In surfing circles, says author Moira Timms, there's a term that relates to the towering megawaves unique to certain beaches in Hawaii and Australia. The Impact Zone represents the instant in time and space when the wave crests at its climax. It's the space between synapses, the freeze-frame between neurons firing when body wisdom, impeccable reflexes, and raw instinct take over. Timms says we're all surfers, fully engaged in an accelerated flood of change, riding the big wave together, heading for the zone'. We are challenged by a rite of passage into the twenty-first century as our world approaches an inevitable cyclical event within the natural evolutionary scheme.

Timms painstaking research of evolutionary cycles comprise her new book, Beyond Prophecies and Predictions (Everyone's Guide to the Coming Changes), a compilation of prophecy which includes Hopi, Hindu, Astrological, Egyptian, Biblical, Mayan and scientific perspectives. The book provides a timetable for unfolding prophetic events which began in 1945 and are predicted to climax around 2012. Though the title sounds ominous, Timms book, like her soft, calm voice, reflects a balanced perspective about an unsettling subject. The purpose of prophecy, she says, is to warn, so that if you don't like what it's saying you can use your free will to influence the outcome.

Raised a Baptist in a small town near Kent, England, she remembers that, even as a child, she would interpret news events and weather patterns as signs and wonders in the heavens and as the biblical Revelation. I'm an example of the negative becoming positive, she states. I've really worked out my fears about the end of the world. She now sees Armaggeddon as the negative polarity of a larger whole, which includes leaps of consciousness and fantastic new discoveries that are bringing about positive change.

Timms view of Conspiracy Theory is also refreshing; though she admits it is plausible, she sees it as our collective shadow and notes that it can be very seductive and result in paranoia, it has its own smugness about who really knows what's going on. She feels the current focus on UFOs and other high profile topics distracts our attention from the financial manipulation taking place under our noses.

I'm not a financial wizard, but everything I predicted in the 70s about this is coming about, and it's alarming, she says. As the substructure of our reality shifts, she insists we must be in full resonance and synchronicity with the power of nature. We can do this, she says, by observing seven first cause principles'. Cosmic laws form the dynamic matrix of all existence, she states, and are the common denominator of the shifting spectrum of physics versus metaphysics.

Beyond Prophecies and Predictions begins with a discussion of these laws to provide a common framework from which to consider diverse perspectives (particularly, she admits, to avoid alienating the Christian community). Briefly, they are: The Law of Mentalism, which states that we are responsible for our thoughts and that our thoughts affect our reality; the Law of Vibration, which connects the resonating frequencies of our cells with our use of the spoken word; the Law of Polarity, which affirms the duality of cre-ation; The Law of Karma (what goes around comes around); the Law of Rhythm, which organizes vibration and helps us to find harmony amidst dissonance; the Law of As Above So Below', which reminds us that the self and the universe reflect each other, and the Law of Correspondence, which states that everything is interdependent and participates in the integrity of the whole. An additional, unifying principle is the concept of the spiral, or open circle, which allows evolution to occur. Timms notes that fundamentalist rigidity is analogous to the circle, which, though complete within itself, lacks the capacity to evolve.

Timms own evolution followed a fairly typical seeker's path. After obtaining a Master's degree in Holistic Health Science and a B.A. in Community Service from Columbia Pacific University in San Rafael, California, she worked as an office manager for non-profit organizations, then wrote a book on cancer prevention. At twenty-seven, she found herself at a crossroads. I thought about becoming a psychologist, but that required years of study and I wanted to spend my life rather than invest it. About that time, her partner had a dream that Timms realized was meant for her. In it, the dreamer missed a six o'clock bus which was to have taken him to an event where he was to portray Christ. The Six O'Clock Bus became the title of the first edition of Prophecies and Predictions, which, says Timms, took off like wildfire in Europe. Subsequent printing under the Prophecies and Predictions title engendered a near cult following. Her new title, Beyond Prophecies and Predictions is on its way to a second, more prestigious printing. Such response is easy to understand; Timms thorough, detailed research is synthesized into a big picture that comforts as it informs.

Though she considers her research talent a gift, Timms says she does lots of scholarly study and homework that involves thousands of pieces of paper;" the challenge to create order out of chaos is met by relying on her instincts and the guidance she's come to expect. Just when I think that something will never be revealed, I'm drawn to a particular source that gives me the exact information I need, she says. Fighting fatigue she's battled for years, she follows the energy when it's there, often doing her best work in the quiet hours of night.

For the past five years, her focus has been ancient Egypt, whose enigmatic symbols seem to reveal their inner meanings to her. While visiting the Cairo museum a number of years ago, Timms was especially taken with a statue of the controversial Pharaoh Akhanaton. It seemed to have a very palpable living presence. I have to say it was a mystical experience; when I returned to my hotel that night a movie unfolded before my eyes, showing scenes from the Nile. When I came back to the States, it seemed that the floodgates of ancient Egypt opened up and engulfed me. Anything about any symbol that I wanted to know seemed to reveal itself to me if I meditated on it long enough. Of all the perspectives included in her book, Timms sees the Egyptian and Mayan as most important. They share a common iconography, she says. If you find yourself at a dead end with one of them you can look to the other and find the next clue. She notes that the Maya have been the Timekeepers on earth and that they consider the years between 2000 and 2012 a sorting out period encapsulated in The Beak of Time.

