The following is an invitation I sent out to my EcoVillage community. I wanted to share it so that if you are in the Ithaca area, you might join us. If you are from afar, you may wish to gather to contemplate these questions with a community of your own:
December 21st, 2012 marks the end of the Mayan calendar, and the beginning of a new era. We have no way of knowing what this new age holds for us, but one thing is clear: we are living in a time unlike any other. Much has been made in the media about the apocalyptic end-times they claim the era represents. While much is hopefully and necessarily ending, the Maya also prophecized that it would be a time full of potential and opportunity for people to live one of the most meaningful lives in history. A time for significant change and very much dependent on the choices we make as a human species and our willingness to evolve beyond our present capabilities.
Deena Metzger, an elder of great wisdom, heart, and soul writes:
“The ancient Maya identified a place in the Milky Way that was, for them, the place of birth and death. Individual lives, tribal life and the cosmos were intrinsically connected to it.
And as it happens, the place they identified is the dark hole around which our solar system circles, is the dark hole from which the solar system and so all known life, all our lives emerged.
And as it happens, our very sun, around which we circle, will be, with other planets, in a direct alignment with this dark hole, this place of birth and death, the heart of the universe, at 6:12 am (est) on December 21st. The light of the sun aligned with the dark at the center.
Or so it is said.
…How will we meet the Heart of the Universe? How will we step out of our involvement and enchantment with the details of our own little lives, the bloody sacrificial altar to which we have been relentlessly bringing the earth, so as to meet this sacred challenge, the great possibility of our collective and community lives?”
The Invitation:
I’m going to spend Thursday, Friday and Saturday (the 20th, 21st, and 22nd) deeply contemplating these questions. For those of you who really know me, you know that’s all I EVER do but I especially want to honor these dates. On the evenings of those dates I will offer my home as a space where you can join me in this deep contemplation in a safe and sacred atmosphere. Depending on who shows up this might include meditating, sounding, journaling, circling, journeying – whatever emerges. People can come and go as they wish; however less interruptions is far better. Feel free to invite anyone you think might be interested. I will not put out any reminders. It will be what it will be.
Thursday will begin at 7:30 and the focus will be on releasing whatever does not serve “this sacred challenge, this great possibility….” What might that look like?
Friday morning, at 6:00 a.m., I will be on the sauna deck for a 15 minute meditation on gratitude for the great mystery and this gift called life.
Friday evening, at 7:30, the focus will be on opening to “the heart of the Universe.” Putting aside all personal agendas or outcomes, “the Universe” is speaking. What is she saying?
Saturday will begin as soon as the winter spiral is over. The focus will be what, then, might it be calling me/us to?