Why Now? The Great Year

The Star Logic of Earth Changes

"I have determined to make an end of all flesh; for the earth is filled with violence through them; behold, I will destroy them with the earth." - Gen. 6.13

"When women dress like men and trousers wear; and cut off all their locks of hair; when pictures look alive with movements free; when ships like fishes swim beneath the sea; when men outstripping birds can soar the sky; then half the world, deep-drenched in blood, shall die." - Mother Shipton, 15th century

In previous Messages, I have explored the immediate implications of the events of Sept. 11, then gone on to look at the background in terms of the imbalance of male and female principles. Today I want to explore the question: Why now? Are our survival issues substantially different than they were in the World Wars of the 20th century? The religious and territorial wars of the past few thousand years? Can we compare the present flush of bio-terrorism to, let us say, the ravages of the plague in the Middle Ages? And is even the nuclear threat actually new to our planet?

In order to understand the critical timing of present events, we must look at the context of our world in terms of astronomical position in space. The earth spins on its axis like a top, and also like a top, does not spin straight up and down, but at a slant and with a wobble. The spin gives us our day and night; the slant, by changing our angle to the sun's rays, gives us our seasons. But the wobble is another matter entirely, for it is very slow, taking in fact nearly twenty-six thousand years for one revolution. This 26,000 year 'Great Year' means the direction of the earth's polar axis is gradually shifting in space (a phenomenon known technically as Precession of the Equinoxes), circumscribing a 'great circle' in the sky. For example what we presently experience as our North or Pole Star was not the North Star two thousand years ago; won't be the North Star two thousand years from now; but will be again the North Star in another 26,000 years, when the cycle returns. As we pass or 'precess' through this 'great circle', we experience what is known as 'Change of Ages', presently from Pisces to Aquarius; for the astronomical ages are simply a division into twelve parts of the great circle of the heavens. Twelve into 26,000 gives us something over 2150 years for each age.

Why is this important? How can the shift in angular alignment to the night sky affect our life here on the planet? Just as there are four quarter points in the solar year - two solstices and two equinoxes - so there are quarter points of the Great Year. And at these quarter points of the Great Year, something rather extraordinary happens (to us). When a solar year quarter point (solstice or equinox) occurs on a Great Year quarter point, a straight line can be drawn from the center of the earth through the center of the sun, and arrive at the center of the galaxy. To appreciate the implication, we might consider our position in the great scheme of things; we circle a rather small sun at the very fringes of the Milky Way. If we called galactic center 'Paris', then Earth might be some tiny village near the southern tip of Argentina. Having a straight line from Galactic Center to Earth Center could be compared to opening a Concorde route from Paris to Chiqitaville. It's going to make for big changes in a small place.

For technical reasons I won't go into at the moment, the alignment becomes most powerful on the Great Year solstices. And that's where we are right now. The earth has moved into a time when the winter solstice (approximately Dec. 22) is presently aligning to Galactic Center. That is why various traditions and prophecies have pointed to this time as either a 'Messianic Age', or Armageddon. And why it corresponds to the 'Mayan End Date' of 2012, when earth begins to move out of the most direct period of alignment.

"The country of the hills of mud, the land of Mu, was sacrificed; being twice upheaved, it suddenly disappeared during the night, the basin being continually shaken by the volcanic forces. Being confined, these caused the land to sink, and to rise several times in various places. At last the surface gave way and ten countries were torn asunder and scattered. Unable to stand the force of the convulsion, they sank with their 64 million inhabitants 8,060 years before the writing of this book." - Mayan Troana Codex

Thirteen thousand years ago, New York was covered by several hundred meters of ice - . Then, with startling suddenness, the glaciers all over Scandinavia and North America disappeared. In Britain, the temperatures shot up from a summertime value of only 8 degrees Celsius to 18 Celsius, and it did so in a few decades - in a flash, from a historic point of view." - Astrophyisicist Fred Hoyle

The last time we were in a similar position, with the then summer solstice aligned to Galactic Center, was just under 13,000 years ago. At which point an ice age ended, the poles shifted, massive species die-offs occurred (including mammoths and sabre-tooth tigers), mile-high tidal waves spun around the planet, land masses fell under the seas and 'mountains uplifted'. In short, the period virtually every people of the world recalls through their mythology as the Great Flood - when 'God' nearly wiped us out. When the earth gets an itch to retrench itself - like peasant farmers of Smallville trying to hold onto their accustomed life while the new arrivals are snatching up the land, us little guys, humans and other critters, are in for a hard ride.

"You Greeks are a young people. With you, and others, writing and the other necessities of civilization have only just been developed when the periodic scourge of the deluge descends, and spares nothing but the unlettered, so that you have to begin again like children. You remember only one flood, but we remember many." - Egyptian priest to Solon, in Plato's Timaeus

"In a general convulsion of nature, the sea is carried out of its bed, mountains spring out of the ground and rivers change their courses. Human beings and everything are ruined, the ancient traces effaced." - Sing-li-ta-tsium-chew (Ancient Chinese Encyclopedia)

A somewhat grim picture: If we don't do ourselves in with nukes or biological weapons or deforestation, the 'earth changes', a 'pole shift', or maybe a comet or asteroid tossed up by the solar system into intercept orbit just might do the job for us. But, juxtaposing an old adage, 'it was the worst of times, it was the best of times'; there is reason for hope and even optimism. For our ancestors foresaw our current situation, and left us some important clues as to how to get through it. And these have to do with 'alignment' and the issues of male-female polarity which I have been discussing. The 'Message of the Ancestors' is the subject of the next newsletter.