2012!

Nearly twenty-five years ago, on August 16-17, 1987, the Harmonic Convergence drew people from all over the world to supposed power spots on the planet. I remember that the evening news had a piece about Machu Picchu and the people who had gathered there to welcome the new energy that was allegedly being ushered into human consciousness. If memory serves, it got a brief mention on the evening news because actress, author and New Age proponent Shirley MacLaine believed it was important. The mention, I should add, was a kind of – Ha-ha, look at these weirdos.

I’m pretty sure the news piece mentioned Jose Arguelles and  his book, The Mayan Factor, because Arguelles was credited with starting the first  “globally synchronized meditation.”

So at dawn on August 16, 1987, Rob and I met our friend and psychic Renie Wiley on a Lauderdale beach with a whole lot of other weirdos to celebrate and welcome this new energy into the world. I remember thinking that I must be insane to be up before dawn and on a beach to watch the sun rise. I don’t do dawn. I’m an owl, always have been, and when I have to go to bed before eleven to get up at a certain time, I hardly sleep at all.

So on the morning of August 16, as I watched the sun punch a hole in the horizon, I was sleep deprived, but also aware that something felt very different. Maybe it was the energy of the crowd, maybe it was the energy of whatever was rushing toward us. But I do know that something changed for me that day, something internal, a tectonic shift in beliefs. Two years and a few weeks after that dawn on the beach, Megan was born, we moved, our lives went through a complete revolution. Our writing changed, became more psychic, esoteric, and delved into the areas that interested us.  It’s as if who Rob and I really are became more obvious, prominent, pervasive.

Now here we are, in 2012. I feel that same momentum, that same strangeness and yet a weird familiarity. The 5,126-year astrological cycle the Mayans knew about comes to end on December 21, 2012. There are some fascinating synchros involving the date, but the one that takes the cake, is that the Mayan calendar ends at 11:11 UT on December 21, 2012. The 11:11 element is something we’ve written about in our books and here on the blog. Think: portal, spiritual evolution, heightened awareness and psychic ability.

I look to  astrology, since that’s what the Mayan calendar was based on, and, wondered what transits would signal Armageddon, the worst possible scenario, the end of life on earth. Well, I don’t see the world ending.  But there’s no question we’re in the midst of a paradigm shift and I feel it’s a shift for something better, more equitable for all people.

Uranus, the planet that represents sudden, unexpected change,  takes 7  years to transit a sign. It entered Aries, the warrior, on March 11, 2011, and due to retrogrades, will be in that sign until early March 2019.  The day it entered Aries, there was a 9.0 earthquake in Japan. It triggered a massive tsunami which destroyed a nuclear plant.  Uranus rules earthquakes.

This particular event is a fitting metaphor for the kinds of planetary changes that accompany a paradigm shift. It was an 11:11 kind of wakeup call. Uranus also rules innovations, technology, discoveries, rebellion, revolution, genius, lightning.  Uranian energy isn’t subtle. It sweeps into our lives, stirs up mass movements, knocks down the old to make way for the new.

In mid-January 1928, Uranus entered Aries and remained there until late March 1935. Here are some of the events that occurred during this period:

• First air conditioned office opens in the U.S. in San Antonio
•  Scotch tape first marketed by 3M company
• First Atlantic TV image received
• Amelia Earhart first woman to fly the Atlantic – as a passenger
•  Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
• Yo-yo introduced
• First regularly scheduled TV is broadcast 3 nights a week
• German airship Graf Zeppelin begins a round-the-world flight
• Stock market crash
• Salvatore Dali’s first one-man show
• Bingo invented
•  Planet Pluto named
• Hostess Twinkies invented
• NY Yankee Babe Ruth hits 3 consecutive homers
• first nudist colony opens –
• first radar detection of planes –
• NY World reports disappearance of supreme court justice Joseph Crater -NYC College offers first course in radio advertising
• A bloodless coup d’état in Brazil –
• First  Dracula movie released
• Empire State Building opens in NYC
• Al Capone is indicted on 5,000 counts of prohibition & perjury
• Babe Ruth hits his 600th home run
• Alka Seltzer goes on sale
• Jane Addams – first US woman- named co-recipient of Nobel Peace Prize
• El Salvador army kills 4,000 protesting farmers
• first patent issued for a tree, to James Markham for a peach tree
• Amelia Earhart is first woman to fly solo cross the Atlantic
• Yellow fever vaccine for humans announced
• US Federal gas tax enacted
• Earthquake kills 70,000 in Kansu China
• Hitler proclaims end of Marxism
• Bank holidays declared in 6 states, to prevent run on banks
• FDR inaugurated as 32nd pres, pledges to pull US out of Depression & says “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”
• FDR proclaims 10-day bank holiday
• Dachau, first concentration camp, completed
• first flight over Mount Everest
• Nazis stage public book burnings in Germany
• Loch Ness Monster is first reportedly
• German Secret State Police (Gestapo) established
• In London, 500,000 march against anti-Semitism
• Alcatraz officially becomes a federal prison
• Flash Gordon comic strip debuts
• FDR signs Home Owners Loan Act
• first Sugar Bowl and first Orange Bowl
• first canned beer is sold
• Monopoly is invented
• first Penguin book is published
• 400,000 demonstrators against fascism in Madrid
• Billboard magazine publishes its 1st music hit parade
• The first stock car race is held in Daytona Beach, Florida
• Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell is published
• Spanish Civil War begins, General Francisco Franco leads uprising
• King Edward VIII abdicates throne to marry Mrs. Wallis Simpson

Lots of firsts on this list as well as plenty of rebellion  (Occupiers) and revolution (Arab spring). Change is the only constant.

Happy 2012 and many thanks to all of you for contributing your stories and broadening our understanding of synchronicity!