Crazy2012.com

Below are documented the various religious holidays in the year 2012 for many of the key world religions.  The winter solstice is on December 21, 2012 — the same day as the Mayan Calendar ends.

JANUARY 2012

• 1
  • Mary, Mother of God - Catholic Christian
  • Feast of St Basil - Orthodox Christian
  • Gantan-sai (New Years) - Shinto
• 5
  • Twelfth Night - Christian
• 6
  • Epiphany - Christian
  • Feast of the Theophany - Orthodox Christian
• 14
  • Maghi - Sikh
• 15
  • World Religion Day - Baha’i

FEBRUARY 2012

• 5
  • Mawlid an Nabi * - Islam
• 8
  • Tu BiShvat * - Judaism
• 22
  • Ash Wednesday - Christian
• 25 - March 1
  • Intercalary Days * - Baha’i

MARCH 2012

• 8
  • Purim * - Judaism
• 17
  • St Patrick’s Day - Christian
• 20 Vernal Equinox
  • Ostara * - Wicca northern hemisphere
  • Mabon * - Wicca southern hemisphere
• 21
  • Naw Ruz (News Year) * - Baha’i
  • Norouz (New Year) - Persian/Zoroastrian
• 26
  • Khordad Sal (Birth of Prophet Zaranhushtra) Zoroastrian

APRIL 2012

• 7-8  
  • Pesach (Passover)  First two days * - Judaism
• 8
  • Easter - Christian
• 13-14
  • Pesach (last two days) * - Jewish
• 15
  • Easter/Pascha - Orthodox Christian
• 19
  • Yom HaShoah * - Judaism
• 21
  • First Day of Ridvan * - Baha’i
• 27
  • Yom Ha’Atzmaut * - Jewish
• 29
  • Ninth Day of Ridvan * - Baha’i

MAY 2012

• 2
  • Twelfth Day of Ridvan * - Baha’i
• 17
  • Ascension Day - Christian
• 10
  • Lag B’Omer * - Jewish
• 23
  • Declaration of the Bab * - Baha’i
• 27
  • Pentecost - Christian
• 27-28
  • Shavuot * - Jewish
• 29
  • Ascension of Baha’u'llah * - Baha’i

JUNE 2012

• 17
  • Lailat al Miraj * - Islam
• 20 Summer Solstice
  • Litha * - Wicca northern hemisphere
  • Yule * - Wicca southern hemisphere

JULY 2012

• 9
  • Martyrdom of the Bab * - Baha’i
• 20
  • Ramadan Begins * - Islam
• 29
  • Tisha B’Av * - Judaism

AUGUST 2012

• 19
  • Id al Fitr * - Islam

SEPTEMBER 2012

• 17-18
  • Rosh HaShanah * - Judaism
• 22 Autumnal Equinox
  • Mabon * - Wicca northern hemisphere
  • Ostata * - Wicca southern hemisphere
• 26
  • Yom Kippur * - Judaism
• 29
  • Tish’a Bav * - Jewish

OCTOBER 2012

• 1-7 (1-2 Primary Obligation Days)
  • Sukkot * - Judaism
• 8
  • Shemini Atzeret * - Judaism
• 9
  • Simhat Torah *- Judaism
• 20
  • Birth of the Bab * - Baha’i
• 28
  • Milvian Bridge Day - Christian

NOVEMBER 2012

• 12
  • Birth of Baha’u'llah * - Bahai
• 15
  • Muharram -  New Year * - Islam
• 22
  • Thanksgiving - Interfaith
• 24
  • Ashura * - Islam
• 26
  • Day of the Covenant * - Baha’i
• 28
  • Ascension of Abdu’l-Baha * - Baha’i

DECEMBER 2012

• 2
  • Advent - First Sunday - Christian
• 9-16
  • Hanukkah * - Judaism
• 21 Winter Solstice
  • Yule * - Wicca northern hemisphere
  • Litha * - Wicca southern hemisphere
  • Yule - Christian
• 25
  • Christmas * - Christian
• 26
  • Zarathosht Diso (Death of Prophet Zarathushtra Zoroastrian
• 28
  • Holy Innocents - Christian
• 31
  • Watch Night - Christian

The Maya are probably the best-known of the classical civilizations of Mesoamerica. Originating in the Yucatán around 2600 B.C., they rose to prominence around A.D. 250 in present-day southern Mexico, Guatemala, northern Belize and western Honduras. Building on the inherited inventions and ideas of earlier civilizations such as the Olmec, the Maya developed astronomy, calendrical systems and hieroglyphic writing. The Maya were noted as well for elaborate and highly decorated ceremonial architecture, including temple-pyramids, palaces and observatories, all built without metal tools. They were also skilled farmers, clearing large sections of tropical rain forest and, where groundwater was scarce, building sizeable underground reservoirs for the storage of rainwater. The Maya were equally skilled as weavers and potters, and cleared routes through jungles and swamps to foster extensive trade networks with distant peoples. Around 300 B.C., the Maya adopted a hierarchical system of government with rule by nobles and kings. This civilization developed into highly structured kingdoms during the Classic period, A.D. 200-900. Their society consisted of many independent states, each with a rural farming community and large urban sites built around ceremonial centres. It started to decline around A.D. 900 when - for reasons which are still largely a mystery - the southern Maya abandoned their cities. When the northern Maya were integrated into the Toltec society by A.D. 1200, the Maya dynasty finally came to a close, although some peripheral centres continued to thrive until the Spanish Conquest in the early sixteenth century.

