If we are looking for some knowledge and wisdom that the ancients have imparted on us that is still relevant today, there really is nothing that compares to the Mayan calendar. The Mayan calendar was created from the state of consciousness the ancients were in, which may give a deeper perspective on reality than most modern sources give. As a reflection of this, in a recent article (Did the Mayan Calendar predict the end of the World?) I pointed out that the Mayan calendar system, far from predicting the end of the world, is life-affirming and in principle will continue to chart the shifting energies of time forever. These are not just philosophical musings, but since it is based on numbers, we can connect this calendar to science. Thus, it can also help us understand the history of the universe, what it is here for and where we are meant to be going with it. 

Hence, in many regards the Mayan calendar really does stand out as unique. Especially important is the fact that it has a direction, meaning that the evolution of consciousness is going somewhere. It is a quantized system in which consciousness is primary to matter, which makes it fundamentally different from common astrology and lots of other systems that are based on the physical reality. Given this, it is somewhat surprising that it receives so little attention at the current time, which many people point to as a critical juncture for the destiny of humanity. Much of the reason for this is that the information given about it by academic and also independent researchers leading up to the year 2012 was so incorrect and profoundly misleading. As a result, the Mayan calendar itself was blamed for the unrealistic expectations created by faulty interpretations based on poor scholarship. This, in turn means that understanding how the Mayan calendar continues into the future requires a reappraisal of the ideas about it presented before 2012 in order for us to change them for the better. This is all the more important as August 21, 2024 a new trecena of the 8^th Wave is beginning, which is likely to bring about a major change in how we perceive the world and where it is meant to go. (A trecena is a sequence of thirteen periods of time, which could range from single days to billions of years. It is an evolutionary process that mythologically was described as a process from seed to fruit. Such trecenas influence processes on all levels of the universe.) The upcoming trecena will influence our experience of life and what direction the world takes from August 21, 2024 until June 14, 2037 or in other words for a period of thirteen tuns (360-day periods). 

When reappraising the view that dominated people before 2012 about the Mayan calendar, I would like to start by pointing out that the whole idea that this calendar (let alone the world) would come to an end on December 21, 2012 was wrong in so many ways. First of all, as I discussed in the previous article, the Mayan calendar does not end, but is made up of cyclical quantum waves that as far as we know go on forever. The thought held by many that the cosmos would change in this single day was also completely unfounded. Secondly, December 21, was not the true energetic shift point of the thirteen baktuns called the Long Count. The true shift point was October 28, 2011. The fact that the majority of researchers promoted the December 21, 2012 date in fact came to have quite dire negative consequences. The reason is that the year 2012 was a very uneventful year and on the particular date of December 21, 2012 nothing worthy of note happened. Thus, it is no wonder that people after this gave up on the Mayan calendar and came to think of it is as an unreliable source of knowledge. The year 2011, which I had predicted to mean the activation of the 9^thWave on March 9, in contrast was quite eventful bringing both the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement. These were large-scale movements reflecting a burgeoning unity consciousness that protested against the rule of banksters and dictators and sought to develop politics based on higher values. Such movements were so prominent in 2011 all over the planet that Time Magazine rather than appointing a “Person of the year” this year placed “the Protester” on its cover at the end of 2011. If only people at a larger scale had known that this came after the shift on March 9, 2011 after the Ninth wave had been activated, then at least they would have interpreted this movement for improving the world as a reflection of the Mayan calendar and concluded that at least a fraction of humanity temporarily had reached the state of consciousness that it was meant to go towards.

Instead of the intense desire for change, things however started to slow down after the actual shift date on October 28, 2011. The new energy that emerged after this date in fact was quite opposite to that of the protests in 2011. At least politically, after this shift the future has become more and more bleak over time and many countries have seen a rise to power of dictators and strongmen quite in contrast to in the year 2011. The popular movements in Egypt and Syria, to name two important cases, very evidently were turned on their heads. Beginning in 2012, the feeling of forward movement disappeared and after a number of years the pandemic hit and climate change became a palpable reality. The political system in the United States came under direct threat, industrial scale warfare reappeared in Ukraine and Israel and the hopes that were ignited in 2011 have largely been thwarted. I am not saying that some people with a positive vision for humanity could just have turned these events around, but at least if they had known the right date for the “shift of the ages,” October 28, 2011, it would have been easier to understand why things did not seem to be going in a positive direction.

