24219 days. Let's see how accurately the Maya would need to know this number in order to make their calendar.

As a starting point, let's say that we want a calendar that ends on the winter solstice 10 years from now. We would multiply the above number by 10 to get 3,652.4219 days from our current winter solstice to the one 10 years later. If we were using only a 365 day year, our results would be 3,650 days, which is about 2 and a half days short.

Now suppose we want to end our calendar in 100 years. We would just move the decimal point two places to get 36,524.219 days. Again, if we were using a 365 day year, we would be short, this time by about 24 days. So of course you see that if we wanted our calendar to end in 1,000 years, we would have 365,242.19 days and, just for completeness, let's note that for 2,100 years, we would have 767,008.599 days. Note that I will talk about this 0.599 day fraction in just a minute.

I stepped you through this slowly so that you could easily see how the numbers after the decimal point are so important. As the time frame gets longer, the precision required increases.

You can see that if the Maya intentionally ended their calendar on the exact day of December 21, 2012 because it is a winter solstice, they needed to know the value of the tropical year to within at least 3 decimal places.

Let's look at this in even more detail. Basically, what we have is a tolerance of one day over a period of 2,100 years. To calculate this as a percentage, we multiply this one day by 100 and divide by the total number of days in this period. This results in a tolerance of 0.000130 percent, which means that the Maya needed to know the length of the tropical year to a level of 99.99987 percent correct or better! Wow!

This works out to knowing the value of the year to within about 40 seconds, which can be stated as plus or minus 20 seconds. In other words, a small error of a few seconds for one year would build up as we add together all 2,100 years and the resultant total error needs to be such that we are on the correct calendar date of the winter solstice. If you multiply 40 seconds by 2,100, you see that it is just under one day so we are on the right track.

But there is even more to this. If the winter solstice for 2012 was at noon, then our evenly split tolerance would be fine. But since the solstice is at 5:11 AM, calculations that are just 5 hours and 12 minutes too early would result in the wrong date. So the level of precision required is even higher.

And you probably already realize that the 0.599 day fraction from the total number of days in the 2,100 year period also needs to be considered since it amounts to over 14 hours and this can easily push the time of the winter solstice across the boundary of a calendar date. Indeed, if this factor was ignored, the winter solstice for 2012 would be calculated as being at about 3 PM on December 20, which is the wrong calendar date.

So you see that great care must taken in order to correctly calculate the exact date of the winter solstice several thousand years in the future.

To help you get a better feel for what this level of precision is like, consider measuring width the United States to within 20 feet or the distance from Los Angeles to Tokyo to within 40 feet. Good luck! This is why I do not think that the Maya used naked eye astronomy to build their calendar; the level of precision required is just too demanding to be achieved without sophisticated measuring equipment.

In addition to an accurate value for the year, the Maya also need to know an accurate value for the rate of precession and an accurate value for the number of degrees the sky needed to shift during the 2,100 year period in order to bring forth the special galactic crossing of 2012. I should further point out that the value of precession is not a constant. It gets shorter by about 36 days every year. Did the Maya also know about this and properly take it into consideration?

It seems to me that it is either absolutely astounding that their calendar ends when it does or it is a meaningless coincidence. A lot hinges on these two questions: Does the calendar really end on December 21, 2012 and did the Maya do this on purpose because of the special galactic crossing that occurs on that day? If so, they are extraordinary astronomers!

As a side note, consider that in about 130 B.C., the same time frame as the creation of the Maya calendar, the Greek astronomer Hipparchus estimated precession to be 36,000 years or less. He was off by 10,000 years! Even so, Hipparchus is very famous for his work on precession and he wrote two books on the subject. He is considered by some people to be the greatest astronomer of antiquity. I can only add that it's a good thing he was not in charge of creating the Maya calendar! (14)

It is so difficult to believe that the Maya could have had this level of precision that it is easy to understand why mainstream science deny them this knowledge and attribute the end date to mere coincidence. But is this justified? Is the end date landing on the winter solstice a coincidence?

If the Maya were Christian and the end date was Christmas, would we be justified in stating that it was just a coincidence? The winter solstice plays the role of Christmas for the Maya. It is their most important day of the year. It is too much for me to think of it as just a coincidence.

By the way, as I just alluded to, some researchers argue that the Long Count calendar does not end on December 21, 2012 but on various other end dates. While most researcher pick the winter solstice end date, the next most popular end date is only two days later and a very small number of researchers have picked dates that are years away.

