December 21st. 2012 (2)

Another Maya intellectual, the Jakalteko novelist, professor and cultural activist, Victor Montejo, echoes González’s emphasis on the active role of human beings in the coming age after 2012 when he says that:
“Prophetic expressions of the indigenous peoples insist on the protagonist [leading] role that new generations must play at the close of this Oxlanh B’aktun (thirteen B’aktun) and the beginning of the new Maya millennium. The ancestors have always said that ‘one day our children will speak to the world.’ ... This millennial or b’aktunian movement responds to the close of a great prophetic cycle ... the great prophetic cycle of 400 years in the Maya calendar.

Victor Montejo

In very recent years, knowledge of the year 2012 has spread beyond the realm of internationally known Maya spiritual teachers and Maya intellectuals to include a few spiritual guides still living and working within their highland Guatemalan communities. Since the year’s significance stems from part of their ancient culture, their tendency is to incorporate it instinctively into long-existing prophetic traditions and hopes for a revival of Maya culture and indigenous political power. The K’iche’ spiritual guide Rigoberto Itzep quotes community elders in Momostenango who say, “You will still see many warnings. You will still see and hear strange things. You will still see great ruin. There will be many changes on Earth.” According to Itzep, these K’iche’ Maya elders never specified the year 2012 but for him, the potential for the year is obvious. ”The ideological power of the West in its entirety might expire forever in 2012,” words that undoubtedly represent the heartfelt wish of many Maya in the region.

Traditional Maya New Year offerings

Even though prophecies of world renewal have long existed among the Maya, the idea of a coming radical transformation has entered the contemporary Maya world most broadly through the teachings of the numerous fundamentalist Protestant churches that have grown rapidly in the region during recent decades. The disastrous 1976 earthquake that shook Guatemala not only killed tens of thousands of Maya; it brought a new wave of Christian missionaries pushing their religious ideology along with much-needed relief supplies. The cataclysmic violence of the earthquake was followed almost immediately by a particularly brutal military repression of the Maya of Guatemala during the late 1970s and early 1980s when as many as 200,000 Maya civilians died and hundreds of thousands of others found themselves wounded or displaced.

Destruction of the Patzicia district of Guatemala City by the 1976 earthquake

Fundamentalist groups focus on the biblical passages of the book of Revelation and, of course, do not refer to the year 2012. Although there is no evidence that Maya fundamentalists will embrace the 2012 date, global communication networks make it virtually unavoidable that the two “millennial” currents will eventually come into greater contact with one another. It seems quite possible that some Maya fundamentalists awaiting the end of the world will see the 2012 date as an attractive way to blend their new faith with the ways of their revered ancestors.

The Bible and the Book of Revelation in Spanish

Apart from New Age tourism, global communication and Maya immigration to the United States will facilitate development of greater awareness concerning the 2012 date in today’s Maya population. The fact that the 2012 date has authentic connections to their ancient “abuelos”, their ancestral “grandparents,” will no doubt attract Maya traditionalists and those in the Maya cultural revitalization movement attempting to resuscitate key components of their heritage. Hopes are alive among nearly all Maya for the dawn of a new era, one based on justice and respect. In accord with their cyclical view of the world, many long for a fifth creation to follow the first four as described in their sacred Popol Vuh.

Lacandón ‘grandparents’

Long-standing Maya prophetic traditions linked to world renewal can now easily attach themselves to a specific date that has authentic roots deep in their ancient past. The region’s rapidly worsening environmental degradation, the growing influence among Maya of apocalyptic scenarios arising from Evangelical Protestantism, and an increasing awareness among Maya of the 2012 phenomenon outside the region, may coincide to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. These paths may very well lead to a period of radical change in the Maya world and hopefully to a brighter future for their children and the ecosystems they call home. So even though the 2012 date may, in truth, have relatively little historical significance in Maya culture, through unrelated environmental and cultural currents, the date make take on truly transformative dimensions for the Maya of today.

The Maya and the burden of time?

The traditional Maya sense of intimacy with the living world gives rise to a broadened perspective on human life that has led to an enhanced sense of awe, respect and compassion all fostered by intensely nurturing and engaged parenting. As a simple consequence of their culture’s approach to life, many Maya still experience an on-going shared awareness of their bonds with one another and with nature herself. These practical, hard-earned lessons in living are the true gift of Maya culture to the wider world. As the much-heralded year 2012 approaches, the real lessons of daily living in the Maya world offer us a means to enhance the quality of our own lives and the health of the planet, regardless of the significance of the date itself.
(Emphasis added)

A sacred hill and Maya village, Guatemala