But also the concept of the “shift of the ages” is somewhat misleading. The only ancient inscription that describes this critical time, the Tortuguero Monument nr 6, describes it as if Bolon Yookte Kuh, the nine-step or nine-support deity, would “appear in his full regalia”. It is obvious that this inscription can be interpreted in different ways, but to me it does not necessarily imply a shift of the ages. Rather, the “full regalia” would mean that all nine waves shaping consciousness in the universe would have appeared and become accessible. This, would be consistent with the events in 2011, but by itself does not explain the downturn beginning in 2012. To understand this, I believe that we have to reassess our views of the Mayan calendar more broadly and be willing to accept that the Mayan calendar alternates between time periods of creative construction (peaks or days) and periods of rest or destruction (valleys or nights) in between. The Mayan calendar system describes exactly the times (and at what levels of the cosmic pyramid) when such shifts would take place. Hence, in order for something new to be created the old must be destroyed to create the space for the coming. In ancient times these alternating energies were simply accepted as real or as part of a cycle of life-death and rebirth even if the Maya were unique in timing these cycles. 

This was what created the prophetic art practiced by the ancient Maya, which was not based on astronomy but on shifts in the underlying quantum field. Yet, such an ongoing struggle between forward movement and destruction may seem quite alien to modern people and especially those who have lived in the unusually prosperous era following WWII. Based on this, most have come to believe very strongly in a linear concept of time. Yet, even if we believe that the universe is benevolent and has a good plan in store for us and our universe, there will according to the Mayan calendar and ancient cosmologies of death and rebirth by necessity be periods of hardships in between the easy times. Even if the period since the October 28, 2011 has been relatively prosperous in a material sense, the same cannot be said about our psychological and spiritual states and the feelings that something has gone wrong have become quite prominent. Even on an individual level the world has become more difficult to navigate with the belief systems that we may have created before 2011. Yet, with a recognition that there is a cycle of life-death and rebirth of people as well as phenomena, we do not have to believe that the driving force behind the evolution of the universe is some kind of conspiracy. Instead, the cyclical movements alternating between periods of light and darkness are an inherent part of this creation that are subject to an exact time plan. 

Another thing I think we need to understand is that the direction the universe has given to us to follow leads to the top of a nine-level pyramid (Bolon Yookte Kuh) and that to get there requires a “climb” (symbolically speaking)  through different states of consciousness (see Fig 1). This climb made up of a number of quantum leaps however has to be made step-by-step and none of the nine levels of the pyramid can be skipped, at least not if you look upon it as part of a common endeavour of humanity. Every level provides a foundation for the next higher level to be created on top of it. For humanity as a whole to reach the 9^th state of consciousness, there is thus quite some transformational work to be undertaken even if it had a temporary effect in the year 2011, the first time it had become more broadly accessible. While most people have been strongly influenced by the 8^th Wave, if nothing else through the digitalization of the world, and touched by the 9^th Wave, many are still predominantly influenced by the 6^th and 7^th Waves and the phenomena that these brought. This means that to complete the climb on a collective level, much more work will be required. What is also required is an intention and willingness to do so. We may here consider how few people actually were directly involved in the 9^th Wave in 2011 and how few that were able to retain this temporary state when the waves all shifted into valleys in 2012. These difficulties however do not mean that it is impossible and a critical factor for this is to what extent we can make use of the supportive energies in time periods that are positive and for this we need enough of knowledge of the Mayan calendar system. 

Fig 1. The Nine-storied pyramid with the different waves, states of consciousness and activation dates.

What this is telling us is that in order to reach the 9^th Wave, you first need to have climbed to the 8^th Wave. Thus, we need to study this Wave in order to understand how it relates to the current shift somewhat more in detail: The 8^th Wave is a dualist wave that brings the potential for people to download a state of consciousness that expanded the energy of the eastern hemisphere/right brain half. This Wave was activated on January 5,1999 and after 12.8 years (a trecena of 13 tun each of 360 days) it, as well as the other waves, went into the valley following October 28, 2011. All the waves after this date simply continued oscillating (Hence the name of the Plumed Serpent) between peaks (days) and valleys (nights) tun by tun into the future. In the Mayan calendar system, the trecena (count of thirteen) is of primary importance (This is why the Plumed Serpent was seen as the supreme deity) to follow as it is through trecenas that cosmic time is structured. As October 28, 2011 was a date when trecenas on several levels ended, October 29, 2011 was also a time when new trecenas began. Yet, to complicate things the trecenas starting October 28, 2011 would begin with a dark valley and then also end with such a dark valley. Such a trecena we can call a dark or negative trecena. At least in the Mayan view a time period that begins with a dark energy will also to some extent in its entirety be dark. It is then not very surprising that the trecena that is now ending has not been one that has had a strong forward movement. What is important to know in this context is however that August 21, 2024 a new trecena begins and it starts with a peak (or day). This makes it likely for this to have a stronger direction towards a positive future. Hence, we can call the trecena now beginning (Fig 2) a positive or light trecena and even before it has been activated a shift has become evident. 

