Everything we do seems to be determined by time. Isn't that so?
Or have you witnessed that perhaps we should say: by our conception of time? Because what else is it that makes us run like that? And isn't this century based on the concept of "time is money"? And you must have heard about time management?

Our conception of time has a tremendous influence on how we live and organize ourselves. And that conception is immediately related to our understanding of Time, with a big T, or called it evolution, or history.
So let us see which tools we had until now to understand Time.

Are you a creationist or a evolutionist?
This summarizes basically the two main choices offered by our society to let us understand Time. These two options are the basis for the separation religion/science ; they are the foundation of todays' main systems and underlying source for many important decisions creating modern history.
Creationism basically proposes the idea of God or a power or a divine intervention creating or having created things. Evolutionism proposes a analytic and linear understanding of changing and modelling forms of living resulting in humans and eventually on the move towards new forms in the future.

The purpose here is not to go into depth of these approaches. It is simply to propose you a third, completely integrated and revolutionary approach of cyclic time.

The Mayas, and even better, their ancestors, the pre-mayas, were completely aware of the cyclic pattern of time. It became the basis of their whole cultural heritage and wisdom.
Another trace of cyclic approach is today still visible in the Hindu and Vedic traditions and cults who are still using the swastika (the cross-symbol which has been completely misused in WWII) to indicate cyclic evolution.
Of course both approaches have been thoroughly interpreted, changed, re-interpreted etc. through the course of history. And we have to go back to pre-mayan and pre-hinduistic civilisations to have a full understanding. As no - or almost no ? - remainings are left today this seems to be quite difficult.

The point is this: even if there were remainings and proofs, we would still have a lot of difficulty to understand. Because the very essence of Time-understanding implies a transformation of consciousness. A shift of consciousness based on new and other values based on cyclic vision. And the beauty of cyclic Time is that she repeats: by looking what is happening today, we can understand what will happen tomorrow. And at the same time we then will have understood the past.

So soon we might be able to witness:

• How linear evolution actually doesn't exist and has never existed. Life turns, situations turn. Civilisation turns et so do the seasons. Everything turns in a cycle.
• How small cycles turn within a big historical and cyclic script. We are at the end of our civilisation and at the end of this script. Which is about to repeat.
• How dating systems and date interpretation (on the basis of C14) have completely been misled by the fact that nuclear resources did exist in the past, long before our 'modern society'. The Pacal Votan discoveries and other sources point to the existence of a 5125 year cycle which is the main driving wheel behind all evolution.
• How a golden age or Atlantis existed about +5000 years ago, evolved and lost its original power due to Times' entropy principle, and resulted into a pre-hinduistic civilisation and from there to pre-mayan and other main civilisations. Each one having their cyclic evolution and resulting in the creation of main religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity etc. And evolving and finally degrading further into the today's existing populations.
• How preparations are now going on, in terms of consciousness transformation, global and natural changes, calamities and happenings but also in terms of technological evolutions, towards the next golden age. Time repeats.
• How creationism and creation actually refers to what is going on today and what will be going on in the near future. How the earth as a global system has to re-center itself around its axes, a shift which already happened in the past and which has never been thoroughly investigated by evolution theoreticians.

Mayan Time

Many of these insights were known by pre-mayan civilisations. They delivered their knowledge and passed it on to their descendents which created the famous calendar systems. They were made possible by the application of the figure zero, not by accident another symbol for a cycle.
The Mayas had a ritual calendar system of 13 months of 20 days (Tzolkin) and later on combined it with another system of 360 + 5 days (18 months of 20 days) into 'La Rueda Calendarica', a big calendar wheel (see image). It took about 52 years for both calendars to match again in point zero.

Their mathematics were vigesimal, based on 20's, which is a cosmic principle and matches solar energy cycles. They calculated in Kin (day), Tun (360 days = 18x20), Katun (7.200 days = 20xTun) and Baktun (144.000 days = 20xKatun) and thus indicated the number of days passed from point zero which they had found to be in august BC 3113 (there are slight differences in interpretations concerning this date).
A moment in time would thus been described as 12.19.6.17.9 meaning: Baktun 12, Katun 19, in year 6 out of 20, month or vigesimal 17, day 9 indicating the number of days passed after point zero).
The immense precision of the Mayas in calculating dates has been intricating many people and scientists.

The opening of the tomb of Pacal Votan in Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico, revealed that the Mayas were still aware of the Thirteen-Baktun Long Count, the 5125 years duration of a most important Time cycle (in Gregorian time: BC 3113-AD 2012).
This discovery and the revelations who came from some of the hieroglyphics confirm the utmost importance of understanding Time and the necessity of inner and global transformation.

You will find one of the more in depth explorations on Mayan Time at http://www.Tzolkin.com.
There are of course many differences in opinion and several interpretations, but the main point here is the Maya's excellency in making links with the 13x20 Tzolkin matrix and the approach of Time as a dimension and state of consciousness.

Two leaders in this field working intensively on the understanding and spreading of the harmonising Mayan time approach are José and Lloydine Argüelles. They have directly been inspired by the prophecy cycle of Pacal Votan and Quetzalcoatl which defines the year 2012 as the conclusion of a schedule of historic and evolutionary cycles.

An extract out of their approach:
"What is called normal society we came to realize more scientifically is actually a consensus reality driven by an unconscious, irregular, artificial timing frequency called the 12:60: twelve-month calendar, 60-minute hour. By contrast, we found ourselves living by the natural timing frequency of 13:20, measured and known by the Maya through their famous "calendar," now rediscovered by us as the Law of Time."
And yet another extract:
"Within this Dominion all is radial. Radial the time, radial the flows. Not one alone but all may navigate the radial flows according to the radial core that sings their being into sound. Autonomy is liberty, the right to align with the divine plan according to your own harmony. Once liberated into the Dominion of Time, only one law prevails, the Law of Time. Only one way exists to follow this Law, the way of autonomy. Perfectly scored to accommodate every intrinsic autonomous form, the Law of Time is supreme in its creative power to make all movement and measure into art."

If you're interested to know more about their very revealing work:

• Tattva Viveka, a German magazine working as a "Forum for Science, Philosophy and Spiritual Culture," the publication of the Institute for Research of Sanskrit Texts (INES), interviewed José Arguelles beginning 1998. A very enlightening exchange which you can access here as a text-file.
• URL of their site, the invisible college: http://www.earthascending.com/maya/index.html
  http://www.azstarnet.com/~mayan/invisiblecollege.html

Last but not least: for a realistic approach of Time-limitations and practical information about the shift of poles: the prove is here.