Samhain \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Moon of the Winter Solstice<\/p>\n
A week from tomorrow, December 22nd, was to be a day of unusual properties for many people. Still is for a few. \u00a0One last winter solstice, then with a sigh or a bang or, as Eliot suggested, with a whimper, the world would end. \u00a0Fade to black. \u00a0Close the book. \u00a0Turn off the I-Pod. \u00a0Cue the dramatic finale.<\/p>\n
Except. \u00a0All that will end is one era of Mayan time, albeit a long one. \u00a021 December 2012\u00a0is regarded as the end-date of a 5125-year-long cycle in the\u00a0Mesoamerican Long Count calendar.<\/p>\n
Folks have been ending the world, I imagine, since we could consider the end of it all. \u00a0It’s practically a hobby amongst adherents to religions as different as Buddhism and Pentecostal Christianity. \u00a0There’s a certain frisson to imagining a point beyond which no imagination is necessary, or, possible.<\/p>\n
And we have multiple personal instances of the end of all things. \u00a0Each death is an apocalypse, an eschatological moment when a whole universe dies. \u00a0So the experience of ultimate endings is very much part of the human experience, yet it does not transfer, at least not with the same inevitability to existence itself.<\/p>\n
Yes, the sun will burn out. \u00a0And, yes, some astrophysicists say the universe will. finally. \u00a0slow. \u00a0down. \u00a0no motion. \u00a0no heat. \u00a0done. \u00a0But these experiences are so far away in time and so completely other from our human lives that they make little sense as talk of the end times.<\/p>\n
See you on the other side. \u00a0Of the Mayan long count. \u00a0I’ll be smiling.<\/p>\n
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Samhain \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Moon of the Winter Solstice A week from tomorrow, December 22nd, was to be a day of unusual properties for many people. Still is for … Continue reading The End Is (not) Near<\/span>