Fire in the Heart

As much as people poked fun at the dire predictions of certain fundamentalists that a particular day last April would be the world's demise at the hand of God, there are those who ridicule even more the date in December 2012 that is the day on the Mayan Calendar interpreted by others as the true end of the world. In addition to blockbuster movies closing on the scene of a futuristic arc floating into the sunset, countless forecasts include disasters from aliens to meteors to a more earthly holocaust of nuclear proportions as the result of a spilled cup of coffee on a critical console causing a failure of the fail-safe system.

Like the fears of the Millennium that passed before us, some of us await this looming date with suspended disbelief, trying to live normally with an eye to higher ground just in case it actually did happen and there could still be some form of escape. Still others add the distinctive phrase, "...as we know it" to our vision of the Apocolypse, describing catastrophic events of revolution, financial collapse, and the invasion of Chinese culture onto the shores of our American dominance and control of the world market.

Beginning with the crisis in 2008, blamed on sub-prime mortgages that spread havoc around the globe, headlines actually support this theory. The Middle East is rampant with the uprisings of its weary citizens throwing off the chains of their many monarchs and dictators. Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, drought and torrential rainfalls are causing massive death and devastation. This week alone, heated analysis floods the airwaves over whether catastrophe has been avoided or merely delayed by the ridiculous compromise to pander once again to congressional self-interests by raising the ceiling of debt. And Harry Potter has divided, conquered and will not reappear in an eighth episode.

This latter hypothesis of a world not ended, but radically transformed, opens the door to a vision made famous in the Sixties and laid dormant for three decades after. Celebrated as the Age of Aquarius, there are a growing number of humans around the world who believe the Mayan Calendar portends the transition from a five thousand year cycle of life dominated by the masculine energy of intellect to one of heart nurtured by more feminine principles of love and intuition.

History shows that civilization has progressed from a belief that the world is flat to exploration of neighboring planets. Wondrous medical advances and architectural masterpieces are dwarfed by the progression from papyrus to the speed with which my thoughts can be conveyed to yours through a screen. The triple dimensions (3D) of innuendo in Shakespeare's greatest works have been reduced to mere sound bytes on a billboard. Even in war, sticks and stones are being replaced by unmanned drones, rendering killing nearly as harmless as the video games and nursery rhymes that have imitated it.

Except that the carnage is so very real to those on the ground; our junk drifts into space as carelessly as our unlimited growth here on earth has indisputably caused our climate to change in dangerous and unpredictable ways (when was the last time Lake Champlain was completely frozen over?), and the use of cell phones probably produces radiation that causes brain tumors.

Perhaps a little more heart would do us all some good.

As an experiment of a different menu to hold onto their readers who are otherwise vanishing into the ethernet, our local newspaper is brave enough to consider a monthly series of essays in contemplation of this vision of the world. Possibly the end is far less final than what we have feared; in fact is no end at all, but actually more glorious than we have even imagined, one with "...Strangers stopping strangers just to shake their hands and everybody playing in the Heart of Gold Band" (Grateful Dead).

We do not even have to wait until 2012. Life as we know it can be transformed today into a world where we help each other, heal the pain that makes us hurt ourselves and others, awake each morning with our grumbles replaced by gratitude. John Lennon imagined peace. Communism was not evil for its vision of prosperity spread among the masses. The meek shall inherit their strength and the rich will claim abundance by their measure of happiness, not their bank accounts.

Fear shall be triumphed by love.

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