I have never thought the Mayan end-of-the-world thing was any more credible than then fifteen score other times various people have declared that the World Will End On X Date. In fact, whenever anyone brings up the topic of the Mayan 2012 prophecy it makes me kind of mad. It’s a sort of Magical Negro/Noble Savage trope. I’ve seen people who mock some backwoods preacher for announcing that The Rapture Will Occur On May 11th, but then take the Mayan thing seriously because, I guess, the Mayans have some Mystical Corner On The Rightness Market Because They’re Magical. I dislike elevation and glorification of any group of people because it’s racist. Sure, it’s a “good” racist technically because they’re being praised. But it’s still stereotyping because of an ethnic commonality. How is The Mayans Are Magic any less racist than any of the negative stereotypes about any maligned racial group? It’s not.
But here we are a couple of weeks away from Magic Mayan Doomsday and everything here got really weird at the middle of last week and only now does it feel less weird. It’s as if everyone I know entered some permanent state of full moon psychosis and the month of December was dedicated to Sheer Lunacy.
Of course, we’re supposed to get our new puppy on 19 December, so I guess we’ll get to enjoy him for a day or so before the world ends. I guess if you’re going to go ‘poof’, it’d be tough to do any better than to vanish during the happiness of playing with a puppy. For those of you who missed the Facebook announcement because you weren’t hanging out on the Internet the day before Thanksgiving, congratulations on having a productive Wednesday. Also, that’s the day I announced that we’re adopting a third dog; he’s a male Bernese Mountain Dog. We were the last to turn in a deposit so we had ‘last pick’. Which is technically not a “pick” because if you aren’t choosing between at least two options it’s not a choice. And I was fine with our non-choosing choice because that meant that God/Fate/The Universe was going to select our child for us. Kind of like when you’re pregnant or adopting a human. Then the Sheer Lunacy (see, this is on topic!) infected one of the other pet-getters and they moved their deposit to another litter. And we now have a choice. I still don’t know how I’m going to choose between Uber-Cute and Uber-Cute.
I found out yesterday that I inherited a small amount of money from my grandmother. Actually, technically my Mom inherited some and decided to give each of her four children a portion. That was majorly generous and I’m incredibly touched. This weekend we’re going to use a bit of that money to get an artificial Christmas tree–something we’ve not had in decades. I’m hoping that the lights and the green and the tradition of it all will go a ways toward offsetting all the weirdness. At least I’ll have a week to enjoy it before the meter runs out on us all.
Okay, I have to say…I am one who always notices a full moon. My kids tend to go nuts about three days before, and then become normal again as soon as it’s over.
This month, though, it actually HAS felt like the last full moon just…stayed. Like it wouldn’t let go. I’ve felt weird and keep finding myself checking the calendar. “Did I look at it wrong before? Maybe the full moon is coming and I lost the ability to tell the difference between a crescent and a circle last time I looked….”
Oddly, I feel less crazy now. Thank you, Katherine
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Oh, and congrats on the puppy! I understand about the choosing. We chose our first dog–got her from the pound–but all our other dogs/cats have been sort of brought to us. Furry gifts from God. I like it better that way. Not that I’d have traded first dog for anything, but the ones that came as if by destiny have , well, just felt “destined” for us.
If it makes you feel better–and it is kind of humorous, in a frustrating way–the Mayans don’t actually think the world ends this month. Their calendar, including the years, eventually rolls over like an odometer. And just like your car doesn’t end if you line up all zeros again, they don’t think the world ends when their calendar resets.
It does have a lot of religio-social significance, but the whole “end of the world, doomsday” aspect is something non-Mayans have substituted for actual Mayan beliefs, not just for the Noble Savage reasons you rightly note, but because I think they don’t know that there are still Mayans and people could just ask them if they think the world ends on December 21st and they would say “No, a better, more accurate way to understand that would be that it’s an end of one era and a shift into another.”
That’s what I get for not actually paying attention to it at all. I’ve just seen other people mention it in passing. I’m at best forming my opinion 16th-hand.
There’s even dispute about whether the passing of the 13th Bak’tun even represents that ‘flip of the odometer.’ A fair number of Mayanists think there are 20 Bak’tuns in a cycle.
Indeed. I think people got the Mayans and Aztecs mixed up. The Aztecs were really into the end of the world. (I like your analogy of the car’s odometer! That’s a perfect way to describe it).
Another way to think about it is that it is somewhat similar to the way the Shaker believed they were in a post-millenial age — the “rollover” is a transition between a period of sadness, darkness, confusion, selfishness, loss and decay to a period of joy, light, harmony, mutual aid, reclamation, and ferment. (Somewhere in my brain, the Fifth Dimension just began singing “This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius…”) While you’re right that there’s a Magic Indian in this cupboard, it’s worth noting that transnational indigenous groups have used this date as a significant one in their organizing efforts — moving into a period of collective hope.
Well, we could use some collective hope, I say, sounding like Bill Murray at the end of Scrooged. That sounds better than “the world is ending.”
Bridgett, you’ve really hit squarely on the head what it so terrible about this. For the people for whom this is genuinely important, this is a really hopeful period. But here in the U.S. that’s gotten completely lost in our cultural joking about the Mayans’ predicting the end of the world.
I never sleep during a full moon, hence my lunacy. Age of Aquarius, here we come! If you look at star charts, though, the Age of Aquarius could be a long time from now. Oh, well. God is my Water Bearer, anyway. Cheers to the new puppy.
Please tell me that the new puppy’s name will be Mayan Calendar, or at least Tzolk’in.