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

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.

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.

With humanity coming up fast on 2012, publishers are helping readers gear up and count down to this mysterious — some even call it apocalyptic — date that ancient Mayan societies were anticipating thousands of years ago.

Since November, at least three new books on 2012 have arrived in mainstream bookstores. A fourth is due this fall. Each arrives in the wake of the 2006 success of 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, which has been selling thousands of copies a month since its release in May and counts more than 40,000 in print. The books also build on popular interest in the Maya, fueled in part by Mel Gibson’s December 2006 film about Mayan civilization, Apocalpyto.

Authors disagree about what humankind should expect on Dec. 21, 2012, when the Maya’s “Long Count” calendar marks the end of a 5,126-year era.

Journalist Lawrence Joseph forecasts widespread catastrophe in Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation Into Civilization’s End. Spiritual healer Andrew Smith predicts a restoration of a “true balance between Divine Feminine and Masculine” in The Revolution of 2012: Vol. 1, The Preparation. In 2012, Daniel Pinchbeck anticipates a “change in the nature of consciousness,” assisted by indigenous insights and psychedelic drug use.

The buildup to 2012 echoes excitement and fear expressed on the eve of the new millennium, popularly known as Y2K, though on a smaller scale, says Lynn Garrett, senior religion editor at Publishers Weekly. She says publishers seem to be courting readers who believe humanity is creating its own ecological disasters and desperately needs ancient indigenous wisdom.

“The convergence I see here is the apocalyptic expectations, if you will, along with the fact that the environment is in the front of many people’s minds these days,” Garrett says. “Part of the appeal of these earth religions is that notion that we need to reconnect with the Earth in order to save ourselves.”

But scholars are bristling at attempts to link the ancient Maya with trends in contemporary spirituality. Maya civilization, known for advanced writing, mathematics and astronomy, flourished for centuries in Mesoamerica, especially between A.D. 300 and 900. Its Long Count calendar, which was discontinued under Spanish colonization, tracks more than 5,000 years, then resets at year zero.

“For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle,” says Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies in Crystal River, Fla. To render Dec. 21, 2012, as a doomsday or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is “a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in.”

Part of the 2012 mystique stems from the stars. On the winter solstice in 2012, the sun will be aligned with the center of the Milky Way for the first time in about 26,000 years. This means that “whatever energy typically streams to Earth from the center of the Milky Way will indeed be disrupted on 12/21/12 at 11:11 p.m. Universal Time,” Joseph writes.

But scholars doubt the ancient Maya extrapolated great meaning from anticipating the alignment — if they were even aware of what the configuration would be.

Astronomers generally agree that “it would be impossible the Maya themselves would have known that,” says Susan Milbrath, a Maya archaeoastronomer and a curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History. What’s more, she says, “we have no record or knowledge that they would think the world would come to an end at that point.”

University of Florida anthropologist Susan Gillespie says the 2012 phenomenon comes “from media and from other people making use of the Maya past to fulfill agendas that are really their own.”

Here’s the link to the full article: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-03-27-maya-2012_N.htm

The unprecedented forecast was made using a computer model of solar dynamics developed by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

Scientists predict the next cycle, called Cycle 24, will produce sunspots across an area slightly larger than 2.5 percent of the visible surface of the sun. The cycle is projected to reach its peak about 2012, one year later than previously indicated using a statistical process.

By analyzing recent solar cycles, the scientists also hope to forecast sunspot activity two solar cycles — 22 years — out. The team expects to issue the forecast of Cycle 25 within a year, which will peak in the early 2020s.

The researchers expect that predicting the sun`s cycles years in advance will lead to more accurate plans for solar storms, which can slow satellite orbits, disrupt communications, and bring down power systems.

The research results were published on-line in the American Geophysical Union journal Geophysical Research Letters.

  January

• January 23 - Chinese New Year and scheduled new moon. This time of year is associated with the Water-Dragon in Chinese astrology. 
• January 31 - 433 Eros, the second largest Near Earth Object on record (size 13×13x33 km) is expected to pass Earth at 0.1790 astronomical units (1 AU – about 93 million miles – is the average distance from Earth to the sun). NASA studied Eros in the NEAR Shoemaker probe launched February 2000. 