Yet no matter which end date we choose to use, or even if the end date really is coincidentally the solstice, it still seems undeniable that the Maya knew a fairly precise value for the length of the great year. Remember, five cycles of the Long Count calendar add up to the great year to within one-half of one percent or 140 years. (Or is this just a coincidence, too?) So they knew the number to at least that degree of accuracy. I feel that we should at least give them credit for this. But was their astronomical understanding vastly superior to even this? Can anyone prove that it wasn't?

The structure of the Long Count calendar demonstrates to me beyond a reasonable doubt that the Maya knew a lot about astronomy. It is not a lucky guess or a coincidence that the calendar works the way that it does. In my view, there is no getting around this, no matter how uncomfortable modern mainstream researchers are with attributing this sophisticated knowledge to them.

It required great ingenuity and scientific understanding to create this calendar. The two most important aspects of it are that it accurately reflect the underlying astronomy while being easy to manage on a daily basis. The Maya accomplished this beautifully.

 

The Sacred Triple Rebirth of the Sun

So what will we have on this very special day of December 21, 2012?

Since each and every sunrise is a metaphorical rebirth of the sun that has been in the underworld throughout the night, we will have the rebirth of the sun in the daily time frame. And of course you know that the winter solstice represents the rebirth of the sun in the yearly time frame since the days will start to grow longer. And we will also have the galactic rebirth of the sun in the time frame of the great year! On December 21, 2012, we will have the simultaneous triple rebirth of the sun! Astounding!

This triple rebirth of the sun is the real special event of 2012! The poetic beauty is breathtaking; the actual astronomy is profoundly precise!

Now we see that from the viewpoint of the Maya, December 21, 2012 is more than just another winter solstice; it is the most important winter solstice of all the winter solstices throughout the entire great year. This therefore makes this day the single most important day in the entire great year!

The concept of precession is in the Maya mythology and also in their calendar and the calendar's end date undeniably contains all this amazing astronomy that is keyed to precession. How can all this be a coincidence? I find it to be completely mind-blowing!

 

John Major Jenkins' Alignment Zone

First and foremost, I have the utmost respect for John Major Jenkins as a person, as a researcher and as a scholar. Without John's brilliant groundbreaking work linking the end of the Maya calendar to a certain time in the earth's precessional cycle, millions of people would be completely unaware of this extremely intriguing information and I would not have been able to write any of my material. That being said, we still have some very important differences of opinion. In fact, we see the heart of the 2012 event in a completely different way.

By the way, John clearly gives credit to the authors that helped him become aware of the ancient cultures that knew about precession and created metaphorical stories based on the shifts they saw in the sky. Two important books are Hamlet's Mill (1968) (15) and Maya Cosmos (1995). These books, along with others, are what made John look for something in our precessional cycle that might be happening in or around 2012, the end of the Maya Long Count calendar. This is how he found what I call the special galactic alignment of 1998. He simply calls it “the galactic alignment” or “the solstice-galaxy alignment.”

In his book The Center of Mayan Time (1995), John discussed “the astronomical fact that the alignment of the solstice meridian [the center of the sun at the moment of the winter solstice] with the Galactic equator - the alignment the Maya were trying to indicate with their 2012 end-date - in fact occurs sometime between 1997 and 1999.” (16)

Here John makes an excellent point about using a range of years centered around 1998 and this comes about because the plane of the galaxy and the center of the sun cannot be located with absolute precision, although we should note that of the two, it is much easier to measure the location of the center of the sun. Locating the plane of the galaxy is somewhat like locating the equator of the earth. While of course there really isn't an actual line on the ground of the earth, the concept of the equator does dictate a precise location.

Yet the question remains, how accurately can you put your finger on that line? When scientists measure things, they frequently give a value and then state a tolerance of plus or minus so much. Technically speaking, this is what we should do with the plane of the galaxy and therefore we should have a small range of years that contain the most precise alignment of the center of the sun and the plane of the galaxy at the moment of the winter solstice. This is what John calls the “alignment zone” and he suggests that we use a half of a degree of tolerance since this is approximately the angular size of the sun.

While I agree that this alignment is very unique and rare and that using a range is valid and helpful, my idea is that this alignment is not what the Maya were trying to pinpoint with their calendar. As you know, I believe they successfully pinpointed the triple rebirth of the sun as it will unfold throughout the day of December 21, 2012.

