by Kiara Windrider

Cycles have always fascinated me. There is something comforting to me in how our understanding of them brings seemingly random events into coherence by providing a larger context. It is as if we decided in Creator Consciousness to write out the script for a cycle of creation, including our own eventual homecoming, programmed the sequence into astrological and cosmic cycles, then slipped down through the dimensions into human bodies, knowing deep inside ourselves that the program would run itself to completion and that we would assuredly some day return to Creator Consciousness.

A good metaphor for this is the “holodeck” in the tele-vision series Star Trek. Members of the starship could program the “computer” with a sequence of their choice, step into the holodeck, and run the program, always knowing this was their own creation and that when the program ended they would return to the “real world” aboard the “USS Enterprise!” They knew they could change or end the program from within the holodeck anytime they wanted, that they always had total choice.

I remember an episode where something goes wrong with the computer, and Captain Jean-Luc Picard with his “away team” are stuck in the holodeck with the odds heavily against their very survival. This seems to be an apt metaphor for what we are experiencing as collective humanity. Something unforeseen happened with our programming. We were not supposed to fall into separated third dimensional consciousness, yet here we are. How do we find our way back?

The cycles and calendars held in the memories of Gaia, and the ancient civilizations of Earth, hold a key. We must also recognize, as the “away team,” that there is a “home team” working with us from the other side of the dimensional doorways to clear the circuitries for our return home. Thus, we are simultaneously engaged in 3-D as well as 4-D cycles of time and history.

What I attempt to do in this and the following chapters is to bring together and unify various understandings of some of these time cycles, and look for clues as to how we might -return to a 4-D timeline, in preparation for the even greater homecoming back to 5-D, and eventually, Creator Consciousness.

Some of the material here may be somewhat technical, but my intention is to offer a solid foundation for future hope in these extremely turbulent times, and it helps to have a cosmic “reality check” once in a while! The question I keep asking myself is, are we birthing a Golden Age, or are we spiraling into extinction? It would be no exaggeration to state that we are in extreme global crisis. If we are to pull ourselves out of this, I do not think we can do so using either 3-D or 4-D bootstraps alone.


Where does hope lie for our planet? I invite both discernment and an open mind as we journey on together.

There are many calendar systems from ancient -civilizations scattered around the world that are all synchronistically winding to a close at this time. The Hopis say we are now ending the Fourth World, and that the Fifth World will begin shortly. Many are also becoming increasingly familiar with the Mayan calendar. The Maya had a dual understanding of time, which is reflected in their systems of timekeeping. They used a sacred calendar known as the Tzolkin, comprised of a 260-day cycle, which could be described as “a periodic table of galac-tic frequencies.” They also had a secular calendar, based on a 360-day cycle, known as the Long Count. The Long Count -consisted of 13 cycles of 144,000 days each, totaling approximately 5125 solar years, known as a Great Cycle. Our current Great Cycle began on August 11, 3113, and ends on December 21, 2012.

It must be noted that neither of these calendars measured solar years. This was left to a third calendar known as the Haab, which added 5 days to the 360-day cycle to create the solar year. When the Haab is meshed with the Tzolkin, a deepened galactic consciousness can be brought into ordinary 3-D time, and is the basis for the 13:20 time system being promoted by José Argüelles as a means to shift our consciousness out of linear time into cyclical time. The Maya also had various prophetic calendars, such as the Thirteen Heavens and Nine Hells. The last Nine Hells cycle began, to the day, with Cortez’ invasion, and ended at the Harmonic Convergence in August 1987. The current Thirteen Heavens cycle, according to Mayan Timekeeper Gerardo Barrios Kaanek, was birthed in 2001, after an intervening period of gestation.

It is interesting to note that the Aztec and Cherokee calendars are almost identical to the Mayan Long Count. What makes these calendars so important for these times? What makes 2012 different from the ending of ordinary timekeeping systems? John Major Jenkins, in his book, Mayan Cosmogenesis 2012, speculates that the current Long Count calendar was established precisely with this End Date in mind.

In order to understand what this means, I will briefly define some terms. The Precession of the Equinoxes is a 25,920-year cycle that establishes the zodiacal ages relative to the Earth. The celestial ecliptic refers to the path traveled by the Sun and the various planets of our solar system. The galactic equator refers to the central plane of our Milky Way galaxy, visible in the night sky as a ribbon of brightly-lit stars known as the Milky Way. The Galactic Center refers to the exact center of our entire galaxy, a massive black hole located at 27 degrees of Sagittarius relative to Earth. The Central Sun refers to a higher dimensional center of extremely luminous radiance “behind” this black hole.

