I guess I began contemplating the 2012 endtime in the early 1970s, inspired by the publication of Mexico Mystique by anthropologist Frank Waters. I had been working with precession for some years, but tools and techniques were quite primitive back in those days. I had no access to a computer, and there was not yet a lot of fancy calculation in print, either on precession or Mesoamerican calendrics. Anthony Aveni's Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico was not published until six years later. In the next decade, the 1980s, archeoastronomy took off famously, with many books appearing at once. It was a heady time to be on the trail of ancient skylore.

It is worth noting that Waters' book appeared in 1974, the inceptive moment of the 1974-2012 interval centered on the nodal year, 1993. I have suggested that this 38-year interval marks the unique generation that will navigate humanity toward the Maya endtime. 1974 signals the initial conditions for the global perspective to emerge in the minds of that generation. Those who initialized the vision of planetary transformation (or whatever) in the 1970s will transmit it to the younger members of the generation, those who live at the post-millennial end of the interval. I believe that generational continuity is essential to the viability and coherence of endtime visions.

The wave of interest in archeoastronomy, and its legitimization as a scientific genre, falls neatly into the 1974-2012 interval. John Michell's cult classic, The View over Atlantis, went up like a signal flare in 1969, calling attention to sacred landscape and ley-lines. Peter Lancaster Brown's Megaliths, Myths and Men, still the best overview of the subject, came out in 1976. Sky/ground mirroring and the stellar orientation of megalithic sites (e.g. Graham Hancock, Heaven's Mirror) are recurrent topics of the endtime. From megalithic astronomy we take instruction on the long view of civilization and the millennial parameters of cultural evolution.

The Path of Heart

Mexico Mystique was a revelation. I remember reading it in one long summer day and a short night, hunkered down in my little adobe house on La Vereda, just off Palace Avenue in Santa Fe, and trembling with excitement. It was a thrill to see endtime speculation treated seriously by a well-known anthropologist and specialist in the indigenous lore of the Southwest, especially Hopi tradition. At the time, Frank Waters was the dean of Native American anthropology. He lived not far from me, up north in Taos, about an hour's drive along a spectacular route that (after Pilar) follows the course of the Rio Grande. That summer I visited him at Arroyo Seco. Tall and thin as a beanpole, he was an amiable and elegant man. We discussed the long-range parameters of cultural change and historical upheaval reflected in planetary and sidereal cycles.

There are some things in Mexico Mystique that do not stand up today, but much more that still bears consideration. Waters used the subtitle, "The Coming Sixth World of Consciousness," linked closely to the Aquarian Age. Although he worked equally with Maya and Aztec myth and calendrics, Waters emphasized the Aztec Ages or "Suns," and in particular the motif of Ollin, "movement." He noted that the Fifth Age is not just another age in the sequence because "the Fifth Sun, or Sun of Movement, held for the Nahuas the added significance of being the unifying center of the four directional suns that preceded it" (p. 121). Citing Aztec Thought and Culture by Miguel Leon-Portilla (a superb book, by the way), he added:

Waters saw in the heart-movement motif our challenge at the endtime: to find the path of heart for humanity, our species. He sensed that we might respond to that challenge by taking instruction from the myth of Quetzalcoatl. In his rendition of this myth, Waters noted that Xolotl was identical with Kukulcan of the Maya, a lightning god associated with Itzamna, the celestial serpent (Milky Way). Maya and Aztec myth alike see in Xolotl the twin of the Plumed Serpent Quetzalcoatl, whose Mayan name is Gucumatz.

Mexico Mystique touches on both the cataclysmic possibilities of the endtime (oddly calculated for 2011), as well as its transformational prospects for our species, but Waters does not elaborate too much on the latter. He deemed it valuable (as do I) to reckon the full duration of the Long Count. To do so, he used the Goodman-Martinez-Thompson (GMT) correlation and a start date of August 12, 3113 BCE. In his overview of the full 5124-year period, Waters discussed the Hindu Yugas and drew upon the work of siderealist Cyril Fagan, anthroposophist Gunther Wachsmith, Gurdjieffien Rodney Collin, all of whom attempted to construct a coherent model of the Zodiacal ages—alas, without much success. The problem is, or was at that time, that none of these people had the complete astronomical picture that shows how the pattern of Zodiacal ages is structured according to an extra-Zodiacal factor: the galactic center.

The Galactic View

The solar system (* SS) in the spiral arms or limbs of the galaxy.
The third limb, counting outwards from the center, is called the
Orion limb. Distance from the SS to the galactic center (GC),
about 24,000 light-years. Full span of limbs, about 30-32,000 LY.
The view is foreshortened, making the outer limb look larger.

