Where I Plan to Be on December 21st, 2012

Where I plan to be on December 21, 2012 is in the nowever, at the center of time.  12/21/12, as I learned from my close friend and colleague John Major Jenkins, was not thought of by the Maya as the end of time, or the beginning of time, but as the center of time. John first wrote about this in his 1995 book, The Center of Mayan Time.  John and I discuss this in a Trialogue about 2012 the Center of Time and Mythos.

From my perspective any sort of count down date takes you out of the nowever, the center of time, and puts you in a state of time sickness where you hope to find your salvation or transformation of some sort in the future.

Meister Eckart, about 700 years ago put it this way:

“Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God than time. And not only time but temporalities, not only temporal things but temporal affections; not only temporal affections but the very taint and smell of time”. —Meister Eckart . (c. 1260–c. 1328)

Eagerly awaiting December 21st 2012 is like hurrying toward tranquility. We are beset with time sickness, and the reset of that orientation is not to be found in time, but beyond time.

In his book, The Perennial Philosophy, Aldous Huxley points out that the religions and political philosophies that are framed in linear time are the ones that cause violence and generate suffering. The progressive may seek radical means to create a future world where conditions are more ideal. The reactionary may take repressive measures to turn the clock back to some imaginary earlier time, when “traditional” values reigned. Both seek to find their salvation in time, in the temporal world, and both will employ temporal means to get there, usually claiming that the ends justify their dubious means.

So on December 21^st 2012 I hope to be in the nowever, at the center of time and that is where I prefer to reside in general.

For more, see Clock Time Metastasizes Toward 2012