Jenkins claims that the Maya, when setting up their -calendar, were not concerned so much with the beginning point as the end point. This is because a very unique event happens here, an event that takes place only once every 25,920 years. At the End Date of the Long Count, on the winter solstice of 2012, the noonday Sun exactly conjuncts the crossing point of the Celestial Ecliptic with the Galactic Equator, while also closely conjuncting the Galactic Center!

Arguelles, author of The Mayan Factor, further claims that this conjunction would bring us into alignment with the evolutionary energies emanating from the Galactic Center, catapulting us into 4-D and 5-D planetary consciousness. Indeed, he says, the last time this happened, at the end of the last Long Count 5125 years ago, there was an active seeding of human form and consciousness by the Galactic Federation of Light, who will presumably return once again to assist us in stepping out of 3-D separation and achieving galactic synchronization.

Although the Mayans themselves do not refer directly to the Precessional cycle, Jenkins makes the point that approximately five Great Cycles of 5125 years each comprise one Cycle of Precession. If we study this cycle, and the evolutionary potential that exists as we periodically conjunct the Galactic Center, we encounter radiations and emanations from the Central Sun at the Galactic Center, designed to shift our collective frequencies into a more unified state.

From a third dimensional perspective, the center of our Milky Way galaxy, like most galaxies, is a black hole. However, from a fifth dimensional perspective, according to esoteric lore, a Central Sun of luminous radiance exists “behind” this black hole. As stellar matter is sucked into this black hole, radically pro-evolutionary energies are radiated out. As we journey through the ecliptic, we come into conjunction with the Central Sun, this zone of celestial radiance, once every 25,920 years.

Although we come into conjunction with the galactic center only once during a Precessional Year, we actually cross the galactic equator (visible in the skies as the “Milky Way”) twice during this cycle, or once every 13,000 years. I consider this crossing to be a Zero Point. Each time we cross the galactic equator, the influence of the Central Sun permeates our solar system, and all aspects of our life and evolution receive a boost. Hidden aspects of our being are brought to the surface for transmutation and awakening. DNA shifts take place in response to the new energies. Great advancement takes place on spiritual and cultural levels, and we enter a Golden Age. There are two such Golden Ages in each Precessional Year. In terms of the Astrological World Ages, these correspond to the Age of Leo and the Age of Aquarius. Each entry into a Golden Age is accompanied by Earth changes as Gaia recalibrates herself to the new frequencies.

There is another calendar system I would like to refer to in context of this discussion, the Hindu cycle of the yugas. This refers to an Age of Light known as the Satya Yuga, gradually declining through the Treta and Dwapara yugas into an Age of Darkness known as the Kali Yuga. The traditional Hindu model of the yugas runs into the billions of years, yet Sri Yukteswar, in The Holy Science, puts forth a different model based on a 24,000-year cycle. Like the Maya, he claims that this cycle has to do with the journey of our solar system around another Sun, or “moolam”. He also speaks of a much longer revolution of our Sun around some kind of “grand center,” similar perhaps to what the Mayans called “Hunab Ku.” According to him,

The Sun, with its planets and their moons, takes some star for its dual and revolves around it in about 24,000 years of our Earth—a celestial phenomenon which causes the backward movement of the equinoctial points around the zodiac. The Sun also has another motion by which it revolves around a grand center called “Vishnunabhi,” which is the seat of the creative power, Brahma.

We now know that it is not our solar system that revolves around some “star,” but the precession of the equinoxes that creates this seeming cycle of revolution. Since Sri Yukteswar himself equates the 24,000-year cycle with the precessional cycle I feel it would be permissible to modify his model of the yugas to a 26,000 year cycle, or 25,920 to be exact. In the diagram that follows, I correlate this modified version of Sri Yukteswar’s cycle of the yugas with the astrological ages and with the galactic equator.

Each time we cross the galactic equator, we enter a Satya Yuga. The further we move away from this zone of light, the deeper we sink into a Kali Yuga. If it is true that the advent of the Satya Yuga has to do with these crossing points in the precessional cycle, then the transition is very sudden, and this in my mind has to do with the nature of the quantum leap available to us in this moment of entry.

Half of the precessional cycle is 13,000 years. Something very special happens every 13,000 years, associated with major shifts in human consciousness as well as shifts within the Earth. This is also associated with a movement from a Kali Yuga back to a Satya Yuga, an Age of Light.

Paul LaViolette, author of Earth Under Fire, refers to a pulse of light emanating from the galactic center approximately every 13,000 years, and cascading throughout our galaxy. He calls it a “galactic superwave.” Is this pulse related to the “zero point” inherent in each galactic crossing, and to the advent of a new Satya Yuga, as Sri Yukteswar understood it? Barry Martin sees this zero point as a “reset button.” It is built into creation and provides an opportunity for all disharmonic wave patterns to be brought back into coherence, sort of like clearing the deck and starting again.

