First Night

“December 2012 marks the conclusion of a b’ak’tun, a time period in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar which was used in Central America prior to the arrival of Europeans. The creation accounts of the Maya refer to cycles of creation or world ages. The previous world ages ended after 13 b’ak’tuns, or roughly 5,125 years. According to the Maya Long Count calendar, the fourth world, our world, will have reached the end of its thirteenth b’ak’tun on December 21, 2012.

The end of the fourth world age in 2012 might be accompanied by cataclysmic and transformative events. Will we witness doomsday scenarios in the form of natural disasters triggered by magnetic polar shifts? Astronomical alignments for 2012 place earth in the same plane as the dark center of the galaxy and the black hole that lurks there. Will that change in alignment create a shift in the energy of the cosmos that causes the black hole to begin to feed again? Does the transit of Venus, a rare astrological event, along with a total eclipse of the sun occurring on the last holy day of the Mayan long count calendar, portend the end of the world or the beginning of a new age?
Can there be creation without destruction? Creation and destruction cycles appear in many civilizations in the form of myths and religions spanning the ages in all parts of the world. The end of planet earth as we know it might be triggered by a solar maximum, a collision with another planet, or the arrival of aliens. Perhaps even more fantastic is the notion that the fourth world age might be transformed into the fifth by means of a complete spiritual transformation of the world’s societies and the peaceable dawning of a new age.
As mortals we all face the inevitable end of ourselves in the world. As artists we have the power to create our own visions of what may lie ahead both for the world and ourselves.

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