Maya history can be characterized as cycles of rise and fall: city-states rose in prominence and fell into decline, only to be replaced by others. It could also be described as one of continuity and change, guided by a religion that remains the foundation of their culture. For those who follow the ancient Maya traditions, the belief in the influence of the cosmos on human lives and the necessity of paying homage to the gods through rituals continues to find expression in a modern hybrid Christian-Maya faith.

The Maya calendar is actually a system of distinct calendars and almanacs used by the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and by some modern Maya communities in highland Guatemala.

These calendars could be synchronised and interlocked in complex ways, their combinations giving rise to further, more extensive cycles. The essentials of the Maya calendric system are based upon a system which had been in common use throughout the region, dating back to at least the 6th century BCE. It shares many aspects with calendars employed by other earlier Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Zapotec and Olmec, and contemporary or later ones such as the Mixtec and Aztec calendars. Although the Mesoamerican calendar did not originate with the Maya, their subsequent extensions and refinements of it were the most sophisticated. Along with those of the Aztecs, the Maya calendars are the best-documented and most completely understood.

By the Maya mythological tradition, as documented in Colonial Yucatec accounts and reconstructed from Late Classic and Postclassic inscriptions, the deity Itzamna is frequently credited with bringing the knowledge of the calendar system to the ancestral Maya, along with writing in general and other foundational aspects of Maya culture

In about five-and-a-half years, the world will supposedly end. Don’t worry, though, because it will be a lot of fun. That is the impression I get from Nickelodeon Films, anyway. The kid-friendly division of Paramount is making an action-adventure for the whole family that is based on the idea that the apocalypse is coming in December of 2012. Called simply 2012, the movie will be about a family vacation during that fateful month when, according to the Mayan calendar, and some UFO theorists, something devastating is expected to take place. 2012 will be written by Tom Astle and Matt Ember, and it will probably be directed by Tom Dey — all three of whom were responsible for Failure to Launch.

This is the second movie we’ve heard about so far that has to do with the Mayan doomsday prediction. The first is an adaptation of Whitley Streiber’s upcoming book 2012: The War for Souls, which Michael Bay is making for Warner Bros. Though Nickelodeon’s 2012 should be much lighter in tone, I have to assume that the whole premise will still be a bit scary for the intended audience — unless kids these days just aren’t afraid of the end of the world as much as I was (and honestly still am). According to Variety, those involved with 2012 have some time before they’ll be able to get started on the movie. Currently, Astle and Ember are writing the direct-to-video spin-off Get Smarter: Bruce and Lloyd Out of Control and reportedly Dey is expected to be committing to other projects ahead of this one. The trio better not take too long, though, because they’re running out of time. In only six years, either the movie will lose all relevance, or we won’t be around to see it.

This full article can be found here.

Although there were only 365 days in the Haab year, the Mayas were aware that a year is slightly longer than 365 days, and in fact, many of the month-names are associated with the seasons; Yaxkin, for example, means “new or strong sun” and, at the beginning of the Long Count, 1 Yaxkin was the day after the winter solstice, when the sun starts to shine for a longer period of time and higher in the sky. When the Long Count was put into motion, it was started at 7.13.0.0.0, and 0 Yaxkin corresponded with Midwinter Day, as it did at 13.0.0.0.0 back in 3114 B.C.E. The available evidence indicates that the Mayas estimated that a 365-day year precessed through all the seasons twice in 7.13.0.0.0 or 1,101,600 days.We can therefore derive a value for the Mayan estimate of the year by dividing 1,101,600 by 365, subtracting 2, and taking that number and dividing 1,101,600 by the result, which gives us an answer of 365.242036 days, which is slightly more accurate than the 365.2425 days of the Gregorian calendar.(This apparent accuracy could, however, be a simple coincidence. The Mayas estimated that a 365-day year precessed through all the seasons twice in 7.13.0.0.0 days. These numbers are only accurate to 2-3 digits. Suppose the 7.13.0.0.0 days had corresponded to 2.001 cycles rather than 2 cycles of the 365-day year, would the Mayas have noticed?)

In ancient times, the Mayans had a tradition of a 360-day year. But by the 4th century B.C.E. they took a different approach than either Europeans or Asians. They maintained three different calendars at the same time. In one of them, they divided a 365-day year into eighteen 20-day months followed by a five-day period that was part of no month. The five-day period was considered to be unlucky.  The Mayans used this during their calendar analysis that ends in 2012.

There are many videos on the subject of the Mayan calendar showing the end of the world in December 2012. This video starts to explain how ancient civilizations including both the Egyptians and the Mayans were highly educated in astronomy. The Mayan calendar is so accurate it predicted an eclipse in 1990, 10,000 years before. This is an interesting, short video: