José Argüelles passed away on March 23, 2011 (2 Imix) and I would like to write a few words as a recognition of the very important contributions he made to out understanding of the Mayan calendar especially through his book The Mayan Factor: Path beyond technology. This work was published by Barbara Hand Clow at Bear and Co as part of a preparation for the Harmonic Convergence event, August 16-17, 1987. It became a great source of inspiration for myself as well as for many others and for a few years I regarded it almost as a bible to Mayan cosmology. In this book Argüelles introduced a few very radical thoughts for the first time: 1. The shifts in the Mayan calendar and especially the Long Count provides for an understanding of human history. 2. What is important in the Mayan calendar are the non-astronomical cycles of 260 and 360 days and 3. The energies of the Tzolkin provide a matrix for the evolution of the longer cycles. Although he had forerunners such as Peter Balin, Tony Shearer, and Frank Waters, Argüelles’ ideas were groundbreaking and created the necessary opening that allowed for us to realize that the Mayan calendar could be true and then also help us understand the contours of a cosmic plan. The Mayan Factor was a seminal work that at the time was way ahead of the thinking of everyone else. His successful promotion of the Harmonic Convergence event that coincided with a spiritual awakening among many, also led many to conclude that the Mayan calendar had something to say about the spiritual destiny of mankind.

Unfortunately, Argüelles’ post-Harmonic Convergence work with the Dreamspell calendar meant the reversal and abandonment of exactly those advances that had been presented in The Mayan Factor. Even if the Thirteen Moon calendar became popular in many parts of the world, it was never recognized as a contribution by any serious student of the Mayan calendar and the way it was initially presented it brought much confusion. My own criticism and disappointment of this calendar was not so much motivated by the fact that Argüelles broke with Mayan orthodoxy, but more because the calendar he had invented was not transparent and that its origin never was made clear. This failure should however not cloud the fact that Argüelles was a great pioneer; everyone who today works for a better world through the Mayan calendar, and the guidance this may give us, owes something to Argüelles. It is still possible for us to build on the abovementioned advances from The Mayan Factor and come to understand, in much more detail than was possible then, the underlying patterns in an increasingly chaotic world. Argüelles is known to have liked the idea that the Mayan calendar developed through nine waves, although he never got to live by them. Argüelles however declared himself dead exactly Thirteen years (March 9, 1998) before the beginning of the Ninth Wave and he was given the ceremonial staff as the "Closer of the Cycle" by Mexican elders Nine years before (March 3, 2002) this. Maybe his time of passing indeed then meant a “closing of the cycle” since it pointed to the objective reality of the Ninth wave of the Mayan calendar system that humanity now has to wake up to.