My collaborator Sean Caulfield should get the credit for first having seen the importance of the August 21, 2024 date (https://theuniversalfrequency.com). Understanding this date also has wide-ranging ramifications as to how we may look at the future, where we are meant to go and I will only touch about this briefly here. Yet, arguably the August 21, 2024 date is the most important milestone in the Mayan calendar system since October 28, 2011 and the shift has also generated a new positive clarity as to the long-term future of the Mayan calendar and its consequences for humanity beyond any form of millennialism. This is not a calendar that lost its relevance in 2011 and it may now be more important than ever. Overall, you can say that the trecena (October 28, 2011- August 21, 2024) that we are now leaving has been a time period when many people have lost hope about the future of humanity. 

The new trecena beginning on August 21, 2024 on the other hand starts and ends with a peak of light and this means that we will come to experience much more of a forward direction than in the previous trecena. The best guess I think is that it will be something of a repeat of the trecena that ruled Jan 5, 1999-October 28, 2011 and will create a more stable platform for those of the 8^th Wave who want to climb to the full unity consciousness of the 9^th. Wave. It is to this state of consciousness that humanity is meant to go and the shifting energies are meant to lead us. This does not mean that the coming time will be a rose garden since also forward movement will lead to the destruction of what is old and does not serve the evolution of consciousness to the 9^th Wave. Even if we may not know if we will be able to reach the 9^thWave as a collective, we can still say with some certainty that this is where we are meant to go and that the new trecena will facilitate this. By itself this may thus serve for guidance. 

You may then wonder if this coming time will be a good time for all? Almost certainly not. Institutions or even nations may collapse. Many people seem to think that shifts in consciousness are inherently “good,” but how you value a shift depends very much on what you identify with and what you want for the future. A shift in consciousness may strengthen some aspects of the human beings and change history, but almost invariably it will also mean the weakening of the opposite aspects. This is the reason no one can simply say that good things are coming. On a more physical level, things may thus become worse even if a feeling will be regained that things are developing in the right direction. Since people to different degrees have developed resonance with the different Waves, they will also value things differently. Some people are only interested in what is good for themselves, whereas others are concerned about the common good. This is why shifts in consciousness often lead to intensified conflicts between people. If for instance, there is a shift in the cosmos towards more feminine energies, it could mean that this will be difficult and basically undesirable for someone who strongly identifies with the male energies. If you very strongly identify with a Western power such as the United States, you are not likely to be happy with a shift in consciousness that favours the Eastern Hemisphere, etc. To accept change, I think we have to realize that the cosmic plan for the evolution of consciousness has a much bigger perspective than what we as individuals may like. The trecena that now begins on August 21 is indeed likely to favour the East, but this in a broad perspective to set an end to the dominance of either direction and prepare for a balance on a global scale, something that can only happen if a sizable proportion of humanity attains the state of consciousness of the 9^th Wave and we are still mostly talking about a preparation for this.

All of this goes counter also to millennialist prophecies in a more positive sense. Even if the leap to the 9^th Wave will be increasingly supported by a number of cosmic peak energies to come, there is nothing to wait for to see this manifested. It is like humanity with this 2^nd trecena of the 8^th Wave is getting a second chance to make the leap to unity consciousness, and with it deepened love and compassion for their fellow beings. Maybe there will also be a third and fourth chance etc at repeated trecenas that are going to follow. In a perspective that leads thousands or even millions of years into the future, additional trecenas of the 7^th Wave and the 6^th Wave may also come into play and serve to strengthen the attainment of the same goal. So even if the Mayan calendar system retains a clear direction towards the unity consciousness of the 9^th Wave, shifts will continue endlessly and life will never become unchanging. There certainly was not only one “shift of the ages,” and many more are to come. At the same time, as the climb towards the highest level of the pyramid continues, people will develop resonance with the 9^th state of unity consciousness and look at the world through this. This, in turn will mean that the negative projections of darkness, and hence blame, onto our fellow human beings and on nature will decrease and there will come a time when many of the negative features of our current time will have been reversed. People will become more loving and peaceful, even if shifts will continue endlessly at the lower levels of the pyramid.

For all of these reasons, the August 21, 2024 shift in the Mayan calendar and the activation of a new trecena of tuns at this date, is a really big deal. It means that we can leave behind not only the widely spread idea that the Mayan calendar is about the end of the world. It also means that we can understand the true meaning of the shift at October 28, 2011 and assimilate how the Mayan calendar continues deep into the future. As a consequence, we can leave behind millennialism in any form. The world as a whole may not be able to undergo a shift to unity consciousness immediately, but there will be an increased clarity of the direction in which things are meant to go already in this upcoming trecena. The time it will take for the planet to become dominated by the 9^th Wave will presumably depend on the amount of effort people will put into it and no one can tell for sure about this. Depending on how strongly and favourably humanity responds to this process our world will be moving in the direction of unity consciousness. August 21, 2024, which also happens to be the beginning of a new sacred calendar round of 260 days, may then also be a good day for setting intentions and celebrate with a large-scale vision towards the future of humanity and your on place in it.