Timms points out that many ancient teachings conveyed the generative power of sound. The Egyptians believed that sound was the basis of creation; their most sacred ceremony, the Mystery of Mysteries, used sound frequencies to create a connection between the earth's center and the pole star of the heavens. I've fumbled, says Timms, into the frequency codes of this sacred ceremony, which was called The Raising of the Djed'. (The Djed is the earliest known World Tree archetype and was the central focus of the Osirian mysteries.

A cylindric column of light, it was considered the cosmic axis that linked Earth to the Pole Star, the still-point around which the heavens revolved. The ceremony, prefaced by the reenactment of a mythic cosmological drama, was performed to evoke stability, continuity and regeneration during unstable periods between cycles. Historically, the Djed was raised at Winter Solstice, and was a time of intense joy and celebration. The event was orchestrated with resonant acoustic formulas performed by sacred drummers and chanters. Rhythms of systrum and cymbal filled the air, along with the percussive clapping of hands and beating of feet. Timms research of the texts of the Temple of Horus indicate that the Djed served its greatest purpose at the ending of one world age and the beginning of another. According to ancient calendric reckoning, Winter solstice December 21, 1992 inaugurated such a period. Timms also notes other ritual technologies that employ the power of sound, such as the Aboriginal Walkabouts which stop at various key points and perform circle songs that reinforce the ley lines of the planet.

It is literally along those lines that Timms current work travels. Believing that reinforcement of energy lines which form a planetary grid is crucial to our survival, she organizes ceremonies at Sacred Sites located at key node points, analogous to acupuncture points along meridians. She notes that the Pyramids were built along the Equatorial line of the planet like weights placed on tires, perhaps to influence the spin of the earth. As she explains in the pivotal chapter entitled Pole Shift, the earth's spin has slowed over the past few decades, and the planet's protective magnetic shield has weakened because of it, just as a person with low energy actually spins more slowly and cannot tolerate prolonged exposure to electromagnetic media.

Bioelectrically sensitive herself, Timms is conducting research with a local utility company in Eugene, Oregon to determine the effects of pulsed fields on human bioelectric systems. The weakening of the earth's magnetosphere means that more ultraviolet and cosmic rays are penetrating the planet, affecting our biosystems, she notes. With the advent of the Blue Star Supernova', which occurred on February 23, 1987, every person on the planet was potentially bombarded with more neutrinos (subatomic, massless, chargeless particles) than the sun will radiate in its entire ten-billion-year lifetime! Immediately thereafter, we were showered with ultraviolet, infrared, X and gamma rays that supposedly produced as much radiation as all the stars and galaxies in the visible universe combined!

Timms states that, Unquestionably, our subtle, or etheric bodies were influenced, our DNA, our psyches, even the core of Earth that generates the magnetic field which energizes the planetary grid. Mythically speaking, neutrinos can be seen as the spirit force of the stars or, as Keys to Enoch author J.J. Hurtak sees it, as seeds of light'. Neutrinos may be what ancient alchemists referred to as scintillae or infinitesimal sparks of light that emanated from the spirit of God as seed ideas of nature', the origin of species', the vital force urging organisms toward completion. Coverage of the supernova in Scientific American included the statement that supernovas make and expel the seeds of life. According to Timms, who discusses psychologist Carl Jung's theories on the subject in her book, The psychological meaning of these seeds of light is clear, they are germinal luminosities emanating from the darkness of the unconscious as well as the external seeds of light from supernovas in the darkness of deep space.

As an Archaic Futurist, Timms believes we can use mythology to understand the patterns of the past and successfully negotiate the future. If there would ever be a planetary catastrophe like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, people would never remember E=MC2, but mythological stories would strike a chord someplace deep in the unconscious. Almost without exception, the great world myths are epics that have to do with catastrophe of dimensions we don't even want to think about. Through the use of universal archetypes such as the sphere, the spiral or the Tree of Life, which are common to all people at all times, we can, she says, form meaning and continue to cope.

Timms notes that, just seeing an archetype encodes one's consciousness and begins a process whereby it can uncoil and become part of everyday reality. According to Timms (and futurist Terrence McKenna, whom Timms greatly admires), archetypes are coming into consciousness now because it is a time of chaos. During chaos, where patterns lose their meanings and we feel we have no place to stand, our sense of capability and security breaks down, resulting in psychological turmoil which, according to Jung, is reconciled into the archetype of the Self, the organizing principle of the psyche and its wholeness. Through it, our errors are mirrored back to us until we understand that balance is restored by a synthesis of heart and mind. Collectively, we have arrived at that juncture where the heart is awakened. This, says Timms, is what the initiation process is about. And it's the greatest possible initiation, because it is a sublime planetary process we will all experience as one humanity.

With her positive spirit, easygoing manner and acceptance of change, Moira Timms brings balance to a precariously tilting planet. Though her well-filled out frame belies it, Timms is a warrior athlete who faces gob-smacking challenge with humor and a pragmatism that allows her to take what comes with poise. As she puts it, I'm not always sure what's going on, but whatever it is, it's the ending of one world cycle and the beginning of another. The short term is a healing crisis and the long term is what must draw us on as a species.

Get out your board, because Surf's Up!