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Main Brighton 10-220-8888 dir MEDIA blyaDIA S j tkIk is, Full Se Below is a sample of some of our clients: Custom Publishing Ho Use Wall and Window Graphics Video Production Cranbrook Program Marketing Services Creative Services Cranbrook Banners & Buttons Editorial Services Pre-press Production Social Media Magazines Newspapers Corporate Identities Annual Reports Ad Campaigns Mail and postage Project Management Business Consulting Data Management Telemarketing Automation Alley's X-ology Magazine Branding and Corporate Identity Quicken Loans Insert Tapper's Diamond Buying Guide how can we help you? Contact Kevin Browett or Debbie Schultz 29200 Northwestern Hwy. • Suite 110 • Southfield, MI 48034 24 December 2011 I RED MEAD 248.354.6060 already been tracking the winter solstice, most likely for planting crops, to create calendars. "At some point, the Mayans developed the belief that our sun is a god and that the Milky Way, which they called the "Sacred Tree," was a gateway to the after- life," Pool explains. "After learning from the Olmecs, the Mayans began keeping records of the stars' patterns of move- ment and continued to do so for the next 200-300 years before they developed their own calendar [known as the Long Count calendar] around 355 B.C.E." The Mayans, using empirical observa- tion and numerical aptitude to calculate the future movements of stars across the sky, inadvertently discovered that Earth's wobbling as it spins on its axis affects the tracking of stars' patterns of move- ment. The practical effect of the wobble, known as precession, is that it causes celestial patterns of movement to drift gradually in the sky during a 5,125-year cycle. Also discovered by the Mayans is that one time every cycle, the dark band at the center of the Milky Way (called the Galactic Equator) intersects with the Elliptical (the plane of the sun's move- ment across the sky). During that year, the sun reaches its solstice — a moment when the sun's position in the sky is at its greatest angular distance on the other side of the equatorial plane from the observer (on Dec. 21 for the Northern Hemisphere and June 21 for the South- ern Hemisphere) — at the moment of the conjunction of the Galactic Equator with the Milky Way. The year this occurs, in relation to our Gregorian calendar, is 2012 C.E.; it last happened on Aug. 11, 3114 B.C.E. As Pool explains it, with Mayan mythology teaching that the sun is a god and the Milky Way is the gateway to life and death, the Mayans concluded that the previous intersection must have been the moment of creation. Hiero- glyphs discovered in Mayan ruins seem to indicate that they believed the next intersection, in 2012, would be some sort of ending and new beginning of a cycle. For some perspective, though, Pool says, "The Mayans also believed that the blood of human sacrifices was what pow- ered the sun and gave it life Internet doomsday sites almost invari- ably cite a Mayan "prophecy" regarding the end of that cycle. But "there is no specific Mayan prophecy," states Bruce Scofield, Mayan astrology expert, author and geosciences instructor at the Univer- sity of Massachusetts Amherst. "They're making it up," he says, referring to what he calls "self-appointed non-native Ma- yan prophets." Anthony Aveni, the Russell Colgate Distinguished University Professor of Astronomy and Anthropology at Colgate University in New York, and author of The End of Time: The Maya Mystery of 2012 ($19.95; University Press of Colo- rado; 200 pp.) says, "We have a habit of projecting our own Western predilec- tions on other cultures." Mayan writing, he adds, contains "virtually no mention of future time. The Mayans were very past directed, not future directed." The end of the calendar cycle represents no more than "the next overturn of the cycle of time' Aveni says there are 3,264 books on 2012 and maybe two or three of them are scholarly. "If you want to learn about the Mayans, you shouldn't buy the oth- ers," he says. Those books include Mark van Stone's Science 0 Prophecy of the Ancient Maya ($60; Tlacaelel Press; 172 pp.) and 2012 and the End of the World: The Western Roots of the Mayan Apoca- lypse by Matthew Reston and Amara Solari ($16.95; Rowman & Littlefield; 149 pp). WHAT SAYETH YOU, HASHEM? "People who predict the end of the world are just trying to rip you off," says Pastor Paul Langford of the First Baptist Church of Westchester in Southern California, noting that the biblical pun- ishment for false prophecy is stoning. "They're taking advantage of people and taking advantage of their fears." In the Gospel of Matthew, for ex- ample, Langford says that Jesus states: "But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father?' He adds, "as we look at the shape of the world, every century looks more like [the time of] Revelation than the previ- ous one." The Book of Revelation is the last book of the New Testament and con- tains St. John's account of his vision of the apocalypse. In it, the Lamb (Jesus) opens the seven seals of a scroll, releasing the Four Horsemen (commonly understood to represent Conquest, War, Famine and Death), the cries of the martyrs, cataclysmic events and, finally, seven judgments. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus' disciples ask, "What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" His response: "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the be- ginning of birth pains." These verses have led would-be prophets throughout recorded history to surmise that harbingers of the events foretold in Revelation have arrived, says Langford. Jewish tradition, which eschews the fire and brimstone of its offshoot breth- ren, holds that in order for the Mes- siah to make his appearance on Earth, certain things must be achieved before the world can enter the "Messianic Age." www.redthreadmagazine.com