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Cosmic Cycles

“1998 will bring many of the great awakenings that lead into the Aquarian Age. This is being caused by the Great Cycle of the Sun. This great solar cycle is in turn caused by the revolution of the Sun through the various spheres of activity in the galaxy. This cycle is a gradual activity; it does not occur all at once.”
Edgar Cayce
~ Reading 1602-003 09/22/39
Edgar Cayce's prediction is right on schedule. Since 1998 many new and profound realizations and awakenings have taken place. More will come and they will intensify to a point of singularity before resolving. All are intimately linked to the enormous changes we are currently experiencing and feeling in our daily lives. Those who are able to "see" can better understand what is happening than those who cannot.
The changes I refer to are universal, they are quickening, and no one will be spared. It seems that each new day brings environmental, economic, political, religious, and social challenges with it. The steady stream of information that reaches us via the Internet and other means of telecommunications and knowledge-sharing add to the overall fluidity and confusion of ordinary life.
The angst and unsettledness that goes hand-in-hand with the breakdown of old thought-structures and belief systems that have prevailed for two-thousand years are being replaced by something new that is struggling to be born, heard, and lived. The Great Cycle of the sun described by Cayce is coming into Aquarius and it is affecting all of humanity. However, this will not be an ordinary shift from one age to another. Something much bigger is happening.
Over the years we have come to think of the universe as being alive because of its constant change and motion. In spite of this, ancient astrologers were familiar with cosmic cycles that not only governed the seeming chaos of our heavens, but also gave it explicit order and meaning. They also knew that this ordering principle was divine in origin and its influence would be felt by all.
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In order to appreciate the dawning Age of Aquarius and how it fits into the cosmic scheme of things, it helps to understand some of the movements of planet Earth and the heavens that the astronomers of old were quite familiar with. One also has to wonder how they obtained some of this information.
Earth has many motions. It spins on its axis once every 24 hours. It orbits the sun every 365 days. It can also tilt back and forth several degrees over a 42,000 year period. While this is going on, our whole solar system, including the sun, is slowly revolving around a massively dense object located at the center of the Milky Way galaxy once every 250 million some odd years.
The ancient astronomers, who knew of the stars and other heavenly bodies, spent most of their time focused on a lesser known, yet very real and subtle movement that our planet displays. Try to visualize a spinning top. As the top spins quickly, it has a steady motion and stands straight. However, when it begins to slow down, it goes from a smooth motion to one that wobbles at both ends.
Earth is like a spinning top. But its rate of spin is just slow enough to cause a slight wobble, which is most apparent at each of its poles. It was this planetary wobble that deeply intrigued the ancient astronomers of various cultures and civilizations. They knew it had a direct effect upon the timing of the astrological ages and all the changes that came with them. They were also aware of the fact that one complete turn of the Earth's wobble took approximately 26,000 years, and they referred to this momentous cycle of time as the Great Age or Great Year.
Imagine yourself standing on top of the North Pole. If you were to look straight up into the night sky, you would find that the Pole is currently pointing to the north star of the Big Dipper, Polaris. If you have the patience, imagine lying down on the North Pole for the next 26,000 years while looking straight up. What would you see every night?
Like a very slow motion movie, you would see that Polaris slowly moves away from its current location and is no longer directly above you and the North Pole. Over thousands of years, several other stars will take its place. It would take approximately 26,000 years for Polaris to be directly overhead before another one of these great cycles repeats itself. This slow, circular, wobbling movement of the North Pole and planet Earth is called precession, and it directly affects how many years we spend in each of the twelve houses of the zodiac. The diagram below helps to visualize the motion of precession…
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Before you run for some Dramamine, there is another way to visualize all of this dizzying celestial motion. Pretend you are sitting on the nose of the Sphinx and looking in the same direction as this magnificent man-lion, which is due east. Pretend further that it is the first day of spring (the vernal equinox), the sky is dark, and that the sun will rise in the east in an hour or so. Now freeze that scene in your mind. Then, instantaneously rewind the cosmic clock and go backwards in time to a point about 13,000 years ago. What you would see in the starry skies, just above the eastern horizon, is the constellation, Leo, one of the twelve signs of the zodiac.
Continuing from that point forward in time, the next astrological sign to gradually rise above that same horizon and appear after Leo would be Cancer. This would take 2,160 years to unfold. Then, one by one, every 2,160 years, Gemini, Taurus, and Aries would rise and slowly pass overhead. Approximately 2,160 years ago Pisces appeared after Aries. Now it's Aquarius' turn.
If it was the first day of spring 2009, and you were sitting on the nose of the Sphinx gazing at the eastern horizon just before dawn, you would see the extreme end of Pisces the Fishes rising overhead. If we fast-forward this same scene for several hundreds of years, all you would see is Aquarius. Another way to say this is that the Age of Pisces is ending and that Aquarius is now the rising sign for all of humanity.
Today, we are right in the thick of an astrological, no-man's land. It lies between the fading Piscean age and the new Aquarian age being born. We are also at the extreme end of the 26,000 year-old Great Year, the completion of the Hindu Kali Yuga (Iron Age), the close of the Mesoamerican fifth world, and the initial alignment of our sun with the Equator of the Milky Way, all of which promise unprecedented changes as we approach 2012. Many have spoken about these final days such as the Dogon, various Native Americans, the Maya, Hopi, Egyptians, Aborigines, Kabbalists, and the Q'ero Elders of Peru. And if that isn't enough there are more than 6.5 billion
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humans on our planet today giving witness to it. Clearly, something BIG is happening.
