[This is the first of a three-part series that chronicles a recent expedition to the fable underground city" near the "sipapu," or Pueblo Indian "Place of Emergence." A 30 minute filmed documentary of our trip to the confluence of Grand Canyon and the Little Colorado River Gorge will be posted soon! ---chris]
Is This The End-of-the-World As We Know It? **part one**
As we sail through the first half of 2012, with the fabled date of December 21, 2012: the so-called “the end of the Mayan calendar” approaching from the end of the tunnel, is this blistering summer of 2012 just the lull before the train wreck or are we in a fluid situation that has no set timetable for any predetermined outcomes? Will this be the “end-of-the-world as the media is programming us to believe? Such drama arrives every-so-often, but the end-time scenario never comes true. Rhetorical questions, of course. There are signs of hope in the culture but it does appear that there is a “doom and gloom” self-fulfilling prophesy manifesting around us—perpetrated by our perception of ourselves and feedback-looped by our front-loaded interpretation of unfolding events. Nightly news shows report worse news after bad news and the spin around world events continue their downward spiral toward what I call, Ytwenty-twelveK. But, maybe I’m too jaundiced and like many are simply ignoring the growing “chicken-little”-style cacophony.
On the surface, things don’t appear to be getting any better. Drought, deep well oil well blowouts, fracking, earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear meltdowns are bad enough, but what if the doomsayers in Hollywood and the media are right and California decides to slide into the Pacific or (god forbid) Fukashima hits the groundwater and become the world’s first radioactive geyser? It could get real bad real fast! I just bought a Geiger-counter so I can continue to visit my sushi bar with confidence. Am I just being paranoid, or should I be concerned about my fresh tuna being irradiated by the largest nuclear disaster in history? Should we get ready for the worst, just-in-case? As Sarah Palin would say, “you bet!”
OK, this is all fine and good, and sounds like interesting science-fiction, but regardless of what happens in the next 5 months, we can assume that there will be a frenzied media countdown to doomsday--ending next December. And, (at the risk of sounding too cynical) if the media has its way, the world is gonna end and we’re all gonna die! Personally, I don’t think so. *hint* I predict the real nastiness will probably occur in mid-to-late 2013 after everyone has breathed their personal sigh-of-Y2012K relief…
But seriously, what if doom-and-gloom interpretations are accurate? What should we do? Where should you go for protection from the cataclysms? Is this time period truly ‘the end of the fourth world” as referred to by the Hopi Indians of the Southwest United States? If so, how do the primordial sub-cultures in North America define these times? And why should we care? And why am I asking so many questions?
Koyaanisqatsi
The Hopi Indians have a term for the time period before the inevitable end-times: koyaanisqatsi which roughly translated means: koyaanis (corrupted and/or chaotic) and qatsi (life and existence). I think we all would agree that there is much moral decay, corruption and turmoil in the world and we appear to be headed toward some kind of tipping point. Whether this is the predicted “end-time” or not, is debatable. Another term used to translate koyaanisqatsi is: “life out of balance,” and Hopi “Fire Clan prophesy tablet holder” Elder Martin Gashweeseoma has referred to this current time-period as the “ant dance.” He predicted back in the early ‘90s that the prophesized “War of the Gourd of Ashes” had begun (with the ensuing onset of “Desert Storm”) and that humans will begin to boil around like panicked ants as they scurry about in a swarming frenzy—the ant dance.
Looking at unfolding events today, in mid 2012, it doesn’t look very promising, to say the least, with mass killings in movie theaters, drones dispatched in the Middle East to take out “terrorists” and anyone else unlucky enough to be nearby, talk of war with Iran…But I say disregard the boo-birds and ostriches! Let’s forge ahead and do “The Work” we are meant to do in these “interesting times.”
Rest of Part One HERE:
Is This The End-of-the-World As We Know It? **part one**
As we sail through the first half of 2012, with the fabled date of December 21, 2012: the so-called “the end of the Mayan calendar” approaching from the end of the tunnel, is this blistering summer of 2012 just the lull before the train wreck or are we in a fluid situation that has no set timetable for any predetermined outcomes? Will this be the “end-of-the-world as the media is programming us to believe? Such drama arrives every-so-often, but the end-time scenario never comes true. Rhetorical questions, of course. There are signs of hope in the culture but it does appear that there is a “doom and gloom” self-fulfilling prophesy manifesting around us—perpetrated by our perception of ourselves and feedback-looped by our front-loaded interpretation of unfolding events. Nightly news shows report worse news after bad news and the spin around world events continue their downward spiral toward what I call, Ytwenty-twelveK. But, maybe I’m too jaundiced and like many are simply ignoring the growing “chicken-little”-style cacophony.
On the surface, things don’t appear to be getting any better. Drought, deep well oil well blowouts, fracking, earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear meltdowns are bad enough, but what if the doomsayers in Hollywood and the media are right and California decides to slide into the Pacific or (god forbid) Fukashima hits the groundwater and become the world’s first radioactive geyser? It could get real bad real fast! I just bought a Geiger-counter so I can continue to visit my sushi bar with confidence. Am I just being paranoid, or should I be concerned about my fresh tuna being irradiated by the largest nuclear disaster in history? Should we get ready for the worst, just-in-case? As Sarah Palin would say, “you bet!”
OK, this is all fine and good, and sounds like interesting science-fiction, but regardless of what happens in the next 5 months, we can assume that there will be a frenzied media countdown to doomsday--ending next December. And, (at the risk of sounding too cynical) if the media has its way, the world is gonna end and we’re all gonna die! Personally, I don’t think so. *hint* I predict the real nastiness will probably occur in mid-to-late 2013 after everyone has breathed their personal sigh-of-Y2012K relief…
But seriously, what if doom-and-gloom interpretations are accurate? What should we do? Where should you go for protection from the cataclysms? Is this time period truly ‘the end of the fourth world” as referred to by the Hopi Indians of the Southwest United States? If so, how do the primordial sub-cultures in North America define these times? And why should we care? And why am I asking so many questions?
Koyaanisqatsi
The Hopi Indians have a term for the time period before the inevitable end-times: koyaanisqatsi which roughly translated means: koyaanis (corrupted and/or chaotic) and qatsi (life and existence). I think we all would agree that there is much moral decay, corruption and turmoil in the world and we appear to be headed toward some kind of tipping point. Whether this is the predicted “end-time” or not, is debatable. Another term used to translate koyaanisqatsi is: “life out of balance,” and Hopi “Fire Clan prophesy tablet holder” Elder Martin Gashweeseoma has referred to this current time-period as the “ant dance.” He predicted back in the early ‘90s that the prophesized “War of the Gourd of Ashes” had begun (with the ensuing onset of “Desert Storm”) and that humans will begin to boil around like panicked ants as they scurry about in a swarming frenzy—the ant dance.
Looking at unfolding events today, in mid 2012, it doesn’t look very promising, to say the least, with mass killings in movie theaters, drones dispatched in the Middle East to take out “terrorists” and anyone else unlucky enough to be nearby, talk of war with Iran…But I say disregard the boo-birds and ostriches! Let’s forge ahead and do “The Work” we are meant to do in these “interesting times.”
Rest of Part One HERE:
