Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/96458
The end of Time making sense of ancient predictions W By Abigail Lewis hEN A NEWS TEAM rEPOrTS ON A NONTrADITIONAl SPIrITuAl EvENT, IT AlWAYS hIghlIghTS the quirkiest visual image—pyramid headgear, beads and feathers, indecipherable incantations. I can't help but wonder what CNN might say about the exercise our group of 40 gringos is about to undertake in a workshop with Sergio Magaña, a Mexican healer of Toltec lineage, trained in the Nahuatl tradition. We'll pair up and "share our power" through our eyes as we chant, Tin tin palin panoltia chicahuatica,* then seal it with a vigorous jump into a bent-knee position, arms folded and extended parallel to the loor, and a caveman-like grunt. The eyes and the chant, sure, but the jump and grunt? Alternative as my spirituality may be, indigenous traditions are not my path and I am, in fact, here as a reporter. Yet as I glance discretely around this refurbished old barn in the hills of Ashland, Ore., nobody else seems even slightly fazed, not even the Washington, D.C. couple I chatted with earlier, so mainstream they're employed by the government. We all stand and I locate my irst partner, a digniied older English woman, and despite my reservations, I experience an energetic exchange when we go through the exercise. It continues as we serpentine around the room and I pair with a range of people that covers 50 years and a multitude of subcultures. Somehow Magana's playful demeanor and conidence—not to mention, one must assume, his shamanic energy—have created the space for participants in this disparate group to quickly connect on a deeper level. The Lineage "on december 21, the day we shift fully into the Sixth Sun, we will have eight precious seconds of no time." There's nothing mysterious or other-worldly about Sergio Magaña. Wearing a polo shirt and jeans, he is sprightly and almost elin, not what the word shaman might conjure. In his tradition, he cannot even call himself nahual—one who has the ability to inluence perception and even reality—until he's been practicing for 52 years. Prior to the Spanish conquest, the scions of noble Central American families had the nahual dream-state ability inculcated in them from childhood. It was driven underground by Catholicism, and Magaña irst learned of it from his childhood nanny. Today there are no more than a thousand teachers worldwide, hardly enough to meet the demand precipitated by near-simultaneous predictions in 26 12-21-12.indd 26 the Mayan and Aztec ancient calendars of the imminent end of time. The lineage of these traditions is complicated. The ancient knowledge began, Magaña says, with the nomadic Chichimeca— chi meaning power (here it's repeated), meca meaning lineage—so a lineage of "double power." The Chichimeca passed their wisdom to the Teotihuacans, or "enlightened ones," who in turn gave it to the Toltecs, who taught both the Mayans and the Aztecs. The most powerful of the seven Aztec tribes was the Mexica, thus their country is named for them; Mexico translates as "the place of the navel of the moon." Although the Aztec calendar is similar in many ways to the Mayan, the Aztec divide their "long count" into four periods called Suns, each of which lasts 6,625 years. We have been in the Fifth Sun for a very long time, but back in 1991 we began transitioning into the Sixth Sun, the sun of balance. In all natural cycles, such as day to night, one season to the next, there is this gradual transition, and if you look at changes in the world's consciousness since 1991, you can see the transition happening. Think about shifts in awareness over the last 20+ years; yoga, a vegetarian diet and meditation were all considered fringe in 1991. Now inally, on December 21, the balance will shift and we will move solidly into the Sixth Sun. Instead of our laws being dictated by human beings, nature will dictate terms to us; we have begun to see how we will have to adapt our way of life to environmental changes. The calendar indicates that the Fifth Sun will end with earthquakes and much suffering, which is already a reality, but speaking less literally, our whole system is shaking. The widespread interpretation that "everyone will die" more likely means we are dying to our old ways and will be transformed. "Everything is changing," explains Magaña. "Old systems aren't working any more, and people are looking for solutions." As the activity of the sun increases and we get more "light," for balance we need more shadow. If you're thinking Jungian light and shadow, that's not it. In this tradition, light is awake time and its concomitant distractions and pursuits, the tonal (accent on the second syllable); dark is the spiritual, dreaming time, the nahual. The dreaming, or dark element, is said to be four times more powerful than the awake. wholelifetimesmagazine.com 11/27/12 3:14 PM