 

Why I Believe My Idea Is Unique and Original

While I do believe that this idea is original with me, it is of course quite possible that other people unknown to me have also had this idea. The reason that I believe that it is original with me is that I did my own calculations from scratch which take into account a more precise size for the disk of the sun and I account for the fact that the line made by the plane of the galaxy is at 60 degrees with respect to the line made by the path of the sun, the ecliptic. Everyone else treats that angle as 90 degrees with regards to the crossing zone. But most importantly, I focus on the 15-hour crossing as it occurs on the winter solstice of 2012 rather than John's multi-year alignment zone, which is what everyone else focuses on.

Here is one of the main problems with using an alignment zone: it is simply an unnatural way of “watching” the sun cross the plane of the galaxy. In fact, it is not watching at all. As you know, with this approach, we take a slice of time, the moment of the winter solstice, from every year and make a plot of what we see during that moment. Then we put those slices together to show the apparent motion of the solstice sun travelling across the plane of the galaxy over a period of about 45 years. This is an artificially created scenario that seems to indicate motion. But in between the slices of time, a full year passes and the alignment swings through about 360 degrees as the earth orbits the sun.

My approach of watching what unfolds throughout the day of December 21, 2012 is completely natural. It is not an artificial reconstruction. The crossing starts, the solstice happens, the sun rises, the crossing peaks and then the crossing finishes. The entire day is filled with the crossing happening in the sky above the heads of the Maya. It is a natural triple rebirth of the sun. To my knowledge, I am the only researcher who describes this event as it will be seen in Izapa.

And remember, the crossing in 1998 happened mostly at night, below the Maya in the underworld. The crossing of 2012 is much more appealing since it is in their sky and over their heads.

It is also extremely important to note that the event that I focus on is not affected very much by an inexact location of the plane of the galaxy. A shift of a tenth of a degree would only changes the timing of the crossing by 2 hours and 26 minutes. This means that the events I describe are unchanged in their sequence. The crossing would still start very early on December 21, 2012 and the winter solstice would still happen next and so forth. Of paramount importance, the sacred triple rebirth of the sun would still occur entirely on December 21, 2012 and the crossing would still embrace both the winter solstice and the sunrise, which are the other two rebirths of the sun.

Note that a shift of a tenth of a degree changes the boundaries of John Mayor Jenkins' alignment zone by seven years. So a calendar that is trying to pinpoint this alignment would be very sensitive to the precise location of the galactic plane. Even a slightly incorrect location would most likely result in a different year. This in itself does not prove that the Maya were not thinking along these lines, it just adds the need for an extremely precise location of the plane of the galaxy.

By the way, I want to point out that John and I both use the phrase “triple rebirth of the sun.” He used it first although I did not know he used it until after I started to use it. Although who used it first is not very important, I still want to clarify that he applies it in a way that makes it depend on the special galactic alignment of 1998 rather than the event that unfolds on December 21, 2012, which is what I use it for.

I cannot overemphasize the importance of John Major Jenkins' work. He has focused on this subject since the early 1980s and has written a half-dozen books. He is extremely knowledgeable in areas that I know virtually nothing. And again, it is John's brilliant groundbreaking work that linked the end of the Maya calendar to a certain time in the earth's precessional cycle.

It is almost as if John discovered a huge pyramid deep in the jungles of southern Mexico, a pyramid that was completely hidden and totally overgrown. Then over the course of several decades, he virtually single-handedly removed all the overgrowth so that we all could see this fabulous monument.

Yet I do not want to understate the potential significance of my opinion:

The Maya Long Count calendar precisely pinpoints the day of December 21, 2012 because it contains the sacred triple rebirth of the sun! The Maya did not simply miss the special galactic alignment of 1998 by 14 years, they hit exactly what they wanted!

Perhaps I am correctly pointing out the actual capstone to John's pyramid.

 

Could the Maya Be Focusing on Another Event?

The heart of the Milk Way

While my research gives me a high degree of confidence that the Maya were indeed using their Long Count calendar to precisely pinpoint the sacred triple rebirth of the sun as represented by the very special astronomical event of December 21, 2012, there are numerous scholars and popular writers who maintain that the Maya had something else in mind.

This opens up a complex debate that is beyond the scope of this essay but the solid astronomical understanding that you have gained will give you an excellent foundation to explore those other possibilities.

While we presently have no absolute proof as to what the target really is, the event of 2012 is immensely fascinating for millions of people. How exciting for us all to see it unfold for ourselves right now!