  February

• February 5 - Super Bowl XLVI will be played.
• February 6 - If she is still on the throne, Elizabeth II will celebrate her Diamond Jubilee. A series of festivities across the United Kingdom and Commonwealth of Nations will likely run throughout the year.

  March

• March 01 - Greek Drachma bank notes are exchangable for Euro until this time.
• March 19 - Buddha Claimant: Ram Bahadur Bomjon who disappeared in 2006 is believed to return on this date (six years from his departure)

  April

• April 1 - The United States Census of 1940 is released to the public.
• April 15 - It will be the RMS Titanic`s 100 anniversary since the sinking in 1912.

  May

• May 20 - Annular solar eclipse, a Sunday.
• May 20 - French Presidential election.

  June

• June 6 - Second and last solar transit of the planet Venus of this century; the next pair is predicted to occur in 2117 and 2125 (see Transit of Venus, 2012).
• 2012 European Football Championship will be played in either Italy, Hungary/Croatia or Poland/Ukraine

  July

• July 1 - The first possible government in Hong Kong elected by Universal suffrage take office.
• July 1 - Presidential Elections in Mexico
• July 27 - Opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics begins in London at 7:30 pm GMT/8:30pm BST. Source:London 2012 Website Countdown

  August

• August 12 - Closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom, a Sunday.
• August 29 - Start of the 2012 Summer Paralympics

  September

• September 9 - Finish of the 2012 Summer Paralympics

  October

• October 18 - at 20:36 (Eastern Daylight Time), the Earth will be home to 7 billion, according to the US Census Bureau. 

  November

• November 6 - United States presidential election, 2012
• November 6 - United States Senate elections, 2012
• November 6 - United States House of Representatives election, 2012
• November 13 - Total solar eclipse (visible in northern Australia and the South Pacific).

  December

• December 3 - Jupiter oppositions
• December 21 - The Long Count calendar used by the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica completes its thirteenth b’ak’tunb’ak’tun date of this starting point (13.0.0.0.0.0) is repeated, for the first time in a span of approximately 5,125 solar years. The significance of this period-ending to the pre-Columbian Maya themselves is unclear, and there is an incomplete inscription (Tortuguero Stela 6) which records this date. It is also to be found carved on the walls of the Temple of Inscriptions in Palenque, where it functions as a base date from which other dates are computed. However, it is conjectured that this may represent in the Maya belief system a transition from the current Creation world into the next. The December solstice for 2012 also occurs on this day. cycle since the calendar’s mythical starting point (equivalent to 3114 BCE August 11 in the proleptic Gregorian calendar, according to the “GMT-correlation” JDN= 584283). The Long Count
• December 23 - The alternative date for the completion of the thirteenth b’ak’tun cycle in the Maya calendar, using a version of the GMT-correlation based on a JDN of 584285 (a.k.a. the “Lounsbury correlation”), which is supported by a smaller number of Mayanist researchers.
• December 31 - Expiration of the Kyoto Protocol

The Tzolkin is a 260-day calendar based around the period of human gestation. It is composed of 20 day-signs, each of which has 13 variations, and was (and still is) used to determine character traits and time harmonics, in a similar way to Western astrology. The Maya also used a 365-day calendar called the Haab, and a Venus calendar, plus others. They measured long time periods by means of a Long Count, in which one 360-day year  (a “Tun”), consists of 18 x 20-day “months” (”Uinals”). Twenty of these Tuns is a Katun; 20 Katuns is a Baktun (nearly 400 years); and 13 Baktuns adds up to a “Great Cycle” of 1,872,000 days, ( 5200 Tuns, or about 5125 years).

Mayan scholars have been attempting to correlate the Long Count with our Western Gregorian calendar, since the beginning of this century. There has been massive variation in the suggested correlations, but as early as 1905, Goodman suggested a correlation only 3 days from the most popular one today. Known as the GMT correlation, or “correlation # 584283″, this was finalized in 1950, and puts the start of the Great Cycle    ( day 0.0.0.0.0)  on 11th August 3114 BC, and the end-date (known as 13.0.0.0.0.) as 21st December 2012. 