The three days of darkness mentioned in ancient writings and prophecies could be an indication of these dropping magnetic fields. As the Earth comes into alignment with the Central Sun of our galaxy, while simultaneously crossing the galactic equator, tremendous transformational radiations from its luminous core are reaching us at this time, mediated (according to the Maya) through the Sun, which is currently ejecting the largest solar flares ever known. This could cause an electro-magnetic shift throughout our solar system, in effect resetting our soul memories, which are based on magnetic fields, into alignment with Source.

LaViolette says that as the galactic superwave expands simultaneously out through the galaxy, it creates a null point in which magnetic and gravitational fields collapse. As our Sun experiences this collapse, it would release gas shells around the Sun, resulting in a massive ejection of its corona throughout our solar system. This sudden expansion followed by a contraction, according to LaViolette, could cause some rather major cataclysmic activity on Earth.

According to computer simulations of Earth’s dimensions and electrical conductivity, 13,000 years is the calculated -decay time of its magnetic fields. This would make sense in light of the galactic superwave theory.  In their book, Reality Revealed, Douglas Vogt and Gary Sultan present evidence that the Earth’s magnetic poles have reversed themselves every 13,000 years or so. Similar to LaViolette’s assertion, they too suggest that these reversals might be connected with a nova effect of the Sun, in which a blaze of super-ionized plasma would be pulsed out throughout the solar system. The flip in magnetic polarity may also relate to a shift from masculine to feminine polarity in the consciousness fields of the planet every 13,000 years. After having held a strongly polarized masculine worldview in the last cycle, we are now returning to a more balanced feminine polarity.

Later geological studies, based on 60 years of ice and core samplings, indicate that for other reasons not yet studied, the magnetic field is more stable than previously thought, and only actually reverses every several hundred thousands of years. In either case, according to Vogt and Sultan, the last reversal was 12,400 years ago. There are others who date this event at either 12,800 or 13,200 years ago. Although the exact date of the polar reversal is disputed, it seems to correlate with the cycle of the yugas, the galactic superwave pulse emanating from the galactic core, and with crossing the galactic equator.

One way we can understand this polar reversal is to see what happens to the spin of water when we cross the terrestrial equator. It is a well known fact that when water is allowed to flow down into a drain it will spin clockwise if you happen to live in the northern hemisphere. Go down to Australia, however, and you notice it spinning counter-clockwise. It is the same with our magnetic fields when we cross the galactic equator. In the moment of crossing, the spin slows down and stops, followed by a polar reversal. Each time this has happened in the past, there was a tremendous shifting of energies on the planet. Barry equates this to a great jolt of cosmic kundalini that shakes us awake as we approach Zero Point, if we are ready. I believe that the impact of these magnetic shifts and polar reversals has to do with the dimensional frequencies that Earth happens to be holding at the time. The lower her vibrational frequency the more likely Earth would be to experience cataclysmic intensity.

Since our Fall into 3-D sometime during the Atlantean period, these polar reversals and alterations of Earth’s electromagnetic fields have unfortunately resulted in tremendous upheavals in the Earth’s crust, including the sinking and rising of land masses, great earthquakes, volcanoes, and flooding. My own intuition is that the reason that the 13,000 year cycle of magnetic decay did not result in cataclysmic polar reversals in earlier cycles may have to do with the Earth having been in a higher dimensional frequency in the distant past. If  we remain in third dimensional frequency when the next galactic superwave reaches us, we will be quickly obliterated. -However, I believe that the potential exists now, as Windrider states, that we could either ascend to fourth dimensional frequency as a single planetary consciousness or split into several different timelines as we respond to this galactic pulse and the accompanying magnetic collapse. These timelines would each operate on different dimensional frequencies with differing effects. I speak of this further in Chapter 19.

Most indigenous cultures around the world have -memories of a Great Flood. Atlantis is believed to have sunk about 12 or 13 thousand years ago in a cataclysm that was likely connected with the last polar reversal. Many, including Vogt, Sultan, and LaViolette, feel that we are due for another magnetic polar reversal any moment now. Edgar Cayce, interestingly, predicted that the poles would shift in the early part of this new -century.

I believe that our experience of life and reality has to do with the nature of time itself. When the Maya, Hindu, and Hopi prophecies spoke of the ending of this present age, they were referring not to the end of the world, but to the end of a system of time. There is something different about this 26,000-year cycle than anything that has come before us. We are now, for the first time in this cycle of creation, returning on the in-breath of God back to Creator Consciousness. The dimensional realities created as an expression of our cosmic play are now folding back up. Since time is experienced very differently in each of these dimensional realities, this means that our experience of time is also about to shift.

In the Book of Revelation, Chapter 10, the seventh angel declares that “time shall be no more,” or more accurately, “there shall be no more reckoning of time.” How could time simply disappear? And if it could, how would it happen, and what would it mean? Could this refer to a dimensional shift from 3-D to 4-D reality? Is this why the Mayan calendar and other timelines fall silent after 2012?