Today we have the advantage of knowing quite a lot about the galactic alignment of the Zodiac. Many current discussions of 2012 assume this alignment to be the determining factor in the Long Count, considered astronomically, but, for some odd reason, the pattern of Zodiacal Ages is rarely factored into this perspective. The galactic alignment of the Zodiac gets a lot of attention, but the overall pattern of the Zodiacal Ages is ignored—a serious oversight in endtime astronomy. Yet 2012 has been associated with the Aquarian Age.

The Zodiacal Ages (Aries, Pisces, Aquarius, etc) are measured by star-patterns on the ecliptic, a band of thirteen constellations of uneven size and extent. The stars in these constellations lie in relatively close proximity to the earth in the immediate region of the galactic limb we occupy, the third limb of four counting outward from the center. In their totality all the stars visible to us in all directions from the earth comprise about three percent of the stars in the galaxy! Of this three percent, only a minute selection comprise the massive figures of the Zodiacal constellations. The maximum distance of these stars is not more than 1500 light-years, compared to the distance of 24,000 light-years to the galactic center.

The constellations of the entire celestial sphere, including the Ecliptic band of 13 figures and 75 extra-Ecliptic formations, are composed of near, naked-eye stars in the local limb, or arm. Because we are located within the arm, we notice the region of dense star population, the edge of the spiral arm, and on either side of that, constellations spread across less densely populated space. The lateral edge of the spiral arm, seen from within, is the Milky Way. It intersects the band of Zodiacal constellations at two points, between Taurus and Gemini, and between Scorpio and Sagittarius.

The above map (Erlewine, Astrophysical Directions) shows the Milky Way as the shaded area. The path of the ecliptic where the sun moves through the sky (actually, the orbital plane of the earth) runs from right to left, crossing the Milky Way at an angle of about 65 degrees. Out of the 88 constellations in the celestial sphere surrounding the earth, the ecliptic traverses thirteen distinct star-patterns: Taurus, Gemini, and Cancer are shown here. The Zodiacal constellations, or ecliptic constellations as they can also be called, stand apart from the extra-Ecliptic constellations, such as Orion seen here beneath Taurus. Orion, with his right arm raised up toward the horns of Taurus, seems to dangle off the Milky Way.

The Milky Way intersects the ecliptic at an angle of 65 degrees, as just noted. Erlewine follows astronomical convention and inserts a hypothetical median line or equator in the Milky Way, the so-called galactic equator. It runs from Perseus to Auriga, between Taurus and Gemini, down into Canis Minor and so on around the full celestial sphere. The region where the Milky Way and ecliptic intersect is visually remarkable because the horns of Taurus extend into the dense starstream of the Milky Way, and the feet of twins likewise dip into it. In naked-eye observation, these graphic details create a striking visual impression.

So, the entire celestial sphere we see does not comprise the galaxy, but a mere section of the local limb, the third from center counting outwards. All the stars around the earth fit into a "bubble of observability" crisscrossed by two bands, the band of the Milky Way, consisting of eighteen constellations, and the band of the thirteen Zodiacal constellations on the Ecliptic. Other star-patterns are spread out over the expanse of the celestial sphere in all directions.

The Two Zodiacs

The best way to track the Zodiacal Ages is with a flat model that displays all thirteen ecliptic patterns in a circular format. Such models are extremely hard to find, however. Despite all that has been written on the Ages, you will not find a clear, straitforward illustration of the Zodiac in a circular format except, perhaps, among the little-known school of sidereal astrology. I developed the model that I now use at the start of the 1974 - 2012 interval. The illustration below shows at the center a typical horoscope plotted on the grid of twelve astrological signs, and simultaneously, the real-sky constellations excluded from the horoscope.

Although it is difficult to make out the details, the central wheel consists of the twelve zodiacal signs (Aries, Taurus, Gemini) with planets in them on a specific date. The sign Zodiac of popular astrology uses a division of the ecliptic plane into twelve equal slices, like a pizza. Planetary positions are measured on this uniform grid irrespective of their actual. observable positions relative to the surrounding stars. Beyond the sign Zodiac we see the shape and extent of the real-sky constellations that lie along the rim of the ecliptic; hence I call this model the "Rimsite." The arrows extending outwards from the starless horoscope show how each planet in the sign Zodiac has another position in the star Zodiac. This is conversion to Star Base™, the graphic format of the real-sky constellations.

It is perplexing to learn that Sun sign astrology based on uniform ecliptic sectors ignores the stars, but this is an irrefutable fact. I have spilled tons of ink in the effort to sort out the two formats, sign Zodiac and star Zodiac, but that is not the issue here. The above illustration serves to show that the ecliptic plate with the full array of astrological signs—i.e., the horoscopic format—is independent of the surrounding constellations. Astrologers locate planets in that format (the orbital plane of the earth divided into twelve equal sections of 30 degrees each) and totally ignore the irregular star patterns visible in the night sky. Astrology ignores the stars.

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