We have arrived at December, 2012, the month prophesied as a turning point in human history. Much ado has been devoted to the December 21st solstice date. The Mayan calendar is said to end here; some soothsayers predict the end of the world; others predict the beginning. Groups are gathering at the Great Pyramid in Egypt, Machu Picchu, and sacred sites around the planet. All year people have been asking me, “What do you think will happen on December 21st?” I recently picked up a hitchhiker who asked me this very question. Millions of people are wondering, some are fearing, and others are hoping.
I believe there is a core of truth to the import of this date, sprinkled with a generous helping of bunk. Perhaps the date is less about cosmic significance, and more of a seminar in which we face the hopes and fears we have projected onto it. To those who have asked me about it, I suggest that we take our power back from externally-issued predictions and astrological configurations, and tap into a place of choice within us. What would you like to happen? How can you participate in making it happen? Are you waiting for God or the planets to change your life, or a savior to descend from a cloud and rescue you from hardship? Or are you willing and ready to build the life you would choose by elevating your consciousness and actions to match the circumstances you desire?
If anything cosmic occurs - and I certainly hope it will - it will not be because someone out there is doing it to us or for us. It will be because humanity (or at least a portion of it) has evolved to the point where we are ready for it. The planets, E.T.s, and the Mayan calendar do not create our experience. They reflect it. Over millions of years of reaching for more, the human race has arrived at a point where we are ready for better. A positive turn of events accompanying the solstice represents the culmination of that growth and awakening. I personally don’t believe anything dramatic will happen on that date, unless people create something dramatic. I believe that we will enter a new season of humanity. Just as the spring equinox signifies the gentle entry of spring, and the temperature does not automatically rise to seventy degrees just because the calendar says so, I expect a gradual turning toward more good. The more you expect drama, the more you will get it. The more you move gently and firmly ahead, the more solid will be your growth and experience.
There will always be people who use the date to reinforce stinky, stale beliefs in damnation and the wrath of God. Let them rant. They are having great fun scaring themselves and each other. But if terror is not your idea of entertainment, you don’t need to go there. Let the damned be damned and let the blessed be blessed. Everyone is creating their own experience. One day the damned will be damn tired of being damned, and they will choose to be blessed, as they are, as we all are.
Perhaps the people who will suffer most are those who have had a field day capitalizing on the 2012 phenomenon. Many filmmakers, authors, seminar leaders, and preachers have jumped on the bandwagon to profit from the hype. Certainly many of these people are sincere and their points are well taken and helpful. Yet another portion of people are simply opportunists. They will experience the end of their world, or at least its latest chapter. But I do have a prediction: If nothing world shaking happens on December 21st, the exploiters will retool and either say that the date was miscalculated and focus their sensationalism toward a later date, or they will find another cosmic cause to hype. And the beat goes on. Ho hum.
Eckhart Tolle declared, “Suffering needs time.” This pithy statement implies that any event in time is subject to suffering, because time is an illusion and we are bigger than it. He goes on to say, “it [suffering] cannot survive in the now.” Tolle has mined gold here. Why make a big deal about events in time? Why not dive into the eternal now moment and let time take care of itself? As Ram Dass said in his classic book Be Here Now, “If you can be here now, when ‘then’ become ‘now,” you will have superconsciousness and superawareness and know exactly what to do.”
So I suggest you worry not, wonder not, and hope not for any event associated with the December 21st solstice. A more powerful approach is to live fully in the present moment. If you waste the now by thinking or worrying about the future, when the future comes you won’t be there to receive it. It’s all a lot simpler than we have been told.
I wish you and the planet an awesome December 21st. I am looking forward to it. I think it’s a fabulous opportunity for us to live what we believe. But then again, we can do that right now. As A Course in Miracles asks us, “Why wait for heaven?”
This article was written and published by life coach Alan Cohen in his December 2012 monthly newsletter