The ancient masters of wisdom knew that the flow of time and human experience did not occur in a straight line. Rather, it was a cyclical phenomenon that slowly spirals upward. As such, things had a way of repeating themselves. However, each time they did, they had become something different, and a new journey of becoming would now unfold during the next cycle. At times the changes that occurred during a given cycle would be dramatic; other times they would be subtle. However, each cycle never produced identical changes or the same results. This rhythm of change-and-becoming could be seen in the ebb and flow of the four seasons, the phases of the moon, the great oceanic tides, the repeating astrological signs, the cycle of life, death and re-birth, and many others.
According to Hindu mythology, there are four ages that govern human experience on this planet. The length given for each age is quite large by their measure. However, when one factors in the speed-up of time and other variables, others have suggested that they cover the general time span of approximately 26,000 years. As we will see shortly, the Mayans and others also refer to the Great Year as being approximately 26,000 years in length.
What intrigues me most about the Hindu description of the four different ages is that each era has a different quality to it. That is, the character and type of people who are allowed to come here during a given age defines the nature, energy, and vibration of life that exists. When one appreciates the fact that the collective mass of humanity exemplifies the life style and quality of any given time period, it makes sense to me.
The Hindus refer to the four major periods of time as the Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages. Apparently, as we pass through these epochs of human development, the vibration and quality of individuals granted the right to birth here is highest during the Golden Age. That's a time when the incoming inhabitants are highly aligned with their divine natures, are spirituality oriented, honor and respect the material world, and know how to live in balance with it. Not surprisingly, the Golden Age is a time of higher choices, brotherhood, unity, happiness, abundance, sharing, harmony, and peace.
As we gradually move through the three succeeding ages, the mix of individuals begins to shift from those with higher vibrations to those who prefer to make lesser choices. As such, the collective consciousness begins to shift from divine awareness to one that is less attuned to its Godly origins. As this happens, the ego exerts more and more influence in everyday decisions and affairs and things become more unsettled. This leads to strife and wars, separation sets in, self-gratification takes
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hold, greed and excessive materialism run rampant, integrity and righteousness suffers, temptations that appeal to the lower natures abound, and the overall quality of life begins to deteriorate.
Over the past 6,000 some odd years, we have been in the Iron Age, or the Kali Yuga as the Hindus call it. During that time period, the bulk of humanity has become more and more dense and has gradually sunk to its lowest level. As such, we have reached a point where the original ways and influences of the Golden Age are a much smaller part of the overall mass consciousness. In order to confirm this, simply take a look out your window and observe the world.
As you read these words, we have approached the extreme end of the Iron Age. And we are suffocating on all the lesser choices and negative mass consciousness that goes with it. Interestingly, it is culminating as we approach the general time period of 2012. All 6.5 billion plus of us who are here today now have the opportunity to experience and feel what has been created and decide what we want to do about it.
The slate of Pisces and its influence is being swept clean by the many changes that are now helping to cleanse our planet. The ancient ones knew that the twilight zone between each of the ages was always fraught with upheaval and turmoil. They were also aware that every new age brought messengers from God to point the way for us. Cycles ago they were the Masters known as Hermes, Rama, Zoroaster, Confucius, Krishna, and others. During the early phases of the last astrological age of Pisces, it was Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed who ushered in its birth. But times are much different today compared to two thousand years ago. Back then it was not the end of the 26,000 year cycle, the completion of the Iron Age, nor were there 6.5 billon plus of us here. This tells me that something BIG is up. And it may very well require the efforts of a BIGGER messenger.
Why did all the ancient astronomers have a constant need to know where they were in relation to the Great Year? They considered it an absolute must because this information was related to even larger cosmic cycles, and the events that went hand-in-hand with them. Did their very existence depend upon it? Recent findings suggest that is exactly the reason why.
It appears that previous civilizations left messages behind for us in their mythologies, carvings, and writings. They describe great Earth changes and physical cleansings that occurred some 13,000 years ago when the last Ice Age ended and the Great Flood occurred. Importantly, that time period marked the approximate halfway point of the current Great Year.
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The Maya divided the Great Year into five smaller cycles of 5,125 years each. Each sub-cycle ended with a different physical cleansing for Earth and its inhabitants. Why did this occur? It seems that previous civilizations of mankind continued to over-identify with the material ways of life and paid little attention to their spiritual development. The material influences led to excessive pleasure, self-gratification and greed, rampant destruction of the environment, cultural, religious, and geographic separation between peoples, wars, and injustice, not unlike what we have today.
The Mayan astronomers, who had an enormous comprehension of the heavens, used a very accurate calendar that guided and ruled their lives. Their calendar comes to an end on the winter solstice of December 21, 2012. Why? This is not only the end of a 5,125-year sub-cycle, but also the end of the Great Year.
The Maya and the Hopi say planet Earth will be cleansed once again at that time. Perhaps they knew that before a new cosmic cycle can begin, the karma of the current cycle must be cleared so that something new can unfold. They are not alone in this thinking.
What does all of this mean for us? How might it tie into ancient prophecies and recent otherworldly messages we have recently been given? Will it mean the beginning of a new and wonderful period of time known as the Golden Age, or will planet Earth go through a massive physical cleansing so that it can rid itself of all the karmic filth put into it, especially during the Iron Age, and reconstitute its beauty and ecological balance?
With the birth of any New Age, especially one that occurs at the end of the Great Year, and with more than 6.5 billion souls to witness it, the climax to all of this will be well out of the ordinary. In order to better understand what's happening, and where all of this is going, we need to look at the time period of 2012.