2012 is not the end of the world, says Mayan timekeeper

Although many people celebrated New Years’ 2012 with exuberant and alcoholic gusto, many others did so with a bit of trepidation. After all, the Mayan calendar predicted the end of the world on December 21, 2012. Or did it?

From Canada, a Mayan timekeeper disputes all the hysteria surrounding this end of the world prediction. Leonzo Barreno, a Guatemalan native who now lives in Regina and was trained to read these Mayan calendars, says that December 21, 2012 simply marks the end of a 5,125 year cycle. As he told CBC News:

“It has happened before, and according to the elders this is the fifth time it’s happened.”

Barreno, who is the Global Chair of Journalism as the University of Regina, was trained by Mayan elders to read these calendars. Rather than fearing the winter solstice of 2012, he advises that we celebrate it. But Gregg Braden, who is an odd combination of scientist and spiritual guru, claims to have also studied the Mayans and their calendars, and he has a slightly different take on this subject. While Braden doesn’t believe the world will end in 2012, he has stated in several of his books, in articles, and in interviews that these recurring 5,125 year cycles culminated in cataclysmic events that decimated populations and ended almost entire civilizations. However, Braden says that people did survive to tell their tales to future generations. As Braden posted in Spirit Library:

The fact that they lived to tell the story stands as a powerful testament to an undeniable truth. It tells us beyond any reasonable doubt that the inhabitants of our world have survived the end of world ages in the past.

While Braden refused to speculate on what may happen in 2012 and beyond, he did say:

Because the end of anything also marks the beginning of what comes next, we’re also living the start of what follows the end of time: the next world age, which ancient traditions called the great cycle.

From these two experts, both scholars on the Mayan calendar, perhaps the only facts on which we can depend is that 2012 is the end of a 5,125 cycle and, for that reason, all of us are living at a unique time in civilization. It’s up to us to make the best of it—whatever may come.