The day was April 21, 1519, a very significant day for 34-year-old Spanish Explorer Hernando Cortes. It happened to be Good Friday.

Outnumbered thousands to one, Cortes astutely depended on guile and psychological treachery as his greatest weapon. Within ten years a population of 25 million was reduced, through plague, starvation, massacres and enforced slavery, to less-than a million. Such was the beginning of the prophesied cycle of nine hells, each lasting 52 years.

How had they arrived at such a precise and dire omen? The Aztecs had inherited their calendar from the Maya. The Maya attributed their incredibly complex calendric system as well as their passion for studying the solar system and astrological divination through numeration and the repetition of cycles to another people whose origin was lost in the dim past. Zecharia Sitchin provides an intriguing argument to prove that the Maya received their astronomical know-how and calendars from the Sumerians who in turn were instructed by Nephilim, technologically advanced beings from another planet. Elizabeth Clare Prophet teaches that the Maya were originally from Venus (those who are Maya today are not the same souls who incarnated in ancient times and who bore the Venusian culture). Jose Arguelles speaks of Galactic Masters who left in the framework of the calendar an advanced culture and a galactic code, a synchronicity with not only planets but levels of consciousness in evolutionary cycles.

The Maya had three calendars. All three calendars were based on the vigesimal mathematical system (times twenty) which is the refinement of the calendar by the Maya over other similar systems in Mesoamerica. The calendars were designed to harmonize actual time, the solar year and the revolutions of the various heavenly bodies.

The first calendar called The Long Count was used for looking back in time and for recording events. An event was reckoned by the number of days that had passed at the time of its occurrence since Aug. 13, 3113 B.C. Judging by archaeological evidence, 3113 B.C. was before the emergence of the Maya civilization. What happened, then, that the Maya would place such importance on this date, a date seemingly as important to them as the birth of Christ to those who formulated the Christian calendar we use today? No one really knows for sure, although the date could commemorate the inauguration of the last Mayan Great Age.

The numeration of the Long Count calendar begins with kin for ones, uinal for twenties; one Tun for 18 uinal periods or what we would call months plus a vayeb of five unnamed days; one katun for 20 Tun or 7,200 days which is 19 years, 73 days; one baktun for 20 katun or 144,000 days or 394 years, 52 days and so forth until the multiples reached alau-tun which equals 23,040,000,000 days or 63,080,082 years!

The Maya spoke of eras of 5,125.40 years each equaling 13 baktuns of 144,000 days each. Each cycle of 13 baktuns was reckoned as an Age or Great Cycle, a specific historical epoch. Like the days and the uinal months, each era had a qualifying meaning represented by its particular glyph. Each Great Cycle was said to be governed by a different Sun with a specific destiny for the evolutions of those incarnating during that era.

In addition to the Long Count, the Maya employed two cyclical calendars. The Maya intermeshed a solar exoteric calendar Haab with a sacred esoteric calendar, Tzolkin. The solar calendar, used primarily for practical and agricultural reasons, consisted of 365.242129 days and is actually more precise than our Gregorian calendar of 365.242500 days. The year haab was intended to begin with the transit of the sun on the zenith and was counted from July 16.

The Maya year was divided into 18 months of 20 days each. This left five days without names or unlucky days at the end of the year. Each of the 18 uinals was dedicated to a specific deity and his corresponding festivals which related to the season of the year, the work to be done during the season and the nature of the season itself. During the five useless or unnamed days, the Spanish chroniclers wrote that no action of any importance, even of sweeping the house or combing one's hair, was undertaken. It was believed that if one quarreled during those days, one would be destined to do so for the rest of the year! Woe to the poor person who happened to be born during one of the nameless days! His life was fated to be one of misery and unhappiness!

The days were designated in groups of 13. Each day had its specific omens, used for astrological divination. Twenty-eight of these 13-day weeks equals 364 days leaving an extra day at the end. When 13 years had elapsed, the number of these extra days would equal 13, called kin katun, the katun of the days. The Spanish chroniclers called these kin katuns indictions. When four indictions have passed, in other words, 52 years, the year would begin with a year bearer of the same name. This cycle of 52 years was reached by the Aztecs and other peoples of Mesoamerica in the same manner. Five cycles of 52 years is 260 years, a Great Cycle, also reached by 13 x 20 and called Ahau Katun. Ahau is the word for chief, king, ruler. The Ahau was the key to the nature of the cycle.

The Tzolkin, the sacred year calendar, used for ceremonial and ritualistic purposes, lasted 260 days. The Tzolkin consisted of a smaller wheel of 13 glyphs rotated with a larger wheel of 20 days, resulting in the 260-day sacred year. Any given day represented a particular intermeshing of the HAAB Solar Year and the ritualistic Tzolkin resulting in a specific forecast. Jose Arguelles believes that through the Tzolkin the Maya were able to track and interpret sunspot cycles. He also claims that the Tzolkin provided the means to connect with two star systems, specifically the Pleiades and possibly Arcturus as well.

The two cyclical calendars, the Haab and the Tzolkin intercalibrated together created the Sacred Round of 52 years called the binding of the years. For only once in 52 years or 18,980 days could the combination of 13, 20 and 365 repeat itself. The 52-year cycle was sacred to all ancient peoples of Mesoamerica and a key factor in their understanding of past and future events.