Jose Arguelles has pointed out that  the Tzolkin is a harmonic of the Great Cycle, and can be used to map history, as if it is measuring not individual gestation but species gestation, since 5 Great Cycles add to exactly 26,000 Tuns; the “Grand Year” or precession of the equinoxes - a higher harmonic of 260.

See:  Mayan Database

Sunspot Cycles; Adrian Gilbert and Maurice Cotterell, in their book the Mayan Prophecies, say that the end of the Great Cycle is the culmination of a series of long-term sunspot cycles which will flip the sun’s magnetic field, causing earthquakes and flooding on earth. Moreover, the changing magnetic field will alter the endocrine production of  the pineal gland. John Major Jenkins has pointed out that the detailed graphs of the cycles do not actually show significant termination points at the end of the Great Cycle; click here for Jenkins’ full unabridged review of  The Mayan Prophecies.

Generally speaking, scientifically accepted records of sunspot activity do seem to be heading for a climax in the near future.

From: http://www.diagnosis2012.co.uk/

Note: Real science is predicting the next/current sun cycle to be the worst in 50 years. The first two sunspot’s of 2006 are moving in reverse direction.
 

August 15, 2006: On July 31st, a tiny sunspot was born. It popped up from the sun’s interior, floated around a bit, and vanished again in a few hours. On the sun this sort of thing happens all the time and, ordinarily, it wouldn’t be worth mentioning. But this sunspot was special: It was backward. “We’ve been waiting for this,” says David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight in Huntsville, Alabama. “A backward sunspot is a sign that the next solar cycle is beginning.” Right: The tiny, backward sunspot of July 31, 2006. Credit: SOHO. [Larger image] “Backward” means magnetically backward. Hathaway explains: Sunspots are planet-sized magnets created by the sun’s inner magnetic dynamo. Like all magnets in the Universe, sunspots have north (N) and south (S) magnetic poles. The sunspot of July 31st popped up at solar longitude 65o W, latitude 13o S. Sunspots in that area are normally oriented N-S. The newcomer, however, was S-N, opposite the norm.   This tiny spot of backwardness matters because of what it might foretell: A really big solar cycle.Solar activity rises and falls in 11-year cycles, swinging back and forth between times of quiet and storminess. Right now the sun is quiet. “We’re near the end of Solar Cycle 23, which peaked way back in 2001,” explains Hathaway. The next cycle, Solar Cycle 24, should begin “any time now,” returning the sun to a stormy state.Satellite operators and NASA mission planners are bracing for this next solar cycle because it is expected to be exceptionally stormy, perhaps the stormiest in decades. Sunspots and solar flares will return in abundance, producing bright auroras on Earth and dangerous proton storms in space: full story.But when will Solar Cycle 24 begin?“Maybe it already did–on July 31st,” says Hathaway. The first spot of a new solar cycle is always backwards. Solar physicists have long known that sunspot magnetic fields reverse polarity from cycle to cycle. N-S becomes S-N and vice versa. “The backward sunspot may be the first sunspot of Cycle 24.”It sounds exciting, but Hathaway is cautious on several fronts: First, the sunspot lasted only three hours. Typically, sunspots last days, weeks or even months. Three hours is fleeting in the extreme. “It came and went so fast, it was not given an official sunspot number,” says Hathaway. The astronomers who number sunspots didn’t think it worthy! Second, the latitude of the spot is suspicious. New-cycle sunspots almost always pop up at mid-latitudes, around 30o N or 30o S. The backward sunspot popped up at 13o S. “That’s strange.” These odd-isms stop Hathaway short of declaring the onset of a new solar cycle. “But it looks promising,” he says. Even if Cycle 24 has truly begun, “don’t expect any great storms right away.” Solar cycles last 11 years and take time to build up to fever pitch. For a while, perhaps one or two years, Cycle 23 and Cycle 24 will actually share the sun, making it a hodgepodge of backward and forward spots. Eventually, Cycle 24 will take over completely; then the fireworks will really begin.