That's the end of this essay but I invite you to explore the comments and links in the endnotes section. And don't miss my 10-minute video of our 3-dimensional model in action! (Click here for the video.)

By the way, I will soon have some more material in which I will offer my opinion about how the Maya acquired this astronomical knowledge and present my own views of what all this actually means. Will consciousness shift from the “me” to the “we”? Will we shift from competition to cooperation? Will you experience your own personal triple rebirth? I hope you join us for that!

Thanks for reading my essay! Have a magical and mystical day!

Thomas Razzeto

Written: May 2, 2008
Revised: October 20, 2008

infinitelymystical.com

Mystical spirituality for personal and world peace

Back to a list of all my essays

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Endnotes

(1) This is a simple 3-dimensional model that you can build yourself with just a pencil a sheet of paper. It demonstrates the actual astronomy we are concerned with. As you move the top of the pencil around in a circle, you can see the 26,000 year precessional cycle unfold.

Don't miss my 10-minute video of this model in action:

The Actual Astronomy of 2012 - Absolutely Amazing!

Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGPcjMe6Qlw&fmt=18

(2) The following excellent website gives a simple yet thorough explanation of the seasons:

http://www.astronomy.org/programs/seasons/index.html

(3) A more exact figure is 25,765 years but for this essay I use the approximate number of 26,000 because it is close enough and easier to remember. You can find more information here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precession_of_the_equinoxes

This next link shows an animation of a top precessing. There is an important difference between what is shown here and what the earth does. In the animation, we see that the bottom tip of the axis of the top stays still while the rest of the top wobbles. For the earth, it is best to imagine the center of the earth staying still while both the top and bottom tips of the axis of rotation make circles. In other words, the earth still wobbles but there are two cones of precession, one above the other. One is up-side-down and the two are touching at the center of the earth. When we build our 3-dimensional model, we put the tip of the pencil in the crease. This is the center of the earth, not the bottom of the earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precession

(4) The following website discusses the topic of the entire solar system bobbing up and down across the plane of the galaxy. It states that we last crossed the plane of the galaxy 2 million years ago and that we are currently about 50 light-years above the mid-plane of the galaxy. We will continue to get further away for another 14 million years and then we will start moving closer again. While some other researchers have come up with slightly different numbers such as a current distance of 70 light-years, you can clearly see why I don't consider this topic to be relevant to our study of the astronomy of 2012.

By the way, the center of the galaxy is estimated to be just over 25,000 light years away and it is estimated that it takes 240 million years for our entire solar system to make one orbit around the center of the galaxy.

Also notice that since the distance above the galactic mid-plane is very small compared with the distance to the center of the galaxy, our model is still an excellent representation of what is going on in the sky with regards to the annual galactic alignments even though our solar system is not exactly on the mid-plane of the galaxy.

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/FAQ/Qsolsysspeed.html

The following forum brings forth a few more points about this topic.

http://www.bautforum.com/questions-answers/55312-plane-ecliptic-galaxy.html

(5) While it is true that the orbits of almost all the planets are close to the orbital plane of the earth, the two exceptions are Mercury, whose orbit is tilted at 7 degrees, and Pluto at 17 degrees.

(6) Let's look closer at why the direction to the center of the galaxy basically stays the same. Imaging that you are in Los Angeles and you are pointing to the center of New York city. If you then move 500 miles north and point to New York, you will have to point more south than before since you are now further north. But if instead of moving 500 miles north, you only move 50 feet, the direction to New York will basically be the same. Technically, it is slightly different but the difference is extremely small. So even though the earth is moving around in its orbit, the change in position is not enough to affect the direction to the center of the galaxy.

(7) The angle between the plane of the galaxy and the plane of the earth-sun orbit (the ecliptic) is about 60 degrees. Astronomy magazine tells us where to look in the summer sky to see it for ourselves here:

http://cs.astronomy.com/asycs/forums/p/31176/368883.aspx

Here is further discussion:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071203110530AAMkEYV

And here is clarification of the confusion between 60 degrees and 63 degrees:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071220173201AAmFoA4

(8) Detailed information about the sidereal year is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidereal_year

Detailed information about the tropical year is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_year

(9) Technically speaking, we have three independent events, which occur at different times: the day the axis was over the cease, the moment of the winter solstice and the moment of the alignment of the earth, the sun and the plane of the galaxy. Indeed, these events really are independent from each other since one does not cause either or both of the other two. Yet when the axis is over the crease, the other two occur at virtually the same time.

In 1998, the moment of the winter solstice and the moment of the alignment of the earth, the sun and the plane of the galaxy were closer to each other than any other year and this is because the day the axis was over the crease was closest to that winter solstice as compared to the winter solstice of any other year.

If I understand correctly, the Nautical Observatory has calculated that the axis of the earth was exactly over the crease on October 27, 1998. Since the axis precesses so slowly, you can imagine that it was still almost exactly over the crease less than two months later on the winter solstice of 1998. In other words, it was off by less than 2 months out of 309,180 months, which is greater than 99.999 percent correct. (12 months per year times 25,765 years is 309,180 months.)

The following webpage, written by John Major Jenkins, provides the scientific reference that mentions the calculations of the Nautical Observatory:
http://www.alignment2012.com/truezone.htm

That webpage contains some material that I will comment on later, after you have read more of my essay and have a more complete understanding of some of the issues raised on that webpage.

(10) I consider John Major Jenkins one of the most important voices on the subject of 2012. Here are John's brief comments on Izapa as the origin of the Long Count calendar. You can learn much more from his DVD, "Izapa - 2012."

http://www.alignment2012.com/izapa2012dvd.html

Here is John's main website:

http://www.alignment2012.com

(11) Of all the winter solstices, the one in 1998 has the center of the sun closest to the galactic plane. It is virtually exactly on the plane of the galaxy at the moment of the winter solstice. By the way, the following document confirms that the distance from the sun to the galactic center at the precise moment of the winter solstice in 1998 is 6.4 degrees. As you know, the crease in our model always points approximately toward the center of the galaxy and this document confirms that it always misses by 6.4 degrees. Here is the link:

http://www.alignment2012.com/truezone.htm

(12) Here we will calculate the amount of time required for the winter-solstice sun to cross the galactic plane. Let's start by calculating the amount of time it takes the precessional cycle to go through one degree. Here's the math: 25,765 years divided by a full circle of 360 degrees equals 71.57 years per degree and most people round this up to 72 years. I have no problem with using 72 degrees per year but when calculating the crossing time, most people use an angular size of the sun of 0.50 degrees, which is a bit too small, and they also ignore the fact that the plane of the galaxy is 30 degrees shy of straight up, which increases the crossing time even more. First, let's take a closer look at the size of the sun.

As you know, the earth's orbit around the sun is not a perfect circle and this means that there are times when the sun is closer to earth and times when it is farther away. This causes the angular size of the sun to vary between 0.525 degrees and 0.543 degrees. At present, the sun is closest during winter for the northern hemisphere. So we should use 0.543 degrees as the angular size of the sun, not 0.50.

Now let's consider the effect the 60 degree angle of the galactic plane. If the galactic plane intersected the ecliptic at 90 degrees, rather than 60 degrees, the transition would simply involve the angular diameter of the sun, 0.543 degrees. But since the planes intersect at 60 degrees, the sun needs to more time to complete the crossing. The right edge will touch sooner and the left edge will be touching later. The trigonometry is very simple and it adds about 15 percent to the time required. (One divided by the cosine of 30 degrees equals 1.155 or 15.5 percent more than the unit circle's radius.)

The combination of these two factors adds about 25 percent to the 36 year period used by most people and our 36 year period becomes about 45 years. That's why our diagram shows the starting year as about 1976 and the ending year as about 2021. By the way, the year 2021 matches with the information offered by the astronomer cited by John Major Jenkins in the link provided in footnote 11. Incidentally, I chose to split the 45 year period as follows: 22 years from 1976 to 1998 and 23 years from 1998 to 2021 but going from 1975 to 2020 is also quite acceptable since the differences are so small.

(13) Here is some information about my calculations for the sun crossing the plane of the galaxy on December 21, 2012. This is the heart of my original work.

Here we are concerned with two things: how long the crossing will last and the time that it will happen.

The time that it will happen can be pinpointed by finding the time that it peaks. In other words, we will find the time that the disk of the sun is exactly cut in half by the plane of the galaxy, which is the moment of the annual galactic alignment of 2012. This, again, is the time that you can draw a line from the earth, through the sun and into the plane of the galaxy.

One way to find the peak of the crossing of 2012 is to utilize the fact that in 1998, the axis of the earth was over the crease. This means that the moment of the winter solstice and the moment of the galactic alignment were virtually the same. Then all we need to do is add 14 sidereal years to this time. This gives us the time of the galactic alignment of 2012, which is the peak of the crossing.