Barry Martin has been carefully researching a phenomenon he calls the “time spiral,” which may shed further light on this dimensional shift. With some of the renewed understandings of sacred geometry put forward by Drunvalo Melchizedek and others, we are beginning to become aware of how everything is organized around certain basic principles of geometry. The “fibonacci spiral” is one such geometry used by the devic realms to create forms and proportions for all life in the universe, from tiny crystals, to the human form, to an entire planet. The nautilus shell is a good illustration of this. Beginning at zero point, which could be any point in space, it is a numeric sequence that spirals out to infinity.

What if this same sequence that applies to space were also applied to time? Barry goes through a series of calculations going back through the Egyptian and Mayan calendars to illustrate that in our journey of evolution through the ages, our experience of consciousness through time has been speeding up. This can be plotted as a time spiral. Eventually this time spiral winds down through third dimensional time and approaches a zero point, an end of time as we know it. According to his research, the time spiral that governed most of our recent third dimensional history ended on July 26, 2000, at which point a new fourth dimensional spiral began, and is slowly gathering force. Thus, in some respects the fourth dimensional shift has already taken place, although the full flowering of this new planetary consciousness is still to come.

What does 4^th dimensional time look like?  If 3-D time relates to a linear progression from a point in the past to a point in the future, 4-D time is synchronistic.  The now-moment is all important, multiple timelines come into co-existence, and history is interpreted through cycles and spirals of consciousness rather than through a disconnected series of linear events.

I was recently introduced to a new version of the Mayan calendar that more accurately reflects this shift from 3-D to 4-D time. Carl Johan Calleman, author of Solving the Greatest Mystery of our Time: The Mayan Calendar (www.calleman.com), and Ian Xel Lungold (www.mayanmajix.com) are Mayan researchers.  Their conversations with Mayan daykeepers, and decoding of a stele discovered in the ancient site of Coba in the Yucatan reveal a system of interlocking creation cycles which are quite different from the currently popular versions of the Mayan calendar. They also feel there is a discrepancy in the translation of the Classical Mayan calendar to the Gregorian system of time-keeping, and that the Mayan calendar actually ends on October 28, 2011.

I mentioned earlier that according to John Major Jenkins the Long Count of the Mayan calendar was devised with the end date of Winter Solstice 2012 in mind. Calleman and Lungold disagree.  Based on interpretations of the stele in Coba they have come to the conclusion that the current Long Count is simply one of a series of nine creation cycles going all the way back to the Big Bang 16.4 billion years ago (see accompanying diagram). Like the  odometer of a car poised at 999999999, these creation cycles synchronize and end together, after which we move out of linear time and into the “zero point” of universal consciousness.

Each of these nine creation cycles, or “underworlds”, as the Mayans called them, are composed of thirteen “heavens”, the seven days and six nights of that particular creation cycle.  Each successive creation cycle is 20 times shorter than the previous cycle, and is nested within the last day of the previous cycle.  As we approach the end of any one of these nine creation cycles, we are simultaneously approaching the end of all the previous and successive cycles as well.  The Long Count, also known as the National Underworld, was the sixth of these creation cycles.

There are three other creation cycles since the beginning of the Long Count that are important for us to consider.  The Planetary Underworld began in 1755 AD, with each heaven corresponding to approximately 20 solar years.  The Galactic Underworld began January 5, 1999, with each heaven now corresponding to 360 days.  And the Universal Underworld will begin February 10, 2011, with heavens of 18 days each.  All of these nine creation cycles end together on October 28, 2011, following which we move out of linear reckoning of time altogether, and into universal consciousness.

Each Underworld has its own overall intent. The Cellular cycle was about the establishment of the physical laws of the universe. The Mammalian cycle outlined the biological evolution of life from cell to herd. In the Familial cycle, the focus was on developing relationships. We then went on to develop the mind in the Tribal cycle, and establish art and culture in the Cultural cycle. The National cycle was about Law, and the Planetary cycle about Power. As we enter the Galactic cycle the evolutionary focus is on Ethics. It is about creating a level playing field, moving into a one-world consciousness, and preparing for galactic membership. Finally, in the Universal Cycle, we enter the realms of God in conscious co-creation!

What is fascinating about these cycles within cycles is that each successive cycle carries the same energy imprints as previous cycles, except that it goes through them much faster. A lot more creation takes place in the same amount of time. The Planetary cycle, beginning with the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1700’s, initiated the beginnings of a planetary worldview. Our awareness of ourselves as a single planetary culture continues to deepen, but with the beginning of the Galactic Cycle on January 5, 1999, a new acceleration of consciousness has begun on Earth whose purpose is to