Moira Timms sums up Jose Arguelles complex speculations: The Tzolkin can be regarded as a periodic table of galactic frequencies, because it is a fractal of the vague count of the 26,000-year precession of the equinoxes. The 26,000-year cycle of the sun's revolution around the Pleiades, the 26,000,000-year periodicity of extinctions reported in an extensive literature related to comet showers, and possible pole shift, as Earth recurrently passes through the Oort cloud, and other celestial cycles related by periods of time, the factor of which is 260. Jose Arguelles has named this calendar the Harmonic Module because the 260 possible permutations of the 13 numbers and 20-day glyphs accommodate every possible computation of all the calendric movements.

The basis, then, of this seemingly complex but ultimately simple system is in the harmonizing factor of the 20x13. For example, the solar revolution of Venus is 584 days. Five such revolutions = 2,920, or eight solar years of 365 days. Sixty-five such periods = 37,960, double the period of 52 years, the direct result of the application of the designation of days in accordance with the system of 20 characters and 13 digits to the solar year of 365 days. Likewise, the solar revolution of Mercury is 115 days; 104 of these revolutions produce the number 11,960 which also is 46 times the period of 20x13 days. Brian Swimme writes in his introduction to Jose Arguelles book, The Mayan Factor, The Maya felt they were engaged with the mind of the Sun, which manifested for them the mind and heart of the galaxy. Arguelles shows how the calendars relate to the revolution and frequency of the planets as well; a topic too extensive to go into in detail in the space of this article.

Apparently, around A.D. 843, in the heyday of its civilization, the great Mayan cities and ceremonial centers were suddenly and inexplicably abandoned. Pyramids were deserted and left to be engulfed by the Yucatan jungle for hundreds of years. Referring to the departure of the Galactic Masters in the ninth century, Arguelles writes:

Their achievement, their actual calling card, was a series of monuments which recorded in a very precise manner the correlations between the galactic harmonic pattern and the terrestrial solar calendar. The current 5,125 year cycle, 3113 B.C. - A.D. 2012, is a precise calibration of the galactic fractal, 5,2000 tun in diameter. This 5,200-tun (or 1,872,000 kin or 260 katun or 13 baktun) cycle literally acts like a lens focusing a beam through which information from galactic sources is synchronized via the Sun to the Earth.

Why the obsession with time? A moment is surely a measurement of opportunity. The cycles of time are accelerating as is our perception of them. A shift as prophesied in the current 13 Baktun cycle, Baktun 12 (the Baktun cycles begin with Baktun zero so the second is Baktun one, etc.), The Transformation of Matter, seems inevitable. The Maya glyphs for the period 1992 to 2012 are 13 Reed/20 Ahau. In Beyond Prophecies and Predictions, Moira Timms interprets the meaning of 13 Reed/20 Ahau.

Thirteen Reed synchronizes cycles. In order to do this, it brings transformation and new beginnings by means of destruction or renewal, breakdown or breakthrough...13 Reed is the time tunnel to new dimensions. Planetary alignments and evolutionary shifts occur during 13-Reed periods.

Twenty Ahau as the last glyph of the day calendar, and heart of the calendric system, unifies and completes all natural, cultural, religious and prophetic time cycles. The tail end of the Age of Pisces is upon us, as is the close of the Mesoamerican Fifth World, and the Kali Yuga of the Hindus, all nested within the culminating revolution of the precessional Great Year.

The current Maya Great Age, the fifth, said to be a synthesis of the last four Great Ages and is symbolized by the glyph Ollin, meaning movement or shift. This age is believed to have been initiated by Quetzalcoatl in 3,113 B.C. and is due to complete its cycle, Dec. 21, 2012.

In the Mayan Chronology, the date 3113 B.C. date is written 13.0.0.0.0. On Dec. 21, 2012, the date will again be written 13.0.0.0.0. The coefficient 13 in the date 13.0.0.0.0. refers to the completion of a cycle of 13 baktuns. Between the first cycle and the ending cycle, 13 Baktun cycles of slightly less than 400 years each have passed. Therefore, the first Baktun of the new cycle is Baktun zero again. Note that 13 in esoteric tradition represents the Christ. There were 12 disciples, Jesus as the Christed One was 13.

The Maya-based Aztec calendar places Ollin in the center of the calendar. Ollin represents a point of synthesis. We are currently in the thirteenth cycle, Baktun 12, the Baktun of the Transformation of Matter spanning the years 1618 to 2012. The last katun of this Age began 1992 and ends 2012. The glyph for this katun is Storm followed by Sun; a period of darkness followed by one of light. This is where we are today.

The point of interest of the Maya calendar today is not only in solving the mysteries of ancient civilizations but in that it corroborates and coincides with so many other sources of prophecy, astrological, Edgar Cayce, Nostradamus, the predictions of the Ascended Masters through Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Fatima and the warnings of Mother Mary in her many appearances around the globe in recent years, and others, of the significance of these end times.

The Maya calendar has been reexcavated and given greater attention in recent years because the wisdom upon which it is based is becoming more comprehensible to our consciousness as we do indeed approach a shift in the portals of Aquarius, not only in the emminent possibility of polar shifts and earth alignments, but in consciousness. A shift that in the nature of the yin/yang of cycles fulfilling themselves appears to be inevitable. Metaphysics can no longer be separated from our archaeological interpretations and our musings on ancient civilizations. Metaphyics speaks of a Seventh Root Race, a new wave of lifestreams that are destined to incarnate in South America, the forerunners of a potential Golden Age, but whose timetables have been held up by the sorry state of human affairs. Cortes may not have been Quetzalcoatl but he may indeed have been the bearer of a judgment to a people steeped in the blood of human sacrifice and of a time prophesied of great turmoil, followed by the promise of a new era of enlightenment. He was clearing the way for the Seventh Root Race.