December 21, 2012 - Will the world end?

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I wish I knew if the world was coming to an end on December 21, 2012, as some believe. A catastrophic end time, throwing the world into utter chaos. For one thing, I'd pay only the minimum amount on my credit card bills. Probably max them out, too. It'd be just my luck that all the doom and gloom people were wrong, and on December 22, 2012, my credit record would be shot. Maybe we could just not have a winter solstice that year and skip the whole controversy.


I'll say up front that I'm a skeptic about all the 2012 prophecies, but I have to admit to being a tad concerned about the end of the Mayan calendar. Those guys really knew what they were doing about astronomy and making calendars, and they say that after 2012, time will no longer have the same pattern as it does today. That's why the calendar ends--because they had no system for measuring the new time flow beyond that point. What does that mean? It could mean that the Earth would be thrown off its axis, changing the speed of the day and year dramatically. Life on Earth is adapted to a 24 hour mix of sunlight and darkness, according to season and lattitude. Imagine what it would do to plants and animals if that day shifted to 6 hours! (It would have the same effect, an astronomer told me, as if the moon suddenly vanished.)

Sumerian alien carving?

I'm going to add one more thing to this discussion before saying how I came up with it in the first place. Some celebrities, among them Mel Gibson, Jesse Ventura, Montel Williams, Woody Harrelson, Shirley Maclain, and Dan Akroyd, have listed themselves as 2012 believers (http://www.december212012.com), and Tom Cruise, too. Is this grabbing onto a hot trend for publicity or a sincere understanding of what they're putting their name to? You be the judge.

In the Mortal Path series that I write, the world-building is based on Sumerian myths. That's what started me thinking about the 2012 thing. The Sumerian people believed their gods came from outer space about 450,000 years ago. Eventually the major gods got around to creating humans as their servants when the lesser gods and demons refused to do the dreary work of maintaining a world. The gods all left Earth to return to space 12,500 years ago by hopping a ride on their home planet, Nibiru.

This creation myth correlates with today's search for Planet X, also known as Nibiru, the supposed home planet of those gods. This is a huge topic with many mind-boggling theories, dubious speculations, and NO scientific backup. Such as: Planet X collided with Earth and created the moon; Planet X's huge elliptical orbit brings it close to Earth every 3,600 years (like a comet, but it's an occupied planet); the planet will return in December 2012 and is described in the Book of Revelation as the prophecy of the sixth seal; previous close passages of Planet X caused the Great Flood in Noah's time and the sinking of Atlantis. Google Planet X and you'll see what I mean. Because of the lack of astronomical evidence for Planet X, all these things are tough for me to swallow in real life, but do a fine job spicing up the mythology!

Sumerian cylinder seal with solar system

Supposedly the Sumerian gods and goddesses are coming close to Earth again after a 3,600 year absence, and they may not like what humans have done with the world since their last visit. Hence, forecasts of doom. The Sumerian gods made us once; they can throw us away and start anew. So the myth goes.

Look at the famous Sumerian cylinder seal to the left. A cylinder seal is a carving that went totally around a cylinder of clay. The cylinder was then dipped in ink and rolled onto parchment like a rolling pin, leaving a 360 degree impression of the whole scene. Sumerian big shots used them as signatures. More than you wanted to know. Anyway, this particular cylinder is famous because it contains what is thought to be a drawing of the solar system. Keep in mind the Sumerians didn't have any telescopes, so how did they know about the solar system in the first place? The drawing in the upper left contains the sun, Earth and its moon, and nine other planets, counting Neptune and Pluto (both invisible to the naked eye). To add to the mystery of this drawing, there are ten planets total, one of them being Nibiru. Hmm ...

Although I don't use this aspect of Sumerian mythology in my series, I'm wondering if I should catch the wave and plan a special book for the 2012 release. Maliha single-handedly fixes the Earth's rotation, or something like that.


My current release, Sacrifice: Mortal Path Book 2, has just been out about a month and is getting great reviews. I'm running a drawing for the opportunity to put yourself into the next Mortal Path book as a named character, plus a subscription to the series or a manuscript critique by yours truly. Click the green button on the right that says "Put YOURSELF in the next Mortal Path book" to enter. Hurry! The opportunity ends December 1, 2010.

I'd also like to give away here a signed copy of Sacrifice, a pen, and a bookmark, separately from the character-naming on my website. To enter to win, please post a comment below. You can earn points by:

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+1 Posting in the comments section
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Note: You are not entering the character-naming drawing by doing any of this! That's separate and requires a submission form on my website. Click the green badge, above right.

Just post the total number of points (maximum 8) that you’ve earned in your comment. The winner will be announced in this post Saturday, October 2nd. Contest ends Friday, October 1st, at midnight! Please note that if I don’t hear from the winner within 3 days after the contest closes, I will select another winner.

To get started with comments, how do you feel about the 2012 controversy? A skeptic? Believer? 100%-it's-all-nonsense unbeliever? What do you think about celebrities advocating the end of the world? Is it all just PR?

Happy supernatural thoughts,
Dakota