(We must use sidereal years, not tropical years, since we are concerned with the length of the year determined by the background stars rather than the seasons of the year. It is the background stars that contain the plain of the galaxy in its fixed location.)

According the Department of Astronomy at the University of Minnesota, the winter solstice of 1998 was December 21, 7:56 PM CST (the same time zone as the Maya, by the way.) This is virtually the same time as the galactic alignment.

(http://www.astro.umn.edu/outreach/starwatch/starwatch1298.html)

Now we add 14 sidereal years to this time.

One sidereal year is 365.25636042 mean solar days. For simplicity, we can ignore the 365 and just multiply the fractional part by 14 to get:

      3.58904588 days, which is 3 days, 14 hours and 8 minutes

Notice that between 1998 and 2012, there are 4 leap years. (Remember, 2000 was a leap year.) This makes sense and the four occurrences of February 29 keep the winter solstice of 2012 on December 21.

When we start with December 21 7:56 PM and subtract the four extra days from the leap years and then add 3 days, 14 hours and 8 minutes, we get the peak time of the crossing in 2012 as:

      December 21 10:04 AM CST

So midmorning, in the sky right over the heads of the Maya, the sun will conjunct with the plane of the galaxy. Awesome!

When did the crossing start? When will it end? I simply calculated the duration as follows and then split it in half, centered around the peak.

The duration is driven by the speed of the earth orbiting the sun. We know this rate to be (360 degrees / 365 days) divided by 24 hour / day =

      0.0410959 degrees per hour

So now all we need to know is how many degrees the sun has to travel in order to complete the crossing and then do the simple division.

The number of degrees the sun has to travel depends on the actual angular size of the sun and we must also take into account the tilt of the plane of the galaxy.

(In a rough representation, the tilted galactic plane being crossed by the sun can be shown as follows: O\O rather than O|O. This simple geometry explains why the crossing lasts longer than it would if the plane was not tilted.)

As noted in footnote 12, the actual diameter of the sun during the Maya winter is 0.543 degrees, rather than the 0.50 degrees used by most researchers. Since the plane of the galaxy is tilted at 60 degrees, 30 degrees shy of straight up, we need to multiply by 1.155 (which is 1 divided by the cosine of 30 degrees.)

      0.543 degrees * 1.155 = 0.627165 degrees of travel required to cross.

So how long will it take to cross? Just divide this number by our rate:

      0.627165 divided by 0.0410959 degrees per hour = 15.2610 hours

This is 15 hours and 16 minutes and I think of it as 7 hours and 38 minutes to build up to the peak, followed by 7 hours and 38 minutes leading to the conclusion, or roughly seven and a half hours for each half of the crossing.

Putting this information together with our peak time of 10:04 AM, we have the starting time of 2:26 AM and the ending time of 5:42 PM.

(14) More on Hipparchus can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus

(15) John Major Jenkins' comments about Hamlet's Mill can be found here:

http://www.alignment2012.com/mill1.htm

(16) Here I again make reference to John Major Jenkins' short essay, The True Alignment Zone (1999):

http://www.alignment2012.com/truezone.htm

By the way, I want to correct a very minor point regarding the topic of water spinning down a drain since John mentions it in his essay. My opinion is that John is very bright and well informed on a wide variety of subjects yet on the topic of water spinning down a drain, he has slipped into the common false belief that it spins one way north of the equator and the other way south of the equator due to the coriolis effect. This is simply not the case yet John's mistake does not affect the core issues presented in the essay. Here is more information:

http://www.snopes.com/science/coriolis.asp

Other Notes

(*) This site mentions that the winter solstice sun will be closest to the center of the galaxy in the year 2219:

http://edj.net/mc2012/truezone.htm

(*) Here is a 3-D animated movie of the event of 2012. They have it spinning around in an unnatural way so that might add some confusion. Yet it is still helpful for those looking for more ways to understand the actual astronomy:

http://www.lunarplanner.com/HCmovies/HCmovie300Frame.html

(*) Here are other interesting links:

http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/m/Milky_Way.htm

http://alignment2012.com/Izapa.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izapa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_Long_Count_calendar

http://alignment2012.com/mc-intro.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmec

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/esp_2012_08.htm

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Thanks for reading my essay! Have a magical and mystical day!

Thomas Razzeto